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Post by truerefuge on Mar 9, 2021 21:01:22 GMT
Hi there,
I'm a new member and am so happy to have found these forums. I've known for a long time I'm AP, but to see real people talking about their real lives, patterns, conversations and conflicts has brought it home just how much of an influence this pattern has been in my relationship.
I'll provide some extra detail below, but my ultimate question for you is: Do you think it's possible to make good healing progress whilst remaining in a long-term relationship with someone with whom you've had a triggering dynamic?
I'm early 30s, as is my partner. I'd classify him as moderately/strongly DA. I'm strongly AP. We've been together 12 years. I've been in individual therapy for the past 18 months, healing a lot of childhood trauma, including abandonment stuff, losing my mum young, and cutting my narcissistic father out of my life after trying to work through some of the pain he'd caused me and him not willing to do that. Anyway, at the start of our relationship, it was pretty toxic and unhealthy - my partner also did not have a good model for healthy relationships, so we're a classic dysfunctional pairing - yay! A lot of the pursuer-withdraw dynamic. Over the decade-plus we've been together, we've both grown a lot, but we both naturally veer to our tendencies of AP/what I see as-DA, and especially with lockdown this past year, this has really come to the fore. I've finally realised that I really struggle to get my emotional needs met in this relationship, and I'm not sure whether my partner will be capable of fulfilling them. I definitely need to get better at communicating my needs. We had a huge argument the other day (classic: me offloading all my emotions and blaming him for being emotionally unavailable, though I have to say this is the most outspoken and honest I've been with him in a long time, this is not a regular occurrence, I really reached breaking point from him distancing himself with his hobbies recently and things not really changing when I ask for more dedicated time together). Anyway, the really good news is that he has agreed for us to do couple's therapy, and we had a good talk the other day where we identified some things he can do that will "fill my bucket", and he's been trying to intentionally do those things, which I really appreciate. I apologised for letting things get to breaking point, and owned that I still have my own work to do. So I do have hope and, although he didn't handle the conversation perfectly, nor did I, and I can't fault him for his effort or attitude following the "Big Talk".
I've finally realised three things:
1) I need to accept that I cannot change him. He is who he is. We can both improve our communication, learn more about each other, maybe grow a little closer and put more effort to meeting each other in the middle and balancing out the dynamic that we've been reinforcing for too long.
2) I will likely always be more "high need" than him.
3) Bearing in mind 1 and 2, if I am still feeling empty and lonely and unfulfilled once we've given therapy a good go, I need to accept that the relationship is not right for me, and/or I am not ready to be in a healthy relationship, and let it and him go with love and kindness.
I'm feeling really down at the moment despite him agreeing to therapy, I think because I am Just. So. Tired of always thinking about my relationship, about never feeling emotionally fulfilled for longer than a few months at a time. Tired of parsing "What's my sh*t versus What's him being a bit shit and taking our relationship for granted". Tired at the thought of all the change I still have to do after 18 months of really intensive weekly therapy where I gave it my all and have worked through so much painful stuff, and there's still more to do. I think that's why I just blew up and accused him of being emotionally unavailable - because I'm so tired and frustrated and think subconsciously "If you could just change and meet all my needs then I wouldn't have to feel this way!". I do recognise that's something I need to work on and is not a Secure/healthy way of thinking...!
It just really sucks to be AP!
Thanks for any thoughts and experiences you'd like to share, and look forward to getting to know more of you on the boards!
