Madamebovary, i need your help :)

I believe the thread you’re referring to was about compartmentalization? I think you had a reference to playing pool, and enjoying it as a solitary activity, that you wouldn’t necessarily want to share with your partner. I deleted the post, so I can’t remember verbatim, but I was struck by how different (not bad, just different) us APs are to you Avoidants. My DA likes to keep things separate, in their own little boxes, and I never understood it because, as an AP, I long for my partner to bleed into every aspect of my life. I can’t imagine the distress this caused him. It makes me sad how we are really so alike, just using our own coping mechanisms, which are diametrically opposing the others preferred coping mechanism.

During our last text-argument, mid-argument, I said to him “isn’t it strange and sad and weird how we are experiencing the same thing (our relationship) but having totally different experiences?” He constantly thought I was pushing him. For him, several days silence was fine. For me, it was a sign something was wrong. I can see now how much he tried to meet me in the middle, that it was just exasperating for him to constantly have to hold my hand like I was a child, because I needed his constant reassurance.

Anyway... I’m now 30 minutes past when I was supposed to be done with this (thank you, adhd), so I need to get up and get some laundry done. I’ll come back to this because I really am trying to understand him and fix my own AP issues. I see now how Avoidants get a bad rap and APs are often seen as the “wounded party” because we “just want to get and give LOVE!” But there are as many manipulation tactics that we use. We’re both just trying to live with the hand we were dealt. It’s nice that we can learn from each other because it really is as if we both speak a differing language. I used to use that analogy with my DA often. I speak Italian, you’re speaking Russian. We need to take the time to make some universal signs.

ps- I am also in a caring profession (teaching special needs kids and preschoolers) and your description of pure love (re:the 92 yr old man in hospice) was so lovely and spot-on. Anyway... I’ll see you around the boards. Don’t be afraid to call out my sh*t. I’ll get offended and retreat for a bit, probably, but I’ll be back.

mary, your ost belongs here, i was aiming to open a dialog so we all can express and listen to each other .
i have some to add but need a little nap so i will be back!

haha madame, i don’t mind your potty mouth a bit.
What i realized is that my ex DA and i were extraordinarily emotionally vulnerable and open with each other about our internal lives and things that are meaningful to each of us. That is more natural for me han him but he apparently was much more open with me than he had been to anyone, according to his long time friends.
We were more guarded with each other about our own relationship, defenses came up around that a bit.
There was a man who was clearly interested in me for a little while recently, and i picked up right away his anxious tendencies. I didn’t like sharing much with him because right away i noticed that he made assumptions and jumped to conclusions about what i was feeling or thinking and it was instantly off putting.
That goes along with what i wrote about feeling like a chalkboard that people felt free to erase and write up their own perceptions and opinions and projections.
When it came to sharing like that, my avoidant man was a very good listener and would hear me out thoroughly without any assumptions, and that made me love him a lot.

On the other hand, the anxious guy is very emotionally available and it was refreshing in some ways. i truly value him as a friend but couldn’t have a relationship with him because we just aren’t a good fit emotionally.

tgat, your chalkboard analogy was one that struck me right away. It actually pains me to think I was doing that to him. I, too, find myself making assumptions and having to remind myself that he isn’t “every other man.” As a matter of fact, when I said that once to him, that he was acting like every guy, I think I deeply wounded him. I’m only hoping that when we break NC, he’ll be able to see I’ve made some real effort to not only Fix my issues, but also to understand his. Every other time he’s gone inward, I have tried to rein in my crazy, but made no real effort to see his side.

As an aside, may i ask a practical question to the avoidants? I know you guys hate this, and it isn’t that I see you and think “lab rat, let me see how they work”... it’s more that, if I had a friend that was a native of Mexico, and I was taking a trip to their city, I might ask them questions about it before I asked anyone else. This will be the longest enforced NC that we have had. In the past, he’s allowed me to be very loose with our NC and if I text, he’ll text back, very short. This time he seems more serious about enforcing it. As a general rule... should I avoid liking his posts on social media during this time? We haven’t unfollowed each other as I think we would both see that as outward hostility and he would never do that. But... I have avoided posting anything and when I have, he hasn’t liked it. He’s posting... should I not like his posts? This seems very juvenile to even have to ask, but I want to show him I can absolutely respect the boundaries he’s giving me.

Thank you in advance for all the light you’re shedding about the other side of the coin.

now if i could just get my DA to be present more consistently haha!
Such a mixed bag, all of it.
But i think for me, the whole discussion comes back to independence and physical/time space not being a good barometer of my emotional involvement with my partner.
I have become more emotionally available over the years though for sure.
each person will be at their own place on the whole spectrum.
For instance, the space required by your partner, madamebovary, sounds like too much space even for me.

The best thing i think is just to continue to explore our own internal states and identify our own traps. Only we can release ourselves to be more authentic and find healthy partnerships to be our natural, healthy selves in!

Ironically, Mary, he is actually less of the rule person than I am. I volunteered a two week NC hiatus to give him some space to breathe because I could see that my AP tendencies were spiraling... you know the push/pull. He pulls out a little, I push in, and it goes from there.

But he’s very loose, in general. It was that grey area that was hard for me to stomach. He likes to play things by ear and “go with the flow.” He would never give me anything firm. That made me a little crazy, which made me push, and him pull back. I emailed him and said I could tell things were escalating in our push/pull dance, I’ll give you two weeks without me to try to figure out your feelings or whatever... just give you space. Three days in, I texted I missed him, he texted back “I miss you too” but when I jumped on that and said “does that mean we can quit NC early?” Well... he never responded. That’s not a good sign. So I think I’m going to adhere to our original agreement and go from there.

I did warn him, when we got together, that my feelings are big and intense and scary even to me. I LOVE big. I told him I was like Doug the dog from up... I meet people and basically jump in their lap and go “I HAVE JUST MET YOU.... AND I LOVE YOU”

He always accepted it... I think maybe just with some work stuff going on... I overwhelmed him.

Well, this is going to sound terribly sluttish I’m afraid, tgat, but I’m hoping that even if we can’t work out our emotional stuff completely, that he and I will be able to get together physically. We have both said that we’ve never been with another person that we’ve instinctively trusted so much *physically.* I mean... the sex was pretty stellar. I will be extremely sad to let that go. Especially since neither of us is in a place where we want a real heavy relationship right now. That man can light my fire like literally no one else ever.