Can an AvPD ever accept love?

Hi,

I'm in here as someone who loves a man who I believe may have AvPD. I am not diagnosing him nor do I want anyone here to (got that message from the other posts and was not actually looking for that)

He has fallen into a very dark place since the spring, and has ended a long term committed loving and caring relationship of almost 4 years. I am struggling with the loss of the relationship and on an emotional roller-coaster since he made the unilateral decision to end our relationship, via email.

He says ending us is being done to protect me as much as himself. This is how he traditionally copes with adversity, he says that he goes into self-protection mode when he is facing difficulty. He fears I will hurt him in the long run and disappoint him, because everyone always has, there are no exceptions to him right now!

From my perspective its like a self-fulfilling prophecy and its very sad and because its not true, but its like he refuses to see it differently right now and he has made his decision and is unwavering. He is a completely different person to the man I met and feel in love with, although not about being decisive and unwavering. I know he is a really wonderful man and has so many great qualities. I love him dearly, and I don't want him to feel alone and abandoned (he has abaondment issues from his parents divorce) but he won't let me in anymore, and its like a switch went off and he would rather not continue in the relationship, and minimize the risk being hurt by me at some unknown point in the future (which is not an absolute fait accomplis) or him causing me unnecessary future hurt, so he ended us! And I am supposed to just get over it, and suck it up buttercup! Well I'm not that type and never have been. I am a problem solving analytical type that has never been afraid to tackle a problem head on!

I know...I know...maybe he's not that into you, but if you had the full context and story and were a fly on the wall during our post email meets (not all of them) , It is obvious he still has feelings for me, he just won't and doesn't want to let himself feel them. I suppose its because they scare him and the risk isn't worth the reward! But I disagree with that! If I could open my heart to him, and he once opened his to me, and I didn't do anything wrong (and he acknowledges that) why is he closing his heart down now, why is he emotionally shutting down? I am having difficult with accepting the outcome of the end of the relationship, when the underlying premise is flawed and is an artifice built from the self fulfilling prophecy! why should anyone do that, isn't that like being co-dependent and letting the self fulfilling prophecy live??

I am working on my blog for it, which is a book already (but very helpful to processing all of this)

I didn't actually have any idea about AvPD until last week. To be honest, after some of the things that happened post email, I actually suspected he was having an affair, because there was no other plausible explanation or apparent or immediate cause for him to withdraw his affection from me so abruptly and without so much as even giving me the opportunity to see if there was some need of his that I was not meeting or whether we could work through whatever it was that was causing him to cast aside his personal relationship with me!

I even joined a support forum for infidelity, to help me sort through my emotions, after I found some weird stuff on his Twiter feed, which was inconsistent with what he was telling me and raised my suspicions, but he had two x wives who cheated on him (as well as Family of Origin issues of abandonment with his Dad; his mother was an alcoholic and abusive and he no longer speaks to her....etc.) and because fidelity was as important to him as it was to me. I had an emotional breakdown when I confronted him at first with my suspicions of him having an Affair. But up until the email, I knew I was faithful throughout the relationship, so I concluded based on the information I had at that time, that his ending the relationship was so he could go with his Affair Person. He was hiding something I could see the guilt and remorse, it was palpable, but I also know that he never lied to me before. After my breakdown, he picked me up and held me in his arms and waited patiently for me to calm down. When I finally did I saw there was love and care in his eyes, not indifference! I believe if he was having an Affair and left me for the Affair Person, he would have been indifferent to my pain! So when we next met up, he denied the affair and answered my questions, I believed he was telling me the truth. So what was left? He wasn't having an affair and it wasn't true that he didn't love me anymore (well his behavior toward me suggest that he still did?, so what was going on? I had to fit the puzzle together! There had to be an explanation.

The problem was unless I considered factors outside of the relationship, that were germane to the way he functioned, I was never going to figure out what was going on! His answers didn't help me sort out the unfinished puzzle, I had more questions than answers after that conversation. He also broke down and cried and when I raised the issue of him being worthy and deservant of love, his answer was No I'm not! He wouldn't even let me hold him, they way he held me when needed consoling! He told me I had to stop loving him! He said I deserved better, that he was a bad person. But I know he is not a bad person and I truly believe there is no better man for me, on this earth. Why, because for the first and only time in the history of my having relationships with men, I felt safe and secure and confident that he was the Man in my life! I trusted him unequivocally and loved him unconditionally, and he never abused that trust before the email. I never did anything to abuse his. But his trust bank was leaking and I was the casualty, when I should have been given the benefit of the doubt!

