Dear Felis,

I am sorry you have to go through this. I’ve been in a similar situation quite a few years ago, and it’s really exhausting and frustrating, especially the inability to let go. From your description, it seems like you were the anxious party in the relationship, needing as much as his presence as possible and sort of clinging on to him, while he was more of the avoidant type, needing space and time away from you.

It’s a frequent match – anxious and avoidant type getting together, but also often breaking up, because the ambivalent party starts feeling suffocated in the relationship, and the anxious party feels neglected and unloved.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the attachment theory, which talks about different attachment i.e. bonding styles between the parent and the child, which then affect our adult relationships as well. If we had secure attachment with our parents, we won’t be that clingy and needy, and will be able to give the other person room to breathe, so to speak, and allow them to have their own interests and hobbies, which might not always involve us.

If we didn’t have secure attachment, there are two scenarios: 1) we will either become very clingy and anxious, constantly fearing that we’ll be left alone, or 2) we become afraid of intimacy and closeness, and want to be left alone, especially when the other party is clingy and insisting on intimacy. The first is the so-called anxious attachment style, which would be yours, and the second is the avoidant attachment style, which seems to be your ex boyfriend’s style.

I too was the anxious party and literally thought I would die when my boyfriend threatened to leave me. I felt like I was falling into the ground and disappearing. I thought I won’t be able to survive without him…

Fortunately, I could work through my fear in therapy, and realized that when I am obsessing about him, it’s the small child inside of me scared of being abandoned. I realized I won’t die without him, and it made things easier. From then on, I wasn’t clinging on to him so much, wasn’t controlling his every step, I could allow him room to breathe. And the result was that he didn’t feel threatened any more and spontaneously got closer to me. As I stopped clinging on to him, he stopped resisting and running away. Now we’re married 😊

I hope this helps. Good luck to you!

Absolutely, dear anita. I am glad I could help.

Dear Felis:

You are welcome. I don’t know if I have much to add, but will be back to you in about 10 hours from now. I hope that TeaK will reply to you as well.

anita

Dear Felis:

Thank you for wishing me and everyone else a better future. I wish you the same. I wrote to you yesterday that I didn’t know if I have much to add, but this morning, I do have much to add. If you choose to read the following, please take your time reading and considering what you read, because this post will be long, and it will include quotes from a Wikipedia entry and my comments on how those quotes may relate to you. First, a short summary of what you shared, with quotes (I am the one adding the italicized feature):

You had a March-December 2020 relationship. “He did try to understand my.. anxiety, I did try to understand his needs for space”. He  was “a man who likes quiet and peacefulness”, a man who dreamed about  living in a cabin in the woods with a long-term partner, and you were a “city girl “who is “very vocal about my feelings, any conflicts arising, or even any slight thing that bothers me”.

In December, your anxiety took over and you vocalized your anger at him: “I was lashing out my emotions and insecurities onto him.. I was at fault…I was behaving badly.. demanding.. i.e., I said, ‘why is it so hard for you to pick up my calls..  you could come even though you are sick… upset with your disappearance act..’.. my texts sounded angry.. not controlling my emotions”.

He did not communicate with you since and did not reply to your messages. Instead, he went back on the online dating site where the two of you met, and has been looking for a long-term relationship, for a woman who will live with him in a cabin in the woods.

You cried a lot, “could not eat properly.. could not be myself anymore”. You mentioned that you “may have abandonment issues” for having a childhood friend “disappeared out of blue”, and you asked about attachment styles and what causes those.

I will now quote from Wikipedia on the topic of Attachment Theory, a theory that was formulated by the British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, and comment on how, in my mind, this theory may relate to you:

“The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development”- according to the main tenet of the theory, you cannot suffer from abandonment issues leading to you becoming anxiously-attached solely because a friend disappeared from your life; there has to be an abandonment issues in the context of your relationship with your primary care taker.

“Within attachment theory, attachment means an affectionate bond or tie between an individual and an attachment figure (usually a caregiver)…  between a child and a caregiver, these bonds are based on the child’s need for safety, security, and protection, paramount in infancy and childhood.. for the purpose of survival”- being the anxious person that you are, in the relationship you had and otherwise, this quote means, as I understand it, that your instinctual need for safety, security and protection was not adequately met in childhood in the context of your relationship with your primary care taker.

