The Avoidant. Reality Confrontation After An Avoidant Relationship

You can feel the pull to confront them, to make them admit what they did, to finally give you the closure you were denied. I’m talking about why that moment almost never arrives with an avoidant partner and how chasing it can keep you tied to the same toxic loop of doubt, self blame, and emotional confusion.

We unpack “reality confrontation” as a recovery tool: naming the facts internally, validating your own experience, and letting every feeling have a place without letting it run your behavior. Anger, grief, shame, and humiliation are not signs you’re failing at healing. They’re part of recalibrating after deception, withdrawal, and intermittent connection. We also explore why silence can be more powerful than a final argument, and how no contact, blocking, and clear boundaries create the space your mind and nervous system need to settle.

From there we move into deeper repair: rebuilding trust in your emotional experience, understanding the nervous system effects of avoidant attachment dynamics, and learning what safety actually feels like in consistent relationships. Recovery shifts you from “How do I make this work?” to “What do I need?” and helps you choose emotional availability over intensity. If you’ve been stuck, you’re not alone, and support can matter because so much damage happens in relationship and is often healed in relationship.

If this resonates, subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find real help for avoidant relationships and toxic relationship recovery. What boundary are you ready to set now?

Transcript

Series Context And Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back. This is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist, and this is episode three of the series The Avoidant Partner. In episode one, we defined what was meant by the term avoidant and how that was put together from a relational point of view in the context of attachment. In episode two, I went into some detail about the kind of damage that is sustained by people who are in these incredibly toxic relationships and the ways in which that damage may very well affect them, not just during that time, but as they emerge from it and see things as they really as they really were. A number of residual feelings continue to manifest during this time. And those feelings are as difficult as they may be, they're a way of processing, a way of recalibrating. That every time you have a residual feeling, it could be sadness, it could be complete rage, it could be a feeling of shame or humiliation. This is actually the mind's attempt to recalibrate. As difficult as this may be, it is actually incredibly healthy. Sometimes patients will talk about retribution, revenge, confronting the person who has caused them this much harm. Because the expression of outrage or the feelings of unfairness of being used have often been, they've been suppressed during the process because the person learns to rationalise, accommodate, or minimize their own experience in favor of adapting to the avoidance style. So there comes a point when that pattern is no longer being fed, that really authentic and very powerful feelings come to the surface. There is an understandable desire to confront the person who has caused this damage. It is only reasonable, it's healthy, and I think there's nothing wrong with that at all. However, if that comes from a desire to experience validation or explanation, you really are wasting your time because it won't happen. Because the person who behaves in that way is avoidant. They will avoid taking responsibility. Because were that not the case, then these things wouldn't have happened in the first place. So really, there is no basis whatsoever in, or no healthy basis, in confronting with the hope of that, that some kind of certainly not reparation, but some kind of validation. This is very similar, if not the same, in all abusive relationships. The person who was responsible for the abuse will not accept that they're responsible. As much as every victim I've worked with, and when I say victim, I mean as a preceding stage to survival and recovery, has wanted validation. They've wanted the other person to accept responsibility, and it just doesn't happen, I'm afraid. But in spite of that, there is a lot that you can do, which is not for their benefit but for yours. We call this reality confrontation. Reality confrontation starts internally. It means yes, this did happen to me. Yes, this was wrong. No, I didn't deserve it. Yes, I have been injured, yes, I'm angry. Now that's real. It's not in question. And whatever feelings emerge from that are real feelings. So when if if someone says that that isn't a helpful feeling, or that that's a negative emotion, ask them which globally published best-selling book informed them that there were right feelings and wrong feelings. Because I'm afraid the answer is that's just nonsense. All feelings are valid. It's very important, and the expression and the experience of all feelings is very important because we need to be able to access all of our mental health states. Now, how we manage the feelings is something else because that's to do with behavior. So we can make a distinction between feeling angry, feeling outraged, and being