He sent me the email on May 15 (D Date), no overt warning, just noticed a continued gradual withdrawal , which I tried to confront with him head on before getting the email. He avoided the subject and said it was all business issues, that while he thought about ending the relationship, that he didn't really want that. We had 1 fight in almost 4 years, and we worked through that, we were very compatible. I believe if two people are committed to each other, they are partners and they function as a team, they can work through things, not run away when the going gets tough! Its been a hell of journey in the past 4-6 months. He is just so absolute in his thinking and finally decisive. There is a rigidity that I cannot penetrate, and I just need him to allow for compromise where I am concerned.

There has been a lot of emotional upheaval for me since D date , including him leading me to believe that once he got through this dark period, if I was patient, empathetic and didn't pressure him, if I stood back and let him sort it out, there was a more than a glimmer of hope of us getting through this, and him actually allowing himself the support and benefit of our loving relationship going forward.

I have read part of the Dating post in his forum and some of the posts on the people who have had relationships with suspected AvP. I am terrified that he is going further down in the abyss and the walls he is erecting will never come down! I don't think I can change the way he thinks, but I do think there must be some way, to help him not go further down! I want to help him crawl out before its too late!

I don't know if he is AvPD, but from what I have read and based on his conduct, he is definitely terrified and wants to avoid suffering pain or causing it to anyone!. I get the not wanting to cause pain bit, being selfless/valiant but his decision to end us without so much as an opportunity to try and work through it, is not consistent with the premise of our commitment, nor is it consistent with man I met and fell in love with. He always honoured his word and his commitments. Its actually been very hard on me to see him give up on this so easily.

If I didn't love him and want to help him get through this, I wouldn't have joined this site or this forum. He is talking about never having another relationship ever, including with me and he's even mentioned becoming a recluse. I think I am in the right place for this post. Please help, any feedback or opinion is welcome. Thanks for reading all the of this.

Nifty Girl

You can't do anything to help him, you realize that, right? Clearly he's going through something, but you can't fix him. That's a noble instinct, but he has to want to fix himself, and he's made it clear to you that what he wants is to be alone.

If he's not changed his mind and come back in over 3 months, he's not going to. At this point he will reckon that he has damaged everything beyond repair and it will be useless to come back because it will just fall apart again, and that's if he even wants to come back. And he doesn't owe you any kind of compromise when it comes to his feelings about the relationship. He has a right to his feelings, however much you don't like them, the same way you do.

It takes a long time to get over a relationship, especially when you got cut off so suddenly. It might help you to seek therapy to work through it. But at this point, all you're doing is putting your life on hold. That might be less scary than reentering the dating pool, but that's wasting your life.

And to answer your title question - first of all, no clue if your guy is avoidant. He did accept love, for 4 years. And now he doesn't want it anymore. He changed his mind for whatever reason, and he's allowed to do that.

Can people diagnosed with AvPD accept love? Yes. It's not uncommon for avoidants to get married. It's the maintaining that's difficult, because in their heads they have this running tally and they feel they can never love enough.

Let me point out something again, because you're blurring things up. The dating post - that was talking about a knee jerk instant rejection based on unworthiness. You're talking about someone who accepted your love for four years and then decided it wasn't for him anymore. They are incomparable. Don't try to warp your reality to try to make it fit a "diagnosis" because eventually you'll believe the warping rather than the reality.

Here's what I think is really going on. Brace yourself. I think you're looking for an excuse that is not about you. The thing is, you don't need one. He didn't say, "You're awful, I never could stand you this whole time." I'm sure that's what it feels like he said, that the way he left it was as if he was crapping all over your whole relationship. But that's not what he did. You don't need to find some reason that would explain the behavior. You didn't screw up, and he doesn't have some thing that prevents him from accepting love. He's just really really bad at breaking up, and I'm sorry about that.