Post by cws2022 on Jan 12, 2022 17:23:22 GMT
Hey all. Just posting because this forum and it's members seem to be incredibly helpful + knowledgeable, and - let's be honest here - because I'm looking for some catharsis.
For reference, AT tests say I am Secure (Mother, Best Friend) Secure lean Dismissive (Father), Secure in General and Anxious lean Secure (Ex). Test taken during the breakup..
What follows is my attempt at an abbreviated overview of my relationship and recent breakup. I'm going to attach a much longer write up version for anyone interested and bored.
Quick version: Met a woman on a train while traveling through Europe 6.5 years ago. Four years later, we started dating. A long distance relationship. We visited each other many times. We survived the worst of the pandemic. We planned for her to move in with me for three months - but she bailed on our relationship not three weeks before the flight, without a satisfactory explanation. She ran away and shut me out.
Timeline:
We start dating July 2019
I visit her country October 2019
I visit her again in February 2020
Pandemic hits - we go 6 months without seeing each other
We meet up in London, August 2020,
We go another 6 months of not seeing each other
During this time (October to January 2021) she has a depressive episode in which she pulls away from me and we seem to be on the edge of breaking up. I'm writing things in my journal like:
> "I cannot put this much effort into someone who is disinterested in me. Someone who isn't interested in talking to me, or helping me, or even participating in our relationship. I can't. I feel like everything is completely one-sided. You don't do ANYTHING for me. You don't even say hello. You don't ask how I am doing, you don't send me messages, you don't send me photos - you don't do ANYTHING. You are NOT participating in our relationship. You just wait for me to talk to you."
Clearly, I am anxious, upset, and not understanding her need to pull away and emotionally shut down at this time. This is not her usual behavior... but an extreme version of it. I repeatedly write that I feel like I should probably break up with this person... it reaches that point. We have a conversation on the phone that I think is going to lead to the inevitable, but... we talk. We genuinely communicate. The conversation starts bad... and by the end we have recovered. It felt like a miracle. A revelation. Things didn't get immediately better... but we pulled ourselves from the edge.
Timeline Continued.:
- February 2021, I visit her again
- My journal has a negative bias - being where I turn in times of distress - but it seems like there are episodes where she pulls away from me again in April and May.
- June / July 2021, I visit her again (2 weeks). Things are absolutely wonderful in Summer. We tell each other we love each other for the first time, on our two-year anniversary. Her face lights up like I have never seen it light up before. I have finally allowed myself to love again. I love this person, and I feel like I have earned that love. For her - this is the first time in her life she has ever told a partner she loves them.
In late September, I am very upset about a number of life things but I feel like she is pulling away again.
October / November 2021. We see each other in her country. Things are great, and fun, again. We go on drives, cook dinner together, watch TV shows, go for late night walks, hike through the forest, play video games, watch anime... whatever. It's domestic, and it's normal, but things are good. I don't think we have a single argument, about anything.
Sometimes, throughout the course of this relationship, I have to admit that I notice she pulls away. She doesn't answer a text right away, or until hours later. Or she ignores a request I've repeatedly made.
Our long distance relationship requires a lot of effort and commitment by default. As a baseline. I ask for very little in return. And sometimes... she cannot give me even that. Somehow, my small requests slip her mind. Somehow, the things I need her to do for me go undone. This happens, from time to time.
Anyway - we had long had a plan for her to move in with me. The plan was that she would come live with me temporarily, for three months. She has no obligations at this time, and there is no reason she cannot. She gave me every indication that this is something she wanted and was looking forward to doing. I asked her about it multiple times... I felt like I gave her chances to express any misgivings or concerns.
I always strove for good communication in our relationship, believing that to be more important than anything else. Especially with the distance.
After visiting her in November, everything was great. We talked every day, she was very sweet, and we had a good thing going. I can look back on our messages to one another. There was no conflict. Only love, positivity, and optimism for the future.
Early December... she did her usual thing: ignoring a request from me. I got upset. I can't make sense of her behavior. My comments wade into "do you really want to come to America?" territory. It might seem dramatic, but her investment is inconsistent and I can feel that something is wrong. We get past it. A week later, she flaked on a video chat. For good reason. But I was upset, again. We moved past it. We video chatted finally. The video chat was good.
