Post by Happilysecured on Dec 7, 2018 6:14:25 GMT
Hi everyone, I'm new here and have been obsessively pouring over this forum within the last 3 days. I apologize that my first post in here is a bit long and perhaps disorganized. My head is in a tailspin from absorbing all the information that I've read in here and from what had just happened to me within the last few weeks.
A bit of background. I'm 42 and have a longgg history of dating narcs. I dated roughly 6 narcs and swore I'd know better the next time but I didn't really learn the lesson there until after the 6th narc. I then went on a journey of "self love" where I really worked on myself and did not jump into any relationships for a while. Until...
(((enter DA))
I never even knew the term DA or that there were people who suffer from such so I ignored all the red flags, kept chalking up my exes' deactivating behavior to his busy work schedule (supposedly). In the beginning stages of courtship, it was the tell tale classic perfect bf, calling me often, texting me often, etc. We were in a long distance relationship (sooo perfect for the DA) so being secured, I didn't have any issues with it. Everything was well and fine until about our 10th month (just recently).
We had gotten back from an amazing trip to my birth country. We were together 24/7 for 7 days, the longest we'd spent a significant length of time together. I noticed that on this trip, he was extremely emotionally distant from me. It was like we were 2 friends on a trip together, not bf/gf. He was on his phone constantly, texting watching whatever he was watching and he was outside often to smoke. Basically if he was in the room with me, he used his phone as a buffer between us and he would often to out on our hotel room terrace to smoke. I'd never seen him smoke so much during our 10 months together. He also withheld sex from me on this trip. We had sex twice but it was completely awkward and emotionless. He didn't even kiss me, which is something that he never did from the beginning of our relationship (yes, red flag, I now know).
To keep this post not novel-length, I will try to skip the full details of our relshp.
After the trip, he acted fine. We were still texting some what regularly and but he didn't call me much. Then...came the stone cold deactivating. He went no contact with me for a week. I chalked it up to him being busy with work. During this time, I didn't text or call him while waiting for him to contact me. Then a week goes by and he calls me but we talked for only 2 minutes because he claimed he had a bad phone connection and that he'd call me back. I said ok and he never called again.
Now another week goes by and I don't hear from him again. By this point, it's been 2 weeks since we've had nothing more than a 2 min phone call.
I am secured but his behavior sent me into FULL AP mode. I was confused and worried out of my mind (who wouldn't be???) so I tracked down all his friends on FB and found his work # online and called it. I explained I was his gf and haven't heard from him so I was very worried. He contacted me that same day 12 hrs later and he was extremely curt in his text. He said he'd been busy with work and that he'd call me when he is able to and he told me to never call his work unless it was very urgent. I replied saying that not knowing if he was alive or not was urgent to me and that was the last I heard from him. It's been 3 weeks since that text.
I only discovered that he is a DA by accident. After I still had not heard from him for a week, I messaged his close friend whom he considers his sister to message him for me. She messaged him asking him to call me because I'm so worried about him. He told her that he was angry I messaged all his friends and called his work looking for him. Despite her explaining that she would've done the same, he said that we were better off as friends and that I was "moving too fast" (we've been together 10 months at this point and I never ever pressured him about anything (meeting his family, friends, bringing up the future or anything of that nature because I respected his boundaries).
Just like that, I have been dumped. Deleted. Not even a single goodbye.
During the 3 weeks I kept waiting for some answers/closure from him, I was out of my mind AP and sent him texts, emails, called him obsessively. I hadn't known anything about DA by then. I really wish I had but no use crying over spilled milk. All my attempts to contact him was of course ignored.
Phew! I know that was very long winded. If you're still reading, thank you. Sincerely.
My question now is as a secured, what can I do to prevent this from happening again? After my experience with narcs and truly mastering on how to spot them, I thought I had finally met the one with this DA. He presented himself as if he was a secure. But...he was nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing. My experience with him made me think perhaps I'm AP but I went online and took 3 attachment tests to see if I was and all 3 tests showed I'm secured.
Have any of you other secured gotten involved with a DA and were fooled like me? I'm just curious what is the underlining reason I was drawn to him? Is is some secret AP tendencies wanting to throw a tantrum? I have very little AP tendencies in the 3 attachment tests that I took. From what I read on here, DAs are usually drawn to full on APs so I wonder how or why I was a victim to one?
If any secured have had experience with a DA, I'd like your input and insight. I am definitely not wanting him back or pining for him now knowing it'd never go anywhere nor is he the partner I'd want. And I do apologize if any DAs are reading this and take offense to anything I said about DA. I don't have any animosity toward my ex because I know as a person, he is genuinely a good person but due to his DA tendencies, he did what he did and it hurt me greatly.
