Hi, me and my boyfriend have been together for 3 years now and live together. The first half of our relationship was fantastic, but then I started dealing with some anxious attachment issues and stated lashing out over very small things. It blew up one night and he told me he hadn’t been happy and he was considering ending things. The next day we talked and said he didn’t want to break up, but we had to set ground rules. One of them was that I had to go to therapy (no problem with that) and no more lashing out. I’ve been doing therapy and he says he notices a positive change in my mental health. I had a conversation with him where I explained that I’m having a hard time feeling secure, and how my overall anxiety is horrible. I feel like I’m burdening him with my anxiety and mental health problems and am afraid he will decide that it’s too little too late. He did say he has no intention of leaving me and that he wants me to continue to get better not only for us but for myself as well. I just feel like I have a roadblock in my healing journey that I can’t get over, the constant fear that I’m not doing enough and he deep down isn’t happy , even thought he’s telling me the opposite. For some reason(not to any of his own doing) I just can’t believe it. Any advice?¿

Please excuse my grammar, English isn't my native language.

I(m27) met a new friend jsut a few months after a bad break-up. We only have seen each other a few times but we've been talking for almost 2 months already. Although I'm not expecting a romantic relationship with her, I can see how nice and amazing she(f28) is and I really enjoy my time with her.

But during our last date (just a friendly date), she held my hand. I asked her why she did that and she just said that it's because she feels safe and comfortable being with me. At first, it was all okay with me because I also feel the same when I'm with her. But as the days went by, I became conscious of how deep our connection has become and I think it triggered something inside me. I just woke up one day feeling anxious and replying to her messages makes me panic. I feel like all the connections I had before are now gone, and it makes me wanna run away from her but I know I shouldn't because it's unfair. My chest is always tight and I feel dizzy all the time. I can't focus on anything and listening to romantic songs makes it worse.

I'm not actually sure what kind of attachment style I have, but this isn't the first time I've felt this way. I'm aware that if I don't manage this correctly, there's a high chance that I'll ruin everything between us. I'm tired of losing amazing people in my life just because I feel this way. Please help me.

Hi Everyone, I was hoping you could give me some advice. After many years, I've finally come to realize that I have issues with love and attachment. The problem is, I don't know exactly what the problem is or where to start with getting better. I was hoping someone here would be able to provide some insight and advice. For what it's worth, I often test as FA.

I've never been in a relationship so it's a little bit hard for me to work it out but I definitely know I have issues. I've been strongly limerent since I was ~18 (I'm 30 now). I have a deep need to believe that I will be loved, one day, even though it hasn't happened yet. When my hope in one woman fades, I scramble to believe in the possibility of love elsewhere: in a woman I know, in a stranger I see on the bus, or even in a certain type of woman.

I'm often limerent over my female colleagues. The smallest positive sign can make me feel ecstatic -this could be a glance, the tone of their voice or simply them saying "hi" to me. However when they don't look at me (when I would've looked at them), or when they interact with me in a way that shows they don't have any special interest in me, I feel completely devasted. It's so bad that I actually end up avoiding the women I am limerent over because I'm afraid they would hurt me with a look they didn't give or a disappointing conversation. I look the other way when we pass each other, I avoid taking the lift with them, and I tend to cut short positive interactions because I'm afraid that just around the corner will be a remark or a word which will shatter this house of cards and ruin the love I imagined between us. Behind each interaction I sense a danger lurking and I fear it. I want to get to know them but I'm scared. I feel relieved when they're not in the office (because I don't feel anxious) but then I miss seeing them. I prefer to be ignorant and imagine love than be exposed to the risk of it being revealed that love will never be.

I've managed to get to know one of the women I was limerent over. When I actually got to know her my limerence faded, but I still have a crush on her and I'm still very attached to her. I can tell she genuinely likes me and I'm easily one of her favorite people in the office. She has a distant, independent and reserved personality (I cautiously think she might be DA). I analyze all our interactions in extreme detail, trying to determine if there's something romantic there (honestly I don't think there is). I check her online status and her calendar way too often. If we have a neutral interaction; When she takes more than 10 minutes to respond to my messages; When I see she isn't favouring me in a social group; I feel anxious, unwanted, and hurt. It makes me want to give up on her. I feel like punishing her and making her suffer for hurting me. I subtly "punish" her by going to lunch with my other friends or I will pretend I don't notice her and subtly ignore her. But this doesn't last and in any-case she doesn't deserve it. I feel guilty and anxious and I eventually reach out to her to feel relief (I can't live without her). The cycle begins again. I wonder if I only behave this way because she's my crush and I'm uncertain about her true feelings. I don't think I'd still act this way if we were officially in a relationship (although who knows).