To shorten things up a bit:
- She fails to call me for three days in a row (after repeated requests - we normally talk every day, twice a day), which starts me on a very anxious path
- We talk, a schoolmate has admitted he has feelings for her and now she admits she has feelings back but is "confused" and "doesn't want this"
- I remain relatively calm. I (selfishly) seek reassurance that we are still together and she is still coming to America. She says she still loves me, we are still together, she is still coming. "I haven't lost my feelings for you and you're not losing me".
- I give her some time to figure things out, I send her a nice message, she replies "I don't want to throw it all away" and "I still love you".
- I'm feeling slightly more optimistic about the situation until... that same night I work myself into a panic attack
- The next morning, she has ignored a message from me, ignores my phone calls.
- My panic attack concludes with getting her on the phone, her revealing to me that she has started to lose romantic feelings for me (three weeks prior?) and I press her on whether we are breaking up. She says "I guess so".
- Panic attack ends, numbness sets in.
- I engage in as much protest behavior as possible, trying to remind her how much we love each other and basically just in shock / disbelief. No begging, though. But lots of messages.
- By the end of the day, we agree to go on a break (what a horrible choice in hindsight). She asks for a week. We agree to be "together" still, no dating anyone else, and that she would still be wearing the ring I gave her on our 2 year anniversary (not an engagement ring).
My holiday is ruined. Christmas, New Years, time spent with friends and family - ruined. All I can do is think about the person I love and wondering whether she is leaving me. Whether she is cheating on me, or seeing this other guy. I am a wreck. Haven't cried so much in years. It's all I can think about and I have a sinking feeling that she is not suffering the way I am. We wish each other Merry Christmas. That's it.
Instead of 7 days, I give her 12. I'm trying to be patient. She makes no move to communicate with me. I try to gently nudge her toward communication... she ignores that message. At this point, I have had enough. I want to know whether I should move on. Her avoidance is cruel. I text her Mother, hoping she knows more and can tell me to drop it and walk away.
Guess who I get a message from?
Now-ex asks if she can call me tomorrow. Really doesn't want her mother to talk to me. I would have dropped that out of respect for her wishes, but her Mom calls me and I pick up.
Turns out ex has lied to and has been avoiding her own Mother. Tells her that we have been talking, are broken up but are still friends, when in reality we haven't spoken at all. Mom tells me she has always been a coward. Always, she asks her to do things and later finds out she hasn't done them. It all fits.
The next morning, ex tries to break up with me over text message. I demand a phone call.
Now, I've been doing a lot of thinking at this point about her, and myself, and how we got here. I've been absorbing podcasts and youtube videos. As a result, I really want to speak to this person in a calm manner and try to *understand* and listen to her more than anything else. Which is something I found out that I haven't really been doing. And I want to start to make amends for that.
Phone call is relaxed, for the most part. I am in control of my emotions. I do a lot of listening. It's hard to do and to hear.
She says things like:
- I'm not ready for commitment
- Confused about her future, her life, when she'll have kids one day
- I feel like you're more of a best friend and I started feeling this way as early as November
- I tried to fix it by myself but I can't change these feelings
- Hopeless that we can fix this
- Said she didn't feel "heard" at times in our relationship
- I worry about the "burden" of you moving here to my country (the burden on my life and hers as well)
- I worry that I am going to want to go out and be social but you won't want to do those things
That's about all I got from the conversation. I asked her what she wanted, and she said we should break up but that she didn't want to stop talking to me. She wishes we could talk here and there. I tell her we cannot do that.
Toward the end, I asked her if she had truly thought she would marry me one day. She said yes. That admission will probably haunt me forever. I doubt it, even now, as maybe her way of just avoiding the question.
I also asked her if she has been unfaithful. I asked her to please tell me the truth. She said no. She said she had been wearing the ring I gave her this entire time. Again, my trust is broken and understanding her to be an avoidant, I don't know what to believe any more. Most things feel like a lie.