A bit of background. I'm 42 and have a longgg history of dating narcs. I dated roughly 6 narcs and swore I'd know better the next time but I didn't really learn the lesson there until after the 6th narc. I then went on a journey of "self love" where I really worked on myself and did not jump into any relationships for a while. Until...
(((enter DA))
I never even knew the term DA or that there were people who suffer from such so I ignored all the red flags, kept chalking up my exes' deactivating behavior to his busy work schedule (supposedly). In the beginning stages of courtship, it was the tell tale classic perfect bf, calling me often, texting me often, etc. We were in a long distance relationship (sooo perfect for the DA) so being secured, I didn't have any issues with it. Everything was well and fine until about our 10th month (just recently).
We had gotten back from an amazing trip to my birth country. We were together 24/7 for 7 days, the longest we'd spent a significant length of time together. I noticed that on this trip, he was extremely emotionally distant from me. It was like we were 2 friends on a trip together, not bf/gf. He was on his phone constantly, texting watching whatever he was watching and he was outside often to smoke. Basically if he was in the room with me, he used his phone as a buffer between us and he would often to out on our hotel room terrace to smoke. I'd never seen him smoke so much during our 10 months together. He also withheld sex from me on this trip. We had sex twice but it was completely awkward and emotionless. He didn't even kiss me, which is something that he never did from the beginning of our relationship (yes, red flag, I now know).
To keep this post not novel-length, I will try to skip the full details of our relshp.
After the trip, he acted fine. We were still texting some what regularly and but he didn't call me much. Then...came the stone cold deactivating. He went no contact with me for a week. I chalked it up to him being busy with work. During this time, I didn't text or call him while waiting for him to contact me. Then a week goes by and he calls me but we talked for only 2 minutes because he claimed he had a bad phone connection and that he'd call me back. I said ok and he never called again.
Now another week goes by and I don't hear from him again. By this point, it's been 2 weeks since we've had nothing more than a 2 min phone call.
I am secured but his behavior sent me into FULL AP mode. I was confused and worried out of my mind (who wouldn't be???) so I tracked down all his friends on FB and found his work # online and called it. I explained I was his gf and haven't heard from him so I was very worried. He contacted me that same day 12 hrs later and he was extremely curt in his text. He said he'd been busy with work and that he'd call me when he is able to and he told me to never call his work unless it was very urgent. I replied saying that not knowing if he was alive or not was urgent to me and that was the last I heard from him. It's been 3 weeks since that text.
I only discovered that he is a DA by accident. After I still had not heard from him for a week, I messaged his close friend whom he considers his sister to message him for me. She messaged him asking him to call me because I'm so worried about him. He told her that he was angry I messaged all his friends and called his work looking for him. Despite her explaining that she would've done the same, he said that we were better off as friends and that I was "moving too fast" (we've been together 10 months at this point and I never ever pressured him about anything (meeting his family, friends, bringing up the future or anything of that nature because I respected his boundaries).
Just like that, I have been dumped. Deleted. Not even a single goodbye.
During the 3 weeks I kept waiting for some answers/closure from him, I was out of my mind AP and sent him texts, emails, called him obsessively. I hadn't known anything about DA by then. I really wish I had but no use crying over spilled milk. All my attempts to contact him was of course ignored.
Phew! I know that was very long winded. If you're still reading, thank you. Sincerely.
My question now is as a secured, what can I do to prevent this from happening again? After my experience with narcs and truly mastering on how to spot them, I thought I had finally met the one with this DA. He presented himself as if he was a secure. But...he was nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing. My experience with him made me think perhaps I'm AP but I went online and took 3 attachment tests to see if I was and all 3 tests showed I'm secured.
Have any of you other secured gotten involved with a DA and were fooled like me? I'm just curious what is the underlining reason I was drawn to him? Is is some secret AP tendencies wanting to throw a tantrum? I have very little AP tendencies in the 3 attachment tests that I took. From what I read on here, DAs are usually drawn to full on APs so I wonder how or why I was a victim to one?
If any secured have had experience with a DA, I'd like your input and insight. I am definitely not wanting him back or pining for him now knowing it'd never go anywhere nor is he the partner I'd want. And I do apologize if any DAs are reading this and take offense to anything I said about DA. I don't have any animosity toward my ex because I know as a person, he is genuinely a good person but due to his DA tendencies, he did what he did and it hurt me greatly.
