How a DA feels in space?

any threat to a feeling of safety in a relationship may trigger deactivation in a dismissive. it depends on if the silence feels intentional and the nature of the normal dynamic.

deactivation is a "turning off" of the attachment system, so rather than feeling abandoned and panicked, a dismissive will likely feel a decrease in interest in the relationship, and may actively talk themselves out of the attachment, while experiencing a loss of feeling associated with attachment.

internal thought processes may vary, but essentially a dismissive reacts to a lack of security by going away, moving physically and emotionally and mentally away from the relationship rather than toward it.

there is a shift in nervous system activity that i can feel- i may be unhappy but not at all anxious or panicky. i feel sedate, calm, and detached, with maybe periods of emotion that are easily muted or distracted from.
if i am very unhappy i will be convinced that the relationship isn't worth it and needs to end, and i may have a resolve to not engage it further, while deactivated. at best, i may feel ambivalent. at worst, i might feel plain done. during this time i will do other stuff or just rest a lot.

dismissives have varying degrees of anxiety also- mine is very low so i rately have reacted by trying to establish contact and reconnect. if i experience unwelcome distance i might communicate that i'm unhappy but it will be while i'm slipping out of attachment and it's kind of an automatic thing to just avoid the relationship until my nervous system comes back to a more normal state. i will not want to have contact.

basically for me, with silence, i have a high threshold for what feels like unwelcome silence but once it becomes too much, it's you give an inch and i'll take a mile and the silence will deepen from my end. it will feel very undesirable for me to have contact until this resolves in me.

that's how it goes with unmitigated deactivation, for me- but i have spent a lot of time energy and effort into mitigating deactivation as i recover from insecure attachment.

i can say this- that if a relationship or interaction causes me stress i have a very real option of just leaving it be, and knowing i don't have to do anything about it, it will become more clear to me later what i want to do about it. unless the relationship is very important to me and i feel reciprocated, i can just set it aside for a bit and go do something that isn't painful or frustrating.

your previous posts have named your ex as FA.
FA and DA are very different.
if he is unaware DA he does not necessarily mind not having a relationship, and may have no connection to a feeling of unworthiness, and he may not have any awareness of having needs that he needs you to meet; not in the same way that you interpret your needs and would like him to meet them.
DA and anxious needs are very different. very. very.
an aware DA has needs and is more aware of them but it won't feel good to an anxious person to meet them. believe me. it will feel like starvation to an anxious person, to meet a dismissive's needs. at least that is what i perceive on this forum, from reading anxious postings about their relationships with dismissives.
we have needs. but far fewer interpersonal needs than many people have. we tend to be pretty solitary and independent. even with a lot of work i need a lot of solitude and independence.

and, if he is DA it's likely that his idea of love and relationship is a quite different from yours.

if he is FA, then i can't say what he might think or feel because i truly don't understand the inner workings of the FA style.

i can say that if a DA isn't participating, they have a reason for that and you aren't likely to bring them around- it's more natural for us if we are unaware to be out of relationship than in, or if in, at a distance. only internal factors can change that really, waiting around isn't going to cause a spontaneous shift. we pretty much do what we want, and not what we don't. so if it's been months and he is DA, it's not looking good.

however- you've called him FA and i understood they circle back.
so, it's anybody's guess what you've got there.

Yes, after further reading I feel he’s more DA although I see fear in him, too. I’m a little confused as to which avoidant he is, but I’d say now he’s predominantly DA. I feel like his fears have given way to more distrust since our break....the way he was typically with partners before me. If he circles back I feel like it would take him years- when we were together he told me he never looked back and would immediately delete an ex’s number but he didn’t do that to me. He said it was me or no one in our break up. So far he’s choosing no one.

there's no key.
only a DA can unlock themselves.
we do everything on our own, until we get healthier.
then we can be interdependent and grow.
but until the impetus happens within, we will be frustrating to anyone who tries to unlock us.
we don't want to be unlocked probably.
we want to unlock our own hearts.
i've not seen it happen otherwise. that's a fairy tale.

Truth- he needs to change himself.

Yes, he’s living in default, I’m sure of it. I have changed a lot in this past year, as I never could’ve tolerated time and space before- my triggers as an AP. I don’t feel the desperation or anxiety in his absence anymore. AP being dubbed “love addict” maybe that’s the part of me who still holds onto hope. If I wasn’t at all AP I would’ve given up on him many months ago. His status quo though leaves him in a dark prison of depression and hopelessness where death is his escape.