we were together for 5 years, and i want him back

You have to go completely No contact

“we were in a healthy relationship for the first 4 years, despite having 2-3 breakups in between. we were young hence we kept going on and off, not really sure about what we wanted. but this time around, we broke up because in the last year of us being together, things got very shaky and toxic. i’m an anxious attachment style while he’s avoidant attachment.”

I’m sorry you’re going through this. Part of the issue is you’re young and not yet very experienced with other men and relationships so you’re not quite there yet in seeing that the dynamic you’ve described was never healthy at all, or you’d not have broken up even the first few times.

If you have an anxious attachment style and he has an avoidant one, that’s a way bigger and more complicated set of problems than it seems on the surface even you first discover it. There’s a long and well-documented list of relationship incompatibilities because you both have completely different core needs and conflicting ways of trying to get those met. This is called the anxious avoidant trap if you look it up in more detail online. From your description of breaking up and getting back together several times, this is probably not actually because you’re young and didn’t know what you wanted, this is actually the common relationship pattern for someone with anxious attachment dating someone with fearful avoidant attachment. I once used to believe the same thing because I’d get in similar situations to you and think that it was just age and immaturity and we’d grow out of it. I can tell you after wasting years of my own time in multiple relationships like this that immaturity/age is an excuse and not true, unfortunately. No matter the age, it’s on and off and on and off until one person gets so desperate for reconnection and the other person stonewalls and is so desperate for disconnection, and the relationship simply breaks. The guy can be 40 and it still happens! Again, this isn’t obvious, it really took me YEARS to understand.

It’s good you’re trying to understand the insecure dynamic already, but what makes attachment theory helpful is not using it to figure out what’s “wrong” with your partner and dynamic and bend yourself to change for him and make him understand he’s avoidant to get him back and fix your relationship. You’ve also taken on a lot of the blame in your post. You both contribute equally to the toxic dynamic, and it’s not all your fault, so don’t take on more than your share of the blame. But also don’t assume that if it’s mostly your fault than you can find the magic formula to fix it and control the outcome. That’s also a thinking trap, you can’t control the outcome or the relationship, you can only control yourself and your responses. Fixing an insecure connection and changing it to a secure one is an extreme exception to the anxious avoidant trap and ONLY works if you have BOTH experienced enough pain in life to have the deep desire to heal your pain and change, and at the same time as each other. No one does this for another person, they only do it for themselves and on their own timeline. It’s extremely difficult and painful work that takes a lot of inner commitment and strength, but it’s worth it.

If you believe you’re anxious, you have a great roadmap to find a professional to confirm and work to heal it and become more secure! Focusing on yourself and working with a good therapist will change everything for you, including growing your self esteem and overcoming your fear of abandonment, which will make you much more attracted to emotionally available men and less attracted to avoidants who have incompatible needs.

Your fear of abandonment makes you have the miserable longing for him and desperate need for reconnection you feel. His fear of getting lost in a relationship makes him numb out, shut down, and have a desperate need to disconnect. If he’s fearful avoidant, after time that numbness will stop and he’ll switch over to feeling anxious to reconnect and fear abandonment instead and then maybe you get back together (only to break up again later and repeat the dance). None of this is romantic love, even though the longing feels like it. It’s you both having weak personal boundaries and being attached to each other, triggering wounds in each other from earlier in life that neither of you originally caused for the other person so you can’t fix for each other either. Those wounds reflect how you once learned to deal with your needs based on the type of difficult dynamics you encountered with others, probably family, when you were younger and before you met each other. But you are able to grow and learn new relationship tools if you make the individual decision to choose to do so, you aren’t doomed to stay stuck!

The anxious avoidant trap will always break your heart. I know you don’t want to hear this, but letting him go and focusing on yourself and your own emotional work is the only long-term way out of the pain you’re feeling right now. If you don’t give yourself the time to heal and address your own issues, you’ll either stay stuck in pain in a non-relationship with him or you’ll find another avoidant man (not on purpose, but this happens until you learn the painful lesson you need to actually heal) and repeat over and over.

You should go no contact as other posters said, try to accept it’s over, and find a good therapist you like so you can learn better relationship and communication tools and heal. I never chose to go no contact with anyone until my 30s, and the first time I truly did it was the biggest mindset shift ever! Because I focused on myself and started actually changing and eventually getting emotionally healthier, happier, and more secure. I hope that for you, too. Since you are so young, you’re WAY ahead if you start working through managing your anxious attachment now. I wish I’d had someone to point me in this direction when I was your age, though I did eventually find an amazing partner when we were both older.

It’s going to stay painful for a while no matter what you choose to do, so be nice to yourself. It’s okay to feel however you do and be where you’re at. It’s within your power to feel better once you’re ready, although that’s going to be through different means than fixing this break up.

Maddie, You are good at this… I’m glad you joined this community!