Post by ollyn9ne on Jun 3, 2023 21:20:49 GMT
LONG POST INCOMING, APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE 
Hello,
I just came across this forum after finding out about attachment theory due to a break up I recently went through. The break up has hit me (AP, 25M) very hard, and I am trying to do anything I can to make sense of my situation. After reading a lot on the internet and other threads here, I believe my ex girlfriend has FA (25). We were together for around six months and broke up around three weeks ago. I was completely blindsided by the breakup, and have instituted no contact since the night it happened.
For some context on our relationship - We originally went on a blind date after some mutual friends had been trying to set us up for a couple of months. I didn't pursue hard when I was first told about her, because, while I knew we would probably get along, she had recently went through a really rough breakup. Her boyfriend (he was definitely DA from what I’ve gathered) of around two years cheated on her with one of her close friends while at a family holiday get together. Traumatizing stuff. After I had heard about this, I decided I wasn't going to pursue outright because I knew that she was most likely not in a place to have a healthy relationship, and I would be setting us both up for failure even if we had a good date. Around four months after her last breakup, she followed me on social media out of the blue. I had also heard that she had went on a couple of different dates so I took the chance that she was ready to get back in the dating game (in hindsight this might've been a mistake, who knows).
Our first date was amazing. We were both so comfortable from the get-go, and we shared a lot of laughs. It felt natural, real, and exciting. At the end of the night she asked to exchange numbers and said she would love to do it again soon. At this point, I knew I wanted her in my life, but I was careful not to rush anything and just enjoy her presence and our time together. We both did that, but it was evident to both of us that we really liked each other and were headed towards a relationship. I asked her to be my girlfriend about a month and a half after first meeting and she was very excited to say yes.
Our relationship continued as it had before, we got closer and closer and did what I could only describe as falling in love. I would tell her I felt extremely fortunate that I had someone like her in my life, and she would consistently tell me how much she loved being my girlfriend, and that she had never had a connection or relationship like the one we had. It was amazing.
Over time, I started to notice that her communication (texting specifically) became more sporadic. We still exchanged texts throughout the day, but the frequency started to decrease on her end. I didn't think much of it at the time because we are both very busy people, and I figured it was just the relationship progressing and moving our primary communication from texting to hanging out in person or phone calls. We were still hanging out 2-3 times a week and she was always very happy to see me so I let it go.
Looking back, I think this bothered me a little bit. Deep down I felt like I couldn't rely on her, or I couldn't just naturally tell her about things that were happening in my day. I now realize I should've communicated this feeling clearly and gauged her reaction instead of pushing it down. Instead, in response to this, I engaged in what I now know as protest behaviors (acted cold towards her while acting like our less frequent communication didn't bother me, wouldn't respond to her texts in a timely manner, etc.). I know this isn't healthy, and it is something I need to work on going forward. That is what started the push-pull dynamic in our relationship. She would be cold to me, I would respond with the same, and she would get anxious. She picked up on my change of mood and would send more text messages, call me if I didn't respond to a message after a while and ask what was wrong. I often played it off and was just happy to know that she cared enough to try to figure out what was going on. This push-pull would come and go, and never really affected us when we would hang out in person.
Time passed in the relationship and things were great for the most part. We introduced each other to each of our families, groups of friends, and went on 1-2 day trips together. After these trips however, I noticed that she would almost need some time to decompress and be alone (she didn't outright tell me this, but I picked up on it). Again, I didn't think much of it at first since that seemed normal to me but looking back I think this could've been her avoidance to our growing intimacy.
The beginning of our breakup started with a four day weekend/work trip that she invited me to. We went to a really good concert, explored the city, enjoyed some of the night life, met different friends of ours, etc. This really felt like it was a big step in the relationship for us. We were really starting to become ingrained into each others lives. Everything was great until the last night we got home and she woke me up in the middle of the night telling me that she couldn't sleep and wanted to talk. She told me that she didn't know what was going on, but felt uneasy about the pace of the relationship. She acknowledged that she invited me on the trip, but that she was feeling a lot of anxiety. I tried to reassure her that I wasn't rushing any commitments from her at the time and that it was fine if we just took our time. (she seemed very grateful for this) A couple of days later, she sent me some very long messages telling me that she talked to her therapist about what happened and told me that she froze up when she realized how close we were getting and that her body was reacting to things that have hurt her in the past (she used to live with her ex boyfriend). She then expressed that she was really happy with how I responded and that she needed to remind herself that we have love, have trust, have respect and that she had never truly felt those things in any of her previous relationships, so she didn't need to be shut off to me.
