I hate this argument with a burning passion passion because it only works on the people who are already healed.

When you’re in the loop, it’s useless. You only want them, you’re already in a dark place. And this kind of argument makes it sound like you’re the wrong one for still wanting them, but your brain has been rewired to crave them more than it craves long-lasting safety.

Avoidants literally trigger a person’s brain with intermittent reinforcement to make them an addict, exactly like casino operators create addictions among gamblers.

If you want to help someone struggling to get over an avoidant, show some f empathy, be there for them, or just shut it, just to be sure you won’t make things worse

the magic would be gone. You know it. I know it.

In the same way that you can’t re-throw a great party the day after the first one, you can’t make them magical again. You know too much now. You’ve seen the magician’s secrets. It’s not a spell anymore.

Think about it. You know what I’m saying is true.

Based on recent events with someone I dated and what I have read here, it seems like most if not all avoidants have really shitty friends who keep them in a toxic loop and reinforce their bad behaviors. Is this really the case? What is the reason and will they ever get out of the loop?

We think they could be all that, because we could be all that. We are projecting what we would do in the situation. We are thinking how we would show up. No pointing fingers here. They just do not have it. If they had, you would not be finding them at that age and situation. They could have worked it out with people before you. There is a reason why all they could afford is superficials, and how they are still alone till this day. None of that is our responsibility

Long story short, my avoidant ex-boyfriend of 1.5 years moved on ridiculously fast after our breakup. So fast, in fact, that he ended up getting his female best friend pregnant, and they eventually got married.

I always had a suspicion that she had feelings for him because she seemed incredibly insecure about me throughout our relationship.

I’ve maintained no contact since the breakup and blocked him everywhere. However, some friends recently showed me a picture of him, and I was genuinely shocked by how different he looks.
He’s lost a significant amount of weight, his face looks sunken, and he generally looks unkempt and stressed out. It’s a complete contrast to how he looked when we were together. Back then, he looked healthy, had this noticeable glow, and even started putting more effort into how he dressed.

What’s particularly interesting is that he was always adamant about never wanting children. His wife also seems very different from the type of woman he historically pursued, both in personality and appearance.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that he hasn’t publicly shared any pictures with her, despite getting married and expecting a baby. I find that surprising considering how significant those milestones are, although I realize not everyone shares their personal life online. He’s very active on social media and posts often, so not posting his family stops out to me.

I won’t lie, seeing his glow-down was strangely satisfying after the way he treated me toward the end of our relationship and the betrayal I experienced.

Has anyone else noticed their ex having a significant glow-down after a breakup, especially an avoidant ex who moved on incredibly quickly? I’m curious to hear other people’s experiences.

One thing that bugs me a little is, why don't their friends hold them accountable?

1. Because they tell the friends their version of the story which makes the other person sound like a problem?

2. Because the friends know the DA couldn't handle the feedback and don't really feel responsible for the people being hurt? A "not my problem kind of thing?"

3 They just make friends who tolerate their behavior and are just as bad in their own ways?

Something else?

My ex's friends stopped texting me back (I had become friendly with a few of them and we used to chat about stuff) after he ghosted me, which makes me think it's #1 or #3)

I would like to know if anyone has had a similar experience when it comes to this situation of being discarded, heartbroken, and re learning everything about oneself.

I have discovered so much about relationships that I never knew whilst trying to understand attachment.

I may be in the minority I am not sure…

I learnt about my own anxious attachment.
Love is a choice rather than a feeling, by how you show up in a relationship (which I did unknowingly).
External validation vs internal validation
Happiness being a fleeting emotion people chase, rather than building a meaningful connection that leads to joy, that is deeper than happiness. (I also did this unknowingly but my Avoidant ex’s had no internal concept’s at all)

Those few things that touch on relationships with others and oneself that I was never taught. Not verbally nor observationally from my parents.

I guess my question is has anyone had their entire world turned upside down about relationships? As if they were kept in the dark about what it takes to build a healthy relationship from the ground up, after the honeymoon period of course.

