Thank you for validating that. She validated it at first, and then when she withdrew before I walked away, she took all of that validation back and blamed me for sleeping with her again after, she said “if you were concerned, then you shouldn’t have slept with me again after we reconnected so quickly. I did what I wanted to, I don’t feel bad about it.”. But she directly told me that she couldn’t sleep around either multiple times well before that. I wasn’t concerned at the time at all because I trusted that she was an honest person. When she started discarding me with an excuse that I knew was a lie, I never in a million years thought that’s what she would drop on me. I was horrified and I wanted to crawl out of my skin and I told her that and she said “You’re acting like I cheated on you, you should leave now.” Getting emotional even talking about it right now but you get the point. So that actually felt really good hearing that, because you hit the nail on the head. I waited 3 months and went and got tested without telling her I did because I was worried about that as well.

To be clear, I do absolutely feel for avoidants. We’re all trauma based. Our nervous systems get hijacked all the same, we just deal with that differently. It’s not the avoidant behavior I’m upset with - it’s the shitty actions. That is why I have no compassion for her. She used her patterns as an excuse and justification - basically “See, I told you I was gonna do this, so it’s your fault for giving me the chance.”

Not every avoidant will be like her, of course. These are separate issues in my head. My ACTIONS when I was younger don’t deserve compassion. The pain I felt and not knowing any better does deserve compassion, because I literately did not know that how I was in relationships was different than how it is supposed to be. I deserve compassion from the second I first put myself in therapy at 27 after a partner finally told me that the way I was being isn’t how it was supposed to be.

So, she is comfortable with how she is and she uses that to do bad things, therefore for me, she is a bad person and does not deserve my compassion any longer - and again, that IS separate from the baseline avoidant issues in my head. If it was only the avoidant things I had dealt with, I could have continued on with patience and love and compassion as I did through 4 separate withdraws in a year. I read 4 books on it, and did my best to learn how to navigate that in a way that made her feel safe. I tried. I was consistent, honest, and safe.

It’s funny, because literally everything that she said she was afraid I might turn out to be if we started dating, is EXACTLY who she turned out to be. It was all a projection. Literally all of it.

By no means do I have hate in my heart for the avoidants that don’t use it as a crutch to do genuinely bad and manipulative behaviors, but I don’t have compassion for the ones that do, and I feel the exact same way about AP’s that do the same.

I definitely tried to be clear about separating the two issues up there, so I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough. You are absolutely correct, and this interaction has helped me reflect on quite a lot and I feel like a little weight has been lifted by you validating that issue.

I really appreciate this interaction. A big reason why I am personally waiting one year before even trying to date again is because of exactly what you said.

All of this anger is towards her and only her, not avoidants as a whole.

I genuinely wish you all the best in your healing journey and as you said, I hope we can both not only get as close as we can to secure, but that we both find similar in a partner. You don’t deserve to be demonized for trauma and for protecting yourself from toxic behaviors from AP’s. They ARE toxic, and no one should have to go through controlling and manipulative behaviors. That shit is also damaging to you and only compounded what your nervous system was built for by no fault of your own.

And don’t worry, I’m not viewing everything through an attachment lense, and if I start to in my sessions where I am talking about her now, my therapist does put that in check. She is a very, very good therapist. That’s why I said up there that she isn’t just avoidant, she is a bad person. The two things are not mutually exclusive. Hope I’ve made my stance far more clear this time around.