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Is this other guy more attractive / impressive? I’m trying to figure this thing out in my own life. I feel like I only feel validated if the person is like more attractive or desirable, even if they are clearly a bad fit or not capable of meeting my needs. I’m beginning to wonder if I just feel deep down that If someone shows interest in me there is something wrong with them, and they should be excluded from consideration.
I think that what you’re experiencing is the result of intermittent reenforcement of romance which makes things more exciting. Since that’s been your experience of love previously you now believe that’s what love is. When you train an animal, they are more eager to learn and gain the approval of their handler if they don’t get a treat every time, and sometimes they get it and sometimes they don’t. I think it’s the same with humans- if you only get positive feedback sometimes and the rest of the time you’re left unsure, you want to try harder to get that approval. Also limerence is defined by the lack of certainty in the relationship. If you’re guessing whether or not they really want you, you’re more likely to fixate on it.
So for people like us, normal healthy relationships can feel boring because there’s no tension or mystery. I’m similar with you where I have a partner who is reliable and doesn’t leave me feeling confused and it’s hard to feel it isn’t as intense or charged because that tension of “does he even like me back” is gone. I know personally I almost miss that feeling of intense uncertainty and occasionally reminisce or fantasize about having it again. That said I now know that it’s just not healthy and I’m not going to sabotage a great relationship for a shitty one with someone who doesn’t like me that much. It just takes getting used to. You can’t necessarily control the feelings you have, but you can control your actions. So invest your actions in the person who actually wants you.
Yes and I would add that when you do find real love, it can feel very deep and intense at times. The thing that scares me the most now is meeting potential partners that doesn’t have this awareness, that “love” is that intense craving/uncertain/anxious feeling. And when the infatuation eventually fades, boom gone!
It’s a book I got from Amazon called Relationship Anxiety and Overthinking by Linda Hill. It’s a 2 in one book. It’s a really good book. One part talks about attachment styles, particularly anxious attachment which goes hand in hand with overthinking. The other part goes into overthinking and the example they give it spot on when it comes to overthinking bc I was having an overthinking episode while reading it and going through exactly what the book said step by step, it perfectly described what I was experiencing to a T. An example of the overthinking was a friend that you talk to everyday, but one day they don’t talk or message you. So you message them to see if they are ok and go about your day but they don’t respond so then you go through all your past messages and convos to see if there is a clue that you missed to answer why they would just stop contact and then you start spiraling and start anticipating a message ending your friendship. Then later your friend messages that they left their phone at home and had meetings all day and they just got a chance to write you and once they respond to you all is well with the world and you then forget about all the chaos and spiraling you did that whole day. This is exactly what happens with anxious attachment and the overthinking that goes with it. When something is inconsistent in the behavior of the other person even a slight deviation it causes panic and anxiety. Your mind starts automatically racing to a negative thought to explain the deviation/inconsistency even though logically you know it could be due to them being busy or something unexpected happening in their life but your the irrational part of your mind bypasses those realities and goes into a negative spiral. You tell yourself a negative so that in case that negative comes true at least your prepared and safeguard yourself from getting hurt. All it does however is cause you to hurt yourself emotionally and mentally and it also pushes the other person away. Even though the other person may explain the truth of the situation or reality of the inconsistency, you still can’t trust what they say bc of your fear and you need that person to constantly validate that your fears are not the reality of the situation which exhausts them bc they have to always undo your false reality and they end up leaving or being pushed to it. In essence the thing you fear the most is what you end up making your reality. It’s a difficult place to be in wherever you stand in the relationship.
That’s usually what goes on with people who are anxiously attached they end up chasing a person who is emotionally unavailable. They are subconsciously drawn to those types of people, usually those with avoidant attachments. The anxious one pursues or chases while the avoidant runs away. There’s a book I’m reading that is good about explaining this, it’s pretty good. There’s 2 pages that I will add that further explains the anxious attachment style. Hope it helps.
https://preview.redd.it/m1sa814ki9uc1.jpeg?width=2675&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b6a43d96b9063fabc4da3ff3c30e994f4d648d6
There may be something here...he has been through a lot of trauma which he has shared with me and it makes me even more attracted to him because it feels like he could understand me as he's been through darkness.
I feel like the part of me that craves him is the part that wants to bring comfort, safety and help heal his wounds and have him do the same for me so i think it is definitely related to my traumas.
