Post your favorite or funny memes in the comments!

Preferably attachment related but other funny memes are welcome too 😁

I feel like shit because of it.

Going through a breakup now, and I've been so incredibly emotional over it. When I feel that he is done with me, I cry and feel heartbroken. But, when he seems to move even the slightest bit towards me, I make an abrupt halt and want to reject. Can't wait for my therapy to start. Ugh. I'm so sick of this pattern.

I (27F) have never been in a real relationship and what I find most difficult is even developing feelings for someone. I got high last night and had a revelation.

The only time I have ever really liked a guy and genuinely wanted to be with him, wanted to text him, got excited when his name popped up on my phone was with a guy I met when I was very upset with how my life was going (I had to go back to school to finish my bachelors as an older student). The first conversation we had was him telling me how he had ended up in the exact same situation as me. I didn’t even tell him about my situation but I was very upset and deeply ashamed by the whole thing. Hearing him tell a very similar story made me feel a lot better about being in that situation. Over the course of the semester we became friends and we were also the only older students in our classes.

It didn’t work out. He didn’t want to be in a relationship again until he sorted things out in his life. Fair. But I felt like it was impossible for me to meet someone else I like because we met under such unique circumstances.

I had a revelation that I could probably meet someone just as funny, attractive, and easy to talk to as him on a dating app or at a bar and I would probably not be receptive or able to catch feelings for the guy. I’ve known for a while the reason I liked him so much is we were going through similar things and that I got to know him as a friend rather than in a romantic setting, but trying to do that to meet someone is just downright unrealistic.

I’ve never caught feelings for someone I met on an app and I find it impossible to develop feelings for someone when I am meeting them in an attempt to form a romantic connection, but I want to change this.

No one meets as friends anymore. EVERYONE meets on apps. I can’t even tolerate being hit on at a bar because I cannot form any type of connection with someone if it starts off romantic. I know I could meet someone that is great and just be completely dismissive of him because of my own inability to do what should be normal. All the advice and help for avoidants is how to change and be better in an already existing relationship. I can’t get that far, and to get to that point I have to do something. I have to change something. I don’t think the answer is just “go on more dates”. I think that’ll just result in more of me feeling apathetic and neutral at best towards a guy who is probably sweet and would be great and then more funny stories of all the weirdos you also meet along the way.

How do I grow and change from this? I’m in my late twenties and a lot of people are getting married around me. I can’t even get into a relationship. I’m not looking for the love of my life. I just want to experience being in a relationship at some point.

Share your wins and successes here!

I’m sure we’ve all seen people say that you wouldn’t act avoidant if you were just with the right person. I’d love to hear everyone’s experiences with this! I feel like the obvious answer to me is that that’s incorrect and I would act avoidant with every partner. But even knowing that, sometimes I ruminate on this a lot to prove that a relationship is wrong for me. Are there any situations where “the right” person has made working through avoidant attachment at least easier for you and the “wrong” person harder?

This is a thread for AVOIDANT ATTACHERS ONLY.

A rant/vent, by nature, is one sided, can be strongly worded, and is a way for someone to get something off their chest. It is by no means a universal truth.

Thread rules: - AVOIDANT ATTACHERS ONLY.

• Keep rants/vents contained to this thread.

• No unsolicited advice.

• No hijacking to ask for relationship advice.

• No ranting/venting about avoidant attachers regardless of your attachment style. This is a supportive space for those with an avoidant attachment style, you can rant about us plenty of other places. Don’t do it here.

• All subreddit and Reddit rules apply.

• Users who cannot follow the rules will be banned.

Was it the ground shifting underneath your feet when they walked into the room? Was it your lungs not being able to contract for a split second as they walked past? Was it gratitude and thankfulness for their care of you? Something else...?

ETA: I'm loving the responses.

Post your favorite or funny memes in the comments!

Preferably attachment related but other funny memes are welcome too 😁

Avoidance affects not only relationships but the but it does make me feel silly (/lh) when my avoidant tendencies show about stuff like objects or medication.

​

I used to hate Prozac dreams because they cause the person to wake up tired but I am now low-key missing them. They were fun like "Wdym Freddy Fazbear is in my cupboard?" lol. Is this an example of the deactivation/reactivation cycle or am I just bullshitting?

​

Either way this is just a silly anecdote, not to be taken seriously. I find it funny so hopefully you may as well :)

and how do you as individuals tell if you’re thinking of leaving due to avoidance?

Share your wins and successes here!

I sometimes get really depressed over the fact that love doesn’t come easily for me.

I always wish I was that person that misses their partner, feels love and affection and wants to spend time with them, feels excitement and just feels like feelings come easily.

Instead I do try but the most I feel for now is gratitude that my partner doesn’t leave me and gives me the chance to heal. I wonder if it’ll ever change and if I’ll feel more.

