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Post by kittygirl on Mar 31, 2020 16:29:13 GMT
Hello all. I want to start this post off with a disclaimer-I am in no way maligning or accosting the FAs in this forum with this post. I am merely trying to get some insights about a pattern I see which I just can't for the life of me understand (I feel like I can understand a lot of the other stuff that my FA ex did/does)
TL;DR: Why are words and actions so often not aligned for FAs?
So as you all know, I was in a LDR with an FA. We broke up (not a blindside dump fortunately, but it happened after I called him out for deactivating and he said he couldn't meet my needs. This is only relevant because all in all we ended things on a very good note.), Since then we have been trying to have some sort of friendship which is not going great as push/pulling is still there despite me telling him over and over I'm not interested in a relationship and he can chill out its cool. But here's the issue I have (in general): a pattern that we see over and over on these boards is that actions and words don't align when it comes to FA behavior. This is something talked about over and over. And I can't figure out why.
To give you some context (I will give the cliffsnotes here) what spurned this with me what a conversation with my ex the other day. He dipped out on me for 2 weeks and then came back and I was like "this is absurd I'm going to call him and tell him". So I called him, said "This dynamic we are entrenched in is hurting me. You dip out on me for weeks and then blast back into my life and it's causing me pain. We clearly are just triggering the shit out of each other and it's not good for either of us as we are hurting each other" He then proceeds to tell me how MUCH he wants me in his life. How he doesn't contact me because he doesn't want to be a bother and etc etc. How he just assumes I have my own thing going on. (Side note-he also says he's "crazy" about me and would love so much to be in a relationship but just "can't". I don't even respond because I don't want to be in a relationship so I just sort of listen). At one point when I was explaining some things I "see" about him and understand about him he starts quite literally crying on the phone. I ask "what's wrong" and he says "It just feels so amazing to have someone who understands me".
All of this stuff and YET he will just dip out again. And again. I mean it's much much less bothersome to me now since I am not wanting in any way to be in a relationship and I have all my own shit going on. BUT the words/action not aligning can still be painful in a more general sense. Like am I literally being made a fool of here? Are you just yanking me around?? Is what you say truthful and if not, is that conscious or unconscious? Are you being truthful but you really CAN'T follow through? These are questions that I am directing at the universe as we see it over and over again (not to my specific situation)
By the way I should mention-with my FA friend (whos only ever been my friend) his words and actions ALWAYS align. He is there for me 24/7. He reaches out. He wants to see me. He wants to communicate with me. He's open with me. We are quite close. He says I know him better than anyone. But he is highly FA in his romantic relationships. So I just don't get it.
I want to be clear that I am fully prepared to walk away from even this "friendship" (if you can call it that) completely at this point. Ive got like 3/4 of my body out the door. This post isn't fishing for you guys to make me "feel better" about the situation and I also don't need to be told about my own role as i am aware (though for the record I simply don't put any effort in anymore which is probably why he assumes i'm "doing my own thing" now). I just want insights as to why we see over and over that the words and actions to back them up are not aligned.
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Post by tnr9 on Mar 31, 2020 17:22:34 GMT
Hello all. I want to start this post off with a disclaimer-I am in no way maligning or accosting the FAs in this forum with this post. I am merely trying to get some insights about a pattern I see which I just can't for the life of me understand (I feel like I can understand a lot of the other stuff that my FA ex did/does)
TL;DR: Why are words and actions so often not aligned for FAs?
So as you all know, I was in a LDR with an FA. We broke up (not a blindside dump fortunately, but it happened after I called him out for deactivating and he said he couldn't meet my needs. This is only relevant because all in all we ended things on a very good note.), Since then we have been trying to have some sort of friendship which is not going great as push/pulling is still there despite me telling him over and over I'm not interested in a relationship and he can chill out its cool. But here's the issue I have (in general): a pattern that we see over and over on these boards is that actions and words don't align when it comes to FA behavior. This is something talked about over and over. And I can't figure out why.
