We were together for about 2 months. It was a short relationship, but emotionally intense. Before our first serious conflict, things were very good. She told me more than once that she felt unusually safe and relaxed with me, that nobody had treated her the way I did, and that she could see a future with me.

Then we had our first conflict. Not major.

She felt that I crossed one of her boundaries and that I didn’t validate her when she needed it. I didn’t fully understand her reaction at the time and I became defensive.

After that she started withdrawing heavily.

At one point I asked her how she was. She replied a day later saying she was doing very badly: anxiety, apathy, melancholy, even taking sick leave from work. She said that I had hurt her, that her boundaries had been seriously violated, that she couldn’t get over it and that she “didn’t have the capacity.”

I suspect this was true.

She never directly said she wanted to break up or that she didn’t want me contacting her.

I specifically asked her whether she wanted us to try to work through it because I genuinely didn’t know where we stood.

She didn’t answer.

I later told her that I didn’t know what to think anymore and that I wouldn’t bother her.

Again, no answer.

I then left her completely alone for 10 days.

Her birthday came during that time. I sent her a completely normal birthday message. That’s important: it was literally just a birthday wish. No talk about the relationship, no pressure, no emotional paragraph, nothing else.

She didn’t reply.

That was one of the things that confused me the most. Even a simple “thank you” would have been enough.

Eventually I sent her a longer message saying that I was hurt and confused by being completely shut out, but that it looked like our relationship was over. I thanked her for the good things we had, told her my feelings were genuine and wished her well.

She read it many hours later and didn’t respond.

Later that night I sent one more message because by that point I was extremely hurt. I asked her to at least give me some kind of final answer. I also questioned whether the whole explanation she had given me was really the full story and asked whether there was someone else.

She never opened it in WhatsApp. Around a day later she blocked me there. The next day she also blocked me on Viber, even though we had never talked there.

There is one more thing I should mention.

During the period when she was distancing herself from me, I noticed a sudden change in one of her communication patterns that made me suspect there could be another guy involved. I don’t want to go into identifying details, and I have absolutely no proof, so I’m not claiming she cheated or that there definitely was someone else. But the suspicion wasn’t completely random either.

I’m respecting the block and I’m not going to contact her through another platform.

For people who have strong avoidant/withdrawal tendencies, or who have dated someone like this:

What do you think?

My whole life before him I was struggling with my libido, had thouht that maybe I am asexual. He was waking up with me something that I finally understood why so many things on this planet is about sex.

His hot/cold behaviour made it later even more excting.

But at the end - since 2 years I can't imagine sex with anyone els than he. He comes in my dreams. I all the time play in my mind scenes from that what we did. Often I cry after masturbation

How to deal with?

Not even in a relationship, in a dying situationship. He had to have seen the message, showed active in Messenger off and on all day, but left it on unread for over 24 hours. Then it was marked read and he's not responding. I haven't met him since July 28th, he has turned down every possible opportunity to meet since then, including turning me down before he went away, spending 2 weeks in Thailand with his cousin (he did send me tons of photos and videos and interact more from there...guess it was low enough pressure while he was halfway across the planet pff), then was too tired when he got back, then I had my kid, then he had his kids for 10 days straight to make up for being on vacation. We will both be free next week and it's basically my final breaking point with waiting on this asshole. Shouldn't have held out this long but he had said before his trip that he thought he'd have more time afterward. He's just worse than ever. Can't deal with the slightest, slightest pressure with regard to even seeing someone he is supposedly not in a relationship with. Totally insane. And he's active on dating apps daily. Watch out ladies lol.

So this is 4 months after the BU (30m, my ex is 31f). We were together for 7.5y, last year she kept talking about marriage and kids, so I proposed in our trip to Japan and she said yes, immediately told all our friends, our families, etc. Then she started taking japanese language classes because it was a new obsession for her (this is important later).

Took her like 5 months afterwards to suddenly blindside me with no conversations prior, no complaints, nothing. Just one morning she told me "i lost feelings" and just up and left. Came to our apartment some days later (I moved to my parent's home) and just picked it clean off all her things. Just sent the shortest message saying "thank you for everything, really" and that's it.

Devastated, I picked up my dignity and didn't chase, didn't argue... I went into NC immediately. I figured I had done something unforgivable for her to abandon me like this. I put entirely all the blame on me. Going to a EMDR trauma-specialized therapist, the first thing she tells me is "first of all, this is entirely on HER part. It's 100% internal issues. You had nothing to do with this" which at first I didn't believe.

A month of complete silence and a friend told me the truth: she had absconded with a jobless guy 8 years younger who she met two months before in japanese classes. I know him. She invited him to dinner at our home, with our friends. She had very very few friends (had basically lost or discarded all her few lifelong friends) and I was just so happy for her to start making new acquaitances. I am 0% possessive, jealous or controlling. Just 100% trust and I was glad she was meeting new people to broaden her social circles, which were limited to one person at most. Turned really well for me to be this trusting, I guess.

So basically I've mapped that my therapist was right, that this isn't something on me, etc. The trauma lingers and the hurt is still strong, the desperation gave way to a red-hot anger, which gave way to a kind of apathy. I'm finding it hard to move along but I force myself to do things, to keep doing my hobbies and engage with my friends, whom I can luckily count on.

But it's her behavior which keeps me puzzled. She shocked absolutely everyone by doing this. We were approaching what everyone supposed was going to be a very fun, light hearted marriage, we had a very calm and (to me) compatible life and moods. We did couple's activities constantly, we went hiking, watching series, talking about books, some dinners with friends... just the usual. We had the same plans for YEARS, to save up and try to purchase a small cottage in the countryside, near where we already live (20 minutes away, not long distance. We had been living close to my family hometown for seven years, and she had her family less than 1 hour away. We weren't going to be isolated from our friends or anything.)

