Avoidant Attachment

[Thighdentitycrisis]

I think I have avoidant attachment and I don’t know how to communicate with my partner

I try to explain how I feel, how I can’t know what I want and even don’t feel that I deserve anything so I don’t aspire to anything, so I can’t want anything.
He feels that if I don’t know that I want to be with him and live with him, our relationship is not valid or I don’t love him

I don’t know, maybe I can’t feel love, or anything

Sorry to hear this, OP. It's a fairly common issue brought to therapy. I inagine that during childhood you learned that what you needed and wanted didn't matter (either ignored, judged or punished). You can feel - you do feel! You have learned to not listen to the voices of your feelings - but they are there, I assure you. A good psychotherapist will be able to help you. If you can't afford that, get a copy of Bessel Van Der Kolk's book "The body keeps the score" and try some body practices that are more mindfulness-based than fitness-oriented, such as Yin yoga. Good luck!

Thanks @MysteriesOfTheOrganism
I have read that book and a lot of it strikes a chord

I was going to yoga before lockdown but not since, I am currently struggling with my relationship and feeling like as much as I try to tell my partner how things are for me, he just doesn’t want to get it

No answers but just want to say that you're not alone (although with avoidant attachment it may not get through [no icon for wry grin]. Best wishes.

Following here as my partner has avoidant attachment I feel too. But I think I do as well so I can see where he is coming from and that the issue is more about him than us. I agree with pp, try therapy as it's a very common thing. Do you like being with him?

@Thighdentitycrisis much as I try to tell my partner how things are for me, he just doesn’t want to get it

We all see and understand things differently and react differently. Each one of us tends to think that our own way is "normal" - and that other ways are odd. Some people are sufficiently sensitive and empathetic to truly understand others'. Some are kind and patient enough to listen and ask questions to try to gain some understanding. Some people are simply neither - they don't understand and don't care to try. Some people have become so drained by the relationship that they no longer have the energy to try.

What do you think is true of your partner?

If you want to explore your struggles, to be heard and understood - a therapist is the best person to do this. In part because your partner wants you to meet their needs, while the therapist does not. Your partner wants you to be a certain way, the therapist only wants you to be happy.

Seek your answers within yourself with the help of a therapist. The answer to whether or not your relationship is a good one will become clear.

@MysteriesOfTheOrganism are you a therapist? - you sound very wise
“some are kind and patient enough to listen and ask questions to try to gain some understanding”

This fits my partner most, but it doesn’t seem to be enough, because as much as I explain my fear of relationship, my low self esteem and my lack of identity, he listens but at the bottom line I feel he cant accept that as me, I feel he still wants me to be a different way - I suppose my way is not meeting his needs. I even explain to him how exposed I feel just trying to explain myself to him, he just seems to feel defensive - and we stop communicating

He keeps on asking me what I want,and I try to tell him it’s very hard even impossible to know or feel that. I understand it as being unable to really see myself as having an identity or being a person who can have wants and needs and have them met. I think he wants me to want the same things as him in order to see the relationship as viable, or perhaps that I have to want something and own it.

I don’t think my way of being and interacting is normal, but it is my normal. I accept and understand that it’s confusing for him, I don’t set out to achieve that.

@Eesha I do like being with him, but I really struggle to commit further. He says that every time he comes towards me I recede.

@Thighdentitycrisis much as I explain my fear of relationship, my low self esteem and my lack of identity, he listens but at the bottom line I feel he cant accept that as me, I feel he still wants me to be a different way

This may be difficult for you to hear, but I do think you need to - if only to move you into action. Forgive me if it's too much...

You are aware of yourself. Even if you are not sure what you want or need, when you wake up in the morning there is a "you" that is aware of being you. You are able to relate to that "you" - you have direct access to that person.

Other people do not have direct access to our self-awareness. They rely on our words, our actions, our behaviour, our responses, on external expressions. If you do not (or cannot) express who you are - how is someone else supposed to relate to you??? It's like trying to relate to a ghost. You know through self-awareness that you are real - but others need substance in order to feel (rather than just know) that you are real and thus to relate to you.

I accept that I must be another way, or feel something, and that I am passive in the relationship,
I just don't know how to - be another way - or to just feel and express something, anything, even if its that I don't want to be with him or anyone, to give him something to relate to. All the therapy and counselling I have had over many years, I haven't been able to progress.

Your posts are very helpful to me