I spent 4 ½ years in love with a man who made me feel like the most important woman in the world on Monday… and by Wednesday, made me question whether he wanted to be with me at all. But then on Friday? He’d want to marry me again.
I’m not exaggerating, or being dramatic. I wish I was (I can be dramatic at times). That was our relationship. For 4 ½ years.
The craziest part? I recognized the red flags almost immediately. I just chose to ignore them. It’s easy to ignore the red flags when you have chemistry like ours from the beginning! The attraction was immediate. He pursued me in such a charming way. When things were good, I genuinely couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else but with him. But the warning signs…
Early on, he’d disappear mid-text conversation, sometimes for the entire evening, until the next afternoon. His explanation was that he got high every night, “spaced out”, and didn’t always have his phone nearby. Okay, fine. Everyone has their vices. I didn’t like it, but who was I to judge?
I was falling in love, and I figured the rest would work itself out. Spoiler alert: It didn’t!
The anxious-avoidant trap
Confession: I’m anxiously attached. I crave connection, consistency, reassurance, and emotional intimacy. When something feels wrong, I want to talk about it right away and fix it.
He seemed to need the exact opposite. When things got uncomfortable, he withdrew. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. The more he withdrew, the more anxious I became. The more anxious I became, the harder I pushed to get him to come back to me. And the harder I pushed, the further he pulled away. Looking back now, it was almost comically dysfunctional, except nothing was particularly funny about living inside it.
I became someone I barely recognized. I sent ridiculously long text messages explaining feelings I’d already explained 100 times… “because a 20-page novel would make him understand!” I called repeatedly when he wouldn’t answer… “because the 6th time he saw me calling would make him see how badly I needed to talk!”
Of course I contributed to the dysfunction. I wasn’t innocent. But just because my anxiety sometimes made me react badly doesn’t mean the things I was reacting to were acceptable. They weren’t.
I thought if I just loved him enough, he’d love me the way I needed.
This is probably the part of the relationship that embarrasses me most. I am actually ashamed. I tried so incredibly hard. Not just emotionally. In every possible way.
If he casually mentioned wanting something, I made it my mission to get it for him. Once, on a trip to Nashville, he pointed out a photograph he really liked in a museum. Just a passing comment. Within days, I’d tracked down the original print, purchased it, had it framed, and it was hanging in his house.
He once suggested we should get matching hoodies. He loves a good hoodie. Cute, right? Well, apparently… I interpreted that as a lifelong contractual obligation, because for years afterward, anytime I bought myself a hoodie, I bought him the matching one. Now my closet is officially half a set of matching hoodies, and their counterparts will never see their other halves again! Thank God he never casually said he wanted to go on a SpaceX mission. I think I would have needed to make it happen. This was how I loved him.
And then there was Disney World. He mentioned wanting to go for his birthday, so naturally, I planned the entire trip. Every ride… every restaurant…every last detail to magical perfection. And it was magical! We barely waited in a single line. People were singing happy birthday to him everywhere we went. We acted like kids and had an incredible time.
Until one moment that still haunts me. After taking pictures together all day, he asked me to take a picture of him alone. No big deal, right? Except I then watched him send that picture to other women. Exes and friends. Women who thought he was single.
I couldn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but given how carefully he kept me separate from other parts of his life, I felt like he was deliberately erasing me from a trip I’d spent so much time planning and making perfect for him. It crushed me. Did I let it ruin the trip? Nope! I swallowed it, smiled, and did my best to make sure he had the magical birthday I’d worked so hard to give him. And that night, after he fell asleep, I cried myself to sleep beside him.
That’s the part I look back on now and struggle to understand. I was so determined to make him happy that I was willing to be miserable in the process.
If he had a doctor’s appointment he was nervous about, I’d take the day off work to go with him. If he needed something, I rearranged my schedule. If he had a problem, it became my problem until I solved it, no questions asked.
I just enjoyed making him happy. I enjoyed taking care of him. I wanted him to turn to me for all of life’s problems. But somewhere along the way, all that generosity and caretaking became something else, and I just didn’t recognize it in real time. I was trying to earn security. I thought, “If I could just love him a little harder… be a little more thoughtful… he’d finally stop pulling away from me.” He’d see how good I was to him. He would see how much he needed me. He’d finally CHOOSE me… and he’d stay.
But I learned a difficult lesson: love doesn’t work like a hotel rewards program. You don’t accumulate enough points through thoughtful gestures and eventually redeem them for emotional availability and security. I learned that the ridiculously hard way.
