Dear Ssleeping:

You’ve been in a romantic relationship with your boyfriend for 3 years and living together for the past year. I am trying to separate how you currently feel about him and the relationship with him from his words and actions.

How you feel: “I know he’s my soulmate… Our souls have connected, I feel like I’ve always known him… I know he’s the one… I  keep going through phases of being destroyed and hopeful… I know we are meant to be together, I feel it. I feel hopeful that we will come back – he’s my person. I’m just so scared“.

His words and actions: Before: “We’ve talked about getting married, have given each other jewelry short of engagement rings…we’ve named future children“.

Recently: “He said he started thinking about moving into a house together… He then started feeling anxious when thinking about it…  over the coming days he said he doesn’t want this anymore and needs to be alone..  he said things feel different… He said that he feels like we’re just friends, that it doesn’t feel romantic anymore, we are very intimate often, even after this has happened. He said I’m still the most special person in his life and always will be, that we are the most connected, that he could never love anyone more than he loves me. He said we are still our own word that we use for soulmates… He said he doesn’t want other people, he just wants to be alone.  He said he doesn’t know what he wants in the future and just knows right now he doesn’t want this… He said he thought of the word and idea of a break, but he can’t say if it’s just time that’s needed or if we’ll get back together. He’s said the thought of that if it’s meant to be, it will happen again is keeping him from breaking down completely. That it gives him hope“.

About his childhood+, you wrote: “He was abused and abandoned as a child and teenager and has always been very independent because he’s had to be, he’s also based self worth on others and never coped well alone… I should mention that he is very impulsive“.

You asked: “Do you think we just need time? It gives me so much hope to think this, so much hope that I feel it so deeply… I feel an urge to bring the anxious avoidant attachment style to his attention and see what he thinks, does he need to come to this realisation himself? I really think this might have been what has happened here. Does he need time and therapy to see this?”

My thoughts and attempted answers: it is very common for children who grew up abused and abandoned (this has been true in my case for many years) to associate love with hurt, and therefore we fear being trapped in this combo of love and hurt, and we want OUT.

This is very much what the term  anxious avoidant attachment style is about. But if you tell him about this attachment style (I don’t see the harm in telling him), the information will not make his fear go away. It’s a guttural fear, and once it takes hold, it’s hard to reverse it.

Once in his mind, the idea and fear of being trapped with you (by moving to a house together and cementing the relationship further) was cemented, it’s hard to dissolve this cement. The more you pursue him by being emotionally and physically intimate with him, the more persistent his fear will be. This is so because fear is stronger and more urgent than any other emotion.

Your best bet to get to a point where he loves you more than he fears you, I believe, is to end all intimate talk with him, as well as physical intimacy because that will play into another fear of his: that of being left alone (“never coped well alone“, you wrote about him). It is only if you remove the threat (your love!) from him, that he might feel safe enough to.. want you back as a partner in life.

Quality therapy will be great for him and for you (separately and/ or together, at one time or another). Also: be careful to not let your hope and longing for him to distort your view of what is happening, including the probability that he feels guilty for wanting out and therefore he may be saying nice things to you to ease your pain (and possible anger) at being rejected by him.

If you would like to post again and communicate with me on the topic, you are welcomed to do so.

anita