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Post by confusedm on Dec 13, 2019 23:01:12 GMT
Met A Oct 2016 and immediately felt something I never have and I’ve dated and been with a lot of women. She’s a modern dancer and Pilates instructor. I work in finance on a trading desk. A happens to be my best friends girlfriends sister. I live with my best friend and A lives with her sister. Yes it’s a complicated dynamic.
She had a bf at the time, a month after they broke up A and I slept together for the first time. My roommate didn’t want it to continue and her sister told A she couldn’t date me. Every time we saw each other there was intense chemistry. 5 months later she’s “hooking up” w/ some kid and we end up sleeping together and both admit there’s something between us and want to date. Roommate and gf break up that week and we agree that we can’t see each other. A month later they’re back together so A and I start talking again, see each other, make plans to hang out. Apparently she’s been seeing somebody from out of town for a month or so, she cancels plans on me. About 2 weeks later she dumps him and hits me up, we start dating. We date for 3 months, very intensely. No official talks or anything but going on dates and sleeping at each other’s places 3-4 times a week. I’m under the impression she is crazy in love with me and we’re about to get serious. She goes away on a family trip, everything seems great, she comes back, we hang out a few times and less than a week later she blindside dumps me saying she’s not ready for a serious relationship and we’re in different places in life and she’s not ready to fall in love (she’s 23 turning 24 at the time I’m 27). I’m destroyed by the break up.
After this the following events take place: We sleep together 2 months later 2 weekends in a row, she flakes on 2 things with me, I find out she’s hooking up with one of my good friends roommates, she brings some kid she apparently hooked up with on that fam trip (we weren’t exclusive at the time though I thought we were about to be) to a friends party where I am (she winds up calling me the next day apologizing), she starts coming around more and we become “friendly” again and this brings us to this past July.
She’s leaving for a 3 week trip, we sleep together the night before she leaves. I think it’s just a one time thing and plan to use the 3 weeks to try and really get over her bc to that point I had not moved on. To my surprise while she’s in Italy she begins texting me and we start talking. She gets back and we start hooking up again pretty much every week for the next 2 months. During this time she’s telling my best friend she’s not ready for a relationship but likes me likes hanging out with me etc. after 2 months of this everything changes and she says she wants to be with me. “You’re special to me, being away from you made me realize I want to be with you, I’ve been an idiot, I’m done being scared, you make me happy, you’re the only one I want and will be exclusive to you and give you my whole heart and when you’re ready you can give me yours (I told her I want to give it a shot also but she’d have to prove herself and get my trust back after everything that had happened)” are things she said.
We started dating again. Again very intensely off the bat. Quickly she introduces me to her whole family. Talks of future plans like trips and owning a dog together. Everything seems amazing once again. She tells me she loves me first. Eventually I tell her I love her too a few weeks later. We have a few small fights this time due to some of my trust issues with her so it’s not all perfect but I was working on it and she was doing her best to help as well. I’m under the impression everything is great though, we love each other and that’s only growing stronger, we have a whole future coming to us. She invites me on her families vacation. I’m very happy, the girl I’ve been wanting back is telling me she loves me and pushing the pace of the relationship. I’d say about 4 or 5 days into the 7 day trip she starts acting weird, distant, I ask her whats wrong and she says everything is fine, eventually snapping at me at dinner our last night (I tell her not to snap at me), something is seriously off so I try to give her space.
