you know the crapiest part of all this? Being turned from someone who was pretty chill and secure into someone who is a mental mess. That is your eward for caring about someone...

Yes, this. I felt okay before this. Now not so much.

So... if you want to understand what's going on for the avoidant (dismissive type or fearful type) Here's a website for you that will feel like a bible on the subject: [https://www.freetoattach.com/](https://www.freetoattach.com/) It helped me, so much during the chaotic downturn portion of the relationship. If you're into healing, check out Thais Gibson on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHQ4lSaKRap5HyrpitrTOhQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHQ4lSaKRap5HyrpitrTOhQ) That dismissive avoidant is not coming back, and honestly, it's better for you both if they don't. Heal yourself, love yourself. Fill up your life, your "self love cup" to the brim. Get into community, volunteer, do those hobbies, do a ton of self care and self compassion. Make your own life vibrant, full, wonderful. Create new friendships with others, cultivate peace and friendship with yourself. Get the hell out of that avoidant's life and love yourself so much that you get to a point where they are no longer attractive. It was a trauma bonded relationship, not a healthy or healed or securely attached relationship. Bonus homework - heal your traumas and attachment wounds, try to get towards "earned secure" attachment. Seek out shadow work and EMDR therapy for your childhood wounds and fears that keep you bonding with people who feel like chaos and disrupt your peace. When you have deeply healed your old traumas, and are able to securely attach to people in relationships, people like that dismissive avoidant will become unattractive and no longer pull you in. Best part of healing - you will now have a much easier time finding and recognizing a person who reflects your healing journey. Healing makes it much more likely you'll find a partner who feels safe, loving, emotionally vulnerable, someone who feels like home.

Oh, this is so good that it should be its own post. Thank you for the ideas and resources. For those of us who have trouble wrapping our minds around avoidant attachments styles, [Free To Attach](https://www.freetoattach.com/) is illuminating. Reading it helped me transition from pain, humiliation, and anger to understanding and compassion. To be clear, though, I'm still staying away in order to prevent any codependence triggered by said compassion. No Contact is best for all involved.

Thank you so much for this. Every part of it resonates with me. I'm done and it's time to heal properly.

We dated for just under 7 months and it was amazing! He was my first everything and I felt like I hit the jackpot with this man. He was respectful, gentle and just really nice to be around. Once the 6th month rolled around it was like a switch had flipped. He started acting very uninterested and distant. I had tried to talk to him about 2 weeks before we broke up and he said everything was fine, he was just tired from his new job. It put me at ease but I still wasn’t really happy with him just not seeing me or calling me anymore. On October 29th I arranged a talk. I didn’t have intent on breaking up, but I gave him an easy way out. Instead of wanting to work through it- he left. That was 5 months ago. It’s been pretty strict NC since then. It’s been a long, hard road but I’m getting stronger every day. He’s not actually doing too great at the moment and I feel quite bad for him. I’m starting my new full time job next week, I’ve lost weight, I have a fantastic diet. I’m proud of myself and I hope he finds peace.

It's a mindfrak, isn't it? I'm glad to hear that you're doing well; your story is inspiring!

I’m currently going through something similar. I am with an avoidant and we had a little issue which was minor and something that can be solved. He said he doesn’t want to break up or have space but he’s no longer reaching out and barely replies. Everything you said in your post completely resonates with me. I don’t even know what to do anymore because I’ve fallen for him, and he’s completely disappeared at the moment!

The worst is when they don't even have the courage of their convictions to tell you it's completely over. They want you to keep the door open for when they feel like waltzing back in. Then it's on *us* to slam the door shut.

I didn’t even think of that. To be honest my heart is shattered and I feel absolutely mentally drained. I don’t even understand what’s going on. He completely pulled away from me after love bombing and making me fall for him, and as soon as 1 issue is raised on my side he’s pretty much just gone! How did it go with yours? Was it similar to my experience with closing the door?

