(Plz don’t kill me)....should I send this letter

Hi Doctora (hugs).

Just catching up on things...I'm glad to hear you are hanging in there, doing your best to break your attachment to someone who constantly disappoints you. You needn't fear this process, and please know that it is necessary for whatever comes next... perhaps a relationship with another person, or a new , more empowered relationship with him. Whatever happens, you do need to break the anxious attachment, and my own advice would be try to hold onto your love, the truth, and your compassion as much as possible. You are not trying to break your love, you are breaking free from your anxious attachment only. This is so you can take the right actions with respect to him, or any other romantic figure you may meet in future. You need to be able to assert a TON of loving boundaries and have the strength to implement them with these kinds of guys. You can't do that in a state of anxious attachment. So just keep reminding yourself of this: you are breaking your anxious attachment only, this is a good thing, and it will make you stronger than you knew you could be. And everything is going to be okay.

DA's are the most vulnerable people I have ever met. All their bluster, ego defenses, and superiority complexes are just a flimsy mask for a deep well of vulnerability that they barely have any words for. Trust and safety are their most fundermental relationship needs. They fear intrusion and have complicated definitions of that, which they will likely be silent about. They give up on themselves and their relationships easily, because they are so chronically unsuccessful at sustaining them. When you crack through all the awful defenses, at the heart of it they think they can't meet their partner's needs, and that you can't meet their's.

Try to imagine this guy as your friend, not your lover, or someone entwined with your worth as a woman. Love him unconditionally with an open heart, and detach. The next phase in your relationship with him, should you choose it after enough time has passed, will be a negotiation of needs....the needs in a friendship to begin with. Its his right to say "no" to yours, and its your right to say "no" to his. Be clear and fair always, and sensitive to his very deep vulnerability. And walk away if he says no.

Thais Gibson calls this the "power struggle phase" of a relationship with a DA. Most people give up when it comes to power struggles, and you will need to decide if you have the time for the process (as you want children). The power struggle goes something like this: You state your needs, and your truth, with fairness and sensitivity. Don't be afraid to tell him he is DA and all about THais Gibson. Give him time to digest that.
He will resist and likely hurt you, but know this: DA's need loyalty so much that you can use this to train them to heal. They go bonkers when they feel threatened by rivals so invent some if you have to. Thats the only way i've been able to get through to a DA and make him visit Thais Gibson's videos on youtube. And he loves me so much for it. I see him as my friend, and I don't want a sexual connection with him unless he fully connects to me in a trusting and authentic way. He's been much better since he watched some Thais Gibson stuff.

Just wanted to share what I've managed so far. Don't feel disempowered, you have a lot of options. The main thing to decide is do you really want this? Or do you want break free from your love of DA's and choose another type? Edit: this is what I love about DA's. They are the most loyal ppl deep down, and I share the same fear of abandonment.

I really hope you can reread this at some point after more work on yourself.

^^^boom.

Thanks anne12 ...all this stuff is very useful, resonates a lot, makes a lot of sense.

I like this list from your post in 2019, Why did you fall in love with your partner…I put the parts in that I relate to:

Different perspectives on why we fall in love:
1. Imago - 100% my ex was an imago, i mentioned it in another post in this thread
2. Biological reasons - (Ensure the survival of the species
- a man who can provide support and money
- a women who can give birth to healthy children)
Yep, ex was a provider, paid for me when we were together, loved providing and took joy and pride in it, paid for me to become a Pilates instructor so I’d have something to do in Germany with him on the army base, also worked since he was in high school.
3. You need a revolution in your life - Fransesco Albaroni - not sure, but when we started dating I was at a cross roads, switching careers, so it may have had something to do with it
4. Status - he thought I was higher status than him and I thought he was higher status than me, I think (if we’re gonna think in terms of status, which I’m not sure we did so much for reasons related to the next bullet)
5. We come from the same background - went to same specialized high school, and also, we both speak Russian bc he was born in Russia and came here as a child, whereas I am American but was a Russian major and lived there before we dated. I blended into his family quite nicely bc I was able to talk to his parents. Not to mention, both of our sets of parents have similar values/interests (even though personality wise they are not similar)
6.  - crushing (lasts a few days to up to one year)/dopamine and norepinephrine are released, romantic love/4-5 years, friendly love - maybe the rest of your life …we became friends when I was 14 and he was 17 when I dated his buddy in high school. He and I had a special non-romantic bond because we liked going to the same concerts, he would crash at my house when he’d visit the city to see a band, and we had the same sense of humor. Before we ever dated, we would write e-mails to each other every 2-6 months detailing what we’d been up to. He even would write me funny stories about the girls he was seeing, and would address them to his O.F.F. (Only Female Friend). The way we started dating was that we had upped the frequency of communication bc he was deployed in Iraq and I was between career switches, so we had more time I guess…he told me to get a web cam, rest was history. We hadn’t even seen each other in over 4 years at that point. So by the time we started dating, we had a really strong, well-established friendship for about 8 years already.
7. We complement eachother - we felt like we did when we started to date but we obviously do not now

