Letting go early, doing the secure thing is hard
Mar 18, 2022 6:46:18 GMT
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Post by saltandlemon on Mar 18, 2022 6:46:18 GMT
Hi all, long time listener, first time caller. I’m a historical FA who swung AP after being in a longterm (5.5 year) highly volatile relationship with a cluster b guy and some traumatic losses in my family. The fall out was hard, it got me in touch with a lot of buried issues i otherwise wouldn’t have addressed, got myself into longterm therapy and have made a lot of strides getting closer than I can safely say I ever realized was possible to secure. I dated a bit after that breakup, but ended up committing to a solid period of emotional sobriety for 3 years. which I think was ultimately good for me (figured the pandemic was a good time to try that). Just prior to Covid 19, I met a friend of a friend at a NYE party and I suppose there were “sparks” but it was also NYE where everything feels a bit sparkly if you will. so, I didn’t make much of it-when I learned he lived on the opposite coast and was just home visiting I figured I’d leave it at that and i didn’t attempt to stay in touch. Then the world flipped on its side so I truly never thought I’d see this guy again. It was just a nice memory I’d keep.
Til he reached out about a year and some odd months later. We got to talking, we share a lot of quirks and interests, and I guess before I knew it we’d found ourselves in daily communication via text/FT/phone. He seemed really engaged, and I think he and I both genuinely enjoyed finding ourselves a witty intellectual person to breakup the monotony of the last few years of Covid limbo, I didn’t think it would progress beyond that. But THEN out of the blue, he bought me a plane ticket 😩 and I said well, it’s worth a shot.
I was a bit concerned with the potential this guy was attachment disorganized. He’s frankly very good looking and successful in his practical life, very independent and self directed. As I’d been working towards being more secure, I talked to my therapist about how I felt it kind of troubling we BOTH seem to bond well with a tremendous North American sized distance facilitating it. She said my challenge would be to succumb to neither avoidance or anxiousness, and simply approach it with a “I will be okay no matter what” mindset. Friends of the sub, I tried to keep my wits about all this, and hoped for the best without creating some kind of fantasy to get lost in.
Early in my cross coastal visit, he was very very attentive and seemed eager to get close, he definitely pushed things physically a bit fast ( I have a bit of regret about not putting the breaks on, but sex happens and I suppose there is still a magnetic pull between some of us ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) it was honestly beautiful at moments, humor abounding, lots of nerves but a sense of mutuality in it.
it was amazing though, to watch the situation unfold with a solid basis in understanding attachment theory, until I did heavy therapy I simply couldn’t have separated my emotional experience from what actually happened. Here’s a bit of what happened
Some quirky things: Post coital (and I mean literally post coital like still right there naked) conversation involved interesting subject matter, this man earnestly informing me that his ex girlfriend was manipulative, conniving, insecure, pressured him into polyamory, broke his heart, and is his current close friend “basically family” (an addendum he attached “some people think that’s psychotic but whatever, and I have learned the long hard way I don’t want to ever be with her or someone like her”). I was quite taken aback, he told me about his childhood loneliness as an only child in a bitter bitter divorce between parents of very opposite emotional extremes, I mean it was a lot of heavy duty disclosure but stated in the most matter of fact language. and for the first time in my life I felt secure in NOT immediately following a partners pace and opted against disclosing much of my own past too soon, I calmly decided it was too soon and also not suitable in terms of post sex oxytocin to be talking so heavily about trauma, I wanted to listen so I sort of just tried to be there and let things unfold-figuring he felt comfortable, and I didn’t want to interrupt in the moment.