2 days after we get back she breaks up with me. Reasons she gave:
She said it all started about 3 weeks before this, we woke up together, she was getting ready to leave, I kissed her cheek, and she started doubting or being unsure. She pushed them aside and felt better about everything and then they came back on vacation
said I deserve somebody who loves me as much as I love her
loves me but isn’t in love with me and really wants to be (Dont understand how she can say this and have looked at me the way she did, smile/laugh the way she did, show the affection
she did, say the things she did. What girl is texting her bf at 1am on a Tuesday night just to tell him how much she loves him if shes not in love with him)
I love her too much
we see the future differently (which I said we’ve barely spoken about that) so she changed it to we want different things because were different people, that she’s more free spirited and
wild and spontaneous and I’m more planned and organized and like to plan my fun
said I hold her down (I said I’ve never once stopped you from doing anything you’ve wanted to do) she said whenever I want to do something I feel like I have to see if you can do it too then said that didn’t come out right
said I base too many decisions on her decisions
said I only do things she wants to do then said but then again you’re so easy going you’d always do something I want to do but she doesn’t want that for me
said that I did things for her that made her think “don’t do that for me”
said she’s unhappy sometimes (which kills/confuses me because she always seemed extremely happy when with me)
that we were falling into the relationship at diff rates
when I said let’s take some space and talk about these things that she’s never once mentioned anything to me about what’s bothering her making her unhappy she said what’s the point these feelings will just come back and there’s nothing I can do
Said sometimes she felt contained and didn't want to feel contained (no idea what made her feel contained since she went and did whatever she wanted whenever)
I am so beyond confused. I know things were not perfect but it felt like we were in love with each other with so much to come that we were both excited about, that we had a connection and out of nowhere this is what happened after everything. No difficult conversations of her telling me things that are bothering her or making her unhappy. Feel like somehow I ****ed it all up.
What the hell could have happened? I don’t get how we can be on such drastically different pages and me have no idea? I don’t know if she’s not a good person (my roommates tells me she always breaks guys hearts), if she’s just too young and immature for a real relationship with me (she just turned 25 and I turned 29), or if we’re somehow incompatible? (Though I never felt we were incompatible at all, different types of people yes in some aspects but had a ton in common and really thought we fit great together).
Maybe she's a narcissist/has commitment issues/is BPD/unavailable?
Does she sound DA to all you DA experts here?
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Post by alexandra on Dec 14, 2019 0:00:34 GMT
confusedm, I am sorry you're going through this. You've posted this in DA, and she certainly sounds like she's some type of avoidant. Everything was exciting for months while there were all sorts of reasons you couldn't be together. She was hot and cold, and surprise surprise, she continued to be that way once you were dating each other more consistently. Plus, you've been told that she just treats men this way. Plus, attachment issues often exist in families (if someone has them, it's likely siblings do as well), and her sister and your roommate have a rocky on-and-off relationship too plus both tried to control your relationship (which frankly has nothing to do with them) so they've got issues, too. Though people are capable of change, they have to want to. When they aren't trying hard to change, for themselves not for another person, then biggest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. You describe typical avoidant cycles, and an avoidant who is now deactivated. You didn't imagine the connection or the relationship, but she is not compatible with you. She has different needs than you do and doesn't sound right with herself. This has nothing to do with you and all the issues were in place before you met, nothing to do with her age. Unfortunately, you can't do anything about this because it's her issue. She has to want to confront her issues on her own, which takes years, and she doesn't want to at this point in time. This is evident from the endless number of excuses she's made, most of which are deflecting responsibility. And what you're feeling is completely normal for someone on the receiving end of this, trying to cling to crumbs of hope in the inconsistent behavior. So the question you need to ask yourself, is why are you so keen on being with someone who is extremely emotionally unavailable? Is this a pattern with you, that you fall harder for women who won't smoothly commit? Often those who stick around for so long in relationships that are rocky have insecure attachment style issues themselves to work out, or they'll repeat damaging relationships with new insecurely attached partners. You must know something about attachment theory since you knew where to post this. Your post is very focused on her, but what about your side of things?