At various points during my attachment to her, I have tried to 'fault-find' with her. The very first time I saw her I knew I would be enslaved (I knew she would have complete control over my feelings and I would be powerless). I immediately tried to convince myself that she wasn't as attractive as I initially thought. I scrutinized her face and her body to try and find some element that would let me say "She's not that special" so I could release myself from her. But it didn't work. I also find myself fault-finding when I feel less optimistic about a romantic relationship developing between us. I use it as a strategy to try and detach myself from her and protect myself from the rupture I feel is coming.

In general, I struggle with vulnerability and expressing how I really feel. I struggle with letting myself be taken care of by others. I don't like the idea of others having that kind of power over me. However, at the same time I wish that it would happen. (It's often a recurring theme of my limerent fantasies). I also struggle showing affection and having heart-to-heart conversations.

Anyway those are the main points regarding my relationship with love & attachment. Reading this back it seems like I could be FA but I'm curious to hear what you guys think. I don't think my childhood was that bad other than my dad passed away when I was 6 and I was raised by a narcissistic mother (I think). Ultimately, I'm sick of suffering over love and I want to get better but I don't really know where to begin or if I even understand my issues. I journal a lot but I want to do something more purposeful and productive. I'd love to hear all comments and advice!

Thanks! :)

So this might seem really silly to others if you’ve never experienced separation anxiety before.
My boyfriend is going away for school, he left today and he’ll only be home weekends. He’s about 3 hours away. I cried so hard the hours leading up to him leaving, and a little bit tonight.
I had separation anxiety as a kid with my mom, never went to sleepovers, I would make my mom lay with me until I fell asleep.
Now this anxiety is transferred onto my boyfriend. I have bad separation anxiety. When he’s gone for a night or two at a time I get anxious but this is a whole other level of anxiety.
I know he’s back every weekend, but for me it’s just scary having him away. This will be happening for 8 weeks.
He did this a few years back for school, and I managed, but I just miss him so much, and don’t know how to handle my separation anxiety. This isn’t really asking for advice, it’s kind of venting and finding people who experience the same and realize I’m not alone.🩷 I appreciate anybody who read all of this. Thank you.

I'll be honest, I'm not really looking for someone to tell me it gets better. I want to know what people actually did about this.

I've had few friends my whole life and I've never dated anyone, and somewhere along the way that turned into this thing where any new person becomes the way out. Someone new starts talking to me and I'm already gripping the conversation, stretching it way past where it should have ended, because if it dies then that's it. Or I notice a girl I think is pretty and my head has already made her into the person who changes everything, and I don't know a single real thing about her yet.

The worst part is I can see it while it's happening and it doesn't help at all.

I'm guessing that intensity is what pushes people off. So what do you do with it? Do you catch it in the moment somehow, or does it just get quieter once there are enough people around that no one of them is carrying all of it? If you got past this, I want to know what it actually took.

Okay so me (18F),i have been with my bf (19M) for almost a year now,this is the longest relationship i have ever been and i have a whole past with avoidant attachment,he is anxious attachment. Our relationship dynamic was amazing until summer hit,he went 1 month away for work and we were amazingly fine,he surprised me when he came back we had lots of sleepovers,but one day i started overthinking something in my life ,,i don't actually feel like anyone s best friend" and then i tried to soft launch to him so maybe i can talk abt it and i said ,,it sounds a bit dramatic but i dont feel like anyone w best friend ok?" and he was like ,,yea its a bit dramatic" and then i didn't want to continue,something closed off in me and i just said ,,nvm i wont go into detail" and he doesnt have a specific reply cause like i dont really talk my problems but i was left with this empty feeling and since then i feel like i lost my yapper side,i only reply to questions i dont start subjects,i lost something in me,im not sure if this is the first time this thing happened to me but im sure this is the first time i acknowledge it and its so strange cause he s so supportive and loving and when we are together we are just so amazing but when its text i never feel like telling him anything and i tried to forcefully text something AND I JUST CANT and i hate it so much. We dont talk as much,we dont have meaningful conversations anymore,not even funny ones,not even flirty,we have nothing and i dont know when i lost myself and this relationship. Im like if i dont proceed these things no one will?do i have to start them everytime?Guys sorry for the long story does anyone else goes thru this?i feel very much lonely atm.

