Update on my journey...unexpected outcome of healing

kittygirl, yep. I completely understand and agree with all you've said. I think you've been doing great work, and as your perspective shifts, you'll get used to connecting with yourself more and get a better handle on who you are and what you actually want under all those attachment injury layers. And it might mean you outgrow your relationship with your partner if he's not also stepping up and doing his own work on growing himself, and your current instincts are right -- if that happens, it will be okay.

I think at some point I posted that all that push-pull insecure stuff went from triggering me into feeling overwhelming anxious longing, which I'd interpret as extreme attraction and therefore must be love, to simply "no longer cute." A couple of my FA exes are still in my life as friends, men I was over the moon, totally in love with for years each, same atomic connection. I still care about them, but they've both done zero work and we don't have that atomic connection anymore because the push-pull inconsistency pushes me away instead of draws me in, and the ways in which they make their own lives (and those of their current partners) harder exhausts me. Both are still very physically attractive men but I certainly no longer want to sleep with them and sometimes it's difficult to want to be friends when they're being self-sabotaging about whatever aspect of their lives it is this week. But, I do still care enough to be friends even if it's not close friends. This is better anyway as in certain ways I can't rely on them, due to their own deep issues leading to inconsistency, so we're better off not as close friends.

Sometimes, when people post about desperately wanting their insecure partner to change and grow (in order to "fix the relationship" ie if only their partner changed it would be perfect), when their focus is so much on their partner and not on themselves, I want to chime in that it shifts a dynamic so much more than "everything stays the same except my [avoidant] partner now shows up and loves me!" It's quite possible that in the process of someone healing their trauma, one or both of you lose attraction for each other since the attraction was through the trauma. It even works both ways: my FA exes don't find my security attractive. They still care about me too, but the connections grew apart as we weren't in the same parts of our healing journey. But that's so hard to explain to someone, and have it sink in, who hasn't started healing yet. It sounds crazy! And triggering, 'we'll lose our connections to our already broken romantic relationships??' So I'm glad you've posted this.

BTW, we're still figuring out where things are going so it's premature to make any declarations about this, but the mental connection I feel with my new partner of a few months is incredibly strong. I actually suspect he is earned secure (and wasn't always just secure) too, and we've started discussing if that's why we understand each other so well and seem so compatible so far. I'm so attracted to his consistency and his values, and it seems like the easiest, most natural thing in the world, even during a pandemic! This took a couple years from where I started when my FA ex dumped me a second time (right after which I crossed the threshold fully into secure), but whether it works out or not it's an incredible feeling that these types of NOT AT ALL PAINFUL romantic connections can exist. So I say, stick with what you're doing, even if it brings some unknowns and transition in your life in the meantime

alexandra wow just an FYI your line of "...went from triggering me into feeling overwhelming anxious longing, which I'd interpret as extreme attraction and therefore must be love, to simply "no longer cute"" was, and I can't emphasize this enough, EXACTLY (to a tee) how I feel! I get it. I feel this on a soul level. It's just not attractive. And I am learning how to meet my own needs (for me a big one is significance since one of my core wounds is feeling like I don't matter) and the more I do this, the less important I find my partner's contributions. Now, I know this may sound scary to people but Thais Gibson has the best analogy that any insecurely attached individuals reading this may help you to understand: If you had a magical kitchen where you could make any food you wanted at any time, and someone came along and was like "Here I made you a piece of toast. It doesn't have jam or butter, and it comes with a whole lot of stipulations, but you can have it if you want"...you'd probably say "oh well thanks for the offer but I actually can make anything I want here in my kitchen. So no thanks" IF however, you are starving, you will gladly take a piece of toast, with any stipulations someone puts forward AND be forever, eternally grateful to them for the offer. This is how we get stuck in these toxic loops. Once we can meet our own needs, reprogram these stories, we just aren't interested in some plain-ass toast that comes with 50 pages of rules if you want to eat it. It's just simply not appealing. And that's no shame to anyone who wants the toast..I am just finding it's not all that appealing to me personally, anymore.

