r/HealMyAttachmentStyle

Hello guys yesterday i had ab argument either my long distabt gf whos a avoidant attachment and and the anxious one.

The argument was about how we both were voice chatting via discord the whole week together but she said "i feel bad for saying no to my friends but i say i play with you" idk why but something just triggered me i didnt felt like a priority and she tried to say that she said it to make me feel prioritised not to guilt trip me but then i just kept going and going spiraling into my overthinking and i just dont know what to do anymore. It was pretty late around 1-2am my nervous dystrophy just kept getting worse and worse.

Then i said something that really hurt her heart

"Because i try to have conversations with you and it just feels i cant reach you so it drains me chasing after someone who doesn't want to be chased but im not like that anymore you cant compare me to my past im a changed man" idk why i said that it just spurted out and i feel terribe she said shes sorry for for not being able to gove me reassurance and make me feel prioritised and i know what i said wasnt the best thing i just kept crying all night because i thought the relationship was over".

I kept texting her saying how sorry i deeply am and that i take full accountability for everything it was all my fault.

And now i just cant seem to function anymore i already applied for therapists via email because there is just genuinely something wrong with me i cant bring myself to calm down

Please i need some advice my heart just feels so heavy knowing i hurt the only person i care so much about

Sort of a standard avoidant push/pull dynamic going on here. But I do genuinely care about him a lot and am concerned for his wellbeing.

And would love some advice - especially from anyone who is or has been avoidant.

I, F29, have been in this hot/cold cycle with M39 ‘Ryan’ (fake name) for 7 months. We’ve been close friends for 5 years, have a mutual friend group and we all work backstage together in commercial musical theatre.

When things started 7 months ago it was long distance as he was on tour with a show. We found out we’d both had feelings for each other for years and in hindsight because of the physical distance and because he wouldn’t be back in our city for months - it meant it was ‘safe’ for him to really go all in. And I, consequently, got very attached, and we became very close with him opening up emotionally in ways he never had with me before. I even flew over to see him for a weekend 6 months ago.

Then he freaked out after a couple of months, wanted to go back to being friends, then started pushing boundaries, and he suggested we casually date when I called him out on that, he was fine for a month then freaked out again.

Classic. But hard to recognise when you’re in the middle of it.

Now he’s back, we’re working on the same show and I’m really concerned about him.

He’s always been a bit reserved and struggled with depression/anxiety. But he’s really shut down at work. For days on end he will avoid eye contact with everyone, sit alone, not talk to anyone - and I guess have ‘storm cloud’, ‘don’t come near me energy’.

About a month before he came back to our city it was like he put up an emotional wall to me and stopped talking to me about how he was and just sent reels and stuff instead.

His behaviour at work clearly shows he’s finding things tough but it’s also hard for everyone having to work with him during a show - especially as it’s been like this for weeks. With random days of him being suddenly being chatty and in a good mood.

I want to support him whilst trying to look after my own wellbeing more. As he’s continued to not be…very fair? to me. Asking to come over to my house at 1am after after-work drinks, then stonewalling me at work for days afterwards but still messaging me online. Then saying he wants a FWB arrangement when I asked what he wanted/what was going on. I made him a shadowbox for his birthday a few days ago commemorating his first two touring shows (current show is his second) - it even had a remote controlled LED strip in it - and he couldn’t say one positive thing about it or even acknowledge I’d clearly put a lot of effort into it. All he said was he’d felt a bit “attacked” by it. In a sort of joking tone? As I guess he’s not enjoying the show right now.

I’ve not spoken to any of our friends in his department about what’s been going on between us - as that would not be fair at all. Except one very close friend to both of us. She’s been friends with him for 15 years and has known about the entire 7 month saga with me.

Normally she’d be a big support for him when he’s having trouble with his mental health. But she’s currently very angry with him for how he’s been treating me and how self absorbed he’s been acting. But I don’t believe she’s said anything to him about it.

My brother has been suicidal this year - and I know that’s colouring my lens when being concerned about ‘Ryan’ - I don’t know if his thoughts are that dark but it’s a worry of mine.