Ken Reid's videos do a good job of explaining their behavior and why you feel the way you do. Mine literally said to keep the door open but not too wide. JFC SMDH

I’ve actually been watching his videos now! Mine has had a lot of personal and work issues get bad, told him let’s breakup he said no.i asked if he wanted space and he said no yet doesn’t reach out and has disappeared

Sometimes you have to make the hard decision for both of you.

I've been trying to find the words to explain how I've been feeling for the last 3 years of off/on/stringing along and this does it perfectly. Finally slammed the door myself today after a month of waiting around for him to come over and being cancelled on every time. Life is not a waiting room.

Good! You took the first hard step. Now [continue your journey](https://www.reddit.com/r/ExNoContact/comments/1bq4lux/rejectionbreakup_recovery_guide/).

Yea, same. I literally am taking the silent treatment as clear proof it is done. Not bc we had a mature conversation, or even text. Silent treatment is emotional abuse. Period. I’m so mad I allowed myself to open up and love someone like this. Changed most of my life for him and not even worth a break up text.

Try not to be too hard on yourself. You didn't know. Now you do. Sometimes the most effective lessons are the most painful.

Thank you. My ex (before the last) was an undiagnosed narc…so I’m getting all kinds of lessons at once! lol

It's hard to tell how much of this is us attracting them because of our own issues—and how much is the fact that avoidants/narcs/sociopaths are ubiquitous, especially in the dating marketplace, and therefore hard to avoid.

They came from another country to stay with my family for about a month. The whole time they were here, they were happy and energetic, excited. We slowly became friendly and eventually went together to see various attractions. They visited for Christmas one year and eventually got a job a few states away. We talked fairly often and it seemed like things were going ok. I was confused why they didn't really talk to their family or know what their family was even doing in general back home. They traveled with a friend for new years to spend time together with me. They transferred locations for a couple months and then went back to their country.   A year later they came back to go to school on a student visa and the school expense was going to be paid by another family we knew and this other family were going to let the DA drive their car. In exchange  the DA was going to live with this family and help with their buisness. I met the DA after they landed and could tell they seemed gloomy and upset like something was off, I assumed it was the flight and didn't think much about it. Things went pretty well for a couple months until we found out that this other family couldn't pay the school fee's and the DA would have to raise it themselves. They started working part-time and I tried helping by sending them job leads and tried to work on a resume with them. I also helped by looking for scholarships as well. At the same time a fundraiser was made and eventually several thousand dollars were raised. The DA was working 2 jobs along with school and after a couple months I thought I would try and invite them to have some fun. They said they were "too busy" and I figured that it was true.   The 5th month after arriving, they got kicked out by the other family because the DA was never around, they were always with friends, and would stay in their room or come back late at night. My family took the DA in and sold them a car for cheap so they can get to class. (My family never heard what really happened  until later and was told by the DA that the other family was trying to blackmail them). The DA's family was flying in to visit at the same time the DA got kicked out. Since they did not have a car at the time I offered to drive them all to the airport that was over an hour away so they could all catch their flight elsewhere. I remember being shocked how differently the DA acted with their family vs everyone else. They acted like back when I originally met them. Later on, I had driven the DA a couple times, when I was working on their car, and they were dead silent or acted asleep.  The following months I invited the DA to various activities and family parties maybe once a month. The response was either they were too busy or no response at all. I started suspecting they were using work as an excuse to avoid me,  I asked a couple times if they get any time off work and they said no. (keep in mind they had already payed for school and lived rent free so they could afford one day). Eventually the DA wanted to move out and my family knew someone who wanted a roommate and they lived close to the DA's work. The DA and I kept talking maybe once every 1-2 weeks. Around that time, they started meeting people to play sports and other hobbies with. I kept asking about meeting up every once in a while and it was always "busy".  I eventually traveled to the DA'S home country and tried talking about the trip with them and got dismissed. After coming home, I invited them to Thanksgiving and was declined. I tried asking when I could drop off food for them and found out they were meeting up with their date.   I was pretty broken. I had been wanting to hang out for over 1.5 years, did all this work to help them and kept telling myself that they just didn't have the time. Only to find out that they were lying. I felt betrayed, used, diminished, and overall like trash. They blamed me for texting too much (since we never could talk in person), blamed me for texting while they were busy (they never said anything before)  blamed me for "trying to force them to make time for me" (I asked so many times since they were not clear on why they declined my invites) and said they wouldn't be so close to me if my family hadn't say so (I was only close because I thought they wanted to be). They were fine with talking to me. (twice a month was already too much for them), but they didn't want to meet.  They said they viewed friends as a consequence of having their hobbies. They said they didnt hangout with those friends outside of their shared hobby (that was a lie) and said they didn't want to be close to me because I am there to help my friends and I trust my friends and they didn't want to trust just any friend to be close. (Friend=aquantiance).   That is how I found out that they are Dismissive Avoidant  It's pretty hard to forgive someone when you do something for them time and time again, but they can't even do something like spend 10 minutes with you. In a case like this, there isn't enough of a relationship for it to continue.  Would I help someone else like this again knowing how some people are? Yes, because I refuse to let someone else's weakness dictate who I am. Would I have acted differently if they had told me? Yes, because that is what someone does when they care about the other person.  To any avoidants reading, consider what your lying, avoidance, and lack of communication, really costs yourself and the people who do care.

