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

happyidiot, i developed a standard of "no hiding" as soon as i realized how much i wanted to participate in this relationship and have it be happy for both of us.

Remember, i am speaking as a dismissive so my approach may not be the best for someone else.

i have practiced taking my internal temperature as far as emotions and thoughts go. if i become uncomfortable i address it honestly with myself as quickly as possible.
so i have taken a position of self-awareness and self-analysis. I find that if i get triggered by something and become unhappy, and it's in relation to something that i can ask my partner for help with, i try to do it at the first reasonable opportunity. this has meant enduring the difficulty of becoming emotionally vulnerable and admitting how much i care and am invested, how i do "need" him in an integral way, for my happiness and contentment.
this is a big shift for a dismissive, who has been conditioned all her life to not need, especially to not need another person's participation and reciprocity for happiness. obviously, the task for an anxious person would be different.

i just handle things as they arise. in the moment, day by day. i have the big boundaries that i have to have in place to even be involved... and the smaller needs for my emotional well being in a relationship become apparent as i go. it is totally contextual. but for me, the work is allowing g myself to have a preference or a need, honoring it, expressing it with sensitivity to my partners need. And, like you said. it opens the door for the conversation - that's the intimacy. the conversation that ensues.

it's not like a chess game where i make this move, you make that move, all is strategy, one will win.
it's a request for collaboration, it's a mutual agenda, it's cooperation.

I have done a lot of thinking about this. I think it is possible to open up a conversation about how you are feeling even if you are not totally sure yet what your bottom line is or to what extent your feelings can be resolved by working on yourself. 

It would be important to go in with curiosity about where the other person is coming from and recognition that your understanding of the situation is limited and filtered through your own lens based on your life experiences (this was one of the helpful points in the Beginning Anew book that ocarina recommended to me). Also, it would be important to show that you are taking ownership over your feelings and not accusing the other person of causing you to feel bad. Our feelings are inevitably impacted by others but not caused by them, exactly. 

Something like this: "Hey, there's something I've been meaning to check in with you about. I am curious about your perspective on it. I notice that sometimes you take a couple of days to respond to a text from me. That is different from the texting style I am used to, and when that happens I tend to feel stressed about why I haven't heard back from you and worried about whether everything is okay between us. That's the place I go to with it, but I don't know what it means to you." 

And then based on what they say, you might start to feel more clear about what you need from the situation. So then you could request something like, "Could we agree to text back within a day? This is something that makes me feel more relaxed and connected when I'm dating someone." 

I get that the two days example is outside of mainstream texting norms so easier to talk about. But it might still be possible to talk about smaller gaps in text communication that bother you, with a little more emphasis on, "This is my own style, I know others are different. What are your preferences around texting?" And if they are receptive and listen with empathy and don't shame you for your feelings, but explain that they just don't like to get distracted by their phone when they are at work or socializing or whatever, you might actually start to feel that the fast response isn't all that important to you. 

I often find your approaches to resonate. I'm not sure if it's because I'm a weird Frankenstein of avoidant and AP, or if it's just because much of what you say is universally applicable. I suspect a lot of what you've found to work for you, like not hiding, developing better communication skills and recognizing needs that are not coming from a "need" to reinforce your avoidance (for someone AP just replace that reinforce their AP-ness), are just universally good goals. 

I've gotten bad advice from friends who are much more avoidant than me in the past, because their greatest challenge has been to not avoid everyone, and they've gotten better results in dating simply by making themselves initiate texts and dates more often and telling their partner they have feelings for them. Those kinds of suggestions have not been helpful when I'm in a more anxious mode (which is when I've historically been asking for more advice), it's like permission to chase and pressure. Only after learning about attachment theory did I understand why their advice felt wrong for my situation. I don't think that you sharing what works for you is like that, and of course on this forum we have the benefit of knowing about attachment theory and how we might have slightly different things we need to work on.

For me, I think that I shouldn't need anything from anyone else, and then beat myself up if I do and second-guess whether or not I in fact do. It's taken me a lot of work even to learn to accept help from people when they offer it, but I've gotten way better at that.

happyidiot,
@mary

sex is a big draw for me also, but the thing is, sexual organs are connected to whole persons, and persons are complex and... personal.
unless an 'only or primarily sexual' relationship is clearly defined and agreed to by both parties (i think this is rare!) there will be emotional liabilities that have to be considered, of course.
but, i seriously question anyone who says they have a strictly sexual interest in a relationship and carries it on for any length of time.

humans tend to desire companionship, to be understood and valued, to be appreciated, beyond their sexual pleasure. this is the human condition.

if no-obligation sex is desired by both parties, great. but when , really, is this ever the case in an ongoing involvement?

i say this, having begun the relationship i am in now as a sexual encounter. as i uncovered myself i came to see that being "fine" without all the other stuff that spells intimacy and connection was a misunderstanding of my true self and what i really want and need, but have been conditioned to avoid.

i find that my experience, coming to understand that i desire far more than sex, and i desire a partner who can build with me, is not a unique experience.

I can separate sex and feelings unless there is a strong connection which has happened once in my life. I think my willingness to try to work things out though has been largely  a result of my awareness of attachment issues .
I have no idea what a wrong or right partner is.  I guess it's if the pros outweigh the cons?  I don't think they are wrong if they hurt you but it probably depends on each persons threshold if you stay together despite the hurt.  I don't think I look at it is  a right or wrong partner.  It's more in terms of how much of their behavior I can take before I say it' s enough.

I don't know whether this is at all relevant to what you're talking about, happyidiot, but a thought I've had recently that has helped me is this:

Intimacy and authenticity are about connecting with another person in the present moment as you are now, not about figuring out what the idealized future version of yourself might be like and only sharing what you imagine would be the feelings and needs of that other version of you. Especially because none of us is likely ever to become exactly the person we imagine we should be. Does that take some of the intensity out of the should/shouldn't questioning regarding feelings and the sharing of them?

I think the intensity of our feelings can often settle down when we stop regarding them as unacceptable. When we are engaged in a constant battle with ourselves about whether we are allowed to want or need something, the wants and needs can feel really overwhelming. It kind of reminds me of dynamics around food. When you make some food forbidden in your mind and shame yourself for wanting it or eating it, that food will often be incredibly magnetic, irresistible, and you might feel out of control around it and get pulled into a negative relationship with it. But when you tell yourself that all foods are allowed and you can eat whatever you want without guilt or shame, then you might eventually find that you only want to eat moderate amounts of the foods that used to be forbidden and feel at peace around them. This is the philosophy behind intuitive eating. Food is another kind of fundamental human need/want, and there is often a lot of culturally reinforced shame around it. So while the comparison between relationship needs/feelings and food may seem like a stretch, I think there are some dynamics in common here.