u/PienerCleaner

If she had been more emotionally intelligent she might have said something like, "I can't be the partner you need....I can't make it work....and im sorry but, I'm not willing to make it try. And you shouldn't take it personally, and of course the loss is going to hurt. But I think you'll be okay eventually. You're so strong. I admire that about you. You're always willing to try to do what needs doing. You're always looking to make things better, and treat others right....you're so warm, welcoming, and appreciative of everyone. Strangers who walk through the theater doors. You greet them like they're visiting you at home. And you say goodbye to them heart fully too.... honestly, emotionally you're the strongest person I have ever known....because you keep trying and that's how you build strength....you deserve so much more than what I can give you. I know you'll find someone who will love and appreciate you for all of that"

It would have hurt so much less than what she did.... bringing up every single bad thing about me and throwing it at me like a knife, making me feel like I was an awful person who deserved to be single

Context: I work part time at my local theater as a door person checking and helping people buy tickets.

Almost 10 months. Loving deeply is a curse. I don't want to talk to her or see her. I accepted the truth months ago. She is a hardcore avoidant and a proud one, so she'll likely never change. I don't see her social media (but she lives just 20 minutes down the road).

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I'm a busy person with two jobs. What little time I have left I spend living my life in a way that's true to me..I don't have the time to sit and mope. And yet it feels like my heart is always reaching out to her somehow, sending her signals.

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I logged into venmo for the first time since the breakup, because I went on a date. Somehow my fingers slipped and I saw maybe she is seeing someone. Of course it hurt, but I laugh because she's going to do all the avoidant things with him too eventually.

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She told me 5 months is the longest she's ever gone without sex..and I think she met him 4 months after dumping me. Okay so this is none of my business. But despite all my efforts, life has always felt like a big black hole. And I'm a monkey pounding on my drums, because there is no other way to live life.

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I still don't want to get close to anyone else. But I also feel like I won't truly move on until I find someone else. And don't give me that, "you must be happy by yourself." I was happy by myself for 6 years before she swiped right on me. I can be happy by myself for the rest of my life, because I am fundamentally a best alone kind of person.

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Of course I got over my other ex's. So I'll get over her too, provided I find someone else. Because loving someone else is the only way I know of not loving someone else. But until then my monkey drums will keep beating in this black hole called life. And my longing for her to never have been an avoidant will keep on marching 20 minutes down the road.

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I probably don't even really love her. How could I when she's such an avoidant, so impervious to appreciating me and building a connection with me, blowing up at me and looking for an exit every time I make a mistake. I know what traps me, the person I thought she was before I ever saw this side of her. Those happy memories of a year ago. Loving deeply is a curse. Falling in love with an avoidant is hell.

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After any fight or just disagreement, how skilled was your avoidant ex at attempting to repair and reconnect.

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What I've gathered is that avoidants simply sweep things under the rug, or just move on without processing as if nothing really happened i.e. it happened let's keep going.

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In six months my ex showed almost no ability to repair or reconnect. After our first big disagreement, she said sorry, I need to not be so flighty, and let's read books on ADHD and relationships (blaming me instead of taking accountability for her emotional dysregulation). A few weeks later she said she loved me and wanted to work on our relationship. A few weeks later we went on our first vacation. There were a couple of things I could've done better of course.

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But when we came back it was over. Like so many others I never got the chance to repair/reconnect. It was as if communicating and attempting to build a connection was too much for her. The connection was built on the good times and any time she had to express how something could be better because it wasn't what she liked, the connection took a hit, unaddressed, until she felt no connection.

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And by the time they breakup, there's no hope of repair anyway.

I give her a 2.5/10 because at least twice she brought up what I could do better and once she melted down and demanded I stick to whatever plans i had already made with her (instead of understanding why I might have acted the way I did)

I love books, music, movies, video games, exercise, photography

I'm interested in learning more Japanese and guitar.

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But I'm wondering if this is all there is to me. I have never been interested in anything else. Whenever I am told to explore other things none of them appeal to me.

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Well, I'm learning about different types of alcohol, car maintenance, home repairs etc but those are all secondary things I can't actually do right now.

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When it comes to what I can actually do now, I've got nothing. I live in the suburbs for the last two years and haven't been able to find any community where I can do anything. Or at Least I've been on Facebook and Eventbrite and found nothing. Even reddit.

I should add I have a part time job that I enjoy a lot and it gives me lots of contact with kids about 10 years younger than me and it's always fun.

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I suppose I'm going to be told to just try different things. But that's just it. I'm not sure what I'd like to try and what I know about isn't something I want to try. Also important to note I'm not very capable with my hands so things like knitting and my brain isn't very good at figuring things out unless i watch a YouTube tutorial and try again and again.

