u/Pisces_Cat44

I have an anxious attachment style and my boyfriend has more of an avoidant attachment style. We’ve been together for about 5 years and he is genuinely an amazing person. I understand that both anxious and avoidant attachment styles are not ideal, and that one attachment style is not “less toxic” than the other.

I guess I just want to know what other couples with similar attachment dynamics have done to improve their communication and strengthen their relationship. I see a serious future with him but I feel like certain things just need to change/be addressed in order for the relationship to grow stronger.

To summarize what has been challenging, I’ll just list some points:

- If we have a disagreement or both get frustrated while we’re on a phone call, he’ll just shut down by saying something like “all right bro” and will hang up without resolving the situation.

- Sometimes when I give him a suggestion he takes it as an attack/criticism. Like for example, I have ADHD and recently got randomly hyper fixated on men’s haircut transformations. I saw a particular haircut that I thought would look really good on him and sent it to him. He immediately shut down, said it wouldn’t look good on him, and that he didn’t want me to talk about his hair. I truly did not mean to upset him and thought it was a normal thing to suggest, especially because I know other girlfriends tell their boyfriends what kind of haircut they should get all the time.

- On top of having an anxious attachment style, I have OCD and have really struggled with retroactive jealousy in the past. I’ve done a lot of work on myself to heal this. I go to therapy at least once a month. I listen to podcasts, read resources on attachment styles, etc. I’ve sent him snippets of podcasts that he has not and will never listen to. He has only gone to therapy once because he didn’t think he needed it. I feel exhausted being the only one to see a problem with our attachment styles and wanting to actively work on them together.

I have inattentive ADHD (F23) and am slightly freaking out about my next fall semester. Background: I was late diagnosed and didn't know I had ADHD until I was 21. High school was pretty easy for me and I never had to put much effort into passing my classes. I was an honors student and took multiple AP classes every semester. When I graduated high school, I didn't know what I wanted to study, so I decided to just get an AA degree in general studies at a community college. But because I was undiagnosed/unmedicated during those first couple of semesters, I ended up failing so many classes that I was put on academic probation. It was awful and nothing made sense until I got my diagnosis.

After I got diagnosed and medicated, I started passing all of my classes again and even getting straight A's. I got my AA and transferred to a four-year university. I'm reaching the end of my first semester at the university and I am staying afloat, but I am definitely reaching burnout. I'm taking three 3 credit classes and one 0.5 credit class. One of the 3 credit classes is an accelerated online accounting course, which is obviously very difficult and time consuming. I don't plan on taking any more accelerated online courses like that again, except for easy summer classes.

I'm going for a degree in marketing and the curriculum is pretty math heavy so far, which isn't my strong suit. Next semester I will have to take brief calculus, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and another accounting course to stay on schedule with when I want to graduate.

I'm just curious if there is anyone who is familiar with these courses. Do you think this is a manageable course load for one semester? In general, how many courses are you all taking a semester without failing any??? Any input is appreciated.