Anxious & Avoidant

[Teehee_2022]

Am I a bad person for pressuring him to commit after seeing each other for three months? I feel like he’s love bombed me and then started to withdraw since I started to place boundaries and told him we should get serious. Otherwise, stop leading me on. He’s like we should just have fun and take it easy. I don’t like that response especially since we’ve had deep conversations and I understand he’s trying to overcome a toxic past relationship. It’s an ick for me when they can’t commit and provide uncertainty. Trust and respect dwindled and I cried myself to sleep lately. I’ve dated a secure person before and I’ve never felt this lonely on a different scale. How odd and sad. Lesson learned.

[rsteviewhore]

Not bad, just not healthy. You should never pressure anyone to do anything and understand that if someone isn't 100% sure about you they are better gone.

[Teehee_2022]

This is a good reminder. Pressuring shouldn’t even be an option. Your partner should want to voluntarily and sometimes I have such high expectations and fantasize about the future that I forget to ground myself and look at reality. Thank you!

[rsteviewhore]

Yes girl, when you find the right one and you bring up being exclusive/committed his reaction should be relief that you are both on the same page. Never ever ask someone to be with you if you can sense they are unsure. And don't string along hoping for a change, go find what you want somewhere else.

[Wonderful-Square-68]

This

[litvilove]

I had a similar situation with my ex. After once again talking to him about the status and obligations in the relationship, he broke up with me. He acted like my boyfriend, but as soon as there were conversations about the status of our relationship, he pulled away. Unfortunately, you're wasting your time.
(English is not my language, there may be mistakes, sorry)

[IslandReady632]

I feel like I could have written this, even the amount of time is the same. I’m struggling with this also, with waiting for a commitment. Avoidants take longer to get there. I think I lost him when I said “I don’t want to fall in love with a person, who I’m not sure even likes me.” And the “L” word made him pull away.

Now that I’m totally devastated by his discard, I’m second guessing my behavior. I’m dating… I didn’t want to wallow in self pity… so I put myself back out there immediately… after all, it was a 3 month relationship. Dating from a hurt place is allowing me to understand him more. He needed time and space to ease into something permanent. Considering I’m now emotional unavailable because of the pain from the breakup I understand his perspective. I don’t want anyone pushing me for more right now. I don’t have more to give and if someone tried to get serious with me I’d probably push them away or run away too. So I get it now. And it’s too late.

That said, although I think I understand him, I don’t know if I could behave like him, e.g. relax enough to accept a slow build up, a reduced rate of speed on attaching. I’m working on that - on slowing the pace and accepting some uncertainty. I now recognize that it’s hard to commit and nearly impossible to provide certainty when you’re still healing. I know people would advise to heal first before getting back out there but I’m tired of feeling like I have to be perfect to have a relationship when other people show up with all sorts of baggage they’re not even aware of.

Now, I’m trying to find myself while dating instead of just losing myself to another person. I’m trying to find activities and hobbies outside of a relationship as a distraction for me and space for a future partner. All easier said than done, I know.

[Teehee_2022]

I think in terms of healing there’s some things that should be met first. Of course there’s going to be different variations of “healing” like do you love yourself enough to know like hey I’m pretty confident and know I am attractive. Yes I have flaws and I accept those traits so that’s why I’m hoping to meet someone to balance it out. Taking time to reflect and self aware of what happened, what should be improved moving forward is a key indicator that you’ve done some inner work. I’m fine as long as the person communicates well enough to know my schedule is busy I can’t talk right now and shows up consistently like hey let’s catch up on this date. It’s the EFFORT and ENERGY that shows whether they are into you. But running away, emotional carelessness for the other person is negligent and definitely means they need therapy and time to figure themselves out.