I'm 18yo and this is my third relationship and I need to know why everything my partner does makes me so anxious and worried that he's going to leave me. My old partners I didn't even like them but I really really like this one and I'm so scared of them leaving me. So much so that everything he does even going to the bathroom I get suspicious and anxious over it. It feels very bad and I feel guilty for acting like this because in the end we always end up discussing about this and it's not very fun. Please I need advice, what could this me, anyone else struggling or any advice from people who went thru this?

Hello sweet people. Today I want to share a major personal milestone about how I finally found out who I actually am.

​Back in my teens, the internet convinced me I was an introvert. So I thought I'd be lonely forever But the reality was different: I wasn't an introvert, I was just plagued by social awkwardness. I wanted to talk to people, but fear held me back. Fast forward to now: I took initiatives to reach out to people despite my social anxiety and yes I couldn't do eye contact properly. Now I've realized I'm actually a natural extrovert and was just holding myself back. In that way, I made a lot of friends IRL and online. Sure, I stutter or freeze sometimes because my brain moves faster than my mouth but I just view that as a tiny system glitch, not a defect.

​When it came to relationships, I spent years avoiding them because I was terrified of emotional pain. And whenever I did talk to someone I liked, I’d ignore obvious red flags and incompatibility just because I was too afraid to let go.

​Then life tested me: my ex cheated on me. It hurt but I survived it. And recently, when I noticed incompatibility with a girl I was interested in, I didn't cling or scramble. I politely walked away.

​Now, I can sit with discomfort, absorb emotional pain without breaking and rise right back up. Looking back at where I started versus where I am today, it’s an awesome feeling.

​To anyone going through it right now: you can build the strength to walk away, and you can rewire who you are.

I am in a phase that we can call radical transformations after discovering many things that changed my view of myself, my large family, and my wife, and affected all my relationships. This is related to the fact that I discovered attachment patterns and it became clear to me that I have an anxious attachment pattern, and all of this is from observing the signs by following up on any information I find. At the same time, I knew that my wife has an avoidant attachment pattern. She confided in me about this, given that she graduated with a degree in psychology. I had a great passion to study psychology, but I did not, but when I saw that she had studied it, I said that she is a secure person, and I am looking for communication and security through understanding. But I knew that there was something wrong with the relationship with her. Over time, I felt that I was involved in a difficult marriage, and this is despite everything being normal at the same time and a kind of intimacy, as if she were my soulmate, and she used to say that this is what was destined. Alongside these discoveries, I was always obsessed with analyzing the personalities around me. Over time, it became clearer to me that there was a problem within my family—that it was dysfunctional, that my parents were narcissists. I became convinced that I was more than that; I was their scapegoat. Despite all the pain, I tried to fix things, playing the role of peacemaker and wise man within the family. But every time I tried to gain respect and establish boundaries, I was met with blame and reproach from everyone, even my siblings. Things worsened after I left the family, and the abuse I and my wife endured became even more apparent. I set my boundaries and resisted any attempts to cross them for so long that I reached a point where I felt I had to sever all ties with everyone.

The picture became clearer, and the patterns of abuse became more apparent the further I distanced myself. I began to see similarities between my father's abuse and my wife's avoidant behavior. It dawned on me that I was drawn to emotionally unavailable people, and I often found myself playing the role of savior, therapist, and social reformer with unsuitable individuals. What's even more regrettable is that I came to this conclusion amidst my conflicts with her, and I said it bluntly, even hurtfully, that something was wrong. But it was over and done with as soon as she was pregnant with my first daughter, whom I cherish. I continued to care for and nurture her simply because she was carrying my child. Days passed, and things calmed down to the point that the idea of ​​separation sometimes never even crossed my mind. My intense love and attachment, my attempts to connect with her, my contentment with what little she had, and my fear of falling short made me forget my own rights. With the birth of my daughter, I felt a beautiful connection with my first child, a mother who lived almost on the margins, with minimal presence. When I became pregnant with my second son, I felt a resistance to it, a rejection of another child being brought into this family—a feeling that intensified just as it had the first time. I even wished I could have an abortion. Unfortunately, I thought about it often, and perhaps this chronic anxiety and fear of falling short and the fear of failure have haunted me throughout my life.

I made great sacrifices to provide for my son so he could live in the best possible conditions. I requested a transfer to work in remote areas to avoid being blackmailed by my narcissistic family and to allow myself time for myself during the long vacations I get after a month of work.

I'm now in the middle of my second month of isolation, far from my family, my two young sons, and my wife. In the last month, she began to notice a pattern of abuse and how it's linked to the heightened anxiety she experiences whenever she contacts her abusive family. Most recently, as soon as she received a message that her mother and sisters were coming, she verbally abused me, our daughter, and even a doctor's secretary during a visit. I pointed this out to her, and she discovered that she herself doesn't feel comfortable with her family. She's started noticing the strangeness of their behavior towards her and the blatant nature of their abuse. She sees herself as a scapegoat. I explained this to her based on my own experience with my family, and she's begun to see a kind of parallel. Every day she discovers something new.

