Confused, lost and hurt

Ok now she is re-engaging me citing that she is trying her best to salvage the relationship. She even went to the extent of planning our future in terms of moving to another country with me to work and start a family closer to my parents. 

So now she is back to seeing me regularly (still no sex, not even wanting to kiss me on the lips) to try to fix things. However she still can't verbally tells me she loves me, though she made the commitment that she will not get involved with anyone else. 

So yes it sounds exactly like your scenario but why "future fake" from her? Did your ex do that or basically just stay silent in the status quo? She made it sound all so promising but while still keeping an arm's length. 

Update: Annnnnd just like that, just like all of you had predicted, its over. I've wasted 10 months of my precious early 40s life on this dud. I should've listened to you guys. I should've walked away sooner. But no, I stupidly hung onto her lies and fake promises of moving in, having a child, getting married in my home country, having......a future.

And just like that, she dropped me like I am worthless, over text. I didn't even get a face to face break up. Not even when we both returned our personal effects.

In the end, when she finally gave me closure, all the fault is on me. She is completely and absolutely blameless. My reaching out for assurance for her lack of, was seen as harassment and detrimental to her mental health and not respecting her boundaries (or should I call walls?). Even though everybody can see her depressive episodes are getting more frequent and worsening, she refused help (typical avoidant). She refused to go on meds. I begged her to at least reach out to a professional just to talk, she did nothing. And I'm the one who spent thousands on therapy and meds.

Yet in the end, the fault is solely mine. My last message to her was begging her to go seek help and that I am not to blame completely for her mental health deteriorating (her uni, her work, her finances, her friends, her family all contributed to her stress). All I got was "Thank you for reinforcing that leaving you is the best decision.".

I no longer want her back because I now know it will never work - after being strung along for 2-3 months of sweetness but with her still "not ready for relationship" or "not comfortable" spending a night at my place. Even though she is adamant that she is not stringing me along, her actions says otherwise. 

Never again will I ever get involved with an avoidant. The damage of this one is lifelong and is enough. Thank you all so much for giving me the support, which I regrettably ignored. I am sorry but am very grateful for the support I got from all of you.

P.S from personal experience and also from testimonials from many many forum members, those who are struggling with the on-off cycle with an avoidant, please don't bother. Avoidants are extremely sensitive people and once you fall from grace in their minds, which you inevitably will, they will mentally start to destroy you and rip your perfect image that they have of you to shreds. There is no way of getting that image back because we are all humans and it is not possible to maintain that perfect mental image they have of you. No relationship is perfect. Even a small disagreement can make an avoidant rip their image of you to irreparable bits. So please, love yourself. Don't waste your time and energy with them. You deserve so much better and more.  

Also, does it help clarify things for you to see that to date you, she dates her original wound? You display, in your own admission, rage and anger and a lack of empathy. Where do you think attachment wounding comes from?
If you are lucky that she hasn't pressed charges, don't press your luck. It isn't reasonable to say that the problem begins with her, here. You two trigger each other, it's clear.

All of this is true in reverse as well. You are dating your abandonment. Chasing it to fix it. But that's a disaster. You will have to find another way to take care of your abandonment issues than chasing someone who triggers you and "abandons" you. Someone said that abandonment becomes fiction in adulthood... I agree. It's a story written by the part of you that experienced it as a kid. It's real in childhood and actually manufactured in adulthood. Manufactured by you chasing unavailable partners? Doesn't that make sense?

I think you are misinterpreting my inner state here, I really don't feel personally targeted. Rather, I align with what I said.  I'd add to it but don't feel the need to defend myself or complicate the situation. 

My suggestions weren't helpful to you and I respect that. I hope that you find relief in whatever route to wholeness that you choose.

I guess I am a bit angry (being gaslighted and strung along) but more relieved now that I see it for what it is. I was merely reacting to her abuse and she used that reaction against me without any admission of her own guilt whatsoever. That reeks of my narcissistic ex wife. 

I now do not want her back because its like a switch in my brain, where I finally see that even if I am alone, it is better than the mental abuse she put me through. I've been domestically abused for 16 years. I do not want another predator to come along and does the same to me for another 16. Hell no. 

This forum and also Jeb's work is so valuable to me because this is the second time I've been involved with narcissistic people. Different personalities but the mental abuse is the same. I am now more equipped than ever to identify red flags early in the relationship and protect myself. 

