JDoreMedia

20/08/2025

Saying "I love you" one day, and walking away the next is emotionally destructive. It leaves someone stranded between hope and heartbreak, never knowing what was real and what was just a temporary illusion. When someone uses those three words, it plants a seed of trust, security, and commitment in the heart of the other person. To suddenly withdraw, to vanish, or to act cold as if the words meant nothing, causes a wound that goes far deeper than a simple breakup. It makes the other person question their own worth, doubt their intuition, and replay every moment in their head wondering what they missed.

Although it may be motivated by a desire to "self-protect," that doesn’t make it fair, kind, or acceptable. Protecting yourself should not come at the cost of shattering another person’s spirit. Dismissive avoidant behavior doesn’t just end a relationship—it leaves confusion, abandonment wounds, and unresolved pain behind. The partner who loved deeply is left carrying the weight of unanswered questions and emotional instability, often feeling as though they weren’t good enough when the truth is that the avoidant was too afraid to face intimacy.

This kind of behavior can create lasting trauma that bleeds into future relationships. It can make someone afraid of vulnerability, hesitant to trust, and terrified of hearing "I love you" again because they fear it could be taken away just as suddenly. Healing from this kind of emotional whiplash requires time, self-compassion, and often rebuilding from the ground up. Love should never be a temporary promise given for comfort and then stripped away when things get uncomfortable—it should be steady, genuine, and intentional. Otherwise, the damage caused may last far longer than the relationship itself.

20/08/2025

19/08/2025

18/08/2025

Emotional intimacy is the trigger.

When true closeness begins to develop between two people, the relationship transforms from something surface-level to something deeply significant and “real.” For individuals with avoidant attachment styles, this shift is often perceived as a threat rather than a blessing. Their nervous system interprets emotional closeness as a signal of danger, activating defense mechanisms designed to protect them from vulnerability and perceived loss of independence.

As emotional intimacy grows, avoidant attachers often enter what can be called a fault-finding stage. This is a critical moment where their focus turns inward, scanning their partner’s behavior and characteristics with heightened scrutiny. They may pick apart even the smallest imperfections — some of which may be genuine, others created by their own fears and anxieties. This search for faults serves a deeper psychological purpose: it provides justification and validation for their urge to withdraw or exit the relationship.

By identifying real or imagined flaws in their partner, avoidant individuals create a narrative that explains why they need to pull away. This narrative allows them to protect themselves from the vulnerability and discomfort that comes with true intimacy. It also helps them avoid accountability by shifting blame away from their own emotional struggles and placing it squarely on their partner. Instead of facing their fears or working through the discomfort of closeness, they convince themselves that the problem lies with the other person.

This pattern can be painful for both partners. The avoidant individual feels overwhelmed by the intensity of emotional connection, while their partner may feel unfairly criticized, rejected, or abandoned. Understanding this dynamic is essential for anyone involved with an avoidant attacher — it’s not about the partner being “faulty” or “wrong,” but about how avoidants’ nervous systems respond to intimacy as a perceived threat.

Ultimately, breaking this cycle requires awareness, patience, and often therapeutic support. Avoidant individuals need safe spaces to explore their fears without judgment, and their partners need boundaries and validation. Emotional intimacy is the trigger — but with understanding and effort, it doesn’t have to be the end of the relationship. Instead, it can become a doorway to deeper healing and connection.

12/08/2025

04/08/2025

Emotional intimacy is the trigger.
For individuals with avoidant attachment styles, emotional closeness doesn’t feel comforting—it feels threatening. The moment a relationship shifts from casual to emotionally connected, their nervous system begins to perceive this closeness as a loss of control or a threat to their autonomy. Where most people find safety in vulnerability, the avoidant attacher feels exposed, overwhelmed, and unsafe.

When the connection becomes “too real” and the bond begins to deepen, it activates an unconscious alarm in their mind and body. Intimacy—what many seek and cherish in a relationship—becomes the very thing they fear. And so, rather than leaning into the relationship, they start pulling away, emotionally distancing themselves, often without clear explanation or awareness of what they’re doing.

This is when the fault-finding phase begins. They start to look for reasons to justify their growing discomfort with emotional closeness. Every little thing their partner does becomes subject to intense scrutiny. Things that were previously accepted or even admired now become “problems.” Whether it’s a harmless habit, a small mistake, or even just emotional needs being expressed, the avoidant starts twisting these things into evidence that something is wrong with their partner or the relationship.

But here’s the key: it’s not really about the partner. It’s about the avoidant person needing to create a narrative—any narrative—that gives them permission to retreat without feeling like the “bad guy.” They may even manufacture issues or exaggerate flaws to rationalize their need for distance. By blaming their partner or painting them as too needy, too emotional, or too imperfect, they dodge the uncomfortable truth: they’re running from their own vulnerability.

This behavior helps the avoidant escape accountability. If they can convince themselves—and perhaps others—that the relationship failed because their partner was flawed, they don't have to confront their own fear of connection or the deeper wounds that shaped it. It becomes easier to end the relationship (or sabotage it until it crumbles) when they feel morally justified in leaving.

From the outside, it can look cold or cruel. To the partner on the receiving end, it’s often emotionally devastating and deeply confusing. One moment things feel connected and meaningful, and the next, it feels like they’re being pushed away or picked apart for things that never seemed to matter before.

Avoidant attachers often don’t realize they’re doing this. Many have never had a safe model of secure intimacy, so they see closeness as inherently risky. Their nervous system is wired to protect them from pain, but unfortunately, in doing so, it often causes pain—to both themselves and the people they try to love.

Understanding this pattern is crucial—not to excuse the behavior, but to name it and recognize it for what it is: a defense mechanism rooted in fear. Healing this dynamic requires deep self-awareness, emotional work, and often professional support. For those on the other side of the dynamic, recognizing the signs can help protect your peace, validate your experience, and remind you that you weren’t “too much”—you just got too close to someone who wasn’t ready.

30/07/2025

29/07/2025

Someone asked me what love is, and I answered, "It's choosing to wait." Not because I had the perfect words ready, but because that’s what love has always meant to me. Love isn’t just passion or butterflies—it’s patience. It’s the quiet decision to stay when it would be easier to leave, to pause when you want to rush, and to believe in someone even when the timing isn't ideal. It’s the deep breath before the door opens, the space we give each other to grow, and the steady hand that holds on through uncertainty.

Choosing to wait means valuing connection over convenience. It means trusting that some things are worth the time, the distance, and the delay. In a world that wants everything now, love is the radical act of slowing down, of saying, “I’ll be here,” without a countdown. Whether it’s waiting for healing, for clarity, or simply for someone to be ready, love shows up not just in the moment—but in the waiting between moments.

— Balt Rodriguez

Photo: Shairene

28/07/2025