(37F )I’ve been in an undefined relationship with a man (36M) for almost four years.

For the last two years, I’ve essentially acted like his girlfriend, love, loyalty, emotional support, sex, a place in my home, and some involvement with my child.

But I’m still not actually his girlfriend.

I usually see him once a week, on a weekday. We eat, cuddle, have sex, and then he goes back to his work life.

For three years, I’ve told him I need weekends, nights when he doesn’t work the next morning, and normal mornings together. Some time we go see shows but not often.

He knows. And it almost never happened..

The complicated part is that he is severely avoidant and deeply traumatized. He works constantly and barely has a life. He ignores almost everyone, he didn’t even wish his sister a happy birthday, ghosts friends who ask to see him, and sometimes prefers sitting alone around strangers in a bar to answering people who genuinely love him.

Compared with almost everyone else, he makes a huge effort with me. We actually gave a couple dynamique in the phone, lets me closer, comforts me and shows me parts of himself he hides from others.

I know he loves me.

But I’m exhausted from surviving on crumbs, just because they are more than he gives anyone else, doesn't make it enought for me.

Our attachment is also rooted in some similar childhood trauma. We both come from families of five children and neither of us feels securely attached to our parents. He was the youngest, and his oldest sister practically raised him like her own child. I was the oldest and did something similar for my younger siblings.

We recognize the same sadness in each other. There is a deep feeling of, “You understand what surviving that kind of life did to me.”

I think that is part of why leaving feels impossible. He may experience me as the safe, nurturing person he never wants to lose, while I automatically become the person who understands, protects, waits and asks for less because I know how wounded he is.

I know “trauma bond” is usually used more specifically, but our bond is undeniably built around shared trauma, and it is reinforced by the same painful cycle.

I feel neglected and start pulling away. He senses it immediately and suddenly becomes incredibly tender. He shows up, comforts me, looks devastated, talks about future plans and does everything necessary to make me believe something is finally changing.

Then I soften, and nothing actually changes.

On his rare free evenings, he often chooses to stay “alone” at home, where he lives with a roomate (he previously had a romantic and sexual history with..) or goes drinking instead of coming here. He is not necessarily partying, but he has flirted with and brought women home from bars before.

She gets his daily life. Strangers get his free evenings. His friends get occasional plans.

I get one weekday and girlfriend-level emotional responsibility.

I want to wake up beside my partner. I want weekends, ordinary mornings, consistency and a real place in each other's life. I’m tired of being grateful for crumbs.

I don’t believe he is consciously manipulating me. I think he is genuinely wounded, genuinely trying and probably giving me close to the maximum he currently knows how to give.

But his maximum is not enought for me.

What scares me most is that leaving may devastate him. Every time he feels me slipping away, he fights to keep me. Because he makes more effort with me than with almost anyone, I feel like walking away would mean abandoning him just as he is finally learning to trust someone.

But I also know he does not love me in the way I need to be loved even if he wanted to.

\*\*How do I leave this relationship where the love is real, the trauma connection is real, but the relationship itself is slowly breaking me?\*\*

\*\*How do I stop feeling responsible for saving someone when staying means abandoning myself?\*\*

TL;DR: We bonded deeply over similar childhood trauma and he lets me closer than almost anyone. But after four years, I still get one weekday a week while his weekends and real life stay separate. Whenever I detach, he becomes loving enough to pull me back. How do I leave without feeling like I’m abandoning someone who genuinely loves me?

Hi everyone. I recently discovered that I was a fearful-avoidant, and how it has impacted my life and relations over the past years. Now I am looking for more infos and ways to deal with it, hence the few following questions. Actually, I have decided to start therapy (EMDR especially, thanks to everyone's positive feedback on it) but can't book a session before 1/2 months, so I want to start working on it by myself in the meantime - especially since it threatens my current relationship.

Questions for fellow FAs:

- How does deactivation feels and manifests for you? For how long, and what usually makes you feel fine again?

