Anxious Susceptibilities?

If he's avoidant, you can't fix it because the problem isn't you and it's likely not actually about you either. Avoidant nervous systems get hijacked just as AP nervous systems do, in a kind of inverse way (they can shut down instead of get overstimulated, but the source is the same: past experiences with adult caretakers that did not encourage secure attachment... I find it helpful to think of AP/FA/DA as 3 types of defense mechanisms that can very naturally evolve in children in response to a prolonged situation that isn't meeting their primal emotional/survival needs, but as adults they are out of context and more harmful to mature relationships while no longer being necessary for survival). You can only look at why you're willing to stay on the hook in a situation that isn't satisfying. The real, deep, painful reasons, not the superficial ones (he seems great and sometimes he's nice to me would be a superficial-level reason, he makes me chase his conditional love like my parents made me do so it feels familiar might be an example of a deep reason, though I'm not suggesting that specific reason applies to you).

I will tell you that, after several years, I know exactly the reasons my two FA exes actually broke up with me. It does help to know, but it just reinforces that I can't fix them or do anything about it. Neither of those exes are aware of being FA so they could not tell me the reasons they deactivated after being very into me for months. At first, I didn't believe they could be that sad and frustrated and assumed they were trying to placate me by lying about why we broke up. But once I understood more about insecure attachment, I realized, I know their families and histories and backgrounds. I get it, and I know where their problems came from. It's not about me. I still worked hard on my own AP issues over a long period of time anyway and fixed them because I wanted to for my own sake, and to be as good a partner as I could be to whoever. The rest of it was on them to do the same, and they weren't ready to do that. Ultimately, there was nothing I could do besides work on my own side of things, state my needs, say "also you may want to consider looking into something called fearful avoidant insecure attachment" (I only did this with one and it took me almost 3 years of incredible closeness to be comfortable enough to tell him that, not recommended to do with just anyone, and didn't help anything in the short-term), and let them walk away. I don't know the reasons the many, many, many DAs I dated short-term broke things off, but at this point it also doesn't matter. Because the reasons I do know tend to be just as much about them as about me, if not more.

I talked about my specific experience and steps earning secure a few months ago in this thread: jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1262/attachment-style-self-help-suggestions

I do think it's very important if you go the therapy route that you find someone who has some specialty in insecure attachment. If you can talk to someone who really understands it, and is familiar with what the healing process looks like so can both respect where you are in it, the speed you're going at, that it's not a linear improvement, and how to speak to the dysfunctional thought patterns in a non-judgemental (ie non-triggering way), I imagine that's really helpful. Attachment theory in general was a really good framework for me to understand everything going on, both within myself and in interaction dynamics with others, even though I think I took a kind of analytical approach to dealing with emotions lol. But that happened to work for me, because it made it possible for me to stop personalizing things and stop letting the dysfunctional emotions overwhelm me.

For early awareness AP, I found this link to be pretty good, though I just in general read probably the entire internet and absorbed it over time: www.psychalive.org/understanding-ambivalent-anxious-attachment

For later on, when I was incorporating understanding others into it, I found Jayson Gaddis's free stuff online to be helpful (he never outright says it, but I believe he's a fearful avoidant turned earned secure) -- helped me understand how someone's issues with the relationships can truly have zero to do with you and everything to do with them which means it's up to them to put in the work (though it's still up to you to state your needs, believe in yourself, and walk away if the relationship is dysfunctional and not improving through the efforts of both partners). Harville and Helen are also good, and I know he's masquerading as a "get your ex back" guy, but Clay Andrews has some good pointers about how emotional connection works and building it in a healthy way with good communication. When you're midway through the process, learning relationship skills and communication skills seems really helpful, since all the insecure styles struggle with communicating needs.

The other thing that was really helpful to me was thinking about the graph with the 4 style quadrants, and thinking about the anxious axis as, as anxiety increases, sense of self / trust in self / self esteem goes down, and in the avoidant axis, as avoidance increases, trust in others goes down. So the more anxious you are, the more you need to work on truly fundamentally improving your sense of self, trust in yourself, your self esteem and agency in order to create healthier boundaries. You need to stop requiring validation from others and honestly provide it to yourself (some people on this board include it in the process of "re-parenting"). The more avoidant you are, the more you need to work on accepting others and trusting others. As anxiety and avoidance decrease, you move closer to secure!

Finally, anne12 is always posting resources. Here's one about healing AP: jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1072/healing-ambivalent-attatchment-tips-tricks