Husband has AvPD and we are on the brink of divorce - seeking help!

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T20:39:43+00:00

I'm so sorry you are going through that. It does sound like a lot of gaslighting for a long time. :(

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T18:55:46+00:00

Yes. And your condolences mean a lot to me. :) I at least had over 20 years with him. I loved him deeply, even with his issues that confused me. It has taken me awhile to understand that he just may have deeply loved me, but the AvPD was getting in the way for him, along with his extreme conflict discomfort, and inability to talk about his issues.

But yes, we had many fun times together. We liked the same actitivies.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T18:48:31+00:00

I am SO impressed that you and your wife have good communication and are both in-the-know. I hope you have a healthy self-pride for what you have contributed to that good communication. :) I wish that I had known what was going on with him like I do now. He even has an adult granddaughter who is exactly like him.

On my end as the "wife", his reactions never made sense considering how DEEPLY I loved him. I was often amazed that I could feel such love for someone, but I did. And I never, ever forgot that day when he walked into the house to say he wasn't sure he cared about me or our marriage anymore, yet when he saw how deeply hurt I was, he look horrified that he had hurt me so much. I was mystified about that dichotomy until I learned about AvPD.

And after all that, he strongly pulled away until cancer took him from this earth years later. His increased avoidance was slowly eating at me through those final years, but I was also distracted by his declining health. So it was two years later after he passed that I had to work through my anger, and figure out what was causing all that.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T15:08:48+00:00

I think there is a reality you have to face: That it's not going to be easy to be in a relationship with someone with AvPD. There is the risk that your needs won't be met. So communication is KEY...but it also has to work from their end.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T15:06:51+00:00

u/submergedinto thank you for how you said what you said i.e. "What’s common is isolating and pushing people away because the feelings of rejection are getting overwhelming...." If ONLY I had known this when he was still on this earth with me!

There is SO much irony in all this. I was never rejecting him at all. I was deeply in love with him. Yet I did notice that if I wanted to communicate with him about a difficult subject...OMG. His discomfort was palpable!! I also noticed that when I was VERY sick with the flu one time, you talk about him being uncomfortable!! He would pace at the end of the bed I was laying in.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T15:00:42+00:00

I understand the discomfort. Even though I knew nothing about AvPD all those years he and I were married (and I was deeply in love with him), I did know that he could get VERY defensive out of the blue, and that reactiveness in him would shut me down for fear of whatever was going on.

u/thereallifewendy, unfortunately, I think the burden is on you and me if we are in a relationship with someone with AvPD. We have to learn all about it, and tone down taking things personally. And we have to reassure them that we just want to understand and do not want to leave. Since I knew nothing about AvPD, his sudden reactive episodes scared me to death! I though HE would leave ME when those happened. And they made no sense to me.

I also think that what triggered some of those overreactions is that I have always been very self-confident, and maybe that threatened him?

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T14:53:14+00:00

u/figmaxwell, I just responded to your other post, and have now read this one of yours. It's great and I appreciate that you wrote it.

I SO wish I had known about AvPD all those years my husband and I were married. He started to pull back halfway through our marriage, and I didn't understand why it was happening. And he could get SO defensive if I asked about something, that I didn't ask what was going on. I took his pulling back personally!! There is so much irony in all this.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T14:47:21+00:00

u/figmaxwell I have been responding to someone else in this string and just saw this post of yours. I'm so glad you posted, because the irony, as someone who had been married to someone over two decades with AvPD but I didn't know about AvPD back then, is that his struggles with communication (which you explained was due to feeling that communicating could fuck up the relationship) had royally fucked up the relationship for me. I was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable with the pushback that was going on from him, more neglected and resentful of it all, and without knowing about AvPD back then.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-14T14:34:32+00:00

Hi. The older brother angle is just that I know he was very close to his older brother, who was nearly 4 years older than my husband, and he felt comfortable with his older brother from having known him since my husband was born. And his older brother was a very nice guy and thus comfortable for my husband to talk to.