TR
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Post by tnr9 on Mar 9, 2021 22:01:29 GMT
Hi there, I'm a new member and am so happy to have found these forums. I've known for a long time I'm AP, but to see real people talking about their real lives, patterns, conversations and conflicts has brought it home just how much of an influence this pattern has been in my relationship. I'll provide some extra detail below, but my ultimate question for you is: Do you think it's possible to make good healing progress whilst remaining in a long-term relationship with someone with whom you've had a triggering dynamic? I'm early 30s, as is my partner. I'd classify him as moderately/strongly DA. I'm strongly AP. We've been together 12 years. I've been in individual therapy for the past 18 months, healing a lot of childhood trauma, including abandonment stuff, losing my mum young, and cutting my narcissistic father out of my life after trying to work through some of the pain he'd caused me and him not willing to do that. Anyway, at the start of our relationship, it was pretty toxic and unhealthy - my partner also did not have a good model for healthy relationships, so we're a classic dysfunctional pairing - yay! A lot of the pursuer-withdraw dynamic. Over the decade-plus we've been together, we've both grown a lot, but we both naturally veer to our tendencies of AP/what I see as-DA, and especially with lockdown this past year, this has really come to the fore. I've finally realised that I really struggle to get my emotional needs met in this relationship, and I'm not sure whether my partner will be capable of fulfilling them. I definitely need to get better at communicating my needs. We had a huge argument the other day (classic: me offloading all my emotions and blaming him for being emotionally unavailable, though I have to say this is the most outspoken and honest I've been with him in a long time, this is not a regular occurrence, I really reached breaking point from him distancing himself with his hobbies recently and things not really changing when I ask for more dedicated time together). Anyway, the really good news is that he has agreed for us to do couple's therapy, and we had a good talk the other day where we identified some things he can do that will "fill my bucket", and he's been trying to intentionally do those things, which I really appreciate. I apologised for letting things get to breaking point, and owned that I still have my own work to do. So I do have hope and, although he didn't handle the conversation perfectly, nor did I, and I can't fault him for his effort or attitude following the "Big Talk". I've finally realised three things: 1) I need to accept that I cannot change him. He is who he is. We can both improve our communication, learn more about each other, maybe grow a little closer and put more effort to meeting each other in the middle and balancing out the dynamic that we've been reinforcing for too long. 2) I will likely always be more "high need" than him. 3) Bearing in mind 1 and 2, if I am still feeling empty and lonely and unfulfilled once we've given therapy a good go, I need to accept that the relationship is not right for me, and/or I am not ready to be in a healthy relationship, and let it and him go with love and kindness. I'm feeling really down at the moment despite him agreeing to therapy, I think because I am Just. So. Tired of always thinking about my relationship, about never feeling emotionally fulfilled for longer than a few months at a time. Tired of parsing "What's my sh*t versus What's him being a bit shit and taking our relationship for granted". Tired at the thought of all the change I still have to do after 18 months of really intensive weekly therapy where I gave it my all and have worked through so much painful stuff, and there's still more to do. I think that's why I just blew up and accused him of being emotionally unavailable - because I'm so tired and frustrated and think subconsciously "If you could just change and meet all my needs then I wouldn't have to feel this way!". I do recognise that's something I need to work on and is not a Secure/healthy way of thinking...! It just really sucks to be AP! Thanks for any thoughts and experiences you'd like to share, and look forward to getting to know more of you on the boards! TR I hear the frustration in your voice.....and I get it....why can’t these trigger buttons just magically fall off right? But give yourself a huge kudos for doing the hard work you have done so far......all that insight is commendable. I do think it is possible....if 2 people both want to work on their individual stuff and also their relationship stuff...what I tend to see on these boards is a situation where one partner,,..usually the AP leaning one asks the avoidant leaning partner to go to therapy. The avoidant leaning partner agrees...but then, because the avoidant leaning partner isn’t working on his/her own stuff....there is this 1 step forward 2 steps back in regards to the relationship therapy. That doesn’t mean it is impossible....but....it can be really frustrating for the partner who is doing individual and the relationship therapy. Give yourself lots of grace and feel free to vent here. |
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Post by truerefuge on Mar 10, 2021 8:11:43 GMT
Thanks so much for your reply. I think my partner is more open to therapy than I assumed he would be, but of course we will see once we start. I'm also willing to give him some grace, because I know it's not easy. It's good to finally realise within myself that I can't change him, and all I can do is take care of my own side of the street, so if, after 6 months of therapy I still feel the same, then so be it. For now, he is showing me that he's heard me and that he's willing to make more intentional displays of his love, which I appreciate and which fills up my bucket.
