If you push an avoidant too hard, they’ll ghost you forever.
But if you do nothing, they’ll drift away.
But there’s actually another way to make them connect wit you.
You need to understand that avoidants are wired differently. They don’t want to be chased. They want to feel safe. And the only way to make an avoidant feel safe enough to come back is by using silence in a very particular way.
Because there’s a moment—usually around days 17 to 24 after the breakup—when even the most avoidant ex starts to crack… and I’ll explain why.
But first, let’s get one thing straight: using silence isn’t about punishing your ex. It’s not about playing games or trying to ‘get even’ for how they treated you.
It’s actually about speaking their language.
See, when an avoidant goes silent on you, they aren’t usually doing it to be malicious. They’re doing it out of fear. They feel suffocated by intimacy, and their instinct is to escape so they can feel safe again. They aren’t thinking about how much their silence hurts you—they’re just trying to breathe.
But your silence is going to be different. You aren’t going to use it to escape… you’re going to use it consciously. You’re going to use it as a strategic tool to trigger their curiosity and make them wonder why you aren’t chasing them anymore.
How No Contact Affects Avoidants
Big picture: silence affects avoidants in ways that actually draw them towards you, rather than repelling them.
And this next part is important, because it’s the moment most people accidentally kill their chances without even realizing it…
Avoidants are used to being chased. This is how they’ve always operated. They show some interest and then—because closeness is so difficult for them—they pull away… and you pursue.
Now yes, being chased does feel validating for the avoidant—of course it does. But it also makes them second-guess your value as a romantic partner. They know they’re doing the bare minimum, and you’re still coming after them.
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To them, that signals low self-esteem. Subconsciously, they start assuming you must not have other options… and that assumption slowly erodes their attraction.
Don’t feel bad about this. In reality, this is just another way avoidants justify pulling away. They’re not responding to your actual value—they’re responding to their own FEAR, which we’ll get into in a moment.
But here’s what matters: this chase-and-withdraw pattern is what avoidants expect in every relationship. So the second you break that pattern, you trigger their curiosity. They start thinking, “Why aren’t they acting the way I expect?” and “If they aren’t chasing… maybe they have options. Maybe they’re more valuable than I thought.”
This alone is enough to draw most avoidants back toward you because you’re showing them something they almost never see: someone who can walk away.
But here’s the part most people NEVER realize about avoidants…
Deep down, avoidants know they push people away. They feel guilty—even ashamed—and they worry that something is wrong with them… that they’re “broken,” or doomed to ruin every relationship they care about.
And that guilt begins to eat at them. Eventually, it pushes them back toward you because they want to prove—to you and to themselves—that they can make someone happy… and that they aren’t destined to ruin every connection they form.
But this whole process falls apart the moment YOU reach out.
Because when you chase them, they tell themselves, “I must not be that bad if they’re still this interested… maybe I AM a good partner.” And while that’s a nice feeling for your avoidant ex, it works directly against your goal.
So silence becomes the only way forward. Silence forces them to ask themselves hard questions… the exact questions that lead them right back to you. But only if you deploy that silence in the most optimal way.
Going No Contact With An Avoidant
So now we need to talk about how to use silence on your avoidant ex, because most people get this wrong and then wonder why nothing is changing. I’m going to walk you through this step-by-step so you have zero excuses and zero confusion.
And trust me… once you understand what’s really happening under the surface, No Contact becomes a lot less scary and a lot more powerful.
Communicating with an avoidant creates something very close to an addiction.
You never know what version of them you’re going to get: cold and dismissive, a dry one-word answer, a strangely affectionate moment, or total silence. It’s like pulling a slot machine.
And because the good moments are so rare, those tiny hits of affection feel incredibly valuable… valuable enough that you keep chasing them even while getting almost nothing in return.
This is why going No Contact feels impossible at first.
But here’s the part that surprises most people… once you rip off the bandaid, the relief is enormous because you finally step out of the cycle that was training you to accept breadcrumbs.
And that’s when you start to see the truth you couldn’t see before: every time you chased your avoidant ex, you were actually chasing them away.
So here’s how to make No Contact actually work. First, you need to decide. Not “think about it,” not “see how you feel tomorrow,” but actually make the decision to break contact for a specific period of time.
For most avoidants, I recommend twenty-five to thirty days. Long enough to reset the dynamic, short enough that you don’t lose momentum.
And you need to make this decision feel real. Write it down, tell a friend, set a reminder… whatever keeps you accountable so you don’t break No Contact on day seven at 1:26 AM because you suddenly “need closure.”
Once you’ve committed, you start immediately. Not after the weekend. Not after their birthday. Not after one last conversation.
The sooner you start, the sooner the psychological shift begins.
In some cases, yes, you’ll need to tie up loose ends… picking up belongings, settling money, sorting shared bills.
Handle those things right away so your silence can start cleanly. But notice what I didn’t include on that list: telling your ex what you’re doing, explaining why, asking for closure, or announcing that you’re “taking space.”
Don’t do any of that. The entire power of No Contact comes from uncertainty. When you tell them your plan, you remove the mystery avoidants respond to most strongly.
So instead, you simply go silent. Stop reaching out. Stop texting. Stop checking their stories. Stop replying to their late-night messages, snapchats, or breadcrumb attempts. Yes… this is terrifying at first.
Right now your brain is wired to treat every message from them like oxygen, and leaving them on read feels like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
But let’s be honest… you’ve dated an avoidant. A single message doesn’t mean they’re sticking around.
It means you’ll get your hopes up, and then they’ll disappear all over again. So you need a different approach… one that breaks the entire pattern instead of feeding it.
Now, what happens when No Contact ends? Ideally, your avoidant ex will break the silence themselves. This happens more often than you’d think because curiosity, fear, and guilt start building pressure. But sometimes they don’t reach out… and that’s okay.
If needed, you can make the first move once the silence has done its work.
But here’s the crucial part most people get wrong… even after you reconnect, you’re not done with silence. You’re not ignoring them anymore, but you are slowing everything down.
Avoidants get overwhelmed fast, especially right after reconnection, and if you rush in with warmth and enthusiasm, you’ll trigger the same flight response you were trying to undo.
So hold back. Let them lead. Match their energy, don’t exceed it. Keep flirting light and infrequent.
Give more space than feels natural. Make them earn your attention. And you’ll be surprised at how quickly avoidants rise to the challenge once they sense they don’t have automatic access to you anymore.
