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Post by drob0923 on May 21, 2020 5:56:33 GMT
Hello all,
I am so glad to have found this community and that people are so open to share their experiences. I would like to explain mine and see if I am a DA style. At his point I feel like I straddle the line between DA and FA.
For starters, I am a heterosexual male in my early 30's. Essentially where I am at right now is I am 2 years removed from a relationship that lasted a year and a half that consisted of me feeling overwhelmed by this persons need for affection and intimacy. I forced myself to stay in the relationship because my partner and I had a joint business that destroyed my financial ability to be independent. Once the business ran its course I separated from her in a very drawn out and ugly transition to no contact. During the relationship, I left multiple times and lived in my vehicle for days on end until I would finally return to our shared living space. It became a pattern that I would be able to be intimate until the moment she shared any of her frustrations or anger. At that point, I would emotionally close up and go into a spiral of anxiety and eventually I would run away again. I loved her but I constantly felt that I had made a mistake in sharing so much with her (housing, business, livlihood, friends, etc) The only thing I didnt share was my family because they did not understand her and they resented her for the ways my life was unstable in the relationship.
Prior to this relationship, I had left 3 different women in an abrupt and non-negotiable breakup. I told myself it was because I felt like I couldn't handle committing any further. Each of them for different reasons but relationship lasted around 7-8 months. The theme seems to be that I have trouble explaining my fears about the relationship and what needs I have to feel safe. Instead of trying to have those hard conversations, I cut the relationship off.
Which brings me to my most recent situation where I have a woman friend who I have tried to be very clear with about boundaries and to keep the relationship platonic. Now I find myself having to tell this person over and over that I just want to be friends while they clearly want more. We have spent fun times together but I have abandoned them several times after they have shared their feelings and frustrations about why I don't want to commit to being with them. On top of that they are anxious attached and very sensitive to my rejection. I really value their friendship and we have a lot in common but I just don't want to be in a committed relationship with them because I know I'm not attracted to them enough to make the jump to romantic involvement.
So now we are in a very strange emotional place where we want to be friends but I have so much anxiety about them wanting more intimacy from me. I feel the need to end the relationship but I also don't want to lose them as a friend. All of this makes me feel really unhealthy so I have started searching for therapists to help me figure out why its so hard for me to voice my needs and work through conflict in a healthy way without needing to run away all the time.
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Post by anne12 on May 21, 2020 8:03:49 GMT
Why do you want to be friends with someone who is interested in more than a friendship ? A friendship is Friend - Friend only. I think it is perfectly fine to set a boundarie and if she can't respect that then there is no friendship. Maybe she simply can't turn of her feelings for you. And then you have to make the dissision on your own So you can spiral down in anxiety - so you can feel the anxiety in your body ? (Sounds like you've got at least some desorganised attatchment style) - there is often some drama involved/overdog/underdog dynamisc because of survival panic in the nerveussystem. It's in the instinktive level. Ending things aruptly can be because you have moved into some desorganised pattern. We always have to see/know what's underneath the behavior. Everything is on a spectrum. What look dismissive or ambivalent behavior can be a camuflaged desorganised behavior. People often have a mix of different attatchment styles (one or two can be more dominant) but it can also depend on who you are with. You can move in and out of different attatchment patterns in the same relationship. If you are in survival mode this can block your ability to love and be precent. You are busy surviving. Do you know why you go back ? How long does it take you to go back ? What do you say when you go back ? What do you do in your van ? Are you able to function when you are away ? If AP in play can be: when you want me, you are too available, and then I loose interest. And when you don't want me as much, then I want you. (YO-YO dynamics). When they go beck they can often say: I miss you. Fa/desorganised theres subconsciously a threat response involved/sudden panic/fight-flight or collapse into freeze. They can often feel some parts of their body but they can be more or less dissociated DAs often moves away slowly - they can stay in contact without being really precent and they often don't feel the panic in their body - they are very much up in their head(depending on how DA they are) Once there is distance they can go back easily or they don't go back at all. About boundaries (short version): Dismissives often got too rigid boundaries. Their go to can be a NO! Desorganised/FAs can find it difficult feeling their own boundaries. They can't feel.them at all, so they let other people cross their boundaries or / and they can also have a tendencie to cross other people's boundaries. Or they can feel their boundaries, but can doubt if their boundaries are okay. Anxious ambivalents can often feel their boundaries if they give themselves time to pause and feel them. Their problem is often that they are overinvolved in the other person" and they leave themselves. Their go to can be a YES jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1188/attatchment-style-decription-relying-thetests |
