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Post by serenity on Nov 14, 2019 22:25:11 GMT
I still can’t really tell if this is AP or normal, but even with him responding and knowing it takes a while for avoidants to come out of that state and knowing his depression etc, I still am feeling untrue to myself for it now being a month since the attraction/etc texts and 2 and 1/2 months since that confusing convo, and all I’ve done is apologize and flirty (and giving him confidence i would think) ask him to hang out. I guess what I’m saying is is it just my AP-ness that wants to ask so wth has been up the past couple of months (in different words) or is that a normal thing to do even after the odd contact we’ve had? This is the part of the whole attachment stuff and journey to secure that is so challenging for me... identifying my thoughts and behaviors and when I’m acting / thinking out of an insecure / AP state and when I’m not. I believe that feeling anxious and insecure about the romantic relationship are most likely your authentic feelings personally. You were in a close romantic relationship, then he suddenly bailed on you when you got sick, told a mutual acquaintance you were no longer dating, and has been breadcrumbing and distancing for months. He's created a great deal of relationship insecurity, to the point where its unclear if one exists, and you're feeling it IMO. A 100% secure person may not feel as deeply anxious about that, but they would realize their needs are not being met any more and seek them elsewhere, probably sooner rather than later. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2019 22:40:51 GMT
i had a similar experience with someone else I was hanging out with (can't even say I'm seeing). confusing, never truly available, and just disappeared on me when things got rough though will show up if I asked plainly. I think it's a completely normal thing to want to ask for closure, but it's an AP thing to be very anxious and worried about it coupled with walking on eggshells trying not to trip him up. i think serenity is spot on. with this dude i'm referring to, I tried having this conversation and it went nowhere, and it gave me the final push towards earning secure. I stopped talking to him and didn't bother restoring the friendship, and now am dating seriously with someone else who makes every effort towards healing and security. He's been showing up again (we work in the same building but not together) and we have been having coffee; the feels are always good. I always enjoy hanging out with him and I do miss him very much, and I'm always tempted to repair the relationship with him and tell him that I do miss him etc, but it takes me every ounce of self control not to do it. so, like you said caro, confidence is always restored when in person, but it means very very little when the other person doesn't step up and into the place you wish he would. so the lesson is, we have chemistry, no compatibility and no communication. the APness comes from worrying too much about losing the chemistry, and less about the compatibility and communication. |
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Post by iz42 on Nov 15, 2019 0:30:24 GMT
I don’t feel like one exists. Yet it’s been so confusing why he said last month that he liked me and was attracted to me and checked up on me a couple weeks ago. I alternate between feeling like a fool (like I do now) and thinking it’s not personal he’s just in a bad place. But it hurts regardless. Today I feel like it’s been too long to say anything. And my constant overthinking has prevented me from action yet again. I feel sick. Sorry you're struggling so much caroline1218. I think you have more power in this situation than you might realize. It seems to me that you have a few options: you can try to address what's happened over the past few months (it's not too late) or make a decision to move on and work on letting go and grieving the loss of the relationship. Neither option will be fun or easy, but at least you will be able to move out of this anxious purgatory and feel more grounded again. I think you'll be surprised how much better you feel when you're no longer waiting for him to make a decision or to tell you what's going on. |
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Post by iz42 on Nov 19, 2019 0:02:12 GMT
Hi Caroline, congrats on reaching out and clarifying! That's really great. I wouldn't assume that he won't reply at all. It's true that he may not, but it might take him some time. It seems pretty weird for him to lose interest over the past few weeks when you haven't seen him during that time. I think whatever is happening is likely to be much more related to his own issues (depression, attachment, whatever else) than a lack of interest in you. He might be interested AND unavailable, which is really the worst and most frustrating combination.