I was happy to hear this, and initially she seemed like she was moving past the feeling, but it started to creep back. She became distant, wasn't communicating, and in turn we started to hang out less. This went on for about a month. I would ask her from time to time if everything was alright because I could tell she was struggling, but she would tell me everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t. I tried to respect that until I started to become very anxious, and eventually confronted her and expressed frustration that she wasn't letting me in or letting me help her somehow. She eventually told me that she was really struggling with her own mental health and that she couldn't be the partner for me that I deserved. She told me that she knew I wasn't happy, and that it hurt her even more that she was hurting me, and that she didn’t deserve someone that treated her as good as I did. She also opened up to me and told me that night that she gets in these depressive moods and relives the feelings of an old trauma that she had (which internally she blames herself for) and completely shuts down. I tried to calm her down and reassure her that myself and everyone around her sees her as an absolutely amazing person that deserves love and that what happened to her was in no way her fault. She insisted that she had to get through these feelings alone because If I helped her get through this in any way and then decided to leave her six months down the line she would be “screwed”. She said she still loved me and cared for me so much that she didn’t want to drag me through her depression. I tried to tell her that everyone needs people to lean on sometimes and that I wanted to be that type of person for her but I think this made her deactivate even more. She stuck to her guns and ended our relationship and I felt like there was nothing I could do. All of this made me feel extremely blindsided because we never argued or had any big talks to work through any of this together, it kind of felt like she just pulled the plug out of nowhere.
I have really been in the dumps about our relationship ending, and I don’t know what to do. At the moment I am trying to start the journey on healing myself from the fallout of this relationship and earning a more secure attachment style. I am starting therapy soon and have been reading as much as I can about attachment theory.
A few questions that I could use some help with:
- I have conflicting feelings about what to do in regards to contacting her. Part of me wants to reach out and see how she’s doing because I care deeply about her. At the same time, I made that very clear to her during our breakup and she decided that she doesn’t want/need my help. This has what has kept me from reaching out and trying to focus on myself. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
- Am I a fool for thinking there is a chance at reconciliation down the line (or am I crazy for even wanting this)? She goes to therapy to try to deal with her traumas, but I don’t think she knows anything about attachment styles. If we were to get back together, I think I would preface it with saying we both would need to do our own work to earn more of a secure attachment style. I am struggling with this because she is a great person in my eyes and she was always kind and caring to me. At the same time, my trust would need to be rebuilt since she ended our relationship so abruptly.
- Do you think her telling me that she “doesn’t deserve me” is an attempt to let me down easy?
- What are some of the best classes to help work on my AP tendencies? I have seen PDS by Thais Gibson thrown around, is that worth the purchase?
Open to any other insights as well. Thanks!
Hello,
I just came across this forum after finding out about attachment theory due to a break up I recently went through. The break up has hit me (AP, 25M) very hard, and I am trying to do anything I can to make sense of my situation. After reading a lot on the internet and other threads here, I believe my ex girlfriend has FA (25). We were together for around six months and broke up around three weeks ago. I was completely blindsided by the breakup, and have instituted no contact since the night it happened.
For some context on our relationship - We originally went on a blind date after some mutual friends had been trying to set us up for a couple of months. I didn't pursue hard when I was first told about her, because, while I knew we would probably get along, she had recently went through a really rough breakup. Her boyfriend (he was definitely DA from what I’ve gathered) of around two years cheated on her with one of her close friends while at a family holiday get together. Traumatizing stuff. After I had heard about this, I decided I wasn't going to pursue outright because I knew that she was most likely not in a place to have a healthy relationship, and I would be setting us both up for failure even if we had a good date. Around four months after her last breakup, she followed me on social media out of the blue. I had also heard that she had went on a couple of different dates so I took the chance that she was ready to get back in the dating game (in hindsight this might've been a mistake, who knows).
Our first date was amazing. We were both so comfortable from the get-go, and we shared a lot of laughs. It felt natural, real, and exciting. At the end of the night she asked to exchange numbers and said she would love to do it again soon. At this point, I knew I wanted her in my life, but I was careful not to rush anything and just enjoy her presence and our time together. We both did that, but it was evident to both of us that we really liked each other and were headed towards a relationship. I asked her to be my girlfriend about a month and a half after first meeting and she was very excited to say yes.
Our relationship continued as it had before, we got closer and closer and did what I could only describe as falling in love. I would tell her I felt extremely fortunate that I had someone like her in my life, and she would consistently tell me how much she loved being my girlfriend, and that she had never had a connection or relationship like the one we had. It was amazing.
Over time, I started to notice that her communication (texting specifically) became more sporadic. We still exchanged texts throughout the day, but the frequency started to decrease on her end. I didn't think much of it at the time because we are both very busy people, and I figured it was just the relationship progressing and moving our primary communication from texting to hanging out in person or phone calls. We were still hanging out 2-3 times a week and she was always very happy to see me so I let it go.
