Looking for advice from FA's

Hey, I'm truly sorry you're going through so much anxiety right now. I… kinda understand you, as I've felt terrible when my boyfriend walked away. It feels like abandonment, yeah. There are a few things I'll like to tell you, maybe they can help you (the first two are going to be kinder than the last one):

-You cannot be abandoned, you're an adult. I understand this feeling a lot, Chris, because this was my main problem when grieving my break-ups. I understood I was grieving a loss way more profound that a man walking away from me. In my case, I was grieving the death of my parents and a longtime fear of being alone forever. When I finally understood it and came to the conclusion that I'm not alone, that I have plenty of amazing people around me that love me, and that I have myself to carry on a beautiful, meaningful life, it all clicked. This is the hardest work I could do, but the most important one. When this clicked and I broke up with my boyfriend, of course I felt sad, but I felt worse for him, I truly felt his pain and I walked away and said goodbye with kindness, accepting it was over. He needed time to heal. This helped us, but mostly, it was healthier for me to take that path. I had walked away, not from him, but from a sad situation for us both. Try to calm down this fear of abandonment you have (and the fear of abandoning her), because if you don't, it will haunt you in your next relationships too.

- You won't be able to understand exactly what is she thinking. She has told you enough with her actions and words, and with the addition of all the input FAs are making here, you can grasp the main idea of why is this happening. Closure comes within. Nobody can give you closure but yourself. It is terrible to understand that life sometimes is not fair, but she is, right now, being the messenger life sent you to understand yourself better.
You're nod bad for her, don't say that. But right now you're being bad for yourself. You deserve as much compassion as her from you (if not more). Save yourself. You deserve it.

That said, I'm putting on my bad b*tch boots (not really hahaha sorry, but you get the 'though love' idea) and I'll say this: 'If you keep playing dumb games, you'll keep getting dumb prizes'. Stop stalking her social media, block her. It's making you really anxious and you're not thinking clearly right now. And it won't help either one of you.  If she messages again, tell her 'Thank you for your message. Even if I like talking with you, I just wanted to ask you for some space and time since I'm grieving our relationship right know. It'll be good for both of us. Thank you for everything, I've had an amazing year with you. I hope you're well.' I know for you this will be really, really hard, but right know it's the only option for you, whenever you want her back or not. You need to step out of this very emotional situation in order to start taking good decisions for you.

Virtual hugs, fren!

Can you give me some insight into how my "acting out" would retraumatize her? Help me with my objectivity. The only thing I can think of is when I point out something she's done that's inconsiderate or disrespectful. But I feel like that's something you should expect to happen in any relationship. She sees any type of conversation about something she's done that's hurtful as criticism and/or a request to change who she is as a person. Its a constant "I cant do anything right" feeling that she has. But what do you do about that? You have to be able to communicate and set boundaries and expectations. Ive asked her several times how I can communicate with her in a way that eases her discomfort but she has no ideas. I've tried just about everything, to include suggesting that she come to therapy with me so we can use my therapist as a mediator. AP or not, I don't feel like any of my expectations are unrealistic or out of the ordinary. Neither does my therapist. Even so...she's projecting feelings onto me that I'm not responsible for. I'm ok with that in the moment if we can acknowledge it later and work towards understanding. But it just gets swept under the rug right along with the reason I wanted to have the conversation to begin with.

I'm clearly presenting as extremely AP right now. I do realize that and I certainly feel it. But this is not my default state while in the relationship. It went from "I love you on Wednesday" to "get away from me" on Thursday. I think the anxiety is understandable. But I'm not an overly demanding or dramatic partner and I do recognize often times when I'm feeling anxious and why and resolve those feelings through discussion with my friends or therapist. So the idea that I'm retraumatizing her in any way is concerning to me. I do not want to cause her harm.

by the way anne12 i love your posts on self help and i thank you for sharing them.
i just haven't been aware of any attachment trauma or style of yours.
but your posts are awesome.

Your situation is sad and difficult, and I've been there. It's really easy as an AP to take all the blame when the fearful person is projecting onto you.

I believe that in general, it's very difficult to give any feedback to any insecure type who hasn't already started doing their own work. It's just very likely to be received as criticism no matter what you're saying or how you say it, either because the person hearing it has low self-esteem or because the person hearing it distrusts the intentions of others (or both). So feedback ends up usually triggering bad feelings and defensiveness of some sort. That's due to the attachment injury, though, not the feedback itself or the person delivering it. But it's one way in which insecure attachment can make "normal" boundary assertion and communication unexpectedly difficult.