Thank you for your empathy, I really appreciate it!
TR
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Post by anne12 on Mar 10, 2021 11:00:09 GMT
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Post by truerefuge on Mar 10, 2021 12:02:06 GMT
Thank you so much anne12, will have a good read of these!
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Post by alexandra on Mar 14, 2021 9:53:21 GMT
Welcome to the forum, truerefuge. I have some thoughts you can consider in response to your post. I think the answer to your question is, "yes, but..." In my opinion, it is possible but only if both partners are in similar points in their process of becoming more secure. And getting the timing to be right, especially after being entrenched in a 12 year dynamic, is not so likely. It sounds like you are working hard on healing your own issues, which is amazing! And you should be proud of that. So you are self-motivated and moving towards secure. Your boyfriend, however, is far behind and so far (at least in your post) has not shown much interest in healing for himself. He sounds like he hasn't been going to individual therapy? And now is going to couples therapy for you rather than because he wants to dig into his issues and work through them. Which is why I think you feel frustrated. You can't make these changes for another person, and they won't "stick" if you try to do it for someone else and not yourself. So while he's definitely showing you he cares and he cares about the relationship, it's fair to wonder if his efforts will address the underlying issues, because the couples therapy sessions are definitely going to be emotionally intense and you hope they'll have a payoff in improvement in the relationship. Hopefully he will surprise you and be inspired by the couples therapy to take responsibility for his own side of things, because he's READY to, rather than shutting down in response. But you don't know yet. I am earned secure from AP. First of all, don't beat yourself up about 18 months and you're still working hard through stuff. Attachment wounding takes a long time to process and heal... you're learning most of the tools you need to do those two things from scratch. It took me a couple years to earn secure once I really started focusing on it, and that doesn't include the 2-3 years prior to that when I started noticing patterns and introspecting (but had no idea about attachment theory) or the continued work I did for a couple years after that has pushed my security up significantly even since originally changing my attachment style. Once you earn secure, you still have to get to know who you really are, and it's still a process for a while. It took me several months to get comfortable with that, but it's WELL worth it. But yes, it is time consuming, and it makes sense that it would be. We went through years of our attachment style forming, so you can't just recondition yourself and undo all that overnight. Second, I wanted to share my relationship situation when I earned secure. I was dating an FA for a year, who blindsided me with a breakup (pretty typical FA/AP dynamic with bad communication, and he's even still textbook FA and I was textbook AP for most of my life). After a lot of boundary issues on his part and my feeling absolutely devastated and miserable and not holding my own boundaries, I went no contact with him for the better part of a year to work on my stuff. I didn't become secure during that time period, but I did lay the foundation for it and was way less AP and closer to secure after that no contact period. We ended up reconnecting and in a romantic situationship (for lack of a better term) for another 8 months or so, calling it officially getting back together in the last month. During those 8 months, I was working really hard on improving communication and understanding what went wrong for us the first time, so we could fix it together. I acted a lot more secure that second time around because I was still inching my way there. He'd still trigger the heck out of me because he was not doing any of his own self work nor was he even in a place of awareness that his attachment style was causing most of his life unhapiness issues... BUT. When I was direct and outspoken and trying to understand his perspective throughout our reconciliation (even when it was triggering), he'd sit with me and have long discussions trying to describe his side of things best he could. This only worked when HE wasn't triggered, so often we'd have an issue, he'd get super triggered and shut down, and we'd have to wait a week or two to actually talk it out. But then we could, and after I listened and came to a place where I'd kind of summarize what I was understanding him say, when he did feel I got it right and he was feeling safe and understood, then we could talk about what had triggered me, feel mutually understood, and try to problem-solve together. Long story short, this was extremely helpful for me. FA was such a different mindset than my own and such a challenge to my negative narrative (like most other APs, I needed to learn to depersonalize things and not blame myself... in general, in life, not even just in my romantic relationships), that it challenged me and enabled me to deepen and widen my perspective about relationships, about my own wants and needs, about understanding others and that not everyone has the same "love" needs... it was like growth epiphany after epiphany. I've compared it to a graph of a step function before, as an illustration. And I had spent my whole life dating avoidants, so it put so much of those anxious-avoidant trap failures into perspective. I understood why he was the way he was because of his early life, I understood why our dynamic was the way it was against my AP style, and I saw whether or not our dynamic could shift since we dated once when I was textbook AP but again when I was almost secure. Did this fix the relationship? No. Our dynamic