r/emotionalintelligence

Have you ever realized you were in a relationship (not even romantic, just any kind) where the other person actually had contempt for you?

Like, you thought it was a friendship—but looking back, they never really respected you. Not because of anything specific you did or didn’t do… they just had this underlying low opinion of you as a person. Meanwhile, they’re perfectly capable of showing empathy and respect to other people, just not you.

And then one day it kind of clicks. You start replaying things and realize the whole relationship was like that from the beginning. It wasn’t mutual. It wasn’t real in the way you thought.

It’s such a weird feeling—like a veil lifting. Suddenly everything makes sense, but it’s also kind of unsettling that you didn’t see it sooner.

We were building a life together. I need to move on but I’m struggling to comprehend how. I still care about him so deeply.

It seems as though I come across a lot of people who are able to go on romantic dates, have closeness and intimacy with people who they don’t have feelings for. but the thought of that for me, is just disgusting…to be touched by someone I don’t really like is extremely uncomfortable. And, realizing after I’ve already bonded with someone that the experience we shared meant nothing to them, is devastating.

What do you think it is? How are these people brains wired if they are able to continuously kiss, hold, and even have sex with someone (especially someone they like) and not feel romantic feelings or an attachment for?

I am struggling to make sense of my last relationship. It only lasted 8 months, but it was monogamous and committed. There was deep love on both sides.

It ended because my ex said I was too emotional. I do get very emotional (there is a lot going on in my life), and I also struggled with some of their behaviours. They said that their behaviours were standard and that I "knew what I was getting into." I feel so uncertain about this as they are right in a way, but I also feel let down. Are these behaviours acceptable in a loving relationship?:

Communication embargoes (no communication for 24 hours, for example)

No texting about emotional issues

Need for space - Seeing each other once a week on Sunday evening

Maintaining an emotional connection with an ex

Controlling activities and who we see

Not spending time with friends unless they are mutual

Controlling big emotions or shutting them down

About two months after we broke up, they wanted to reconnect. We talked for a while about this, and then, a month later, they changed their mind and asked to "debrief to wrap things up." They said that they were not responsible for this as I had emailed them about emotional issues when they asked for no emotional text communication. I am not sure about this either. I feel like it was unfair to ask to reconnect without being fully ready, but I'm not sure if they have a point. I sent about 10 emails (we stopped using WhatsApp as I find it too difficult because it was a history of our relationship) in three months and brought up many emotional issues because I was struggling with the reconnection. I struggled to communicate my needs in person and so emailed them. This included describing things I thought they should be accountable for (from the list above). They got very angry and blocked me a few times.

I should add that I was raised by a narcissist, so I struggle with boundaries, and my anxious attachment means my priority is keeping the relationship going. This is my third relationship, and I have always struggled with relationships ending, but this feels like it maybe it was for the best as these behaviours seem a bit off. I am an emotional person and can be intense, so maybe it was my fault.

I know this is likely the anxious-avoidant loop, but it would be great to understand if I should've given them more space and looked after all of their needs more.

I'm starting to realize that I was conditioned by a sucky "friend" to never speak up because she would always frame me as the problem/attack my character even when she was legitimately acting badly.

I've been working on it but I still expect to be told "you're so sensitive!" or "why do you think everything is malicious?" When I tell people I don't like their behavior/passive aggressiveness due to her.

I'm better now but still. If anyone else relates, how did you fight anticipating that reaction? How do you deal with it when it does happen?

Also how did you not let resentment build up and then come out all at once due to delayed boundaries?

My boyfriend (24M) and me (26F) have been dating around 6 months now. I enjoy our relationship and the way he has opened up to me. He is very caring and attentive. He always makes sure I am safe, my car is good, he opens the door for me everywhere, covers the bill, takes me out on dates, etc. So many things to be grateful for.

However there has always been this disconnect in terms of our attachment styles. It just feels like he is a little more dependent than I am used to. He often asks me for reassurance, has questions about my past relationships, wants to hear that he is the best in all the aspects, that type of stuff.

He is also more jealous than I am. He makes these passive-aggressive jokes A LOT, like I would say something neutral about an old friend and he would say “well, maybe you should go date him then” or “but you still have more fun with me, right?”, making things I tell him about an opportunity to fish for compliments/ reassurance and just, what seem like, make it about himself. He also doesn’t like me texting my male colleagues, he mentioned something about being too friendly over text, when I know there is absolutely nothing inappropriate going on there.

I am growing to be tired of it. It feels like If I do not cater to his needs and am not constantly aware of what might make him insecure— we will inevitably have an argument. He always gets upset when I forget to update him on where I go and if I take too long to reply. If we don’t talk enough— he assumes I am ignoring him.