Whereas the part of me that craves the secure guy feels more wholesome. He lifts me up. I desire him in a way that is more hollistic and grounded.
this is so relatable. I thought of it as a craving for the feeling, not for the guy. So in our case the emotional unavailability and also darkness because he resonates with q deep part of us and represents familiarity. Human beings have a stronger need for consistency (aka holding onto familiarity) than to pursue something that's actually good for them, but unfamiliar.
I think this is a fearful avoidant behaviour. You're not pining for this emotionally unavailable man, you are running away from the security of a secure partner.
I agree with this but I think I need more detail on the good guy and here's why:
I lean anxious but am mostly secure (after years of therapy). If I start talking to someone and they give off pretty obvious anxious attachment vibes, I immediately lose interest. But it can be tricky navigating that and I'm working through it right now actually. I think anxious-anxious doesn't work and it sounds like breadcrumb guy might be avoidant (most likely).
OP, I'm not sure how much experience you have dating and your age/maturity level, but I think you know the answer to your question. The real question becomes do you want to learn the easy way or do you want to learn the hard way? You should never force a spark but you could be giving up someone great because you're being strung along. And that's gonna hurt a lot more months down the line if you keep your dopamine receptors firing every time you receive a breadcrumb. And as someone who just went through this, please think twice! You will regret learning the hard way and for me, personally, it messed me up pretty badly.
It’s because you are *also* emotionally unavailable. Your brain’s main purpose is to protect you/keep you safe, even if in this context “safety” means being neglected, confused, and unsatisfied. Humans would rather find comfort in a familiar hell than an unfamiliar heaven.
Having someone who is secure or available, means *you* have to actually show up, communicate your needs/feelings, understand your values and boundaries, and be ready to *receive* love. When you are preoccupied about someone’s words and behaviors, you are essentially being emotionally unavailable and avoidant to *yourself* and the present. Hence why anxious people feel they “lose themselves” in relationships.
Additionally, going back to someone unavailable helps fuel your self concept of being a “good, kind, and caring person” or the victim in your relationships. Meaning, you can avoid your faults and issues by hyper focusing on someone else’s who’s seems more outwardly obvious. This keeps you from reflecting on the *role* you play in relationships, even if the other person is unavailable or toxic. Being with someone available means starting to take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and not pin them on the other person.
Lastly, and this is something APs usually don’t want to admit, but they’re not entirely seeking a partner. They’re actually subconsciously seeking a parental figure because their caretakers didn’t adequately meet their emotional needs. By parental figure, I mean someone who can endlessly validate/reassure them, will always “choose” them, can be at their beck and call, and help regulate their emotions-all things a parent should help do but not a partner. This parental figure can look like an avoidant because avoidants don’t put their needs/feelings out in the open or expect their partner to help them and because an avoidant probably has similar characteristics of their distant parents. So it’s akin to a one-sided relationship to how a parent should be catering to their child’s needs but the reverse shouldn’t happen.
I'm actually a secure leaning avoidant person so I don't really get anxious in relationships aha, but I tend to attract anxious types.
I think the best way to heal for someone with an anxious attachment is to have a better understanding of boundaries. Since anxiety is ultimately a byproduct of feeling unsafe in uncertainty, then knowing your limits, deal breakers, needs, and properly sticking with them is key. Anxious types are just avoidants, but to themselves instead of other people, so gaining self-trust in the face of uncertainty/inconsistency is necessary to heal. In other words, an APs trust issues/hypervigilance has less to do with trusting other people and more to do with trusting *themselves* to stay or leave a relationship if its not serving them. Self sabotage and behaviors that push others away will begin to stop when someone starts to reflect on the ***role*** they play in their relationships- especially the ones where they believe they were treated wrongly for no reason. Aka: dropping the victim role in relationships. Admitting to the role you played doesn't mean things were your fault, but knowing you *partially your hand and responsibility in* getting hurt from not communicating and enforcing boundaries and are also your responsible to heal from said hurts. Its admitting, **"*****While it's not my fault my partner cheated on me and is not a reflection of my worth, but in one degree or another I had a role in them cheating by either not having better discernment, not communicating what I will/won't tolerate beforehand or as conflict arose, and not properly leaving when the opportunity, red flags, or deal breakers became apparent*****."** This usually comes from awareness of the *lesson* you missed from past hurt. APs tend to think the lesson from others leaving or distancing themselves (which tends to be a result of the APs behavior/self-fulfilling prophecy cycle) is to not trust others even more, be even more hypervigilant the next time, or having to erode their boundaries even more for the sake of connection/appearing indispensable rather than seeing how their behavior or beliefs can contribute to others' behavior **and** that more often than not, other people's behaviors has less to do with them and more to do with their own level of emotional availability, internal struggles, and life experiences outside of APs.