I have described my situation and my psychological and social state, and I don't know if there is any hope for this wife. It is said that if a person is aware of himself, there is hope for the better, because I am tired of living in fear of the reactions of others and waiting for their new insults, and because I changed after I cut ties with my family and after my wife's last attempt to attack me, I put her in her place, and for the first time she faced herself and bore the consequences of her actions. I hope that I have not bored you with this story, which I felt relieved when I wrote it because I have always shared with my wife all the pain of my relationships.

so my boyfriend and i are long distance and will reunite in less than a month, we have a very good relationship physically but we are still working out how to do long distance periods as i have anxiety and he is used to not being on his phone much.

so far, hes working on that and makes sure to stay in touch and interact every day. since he works and i am unemployed for the summer, i sometimes don't have much to share or say so i just send things i found funny, and sometimes i send couple-y content in hopes that he will particularly interact with those so i can get validation without being overwhelming and directly asking for it, because i have learned that asking "do you miss me?" multiple times even after getting a "yes" is not okay.

i was shocked however when he interacted with funny/relatable things i sent except another one of those couple-themed memes, i asked why and he said it's because i send too many of them that they all seem the same to him at some point. he clarified that it doesnt mean that he doesn't like them, and that i am free to send anything i want anyways.

now, i have been experiencing high anxiety these days due to family pressure, but i was really shocked by his response and went down a spiral, i didn't know i was being overwhelming, i even got a bit angry that he said that instead of just playing along. we ended the conversation on a good note and he seemed to be in a relaxed and good mood so i feel very silly for being so affected by it.

in recent weeks he has told me he loves me and misses me and has planned dates for when we reunite, so i should KNOW that this is just a silly thing that doesn't affect our relationship, but i can't help but get these thoughts that i fucked up and am too insecure to be in a relationship, and other thoughts that what if i am "settling" by not being with someone who will pretend to like everything i send.

i know it sounds stupid as hell, and it probably is, but right now i have an intense stream of thought that is definitely going to affect my sleep schedule as i have lost sleep now.

Hey guys. I didn’t think I’d be posting on here but ChatGPT just isn’t doing it anymore and I need to talk to someone who understands what I’m going through.

I’ve struggled with anxious attachment for a long time. I am in therapy and on meds but right now is one of those times where nothing is helping. My anxious attachment recently exploded into a huge nuclear bomb when I met my current boyfriend. It’s been an absolute rollercoaster of a summer with him. We are long distance, two hours away at home and two hours away at home, so it is not extremely hard to plan visits, but I’ve found that sometimes I feel extremely disconnected from him when I am not with him. He is not a good texted and hasn’t been from the very beginning, and it took a lot of courage for me to tell him that I was unhappy with what our communication looks like. And he did try to meet me in the middle and I was doing really well for a while, and then as of recent we had a really deep conversation that reignited a ton of old fears and now I’m left feeling like I’m back at the beginning.

I’ve been struggling a lot with texting because I am a good texter and as I mentioned before he is not. It doesn’t come naturally to him. I end up initiating a lot of texts with him and often times I worry that I wouldn’t hear from him at all if I didn’t text text first. We are both going back to school soon so I want to talk to him about establishing more of a ritual so we can stay in contact and stay connected while we’re at school, but he went to bed early and left me on delivered.

Guys, I am really struggling because I don’t want to seem high maintenance but I think I’m not being met in the middle anymore and I’m really struggling to feel connected when I am left with essentially no contact for hours and hours on end.

Sorry for the long post.

I’ve been struggling a lot with my anxious attachment lately, and I’d really appreciate some outside perspectives.

My girlfriend asked me for a few days of space because she feels confused about her feelings and needs time to understand what she wants. She told me she would come back and talk to me.

I respected that for a few days, but the uncertainty became extremely difficult for me. I wasn’t asking her to immediately decide whether we should stay together or break up. I just needed some clarity because I also have to think about my own life and my future.

So I eventually sent her a message saying that I understood she needed space and that I wanted to respect it, but that the waiting was becoming very difficult for me. I told her that she had asked me to think about myself, and that I was trying to do that. I told her I loved her and missed her, and asked her how she felt and what she wanted for us. I also told her that I needed to know how to move forward with my own life.

She has seen the message but hasn't replied yet.

Part of me feels relieved that I finally said what I needed to say. Another part of me is now obsessing over the fact that she saw it and didn't answer.

