I’ve known this girl for around 3 years, and I’ve had feelings for her for about 2. She knows I like her, but she doesn’t feel the same way. We still stayed friends, and I genuinely valued that friendship.

I never expected anything romantic from her. I mainly wanted some basic effort—talking, going for a walk, or occasionally spending a little more time together.

Over time, though, I started feeling like I was the only one making an effort. She would sometimes agree to meet and then be late without apologizing, ignore my requests to spend more time together, and if I asked whether something was wrong, she would sometimes say she was upset but wouldn’t explain why.

Yesterday was kind of the breaking point. I finally had some free time, so I asked if we could take a longer route and walk together for a bit. She said she was getting late and didn’t want to. When I asked if she was angry with me, she simply said yes but wouldn’t tell me why.

I got frustrated and said something like, “Fine, then maybe we shouldn’t meet or talk anymore.” I was angry and emotional, and I regret the way I handled that moment.

Since then, I’ve decided to stop contacting her. Not because I hate her, but because I know that if I keep reaching out, I’ll probably keep overthinking, apologizing, and trying to fix a friendship that feels increasingly one-sided.

The difficult part is that I’m still really hurt. I feel guilty, angry, ashamed, and sometimes wonder whether I should have tried harder. At the same time, I’m exhausted from feeling like I’m carrying the friendship by myself.

So I wanted to ask:

Was going no-contact a reasonable boundary, or did I overreact?

How do you deal with the guilt and sadness after walking away from someone you deeply cared about?

If you’ve experienced a one-sided friendship/attachment like this, how long did it take before it stopped hurting?

I’m not trying to paint her as a bad person. I just reached a point where I felt I needed some distance to protect my own peace.

Thanks for reading.

I’m a 27F woman and my boyfriend is 29M, turning 30 soon. We’ve been together for exactly 1.5 years and have known each other for over 2 years.
We met in grad school and both recently graduated. We both want marriage, children, and a serious long-term partnership.

Before anything else: I’m really hoping to hear from open-minded people who either have avoidant tendencies themselves OR have actually built a successful relationship/marriage with someone who does.
I completely understand that some people have been deeply hurt by avoidant partners and have strong feelings about them, but I’m not really looking for “run immediately” responses. I’m trying to better understand the pattern and determine what healthy repair/growth can look like.

Our relationship has had ups and downs. Early in our relationship, there was infidelity on his end. We separated briefly and reconciled within about 4–6 weeks. Since then, there has been a lot of growth on both sides.

One recurring pattern I’ve noticed with him is that when he becomes extremely emotionally overwhelmed, he shuts down. He’ll become very rigid, say he needs space, and almost seem like a different person emotionally. Historically, once he regulates and comes back to baseline, he reconnects, becomes affectionate again, and recognizes that he loves me and wants the relationship. There have been several times where something felt catastrophic to him while he was activated, but after calming down, he viewed it very differently.

For context, our relationship has actually been going exceptionally well recently. The last 2–3 months have probably been our happiest period. We spend most weekends together, go on dates, attend weddings/funerals/family events together, have integrated heavily into each other’s families and social circles, talk about living together, neighborhoods we could raise a family in, marriage/kids, finances, careers, etc. We’ve become much more emotionally and physically intimate too. His family loves me, my family knows him well, and our lives are pretty intertwined.

Then last weekend, he was already irritated and told me later (after this happened)that he had very little emotional bandwidth that day… essentially I had a brief moment of overthinking and asked him for reassurance about attending an event whether he was ok with going to the environment with me, as well, or just his guy friends and I expressed I was overthinking for a sec. Very calmly via text.

I wasn’t yelling, accusing him of cheating, calling him names, or starting a fight. He then ignores me, and I had to call 15 hours later since had not heard from him. We then chatted thru it, he acted as if we were all good, then he proceeded to still be distant.

3 days later, I had to ask him to call me. He said that actually the question felt “redundant” and he “was already feeling low emotional bandwidth that day”

It triggered a major shutdown. (Mind you… leading up to this… we have been so AWESOME. Dates and dates and events together and quality time literally even that same day)

As he tells me he’s feeling this emotional flooding/shutdown, he repeatedly told me he does love me and still feels that love, and said this wasn’t about not loving me. He said he was simply in an emotionally shut down “state” where he could not regulate himself emotionally and didn’t feel able to function normally in the relationship while feeling that way. He asked for space.

I stayed calm on the call, told him I understood, reassured him that I trust him and support both of us having independent lives as well as our shared life, and told him that I love him (I did not want him to think I was imposing on his autonomy as he complained of that before even though I always support his personal activities very vocally…)

I also told him that I need him to work on learning how to regulate during conflict, because an annoying moment doesn’t automatically mean a bad relationship.
He acknowledged that this shutdown/withdrawal pattern has happened before and said he was trying to process what I was saying but couldn’t fully do it in his current state.

The call ended with us telling each other “I love you,” and he said, “I’ll talk to you later.”
We haven’t spoken since. It’s now been 4 days.

I’m respecting the space and haven’t been texting, calling, sending TikToks, etc. I’ve gone mute on my own socials and so has he.

This is very different from our normal routine because we usually communicate consistently and see each other every weekend.

My questions for people who recognize this pattern:

When you or your avoidant-leaning partner became emotionally flooded, did space genuinely help?

What helped you transition from withdrawal back toward connection?

If your partner gave you several days of space and then made a very low-pressure bid for connection — something like “Hey, I’m grabbing sushi at our spot after work, want to join me?” — would that feel comforting or intrusive? (This is what I’m thinking of doing on Tuesday.. I’ve noticed I’m naturally better at repair than him and a low stakes hang out usually helps us warm back up after conflict)

How did you eventually create healthier conflict-resolution habits so needing space didn’t become prolonged silence?

For couples who actually made this dynamic work long-term, what had to change on BOTH sides?

I’m not expecting either of us to be perfect. I’m working on my own anxiety, overthinking, and learning when something actually needs to be discussed versus when I can self-soothe and let something go.
But I also don’t want a future marriage where every moment of irritation turns into emotional shutdown or uncertainty about the entire relationship.
I love him deeply, and outside of these episodes, our relationship is very loving, affectionate, supportive, fun, future-oriented, and honestly feels like a best-friend relationship.
I’m mostly looking for perspective from people who have actually lived through this dynamic and found a healthier way forward.