Dating Someone With Avoidant Personality Disorder.

Stickied as a separated thread.

Reading the replies to this. Man, a lot of negative reactions.

Personally I wanna thank you.

It's nice to know that someone without this disorder can be compassionate and want to try to make things work.

I don't think it violated anything because no names were mentioned.

To answer some romantic questions I have been in a serious relationship for about 4 years now. We have been living together about 3 years now.

I am AvPD he is not but I think he may have something from going through a very bad marriage and divorce.

I'm frequently grouchy, uncommunicative, depressed, etc. Sometimes he gets angry at me and hurts me. I feel guilty.

But he's the one person I can talk to. Even though he doesn't understand and isn't taking it as seriously as I'd like he is trying.

He's such a happy, outgoing guy. I'm so jealous of all the close friends he has. A lot of times I think about leaving so he can find someone who can make him happy.

We weather our bad times. In the end he is holding me in bed or on the couch, playing with my hair.

I think the only reason we have been able to stay together for so long is that he is on the road driving M-F so I have lots of alone time to get my crazy out.

I think that's what people should look for in a partner: someone who has lots of other hobbies or a job that gets them out of the house more.

We just combust if we are trapped with the same people for too long. We need our alone time

I so wholeheartedly disagree with everything you say, it’s not even funny.

HopelessRomantic wrote:Well, I think that people with personality disorders can truely only love another person with a personality disorder.

Do you really believe that to love someone, they have to get inside their head and turn it inside out? Every single person is different, everyone is an individual, and so no one can use themselves as a reference to understand the other person. It’s as though you were suggesting that only two identical people can love each other. Love is not about understanding, it is about respecting. Among other things, it is about respecting the fact that the other is different from you and that their needs are thus different from yours. It’s not a question of whether their needs are the same as yours (no one will have the same needs as yours) but rather a question of how well you can and are willing to meet the needs of the other, and vice versa.

As an avie, I know that I can only really love that one weird guy who I met some years ago. We are one and the same.

First of all, why are you suggesting that the fact the he is so weird makes him an avie? Second, how do you know he is the only one you could love? Have you met all eight billion people on the planet? And third—one and the same? There are no two people who are one and the same, not even unicellular twins. By saying this, you are denying his individuality. And even if he were an avie like you, sharing the same mental illness doesn’t make you identical, because no one IS their mental illness. A mental illness doesn’t define a person. There is much more to a person than their mental illness. So even if he might share characteristics with you because he supposedly has the same mental illness as you, that doesn’t make him identical to you.

I might love in some ways other guys, but there is just one who really gets me to the core, and the core is my personality disorder, something that forms a solid part of me, something that is forever.

If you feel that your personality disorder is your core, that you don’t HAVE a personality disorder but ARE a personality disorder, that’s up to you. To me, though, it sounds like self-denial. Besides the fact that you are an avie and that therefore you do some things differently from how most people do them, there are also definitely things that you do the same as most people, and that would be who you are independent of your personality disorder, who you would still be were you not an avie. And no, other avies are not the only people who can get your core. What it takes to get your core is not the same personality disorder but someone with whom you have enough in common for that person to be truly interested in you, who can accept you such as you are and who is willing to listen to you define yourself and accommodate the ways in which you are different from them and try to bridge that gap. Or let me turn your assumption around: do you think all avies would get you just because they are avies? Of course not, because besides being avies, they are also individuals. Why did it not work out with that supposedly avie guy, despite the fact that he “gets your core?”

People are just lying to themselves, if they think that AvPD can be changed, cured, or that non-avie can love an avie for who they are, as the non-avie doesn't understand something that forms the base of an avie.

Who suggested that AvPD needed to be changed or cured? The OP definitely didn’t. And what makes you think a non avie couldn’t love an avie for who they are? We are talking about loving an entire person, not their mental illness. Do you really think that love for nons is a piece of cake that comes naturally without any effort and works out every time? Have you seen the divorce statistics? Nons also need to love the other non for who they are, and newsflash, they struggle with that just as much as you would. Why wouldn’t an open-minded person who is motivated to truly know and understand an avie be able to love them? And why do you assume that there are no nons for whom it would be easier to love an avie than a non, precisely because the avie is an avie, for example a non who is rather solitary, independent, and less in need of sex and affection? Can you explain to me why, despite the fact that I definitely don’t have AvPD, it turns out that the men I am attracted by seem to always be avies, and why I just can’t be bothered with “normal” people, who I feel constantly pressure me to be “normal” rather than accept me for the individual I am?

So how can a non-avie love the essence of you? How can someone love something they have no clue about, and don't know how it feels?