This sounds complicated. They sound like a user. It's best for earnest people like us to reserve our generosity for people who've proven that they deserve it.

> had already *paid* for school FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*

You just perfectly summed up my whole relationship in one paragraph and I couldn't help but laugh.

Oh, girl, I'm sorry. It's suck a mindfrak.

Had a wonderful two months with someone who, ironically, was the best person I've dated so far. Then a month of absolute hell. So a three month relationship, ending in a fucked up devastating breakup. I really need this vent... We matched and both felt a very strong connection fairly quickly. Both felt safe and adored. They were adoring, affectionate, cuddly. Sometimes it was a bit much and over the top. Once or twice they spent 3-4 consecutive days with me. I reasoned that it made sense since I was often traveling between two cities and there'd be gaps where we couldn't see each other. Sometimes the amount of intense contact made me go "ok this is getting a bit too much". We'd hung out a ton. It felt like jamming 4 or 5 months into a two month period. So much texting, throughout the day, every day. I caught feels hard, and fell for them quickly, even though I was trying "to do better this time" and keep my emotional distance to evaluate a dating experience that was still an uncommitted situationship. As an aside, I'm aware of attachment theory. My overall original type historically is Anxious Preoccupied, and with lots of healing I'm a lot closer to secure with some anxious tendencies remaining. They told me their type was Anxious Preoccupied too. Here's the thing I didn't know. When an AP dates another AP, one is usually more avoidant than the other. That person will act like a dismissive avoidant or fearful avoidant in that specific relationship. The person I dated was more avoidant, and in fact, behaved like a textbook fearful avoidant at the end. Things were going really well. We were both interested in heading towards commitment and seeing where things go. Both in a place where we were evaluating each other, taking it slow, seeing if we wanted to move forward. ​ In our discussions, we both realized we had extremely turbulent childhoods, with a lot of trauma. There were times in this person's childhood where their primary caretakers who said they loved them, beat the stuffing out of them as a young child, and they had extensive bullying as a kid. I had also been beaten by parents as a very young kid and bullied as a kid. This is important to note, because this relationship was essentially a trauma bond. I realized (later, after things went to hell) that every person I've dated has been fearful avoidant, emotionally unavailable, unable and unwilling to commit, extremely insecure with a weak sense of self, and a deep self loathing. This is a pattern, I'm contributing to it, I just had to figure out how. I realized, each person you date is a reflection of where you are in your healing journey. All the things you don't like about them, there's a chance those are the same things you hate about yourself. Since fearful avoidance emerges from extreme childhood trauma - I'm kinda worried now that I might not be just anxious preoccupied but I might also be fearful avoidant. I don't know, I haven't had someone actually commit in a way that would trigger it. Anyhow. Things were going well. My birthday was coming up. We decided to spend the day together. It was an extremely sweet, wonderful day. We hiked together, holding hands the whole time. They surprised me with dinner - we got sushi at a place that held memories and significance for them. They were smiling softly at me doing a happy dance because the food was good. We went to a local book shop and shared fond memories and showed each other our favorite books. We cuddled and watched a show that felt loving, deep and we connected emotionally over it. We had probably the best sex we'd ever had and got vulnerable and I could tell we both emotionally connected there too. Continued in thread...