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Post by happyidiot on Nov 19, 2019 0:45:12 GMT
caro Practicing direct communication is a process and can feel awkward. You won't always know the perfect things to say, and that's ok. We don't need to be perfect, and often there is no perfect way of saying it. It's still great you are making an effort. I don't think it really matters if you were being secure vs pretending to be secure vs not being secure, you attempted to get some answers from him. Please make sure you don't go down the anxious road of telling yourself if you had only said things slightly differently maybe he would have responded. If someone can't even reply to you saying you didn't know if they were still interested then they are not in a place where they can be a romantic partner to you. Of course, you already know how I feel about his ability to meet your needs. Maybe the first question was a bit easier for him to answer, it sounded like you were mainly asking what's been going on. He gave an incredibly vague answer. To me it reads as though he just gave the most minimal answer possible, so as to not to be so rude as to ignore you completely and/or in the hopes you would drop it. The second text might have been easier for him to justify not answering, because it is a statement with a question mark at the end, and he may have no clue how to answer it, he might even feel like he already answered it in his vague previous text. Interested in what? Texting you sometimes? A proper relationship? An avoiding person will OFTEN answer only select texts, or just the first in a series. That is part of what keeps the anxious person feeling addicted and confused, because they are getting that intermittent reinforcement. I probably shouldn't even be contributing to guessing why he ignored the second text and not the first, because I can't actually know, and he might not even know. For me, I might not respond to a text if I don't know what to say or I'm busy and need time to properly think about it or my brain just forgets. An avoiding person doesn't always realize what they are doing. If someone forgets to text back someone they are ostensibly sort of dating or they know wants to date them, about something that vulnerable, it says a lot about their ability to meet your needs, even if you can't be sure about their reasons. Also, a person can be attracted to you and think you are a wonderful person and not be "interested in" any kind of relationship. My FA ex who decided he was no longer interested in dating me or even having a friendship or really answering my texts or anything, said he was extremely attracted to me and thought I was great and cool etc. Why he felt the need to repeatedly say that he was still attracted to me, who knows. Maybe he just wanted me to know that his behavior wasn't due to me being ugly or bad. Anyway, I suppose my point is that we can drive ourselves crazy trying to make sense of a person's mixed messages. If they cannot even have a conversation about their intentions that tells us something more important. If he doesn't answer you within, say, 24 hours, do you have any idea what you would like to do? For me, creating a plan can help me feel less powerless.
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Post by iz42 on Nov 19, 2019 5:49:12 GMT
Today I did have several moments where I felt very bad for “pushing” (I don’t think/know if that’s the right word but...) / pursuing someone that I know is struggling with depression so bad. It feels selfish of me that I pushed to see him last much and then this month this. Sure just two/three texts from me like this when I’ve been totally supportive and not asking anything previously... but it makes me feel bad that I did this. Why would I add more pressure onto someone who was depressed and struggling so hard? Why couldn’t I have just accepted how things were and not had these expectations and wants that I convinced myself I had to act on in the name of sticking up for myself and speaking my truth? Why couldn’t I just be there for him and leave it at that knowing if he got better maybe it could work out. He gave you mixed signals. Just because he's depressed doesn't mean you have to walk on eggshells and never ask for anything. I've been severely depressed and I could still communicate with people and let them know what was helpful or not helpful. It was hard, but depression is just hard in general. I would have felt weird about others trying to tiptoe around me instead of communicating directly. It sounds like you've gone above and beyond to be supportive of him. If you'd been putting tons of pressure on him this whole time that would be one thing, but from what you've said here you have been really kind and the opposite of pushy. You get to have feelings and express them. It's not all about him. You were waiting for an opportunity to talk in person, which was totally reasonable, but even if that never happens you still get to express your needs. I think the question of why you pursued someone who was unavailable is worth exploring, but not because it's selfish or because you "made things worse" for him, just because it might shed light on your own history of attachment. I hope you can work on having compassion for yourself and not beating yourself up for trying to communicate. Taking care of yourself is not selfish. |
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Post by happyidiot on Nov 19, 2019 7:05:43 GMT
caro Rather than beating yourself up, could you think about what can you learn from this experience and apply to the future (and I don't necessarily mean the future with him, you might decide that the healthiest thing is to not have contact with him)? I'm going through a similar thought process (wondering if I should put my needs aside when someone is going through a hard time) and I think my takeaways right now are 1. that I need to learn more about clear and direct communication (I would say you could stand to use to learn more about it too) and putting in effort to consistently practice it, and 2. that I need to learn greater patience and how to communicate better at appropriate times. The tricky part is that those things can sometimes feel like they are in opposition. I think a lot of my problems come from stuffing down my needs and feelings and not saying anything, even when I could have had the opportunity to say something sooner at times that would be better (like when someone is more open to communication