I say a dramatic goodbye, as final-sounding as I could. But I'm too AP to keep to that. I have so many lingering questions. I ask her the next morning if we can talk again. I ask her again about the flight to America "are you *sure* you don't want to come?". She says we can talk tomorrow. She comes down with something - turns out to be covid. I check on her once a day, because I still care about her. She is doing fine. I want to talk to her, still. Later that week, I get covid. She asks if I am okay. Not 10 minutes later I try to call her, and she ignores it. I haven't tried to call her since. And she has made no effort to contact me.
So, then:
- Is this consistent with DA behavior?
- Should I have seen this coming all along?
- She said she loved me, often and without reservation after that time we finally told each other how we felt. Did she mean it? How can I ever know?
- How certain can I be that she is running from our relationship out of a fear of vulnerability, closeness, intimacy, a loss of independence, etc? I'm trying to tell myself a story here, that this isn't her fault - it's just her pattern.
I currently plan to just... sit with my feelings, mourn this unexpected loss, and move on. I need to set boundaries for myself and she has treated me horribly lately, and has not participated enough in our entire relationship. I want to give it several weeks, but I do plan to send her a letter after a time. And maybe a copy of a book on attachment theory... that's it. My hopes of recovering this relationship are dashed. Even if I could, we would both need to make some major changes to ourselves. And I'm the only one willing to do the work.
I know my AP tendencies pushed her away further.. and that the expressions of ANY needs is too much for a DA to handle, as they cannot express their own. In difficulty I was always the pursuer, and she was always running. I want to blame myself for how I handled this breakup, and I do. I am willing to own my faults, shortcomings, and to take responsibility for my attachment style in this relationship. I want to examine these things and to work on making myself a better person. I don't think my actions caused anything. But I do think I added fuel to the fire. I wish I had been able to keep my cool. But who can be expected to in such a shocking and painful situation?
Anyway, thanks to anyone who takes the time to read and reply. I will appreciate any thoughts you have to offer. I'm really hurting and I suspect I will be for a long time. The DA ex can shut off her emotions, shut me out, cut me off, and move on to another person for comfort immediately (doesn't seem like her, to me, but she hasn't seemed at all like herself in the last month), while I am left her in a lurch. Still in love. Still caring for her deeply. Incredibly hurt, lost, and questioning everything we had together. Unable to reach her, and even if I could, she is unable to hear. It's a very sad state of affairs, to lose someone you care for so deeply and to not fully understand why.
For reference, AT tests say I am Secure (Mother, Best Friend) Secure lean Dismissive (Father), Secure in General and Anxious lean Secure (Ex). Test taken during the breakup..
What follows is my attempt at an abbreviated overview of my relationship and recent breakup. I'm going to attach a much longer write up version for anyone interested and bored.
Quick version: Met a woman on a train while traveling through Europe 6.5 years ago. Four years later, we started dating. A long distance relationship. We visited each other many times. We survived the worst of the pandemic. We planned for her to move in with me for three months - but she bailed on our relationship not three weeks before the flight, without a satisfactory explanation. She ran away and shut me out.
Timeline:
We start dating July 2019
I visit her country October 2019
I visit her again in February 2020
Pandemic hits - we go 6 months without seeing each other
We meet up in London, August 2020,
We go another 6 months of not seeing each other
During this time (October to January 2021) she has a depressive episode in which she pulls away from me and we seem to be on the edge of breaking up. I'm writing things in my journal like:
> "I cannot put this much effort into someone who is disinterested in me. Someone who isn't interested in talking to me, or helping me, or even participating in our relationship. I can't. I feel like everything is completely one-sided. You don't do ANYTHING for me. You don't even say hello. You don't ask how I am doing, you don't send me messages, you don't send me photos - you don't do ANYTHING. You are NOT participating in our relationship. You just wait for me to talk to you."
Clearly, I am anxious, upset, and not understanding her need to pull away and emotionally shut down at this time. This is not her usual behavior... but an extreme version of it. I repeatedly write that I feel like I should probably break up with this person... it reaches that point. We have a conversation on the phone that I think is going to lead to the inevitable, but... we talk. We genuinely communicate. The conversation starts bad... and by the end we have recovered. It felt like a miracle. A revelation. Things didn't get immediately better... but we pulled ourselves from the edge.
Timeline Continued.:
- February 2021, I visit her again
- My journal has a negative bias - being where I turn in times of distress - but it seems like there are episodes where she pulls away from me again in April and May.