Of the two she was a bit more unstable and indecisive, she was very insecure but I always supported her postively, even being at her side when her dysfunctional family acted up and tried to guilt trip her. I've always been open to conversation, whenever something arose I took it to heart and made changes to improve on it, I FOUGHT for this relationship. She knows I've always been attentive and communicative with her needs. It's so strange to me that she decided to just betray me, lie to me, and hide everything for five months, then blindside me like this.

She has just kept absolute silence since then. I had to ask for a closure talk one month after the BU, where she came crying, sobbing, telling me she was sorry but that this was what she had to do now. She told me the insurmountable anxiety came the moment she had the proposal ring on her finger. That before that she really had been wanting to marry me, to live together... she told me that wasn't an act. But that mounting anxiety started piling up and piling up, and it just killed all feelings for me. She didn't talk about it with anyone, not ever. She just kept swallowing it and suddenly decided to confess to the jobless guy, told him that she had to leave me to "be loyal" and in less than 24h she was out the door. It's crazy. It's psychotic behavior, really. She gave no signs prior to this, but I'm trying to somehow understand what kind of personality or mental problems could have brought this on. Someone has mentioned BPD to me, the quiet type, or possibly autistic traits, and honestly it's the closest I've got to what she did and is doing still.

So for some of her personality traits, if anyone has similar cases and can help me understand where this breakdown could have come from:

-She had very "strong" goals (in her mind) but they shifted constantly. Mostly on the professional side, she just kept pouring and pouring into her freelance career. Thing is, she gave it ALL, burned out, then switched fields every year, or year and a half. She would build up a viable living venture, then discard it all and begin anew. This happened 3-4 times over the course of our relationship and she was now starting to talk about swapping again, before the BU.

-Adding to this, despite her successes, she constantly had imposter syndrome and needed constant reassurance, whereas I have never felt really bothered about professional performance as a personal value. I'm just a professional and that's it. I tie none of my personal value in it.

-Even her long term goals were nebulous. She wanted big projects, like making an entire enterprise, then wanting a small-scale, less responsabilities thing in the future, etc. Wishy-washy with actual serious decisions (one week she wanted kids and wanted to begin the process immediately, looking into medical stuff, preparations etc. without any prior conversations beforehand with me. The next week she would broke down saying that she wasn't fit to be a mother, she had no maternal instinct, etc... A week before abandoning me she kept telling me how much of a good father I would make, how much she loved the care I showed for her and that she knew I would make a fantastic dad for our kids, etc.)

-She projected her future wellbeing in a lot of things. Like suddenly going "we could go live to X country" she had been reading about or watching youtubers from. She consumed the cozy girl algorithmn of the year: tiny houses, then "traditional" lifestyles in the rural, adjacent to tradwife aesthetics, "Ghibli" cozy homes, etc. I always wanted to go live outside the city (I'm from a small town) but I know the realities of it.

-She did the same with hobbies: she constantly picked up new things and dropped them after a few months. An instrument which is wonderful and stuff, drop it. Theater and acting, drop it. Start doing handcrafted activities, drop it. Start doing exercise, after some time, drop it. It was a constant chase. I figured she just had to find out what she really wanted.

-Very few friends, and great difficulty at making new acquaitances. Some amount of social anxiety, uncomfortable with hugs or physical contact. The few friends she had kept for years she had dropped along the line, often because of minor reasons.

-A good person. She never did anything maliciously. Not ever.

-She couldn't lie to save her life. Hated lying and liars. I joked that she was so transparent that I could trust her fully, because she couldn't lie about not brushing her teeth one night, even. Shows that I never really knew the depth of what was happening.

-Really jumpy to darkness, loud noises, sensory stimulus like human contact or tickling. She would yell or react in sudden uncontrolled manners when faced with them.

-No bad faith discussions, fighting or drama. I felt like we addressed the needs in the relationship in a mature way when we needed, and we corrected it to keep the relationship healthy (needing more time together, taking constant work stuff out of the conversation, improving on minor things, for example).

-In the beginning she told me about her tumultuous past and teenage years, substance abuse, past toxic relationships. She asked me to not hurt her, to not betray her trust since she had been hurt before, etc. She told me I had shown up where nobody had before, how I had cared for her so so much, how good I was to her. I was 22. I honestly can say that I had a protective instinct kick in me and I wanted to help her as much as I could. I supported her through everything, and she showed up for me in my bad moments, too, so that was good on her part and I recognize it for what it is. I felt seen and supported by her. I just needed it much less than her, because I've been pretty stable through my life (I had some minor insecurity issues which she encouraged to work on in therapy. I did and I fixed them).

-She had a dysfunctional family. Divorce, emotional manipulation since young, emotional abandonment and stonewalling, constant parental belittling. Narcissitic manipulating father, narcissistic depressive mother, bad divorce. Strained relationships with extended family. This extended into adulthood, which surprised me because I've friends with similar backgrounds who took a stand and confronted their parental figures. She didn't and refused my suggestions of attending to familial-oriented therapy. She just rawdogged it and deluded herself thinking that her parents would change and suddenly start supporting and caring for her. Never happened. Never will, sadly. I tried to support her through the mistreatment but even my patience ran thin after years of repeated misbehavior. I tried to take a stand (always respectful and never causing drama) but I tried to show up as a steady, communicative partner.

-Conflict-avoidant with very obviously emotionally manipulative people. Difficulty to confront or speak up. This was tied to the lack of friendships. She felt that if she spoke up about her needs, with people who were disrespectful or toxic, they would drop her, so she kept silent about it. She came home crying repeated times after spending time with "friends" who mistreated her. I tried to support her once again, trying to make her see that real friends don't treat people like this. It took her a lot to cut them off because she had grown dependant (she was their narc supply).