The next day this man’s making us breakfast, and out of nowhere asks why his former close friend/coworker won’t talk to him after they had sex, telling me he was not sure why they couldn’t still be friends. I said well, did she have feelings for you? And he said yes she wanted to be more than friends. I said well perhaps she was hurting? Sex changes how women feel sometimes! We can be more sensitive after that! Sometimes even jealous! He asked for an example. And I said for example, I feel a bit freaked out about your ex girlfriend you described as being so mannipulative and cruel being one of your current best friends! I probably wouldn’t feel that way if we were not having sex though, I’d feel more objective about it and be able to approach it as your friend. (I feel badly in retrospect because I think I must have truly embarrassed him and didn’t mean to)
Well my friends of this wonderful sub, I witnessed a deactivation so profound starting at that moment. I mean it was immediate, his entire aura changed. And the poor scared man spent the next two days in full physical and psychological shut down, anxious, sullen, withdrawn, just clearly shutting down, he developed psychosomatic gastro intestinal illness, the poor guy could not come back to earth. I felt like utter shit about it, but at the same time I knew this was a deactivation, and I knew I didn’t deserve it. A secure partner would have reacted so differently, I knew what I was seeing was a freakout in response to me even just stating that we had moved from one state of casual to a slightly more emotionally weighted one by disclosing a little about jealousy. I had a momentary shift to anxiousness at dinner a few hours before my red eye and actually started crying because his deactivation shifted from sullen to actually a bit scary (alcohol thanks a lot). He came back to the present for a few minutes, long enough to put a hand on my leg and apologize (the first physical contact in two deactivated days after like, being very physical towards me prior). The drive to the airport was oddly cheerful (I think he was relieved to have space again). I was in full awareness of everything happening.
He was incredibly vague w me about his feelings since this, inconsistent in communicating, just clearly shut down. he clearly wanted to maintain some kind of grey area friendship. I’m hurt by the instant switch, but I have since told him it’s not good for me to be his friend and Im hurt by the instantaneous change and the expectation that I could switch dynamic in turn. He’s admitted only that he has a “somewhat closed off side to him” “needs to take things very slow” “expects relationship to just happen naturally without thinking too much about it” “values a high level of chill” and he’s rationalized the change in dynamic as something he thought I would have intuited “different value sets/preferences”. Hearing all this, taking into account the phantom ex, being pulled close rather fast then slingshotted- all that was enough for me to know, I’m dealing with a fearful avoidant. I blocked him, explained it’s for the best and would be unhealthy to carry on a confusing tense friendship
I have never trusted myself to make a final call like that, but I realized that it truly makes even the most therapy committed person CRY in public when stable normal attachment is rapidly interrupted by these deactivations. I hope the FAs reading this know sometimes it is with great sorrow we shut the door. My plan is to simply not be in contact, because i can honestly see the trajectory bringing out things I wouldn’t like about myself, insecurity, jealousy, protest behaviors etc. i dont want to do it.I used to think much more about preserving potential for love, but I’ve reached a place where I just want to be happy. And instability is just unhappy.
Thanks for reading <3! I’ve found a lot of great wisdom over the years visiting this sub, so if I’ve made a good choice I owe it to countless posters here and I hope you guys know it means something!!!
Til he reached out about a year and some odd months later. We got to talking, we share a lot of quirks and interests, and I guess before I knew it we’d found ourselves in daily communication via text/FT/phone. He seemed really engaged, and I think he and I both genuinely enjoyed finding ourselves a witty intellectual person to breakup the monotony of the last few years of Covid limbo, I didn’t think it would progress beyond that. But THEN out of the blue, he bought me a plane ticket 😩 and I said well, it’s worth a shot.
I was a bit concerned with the potential this guy was attachment disorganized. He’s frankly very good looking and successful in his practical life, very independent and self directed. As I’d been working towards being more secure, I talked to my therapist about how I felt it kind of troubling we BOTH seem to bond well with a tremendous North American sized distance facilitating it. She said my challenge would be to succumb to neither avoidance or anxiousness, and simply approach it with a “I will be okay no matter what” mindset. Friends of the sub, I tried to keep my wits about all this, and hoped for the best without creating some kind of fantasy to get lost in.