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Wondering what has worked for other people like me. It just feels like the self is a prison and existence is like a slog through the desert. Maybe it doesn't help I exist in a world where it's never been harder to have or start a career. My friends also live far away, not to mention the coworkers I'm friendly with. My last relationship lasted 6 months and ended 9 months ago. I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish things didn't end like they end (going great then bam all over all of a sudden). But thankfully I am very social and confident and have no problems approaching people and getting numbers.

We care deeply about understanding them and being good partners for them. They are incapable of understanding anyone else and incapable of being good partners because all they will care about is not taking accountability for their discomfort and running away from actions that will foster emotional connection.

Emotional maturity is working to get together on the same page. Avoidants aren't emotionally mature. Being asked to be emotionally mature is their trigger to run. If you expect emotional maturity, you've triggered their inability to hold emotional space for anyone else.

Every accusation they hurl at us during the discard is a confession of their own lack of emotional capacity, when their only reaction to emotional discomfort is to shut down or meltdown. While acknowledging no responsibility for what they feel or how they contribute to it.

being blindsided a month after being told I love you and you're everything I've ever wanted was like climbing a mountain for months and then being kicked off when you feel like you've reached the top. Being discarded was like a knife in the heart. Being blamed for everything that was apparently wrong and having my character assassinated was like machine gun execution. Being gaslit like that was like being dipped in gasoline. Seeing her update her hinge pictures two weeks later was like being lit on fire. Being told it wasnt fair for me to make her a responsible for my healing when all I asked for was her perspective so I could understand her better and then being blocked was like being run over.

If you're feeling hurt and you think the pain is driving you crazy and everyday you're trying to heal and move on, I want you to know I'm right there with you.

After a breakup of course it feels impossible to not think of your ex or wish you could see them or be with them or make things right with them.

Like me you might even forget what moving on looks like, even if you've moved on from others before.

After 8 and a half months, I'm happy to say I am starting to remember what moving on looks like. For me moving on looks a lot like indifference. I don't care if we're not together anymore, I don't care if we broke up, I don't care what she is doing or where she is or how she feels about me. It just simply does not matter to me anymore - and that of course includes trying to figure out why she did what she did.

I think all of us heart broken people are striving for that ultimately. After all, that's what our ex's are communicating to us when they break up with us..so do the right thing and return the favor - become indifferent. Make them irrelevant. Don't try to force it by fighting what's natural in heartbreak. Just remember one day you'll be indifferent. And you're already on your way.

something really good from facebook i came across and found helpful

One thing I keep noticing in attachment spaces is that many people are not reacting merely to “someone needing space” or struggling with intimacy.

They are reacting to emotional coldness during moments where empathy, accountability, care, repair, and emotional safety would normally be expected.

When someone:

- shuts down,

- goes emotionally blank,

- withdraws affection,

- blocks,

- rewrites the relationship,

- avoids accountability,

- minimizes your pain,

- or suddenly acts like you never mattered,

it can genuinely feel dehumanizing and psychologically destabilizing.

Especially when you were soft, loving, patient, sacrificial, emotionally invested, and trying to preserve the relationship.

To many people on the receiving end, it does not feel like simple “avoidance.”

It feels emotionally cruel.

I think this is where a lot of confusion happens in attachment discussions.

Because attachment theory describes patterns around:

- closeness,

- vulnerability,

- dependency,

- conflict,

- emotional regulation,

- fear of intimacy,

- fear of engulfment,

- and emotional shutdown.

But attachment theory itself does NOT define avoidance as:

- lying,

- manipulation,

- gaslighting,

- rewriting history,

- destroying someone’s reputation,

- emotional abuse,

- or treating someone as disposable.

At the same time, severe or untreated avoidance CAN overlap with behaviors that become deeply harmful to partners.

Some avoidant individuals may still have empathy internally, but disconnect from it under attachment stress because:

- shame,

- vulnerability,

- guilt,

- emotional exposure,

- accountability,

- or intimacy

become overwhelming to their nervous system.

Their defenses can become:

- distancing,

- emotional numbing,

- intellectualizing,

- minimizing,

- rationalizing,

- rewriting the relationship narrative,

- or emotionally shutting down.

But to the receiving partner, the impact can feel almost identical to a complete lack of empathy.

And honestly, impact matters.

A person can technically “have empathy somewhere deep down,” but if they:

- never validate you,

- never repair,

- never take accountability,

- never emotionally show up,

- and repeatedly leave you emotionally confused and destabilized,

then the relationship will still feel emotionally unsafe and emotionally starving.

There is also a difference between:

- struggling with intimacy,

- needing emotional space,

- shutting down under stress,

VERSUS:

- dehumanizing someone,

- controlling through withdrawal,

- gaslighting reality,

- rewriting history,

- punishing vulnerability,

- manipulating narratives,

- or treating a deeply loving partner as disposable.

