Love Letter From an Anxious Woman to an Avoidant Man

The anxious–avoidant cycle is two wounded kids pretending to be adults who know how to love.

When an Anxious Woman Loves an Avoidant Man

Loving you felt like trying to hold onto something that was never fully here. I never wanted to chase you. I wanted to feel like I mattered. But every time you pulled back, something inside me tightened—because distance feels like danger when you grew up with emotional abandonment.

I wasn’t trying to control you. I was trying to stay connected to the only place that felt like “home,” even when you kept closing the doors. You saw my reaching as pressure. I saw your retreat as rejection. That’s the truth of an anxious woman loving an avoidant man—the connection and the distance never stop colliding.

The Reality of the Anxious (Woman)–Avoidant (Man) Cycle

You think I wanted too much.
But the truth is, I was surviving on crumbs and calling it love.

I minimized my needs.
I apologized for my feelings.
I tried to love you through your silence, your shutdowns, and the walls you never let down.

And somewhere along the way, I started bleeding quietly behind my own smile—pretending your distance didn’t hurt, pretending your lack of effort was “just who you are,” pretending I didn’t need more just to keep peace.

I never wanted perfection.
I wanted presence.
I wanted emotional availability, not excuses.
I wanted someone who didn’t treat closeness like a threat.

Letting Go: The First Step Back to Myself

I loved you enough to fight for us.
But now I’m learning to love myself enough to stop fighting alone.

So this is my goodbye.
Not out of anger.
Not out of punishment.
But because holding onto you has been killing the parts of me that healing is trying to reach.

And maybe—just maybe—

saying goodbye to you will hopefully teach me that losing someone who couldn’t choose me was never a loss… it was the way back to myself.

If this hit you… It’s not by accident.

This is the work I help women do every day—heal the wounds that keep them chasing unavailable love.

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