Heartbroken over my breakup with DA boyfrien

Wow, you have quite the story there.

I have broken it up a little below so people can read it a little easier.

I can assure you you did nothing wrong, apart from putting up with it all too long, and whatever happiness you think he may have found with this new person - as you surely know better than anyone - it's not real.

The changes someone like your former partner would need to embark on to solve their own internal attachment riddle, will require a whole lot of work. Some say it could take years to resolve, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't spent any time at all on figuring out what might be wrong with him. He's still likely convinced that it's you, like all the others before you.

As someone who spent an even longer time in such a dysfunctional relationship, I can assure you you will continue to have moments where you think you could have done something differently and things would have worked out better - it would not have happened.

I still miss my partner, and we still have to interact multiple times weekly due to our complicated pets. It has been a strange process pulling away and seeing her for what she is. I know she recognizes she has some deep-rooted issues, but I don't know if she will ever see that she is DA. I certainly have not told her.

Anyway, I feel so much better out of the relationship, we are friends now, and I wouldn't want anything more than that. That distancing that I put up with, was terrible and I never want to go through something like that again.

I wish you well. You should be a peace, you are better out of this than in it.

Your original story broken up a little bit:

Thank you for your book Dismissive Avoidant, How to love them or leave them.
I wish I had found it before my breakup although I'm not sure it would have changed anything. I was with my boyfriend for 4 1/2 years, 3 1/2 we lived together in his home. When we met I really wasn't very interested as I had lost my son in a car accident 4 years earlier and my husband left me 3 weeks after the funeral so I was still healing from that.

He was persistent though and eventually won me over. He was charming, attentive & caring for several months until one day he tried to give me something he had bought for his last girlfriend that she'd left behind and I calmly & politely refused it. After I left his house that night he didn't call me for several days which was unusual so on the third day I called & left a message, nothing for another day, then I get a text that says he isn't ready to talk to me & will contact me soon.

This was my first red flag, (which, I of course ignored because I was in love already) . When he finally called after 8 days he said he finally felt better ( not sure why HE felt bad, I was the one who should have) but I was informed that I should have taken the shoes the other girl left behind graciously.

After that he went back to normal for a while but slowly I could feel a subtle shift in the relationship, he began staying in his office( he's self employed) longer when I arrived for dates & making me wait sometimes long periods of time for him, not quite as attentive or loving no compliments anymore.

Eventually, he stopped saying he loved me altogether( he was the first to say it to me). At about the 9 month mark I finally tried to talk to him about what was happening & he told me very coldly that he didn't wish to discuss it, I was being ridiculous.

I let it go for another month & then I told him in a very loving way that I couldn't continue this way but I loved him & wanted to make it work if he would be willing to try. He was slightly better for a short while & during this time I moved into his house. That was the beginning of even greater distancing, he started spending 4-5 hours a day playing computer games, & even when we were together in the same room he would be on his iPad or just go to sleep so he wasn't really present with me.

At this point any attempt I made to talk to him he would turn away from me and completely ignore me as if I wasn't even there, refusing to speak or even acknowledge me at all. I tried several times to tell him how painful this was & it made me feel disrespected, I would ask him to tell me if there was a way that I was approaching him that made him unwilling to communicate, could he at least tell me we could talk at another time?

I tried to approach him always in a calm loving manner but to no avail. At our 2 year mark he started getting up in the middle of the night & sleeping on the couch always with some excuse of illness or pain in his back, cutting down sex to a bare minimum & in general never considering my feelings in anything I tried again to talk & suggest counseling, again he completely ignored me.

I packed & left. After a few weeks apart we talked & he asked me to come back saying he would try harder. Of course I did because I was unhappy with him but miserable without him. Again it was better for a short while but soon went back to all of the distancing.

In your book he did every single thing you describe except cheating, right down to walking several paces either ahead or behind me.

I could never understand why he got irritated when I would stop & let him catch up or I caught up to him. I should mention he is 46 years old & I am the longest relationship he has had by far. Most lasted between 2-6 months except one he had 11 years ago that I feel was his "phantom ex". When he spoke of her he had a pained look on his face & said he wasn't sure he wanted to be with her but was very unhappy without her when she left.

She left him after giving him an ultimatum either propose or I will move on. She left him when he didn't & became engaged to someone else, then they got back together briefly & he still didn't propose so she left again. He said she didn't give him time to repair the relationship. They were together 2 years.

I always had the feeling I was being compared to her & I fell short. The final straw came after 4 1/2 years together, his distancing was worse than ever & his refusal to communicate at all, I once again tried talking to him, this time pleading with him to tell me what was wrong & telling him I was more than willing to listen to him & repair whatever the problem was.

All he would say was he "felt he had lost his connection to me & couldn't get it back. Connection! How on earth could we maintain a connection on ANY level if we don't talk, don't make love, don't even sleep in the same bed sometimes! I was so upset & confused as to how he couldn't see that he was constantly sabotaging any possibility of intimacy or connection between us.

This is a very intelligent, highly successful business man but he seems oblivious to his patterns with women. One was too jealous, one tried to force him to marry her before he was ready, another just was never happy, still another thought her time was more important than his & the list goes on.

It should have occurred to me that it was always something lacking in them & never him. I have no idea what reason he will give for our breakup. I treated always with love and respect even when he himself couldn't do the same for me.

We have been apart for 8 months now, I have not contacted him even once but he called me after the first month & called, texted, emailed & periodocally showed up at my office many, many times though I asked him not to for the first 6 months.

The last time he convinced me to come by his house & we talked & he told me he wanted to see me more, missed me & he hugged me for a very long time.

I left so happy, I thought maybe he finally realized he didn't want to lose me. That was the last time I ever heard from him! It has been 2 months & someone told me he is seeing someone else now. I am so confused & heartbroken, I don't understand why he did that, why not just leave me alone if he didn't want to get back together?

How can he just move on to someone else so easily so soon as long as we were together? I am sure everyone will think I should be glad to be rid of him but I am not, I allowed myself to hope that we could try again. That maybe he would start to question himself as he is getting older now.

I am torturing myself with thoughts of him with someone else, will she find the magic me to his heart & he will commit to her? Please help me to make sense of this, I am still unsure how often dismissive avoidants ever really change?

Thank you for taking time to read my story.