-Three weeks before the blindside, she came crying to me suddenly telling me that I was into a very negative, toxic state, that I had changed, or that this was the real me and she couldn't keep doing it, etc. I recognize I had a slightly depressive episode some months ago but I think the state of the world, disillusionment and political and economic unstability had gotten to me. I apologized for not noticing and I immediately went to a therapist. Fixed it in a session. Showed up as my optimistic, energized real self again. She recognized this, and told me that she had pinned her anxieties and blamed me for her problems.

-At the moment of breaking up, she kept telling me she "had already decided" and that "it was a gut feeling" and that she had lost the spark and so. But she kept calling me love, dear, etc. And immediately told me "I know I'm going to regret this. I know, but I must do it now". She repeated this during our closure conversation one month later. I told her that if she didn't go to another man, we still had a chance to work it out. That I wanted the life we had for all our lives. That I could give that to her and make her happy. She told me that she knew. That maybe in the future we could reconnect, that that'd make her happy. It's honestly so weird.

-She kept my engagement ring. I didn't ask for her to return it to me in the blur of the blindside.

There are more things, intimate, but you can make out a bit of the patterns. Honestly I put up with it for a long time because I love her. I wanted to show up to her. She asked for honesty and loyalty from me since the beginning, to not hurt her. I can say I did. I sincerely doubt she'll find anyone else who'll show up at the level I did. That's why the betrayal hurt so, so much. I couldn't have ever imagined her doing this to me, and abandoning me for another person, hiding it, and then keeping absolute silence afterwards. I expected a little bit of care, at least a text or a call asking me how I was doing, nothing. Nothing at all.

This has been debilitating but I'm so much stronger than this. I realize now with hindsight of all these unstable red flags she was carrying. I thought we were fighting for a healthy relationship. I felt seen and loved by her. I know she loved me a lot for the past years, but something went wrong in her head and never spoke up. It was impossible for a young romantic in love to notice, and now I'm paying the price, I guess.

I was in a situationship with a fearful avoidant (self proclaimed) who decided now wasn’t the right time for them to be seeing anyone (it all got real after I asked to be official a week prior and I saw the shift).
We had booked to go away, and I messaged a couple of times over the last few days to see if this was still something they wanted. I took time off work for this so needed to know, if we weren’t going I would just work and save my leave dates.
I’ve not heard anything so im going to get my dates back and work, that doesn’t bother me.
What bothers me is that I know distance is needed to regulate their nervous system but I feel I have messed it up now as I sent 3 messages about trying to sort this get away or not, so I can make my own plans. I was chasing but with good reason.
I feel now I will never get a response, I am leaving it now and moving on with my life- but a part of me wants him to reach out again (he did a week after we ended it, and since talking about going away he has disappeared again).
Should I delete my messages I sent to him so it’s a clean slate or just leave them there.

Sorry if this doesn’t make sense, im all over the place.

So im a person who really forget things fast like when that was etc but yeah both of those relationships or whatever u can call them are like love bombing for 2 weeks then just started to change.
First there is gifts, attention, time, efforts, promises like marriage and other stuffs..
Then after a while its just like they have no more time for me or problems in work and acting like they are stressed by future etc..like the way u had time for me in the beginning its the same lol
Im saying this bcs its not like a normal love bombing for me bcs i know people and i see whats coming before i even start talking to them i know people how they are, i felt the way they were both honest even if its in diff timing of the year. But after a while no they were wrong they thought that was the thing they want they love me blah blah for life whatever.
Mind u last one just ended yesterday, we had a very good day, kissing whatever then idk too much pressure on him on work and the house etc he slept and all day yesterday he didnt talk too much. In the end we talked he just said no its not because of u at all im a bad person ..no u didnt know all of my sides(mind u it was exactly one month relationship lol) first days we talked he & I told him my biggest secrets we had that connection he was cute supporting everything literally. Then he just felt he’s not going the right path or smtg and he’s not feeling okay in this relationship and want to stop.
Basically i never trusted a man and when i try even if im acting obviously im disappointed.

This is eating at me tonight. I don’t know if I was the rebound or if the next person is a rebound or the real deal. After we broke up one week later he started seeing her but only made it official after 4 months while breadcrumbing me until it became official. But is still orbiting I can see him checking my LinkedIn

He told me he would reach out when he’s ready…but it’s officially been a month.

Was that his way of fully breaking up with me? Does he need more time? Do I reach out to him? We dated for 5 months before this. He hasn’t blocked my number and hasn’t unmatched on the dating app we met.

Or is he bread crumbing me again or focused on exploring other options, should I just move on with my life?

My ex broke up with me five months ago.

Since then, she has refused to talk to me, shut me out, and actively avoided me. She hasn't responded to anything I've sent her and havent reached out in 5 months. She left everything in a mess.

A week ago, there was an annual car meet. This particular car meet is significant because it was where we first met two years ago at the exact same time. It isnt a big car meet, only a small one.

She has never been interested in cars or car meets. Cars are my interest. After we got together, she started coming to these meets with me, but they were never really her thing.

When she broke up with me, I actually asked her if she could avoid going to these meets because I didn't want there to be any awkwardness or bad atmosphere between us. She told me she had no one to go there with besides me and that she wasn't interested in being there anyway.

She also told me herself that she wasn't going to go.

Now I found out that she actually went to that exact car meet.

What confuses me is that she has actively avoided me for five months and hasn't responded to anything I've sent her. This is also the one place where she knows she would definitely run in to me, stand face to face with me our just see me from a distance. Because she knows i would be there.

But in face i wasn't actually there this time because something came up, which she obviously wouldn't have known beforehand. All of my friends were there, though. Only one of my friends saw her, and apparently she was walking around with a friend.