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Post by confusedm on Dec 14, 2019 1:17:37 GMT
confusedm , I am sorry you're going through this. You've posted this in DA, and she certainly sounds like she's some type of avoidant. Everything was exciting for months while there were all sorts of reasons you couldn't be together. She was hot and cold, and surprise surprise, she continued to be that way once you were dating each other more consistently. Plus, you've been told that she just treats men this way. Plus, attachment issues often exist in families (if someone has them, it's likely siblings do as well), and her sister and your roommate have a rocky on-and-off relationship too plus both tried to control your relationship (which frankly has nothing to do with them) so they've got issues, too. Not sure about her sister, she's been with my friend ever since that one break up for a total of I think 3 years and they live together now. I do know her father had an affair that her whole family found out about and their mother decided to stay with their father. When on vacation with them, it was not a very loving dynamic between them. I honestly had never seen a dynamic like theirs before between husband and wife. It was kind of weird for me to be frank. Though people are capable of change, they have to want to. When they aren't trying hard to change, for themselves not for another person, then biggest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So I've been told. When I met her, I found out she had I think 2 serious boyfriends in HS (I know, it's HS) that lasted multiple years each and then had a boyfriend for 3-3.5 years in college which she lived with for a year. She's still good friends with all of them and pretty much best friends with her ex from college (she thinks he's gay for whatever that is worth), so I thought she was a girl that preferred a relationship. Based on what she told me, she ended things the first time because she wasn't ready for a serious relationship, which at the time made no sense to me and crushed me. Looking back on it, I get it a little bit, she was 23 turning 24 and just out of a serious relationship a few months before and new to NYC. But then she came back with these big words and actions and it all seemed to make sense and everything was real. You describe typical avoidant cycles, and an avoidant who is now deactivated. You didn't imagine the connection or the relationship, but she is not compatible with you. She has different needs than you do and doesn't sound right with herself. This has nothing to do with you and all the issues were in place before you met, nothing to do with her age. When I think about compatibility I tend to think of things like marriage, kids, location, values, etc. What are you seeing as incompatibilities/different needs and her issues? If she is in fact avoidant, then how was she able to maintain those earlier serious relationships? That really gets me and makes me sad that she couldn't with me, didn't try to with me, that I wasn't the guy to make her so absolutely in love with me that she would do anything to make it work. I absolutely hate the idea that there will be a guy that makes her feel that and will only get the best of her. Why wasn't it me when she acted like I was? Interestingly enough, since our breakup she had another fling with some guy, and apparently ended things with him pretty much out of nowhere stating "He likes her too much" and "He always does what she wants to do" sounds very familiar... And now apparently after this guy, or throughout the last several months, she's been in contact with the boat servant she slept with behind my back, and seen him a few times. Most recently she flew to London where he's from and then 2 weeks later he came to NY. I've read avoidants tend towards people that are unavailable/that they know it won't work out with? Unfortunately, you can't do anything about this because it's her issue. She has to want to confront her issues on her own, which takes years, and she doesn't want to at this point in time. This is evident from the endless number of excuses she's made, most of which are deflecting responsibility. And what you're feeling is completely normal for someone on the receiving end of this, trying to cling to crumbs of hope in the inconsistent behavior. Where do you see signs of deflecting responsibility and what does it say about her? So the question you need to ask yourself, is why are you so keen on being with someone who is extremely emotionally unavailable? Is this a pattern with you, that you fall harder for women who won't smoothly commit? Often those who stick around for so long in relationships that are rocky have insecure attachment style issues themselves to work out, or they'll repeat damaging relationships with new insecurely attached partners. You must know something about attachment theory since you knew where to post this. Your post is very focused on her, but what about your side of things? Hmm why am I so keen? I'm keen because I have dated a lot and have never had a connection like this before (although maybe some of that was love bombing?) and while you might not get just one in life I definitely think they're rare. It seemed like she felt pretty similarly. Things felt so easy and great when we were together. It was by far the happiest I've ever been. We seemed to want to do so many of the same things, enjoyed the same things, but also had great differences that kept it interesting and that we could both learn and grow from each other. I really loved her for her and was happy and believed in my heart and soul that being together was just right. As to myself, I'm not really sure. She's the first girl I ever felt this way for before and first girl I ever fell in love with. Girls I dated or had casual relationships with in the past, I'm not really sure what my attachment style was like. I think maybe because of this girl, after our first break up, I have some anxious tendencies? I have been seeing a therapist since this break up and working to get myself out of this funk and rebuild myself. |
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Post by confusedm on Dec 16, 2019 15:00:33 GMT
Could anybody please provide some insight??
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cukie
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Post by cukie on Dec 16, 2019 19:01:30 GMT
What insight do you want? 3 Months might not be enough to lay out whether or not she's avoidant or not (probably). Typically one would expect the early stages of the relationship and the honeymoon phase to go on much longer than that. She might also just have realized she isn't interested in you in that way, or maybe she isn't looking for a committed relationship - maybe she's just a scumbag, idk.
But move on - she's clearly not emotionally available and she's clearly not what you actually are looking for. So stop chasing her, cut contact, pick up your life, and move on. You can't change her and she can't change herself for the forseeable future.
