Jess was halfway through her best friend's birthday dinner when her phone lit up.

It was him, after 4 days of complete silence: "hey, you free tonight?"

She told everyone she wasn't feeling well, left before the cake came out, and drove straight to his place. For the next few hours everything felt okay again. By the next morning, he had gone quiet…again.

If you've ever been Jess, you're probably being breadcrumbed. Her story answers the 3 questions you're most likely asking right now: why are they doing this, what do I say to them, and how do I stop attracting people like this in the first place? That last one is the part almost nobody talks about…

Five months of crumbs

When they first started dating, he texted Jess back within the hour. Five months in, she was lucky to hear from him by the end of the day, and he was canceling plans the morning of.

Think of someone's time, attention and commitment as a whole loaf of bread. Jess wasn't getting the loaf, she was getting crumbs, and she was missing what I call the 3 C's: connection, commitment and communication.

Her friends kept asking the obvious question. If he didn't want a real relationship, why wouldn't he just let her go?

Why he wouldn't commit, and wouldn't leave

The answer had very little to do with Jess. Breadcrumbing usually comes from an avoidant attachment style, and a lot of avoidant people grew up with parents who met their physical needs but never really showed up for their emotional needs. So they learned early that letting someone get close is risky.

Every time the two of them got closer, that old fear kicked in and he pulled back. But he also really liked her and didn't want to lose her, so he kept the door cracked open just wide enough to keep her around.

Jess even understood some of this, and yet every unanswered text still felt like it was all about her…

The detective wall

Because Jess was anxiously attached, his silence hit her deepest fears of abandonment and of not being good enough. "What did I do wrong? Did I say something weird? Maybe I'm just not enough for him."

So she investigated. She reread 3 weeks of texts looking for the exact moment things changed, and she checked his Instagram stories to see if he was really as busy as he said. Her bedroom basically became a detective's wall with photos, pins and red yarn 😅

By the time she saw him, she'd built a whole theory about who she needed to be for him, and she showed up as that version of herself. He never got to connect with the real Jess, and the real Jess was the only one who could have brought them closer.

But the investigation isn't what kept her stuck for 5 months. That came from the text that pulled her out of her best friend's birthday dinner…

Is she addicted to him?

Psychologists call it intermittent reinforcement. Rewards that show up unpredictably keep you hooked far longer than rewards that show up consistently. So 4 days of silence flooded Jess with stress, his one text brought a rush of relief, and her brain started seeing the person causing her anxiety as the only person who could relieve it. This is the same kind of reinforcement that drives an addiction.

There was also a part of Jess that was so afraid of being abandoned that she abandoned herself first. She left her friend's dinner, canceled her own plans over and over, and accepted far less than she needed just to keep him close.

So what finally broke the cycle? Jess started doing almost the exact opposite of what her instincts were screaming at her to do.

Getting curious instead of crushed

Jess learned to respond the way a securely attached person does. Instead of "I must not be good enough," she started thinking, "Huh, something shifted here, and I wonder what's going on."

These are the 3 things she started doing when the breadcrumbs came:

• She noticed the pattern early, instead of explaining away the red flags.

• She stopped rewarding inconsistency. Disappearing for 4 days no longer earned him more attention.

• She stopped tying her self-worth to being chosen by him.

But noticing the pattern was only half of it. Jess still had to say something, and the way she said it would decide whether he came closer or pulled even further away.

The conversation

The old Jess would have said: "What's going on with you? You never give me attention anymore. You obviously don't care about me."

What she actually said: "Hey, I've noticed a shift between us. It used to be so much easier for us to find time together. Can you help me understand what's going on?"

He admitted, "Whenever things get serious, I get scared and back off." That was amazing to hear, because now they had something real to work on, and she set a boundary: "I want to support you, but I'm not okay with the commitment between us slowly fading away."

Then she waited to see what he would do. Three weeks later, the crumbs were back…

The mistake she didn't make

This is where most anxiously attached people set themselves up for the next breadcrumber. They either give it "just one more month" over and over, or they finally leave convinced that every partner is going to treat them this way, and that fear follows them straight into their next relationship.

Jess walked away from a place of peace instead: "I'm realizing you don't have the capacity to give me what I want right now, and I deserve more than that, so I'm going to move on." She saw it as one painful relationship, and she kept believing the right person was out there.

What happened next is the part I really want you to hear…

Where Jess is now

Today Jess is with a partner who prioritizes her in a way she has never experienced before. And it's because she now sets boundaries, red flags, and ends it with the ones who don't show up for her, and the people who stick around are the ones who show up consistently.

Jess became securely attached inside my program the Secure Self Club. Secure people don't chase breadcrumbs, because they know how to bake their own loaf of bread! Once Jess could fill her own emotional cup, a crumb stopped feeling like connection.

You can start where she did by simply changing your behavior, even if you don't yet fully feel secure. Stop double texting, have the honest conversation, and walk away from the situationship that's only giving you crumbs. It might feel terrifying, and you can do it!

But if you want what Jess has, you need to heal the underlying wound that leads you to accept breadcrumbs in the first place…

Where do you start?

If you've tried books and podcasts and therapy, and you're still leaving birthday dinners for a "hey, you free tonight?" text, it doesn't mean there's something fundamentally broken inside of you. There's probably just something missing from the methods you're currently using.

I have recorded a 15 minute training you can watch for free today that will teach you the exact steps you need to take to go from anxiously attached to securely attached. In that same training I'm going to show you the most common mistakes people unknowingly make when they try to become secure.

Go here to watch the training.

Secure Self Club

In case you didn't know, I help people with an anxious attachment style become securely attached in just a few short months inside the Secure Self Club. It's our 16 week program designed to help you rewire your nervous system so you can feel more grounded, confident, secure, and self trusting.

To learn more about the Secure Self Club, go here to book a call with a member of my team.

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