Yeah I completely see now and agree with the "If my partner were just to change XY and Z, this would all be ok" because like you said, your attraction...what you actually FIND ATTRACTIVE shifts. And you can't predict how that will happen. Like I said, I can't emphasize enough that my current partner is the most attracted to someone I had ever been. Had you told me 8 months ago that there will be a time when I think about him or look at him and I'm just sort of neutral, I would have probably gotten enraged and told you to F off. It's also scary because when we are insecurely attached, the bond itself feels so much more important to us so losing that seems like it would be torture. But if you follow the stuff and make progress...it's not scary at all.


Wow your story of this new guy is so inspiring. I can absolutely see the draw in someone else who's earned secure...it's such a journey (and I am no where near where you are!) that I can see how it's a special kind of understanding from someone who gets it. I can imagine that the attraction must feel so powerful because it is based on someone really seeing you, and you really seeing someone else. That is so beautiful.

LOL re: the good morning thing! You know what I think it is?? We can somehow (and I don't know what it is...maybe unearned intimacy vs someone we've known for longer?) sense when things like a good morning text come from a triggered place on their end or a sincere place. Even though it's just 2 simple words I can somehow get triggered by it or could see how it could be sweet and I can ABSOLUTELY see how it could be wonderful when you can sense that it is coming from a place of non-anxiety.

I've seen this happen a bit to myself. I'm tired of the heavy emotional guys. It's not appealing to me. It drags me down. I was talking to an FA recently and we were able to have good conversation, but then I sensed an underlying anger in him and it reminded me of the last FA I dated that I struggled to get over and I was turned off. I pulled back (this was purely conversation, not anything romantic) and he got passive aggressive with me. I don't want someone who dumps their emotions on me. And frankly, I'm tired of the lack of courage in these men. This is my new realization recently, that I am looking for someone courageous. I came to the realization every single man I've been more involved with has been a coward. Two even called themselves that. I don't mean they have to be overbearingly masculine and tough, but even vulnerability and honesty is courageous. Pulling away and not explaining your expectations and boundaries is not courageous. This also doesn't mean relationships are void of negative emotion. I can be supportive of someone struggling. But if heavy emotions is who you are a large majority of the time, it is very "icky" to me.

I've noticed I want to connect on positive upbeat things. And then I'd like for the deeper emotions to come in. I don't want to initially connect on emotional matters.

This. I've mentioned this before as well, and it took 2 years of obsessively researching relationship and communication stuff, but this one morning I woke up and it all clicked, and my thought patterns literally ENTIRELY SHIFTED overnight. It was incredible to me this can actually happen. AP mindset was seriously entirely different than secure. It would have been hard for me to believe can happen so fully if I hadn't experienced. (And it didn't fundamentally make me a totally different person with a new personality or anything, but fear of abandonment and related stressors and insecurities... no longer made any sense, and went away!!!)

It made me really wonder how any good therapist could really understand it if they've never felt triggered anxious in their body and mind, just like I'm only doing guesswork about what it may feel like to be triggered avoidant. I assume that's a totally different mindset too that I can empathize with and rationally explain to try to give some help in getting started with the mechanics but not fully relate to without experiencing it.

For what it's worth, one of the things that has been really interesting (because I experience both avoidant and anxious traits) is really understanding how *different* those are and how dealing with them is really different. Being avoidant is painful, don't get me wrong, but compared to the hell that is AP thinking, avoidance can actually feel like a warm, safe blanket. This makes it particularly robust to change and difficult to change (this is something I have run into with other people in the online school as well). So it's sort of interesting...for me AP thinking is a much more hellish prison to be trapped in, but is actually pretty responsive to treatment (and Thais Gibson talks about this as well) whereas the avoidant side is easier to live with but harder to treat. It's been tough but having experienced both of those things has helped me SO MUCH to understand the other side (whichever that might be) and how the healing journey is different depending on so many things and knowing the other side helps a lot to have true empathy