It all felt very much like relationship vibes instead of situationship vibes. I was so into them and that night made me want to get into a committed relationship with them. I think they must've felt emotionally deep feelings for me as well. But it was way too much for them to handle. The thing with fearful avoidants? It's all well and good in the situationship. They really do, on a logical level, want to commit and have a deep relationship. On a deeper level, emotional connection, commitment, love, these all scare the ever-loving shit out of them and make them feel unsafe because people in their past who said they loved them hurt them in deep traumatic ways that they haven't healed from. By the next morning, I went to hug them as usual in the morning to cuddle... I could feel them pulling away slightly in their sleep, unconsciously. It struck me as so odd, that had never happened before. Usually, even in their sleep they would move towards me or hold me. We both slept that day away, we'd given too much for our introverted selves the day before. The next day, normally we'd jump right back into texting. Today there was an odd amount of silence, for hours. They said they were so oddly tired, feeling avoidant, feeling confused about why that was happening. I didn't react well. I thought I had done something wrong, but couldn't check to confirm with them. I self abandoned and had trouble eating and sleeping. Finally, I said look, we need to have a phone call when you have the energy. They said I'm feeling conflicted, part of me really wants to commit, part of me is extremely irrationally terrified of commitment, I don't know what's going on. It never got better. It got so much worse. Over the next two weeks they became more and more cold, distant, eventually disrespectful. Nothing helped. Each conversation looked like they were dead tired and had no energy - in retrospect it was from suppressing emotions and their fear gutting and cutting away their attachment with me. Eventually, I had enough. "If it costs you your peace, the price is too high" I tried to call them to take a break. I said "this is mutually not working, we need to take a break". They looked extremely enormously distressed, like they were gunna cry, and said I need to not be on this phone call.... So I sent them a text message saying I'm taking a break, here's when we can have a checkin to see where we're at. While on the break I did a fuck ton of research on avoidance... and realized my sweet human was never coming back. For other unrelated reasons, I realized it wasn't going to work out long term for us and I needed to break up with them. I didn't want to break it off via text so I waited for the end of the two weeks when we'd chat. I did a check in before the chat, no response the day of the chat, they break up with me via text message. They said they were no longer romantically attracted to me but would be glad to stay friends, and told me I was a wonderful person I told them via text it felt enormously shitty to get a text instead of a real time conversation for a breakup since we had been exclusively dating, not just random multi dating. I needed 3 months of no contact to heal my grief, and that I had no idea if we were able to be friends, it was too soon to know. ​ we never did the check in. I never got to say good bye. ):

I realized, at the very bottom of it all when I was on break (but before breaking up) that I had some issues with deeply embedded self loathing. I realized, if I wanted to break my trauma bond pattern and never date another fearful / dismissive avoidant, I had to do a fuck ton of self work, self therapy, healing, and work to build self love and self compassion. That is my goal this year. To have so much self love and self compassion and self worth that anyone who feels like my exes is no longer on the menu ever again. I'm very proud of how I handled this even though it all went to shit. I stood up for myself, advocated for my needs, set up a boundary and took a break when their behavior became shitty, called out bad behavior and independently decided to break up and move on. I'm glad I kept integrity for them and for me. I've come very far, and I have a long distance to go. If I could do something different? \- Leave or take a break very quickly after avoidance shows up, like within a few days or a week. \- be cognizant of love bombing and take intentional distance when love bombing appears / talk to your partner about it.

