Break up...again.

That means someone you can be afraid with too!!!

It's all very complicated it seems, knowing what to communicate and what to keep private so that you can work with it. However, I believe that taking the time and. making a concerted effort to reveal your innermost self (as is, no hiding) to a trusted confidante (or an anonymous forum) is a key step. It's practice. Practice makes perfect. If you can recognize what is going on in you and become practiced in expressing it, then it's great progress. As you go along, you can start to develop the discernment of what is conversation worthy and what you can take care of inside yourself. Friendships are a wonderful way to practice emotional honesty and availability and intimacy. Safe friendships, though! And if that isn't available, therapy, or even a support group.

There are probably ways that the avoidant path is different from the AP path. In my case, it was in the closeness of an intimate sexual relationship that I was forced to reveal myself. I say forced, not by the other person, but by the sheer hell of hitting bottom with hiding. I became involved with someone who I fell in love with over time and I had no way to be healthy or sane or sometimes, even kind and considerate in it all. The bond was irresistible to me because of our ability to empathize so well with each other, for some reason we both were at a place to trust each other with some very deep stuff.

Anyway, I digress. My own experience of learning how to be emotionally honest and available and intimate came from just being so sick and tired of all my issues that I just started talking about them to my partner. This is where I can begin to distinguish between drama, and what's real. I'll see if I can explain it. Off the top of my head I'd say that it has to do with focusing on his behavior as the problem instead of my internal thoughts, feelings, and needs around it? Making it an external battle instead of revealing my soft spots and places I need help from the person in my life I should be able to ask for help.

Drama: I didn't like his inconsistency with contact. I thought it was rude and inconsiderate, thoughtless, maybe even intentional to keep me at bay. I would confront him about it, set my boundaries around it, without sharing my feelings or thoughts or needs in an intimate way.
Real Enotional Availability: Eventually I got to a place of being able to ask him to listen to me and let me share my inside feelings and fears, and asked if he could help me unpack that, even if it felt humiliating to me and awkward for him. He's also dismissive but joined me in this process and I am forever thankful that he was really safe for me. So, I would tell him something like "I have been so isolated all my life, I really don't know what's normal or right to ask. I have a deep feeling of not fitting in; being strange and hard to be around, and I feel unimportant and like I've got this wrong if we don't have consistent contact. I feel sad and confused and like I just want to go away when all those feelings come up. I know you are busy and I don't want to pressure you but it means so much to m when you reach out, it helps me trust that our connection is strong and real.".

Consistency is important to everyone, any attachment style. I felt very vulnerable and wrong asking for it at first. But practicing trust and openness all along the way has helped it become a habit , for him also.

Here is a quick list I can think of of things that give rise to drama, and I guess it applies to any type. It's just my opinion from my own experience.

1) Assuming ANYTHING. If you don't know. ask. If you can't ask, just accept that you don't know. If you really can't ask ever about anything but make assumptions anyway you aren't ready for intimacy and have to look at that.

2) Blaming. If you think someone else is making you miserable and stay with that thought for long, you'll be creating drama shortly, 3...2...1.... Maybe there are assumptions you're making; maybe you haven't communicated, maybe you've communicated but the writing is on the wall and you refuse to read it. Whatever the case is, if you find yourself blaming you're gearing up for drama no doubt.

3) Expecting someone to read your mind. This is ridiculous. We are all different; and it's plain unreasonable to expect someone to meet your needs if you're not even willing to communicate them. If you don't know yet what your needs are you've got some internal work to do and might not be ready for a relationship. If you don't think your needs are worthy and important, you're not ready. If you think your needs are more worthy and important than the other's , you're not ready. If you can't communicate your needs without hurting someone. you're not ready. However, lots of people are in "relationships" and aren't really ready for that, and except in the cases of abuse , no crime is committed it's just painful and doomed to failure. Hopefully a learning experience.

4)Having no boundaries and not respecting boundaries of others. Not only that, having boundaries that you are ready, willing, and able to ENFORCE. If you cannot make boundaries for yourself and your OWN behavior and keep them, you're not ready and you'll be making drama. If someone else's boundaries feel harmful to you and you persist and try to change them or yourself to your detriment or theirs, you aren't ready, and you'll be making drama. If you have " boundaries" but aren't enforcing them with acceptance of someone else's choices and actions to enforce them (like saying goodbye f you need to with someone who can't respect boundaries) then you're probably creating a shit ton of drama. If you constantly have to talk about boundaries with someone it's probably not a relationship, it's a drama. People who are compatible and healthy aren't always defending their territory and having to hold their ground.

There are more I'm sure; that's just came from the top of my head.

I think it takes a pretty good foundation of self love and respect, self esteem, emotional availability to ONESELF first and to the other also, to avoid drama in a relationship. Unfortunately many of us attempt to build a relationship before becoming healthy enough to actually be available and honest and therefore, end up in nothing but a bunch of drama. Been there, not calling anyone out




When I say "not ready" I'm not saying, bail, you shouldn't even try. I'm saying, you've not made yourserkf ready for the intimacy and safety you profess to want, and you cannot be safe for someone else. Relationships can carry on for decades without either party being "ready.". And, they suck, we see it all the time lol. A relationship without emotional honest and availability is not unusual or immoral, just not what most of us really want.