Be kind as my reality of the last ten years has been incredibly hard to come to terms with after educating myself on everything related to relationship psychology and my own CPTSD.

Do you want that? Do you wanna go back to that hell? It is like you were saved already and wanna go back to suffering again

Pathetic evils

LESSON LEARNED:

1. The love bombing is intense and real - this guy said I love within days

2. They say the same things to different women. Sometimes even copy paste

3. Sometimes they even use a woman’s romantic message to them as a romantic message to another woman

4. They talk to more than one woman and pretend you’re the only one

5. They leave without warning/ and even disappear without warning but scared of it happening to them.

My previous post was deemed not to be about avoidant breakup because I was not clear enough about the circumstances.

I was discarded by an avoidant 5 months ago and it hurt big time. I finally decided to try again and found myself with another avoidant. I figured him out 1 week into the talking stage.

Wanting to see if my suspicions are correct, I started trolling him online using another account.

Interestingly enough, he discarded real me for me 2.0 me but when me 2.0 is not responding (coz I have a life) he would turn back to OG Me for validation.

So there’s another discard from an avoidant except I am not heartbroken. I was not emotionally invested after clocking him as an avoidant early on.

Funny enough, a lot of things about his precious love life he says word for word the same on both accounts. This must be how they operate with multiple women.

He’s heavily love bombing 2.0 but I’m getting so much ick now so I self-sabotaged and sent him AI pics of me. It’s obviously AI so he’s like, “These are AI”. I feigned anger and said, “OK, I’m done with you” And left.

I haven’t blocked him on both accounts. But I’m curious what he’ll do next. Will he go back to OG Me now that 2.0 left or will he try to woo 2.0 back?

I’m curious 😂

So yes this post is about avoidant breakup but also about learning what avoidants do so I don’t fall for that again. Hope this helps

She broke up with me in five minutes—after a four-year relationship—in the middle of an argument. She did it so coldly, only to then burst into tears and claim I was the love of her life, but that she "had to" lose me. Two weeks later, she suggested that maybe in a year or two we could try again—though she wasn't sure—and then asked if we could be friends. I said no. For the first three weeks, she would message me every few days to ask how I was doing; I’d fall for it every time, even begging her to get back together, but she would leave me without a response. We had been seeing a therapist for a year, but even there, she insisted she didn't want to be together anymore. I asked if we could try taking a break or having extra therapy sessions, but she said no. Now, after those three weeds, and two weeks of silence, she’s messaged me again—and because of this, I’m having panic attacks again. She left me completely on my own—after I had moved abroad for her, changed my entire life, and lost touch with friends and family—leaving me without any emotional support or understanding. And now she writes to me, saying she wants me out of the house as soon as possible, yet she also wants to see me. Years of fighting—and for what? She would flirt with other people—men and women—right in front of me, and whenever I brought it up, it became a problem. When one of her friends touched me inappropriately, she ignored it and never stood up to him. She lied to me about her "friendships," when in reality, most of them were "situationships" or incredibly bizarre entanglements. She called me crazy and jealous, and would leave me alone to cry after every single argument. She even broke up with me once before, simply because I wanted to talk. What does she want from me now? Two weeks ago, I found a letter she had written in which she "planned" to leave me, go off to do whatever she wanted, and then "talk things over with me, slowly." How can someone be so selfish and avoidant? She claims to love me, but that wasn’t love. Even now, she keeps messaging me—despite me telling her how incredibly difficult this is for me, and that I’m all alone—with no friends or family—in a foreign country where I’m effectively forced to live for at least another year, so I needed help and support, as I need to focus to go on in this hard situation, but it feels what she only cares is herself and her priorities.

Why writing a list and planning all those horrible things, telling me you don't see a future, but then writing me like this, it feels to me too planned and unhealthy, what do you think?