- June / July 2021, I visit her again (2 weeks). Things are absolutely wonderful in Summer. We tell each other we love each other for the first time, on our two-year anniversary. Her face lights up like I have never seen it light up before. I have finally allowed myself to love again. I love this person, and I feel like I have earned that love. For her - this is the first time in her life she has ever told a partner she loves them.
In late September, I am very upset about a number of life things but I feel like she is pulling away again.
October / November 2021. We see each other in her country. Things are great, and fun, again. We go on drives, cook dinner together, watch TV shows, go for late night walks, hike through the forest, play video games, watch anime... whatever. It's domestic, and it's normal, but things are good. I don't think we have a single argument, about anything.
Sometimes, throughout the course of this relationship, I have to admit that I notice she pulls away. She doesn't answer a text right away, or until hours later. Or she ignores a request I've repeatedly made.
Our long distance relationship requires a lot of effort and commitment by default. As a baseline. I ask for very little in return. And sometimes... she cannot give me even that. Somehow, my small requests slip her mind. Somehow, the things I need her to do for me go undone. This happens, from time to time.
Anyway - we had long had a plan for her to move in with me. The plan was that she would come live with me temporarily, for three months. She has no obligations at this time, and there is no reason she cannot. She gave me every indication that this is something she wanted and was looking forward to doing. I asked her about it multiple times... I felt like I gave her chances to express any misgivings or concerns.
I always strove for good communication in our relationship, believing that to be more important than anything else. Especially with the distance.
After visiting her in November, everything was great. We talked every day, she was very sweet, and we had a good thing going. I can look back on our messages to one another. There was no conflict. Only love, positivity, and optimism for the future.
Early December... she did her usual thing: ignoring a request from me. I got upset. I can't make sense of her behavior. My comments wade into "do you really want to come to America?" territory. It might seem dramatic, but her investment is inconsistent and I can feel that something is wrong. We get past it. A week later, she flaked on a video chat. For good reason. But I was upset, again. We moved past it. We video chatted finally. The video chat was good.
To shorten things up a bit:
- She fails to call me for three days in a row (after repeated requests - we normally talk every day, twice a day), which starts me on a very anxious path
- We talk, a schoolmate has admitted he has feelings for her and now she admits she has feelings back but is "confused" and "doesn't want this"
- I remain relatively calm. I (selfishly) seek reassurance that we are still together and she is still coming to America. She says she still loves me, we are still together, she is still coming. "I haven't lost my feelings for you and you're not losing me".
- I give her some time to figure things out, I send her a nice message, she replies "I don't want to throw it all away" and "I still love you".
- I'm feeling slightly more optimistic about the situation until... that same night I work myself into a panic attack
- The next morning, she has ignored a message from me, ignores my phone calls.
- My panic attack concludes with getting her on the phone, her revealing to me that she has started to lose romantic feelings for me (three weeks prior?) and I press her on whether we are breaking up. She says "I guess so".
- Panic attack ends, numbness sets in.
- I engage in as much protest behavior as possible, trying to remind her how much we love each other and basically just in shock / disbelief. No begging, though. But lots of messages.
- By the end of the day, we agree to go on a break (what a horrible choice in hindsight). She asks for a week. We agree to be "together" still, no dating anyone else, and that she would still be wearing the ring I gave her on our 2 year anniversary (not an engagement ring).
My holiday is ruined. Christmas, New Years, time spent with friends and family - ruined. All I can do is think about the person I love and wondering whether she is leaving me. Whether she is cheating on me, or seeing this other guy. I am a wreck. Haven't cried so much in years. It's all I can think about and I have a sinking feeling that she is not suffering the way I am. We wish each other Merry Christmas. That's it.
Instead of 7 days, I give her 12. I'm trying to be patient. She makes no move to communicate with me. I try to gently nudge her toward communication... she ignores that message. At this point, I have had enough. I want to know whether I should move on. Her avoidance is cruel. I text her Mother, hoping she knows more and can tell me to drop it and walk away.
Guess who I get a message from?
Now-ex asks if she can call me tomorrow. Really doesn't want her mother to talk to me. I would have dropped that out of respect for her wishes, but her Mom calls me and I pick up.