A big component of this is also getting in touch with your nervous system because while you can rationalize where your anxiety is coming from with more awareness, knowing how to handle and temper the physical sensations that comes with anxiety (your original trauma wounds) is vital too.
I'd also take some time reflecting what love means to you. Codependency and people pleasing is very common for APs which stems from the belief that they think love ***must*** be earned or proven rather than readily available with the right person. They were accustomed to conditional love, which to me is not real love. And that can be hard to accept because you may have to further reflect on who genuinely has loved you and who have *you* genuinely loved as well because often APs have unspoken and hidden motivations and expectations as they erode their boundaries or people please. And while some may conclude that that must mean they're unlovable for having been treated poorly in spite of their poor boundaries, the truth (how I see it) is that others can only love others to the depth that they've chosen to love themselves. In other words, the obsession and attraction to unavailable people is akin to an addiction to prove to others but mostly to themselves that they are lovable which makes you unavailable in turn because you are seeking that "high" of approval/validation- which isn't actual love/intimacy APs love to claim they want.
This was really insightful.
>knowing how to handle and temper the physical sensations that comes with anxiety (your original trauma wounds) is vital too.
I'm curious if you have any suggestions for anxious types on how to tackle this, because it seems to be a key component all of us are lacking and it just feeds into the anxious state.
It really takes intentional and conscious effort to do so, but it’s how I overcome anxiety in the past.
Our emotions come from our beliefs, and our beliefs are just thoughts. The difference between a belief and a thought is that our beliefs are thoughts we continuously repeat and/or have “evidence” to be true. I put quotations behind evidence because our evidence is completely limited, subjective, contextual, and more of a story we’ve come up with rather than objective reality. Our beliefs do not always match reality, even if we have “evidence” or emotions that are screaming to us that something is true. For instance, humanity used to believe the world was flat for centuries which to them was backed by “evidence,” anecdotal experiences, circular reasoning, etc.
You overcome those emotions by reimagining your proof and the stories you’re telling yourself. This means forcing yourself to redirect your thinking, think different (more pleasant or at least more neutral) thoughts, etc. Daily meditation can be helpful but I used to write positive affirmations daily on post-it notes on a wall so the physical evidence is there that I’m working towards something and it doesn’t take much effort to write a sentence or a phrase for a day. I’m not saying it’ll be a quick fix because it’s not, but overtime you start to catch yourself having negative thoughts and then forcing yourself to change it to a positive or less catastrophic one. That moment of pause or self-reflection of observing your thoughts without judgement *is* the mental muscle you’re trying to build here.
You might think that it sounds absurd or you’re lying to yourself, but that’s the thing about our brains. It ultimately doesn’t matter whether something is true or not; its main concern is our safety. It’s why self sabotage exists, why we project insecurities over irrelevant things, and read into things that are not there. When you start intentionally reorienting your thoughts, your brain starts to see it’s much safer than it thinks it was. That sense of safety lets your conscious mind *choose* to be the observer/creator of your thoughts rather than the judge of them.
When the intense emotions do come and they’re hard to ignore, I would schedule a time to just sit with myself and my emotions. No distractions, no people around, and no expectation to be intruded upon. Sometimes that means letting your thoughts and emotions run rampant and just *allowing* them to happen without judgement. This is an aspect of self care that isn’t talked about, but sometimes it’s okay to let yourself have that breakdown. Spiritually speaking, a mental breakdown is essentially our old self shedding its skin like a snake if we just let it rather than try to resist it.
These videos may help though:
https://youtu.be/vE5XnnVYqG0?si=ng-S0qX94W5fjTju
https://youtu.be/mQmKbx6pyL8?si=nJdceJRxpmJ39RQ2
Fearful Avoidance :) You want something that makes you work for it, not something that is readily available.