I guess the DA/FA in here finds my post offensive, which is fair because the truth is harsh but they are AWARE and is improving themselves. Kudos to them. However there will be more unaware FA/DAs out there bringing harm to people. Their withdrawing, push-pull cycle, hot and cold, stringing along and generally mentally abusive ways IS DOMESTIC ABUSE. They are adults. If they do not recognize their abusive ways and seek to change their attachment styles, I have no empathy for them. They do not have the Rights to treat another human being like they do. Having empathy for such people is like me empathizing a wife beater or a rapist. No.  

ugh....AMEN brother.  90% of the time I like the advice on this forum, but for some reason people do not understand HOW BAD extreme avoidants are.  Probably because their avoidants weren't as extreme as ours.  After all, it's a spectrum and not all DAs/FAs are highly avoidant to the point where the behavior starts to blur with narcissistic abuse.  (And no, not all extreme DAs are personality disordered narcissists, I'm not saying that....I'm saying the behaviors/deactivations can feel so fucked up that it's comparable to narcissistic abuse, and the effect can be similar).

Concentrating on how angry you are is NOT THE SAME THING as not owning your anxious behavior.  I completely, completely disagree with people that being angry at the avoidant is somehow avoiding your own issues...it's the goddamn opposite, after so much time spent giving them the benefit of the doubt, believing in them...not necessarily bending over backwards, but genuinely loving the person and believing in them.  You deserve to be angry right now.

I have never seen or heard about a successful relationship with an extreme avoidant.  It can only work if they decide to change, because extreme avoidance is simply incompatible with a healthy relationship.  In lots of the attachment theory media, it says that anxious-preoccupieds, as long as they aren't highly anxious or borderline, often have successful relationships with secure partners because they actually become more secure with reassurance (again, according to a lot of the A.T. books, and I believe it, and anecdotally I've seen it).  However, secures will become more anxious with someone whose default is to be highly avoidant.  Apparently, a secure partner could do "better" with an avoidant and also could somehow rub off on them, but Jeb talks about this a bit in his book with some skepticism....I just don't see that happening. 

There is a very interesting post on this forum explaining the high self esteem of a DA and how they have one person psychological systems that sort of make them more impervious to outside influence.  Rather, they have an incredible system of self-reliance and self-validation, which can be good, but when taken to the extreme, it can make them hard-headed and hard to get through to, hard to influence, even if it's for the better.  Being in a relationship with someone like that is so difficult.  My ex, who was highly avoidant, was definitely influenceable in our honeymoon period, but even then it was still extremely difficult to get him to see my point of view, and often he would end up not changing what we agreed upon when we "resolved" things...it's as if emotional stuff was encoded differently in his head and he would almost "forget" to take what happened into account.  He could with repetition and reinforcement from me, but that took a lot of energy and patience...and this is when they're in their LESS avoidant mode because of being in a honeymoon stage.  So, again, I think the highly avoidant aren't so easy to have a healthy, equal relationship with...Also, highly avoidant people do not feel comfortable with intimacy....and secure people wouldn't like that once it became clear that that's what it is.  They would only "tolerate" that if somehow they've gradually been insidiously pushed into anxious territory....
So yeah, again, I do not know of a successful relationship of a secure partner with a highly avoidant person.  

You can be mad at yourself as well, but go ahead and be angry at this person who gaslit you, completely demonized YOU in their mind, kicked you off a pedestal and treated you like shit/garbage.  

@introvert ....I disagree with you.  It's not always two people triggering each other equally, it's not always a case of it takes two to tango.  You are wrong, I know that from personal experience, and also, I too went to a couple's therapist with my ex, and she was able to bear witness to his/our pattern.  Thank god she did, because I do believe that contributed to my being able to walk away with my head held high.  I wasn't perfect, but I was generally behaving securely, even when confronted with his deactivating pattern, and as Thais Gibson said, "the needle didn't move."  dullboat123 has "rage" and a lack of empathy because this woman has been a total jerk to him for a long time, has devalued him and has messed with his head.  Rage is a little strong, rage is a word I typically associated with violence....I think dullboat is pissed off.  

You're not getting the full picture by reducing this situation to someone dating their abandonment wound, or chasing unavailable partners.  Partially correct, maybe, but there's WAY more to it, and you don't do it justice by just calling it an abandonment wound. I agree that the pathology can be traced back to childhood patterns, but it's not always a subconscious familiarity with being "abandoned"...it can also be that a child felt responsible for their parents in FEAR of being abandoned, but never necessarily was abandoned...it could be that a child was able to get their needs met if they DID something, so they are used to taking on more than their fare share of relationship work. It could also be that the child saw self-destructive behavior from an avoidant parent and wants to protect their loved one from themselves because they have an idea of how the story could end up.

Keep in mind, with extreme avoidants, they can be available. They can have moments where they feel and behave less avoidant.   The intermittent reinforcement and push-pull is what does the mindfuck to the partner... THAT can also cause primary damage.  It's not just that the anxious person is unconsciously seeking out pathological childhood patterns.