Those are not automatically the same thing.

Psychology can explain behavior, but explanation should never become an excuse for causing deep emotional harm to others.

And honestly, instead of endlessly trying to determine whether the lived experience represents avoidance, trauma, emotional immaturity, personality pathology, or something deeper, sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is simply sit with what actually happened.

Not constantly searching for the “why.”

Not trying to decode every contradiction.

Not trying to rescue the good memories by overexplaining the bad ending.

Just accept what they showed you.

Accept the reality of how they handled conflict, intimacy, accountability, empathy, and your pain.

Process the grief.

Accept the incompatibility.

Accept that the person you believed they were may not fully align with the capacity they ultimately showed.

Even if that realization is confusing and heartbreaking.

In the end, what matters most is not the label.

It is the reality of what you experienced.

And knowing you deserve better than a relationship that repeatedly destroys your emotional safety, sense of reality, and peace.

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1JEWW7odLn/

I recently created a group that focuses less on endlessly diagnosing people and more on actually healing, growing, rebuilding peace, processing grief, and moving forward in life.

A space focused on:

- self reflection,

- emotional healing,

- accountability,

- boundaries,

- nervous system healing,

- truth,

- growth,

- and learning how to build healthier relationships moving forward.

It will probably take a little time for discussions and community to fully build as members slowly join, but if you are interested in healing instead of staying stuck in cycles of confusion, analysis, resentment, or obsessively trying to decode another person, you are welcome to join us.

The goal is not to deny painful experiences.

The goal is to stop letting them consume our entire identity and future.

Is therapy worth it when it's basically just

"you know how you think and feel? Yeah, just force yourself to think the opposite of it and you will feel the opposite too eventually"

For the record I love therapy but I am a deeply introspective person, almost too much so..I am always thinking and writing down how I am thinking and feeling, so I am always aware of what's going on in me and what else is possible. Plus, I enjoy alcohol and weed occasionally and exercise frequently so I know how perceptions of good and bad are just chemicals in your brain.

Every session I've ever been to, probably a little less than 10 or so, has been me talking for 40 minutes and the therapist just being like, "have you considered the opposite?" So it almost seems like what is the point when I could that myself

There are times when I feel like the "need therapy" light is on. But it takes so long to get an appointment that by the time the appointment comes the feeling has already gone.

For example, for the last few months I have been dealing with how painful it was to suddenly discover my ex was an avoidant and to be discarded by her. And the answer has been...give yourself time to heal, forgive her and yourself, and believe better things are ahead for you....would therapy have made any difference?

Plus I'm no stranger to just asking why until I can figure out the cause of my feelings i.e. it hurts so much because before the discard it felt like I had finally found my personal, and I loved hanging out with her family in a way I could never with my own family, and I have this big need for love because life always feels so unsatisfying regardless of how much I try to make it more meaningful and enjoyable.

I think I am what Freud was getting at when he said the aim of therapy is to basically make life bearable with the problems that exist and can't be neatly resolved.

Anyone else trigger old wound when pursuing something new 😅

I know I know don't shit where you eat but it's a part time job we see each other once or twice a week

And everytime we both seem to have fun with each other.

Over the past week I kept looking forward to working with her again and told myself I have to try to get her number or indicate I'd like to see her outside work. So last night I went for it kind of being as playful and flirty as I could be while inviting her to watch a movie with me and another coworker.

She has always seemed receptive. But back to me. After all that fun last night, it feels like I've been pushed down the stairs today. What felt like a clean break, a recovery from the avoidant discard and months of learning about avoidants and just letting myself feel hurt. Feels like I triggered something I was starting to forget was there.

I think this could be helpful in understanding your avoidant's mental and emotional operating system

https://www.reddit.com/r/emotionalintelligence/s/PdC1hDGYGm

Once you know what an avoidant is and what they want

Could you handle them as such, treat them as they are rather than how you wish them to be

What I mean is, stop expecting to them to be a good partner who you can expect a good serious relationship from. Demand nothing of them. And just treat them like the avoidant they are

Just wondering. I think we are all disappointed when we don't know they are avoidant and wish they weren't. But once you know who they are, couldn't you deal with them as they are without expecting them to be any different

I'm not simply saying avoid the avoidant. I'm saying play and beat them at their own game

As the doors song goes, "don't you love her madly as she walks out the door. Like she did one thousand time before."

EDIT: alright, I think I have my answer. There is just "no success" with an avoidant. An avoidant can and will sabotage any attempt at any kind of relationship. And even if they are the ones who do something wrong, they will blame you for it and push you away. Success and winning demands logic, and avoidants just have their own kind of messed up logic. Avoidants are fire but you won't get any warmth from them. Not for long anyway. They can and will burn you just by you being there. So don't be there. Avoid the avoidant. Thank you all. I really appreciate it.