Early in my cross coastal visit, he was very very attentive and seemed eager to get close, he definitely pushed things physically a bit fast ( I have a bit of regret about not putting the breaks on, but sex happens and I suppose there is still a magnetic pull between some of us ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) it was honestly beautiful at moments, humor abounding, lots of nerves but a sense of mutuality in it.
it was amazing though, to watch the situation unfold with a solid basis in understanding attachment theory, until I did heavy therapy I simply couldn’t have separated my emotional experience from what actually happened. Here’s a bit of what happened
Some quirky things: Post coital (and I mean literally post coital like still right there naked) conversation involved interesting subject matter, this man earnestly informing me that his ex girlfriend was manipulative, conniving, insecure, pressured him into polyamory, broke his heart, and is his current close friend “basically family” (an addendum he attached “some people think that’s psychotic but whatever, and I have learned the long hard way I don’t want to ever be with her or someone like her”). I was quite taken aback, he told me about his childhood loneliness as an only child in a bitter bitter divorce between parents of very opposite emotional extremes, I mean it was a lot of heavy duty disclosure but stated in the most matter of fact language. and for the first time in my life I felt secure in NOT immediately following a partners pace and opted against disclosing much of my own past too soon, I calmly decided it was too soon and also not suitable in terms of post sex oxytocin to be talking so heavily about trauma, I wanted to listen so I sort of just tried to be there and let things unfold-figuring he felt comfortable, and I didn’t want to interrupt in the moment.
The next day this man’s making us breakfast, and out of nowhere asks why his former close friend/coworker won’t talk to him after they had sex, telling me he was not sure why they couldn’t still be friends. I said well, did she have feelings for you? And he said yes she wanted to be more than friends. I said well perhaps she was hurting? Sex changes how women feel sometimes! We can be more sensitive after that! Sometimes even jealous! He asked for an example. And I said for example, I feel a bit freaked out about your ex girlfriend you described as being so mannipulative and cruel being one of your current best friends! I probably wouldn’t feel that way if we were not having sex though, I’d feel more objective about it and be able to approach it as your friend. (I feel badly in retrospect because I think I must have truly embarrassed him and didn’t mean to)
Well my friends of this wonderful sub, I witnessed a deactivation so profound starting at that moment. I mean it was immediate, his entire aura changed. And the poor scared man spent the next two days in full physical and psychological shut down, anxious, sullen, withdrawn, just clearly shutting down, he developed psychosomatic gastro intestinal illness, the poor guy could not come back to earth. I felt like utter shit about it, but at the same time I knew this was a deactivation, and I knew I didn’t deserve it. A secure partner would have reacted so differently, I knew what I was seeing was a freakout in response to me even just stating that we had moved from one state of casual to a slightly more emotionally weighted one by disclosing a little about jealousy. I had a momentary shift to anxiousness at dinner a few hours before my red eye and actually started crying because his deactivation shifted from sullen to actually a bit scary (alcohol thanks a lot). He came back to the present for a few minutes, long enough to put a hand on my leg and apologize (the first physical contact in two deactivated days after like, being very physical towards me prior). The drive to the airport was oddly cheerful (I think he was relieved to have space again). I was in full awareness of everything happening.
He was incredibly vague w me about his feelings since this, inconsistent in communicating, just clearly shut down. he clearly wanted to maintain some kind of grey area friendship. I’m hurt by the instant switch, but I have since told him it’s not good for me to be his friend and Im hurt by the instantaneous change and the expectation that I could switch dynamic in turn. He’s admitted only that he has a “somewhat closed off side to him” “needs to take things very slow” “expects relationship to just happen naturally without thinking too much about it” “values a high level of chill” and he’s rationalized the change in dynamic as something he thought I would have intuited “different value sets/preferences”. Hearing all this, taking into account the phantom ex, being pulled close rather fast then slingshotted- all that was enough for me to know, I’m dealing with a fearful avoidant. I blocked him, explained it’s for the best and would be unhealthy to carry on a confusing tense friendship
I have never trusted myself to make a final call like that, but I realized that it truly makes even the most therapy committed person CRY in public when stable normal attachment is rapidly interrupted by these deactivations. I hope the FAs reading this know sometimes it is with great sorrow we shut the door. My plan is to simply not be in contact, because i can honestly see the trajectory bringing out things I wouldn’t like about myself, insecurity, jealousy, protest behaviors etc. i dont want to do it.I used to think much more about preserving potential for love, but I’ve reached a place where I just want to be happy. And instability is just unhappy. Thanks for reading <3! I’ve found a lot of great wisdom over the years visiting this sub, so if I’ve made a good choice I owe it to countless posters here and I hope you guys know it means something!!!