couldn't shift because I was the only one shifting. He repeated completely both times around. But do I think something could have shifted if he was ready to address his issues and was committed to our relationship? I do, because then you're working with a different set of inputs. I believe that when both people are at that point in their individual process, then you've got outlier situations and you're not stuck in the anxious-avoidant trap indefinitely. Those are the exceptions to the rule. He blindside broke up with me again, and that triggered me anxious for like 2 weeks. And then one morning I woke up, and everything clicked. Attachment theory, why the relationship was never going to work, that I wanted something better, and that I didn't want to be miserable again like I was after the first breakup. My thought patterns honestly changed over night. I couldn't believe it, and I'd have a hard time believing it even now if I didn't experience it. I thought to take an attachment assessment soon after, and it was the very first time I tested secure. I wouldn't have gotten there without trying to work through our issues within the relationship, even though in MY case (which is not your case), the relationship didn't work out. Which, for me, was for the best (I have an amazing partner... who is also earned secure which I suspect is not a coincidence... and am in the easiest romantic relationship of my life). You're in a tough situation. I think 2 of your 3 realizations are really good, though I want to challenge you on 2) I will likely always be more "high need" than him. This is a negative narrative word choice, and that may sound silly and unimportant, but it's not. Having needs is fine and normal in a relationship, perhaps think of it as having different needs but that doesn't make them more. It's also not true if he does decide that he wants to do his work and try to heal and earn secure, because his challenge is to learn to trust others and be comfortable with interdependence. If he does decide he's committed to his self-growth, and you're continuing to move towards secure too, your level of needs will converge. I think the other difficulty in your situation is you got together so young, you didn't have much time for self-exploration and figuring out who you are, what you like, how to be alone. Insecure attachment styles of all sorts do result in a fundamental disconnect from yourself and needs. That's why it took me some time to figure out how I was going to respond to things now once I earned secure. I needed to see who I was once the attachment trauma had been healed and there was no projection of it layering on top of whatever else was going on. You will be a bit different if you earn secure, and so will he, and you don't know who those people will be yet. You hope that on the other end you grow and stay together, but people also change after they are in their late teens, early 20s. Your relationship may work out, and it may not work out. It depends on how committed he is to his own growth, and you can't date his potential or expect him to change. You're right about that. I think it's worth a try to see if you can manage to learn from the triggering (as I did with my ex), but I also think you're in a good mindset to acknowledge you may have to let him go with love (which is a secure mindset, btw). I once again want to laud you for putting in as much work as you have. It is HARD HARD work, and shows a lot of strength of character to wade through all this. I also want to throw in a reminder that you can take breaks if you're feeling especially frustrated and overwhelmed. 18 months of weekly work is a LOT. You can take a week off here and there to regroup, focus on other things (like activities you enjoy that make you feel accomplished and good about yourself), and then get back to it. A lot of working through AP is building self-acceptance, and it's okay to take a breath. You've probably already noticed this is a two steps forward, one step back, one step sideways, one step diagonal process. You'll be alright if you keep at it at whatever speed, and give yourself credit for what you've already done too. A lot of people never even get that far. |
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Post by truerefuge on Mar 14, 2021 21:05:36 GMT
alexandra, thank you for such a thorough reply. Loads to think about, all really good stuff. It sounds like you've been on a similar journey to mine. May I ask, what are some of the most instrumental things you've done to get to earned Secure? We have our first couples session tomorrow. My partner isn't as invested in personal development as me, mostly because he's less emotional so things affect him and his quality-of-life less, whereas they have a huge impact on me (of course, accepting that he's quite avoidant and so he is affected, just not in a way he wants to deal with). He has said he knows that his way isn't necessarily the Right way, and he's open to new ways of us being - I think it will be helpful for us to bring Secure attachment into our joint vocabulary, and this is one of my goals for therapy, to establish new, healthier ways of being with each other. Likewise, I've told him multiple times how much of a challenge it is to be with someone who doesn't need anything, and I'm hoping the therapist can help him explore his needs in our relationship. The last week has actually been really good: he's been making a conscious effort and I'm looking forward to seeing what we can learn together, whatever the outcome. My personal therapist has always said "If the trauma happened in relationship, it needs to be healed in relationship", and I completely agree. And I have a really Secure attachment with my Therapist. But I think now we need to openly bring that healing into my romantic relationship, so I think the next few months of work should at least be productive, both individually, and hopefully in my relationship with my partner.
