u/Away_Temperature9486

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this morning, i am plagued by thoughts of how if we both just had been loved healthier as children and life had been kinder to him- we in present time perhaps could've loved sustainably.

i know this is oversimplification of humanity and reality is, if life had been different to us...we wouldn't have even existed as the individuals we are and therefore we wouldn't have even been what we were. a bunch of word vomit. but the point is, it's one of those days where i truly understand why he is the way he is, and i know for certain he doesn't enjoy being like this. i wish love was, alone, enough to heal us, but reality is reality. it's not that simple. he needs help. so do i.. we would've terrorized each other if we tried being together in the state we currently are; self-aware but scared to stagnation. i wish it was easy to grow together in the name of love. in many of these cases its not a win-lose case with them. we both lost.

i knew of his friends because he would tell me about them, and he told me they knew of me. but i literally just NOW realized, i didn't meet any of them before. they exist. the point isnt that he was lying about his friends. these friends of his are his "long term" ones, whom he is still friends with. it never crossed my mind that he told me so much about them and i knew so many intimate details about his friends. but i had literally never conversed with one. forget him introducing me to them. and i believe there were times where he had run into his friends when i was with him, how did i never say hi hello??? no way he was consciously separating me from them though, because we all went to the same university. it never crossed my head to want to meet his friends because i assumed they were all men? and i had always been astranged from the idea of sharing friends with partners because they should have a life separate from me, too. but holy moly, that's bizzare. its not like i was with him for like a week. i was with him for nearly 2 years.

i never formally introduced him to my friends, but we all hung out. several times. there was a thing he said to me once about how my friends are only his friends as an extension of me but... how come it wasn't the same in reverse? he was interactive with my friends when i was or wasn't present, that never bothered me. in fact i liked when we were all together. my friends included him. accepted him in. it wasnt concious effort from my side to make him assimilate with my friends, but it just did happen because he and my friends were BOTH a part of my life??

something i realized of myself is that i often forget how i felt when i distance for a while. i know humans are wired to forget physical and emotional pain in literal sense but. idk im starting to forget the pain that i felt with him and, in a way, feel like it really wasn't that bad. i feel like, i must've overreacted or smth about whatever happened between him and i. is that normal? i cant tell if this is healing or just my defenses weakening?

im anxious preoccupied btw

im just trying to understand the perspective psychologically. im not asking this because i am waiting for him or because i attached my self-worth to his return. it's not personal. i KNOW he won't come back. and we will never revisit the dynamic. so that aside, why did his pattern change or ig not apply with me?

context: he cheated on his last 2 exes, and after they broke up, he went back. whether for forgiveness or not, idk, but he always went back to them until he didn't/couldn't. as far as i know, he didn't cheat on me. and did not monkey branch either. our separation was triggered by me asking him if he wanted a future with me like he said he did. we have been 100% no contact since the separation

so much space is reserved for learning about avoidants, how to detect them, how to deal with them, etc. what did your experience with an avoidant teach you about yourself, though?

i stopped reading about avoidants. i stopped listening to people's advice. i held him accountable, regardless of his participation. i called him. said everything i needed to. i listened to him, regardless of his invalidation of my side. i didn't pretend his side made sense to me and didn't force him to understand mine. we agreed to cut contact. i said i love him because i do and not because i wanted him to say it back. i deleted the chat and blocked him.

felt extreme, but i needed it. others have already said this, but genuinely, closure will be your exhaustion. reality in life is that there is 3 sides to a story. yours, theirs, and the absolute.

i realized he genuinely couldn't fathom that in my side of experience, his actions or lack thereof had an effect on me. he knows he did something but can't see how it can impact me. he saw me distressed but can't see how he has anything to do with it. and that's okay, that was my cue to learn leaving.

i can love him, only from afar, for our collective sake.