8. Don’t think I relate to these ones - We seek that symbiotic relationship to get filled up from what we did not get enough of in the symbiotic phase with our mother (AP)
The karma theory - we will live more lives, as we have some karma we must get completed from previous lives
We have a twin soul
You project your inner unconscious anima / animus onto the other person - this means that you do not see the other as the other really is
Pheromones (well, at least that didn’t contribute to us falling in love because we started online, but maybe when we started to date in person that was related for sure)


So, I should prob explain that bc it’s been 11 years, I dated quite a few people in the off periods with my ex. I’d say from 2013- 2016, I 100% was avoidant in my own way, emotionally unavailable to other guys, going for dudes that were WAY WAY WAY worse in so many ways than my DA ex (like full blown personality disordered messes), or just plain incompatible for the long term even if they were nice. I had been TOTALLY polarized into full A/P territory from a variety of factors, including but not limited to my own childhood issues surfacing due to my relationship with my DA. I was super A/P… I’d be determined to make it work or to change these obviously terrible selections. On the plus…it was so bad that it forced me to deal with my demons, which was ultimately good. The first boyfriend that wasn’t my DA probably had antisocial personality or something and was a metal drummer that voluntarily became a homeless freight-train-rider crusty type with a road dog. The second boyfriend was a super handsome illegal immigrant that had full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder (which is how I know for sure my DA ex actually isn’t a narcissist) and I even was married to him for about .36 seconds. That’s a story for another time. I was super A/P, emotionally unavailable, I was hardly ever single, and if I was I still would always have various suitors to hang out with in the background. I had lessons to learn about myself from these guys, but yeah, inside I still loved my ex.

However, after the divorce to the narcissist (which was surprisingly not traumatic at all, because I wasn’t actually in love with him, it was more like an experiment/lesson for me), and as I started to heal and prioritize my own needs, I started going for guys where it really seemed at the time like there could be long term compatibility. Not to mention I stayed single for much longer, and became way more discriminating.  I went on dates just to see who/what was out there, wasn't remotely interested in any drama.  I was in graduate school, too, so I was prioritizing my future and trying to make good decisions.  I was doing my best at the time with the tools that I had. As such, I don’t know how much I can pathologize the fact that my relationship with the secure guy didn’t work out, it just was what it was. I was TRYING to form a bond with a quality person, and in fact I did so, but in the end it was clear that we weren’t meant to be together, and it was fine. He ended up getting married immediately after we broke up so obviously the fact that he was younger didn’t necessarily mean the life stages were completely incompatible…also maybe he had some issues to work on (as he got married super, super quickly) and maybe in the end that’s also what turned me off.  The next guy, the guy I left to work on things with my ex, I had been dating for about 6 months at the time I made this decision.  So, like, whatever.  He actually understood that I had a long history with my ex and didn't take it personally, plus, he wanted to wait another 3-5 years to have children, and if given the two choices, the obvious choice for me was to try to heal the relationship with my DA and try to create something healthy and have kids/get married as soon as we figured that out.  

