A little annoyed at the ex

I do miss him, and the good things.  So I don't fight that, I can accept that I feel sad and a loss.  But when it crops of for me I acknowledge it, feel it, and consciously acknowledge the reality of the instabilty and pain that the relationship introduced into my life.  I consciously choose to let go of this as it is, and take my recovery a day at a time.  
At some point I may be able to reconnect with him without pain.  At this point there is not a viable relationship that I can become vulnerable to, and I suspect he is much in the same place.  I don't want to speculate about that, though.  At some point if we reconnect I will ask him directly how he is and what his thoughts and feelings are at that time. 

I find it more painful to allow nyself to become absorbed in missing than to see things as they became clear to me.  It's simply unsustainable.  Not safe. 

There's a lot of good insight in the back and forth in the comments here. A turning point for me in understanding attachment was when my FA ex directly said he was not rejecting me, when he was completely rejecting me (objectively, it was not my AP projection, even though it triggered me). I was so confused and really thought about why the heck he'd say and think that because he didn't seem to be trying to gaslight me, and some of the conclusions I came to a couple weeks later are things @intj said here. He also said constantly before and after that that he was afraid of losing me again, since I'd gone no contact for so long after our first breakup. But then decided not to go to couples counseling with me when I offered, or to counseling on his own, and generally treated me poorly, inconsistently, and in an incredibly self-sabotaging way. I concluded that losing me was his second biggest fear, and confronting his issues was still his biggest fear, so there was nothing to be done. Even more recently, I realized he also dissociates (as a recovering AP, this is tough for me to grasp conceptually, because I am very grounded and it wasn't part of my anxious attachment repertoire).

It's difficult, but @nullified 's point about the dips making a stable relationship impossible is true. I've said in other posts that I think the real relationship between insecure style partners happens between the triggers-- how those problems get handled when the triggered moments subside? What's the mutual commitment to handling them? For AP or FA, how loving/consistent are they when they're not triggered anxious? Do those triggered times decrease for both partners in frequency and disappear over time? If not, the relationship isn't going to get secure. Which is sad when you love someone and wanted to end up in a really committed relationship with them, but it's still better to accept the reality of the situation.

this is a very informative post, and it's great that you're sharing @nullified. it's also made me realize a few things. I'm going to share my perspective and use first person pronouns, because it's easier to "speak" as in conversing. this is not directed or projected at you (I think we've this potential misunderstanding before); it's just easier for me to say what I'm thinking from the first person. hope that's ok with you, and apologies if it's upsetting to anyone.

with regards to the question about chasing (I identified as AP), the trigger is the deactivation. for me, everything revolved around it - experiencing it and then reconnecting after it.

this is my internal monologue to my ex:

"I want to have this relationship with you, but I cannot trust that you wouldn't leave me. you've done it before with deactivation, and I can never know if this deactivation is going to last. when you come back and ready to move on, you haven't checked in with me if I'm ok, and if I'm onboard with you. just because you're ready to move on, I have to be ready to move on. you don't understand that i'm just terrified to do anything anymore because everytime I move with you, and there's some conflict, you somehow disappear on me, leaving me on a speeding train alone. you don't explain your disappearance, you don't tell me where you went, you just reappeared and expect things to be good just because you are good but not ask me if i am. i chase, because i want this, i want you, and i need to know you're there for real, and not just jerking me around pretending to have a bond that you're secure in, but in effect just using me for your entertainment at your convenience."

in short, like what @hanana said, i never felt assured that the good times will last. while I'm sure my ex felt like i was the destabilizing force (which I was, I agree), he never understood that he was exactly the same - ups and downs too. everytime there's a deactivation or resentment or disconnection, HE was creating ups and downs for me. It was his perspective that it was acceptable and it was not "ups and downs", it's just being quiet so that you can come back into the relationship.

but no, it really isn't, because
(1) I didn't agree to nor informed of this period of silence. it was just checking out whenever needed, with no warning nor assurance of reconciliation BEFORE it happened. it just happened. i can't do on and off with you on your timeline. and not cooperating with that timeline is taken to be my fault because i can't seem to move on.
(2) it was also very confusing and unpredictable for me. i wouldn't know when it start and why. when he reconnected, he acted like nothing happened and it's all good, and never discussed with me the deactivation. there was no clear, strong acknowledgment of what that was about so I had very little understanding of what was going on.
(3) so it was something he either didn't want to or could not understand, and had very little empathy for and little acknowledgment of his own responsibility. it was infuriating because his ways were fine, they were legit because they addressed his needs, but he didn't see that he was only looking at his own situation and not at how his behaviors, while legit because it addresses his needs, could be bewildering and confusing to me (because i have no context nor insight to what he was thinking).

one thing i've noticed is this rhetoric of "I just go back to what we were doing after some discussion and agreements or whatever we would do to resolve (we thought) the conflict." this goes back to what i was saying before. For the DA, it's ok to go back to whatever it was earlier, because you're the one in control of the deactivation. you initiated it and ended it, so you have full emotional and logistical control over it. but it is often confusing and bewildering and upsetting for the other party who don't have these information. what we're trying to do, is to avoid the conflict in the first place, so that there is no need to deactivate. hence, the constant checking on relationship health and status to make sure things are going well, and that it's still there.