I’ve settled on sitting with him backstage from time to time and just hanging out in silence with both of us doing our own thing. Phone, steamdeck, etc. and occasionally chatting - if he’s in a better mood. Or random light hearted texts/reels.

I want him to know I’m here and I care. But logically I know his behaviour is hurting me and it’s fine for me to distance myself whilst he’s acting this way. But I do love him and he is my friend.

And not having physical distance makes this all so much harder.

What would you guys do in my position?

Thanks for your time - happy to give any clarification.

Things were really good when he is present.

I don't mind the space, but sometimes i see him not returning back, but every time he does.

I my self lean toward anxious-avoidant and prolonged spaces without communication triggers by anxiety and fear of abandonment.

How do ppl make it work?how to switch gears from hot and cold?? I can't be with anxious or secure ppl as it to soo space consuming and it creates a lot of pressure.

Sorry for bad formatting im posting this from my phone 🫣 i know myself very well at this point and i cant notice IMMEDIATELY when i start getting unhealthily attached to someone. i lack self control and I will do anything to be close to the person im attached to at the moment even if it hurts the people around me and i cant have that happen right now.. im in a very good place in my life despite the fact im developing a new dependency on this guy and i guess im just wondering is there any way to avoid becoming overly attached and dependent on him?? I know i can just break contact or cut it down but it genuinely feels like life or death.. hes also my friend so i really am against cutting contact.. i think its worth mentioning that i have bpd. Im just looking for help on how to maintain this relationship in a healthy way because i like his company i just dont want to spiral into being so disgustingly obsessed with him because im very aware its unhealthy.

So I am 24f and I have been dating since I was 19. I used to meet people in person and I also have met people thru dating apps. I make sure to not only pick people who I am attracted to online bc I know that anyone can be a match for me.

But the thing is that I keep falling for emotionally unavailable guys who are great at first but then things fall apart within 3 months. Usually after 3 months I ask to define the relationship and ask if it’s serious and they say yes and agree to be my boyfriend… for a week until they break up. Or else they are emotionally abusive towards me in which case I have to break up with them. As a result I have never had a relationship for longer than 4ish months and it’s starting to drive people away. When I tell people I’ve only been in short term relationships people ask “but you seem so normal?”

As a child i experienced parental neglect and severe childhood bullying, but ive spent thousands of dollars on therapy over the course of 3 years. It’s helped but I feel like ive hit a wall where talk therapy no longer helps me anymore. It helps in the way of being able to vent my frustrations and pain, but it doesn’t help me in the way I want with relationships.

I need to stop pursuing relationships avoidant men asap. The issue is that I can never recognize them when I see them. Because at first they ARE emotionally present, and then the switch comes later. But I never recognize a good secure guy as one I can be in a relationship with.

Does anyone have an Avoidant Attachment Style?

I feel like how I was raised by my independent mother, where my emotions were dismissed, led me to become an INTJ. I'm not sure if people on here feel the same way I do, but it would explain mostly why I'm considered an INTJ.

Since, I'm not that close with my family like at all. A few talks and there, but nothing special. They're mostly just absent. Basically strangers. I have a few friends that I'm close with, which I can feel safe with. So, I'll become energetic and happy, but with my family it's the complete opposite. It's cold and uncaring. I feel nothing for them and I would even say I could live without them.

When it comes to meeting people I suck completely at it. I'm only able to talk easily with new people though friends. That's where i'm more sociable. When i'm alone with a stranger, I become this cold person and it just makes me seem depressing. I guess those times isolated really impacted me. I rarely express myself in a new setting and become quiet. I just hate how awkward it gets when I have to start a conversation, so I never engage.

I use logic when it comes to literally everything too. I dismiss my emotions completely, because it's just chaotic. It's not simple and understanding. When someone else expresses their emotions, I attempt to understand them. Even though I can't feel the weight they're feeling. Since, they can be way more emotional than me. Logic saves my life in most cases. Also, I don't really care about other people's opinion. For example, they could tell me to change as a person or something ridiculous, but I always reject it. I've accepted myself and learned that it's who I am.

