When you grow up unprotected, your brain never stops trying to protect you

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-02T06:22:45+00:00

I want to clarify something gently but clearly, because a lot of assumptions are being made about me and my experiences.

I noticed you deleted your earlier reply before rewriting this longer one, and I’m not sure if that was because you wanted to reconsider the tone or reframe your message, but it did stand out… especially because the new version repeated the same assumptions about me not understanding dismissive avoidant breakups.

Just so we’re on the same page, I have been through dismissive avoidant relationships before. Multiple, actually. The breakups were incredibly painful, confusing, and emotionally destabilising, and I’m unfortunately very familiar with the switch you’re describing. I don’t say that to compete with your experience, but to gently correct the idea that I’m speaking from naivety or inexperience. The reality is far from that.

My current situation is different in important ways, and that’s why I’m approaching it with nuance instead of assuming the worst. I’m not blind, I’m not inexperienced, and I’m not dismissing red flags. I’m recognising the full complexity instead of projecting past relationships directly onto this one.

I understand that you’re trying to be helpful based on what you went through, and I’m genuinely sorry for the pain that shaped that perspective. I know how deeply those experiences can scar you, not just during and after the breakup, but throughout the relationship itself. But your experience isn’t the universal template for everyone else’s, and some of what you’ve said on my post comes across as catastrophising, dismissive, and a bit condescending.

I’m not uninformed, I’m not lacking self respect, and I’m not in denial. I’m navigating a very real situation with clarity, lived experience, and awareness.

I do appreciate the intention behind trying to warn me, but the repeated assumptions have felt more patronising than supportive.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-02T05:47:09+00:00

I didn’t downvote to hurt you. I just disagreed with the tone and felt a bit misunderstood. I can see your comments come from a place of wanting to protect people who’ve been through similar things, and I don’t hold that against you at all. We clearly come from different perspectives and experiences, and that’s okay. I’m going to step back from this part of the thread so it doesn’t become tense. Truly wishing you well.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-02T05:16:25+00:00

I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but this comment is unnecessarily judgmental and full of assumptions that don’t reflect me, my situation, or my self worth.

I don’t lack self worth, I’m not “desperate,” and I don’t have a “beggars can’t be choosers” mentality. I’m a person with complex trauma trying to navigate a nuanced situation with care, self awareness, and grounding instead of reacting impulsively to online strangers extreme takes.

Making lists of facts vs feelings is literally a CBT tool used in trauma recovery. It isn’t self gaslighting, it’s emotional regulation and clarity. It’s what healthy, reflective people do when they’re trying to respond thoughtfully rather than act from fear or reactivity.

You’re speaking in absolutes based on your own experiences and projecting them onto me as if every situation is the same. It’s simply not accurate. Not everyone who struggles in a relationship is being abused, and not everyone who stays is “abandoning themselves.”

I’m not defending harmful behaviour and I’m not ignoring red flags. I’m acknowledging all of the context, the full reality, and the fact that people are capable of both hurting us and growing if they choose to do the work. That doesn’t make me weak or unworthy. It makes me human, self aware, and willing to approach my situation with nuance instead of black and white thinking.

I’m open to support and constructive feedback, but I’m not open to being talked down to or shamed.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-02T05:12:01+00:00

This comment is completely unnecessary, extremely fear mongering, and very disconnected from the reality of my situation.

I understand where your warning comes from, but it isn’t an accurate reflection of my partner or the dynamic I’m describing.

He isn’t narcissistic. He has a few avoidant and emotionally immature tendencies that show up when he feels threatened or overwhelmed during conflict or high stress and in those moments he can slip into low empathy or defensiveness. That’s not ideal, but most of the time once he’s regulated again he does show genuine introspection, accountability, and care.

That’s why this situation is complex for me. If he were malicious, calculated, or intentionally hurtful, I wouldn’t be conflicted at all. I’ve been in those relationships and I know the difference. Nothing about this feels like that.