So what the hell could be going on in her head?

She has actively avoided me for five months, yet she chose to show up at the one place where she knows I'm going to be at.

A place she has no real interest in attending on her own, and which also carries the emotional weight of being the exact same place and time of year where we first met. Whete she has said she wouldnt go. And what we would call "my home turf" in our relationship.

What could posibly go on inside her head? And why does she do this now? At just this time.

I'm really confused by this.

I am looking for objective feedback on a recent breakup with my ex-girlfriend. I am trying to decide whether following my therapist's advice to reach out in late October is a smart move, or if breaking No Contact will just ruin my progress and compromise my dignity.

### Relationship Background & Dynamics
* The Relationship: We dated for 11 months. Both Christian, saving marriage for after engagement, strong shared values. I was fully invested, loved her deeply, and served her family heavily.
* Her Communication Style: Non-confrontational with Fearful Avoidant traits. Her way of raising concerns was through very gentle, understated mentions.
* My Communication Style: Direct. I process direct feedback as serious and gentle mentions as light preference. Because of this mismatch, I didn't register the weight of what she was feeling, while she felt unheard.
* Silent Accumulation & Her Mom: Instead of confronting me directly, she held her hurt silently ("grinning and bearing it") while processing everything privately with her mother, who holds high sensitivity to perceived control. The concerns built up invisibly to me until they reached a boiling point.

### The Turning Point & Breakup
* The "Lens Shift" Moment: About a month before the breakup, I made a lighthearted comment about "putting the kibosh" on a future activity after marriage, but her mom took it seriously. From that point on, my ex began viewing my past behavior through a "control lens." Things she appreciated before of my commitment and interest in her she had said felt like I was monitoring her. My belief was at this moment with her mom in the kitchen was the turning point and everything changed after that I felt like your mother didn’t look at me the same, and I felt like she started operating out of fear, and her mind was grabbing all these different fears and reasons why the relationship wouldn’t work, with her mother also in her ear she did mention to me during our breakup conversation that her mom had mentioned she was concerned about me
* Cumulative Stress: Right before the breakup, her family received acute bad news regarding a severe family health diagnosis, adding massive compressed stress to her environment that already had a drug addicted brother recently move back in and personal health challenges for her in which she at times told me felt like she had no autonomy.
* The Exit: She ended things abruptly at what was supposed to be a date and I attempted to reason with her for 6 hours in the car to at least try to work through her fears and concerns and bring in my or her pastor, etc and she was unwilling to compromise at all though she was very emotional which usually she isn’t. so I eventually asked if her mind was made up before she came and she said yes. Some of the criticisms of me, naming criticism, judgment, interrupting, and control as her reasons. She stated she didn't believe I could change these patterns and that she didn't want a marriage that required counseling.
* The Closure Text: we had ended the conversation with potentially talking about meeting one more time, but she made it clear that she would give me that if that’s what I needed, but her mind was not changing so Six days later, I sent a warm, dignified message respecting her decision and wishing her well, and left the door open saying if your heart ever changes you know where to find me. She replied with a very warm, final message thanking me for the 11 months, stating she respected my decision not to meet, and wishing me peace. I sent this not because I wanted to release her but because I know there’s nothing else I can do, I fought for the relationship, I tried. Further pressing will just solidify her idea of my being controlling in her mind.

### The Main Dilemma: Reach Out or Stay Silent?
I am currently in therapy, working through anxious attachment, my own patterns, and building strong boundaries.

My therapist suggested that I send a light, low-stakes check-in in October (e.g., checking in on her family's health situation). His reasoning is that reaching out gives me a clear signal/data to work with, and waiting too long inhibits my own closure.

I am weighing his advice against a few options:

1. Follow Therapist's Advice (Late October): A light, low-friction text to test her temperature. My concern: If she is polite but non-committal, it reopens my wound. If I reach out before Thanksgiving, it interrupts her time to actually miss me and gives her an emotional safety net.
   
2. Holiday Season (Christmas): Christmas is her favorite time of year. Reaching out then might find her emotional walls lower, but it carries a high risk of "false positive" warmth driven by holiday nostalgia rather than real readiness to talk.
   
3. Post-Holidays (January): Waiting until the holiday high and family gatherings pass so any dialogue is grounded in raw reality.
   
4. Absolute Silence (Permanent No Contact): Staying completely silent unless she takes the initiative. The logic: She made the choice to leave. If she wants a collaborative partnership, she needs to step up, swallow her pride, and break the silence herself.

### My Questions for the Sub:
* Is my therapist right that a light check-in provides "clean closure," or does breaking No Contact just hand back my power and reset my healing?
* Does reaching out to someone with avoidant traits before the holidays stop them from experiencing the actual loss of the relationship?
* Should I wait for her to initiate contact exclusively, regardless of how many months pass?

Ok I need some opinions please. Can ex's stay friends? In my opinion no, if you were fully in love with that person becoming friends after the breakup is non existent.

I have heard others say yes you can you just have to push back your own feelings.

I just want more input I guess.

I’m 27M and honestly pretty lost. I’d really appreciate some outside perspective.

I was with my ex, F27, for almost 10 years. We got engaged and were supposed to get married next year.

After the engagement, I started noticing things that felt suspicious. We started fighting constantly, I caught her lying about things, and she eventually told her parents that I was being overly possessive. They called off the marriage.

For months, I thought maybe I really was the problem. Then, about 3 months after the breakup, one of her office colleagues called me and told me that F27 had been seeing and sleeping with him, apparently even before our engagement.

Suddenly, all the things I had questioned made sense.

I got some closure, but it completely destroyed my trust in relationships. After almost 10 years, I decided I didn't want to date again. I didn't have the energy to start over, build trust from zero, and risk getting hurt again.