She was my first time, and my first relationship and first experience with another girl as well.

She pursued me. And would make comments about how much she loved watching me talk to ppl, and how smart and beautiful I was. I felt like she didn’t see me as a person rather on a pedestal. She would FaceTime me ALL the time to the point it got exhausting on my end.

After things got too intense for her she freaked out and said she couldn’t do this. I had to beg her to talk to me though. She just started being distant and I felt crazy. But her obsession with me stayed. Her emotions towards me were insane. After the breakup she went from being happy to see me (she would wave so hard which made me so scared of how someone can flip a switch with their emotions) to then being visibly upset with me if we ran into each other.

It was the most confusing, traumatic, situation of my life. I stayed strong but it was awful. I gave so much of myself and it felt like I got thrown away but I also felt like she hated me for not begging her to stay?

She would stalk my social media. We had a conversation afterwards where I asked her what happened and if I hurt her in anyway (I put her feeling above my own). She pretended nothing happened, but she accidentally admitted to stalking me on socials.

Her friends were a part of the problem. I’m not sure how truthful she was about how she treated me but her friends would stare me down anytime they saw me, as intimidation?

I blocked her everywhere and don’t plan on ever letting her back in. However it hurt so much in the moment. How do I make sense of this? I question if I got taken advantage of, did she ever care or just wanted to sleep with me? I feel like she had a weird obsession with her ego and her seeing me hurt from her leaving made her feel better about herself? Is this ego thing a sign of an avoidant. Any advice? I’m not sure if I developed an unhealthy attachment or not. It took me a very long time to come to terms with what happened.

How do I get over this fear of being an inconvenience?

I am admittedly too “go with the flow” or even go a long with “whatever you want to do” but tonight I thought I was making it clear that I thought what we had planned to do was important to me to take care of.

I.e. we planned on trimming trees to let our plants get more light, but instead of doing that he asked if I “had planned on boing for a bike ride?” I replied “i had thought about it but…” I forget exactly what I said but I was trying to imply that with everything we were going to do I didn’t think there would be time for it. This resulted in him telling me it’s exhausting to live with me “not wanting to do anything or have an opinion.”

I think it’s my trouble making things inconvenient for others that is making me doubt what i want or don’t want.

Idk if this is making sense because I’m so frustrated that this is causing an argument. Now nothing is getting done and he’s not speaking to me.

Side note: he told me he saw me smirking at him when he got angry. This couldn’t be further from what I was feeling at the time, I don’t have a mirror to what he saw but there was no joy or elation at his anger in me.

I don’t know if this is the right sub, if not I’ll take it elsewhere.

Just need to vent I guess and get some outside opinions. Tear me apart, idc.

I feel like I’m becoming emotionless, especially in my relationship.

With my girlfriend, I often fail to understand her mood or what she needs from me. The frustrating part is that she has explained it to me many times. I understand it, apologize, focus on it for some time… but eventually I repeat the same mistakes.

It’s not only in my relationship. I forget things quickly in real life too. Important conversations, things people tell me, lessons I learned — they come back to me days later or randomly when the moment has already passed.

I genuinely want to support her, care for her, and be there for her, but many times the conversation turns into arguments, blaming, or silence. She says she doesn’t feel my accountability, and honestly, I think she’s right. I don’t know why I struggle to accept accountability. Maybe because somewhere inside I already know the result or I don’t want to face that I was wrong.

Another problem is that whenever there is a serious discussion, I immediately bring my own logic and theories instead of trying to understand the other person’s perspective. I don’t do it because I think I’m always right, but I realize I don’t naturally put myself in someone else’s place, and it hurts people.

With my family, it’s even worse. I become numb and avoid difficult conversations. I already assume how things will go, so I don’t even try properly.

I feel like I’m selfish. I know other people can be right, but something inside me struggles to accept it. I don’t think I’m superior; I just feel stuck in my own head.

