As you all know, I decided to go on a vacation with my avoidant ex.
So what happens when you take your avoidant back for the 52nd time? I mean of course promising yourself this time you won’t catch feelings, that this time you know how to handle them, this time you can be a little bit less than your full self?
Spoiler alert: by day 2 I discovered the avoidant’s ‘safe zone’— a must-know finding for anyone trying to date one.
DAY 0: The 1st meeting post-breakup
Can we still be dreamers after all the s%*t we’ve gone through?
As I fly over Athens to reach my ex in Santorini; after several days of writing blog posts about how I will survive the next massive disappointment and heartbreak which, rationally speaking, is much more likely to occur than a happy ending like in any respectable romcom, I had a moment of realization.
I have not become the skeptic I have been selling to all of my friends.
S*it! I’m still a dreamer.
My migraines have gone from a 8% to a 99% in force.
My body does not want to go.
My brain does not want to go. In fact, it’s trying very hard to activate a system shutdown in the hopes I will drop half dead and skip this terrible idea.
How the heck am I still a believer after everything that has happened?
Honestly guys, I don’t know. I am not envisioning us hand in hand walking into sunshine, well, I am but only this week in Santorini.
I am not sure how I’m going to feel when this flight lands, but I’m you’re sure that it will be a lot to handle.
His flight is delayed, I have just enough time to humanize ahead of his arrival. I head to the bathroom and change, try to hide the effects of my brutal migraine and hope time somehow fast forwards to the moment I see him.
For some illogical reason, he’s probably the only person I wanted to go on vacation with this summer. I’m exhausted and I need to feel home for a second, hopefully in his arms, in his neck. To breathe him. To sleep, really sleep.
I don’t think I’ve slept since the last time he held me in his arms. I just want to shut down my central nervous system for a moment and really rest.
Differently from the past, I don’t want to be the best version of myself, I’m not thinking much of how he will feel about me, I’m more focused on how I want to feel for myself and on how I will feel about him.
He lands.
No big hug and kisses and tears of I love you’s. He’s not the type.
He briefly hugs me, my coolness out the window I hold on to him tighter than I had planned. We get in a car and head to our hotel. It felt a little bit like we hadn’t been apart but the huge feelings I had developed were closed up in a closet with a lady called Lorena carefully managing the incoming outgoing expressions of these feelings.
Day 1: On the island of romance
Although it was a perfect, passionate, beautiful night, ‘just amazing sex’ is rarely enough. You can’t truly enjoy sex with someone you love unless they also love you back. And in all honesty, no L word has been dropped and his take on this whole vacation is:
No talking about the past
No talking about the future
No talking about problems between us
Basically this is a ‘pretend couple’ vacation.
We pretend we are in love and happy, which, in all fairness, we are in the moment, and we completely ignore the fact that the moment too shall pass and our hearts will be completely shattered if we, as we 99% will, end things again.
To be honest, so far I’m okay with that, I just need a few moments here and there to fully absorb what just happened, turn the happiness factor down and realign on the fact that I cannot catch feelings as he told me very specifically he still doesn’t know what to do.
Or do I already have L level feelings and I am just a bit deluded and feeling strong as he is, in fact, here with me?
It’s hard not to compare this with exes and new strangers who on the other hand would love to claim me as theirs, to protect me and my feelings, to take care of me and make plans to build together.
Yet I’m here with someone who is not sure about me. What does that say about me??
This is all a little bit too underwhelming. When I express feelings he pushes them away, almost shaming me for putting them out there.
I know what I need to do, get ready to exit and leave this endless vacation (we haven’t decided when we leave) at the right time, before certain death.
On the other hand, I am feeling very relaxed, taken care of and serene.
AAAAAHHHHHH!
Let’s see.
Day 2: The ‘Safe Zone’
There is a specific area you can walk in when dating an avoidant.
Imagine a land split in half by a river: on one side you have the ‘I don’t want you’ on the other the ‘I love you’ and in the middle the land of ‘I want you but not quite and I love you but it may not be forever’.
The land in the middle is exactly where your avoidant thrives.
Once in a while I take a step on dry land, outside of the river, I venture into reality off my cruise, and infallibly, every single time, I get killed off.
Yesterday I tried simply hinting at the fact that I may want answers, in the land of the ‘I love you zone’ and he asked me not to speak about it because it made him want to cry. He literally subliminally told me he would have to leave me if I ventured out of the river, he said he would not be able to stay in this vacation.
I am allowed to go up and down the river as much or as little as I want to, but I cannot get past that line. I can’t even wave out of the window, if it intersects with the two unsafe zones.
Is this a life?
Can we really live constrained in a tiny little part of this field?
Day 3: When reality comes creeping in
As I wake up this morning of day 3 of vacation, the energy is a little bit lower. The magic of pretend has gone a little bit out of the window.
Reality is catching up with us in waves.
We still pretend it’s not quite there.
Scared but also quite relaxed, I get ready to go out there by updating you, my travel companions. Thank you for being there by my side.
I wish you a fantastic day from the land of the ‘Avoidant Safe Zone’.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Barna Kovács on Unsplash
