Is there hope for a healthy relationship with Avoidant?

Thanks fatalcharm for your encouraging words, I do have hope that the therapy, even a few sessions already, is going to move something.

Does anyone else have an opinion or advice? Mostly, I cannot pin down if he is dismissive or fearful...what does his behavior show?

Thanks pkidza... I just researched the fearful type and he definitely seems to be that one - low self-confidence, fear of abandonment, very passive in relationship, not much display of affection, and has angry reactions when I do not text back for a few hours.

So, do the two avoidant types overlap with certain symptoms? As he has some typical traits from the dismissive side such as idealizing 'the one'. And which one of the two, fearful or dismissive, is know to be tougher to heal and deal with? Plus which one has a tougher time in relationships with anxious types like me? I was thinking that I would rather understand him as being the fearful type as we both have fear of abandonment, but then again, isn't this causing just more explosive reactions as we are both paranoid of being abandoned?

hi Sara,

My goodness I am so very sorry for what you are going through. Mine used to pick fights over nothing and it increased towards the end of us being a couple. It was very strategic on his end to start fights and then use that as "evidence" that we should not be together, that we are unhealthy. I also got blamed for said fights and everything else that was wrong with "us".

I still have not reached out to my ex, its been 3 days which is a long time for us with no-contact these days. I'm going to work hard to stay silent for now, its his bday so thats hard.

At any rate I wanted to tell you that your fight was not for nothing- if you can, and maybe its too hard right now, try to look at it as a blessing that forced you to face your own attachment issues in therapy and in life. I'm an AP as well and also in therapy PLUS I do EMDR with a 2nd therapist to help me work through my issues. My ex was the biggest trigger of my life, but I hope one day I will see him and the 2.5 years as the catalyst for real change in my life.

Sending you lots of light.

The picking fights thing is crazy making.

My ex is an FA I think and we never actually got into a serious / normal relationship as every time we came close to commitment he would ghost me, pick a fight or tell me he had a date with someone else. Just generally everything he could possibly do to sabotage and ruin things with me, but at the same time I was left confused as he didn't SEEM to actually want to let me go and seemed sad about what he was doing. Difficult to be angry at someone who seems to be hurting themselves as much as you.

Examples of his sabotaging and FA behavior...


1) When we were first dating, he seemed like a little boy infatuated and was very sweet. He told me he felt like a kid at Christmas. then after 2 - 3 dates he started verbally panicking, telling me he was worried about five years down the road etc. Then he slept with someone else (an ex) and told me about it. We weren't exclusive at the time but the behavior yukked me out and that ended us!

- my reaction at the time: total confusion, why would someone like you so much and do something like that right at the start of dating? Illogical!

2) He then came back, missing me and asking me to date him again. We had two lovely dates where he seemed much more intimate and he started to talk about us in the future, making plans for months in advance. He called me one day and asked me if I wanted to go on vacation with him for two weeks and we started making plans. Then he ghosted me, I literally didn't hear from him for 5 months after that conversation.

- my reaction at the time: total confusion, why would someone make an effort to get back together with you and ask you on a vacation if they were going to disappear?!

3) He then came back a third time, this time apologising for disappearing. He said he got "spooked" but that he really liked me. This time I was VERY cautious and apprehensive but he was admitting he had some avoidance issues and panicked really easily and we got closer and closer. This time we got extremely intimate emotionally and I genuinely began to trust him for the first time but we weren't sexual, it was more platonic. He then did lots of very intimate things (like sharing his deepest emotions and resolving issues) and it definitely felt to me like both of us were falling in love. Then one night he asked me to the theatre with him, spent $1000 on tickets and dinner, and we were having a great time. He started to kiss me very passionately and then out of nowhere during the kiss he did a total 180 and started criticising and insulting me. Saying I was "so intense" and saying I made him feel out of control and then basically telling me I wasn't good girlfriend potential and that he thought other people might be better. I got angry and upset and when I did I could see he was crying at the dinner table!

- My reaction at the time: this time I honestly think I was traumatised. Why would a person spend months investing in you emotionally only to ask you on an expensive romantic date, kiss you and then tell you that they didn't like you and you weren't good enough? It genuinely felt like he was TRYING to get me to walk away or get angry.

We haven't talked since then, which was a month ago.

It's difficult for me. Part of me is so angry and the other half of me feels sad that he is so destructive and that he ruined what is obviously a very deep emotional and physical connection because we do just get on SO well and make each other happy.

