“You can drive yourself nuts trying to second guess how every decision will screw up their development. I’ve settled on keeping them safe, showing them love, and hoping for the best…” These two sentences so resonate with me. And sum up the emotionally aware and pragmatic response which I’m so appreciating about this website. Having lost 23 years to a dysfunctional (euphemism) marriage, I realised a month ago that I’d lost the previous year to what I now deem LE to an LO. I’ve been reading and reading and reading this website and it’s like I’ve finally come home – after years in several different 12 step programmes. And your gentle, honest and pragmatic approach is just what my passive aggressive, intimacy avoidant, self-sabotaging self needs. Thank you.

so good to hear from you. I would have to read up on attachment theory, maybe it would help me too. Any links?

I‘m glad she explained herself and now you can feel better during her cold spells.
I read your posts and can’t help thinking that you both have admirable self-control. Me, I always get pulled back and forth between wanting more than I can have versus „it‘s all too much for me, I need to end it all“. I couldn’t do that kind of in-the-middle-relationship without suffering the whole time as long as I‘m limerent.
Maybe that’s related to my attachment style too, I don’t know.
It seems such a fragile bubble, your relationship, but seems to hold, it’s almost a miracle.
I have to admit that I’m at the end of my wisdom when it gets to your SO, I just don’t know what to say. I‘m completely unjudgmental here, but I‘m a bit scared for both of you.
Keep posting, it gets me thinking about myself too. I wish you all the best!

For the past couple months we’d been feeling close, communicating pretty frequently and pretty warmly, and then 2 weeks ago she suddenly shut down. Just prior to her shutdown, she had come and talked with me on a Monday at lunch – we had to talk for a few minutes about a work thing, and then she told me that she’d been having a series of dreams where I was really angry at her (including one where in the dream she’d broken our rules by calling me on the weekend and I was furious and yelling at her), and it was clear she was bothered by these dreams. And I felt bothered by it too and wanted to talk about it further, but then her break was over and she had to get back to work, so I figured we’d talk sometime later in the week… but then for the entire rest of the week she went completely cold, stopped responding to texts, just completely disappeared.
My anxiety levels grew and grew all week and into the weekend… my thoughts quickly spiraled from “she must be overwhelmed and just needs some space” to “she must be really struggling and needs me but can’t reach out” to “she must be mad at me for something” to “it’s so unfair that she’s giving me the silent treatment to punish me for something I didn’t even know I did” to “she must have just completely stopped caring about me if she can just ignore my existence for a whole week” to finally “she must have never actually cared about me at all if she could just cut me out of her life just like that”.

This took place in the span of just under a week… by the weekend, I finally realized how much my thoughts were spinning out of control and I was over-reacting, and I spent a lot of the weekend reading about anxious-avoidant dynamics and avoidant deactivation and stuff like that, really trying to understand intellectually what was going on inside her head and between the two of us rather than just reacting to it on an emotional level. And that did actually help a lot and put things into more perspective and took my emotions down to a more manageable level, although I was still feeling pretty anxious and upset.

The following Tuesday, she had to come see me 1:1 for another work thing for about 10 minutes. For the hour leading up to our meeting, I was so anxious I couldn’t concentrate, I kept thinking I had to tell her something about how her sudden disappearances affected me but not wanting to come across as crazy or clingy or to put additional stress on her. Then she walked into my office and sat down and just kind of melted onto my desk and started crying, it was as if walking into my office and sitting down with me felt like her safe refuge where she could finally relax and let go of all the other badness in her life and just feel safe for 10 minutes. And because time was short we just talked about the work thing for a few minutes and talked kind of surface level about life for a few minutes, and then she gave me a really warm hug and I asked if we could please talk on the phone later that week because I needed to share some stuff with her that I’d been feeling as well.

We spoke on the phone for an hour later that night when I was still at work and she was home alone. I told her what I’d been reading about attachment theory and how it explained so much about our relationship, and I told her all the things I felt and thought inside during her sudden disappearances and how much it affected me and hurt me, but I made sure to preface it with “my anxious attachment isn’t your problem to solve, it’s mine – but I hope for both of our sakes that we can get to a place where we can communicate better and be more consistent with each other”.