My girlfriend is consistent, emotionally mature, and observant (although she has her own anger issues). Compared to her, I feel immature, avoidant, and like I run away from responsibility.

I don’t want sympathy. I want to understand myself and know how I can actually change this pattern.

→Has anyone experienced something similar?

→How did you become more emotionally aware and accountable?

It's on a deeper level than emotions and even trauma, it's closer to "crossed wires" if you dive into the neuroscience research for attachment, talking about feelings and communicating needs is simply not enough (or even backfires, from my experience)

I was an extremely severe (and unaware) dismissive avoidant attacher that would lose all interest in people if they showed me any authentic warmth. I stayed only in codependent relationships where I was treated like an object/trophy/instrument/mommy/free therapist without being seen or loved for my truth (being seen felt like dying and caused immediate semi-permanent deactivation)

The only thing that actually worked to stop that was "acting against" my urges by literally trying to bind myself to my partner like a baby would: I would literally bite and clutch my partner any time deactivation (including nitpicking, phantomizing, shutdowns, icks, empathy loss, intense stress, etc.) would come up, for years. That's it. Nothing else worked for me. Literally nothing that online coaches say one should do reached that deep level of wiring for me and I really tried

I have no idea why no one is talking about the deeper-than-somatic solution, when it worked for me, and all I did was think about how babies bond to their parents. Why is it not more obvious?

I no longer deactivate around my partner, and I finally enjoy closeness with him

Edit: I've had 14 years of somatic and such therapy and it has done nothing for my attachment behaviors, I now believe that attachment can only be changed within an attachment, on a deeper level than even somatic therapy

So I (19M) have run into a wall and had a very rough phase with my girlfriend (18F) which resulted in our relationship going on a break. It has really hurt both of us and this has pushed me to make some changes and reflect.

I have finally started to ask questions about my attachment style but I cannot really pin-point the exact style.

I recently gave an online test and it came that my style was Fearful Avoidant (Disorganized). I was reading a book on working with relationship jealousy and insecurity and according to that book I felt my style Anxious.

When I look at me behavior I feel I exhibit anxious tendencies but then I also feel I have some avoidant tendencies (though my anxious tendencies are more frequent than avoidant ones).

For example, any slight friendly male interaction that my girlfriend has results in me being anxious, threatened and worried. I start thinking she doesn't love me and I find myself unable to trust her words when she tries to reassure me. So I basically get anxious on small things in our relationship especially when there's a male friend involved. Secondly when our relationship reached a point where we had confessed our feelings and were about to start to date - I almost suddenly withdrew and started to become distant from her. It's not like I lost interest or whatever, but I just withdrew and felt a sudden need to focus on my studies and career than relationship. Which probably shows an avoidant style.

So I am basically getting confused on how to actually identify my attachment style in detail. Unless I truly figure out what my style is I cannot start working on it.

So can y'all please help me by recommending me books, articles, tests etc or any resources that you think could guide me through understanding and identifying my attachment style precisely and clearly?

Thankyou!

I (19M) have been with my girlfriend (18F) for more than two years now and throughout this I have had jealousy and insecurity issues. I am now starting to actively work on it and improve.

I have been able to pin-point contributors of this anxious attachment style of mine - some of them date back to my childhood, things that happened to me and around me and such. They left a mark on me and I haven't been able to get out of them.

One thing I am confused about is what I mentioned in the title.

My girlfriend has a vibrant social life and a good friend circle involving both genders. I on the other hand live in a cave. I have barely 3 friends in my life and the only girl I talk to is my girlfriend. I rarely leave my house. I have social anxiety and overthink a lot about my social interactions and presence. Although I haven't had a particularly hard time making friends whenever I was in school and was relatively known and seen - so I wasn't a lost person in school who nobody knew.

I grow jealousy, anxious and feel threatened seeing any male presence in my girlfriend's life. I feel it hard to digest, I doubt and find myself unable to trust her words when she tries to reassure me. I live in a constant fear that she would leave me, loves someone else or thinks that I am not good enough for her. In my vulnerable moments I first interrogate her about her interactions with a male or her social outing and then I end up degrading myself and cursing myself as some sort of punishment for doing this behavior. However throughout our relationship there has been pretty much nothing that suggests any of this is true.

