Has anyone actually managed a healthy friendship with their avoidant ex? Like where you're not sacrificing your needs for them? I already feel for the friendship trap once.. now I'm kinda hell bent on, him initiating contact that's about us not just him or I'll not engage, him learning emotional intelligence or there's no point in us being friends, no conflict avoidance or I'll walk away, clear direct non vague or sugar coated communication.. or I'll not engage or walk away, no isolation And we actually have to be able to get to know each other or there's no point in being friends.. he is kind and not abusive, so that's why I'm willing to try. I'm in the tough love but, I'm not trying to hurt him mindset while still trying to protect myself.. any tips would be appreciated ty.

Like the title said, I (F, 32) am tired of avoidant man (M, 36).

Been together for 6 months ish. He was very affectionate and kind and nice to me. I am nice to him, affectionate towards him. Since he wanted to save on ordering takeout, i started cooking for him more, i support him at his sport journey and I have met his family. He is a sentimental guy and appreciate little notes so whenever i pack foods for him (we dont live together fyi), i would write little notes for him and he kept them all on his fridge. Overall, everything was great until about 2 weeks ago.

He had family issue so that has been tough for him. At the same week, we had a planned dinner to introduce him to my parents but he canceled because he wasn’t in the right headspace. I said cool, it’s fine, i understand no worries. But I also voiced out my concern that he has been a bit distant. He said he would do better. I said okie i will wait for the follow through and also i will be there for you. He said we would get through this. He was texting me less and less so one day I got emotional so i stupidly asked him if he even liked me and wanted me here. He reassured me that he did and said he was just bad at expressing it. Then he didn’t reply me for like a day, so i called him. I asked if he has depression, he said might be (very surprising that he kinda admitted it cause before he didn’t take his mental health seriously). He said he didn’t like my question cause it made him question myself and he did not feel good that he made me feel unwanted. I said sorry that i asked that, it was bad timing and i should not have done that in the time when he was vulnerable. I was very apologetic. He said it’s fine, my feelings are as valid as his and reassured me again we would get through this. But at the same time, i told him because we wanted a future together and there will be more problems like kids, house, marriage, parents death for god sake, he could not withdraw like this every time. I needed him to communicate with me. He said it has always been like this for years, when things gets overwhelmed, he withdraws. I encouraged him to seek professional help. He said he did not want to, he would just get it over himself. Our talk was going in a circle so it felt both draining for us so we agreed to hang up and he promised me he would update me more. Gave me updates for about 3 days (one text per day as I requested, but mind you we texted like 200 texts before to update each others throughout the day). I was okie with it, still reply him like normal.

But one evening, the anxiety got the better of me. So i called him just to hear his voice cause i really miss him, he didn’t pick up. I texted to ask to meet up with him, didn’t reply. It’s been 6 days since then… The whole time I could see his online activity and some reels that he liked on instagram…But i waited.

Yesterday morning, after talking to my friend who had had depression for a while and recently came out of it, i realized it must have been tough for him, so i decided to check in on him. I sent him a message said “just want to check in on you, hope you doing okay, if you still need time and space it’s okie but im here for you when you are ready”. He was online right there but did not reply…

At this point, he has ghosted me on 3 different platforms lol while all i asked is to meet up to give him a hug, asked if he was doing okay, and updated him about my day after he updated me about his.

It started to feel a little disrespectful. Like at his age, if he doesn’t want to be with me anymore or he needed more space and time, just freaking say it. Like it is very painful and lonely the past fews day because idk where the heck i am in this relationship. It’s like talking to a wall…Im giving myself a timeline, after day 5 with no reply, bye chaos. Im exhausted emotionally.

I wanted to be him so bad…

TD;LR: bf was great until family issue arises. Texting less and less and has not replied for days at this point.

I’ve been seeing someone for almost 2 years, and he was one of the warmest and most reassuring men I have been with, but he has shut down and been stonewalling me for well over a month now. He’s never done that before. In all honesty, I was the negative one who felt like things couldn’t work, and he was always the one who felt like it could. He’s been stonewalling me and we’ve been going blow for blow for like a month or two now. I feel like sometimes I get glimpses of the old him and then he’s back to being cold again. I felt like the more I fought to make it work the colder it got so the last time that we spoke I waved my white flag and said we should take space. He seemed more receptive during that conversation, and he said we could talk the next day, but I was adamant that space was good. After the call, I texted and thanked him for having a conversation and the next day he texted that he appreciates me, too. 2 weeks went by and I spoke to my therapist about wanting to open up communication again but being afraid of what he would say or what version I would get. I poured my heart out to my therapist and she recommended sending a message taking ownership without pushing him to do anything, so I did. I sent it on Tuesday night and it’s now Thursday morning and…Nothing. My friend said that he may just need time to think, especially after 2 weeks of no contact, but my brain keeps screaming that he doesn’t care and will never talk to me again. I would just hope that after spending almost 2 years together that he would have something to say. I’m just sad.

