still can't get over it

They do miss you. If you were good to them and did not stress them out too much. Your example sounds so familiar to mine. Three days ago I was in the shower crying. Broke up with my DA 6 months ago because of her distancing strategies. I couldn’t take it anymore. But I always treated her so well. I never got mad or angry. But I did have to walk away. 6 months and not a peep from her. This is the type of partner who would NEVER chase someone. But I had always remembered a post in which Mary (our most helpful member of the forum here I think) said that the only way she would reach back out to someone was if she felt safe in doing so. IE if she knew that the person wasn’t mad at her or upset with her. I always made it known during our breaks that she could contact me if she wanted to give it a go. And when I finally broke up with her I told her I loved her so much but could not handle being with someone unavailable. But also that I loved her to death. She told me how she appreciated someone that put so much effort into her.

6 months and not a word from her. All of the same thoughts that you just had in your post. Every day this person crossed my mind. “I’ll pribably never hear from them again.” That all changed a few days ago when I looked down at my phone and saw that they reached out to ME. The impossible happened. And we’re meeting up next week to go out. Avoidants need to feel safe. If you want to give it another go then extend the olive branch to him to communicate with you with absolutely zero pressure. Only love and acceptance.


During one of our break ups after reconciliation she told me that she felt depressed the past few months but didn’t know why. The only thing that had changed in her life was I was out of the picture...she had NO conscious relation that she was depressed over our break up. I would almost guarantee with absolute certainty based on your facts that he misses you. He may not be aware that he does on the surface but it sounds like he does.

To be continued...

here is my experience of missing, as an avoidant, and one that i see in my partner as well:

whether or not i miss a person after a relationship ends depends on how hated or despised i felt in spite of expressions of love. Really. if the arguing made me feel misunderstood, devalued, negatively characterized, demeaned, or insulted, i did not leave the relationship looking back with warm feelings. leaving was a relief and i didn't give it much further thought in terms of going back. This doesn't mean i am happy necessarily, although i will be glad to not be subjected to further unpleasantries. i am also dealing privately with my own feelings of anger, disgust , resentment, hurt, and whatever negative feelings are involved with being treated badly.

Most DA i know are very practical people, so as stated in a previous comment, missing is not always enough.
If i have warm feelings about a person that i no longer am in relationship with, but see no practical way to overcome obstacles that broke us, the missing is something i accept and know is not enough to lead me to try again. I see that DA i know are action oriented and if they can't take action to remedy something they don't spend a lot of time going around about it, they let it go and deal privately with any feelings they have, however they deal with them.

(Also, if a DA tend to numb feelings with over work or substances, missing will be numbed and no action taken. there is probably not a solution in their mind, as they turn to numbing and distancing and not solutions. )

In the case of something unresolved, where the relationship has ended, and i miss a lot, i will try to find a remedy and if i believe a reasonable one exists (as in, a change in MY OWN behavior and beliefs and approach, i will make the effort toward reconciliation.

It may take time, but if i want to reconcile i won't stop myself , i will make and execute a plan of reconciliation. It may or may not work, but i won't deny myself the opportunity.

A DA who is less aware may limit themselves and just turn away from the relationship altogether. It seems looking back that that is what i did prior to recovery but honestly, everything is vague and sketchy to me back then.
I think it's very possible to tune out missing and just drift away. But that's not me any more.

I don't know if it's helpful, i have done a lot of work and am able to look back in retrospect to understand things, and to understand DA around me.

Also- in the case of a DA who is unaware.... they may miss, and restablish conract, without a real plan. Contact in that case would not mean that real insight has been gained, but they are not at the absolute end. this can feel hopeful but as many have experienced, it can be just a prolonging of the end, it can happen on both sides like that where neither has the health or solutions in place to sustain the relationship and they are just grappling with messy feelings.

I think it's safest to say, no contact from a DA means they aren't seeing reconciliation, they most likely are resigned in some way to the end of the relationship.

This can change over time but until it does, prolonged silence in my experience does not translate to longing and hoping and wishing for what could be, on the DA side.

Every person and situation is different but that just my perspective on the topic of missing.

it's important to mention that i think the underlying belief for an avoidant is that relationships don't work out. that's a powerful belief and if they haven't begun to question it yet, they will likely live in ways that prove that belief, even as they wrestle with it and wish for something different. it's about not having the capacity to do differently (until fundamental long standing beliefs evolve through introspection and effort). we just started talking about that in the support forum, that's why i bring it up here.