and this is what creates the chase for me - during the period of deactivation, i often felt like it was because i did something wrong and so he needed a timeout from us; this was very insecurity inducing because if he could check out whenever he wanted then who is to say that he wouldn't check out for good just because he felt like it? however, i really did want to be with him so i kept trying to be better and change so that i wouldn't upset him and create the need for deactivation. when he came back, i was prickly because i had so much fear and confusion, and i was not completely myself because I'm walking on eggshells all the time, rightly or wrongly so. i'm just trying to protect the relationship in ways I could control, again rightly or wrongly.


i think for anxious, it's not so simple. for me, the deactivation/conflict is a sign that you can hurt me again and that if you don't understand it hurts me, you WILL hurt me again. when you don't take the interest in understanding why i'm hurt and the emotional landscape behind it, i perceive it as vulnerability to those who are insensitive/unaware of how they could hurt me, so it's really scary. the bond that you speak of as secure, isn't really that secure in my perspective, because you could cut it when it suits you and regain it when you feel like it. how is that a stable bond? so i chase because i want to know that the bond is stable i.e., it's there all the time. that's stability to an AP. I want to improve it, and i want you to and take an interest in understanding me.

Oh, and lastly, I noticed that my ex would be solution oriented as well, and take that as stabilizing behavior. his narrative is "i'm stable, and i'm trying to solve the problem". my narrative is "i don't need the solution, i need you to stop creating instability in the first place". the greatest instability is deactivation, but there are many other mild forms of instability. for example, if i ask if we're good, he would say i wouldn't be here otherwise. if i was feeling uncharitable, i would think, oh so, you wouldn't stick with me through bad times?

i guess what i'm tryying to say here is two main things.
(1) the chase is because APs do want to be with you but do not really believe the bond is stable and want to make it stable i.e., always there (hence the constant contact and check-ins). the deactivation is a huge trigger because it means the bond is gone.
(2) DAs are often unaware that they can be destabilizing in certain ways - they perceive that they are stable because they provide reassurance. it IS stabilizing, but i think it isn't the root of the problem. while APs are insecure in their bonds and protest, DAs are often unaware of how their actions affect other people and can contribute to this insecurity.

I'm not sure how much this applies to you, but I hope it's useful.

I don't think it's anxiety driven but attachment driven. Pulling is just like pushing- both involve dissociation in my case, and aren't permanent states, there's in between. I think FA will have a harder time to move on, thus more willing to try over and over again.




It's something what I do but I don't consider it a pull.  I simply recognize the reason we parted was my deactivation and I reconnect to check if the other party is still interested. There's no anxiety present.

Going back back to mother and food analogy. DA dismisses hunger so when mother appears they don't want to eat anything.
When FA sees their mother with food they might decline, they don't know if she will snap it from them when they reach. When they see she's taking it away, they'll shout "no, give it to me" because after all, they're hungry.
AP is very hungry, they know their food will be taken away from them so they want to eat as much as they can in a moment.
Secure knows that food will be provided to them and if they're hungry they can ask for it.

I have only ever pulled with DA, because of similar behavior @shiningstar mentioned. He created the ups and downs for me, I was mostly reacting.
When I pull I feel that I'm losing something important and I fight for stabilization. You say "I don't chase I just go back to what we were doing " In a situation that makes me pull, I have never felt that I can go back. When I do this, I'm not the one in control of situation, I'm not the one who's calling the shots; in my mind if I don't pull, I'll lose the person forever.
It's not like love bombing done by narcissists.

Ok, just to be clear, I'm not assuming it is your dynamic, or that all DAs are alike. I can only speak from my experience and share my thoughts, so that IF something resonates with you, that's great. if not, then feel free to ignore it since it's not helpful/relevant. It's basically how i learn from the boards, so I also share it this way. I'm not projecting my experience on anybody else, and I don't know the details of everyone's relationships (also I cannot remember! I don't know how you guys do it) so I don't directly speak to that.

Oh, also I shared because I think I might be FA as discussed before but I self-identified as AP as I've focused more on the anxiety part since it's much more salient. 

Exactly! I’m in no contact with my ex but a mutual friend just told me the other day (unsolicited....because I really don’t care to know!) that my ex told her that when he had been working all day and was tired, he didn’t want to come home and have to have me “all up in his face” greeting him at the door with kisses and trying to discuss our day. He told her he just wanted to come home and just be in his space and not have to accommodate me. I told her that was quite interesting because 1) he didn’t live with me! So he didn’t have to come there if I was such a bother! 2) I remember specifically cooking dinner once when he came through the door and he jokingly said “what, have we gotten to that point where you don’t even greet me at the door with kisses anymore?” He was actually ASKING me for it so I made it a point to try to do that 3) whenever we would eat dinner and the tv was on, he would ask me to turn it off. He said that time was our time to sit and discuss our day.

So yeah....it’s the inconsistency that is annoying. I totally get it.

I don't know, re-write it however it makes sense to you but the other input makes much more sense, regarding stress, an inability to recognize and appropriately deal with his own issues, and take responsibility for his own moods and rudeness on a consistent basis.