@sherry yet again a helpful post!

That is indeed what I'm doing here. I do have friends and good ones, safe ones, but to be honest I've never gotten this good of advice from them. Not to say I haven't gotten any good advice, on the contrary, but here I've found that you and everyone else can understand exactly what I'm going through without even knowing me. Each post is a step up on my healing, each post gives me more insight of what I'm going through, and with each post of yours, I also learn at least one new word, in almost every post I find myself looking a word up 😂😂😂

"Off the top of my head I'd say that it has to do with focusing on his behavior as the problem instead of my internal thoughts, feelings, and needs around it? Making it an external battle instead of revealing my soft spots and places I need help from the person in my life I should be able to ask for help. "

This makes sense. Just like most of us have repeatedly mentioned on this thread, it's problematic to focus on the other person as the problem. Instead, we focus on how their behavior makes us feel without blaming the other person? Am I getting this right?

I think I am getting this right, re read your example and now I get it. Different ways you dealt with the same problem, one caused drama, one, real emotional availability. Excellent! Thank you!

When I read the drama one with you confronting him, I too felt uncomfortable. Reminded me of the times I've tried to express my needs but was too afraid too. I've realised that, as I mentioned in another post, I really don't want to change someone's behavior and I think that by asking something so simple like consistency in communication, is intrusive, too much. It probably has to do with both not thinking my needs are important and my previous relationship experiences. Never had someone have a good response, but also don't really know as I hadn't expressed them all that much. I don't think I can put my upbringing in this one, but I haven't given it too much thought yet, these were the first to pop up.

1) I think I'm not ready for intimacy. Or maybe getting closer to being ready. I definitely wasn't ready before this ex. I was actually looking forward to the talk I had planned. I was very determined to voice my needs, no anger, no blaming, kinda like you did. My dearest friend actually advised me something similar "never accuse, always say something like "When you do this, I feel...'". 3 years ago, I was into casual dating , I did not want to have a relationship, I wanted to enjoy my single life, because up til then I was basically going from one relationship to another. Not that I couldn't be by on my, it just happened really. I think as a result, it kind of reinforeced my already low confidence in the "voicing my needs" department, as everything was casual, so my needs really didn't matter. I did have this attitude with both of my now recent exes. One example, I'm reluctant on PDA. I keep thinking, I must not kiss them or hold their hands as they might not want people to know we're dating. Crazy right?

2) I really didn't think I did blaming, as far as I'm aware of. But the way you put it, I might have. Keeping assumptions to my self etc. That's why I was going to talk to this ex, because I recognized I was keeping something that was bothering me, in. Fortunately not for too long, so that's something! Yay!

3) Expecting someone to read my mind. Almost guilty as charged. I know they cant read my mind, so I don't blame them if they don't meet my needs, I'm just stuck at how to ask for what I need most of the times. I don't think I consciously thought my needs weren't as important, but I did realise this through therapy. Therapy is also the reason I found the courage to speak up with this one. So again, that's something! But I don't think I'm ready for a relationship.

4) boundaries. Ah, my favorite word for the past year. I have been training and been setting boundaries since I began therapy a year and a half ago, and I am successful, at least when it comes to friends, aquantainces and family. I think I have a rough idea about boundaries in a relationship, because in the one that brought me to therapy, I had NONE. It was almost my worst, at least regarding how low I placed myself. Horrible feeling, but finally I started therapy. I would never not respect someone's boundaries, and haven't, again, as far as I'm aware of. Maybe in my head, which probably means it showed too, but I'm not really sure of that either, as I'm very good at following rules and basically taking care of the other person's needs, to a fault, because I usually disregarded mine, obviously. For this one, I'd say I'm somewhere in between of ready and not ready for a relationship. But tbh, I know I'm not.

"I think it takes a pretty good foundation of self love and respect, self esteem, emotional availability to ONESELF first and to the other also, to avoid drama in a relationship. "

PREACH.

I get it, I'm not opposed to a relationship completely, but I do need to work on myself more right now if I want to give and receive the intimacy I want.

This was really helpful! 🤗🤗🤗

Well you have to practise every Day so that IT becomes a habit and so that you can use in Many different situations.

(The avoidant can also use IT when they Begin to come out of their numming out.)

It's so important to practice!!! Don't just read it- do it! ❤️

Some of this, I don't know if it is the same for an anxious person? For example I was unable to cry about my sadness or grief in front of my ex for the first two years of our relationship. Finally I was so overcome I felt panicked and overwhelmed by the depth of my grief (from life losses) and I asked him to call me so I wouldn't be alone. Well, he was very kind and compassionate and comforted me and also shared that he has sadness and cries also. He was very empathetic! So that experience expanded my comfort zone. So one of the positive things I have said to my partner is to thank him for helping me cry and giving me a warm safe space to do that. I thanked him for allowing me to bring all that out and not be alone with it, and I thanked him for helping me heal. He "made" me feel loved and cared for and supported- believe me a dismissive needs to hear what they do right also hahaha! They haven't heard much of that, mostly likely. 😁❤️