Turns out ex has lied to and has been avoiding her own Mother. Tells her that we have been talking, are broken up but are still friends, when in reality we haven't spoken at all. Mom tells me she has always been a coward. Always, she asks her to do things and later finds out she hasn't done them. It all fits.
The next morning, ex tries to break up with me over text message. I demand a phone call.
Now, I've been doing a lot of thinking at this point about her, and myself, and how we got here. I've been absorbing podcasts and youtube videos. As a result, I really want to speak to this person in a calm manner and try to *understand* and listen to her more than anything else. Which is something I found out that I haven't really been doing. And I want to start to make amends for that.
Phone call is relaxed, for the most part. I am in control of my emotions. I do a lot of listening. It's hard to do and to hear.
She says things like:
- I'm not ready for commitment
- Confused about her future, her life, when she'll have kids one day
- I feel like you're more of a best friend and I started feeling this way as early as November
- I tried to fix it by myself but I can't change these feelings
- Hopeless that we can fix this
- Said she didn't feel "heard" at times in our relationship
- I worry about the "burden" of you moving here to my country (the burden on my life and hers as well)
- I worry that I am going to want to go out and be social but you won't want to do those things
That's about all I got from the conversation. I asked her what she wanted, and she said we should break up but that she didn't want to stop talking to me. She wishes we could talk here and there. I tell her we cannot do that.
Toward the end, I asked her if she had truly thought she would marry me one day. She said yes. That admission will probably haunt me forever. I doubt it, even now, as maybe her way of just avoiding the question.
I also asked her if she has been unfaithful. I asked her to please tell me the truth. She said no. She said she had been wearing the ring I gave her this entire time. Again, my trust is broken and understanding her to be an avoidant, I don't know what to believe any more. Most things feel like a lie.
I say a dramatic goodbye, as final-sounding as I could. But I'm too AP to keep to that. I have so many lingering questions. I ask her the next morning if we can talk again. I ask her again about the flight to America "are you *sure* you don't want to come?". She says we can talk tomorrow. She comes down with something - turns out to be covid. I check on her once a day, because I still care about her. She is doing fine. I want to talk to her, still. Later that week, I get covid. She asks if I am okay. Not 10 minutes later I try to call her, and she ignores it. I haven't tried to call her since. And she has made no effort to contact me.
So, then:
- Is this consistent with DA behavior?
- Should I have seen this coming all along?
- She said she loved me, often and without reservation after that time we finally told each other how we felt. Did she mean it? How can I ever know?
- How certain can I be that she is running from our relationship out of a fear of vulnerability, closeness, intimacy, a loss of independence, etc? I'm trying to tell myself a story here, that this isn't her fault - it's just her pattern.
I currently plan to just... sit with my feelings, mourn this unexpected loss, and move on. I need to set boundaries for myself and she has treated me horribly lately, and has not participated enough in our entire relationship. I want to give it several weeks, but I do plan to send her a letter after a time. And maybe a copy of a book on attachment theory... that's it. My hopes of recovering this relationship are dashed. Even if I could, we would both need to make some major changes to ourselves. And I'm the only one willing to do the work.
I know my AP tendencies pushed her away further.. and that the expressions of ANY needs is too much for a DA to handle, as they cannot express their own. In difficulty I was always the pursuer, and she was always running. I want to blame myself for how I handled this breakup, and I do. I am willing to own my faults, shortcomings, and to take responsibility for my attachment style in this relationship. I want to examine these things and to work on making myself a better person. I don't think my actions caused anything. But I do think I added fuel to the fire. I wish I had been able to keep my cool. But who can be expected to in such a shocking and painful situation?
Anyway, thanks to anyone who takes the time to read and reply. I will appreciate any thoughts you have to offer. I'm really hurting and I suspect I will be for a long time. The DA ex can shut off her emotions, shut me out, cut me off, and move on to another person for comfort immediately (doesn't seem like her, to me, but she hasn't seemed at all like herself in the last month), while I am left her in a lurch. Still in love. Still caring for her deeply. Incredibly hurt, lost, and questioning everything we had together. Unable to reach her, and even if I could, she is unable to hear. It's a very sad state of affairs, to lose someone you care for so deeply and to not fully understand why.