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Post by drob0923 on May 21, 2020 16:49:56 GMT
Thank you very much for your reply anne12. To answer your first question, I think I want to be friends with this person because I value their knowledge and I also really am trying to figure out how to keep friends rather than losing them. That being said I really do not want to enter into a romantic relationship with this person and I will not allow them to force me into that. They say they won't try and force me but they keep implying in subtle ways that maybe one day I'll change my mind. I have a very poor history of letting friends go for even the smallest reasons and my own social anxiety. It has always just been easier for me to be alone and have shallow friendships. But at this point in my life I am really trying to learn how to exert my needs and keep friendships functioning. Especially since this virus situation makes it so hard to make new friends.
I think you are right about the disorganized attachment. And I do think I am a mix of styles. As I sit here and write this I'm feeling very scared about what I need to do to get better.
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Post by tnr9 on May 22, 2020 3:15:04 GMT
Hello all, I am so glad to have found this community and that people are so open to share their experiences. I would like to explain mine and see if I am a DA style. At his point I feel like I straddle the line between DA and FA. For starters, I am a heterosexual male in my early 30's. Essentially where I am at right now is I am 2 years removed from a relationship that lasted a year and a half that consisted of me feeling overwhelmed by this persons need for affection and intimacy. I forced myself to stay in the relationship because my partner and I had a joint business that destroyed my financial ability to be independent. Once the business ran its course I separated from her in a very drawn out and ugly transition to no contact. During the relationship, I left multiple times and lived in my vehicle for days on end until I would finally return to our shared living space. It became a pattern that I would be able to be intimate until the moment she shared any of her frustrations or anger. At that point, I would emotionally close up and go into a spiral of anxiety and eventually I would run away again. I loved her but I constantly felt that I had made a mistake in sharing so much with her (housing, business, livlihood, friends, etc) The only thing I didnt share was my family because they did not understand her and they resented her for the ways my life was unstable in the relationship. Prior to this relationship, I had left 3 different women in an abrupt and non-negotiable breakup. I told myself it was because I felt like I couldn't handle committing any further. Each of them for different reasons but relationship lasted around 7-8 months. The theme seems to be that I have trouble explaining my fears about the relationship and what needs I have to feel safe. Instead of trying to have those hard conversations, I cut the relationship off. Which brings me to my most recent situation where I have a woman friend who I have tried to be very clear with about boundaries and to keep the relationship platonic. Now I find myself having to tell this person over and over that I just want to be friends while they clearly want more. We have spent fun times together but I have abandoned them several times after they have shared their feelings and frustrations about why I don't want to commit to being with them. On top of that they are anxious attached and very sensitive to my rejection. I really value their friendship and we have a lot in common but I just don't want to be in a committed relationship with them because I know I'm not attracted to them enough to make the jump to romantic involvement. So now we are in a very strange emotional place where we want to be friends but I have so much anxiety about them wanting more intimacy from me. I feel the need to end the relationship but I also don't want to lose them as a friend. All of this makes me feel really unhealthy so I have started searching for therapists to help me figure out why its so hard for me to voice my needs and work through conflict in a healthy way without needing to run away all the time. If you are clear that all you want is friendship and she is telling you that she wants more, then you may just need to honor both yourself and herself by taking a bit of a breather from each other. I get that you do not want to lose her as a friend, but she also has a right to her feelings towards you. I think it is good that you are looking for a therapist to discuss things. |
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Post by drob0923 on May 22, 2020 5:04:16 GMT
Thank you all for your replies. I am starting therapy on monday and I'm hoping I can start to nail down the things that I can do to move toward a more secure attachment style. I do have a question for anyone that can answer: is it helpful to look at old pictures and videos of past relationships to gain insight into feelings from the past? I feel so confused now of what feels natural in pursuing women I want romantic intimacy with. I used to be very confident and now I feel so anxious and reserved. For the last 2 years all I was looking for was friendship with women but now even that seems like an impossibility given the ways that I have trouble listening to the feelings of my female friends. Does looking back at old pictures and video help you all to work through past trauma and pain?