“Infants will form attachments to any consistent caregiver who is sensitive and responsive in social interactions with them… The biological mother is the usual principal attachment figure, but the role can be taken by anyone who consistently behaves in a ‘mothering’ way over a period of time…

“‘Alarm’ is the term used for activation of the attachment behavioural system caused by fear of danger. ‘Anxiety’ is the anticipation or fear of being cut off from the attachment figure. If the figure is unavailable or unresponsive, separation distress occurs”- separation anxiety/ distress can happen not only if the primary caretaker is absent, but also, if the primary caretaker is present but too often does not respond to the child, and/ or rejects the child and/ or expresses anger at the child.

When your boyfriend disappeared (“upset with your disappearance act”) back in December, the alarm was set in you, the fear of being abandoned/ being cut off from him was activated.

“In general, a child with an anxious-ambivalent pattern of attachment will typically explore little and is often wary of strangers, even when the parent is present. When the caregiver departs, the child is often highly distressed. The child is generally ambivalent when the caregiver returns. The anxious-ambivalent strategy is a response to unpredictably responsive caregiver, and the displays of anger or helplessness towards the caregiver on reunion..”- notice, the child is highly distressed when the parent leaves, but is ambivalent (having mixed-feelings, including anger) when the parent returns: the child refuses to trust the parent to not leave again. This is similar to your behavior back in December: when your then boyfriend disappeared, you were highly distressed; upon reunion/ restoration of communication with him- you were angry and you lashed  out at him.

“Securely attached adults have a ‘low level of personal distress and high levels of concern for others’.. Within romantic relationships, a securely attached adult will appear in the following ways: excellent conflict resolution, mentally flexible, effective communicators, avoidance of manipulation, comfortable with closeness without fearfulness of being enmeshed, quickly forgiving, viewing sex and emotional intimacy as one, believing they can positively impact their relationship, .. In summation, they are great partners who treat their spouses very well, as they are not afraid to give positively and ask for their needs to be met. Securely attached adults believe that there are ‘many potential partners that would be responsive to their needs’, and if they come across an individual who is not meeting their needs, they will typically lose interest very quickly.. research indicates that it only takes one securely attached partner within a romantic relationship to maintain healthy, emotional relationship functioning”- this research is encouraging, because there aren’t enough securely attached individuals to go around!

“Anxious-preoccupied adults seek high levels of intimacy, approval and responsiveness from partners, becoming overly dependent. They tend to be less trusting, have less positive views about themselves and their partners, and may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, worry and impulsiveness in their relationships…have not been able to develop sufficient defenses against separation anxiety..  these individuals will then overreact to the anticipation of separation or the actual separation from their attachment figure”-  your description of yourself as “very vocal about my feelings, any conflicts arising, or even any slight thing that bothers me” fits with “high levels of emotional expressiveness”. The “lashing out my emotions and insecurities onto him” fits with “impulsiveness” and overreacting.

“The research showed that though there were cultural differences, the three basic patterns, secure, avoidant and ambivalent, can be found in every culture in which studies have been undertaken”- notice that the avoidant avoids intimacy and the ambivalent is conflicted about intimacy: seeking it desperately, on one hand, and distrustfully and angrily pushing it away, on the other hand.

In other words, an anxiously attached adult can not find peace within a romantic relationship, even if the partner is very attentive and loving.  For the anxiously attached, it takes personal healing within and without a relationship, so to be at peace.

anita

Dear Felis,

It’s great you’re discussing all those things with your therapist and putting them into perspective. Your mom throwing books at you if you don’t know the answer could be a pretty bad trauma, though you might have not taken is so badly since she later apologized. But as you say, it left a mark on you, and it actually might have impacted your self-esteem. How do you feel about yourself? Do you have self-confidence?

You say: I think, for now, I am trying to parent my inner child that, ‘I’m safe and my parents will never leave me behind.’

When you’re soothing your inner child, try to also phrase it as if you were a good parent to that child. So you might say something like “you’re safe and I will never leave you behind.” You can discuss it with your therapist first, but I think phrasing it like that would help even more.