angry and possibly acting outrageously. So I think what matters here is we break this into two parts. The first part is that internal recognition, the internal validation. No, you didn't do anything wrong. Well, apart from being deceived, but you know, human beings are fallible and we at times are we're trusting. It's only in retrospect that we look back and we can see that's what happened. We were deceived, we were treated badly. So in this stage, the recovery stage, reality confrontation is entirely reasonable. Sometimes people write letters that they don't send. Sometimes people do send them, even though sometimes they want to wrap said letter around a brick and throw it through a window. Probably not a good idea. Because the enormity of the rage is powerful, and the expression means a release of that, it does need to be released, otherwise we hold it, and in holding it we're going to carry it forward, so we have to have a legitimate way of releasing it. I believe that sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is remain silent with the person who has caused this, but to let them know very clearly there is no room for them in your life. If you had shared social media, then you know, or they were connected in that way, disconnect them. Cut them off. If you had shared connections in other ways, cut them off, disconnect them. What you are essentially saying to this person is you do not exist in my life. You do not have a place in my life because you don't deserve it, because you have treated me badly, and I can do better than this, and I will do. Block them on everything. Do not have any kind of contact and remain silent where they are concerned. This is very powerful because what it does is to send a clear and unmistakable message. Because people who treat others in this way will be used to the victim trying to recover the situation, adapting, trying to be understanding, trying to be accommodating, trying to be reasonable. But in fact, when you say, no, I'm not doing that anymore, just like all the other people that you've hurt, that sends a very, very powerful message. It's underpinned by feelings of obviously anger, sometimes disgust. And people have many fantasies about the way they want to express that. My feeling is express it to yourself. Express it to those who know you. Be careful who you speak to, though. But what is important here is that the blocking, the disconnecting is a boundary. You don't cross it, you don't break your own rule, and you do not allow them in. They may try and contact you. The probability is they won't. Well, they might, but in any event, no contact. It's extreme, it's clean. It's surgical, but it's clean. And it gives you time to reflect, it gives you time to recover. And it is a response, not a reaction. It's also okay, if and when you're ready, to have contact with that person in the form of a letter. And the letter is really simple. This is what you did. This is the effect of what you did. You've damaged me. But in spite of you damaging me, I am recovering. I have no wish to have any part of you in my life. And I want to have no explanation from you or no recognition of this letter. However, you interpret it, however it makes you feel, is not something that I'm interested in. So these are statements. We're not asking questions, we're making statements. Statements that don't require answers, and you wouldn't get them anyway. You do not need the affirmation of the other person. Part of the recovery process is the reality confrontation. It was real. And the confrontation is not about argument, it's much more about holding up a mirror and saying, This is what I see, this is what happened, this is what you did. I'm not asking you if that happened, I'm telling you. And I'm not asking why. Because why is not the same as it being okay. Your explanations are no excuse. You were deceptive, you lied, you concealed, you treated me badly, you took advantage. Those are facts. And I'm not going to discuss whether or not you believe the facts to be accurate. It's a very strong position, and it's healthy, and it's clean. And actually, by stating the facts, you're removing the judgment. Because you're not saying, how could you do this to me? How could you how could you treat me so badly? That's a question. You're saying you did this, you treated me badly, and it's not a discussion. And I haven't forgotten, and I won't forget. That's powerful. Because we have to remember that the avoidant is somebody who actually wants the closeness. They want the connection, they just can't handle it. And the damage they do in the process is something they're accountable for, whether or not they take account is not really the point. You are responsible for yourself, and it's for you to repair yourself, it's for you to recover. And so, in that vein, I want to talk about some other aspects of this. Recovery doesn't change the fact that something happened. It doesn't change the fact that you have been damaged. What it does is it changes your perspective and your relationship with those experiences. What it does is to reduce the enormous emotional inflammation that the wounding has caused. It raises lots of questions. And how did it happen? Why did it happen? And so on and so forth. You don't need answers. Ask the questions of yourself