What Happens When You Don’t Hear Back (And Why It Feels So Personal for Anxious Attachment Style)
Have you ever noticed how a few hours of waiting for someone to get back to you can feel like a huge rejection, even though objectively they haven’t rejected you?
Like your body reacts with tension or a sinking feeling or buzzing anxiety, even though they haven’t said anything.
For example, you’ve texted the person you’re dating you’d like to meet up again and you don’t hear back for a few days.
Or you’ve been dating for a few weeks and you go to make plans for the weekend, and then you don’t hear back until it’s too late for you to make other plans. So now you either have to find a friend who’s free last minute or find something to do on your own.
And then the story that you tell yourself is that they should have let you know sooner, or they didn’t prioritize you, or they’re not that invested in the relationship.
And all of these might or might not be true, but there’s no way to know because you can’t reach them, let alone have a conversation about it.
For people with anxious attachment, these little gaps in communication can bring up a lot of emotion, second guessing, and self-blame.
Even as a thoughtful, self-aware dater, you might have found yourself in similar scenarios, where you are waiting for an answer and wondering what the silence is about.
If you’ve found yourself in this situation of waiting for a reply that it taking longer than you’d like, I’ve got your back. That’s the topic of this post, and we’re going to explore why it might have felt nerve-wracking to wait even when you’re normally patient. And why not getting a reply feels uncomfortable, and how to manage this in a way that feels calm and grounded.
Because dating doesn’t need to be stressful — it can be fun.
Hi, I’m Kayli Larkin, and I help people to break free from anxious attachment patterns and attract the secure and fulfilling relationships that they desire.
Why Waiting to Hear Back Can Be Unsettling
For someone with an anxious attachment adaptation, silence doesn’t feel neutral. When there’s a pause in communication, especially with someone they care about, it might create inner tension. The lack of reply can feel like disconnection or abandonment, because their nervous system has learned to associate a silence with disconnection.
This can happen when we have experienced a lot of disconnection or abandonment in the past following silence.
Nobody’s making this up. Realistically, people do sometimes go quiet when something is wrong, so it’s not like anyone is making this up. It’s just that with anxious attachment style, the silence feels amplified.
You might have noticed that sometimes when you’re talking with people, they don’t leave a lot of pauses. It’s like they’re afraid that if they stop talking, the other person will go away. That can happen because the nervous system remembers that people *did* go away at one time.
You might already know that anxious attachment style originally forms when connection is unpredictable. Imagine a kid who’s saying “Mom. Mom. Mom” until she replies. We like to know that someone is there on the other end of our call. It reminds me of these really sweet ravens I heard in the desert.
(If you want to see the ravens, click on the video link above)
If love or attention has ever felt inconsistent, even little gaps in contact can bring up some uneasiness for us. This could show up somatically, like a restless feeling or a need to check one’s phone. Somebody might wonder if they said the wrong thing, or if something changed, or if they were too much.
What’s Really Happening in These Quiet Moments?
What’s happening when someone goes quiet and we stress out — Is this neediness or clinginess? No, it’s our system seeking out stability. Silence feels like a question that didn’t get answered. Are we okay? Is the connection there? And then we’re waiting for a sign of reassurance.
Secure relating is answering the call. Secure relating is, “yes I’m here”, or if something came up, a quick explanation. “Sorry for the slow reply. My phone died.” When we answer, it soothes the question, “are we okay?” And it keeps an anxious attachment system calmer. This is a useful note for people who lean avoidant. If you lean avoidant and you want your partner to be less anxious and need less reassurance, reassure them. It’s not going to make them need more reassurance, it will actually help them need less because they trust that you aren’t going away. They will be happier, and they will trust you more.
And for the person who feels like the silence means, “they lost interest” or “I did something wrong”… that could be true. But it could also be true that you are relating with someone who leans more avoidant than you do. It doesn’t necessarily mean abandonment, it might mean that they have different habits and preferences, and their attachment system is used to a different rhythm of relating.
So instead of focusing on the other person and wondering why they haven’t responded, it’s actually more helpful to shift your attention inward and notice what meaning you’re making out of the situation.