and in't so deactivated/shut down or stressed or defensive), because I guess I get scared to rock the boat, and then eventually I am about to burst from the buildup of unmet needs, or the person is already checked out, and then I start feeling freaked out because I feel like I NEED to say something, or I am feeling resentful that my needs have gone so unmet for so long, or I will end up saying something spontaneously, that comes out poorly and isn't received well. I think you did a reasonable job of not being pushy actually. I don't consider him as straight-up ghosting you because you just told him, "if you don’t feel like talking about stuff, that’s ok too, I get that." Not to sound blaming, but you explicitly told him that you were fine with him not talking. It's not awful to want to see someone that you have a romantic connection with in person, or to ask for some clarification on where you stand, even if they have mental health issues. Someone being depressed doesn't mean you have to just completely put aside all your needs or that they are excused from even basic things like informing you if they can't have a in-person relationship with you. I think a secure way of dealing with situations like this might be to try to engage in proper communication to find out what's going on with the person and what they want (and if that's impossible then taking that as it's own message), determine if the person falling well below meeting most of your needs seems likely to be a temporary situation or an indefinite one, and to factor in the history and relationship status (if you have a long history in a committed relationship is going to be different from something fuzzy and unlabelled), then make a thought-out decision as to how to proceed and whether or not (or at what point) to end things and move on. People on this forum seem quick to say secures go around dumping people easily if their needs aren't met, but I don't believe that to be the case. Secure people will stick around for a while, sometimes a very long while depending on the circumstances, to see if someone goes back to meeting their needs, I have seen it over and over. I think the difference is that a secure person will not get as stuck on potential that has never (or only very briefly) been demonstrated, or as stuck on someone that they only dated for a short time, and they won't wait around passively (or chasingly) forever when there is little indication of things changing. A secure person will, in my experience, be compassionate towards someone having anxiety or depression, but compassion doesn't have to equal completely sacrificing your own needs, in fact it may mean realizing when someone's mental health issues preclude them from being a good partner any time soon and letting them go. If I understand/remember correctly, you had a period of about 3 months when you texted frequently and saw each other on average every 2 weeks (which is still not that often), then it dropped off to almost never seeing each other in person and him going long chunks of time without texting much, and that has been happening for about 6 months, is that right? That is already twice as long as the relatively more connected time that you had together at the beginning, and you have said that this situation is hurting you and triggers you AP. Did you ever have a "boyfriend/girlfriend" label or a commitment of any kind? I'm assuming not. You deserve more than a pen pal. You weren't being selfish and bad for trying to see if a man who happens to have depression would get together with you. You're not yelling at a person with no legs, "Why can't you walk!?" You've been very gentle and very patient. But if he won't be more than an occasional text friend, then why not release yourself to find someone else who will?
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Post by serenity on Nov 19, 2019 8:59:41 GMT
Hey Caroline,
I don't think you came across as pushy at all. And his lack of response was probably because he felt he answered your question already, and that you had responded favourably when you said `okay makes sense'.
Now you and I would spot an emotional plea a mile away, but avoidants tend not to. And good luck getting them to talk about something that makes them feel vulnerable, like their feelings for you, or wanting a different relationship status to what you had before. I just don't think you could have got that out him during distancing mode. And I don't think you did any harm either.
Only thing I can think to add its okay to state the emotional impact he has on you clearly, if something he did has made you feel vulnerable, sad, dismissed, or belittled. Even if the relationship is undefined, you are a person in his life, and your relationship will be no good if you are not feeling okay. In my own experiences, you can be vulnerable with an avoidant. That's not to say you should be making romantic declarations when you know they are unwelcome right now. But if brushing you off makes you sad enough to cry, you can tell him that. If he makes you feel angry or dissmissed, you can tell him that too.
What you may be doing is protecting him from feeling any anxiety due his behaviour towards you. And yet FA's tend to be most present when they swing slightly anxious... so there is not any real point protecting him from that. What you really want to avoid is pushing HIM to be vulnerable, when he is not ready to be. He may be unable to talk about feelings or topics that lead to feelings. But he can hear yours if that makes sense? And if he is a friend, and doesn't feel manipulated, its likely he would do something about it.
Just my thoughts. you're doing good, and what you did was brave. Its sad that he is unavailable (still!) but you don't have to accept dismissive behaviour or bottle your feelings up.
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Post by iz42 on Nov 20, 2019 1:57:51 GMT
Looking at his past behavior, a possible scenario is that he will pop up in a few weeks to a few months with a text about an unrelated topic and act as if nothing has happened. For now, focus on grieving and healing, but also you might want to think about how you will handle it if he keeps sending breadcrumbing texts. I don't mean to make predictions, it just seems like this intermittent texting has been going on for a while and it's not likely to stop unless you ask him not to contact you. That would be extreme, but you can set boundaries. You don't just have to accept whatever he does.
