Calming anxiety in the early days

[FredEire]

I've gone through some very similar stuff to this. It may be worth questioning your role in it. Why is it that it was someone emotionally unavailable who ended up tugging at your heartstrings? Do you associate romantic feeling with a sense of anxiety and unease and a sense that you need to win her over?

[unbeknown]

23 hours ago, FredEire said:

It sounds like she has intimacy issues. It went about as far as it could have.

Maybe in this situation some kind of friends with benefits situation would have worked if you were both up for it, at least for a time. But since OP was about you catching feelings it seems like that ship had sailed already, or you were looking for something more serious.

I'm in the camp that if you're regularly sleeping with someone it's impossible or at least very hard for it not to become emotionally intimate, leading to one or both people getting hurt.

Maybe as @basil67 said you need to just drop these weird mixed-signal situations after a couple of dates for your own sanity even if you're catching feelings, especially if she openly tells you that she self-sabotages relationships.

I think that’s what caused more issues, I stupidly suggested something casual (in a desperate state clinging to what we had, but being hopeful that not putting a label on it would be less pressured for her) but she said she wasn’t looking for casual. She took offence to me calling out self sabotage. I only brought it up because she told me she does it but she felt it was a personal assassination on her emotional unavailability as she put it. 
 

I think that’s what hurts the most. I definitely invested emotionally sleeping with her multiple times. I felt she was feeling it too as orgasmed every time, and initiated it in the mornings too before I left. And then really cuddled in to me, holding my arms around her spooning all morning, intertwining her legs with mine. It just felt special and I was naive to buy in to it being an emotional guy. 
 

in answer to your second message I suppose I was thinking I Could help her. Which isn’t my job and not healthy I know. I suppose that’s the anxious attachment in me and avoidant in her. She had a lot of issues mental and being emotionally cold I felt I complimented her well and could’ve shown her a more enjoyable life away from her stressful job. She was type A personality and I was mostly type B. 

Edited March 5 by unbeknown

[unbeknown]

21 hours ago, Acacia98 said:

Yeah. People with intimacy issues will do that. They will do all these things that have you convinced that it's gonna be different with you, and everything will be perfect. Until it's not. One day, you'll say or do something innocent and they'll take off. And you'll think it's what you said/did, but in truth, it'll be the fact that you two just got too close for their comfort. So don't be too hard on yourself.

Maybe in future, if you find yourself being consistently anxious about dating someone, take a step back and examine the source of those feelings. I think it's possible that you were anxious partly because, deep down inside, you sensed that she had one foot out the door.

Yeah it’s crazy how much they can mask their true feelings. She had zero emotional availability when I look back. I used to ask about her work and she would ignore it so when I questioned in person she said “you know me I don’t do emotions”. 
 

I suppose you’re right and someone like this would always have me walking on egg shells. I asked her about whether she argues (because I don’t; I like to talk things through and be told if I’m going something wrong in a relationship) and she said she does the silent treatment. Not ideal. 
 

I think that’s right in the final comments. When she dropped off texting as much just before date 4 I felt a shift. And this fed in to my anxieties. I wish I was more rational in my response to her but when she reacted to me asking if she was self sabotaging (in hindsight something I shouldn’t have said) saying it was a personal attack on her I responded emotionally and should’ve took a step back. 
 

Not sure how I’ll get over this one, I really thought she might have been the one the way she’d hold my hand and constantly touch me in dates and let me stay over. But now I’m back in the dating app swamp 😔

Edited March 5 by unbeknown

[FredEire]

28 minutes ago, unbeknown said:

I think that’s what caused more issues, I stupidly suggested something casual (in a desperate state clinging to what we had, but being hopeful that not putting a label on it would be less pressured for her) but she said she wasn’t looking for casual. She took offence to me calling out self sabotage. I only brought it up because she told me she does it but she felt it was a personal assassination on her emotional unavailability as she put it. 
 

I think that’s what hurts the most. I definitely invested emotionally sleeping with her multiple times. I felt she was feeling it too as orgasmed every time, and initiated it in the mornings too before I left. And then really cuddled in to me, holding my arms around her spooning all morning, intertwining her legs with mine. It just felt special and I was naive to buy in to it being an emotional guy. 
 

in answer to your second message I suppose I was thinking I Could help her. Which isn’t my job and not healthy I know. I suppose that’s the anxious attachment in me and avoidant in her. She had a lot of issues mental and being emotionally cold I felt I complimented her well and could’ve shown her a more enjoyable life away from her stressful job. She was type A personality and I was mostly type B. 

I think the only way it would have "worked" is if you tell her that's what you're offering at the beginning and take a very hard line in terms of keeping emotional distance, and check her every time things get a bit more personal reminding her that's not what your arrangement is. That way she doesn't have to get emotionally intimate with you (which she might be more comfortable with) and you have your sexual needs met.

In the long run though I think if you're not a psychopath or in any way sensitive having those kind of relationships with women is going to take its toll on you and make bonding with someone in a genuine way a lot harder, I wouldn't say it's the best route to go down.

I think what you can do now is look at your attachment issues and how you might go about working on them so you can have a healthier attachment to someone who's emotionally available. If not you'll probably keep on meeting and being attracted to girls you feel you need to win over and fix.

Edited March 5 by FredEire

[Achelois]

I think you did everything you could. As somebody else said maybe that anxiety was telling you something, like you knew all the time it wasn’t right. It shouldn’t have to feel like that. Things should be smooth, you shouldn’t have to force it. Don’t torment yourself thinking things you could have done or sayed different, because it isn’t your fault, she’d have found any other excuse to finish anyway. I’m sorry, just keep the good memories, at least you enjoyed the time you had with her and  you won’t have that anxiety caused by the uncertainty anymore.