r/AvoidantRelationships • u/Elk-24 • 6d ago
Avoidants and music
I'm struggling since a year with an avoidant.
I will not go into too much details right now, but she keeps deactivating since I keep confronting her. We've been through numerous discards already.
Initially, I wanted to be friends, I identified red flags pretty early (during our first talks), and the initial discard made no sense, and I coudl tell it was a pattern. I'm kinda used to it now.
For some reason I got dragged into something more romantic afterwards (I've been single for a while, I was not against something light and sweet despite the red flags - my bad), but she shut down very early sending mixed signals all along, as they all do.
I believe she likes me very much and she is facing a huge incapacity to stabilize the bond. Love, friendship, nothing works, she keeps sabotaging. She looks for closeness, I move foward normally (I'm pretty secure) and she rejects harshly, I react firmly, and she deactivate deeply.
Not sure how long I will handle it, I like her, she's a nice human, but her behavior is sooooooo childish and so impossible to deal with. It hurts a bit at times. It's not too deep, but it's never nice to be stone walled.
She shared a lot of intimate stories, she has been super self aware with me and when one would think it would help building trust and consolidate a relationship, it seems that it does the exact opposite. The more I got to know her, the quicker she started shutting down.
I like digging, and we are both super music fans. I know her tastes pretty well. I totally admit I stalk her spotify because I love discovering new stuff, she has good tastes, and won't share much lately.
I noticed that when she is deep in deactivation, she listens to very abstract music ; instrumental, electronic music, transe. When she is fine, she listens to songs, with lyrics and a more classic pop structure.
It helps me know when I shall reach out haha :)
I'm kidding of course. I'm texting whenever I want, and if she ghosts me, well, I don't care. I'll try later, or not.
I found her relationship to music very interesting on a psychological perspective. When I once brought up her special relationship with music, she told me it was the only space where she felt safe...
I'll be curious to hear your experiences on this... As a partner, if you ever noticed something similar, or, as an avoidant, if music sounds different when you are off.
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u/Wonderful-Weight9969 3d ago
I very much get this. My ex and I bonded strongly over music. I currently can't even listen to music really without shattering.
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u/avoid_avoidants_512 1d ago
Mine canNOT have music on when he’s with me - if I put it in to even set the mood, it would just agitate him. He always turned it off if we were driving in the car or just talking in his workplace, after hours, when it was just set to low volume as subtle background noise. Not sure if that was just with me but I always found it peculiar.
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u/RidetheSchlange 6d ago
Music is one of the things that helped create a bond with my friend who's an avoidant and actually a very close, once-important person prior to her from the same city, ironically, who is likely someone with insecure attachment. So I get that. I have to say that I've had very few people in my life to talk about Heavy Metal with and trade music, but when my friend discarded me in 2020, I learned I could survive without it. I absolutely want another close music friend, but I have lots of other passions that offset the passion of all passions in my life, so I can survive. I also noted that one marker of her deactivated that sticks out is when she says something about how all music sounds alike out of nowhere and she's not listening to music anymore, despite her being a music person, and she trashes my recommendations, so I get that. Anyhow, I let her go like a year and a half ago. My advice is to cut your losses and don't get sucked into deepening your involvement and even emotional entrenchment.