One day, I had an MRI scheduled that I was frightened about. He was supposed to drive me; he actually insisted. He didn’t show up, though. He said that he forgot to set his alarm. So… I drove myself. Alone.
During that drive, I thought about all the times I’d rearranged my entire day so he never had to face something scary alone. Ever. The Nashville photograph was hanging in his house. The hoodies were in his closet. But when I needed him, I was driving myself to an MRI. I don’t think I’ve ever had a clearer picture of how imbalanced our relationship was. Did that make me end it? Unfortunately, I think you know the answer.
Every argument became a referendum on our future.
We could spend an incredible weekend together: talking about marriage, looking at apartments in cities we dreamed of moving to, and planning our future. He’d brag about me to random strangers, telling them how much he loved me and what an amazing partner I was.
Then we’d have a relatively minor disagreement. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure we were compatible. Maybe he didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore. Sometimes, when I’d ask, “Are we still together?” he couldn’t even give me a straight answer. Other times, he’d tell me he never wanted to date me again.
A few days later, once the conflict was resolved? He’d be in tears, apologizing and saying he’d suddenly realized how badly he needed me and couldn’t imagine life without me.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I told him repeatedly that we needed to learn how to disagree without threatening the entire relationship. He always agreed. And then we’d do it all over again. After enough years of that emotional whiplash, you stop feeling secure even when things are good.
The lying was the dealbreaker I kept refusing to accept.
I could have worked with someone who needed space and who struggled with communication. For the record, I wouldn’t have liked either of those things, but isn’t that what relationships are about? Compromise and learning to work with your partner?
What I couldn’t work with was extreme dishonesty. And oh boy, was there a lot of it. He lied about women he communicated with. He lied about what he was doing. He lied to other people about me. He made promises he repeatedly broke, then made them again. He maintained relationships with exes, always presenting himself as single.
Friendships with exes aren’t inherently wrong. I have a couple of them myself. But maintaining (sometimes) flirtatious relationships while letting people believe you’re unattached is very different in my books. And his explanation for the dishonesty was fascinating.
He lied to avoid conflict. He labeled himself “conflict avoidant”.
If telling the truth might upset someone, he’d simply say whatever he thought would make the problem go away. If that meant telling two different people two completely different things? Apparently, that was preferable to an uncomfortable conversation.
I spent years trying to explain why honesty mattered. But he knew. I struggled to accept that he understood what I was saying… he just wasn’t choosing to do it.
The good parts kept pulling me back.
You might be thinking, “This sounds awful! Why didn’t you just leave?” Trust me, I’ve asked myself the same question. But that’s what made it so difficult. The good parts were wonderful.
Whenever I started pulling away, there would be renewed affection. I’d convince myself that this time he really was changing. And our incredible physical chemistry made reconnecting especially easy. We could have a terrible argument, barely speak for days, reconnect intimately, and suddenly feel close again. Until the next argument. Sex was fantastic at helping us forget our problems. It was absolutely useless at solving them.
Not every dismissive avoidant is like this.
I want to make something clear. Being dismissive avoidant doesn’t automatically make someone dishonest, unfaithful, or selfish. And being anxiously attached certainly doesn’t make someone an easy partner.
But when someone’s discomfort with emotional intimacy becomes a justification for dishonesty and refusing accountability, attachment theory stops being an explanation and starts becoming an excuse. The problem wasn’t simply that we had different attachment styles. The problem was that we’d developed an incredibly unhealthy dynamic, and despite years of conversations and promises, we didn’t change it.
Four and a half years later.
I still love him. I believe he loved me, too. I believe our happiest moments were real. I believe some of the dreams we shared were real to him in the moment he expressed them. But I’ve finally accepted something I resisted for years: someone can love you and still be incapable of giving you a healthy relationship.
Love doesn’t automatically create honesty. Chemistry doesn’t create dependability. And promises about the future mean very little when someone’s behavior never changes.
For years, I measured our relationship by how extraordinary it felt when things were good. I should have been measuring it by how we treated each other when things were difficult. I don’t regret loving him. I regret how long I stayed after I understood what the relationship was doing to me.
I’m not writing this because I’ve completely healed or because I’ve figured everything out. I’m writing it because, for the first time in 4 ½ years (and our 4,592 breakups), I actually believe it’s over.
I’m sad. Of course I am! But I’m also relieved. I don’t have to wonder whether he’ll answer his phone tonight. I don’t have to wonder which version of our relationship I’ll wake up to tomorrow. And I don’t have to keep auditioning for a permanent place in the life of someone who repeatedly made me feel temporary.
I loved him. I wanted it to work. I gave it 4 ½ years. Now I’d like to give myself a little peace.
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