If she is an avoidant (and she kinda seems like one) there's nothing you can do - if they haven't actively acknowledged the issue and are trying to fight their cognitive dissonance then you are wasting your time. What you perceive as closeness and love will suffocate her, and what she believes is important space and independence will leave you feeling hurt and unloved.
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Post by kittygirl on Dec 16, 2019 19:31:42 GMT
I think some of the best insight you will find on all of the internet lies within the posts of this forum. I would STRONGLY encourage you to read through the posts not only in this channel but in the Fearful Avoidant section (her behavior while it doesn't sound like my FA ex sounds VERY much like my FA friend) as well. Read through people's accounts. It will likely be very sobering to you. The more you learn about attachment through the stories you will read here, the more you will see (and really believe) that this is a journey that only the other person can complete (Unless you have your own insecure attachment in which case that is your own journey and you will find support here for that as well). If she does have insecure attachment (which is sounds likely she does) this will repeat and repeat and repeat. And the same goes for you if in fact you are AP. There are people in these boards that are in their 50s and 60s and are just now realizing they have insecure attachment. I encourage you to work on this NOW and you have a life of good relationships ahead of you (and if nothing else, you will know the red flags of insecure attachment to look for in the future in potential partners).
Thats my best insight for you-to learn through others.
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Post by confusedm on Dec 16, 2019 19:41:01 GMT
What insight do you want? 3 Months might not be enough to lay out whether or not she's avoidant or not (probably). Typically one would expect the early stages of the relationship and the honeymoon phase to go on much longer than that. She might also just have realized she isn't interested in you in that way, or maybe she isn't looking for a committed relationship - maybe she's just a scumbag, idk. But move on - she's clearly not emotionally available and she's clearly not what you actually are looking for. So stop chasing her, cut contact, pick up your life, and move on. You can't change her and she can't change herself for the forseeable future. If she is an avoidant (and she kinda seems like one) there's nothing you can do - if they haven't actively acknowledged the issue and are trying to fight their cognitive dissonance then you are wasting your time. What you perceive as closeness and love will suffocate her, and what she believes is important space and independence will leave you feeling hurt and unloved. Well it was sort of more than 3 months... The first time we dated was only three months yea. Then a few casual hooks ups, then dated for 2 months casually and then another 3 exclusively. When you say what I perceive as closeness and love will suffocate her and what she believes is important space and independence... I'm curious about this. She would always tell me she's thinking of me, wishes she was with me, always wanting to see me. Very very affectionate and warm in person. Often would ask about my secrets and life and tell me very vulnerable things about herself and her past. I really do not think I suffocated her. She went and did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted and I was completely fine with that. I made sure we didn't spend TOO much time together so she and I would have our space. The only thing I asked her not to do was sleep at her ex boyfriends apartment since she did it once while we were together and not have him sleep at her apartment because they had slept together much earlier in the year. So I'm curious what sort of things would make her/an avoidant feel suffocated? What screams emotionally unavailable to you? It's all VERY confusing when somebody one minute is telling you how much they love you and kissing you and telling you they waited so long for this and the next, it's all over. |
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Post by iz42 on Dec 16, 2019 20:46:36 GMT
It sounds like she gave you very clear feedback about why she doesn't want to be in a relationship with you. I know it's painful and this might sound brutal, but ultimately, it doesn't matter whether she is avoidant or not. Focusing on her isn't going to get you very far. I would say that the best thing you can do is to do your best to move on and work on yourself. You say this is the first person you've ever been in love with, which might be worth exploring in therapy.