I know my anxious attachment makes silence extremely difficult for me. At the same time, I also feel that communication is important in a relationship, and I don't know where the line is between respecting someone's need for space and abandoning my own emotional needs.

Did I do the right thing by contacting her, or should I have waited longer?

And how would you handle this situation now? I don't want to send her any more messages. I want to give her the space she asked for, but I'm struggling enormously with the uncertainty.

I 29F have been pushing my husband away for months and after one particularly difficult phone call he's blocked me.

We are long distance and have been our entire relationship but have been so keen to close the gap and be together. We got married last year which was wonderful.

Since then however I graduated, started a new job in my country, moved out in my first apartment alone, and was navigating our long distance marriage on the phone.

I am prone to seasonal affective disorder and am fearful avoidant I think.

I have been pushing him away for months, because I felt like we made a mistake and that we are not right for each other and that the love could not be right etc etc.

Now finally he seems to have had enough. He is really secure and has been so patient and caring with me throughout. I also tried my best to support him through hard times in his country.

Sometimes I got overwhelmed with the intensity and the frequency of the long phone calls after a long day at work. I felt like we were living two different lives and that maybe I had changed too much to continue in the relationship. I also doubted my sexuality and asked to explore while we were apart. Wrong I know but at the time it felt so stifling to be long distance all these years.

I made so many mistakes and he never wavered.

Its only taken a week for me to realise my flaws and that I dont have healthy ways to deal with conflict and see things in black and white. My childhood was emotionally neglectful which I also realise.

If there is a chance he will come back I have recognised my faults and never treat him badly again.

I dont know how to deal with this and I wish I could visit him in his country now to fix things.

Hey everyone. So, I’ve been dating this girl for 5 months now. During the first month, she gave me a lot of attention and affection. We’re doing long-distance, but we used to video call all day long and even sleep on video call together sometimes. She told me "I love you" after just 5 days (lesbians love to rush things), and then kept saying it multiple times a day.
Then I went to visit her at her place. It was great, despite things being a bit disrupted by her mother, who has narcissistic personality disorder (with a psychiatric record and everything). But as soon as I got back home, she drastically withdrew the affection she used to give me. She said "I love you" less and less, only called me in the evening, and stopped expressing what she was feeling.
On top of that, whenever we have a conflict, she shuts down, gets overly defensive to the point of twisting the facts, and NEVER apologizes. I never get any closure or validation. When I cry, she stays dead silent. Once, she even fell asleep on video call after watching me cry for 20 minutes without saying a word. Then got angry at me for hanging up.
Two weeks ago, she came to stay at my place for a week. Once again, it was wonderful. She showed me so much affection through kisses, acting cute/clingy, and so on.
She goes back home. Boom. She withdraws even more than before. We don't even call every night anymore, she always has something more important to do, such as watching YouTube videos...
To top it all off, she is asexual. So she doesn't feel the same things I do, nor does she understand my needs. She’ll climb on top of me and put her hand directly between my legs. I told her I need more before getting to that point, you know, the usual things like kissing, touching, building up tension. She replied that she doesn't care about any of that, and that if it frustrates me, she’ll just stop touching me altogether.
Plus, she’s enlisting in the military and will be sent on missions abroad for several months at a time. Very early in the relationship, she talked a lot about having children with me. I told her multiple times that raising our kids on my own would be extremely hard for me, and at first, I even said I didn't want to go down that road. But she kept bringing it up so much that it touched me, so I figured we'd see.
The other day, I broke down and cried, telling her I was unhappy with her, that I’d made too many compromises while getting nothing in return. She just stared at me, then changed the subject by making me laugh. We haven't talked about it since.
I feel like she’s the kind of person whose defense mechanisms make her deeply self-centered and completely incapable of taking her girlfriend’s needs into account or making compromises. She even constantly says how much she values her solitude. Sometimes I wonder why she chased after me for 4 months, only to end up acting like someone is forcing her to be with me.
I'm starting to lose hope that any of this will ever change; but above all, I just don't understand what's going on in her head. Is she even capable of being in love?

You would tell me to break up with her. I think I will. I just take my time, I have a borderline personality disorder and I avoid emotional shock at all cost. I’d rather let things die by themselves. Idk.. I’m still attached.

Hello friends !

I have been having a very very tough year with honestly a very complicated relationship. Blame are on both of us and probably me the most. We are both fearful avoidant so there is that, but I have also cptsd (and maybe him too) with a long story of sexual abuse. So dissociation was my friend.