I told her I understood that sometimes she got so overwhelmed with life and her own feelings that she just couldn’t have contact with me – that even the simple act of returning a “good morning” text just felt like too much. She agreed that this was the case for her, and that she hated how she got this way but couldn’t help it. I asked her how she felt about me during these times, that I’d always been really curious if sometimes she started thinking bad things about me or feeling anger or resentment towards me. She seemed genuinely surprised by that question, and said something like “No! Its the exact opposite actually. I don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t say tonight… but really it’s that I start thinking too much good things about you and then I get scared of what I might say or do that would be inappropriate and I know I need to get away from you for awhile until those feelings cool off”. And I told her I could understand that too and honestly that felt a lot better to me than thinking that she was mad at me or just didn’t care about me at all during her disappearances, and we joked about having a funny safe word she could text me when she needed to disengage.

She was talking about her internal struggles and her fearful avoidance, and how basically all the important people in her life had hurt her and/or abandoned her so it was really hard to trust anyone. I asked her how she felt with regards to me, that I know she has let herself get really emotionally close to me sometimes and made herself really vulnerable with me, and asked if sometimes that scared her, if there was a part of her that was afraid that I’d hurt her too some day, or that I’d someday get tired of her and abandon her. And she very quickly responded that no, she really didn’t feel that way with me at all, that she felt completely safe with me, that from very early on in our relationship she just knew that she could trust me and knew I’d never hurt her or abandon her, and that I’d always just made her feel really safe and secure like no one else in her life did.

That felt really good for me to hear of course, because that’s how I’ve always wanted her to feel, and I think she deserves to have at least one person in the world she feels safe with… and it also is one more reason why it’s just so hard for me to even consider ending this relationship – at this point, how could I suddenly turn around and say “sorry, I can’t talk with you anymore because it’s wrong, nice knowing you but I’m going no-contact”… I mean, I just can’t do that. I just can’t.

But at the same time, I know that my SO also comes from a traumatic background and also has struggled with fearful avoidant attachment, and that she needs to feel safe with me as well and that I’m one of the a handful of people in the world that she feels securely attached to – and that if she ever found out about my relationship with LO and my feelings for LO, it would completely tear apart her feelings of safety and security. And so that’s the trap I find myself in now, where I care so much about both women, I desperately don’t want to hurt either of them and I wanted to be a safe and supportive person for both of them, but my relationship with LO puts everything with SO at risk.

The only saving grace for now anyway, and I hope to God it always stays this way, is that LO isn’t pushing for anything more than the relationship we have right now – at least outwardly she’s content with us talking sometimes and supporting each other emotionally but not taking things any further, and she’s also very concerned about not wanting to be responsible for hurting my SO and my marriage. She’s never put any pressure on me whatsoever to be anything more to her than what I am now. But I know that it’s a struggle for her internally as well, ie as evidenced by those dreams and by her need to put up walls sometimes to cool down her feelings toward me. I know I don’t help things either when I sometimes do some really sweet and thoughtful and romantic things for LO – I really need to stay focused on just being a positive and supportive friend who listens and cares about her, but not do things like send her romantic songs or draw her sweet pictures or give her thoughtful little gifts, because while I really like doing all of those things for her and it feels really good to me to do them, it pushes our relationship further into dangerous territory.

