Good words for when unavailable partners leave

"Profound change takes a lot more than switching up Instagram filters and updating your Snapchat story. It takes 3 things – WANTING to change, the ability to be vulnerable, and exerting the accountability to be able to view yourself and your actions in a negative light."

"Is he happy? How can he be happy?! I’m miserable.

Happy people don’t f*ck over other people. Plain and simple.

You can’t be a happy person and miss someone that consistently hurt and devalued you. Just like you can’t be a happy person and lie, cheat, devalue and hurt the person you’re supposedly committed to. Like always attracts like. Let people make their own bed. There’s no point in ever making someone else’s bed, especially when yours is a mess. Once yours is properly made, you won’t care so much about finding a bed to make. What once was an uncontrollable urge will now seem pointless to you because it IS."

I'm bumping this article up, since a lot of (anxious) people have been asking questions like this again lately about their exes. Same feedback about it: ignore that it's gendered, it can apply to either gender. And I'd argue that it's not fair to say that emotionally unavailable people have no empathy (if they don't have a personality disorder), but they often have low empathy (because the unavailability is created from being trapped in their own heads) and can lose empathy when triggered.

postmalesyndrome.com/emotionally-unavailable-men-breakup/

I follow that page, Post Male Syndrome, and I've actually been to one of her events that she held here last fall. I love her content and I love that she's about women's empowerment (NO offense to the men here..) and that she's about personal accountability. She is coming back to town in May and I'm going to that event too. Some of the women from that first event and I have kept in touch and been out together to connect. There were also men at her event and it was great for them to share too. 

alexandra - I do agree with this part that hurting people hurt people. And eventually when the person left behind is stronger and thinking more objectively, they won’t miss any of the pain the relationship brought w it.

alexandra - I agree that part of the message about seeking validation internally rather than externally is sound advice; however, that point is muddled and could’ve been communicated without making every avoidant be demonized as a liar, cheater and manipulator. It hurts the message bc every person out there- in spite of attachment, can act in that way and certainly not every avoidant does. Yes, avoidants are suppressed and emotionally unavailable- no need to add negatives to it. I certainly wouldn’t want to read an article that describes every AP as abusive. This author sounds bitter and biased.

In the author's defense since I did meet her at her event that she held, she is a genuinely warm and caring person who does care greatly about people taking their power back from the relationships that caused them a lot of emotional damage. So though her pieces may come off as angry or otherwise bitter, I can assure you she is not. She recently got engaged, and I follow her on social media where she is open about the fact that though she has come a long way, she still struggles with her own emotional issues that she is so encouraging to others about.


I don't think there is one single person in the world who has completely arrived and has no struggles, but that doesn't preclude them from being able to help others. I found her website before I knew anything about attachment issues, and her articles helped me tremendously. Though I NOW know that it's not merely that those FAs were just being flaky assholes, I didn't know it then, and her articles helped me to not blame myself, even though I knew anyway that it wasn't really about me, but it helped me not feel so alone in dealing with men who were so ridiculous in their mixed messages (no offense to any men; I'm just speaking to my own experiences, and in fact, there were straight men at her event).  As with all things on the 'net, take what serves you and discard that which doesn't.