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Post by amber on Dec 16, 2019 21:05:37 GMT
She sounds fearful avoidant to me rather than DA. Check out the stuff on FA, it may help you make more sense of things
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Post by alexandra on Dec 16, 2019 21:33:29 GMT
confusedm "When I think about compatibility I tend to think of things like marriage, kids, location, values, etc. What are you seeing as incompatibilities/different needs and her issues? If she is in fact avoidant, then how was she able to maintain those earlier serious relationships? That really gets me and makes me sad that she couldn't with me, didn't try to with me, that I wasn't the guy to make her so absolutely in love with me that she would do anything to make it work. I absolutely hate the idea that there will be a guy that makes her feel that and will only get the best of her. Why wasn't it me when she acted like I was?" Marriage, kids, location, values are dealbreakers and related to compatibility, yes. If you're way off in conflict about any of those things, you're going to hit a wall and have a difficult time. However, equally important to compatibility, and even underlying those things, is communication, reliability, vulnerability, trust, and commitment. If you partner up with someone who you have all the same tastes in food and activities and fun, and you're physically attracted to each other, yet you can't have real honest discussions when something is wrong or you can't fight fairly or problem-solve together, or the partner gets scared and runs off for weeks any time you have a real emergency (like, say, you lose your job or have a health scare or your child gets sick), or they flirt with others or cheat to deal with stress when they know that's a violation to you... that's a bad and incompatible partnership. What's the point of being in a relationship that only makes your life better conditional on things being good, but makes you feel worse when everything isn't perfect? Part of a healthy committed relationship is not feeling the need to break up over any disagreement or doubt the entire relationship over your own unrelated insecurities. Your partner has to be solid enough to make the decision to be committed. Love is actually a choice, not something that can't be helped and is an external thing out of your control. A partner who is expecting you must always make them feel good even if they don't do the same for you doesn't know what love and compatibility is. Insecure attachment causes emotional unavailability for all insecure style types because it keeps people from communicating openly, having healthy boundaries, expressing their needs honestly and vulnerability, even knowing their needs at all, and it's deep within the nervous system due to earlier life experiences. Avoidants deactivate because of previous neglect or scary chaos when they got close to loved ones and learned they weren't able to trust those caretakers to meet their needs. As a result, they fear engulfment, and when they get too close, their nervous systems just shut down and they disconnect. And it just feels related to the current situation but often isn't -- it is over coupling, which @inmourning just posted a link about in the general thread. That means avoidants desire space and move away from problems and emotional overwhelm. Non-avoidants generally don't do this. Anxious want to move closer to deal with problems because they experience a complete overwhelm in their nervous system as it getting hyper active, and to relieve the triggered system they want to feel reconnection to soothe their fear of abandonment first and foremost. So avoidant and anxious have incompatible needs, and both actually put their own needs above their partner to calm their own nervous systems. In simpler terms, dismissive avoidant trusts self over other (distrusts other) while anxious trusts over other self (distrusts self). So anxious will lack an ability to self-regulate emotions and looks to the partner to do it. Dismissive avoidant don't seek external validation like this, as it wasn't available to them in early life, and want space instead. Fearful avoidant can oscillate between the two, but often will become more avoidant if they're partnered with someone more anxious, and will become more anxious if partnered with someone more avoidant. That's why she acted differently with other partners than with you. It's still part of the same dysfunctional insecure cycling. Which is also why the only way to salvage it in the long term is if both partners truly want to heal their own injuries, again, existing from way before they met their partners. And you can only successfully heal those if you want to do it for yourself and not for another person. That usually involves feeling rock bottom pain and NEEDING to make a life change. That usually is not a personal journey decision made out of love for someone else. It's more made out of recognizing a lack of love for yourself and steeling yourself to do the hard work to correct that.
