Venting Anxious Attachment is ruining my life

[WinterLovesMe]

For most of my adult life, I've undergone the same exact pattern with relationships. Not romantic ones, but all my close friendships.

I'm too anxiously attached to people. I moved away from home 5 years ago to a different continent, and since then I've had 3 different people that I've become incredibly close with, slowly begin to drift away from, panic, and then implode the relationship.


Now I'm going through it all over again and it is absolutely ruining me. I dont want to; I cant go through this again. Not this time. Not with my best friend.

We've known each other for around 6 months now, since october of last year, but only got close in January 2025. We had such great chemistry. We chatted and yapped and hopped on calls and played games together and went through so many different emotions together. We developed crushes on each other, then decided to not pursue it due to LDR, but remained so so close. She had a big move and grew a little distant and I got so close to CTBing. I was so scared in February: I saw her slipping away, I saw her distancing herself and not having as much time for us. I was so terrified of losing her. But then we got close, and even closer than before. In March we were besties, friends who called each other "My love" and shared intimacy that would make some romantic couples jealous.

But now, she's drifting again. But I know she's not; she just has other priorities. She wants to focus on others for a while, give them attention to, and I KNOW LOGICALLY that this is perfectly fine, that she still loves me deeply and that it's just an ebb and flow. But when she cancels our plans to do things with others, when we have so so little time for each other anymore and I always have to chase, its so hard to not see the signs of what I've undergone so many times now. I dont want to lose her, not her too.

I know I need to work on myself, on being happier on my own, on finding joy in life outside of being with her. But HOW?? I have hobbies I've tried to pick up, so many things. I go out for walks, I play a guitar, I write, I do so many things but none of them are even remotely as enjoyable as spending time with my favourite person. I don't know HOW to be better. I don't think she'll leave, and I trust that we'll come back to our previous closeness but god this feeling of distance is KILLING ME.

What's even worse is I HAVE a romantic partner. I have an amazing amazing loving girlfriend, who knows about all of this and is so loving and supportive, and she's been such a saint all the way but, she cant fix me. She's secure, she's safe, she doesnt have the same anxious thrill that my relationship with my best friend does. I just wish I could be a normal person, a normal friend. A friend who is okay with the ebbs and flows of a relationship, without seeing a single sign and catastrophising about it.

I know what's happening, I recognise my own flawed cognitions, I see and understand why its happening, but I don't know what I can do to stop feeling the way I feel. and its killing me.

 

[Namelesa]

I totally understand this as I have an intense fear of people leaving me. I don't know how to happy by myself either as I feel like nothing compares to being with the person I am most close to. I wish I could be fine on my own but everything I try doesn't get rid of this feeling of a strong desire to be with the person a lot of the time and that if I am not with them a strong anxiety they are going to leave me. Hope you can find someway to escape this attachment style.

 

[untraveler]

holy shit there's so much resonating with me you wrote I thought for a second that I might have wrote that post myself. I feel this kind of anxiety, too. And it is... killing me. I hate it I need intense and intimate close relationships. Not only romantic one, but friends, too. Like it's never enough for me. I haven't had it for most of my life and I'm so hungry for it. And it hurts me when others have other more meaningful friends and I often can't feel it, but want it, too.

 

[Dejected 55]

I think the "anxious attachment" thing sometimes isn't what people think it is. Like, if I have a girlfriend and she was having a bad day and needed some alone time, I could understand that. I would like to be able to say to her "I'm here if you need me" and then leave her be for a while, because she TELLS ME that she needs that space. But in reality, it seems like people just go silent and disappear and leave you to wonder what is going on. IF they want to be left alone and you ask them, they get mad and might leave you over it... IF they want you to reach out and you don't, they get mad and might leave you over it.

FYI, this is true for both men AND women. I'm a man, so I tend to speak in my experiences with women, but it absolutely goes both ways and would be true of same-sex relationships too.

Why can't people just say something? And, if I ask you out. You can say no. You don't have to tell me you are in a relationship. You don't have to say you are gay. You don't have to tell me you aren't interested in anyone right now. You can just say no, for any reason that you don't have to disclose to me. But if you say "maybe" or you ignore me or something, you're practically encouraging me to wonder if there's something more I should say/do or if I should try again. Because if you are interested, but shy or troubled and I go away, then you lump me in your brain as "just like all men" who abandon you.

People can't win when no one is honest. Granted, there are people who won't take no for an answer or who won't leave you alone when you want space. When I'm depressed I usually want to be left alone, especially by people who can't help even if they mean well. BUT, here's what I do... I actually will tell you I don't want to talk. I'll say I'm depressed, and that I need to be alone. I might even tell you what my problem is, but I don't have to do that... but the key is I don't just randomly go silent and ignore and abandon you and leave you wondering. If you are someone in my life that I have been talking to in some capacity, and you reach out, I will not leave you wondering or hanging.

But people generally don't do that for me. And from what I see around me, it seems to be the norm for people to just disappear and leave people wondering if they did something wrong.

So, the "anxious" that I feel when I am ghosted and ignored is because I wasn't shown common courtesy or respect of being given a heads-up that either my attention was unwanted permanently OR just for right now and you'd let me know when you feel better and are ready to talk. That's all. Just some common courtesy for people to tell other people before jumping into your limbo black hole.

I would not be anxious if I knew what was going on. If I knew I was forever unwanted OR if you just needed some time/space for a bit. Knowing that, I could leave you alone and not worry and not feel like I had abandoned you when you needed someone. I wouldn't have a reason to panic.

I honestly think the people who are just "cool" when ghosted aren't really "secure" so much as they just didn't care. If you don't care and someone ignored you, you aren't bothered because they meant nothing to you. Honestly, if someone didn't care about me I wouldn't want them around. I would rather have someone who cared and got a little anxious if I fell off the planet without warning. Except, I wouldn't do that to anyone. I cared about. I'd let them know so they didn't worry.