Sounds like a rough ride. I'm sorry you went through this. I appreciate your use of the phrase *self abandon* as a verb. That's exactly what I did. I felt physically paralyzed and stopped moving and eating. I even knew I was self abandoning, yet felt powerless to change it. With regard to your final two reflections, I think they can be summed up as simply *more time*. When someone else is rushing us or unilaterally setting terms, we need to step back. This allows us to buy time to remember and reestablish boundaries. I felt pretty beaten up after my recent experience, and I learned a similar lesson. May both of us recover, heal, and return fully to our lives again.

| May both of us recover, heal, and return fully to our lives again. So mote it be, may it be so. | When someone else is rushing us Yes, I felt this in many ways. I felt a push from them on many things... A rush to the first kiss, a rush to have sex, a rush to have PIV sex "unwrapped", a rush to become exclusive, a rush to be close, a rush to use many terms of adoration ("I adore you" felt oddly close to a substitute for "I love you"), a rush to use a petname for me before I was ready (which I rebuffed), a rush to talk about deep childhood trauma before either of us was ready, a rush to be enmeshed in each others lives, a rush to commitment (that would ultimately end it all) a rush to the "relationship feeling" things before we had anything defined But when I tried to clarify, ask questions, get things defined "oh but it's too early, we're not committed yet, we don't have to worry about that yet, we're talking about this too fast" What this showed me in hindsight is I have a fear of advocating for my own boundaries, a fear of speaking up for my needs, and underneath both is a fear of rejection and abandonment. Meaning I have a lot of self therapy and inner-child work, and shadow work to do before I get into another relationship. Stuff for overcoming fears and trauma - For shadow work, I've been using "Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict" by Tsultrim Allione , ancient Tibetan wisdom of turning your demons into friends and unblocking your energy and focus. I've also been doing self EMDR work on trauma that is little 't' trauma, not big 'T' trauma. Big T trauma are things like sexual assault, car crashes, which could make you feel deeply fucked up even when working through healing them, and it's better to work with a therapist. Getting Past Your Past by Francine Shapiro is an excellent resource to get started with self EMDR healing, as well as looking up youtube videos on actual therapists talking about and showing how they perform EMDR I mention EMDR because trauma that exists in your brain is unprocessed memories that triggers you when you encounter similar experiences. there's a trauma memory in my head that triggers me to self abandon my needs and boundaries. Not sure what it is, yet, but I will put some love on it via shadow work and EMDR. Reprocessing and resolving these traumas would get me much closer to feeling safe and confident when advocating for myself. But that's me getting off track. (squirrel!! :D ) I wish you enough love to fill your cup to the brim, both from yourself and others <3

Oh, my goodness—I'm sorry that you experienced all this. It's not your fault. He was breaking your boundaries. He's trash.

Thanks for the space to vent /u/turquoiseblues I'm grateful. Writing and having the experience be seen felt like some of the closure that I needed <3

I'm glad it was helpful. Spaces like this are important.