Just because I didn’t love any of these men as much as my ex doesn’t necessarily mean I wasn’t attracted to their security or that I was unavailable to them. It just means maybe they weren't a good match, or maybe I still loved my ex, or that I felt still had some unfinished business with my DA. These other nightmare relationships forced me to deal with my issues, and when I had dealt with them, I realized I still totally loved my DA and could see a future with him in which we both were a lot, lot more secure and healthier...As such,  I do not regret this last attempt, and again, I can walk away satisfied that I did all I could and left no stone unturned.  

Going over the reasons above, anne12 , I actually feel better, because I am reminded that there were really, really legit reasons why I loved this guy.  Also, the fact that my DA and I could laugh about all of this mess and still want to work on things really in and of itself made me feel like we were probably meant to be.  That doesn't make me feel worse about the fact that it didn't work out, it just IS.  It's, as serenity put it, MY truth.  

By the way, I think your comment, mrob , is rude, because it’s not even constructively critical. In it’s brevity, it condescendingly implies that there’s something unhinged about what I’ve been writing in this thread, like I haven’t already done enough work on myself and like I have a ton more to do. I’m sort of done thinking there’s something seriously wrong with me, and I've come a long way, and I'm in my process of healing from a major mindfuck and whiplash with a DA, so kindly go focus on your own shit, and if you're gonna comment or give feedback, at least make it clear and/or useful.

mrob....got you, sorry you were dumped for setting a boundary.... Feel free to tell your story and elaborate if you want.

To spare you reading my walls of text, in a nutshell, I did a lot wrong and contributed a lot to how dysfunctional the relationship was for a long time, but then I realized that, owned up to it, took responsibility, worked on myself a lot. Came back to my avoidant ex partner with as a more secure person and willing to continue to do my half on fixing the relationship. It didn’t work, because he didn’t do his half, even though he said he would.

I may not be perfect and still did some anxious-ey things here or there, or said things maybe, but that’s not the same as contributing to a dysfunctional dynamic, and more time isn’t going to change my feelings on that. Besides, I was following the guide of a therapist to a T, and was very willing to repair and resolve in real time with him. She witnessed me trying to behave as securely as possible and him just not being secure yet at all. She said he was one of the more extreme avoidants she’d worked with and that he has a lot of work to do and he just probably isn’t capable.

There isn’t any more hindsight to be had in this. I process things intensely and quickly and have gone through this past attempt in my head many times and it always leads to the same place. I got pissed off by your comment because trust me I’ve been working on myself, thinking about this, wanting this to work for years and always had zero problem taking responsibility of my half. I contributed to dysfunction a lot, but that probably stopped significantly 4 years ago, when I really decided to grow up and get serious. Still no happy ending.

If I was in my mid 20sI wouldn’t be as pissed but my ex really, really disrespected my timeline (and I guess I did, too, by giving this relationship so many chances). He knows how much I want to be a mother and a wife and he knows how good I’d be at it and he completely disregarded my life goals. So if my walls of text are intense, just understand I’m reckoning with the ending of a huge dream I had, and it’s a big loss in and of itself. I’m pissed at my ex not just for being avoidant but for being an asshole as well that devalued me.


Again, it seems to be a common thing on this thread to be encouraged to take responsibility for your role in a dynamic with a DA, and that’s only true sometimes. It’s not true in cases where a person has become more secure on their own and has returned to try to reconcile and fix things with their avoidant ex, especially if their ex seemed
to be on board and aware of attachment theory. I showed up and was extremely in touch with myself and was trying to be patient with him and myself, and he did the same pattern as always, no change. An extreme DA who isn’t working on their own shit will ruin any good relationship, and make anyone who loves them more anxious, and will make it feel like it’s their fault. Being secure isn’t some kind of cure for heartbreak and it doesn’t turn your partner secure either, and its a myth that when you become secure you stop being attracted to your ex-DA. Yes, you can become aware of their deactivations and not personalize it, so it doesn’t turn you into a psycho, but it doesn’t mean you stop loving the person, who is more than their attachment style. And that sucks.

mrob agreed what’s your point

There won’t be a next time and talking about attachment styles with my ex wasnt the issue....I gave him Jebs book which blew his mind and then we went to an attachment therapist. We talked about attachment styles very gently and didn’t weaponize it. At least until he deactivated from an argument
- then I gently pointed out what he was doing. Then he left. So yeah, that wasn’t the issue