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Post by jaleesa on Sept 6, 2017 10:12:47 GMT
But, like Betty also says, why stay in a relationship if being with someone provokes so much anxiety? What are the reasons you would want to be in a relationship if, at one point, you don't have the intention to spend time with someone? I can't wrap my head around this. I hope you can give me some clarity. This will likely be hard to wrap your head around, indeed. But there is never an "intention" NOT to spend time with someone. DAs and FAs want relationships. They just don't have the capacity, usually due to childhood trauma that came from neglectful, indifferent, or abusive parenting.
By using the word "intention' you seem to be presuming that there is conscious thought applied to the situation. There isn't. DAs and FAs don't go into relationships knowing that they will be looking for an escape hatch soon enough. Quite to the contrary.... with each new relationship they hope that their historic problems will disappear.
Ever have anxiety, Jaleesa? I hope not. But if you have, you will know that your thinking processes go out the window. I had anxiety last weekend, when I spent more than 4 hours in a row with a new guy I'm dating. I had to make up an excuse to take a little break from him in the middle of the date. And before him, I suffered an afternoon of rather serious anxiety because a very ardent guy asked me out to lunch and brought me flowers. He told me how ready he was for a relationship and how he'd been looking for "someone like me" for a long time. That made me feel so claustrophobic that I couldn't even answer his well-intentioned text greetings for a few days.
Thank you howpredictable. I appreciate your explanation so much. I'm not familiar with the feeling of anxiety when someone seeks intimacy, but I do have a conscious fear of abandonment. When he gave me the silent treatment, my behavior was out of control and all over the place. I'm still ashamed to this day with the way I behaved at those moments. So I can imagine how it feels. That must be really hard. Makes me appreciate the good times more, because I now know he really tried. It's good we broke up, but I'm thankful because I learned a lot from him and this forum about myself. I hope he finds happiness. I also hope you will find someone who makes you happy howpredictable. You seem very open and aware and I have so much respect for that. We experience relationships so differently so I think it's good we can learn from each other here. Thanks again! |
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Post by jaleesa on Sept 6, 2017 10:32:40 GMT
Thank you for your reaction Cricket! Maybe you're right. I actually hope you're right haha. He started devaluing me after 2 years or so, making sneaky comments about my "insecure" friends, my "weird" family, what I ate, what I wore, etc. Wasn't always easy but somehow I managed to deal with it. The last year we were together he took it to the extreme though. He treated me with little to no respect, like I was a piece of trash. This is why I actually thought he was a (covert) narcissist at first and why I still don't understand why he chose to stay and future fake if he was that unhappy. For example: A month before he left me he talked about going on vacation together, while in hindsight it's very clear he already wanted to leave me, given the fact that he treated me with utter disrespect. He also had an affair for the last 6 months. Is this common behavior for DAs? Hi..i think the most common thing for a DA is how anxious, uncomfortable and suffocated they feel by relationships. How they express it will vary by person. I never spent enough time w my DA to know if he would be like that but in his other relationship he says he was the one who was used. He has always been nice in person w me and rude thru text. The commitment phobe I lived w always had one foot out the door but he never resorted to that kind of treatment. I'm so happy you got out of that relationship. It sounds like it was very hard for you. You are a strong person. You don't ever have to put up with being belittled. I think they project how they feel about themselves so the crappier he treated you is just showing how crappy be feels about himself. We all project. Yes, I could tell he was struggling. He often came home completely wasted in the middle of the night on a weekday. I was so worried about him because I didn't understand what was going on. I tried to talk to him and take care of him. I now know this is the worst thing I could have done, because the only thing he wanted was to be left alone and to get away from me as far away as possible. He probably felt suffocated. It's not my fault, it's good it's over and I think this was inevitable anyway, but now I know what I know, I realize I could have handled things differently and I can only learn from it. |
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Post by howpredictable on Sept 6, 2017 12:37:08 GMT
As Raco wisely points out in other post, each Avoidant is different.
But it can even vary greatly for me: I sometimes can't handle a single date with certain people..... but I was married for almost 20 years. I've also had 2-year or 3-year relationships with other people. It all depends.
In the marriage, for example, it was very serviceable, looked good on paper, and we were affectionate. But he was also very closed-off emotionally and I now realize in retrospect that we probably never had an emotionally-intimate conversation in the two decades we were together.
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