Confused after being ghosted by fearful avoidant.

Both AP and FA also have a fear of abandonment, so usually neither seeks complete disconnection. But that does not mean they want a healthy or functional connection or relationship. FA love being close but not too close and far but not too far. That's what soothes their nervous system the most. So once the romantic relationship is over, they will still happily come and go indefinitely to whatever extent the other person allows.

Be careful…because his words and actions are not matching.  An available person would have reached out and asked for a break to get his act together…an unavailable person will continue the push pull as long as you are willing to play along.  If he truly feels unworthy and wants to get better and have a chance at a successful relationship, he will go to therapy and get help.

Perhaps, since he's been vulnerable with you like this, you can set aside your anxiety and your needs and pour yourself into emotionally supporting him so that you two can remain in a relationship together? You've done some work on your attachment style, and while he hasn't made the choice to do a deep dive into his own psychological issues, perhaps you can compensate and make up for that, effectively becoming his route to healing through your own efforts. That way he doesn't have to do the hard stuff since he clearly is too wounded to do so? I wonder if your emotional availability could be enough for both of you? 🤔
Maybe you can heal him?

Of course, doing things this way will mean that everything you want and need in a relationship, such as consistency, trust, reciprocity... not being ghosted... those things will not be possible judging by his track record and his lack of effort to actually transform his relational style. But are those things really important? Can't you sacrifice them for someone you like so much? It seems like it would almost be worth it to continue being effectively abandoned just so you can have these little reunions where he actually gives you the time of day, and more... he actually enjoys himself with you which must feel fantastic after a few weeks of being completely ignored as if you don't even exist. At least he's got a good reason, he just isn't capable of showing up. That's a good enough reason not to, right?

This is scathing, but I'm gonna have to copy it down and re-read it if I am faced with this situation again in the future.

Having been through this with my ex, this is actually bang-on in terms of what us anxious peeps do. We give the benefit of the doubt in situations where it just has not been earned. And we lose respect with ourselves and with our partners as a result. It's a slippery slope that doesn't usually end well.

Helping someone to become more secure through your own security is a real thing - but only if the other person is a willing and conscious participant in that journey. Not if they're blindly flailing through relationships with their attachment wounds bleeding openly.

Just a warning in terms of having that discussion around healthy boundaries. I found with my ex-FA that those discussions always went quite well if there was promise of lovely time together or a relationship hanging in the balance. But the actions just didn't match up with those healthy boundary discussions. So it might be worth getting really clear and realistic about what you want - maybe start small with things that you know for certain that you can stick to - i.e. no physical intimacy unless you're in a committed relationship, no chasing if he ghosts again... etc etc 

Precisely.

And that's the question, how do you move forward in a healthy way with someone who doesn't even think they are worthy of something healthy? Really think of that. Think of your emotional caretaking for 5 months that never changed a thing for him.

It's because this is ALWAYS ALWAYS an inside job. If you think that someone who hasn't even begun to change themselves and who only responded to your over-functioning once again, can proceed in any healthy manner, you are mistaken. This little reunion was all you, he just took the free ride and enjoyed it, thank you very much. Intentionally using you? Maybe or maybe not. Incompetent for a healthy relationship? Definitely. Absolutely. But he will get pulled along willingly until he ghosts again because he knows this isn't right, he just doesn't know what to do about it and hasn't figured out he's actually responsible for it, as an adult.

And I was being sardonic to suggest that your emotional availability might be enough for both. (The whole post was sardonic with the aim of nudging you to use your critical thinking here). If you are anxious, and you are, your "emotional availability" is actually just "a lot of emotions that you are acuteky aware of causing you to be 'available' for an emotionally crippled person in an insecure dynamic".

We have all been there in some form or another, all of us on the spectrum of attachment insecurity. We all suck at it, for a long time, before we get more clarity.

As a healing FA the triggering myself part really resonates. I am pretttty great at story telling and picking up on the tiniest thing and completely dusregulating around it. It is really on me to do the work to show up in my relationships.

The video @introverttemporary linked was good at discussing some aspects of AP lack of emotional availability. All insecure attachment styles are emotionally unavailable when it comes down to it, which is why insecures are attracted to each other. It's the level of capacity they have for relationships, and it feels familiar and safer to have that mirrored back to you. AP and anxious FA want to feel longing, and they may think they don't feel anything without the longing and flooding of their nervous system. DA and avoidant FA may feel numb due to fear of engulfment or enmeshment or general blunting of their nervous systems from neglect and other trauma. None of this allows authentic vulnerability. AP specifically desperately seek to feel connection, but they lack connection in the relationship to themselves which is why they are "secretly" emotionally unavailable. As the video said, you can't be available if you are too disconnected from yourself and your own needs to know who you are or what you want. I'm not saying that in judgment, I'm saying it from experience being AP for decades, and getting to the other side enough that I can describe and communicate thoughts and feelings now that I couldn't at all back then. But when every one of your partners has issues and chaotic relationships and none of them ever work out smoothly, there's a lesson you're supposed to learn about yourself and why you're choosing these partners, and you'll keep experiencing these situations over and over until it's enough to start trying something different (assuming it's ever enough).

That may be difficult information to digest, but you can start with a more straightforward concept. All insecure types are temporarily emotional unavailable during periods of being triggered. Defenses are up, communication is poor, projection and interruptions to connection are happening whether it's anxious triggering or avoidant withdrawal. That may be an easier lens at which to start looking at this bigger picture, if you're ready to do so.