FA's - Why do you sometimes leave loved ones on read?

i want to jump in and add my 2 cents on this. i'm FA, seeing someone who is DA. in the beginning he was talking to me every day constantly, then would suddenly deactivate and pull away for a week or more with very infrequent texts. my abandonment wound was triggered so, so bad. i was determined to make it work and did a LOT of research on FA/DA styles and how to interact.

i'm further along in my healing journey so some stuff doesn't affect me but i realized for my DA partner, even though he was deactivated he still cared and liked me, but he felt really bad about not talking to me for long periods of time. at some point i sent a text basically saying 'i know you probably feel worse the longer you go without saying anything to me. whenever you feel like it, i'm okay with pretending like nothing ever happened and talking like normal, it's not a big deal.' basically i just wanted to talk to him again, no hard feelings no blame.

he texted me back not longer after that text and we've been talking more regularly every day since then, and i don't feel bad when he doesn't talk to me for a while.

in your situation 30 days is a LONG time. at that point i would have already gone through the stages of grief and acceptance and tentatively moved on. there's probably still a chance to rekindle but you need to be vulnerable and explain what was going through your mind. don't put too much focus on her and her actions, don't make it seem like her fault. also i think the instagram story like bit is very telling. i've done similar MANY times... liking then removing when it didn't get a reaction, sending a message then deleting if they didn't open it within a certain amount of time. it's just some form of anxiety and self-preservation. the 'like' or message is a peace offering, or a vulnerability, or an attempt at initiation, etc. it feels scary to reach out like that even if it doesn't mean anything to the other person. taking it away is like 'well, i'll show you, i don't actually care at all.' if you want to make things work with an FA (or DA for that matter) you need to do a lot of research and try to be understanding. it really is a delicate dance and the more unhealed they are the harder it is to deal with.

/r/attachment_theory Thread Parent