by all means, but don't expect, you don't need an answer. You need to voice the question. That's okay. Now, recovery doesn't begin when a relationship ends. It really begins when something inside you starts to become clear. And it doesn't happen all at once. It happens in bits. The bits that you've been suppressing come to the surface. And it's really when you begin to sense and really understand that what you've been experiencing isn't love, it's it's something else. And it's not because there was no feeling, but because something essential was missing. The genuineness, the authenticity, the truthfulness, and the transparency of the other person. And so perhaps in recovery, perhaps for the first time, you begin to turn your attention away from that person and towards yourself. And it recovery really begins with understanding. This is why I talk about the recognition. Not an intellectual understanding, but an emotional recognition. You know, the ability to say, this is what happened, this is how it affects me. This is this is the pattern I was caught up in. And this matters more than it may seem because without this clarity, the mind just continues to search for answers in the wrong place. And it continues to ask, could I have done more? Was I too much? Did I cause this distance? No, you were treated like crap, as a clinical term. But as we begin to understand this dynamic through a lens that's been informed by people like Peter Fonegie, something shifts because we begin to hold two things at once. Their limitations as a person and our experience. And in so doing, we step out of the confusion and it's coherence because we're saying, that was them, this is me. And coherence is the beginning of repair. Your emotional reality gets compromised in situations like this. Because what it does is it becomes distorted in an avoidant relationship. And it's a distortion of your sense of what's real. So over time you will have learned to minimize your need, needs, question your feelings and override your instincts. And so recovery asks something very important. Can you begin to trust your emotional experience again? Not as something excessive, not as something problematic, but as something the question's informative. You felt anxious because something was inconsistent. You felt distressed because something was missing. You weren't too much, you were responding to too little. And this isn't a slogan, it's clinical truth. Now, what we need to understand is the effect upon the nervous system. What many people don't realize is that these relationships don't just affect the mind, they affect the body. Living in a dynamic of unpredictability, withdrawal, intermittent connection being used are conditions that the nervous system becomes, it stays in a state of being on alert, scanning for things, anticipating things, bracing for things. Stephen Borgis' famous neuroscientist talks about how our nervous system is constantly asking, Am I safe in this connection? In an avoidant dynamic, the answer is often no, not consistently. So recovery involves something deeper than insight. It involves reconditioning safety. And this might look like being in relationships where responsiveness is consistent, where repair is experienced when a disconnection or a misattunement occurs. It's about allowing your body to experience connection with anxiety, and this takes time because the body remembers. Even though the mind might try and move past quickly, this is vital. Step four in this process is the re-establishing of boundaries. Clear, firm, but boundaries nonetheless. Because at some point in recovery, a shift takes place. You move from asking, how do I make this work? to asking, what do I actually need? What's right for me? And this is where boundaries emerge. The nice thing about this is that nobody can tell you what your boundaries need to be. Only you can know that. Only you can know what's right for you. You might say, Well, I don't know. Well, then you're going to have to learn. And we learn through experience. But what you have learned is what isn't right for you. So this is where boundaries emerge, not as a punishment, not as a rejection, but as self-definition. That's really positive because self-definition is I know who I am, or I am working out who I am, what works for me, what doesn't work for me. So boundaries begin to sound like I need consistency, I need emotional presence, I need to feel responded to, respected. And importantly, you begin to recognize that not everyone can do that, not everyone can meet those needs. And this is where something difficult but essential happens. You stop trying to be understood by someone who cannot understand you in the way you need. And it leads us to choosing differently because recovery isn't just about leaving the past behind, it's about changing what you move towards. You can begin to recognize the markers of emotional availability, responsiveness, repair. You might begin to notice not so much intensity but consistency and how reassuring that is. And not just in a chemistry sense, but in capacity. So, you know, we're talking about the other person's emotional availability and their consistency, their awareness of you. And slowly your sense of what feels right to change. Because what once felt familiar, for goodness knows how long, will