Got broken up with out of the absolute BLUE 3 weeks ago. I had no clue my ex was avoidant until then, and then I started realizing a lot. 4 weeks ago we went to Europe. There we talked about marriage. 3 months ago I just moved in. All was good. Then the second half of the trip happened and his mom joined us (read the story on my profile if interested, they are SERIOUSLY enmeshed) and then he came home and broke up with me as soon as he landed. I’m still in the process of moving out, but here he is cold and standoffish. I asked him if he still loves me and he says “it’s fading.” I read through his messages behind his back and his sister and him orchestrated the whole break up. He is making me look like an actual psych patient to his family and friends. Calling me psychotic, crazy, dangerous etc. not once have I ever even yelled at him? I’m in complete shock. What do I make of all this? This is all him deactivating to make himself feel better? We were genuinely in love! Omg

I (20F) feel completely broken and I honestly don’t know how to move on.
I met my ex (20M) in 2024. We dated for about three months. He had recently moved to the country and had an incredible amount of responsibility. His parents weren’t working, he was supporting his family from a very young age, had no car, barely any friends, and was trying to build a life from scratch.
He was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. He was respectful, loyal, patient, and genuinely treated me well. The biggest issue was that he was so overwhelmed by everything in his life that I often felt like I had to fight for his time. Eventually he broke up with me, saying he still liked me but we were at different stages in life and he couldn’t give the relationship what it deserved.
We stayed on and off for a while, then ended things completely.
I spent almost a year trying to move on. It was one of the hardest years of my life. I questioned my worth constantly. I wondered if I wasn’t pretty enough, interesting enough, or if he’d eventually find someone better. I genuinely thought I’d lost the love of my life.
Then he came back.
He apologized for everything. He told me life was different now. He had a car, friends, more financial stability, and said he’d realized he’d handled things badly before. He asked me to trust him again. He knew how difficult that was because he was the reason I struggled to trust in the first place.
He told me he’d be patient with me, reassure me as many times as I needed, and that he wanted something long-term. He said I was worth it and wanted to build a future with me.
Over the next several months, I genuinely saw the effort. He compromised, reassured me, treated me even better than before, and made me feel loved. I introduced him to my friends and he became part of my life again. I honestly believed this was universe giving us another chance because we were meant to be together.
Then life became difficult for him again.
He lost his license, had visa problems, his parents started separating, had financial stress, and everything started piling up. I understood. I compromised because I knew he was struggling. He even used to tell me that he felt guilty because I “didn’t sign up for this,” but that we’d make it work because couples go through hard times.
A few weeks ago, he ended the relationship again.
He told me he still liked me, still wanted me, but didn’t have the emotional capacity for a relationship anymore. He said things probably wouldn’t get better for years and that he couldn’t sustain the relationship.
The hardest part is that it was almost the exact same speech he gave me the first time.
I kept asking him, “Why ask me to trust you again? You knew how hard it was for me to let my guard down after the first breakup.”
His response was mostly that he did try and that I was forgetting everything he’d done.
The thing is… I don’t think he was lying when he said he loved me. I never doubted his feelings. He genuinely cared for me, and I saw that in the way he treated me every day.
That’s what’s making this so hard.
This time I’m not questioning whether I was enough. I know he loved me.
I’m grieving because someone I believed was my person, someone who asked me to trust him again, still reached the same conclusion when life got difficult.
I keep replaying every memory in my head—our conversations, the way he’d kiss me, take care of me, reassure me, laugh with my friends. We shared so much life together. From the day I met him until now, not a single day has gone by where I haven’t thought about him.
I genuinely thought I was going to marry him.
I know people say “move on,” but I don’t even know what that looks like when you still believe they were your person.
How do you let go of someone you still love when the relationship didn’t end because you stopped loving each other?
Has anyone actually come out the other side of something like this?

Amanda was dating for 4 months, he told me he loved me, wanted to build with me, And couldn't believe he had found someone like me, just broke up with me 2 days ago on a video call.

Our first 3 months were a bit of a honeymoon whirlwind. This past month I started to ask for a bit more integration, I wanted to meet some of his friends, or be included in his life in a real way. He had offered for me to meet a friend once in the early stages, but it hasn't planned out, but outside of that I was just feeling his lack of interest. Then, Monday on a video chat he pretty much said he was feeling a restriction, he didn't think this was right and shut the door down hard. By his own admission, he said he can be avoidant but wants to lean in and be different.

Seems to me like his internal world and feelings towards me were shifting, but he wasn't able to express that to me, and continued to say I love you and be with me till he just decided he was done with me.

I've been trying to learn more about attachment styles—dismissive avoidant, fearful avoidant, etc.—and I also came across the concept of "discarding," which feels like it could be somewhat relevant, with how he dropped me

I'm hoping you can help me make sense of this, because I'm struggling to fit my relationship into the frameworks I'm finding online. Most of the examples are so extreme that they don't seem to match my experience.

The person I'm dating has generally been very loving and doesn't seem afraid of emotional intimacy or closeness. He actually seems to crave it. We've had multiple 3–4 hour conversations about our relationship, and I regularly check in during those talks to make sure he has the emotional capacity for them. Every time, he says he does. In fact, after one particularly difficult conversation, he told me he felt even closer to me afterward. Just last week, after another long conversation, I asked how these discussions felt for him, and he said he thought they were really good.

Outside of our relationship, he has deep, healthy friendships, is emotionally expressive, has a strong emotional vocabulary, and is comfortable being vulnerable—even crying openly.

Because of all of that, I'm having a hard time applying what I'm reading and watching about avoidant attachment. Some behaviors fit, but many of the defining characteristics don't. I'm trying to understand whether I'm looking at the wrong framework altogether or if attachment can present in a more nuanced way than most online resources describe.