Coming back to the point. Could my lack of social interactions and platonic friendships be a contributor for my deep rooted insecurity and jealousy?

Because I don't have a social life, I view simple social interactions with a lens of suspicion and doubts. And because I don't have platonic friendships I don't know what it truly means to be friends with opposite gender and thus I always end up questioning my girlfriend's friendships? It's like I cannot believe that a boy and girl can be friends because I don't have those kind of friendships because I never tried to get out of my comfort zone and leave my bubble?

Also because of being locked up for too long in my cave I have gone insane and that my mind is now finding it hard to register human contact and relationships between two genders for anything less than a romantic relationship? Humans are after all social creatures so could it be that my lack of social life is a contributor to my jealousy and insecurity with my girlfriend, especially because she has a healthy social life?

Hey everyone. I really need an outside perspective and some advice because I’m completely confused and emotionally burnt out.
I’ve been dating a girl for 7 months now. She has a disorganized (fearful-avoidant) attachment style. This is actually our second attempt at a relationship. We first got together when we were 16, and that lasted for about 9 months.
The first time around:
In the very beginning, everything was perfect, but the further it went, the worse it got. She completely stopped showing initiative, became cold, and started regularly ghosting/ignoring me for 24+ hours at a time. Back then, I leaned anxious: I kept pushing, trying to fix things, and suffocating her with attention to compensate for her coldness. Predictably, this made her pull away even more. We only saw each other once a week, and even then, it was always with a group of friends. We did talk on the phone for 3-4 hours, but it was mostly just me talking while she gave short, one-word answers and rarely brought up anything herself.
Towards the end of that relationship, I honestly told her that my feelings were fading and something needed to change. She agreed, and everything was great for a week, but then she abruptly broke up with me. Over the next 5 months, I tried to get her back 3 or 4 times, but she always refused (though I later found out she cried a lot over it because she still loved me). She suggested staying friends, but I refused, and we went no-contact for about a year.
The second attempt (present day):
Fast forward 1.5 years later, we got back together. The feelings were still there, and we both thought we had matured and changed. For the first month and a half, everything was perfect again, but then it all went downhill. I instantly noticed a shift in her attitude, and problems began snowballing.
Phone calls are completely dead: We haven't spoken on the phone in about 5 months. She never calls first, and I’m just exhausted from being the only one initiating.
Text-only communication + heavy ignoring: Everything has dwindled down to texting, and the same old coldness and 24+ hour ignoring routine started again. This is despite the fact that I explicitly told her beforehand that after our first breakup, I would never tolerate this kind of treatment again.
Constantly canceling plans: Whenever I suggest hanging out, she repeatedly reschedules, making up a million excuses. But the second friends invite her to a group hangout, she instantly has time. The most absurd part: recently, that group hangout got canceled, but she still "couldn't" meet up with me because she suddenly "had other plans."
Complete lack of intimacy: We only kiss hello and goodbye. There is absolutely zero initiative from her side, even though she swore she would make an effort.
She says a lot of beautiful words, promises to change, and texts me that she loves me, but her actions amount to an absolute zero. I feel like an emotional Tamagotchi that she only remembers once a day in between scrolling through TikTok. I am incredibly tired of always being the engine driving this relationship. Right now, I’m ready to throw in the towel. I’ve become completely indifferent, and I don't want to invest any more of my emotions or money into her.
What should I do next? Is it even worth giving a final ultimatum, or is this a dead end and it's time to walk away and block her for good? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
TL;DR: Got back together with my ex (fearful-avoidant) after 1.5 years apart. The exact same history is repeating itself: 24-hour ignoring, zero phone calls for 5 months, constantly canceling one-on-one dates but making time for friends, all while dropping "I love you" and empty promises to change. I'm emotionally checked out and want to end it.