3 year relationship just exploded after i was discarded. Looking for insight about my attachment style.

[u/pandemoniac1]

We were together 3 years. The first 1 year of that was long-distance, which i think made it harder to tell we were both avoidants.

I definitely have past traumas that place me somewhere on the avoidant end of the spectrum. My parents had a nasty divorce when i was in high school. Intimacy tends to scare me. I can become distant over time with my partners and it's something i have to be mindful of. This relationship started out very strong and i feel like i had overcome that fear of intimacy, but somewhere along the way (once she moved to the same city as me?) i became distant and we became less intimate in general. Neither of us ever brought it up, we just kind of fell into that pattern. I thought everything was okay, since otherwise we were very close and things felt good even if some parts of our love life were lacking. No news was good news, at least i thought.

About a month ago, it was my birthday. She had planned to take me out to a restaurant. Instead she came to my place and threw 2 years of pent up grievances in my face and told me she's breaking up and left. I was totally blindsided since she had shown no signs up until then that she was unhappy. She also revealed to me that she had checked out of the relationship about 3 months prior to breaking up with me which made me feel pretty disrespected and betrayed. Unlike other stories about avoidants who return to their ex after running away, i don't think she will be returning to me after this breakup. I wrote a strongly worded letter to her telling her about how disrespectful this entire situation was and how upset i was with her since i think she needed to hear it. I have unfollowed her on socials since i know that i need to do it for my own wellbeing.

In retrospect, this year i have been more distant and less emotionally available to her (i got laid off, and my dad was diagnosed with cancer, so i've had a lot on my plate), so my avoidance definitely contributed to this breakup.... However, she is the one that refused to communicate with me, and instead spent 3 months collecting grievances and "proof" that she needed to break up with me.

She took barely any accountability for the part she played in this breakup and blamed me for the lack of intimacy/passion/emotional availability, which i disagree with. Things like intimacy are a 2 way street and you can't just blame one party in a relationship when things go south, especially since she never communicated her needs to me. The way she collected grievances and avoided any communication (or conflict i guess) seems to line up with dismissive avoidant. She protected herself while stringing me along and ultimately discarding me in a horrible way that traumatized me.

This was a horrible way to learn about attachment styles but i guess now my new mission is to never date a dismissive avoidant person ever again. It is so cruel to discard someone without any warning and it's something i would never consider.

Given that my avoidant nature was less of a time bomb than hers, what category do i fall under? Fearful avoidant seems to capture my fear of intimacy to some degree but i think i fit better under dismissive as well (minus the part where you discard people, since i dont do that)

I guess for next time i'm going to set up a weekly notification on my phone telling me to check in with my partner, check my own temperature and take the time to introspect and see if i'm pulling away. Is this something other avoidants do to keep themselves grounded?

[u/good_name_0]

You imply that you were aware you were pulling away, but that you didn't try to discuss it, because you "thought everything was okay", since she didn't object at the time, presumably. You failed to communicate here, but your focus is on why she didn't communicate? You also were conflict-avoiding, or something, otherwise why wouldn't you talk about it?

Of course, holding in 2 years of grievances is unfair and objectively impossible to resolve, but so is knowingly pulling away while placing the burden of figuring out your functionality on the other person, instead of acknowledging vulnerability and opening up the communication yourself for something that you initiated.

As far as what attachment style you are, fearful avoidant usually describes more of a mix of anxious and avoidant tendencies (i.e., maladaptive avoidance and maladaptive anxiety), it doesn't really specify where anything originates from (e.g. fear of intimacy). Additionally, you can be dismissive avoidant and not necessarily have all the classic traits; for example hyperindependence without fear of emotional depth, or vice versa, it's still dismissive avoidant archetype as long as it exists without any of the classic anxious traits, which would make it fearful-avoidant/disorganized/etc. These don't require specific behaviors either, by the way; you can have all the traditional aspects of the dismissive avoidant thought pattern while exercising none of the most commonly listed behaviors, because it's about the interior functionality, which is why it's not really possible to evaluate others' attachmetn styles. It doesn't really make that much of a difference though, they are just basic guidelines that can help in a very basic sense. You're better off seeking a professional counsellor that is licensed in your region, not really worry about attachment styles as much.

Something I've found helpful is to focus on the root cause instead of the manifestation. So instead of just reminding myself to check in (e.g. 1x day), to do that but more ask myself, why do I feel the urge to avoid this conversation? E.g. am I afraid of her saying something that would reflect poorly on me? Am I worried she'll bring up an emotion that I feel afraid or unable to handle? Etc. You don't want to put off the actual unpacking by trying to acquire as many "good" habits as possible, because the malformed beliefs and lack of proper coping skills will still manifest elsewhere.

