Thank You, Avoidant Ex - You Taught Me All I Needed to Know

There’s something insidious about the charm of the dismissive avoidant. The politeness, the distance dressed up as independence, the emotional aloofness cloaked in “maturity.”

For a while, I bought into it. I thought his detachment meant strength. I thought my anxiety was the problem. But the deeper truth is this: being close to a dismissive avoidant can quietly destroy you — unless you wake up.

And I did wake up.

When you begin to see behind the mask, you realise that the emotional unavailability you once found mysterious is actually a wall. A wall meant to keep you at a distance.

It is then that you clearly see the avoidant’s wounds; their weakness, their fear, their cowardice.

You laugh when you realise that they aren’t just running from you but from themselves. How they’re hiding behind a rebound relationship with someone “safe”, someone they don’t truly love, someone that doesn’t stir their heart like you do.

And when you begin to heal your own anxious attachment, when you finally stop looking for validation in someone who cannot give it — that’s when everything changes. That’s when your power returns.

The pain of feeling unseen, discarded, of being emotionally starved, used, breadcrumbed as an “option”, of questioning your worth? It woke me up to the truth.

It made me look at my patterns, my childhood wounds, the stories I told myself about love.

That suffering? It was my turning point. It pushed me into deep self-reflection, into solitude, into growth. And out the other side came strength. Boundaries. Clarity.

I stopped settling for surface-level politeness and disconnected pleasantries.

I started listening to the red flags — not explaining them away. If someone cannot meet me emotionally, I don’t try to convince them anymore. I just walk away.

That’s what healing does. You stop begging and start choosing.

Travel has helped. New places reminded me that the world is wide and full of possibilities.

Writing helped me put language to pain, give it shape and release. Moving house let me shed the skin of old versions of me.

Therapy helped me to see myself - and him. How I needed him to become whole, how he needed me to shake his repressed, unhealed foundations.

And through all of it, I became my own anchor — not by accident, but by conscious decision. I built my safety from the inside out. I no longer fear abandonment because I no longer abandon myself.

And oddly enough, I have the avoidant to thank for that. For showing me the cold. For making me desperate enough to finally choose warmth — from within.

You were the mirror I didn’t want but desperately needed. And I was yours, staring into your soul to see you for what you truly are.

You didn’t break me. You revealed me.

And once you see the truth, you never look back.

TR