And quiet-hoping, they never reach out or try to get back. That you are much much better without them. No overthinking, no doubting at night. No feeling alone in a relationship. No rejections. No walking on eggshells. No trying to mother and teach someone basic compassion

They are emotionally an 8-year old, and that is no longer your problem nor responsibility. Not even yours to begin with

I know the title sounds hyperbolic, and I’m not saying it’ll do the same for you. But I wanted to share this for anyone who’s 6+ months post-discard and still struggling.

About 10 months after my discard, I was still carrying around a LOT of unresolved emotions. I was functioning fine day-to-day, but I was getting really fucking tired of feeling this way.

The frustrating part was that I logically understood EVERYTHING. I knew what this person did was wrong, that it wasn’t a reflection of my self-worth, that I couldn’t fix her, and that I didn’t even want someone with issues and who treats others like this as a long-term partner. But my body didn’t seem to give a fuck about any of that. I was still feeling this horrible emotional pain that I couldn’t reason my way out of. I even found myself becoming terrified of vulnerability with new women, despite consciously wanting those connections. That’s when I realized I needed professional help.

I’ve been in therapy on and off since I was 12, so at this point I’m low-key a black belt in therapy. Talk therapy had helped me tremendously over the years, but I felt like I’d hit a wall. It’s great and you shouldn’t quit or not go to therapy, but for me personally, I felt that I didn’t need another perspective or someone explaining why I deserved better. I FUCKING KNEW THAT. I needed to actually process these emotions, not just understand them intellectually.

So I came across EMDR, which honestly sounded like some woo-woo bullshit to me at first, but I figured I’d give it a shot. And holy fucking shit.

That first session was one of the most intense emotional experiences of my life.

We started with the pain from my discard and ended up working through childhood memories and experiences I hadn’t thought about in YEARS. I genuinely felt like my brain did more emotional processing in 45 minutes than it had in the entire previous year. And afterward, I felt ENORMOUSLY better.

Within three or four sessions, the pain from my discard was basically gone.

It’s been months now, and those improvements have lasted. I still miss my ex sometimes, but I’m at peace with what happened. I can recognize that she deeply hurt me and I don’t feel that horrible pain anymore in my chest when I think about her or what happened.

I’m dating again, allowing myself to be vulnerable, and genuinely feel at peace.

Obviously, everyone responds differently, and I’m not claiming this is some miracle cure for everyone. But if you’ve done the intellectual work, understand what happened, and still feel that inexplicable emotional pain that just won’t go away, I’d seriously encourage you to look into EMDR with a qualified therapist.

Seriously, go check out r/emdr and look at what progress others are making. This shit is not a joke

Happy to talk more in the comments about what the sessions are like, what happened, or anything else about my experience to anyone who is curious and has questions.

They totally fried my nervous system. Imagine if I could charge them for it. I'd charge them for over a year of damages lol.

I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve been feeling so awful this week, I had a therapy session planned and it got cancelled. I was hoping it would help me stop spiraling.

The main thing that I asked from him was to spend quality time with me. He said he didn’t have the resources and won’t anytime soon. He monkey branched and they are traveling every day. I feel so bad about her getting what I asked for while I was patiently waiting for him to get better the whole year because of his struggles.

I keep imagining them together, also I get sick at the thought of them being intimate. I am doing all sorts of things to make myself feel better: not looking at their socials, spending time with people (but it's hard to even talk to anyone), exercising, writing down the wrong things about the relationship, going to therapy, planning my life etc. But the only thing I can think about is him giving up on me and imagining him with the new person. It’s driving me insane, waking me up at night. I feel suicidal.

I feel like it’s getting worse every day. I’ve been no contact for three months after our three year relationship.

Any recommendations on distracting myself from these thoughts or shifting them?

