Expect the Unexpected: When Your Avoidant Falls in Love

He decided that he is sure: I’m the one.

I know, my friends, it’s sounds completely insane so let me recap to how this all happened because of course, it’s all a little bit more multifaceted than this.

Three weeks ago

I had actively decided to use all of my living energy to stay focused on the one thing in my life I could more or less control: work.

My days were packed with meetings, I even hired my first employee knowing I’d have to create a crash course into my business for her in the middle of inhumane amounts of work and travel. Truth is, I love my job so much it only takes one session with any client to completely shift my mental state from ‘lost’ to ‘found’.

I avoided telling anyone about my newly rekindled relationship so that I could stay connected to my own voice, which, in the end, is the only one that counts.

As they say, it’s your own life after all, you’re the one who then has to wake up and be with the human you chose, hence you are the only one who can decide whether they are in fact good for you or not.

When you tell your friends

Friends love us. They want the best of us. And if they’re close and you talk a lot, they are practically living your relationship alongside you.

We’re like the TV series they never asked to watch.

I made the mistake, one day before going to His home country to meet his family for the very first time, to tell a close friend that He was back in my life.

Let me get a gin & tonic to give full credit to her speech:

Honestly I don’t get it at all. Everything I know about this guy has been terrible. You have been feeling like shit for two years. You told me the same exact thing you’re telling me now two years ago, that he seemed sure, that you would meet his parents, that this thing whatever it is — is in fact going to happen.

Do you hear yourself?

Is there something I’m missing?

How can you possibly think that this ensemble of terrible episodes of life going to magically sum up into the perfect relationship? How can you think that this could ever make you happy? Is there something I’m missing? Is there something you haven’t told me?

You were doing great in January when you had come back from Mexico and everything was finally coming your way: your work, contacts, your mental sanity, your migraines had stopped. Why would you do this to yourself again?

I’ll be honest, this doesn’t do her speech justice.

Let’s face it, she was right.

Every single word that came out of her mouth was correct, now imagine re-reading this but hearing a posh British accent and the speech becoming elegant and flawless in its form.

It broke my heart.

Two weeks ago

I decided to go (I know, you’re shocked..jk)

No part of me wanted to go.

What was I doing in another airport just a few days after I had come back from a trip home then a solo trip in France, after months of complaining I was completely burned out?

The last thing in the world I needed was to get on another flight.

Yet I did.

I have one life policy: no regrets. Honestly, at this point I had become curious: what was going to happen? What could happen?

As I waited for my flight I went to Accessorize to look for a fake engagement and wedding ring, as in His country, it’s illegal for him to sleep in the same room as someone who is not his wife. I found one I liked , it had a gold band and a medium sized diamond. I couldn’t bring myself to buy it.

He didn’t deserve it.

As I sat on my flight, surrounded by a group of Indian and Pakistani speaking loudly and my two flight companions to my left debating the wrong role women play in western society I began wondering why I had put myself in this position in the first place.

Ah it may be time to introduce the fact that he is from a different religion, Muslim, and I am Catholic (or some version of this).

I landed in the middle of chaos. He had come to pick me up and sweetly greeted me to his car. We couldn’t kiss, legally we are not allowed there in public, so we just drove towards a hotel where we would stay for three days before heading to his home town.

He felt distant, or maybe it was me. He was kind, but I couldn’t feel anything.

It may also be a good time to mention that after years of failed attempts at finding a cure for my migraines, I have started to take a mood stabilizer which acts a little bit like an anti-depressant, raises your serotonin but also prevents you from experiencing very strong emotions.

Could it be the meds?

The first three days went by wonderfully, however, despite being a solo traveler and global trotter I never left the hotel we were staying at without him. I just didn’t feel like being harassed and shouted at all on my own. Very out of character but I was truly exhausted.

I met his colleague, who was absolutely wonderful, and he took care of me in every possible way.

One night he received very good news on his company. He was visibly shaken by it, it had sealed his fate as a successful entrepreneur. He deserved it, he is brilliant, stubborn, resilient, focused.

He turned around and for the first time since we met, without any kind of uncertainty he said it:

I’m in love with you.

We kissed. We were truly happy.

One week ago

As we were driving towards his home town I was began feeling like something was wrong so I decided to act distant and a bit bitchy for no reason. He sweetly called me out on my behavior and actually found a way for us to speak constructively.

He identified some of my blind spots, he addressed them without judging, for the first time since meeting him I felt like he could help me grow. For the first time, I felt like he could hold me in safe space, like he was there to support me no matter what.

I felt like I could be fully, unapologetically, unfiltered, myself.

It was so much to take in that he was not about to drop me for being anything but perfect and kind that my body entered a state of complete exhaustion.

It was happening. I could really feel it: he loved me.

The next day, we set out to meet his parents.

As I entered their house, I was in the middle of a massive culture shock. He didn’t prepare me, I knew what I could expect but somehow experiencing it from the point of view of someone who could be joining the family is completely different. I knew if I choose him, this would all be part of my life.

The colors, the smells, the traditions, the language. It was beautiful, but a lot.

His mom, whom I feared most, was wonderful. We actually loved each other.

I couldn’t help thinking how amazing life would have been for her had she been born on this side of the world. She hides a beautiful smile, intelligent eyes, resilience and a willpower to live life to the fullest. I could tell it would only appear at intermittence.

Level 10

I had not only been approved by the family, they loved me.

Welcome to level 10 my friends, the one I wasn’t sure existed.

It exists.

It’s real.

I had stopped trying to make things work. I wasn’t even sure I wanted things to work.

After writing the secret playbook I began asking myself — do you really want to be with someone who requires a playbook to love you back?

The answer is simple: I don’t.

What I had not anticipated is that he decided that I had passed all the levels and that I was welcome in his life, in his home, in his heart without any of that.

He decided it despite me being up and down, hot and cold, exhausted and certainly not at my best.

He moved me straight up to level 10 out of the blue: now, I was the future wife.

This level should be so easy to navigate. Everything is easy. Everything sparkles and everything is given to you at a mere ask.

Yet I feel completely lost in it.

Turns out, it’s hard to go from 9 to 0, but it also takes adjustment to repeatedly fall from high floors and then to be welcomed to the highest level with no explanation (not because I don’t see my value but because it has been there, under appreciated all along).

Do I trust?

Should I prepare for a spectacular fall?

When can I let go of fear — should I?

Would he decide to drop me if I decided once again to fully open my heart?

I explored my fears with him, after all, he is the only one who can address them with me.

Speaking up was one of the best decisions I had made, though I still feel on edge. He said he will love me always and forever.