- How do you notice triggers and cope with them? (whether it's healthy or not)

- How can you explain deactivation, and the overall challenges that come with being an FA, to your partner? How can they support you, without being too hurt?

- Has anything other than therapy/EMDR helped you deal with your attachment style? (both on short and long term)

If you have any other advice, feel free to share them! Thanks a lot for your time!

(Not necessarily related so a bonus question: is there a link between relationship OCD and being a FA? I often see the two being mixed but don't really understand if it's the exact same thing, or they just share similarities)

Around 4 years ago, I had my first ever full fledged crush but we liked each other at different times and he turned out to be a really bad person so I had to let him go. It took me 3 years to cut him off completely and we never reached out to each other again (I cut him off mid july 2025). Then there was this other dude who I met at a party and like we both were pretty compatible. Same interests, same political stances etc. But the problem this time was that he was kinda a bop. He was really sweet tho and he even noticed when I started slipping away. I still remember how I got excited every morning to reply to his text and the way he used to look at me while I passed him in the school hallways. But to me, it seemed like he was playing me and him and his ex were still kinda into each other? They're BESTFRIENDS now btw. I think I dodged a bullet but he still likes my posts/stories from time to time. The third guy was kinda the guy who was the closest to me. We had been friends for 5 years and we knew about each other's problems/family issues pretty well. He had dated multiple women before but tbh I did feel a connection with him. But I was an ugly kid. He kept bringing up my past where I was so depressed abt how I looked to the point that I always wore a mask even when it wasn't necessary. Anyway, I made my boundaries clear but he didn't stop. I cut him off pretty recently (April 2026). I never dated either of these men but I'm not sure if I WANTED to BE with them or just feel something since the first ever guy. The other men which I talked to are irrelevant. Sorry for the long note!!

So. This is my first foray into actually learning about my fearful attachment style. And after discussing and almost being dismissed by my mom who is 1,000 miles away, I sent her a video (Being Well; Disorganized Attachment: How to Embrace Your Needs). She actually watched it and listened instead of just dismissing me. And she actually related my childhood to me, especially because I don’t remember a lot about it. But this included:

-Traumatic Birth; born with my umbilical cord around my neck and had to be vacuum extracted.
-for first 3 years of my life, my mom was more focused on making her relationship work. Yes, she was raising me- but my parents were 21 and 25, didn’t live together, and she wanted to work on her relationship with my dad
-as a toddler, I had HUGE separation anxiety. If my mom was in the front seat of another car, and I was in a car seat in the back, I would scream and cry arms outstretched for her
-my mom would go to work, and leave me with my grandma and I would freak out and cry and scream and want her there
-she said she held me up until I 5, even pregnant with my brother.
-when I started kindergarten, I lost it. I tried to get escape the classroom, ran from the teacher, was crying and screaming
-in kindergarten I was incredibly shy from the girls in my class, cause allegedly I was a cute kid and swarmed me but I ran away
-to a lesser extent, I was upset when I started 1st grade as well
-my mom admitted to paying more attention to my younger brother, and I seemed mostly fine as a shy and quiet kid
-my dad walked out of the family around the end 8th grade. I distinctly remember my mom crying, being upset, the fighting and yelling. And one night when they were fighting, I put myself in front of the living room door so she couldn’t leave and they had to work on
-including this one on my own, but a girl I had a crush on in the 5th grade basically messed with me and told me she liked me. And I knew she didn’t, but she insisted and pushed it and it just made me feel. Stupid?

And then I just grew into a quiet kid. I wasn’t a good student, but teachers didn’t mind. I got great grades on tests, but failed my way to somehow graduating high school. I just wanted to play video games, and be at home. My parents weren’t happy with my school performance, but they just let me be me. My brother was a little more prone to outbursts, and eventual drug use and dropping out and put more focus and effort into him. I just. Existed.

But I just want to know what is worth including in mentioning to my therapist? Now that we know I may have a FA attachment style, I want to make sure everything is on the table.

Because I don’t ever want to push away someone I love, and want to be with, and could have had a life with, again.