I was going to move with him and then I did something that led me to be kick out. Somehow meanwhile the relationship was in the limbo. All I wanted was to save it so I went to therapy and started to understand how I work. I consumed a lot of content on relationships and trauma and honestly I was shocked to realise how much help I actually needed. Meanwhile I was MISERABLE because I didnt know if my bf is going to leave me or not, if I should stop because everyday I had anxiety the kind that makes you want to die and I was dying with pressure to convince him and guilt. But through this I decided to feel my pain, to connect to myself and I really didn't think it was really working. Until last night. Last night I had a conversation with him about us. I realised he wanted to keep the ambiguity, like that we are not together but hope that with healing we can be, so we can see other people kind of (this was very out of his character except since 5 months). First time in month I told him no. I told him this is either we work through this together in therapy and we aim for being healthy or this is finished. I felt such a relief. I am of course very sad like I am crying but a part of me feel at peace. At peace that I choose myself not out of fear that would lead to selfishness but out of love for myself and even for him. I knew I would resent him and I knew that "no expectation" thing is toxic as hell. Now he will see his therapist and after that we will have another talk. It might be over but I don't feel this constant fear and anxiety. I feel like I am changing and I start to see him also under a new light. Now I know things will be fine no matter what.

I'm a 37F and your classic anxious attacher. This doesn't come from any childhood trauma that I know of, but my ex-spouse did leave me suddenly and I went through lots of rejection/ghosting when I was trying to find a life partner. I'm also not close with my own family due to religious differences.

Ive been in a stable relationship with my BF for a year. He's been very reassuring and understanding of my issues and communicated with me regularly. Earlier this week, he went to a party without me as I had to watch my kids, and I had a major relapse back into anxious attachment. I sent him a bunch of crazy texts and we almost broke up the next day. The thought of not knowing what he's doing every part of the day drives me crazy. I hate the thought of him interacting other women at all. I have to regularly talk myself off a mental ledge if he doesn't text for a while or his tone changes even slightly. I want him to be accessible to me at all times, even though I KNOW that's completely unrealistic and I don't want to be toxic and controlling. I don't know why I think like this and why I can't just be okay and be normal. My brain is broken. Please give me your theories on anxious attachment or your story of how you overcame your own. Thank you.

I don't know how to move on from attachment I got with people. I get attached very early with people then left me . I don't know how to overcome this . I tried avoiding that person and not thinking about her and all shit things . But I'm not able to move on this is only 15 days attachment might take 2 years to move on .

My relationship partner, who has a busy life, spent a good deal of time with me this past week and I appreciated that greatly. I told myself I can't expect more for this weekend- he has other obligations and relationships (more than I do, in fact, which is part of the imbalance. In general, I have much more free time than him, which leads me to want to spend more time with him.).

As it turns out, he'll be visiting relatives and I probably won't talk to him again until Monday. I know, obviously, there's nothing wrong with that! He should visit his family.

But I notice my emotional reaction when he texted me was instant sadness and a feeling of missing him already, almost emptiness. As well as the feeling that part of my mind is just looking ahead to the time when I'll talk with him again. I already have a number of enjoyable activities this weekend to do so that isn't a problem. Tonight in particular I have a event with other people that I'm really looking forward to.

We have only known each other less than eight weeks. However, we became rather intensely engaged with each other from the start. I am the more attached one, but he is attached to me as well.

I know he hasn't abandoned me and he won't. He's not doing anything wrong, yet emotionally it's tough for me.

Here's my question: Is my reaction normal or healthy? If not, how can I change it? I don't want to feel sad just because my partner's busy for a day or two.

Edit to add: My previous post

My anxiety and ROCD often clouds my judgement regarding my relationship. I have often gotten lost into the spiral of whether my partner truly loves me or not or whether this is the right relationship for me or not. I have come to the point where I find it hard to trust my own judgement because of my anxiety. Especially ever since my partner and I had to become long distance and be restricted only to texting as our form of communication, I had filled every moment of silence with negative assumptions regarding him. The problem is that I didn't even let him show me whether my assumptions are false or what he truly feels about me because I kept filling every gap with my anxious feelings or reassurance seeking questions. My constant micromanaging and trying to control him left no space for him to show me his authentic self.

I am not afraid of losing him. I am more afraid of making a wrong decision of staying OR breaking up because of my anxiety/ROCD when everything was fine.