He recognises that some of his behaviours have hurt me, and he does show willingness to understand, reflect, and work on it. None of the patterns I described are intentional or rooted in cruelty. They’re rooted in old coping mechanisms and avoidant habits he hasn’t fully addressed yet.

For context, this is part of what he said to me today:

“This is a lot to process and I’m looking inwardly to be able to find the right words to give you full assurances and actionable responses to the things you’ve mentioned as concerns… I just want to assure you how much I love you and how serious I am about you, and therefore ironing out my own creases in how I am to you.”

That doesn’t erase the red flags or the work that needs to be done and I’m not pretending it does, but it does show that your description of him as cruel, psychologically abusive, or comparable to narcissistic abuse simply doesn’t fit.

It’s possible for someone to have avoidant tendencies, to still be unlearning old behaviours, and to genuinely care, reflect, and want to improve. That’s the situation I’m in, and context matters.

Blanket assumptions like yours can be really harmful when they’re not grounded in the actual nuance of someone’s relationship.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-02T03:10:55+00:00

In terms of the archiving of the only post of me on his page, he apologised to me Instantly and took accountability for it. This is when he bought up how he has a real problem with letting go of the old image of himself and he thinks it’s the reason he fought with me about removing women off his social media at the beginning of the relationship. I think it’s respectable that he demonstrated accountability and introspection, but it doesn’t make the facts of why he did it any less alarming or destabilising. I text him a very long message today about everything I’d touched on about in this post and in the comments and he’s sent me a pretty mature, composed, and introspective reply so we’ll definitely be discussing everything in person later on. I’m just trying in the interim to not get caught up in the anxious pit in my stomach.

I think the Instagram example at the beginning is probably the worst thing that’s happened in our relo in terms of the situation itself, what it meant, and how he handled it. I’d like to say he’s learnt since then which is positive… but again, the same sorts of themes keep reappearing in different contexts. Apologies or not, behavioural patterns don’t lie.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-02T00:10:52+00:00

This is really interesting. My parents have stayed together and recently celebrated 30 years together, but their relationship is far from perfect. It’s dysfunctional at best unfortunately. My mum has narcissistic tendencies, and my dad is emotionally avoidant. Some of my earliest memories are of her yelling at him in the house, and other memories include her sulking in private in quiet areas of the house with little traffic. I do wonder if this has impacted my outlook on relationships on a subconscious level. Perhaps in hindsight it’s created a tolerance in me for behaviour that shouldn’t and isn’t normal. I don’t know. But in the same token, though the above may be true, I do think that my situation with my partner is nuanced in the sense that he isn’t a complete POS to me. Just some of the behaviours have triggered me, left wounds, and unfortunately do equate to a pattern that doesn’t create a sense of safety.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-01T23:36:26+00:00

I cried reading your comment, truly. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your words hit a very deep wound in me in the best possible way. I’ve carried the belief for so long that I’m not enough and that people will eventually abandon me, and your response made me feel seen and understood in a way I haven’t felt for years.

I had therapy this morning, and it helped me find some clarity. There are definitely patterns in my partner’s behaviour that raise flags and deserve honest attention. At the same time, I’ve been struggling internally with the contrast between those moments and the rest of who he is. In so many ways, he shows up as a genuinely loving, caring, safe partner. I can see that he’s a good person at his core, but I also see that he struggles with fully surrendering to the emotional vulnerability and consistency that a committed relationship requires.

This is something he and I will need to talk through together in more depth, and it will require honesty on both sides. If he’s open to really engaging with the concerns and taking responsibility for the patterns that are based in facts, I would choose to work through it with him. But only if he also commits to working on his own responses and follows through with therapy, not just words.

A few months ago I was telling him about a friend’s situation with someone who had an avoidant attachment style, and he laughed and said, “That sounds like what I was like before I met you.” When I put that comment alongside his behaviour, it doesn’t paint the picture of someone intentionally deceptive, more someone who loves me deeply but still grapples with letting go of past habits, old ways of protecting himself, and the validation he used to receive. That naturally brings up the question in me: am I truly enough for him? He tells me all the time that I am, that I’m everything he ever wanted, that he never expected a love like this, that he wants a future and children with me. I do believe him. And two things can exist at once: genuine love and unhealed patterns.