no longer feel safe. And what once felt unfamiliar may begin to feel like home. There is a moment in recovery, and it's very quiet often. Nothing dramatic happens, no sudden clarity, no grand decision, just a subtle shift. Because you stop chasing, you stop explaining, you stop trying to be seen by someone who couldn't see you, not in the way you need it. And in that moment, you you do not lose the relationship. You find yourself. I am really hopeful for people who go through this process, and I see many of them, and I see many of them get stuck because they've been trying to do it on their own. They get stuck in the recognition, they they somehow can't make sense of why this has happened, where they are, what to do. I see people returning to people who will treat them in this way, because they don't know a way out. And I always say it starts with recognition. Recognition means hearing yourself say the words, this person treated me badly, not once, frequently. And somehow I accommodated that because this person could always explain why they were unavailable, or their lives were bigger than mine, and people get seduced into this kind of very damaging situation. I think what also happens is that the person who treats you this way is not oblivious. They know that they're damaging you. They may not know it with words like damaging you, but they know part of them knows what they're doing is wrong. And very often, as I've said so many times, they will have. Have a pattern of doing this. And what I find most distasteful is that when a person has a pattern of this kind but hasn't confronted it in themselves and just continues to behave in this way, there's there's something about that that I find quite distasteful. Sometimes these people are, well, they're they're not just they're not just people who are disconnected, sometimes they have children. Well, the question in my mind is, well, how many people have you done this to who have had a relationship with your children? How many people have you allowed into their lives and then either rejected or that person has had to leave? What do you think the effect might be upon your children? What are you teaching your children? This is how adult relationships work. Because it seems to me that we we can't see our behavior in isolation. If you're somebody who has been treated in this way and you're suffering, ask for help. But help from somebody who understands these kinds of things. Yes, obviously, I do, but there are lots of people who do. Most of the time when I see children, I explain that my approach is relational. And when I say that, it means I I encourage a relationship to develop between the child and I. And it's a very different kind of relationship to the one a parent would would develop naturally, and that's right. And it's not about me and my needs, it's about it's entirely about the child. And the reason that I work this way is because I have a belief that the damage that human beings experience occurred in relationship. It is within the context of a relationship that a person becomes emotionally wounded. Hence the title of my second book, In Relationship, The Parent's Psychological Journey. Because if the damage has been sustained, well, almost always it will be sustained in relationship, then paradoxically, that's when the repair can happen or where. But it needs to be a relationship where you can be you and the other person is fully committed to you. To me, that's a professional relationship. I say committed in that their commitment is to helping you be okay so that you no longer need that relationship, but can have other relationships on terms that are equal. I realize this is a powerful, powerful subject. And I also realize that many of the people who listen will either have been through these things themselves or are going through them or know people, friends, family members, whoever. I also know that there may be people who for whom this would be very uncomfortable listening because I'm describing them. I'm describing what they do, the damage they do, and the fact that actually you can't hide because people know, and people will call you out. I'm saying that this is not some kind of secret. And if you are a person who has the unfortunate habit of doing this on a regular basis, my guess would be that a number of your friends and others will have disowned you. And that will continue to happen because they will have decided, no, I'm going to block this person because they're not good for me. What you do with that information is entirely up to you. The probability is if you are one of those people, well, you won't have listened to these podcasts anyway. But for those of you who have, I sincerely hope that they bring you a level of understanding. There are other podcast series within the many that that I've posted, which are to do with recognition, the reckoning, and recovery. I'm trying to appreciate, I know you're stuck. You haven't done anything wrong, and it is possible to move through that and and really to recover. And recovery isn't necessarily becoming the person you were beforehand, maybe elements of that, but it actually means, well, being the person that I want to be now, which may not be the same. I really do hope this has been helpful and I look forward to coming back soon. Thank you.