I don’t mind a man being dominant in a relationship, and I appreciate him making sure I am safe, but this feels more like insecure/ controlling at times.

He has had a rough upbringing and I understand where his dependency/ insecurity might stem from. But it still annoys me and makes me feel uncomfortable, constantly having to reassure him and walk on eggshells. Being anxious about mentioning my past, even my old work. I am tired.

But also ik I am not perfect either. I just don’t know if I should be more considerate of his feelings, more attentive to his needs. There are so many ways he shows up for me so it feels like I should reciprocate and help meet his needs in the ways he wants me to.

Yet, tbh, the thought of having to deal with this for the rest of my life ( I am dating marry at this point) is making me miserable.

Some words of wisdom would be appreciated. Thank you

Dating a girl and i admit i have some anxious attachment style. Before i date people, i am ok with being alone or with my male friends. Most if not all my friends are male and i do not feel the need to seek any validation from opposite sex etc.

Something i noticed is when i start talking with the opposite sex whom shares interest in each other or above level of commitment, my urge to seek for validation from the opposite sex is higher and asking for friends companionship gets more whenever i feel like the other party is starting to slow down on our connection for example not texting consistently the way i want.

Does this happen to other people too? And how do i stop feeling this way? It makes me feel like a horrible person because personally i dislike these kind of behaviour in general but it is happening to me.

recently got back on Hinge after about a year of not really talking to men, following a pretty difficult experience with an avoidant ex.

This is the first time I’ve felt even a little bit of that “talking stage” energy again, so I’m trying to understand if I’m reading too much into things or if something actually shifted.

I matched with a guy and for the first 5 days, he was very consistent — texting regularly, quick replies, good conversation, and overall it felt easy and engaging.

Then around day 6, I noticed a change. His responses became slower and less frequent. Not completely gone, but definitely less effort compared to before.

What confused me more is that right around this shift, he gave me his number. I texted him, we had a short conversation, and he even messaged me the next morning. But throughout the day, the pattern continued — he replied a bit, then left me on read twice and didn’t really continue the conversation.

I guess I’m trying to understand what this kind of behavior usually means. Is it normal for people to come on strong in the beginning and then pull back like this? Or does giving a number not really mean much anymore?

Also, I’m aware that my past experience might be making me more sensitive to shifts in communication, so I’m trying to separate intuition from overthinking.

Would really appreciate honest perspectives — especially from people who’ve been on either side of this.

I don't feel any emotions in my everyday day-to-day life unless something BIG happens. Like I've heard people feel emotions in their body. Like anger, anxiety, happiness. I don't feel anything any day, anytime. It's all neutral.

The last time I remember when I laughed was probably was 10+ years ago when I was under medication at the hospital (I had some viral infection). All the laughs that I laugh now are just me acting. You could show me the funniest stuff and the maximum I'll do is probably a non-teeth smile.

The last time I FELT an emotion in my body, probably in my midsection area, was when I was pulled over by a cop for the first time in my life 3+ years ago.

I don't know what emotion it is but when I see an animal or human getting hurt, like a video of a dog or deer getting hurt, or those gym video where they show the bone breaking and you can see the break outside the skin, I do the revulsion response (google please) thing, and feel bad for the subject, and a strong desire to be able to help them and get them out of that situation.

Is this a common thing, is something wrong with me? I don't know if I have the emotions inside of me and I'm just suppressing them. OR I just don't have the emotions.

basically when i was 18-19 i was not a very good person/lover. i frequently ghosted people, and some good people who didn’t deserve it. specifically this one girl who demonstrated far too much kindness and caring to me that scared me. toward the end of our situationship (a mutual one, at least i hope it was), she had suggested being together. that scared the shit out of me, i liked spending time with her without any commitment or explicit statement of love.

we dated years ago in high school and kept in touch. except in the 5 month period i blocked her on everything during an abusive situation i was in, but the we reconnected after i unblocked her on everything and added her social media.

i don’t think i treated her how she deserved during our period of reconnecting. we would sometimes argue and would both pull away, she would make attempts at reconciliation, and when i went back i was even more guarded and avoidant then before. i refused emotional closeness. yes, i am a disorganized avoidant, a complete vascillator. i thrive off of push and pull which i know isn’t healthy or fair to the people i date. our situation ended after an argument when i blocked her on everything once again in early 2024.

when i was moving out, i ended finding some things of hers about 4 months later and unblocked her to tell her, left them at my door for her, told her i didn’t want to talk to her at all aside from giving her her things back. i blocked her again after.

i often think of apologizing to her, not necessarily being back in contact, but just apologizing for pushing her away and acting kind of awful.

i want to know your thoughts, when you’ve hurt someone, is it better to say nothing at all later on when you’ve wronged and hurt someone, or is it more hurtful to apologize?

if you were hurt by someone who was avoidant or disorganized, do you think silence is better for your healing, or an apology down the road?

just curious, not necessarily seeking advice.