Maybe because the essence of you is not your personality disorder, even though that’s how you view it. I don’t have to love AvPD to love a person who has AvPD, just as I can love a blonde guy even though brown-haired guys turn me on and blondes don’t—because of everything else in the package. And knowing what it feels like to be an avie is not a prerequisite to love that person. I don’t care about avies, I care about THIS particular avie, so if I am interested in what it feels like to be them, it is not AvPD that I am interested in understanding but THIS person, along with AvPD. It is the same among nons: no non knows what it feels like to be the other non, and it takes work for nons too to figure it out. And yes, there are nons who are open-minded, non-judgmental and empathic enough to be able to know what it feels like to be that person, at least enough to figure out how to maintain a satisfying relationship. On top of that, it is not necessary to fully know what it feels like to be the other person, firstly because it is impossible to ever fully know what it feels like to be any one other person, and secondly because you don’t need to know what it feels like to be that person in order to accept and respect them. I personally don’t need the other to justify who they are in order to be able to accept that that is who they are and to be motivated to learn how to let that person be themselves without causing either of us any distress.

I find your idea of love much too idealistic. Love will not fix any of your issues, it is not meant to make you feel like you are normal. It is about a companionship where two people meet each other’s needs as best they can. How well they meet each other’s needs has nothing to do with whether either of them has a personality disorder. It depends on how well their respective demons play with each other. Everyone has demons.

snookiebookie wrote:I have said this before, and I will repeat it again. This needs a sticky thread!

I wholeheartedly agree, and I like your little FAQ.

As a non, I would like to see some points not just on relationships but also on beginning relationships and dating. I seem to attract and be attracted by people who fit the diagnostic criteria.

I believe I was in a relationship with someone who has AvPD, although it might have been at the subdiagnostic level, for over a decade. I believe I ended the relationship precisely because of AvPD symptoms. I didn’t know about AvPD back then, so if I am right and he had AvPD, I misinterpreted the symptoms and that’s how things got out of hand. All this to say, I feel I am pretty much stuck having to date people on the AvPD spectrum. Normal people are not interested in me and I am not interested in them, they seem to have little to offer me, I am too deep for them.

But sadly, because of how people on the AvPD spectrum operate, budding relationships never make it to actual relationships. I tend to blow it. I mean, if I sincerely show interest, they run away, but if I don’t show interest, they assume there is none and drop it. Sometimes they have such a negative image of themselves that if I say something positive about them (and I only ever say it if I mean it, it’s not seductive flattery), they seem to get scared of the moment when I discover their bad qualities or they seem to think I am not being honest, and they pull out. And of course there are all the things I might say that get misinterpreted as attacks, criticism, rejection and the like. While I believe to understand where it all comes from and have a high tolerance level for it, I don’t know how to navigate those situations productively. I think these questions also need to be addressed.

Gomba13 wrote:But sadly, because of how people on the AvPD spectrum operate, budding relationships never make it to actual relationships. I tend to blow it. I mean, if I sincerely show interest, they run away, but if I don’t show interest, they assume there is none and drop it. Sometimes they have such a negative image of themselves that if I say something positive about them (and I only ever say it if I mean it, it’s not seductive flattery), they seem to get scared of the moment when I discover their bad qualities or they seem to think I am not being honest, and they pull out. And of course there are all the things I might say that get misinterpreted as attacks, criticism, rejection and the like. While I believe to understand where it all comes from and have a high tolerance level for it, I don’t know how to navigate those situations productively. I think these questions also need to be addressed.

By nature, that's how people with AvPD operate- that's how they've had to adapt to operate. It is something they can work on, and work towards changing somewhat, but it's not immediately or completely "fixable". There isn't really a way to "navigate" it. For people who do manage to have a relationship it is a lot of understanding, and listening to what is and is not said, which is also the case for a normal relationship.

Gomba13 wrote:ll this to say, I feel I am pretty much stuck having to date people on the AvPD spectrum.

Pretty offensive tbh. Like we're the last people on earth.

Gomba13 wrote:As a non, I would like to see some points not just on relationships but also on beginning relationships and dating. I seem to attract and be attracted by people who fit the diagnostic criteria.

I think you need to go look up some general info on relationships and dating. Because you're unlikely to find AvPDer's saying "this is what you need to do if you want to date me". Most find relationships in general intensely uncomfortable. Most AvPDer's would really like to be able to have relationships, but there's so many roadblocks between having a relationship of any kind- friends, family, romantic, whatever, and feeling comfortable in it. Some AvPDer's can manage to have a romantic relationship, some can't- it really depends on the person. What each AvPD person can tolerate looks and feels slightly different for each person.

I do think you need to rephrase your idea of "I can only date someone who is disordered".