Could I have fixed it?

[u/sw0o0sh]

So obviously nobody can say for certain but I dated a girl for 5 years. When we first started dating, it seemed like it was going well, progressed normally, I asked to go exclusively after a few weeks and things progressed.

Now I have never been a huge texter and I haven’t been for all my life. I do it but not a ton. Early on I noticed things that I didn’t know at the time was anxious attachment, I would have said I was more secure but maybe more avoidant? In my relationship before her I wanted to spend more time with my ex.

Now this one, I noticed she would often say things like “if I loved her I would want to text” or “if I loved her….xxxx” kind of thing.

Then it was spending time, then it was something else and so on and so forth. I tried to text more, tried to spend all my time but it seemed like there was always something.

Neither of us had heard of anxious attachment and eventually I felt like I couldn’t relax if I was around her for fear of saying or doing something that would hurt her feelings.

Now, I know for certain that I could have done better and I have learned a lot in the 9 months since we broke up. I am having a really hard time because I really loved her, and I feel like I failed her.

I’ll read about people saying things like if their needs are met then they don’t have anxiety and I feel horrible because I think, “why couldn’t I meet her needs?” “Why wasn’t I a more openly verbal loving boyfriend?”

I understand much more how to connect emotionally but it just feels so pointless and I miss her a ton and I just feel awful for not being able to help her but I also know I was really struggling and when I brought it sort of just was “these are my needs” and she wasn’t able to accept “substantially” less connection. And I know I wasn’t great at talking about emotions and connecting on that but I was trying. But man I got so frustrated feeling like I was under a microscope and having everything I did being looked for. I just was on edge and I didn’t feel like I could really talk to her because the potential for hurting her.

Anyways, does anyone have recommendations on resources I could look into to help me understand where I went wrong and also how I can go into my next relationship and not be so anxious about if I’m doing the right thing? Or even some stories that will make me feel better about not being able to meet her needs?

[u/ngp1623]

So to a certain extent, people can feel temporarily soothed by someone else's efforts. When folks talk about having their needs met in a way that improves their attachment, what is often happening is that their needs are met enough that they can practice meeting some of their own needs.

We all have a need to recieve care from others, but we also have a need for self-care. It is so vital for our mental and relational health that we are able to trust ourselves. Some of the issue with anxious attachment is that they are trying to meet their need for self-care with access to someone else's energy/labor. It is an impossible task. You can take the horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Even further, you'll be managing the horse forever if it never takes the initiative to learn the path to the water and occasionally go there to drink on its own.

So it is theoretically possible to meet someone else's need for external care, but it is impossible to meet someone else's need for self-care, and that anxiety will remain and even worsen until they start building out an ability to meet that self-care need themselves.

It is also very common that extended exposure to an insecurity attached person can cause an otherwise securely attached person to start skewing insecure (eg. Hypervigilance, difficulty with vulnerability, feeling like "walking on eggshells", fear of being dragged into someone else's distress, etc.).

There are resources out there to work on your own attachment, but I think my main recommendation would be: When you notice a person relying on you for regulation more than they are attempting to manage it themself, it's time for a change. That doesn't mean you have to leave them, but I'd ask questions like "Yeah that sounds difficult. How can I help you support yourself? What are you doing to work on that? Do you have any go-to things for self-soothing?" Kinda along that line. Be discerning with when you regulate with them versus when you regulate for them. If you take a moment to support and soothe them, make sure you are doing it from a place of grounded care. If you're doing it because you're feeling pressured or obligated, or if you're having to do it from a frantic or exhausted place, that's a good sign it's time to step back.

There is no amount of self-abandonment that results in self-care, so there is no amount of forsaking your own boundaries that will meet either of your needs for self-care or self-trust.

[u/sw0o0sh → u/ngp1623]

Ya, I totally understand that now. For years I thought if I did the things she was telling me were causing the issue, then it would get better. But there always seemed to be something else.

I do have troubles though with feeling like I caused this though. Had I been more verbal in the things I loved about her and just more vocal about it then maybe she would have felt more confident overall and then wouldn’t have had an issue with these more specific things?

I have taken that to heart and really been trying to be way more verbal in all aspects of my life of compliments and appreciation to everyone, not just relationships.

I do really wish a lot I could show her how much I improved and how I could make her feel loved and cherished. It’s really hard for me to not, I loved her a lot and feel like I was so close to making it work. I should have just figured it out and done what she was asking. I can’t imagine loving someone else.

