Your Ex: The Quiet Exhaustion of Avoidance

Imagine how tiring it must be to live a life built not on desire, but on fear.

To wake up each day beside a partner you chose not because your heart leapt, but because it stayed safely still. A relationship carefully selected for its lack of emotional risk. Comfortable. Predictable. Manageable. A life that looks “right” from the outside and requires no deep exposure on the inside.

Imagine the effort it takes to convince yourself you enjoy it.

For the dismissive avoidant, this isn’t indifference—it’s survival. Choosing safety over depth feels logical when closeness once meant pain, loss, or suffocation.

So they pick someone who won’t ask too much, won’t see too far inside, won’t demand the parts of them that feel dangerous to give. And then they call that peace.

But peace achieved through avoidance has a cost.

Because somewhere in the quiet moments—late at night, in passing memories, in the spaces between distractions—there is the one they truly loved. The one who stirred something real. The one who saw them too clearly. The one they didn’t lose because it didn’t work, but because it worked too well.

Loving that deeply was terrifying. So they freaked out and ran.

And now comes the real exhaustion: the constant dismissal. Pushing away thoughts that surface uninvited. Minimising what once mattered. Rewriting the past so it feels smaller, safer, easier to live with. Telling themselves it wasn’t that special. That it wouldn’t have lasted. That they’re better off now.

Avoidance isn’t passive—it’s work - it’s constant acting, pretending, denying.

It takes energy to stay emotionally numb. To maintain distance from your own truth. To keep choosing a life that doesn’t threaten you, even when it doesn’t fulfill you either.

It takes effort to silence the ache of what might have been, especially when you know, deep down, that the connection you ran from was real. REAL love.

So yes, imagine how exhausting it must be.

Not because they don’t feel—but because they feel too much, and learned long ago that feeling was unsafe. And instead of risking love, they risk a lifetime of quiet disconnection, hoping safety will eventually feel like happiness.

But it never does…. And that’s the tragedy of their own making.

Meanwhile, while they slowly descend, you (as the brutally discarded partner) RISE. They burnt you so horrendously that you sat in your pain for years.

But you processed it. You worked through your wounds and you understand why it happened. You understand your ex better than they understand themselves.

You loved fully, deeply, you showed up while they stood on the side lines, arms crossed, pouting, refusing to look at themselves and gaslighting you as the problem.

It’s almost funny, in a sort of ironic way, because once you see the charade they’ve built for what it is (a loveless, curated pretence) you stop caring.

So go now and rise. You get to flip the script. While you journey out of this hell, they get to journey into it! You continue to heal while they get to suffer the consequences of their avoidance… until they FINALLY decide to do something about it.

But that’s their job!

So no more aching, hurting, hoping or praying. You chose yourself in the end and now it’s time to flourish!

True love hurts like hell, but you did the work, you understood their wounds, and you were brave enough to learn the lessons.

So bask in this peace and march on! 🙋‍♂️