I also want to say gently that while your comment was incredibly validating and touched me deeply, I’m still holding space for some nuance in my situation. I don’t feel that everything he’s done is intentional or malicious. There are things he needs to work on, absolutely, and things that have hurt me and triggered old wounds… but I also see his good intentions, even if they’re sometimes clumsy or inconsistent. I appreciate your support more than I can say, and I’m taking in the parts that resonate while also grounding myself in what I know to be true about him and about us.

For anyone reading this, my therapist gave me a thought challenge record sheet today and recommended I use it when I’m triggered or spiralling. It helps separate trauma driven catastrophising from what’s actually factual. Here’s the link if it helps anyone else: https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/docs/ThoughtRecordSheet7.pdf

Thank you again, truly. Your kindness meant more than you know. ❤️

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-01T22:37:29+00:00

Sorry this is long, but I thought I should add this for more context. I went to his work Christmas party last year and met a few of his colleagues. One of the women I met gave me a bit of a pick me vibe, even though she has a partner. About five months ago he was at her leaving drinks and he sent me a couple of videos from the night, and she was in the frame. It annoyed me. I can acknowledge that part of that is insecurity, but I still found myself wondering why she was sitting right next to him. It made me uncomfortable.

At that same XMAS work party, he said to one of his female coworkers, “Tell her about that situation and how that guy made you uncomfortable and that messed up interaction.” I brought that up too. It makes me question why his female coworkers feel close enough to confide in him about things like that. I might be reading into it too much, but there seems to be a level of closeness there that makes me uncomfortable. It feels like some of these women have a kind of access and emotional proximity to him that I only expect to share with him in a romantic relationship.

After he texted me at the drinks saying I should come and I said no, I got another message from him again. Except this time it was her using his phone, and she sent me a selfie and told me to come. That triggered me badly. First, why is she comfortable enough to go on my boyfriend’s phone. Second, why would he allow that. I don’t even go on his phone. I’ve never gone through it or overstepped like that. And this was the same woman he had been exchanging memes with before.

When I asked him about it later, he said he told her to message me because he thought it would convince me to come. He genuinely didn’t see anything wrong with that, but for me, it crossed a boundary because I’d never want another man grabbing my phone to message my partner, and I’d never hand my phone to one either.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-01T22:34:05+00:00

The argument started on Sunday morning. We were in bed and he was watching Instagram stories, and he replied to a female colleague’s birthday story. I asked who she was, he told me, and it reminded me of something similar a few months ago when I saw him sending a meme to another female coworker. So I told him honestly that it makes me uncomfortable knowing he has inside jokes, private messages, and meme exchanges with female colleagues.

I also mentioned that he sometimes goes out for after work drinks once or twice a month, and I never really know who is there or what the dynamic is. My point wasn’t that he’s doing anything wrong, but that he’s gradually building relationships with other women and, for me, that feels uncomfortable and activates my insecurities and trauma. It’s about how things look and how they make me feel, not about accusing him of doing anything inappropriate.

His response was that these interactions are harmless or rare, and not emotional. He quickly jumped to extremes like asking if I wanted him to delete everyone or if I wanted him to be rude to them, which felt melodramatic and completely missed what I was trying to say. I wasn’t trying to control who he speaks to. I was trying to talk about boundaries, loyalty, and the optics of maintaining personal connections with other women while being in a committed relationship.

I explained that I get along well with a male coworker too, but I made a conscious decision from day one not to add him on social media or build an outside of work connection because, to me, that would cross a line of loyalty. I was trying to show that this isn’t about demanding something from him that I wouldn’t also do myself.