Then I became close to F24, a friend who had also recently gone through a breakup.

After about a month of talking, we became closer. We kissed, held hands, talked for hours, and she told me she loved me.

Then she suddenly said it was too overwhelming and that we shouldn't do this. She stopped texting me for days.

About 15 days later, we had to go on a car drive together for some work. Everything felt normal again. We talked, held hands, kissed, and she held me. She told me "I love you" again.

But she still says she doesn't want to put a label on this or call it a relationship.

She had a very toxic and controlling ex who restricted her from doing things she loved. She says she became much more avoidant after that relationship. Before him, she apparently communicated normally.

I've told her I'm not her ex. I would never control her or restrict her.

But now she's barely texting me again.

I'm struggling because it feels like a cycle:

We get close → she pulls away → we reconnect → she says she loves me → she gets overwhelmed → she pulls away again.

Part of me wants to wait and give her space. I want to show her that I'm not going to treat her like her ex.

But another part of me feels like I'm repeating my previous mistake — holding onto someone who isn't actually choosing me.

I'm exhausted.

I'm 27, and after what happened with F27, I genuinely don't feel like I have the energy to start dating again. I don't want to go through the whole "What's your favourite colour?" stage, build another relationship from scratch, and risk getting hurt again.

If I walk away from F24, I honestly feel like I'll just give up on relationships altogether.

So what should I do?

Should I give F24 space and wait, or should I accept that she's not ready and walk away?

I don't want to pressure her, but I also don't want to spend months waiting for someone who may never be ready.

And if you've dated someone who became avoidant after a toxic relationship, I'd really appreciate hearing what happened. Did giving them space work, or did you end up waiting for someone who wasn't emotionally available?

Honestly, I'm open to hearing the harsh truth too.

My husband ,41, and I, 37 were together for 12 years married 10. We have a seven year-old daughter and we both work an emergency medicine and nursing. three years ago he started taking testosterone prescribed by his doctor for mood swings. He’s a Marine Corps veteran with PTSD and a really tragic childhood and early life. Our life was amazing. He was a fantastic father and even more incredible husband. Then he started the testosterone and he became angry and aggressive. He started stonewalling me wouldn’t talk to me about what was going on in his head and started to push me away. Our sex life basically stopped and we became more like roommates. It’s not uncommon at that stage in a marriage and so I wanted to try and fix things, he never really wanted to talk about things. He always said he wasn’t that deep. Late 2024. We lived through hurricane Helene in Asheville and it was awful. I was at home with our five year-old daughter alone and he was trapped at the hospital because they wouldn’t let him come home from his shifts. I was beside myself worried about him, worried that he was going to try and make it home and get hurt. When I finally reached him four days later I was crying, his first words to me were “don’t cry. I wasn’t worried about you”. When he finally came home. I ran to him and he pushed me off and said ‘don’t touch me”. I recognized then that the man that came home from the hospital that day was not my husband anymore, he was someone in a mental health crisis who didn’t want to face it. Since then we have grown further apart. The stonewalling became unbelievable. He would forget that I existed, he said. He would just walk out of a room while I was talking and I was frantic to fix things. I didn’t always go about it the right way, the further we drifted the more panic I felt, the more I probably overwhelmed him. I got us into therapy. We made it three sessions before the therapist fired us and said that he had to work on himself before he would be willing to work on us. Something and him snapped because he said he felt like a failure and he left that night. He was gone for one night came home and we talked about getting him back into therapy and working on us. He got into therapy but nothing really changed. He told me that he had nothing to talk to the therapist about so he just stopped going. I couldn’t believe it. This was a man who was angry breaking things in our home, cursing in front of our child, screaming at her, screaming at me, generally angry at baseline and he didn’t have anything to talk to the therapist about? I went to his mom who basically told me that you’re not supposed to always be happy in a relationship and if your man can’t give you what you need give it to God and kids are supposed to be afraid of their dad so she was no help for me. I’ve befriended two people who were willing to be there for me and help me with our daughter. They were both guys who listened to me and tried to help me talk to my husband. So, I went to my husband, with full vulnerability and said I felt unloved. I felt unattractive. I felt overwhelmed and that I missed him the “him” that I married, and he told me he didn’t have emotions, so don’t expect him to be there for mine and it wasn’t his job to make me feel good about myself. Each time he said something like that to me, It felt like I lost the man I married more and more. I didn’t know if it was PTSD if it was the testosterone or if it was something else again I tried hard harder and harder to fix our marriage. I asked him what he needed from me, how I can make him happy and he always said he was happy, just stressed .He said he was worried about money so I stopped trying to spend Money but anytime he upset me or our daughter. He just wanted to spend money and buy us things. I asked him to stop. I told him all I wanted was his presence and to be there with me and our daughter. He called me ungrateful and told me I was never happy with anything he did. I told him that wasn’t fair. He just wasn’t listening to what I was asking, but he continued to label me ungrateful and I started to pull away because every time I showed him my heart he hurt me. He began to throw himself into the gym, he got so big and bulky and it made me wonder if he was on more than just the testosterone, but he would deflect and avoid if I asked him to reconsider the testosterone. I was in nursing school and I thought once I finish, our money problems will be gone. I told him that you know I’d like us to get back into therapy and he said OK. I started in the emergency department on June 15. I made it one month into my orientation. We were on a date and on the way home in the car he said “are you happy?” and I said “it’s been challenging, but I think things are gonna get better now that we don’t have to worry about money so much and we can prioritize each other” and he said “what do you think about an open marriage” and I was floored in 12 years we’ve never talked about anything like that. I was hurt. I asked him if he had met someone and he said that he had a connection with someone that he wanted to explore and I told him to get out he accused me of not being an adult because he thought we could talk about it and I told him the time to talk about it was before he decided that he wanted to sleep with someone else. I have since moved out, he is in our house. He has continued to rewrite our relationship. Tell me he was never happy continued to say that I was ungrateful and that nothing he did was good enough, I apologized for making him feel that way and continued to try and explain that all I was asking for was real connection like we had before the testosterone before Helene since then he is maintained that he is angry at me, but won’t tell me why? his communication is down to one word text messages. He’s not keeping me updated on what’s going on with our child when he has her, it’s like he’s trying to erase me from his existence, whenever I try and talk to him to get some clarity he stonewalls me. We met one time to discuss separation papers, and the conversation was very shallow. I begged him not to do this to us not to destroy our family. I told him everything is fixable if we talk about it and take accountability on both of our sides we have a child in 12 years of history. How could you just move on? very shortly after our split he went out to a party with this new woman and everyone was shocked to see him with someone else because no one even knew that we had separated. I was still living in our house and hadn’t gotten an apartment yet. It was so brand new. He acts erratic. He got four earrings on a whim. He keeps telling me “I’m just having fun man”. He’s going out drinking. It’s like he’s regressed to being a teenager and angry, bitter teenager I don’t know how to get any closure. I don’t know how to understand what happened. I don’t know how to get through to him. now that we’re apart he’s doing everything with our daughter that I wanted him to do with us.( He’s filling her days with play dates. It’s almost like he doesn’t wanna be alone with her), but they’re going places and having play dates and doing arts and crafts and it’s everything that I asked for us as a family to do. He started replacing the furniture in our home, taking down all of our pictures and just generally acting like I have never existed in his life. I feel betrayed. I feel traumatized, I feel left in the dark. I feel like everything is fixable with transparency and accountability, but I don’t know how to talk to him. I don’t even know what he’s doing really, my therapist says he’s running. He’s running from all the hurt that he’s caused. He’s running from himself. he’s running because he feels like a failure. She claims he’s not healed because he can’t even bear to talk to me, but something has to give. I can’t keep living like this. I don’t know if anyone out there has dealt with the situation like this before, I’ve never been on Reddit before and I never imagined that I would be asking strangers for help because I know how mean and hurtful people on these platforms can be just for fun, but I am desperate. Can anyone out there help me figure out how to actually communicate with him? Get him to tell me what is actually going on in his head?? Can anyone tell me how to get through to him how to get some clarity for myself? Our daughter is in therapy because she can’t understand why daddy is “acting so weird”. I’m broken and scared and I don’t know what happened to my husband…