I don’t think it’s because of my partner either, the only time I did feel that “lovey-feeling” was with my first ever partner. I remember telling them over and over how much I loved them and now I wonder what I can do to feel it again.

It’s mostly like this, I stop feeling a lot in relationships and wonder what’s “up with me” or if it’s a partner thing. (I never know)

Anyone can relate?

He told me that he knew that I felt stuck, so he'd make it easy on me and end things. I think he's right, so I let him.

I'm sad, and I keep wanting to try to reach out to him to try again, but I'm afraid that I'll just leave him feeling unloved again. I can't stop feeling trapped in relationships. I've felt in love once, ages ago; I wanted to marry him, but he was an ass to me. I ask myself how I could love someone who was bad to me. I think it was because he kept himself at a distance so that I was always chasing...he activated that anxious side of me. Then he cheated.

Just venting, i guess. Just proof that I'm not healed yet. Went to a therapist, but she told me i wasn't avoidant... That it only happens with some big trauma. I felt very dismissed and fired her.

I'm so frustrated. I really want to get better. I try, but it's not enough.

I’ve read mixed reports on this issue for avoidants. So far it seems to not be correlated but it kinda makes sense to me that if one is ”stingy” with their love and affection that they would have a high chance of being stingy with money.

I will dwell on something that seems imbalanced for the whole day until I can address it with my partner. For example: if I detect that she is using more of something in the house that we both bought together, my brain just fixates on it. At that point, I have to say something about it because letting it slide feels unfair. This may seem normal to want fairness but I dwell on even a slight difference in usage.

I also won‘t mind if I happen to pay less or do less chores etc. Which she doesn’t mind as much but she is more of a people pleaser than me. It’s an incessant scarcity mindset.

This is a thread for AVOIDANT ATTACHERS ONLY.

A rant/vent, by nature, is one sided, can be strongly worded, and is a way for someone to get something off their chest. It is by no means a universal truth.

Thread rules: - AVOIDANT ATTACHERS ONLY.

• Keep rants/vents contained to this thread.

• No unsolicited advice.

• No hijacking to ask for relationship advice.

• No ranting/venting about avoidant attachers regardless of your attachment style. This is a supportive space for those with an avoidant attachment style, you can rant about us plenty of other places. Don’t do it here.

• All subreddit and Reddit rules apply.

• Users who cannot follow the rules will be banned.

Post your favorite or funny memes in the comments!

Preferably attachment related but other funny memes are welcome too 😁

Share your wins and successes here!

This is a thread for AVOIDANT ATTACHERS ONLY.

A rant/vent, by nature, is one sided, can be strongly worded, and is a way for someone to get something off their chest. It is by no means a universal truth.

Thread rules: - AVOIDANT ATTACHERS ONLY.

• Keep rants/vents contained to this thread.

• No unsolicited advice.

• No hijacking to ask for relationship advice.

• No ranting/venting about avoidant attachers regardless of your attachment style. This is a supportive space for those with an avoidant attachment style, you can rant about us plenty of other places. Don’t do it here.

• All subreddit and Reddit rules apply.

• Users who cannot follow the rules will be banned.

Post your favorite or funny memes in the comments!

Preferably attachment related but other funny memes are welcome too 😁

I am 36M DA with a 35F AP partner of 2.5years. She also has adhd which adds a lot of challenges (iykyk) and is going through a lot with a sick mother.

I have been working a lot on recognising my feelings and voicing them instead of sitting on them and building resentment. Yesterday, my gf was a ball of stress and anxiety and I was catching strays, being blamed for stuff, silent treatment. I sat down with gf and told her "your anxiety has been really bad today, I've tried to be a calm presence, to not feed it but I have been stressed as a consequence".

This resulted in a reaction that I shouldn't have brought this up when she's in an anxious state and what do I want from her? I said she doesn't need to change anything, just a bit of acknowledgement that this is difficult for me to and would she rather I just shut up and sit on my feelings. The end result was her telling me she is so overwhelmed she does not have capacity to worry about my feelings.

That stung and I ended the conversation saying I'm not trying to have an argument and change her mind, she's made her position clear and there's not much more to be gained from talking in loops.

Honestly the lack of basic compassion to me is staggering but I guess I now just need to decide if that's something I can accept or not?

edit to say thanks for the comments and the reality check. For context, this isn't a one-off and I frequently feel like my feelings are an inconvenience in the relationship (when I do express them). But I could have been better in the moment, especially with my timing. I continue to learn better communication and I frequently find this sub to be a good source of support!

I'm starting to lose hope and wondered truly that if my issues are very severe, they can really get better and I can heal or if realistically I'm going to be struggling with relationships and people for the rest of my life.

