New to the club - mentally lost! Who am I?

jacdl I think also helpful in explaining this may be the over- and under-coupling link: jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/2372/overcoupling-stress-response

While I think you are doing the right thing in using this experience to introspect and explore your attachment style and how it connects to your past trauma, I also think you may have been reacting to feeling controlled because your ex sounds like she has control issues. 27 is young to insist on buying a house and starting to have kids after only a year, there isn't quite the need for that rush when you're still trying to figure things out together and get on the same page. While I don't have enough information to say whether or not she was controlling towards you, she absolutely is trying to force control over her own life. It is totally fine to have goals and plans and want to accomplish those milestones, but the way you describe it plus her moving on to try to accomplish the next so quickly combined with her history of anorexia (which generally is about desperately trying to control something in an environment which feels out of control) does strike me as her not making enough room for you.

So the reason I think that's important, even though it does take focus off you for a minute, is I don't think this was as simple as an anxious-avoidant trap situation. I think your shut down was very related to your past (losing access to your feelings for someone like that is a distancing defense mechanism) but I think it was also triggered by your instincts properly telling you something was wrong because there wasn't enough space for you. Both of those things can be true at once, meaning you have work you've found you need to do for yourself but also the relationship may not have been a compatible one for you even though it had many good parts.

It also can be common if you are FA to lean either anxious or avoidant most of the time, and usually only date the opposite. So someone may think they are DA or AP but suddenly date another insecure and swing the other way totally. The disorganized attachment was always there but it didn't come out as obviously until there was a trigger. If you were used to dating avoidant people, you'd likely swing anxious. When confronted with someone who seemed more anxious than you, it's normal for FA to swing avoidant. And, the most normal of all, is for two FAs to date each other, switching around who is pushing and who is pulling, but eventually settling into one tending to be more avoidant and the other more anxious.

Keep asking questions of yourself. It may feel difficult right now, but I think you're on the right track.

This tells me she is avoiding emotional processing and has difficulty with it. You're right that intellectualizing may be a defense mechanism to avoid painful introspection and focus on "other." Ultimately the focus should be on you and your attachment style, but I think in this case it makes sense for you to gain a better understanding of the overall dynamic you had with her in order to better understand your own responses.

I think the sensation of my partner making a huge life decision which would impact where I lived aswell as where my life savings would be going towards without discussing it was the trigger - it created a wedge as I was naturally uncomfortable to jump straight in.

There was also pressure aswell from her deciding when we be having children (she wanted 5, the first named after her dad). This created a grand level of expectation on me.

It triggered my defence which that “deactivating” technique I have never experienced before and it felt it came from anger and distrust as she had obviously crossed a boundary I did not know was there.

One of independence? Making decisions for me?

Thanks Introvert. Your observation are spot on… our weekends were largely around what she wanted to do. She was very much spoiled and used to getting her own way. Whilst I am quite laid back and went with the flow… we did get along but simple example is I would say I want to go to one restaurant… she would walk into another and book a table for that one overwriting what I would like…

The thing that just gets me is I never “deactivated” someone before, it was a new feeling in me and now I recognise it… I want to curb it… although “unhealthy” I was very much in love and the impulsive break up, that built up energy of negativity, I do not like.

If I had to guess, I would guess that you were responding instinctively to a threat. It feels like a threat when something is deeply amiss with our love relationship, something we may not be able to put our finger on.

This deactivation in you didn't come out of nowhere. You felt on some level that her love contains the element of control, and lacks the element of oh, let's say, maybe empathy or attunement. The love that you felt for her was not reciprocated in quite the same way. In fact, by your account, she regularly dismissed your wishes, wants, and I'll guess, your actual needs as well. That hardly matches up to any idealized version of her you must have been trying to have in your head. You were in love, in limmerance, and likely, you were in denial to some extent too.

When she brought up the house, perhaps it broke through your fantasy. Perhaps it was the moment you couldn't deny she's really thinking about her aspirations, not yours. She's not a team player. It all kinda crumbles when you begin to see it in the cold light of day.

So, I'll wager that you weren't responding out of love, because the whole idea of love with her took on another hue. You were responding to insult, the inconsideration of your little wants all the way to a major life decision... purchasing a house. You couldn't dismiss or minimize that and it was a visceral reaction of anger or disgust at the way you felt controlled, deleted, insignificant in her big picture. Maybe it was the moment you realized you don't really exist in her world the way she does in yours... you don't occupy the same space in her heart and mind, as she does in yours.... you're a candidate for a role in her script.

Just spitballin here, and no offense meant if I'm wrong.

But I think a natural response to learning that someone you love doesn't really have your back ,and is actually self absorbed and inconsiderate of you, is anger and some disgust and lack of attraction.

The more concerning thing here, in my opinion and it's just an opinion, is that you missed the signs of a controlling and insincere partner. It's understandable, given the romanticized view of relationships that AP tend to have. The infatuation and limmerence of a new relationship. But somewhere along the line you've learned to make yourself smaller in order to accommodate another. There's compromise, and there is people pleasing, fawning, or shushing yourself in order to avoid conflict or authenticity. There's something to look at there not because you ought to be ashamed of yourself, but because you can learn to love yourself better. Loving yourself is knowing that you matter, your wants and needs and thoughts and feelings matter, and not suppressing them to earn or retain the "love" of another person.

There's something there to consider, because if you are able to go in with a more intact sense of yourself and what you deserve, you likely won't be blindsided by someone who has less capacity to love you than the capacity you deserve.

Had you felt heard and emotional safe to do so, you may well have been able to address it... but also, if you were heard and emotionally safe you probably wouldn't have had to. Get what I mean?

I think you just woke up to her true vibe. The ME ME ME vibe. And it was gross. It blew your illusions out of the water.

Again, maybe Im wrong. You can say if I am, of course.... but maybe this can give you a little different perspective. Insecure attachment is all about creating threats to ourselves and responding to them, actually. Building unstable alliances and then freaking out when they fail. Don't zoom in on deactivation, look at the big picture. How and why you choose a woman... that's a question that you can ponder and maybe get some real insight.

Thanks Introvert - you pretty much articulated my gut response the night I was told the plan… this was when I began to “deactivate” and could see the dynamic of our relationship. Which although was one sided, I did really love her and what we had, but as you say my gut perhaps noticed how we held love towards each other was different. I did say “I feel like I could be replaced by anyone” and in 3 weeks I was.

If I could go back, I would want to control the “deactivation” and go along with the house but naturally I was nervous - needed my hand held a bit by my partner as I’m a tentative with life changing matters - but I never got that but I failed to communicate that.

I failed to communicate a lot of my needs until I broke up - the next day I told her what I needed to feel comfortable to buy house… my mind couldn’t within relationship. My mind was all emotional unregulated - really sad as it never been like that before but I guess, I’m not used to someone making life changing decisions on my behalf.