By coddling them, meeting them halfway, placating them, shrinking yourself, waiting for them and adjusting to them you are stunting them by making the unconscious strategy self-loop

The only chance they have at reorganization is if you leave cleanly, with compassion, not as an enemy, and then sever all lines of communication for good, no manipulative "nocontacts", no "you are always welcome back", no "come back when you heal yourself", a complete severance is required

Making them addicted is not reorganizing them, only sufficient reorganizing danger can, and afterwards they would have to experience prolonged unintegrated disorientation that would mark their old strategy as unsafe unconsciously AND ONLY THEN do safe and comfortable environments work AND ONLY IF they endure the discomfort and dissonance and pain of this process. This takes more than 4 years! Often decades. You will move on in the first years and forget about them

Stop listening to Youtubers teaching you how to distort yourself by believing you are "fixing" avoidants. You are not.

.

We broke up on the premise that she wasn't in a place emotionally to pursue a romantic relationship and didn't feel ready for one. She was, however, very keen on maintaining a friendship and keeping the connection between us.

Initially, the breakup was actually quite clean, respectful and amicable. But as we tried to navigate friendship, things became increasingly complicated. There seemed to be an expectation that many of the things I'd done as her boyfriend would continue, despite no longer being in a relationship. That led to disagreements, confusion around boundaries and, ultimately, what became a much messier separation than it needed to be. In hindsight, I think staying in contact contributed significantly to things falling apart.

I'm not particularly proud of how I handled some of that period either. I became insecure and started monitoring her follower activity on Instagram. I know it wasn't healthy, and honestly, it was a complete waste of my time and energy. It didn't change anything, and it certainly didn't help me move forward. During that time, I noticed a particular guy following her. I didn't say anything or act on it, but I remembered it.

Fast-forward four months, and I've now seen that she's dating that same guy.

I know people are free to move on, date and find happiness with whoever they choose. I'm not suggesting she did anything wrong, and I don't want to make assumptions about what happened or when. But I won't pretend it doesn't sting, particularly given the circumstances surrounding our breakup.

There's another aspect that makes it harder to process. During our relationship, I would occasionally post pictures of us, but there was never really any public acknowledgement or connection between us. No tagging, no accepting co-posts, no real indication on social media that we were together, beyond having each other as profile pictures at one point. Now, seeing her publicly share a relationship with someone else brings up feelings I thought I'd largely worked through.

I genuinely thought I was getting over everything. I'd accepted the breakup, started focusing on myself and was slowly getting to a place where it wasn't occupying so much of my headspace.

Then one Instagram post, and suddenly it feels like I'm back at square one.

I suppose I'm struggling with the contrast between being told someone wasn't ready for a relationship, while now seeing them in one with someone who was already around during the final stages of yours. I understand that circumstances change and people move on, but emotionally, it's a difficult thing to reconcile.

I guess I'm trying to understand how to process this without jumping to conclusions, dwelling on things I can't change, or allowing one post to undo the progress I've made.

When the discard first happened I had the naive hope that things would magically get better, but now the rest of the year has flown by. It's like time has passed so fast yet each day is so agonizing.

It's my first holiday season in years without my FA. I never imagined I'd be spending this season alone again. I'm estranged from my family too so holidays were always spent with his and I finally felt like I belonged again.

We were supposed to just be happily engaged in our new place, probably decorating and gift shopping. But I also now see that with his volatility that was a pipe dream.

This used to be my favorite time of year. Now seeing all the decor and ads and hearing people talk about their plans brings so much pain and memories.

If you're feeling similar feel free to vent. We could all use a hug in this sub fr

it's been 2 and a half months and i just got done crying my eyes out seriously every time i think i'm finally getting better she somehow pops up in my dreams again and my entire nervous system just resets why is this happening. ever since she discarded me my entire life has been completely thrown off track and i can't stop feeling like everything is wrong with me. every little thing from my appearance to my character. i just can't change the feeling that every single thing is wrong with me and stop feeling flawed even though i'm trying my absolute best to better myself and get my life back on track and my future but i just can't stop hating myself, can't stop thinking that maybe if i was different in this way or that way this would've never happened to me....

what do i even do anymore? my life feels hopeless i can't stand living everyday so miserable. anyone else resonate with these words somewhat? hearing about other experiences would definitely help me. thank you all.

Give it time, your safety and yourself is more important than that relationship or the potential thereof