How to get an Avoidant-Personality Ex Back?

oh, this man sounds like a HORRIBLE HUMAN BEING! Not just a bad man, but a bad and toxic human being. Please get some counseling and get to the root of why you would want this man back. I am not saying this to be rude, mean or dramatic but do you think you deserve punishment? Do you, on some level, believe that you are worthless as a woman and no other man would want you? Because if you don’t feel that way now, I guarantee after a few more years with this man, you will feel that way. Please stop contacting him and start igoring him if he calls you. He sounds just terrible :(

I’m deeply confused. I think he had a troubled past. He said “I learned at a young age the world is an ugly place and love doesn’t conquer all. You still live in your delusional rosy American world.” So that’s why I’m trying to be patient with him and show him I’ll love him. When his buddy had a going away party, my ex blew it off completely to work more on a research presentation, despite it being a Friday night. So I went. And the guy said at one point “we tried to get him To go to counseling- you know, for his messed up past?”

I’m trying to listen to others’ input. His coworkers didnt even know I was listening one time, and they said “people complain at work that he doesn’t even bother with the emails of those ‘below’ him, he thinks he’s God.” My mom was all bothered once bc she said he made fun of my job in front of her even though it’s technically as high ranking as his, just a different specialty. And one of my coworkers said “I noticed him making light of us and seeming arrogant.” Also my dad said he seemed so cold. And my mom said he gave her flowers with a stony cold look on his face and she felt she was supposed to be happy about the flowers but he just seemed like ice man. That’s how I often felt. He’d say the “right” things and I’d feel I was crazy but I still doubted him bc he seemed so cold and not loving

No, Kate. My ex fiancé did. I told this most recent guy about it. He didn’t say anything but later in an argument told me, “I understand why your ex beat the sh*t out of you. You deserve it. You’re lucky I have more restraint”

Sara, I get that you have empathy for his troubled childhood but it seems that your empathic nature is also your biggest weakness. This man is majorly dangerous. You cannot help him or fix him. The ONLY person who can change him is himself, and men like that one (narcissists) very rarely decide to change. It almost never happens. You probably have as good a chance as winning the lottery or being hit by lightening than to meet a narcissist who is capable of change and willing to put in the long, consistent and hard effort to make real changes. People like you (and like the way I used to be) are the perfect victims for men like your ex. You want to see the good in him and you can see that he’s only an asshole because he had a hard life… but that is not your fault, not your problem and you can’t do anything about it. The only thing you can do is live your life as best you can and learn from your mistakes. You went from one abuser to the next. So take some time and learn from your mistakes and work on having stronger boundaries. That doesn’t mean you won\t feel bad for the person but it does mean that you will put your own health and wellbeing ahead of his, no matter what is reason for mistreating you and others.

You can learn this now, or you can keep going through this, getting more and more hurt each time until you finally learn your lesson, or die from the abuse.

Why does this seem over the top? It’s not like he’s “all bad.” For example, once in a while he’d show up to things w my family. It’s not his “fault” that he was cold while at family events, leaving my
Dad to ask “I thought I’m a pretty easy guy to talk to- what did I do wrong?” And sometimes he would cuddle me or say something nice. “You are amazing” after sex. And sometimes he’d go somewhere that I suggested and let me pick what we did.

I also can’t believe this is real.

I know a lot of women (me included) have put up with abusive relationships for a time but generally the guy has some redeeming features or was very charming at the start. This guy seems to have absolutely no redeeming quality at all. He’s cold, arrogant, cheats, lies, says horrible degrading things. I can’t see how anyone in their right mind would have even started a relationship with him, let.alone stayed in it.

Sometimes it’s hard to recognize bad behavior but this behavior is so bad, anyone must be able to see it. All the posts are just putting him in a more and more horrible light.

Sara, you say that:

He didn’t say anything but later in an argument told me, “I understand why your ex beat the sh*t out of you. You deserve it. You’re lucky I have more restraint”

If you didn’t walk away and never look back, you have serious issues that you need professional help with. That statement is actually worse than hitting you. That’s psychological warfare.

You need more than we can give here. You aren’t listening to anyone, you’re still defending him despite what you describe to be behavior that beggars belief and if this is what you are putting up with and still want this man… honestly, you’re wasting everyone’s time. You don’t want advice. Either this is not a real post or it’s time for you to find help in the real world.

M, I did read your posts and I thank you for them.
When I said “I love you” after 8 months, he said he wasn’t ready to say it back,
That he’d never said or heard it from his dad and it took him25 years to say it back to his mom. He finally said “I love you” in response to me saying one day, after 14 months, “look I’m not sure we’re on same page – I mean you haven’t said you love me, and I don’t know if you want a future with me. You never talk about that stuff.” His response was “I do love you and will marry you when the time is right,” I gave him a big hug then he knew I had plans w my
Girlfriend, and that’s when he got all dressed up and asked a single girl to meet him at a bar at midnight. Then kept flirting w her for weeks to come. I had no idea what she’d said bc in his texts it was her sayin “sorry I wasn’t able to meet you last night,” but he’d deleted all prior communication between them and changed her name To a guy’s in his phone. When I confronted him he said “I told her hey, I had a fight with my girlfriend, can you meet me for a drink?” My ex said “well I considered us broken up at the time.” News to me!!! I think this just shows that he doesn’t do well w feeling pressured to get close and express emotions. Which is why I’m trying to figure out how to make him feel I’m not expecting too much from him and he’ll take me back. From what he said, his ex was great and they had a very harmonious 4-year relationship but he never told her he loved her, and when she brought up topic of getting engaged after 3.5 years , in my ex’s words, “we fought and I dumped her.” So my ex already made great progress by agreeing to let me move in & saying I love you back

You cant MAKE anyone love you. Either they do OR they dont.
I gave up reading long time ago, each time you come back, there are atleast three more reasons to detest the guy.

Continue to see him, maybe in 25 years he will feel you are worth the ‘Love You’

How’s it possible for a person to be so
Cold and cruel that I call him after a car accident and say I’m in a lot of pain and nothing but silence and I say I love him to which he says “we’re never getting back together”? I just think he’s afraid to hear the intensity of “I love you” and has to back away from emotional intimacy like that so I need to be patient and keep telling him it’s okay. I love him So much I’ll never go on without

I don’t think Sara is trolling. She’s love sick, and this is her only outlet at the moment.

He said were never getting back together because he warned me not to bring up marriage/furure and if I did he’d dump me. So he said now he’s past the point of no return and “can’t” go back

Now I remember. This guy did you a favor, and saved you from himself. You can’t force someone else to want something out of a relationship that they don’t want. All you can do is find someone else who wants the same things you do. Talking about it all the time to them only makes it worse sometimes.