Observations on this in general:

1) I think he is more comfortable dating / spending time with women where it's casual sex and he has no feelings. The more he feels, the more he is likely to panic.

2) I think he genuinely rationalises himself out of having feelings. My conversation with him went like this "so you are saying that you think I am beautiful, smart, kind, generous, lovely, fun to be with, loving, adventurous and all these good things and that you find me intensely attractive physically and emotionally but that I am not girlfriend material because i like HOROSCOPES? Do you really how crazy that sounds?!" His response "yeah but you know in your heart".

3) I think he is the most confused, lonely and sad person I have ever met and that he fills his time with meaningless dates to distract himself from how lonely he is.

4) I think he's the most insecure person I have ever known, he just doesn't see how great he is and I think he's suspicious of why anyone wants to date him. he told me several times that I was "out of his league".

Overall the whole thing is very sad, but I am on a month no contact now and I still feel a lot of pain and sadness. Partly because I miss him and partly because it made me feel not good enough!

Thanks neosporin.

I think with my ex, he'd managed to carve out a life for himself where no one was really close enough to him to point out his behavior. He gravitates himself towards casual sexual relationships and he doesn't have any friends really, at least not close ones. No woman has ever met his friends and family. EVER. So I guess he acts avoidant but there's no one there to point out his pattern and say, "Err...the common denominator here is actually you buddy" so he's able to keep blaming it on someone else. By vanishing and avoiding conflict he deprives himself of even the basic break-up lessons themselves because he never hears the other person's experience. He gets to just hear only his own story and stick with it.

I know that with my friends, they support me, but they also tell me when I am being a total jerk and he doesn't have that. That stunts growth I think, because it allows you to stay trapped in your cycle and your story and you never really learn from anything or move forward.

When we dated the first time around from about date 2, I told him he was commitment phobic, I told him that people who genuinely wanted relationships didn't behave in those ways and I told him his lifestyle was not conducive to a loving and close relationship. He got really angry at me and defended his position saying he was perfectly happy and that it was just a case of meeting the wrong women.

What he has in his life is women who are willing to accept an ongoing sexual relationship where he has dates and sex with her, but simultaneously with others, disappears when he wants to, didn't meet her friends and family or vice versa and generally is not emotionally available. I explained to him that a woman who is willing to accept that probably has just as many issues as he does and that no good / healthy relationship starts off as friends with benefits and then progresses to a happy relationship.

He was so deluded on this it was almost unbelievable. He'd whine "why can't I find the right woman?" and the answer truly was "because the "right" woman is going to tell you to go to hell!!". He perceived this as me being demanding or judgemental but really I wasn't being those things, I was just trying to be honest with him.

He keeps himself trapped in this fantasy where he believes that he will magically change for the "right woman", but the right woman won't get past date 2 or 3 because she's not going to accept her boyfriend having sex with other people. Why would she?!!!

Six months later, he was ready to come to me and say everything I had said was right / true but it took him six months to digest and come to terms with what I had said. He's now talking about going back to therapy to work through his problems with relationships and I hope he does. He's finally admitting he has a serious problem, which he wasn't willing to admit a year ago so this is progress.

Mine also spend a lot of time on Tinder or whatever and he is also a partner in a firm. I did PM you though, definitely not the same man but they sure do have a lot of similarities!

Kristy, stay strong.  If I had found this site months ago it would have been over before it even began. I now understand the full extent of the sickness and it's just not appealing to me anymore. Who wants to fight a lifelong battle for nothing in return? And I hate to say it, but for the vast, vast majority, even therapy won't help. The intimacy required in therapy is beyond even what most normal relationships require. I'm a mostly secure person and therapy was very difficult even for me. The chance that an FA or DA would be able to tolerate it is very slim. It's not a matter of 6 months here or there for FA. It's a 24/7, constant level of mindfulness that will bring about the change they need.  You look at how hard it is for most normal people to drop 50lbs permanently, or how hard it is to stop procrastinating, or going to the gym everyday. THAT'S just a normal person changing their everyday habits.  Now think about an FA or DA having to change the way their brain is wired. The success rate is extremely rare. 

For anyone having trouble letting go, just start letting other (Secure(ish)) people in. Once you are reminded of how effortless and rewarding a healthy relationship can be, you won't even look back.