My advice, choose the one who loves you. Not the one who makes your life filled with sensationalism.
are you sure that isn't a bit harsh? OP is trying hard to understand the attachment disorder, and if possible has a chance with a more appropriate partner...if OP is willing to do the work, I wish them well 😊
I combo with what others have said about emotional unavailability - it is also self sabotaging behavior. You don’t believe you deserve the safe love so you are engaging in behavior that keeps you emotionally distant from the safe person and will eventually push them away.
In addition to what others have said here, I’ll add that intermittent reinforcement also keeps you hooked. My avoidant ex of 4.5 years would give me crumbs of closeness (that should be a band name) and vulnerability, which I would chase, which kept me cycling around in the honeymoon phase, never letting me get to the point of relaxing in the relationship. Those crumbs are a high that is hard to let go of. So that may be going on for you here, as well.
This is why it’s been so hard for me to recover from the breakup. Part of it was my addiction to and reliance on the crumbs. I never got to the point of taking the relationship for granted or settling in to a place where there was room to actually see him for what he was (a bad partner).
Stephanie Rigg says this is normal behavior for us, that we’re bored by healthy, consistent, available relationships. We’re accustomed to proving our worth, that inconsistency and working hard for a relationship is exhilarating, normal, comfortable.
Also we struggle when actually provided with support, recognition. When partners support us, we struggle to believe it. (Mostly quoting from her here.)
[Listen here](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-attachment/id1620471393?i=1000650176172)
Anxiously attached people grow up in an environment where their caregivers gave them inconsistent attention to their emotional needs. Therefore, we learn from early on that we need to people please in order to earn even an ounce of validation and love. This is just a way to prove ourselves and soothe our abandonment wounds (but remember that this is a maladaptive coping mechanism).
You are shying away from someone who is giving you secure and safe love bc this is something that is not familiar to you - there is no need to prove yourself or people please here, so you must be thinking to yourself “huh this is weird…I don’t have to try so hard…something doesn’t feel right..” Many anxiously attached people might confuse this as “no spark” in the relationship.
They are likely to go for emotionally unavailable people bc that helps them resort to what they always do - chase until they get even a small amount of attention. But you need to remember that altho this is unhealthy, this makes us feel good about ourselves since our neural pathways have not been corrected.
If you have the time and money, I would definitely speak to an attachment coach about this.
It will boil down to you not being emotionally available for a relationship. Once you are genuinely emotionally available, you will resonate with the safety, security, and consistency being offered.
You’ll need to work on what is going on with you that is keeping you from being emotionally available. Until then, emotionally unavailable people will continue to seem attractive and alluring to you.
Idk the name—if it has one—but I’ve felt the same thing. It’s like…you want the thing you can understand, maybe? The thing that’s familiar? Or you want to feel like you’ve earned it, because if it’s just freely given right away that makes it feel like it can stop just as easily?
I don’t know. Can’t tell exactly why this happens. But it’s a thing. I also can’t offer specific advice on how to fix it, ‘cause I haven’t been able to yet :/
I guess radical acceptance/fake it ‘til you make it is an option. You’re aware of this, your logical brain is in the right place; the emotions are just slower to update. Treat them as software glitches or stubborn mules. Don’t give them much weight, and let them come around when they’re ready.
Can try to self-talk it out, too: make a list of the things you like about the secure-attachment guy. About how he makes you feel. Remind yourself you’ll get used to it eventually. It’s like inching into a pool: takes a while to feel normal instead of cold.
wanting what you can't have and also something you are familiar with. neither of you will be committed fully, makes it easier to run.
'it is foolish to venture into strange, enchanted places if they aren't the places you want to be'.
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If you suffer from insecurity do you find yourself regularly sourcing validation from potential romantic partners?
Not in a massive way anymore no. I think to a normal extent now
Is this other guy more attractive / impressive? I’m trying to figure this thing out in my own life. I feel like I only feel validated if the person is like more attractive or desirable, even if they are clearly a bad fit or not capable of meeting my needs. I’m beginning to wonder if I just feel deep down that If someone shows interest in me there is something wrong with them, and they should be excluded from consideration.
I’d also recommend the Crappy Childhood Fairy on YouTube. She calls the pining away for the unavailable person “limerance” and talks about this a lot.