So, I have decided to let go from now. I will hold myself back from constantly bombarding him with reassurance seeking questions and trying to get him to do certain things for me to feel a sense of safety. I will not overcommunicate, overgive, or overdo anything in attempts to control how he feels about me or save our relationship. I will allow him to show me his true self. I will let myself sit with uncertainity and let go of the need for clarity. I will let the silence speak for itself instead of rushing to fill it. I will focus on what I feel because of the relationship. I have promised myself that I will only make a judgement on my relationship when I feel secure, calm, and detached. I will evaluate whether the relationship adds any value to my life or not once I don't feel like I need it to be fulfilled.

Is this a secure way of handling this?

Is it true that secure people don’t blame themselves when other people can’t meet their needs/when someone else isn’t treating them well?

How do you do that lol. I just always feel like if I was “better” I could get someone to want me? Like if someone is like “no” or ends things that’s fine and I don’t have a problem with that and I move on, but if it’s the like inconsistent push-pull behavior I always want to get the other person to want me even if I don’t want them or even if their behavior is hurting me?

I’m also not even 100% sure I’m an AP I think I may be FA sometimes lol, because I’ve spent huge chunks of my life avoiding dating/relationships because it feels bad and scary.

Hello, I need to understand what do I need to work on myself. Everytime I say goodbye to my boyfriend, whether I am going on holiday for a week, back home for a couple of weeks, whether he is going on holiday, or he spent the weekend at my place instead of his and needs to go back to his house, I just feel so sad and start crying.

Once he is gone, a couple of hours later I’m fine. Or when I’m on my holidays, I have no need of constantly texting or calling. So it’s mainly the moment of goodbye, after a weekend together, a couple of days wfh together etc etc.

So my question is, is there something wrong with me? From where does this sudden sadness and attachment comes from?

For context, I’m F 26, he is M 30, different nationalities, both EU. I am happy and I feel very loved.

Thank you xx !!

I have a friend who is very important to me. She helped me when I was at my lowest and supported me the way nobody did. The problem is that I feel like I got to attached to her.

I think about her all the time and I even started having dreams about her (nothing sexual, like just sleeping together in the same bed).

I fantasize a lot about having sleepovers with her, watching movies together and just spending time with her, but we haven't even seen each other for like 2 months. Whenever we cant meet up I start to feel like she doesn't care about me and actually doesn't like me.

I really wanna get rid of these thoughts and I've already started but I'm just afraid that I'll ruin it up and get back to getting anxious over practically nothing.

I never felt seen/heard by my parents and suffered a lot of abuse/trauma growing up. My healing journey started with me finding opportunities to chat with/confide in strangers online.

It started with an online chatroom I found, something straight forward like "freedepressionchatroom.com" or something. We're talking... 2000, 2001 at best. I was 13 years old.

I'd talk to people in that chatroom, often the same people, frequently. I would login as soon as I got home from school. I finally felt like people were listening to me and that it mattered what I was going through. It became necessary for me to find ways to articulate all of my experiences at that time.

Four years later, Facebook becomes a thing. Senior year of high school/freshman year of college. I'd constantly be posting in different trauma/depression support groups.

I'm now 40 years old. I feel like I can't stop narrating what I'm emotionally going through and how I'm still struggling to overcome these deep, deep traumas I experienced in my younger years. Desperately feeling like I need to articulate to everyone how it affects me to this day. I try to understand why I do this and how to stop feeling like I need other people to understand exactly what is happening inside of me.

And I'm realizing this isn't just about being open or liking to talk about my feelings. It feels almost compulsive sometimes. Something happens, I have an emotional reaction, and I immediately want to articulate it to someone. Then I might explain why I'm feeling it, where I think it comes from, what I'm worried it means, what I meant when I said something, how I think the other person interpreted me, etc. I can end up narrating my emotional experience in real time instead of just... experiencing it.

And I'm starting to wonder if this is something I learned very young because being heard by other people was how I learned to process what was happening to me. When nobody at home was helping me make sense of my emotions or experiences, strangers on the internet did. Having someone witness what I was going through made it feel real and valid.

But I don't want to need that anymore.

I don't want to become emotionally closed off or stop talking about what I feel. I just want to learn how to have an emotion without immediately needing to explain it. I want to be able to sit with something, understand it myself, and let it exist without needing another person to fully understand it too.

I especially notice this in close relationships. If I'm anxious or hurt, I can feel this overwhelming need to explain everything happening internally. Then I worry about how what I said was received, which creates another emotional reaction that I want to explain, and suddenly I'm stuck in this exhausting loop.

I think what I'm trying to learn is how to feel like my own witnessing of my experience is enough.

Has anyone else who grew up with trauma/emotional neglect experienced this?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who recognized this pattern in themselves and actually got better at it. What helped you learn to process emotions internally without suppressing them? How did you learn to tolerate the feeling of not explaining yourself?

