Fearful avoidant and the 3 year relationship tribulations

Welcome to the forum!

I'd say, after your reading your thread, you have made a lot of good progress. You are aware of your attachment style. You are seeking therapy to address it. You have self awareness and you are taking full responsibility for your actions to your self and with your ex. This says a lot about you. I really admire this thread.

Guilt is a natural emotion and the fact that you are addressing this guilt with your therapist is a good thing. I think you need to forgive yourself.

I don't think you should punish yourself for it though. Continue to address and talk openly with your therapist.

There may come a time when you feel like writing a letter to express your feelings and the action that you have taken to address your attachment style it to your friend. I think if you both were okay to remain as friends - a friendship can exist especially if you are both in a more suitable healthy place to make that work.

Good luck. I really admire your actions.

faman, how long have you been with this therapist? Have you ever seen any others? While saying focus on being secure instead of ruminating in the past is a more positive narrative way to approach your issues, I personally find that it's important to acknowledge the past and accept yourself having issues and it being okay as part of the process. This is because insecure attachment styles are generally the result of some kind of childhood situation that was traumatic to your emotional development and need healing. In my opinion, just ignoring that you have maladaptive anxious-avoidant tendencies doesn't extend the re-writing of your narrative and understanding of yourself and identity enough. While FA is more complicated than AP to heal because it comes with two sets of nervous system conditioning to work through, for me, healing my AP required understanding it, sorting through why I had patterns and which thoughts were actually mine versus beliefs that had been projected on me by others as a kid that I'd picked up but actually made no sense as an adult, building up my sense of self and identity consistency by focusing on myself and not on wanting a partner (either wanting back an ex or wanting a new relationship), sitting with myself when triggered anxious so I could understand what was causing it (for AP, it's fear of abandonment), and then practicing more secure behaviors, such as clearly and directly communicating my thoughts and needs even when it was scary.

I've read research that re-framing your lifelong narrative can be a very productive step in the process. In my case, understanding attachment theory took a long time but truly helped because I sincerely believe the insecure attachment styles are a normal human defense mechanism response in children for survival and not anyone's fault (well, unless there was really intentional abuse), but as an adult you don't then naturally grow out of it and it no longer serves you. So at that point, you need to say it served its purpose but now I'm going to take responsibility for doing the hard work to grow out of it. Part of that may also be releasing the anger about what happened to cause it.

In your case, your awareness is very commendable and an enormous portion of the battle. And you're teetering on the brink of the next step in the process, which is doing the work to address it. That step is very painful but extremely worth it.

FA generally shares the AP fear of abandonment (triggering an overactive nervous system that gets flooded with anxiety) and DA fear of engulfment (floods the nervous system in a way that shuts it down, creating distancing and avoidance). Exploring those fears and why they developed may help you disarm them so you can recondition your nervous system to not do either of those responses. However, since you're just at the start and exploring fears will feel scary and uncomfortable and may make you shut down, I'd recommend starting with focusing on yourself, things that make you feel accomplished and good about yourself (truly just things you enjoy doing for yourself, not for accolades or because you think they'll sound impressive to others), and build yourself up so you'll have more strength to endure the crappy parts.

Though your feelings for your ex feel very overwhelming and strong right now, and I'm sure you are attached and feeling guilt and shame (FAs feel a LOT of shame in general, very normal), the intensity of all that isn't about your ex. It's projection from your past that's unrelated to your ex. While there are real feelings to deal with under there, if you can put them aside for now to focus on yourself, your perspective will start to change and (as you get more secure), you'll be better equipped to figure out what you want and communicate better and more consistently with your ex. But if you try to engage before you've done the work, you're just restarting the same repetitive cycle that's going to fail and push you further apart.

If you feel like you need to say something before you focus on yourself, you can send a brief note that you need some time and space to focus on your issues because you are taking responsibility for your part in this. Not to give hope because you don't know where you'll end up emotionally, but so your ex knows if you go no contact it isn't to be a jerk or a reflection on your feelings about your ex. But you do need to take all focus and put it on yourself and your needs for a while in order to do this work.

Again, my disclaimer is I'm not a professional and I'm not recovered FA, though I've dated many still-floundering FAs who weren't able to even get to awareness. I'm just someone who was able to get more secure from AP through lots of hard work. But I hope some of my suggestions help.

Hi Alexandra,

Thank you for taking the time to really explain your view on this.

I have been seeing my therapist since October last year, I had seen a different therapist a few years ago but my 'avoidant' side decided it wasnt for me and there was nothing wrong with me. With this therapist there was an active dialogue right at the start that the moment I feel like leaving him, I should raise this and let him know how i am feeling so we can challenge this and understand why. I will raise that with him and I may have interpreted it wrong but its still a good point to raise. His style of therapy is to help me build a healthy relationship that I can mirror with the rest of the world.

I feel like a lot of what you have said is resonating and almost what I need/want to hear. Why do FA's feel shame? Because that was a real challenge in my relationship, I used to feel a lot of shame/guilt and would feel like my ex was projecting it onto me but actually reading what you said I can see that maybe it was my own!! How can I understand what the intensity is about? It feels like its about her though! I did engage with her last year when I started therapy and this is where I am again (another break up), so you are right, it doesnt make sense to engage for now.

Are there any recovered FA's out there that can share their experiences? It sounds daunting getting to the other side.

Do you have examples of doing things or yourself? I am an extremely high achiever and so everything has to be done with an accolade in mind and when I cant do it, i come crashing. And thats not sustainable in life.

Oh, I just saw that you posted under the fearfull avoidant section.
I believe that most people don't just have one attatchment style, but oftentimes traits from the different attatchmentstyles (some secure).
It's a spectrum. But you can have one or two that are dominant in romantic relationships.
 
There are also threads about how to heal dismissive avoidant style and ambivalent style.
I do not think attatched explains a lot about FAs ?

jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1188/attatchment-style-decription-relying-thetests

What does you therapist say ?

yay, i get a mention!!