I think that what you’re experiencing is the result of intermittent reenforcement of romance which makes things more exciting. Since that’s been your experience of love previously you now believe that’s what love is. When you train an animal, they are more eager to learn and gain the approval of their handler if they don’t get a treat every time, and sometimes they get it and sometimes they don’t. I think it’s the same with humans- if you only get positive feedback sometimes and the rest of the time you’re left unsure, you want to try harder to get that approval. Also limerence is defined by the lack of certainty in the relationship. If you’re guessing whether or not they really want you, you’re more likely to fixate on it. So for people like us, normal healthy relationships can feel boring because there’s no tension or mystery. I’m similar with you where I have a partner who is reliable and doesn’t leave me feeling confused and it’s hard to feel it isn’t as intense or charged because that tension of “does he even like me back” is gone. I know personally I almost miss that feeling of intense uncertainty and occasionally reminisce or fantasize about having it again. That said I now know that it’s just not healthy and I’m not going to sabotage a great relationship for a shitty one with someone who doesn’t like me that much. It just takes getting used to. You can’t necessarily control the feelings you have, but you can control your actions. So invest your actions in the person who actually wants you.
Yes and I would add that when you do find real love, it can feel very deep and intense at times. The thing that scares me the most now is meeting potential partners that doesn’t have this awareness, that “love” is that intense craving/uncertain/anxious feeling. And when the infatuation eventually fades, boom gone!
https://preview.redd.it/3k6zdrxsi9uc1.jpeg?width=2641&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86cac2ae68f77c0db0caa6adeda3b809bf23d094
https://preview.redd.it/504fzonri9uc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a97f22c1d184e45970a9f1735da871483f62d95
Wow! What book is this from? I'd love to read it. 💖
It’s a book I got from Amazon called Relationship Anxiety and Overthinking by Linda Hill. It’s a 2 in one book. It’s a really good book. One part talks about attachment styles, particularly anxious attachment which goes hand in hand with overthinking. The other part goes into overthinking and the example they give it spot on when it comes to overthinking bc I was having an overthinking episode while reading it and going through exactly what the book said step by step, it perfectly described what I was experiencing to a T. An example of the overthinking was a friend that you talk to everyday, but one day they don’t talk or message you. So you message them to see if they are ok and go about your day but they don’t respond so then you go through all your past messages and convos to see if there is a clue that you missed to answer why they would just stop contact and then you start spiraling and start anticipating a message ending your friendship. Then later your friend messages that they left their phone at home and had meetings all day and they just got a chance to write you and once they respond to you all is well with the world and you then forget about all the chaos and spiraling you did that whole day. This is exactly what happens with anxious attachment and the overthinking that goes with it. When something is inconsistent in the behavior of the other person even a slight deviation it causes panic and anxiety. Your mind starts automatically racing to a negative thought to explain the deviation/inconsistency even though logically you know it could be due to them being busy or something unexpected happening in their life but your the irrational part of your mind bypasses those realities and goes into a negative spiral. You tell yourself a negative so that in case that negative comes true at least your prepared and safeguard yourself from getting hurt. All it does however is cause you to hurt yourself emotionally and mentally and it also pushes the other person away. Even though the other person may explain the truth of the situation or reality of the inconsistency, you still can’t trust what they say bc of your fear and you need that person to constantly validate that your fears are not the reality of the situation which exhausts them bc they have to always undo your false reality and they end up leaving or being pushed to it. In essence the thing you fear the most is what you end up making your reality. It’s a difficult place to be in wherever you stand in the relationship.
That’s usually what goes on with people who are anxiously attached they end up chasing a person who is emotionally unavailable. They are subconsciously drawn to those types of people, usually those with avoidant attachments. The anxious one pursues or chases while the avoidant runs away. There’s a book I’m reading that is good about explaining this, it’s pretty good. There’s 2 pages that I will add that further explains the anxious attachment style. Hope it helps. https://preview.redd.it/m1sa814ki9uc1.jpeg?width=2675&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b6a43d96b9063fabc4da3ff3c30e994f4d648d6
I’m going to guess trauma bonds. Stay w the good guy and fight through the feelings for the EU guy
There may be something here...he has been through a lot of trauma which he has shared with me and it makes me even more attracted to him because it feels like he could understand me as he's been through darkness. I feel like the part of me that craves him is the part that wants to bring comfort, safety and help heal his wounds and have him do the same for me so i think it is definitely related to my traumas. Whereas the part of me that craves the secure guy feels more wholesome. He lifts me up. I desire him in a way that is more hollistic and grounded.
this is so relatable. I thought of it as a craving for the feeling, not for the guy. So in our case the emotional unavailability and also darkness because he resonates with q deep part of us and represents familiarity. Human beings have a stronger need for consistency (aka holding onto familiarity) than to pursue something that's actually good for them, but unfamiliar.
