One of my clients figured something out about herself last week
She realised she's always been drawn to avoidant men. Because they gave her space to want them. They didn't rush the closeness. Didn't land on her with needs before she'd had time to know them. It felt like freedom. It felt like desire. She liked the longing.
Then through our work together she met a man who wasn't avoidant.
Early on, he started sharing what he needed in a partner. Nothing extreme. Just honest. And she felt it immediately: that tightening in her chest. That sense of too much, too soon. Who is this man to ask things of me? I barely know him.
Here's what she did next that I really respect. She didn't decide he was the problem. She got curious about herself instead.
She traced it back. Why do I keep choosing men who hold me at arm's length? And then the harder question: what have I been doing to men who got close? She saw it. She had placed enormous emotional weight on avoidant men too early, wanted them to heal something in her, and when they pulled back she had called it abandonment. But maybe, she said, they were just doing what she actually needed. Space. Slowness. Time to build trust through shared life.
That's years of pattern made visible in one honest moment.
What she's learning now is the difference between a man who is avoidant and a man who is simply steady. A steady man will have needs. He'll say them out loud. That's just someone who knows himself.
The question is whether she can stay present with that, or whether the absence of longing reads to her nervous system as safety.
If you're always drawn to men you have to chase a little, it's worth asking what you're actually hungry for.
Sometimes it's not love.
Sometimes it's the particular ache of almost.
Just like you felt with your father.
