What's the best way to respond to the push-pull cycle?

Best ways to move on:
*No contact
*Give yourself a time limit to grieve the end of your relationship (for me it was 30 days) and truly grieve. Journal every day during this time.
*Know that your brain chemicals have been altered and you will need to do a bit of neurological rewiring (metta/loving kindness meditations and a daily gratitude practice are fantastic ways to do this)
*Sign up for a class or group activity that meets weekly...you will expand your social circle and have built-in structure that prevents you from ruminating
*Eat well. It's amazing how much your diet effects your mood. Bananas, leafy greens, turmeric, legumes, and salmon (or omega 3 supplements) are fantastic feel good foods for your brain
*Exercise - move your body in a way that pleases you, and if you can do it outside even better. Dance, yoga, mindful walks, hiking
*Take a trip, explore a change of scenery, give yourself something to look forward to
*Music is an incredibly powerful tool. Create an uplifting playlist. Have an "anthem" song - play it first thing in the morning and whenever you feel down. Mine is "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone
*Go to therapy so you can figure out why you participated in an unfulfilling relationship for so long - It's never just about "the connection"

I think you're misunderstanding it - the purpose of a time limit for grief is to give yourself a set amount of time to allow SPACE for sadness and reflection instead of beating yourself up for feeling down or covering emotions up with busyness and shallow dating.

It's when you cry all the tears, listen to sad songs, eat ice cream in bed or whatever self-soothing behaviors feel good. Journaling every day during this period is a crucial aspect to the emotional processing.

As an avoidant, I'm not great at feeling feelings. This allows a safe space to do so while knowing there is a light at the end of the emotional tunnel. That doesn't mean I'm done processing at the end of it - just that my mourning period is over and it's time to move on to the next phase.

I've found doing this frames my experience towards closure and progress rather than ruminating over when or if I will.

We are not robots of course but this has been an incredibly helpful tool in my journey.

Something to consider: Maybe if setting a time limit on grief doesn't feel "right" it's because you don't truly want to move on?

I do remember that just before my ex ended things I was dealing with a lot of stress. Family drama, serious issues where I felt a responsibility to be there and help these individuals more than usual. Then my best friend of 10 years did something that really hurt me. We had never had a REAL disagreement. I was difficult for me to confront her about it but I did and her reaction was to completely cut me off without as much as one conversation about the issue. The family members that I had spent so much time supporting cut me off too as my ex-best is dating my nephew. I now have no contact with that part of my family because of her reaction to my expressing my hurt about what she did. I was grieving this loss when my ex decided to end things. I was traumatized.



I don't get truly close to a lot of people so this was a large number of the people I was closest to that cut me off all at once.



I remember telling my friends that something snapped in my brain. This wasn't normal stress or anxiety. Something chemically felt off. I kept telling people, I'm not well and it terrified me! I had never felt like that before and I had been through some pretty traumatic stuff in my past.



I went to therapy but talking about it wasn't helping. I asked my doctor to give me antidepressants which alleviated some of the symptoms but the anxiety persisted. I battled looping thoughts and the feeling of operating on high alert longer than I felt was reasonable was making me feel insane! It was so miserable. I wasn't able to function in life or at work anymore. My brain had been chemically altered and  I wasn't myself anymore. It truly wasn't something I was going to be able to just "talk out". This was PTSD.



I had dealt with trauma from my past by seeing a therapist who used EMDR, it doesn't work for everyone and I'm not making any medical recommendations, but it worked wonders for me.



This time though, I couldn't find a therapist that did EMDR withing my network that I could afford as I have a high deductible insurance plan. Ok TMI...any whooooose it....



Realizing this was not an option, I did seek the assistance of a super kind psychiatrist. Between him and my primary care physician we were able to find the right anxiety medication. I worked closely with them as one class of medications that deal with brain chemicals I am allergic to and  had a very negative reaction to. But once I found the right one, the anxiety stopped being so persistent. Intrusive thoughts lessened greatly and secure thoughts, my normal thought process, returned.



He made sure he prescribed me a medication that I would not get addicted to and I was told by my doctor that I would not have to stay on these medications forever but that I was experiencing a high level of grief and when I had fully grieved these issues I could stop taking them.
The medication was just an aide to my healing process.


Some people feel a certain stigma is attached to those who take meds for the brain but I see it this way: I deal with a thyroid condition. Now, since my body attacks my thyroid so that it doesn't produce enough of the hormone that the body needs, I have to monitor those hormones about every 3-6 months and take medicine that makes up for the deficiency. No one judges me for needing thyroid meds. when they find out. I'm not ashamed of taking care of that part of my health.

