LONGING FOR THE PHANTOM EX, LOOKING FOR
“THE ONE”
These are the two trickiest tools that you may be using to short-change
yourself in love. You convince yourself that you have a true longing for
someone from your past or that the right person is just around the corner
and you can easily undermine yourself in love. Embracing the notion of the
“perfect” partner is one of the most powerful tools an avoidant can use to
keep someone else at bay. It allows you to believe that everything is fine
with you and that the person you’re with now is the problem—he or she is
just not good enough. In addition to creating distance between you and your
partner, it can also confuse him/her; when your partner hears how you miss
your ex, or how you long for the perfect soul mate, it leads him/her to
believe that you’re craving true closeness and intimacy, when in fact you’re
driving it away.
The Phantom ExOne of the consequences of devaluing your romantic relationship is that
you often wake up long after the relationship has gone stale, having
forgotten all those negative things that annoyed you about your partner,
wondering what went wrong and reminiscing longingly about your long-
lost love. We call it the phantom-ex phenomenon.
Often, as happened with Carole who “rediscovered” her feelings for Bob
only after she’d broken up with him, once the avoidant person has put time
and distance between herself and the partner whom she’s lost interest in,
something strange happens: The feelings of love and admiration return!
Once at a safe distance, the threat of intimacy is gone and you no longer
feel the need to suppress your true feelings. You can then recall all of your
ex’s great qualities, convincing yourself that he or she was the best partner
you ever had. Of course, you can’t articulate why this person wasn’t right
for you, or remember clearly why you ended things in the first place (or
perhaps behaved so miserably that he or she had no choice but to leave). In
essence, you put your past partner on a pedestal and pay tribute to “the love