Look I've been obsessed with attachment theory for years, I've sworn to avoid a certain attachment style until I met my boyfriend last year. He's complex, he carries trauma but he tries his best and he's self aware.

He just got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, however his identity previously has been shaped around exercise and physical strength and fitness. He hasn't been able to exercise since December. I recognised a big diagnosis like this would come as it seemed autoimmune in origin due to the constant inflammation and nothing really helps.

He received that diagnosis on Thursday. Now for a whole range of reasons, I did not show up perfectly on Thursday. I have a lot going on and honestly the thought of managing his chronic health condition scared the life out of me. I've recently been diagnosed with my own chronic illness and my dog has also been diagnosed with a chronic illness and is on a lot of medication I must manage. Now I apologised quite a lot as I recognised I messed up that night and should have just remained supportive and regulated myself.

On Friday he completely shut down, he said he was overwhelmed and stressed and just stopped responding to my messages. I gave space I informed him I didn't want to add to his stress. I heard nothing, I checked in Saturday early evening, I heard nothing back for a few hours... I did get a bit worried here and I called once, he didn't answer, I didn't push it. He got back to me that night and said he needed space to process everything and it wasn't his intention to make me feel ignored. I haven't heard a thing since...

What on earth is going on? I function very highly through stress and I'm just really struggling to understand. I understood a day or two... but now it's just so uncertain... it's really difficult.

He has been capable of repair before and has often initiated repair. I know he struggles, I know he's imperfect, as we all are.... but what is happening?

I’ve been seeing a lot of videos talking about the mindset shift of healing anxious attachment, but in my experience, mindset shifts only does about 25% of the work. Awareness comes first then mindset shift, and then the last layer is really to sit in your discomfort. I think that’s the key component and as someone who’s doing the work, it’s the hardest part. You have to feel it come and then ebb away, and after it peaks, you soothe yourself and over time, you break the pattern.

Misspelling avoidant because apparently that flags me for avoidant bashing?? I'm not wanting any negativity or bashing on these folks whatsoever.

I had a complicated situation with a man last year, who disappeared on me without explaining why. I pushed for accountability, I think because he saw I was not going to relent on this given it involved some serious matters (which I won't give specifics on).

We finally met up last week and spoke for almost three hours.

He explained he was attracted to me but was not in a place to start anything. He said he replied to my most recent message to meet up because it was for a specific reason that wasn't dating (which I don't really believe, but I think he rationalizes to himself is true!).

He said repeatedly that now we've gotten together to chat, he would like to continue to do this as friends, and then maybe take it from there.

I am okay with this. I think it's a smart idea we start as friends first.

We plan to have coffee about once a month.

My takeaway from this is he understands he has serious problems sitting in vulnerability with people, and he is trying to change that...at his pace. I could tell this is new territory for him and something that kinda freaks him out.

So I'd love to ask for advice on those who have been through this, either yourself or something your partner had to do, and what helped you get through it. What did your partner/friend do to help you? What did you do yourself to help yourself? What made you change, if anything?

Other things I suspected were true and that he confirmed last week:

-he's a workaholic (why we're only meeting once a month -- I suspect it's also because he's scared of getting too close too fast, even though we already know each other well)

-he has sexual trauma from being lured into men's homes and having them physically proposition him, and from women and men doing highly inappropriate things to him at his work as an entertainer -- this is at least partly why it took him so long to meet with me, even though we'd briefly met a couple times prior, during which our "situation" began

-while I can't quite put my finger on the origins of this trauma, he is so allergic to the idea of being tied down that when a hawker on the street called us lovers, he was visibly uncomfortable, even after he said he wanted to see if we can go from friends to more. This is not just a me thing, as a year ago he told me someone confused his friend for his wife, and that creeped him out.

-he is definitely straight and has several exes (who are cis women)

-he seems to suppress his emotions almost on instinct, but I was encouraged by the fact that he was very open about his trauma, and eventually came to believe his apology was sincere and was willing to learn.

-despite the above, he is actually a very touchy person and loves giving and receiving hugs. He is a very respectful and kind person.

Thank you!

Someone at work broke my trust by signing in my name and putting food on my hotel room bill. Even though they apologized and returned the money after I found out what they did, I could never see them again no matter how nice they were.

Today this person texted me out of the blue saying some nonsensical stuff and at some point I started overthinking and decided to delete the entire conversation. As a result, this person did the same. In person everything was fine but I told them "You scare me". "I thought you would screenshot our conversation and send it to someone".