That's not your fault. I think the advice around AP delivery specifically is coming from the idea that a triggered AP can get very overbearing and be asking for behaviors or providing feedback that isn't taking the other person's needs into consideration as much as it is searching for their partner to sooth their anxiety in some way. If that's the case, and the partner is also insecure, feedback with those intentions (conscious or not) is going to seem extra scary and will also reinforce any negative view of others beliefs that person already has.

If you don't think you're doing that, and you're trying to be calm and do what's right for her, then you can't do anything about how she's receiving these conversations or her readiness to face her own problems. I don't doubt that you're releasing your triggered APness here all over this thread partially as a means to help stay calm and act more secure when you're interacting with her.

I've felt how you feel right now in different relationships, I've been on the AP sides of taking feedback as criticism, getting defensive, beating myself up, I've scratched my head about why my insecure partners turn calm conversations where I've made a normal request into a confusing ordeal, and I've been AP triggered into being overbearing and communicating my needs in selfish ways or acted out in protest behavior (mostly when I was younger and didn't understand what was going on).

If you can try what the other posters have already suggested, and really separate yourself from her right now (hide her social media, tell her you're going to take some space for herself if she contacts you again after your last message), I think it will help you both. She's coming from a place of fear and low confidence. She's confused and probably feels like a burden to you, or anyone, right now. You can't help that because she's unwilling to let you (true even if you were secure), so focus on keeping your own emotional health and esteem high. You're certainly not going to be able to move forward with her in any capacity if you're both acting from a place of fear and burned out confidence levels.

I went through two full cycles with my FA ex, the first I was AP and the second earned secure. None of my changes helped: he acted the same way both times and ended things for the same reason both times (not feeling sexually attracted anymore as soon as we got more serious). That tells me that he's stuck in an insecure attachment no matter what anyone else does unless he decides he wants to change. I cleaned up the AP behaviors that were my fault, and there was nothing else I could do at that point in time to get through.

You'll feel anxiety and almost withdrawal for another few days after you decide to stop interacting with her, but then it will get better. You won't feel good, but you'll be able to feel more like yourself. Then you'll probably start bouncing back and forth through the crummy post breakup stages, but it's progress of a sort.

I really hope she reflects and decides to take action to heal, but there's no way to know right now. You can only begin the healing process for yourself.

also, i think it's really hard for a triggered person or an insecurely attached person to see their behaviors as clearly as other objective people would , because they are operating from their own lens.

i've seen anxious persons think they are concealing their anxiety but it is palpable. even if not actively triggered the whole dynamic is fear based.

and the same could be said for an avoidant.

you may not think you are putting pressure on the relationship with AP dysfunction but really, that's not realistic. and, she's not in this in a vaccuum. she's pinging off of you. it's a dance that takes two.

i think in a nutshell, all the literature really deals deeply with the difficulty of the anxious/avoidant trap.
you find yourself in it now.
I know it's hard to fathom how you are triggering an avoidant partner- but that will be due to your own resistance to seeing what is laid out time and time again in the literature.
My opinion is that you read attachment literature as a "User Manual" of sorts to understand and operate an emotionally unavailable partner that fit the description of a FA.
Really- that's what it looks like and i'm not saying you're a bad person, but really- book knowledge of yours doesn't make a dent in her issues. She would have to be reading the literature about herself and going to therapy actively and it would take tons of work and time to change her own wiring.

You had a motive; and it was to build the relationship you want with a person who has demonstrated an inability to meet your needs. Of course. That's really your attachment wounding. I would surmise they you read everything with a "bias confirmation" perspective- your perspective is that you were "up for the task, the challenge of making it work" with this woman. so everything you read supported your idea that she could "lean into" you as her partner. Well, that sounds good on paper but she's a real live avoidant that didn't live up to the "we can do this" hype. It really requires the awareness and EFFORT of both partners.

Don't tell me what she said she would do- tell me what she does. She acts out. Doesn't matter what you invested- you invested in a partner that didn't invest the same in you. She can't! she's not there. and the fact that you pushed so hard to make it happen is on you.

I'm sorry- we all have sunk too much into unworkable unions and lived to tell the tale, the horror story- you are not alone, and you're not the exception.

In closing on this, i would just suggest that you read all the attachment literature with a keen eye on the fact that most authors recommend AGAINST this pairing because of the deep unconscious drives of the partners. It's not like cooking, where you add this and i add that and we stir. it's so much deeper- it's an intense process to rewire a nervous system. if it were simple it would be done all the time and this theory; this site, all the books you read, wouldn't exist. it would remain simply: Couples Counseling.

oh and for full disclosure, i will mention that @future was up close and personal for some of my deactivations in my relationship ... hoo boy. this stuff. serious stuff.

when i was deactivated i could not fathom being connected. it's really deep stuff. like mrob said, and i can relate as avoidant tho don't really understand FA - it would be hard to imagine coming back, when i was that deactivated. nervous system totally hijacked me.