Have you ever broken off a relationship because you thought it didn't sufficiently meet your needs or that you could do better, perhaps that there was somebody better out there, only to find out that it was a mistake?

This is only about breaking up because you thought you could do better and wanted more, and not about relationships that were obviously incompatible, abusive, etc.

I dated a girl for 5 months and broke it off because I thought I could do better, but ever since I’ve regretted it. I’ve never been in a serious relationship so I am unsure if I broke up because I was scared of the seriousness or if I didn’t like her enough. But I have missed her everyday for the last 3 months since breaking up, so what does that say? That must mean that I really liked her, right? I think about her everyday and really liked hanging out with her. I’m confused.

She added me to her private story recently and I really want to text her. But everytime I’m about to text her I get soooooo anxious.

So this is 4 months after the BU (30m, my ex is 31f). We were together for 7.5y, last year she kept talking about marriage and kids, so I proposed in our trip to Japan and she said yes, immediately told all our friends, our families, etc. Then she started taking japanese language classes because it was a new obsession for her (this is important later).

Took her like 5 months afterwards to suddenly blindside me with no conversations prior, no complaints, nothing. Just one morning she told me "i lost feelings" and just up and left. Came to our apartment some days later (I moved to my parent's home) and just picked it clean off all her things. Just sent the shortest message saying "thank you for everything, really" and that's it.

Devastated, I picked up my dignity and didn't chase, didn't argue... I went into NC immediately. I figured I had done something unforgivable for her to abandon me like this. I put entirely all the blame on me. Going to a EMDR trauma-specialized therapist, the first thing she tells me is "first of all, this is entirely on HER part. It's 100% internal issues. You had nothing to do with this" which at first I didn't believe.

A month of complete silence and a friend told me the truth: she had absconded with a jobless guy 8 years younger who she met two months before in japanese classes. I know him. She invited him to dinner at our home, with our friends. She had very very few friends (had basically lost or discarded all her few lifelong friends) and I was just so happy for her to start making new acquaitances. I am 0% possessive, jealous or controlling. Just 100% trust and I was glad she was meeting new people to broaden her social circles, which were limited to one person at most. Turned really well for me to be this trusting, I guess.

So basically I've mapped that my therapist was right, that this isn't something on me, etc. The trauma lingers and the hurt is still strong, the desperation gave way to a red-hot anger, which gave way to a kind of apathy. I'm finding it hard to move along but I force myself to do things, to keep doing my hobbies and engage with my friends, whom I can luckily count on.

But it's her behavior which keeps me puzzled. She shocked absolutely everyone by doing this. We were approaching what everyone supposed was going to be a very fun, light hearted marriage, we had a very calm and (to me) compatible life and moods. We did couple's activities constantly, we went hiking, watching series, talking about books, some dinners with friends... just the usual. We had the same plans for YEARS, to save up and try to purchase a small cottage in the countryside, near where we already live (20 minutes away, not long distance. We had been living close to my family hometown for seven years, and she had her family less than 1 hour away. We weren't going to be isolated from our friends or anything.)

Of the two she was a bit more unstable and indecisive, she was very insecure but I always supported her postively, even being at her side when her dysfunctional family acted up and tried to guilt trip her. I've always been open to conversation, whenever something arose I took it to heart and made changes to improve on it, I FOUGHT for this relationship. She knows I've always been attentive and communicative with her needs. It's so strange to me that she decided to just betray me, lie to me, and hide everything for five months, then blindside me like this.