I just can't go back to being "the same" with someone once they break my trust. I know no one is perfect, but still. No matter how much I try to trust them again, it just doesn't work and now suddenly everything they say sounds like BS.

Especially if it involves stuff like taking advantage of the fact that I am chill and kind, my trust with them is gone forever.

I am a person with Codependency.

I know calling someone toxic might not be the best, but this is the only way I can describe my ex-partner with whom I was with for 10 years.

For the past 10 years, every year I would do things for his birthday to make him happy. Get him gifts, write him card, bring him to where he likes and spend time with him. Maybe the first few years he appreciated it, then he started to take it for granted. He would not reciprocate. He would not do anything for my birthday. But every year I would go even more out of my way to try to make him happy, even though he was not reciprocating or even appreciating it. So we were together for 10 years and eventually as usual he didn't show up for me and I tried to hold him accountable for the very first time. He ghosted me for 3 months and I never reached out during those 3 months.

After that, he reached out to me multiple times after the 3 months of ghosting me but I completely ignored him. Ghosting someone for 3 months is considered a break up already. He messaged me a week ago saying "hello, are you there?". I didn't respond.

Today was his birthday. I didn't wish him because as I want to move away completely. I want to heal and move on with my life.

As a person who is healing from the 10 years of baggage from the relationship, I just have this curiosity. I know he would definitely have been expecting me to at least text him and wish him for his birthday because him impression of me is I'm someone who's very forgiving, empathetic, and would not completely just write him off. I am just curious to know, how would he actually be feeling or what would he be thinking? I know my focus should to heal on myself and that's what I have been doing for the past 4 months. This is the first birthday of his ever since we split. So this was something I was wondering.

Any of you who have been someone who was toxic and has healed now and has become better, or anyone who have had similar experience of encountering toxic people, do share. Thanks!

My partner feels like I did him wrong, and has never been able to get over it. I can see how it would hurt but he has convinced himself that I only broke up with him to mess around with somone else and that is just not true. Since then he has always accused me of sleeping around, swears I’m flirting with all his friends, is absurdly suspicious and will not move forward. He has broken up with me for another woman than taken me back and I didn’t say much about it, but he still won’t let this incident go. He is highly insecure and I am not. He hates if I even put makeup on and accuses me of trying to impress other people or get attention.

We have kids together, and I do love him, but I can’t take the constant accusations and fights that stem from his insecurity’s. He accuses me of being a narcissist which I know I have some traits, i think im “above” some people only because I don’t rely on other peoples validation of me for my self worth. I also can be quite selfish and blunt in telling people when I think they’re wrong. I see many covert narc traits in him but just kinda accept that and try to make progress which he never allows to happen.

Is there anything I can say or do to stop this from ruining our relationship? Because it’s every day this instance is being brought up and he says it’s multiple other things about my behavior but they’re all made up in his head.

Hi. I'm a 25-year-old guy from Argentina. Yesterday I had a situation with a girl. We've known each other for three years, and we often have deep conversations. She's going through a breakup from her previous relationship. But we had sex; it was really beautiful, intimate, and vulnerable, and we both enjoyed it a lot. But I know she needs time to understand and figure out what she really wants. I haven't been in any kind of relationship for four years, and all my experiences were...bad. The last one was a disaster because I fell very deeply in love, and the girl didn't want anything serious. Any advice? Several friends told me to just let things flow, but I'm finding it hard.

She contacted me recently, and I suggested we maybe meet on Wednesday (we don't have class that day), but she said it might be better to take things slowly. And I agree, but I'm seriously getting anxious. What advice can you give me to improve this anxiety? I don't want to ruin everything.

Thanks to this sub I came to the realisation that... I have a thing for someone with an avoidant attachment style...while mine is rather anxious.

What I read seems to confirm this. Now neither attachment style is superior or better or whatever. However I'm wondering... did any one of you experience, even from second hand, that such a relationship is even possible?

When I need closeness/signs that things are all good and well he needs his distance and vice versa. Feelings are there, but... would a relationship even make sense long term? Our feelings for each other exist since for ever but feelings alone aren't enough and I'm just wondering whether our attachment styles would make a relationship even possible?

would we become less anxious/avoidant if we were together and sure about our feelings for each other? would it get worse? would it just end in a huge exhausting disaster?

I've been going through a lot recently. Both my school life social life and my self image has gotten incredibly worse and I started noticing when I cry a lot or feel a deep sense of pain I get this feeling like theres a knot in my stomach but it feels so good for some reason. Mentally I feel so bad I'm scared, sad and angry towards myself and everyone but physically it feels so good for some reason. (I also don't know what or who I trust and I can't trust literally anyone including myself and that leaves me feeling lost thats why I feel scared) Is this normal? Should I see a therapist?