How to get over phantom ex &/or stop looking for perfection?

That is probably very true.  I do admit, it is hard to "see" my own behavior.  Because of this, I asked him many times what it was that I was doing to contribute to the situation.  He didn't have an answer.  I go over and over and I still don't know. I asked my therapist and she said my contribution is that I stayed with him too long and I didn't adequately tell him to stop doing these things.  I wrestle with, why should I have to tell someone to stop being an asshole?  But I guess your point is real.  I don't stop being avoidant.  

when i started speaking up about what i need to be healthy and safe my partner started providing it.
it was a lot of up and down to build trust and know that i was seeing clearly.
but it was a full time job to hold myself accountable to honesty and being real, he pulled in beside me at some point.
we didn't go around he houses about each other- we've both just been trying individual and that panned out.
i know it takes cooperation but with insecure types the effort of the other partner is WAYYYYYY over-analyzed to the neglect of personal accountability to secure relating.
we all initially look to a partner to do what we ought to be doing for ourselves and it's immature. and self defeating.

Yes, I think we can fail to assume responsibility for what's ours AND also fail to recognize that our expectations of our partners are valid and that they have some responsibilities too.

An immature thing I did was expect my partner to know my needs around things that I regarded as obvious (taking turns making plans, texting back within a day or two, not making scheduling errors and cancelling). I felt so frustrated, but I was really the one who sold myself short by not speaking up for myself early in the game. That responsibility was mine.

It is kind of paradoxical that one reason I did not speak up was that I thought it was all on me to manage my feelings and stop feeling so deeply hurt. I wanted to control it all by myself and not ask her for anything. That's an area where I was assuming too much responsibility and not acknowledging that it was okay and natural that my feelings were being impacted by her behaviour and that I should expect a partner to assume some responsibility towards me. I know that these two thoughts I had don't really make sense together but that is the nature of attachment injury brain.

It is such a balancing act figuring out where each person's responsibility should start and end, and I'm sure that looks quite different depending on attachment style and context. Focus on self-responsibility is excellent as long as it doesn't go so far as to assume that we should not be emotionally affected by others' behaviour or need them for anything or hold them to account. I know you weren't suggesting this at all, juniper. It sounds more like you're suggesting that we're responsible for communicating openly with them about what we do need from them rather than expecting them to mind-read and being critical of them when they don't. Totally agree on that.

I guess part of my journey and even having some ability to get into a relationship was tied to "expecting" or "relying on the idea that my partner would not do certain things. I came to the expectation that my partner would not publicly humiliate me, that they would be honest and not denigrate me. I thought this was a necessary step for me to be more trusting and bring down the walls. I totally agree, a partner should not have to be a mind reader, but am stuck on the notion that some behaviors are a "given" .

andy, I think it is a balance that I have more thinking to do about. I don't think my expectations are too high, but I also have to look within myself further. My guess is that I choose men that I know subconsciously will not meet these expectations, so further down my rabbit hole I can go.

here's a small xample of the emotional interdependence i now have with my partner.

recently, he was stressed and pressed for time due to external demands, and he misinderstood my communication and became abrupt with me.
he was a little rude. (his bad)
it hurt my feelings. (understandable)
i stewed a little, then started to become angry. (my own insecurity was getting the best of me at this point)
i began to go into deactivation. (ugh)
i texted him to tell him i was angry. (inappropriate to text about this when he is under a lot of duress already. but i was mad, so i did it anyway. i was escalating a deactivation)
then i started to withdraw.
he called me immediately once he saw what was happening (growth!! he pulled in to repair- one of us has been able to do that, because we are getting better)
defenses came down. in the earlier days, we would have avoided each other or just escalated to an argument. both of us justifying ourselves and being intolerant.

as soon as we began actually talking, things turned around.

he said "i feel demeaned when you pull away because you become an asshole to me and it hurts my feelings" (i'm totally good wih that characterization because we accept that at one point or another each of us have been assholes. lol. it's ok)

i said "i apologize for that and i recognize the disrespect i have shown you. Please forgive me, i know that i have hurt your feelings and i am truly sorry. i reacted angrily to your impatience , but underneath my anger , my feelings are really hurt because usually we are sweet together and i care about you a lot, and i know you care about me. i feel that disrespect and impatience doesn't have a place in our interactions and i want to resolve the misunderstanding that contributed to it."

We de-escalated from there and cleared up what was a true misunderstanding, instead of trying to determine where the "blame" went and who fucked up first and caused it all. we gave tolerance for each other's point of view and fallibility.

we took joint responsibility for our interaction and relationship. for two dismissives to be showing up to conflict saying how they feel , and trying to repair and come to a deeper undetsranding -well, that's huge growth for us both. we shared our vulnerability and real desire to reconcile that little bump. that's the tone of our relationship. taking responsibility for ourselves and for the other. it's really reassuring to handle small bumps like that. we got even CLOSER that day, and it's because there was a problem that we both pulled in to solve together by admitting fault, and looking for how to fix it. then we made it a point to spend some time together even though he was busy- he made time and asked for my presence and i made myself available. it was another solid brick in our good foundation. instead of a brick in the wall!

that's what emotional availability looks like to me. it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be mutual and cooperative and meet the needs of both partners.

I relate to this so much. I have trouble figuring out what my needs are and articulating them. Like, if I feel better if someone texts me back in a certain amount of time, or alternates initiating plans, how do I even go about explaining that in a constructive way early on? People can't know what you want if you don't tell them, but how exactly do you tell them? I don't even know how to bring up these kinds of topics until it gets to the point where someone takes 3 days to reply to a text and I feel like, "Ok now I have to say something," and they are shocked that I would expect anything from them since I always seemed so chill and they say they don't want to feel obligated to respond to texts, in fact now they want to break up, or some other response that confirms my fears of abandonment.

Part of the problem is that I honestly do not know what I want/need in terms of something like text response time, I just know what I don't want when it happens. It varies so much depending on context.