Activated today!

Well.  Relationships are partly about doing stuff for other people.  You're meant to provide certain things to your partner - varying from couple to couple upon their needs - and also if you want a relationship to begin with then to some degree you have to participate in making the other person feel good / safe / special unless you find someone with absolutely no needs for any of that (in which case they'd likely be a DA like your ex wife!).  So that's just part of dating I think (on both sides, we do stuff).  Like for example me shaving my legs for a date isn't a fun experience, it's kind of a hassle and I'd prefer not to, but it's part of the dance of courtship so I do it. I don't feel manipulated into it.

When it becomes manipulation is when the other person (a) doesn't have a reciprocal concern for YOUR feelings and (b) goes about getting their needs met in non-direct and honest ways.  But then in the early stages of a new relationship it's human nature for their to be a LITTLE manipulation.  Books and websites even encourage that.  Have you read The Rules?  Women are positively encouraged that they can be more valuable and more attractive by employing manipulation instead of just being honest.  He doesn't call you one day?  Ignore him for three days!  This shit is insane.   And speaking from experience the sad thing is it actually works - if you're direct with a man you're newly dating and tell him you like him or tell him you need consistency to not feel anxious 9 times out of 10 the guy will panic and run away - but if you ignore him - he likes it.  It turns most men on to be a little rejected, and this is not just avoidant men.

So this is environmental too.

But you know it's also an avoidant characteristic to view someone else's requests for a "normal" level of feedback, consistency and affection as "manipulative", but I don't think it is normally really manipulative until you feel that dark sense that someone just plain old doesn't care how you feel and just wants to use negative emotions (guilt / fear) to get you to do what they want. Whenever people are manipulating me that's the one common denominator in how it makes me feel.  I can just SENSE they do not really care how the whole thing makes ME feel.  

So we all have these needs and in new relationships we have to somehow communicate to the other person what they are.  It's not normal in our society to just plain old say it, so there's this sense of falseness at the start.

When faced with a desire for more affection, attention or reassurance, the AP often resorts to protest behavior (like ignoring, threatening to leave, crying, guilt trips, persistent calling etc) and that behavior is all pretty manipulative.  I think if /when you sense that sort of behavior, you can directly ask the person to stop doing it and that you respond better to honest and vulnerable communication.

The same goes for you voicing your concerns.  When faced with that sense of fear, the avoidant often resorts to deactivation behaviors, which are equally dishonest.  You can choose instead to communicate directly about how it makes you feel and what's going on in your head, or to ask for some space.  Anything I guess that is honest and not a fear based reaction is more healthy.

All people have different needs, I think.  Maybe you can do some work on what yours are.  List out on paper what you want / need from a relationship and share that with who you're dating and ask her to do the same (if you like her!) and maybe in that honesty both people can grow something (or not!!!) with a sense of authenticity and learning new ways to react.  Maybe you can also make a list of your boundaries - your absolute "nope" moments where you know some behaviors don't work for you.

part of being FA is questioning yourself CONSTANTLY.  Is it me?  Is it her?  Am I the one in the wrong here?  He / She is obviously bad for me or this would not be happening.  We're very confused in general pretty much all the time, so asking yourself what YOUR needs truly are and YOUR boundaries really are might help a lot.  We also learned as kids that what our needs were or our boundaries were did not matter in any way and we almost learned not to have them.  As adults that's not true anymore. You get to choose now.  It's just very difficult to feel like even the most basic boundary is not selfishness - so we run away.

Hey Yasmin...I totally agree with how society and the Internet view dating...there is a book called "Men Love B@@@@@" and my coworker recommended it to me saying that if I wanted any prayer with B, I had to "play the game"... pretend I did not care, act busy, go out and take pictures with other guys etc. It just did not sit well with me at all....1. Because I have been told my entire life that I needed to act like someone else and here was a book with the same message...just packaged different. 2. Whatever happens with B, I would not want a reconciliation to be based on false behaviors 3. I want to learn to speak my honest truth and be ok with the outcome...the issue has always been one of self doubt more than anything else. I wonder if I really need to find a place where people meet more organically....Washington DC is so transitory and meeting people isn't as easy as it once was.

Wow....that was one very activated/triggered individual...and yes, that is protest behavior taken to a manipulative degree.  I won't defend protest behavior...I will just say that it sucks when the attachment system is in override.  If we give "no choice" to the other person to leave, then why would that person choose to stay.  Honestly Yasmin....I know exactly when I go into protest behavior because it is when I stop viewing B as an autonomous person and start viewing other women as a threat.  It is a really old wound where I don't view myself as having intrinsic value so I feel I must "earn it".  Meanwhile, I put B (metaphorically) on this pedastal that he never asked for and think every other girl must see how great he is.  It then turns to a sad paranoid made up story about how the other women are so much better than me.  When I am in it...as I was last week...I can sink to some terrible depths of the soul.  But I think understanding that that is what is happening is helping me to start changing the story.  Wow....kind of deviated from your post a bit.

Maybe it is geographical then. Maybe I should move? Haha.

Hmm, so I mostly date other women and haven't been on the dating sites in 15 years, but surely people who don't want all that nonsense can still meet other people who don't either? Is what you're posting above true even on the sites you pay to use? Or could you put something in your profile to only attract people on a similar wavelength? I just can't think that the majority of people want to play all those games. Maybe I'm naive...

Sooo....I just want to make sure I understand your perspective about the "not wanting pledges of undying love"....are you saying the girl should not expect that from you until you are comfortable...or that you don't want them from her either?

I don't really think that makes a difference Anne. People are either genuine or not. Besides... I don't think relationships are meant to be subtle blackmail like that?

I'm the wrong person to ask. I don't date at all!!