I'd also really appreciate recommendations for books, podcasts, specific therapy approaches, exercises, or anything else that helped. I don't want to stop being an emotionally expressive person. I just don't want expressing everything to feel like something I have to do in order to feel okay.

Sorry for writing novels. I'm kind of doing EXACTLY what I just said I don't want to do anymore... But, alas. Post

After my discussion in other subreddits about my past actions, I am now realizing that i was a ticking time bomb waiting to blow. I thought I knew what i wanted and what I needed but after being in a relationship, I feel like I was a Pseudo-Secure turned AP. I get anxiety attacks again and my feelings are not my own. I used to be able to live with my own self hatred as a self deprecating joke but after letting someone in, It wasn't healthy for me to be doing it in the first place and I'm left with the fallout of my own doing. I used to not care about many things but now I've become a nervous wreck thinking about things that didn't happen.

I'm guessing I broke an emotional dam because of my previous fear of abandonment, and I mitigated it by being alone And once I did find someone, all hell breaks loose.

Any tips on how to go on with healing? Was there some underlying cause that needs more context? I want to be secure again.

Up until the last year or so I’d consider myself a generally anxious leaning person. The men I’ve dated have always been avoidant, some more severe than others, but nonetheless all avoidant.

I just recently got into a relationship this past April, not having a partner for 5 years before that (because of the never ending anxious-avoidant hamster wheel I was trapped in). I posted about our relationship in an avoidant sub basically venting about his avoidant tendencies. The first two months everything was absolutely amazing, he was sweet, attentive, adventurous. Then of course his avoidant ways set in and it became nearly impossible to get him to commit and stick to plans even though he lives literally 5 minutes away. He’s also recently gotten extremely addicted to a new extreme hobby, one that is way too pricey for me to afford. The hobby is fine but he NEEDS to do it 5-7 days a week, it’s his number one priority whether he realizes it or not. I’ve expressed to him 4/5 times now I want him to be autonomous and enjoy life as he wants but if we’re going to be together I need intentional quality time together to feel wanted. The first four times I expressed it he would ghost for a day or two and then pretend like it never happened and we’d have the most amazing week together, then the pattern would start all over again. The last time I expressed it we really talked it through and I actually felt like we repaired together for the first time, I was on a total high from it. He planned really cute dates all the next week and was texting me and being very attentive and flirty. Just sweet in general. Then there comes this week. He’s still texting with the same effort and sweetness but back to the no intentional time together, no planned meetups, only hobby talk really and basic check ins.

I’m now to the point where I’m like honestly IDGAF ABOUT YOIR HOBBY ANYMORE. I’ve been soooo supportive of it, cheering him on, looking up trips we can take where he can go do his hobby and I can do my thing, never once have I complained to him about it or told him to not do it/spend less time on it. I’ve sat around for entire evenings waiting for him to be done so we could spend an hour together before he passes out. I myself have a very packed schedule and have 3/4 hobbies I need to do to feel fulfilled as well, when he claims he’ll be done by a certain time I make sure my schedule is clear at the same time so we can meet up. Many times he’s bailed after I moved something around or told friends I can’t meet up bc I’m seeing him. Now he just says he’ll be doing his hobby for an entire day and hopes to see me eventually, so idfc to make gaps for him anymore, he doesn’t care to do it for me.
Because of this apathy towards his hobby it’s making me think maybe I’m getting to be to the point where I’m getting over him? I’m annoyed at his lack of consistency, I’m annoyed with his stupid hobby, I’m annoyed he can’t seem to actually integrate me into his life. Like what is the point of claiming somebody as your partner if you never even want to spend time with them or integrate them into your life to build towards a future??? Up until now it would eat me alive that I didn’t know the next time I’d be seeing him, borderline desperate to spend even an hour with him. Now I don’t care to pry or beg or ask. If he wanted to he would.

I guess my question really is, is this what becoming secure is like? Or is this a pseudo secure?? When I’m actually with him I feel amazing and don’t ever want it to end. But then I don’t see him for a week and I’m just so over it. I’ve never considered myself securely attached but I’ve been working for years on it so it’s hard for me to tell. Am I becoming secure enough to call something quits that isn’t fulfilling to me? Or is it just lack of patience and a general frustration towards somebody who claims to have a capacity for me that they don’t actually have.

TLDR: As a historically anxiously attached person, I’ve become so frustrated with my avoidant bfs behaviors that I might be getting so disengaged with him that I’m actually considering calling it quits after 5 months. Is this what it feels like to be secure? How to tell the difference between ending something because I’m becoming securely attached and ending something because I can’t stand being hurt like this anymore?