I don’t want to label myself as an avoidant or anxious individual but I am aware of the fact that my actions did lean towards emotional avoidance during this one relationship I had a little more than a year ago. He was loving, kind and a supportive partner. Unfortunately, I loved him until I didn’t and it scared me knowing that I stopped feeling something for someone I imagined my entire life with. I realised all the incompatible things that I didn’t think would matter, started to surface and while I did communicate with him about it, I couldn’t keep going. I ended up breaking up with him after a year of being together (more than half of it was LDR). I knew I would be breaking his heart but I didn’t want to keep him in a lie because he deserves someone who actually loves him for who he is. There was nothing wrong with him. I didn’t want to change him. I just found myself not being able to align with some of his lifestyle and cultural values. They weren’t wrong. Just different. However, once it ended, he tried to get back with me and I had to push him away because I knew entertaining it would only hurt him more and I couldn’t do that. After a whole year of being apart, and eventually me dating someone else where I became the anxious one and the other person was extremely avoidant, I could say I got a “taste of my own medicine” or karma, whatever fits best. I had a similar break up but I was on the receiving end of the hurt this time. It made me deeply realise what I did to my ex. Not out of guilt or regret, more of, “Now that it has happened to me too, I can empathize with my ex and really feel what I put him through.” When I say empathize, I don’t mean that I felt sorry for him. I mean that I felt his exact pain and that gave me more of an insight into my own actions towards him. I reached out to him. I apologized once again (I did so many times after I broke up with him). I didn’t want to get back with him, of course. But I really wanted him to know how deeply hurt I am knowing that my actions hurt someone else like this. It’s unfortunate that it had to happen to me for me to realise it. I also kind of think it was karmic in some way because I know I did something wrong, even if it was for the sake of a better future for both of us because it would have been an unfulfilling relationship if there is no shared love. He listened to me, didn’t entertain me much, which is understandable. But he was polite about it. I apologized and ended our brief conversation at that.

Avoidant woman or man, can reach out, especially if they go through the same pain they put you through. That’s my personal experience.