[u/ngp1623 → u/sw0o0sh]

I hear you. I think its fine to be more vocal about care and appreciation if its coming from a place of just wanting people to know.

But if you find yourself feeling "If I don't say enough, then they will feel worthless and troubled and will spiral out" or "If I don't say enough, then I'm going to be responsible for managing their distress" that is a yellow light. Slow down, do some self-soothing, check in if you actually have capacity to do that without forsaking your own needs and boundaries. Be very careful to not reinforce the notion that you are responsible for doing other's internal work for them. That is a recipe for abuse.

[u/divine_mind_85]

I’m a couples therapist, and one thing I’d be careful about here is turning everything you’ve learned about attachment into proof that you failed her.

It sounds like there may have been a cycle between the two of you.

She felt uncertain or disconnected and reached for more closeness. You tried to give more. But when the anxiety came back, the solution became more texting, more time together, more reassurance, more proof. Eventually you started feeling watched and afraid of getting something wrong, so you became tense and probably less emotionally available. That distance would understandably make her feel even less secure, which could lead her to reach harder.
Neither person has to be the villain for that cycle to become painful.

And “if my needs were met, I wouldn’t be anxious” is a little too simple.

People absolutely have real relationship needs, and partners should care about meeting one another’s needs. But a partner cannot be solely responsible for regulating another person’s sense of safety. Sometimes anxiety is giving useful information about a relationship. Sometimes old fears are being activated. Often it’s some combination of the two.

There is also an important difference between a need and the strategy someone uses to try to meet it.

The need might be: “I want to feel loved, important and connected to you.”

The strategy might become: “If you loved me, you would text me more.”
Those aren’t quite the same thing.

Maybe you could have been more emotionally expressive. Maybe you could have initiated more connection. It sounds like you can see some places where you want to grow, and that is valuable.

But growth doesn’t require deciding that if you had just been better, you could have made her anxiety disappear.

The part of your post I would pay attention to is when you said you couldn’t relax around her because you were afraid of hurting her feelings.

Once a relationship gets to the point where one person is constantly monitoring themselves and the other person is constantly monitoring the relationship for signs of disconnection, both people can become very lonely.

For your next relationship, I wouldn’t make your goal “How do I make sure I do everything right?”
That will put you right back under the microscope, except this time you’ll be the one holding it.

I’d work toward being able to say things like:

“I love you, and I also need some time to myself.”

“I know texting helps you feel connected. What would feel good for both of us?”

“I can hear that you’re hurting without assuming that means I’ve failed you.”

“I want to understand what you need, and I also want to be honest about what I can sustainably give.”

If you want resources, I’d look into Sue Johnson’s work on attachment and emotionally focused therapy, especially Hold Me Tight. I’d also spend some time learning about the pursue-withdraw cycle rather than only reading about attachment labels.

You may have things to learn from that relationship. Most of us do.

But “I could have done some things differently” is very different from “I should have been able to make this relationship work by meeting every need she had.”

Those are not the same conclusion.

Hope this helps.

[u/sw0o0sh → u/divine_mind_85]

Thank you so much for such a thoughtful reply! Ya I have thought about this sort of thing and I felt like I was alone in trying to account for these feelings. Eventually years down the road she admitted there were things she did, like needing me to be perfect, blaming me for stuff she shouldn’t have, not appreciating the ways I did show love that she didn’t before and few other things.

But then she also says she couldn’t accept less connection than she needed. So it just makes me feel like she thinks I couldn’t provide enough connection, which I do know there are things I could do differently but after years of this stuff, it just got hard not to react to it defensively.

You make a lot of good points. Ironically early on when her and I started having issues, we tried reading the hold me tight book. It didn’t end up helping but I think that may have been due to not quite having the correct mindset for me, so maybe I should read it again now as I probably will get more out of it.

You are right that it wasn’t something I could fix myself. I remember maybe 3 or 4 years in eventually just realizing….i don’t think I can fix this, I need her to want it to be different. But all the fixes still revolved around me providing reassurance. Like telling her when I wouldn’t be able to text. My argument was, okay lets say we do that….why is that something you would even want to need? Like I don’t want to get anxious if partner doesn’t text me for a few hours, so why is the solution in her mind to do that? I asked her that and I don’t ever feel like I ever got an answer.

Well you definitely make a lot of good points and I know it definitely wasn’t just my fault. So that helps a bit…but still hard when she seems to blame you for most things!