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Post by serenity on Nov 20, 2019 20:54:30 GMT
If he doesn't answer you within, say, 24 hours, do you have any idea what you would like to do? For me, creating a plan can help me feel less powerless. I have the same view as you about breadcrumbing and leaving the relationship status vague and undefined (especially if there was a previous relationship followed by a lot of distance ). Continuing to act like a girlfriend when someone's treating me like a distant friend feels humiliating to me I guess. Also it makes me feel afraid..an unclear relationship status means (to me) they have made themselves free to pursue others. Whether they do it or not is not the point (for me); my issue is that the situation feels emotionally unsafe and leaves me open to being used, because I still have romantic feelings. I don't like dealing with ambiguity for more than a couple of weeks.. 3-4 tops. If I don't get the reassurance I need, I consider it over and prefer to cut off long enough to get over them. I don't think either of my FA exes really got it that `friendship' is not the same as `girlfriend benefits'. If they want me to act like a girlfriend, they have to make me feel safe. That's my basic requirement in any relationship that involves my heart. |
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Post by serenity on Nov 20, 2019 23:19:59 GMT
Hugs, yes its does hurt so much to be repeatedly dismissed by your own parents, most especially your mother  It hurts be dismissed by a lover as well.... It triggers those deep wounds, making the sting extra powerful. You're right, not everyone will dismiss you, but when they do, you have the power to stand up for yourself, leave the situation, create boundaries. That's the main difference between facing dismissal in childhood, compared to adulthood... you're not stuck anymore. Not dependent. You don't have to tolerate or cater to any bad behavior, and its liberating to embrace that. Regarding feeling used... I think that feeling only comes up for me if I discover someone has been ambiguous in order to court someone else, whilst keeping me hooked as a backup option in case it didn't work out. (and possibly as a confidence boost while he courted others). Avoidants sometimes non-deliberately create these situations because of their poor communication and conflict avoidance. It hurts all the same if it happens though. Been through it once, and it took me a really long time to recover from the humiliation and hurt. |
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Post by ju on Nov 22, 2019 13:18:55 GMT
I don't think I can really add anything useful to this thread, but I would like to say I'm sorry you are going through this. I feel your pain and my FA boyfriend has recently shut down and said it's over. I understand the painful emotions and constant questioning what you did wrong, could you have done differently etc.
Take care and look after yourself. X
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Post by bohemianraspberry on Nov 23, 2019 10:24:54 GMT
This hurts to read, because I can recognise myself in you. I think we are going through a similar situation.
I read through your posts in this tread, and this is what it looks like to me:
- You are in an undefined, unofficial relationship with a man who has serious issues
- You try to always put your happy face on, beeing the easy-going, low-maintainance girl you think he would see
- You trust in him, but not to be there for you in your darkest moment (when that is what a partner would do for you)
- In fear of being rejected you have never told him your agenda: That you want to be in a serious relationship with him.
- Because of this you don't know what he wants from you either. You are afraid it could be different from your needs, so you'd rather not ask.
- You feel like his girlfriend, but he hasn't promised you anything.
- You are addicted to this man, he is your drug, and you are not willing to stop it
- You don't respect yourself enough, you have lowered your expectations of what a relationship should be like
- You live in an illusion and deny the reality that this is really not going anywhere
You live in constant stress because of the undefined relationship, this could be health-treathening, and this is probably what you are going through right now.
I may be projecting and writing about my own issuses here, but take what resonates and leave the rest.
Big hug
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Post by serenity on Nov 23, 2019 19:52:05 GMT
Hugs Caroline. That panic attack sounded so awful I am sorry you felt so alone going through it; I hope you got some good rest. |
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Post by alexandra on Nov 23, 2019 20:20:53 GMT
But I feel weird like it just pushes people further away from me but yet I literally couldn’t help it. I love my friends, I want to keep being friends with them and not being this crazy person who is too emotional to handle hanging out or too sensitive etc. But I feel like I’m too complicated, too emotional, too sensitive, and why would anyone really want to deal with that? This sucks, and I hope it's passed now. Sounds like an anxiety attack. Out of curiosity, have you actually spoken to any of your friends about this? Do you have any reason to think they'd just ditch you for having difficulties? Or is that a projected fear? Have you considered reaching out today to the close friend (not the bartender) to say hey, last night had nothing to do with you, I'm sorry but I had a panic attack brought on by the alcohol? It's nothing to be embarrassed about. While you shouldn't be leaning on your friends to outright emotionally regulate you when having difficulty or fix your problems for you, if you're receptive to it, speaking up may change your perspective in a positive way when you see they can offer support / acknowledgement that you have issues and that's okay, no one's going anywhere. |
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It hurts be dismissed by a lover as well.... It triggers those deep wounds, making the sting extra powerful. You're right, not everyone will dismiss you, but when they do, you have the power to stand up for yourself, leave the situation, create boundaries. That's the main difference between facing dismissal in childhood, compared to adulthood... you're not stuck anymore. Not dependent. You don't have to tolerate or cater to any bad behavior, and its liberating to embrace that.