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cukie
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Post by cukie on Dec 16, 2019 22:38:19 GMT
What insight do you want? 3 Months might not be enough to lay out whether or not she's avoidant or not (probably). Typically one would expect the early stages of the relationship and the honeymoon phase to go on much longer than that. She might also just have realized she isn't interested in you in that way, or maybe she isn't looking for a committed relationship - maybe she's just a scumbag, idk. But move on - she's clearly not emotionally available and she's clearly not what you actually are looking for. So stop chasing her, cut contact, pick up your life, and move on. You can't change her and she can't change herself for the forseeable future. If she is an avoidant (and she kinda seems like one) there's nothing you can do - if they haven't actively acknowledged the issue and are trying to fight their cognitive dissonance then you are wasting your time. What you perceive as closeness and love will suffocate her, and what she believes is important space and independence will leave you feeling hurt and unloved. When you say what I perceive as closeness and love will suffocate her and what she believes is important space and independence... I'm curious about this. Sorry about the time, misinterpreted your post. OK, so you know the thing you mentioned about her seeming to enjoy a date but then going cold afterwards. That's a good example. You probably go on a decent date, have a fun time, and perceive her as doing the same. Now, as a non-avoidant you see that and think "Oh, thats good, we should spend more time together." That's not really how an avoidant thinks (the following statement is a gross over-generalization but it should get the point across) . The avoidant goes on that date, has fun, and then is overwhelmed with the closeness and then disconnects afterwards. This disconnect can be as short as a few days, to going on for a few weeks/months depending on the avoidant. If you don't respect this need for space, its very likely to cause huge problems in the relationship. Even if you do, if the avoidant isn't actively addressing this issue (as you should actively address being what someone would refer to as "clingy" during this time) - then it very likely will continue to get worse over time. Now thats a simple date - the status quo. Now lets move on to some of the things you're talking about. Once you start getting into really important topics: relationship goals, long term commitments, fixing a broken relationship - these are one way tickets to a relationship's destruction with them unless they are actively self-correcting. The expectations absolutely suffocate and stress them to the extent where they feel they have to leave. When you get back together things go great, then they pull away, you pursue, the relationship blows up - thats the typical pattern in something like this and you've indicated it a couple of times. She's right, she can't love you the way you love her. Even if you are willing to do your best to love her for how she is, and wait for her to fix it - A) theres no guarantee that will ever happen and B) she probably associates so much stress with the relationship that it will never be stable again. She's always going to feel the weight of those expectations and the relationship will always "suffocate" her. |
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Post by confusedm on Dec 16, 2019 23:28:40 GMT
She sounds fearful avoidant to me rather than DA. Check out the stuff on FA, it may help you make more sense of things Will do some digging. What indicates to you FA more so than DA? confusedm "When I think about compatibility I tend to think of things like marriage, kids, location, values, etc. What are you seeing as incompatibilities/different needs and her issues? If she is in fact avoidant, then how was she able to maintain those earlier serious relationships? That really gets me and makes me sad that she couldn't with me, didn't try to with me, that I wasn't the guy to make her so absolutely in love with me that she would do anything to make it work. I absolutely hate the idea that there will be a guy that makes her feel that and will only get the best of her. Why wasn't it me when she acted like I was?" Marriage, kids, location, values are dealbreakers and related to compatibility, yes. If you're way off in conflict about any of those things, you're going to hit a wall and have a difficult time. However, equally important to compatibility, and even underlying those things, is communication, reliability, vulnerability, trust, and commitment. If you partner up with someone who you have all the same tastes in food and activities and fun, and you're physically attracted to each other, yet you can't have real honest discussions when something is wrong or you can't fight fairly or problem-solve together, or the partner gets scared and runs off for weeks any time you have a real emergency (like, say, you lose your job or have a health scare or your child gets sick), or they flirt with others or cheat to deal with stress when they know that's a violation to you... that's a bad and incompatible partnership. What's the point of being in a relationship that only makes your life better conditional on things being good, but makes you feel worse when everything isn't perfect? Part of a healthy committed relationship is not feeling the need to break up over any disagreement or doubt the entire relationship over your own unrelated insecurities. Your partner has to be solid enough to make the decision to be committed. Love is actually a choice, not something that can't be helped and is an external thing out of your control. A partner who is expecting you must always make them feel good even if they don't do the same for you doesn't know what love and compatibility is. Insecure attachment causes emotional unavailability for all insecure style types because it keeps people from communicating openly, having healthy boundaries, expressing their needs honestly and vulnerability, even knowing their needs at all, and it's deep within the nervous system due to earlier life experiences. Avoidants deactivate because of previous neglect