No one knows but him if he misses you or not.  As others have said, it depends on what the relationship was like, if you really connected and how in touch he is with his feelings.  The important thing is that you take care of yourself and figure out what it is that you want and need.  I think a lot of people just want to know the ex misses them as a "validation" of the relationship.  The validation of the relationship though resides within you.

is there anything you can do to slowly distance yourself from B? Do you think that would help at all? I'm glad that you are actively choosing to do what you think is best though. I think that gives you a bit more feeling of power, which may help you heal in many ways. I've been reading your posts on here for awhile and I think you are super self aware and impressive. You know what is best for you, no doubt. 

I actually sat with that "gift" thought all last night and it made me feel better. Thank you so much for that idea. I will continue to think that way. I know logically that he should miss me. We had some amazingly great times together and bonded over certain situations that are undoubtedly lifelong bonding situations. I won't go into details, but the circumstances in which our relationship blossomed was truly one of those that you never forget. It was not a run of the mill encounter by any means.

He told me once that when he misses people, he doesn't let it last long. He said "I think to myself that yes I do miss this person, but I don't harp on it." BUT, I don't believe this, because he was always scared to death to show me that he cared deeply about anything. He wouldn't let me hear him talk on the phone with his parents because he was afraid I would hear him say I love you to them. He didn't admit he had been crying when his dog died. He moved out of his house he had owned for five years and he kept staring at it as we drove past it one day at random, but he said he didn't miss it. We watched the movie Good Will Hunting a few years back. He actually pretended to be asleep during the scenes where Will was in love with Minnie Driver's character. It was like he was scared to death of intimacy. It was almost like intimacy would exhaust him. He would be practically delusional at night and say random things that made no sense and would then fall asleep. 

I felt terrible for him. The end of our relationship began when he switched careers. There was a time near the end of the relationship when he started to have night terrors. This is a 35 year old man who needed to sleep with the lights on. I think at that point I knew things were doing downhill for him.  


 

Vilified me in what way? I agree with this, but I am curious to hear your details of that thought too. Vilified you just like he vilified all the other girlfriends that came before you that were oh so terrible and controlling of him. Obviously it is his subjective assumptions of them and we don't know how aware he is of how much is him and how much is them.   

He told me about multiple girlfriends before him that were very controlling of him. He said one of them would control how he spent his money, his time with his friends, would complain to his siblings about him a lot, etc. And how another ex used him for sex supposedly. And how another ex was really mean to him, but I never asked him to elaborate because I didn't want him to relive those memories. I believe these stories, but I also know there are two sides to a story. He is also very self-conscious, so maybe these girls weren't acting all that bad, but he perceived it as bad. He told me that I had more patience with him than they did. But that's all he really said. But wow, that is a really good point. Maybe that was his attempt at subtle control. But at the same time, I know how self-conscious he is. I don't know if he was trying to manipulate or not, but that is a good point.  

And yeah, he chased me... well... he texted me asking me to hang out quite a few times. I wasn't picking up on the fact that he liked me, so he eventually just texted me that he thought I was "amazing" or something cheesy like that. But after that, he never told me I was amazing again. Maybe he is manipulative. I guess I never thought of it in that way. I think he will only do as much as he needs to to get you hooked. People like that will not extend the accolades because they feel like if they do, you will eventually abandon them. The reasoning is perplexing, but it is what it is. Whenever I think this sort of thing can be intentional it makes me nauseous.  

I remember on his dating profile that it said he wanted kids and marriage eventually. He also said he was looking for "that special someone." But at the end of our relationship, he was starting to say he didn't want marriage or kids. I honestly laugh when I think of his dating profile now. It was kinda too good to be true in some aspects. He either knowingly lied to me about his future plans in life, OR things changed for him. I know he has changed a lot since his career change stresses. I don't know. I know that I decided I didn't want kids after certain traumatic events in my life, so maybe the same happened to him. I am so bad at looking at him 100% objectively. Sometimes he comes off as so helpless and innocent, and now I do wonder if he was being manipulative.   

Thank you for the feedback. I have a lot to think about. The dark side of my thoughts are now leaning towards... maybe he manipulated me for sex and just to be close to somebody because he was lonely. Sometimes these desperate sad people are just so self absorbed in their sadness they are incapable of loving or really even considering how much their own sadness is keeping them so called safe from getting hurt. It is a vicious cycle of wounded behavior. Many of us are guilty of it. I think anyone, who is not in the "Secure" quadrant of attachment.  But at the same time, I know he truly cared for me. I am confused. Such a good point you brought up though. Thank you!