Post by Gay anxious on Nov 7, 2016 4:14:35 GMT
Hello, my ex and I have been stuck in the anxious-avoidant trap for years. He finally left recently and probably for good. I unfortunately learned nothing about attachment theory until a week or so after he left.
The short point of this post, is there anyway to convince or increase the chance of the avoidant returning and to work on the relationship once we k ow what the real problem is?
Now the back story, skip if you like. I'm definitely an anxious, scored 30 on a test that considered anxiety a 0-100 scale. My mother died when I was a teenager, my father is likely an avoidant and had no idea how to show a child affection beyond buying gifts and expressing pride. Also I had some childhood friends tell me they didn't like me and never had. I learned at an early age that relationships end and people leave you.
The ex can from a family where both parents had extreme anger issues, bursting into his room with no warning to yell at him. Even told him they hated him. Had no friends but his grandmother's cats.
When we met I was 21 and immature. I thought it was weird he had no firends whatsoever at school. He had no social life outside of work and the occasional hookup. He had three boyfriends, one that went to a different school that would date him until he found someone better at his own school and did this repeatedly. One that was never officially a relationship because he was graduating and going to grad school. And finally one early in his graduate career that he discovers was doing porn behind his back and he is certain is a psychopath.
We had the typical quick whirlwind start. Within two weeks of dating we were boyfriends. Within two weeks of that he said I love you and I said it back. Then a few months later he started to pull back. It was small at first then got worse. We started fighting about everything. I would yell at him over things I found very irritating such as leaving unfinished food everywhere, or how he said something wrong, etc, but I ultimately knew it was because I was angry he didn't give me the intimacy I wanted. Often times we had amazing make up sex and I found myself starting fights just for the make up sex. Early in the relationship I expressed that I needed more verbal reassurance beyond 'I love you' he desperately didn't want me to leave but nothing changed. He said his feelings were indescribable, he experienced them as swirling masses of color and had no way of mapping language onto them. I until innately accepted this. We went to couples counseling to try to communicate more effectively and to figure out why we were fighting so often. He never wanted to go out and when he went out with me if I wasn't immediately with him he would just go off alone and sit down waiting till he had to do something.
I got a job offer that I could not turn down and so we became long distance and opened up our relationship. We saw each other once a month, always fought but then made up and enjoyed our time together. We did this for three years.
Then I moved to be with him and do my own grad school. For logistical reasons he would leave Sunday night and sleep at work, coming home Wednesday evening and often going straight to bed. Due to this we remained open. We fought frequently and I was increasingly critical of him on just about everything. Even in front of my friends and family I would criticize and demean him.
But ultimately we were comfortable. We had lots of feelings for each other and I guess stayed because we weren't in a place to find someone else.
I graduated from grad school and moved to DC to try to find work, he eventually found a new job and a year later I moved to be with him. During that year he made friends for the first time. He got in super great shape and started to get lots of attention and over came some body issues he had from being overweight as a child. I move here and he starts telling me he can't relax around me and he needs the freedom to socialize and potentially hookup when I'm not around. During the year he said my outbursts were no longer going to be tolerated, and said I needed to go to anger management therapy. He even admitted he had sex to fee validated, often not having sex with someone twice because it gave them an opportunity to reject him. I said he needed to seek counseling about that and he said he didn't because it was common. Once we moved in together we fought every day. We sought couples counseling but he said it never helped him. He moved out after we had a bad vacation with some people, and three weeks later ended the relationship.
In the early years when we fought he seemed so cal and collected, and seemed to rationalize why I shouldn't feel the way I do. It drove me crazy but made me feel like maybe I was overreacting. Toward the end I would point out more of his inconsistencies and flaws in logic. He started calling me a narcisist saying I had no empathy and couldn't see any view point other than mine.
He cried when he ended it, the third time I had seen him cry in 10 years, at a club, and said he wanted me to stay and try to have a good time. Since he has gone to several sex parties and one of his friends told me unsolicitedly that he felt he was going over board.
Why would I want this man back most of you will prolly ask. He has an iq around 150, I love his ambition, his intellect, his sense of humor, we had amazing sex, and he made lots of sexual possibilities exciting, he gave me the freedom to explore my own sexual interests without fear of hurting his feelings. He was affectionate a good deal of the time. He is kind and caring of other people, even though he keeps them at arms length and while he feels their pain and happiness empathetically, he has no ability to perceive how his actions affect others. And I love him, it's as simple as that. I know the anxious avoidant trap can feel like love, and maybe early on it was obsession, addiction, and gratification. But over ten years, we he burly care for each other, want the best for each other. He cannot fake crying, he wouldn't cry if he didn't love me. Now that I know the problem, I want to convince him of it and see if we can try one more time addressing the actual issue rather than the symptoms.