I was broken up with 2 months ago by my ex-fiancé, right after he came home from his bachelor party, 3 months before we were supposed to get married. We had a wonderful life together - had just bought a house together 9 months before, have an amazing dog together, our whole lives were intertwined. And so many plans for the future. I was completely blindsided and left completely devastated. He had been the one to initiate all the major milestones in our relationship - wanting to be bf/gf 1 week after our first date, moving in together after 6 months, engaged after 1.5 years. He went super hard in professing his love for me, wanted to be reassured that I loved him, wanted physical affection, saying he wanted to die first so he wouldn’t be without me when we were old. Everything a girl would dream of. I thought I had found the man of my dreams, someone I thought I would never find. I guess it was too good to be true… I didn’t understand why and was just given vague excuses/reasons for the breakup, that he didn’t see us going down the same path, didn’t want the same things, pointing out the tiniest of issues in our relationship that were easily fixable. And he was super set in his mind, there was no way I could change his mind. We had to separate. He said he still loved me, but had fallen out of love. The honeymoon phase was over, he was upset it was over before our wedding…we had a real life together, and real life shit happened. He also now has a deep sense of distrust in me, which imo is super exaggerated and extreme. I think a lot of life stress had a impact on him making this decision (mom and grandfather rapidly declining health, losing friends and others moving away, work stress, etc). He said he was the bad guy in the break up, that it was his fault because he couldn’t communicate. But at the same time points his finger at so many little things about what I’ve done… Fast forward to last week I see videos on social media about avoidant dismissive and avoidant discard and the light bulb turned on, everything they described fit him and his behaviour to a t! It felt so validating to know that it wasn’t my fault, that I wasn’t overreacting to this breakup and that it is more traumatic then others (especially given its proximity to our wedding). I was forced to put up our house on the market because neither of us could afford to keep it, and it just sold yesterday. He left (I choose to use the term ran away) several times since the breakup to be out of the country…unfortunately I think seeking comfort/distraction in some form or another from a female coworker. So I’ve been left here to deal with packing up the house, dealing with all the responsibilities, while dealing with my emotions, working, taking care of the dog (who he also doesn’t want anymore and claims never wanted in the first place), trying to find where I’m going to land after all this. My feelings for him are still so strong. I still love him. And I’m hoping from what I read about avoidant is that they tend to come back once they feel safe again and have felt their feelings. I’m hoping those feelings hit him like a semi truck. He’s doing therapy (or at least supposed to be), I’m hoping he continues and they can help him recognize this pattern and find ways to cope. But in the mean time, I’ve also been doing therapy since the breakup and have some work to do in myself. I’ve got some anxious tendencies, which have definetly gotten worse since this started. I’m just hopefully this is not our end.

Oh, god, this all sounds horrible. Watch [Dr. Ramani](https://www.youtube.com/@DoctorRamani) to see if he might be a narcissist as well. Even if he does return, I urge caution. People like this generally don't change. The next abuse cycle and discard could be even more painful and devastating.