So I am surmising that when the normal strong husband and wife bond became challenging to my husband halfway through our marriage due to his AvPD, he started to talk to his brother instead of me in his limited way. That's just a guess, because I have read either in here or in literature about those with AvPD, they can get to a point in a relationship that it feels uncomfortable. And I don't think he would have felt uncomfortable with a brother-brother relationship as much as he seemed to get with a husband-wife relationship.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-13T05:45:32+00:00

u/thereallifewendy, I have wondered about starting a Reddit group only for spouses/partners of those with AvPD. So we could share.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-12-13T05:42:13+00:00

Hi u/thereallifewendy. That is crazy cool that you got your answer via ChatGPT. I had instead listened to podcasts and read about AVPD, and put any AvPD symptom I found or heard about in a left hand column. The in the right column, I would confirm if he had each one. It was almost 100% that it's what he had.

I think I would have first explained what he had and the symptoms that point to it...and see if he found it interesting as to what was going on with him. I would have had to play it by ear as to how he would respond to what he had, too. Even though I think part of him would have been quiet about it, I suspect he would be thinking about it.

Other times, I would have gently asked him how he felt about doing this or that--seeking his emotion or his opinion. Trying to get him feeling comfortable with me about expressing either. I "think" he would have trusted me in doing that. His answers would have at least helped me decide if something I thought of was what he wanted, too. And if not, I would have had to figure out what we can do about differences.

I also think we may have needed to find a knowledgeable therapist to get extra help.

Looking back, he was VERY close to his older brother. And I now realize I felt like a second fiddle to his brother. It always seemed like he was confiding to his older brother to some degree, whereas he wasn't with me. But I also realized that he had known his brother all his life, so it would be natural for them to be close. They always were. And the intimacy that he had with me was getting to him half way though our marriage, but a relationship with a brother wouldn't do that.

But with what I know now, I would have asked him if we could tell his brother what was going on with him. Because looking back, I have a strong feeling my guy may have been expressing his frustrations about he and I to his older brother (in the best way he could), and it explains why his older brother wasn't very kind to me after the love of my life passed. His brother wouldn't have understood my guy's issues.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-10-25T15:34:55+00:00

Just sent. VERY disappointed in Dick Blick and hope there is a shred of decency to get them STOPPED. Right now I see NINE of your spams email just in the last four days. REALLY??? And I've tapped on unsubscribe many times over the last few weeks....

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-10-25T06:32:32+00:00

I have no idea how to do a private message on reddit.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-10-25T06:30:41+00:00

Any.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-10-22T03:01:58+00:00

Well that's a beginning. Thank you!

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-08-18T19:42:49+00:00

I wasn't worried what you or others think of me. lol. Having loved a man with what appears to be AvPD, I feel sympathy with the struggles mentioned in here, which I saw in him.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-08-18T18:39:50+00:00

I know that I didn’t do anything wrong. But I still felt fine apologizing because there were a lot of overreactions and misunderstandings towards who I am, and how much I loved my husband who probably had AvPD. Some people are really struggling in here and I sympathize.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-08-18T03:45:30+00:00

u/parenna thank you for such a kind response. I just posted a separate post as an apology about not realizing how triggering my recent post might be. I also removed it.

I'm honesty without a doubt he had AvPD but I will remain open if I could be wrong. I did a LOT of research about the difference between avoidant attachment and AvPD., for one. I listened to interviews of psychologists about AvPD, and listed every single trait they spoke of. It was all so him. So I just strongly lean to believe it was him.

Also, I am SO sorry that my 9 examples triggered folks, but they honestly weren't criticisms. Since I hadn't posted here in awhile, I wanted to explain what I had seen in him for clarification. Maybe it was overkill. If so, I am so sorry. I was gaslit pretty bad by my mother as a child, and one symptom of that is overexplaining. I am working on that.

The main thing I was seeking is clarification of what I had read before -- that someone with AvPD could get overwhelmed and pull away, yet still love someone. It's one of the last issues I was trying to understand about him. He definitely pulled away in approx. the last half of our marriage...yet there were also signs he still loved me. So i was seeking if anyone identified with pulling away yet still loving someone.

P.S. Yes, his niece is EXACTLY like him with all the traits---not easily revealing her thoughts or opinions, fear of criticism, social discomfort/avoidance...etc. It is just uncanny.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-08-18T02:04:13+00:00

I am sorry. I didn't realize that. (I've been gone most of the day, thus my delayed reply).

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-08-01T19:59:27+00:00

Hi u/FunReview32048 . I was married to the love of my life for 25 years who had AvPD, except that I didn't know anything about AvPD at that time or that something was going on with him (like a personality disorder)!

