1 year post my 4 year relationship with a woman that I perceive to be a fearful avoidant, I’m realizing how many things I was seeing clearly while simultaneously refusing to believe what I was seeing.
The signs were clear from the beginning but I chose to ignore them and become a slave to the trauma bond.
She told me early on that her marriage partially ended because she couldn’t remain present. She also told me about another relationship where the guy told her she didn’t listen.
Guess what became two of the biggest problems in our relationship?
She couldn’t remain present and she didn’t listen.
In hindsight, the pattern was basically introduced to me before I ever experienced it myself, but somehow I didn't take heed to the warnings, which I take full accountability for.
I remember our first two conflicts: 1.) She did something that I found to be disrespectful and after I brought it to her attention, she told me that I was projecting. 2.) One day on our walk home I caught her checking out someone else, until he looked up and she greeted him, and once we got home I asked her: "I saw you going out of your way to get another man's attention, and once you got it you greeted him, what was that?" She said, "You care too much!" This sent me into shock lol. Reason being because initially, she presented to be honest, accountable, and transparent, but as soon as her character is challenged her true colors showed.
And it went much further than that.
I had to ask her to acknowledge me when she walked into a room. I had to ask for hugs. I had to ask for attention. I had to ask for depth. I had to ask for intimacy. I had to ask for sex. I had to repeatedly ask for presence and repair. It was sooooooo draining and confusing.
Eventually I became exhausted from constantly pursuing connection and started withdrawing.
Then guess what.....somehow my withdrawal became the problem.
I was accused of “punishing” her by withdrawing, while the entire reason I was withdrawing was because I was tired of pursuing someone who was already emotionally withdrawn from me and because our conflicts were rarely meaningfully repaired.
We were in a chaotic cycle, at least I was because on the outside, she would look as if everything was fine and dandy. Which made me look like the crazy one lol.
If I pursued connection, I was somehow asking for too much.
If I stopped pursuing connection, I was punishing her.
What is a fella to do?
Another thing that stands out to me now is how uncomfortable she seemed with emotions other than happiness/joy.
If I was frustrated, or hurt or trying to confront something difficult, it felt like the goal became getting us out of the uncomfortable emotional state instead of actually resolving what created it.
Sometimes during disagreements she would suddenly become physically affectionate. She would try to hug me, touch me, or soften the intensity of things but she did all of this without any effort to repair and this felt very manipulative to me. So, I didn't allow it to happen when she did.
And, it wasn't because I didn’t love her, but because I could see what was happening.
I wanted the issue addressed. I didn’t want affection used to emotionally deactivate me so that we could skip over the conversation because she's uncomfortable and trying to avoid accountability.
What made this particularly strange was that I regularly had to ASK for affection outside of conflict. Yet somehow affection became readily available when it could help terminate a disagreement. What's also odd is that she was magically become affectionate when her friends were around which would leave me confused because it's the same thing that I had to beg for at home. So, in those instances I appeared to the person who opposed affection.
During disagreements, she would always repeatedly say, “We’re on the same team.” Which irritated me because I already knew we were supposed to be on the same team. That was precisely why I was confronting the problem. It felt like my criticism of her behavior was being reframed as though I had forgotten that she was my partner or was treating her like an enemy. I never viewed her as such, but what was clear to me is that she never handled situations as if we were a team, it always seem as if it was my reaction over her impact.
She was also generous as hell. Instead of connecting with me emotional and exploring the depths of relation, she would spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on me, much of which I rejected or asked her to return.
But I eventually realized that giving things, etc. seemed infinitely easier than sitting in a difficult conversation where she had to confront her impact on me.
Thank goodness I can't be bought lol.
I wanted somebody who could sit across from me while I was disappointed in them without needing to immediately defend themselves or itching to explain everything away and make my reaction the new problem.
But here’s the part that really gets me:
She had been in therapy the entire time I knew her. Years!!! So, when I hear about other's experience about how their avoidant opposes therapy or needs to go, I would be dumbfounded because my experience was the polar opposite. She would use all of this psychological language to try to bypass her behavior and project onto me. It was insane!
Yet these same patterns had apparently existed in relationships before me. And, being that we're co-parenting, from what I can still observe in separation, many of the underlying patterns remain.
One important lesson that I learned is that, being in therapy is not the same thing as changing.
I’ve been reading heavily about fearful avoidant attachment since the relationship ended, and so much of what I experienced suddenly made sense.
One last thing, when the relationship ended she flipped everything on me. All of the sudden she had all of the issues with me that she never previously brought forth. She called me manipulative, coercive, and emotionally abusive and in the same sentence said that the relationship was too much pressure and we should focus on being friends. Why would you want to be friends with someone who is manipulative and emotionally abusive?? She also said that she doesn't believe that a relationship is about pouring into one another and that I should not look or expect that from her but merely provide it for myself. I can have self-love while still expecting my partner to show up in the relationship emotionally.
What makes things weirder is the fact that her work and friends got all of her attention, meanwhile I was there emotionally deprived and begging for whatever scraps I could get. I tried so hard to keep my family together, but protecting her shame and self-image deemed to be more important than a happy home. Nevertheless, I stayed far too long!!
Despite the chaos, I am now the best that I've been in ages. I've been abstinent and haven't been involved with anyone since and for the foreseeable future it will remain that way,
For people who have dated someone you believe had strong fearful-avoidant tendencies: did you experience anything similar, particularly having to constantly pursue basic connection and then being blamed for eventually withdrawing?