Finally, after that conversation we were close and affectionate for a week, and then she disappeared again for the last week (probably not coincidentally after I did a couple of sweet and romantic things for her at the end of last week) – it was her first disappearance since we’d had our talk, and I’d say that having had her explain why she shuts down and how she feels about me during her shut-downs did help me to feel less anxious last week… I still felt bad about her not returning my texts or wanting to talk with me, but it wasn’t at nearly the same level of bad feelings. That’s where I’d really like to be in the future, where I can enjoy a close and supportive (but not overly romantic relationship) with her most of the time, and when she shuts me out from time to time, I’d love to be able to just take it in stride and say “ok, LO needs some time and space for herself right now, I’ll just use this time to do some other things and then I’ll trust that she’ll reconnect with me when she’s ready”. Because really I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about a few days or a couple weeks of her going cold – in the grand scheme of things a couple of weeks is nothing. I remind myself that we first met almost 8 years ago, that she felt drawn to me right away but for several years she was assessing me and gradually getting to know me better, deciding that I was a safe person that she could trust and be vulnerable with, then she spent a few years taking little baby steps to get closer and open up more, then finally for the past year and a half engaged with me in an openly close relationship – she moves at a very deliberate pace and her feelings aren’t just going to flip off or evaporate in the span of a week or even a month, and I just need to remember that and trust that.

Anyway, I have a lot more to share still, but this post is far too long already, so I’ll leave it there for now. I’m curious to hear what experiences other folks here have had with attachment theory and in particular the anxious-avoidant trap. I know I’ve read a lot of limerents here expressing frustration with avoidant LOs, so I’m guessing it’s something a lot of us have spent time thinking about…

Idk if cheating and being clumsy are specific to avoidant types, perse.
This author seems to think on a very linear level, whereas these “types” are different versions of the DAs and FAs specifically. There aren’t this type, and this type, then this type.. it’s all intertwined in a web. One of two types, with tendencies towards other sides (like the FA that swings AP).
Interesting read, however, a lot of it is unnecessary and doesn’t specifically apply to avoidants.

Thanks for sharing your story Shelley, I enjoyed reading it. It sounds like you have been on real journey of self discovery… I admire your self awareness. I think, to a large degree, we are who we are and accepting that real self is key to being able to unfold into our best self.
Well done with your starting your own business! I suspect the lack of work supportiveness from SO might in part be a gender thing… our subconscious cultural scripts can still be a little old fashioned.
Wishing you the strength and wisdom to ride your limerent storm out.

I cannot say my marriage has been good or strong for most of its 19-year duration: my husband and I both from chaotic upbringings and disordered bonding. Our life has been coloured by the dance of the fearful/avoidant – anxious/preoccupied attachments.
And at one point he experienced limerence. Though our cocktail of attachment seems to have kept us connected during that turbulent time. And for the decade that followed our relationship was plagued with addictions from him and codependent behaviors from me.

I’ve spent a great deal of time working through a steamer trunk of emotional garbage until I was no longer willing to sacrifice my own needs to cater to his demands. He’s been 6 months sober. And life is as close to being what I always wanted as it ever has, while also being still so far from what I need now. In part related to my own struggle to actually express my needs in a healthy way he could (theoretically) receive.

Though, the pressures of life that have followed — including me working full time, starting/running a small business, and working a part-time job simultaneously to catch us from the financial spiral that followed the period of addiction/codependency, he is not supportive in the way I was when he was the primary earner. He’s not codependent 😉

And that has fed a resentment that seems to have triggered limerence for me in an unexpected place: someone who loved me 20+ years ago for whom I had no attraction. And now I live in a special kind of hell. That mix of ecstasy and anguish — that has me catching myself toeing the line of what is dangerously nearing an emotional affair.

And the muddiness of it all has me constantly questioning my own mind. Though I suppose, now recognizing a decade of codependency demonstrates that I never could trust it in the way I thought I could, anyway.

And tracing this torturous feeling back, I see that I’ve been limerent before — though rarely if ever for someone who was either mutually limerent or available. So it always dwindled in the torturous way it does. Like churning, bound and gagged in a pit of howling anguish.

I see how the experience with my last LO (mutually limerent but unavailable), who was my direct superior at a previous job, eroded my self-esteem and eventually affected my job until I left, feeling a lot of betrayal and bitterness. And a lot of stuff to work through before I had the confidence again to be able to get another job.

