Avoident Attachment

[Dorri82]

(40f)I've been with my partner (41m) 2.5 years,
all was absolutely perfect for 18 months living apart and doing lots of fun things together. We really connected and fell so in love. He made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world and was so very affectionate and loving.

As we didn't live together and knew it might be logistically tricky with him having 3 kids (2 separate mums) and his work all where he's from, and me having a little girl at school here. He bought a caravan that would be 'our home' together where we could have all the kids together and stuff at the weekends. (It's a big caravan)

In January last year very unexpectedly, he proposed to me on the beach while we were watching the sunrise. He'd planned it for 2 months and bought a beautiful ring. In April he decided that he was going to move from his hometown to mine. I packed up my house and he done the same and we got somewhere together.

It took a little adjusting after both living on our own for a while beforehand but it all came together and was fine for a few months. But as time went on he grew quieter and withdrawn and there was hardly any intimacy. He put it down to travelling back and forth and juggling the kids and work. Side note- he hadn't seen his youngest kid in nearly 10 months because of differences with the ex and now he was starting to see him again. He doesn't have a strong bond with the little boy, absolutely nothing like with his older boys
Anyway... come end of August a conversation came up around marriage and he was really weird and dismissive so after pushing for a proper conversation, he told me he doesnt really believe in marriage and that he asked me because he wanted me to believe how much he loved me. I was very hurt and upset but tried to see the meaning behind it.

October comes and he's so distant and disconnected from me at this point and I have no idea why until one night after trying to
really communicate with him, he tells me he's not sure how he sees me anymore and that he loves me so much but not sure if its in more of a friendship way. I'm obviously devastated and ask him to go and stay at the caravan so we could have some space.

In the following few days I'm convinced it's over and feel utterly heartbroken.

He comes back home 5 days later and says he doesn't thunk that's what he meant, he's just all confused as we haven't felt close lately.

We hobble along with me trying hard to repair our relationship, and him seemingly trying for a couple of weeks until it feels like he's completely lost again. He explains that he's really struggling with driving back and forth for work and fitting the kids in and all their weekend and afterschool stuff when he's sitting in traffic for about 4 hours a day (it's a horrible journey from his hometown to mine) and its like it's all built up for him and he's on a verge of a nervous breakdown.

I'm completely panicked with what's happening as he's completely shutdown and not really talking etc.

Come end of November he announces that he's going to have to move back to his hometown as he can't cope with all the logistics and it making it difficult to fit everything in and around his kids and work.

So he finds somewhere, and I move again just before Christmas. And I think that's probably going to be it for us. But as we settle and Christmas comes, it's like he's opening up again. He wrote me a poem saying how much he loves and appreciates all the support through his darkest days etc and how we can make it all work again now from our separate places like we used to.

We've spent quite a lot of time together over Christmas and up until now... we've talked lots and he's discovered the term 'avoident' absolutely agrees that he sees many of the typical traits in himself and acknowledges a lot of what's happened over the last year could be down to his style of relating.
Although we're really communicating again and both love each other still so much, hes still struggling with the intimacy side of things. Which obviously makes me feel really rubbish. We read that it's easy to have that sexual chemistry when it's casual but a lot harder for avoidents when the relationship is serious.

So anyway... here I am, January again, a year after he proposed and now not living together and now not getting married and seeing how we can try and make this work.
But for me.... I'm shell-shocked, I don't know what the hell has just happened?!

I mourn the relationship I thought it was and hoped it could be and now I don't know what to do?

Has too much happened? Can I ever feel secure? What would you guys do if you were me? And thanks if you made it the end of this post!! 🤣 bit of a long one xx

I'm going through something similar. Been together a decade, amazing first few years, love's young dream, then somewhere along the line pulled away to nothing. It's been at least two years of no affection/intimacy and I've read as much as there is to read on avoidance and narcissism and depression. We are married with two children and we are separating. I feel like I'll never get an answer and it's very sad to be losing the family but at the end of the day my needs aren't being met and I'm suffering.

Know your worth.

You can feel secure, if you take responsibility for yourself. Leave partners who make you feel insecure, and only stay with someone who treats you well enough that you can trust them.

It looks like he 'thought' he could do the whole relationship, living together, marriage thing, but the reality of actually doing it wasn't for him.

He's got a complicated set-up and maybe he's realised it's better as it was before he tried to move things on with getting engaged and living together.

He's regressed things after actively progressing, it's up to you whether you can accept what he has to offer and whether that will be good enough for you.

What you had will never come back because it wasn’t real.You are now going backwards instead of forwards. He split up with you. You’re not getting married and you don’t live together anymore. You will never feel secure with an avoidant because he will deliberately make sure you don’t, and you will betray yourself by accepting less and less until you don’t recognise yourself anymore.

Some avoidants have a range of tactics to keep intimacy at bay including lying and cheating and withholding intimacy. In fact they lie a lot as you’ve discovered.

That person isn’t ever coming back and you will waste years trying.He is not capable of any sort of real intimacy and you will have to deal with the excuses, the shutting down and the notorious fault finding. Everything will be your fault.

Its not your fault and it’s not about you. End this dance now and save yourself years of pain and emotional abuse. Whether it’s deliberate or not does not lessen the effects on you.

I wasted 10 years of my life with one of these. Due to be married, he couldn’t do it, we are now separated for good, but only after I had to change my phone number and remove myself completely as he would not walk away fully. Just kept lying, cheating, being cold, blaming me etc, as other pp have said. Do yourself a favour and get away from him. It’ll never get better and you’ll only end up getting hurt. Find someone who can’t stand the thought of not being with you

Thank you all. I know it's what I need to do. I've already lost myself and feel in a constant state of anxiety. Everything else in my life is suffering because of it. All he offers me is words but I know the reality is in his actions. I feel like I'm mourning the relationship I thought it was, the person I thought it was. He's not malicious but I know this will not be enough for me and given his last two relationships, I know the cheating will probably be inevitable.
I've just got to find that final strength and do what I know I need to do. Thank you xx

You sound very sensible OP and you're absolutely right, you're mourning the relationship you thought it was and the man you thought he was. Please stay away for the sake of your mental health. I wasted 5 years of my life on a man like this and - in my experience - it's never completely over for them and they will keep circling back to you for as long as you let them. Meanwhile you're being worn down by anxiety and wishing for the person he was at the start of the relationship (clue, that wasn't the real him).

Your ex fits a certain pattern: the love-bombing and big romantic gestures (the proposal on the beach, the moving to be with you), then the devaluing and pulling away once real life kicks in, followed by the discard of the relationship. Then, once there's some time and distance and he started missing what you provided, the idealisation starts up again (the poetry 🤦🏻‍♀️) ... oh and now he's conveniently found a label for himself, so you can both fall down a rabbit hole of analysing and explaining away his behaviour, all of his inconsistencies can be blamed on 'but avoidant' and he continues to maintain zero accountability for his behaviour.

Stay strong. Whatever he is or isn't, be assured his behaviour is 100% toxic and he is not the man for you.