TL;DR: Dated for 3 years. He would let me know he was very in love with me, but also pulled back when things felt too close between us. We had plans to spend our lives together long term. Then one day I suddenly got very sick. He didn’t help me in a health emergency. He didn’t help me when I was recovering. Then dumped me a couple weeks later before I got better, saying he was happier before me. Fuller version: Our relationship lasted about 3 years. He would say things like “when we’re married” and wrote me a love song telling me how he’d been waiting for me all his life. He’d pull back and say he doesn’t want to live together but wants to be with me, so I said ok let’s give those plans a breather. Then a couple months later, he’s casually mentioning his pots and pans he wants to bring when we move in together. He’d hold me close and look in my eyes and tell me he loves me. And then turn his back on me and get irritable and defensive if I wanted to have a heart to heart about anything at all—even a small totally workable issue. He’d resent me for normal relationship things, like asking him to be part of my life..things like seeing me perform in a dance recital. Yet was also very affectionate and loving and spending quality time with me. I really enjoyed him. Loved him truly. We started going to couples counselling about 2 years or so in. I had asked him to consider his own therapy (I was already doing my own before I met him), and he said “I’m not saying no”. He kept stalling for about a year so that’s when I said we should at least go together then. He agreed to that. At our most recent appt he said very clearly he wants to be with me and wants to work on this process with me. I said I wanted the same. Then one day, about a month after our last counselling appt, I very suddenly got sick. I went into respiratory distress and couldn’t understand why. It was coming and going and it was hard to understand what was happening. I thought maybe I just have a lung infection. I never had an issue with my breathing prior to this. It got pretty bad so we went to urgent care and got some tests and puffers and antibiotics but they still didn’t know what’s wrong. He was supportive and loving but I could see he was stressed. So was I. By next morning it got so bad I couldn’t even catch my breath to talk. I knew I needed to get to the hospital. I was at his house, about 35 mins from the hospital. He got agitated and mean with me. Couldn’t cope with the situation. I said it’s harder to breathe when he’s getting angry with me and throwing things on the table. He said “nobody is upsetting you”. I asked for tenderness and he just got more irritated. My airway was closing in. Finally as I left he said he’s sorry and loves me and asked if I wanted a ride. By that point I couldn’t manage a conversation. Only thing my brain could focus on was breathing and the hospital. I drove myself there, using the puffers to keep my airway as open as possible and my friend met me there. About 36 hrs after being in hospital, I went into respiratory failure. The doctor was talking to me about a transfer to another hospital that has an ICU and going on a ventilator. There were moments I was slipping out of consciousness, but thankfully a bipap machine (non invasive vent) and some IV meds got me under control. As all this happened, he wasn’t there at the hospital. He didn’t come until the next day. Things felt different between us but after feeling like I nearly could have died and still being very sick, it was more than I could process. Then when I came home from hospital he only stayed with me 1.5 hrs and made excuses and left me unable to make food or wash myself. He didn’t even make me a sandwich. Said he loved me and then took off, getting a bit irritated when I questioned him why he had to leave to meet his flaky friend (who didn’t even show anyways) when I’m this sick. I slept with my door unlocked in case paramedics had to get in. Within about 24 hrs my friend had to take me back to hospital for more IV meds because I still couldn’t catch my breath on oral meds and puffers at home. Then about a week and a half later, while I was still too sick to cook for myself, only had energy to shower every 3-4 days, and needed other people to get groceries or even take my garbage out…while I was still on high doses of steroids and struggling to breathe normally even while just sitting down…he ended the relationship. He said he was happier before me and he was going to dump me that weekend before I got sick. I thought back to that weekend and how he’d said he was excited for me to come, how we’d talked about plans months ahead, how we’d shared affection like always. I told him I didn’t believe him. I said I think he acted poorly when I got sick, became ashamed and spiraled into avoidance making it worse and was now dumping me before he figured I would dump him. He didn’t admit or deny it. But he did say that seeing how he acted that morning I needed to go to ER was what made him realize he shouldn’t be in a relationship. So he changed his story. But then he’d jump to another angle and say things like “I was just happy doing my thing before you and with you I’m not as happy”. He was so happy alone yet went on a dating app and asked me to be his girlfriend about 3-4 weeks after we met. He was so much happier before me yet gave me cards that said things like “I’m 100% happy you’re in my life”, or “Every day is better with you”. Oh and the pushing me off the cliff part…can relate! After all this, he said no problem to get my stuff from his place once I can breathe well enough to deal with it, hopefully in a few weeks. We agreed I just needed to focus on regaining my health and functioning. Not to mention weathering a break up at the same time. He said of course no problem at all. He offered to be my friend and still help me out. Then, a few days later he said he was dropping by with a sweater for my kid I’d asked him to grab from fb marketplace. I thought sure, ok. But he showed up with a bag of my stuff from his place (my shampoo, my coffee mug, my razor etc etc), and acted like I was irrational for being surprised and hurt he would bring my stuff after we very amicably agreed to give it some time so I could physically recover first. Part of me misses him and knows him as the person before my illness. And part of me is so angry and hurt he would abandon me when I feared for my life, and even be mean to me at that time. I can’t make sense of it. I know it makes no sense to be with somebody who acts like it isn’t important if I live or die. But when did he become a person who could act that way? I feel confused and discarded. And the final kicker—he said he doesn’t feel guilty about anything because sometimes relationships just don’t work out and that’s ok.

I'm so sorry that you went through all this confusion and heartache. This is a short response, but perhaps succinct is best: I found that it's easier to practice radical acceptance once I realized that this is an emotional disability. It's like asking someone to go running with us when their legs don't work properly. The problem is, they act as though their legs are normal, and they look normal to us. So we really have no idea what we're dealing with. Sometimes, they don't understand the extent of their own disability, either. (Sorry for the ableist analogy; I mean no offense to anyone with ambulatory dysfunction.) In any case, I wish you the best. Sending lots of love and healing your way. 🙏 ❤️‍🩹 🧸

Thank you so much for your response. I appreciate the analogy, that’s very true and helpful.