or scary chaos when they got close to loved ones and learned they weren't able to trust those caretakers to meet their needs. As a result, they fear engulfment, and when they get too close, their nervous systems just shut down and they disconnect. And it just feels related to the current situation but often isn't -- it is over coupling, which @inmourning just posted a link about in the general thread. That means avoidants desire space and move away from problems and emotional overwhelm. Non-avoidants generally don't do this. Anxious want to move closer to deal with problems because they experience a complete overwhelm in their nervous system as it getting hyper active, and to relieve the triggered system they want to feel reconnection to soothe their fear of abandonment first and foremost. So avoidant and anxious have incompatible needs, and both actually put their own needs above their partner to calm their own nervous systems. In simpler terms, dismissive avoidant trusts self over other (distrusts other) while anxious trusts over other self (distrusts self). So anxious will lack an ability to self-regulate emotions and looks to the partner to do it. Dismissive avoidant don't seek external validation like this, as it wasn't available to them in early life, and want space instead. Fearful avoidant can oscillate between the two, but often will become more avoidant if they're partnered with someone more anxious, and will become more anxious if partnered with someone more avoidant. That's why she acted differently with other partners than with you. It's still part of the same dysfunctional insecure cycling. Which is also why the only way to salvage it in the long term is if both partners truly want to heal their own injuries, again, existing from way before they met their partners. And you can only successfully heal those if you want to do it for yourself and not for another person. That usually involves feeling rock bottom pain and NEEDING to make a life change. That usually is not a personal journey decision made out of love for someone else. It's more made out of recognizing a lack of love for yourself and steeling yourself to do the hard work to correct that. Well I don't know if this qualifies as the kind of trauma you're talking about but her around the time she was in maybe 7th grade they found out her father was having an affair. The mother stayed with him though. Any time I was with her family though the dynamic between them was very different to anything I had seen before. Did not sense much love and affection there. Not sure if that matters at all? The whole communication thing resonates with me. While she did reveal some very vulnerable things to me and twice let me know something I was doing annoyed her, she did completely blindside me twice without ever once saying something was even irritating her. I also remember when we had our one noteworthy fight, we had a talk about it, thought it was cleared but she held onto it for a couple of more days without saying anything until I asked her what was going on. She said she was just processing things internally and would figure it out and let it go. I told her if she wants to talk about it I was there to talk about it because I didn't want unsaid things to ruin anything and if she didn't want to talk about it that was fine to. When I saw her later that night she was totally fine and said sorry about that I just needed to let it go and I have. We had one more short conversation about it later that night that I thought was a really good conversation and that was that. Now that I think about that conversation though she did make it like she had something to say and when I asked her she just said "Nothing, I love you for who you are and don't want you to change." And right before the break up, when she was acting weird on on vacation the last day, I gave her space and eventually asked her what was wrong. She said nothing she was fine. She then had what she later said was an anxiety attack and got up to go for a walk by herself. She came back, said she was fine, gave me a sea shell. Then when we went back to the house and were showering together I asked her if she wanted to talk about anything, she said no she just had some anxiety and I said ok because didn't want to keep asking because I know that gets under my skin when people do that to me. So again, not communicating. But again, every "reason" she stated in this breakup, completely out of left field. Not sure if she wasn't able to communicate with me because of avoidance or immaturity though? Why not communicate though? Because she can't or because she's not invested enough to? If an avoidant is basically unable to communicate within a relationship with anybody, how do they ever make a relationship work and last? When you say what I perceive as closeness and love will suffocate her and what she believes is important space and independence... I'm curious about this. Sorry about the time, misinterpreted your post. OK, so you know the thing you mentioned about her seeming to enjoy a date but then going cold afterwards. That's a good example. You probably go on a decent date, have a fun time, and perceive her as doing the same. Now, as a non-avoidant you see that and think "Oh, thats good, we should spend more time together." That's not really how an avoidant thinks (the following statement is a gross over-generalization but it should get the point across) . The avoidant goes on that date, has fun, and then is overwhelmed with the closeness and then disconnects afterwards. This disconnect can be as short as a few days, to going on for a few weeks/months depending on the avoidant. If you don't respect this need for space, its very likely to cause huge problems in the relationship. Even if you do, if the avoidant isn't actively addressing this issue (as you should actively address being what someone would refer to as "clingy" during this time) - then it very likely will continue to get worse over time. Now thats a simple date - the status quo. Now lets move on to some of the things you're talking about. Once you start getting into really important topics: relationship goals, long term commitments, fixing a broken relationship - these are one way tickets to a relationship's destruction