Dear Prudence,
I just got broken up with after a short (two months) but meaningful relationship, mostly long distance. They were up front about their anxious-avoidant attachment, but it still caught me off guard when a week before I was set to visit them across the country, they abruptly ended things.
The breakup came just as intimacy between us was really starting to deepen and I was imagining a future together. What happened was I had expressed that I would feel jealousy if someone else hit on them, and that sent them spiraling. They said they felt responsible for my feelings and asked for a week of space, then after announcing that we’re done—no interest in my feelings, no repair. It’s been really painful.
They had told me they were actively working on healing their avoidant-attachment in therapy so they could stay open to me, so I thought there was hope. And they have been able to repair small disagreements with me. I’m struggling to reconcile the sweet person I was seeing with the one who coldly ended things and blamed it on “incompatibility.” I miss them terribly and keep hoping they’ll come around and realize what we were building was real. How do I make peace with this ending that feels so jarring? Am I missing something?
—Rug Pulled Out