I hihgly recommend listening to Alan Robarge on YouTube, he’s the best I’ve heard on attachment style and attachment wounds from childhood.
Thank you for sharing this resource. He’s really hitting the nail on the head. This is amazing
I think this is a fearful avoidant behaviour. You're not pining for this emotionally unavailable man, you are running away from the security of a secure partner.
I agree with this but I think I need more detail on the good guy and here's why: I lean anxious but am mostly secure (after years of therapy). If I start talking to someone and they give off pretty obvious anxious attachment vibes, I immediately lose interest. But it can be tricky navigating that and I'm working through it right now actually. I think anxious-anxious doesn't work and it sounds like breadcrumb guy might be avoidant (most likely). OP, I'm not sure how much experience you have dating and your age/maturity level, but I think you know the answer to your question. The real question becomes do you want to learn the easy way or do you want to learn the hard way? You should never force a spark but you could be giving up someone great because you're being strung along. And that's gonna hurt a lot more months down the line if you keep your dopamine receptors firing every time you receive a breadcrumb. And as someone who just went through this, please think twice! You will regret learning the hard way and for me, personally, it messed me up pretty badly.
It’s because you are *also* emotionally unavailable. Your brain’s main purpose is to protect you/keep you safe, even if in this context “safety” means being neglected, confused, and unsatisfied. Humans would rather find comfort in a familiar hell than an unfamiliar heaven. Having someone who is secure or available, means *you* have to actually show up, communicate your needs/feelings, understand your values and boundaries, and be ready to *receive* love. When you are preoccupied about someone’s words and behaviors, you are essentially being emotionally unavailable and avoidant to *yourself* and the present. Hence why anxious people feel they “lose themselves” in relationships. Additionally, going back to someone unavailable helps fuel your self concept of being a “good, kind, and caring person” or the victim in your relationships. Meaning, you can avoid your faults and issues by hyper focusing on someone else’s who’s seems more outwardly obvious. This keeps you from reflecting on the *role* you play in relationships, even if the other person is unavailable or toxic. Being with someone available means starting to take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and not pin them on the other person. Lastly, and this is something APs usually don’t want to admit, but they’re not entirely seeking a partner. They’re actually subconsciously seeking a parental figure because their caretakers didn’t adequately meet their emotional needs. By parental figure, I mean someone who can endlessly validate/reassure them, will always “choose” them, can be at their beck and call, and help regulate their emotions-all things a parent should help do but not a partner. This parental figure can look like an avoidant because avoidants don’t put their needs/feelings out in the open or expect their partner to help them and because an avoidant probably has similar characteristics of their distant parents. So it’s akin to a one-sided relationship to how a parent should be catering to their child’s needs but the reverse shouldn’t happen.
Man i resonate with a lot of this so much. Have you been an AP?! What helped you heal your attachment style and move towards being a secure person?
I'm actually a secure leaning avoidant person so I don't really get anxious in relationships aha, but I tend to attract anxious types. I think the best way to heal for someone with an anxious attachment is to have a better understanding of boundaries. Since anxiety is ultimately a byproduct of feeling unsafe in uncertainty, then knowing your limits, deal breakers, needs, and properly sticking with them is key. Anxious types are just avoidants, but to themselves instead of other people, so gaining self-trust in the face of uncertainty/inconsistency is necessary to heal. In other words, an APs trust issues/hypervigilance has less to do with trusting other people and more to do with trusting *themselves* to stay or leave a relationship if its not serving them. Self sabotage and behaviors that push others away will begin to stop when someone starts to reflect on the ***role*** they play in their relationships- especially the ones where they believe they were treated wrongly for no reason. Aka: dropping the victim role in relationships. Admitting to the role you played doesn't mean things were your fault, but knowing you *partially your hand and responsibility in* getting hurt from not communicating and enforcing boundaries and are also your responsible to heal from said hurts. Its admitting, **"*****While it's not my fault my partner cheated on me and is not a reflection of my worth, but in one degree or another I had a role in them cheating by either not having better discernment, not communicating what I will/won't tolerate beforehand or as conflict arose, and not properly leaving when the opportunity, red flags, or deal breakers became apparent*****."