The short point of this post, is there anyway to convince or increase the chance of the avoidant returning and to work on the relationship once we k ow what the real problem is?
Now the back story, skip if you like. I'm definitely an anxious, scored 30 on a test that considered anxiety a 0-100 scale. My mother died when I was a teenager, my father is likely an avoidant and had no idea how to show a child affection beyond buying gifts and expressing pride. Also I had some childhood friends tell me they didn't like me and never had. I learned at an early age that relationships end and people leave you.
The ex can from a family where both parents had extreme anger issues, bursting into his room with no warning to yell at him. Even told him they hated him. Had no friends but his grandmother's cats.
When we met I was 21 and immature. I thought it was weird he had no firends whatsoever at school. He had no social life outside of work and the occasional hookup. He had three boyfriends, one that went to a different school that would date him until he found someone better at his own school and did this repeatedly. One that was never officially a relationship because he was graduating and going to grad school. And finally one early in his graduate career that he discovers was doing porn behind his back and he is certain is a psychopath.
We had the typical quick whirlwind start. Within two weeks of dating we were boyfriends. Within two weeks of that he said I love you and I said it back. Then a few months later he started to pull back. It was small at first then got worse. We started fighting about everything. I would yell at him over things I found very irritating such as leaving unfinished food everywhere, or how he said something wrong, etc, but I ultimately knew it was because I was angry he didn't give me the intimacy I wanted. Often times we had amazing make up sex and I found myself starting fights just for the make up sex. Early in the relationship I expressed that I needed more verbal reassurance beyond 'I love you' he desperately didn't want me to leave but nothing changed. He said his feelings were indescribable, he experienced them as swirling masses of color and had no way of mapping language onto them. I until innately accepted this. We went to couples counseling to try to communicate more effectively and to figure out why we were fighting so often. He never wanted to go out and when he went out with me if I wasn't immediately with him he would just go off alone and sit down waiting till he had to do something.
I got a job offer that I could not turn down and so we became long distance and opened up our relationship. We saw each other once a month, always fought but then made up and enjoyed our time together. We did this for three years.
Then I moved to be with him and do my own grad school. For logistical reasons he would leave Sunday night and sleep at work, coming home Wednesday evening and often going straight to bed. Due to this we remained open. We fought frequently and I was increasingly critical of him on just about everything. Even in front of my friends and family I would criticize and demean him.
But ultimately we were comfortable. We had lots of feelings for each other and I guess stayed because we weren't in a place to find someone else.
I graduated from grad school and moved to DC to try to find work, he eventually found a new job and a year later I moved to be with him. During that year he made friends for the first time. He got in super great shape and started to get lots of attention and over came some body issues he had from being overweight as a child. I move here and he starts telling me he can't relax around me and he needs the freedom to socialize and potentially hookup when I'm not around. During the year he said my outbursts were no longer going to be tolerated, and said I needed to go to anger management therapy. He even admitted he had sex to fee validated, often not having sex with someone twice because it gave them an opportunity to reject him. I said he needed to seek counseling about that and he said he didn't because it was common. Once we moved in together we fought every day. We sought couples counseling but he said it never helped him. He moved out after we had a bad vacation with some people, and three weeks later ended the relationship.
In the early years when we fought he seemed so cal and collected, and seemed to rationalize why I shouldn't feel the way I do. It drove me crazy but made me feel like maybe I was overreacting. Toward the end I would point out more of his inconsistencies and flaws in logic. He started calling me a narcisist saying I had no empathy and couldn't see any view point other than mine.
He cried when he ended it, the third time I had seen him cry in 10 years, at a club, and said he wanted me to stay and try to have a good time. Since he has gone to several sex parties and one of his friends told me unsolicitedly that he felt he was going over board.
Why would I want this man back most of you will prolly ask. He has an iq around 150, I love his ambition, his intellect, his sense of humor, we had amazing sex, and he made lots of sexual possibilities exciting, he gave me the freedom to explore my own sexual interests without fear of hurting his feelings. He was affectionate a good deal of the time. He is kind and caring of other people, even though he keeps them at arms length and while he feels their pain and happiness empathetically, he has no ability to perceive how his actions affect others. And I love him, it's as simple as that. I know the anxious avoidant trap can feel like love, and maybe early on it was obsession, addiction, and gratification. But over ten years, we he burly care for each other, want the best for each other. He cannot fake crying, he wouldn't cry if he didn't love me. Now that I know the problem, I want to convince him of it and see if we can try one more time addressing the actual issue rather than the symptoms.