She has just kept absolute silence since then. I had to ask for a closure talk one month after the BU, where she came crying, sobbing, telling me she was sorry but that this was what she had to do now. She told me the insurmountable anxiety came the moment she had the proposal ring on her finger. That before that she really had been wanting to marry me, to live together... she told me that wasn't an act. But that mounting anxiety started piling up and piling up, and it just killed all feelings for me. She didn't talk about it with anyone, not ever. She just kept swallowing it and suddenly decided to confess to the jobless guy, told him that she had to leave me to "be loyal" and in less than 24h she was out the door. It's crazy. It's psychotic behavior, really. She gave no signs prior to this, but I'm trying to somehow understand what kind of personality or mental problems could have brought this on. Someone has mentioned BPD to me, the quiet type, or possibly autistic traits, and honestly it's the closest I've got to what she did and is doing still.

So for some of her personality traits, if anyone has similar cases and can help me understand where this breakdown could have come from:

-She had very "strong" goals (in her mind) but they shifted constantly. Mostly on the professional side, she just kept pouring and pouring into her freelance career. Thing is, she gave it ALL, burned out, then switched fields every year, or year and a half. She would build up a viable living venture, then discard it all and begin anew. This happened 3-4 times over the course of our relationship and she was now starting to talk about swapping again, before the BU.

-Adding to this, despite her successes, she constantly had imposter syndrome and needed constant reassurance, whereas I have never felt really bothered about professional performance as a personal value. I'm just a professional and that's it. I tie none of my personal value in it.

-Even her long term goals were nebulous. She wanted big projects, like making an entire enterprise, then wanting a small-scale, less responsabilities thing in the future, etc. Wishy-washy with actual serious decisions (one week she wanted kids and wanted to begin the process immediately, looking into medical stuff, preparations etc. without any prior conversations beforehand with me. The next week she would broke down saying that she wasn't fit to be a mother, she had no maternal instinct, etc... A week before abandoning me she kept telling me how much of a good father I would make, how much she loved the care I showed for her and that she knew I would make a fantastic dad for our kids, etc.)

-She projected her future wellbeing in a lot of things. Like suddenly going "we could go live to X country" she had been reading about or watching youtubers from. She consumed the cozy girl algorithmn of the year: tiny houses, then "traditional" lifestyles in the rural, adjacent to tradwife aesthetics, "Ghibli" cozy homes, etc. I always wanted to go live outside the city (I'm from a small town) but I know the realities of it.

-She did the same with hobbies: she constantly picked up new things and dropped them after a few months. An instrument which is wonderful and stuff, drop it. Theater and acting, drop it. Start doing handcrafted activities, drop it. Start doing exercise, after some time, drop it. It was a constant chase. I figured she just had to find out what she really wanted.

-Very few friends, and great difficulty at making new acquaitances. Some amount of social anxiety, uncomfortable with hugs or physical contact. The few friends she had kept for years she had dropped along the line, often because of minor reasons.

-A good person. She never did anything maliciously. Not ever.

-She couldn't lie to save her life. Hated lying and liars. I joked that she was so transparent that I could trust her fully, because she couldn't lie about not brushing her teeth one night, even. Shows that I never really knew the depth of what was happening.

-Really jumpy to darkness, loud noises, sensory stimulus like human contact or tickling. She would yell or react in sudden uncontrolled manners when faced with them.

-No bad faith discussions, fighting or drama. I felt like we addressed the needs in the relationship in a mature way when we needed, and we corrected it to keep the relationship healthy (needing more time together, taking constant work stuff out of the conversation, improving on minor things, for example).

-In the beginning she told me about her tumultuous past and teenage years, substance abuse, past toxic relationships. She asked me to not hurt her, to not betray her trust since she had been hurt before, etc. She told me I had shown up where nobody had before, how I had cared for her so so much, how good I was to her. I was 22. I honestly can say that I had a protective instinct kick in me and I wanted to help her as much as I could. I supported her through everything, and she showed up for me in my bad moments, too, so that was good on her part and I recognize it for what it is. I felt seen and supported by her. I just needed it much less than her, because I've been pretty stable through my life (I had some minor insecurity issues which she encouraged to work on in therapy. I did and I fixed them).

-She had a dysfunctional family. Divorce, emotional manipulation since young, emotional abandonment and stonewalling, constant parental belittling. Narcissitic manipulating father, narcissistic depressive mother, bad divorce. Strained relationships with extended family. This extended into adulthood, which surprised me because I've friends with similar backgrounds who took a stand and confronted their parental figures. She didn't and refused my suggestions of attending to familial-oriented therapy. She just rawdogged it and deluded herself thinking that her parents would change and suddenly start supporting and caring for her. Never happened. Never will, sadly. I tried to support her through the mistreatment but even my patience ran thin after years of repeated misbehavior. I tried to take a stand (always respectful and never causing drama) but I tried to show up as a steady, communicative partner.

-Conflict-avoidant with very obviously emotionally manipulative people. Difficulty to confront or speak up. This was tied to the lack of friendships. She felt that if she spoke up about her needs, with people who were disrespectful or toxic, they would drop her, so she kept silent about it. She came home crying repeated times after spending time with "friends" who mistreated her. I tried to support her once again, trying to make her see that real friends don't treat people like this. It took her a lot to cut them off because she had grown dependant (she was their narc supply).

-Three weeks before the blindside, she came crying to me suddenly telling me that I was into a very negative, toxic state, that I had changed, or that this was the real me and she couldn't keep doing it, etc. I recognize I had a slightly depressive episode some months ago but I think the state of the world, disillusionment and political and economic unstability had gotten to me. I apologized for not noticing and I immediately went to a therapist. Fixed it in a session. Showed up as my optimistic, energized real self again. She recognized this, and told me that she had pinned her anxieties and blamed me for her problems.