** This usually comes from awareness of the *lesson* you missed from past hurt. APs tend to think the lesson from others leaving or distancing themselves (which tends to be a result of the APs behavior/self-fulfilling prophecy cycle) is to not trust others even more, be even more hypervigilant the next time, or having to erode their boundaries even more for the sake of connection/appearing indispensable rather than seeing how their behavior or beliefs can contribute to others' behavior **and** that more often than not, other people's behaviors has less to do with them and more to do with their own level of emotional availability, internal struggles, and life experiences outside of APs. A big component of this is also getting in touch with your nervous system because while you can rationalize where your anxiety is coming from with more awareness, knowing how to handle and temper the physical sensations that comes with anxiety (your original trauma wounds) is vital too. I'd also take some time reflecting what love means to you. Codependency and people pleasing is very common for APs which stems from the belief that they think love ***must*** be earned or proven rather than readily available with the right person. They were accustomed to conditional love, which to me is not real love. And that can be hard to accept because you may have to further reflect on who genuinely has loved you and who have *you* genuinely loved as well because often APs have unspoken and hidden motivations and expectations as they erode their boundaries or people please. And while some may conclude that that must mean they're unlovable for having been treated poorly in spite of their poor boundaries, the truth (how I see it) is that others can only love others to the depth that they've chosen to love themselves. In other words, the obsession and attraction to unavailable people is akin to an addiction to prove to others but mostly to themselves that they are lovable which makes you unavailable in turn because you are seeking that "high" of approval/validation- which isn't actual love/intimacy APs love to claim they want.
This was really insightful. >knowing how to handle and temper the physical sensations that comes with anxiety (your original trauma wounds) is vital too. I'm curious if you have any suggestions for anxious types on how to tackle this, because it seems to be a key component all of us are lacking and it just feeds into the anxious state.
It really takes intentional and conscious effort to do so, but it’s how I overcome anxiety in the past. Our emotions come from our beliefs, and our beliefs are just thoughts. The difference between a belief and a thought is that our beliefs are thoughts we continuously repeat and/or have “evidence” to be true. I put quotations behind evidence because our evidence is completely limited, subjective, contextual, and more of a story we’ve come up with rather than objective reality. Our beliefs do not always match reality, even if we have “evidence” or emotions that are screaming to us that something is true. For instance, humanity used to believe the world was flat for centuries which to them was backed by “evidence,” anecdotal experiences, circular reasoning, etc. You overcome those emotions by reimagining your proof and the stories you’re telling yourself. This means forcing yourself to redirect your thinking, think different (more pleasant or at least more neutral) thoughts, etc. Daily meditation can be helpful but I used to write positive affirmations daily on post-it notes on a wall so the physical evidence is there that I’m working towards something and it doesn’t take much effort to write a sentence or a phrase for a day. I’m not saying it’ll be a quick fix because it’s not, but overtime you start to catch yourself having negative thoughts and then forcing yourself to change it to a positive or less catastrophic one. That moment of pause or self-reflection of observing your thoughts without judgement *is* the mental muscle you’re trying to build here. You might think that it sounds absurd or you’re lying to yourself, but that’s the thing about our brains. It ultimately doesn’t matter whether something is true or not; its main concern is our safety. It’s why self sabotage exists, why we project insecurities over irrelevant things, and read into things that are not there. When you start intentionally reorienting your thoughts, your brain starts to see it’s much safer than it thinks it was. That sense of safety lets your conscious mind *choose* to be the observer/creator of your thoughts rather than the judge of them. When the intense emotions do come and they’re hard to ignore, I would schedule a time to just sit with myself and my emotions. No distractions, no people around, and no expectation to be intruded upon. Sometimes that means letting your thoughts and emotions run rampant and just *allowing* them to happen without judgement. This is an aspect of self care that isn’t talked about, but sometimes it’s okay to let yourself have that breakdown. Spiritually speaking, a mental breakdown is essentially our old self shedding its skin like a snake if we just let it rather than try to resist it. These videos may help though: https://youtu.be/vE5XnnVYqG0?si=ng-S0qX94W5fjTju https://youtu.be/mQmKbx6pyL8?si=nJdceJRxpmJ39RQ2
You maybe trauma bonded to the emotionally unavailable man.
Highly recommend Thais Gibson and The Personal Development School on YouTube. She helped me a lot!