To give you some context (I will give the cliffsnotes here) what spurned this with me what a conversation with my ex the other day. He dipped out on me for 2 weeks and then came back and I was like "this is absurd I'm going to call him and tell him". So I called him, said "This dynamic we are entrenched in is hurting me. You dip out on me for weeks and then blast back into my life and it's causing me pain. We clearly are just triggering the shit out of each other and it's not good for either of us as we are hurting each other" He then proceeds to tell me how MUCH he wants me in his life. How he doesn't contact me because he doesn't want to be a bother and etc etc. How he just assumes I have my own thing going on. (Side note-he also says he's "crazy" about me and would love so much to be in a relationship but just "can't". I don't even respond because I don't want to be in a relationship so I just sort of listen). At one point when I was explaining some things I "see" about him and understand about him he starts quite literally crying on the phone. I ask "what's wrong" and he says "It just feels so amazing to have someone who understands me".
All of this stuff and YET he will just dip out again. And again. I mean it's much much less bothersome to me now since I am not wanting in any way to be in a relationship and I have all my own shit going on. BUT the words/action not aligning can still be painful in a more general sense. Like am I literally being made a fool of here? Are you just yanking me around?? Is what you say truthful and if not, is that conscious or unconscious? Are you being truthful but you really CAN'T follow through? These are questions that I am directing at the universe as we see it over and over again (not to my specific situation)
By the way I should mention-with my FA friend (whos only ever been my friend) his words and actions ALWAYS align. He is there for me 24/7. He reaches out. He wants to see me. He wants to communicate with me. He's open with me. We are quite close. He says I know him better than anyone. But he is highly FA in his romantic relationships. So I just don't get it.
I want to be clear that I am fully prepared to walk away from even this "friendship" (if you can call it that) completely at this point. Ive got like 3/4 of my body out the door. This post isn't fishing for you guys to make me "feel better" about the situation and I also don't need to be told about my own role as i am aware (though for the record I simply don't put any effort in anymore which is probably why he assumes i'm "doing my own thing" now). I just want insights as to why we see over and over that the words and actions to back them up are not aligned.
Gosh...I understand.....B would say over and over again that we were just friends...but the time before the last time I saw him, the interaction was more flirty...as if he wanted something physical....I won’t go into details...but it made the next interaction sooo confusing. Same things I did the time before that were welcome, all of a sudden were not. |
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Post by alexandra on Mar 31, 2020 18:19:25 GMT
kittygirl, it's not just FAs. While it might be more obvious with them, it's actually a tell-tale sign of lack of emotional availability across the board -- happens for all insecure attachment styles and for mental issues such as personality disorders and bipolar. I'll give an example of me doing this when I was AP. I said to myself and close friends that I wanted a relationship that would lead to marriage and family, yet I'd only in action date avoidants and minimize that as a goal when speaking to them -- because I didn't want to scare them away "asking for too much." Sometimes I'd accept a more casual situation and I'd clearly experience that my feelings didn't match my words, but I was overall puzzled by that dissonance and discomfort because I wasn't trying to lie or mislead anyone?? So I didn't understand it was my words / actions / feelings not matching because I was earnest but disconnected from understanding myself. The one time this was the strongest was when I canceled with someone I'd been friends with for years and really liked because I was trying to end anything more than platonic friendship if we weren't on the same page, and in retrospect taking the RIGHT action of walking away triggered my fear of losing him. I felt like a crazy person, actually told him there was something off between what I'd chosen and how I felt that I couldn't get my head around, un-canceled, and that led to a horrible situation where we pursued different goals with each other that were misaligned and started an anxious-avoidant dance that blew up, ruined a friendship, and was exceedingly painful. But besides for my saying there was a confusing gap between what I was saying and how I was feeling and then changing my mind to attempt to align words and actions (actually setting them even further apart), it wasn't obvious to other unavailable people that this was a pattern of mine reflecting insecure attachment and subsequently being a bad communicator. So my blanket recommendation when there's evidence of a pattern of words / actions / feelings not aligned is, run away. Because if the person doesn't have a strong enough sense of self, trust in self, and healthy enough boundaries to be consistent, you can't change that for them and you will get hurt because they're not ready to be an available partner. Which is where they are in their own process and likely unintentional (unless it's specifically a malicious personality disorder-type person), not a reflection on the partner, but will still impact you negatively. If this isn't a waving red flag for you, then you do need to ask yourself why you'd tolerate it?