In anxious attachment style, that delayed response can feel like rejection or abandonment, or like there’s something wrong with us. The brain can start filling in the blanks, making up a story, since we’re not getting any information. And the body responds as if there’s something wrong, like someone might get discomfort in the muscles or a sinking feeling in the stomach or anxious butterflies.
This is an old protective pattern coming up. At some time, disconnection could have meant danger, like an infant who needed milk to survive.
That elevated stress is the old pattern that says, “quick, restore the connection, make it feel safe again”. But that may not be the answer this time. For example, if you lean anxious and a partner leans avoidant, reaching out repeatedly might just make them delay further because their own nervous system gets overwhelmed.
And if you’re thinking, but Kayli a minute ago you said to respond promptly, then yes, I mean for the person whose turn it is to respond. If you’ve already asked once, and then asked again, now you’re in waiting mode. The ball’s in their court, it’s their move, and instead of stressing out you can think of this as an opportunity to support your attachment system.
How to Support Yourself Instead of Spiraling
So how do you support yourself in those moments when you don’t hear back and you’re wondering what’s going on?
Rather than continue to analyze the other person’s behavior, I like to connect with self.
Because I work somatically, when I work with clients I might start with body awareness and do a check in. What is the sensation that someone notices in their body when they’re in that space of just waiting?
What is the story I’m making of this situation? I did something wrong or they don’t prioritize the relationship or they’re not interested? What do I notice?
We’ll also connect with what it feels like when I *do* feel consistent and reliable, safe connection? Maybe in other relationships where I do get a response relatively quickly, where it’s easy to schedule. How does my nervous system respond to that? What does my breath do? What do my shoulders do?
Connecting to grounded and centered energy is helpful for a lot of people. Self-soothing tools that might be as simple as breathing calmly with a longer exhale that activates the parasympathetic. I have a range of self-soothing tools I like to teach clients when they’re in this space and a process I like to go through.
Calming breath and self-awareness is a good place to begin.
Assessing our needs is a good place to get to. Ideally, how much connection do we want throughout any given week with someone we’re dating? Does the other person want something similar or do they need a lot less or more than we do?
We might be able to offer ourselves some reassurance. Your worth isn’t defined by how long it takes someone to answer your text. You are worthy of connection that is fulfilling and delightful.
It’s also helpful to notice what is prompting us to reach out. Am I reaching out for information or to connect? Or am I reaching out to feel better? Is there work that you can do to help yourself to feel better even before you hear from them?
What Secure Relationships Do Differently
In secure relationships, people are consistent with their communication. They typically respond to each other promptly, though of course that will vary based on schedule, sickness, and other factors. Secure partners aren’t perfect, but they’re responsive over time. Their tendency is to be responsive, because they know that long delays aren’t good for connection. They check in regularly with their partner, and they typically are able to adapt to their partner’s preferences some as well.
While anxious partners might worry they can’t get their needs met, and avoidant partners might ignore needs or believe they have to meet them autonomously, secure partners take a cooperative approach. They believe they can get their needs met and help their partner meet their needs.
Because secure partners come from a place of interdependence, they believe they are capable, and they believe you are capable.
Because of this, they might not always respond right away, but they usually do. They still need space sometimes. But the overall feeling of the connection is reliability.
They do tend to follow through — even if there’s a delay, they come back. And when communication is slower, it doesn’t carry the same confusion because there’s already a strong foundation of mutual trust and respect. When the relationship is secure, there’s no guessing what your partner is thinking and feeling. It’s safe for you to ask and it’s safe for them to tell you.
So is it easier to be in a secure relationship? Yes. But no relationship can remove all discomfort. It helps to have the tools to navigate those moments without needing immediate response, or relying on someone else to soothe our own attachment system. Co-regulation is great, and I have a video on it. But also powerful is the ability to soothe ourselves. When we have that, these little blips in connection don’t rock us the same way, because we’re grounded.
If you’d like more help dating in a secure way with clarity about what you want and who you’re looking for, my Secure Love Toolkit can help. In it you’ll find helpful resources for maintaining calm during moments of disconnection. It also helps work with the subconscious to remove blocks to finding a secure relationship.
For Anxious Attachment — Break Free from Anxious Patterns & Attract a Secure Partner