with them unless they are actively self-correcting. The expectations absolutely suffocate and stress them to the extent where they feel they have to leave. When you get back together things go great, then they pull away, you pursue, the relationship blows up - thats the typical pattern in something like this and you've indicated it a couple of times. She's right, she can't love you the way you love her. Even if you are willing to do your best to love her for how she is, and wait for her to fix it - A) theres no guarantee that will ever happen and B) she probably associates so much stress with the relationship that it will never be stable again. She's always going to feel the weight of those expectations and the relationship will always "suffocate" her. I understand what you're getting at. But is it typical for an avoidant to be the one initiating and driving the speed of the relationship? She was the one to bring up being exclusive, to say I love you first, to introduce me to her family/friends/co-workers first, invited me on her family's trip. Initiated hanging out often, would often be the first to text me. She even talked to me about things a few months into the future. I never really brought up deep relationship stuff, I figured if there was something like that, she would bring it up when ready. We did have one noteworthy fight which she didn't let go of quite as easily as she led me to believe or as I did but I thought we had 2 really good conversations about it and put it to bed. The one real long term commitment thing I could think of was we had briefly spoke about a big trip together above 10 months in advance. Nothing crazy just like oo we should totally go to this place next year a couple of times. So I see what you're saying about avoidants pulling away but she never pulled away until the very end, it was full speed ahead from the word go. Also, is it typical for an avoidant to be able to pinpoint an exact moment where everything changed for them? |
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Post by amber on Dec 16, 2019 23:57:10 GMT
She sounds FA as she is loving and caring and then distances...blows hot and cold. This is typical FA. A DA is usually more consistent... they don’t blow hot and cold as much and usually appear more emotionally regulated... an FA can be super eager at the start and come
On strong only to disappear when intimacy and closeness occur. This is typical of my recent FA ex. Read about it in Jebs books. Also consider why you have attracted someone like this into your life... focus on healing yourself rather than her issues. That way u will hopefully attract a more healthy partner in future. Also she is still very young... her age may
Preclude her from working on herself or being conscious of her issues. I’m pretty sure I was FA when I was young and used to
Behave similarly to her. There’s no way I would have had the maturity to begin working on myself then
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Post by serenity on Dec 17, 2019 0:35:07 GMT
Oh, I'm sorry to read this story confusedm! The relationship dynamics so far sound so torturous, all that hot and cold, and especially the way she has bounced around to other men as well. Hot and cold behaviour this extreme mixed with triangulation will make you feel crazy, and is also a powerful psychological hook. If she's ended it, you really have dodged a bullet. Its easy in these circumstances to confuse `passionate love' with addictive relationship dynamics. If you have a chance, google `intermittent reinforcement in relationships', and you'll see how it creates a sense of `false passion' and how bad it is for your mental health. I'm so sorry you've been through all this  Its heartbreaking to think you met the perfect person and discover they have these kinds of issues that get in the way of a positive and consistent relationship. Please take good care of yourself? You didn't do anything wrong here. |
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Post by confusedm on Dec 17, 2019 1:07:47 GMT
Oh, I'm sorry to read this story confusedm! The relationship dynamics so far sound so torturous, all that hot and cold, and especially the way she has bounced around to other men as well. Hot and cold behaviour this extreme mixed with triangulation will make you feel crazy, and is also a powerful psychological hook. If she's ended it, you really have dodged a bullet. Its easy in these circumstances to confuse `passionate love' with addictive relationship dynamics. If you have a chance, google `intermittent reinforcement in relationships', and you'll see how it creates a sense of `false passion' and how bad it is for your mental health. I'm so sorry you've been through all this Its heartbreaking to think you met the perfect person and discover they have these kinds of issues that get in the way of a positive and consistent relationship. Please take good care of yourself? You didn't do anything wrong here. It's been a really tough 2 years for sure. An absolute emotional roller coaster. The highest highs and the lowest lows. The whole time I've viewed what happened between us as we both felt this rare connection, the first time she got scared, wasn't ready for a serious relationship, always had feelings for me in the meantime, which in my mind was confirmed when she came back to me (and even said she never stopped thinking about me, I was special to her, etc.) wanting to be my girlfriend. I thought now that she made this big commitment to me, all these pent up feelings were coming out and that's why things were pretty intense. She seemed truly happy and in love with me and was referring to things in the future for us. It all seemed to make sense and add up. The first break up, this break up, all the messed up things in between, I hit absolute rock bottom. But whenever we were either dating, or casually hanging out, whatever it was, I had never been happier. Sorry what is triangulation? Never heard that term before. |
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Its heartbreaking to think you met the perfect person and discover they have these kinds of issues that get in the way of a positive and consistent relationship. Please take good care of yourself? You didn't do anything wrong here.