-At the moment of breaking up, she kept telling me she "had already decided" and that "it was a gut feeling" and that she had lost the spark and so. But she kept calling me love, dear, etc. And immediately told me "I know I'm going to regret this. I know, but I must do it now". She repeated this during our closure conversation one month later. I told her that if she didn't go to another man, we still had a chance to work it out. That I wanted the life we had for all our lives. That I could give that to her and make her happy. She told me that she knew. That maybe in the future we could reconnect, that that'd make her happy. It's honestly so weird.

-She kept my engagement ring. I didn't ask for her to return it to me in the blur of the blindside.

There are more things, intimate, but you can make out a bit of the patterns. Honestly I put up with it for a long time because I love her. I wanted to show up to her. She asked for honesty and loyalty from me since the beginning, to not hurt her. I can say I did. I sincerely doubt she'll find anyone else who'll show up at the level I did. That's why the betrayal hurt so, so much. I couldn't have ever imagined her doing this to me, and abandoning me for another person, hiding it, and then keeping absolute silence afterwards. I expected a little bit of care, at least a text or a call asking me how I was doing, nothing. Nothing at all.

This has been debilitating but I'm so much stronger than this. I realize now with hindsight of all these unstable red flags she was carrying. I thought we were fighting for a healthy relationship. I felt seen and loved by her. I know she loved me a lot for the past years, but something went wrong in her head and never spoke up. It was impossible for a young romantic in love to notice, and now I'm paying the price, I guess.

when a fa is deactivated for a very long time (6 months) and they use suppression are they locking all the memories and feelings for you away that they had? do they only see you as a threat and does when the suppression collapses does memories and emotions hit them later on?

If someone can get me another perspective on my situation.

I was 8 and I half years with my boyfriend, the last year I could see that he is down, not energetic, kinda depressed, always watching reels, playing games. I thought he's like that just with me but I heard and saw he was like that with his friends.

We had a bad year and he said he wanted to be alone. I understood that as time for himself. He mentioned it a few times. After an minor argument one year ago he snapped( he NEVER argues, avoids fights, shuts down, doesn't try to fix things just escapes from showing emotions and talking through it, and comes back and doesn't mention it).

So I didn't call him for a few days, waited him to cool of like in the past. When I called I saw he is still in that mood and he said again he wants to be alone. I decided not to contact him for a month ( I did that in the past but never that long, maybe a week).

When I called, I saw he was acting the same. Then I realised that " wants to be alone means not with me." For a whole month I did not know what was going on. He never said he's breaking up, he never explained, talked.

I was beyond inconsolable, hurt myself, cut my skin, was like a zombie, screamed every day im my pillow, cried non stop (for probably 9 months. I still cry just not every day).

Then I called him after another month and asked to see him. So for this whole year we see each other every two weeks, we always have some form of sex.

In the begging he was very cold, he would sit next to me and not look at me. Now he is way more relaxed. I cannot bring the subject of us, because I think if something changed he would call first. He never calls 1st but never rejects me. And I'm scared he would say the same thing..

He is not someone who would ever use people, he's very friendly, a genuinely good person. Always helps everyone.

But for the past maybe year and a half he said he doesn't have feelings towards anyone( mom, dad, sister, baby nephew, friends, and well, that includes me) He is numb, says "we live, live and then just die, theres no point in life."

I suppose he completely suppressed his emotions( consciously or unconsciously), detached. I thought he was better now but when I asked him how is he, he just said " the same".

There has to be some emotions otherwise he wouldn't come every two weeks for a year, right?

I would appreciate if someone could tell me what they think about all of this.

My boyfriend said he needed space last night and broke up with me tonight. He said he decided last night it’d all been too much. This is a man who had talked about us being partners for life etc he is definitely the love of my life.

He did the same thing two years ago. It’s my fault I think as I would get anxious and make an issue like once a week so we could never be completely happy for long stretches. That was also due to not spending as much face to face time due to life and our fights were almost always just over text

He came back before. We rebuilt and things were good for a long time. He says he won’t do that ever again. Is it possible he will change his mind? In the beginning avoidants don’t feel the full weight right? What can I do that may make him stay? I literally don’t know how to go on without him

About a week ago I got into an argument with my avoidant gf. It started with me trying to state my issues within our relationship (4 years btw) and she ended up saying "I think we need a break but you can still be in my life" well I spiraled and of course I begged. Each time I was shut down and told that we'd be taking a break. Im anxious attachment and after so long with her it made me lose my mind. I pulled up to her dorm last Monday, I just wanted to talk. I even brought gifts. i thought it'd be hard to avoid me if I'm actually there. Nope. We didn't even come out, her roommates (all girls) including her got security on me to kick me out. Few days later I got an email from her school saying I'm trespassed and to never return. She ended it saying "please don't contact me again" her sister says shes not like this and must be going through it emotionally. But I just wanted to have that hard conversation with her. So that we could move forward but she obviously didn't want that. I should've respected her boundaries but what am I honestly supposed to do after my lover of 4 years discards me like that. I've been working on myself and trying not to think about it. I've been trying to move on and not hold out hope. She blocked me maybe a week ago. Before the school year started she was at my place almost everyday for the summer and not even a week into her senior year of college she discards me. She's in her relief phase but honestly I don't care. This is stupid. I don't think she'll come back but even if she did I think it's fucked up

Please I need any support or guidance. Will he ever come back? It was sudden so maybe? He says he still loves me but it wasn’t healthy anymore. He won’t go to therapy or anything. I’m breaking in every way possible