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Post by anne12 on May 22, 2020 7:17:55 GMT
Are you having trouble remembering things that has happend in your relationships ? This is an exercise that some attatchment/SE therapists uses in their work with clients. If you can't feel anything maybe looking at pictures ect can be helpfull. For avoidants IT can be difficult to get into the felt sence of being somewhere in their past - feeling the feelings and the bodysensations can be difficult for Them. jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1169/healing-broken-before-changing-partner |
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Post by serenity on May 23, 2020 1:26:05 GMT
Thank you all for your replies. I am starting therapy on monday and I'm hoping I can start to nail down the things that I can do to move toward a more secure attachment style. I do have a question for anyone that can answer: is it helpful to look at old pictures and videos of past relationships to gain insight into feelings from the past? I feel so confused now of what feels natural in pursuing women I want romantic intimacy with. I used to be very confident and now I feel so anxious and reserved. For the last 2 years all I was looking for was friendship with women but now even that seems like an impossibility given the ways that I have trouble listening to the feelings of my female friends. Does looking back at old pictures and video help you all to work through past trauma and pain? There are different approaches to dealing with trauma and pain. But something I came to believe after a lot of years of therapy, research, and trying different approaches is that some of our feelings are imprinted, and part of our "wiring". That is to say, if you feel repulsed by some behaviours in others, such as intimacy, emotional closeness, hearing feelings, that "repulsed" feeling is likely to be a reflex that is a deep part of you. You can kind of circumvent the sabotaging effect this has on relationships via CBT therapy. Its essentially changing your behaviours when you feel the desire to run or shut down, for the purpose of retaining important relationships. For example instead of running, ignoring communication, stonewalling, and abruptly ending relationships, you might communicate what you need instead. Usually its some form of space. The other part of CBT therapy is challenging the negative thoughts you have about others and yourself, that occurs because you are triggered. Triggers tend to have the effect on us like someone dropping very heavy object on your foot...in that moment you might push the person away, even "hate" them and say something you wouldn't normally mean. But when the trigger subsides, you would normally want them close again and like them again. Usually with DA's, the thought processes during triggers (ie when you feel close to someone) you need to challenge is your excessive fault finding in others. You are likely to look for flaws and hold people to unrealistic ideals of perfection, often shallow ones when it comes to women. Most DA's I've known expect women to look like models, and reject them as they age or change during pregnancy. They also tend to need a lot of qualities in women that are "inside" rather than outside of a person. So they will try to collect female friends that they look down on as "inferior" to use them for their personality, qualities and nature. But that doesn't really make for a good friendship, because your mental attitude is one of fault finding and seeing the worst in them, whilst using them for what you need. Its a form of objectification and any friends you have in this category will feel and detect the many overt and subtle forms of rejection. The ones with good self esteem won't put up with it, and the ones with low self esteem will clamour for your approval and validation for a while, until they realise they won't ever get it. Try this..every time you tell yourself someone isn't good enough, think about something wonderful about them instead. Every time you mentally take someone apart with your inner critique, see something beautiful in the "flaw" you decided to reject them for. Look at old people and try to see the beauty there. Look at different types of people, races, ages, genders, look for beauty. When this becomes a mental habit of yours, you will find a happiness you never knew before. A self acceptance and love you didn't know either. And good people will be attracted to you, always. |
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Post by drob0923 on May 23, 2020 3:12:05 GMT
Thank you for your thoughtful reply serenity. My dating past has been mostly with women who I very strongly felt physical attraction towards. Not necessarily because they were models but because I appreciated the ways that they made me excited to share physicality. It is something I need to feel in order to feel big feelings and overcome anxiety. In terms of looking for flaws in women, I would say that when I feel open to date, I'm not very picky. But as I learn more about attachment style, I feel like I need to be with someone who is NOT anxiously attached. Because I might be FA or DA or OA, this sort of dynamic quickly increases my anxiety levels quickly as I am able to feel the other person's anxiety very easily. That spiral goes out of control very quickly. My female friend is definitely AA and it makes me very worried because I'm not physically attracted to her and she deserves someone who is. She has had partners who were and she left those relationships for other reasons. But she craves passionate and open intimacy in that regard and I simply won't be able to offer that to her. How can I explain this to her?