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Post by kittygirl on Apr 1, 2020 14:02:17 GMT
If this isn't a waving red flag for you, then you do need to ask yourself why you'd tolerate it? First of all, your post was interesting. And helps me a lot to see what you mean. It totally makes sense that if you aren't even aware or sure of your own needs, that your actions wouldn't align with your words because you may not even be aware of how those are connected! (like, ok, I WANT this, but I have no idea how my own behavior will or won't lead me there).
And to answer your question above, it's fair one. I guess my only real response is that in my mind friendships have very different set of expectations than romantic partnerships and so I let a lot go with a lot of my friends in general. I tolerate a bunch of bullshit and it doesn't bother me. THAT HAVING BEEN SAID, this is sort of a cop out answer on my part because his behavior is clearly bothering me as I stated both on here and to his face so why I am tolerating THAT, I don't know. I guess I figured if I did nothing whatsoever we would somehow settle into some sense of normalcy like I have with literally ALL my other friends (I'd say my other friends and I travel along at about a nice cruising speed of 35 MPH at any given time; we're cool, we're fine, we check in on each other and laugh and stuff and then don't talk for periods and pick right back up where we left off which is chill and totally natural and organic and not intense in either direction-not this weird shit of either 0 MPH or 100MPH with absolutely nothing in between). So i guess to answer you-I was hoping the dust would like settle over time and things would normalize. But I don't see that happening or at least not how we're doing it. Maybe like a year of doing our own thing and then reuniting? Or maybe a friendship after we have shared intimacy is just too unrealistic. It's sad because we get along just so damn well, but no amount of laughs or deep conversations or any of that is worth me not feeling enriched and happy with any of the people I choose to let into my sphere. I just deserve more out of life.
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Post by nyc718 on Apr 2, 2020 13:33:31 GMT
If this isn't a waving red flag for you, then you do need to ask yourself why you'd tolerate it? First of all, your post was interesting. And helps me a lot to see what you mean. It totally makes sense that if you aren't even aware or sure of your own needs, that your actions wouldn't align with your words because you may not even be aware of how those are connected! (like, ok, I WANT this, but I have no idea how my own behavior will or won't lead me there).
And to answer your question above, it's fair one. I guess my only real response is that in my mind friendships have very different set of expectations than romantic partnerships and so I let a lot go with a lot of my friends in general. I tolerate a bunch of bullshit and it doesn't bother me. THAT HAVING BEEN SAID, this is sort of a cop out answer on my part because his behavior is clearly bothering me as I stated both on here and to his face so why I am tolerating THAT, I don't know. I guess I figured if I did nothing whatsoever we would somehow settle into some sense of normalcy like I have with literally ALL my other friends (I'd say my other friends and I travel along at about a nice cruising speed of 35 MPH at any given time; we're cool, we're fine, we check in on each other and laugh and stuff and then don't talk for periods and pick right back up where we left off which is chill and totally natural and organic and not intense in either direction-not this weird shit of either 0 MPH or 100MPH with absolutely nothing in between). So i guess to answer you-I was hoping the dust would like settle over time and things would normalize. But I don't see that happening or at least not how we're doing it. Maybe like a year of doing our own thing and then reuniting? Or maybe a friendship after we have shared intimacy is just too unrealistic. It's sad because we get along just so damn well, but no amount of laughs or deep conversations or any of that is worth me not feeling enriched and happy with any of the people I choose to let into my sphere. I just deserve more out of life.
I can relate to your thoughts regarding your ex. But every healthy relationship has to be a two-way street, and this one is not. The only way I was able to deal with it was to cut my ex out completely with no thought of him being a part of my life, not now and maybe not ever. I don't know what the future will bring, but I know I couldn't move forward if I hoped to fit him in somehow in the future; I had to completely let any thoughts of him being in my life go because otherwise I could not truly move on. It was painful but necessary, and I was determined and motivated, because I spent enough time trying and overcompensating for him. It was time to live my life for me, and I've done some really good work and made huge strides since I made my mind up to be determined to move on. The clarity I have now could only come when I consciously let go of the attachments. And I tell you, the Universe meets you when you truly seek to move on and let go. The ways my world has opened up in many areas could only have happened once I fully committed to letting go of old energy that no longer served me. |
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