Though, the unexpected, torturous, and crazy-making attraction for this current LO has also revealed the likely connection between each LO and my fractured relationship to my own father.
Tracing each of these experiences back, my LO is always accomplished and respected in some way (academically or in his career) and has demonstrated a subtle nurturing kindness I have never experienced with my emotionally unavailable father (who is accomplished and respected). And, I have rarely had more than a glimpse of that with my husband (because after all this inner scrutiny and work I see I’ve married an excellent stand-in for my father and repeated that cycle of trying to get the man to see me).

And that alone leaves me reasonably sure that should I fall for my brain’s best attempts to convince me my LO is “the answer”, that he in fact actually has a hidden box of painful experiences (he’s likely unaware of) to dish out to me. :/
Thus further reinforcing my propensity towards fearful/avoidant attachment.
(eye roll)

Thanks,

It was my first adult relationship and I had lousy relationship role models growing up.

I had to learn on the fly. It took my awhile but I eventually figured it out.

I admire your patience! I just have no inclination for power or mind games whatsoever. Even when someone tries to play one with me.

I remember those days! The good thing for me was we weren’t living together so I didn’t have to put it with it if I didn’t want to.

tldr

How To Train Your LO:

One Saturday morning, I went to her place. She was in a particularly petulant mood. It only took a few of these episodes to realize it was a power game. Control and power struggles may have been the defining features of our relationship. I have great stories about her stereo and a battle over a bottle of wine. The thing is that I’m way better at those games than she was. I was a Naval Officer on a nuclear submarine. I dealt with petulant, Passive-Aggressives (PPAs) for a living. Compared to her, they were experts. Oh, and her unique wrinkle was to let things fester awhile. 2-3 weeks was not uncommon.

So, what was I willing to put up with to get laid later? That morning, not much.

I told her she had until the next ferry to get over it or I was leaving. She was in her bedroom watching TV. I told her I was going to make coffee and read the “Seattle Weekly.” She said ok.

You could see the ferry terminal from her apartment. She never came out of her bedroom so I left without saying goodbye. We’d planned on going to the mall (we did that in the 80s), grab a late lunch, and catch a movie. I went to a different mall, had lunch, and went home. I hadn’t planned on having free time so I started doing laundry.

This was pre-answering machine days. She called and asked where I’d been all afternoon. I told her I did the same things we planned to do except I did them without her. She asked if I wanted to come back over. I told her I’d written the day off and was doing my laundry. We could try it again tomorrow but if it happened again, she’d get the same result.

She asked about coming to my place. I asked her if she was going to be a pill. It wasn’t the word I wanted to use but it was the one I went with. She said no. I told her that if she wanted to come over, she could drive over or we could just wait until tomorrow. I wasn’t going pick her up at the ferry. She said, “Fine.” She told me what ferry she’d be on. I told her to stop on the way and grab a pizza. I’d call it in. She didn’t have a washer and dryer in her building. She asked that since she was driving, was it ok for her to bring her laundry over. That was fine and, looking back, may have been one of the closest things we ever did to play house together.

When she got to my place with the pizza and her laundry, she asked if all this was really necessary. I asked her if she learned anything. I’d ask her that question more than once. I ask my wife and kids that question. LO #2 said she learned that I could be a real a–hole. I told she started it and I gave her plenty of time to reconsider her position. I told her that I wasn’t going to put with that kind of crap.

Old habits die hard. She would go through those phases periodically but they became less frequent and didn’t last nearly as long.

Good article, and I wholeheartedly agree with the “set them free” principle in love.
In my late twenties I had an LTR with an anxious attacher. It led to some of the worst stress I have ever experienced. I foolishly believed my kind, consistent, secure, faithful, committed love would be enough to satisfy him. I was wrong. I remember on the way home after spending an evening out with friends, I used to rehearse the details of my evening in my mind over and over. This was to ensure I was prepared for the detailed and very pointed interview about my evening that awaited me when I got home. If I couldn’t answer a question instantly and smoothly, he wouldn’t believe me and a week or two of dark cold moodiness would be my punishment – and that is if I was lucky.
Never again.