Looking back, I think this bothered me a little bit. Deep down I felt like I couldn't rely on her, or I couldn't just naturally tell her about things that were happening in my day. I now realize I should've communicated this feeling clearly and gauged her reaction instead of pushing it down. Instead, in response to this, I engaged in what I now know as protest behaviors (acted cold towards her while acting like our less frequent communication didn't bother me, wouldn't respond to her texts in a timely manner, etc.). I know this isn't healthy, and it is something I need to work on going forward. That is what started the push-pull dynamic in our relationship. She would be cold to me, I would respond with the same, and she would get anxious. She picked up on my change of mood and would send more text messages, call me if I didn't respond to a message after a while and ask what was wrong. I often played it off and was just happy to know that she cared enough to try to figure out what was going on. This push-pull would come and go, and never really affected us when we would hang out in person.
Time passed in the relationship and things were great for the most part. We introduced each other to each of our families, groups of friends, and went on 1-2 day trips together. After these trips however, I noticed that she would almost need some time to decompress and be alone (she didn't outright tell me this, but I picked up on it). Again, I didn't think much of it at first since that seemed normal to me but looking back I think this could've been her avoidance to our growing intimacy.
The beginning of our breakup started with a four day weekend/work trip that she invited me to. We went to a really good concert, explored the city, enjoyed some of the night life, met different friends of ours, etc. This really felt like it was a big step in the relationship for us. We were really starting to become ingrained into each others lives. Everything was great until the last night we got home and she woke me up in the middle of the night telling me that she couldn't sleep and wanted to talk. She told me that she didn't know what was going on, but felt uneasy about the pace of the relationship. She acknowledged that she invited me on the trip, but that she was feeling a lot of anxiety. I tried to reassure her that I wasn't rushing any commitments from her at the time and that it was fine if we just took our time. (she seemed very grateful for this) A couple of days later, she sent me some very long messages telling me that she talked to her therapist about what happened and told me that she froze up when she realized how close we were getting and that her body was reacting to things that have hurt her in the past (she used to live with her ex boyfriend). She then expressed that she was really happy with how I responded and that she needed to remind herself that we have love, have trust, have respect and that she had never truly felt those things in any of her previous relationships, so she didn't need to be shut off to me.
I was happy to hear this, and initially she seemed like she was moving past the feeling, but it started to creep back. She became distant, wasn't communicating, and in turn we started to hang out less. This went on for about a month. I would ask her from time to time if everything was alright because I could tell she was struggling, but she would tell me everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t. I tried to respect that until I started to become very anxious, and eventually confronted her and expressed frustration that she wasn't letting me in or letting me help her somehow. She eventually told me that she was really struggling with her own mental health and that she couldn't be the partner for me that I deserved. She told me that she knew I wasn't happy, and that it hurt her even more that she was hurting me, and that she didn’t deserve someone that treated her as good as I did. She also opened up to me and told me that night that she gets in these depressive moods and relives the feelings of an old trauma that she had (which internally she blames herself for) and completely shuts down. I tried to calm her down and reassure her that myself and everyone around her sees her as an absolutely amazing person that deserves love and that what happened to her was in no way her fault. She insisted that she had to get through these feelings alone because If I helped her get through this in any way and then decided to leave her six months down the line she would be “screwed”. She said she still loved me and cared for me so much that she didn’t want to drag me through her depression. I tried to tell her that everyone needs people to lean on sometimes and that I wanted to be that type of person for her but I think this made her deactivate even more. She stuck to her guns and ended our relationship and I felt like there was nothing I could do. All of this made me feel extremely blindsided because we never argued or had any big talks to work through any of this together, it kind of felt like she just pulled the plug out of nowhere.
I have really been in the dumps about our relationship ending, and I don’t know what to do. At the moment I am trying to start the journey on healing myself from the fallout of this relationship and earning a more secure attachment style. I am starting therapy soon and have been reading as much as I can about attachment theory.
A few questions that I could use some help with:
- I have conflicting feelings about what to do in regards to contacting her. Part of me wants to reach out and see how she’s doing because I care deeply about her. At the same time, I made that very clear to her during our breakup and she decided that she doesn’t want/need my help. This has what has kept me from reaching out and trying to focus on myself. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
- Am I a fool for thinking there is a chance at reconciliation down the line (or am I crazy for even wanting this)? She goes to therapy to try to deal with her traumas, but I don’t think she knows anything about attachment styles. If we were to get back together, I think I would preface it with saying we both would need to do our own work to earn more of a secure attachment style. I am struggling with this because she is a great person in my eyes and she was always kind and caring to me. At the same time, my trust would need to be rebuilt since she ended our relationship so abruptly.
- Do you think her telling me that she “doesn’t deserve me” is an attempt to let me down easy?
- What are some of the best classes to help work on my AP tendencies? I have seen PDS by Thais Gibson thrown around, is that worth the purchase?
Open to any other insights as well. Thanks!