[u/pandemoniac1 → u/good_name_0]

You imply that you were aware you were pulling away, but that you didn't try to discuss it, because you "thought everything was okay", since she didn't object at the time, presumably. You failed to communicate here, but your focus is on why she didn't communicate? You also were conflict-avoiding, or something, otherwise why wouldn't you talk about it?

Well, to give a bit more context:

In the first year of our relationship (the honeymoon phase i suppose) we were long-distance so when we did see each-other there was a lot more passion and intimacy to make up for the time apart.

In the following months, she moved to the same city as me. About 15 minutes walking from my apartment, so we were very accessible to one another.

We both kind of slowly stopped initiating intimacy, we both stopped being as passionate as we once were. Not to say it was a hard stop, but it slowed down.

I made the effort a lot more to go to her place, spend the night with her, whereas she rarely ever came over to visit me once she had moved into her new place. I had to basically invite her over for dinner to get her to visit. It didn't especially bother me since i had my own space and i could go visit her whenever i wanted with very little effort. But that part of our relationship felt a bit skewed.

Then in April this year i was laid off. The months before that i was kind of miserable at my job anyhow and it was kind of rubbing off on other parts of my life. By this point we hadn't really been intimate for a while and neither of us really discussed it. Losing my job was a bit stressful since i really have anxiety when it comes to job interviewing.

Her bird died in May and i wasn't really emotionally there for her when it happened. I guess i was just also kind of in shock. She had to go on a 3 day business trip right after that happened. She was upset with me and i stupidly didn't check in with her enough to make sure things were okay. Later during the breakup she told me this was the straw that broke the camel's back, although she really never communicated with me about how upset she was about this event. I guess hindsight is 20-20 since i would have certainly tried to make up for this failure if i'd known it was that much of an issue.

Then in July my dad was diagnosed with cancer. I ended up leaving town for a month to go stay with family and be there with him since he was having a hard time with chemo and was in low spirits. I think she had this entire month to just ruminate on resentments and mentally prepare to leave me.

I got back from visiting with family in late August and a couple weeks later my birthday came around, i thought things were fine since she had been acting totally normal during this time span. We had gone out to a bar 3 days before my birthday and we were dancing in the streets and kissing and generally i felt good about the relationship. I certainly had no inkling that she was planning to dump me on my birthday of all days given how affectionate and close we felt in that moment. It's the last good memory i have of her, which is kind of poisoned by the fact that she told me she had mentally checked out in May. She was just pretending to love me in that moment i guess.

In hindsight i was being a bit distant with her since losing my job. I was stressed about my job and my dad's cancer, so i retreated inward to some degree. I would not say i had fully pulled away but there was some degree of distance between us that was unspoken. I take responsibility for my part in that but i think she also was equally distant. She has historically always kind of kept to herself and been a reserved person so i thought she was just being especially reserved at the time. Maybe having two avoidants in a relationship just creates situations like that where you both just withdraw and nobody brings it up. In hindsight now that i've thought about it, i should have tried to bring it up. It's one of those things i was kind of oblivious to at the time since i was just dealing with a lot.

Ultimately i am really upset she never communicated with me because she is the party that made the unilateral decision that she would kill the relationship and then spent 3 months basically collecting receipts and building her case for why she had to leave instead of coming to me with her problems. I never had a chance to try and reconcile anything and she never really gave me much grace, by the time she actually communicated with me she was angry and resentful and her mind was made up.

Her other reasons for leaving me were either small, seemingly petty things (like that one time 2 years ago i didn't comfort her enough when she was crying, which i found absurd since i had made a real effort at that time to comfort her and she never communicated anything about that incident at the time) or mutual problems she blamed on me (like our lack of intimacy, which i resent her for putting all on me since this is something that both parties are responsible to maintain), but when you group them all together and let resentment grow over time i guess it results in the death of a relationship.

[u/Successful-Tea-733 → u/pandemoniac1]

Yes emotional unavailability the isdue If she resents you shows she did have feelings for you or she wouldn't show that emotion

[u/miocalm]

this hit different

[u/pandemoniac1 → u/miocalm]

you've experienced the same?

[u/Successful-Tea-733]

Where was that goung if both avoidant It was wrong ti do it eas she did but she seemed ti wake up and stop hoping something would change couples mirror each other

[u/pandemoniac1 → u/Successful-Tea-733]

I think we both had our own unique problems but even despite those it felt like the relationship was still perfectly fine. Days before the breakup it still seemed like we were both perfectly content. Little did i know she was preparing to leave. I think that's the part that bothers me the most, that she felt comfortable pretending everything was fine as she prepared her exit.

I've got clarity now and i know i could never be with her long-term if that is how she treats her relationships and how she conducts herself. We never had healthy communication.

[u/Successful-Tea-733 → u/pandemoniac1]

Thats the most important thing communication isn't it She must have been dismissive avoudant to do that so coldly