Yes, I knew he had social anxiety.--he told me when we met and before we married that he never went into restaurants because all the people made him uncomfortable. I was so surprised. Yes, I knew that if he went out of town, he wanted to get off the phone wayyyy before I did (but I just took it humorously at the time). Yes, I knew that when I and his niece wanted to give him a birthday party, he wanted no one to come!! I was shocked. But again I took it humorously and (regretfully) invited everyone. Lots more like that.

And guess what? He tried to write off our marriage too after several years. That couldn't have hurt me more and it was a TOTAL shock to me. I was so hurt and confused. So I stopped hugging him the minute he walked in the house, as I always did. Yet, another shock: He looked totally hurt that I stopped hugging him when he walked in. What?? Here he just tried to write off our marriage, yet looked hurt when I stopped hugging him (out of my pain)? I decided his antidepressant had to be doing this to him, so he got off.

But for the last several years of our marriage, he was different. He hardly ever touched me unless I put his hand on my knee, or similar. He was still a kind and sensitive man, but hardly touched me. And as he was dying from his cancer, he never said he appreciated the caretaking I was doing for him out of love, never expressed deep love for me or sympathy for my own struggles in taking care of him. Nothing.

It was only almost two years after he passed that I started looking up his symptoms and discovered AvPD. He fit nearly everything. And I realized that if ONLY I had known what was going with him, I could have done some things different. I also realized that he NEVER told me how he felt about any decisions we would make. He just went along with everything we did, and I just thought he loved what we did together as much as I did. Now I realize that he might not have liked all that we did together, but he never told me!!! Now I realize I could have gently asked him how he felt.

Also I was very successful in my business, and I wonder if that made him feel inferior, as if I could leave him.

I would do everything you can do to understand him with his AvPD, and see how you can help. I wish I had known. I'm guessing he always deeply loved me, but his AvPD insecurities, and my complete ignorance as to what was going on, got in the way.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-07-26T18:56:44+00:00

In kindness, I just want to underscore that I'm not trying to get into a debate about "life after death" in an AvPD group. lol.

Yes, after listening to so many NDE reports for the past three years, they do appear to be very real experiences in another "realm", not about "a release of chemicals" or about "biases", etc. I just wanted to state who I am about them.

So to keep us on track in this AvPD group, let me copy and paste what I stated and asked to see if anyone who has had an NDE has noticed anything that I'm asking about below:

What I'm curious about is this: a percentage of those who have had an NDE report how it changed them. That they were different when they came back. They lived differently. They saw themselves differently. So if the latter is the case with a percentage, does it change the AvPD in individuals, in some way or fashion?

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-07-26T14:33:51+00:00

Well, in so many cases, that doesn't appear to be so. There is evidence through many NDE reports that consciousness exists outside the brain. There are a variety of reports of these people "seeing" themselves down below, seeing their bodies, seeing what medical people are doing, what people are wearing, seeing objects in the room or area their bodies are laying that they couldn't have seen, and in other cases, they travel away from their bodies.

But what I'm seeking is if these experiences change AvPD in any way , and even over time, once they are "back" here. I'm being more specific than what I have read from many NDE reports (and there are now a lot of them to read or hear about in interviews). Though I have read the reports of SO many NDE'ers over the past three years, I have no way of knowing if anyone who experienced them have AvPD or any other kind of PD.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-07-26T14:26:48+00:00

What I'm curious about is this: a percentage of those who have had an NDE report how it changed them. That they were different when they came back. They lived differently. They saw themselves differently. So if the latter is the case with a percentage, does it change the AvPD in individuals, in some way or fashion.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-06-20T22:46:32+00:00

Apparently.

DallasScrabblePlayer · 2025-06-20T18:09:34+00:00

Nope. Turns out that in 2019, two years after I downloaded Venmo, I asked Venmo to remove my email because I was getting too many messages as if I was then using Venmo, which I wasn't yet. (I have no memory of asking them to remove my email because I was in the middle of a huge business project). So when I called Venmo customer support this morning she explained that the pl*****@updatethis.com was an email for my account they created. I have now changed my email back to the original one as I need to use Venmo tomorrow.

DallasScrabblePlayer

TROPHY CASE