Likewise, because something happened in my brain which caused my body to no longer the chemicals it needs to regulate my anxiety, I needed medicine for that. There is no shame in my game BABY! I'M BACK!

People have differing views about seeing medical help so again, I am not recommending any specific treatment for anyone here. But it is an option one might want to consider.


I just wanted to share my personal experience with using therapy and medication to help find my center once again.

I'll share my perspective as a DA at the end of a LTR as I can relate to what you've posted about your relationship with your ex.

For 7 years I truly believed I was in a two-way loving, close relationship. The romantic relationships I witnessed firsthand growing up were highly dysfunctional (my parents had several divorces & marriages between the 2 of them and there was a fair amount of abuse/trauma involved), but they were my ONLY frame of reference for adult romantic relationships. When compared with what I'd seen, my relationship seemed amazing, and so I told myself (and everyone else) a story that the relationship was fine and any perceived issues with it were inconsequential, and subconsciously avoided any line of thinking that would lead me to conclude otherwise. In hindsight this was deep denial; I've since learned from this forum that creating an illusion of intimacy without the risk (long-distance relationships, long-term relationships that are devoid of closeness) is a common pattern for DAs.

It took a dramatic shift in perspective for me to look at my relationship differently: first by opening up emotionally to an old friend, then by realizing emotional intimacy is possible AND was missing in my relationship, then by forcing myself to confront this new apparent problem by re-evaluating my relationship against my new perspective. All of these things go completely against the natural instincts of an avoidant.

Now that I'm confronting my behavior and attachment style I realize this relationship was codependent and unhealthy. My superficial needs were being met, which is why I described the relationship positively, but my boundaries were not respected -- I wasn't able to vocalize the extent for my need for space, and was constantly triggered, increasing my avoidant behavior (primarily self-repression) and furthering the cycle. I also discovered a new need that wasn't being met in emotional intimacy.

For the record, my partner is AP and is just as emotionally unavailable as I am. Since becoming aware of my attachment style I've been forcing myself to identify and vocalize my emotions and needs, and have been shut down. He responds to displays of emotion with one-word responses like "gotcha", changing the subject, or awkward childish/deflective behavior. Emotional unavailability is not exclusive to DAs.

Those times that I had the presence of mind to identify the behavior that was crossing a boundary and vocalize that to him, he would stop and apologize. Many of these behaviors reoccurred regularly despite my repeated requests to stop; sometimes he'd realize it and apologize again but they would eventually come back.

My ability to identify/vocalize these things decreased over time as I continued to be triggered without the self-awareness to realize what was happening. Armed only with the knowledge that I behaved "differently" from most people in relationships, I told myself I was overreacting to small problems and that "normal people" wouldn't consider them significant enough to derail a relationship, and silently vowed to work on controlling my reactions. This led to further self-repression/emotional shutdown which increased his anxious behavior, furthering the push-pull cycle.

I'm not sure how you could address this with a DA who isn't self-aware enough to understand or verbalize their own needs. Self-awareness has made all the difference in my situation. Regardless, I think the responsibility to identify/communicate needs falls on the person who has them.

Hi! I'm new to this forum, but it's been a great resource to me. 

I'm involved with a DA for the past 9 months. 1.5 months ago, he suddenly texted me that he needed less "us" time and immediately withdrew, keeping communication to a minimum and at a very regimented schedule (i.e., no more "i love yous", msgs only every 4 hours, no cutesy stickers). as an anxious (self-diagnosed), this sent me into a tailspin and I read every single article I could to deal with it. I stopped pursuing, replying only when he texts (still texts the bare minimum of asking how am I but not having real conversations), and mirroring his behavior (if he says i love you, i say it too. if he takes 5 hours to reply, i take another 5 hours to reply). 

Now, he's back to normal and seeking closeness (sending me i love yous, striking up deeper conversations), basically going back to what it was before. and now I am terrified. that if we go back to what was before, it'll just trigger him again at some point where he is overwhelmed but doesn't say, and cuts the cord so violently. I am ok with him needing space, but cutting the emotional cord so quickly and decisively was extremely traumatic to me and it is not acceptable to me. To protect myself, I'm staying in the same communication pattern as per the past 2 months - rare immediate replies, short replies, not sharing much information on where I am and so on (we are in different countries most of the time due to work), not opening up to him with my thoughts. 

I have a few questions and hope to seek some opinions!

1. Is it ok to be withdrawn from DAs? do they feel hurt or would they not even notice? 

2. How do I manage the communication/closeness over time so that it does not trigger such a violent reaction from him? I need stability and consistency, with a certainty that my partner does not leave me (very anxious I know), so I do not want to get overly close and trigger his stress response. 

Thanks!