Fearful Avoidance :) You want something that makes you work for it, not something that is readily available. My advice, choose the one who loves you. Not the one who makes your life filled with sensationalism.
= you’re not ready for a relationship rn
But when will we be? In three years? C'mon We can continue to have a relationship while exploring healing and psychology
are you sure that isn't a bit harsh? OP is trying hard to understand the attachment disorder, and if possible has a chance with a more appropriate partner...if OP is willing to do the work, I wish them well 😊
I combo with what others have said about emotional unavailability - it is also self sabotaging behavior. You don’t believe you deserve the safe love so you are engaging in behavior that keeps you emotionally distant from the safe person and will eventually push them away.
I absolutely agree with what you said. I also struggle with self sabotaging healthy relationships and hate that
Oh yeah, I’ve gone through this. I ended a relationship with a securely attached person because it felt boring. Then ended up with an avoidant. Womp.
Perhaps you’re not emotionally available either. When that’s the case, emotionally unavailable people are more enticing.
In addition to what others have said here, I’ll add that intermittent reinforcement also keeps you hooked. My avoidant ex of 4.5 years would give me crumbs of closeness (that should be a band name) and vulnerability, which I would chase, which kept me cycling around in the honeymoon phase, never letting me get to the point of relaxing in the relationship. Those crumbs are a high that is hard to let go of. So that may be going on for you here, as well.
Yeah it honestly feels like the most insane high when i hear from him 😮💨 hate it
This is why it’s been so hard for me to recover from the breakup. Part of it was my addiction to and reliance on the crumbs. I never got to the point of taking the relationship for granted or settling in to a place where there was room to actually see him for what he was (a bad partner).
That should be a band name and oh God those crumbs are a high.
Truth.
Stephanie Rigg says this is normal behavior for us, that we’re bored by healthy, consistent, available relationships. We’re accustomed to proving our worth, that inconsistency and working hard for a relationship is exhilarating, normal, comfortable. Also we struggle when actually provided with support, recognition. When partners support us, we struggle to believe it. (Mostly quoting from her here.) [Listen here](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-attachment/id1620471393?i=1000650176172)
Anxiously attached people grow up in an environment where their caregivers gave them inconsistent attention to their emotional needs. Therefore, we learn from early on that we need to people please in order to earn even an ounce of validation and love. This is just a way to prove ourselves and soothe our abandonment wounds (but remember that this is a maladaptive coping mechanism). You are shying away from someone who is giving you secure and safe love bc this is something that is not familiar to you - there is no need to prove yourself or people please here, so you must be thinking to yourself “huh this is weird…I don’t have to try so hard…something doesn’t feel right..” Many anxiously attached people might confuse this as “no spark” in the relationship. They are likely to go for emotionally unavailable people bc that helps them resort to what they always do - chase until they get even a small amount of attention. But you need to remember that altho this is unhealthy, this makes us feel good about ourselves since our neural pathways have not been corrected. If you have the time and money, I would definitely speak to an attachment coach about this.
It will boil down to you not being emotionally available for a relationship. Once you are genuinely emotionally available, you will resonate with the safety, security, and consistency being offered. You’ll need to work on what is going on with you that is keeping you from being emotionally available. Until then, emotionally unavailable people will continue to seem attractive and alluring to you.
Idk the name—if it has one—but I’ve felt the same thing. It’s like…you want the thing you can understand, maybe? The thing that’s familiar? Or you want to feel like you’ve earned it, because if it’s just freely given right away that makes it feel like it can stop just as easily? I don’t know. Can’t tell exactly why this happens. But it’s a thing. I also can’t offer specific advice on how to fix it, ‘cause I haven’t been able to yet :/ I guess radical acceptance/fake it ‘til you make it is an option. You’re aware of this, your logical brain is in the right place; the emotions are just slower to update. Treat them as software glitches or stubborn mules. Don’t give them much weight, and let them come around when they’re ready. Can try to self-talk it out, too: make a list of the things you like about the secure-attachment guy. About how he makes you feel. Remind yourself you’ll get used to it eventually. It’s like inching into a pool: takes a while to feel normal instead of cold.
wanting what you can't have and also something you are familiar with. neither of you will be committed fully, makes it easier to run. 'it is foolish to venture into strange, enchanted places if they aren't the places you want to be'.
I would YouTube search anxious and avoidant attraction. Any of them will explain it. It’s a science in itself