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Post by drob0923 on May 24, 2020 2:14:13 GMT
Thank you so much for your reply caroline1218. The more I dig into this the more I see that there are other issues at play in this friendship. I think she and I have some enmeshment happening. I know that I am prone to doing this in my relationships because of my family dynamics and I think she might be prone to these dynamics as well to some degree but I am going to take responsibility on this one. I am trying to educate myself on how to break the enmeshment cycle and get the boundaries up and respected. Luckily, my female friend is receptive to learning and correcting her end of things as well. As it sits right now, I think she and I are heading towards a healthy platonic friendship but there is still a lot of work to do to get there.
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Post by mrob on May 24, 2020 4:27:55 GMT
If there’s enmeshment, it might be an idea to revisit your attachment style.
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Post by drob0923 on May 24, 2020 4:38:23 GMT
mrob can you explain a bit more what you mean by this? I was under the impression that enmeshment is common in avoidant attachment styles.
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Post by mrob on May 24, 2020 8:38:24 GMT
The difference between fearful and dismissive avoidant. I’ve never seen a dismissive enmeshed unless there is something in it for them, or a cultural obligation.
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AM
New Member
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Post by AM on May 24, 2020 16:10:32 GMT
Rather than enmeshment, the Anxious-Avoidant Trap is common with these two attachment styles, which is the hook and loop cycle, each triggering one another's attachment, beliefs, etc. This is the most common longest lasting attachment pairing other than Secure/Secure. Avoidants seek out Anxious and Anxious seek out Avoidants, seemingly to validate each others belief (attachment) system. drob0923 congrats on your courage and desire to understand yourself and work toward moving in a win-win direction in your life. Real knowledge, true knowledge, comes from knowing 'why' and while this will not be easy, and may take considerable time with a therapist, hopefully trained in attachment, it will be worth it. You are young, young enough where this kind of work will pay dividends in years to come  |
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Post by serenity on May 24, 2020 19:09:46 GMT
mrob can you explain a bit more what you mean by this? I was under the impression that enmeshment is common in avoidant attachment styles. Hey drob0923, Thanks for replying, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and attitudes, and taking the time to explain. I agree with mrob; you're not sounding dismissive avoidant to me either, but rather more like FA who usually swings towards your avoidant side when attaching to someone more anxious than yourself. This is very common, and can "look" like DA at first, but you have the thoughtfulness and sensitivity of FA. There's no real ego defensiveness in your posts either, which indicates more FA. FA's can also present as Anxious or AP, when they normally attach to people more avoidant than themselves. Your platonic friend could be in this situation. I hope things go well with your friend; it sounds like you have the tools and motivation to make it work. When I have anxious friends myself, a combination of good communication, warmth, and creating more space in the relationship has often helped. Wishing you the best! |
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