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Post by alexandra on Mar 14, 2021 21:21:39 GMT
That's a good start! We had a thread a few months ago where people shared some experiences and tips about getting to secure attachment. I have a post in the middle of the thread with links to my prior posts with more details about what I did. The whole thread may be helpful for you: jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/2917/turn-secure-share-experiences-tips |
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Post by alexandra on Mar 14, 2021 21:59:27 GMT
The other thing I'll add is I eventually realized after the fact that every single time in my life I was triggered anxious, it's because my fear of abandonment was triggered and I had zero idea how to effectively self-soothe and feel like I'd be okay just how I am. So effectively, I'd feel like I wouldn't survive because I didn't trust or accept myself and kept abandoning myself. That was the basis of it (caused way back by family members with personality disorders) that I needed to fix within myself to deal with that aspect of AP.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2021 23:53:19 GMT
I'll add one thing that's been instrumental to me earning secure (from AP) - it is in changing how I choose. I choose
- things/people that do not trigger me
- to act based on values not feelings
- to trust my anxiety as a signal that something is not quite right (not always, but most times) and to be much more careful in my interactions/decisions from that point on (not leave immediately, but just be aware and alert)
- to always choose myself over a relationship/man/job, which means I am always ready to walk away if we are not heading in the right direction
It is not that earning secure means that the feelings just disappear and you never have fears. I think the fears and feelings can still exist but your relationship with these emotions is much more comfortable. "outsourcing" the effort of choosing from subconscious feelings to conscious values and frameworks takes away the pressure of choosing between your "survival" and relationships, because it places the power and control within you.
What your therapist said is new to me! I've not heard it before - I certainly hope that works out well and good luck to you!
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Post by truerefuge on Mar 15, 2021 10:32:13 GMT
Thank you alexandra, I'll check out that thread! @shiningstar, that's really helpful, thanks a lot for your perspective. I should clarify: what my therapist said doesn't condone staying in a bad relationship/always trying to fix the other person. EG he totally supports me no longer being in touch with my father. What he means is, where our trauma comes from a really toxic relationship (like my father being neglectful and abusive), we need another healthy, loving, secure, need-fulfilling relationship to prove that it doesn't always have to be like that: that it wasn't because of us that we were treated that way; to prove it happened because of disturbances in the offender, not in who the victim is as a person. |
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Post by alexandra on Mar 15, 2021 19:37:25 GMT
What he means is, where our trauma comes from a really toxic relationship (like my father being neglectful and abusive), we need another healthy, loving, secure, need-fulfilling relationship to prove that it doesn't always have to be like that I agree with this, but it doesn't need to be in a romantic relationship specifically. It can be a friends, family, even therapist relationship to start to model off of. I (sadly) didn't have healthy romantic relationships before earning secure, and once I got there (and had strengthened my AP boundaries into healthier ones) then I was able to see what's healthy and what to look for and finally have healthy romantic interactions. So your therapist is describing one way, but it's not the only way. |
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