Loving an avoidant.

Controversial advice that people normally warn you against.

I want to start off by saying that what I write here, in this post, is normally what people would warn you against. I wouldn’t consider what I have to write in this post as advice - is mostly a reflection on my time dating someone incredibly avoidant over the past year (and also a love letter to my former self, who has been the avoidant one myself in prior relationships) .

This last year dating someone who I deeply love, and who also challenges me in all of the ways possible, has forged me like never before.

But this is not a post about how you should try and overcome your resistance and blocks to loving someone unconditionally, when their behaviours are not conducive to a stable loving relational environment.

No, I am not suggesting that.

I do not promote the way I have related with this man or encourage others to lean into what I have journeyed for myself.

I have a tendency to push myself towards my edges, to carve and shape my soul through challenge.

And whilst I would not take back this past year of relating, I also do not believe it needs to be this hard.

We don’t need to continuously throw ourselves through the fires of initiation in order to have a beautiful, loving and connected relationship. It can be far easier than that.

AND I am challenged in saying that, because the reason I am here writing about this is because I did lean into a whole year of relational challenges, with one man, in order to arrive at this point - to arrive at simplicity.

It is quite like Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. Santiago had to go on a pilgrimage to pursue his destiny by venturing through the Sahara Desert to the Egyptian Pyramids in search of a hidden treasure he dreamed about. It was only in his return home, that he realised that what he had was what he was truly destined for. His soul arrived into self recognition and settled into the knowing that the life he had created was in fact his destiny - it wasn’t in far off lands.

This year I came to this realisation - I arrived home and landed back into my own self worth.

Not through continued gratitude practises or by reaffirming my worth.

It was through continuously over giving and not having my worth affirmed through another in the way that I desired it - I had to seek it deep within.

It is not the first time I have dated an avoidant.

In fact, I tend to orientate myself towards avoidant men, because I am, too, avoidant.
I like my space.

Like, a lot of it.

I only realised how much space I truly need, when a partner of mine moved to Australia from Germany some years ago to be with me. After only knowing each other for a little over a month, he moved in with me - and I completely shut down.

I could not share a room with him.

I felt constantly unsafe having someone in my space constantly- particularly because I was also a single mother, parenting almost full time and running a global business. I did not have the availability to also pour myself into another. And he did - he moved to Australia to be with me and his priority was the relationship.

Having worn the shoe on the other foot; having experienced the degree of freeze I felt in this relationship, I know very well what it is like to be in a situation where you feel smothered and pressured to share yourself when you do not have the resources to do so.

Whether it be time, emotional availability…

The avoidants priority is not the relationship.

I have had to reframe this for myself many times over. And in fact, the more I rest into this, the less guilt I feel AND the more accepting I am of a partner when they are not always able to curb out space for me in the way that I would like it.

The person I have been dating over the past year made it clear to me, when we started dating, that he did not have much space for a relationship. He was clear with me about how much he had on his plate, career wise.

But, I kept choosing the connection, time and time again, even when it did not meet my standards for communication.

The reality is, I too am scared of commitment. I too am “avoidant” - ie. I love my own energy, time and space. And I have chosen someone similar to me, so that they do not intrude on my space.

I have had to learn how to sit in the space in between, how to not panic when I do not get a message response immediately… sometimes even for days.

And what I have learned, is just how willing I am to attach a story to why someone does not respond to me quickly.

“They don’t like me”

“There is someone else”

Me, me, me.

I make it about me - instead of understanding them.

I make it about me and I spiral downward into self deprecation.

Well, I did.

I do not anymore.

Quite simply, I do not care for immediacy anymore. And I do not care for making meaning out of someone’s capacity to respond, or not.

Now, when I don’t get a text reply, I simply go about focusing on what I need to do - I stop self abandoning.

And then, the text comes when I am not thinking about it and everything is okay.

Look, I am not dismissing that some people do in fact ghost you, not care about you - and are, emotionally unintelligent or self absorbed.

But it’s not always the case.

Sometimes, people have busy lives.

Sometimes, people have things on their plates that feel larger than life - and they don’t have the emotional bandwidth to show up in relationship.

Sometimes, retreating inwards and closing down communication to have space is a coping mechanism - and sometimes, it is our way of surviving a world that has normalised constantly having to show up and self abandon ourselves of others.

We cannot make assumptions.

And I have learned, over this past year - that often, it is not about me.

And with that knowledge, I am free to lift the pressure off myself and others, to let people be who they are.

“Avoidant” “Anxious” - whatever you want to label it.

We are all just human, mostly, doing our best.