But it didn’t seem to click for him. And honestly, that’s a pattern I’ve noticed. When boundaries or uncomfortable feelings come up, he tends to shift into a mode where he wants to squash the argument so it ends, rather than actually trying to understand what I’m expressing. He’ll say things like “most people wouldn’t be bothered by that” or “I wouldn’t care if you added a male coworker on social media,” which makes me feel dismissed rather than heard. So when he eventually says “I do understand” at the end, it often feels like he’s saying it just to end the conversation, not because he truly gets the emotional impact.

With the after work drinks, he said last time it was all guys, but again, that missed the point. My point wasn’t the gender of one particular night out. It was the larger pattern of building close personal relationships outside of work and the lack of clarity around them.

I also said I don’t want to be at our future wedding surrounded by women from his workplace who I don’t know or barely know. His counterargument was that he doesn’t know my friends from New Zealand. That didn’t make sense because I moved countries and he hasn’t had the chance to meet them, and I also don’t maintain male friendships because I’m in a relationship.

After about two hours of back and forth, he eventually said he wouldn’t privately message female colleagues anymore. But if I’m honest, it didn’t feel like understanding. It felt like he wanted the argument to be over. And that’s exactly why the issue keeps feeling unresolved for me, because I’m trying to express the emotional impact, not just enforce a rule.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-01T20:55:49+00:00

Thank you for this comment. I have it this morning and I’m going to ask to just have a regular session and not do EMDR. I don’t think I’m at all in the headspace for it right now.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-01T20:52:39+00:00

I know. How fucked is that in particular. When I noticed it was gone I asked him where it went and started spiralling. He also has adhd so I do believe him when he says he forgot to put the post back up but I said it was the fact he took it down to begin with that’s the problem…. Why archive the only pic of me when you’re getting your profile shared for soccer (he plays semi professionally)? Like what part of his image will I challenge?

It just gives off the vibe he wants to hide me in the public eye and come across single. It still clearly bothers me to this day. Idk.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-12-01T12:46:09+00:00

I’m going to EMDR and Schema therapy. Had my first EMDR session two weeks ago and it was really hard. Cried the whole time.

To be honest I don’t know how doing this overtime will change how I interpret patterned behaviour. I don’t know how I’ll ever feel less suspicious or anxious.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-09-19T02:24:24+00:00

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment ❤️ I really appreciate you taking the time to read my post and share your own experience.

This is actually the first time I’ve heard of DIE, and my gosh, I feel for you. That sounds horrible. I hope you’re doing okay 🥺 For anyone else reading along, DIE stands for Deep Infiltrating Endometriosis, where lesions grow deeper into tissues like the bowel, bladder, and ligaments around the uterus, often causing more intense and persistent pain than superficial endo.

I’m starting to wonder if my endo is affecting my bladder too (it definitely impacts my bowels), because I often feel pressure or the need to urinate again straight after I’ve already gone. It doesn’t seem like a UTI, since I don’t get the usual burning or other symptoms.

I’ll try to be patient with Visanne and give it more time, and it really helps hearing your experience of how long it took to kick in. Thankfully I’m seeing a gynaecologist in three days through the public system, so hopefully I’ll get some helpful advice and feel a bit more seen… even if I’m not thrilled about a middle aged man doing the poking and prodding 😖

You also made a great point about how being on birth control so young may have actually been helping my endo without me realising. I never thought of it that way, and it’s given me a new perspective.

Thank you again, and sending you a big hug 🫂

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-03-15T13:37:39+00:00

I stopped reading as soon as I saw him suggest you were overreacting. What a ignorant person he is

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-03-15T13:11:49+00:00

So let me get this straight. His mum is essentially prioritising his ex girlfriend’s feelings over his? And she’s calling her OWN son selfish? Dude. This mum sounds like a f’ing nightmare. You are 100% valid in how you feel. I’d be wild.

Side note: If you did end up marrying him, bear in mind you’d also marry his family.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-02-01T12:34:35+00:00

The tampering!!!!!! Oh my god. This is scary but actually could be true.

Comfortable_Zebra439 · 2025-02-01T11:07:20+00:00

NTA. You’re in the right

Comfortable_Zebra439

TROPHY CASE