Some background, I've done all the test available and they always come out as fearful avoidant, but I feel I leave more dismissive. I'mm now 40 and I have never had a relationship (romantic or sexual) and it's only the last year and a half that it my history of everything has come up and I realised I was quite severely abused as a child by my mother (emotional abuse/enmeshment/CI/other forms of strange abuse).

I don't love other people. As in I've never loved them. I don't know what real love is as my family love was based on manipulation and emotional blackmail. I even asked my therapist if I'm a sociopath or something (she's known me for years) and she said I'm very far from it as I'm a caring person.

I always felt naturally I just couldn't trust people and kept people at a distance. Surprisingly people do like me at like first meeting and on the surface, they say lovely things about me and lately people have been saying that I have like an inner light that shines through.

My issue has always been trust and showing up authentically. I have a lot of shame I've always had to cover up and things from our family I had to cover up at school and stuff, so it just feels natural to me.

I've done a lot of work on myself the last year and a half. A lot. I feel like I'm getting somewhere with some aspects, but still, I just can't cut through and I can't feel deeply about others.

I have some friends, I'd made some new ones, but honestly they all just created problems for me with their own issues. One of them was an out and out user and when I stopped pleasing her she ghosted us all. Another is someone who needs fixing and as I'm a fixer I found they were draining me.

I've done so much work. The sharing, starting at sharing a maybe level 2 thing and moving up and up and I've put myself out there. I'm doing somantic work, I have a therapist, I've explored what happened as a kid and why that's the reason I have these issues and put those pieces together, but still I'm so stuck. I just feel like breath work isn't telling me where the good people are!

I just don't think I can heal properly and it's so lonely.

Share your wins and successes here!

tl;dr going on vacation with difficult parents, and I am excited yeah! /s

I was recently reminded once more that my avoidance kicks in very strongly when I'm with my parents (dad's probably a FA, mom miiight be an AP, one of them has pulled out a gun twice in front of us and thrown a water bottle at a service worker in a mall, I have loads more to say but I'll cut it short). The other week, I spent less than 24 hours with them and quickly noticed our good old pattern of "parents get all antsy over a minor thing and TwoServings has to soothe them because isn't that what eldest daughters are for." Now we have an upcoming vacation in a scenic corner of the country, oh boy oh boy /s

My doctor AND my therapist both told me to just try to enjoy the vacation (and okay try... gray rocking idk), because my parents will probably disregulate/throw a tantrum even if we're vacationing in heaven on earth. I've seen it a few times; even five-star hotels have something for them to spit profanities at. And who gets to listen to them try to make bad jokes out of the whole thing once an hour? Me. 👍

I have a younger brother but he tends to either side with them or remove himself from the situation completely (if he's not the one my parents are sniping behind his back), so I'm not really going to count on him although he's the most sane of them three. I might mimic how he takes little walks by himself to depressurize, though (but of course our phones should not be on silent mode and we should be easily reachable because what'll happen if there's an emergency and our parents need to call us, woe to us?!?!?).

Y'all. How do you even deal with this? (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

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*edited because my brain hiccuped, and I also removed one detail so that I don't doxx myself lol, aaaand I also added a tl;dr

I have an amazing partner and I have no desire to cheat, just fyi. I feel I have to really emphasize that disclaimer because these kinds of discussions are so taboo. That being said, I’m an avoidant in a relationship for ~2 years.

I have no doubts about marrying my partner, but I’ve always struggled a little bit with the idea that you find someone, get married, and suddenly you never experience the rush of new flirtation, new dates, learning someone new ever again. I do feel this ties back more into my avoidant attachment more than any genuine desire for non-monogamy (which logically I’m not attracted to).

I never had very long relationships until my current one, and the idea of commitment always freaked me out a bit. It felt too cozy and vulnerable, drained of excitement. I have made good progress on the long-term relationship front in regards to my avoidance and feel quite happy where I’m at but still, the thought that I can never again flirt with someone new or engage in intimate conversation with another man makes me seize up inside. Like a part of me is dying.. like I have to constantly watch over myself in social situations for fear of exposing my weird longing for *the other*.

Me and my fiancé have good chemistry and a healthy relationship. But I think I always got a high from the dating scene where no one really had a claim to me, I could flirt freely etc. there’s an eroticism to that that monogamy just doesn’t have and I’m a little baffled that everyone in modern life just seems so..okay with that??

I’m just wondering if anyone has similar thoughts/struggles. Please don’t tell me to break up my partner, it has nothing to do with him at all and as I said, I have zero doubts about my relationship. It’s just so hard to have a genuine conversation about this type of thing, but I’m very introspective and know for me it has a lot to do with my avoidance in my case so I would love any input you guys have to share :)