Your Avoidant Ex: Timing WAS NOT the problem!!

I hear it in close relationships all the time.

The constant references to the ex.

The one they ran from.

The one who “freaked them out.”

The one who never really left their mind.

Welcome to the inner world of the dismissive avoidant.

Love does live there—but it’s buried under fear, denial, and an unhealed attachment style.

Instead of facing it, many avoidants choose safety over truth. They marry the wrong person, commit to the wrong life, and devastate themselves quietly in the process.

One dismissive avoidant once said to me,

“Timing was the thing. It was just bad timing.”

No.

It wasn’t timing.

It was unhealed avoidant attachment.

Avoidants are often experts at denying anything that requires deep self-reflection. They intellectualise, minimise, or rewrite the story—anything to avoid the discomfort of looking inward. Accountability feels like annihilation, so they avoid it at all costs.

This is what Nietzsche was pointing to when he wrote:

“My friends, I wish for you pain and misery and suffering.”

Not out of cruelty—but out of truth.

Because until someone hits rock bottom, there is no listening.

There is no therapy.

There is no change.

Words don’t reach someone who hasn’t yet been cracked open by consequence.

If you are the loving one—the one who sees them more clearly than they see themselves—there is nothing left for you to do but let go. Not because you don’t care, but because you care enough to stop rescuing them from their own awakening.

And here is the part we don’t say enough:

Letting go is not giving up on love.

It is choosing it in its most honest form.

When you step back, you create space—for them to finally feel, and for you to finally heal. Sometimes they do rise from the fall. Sometimes they don’t. But either way, the cycle ends.

You learn that love does not require self-abandonment.

You learn that understanding someone does not mean sacrificing yourself.

You learn that their healing is NOT your responsibility.

And if they ever do the work—if they face themselves, grieve honestly, and choose healing—that growth will belong to them alone. Not because you saved them, but because you respected them enough to let them struggle.

As for you—you rise not in bitterness, but in clarity.

You walk forward softer, wiser, and more securely attached than before.

No longer waiting for someone else to wake up.

No longer confusing intensity for intimacy.

This is how the story becomes hopeful.

Not because everyone gets the ending they wanted—but because everyone finally gets the chance to become who they were meant to be.

So let them go - no anger, no pain, no heartbreak, not even pity. Allow the narrative they’ve spun to unravel all by itself.

Because at the end of the day - you can’t outrun yourself forever.

TR