sabotage

The 'technique' that helped me manifest in 1 week what I have been trying for months — I decided to make this a more general post since it's extremely helpful for any manifestation. Like everyone, I was trying to manifest something for a few months with common techniques like visualizi…

The song “I love you, I’m sorry” by Gracie Abrams makes me think of the POV of a DA — I'm DA, and I just listened to this song. It feels like a DA talking about how they sabotaged a good relationship, and they regret it. This line particularly hits: "I like to slam doors closed, trust…

FA trying to be more secure, need some insigh on relationship to have "fresh eyes" on it and not just my insecure one — Hi, So, I'm FA and my partner is secure. We're living together and are together for 9month now, it's going good and we're doing our best in the healthiest way to navigate the complicated stuff (I hav…

Think I found a secure woman, and almost immediately self-sabotaged. — In my social club, there’s a woman who had consistently shown signs that she was into me. I was direct and asked her out. She said she was interested but couldn’t date for a few months because her j…

I posted a while ago about being Fearful Avoidant and, since so many people reached out about how to overcome that style, I've decided to compile a sort of list of things that are helping me become more secure — (based on what is working in my life, what I've observed, what i've read, etc. They may not apply to everyone but even if it helps a couple of people I'll be happy) **These are things to practice in …

How am I supposed to deal with the "ick" without leading a person on? — I don't get emotionally attached easily, so the early stage of dating is often a long game for me where the other person is trying their best to win me over, and I'm trying to be a good sport and go t…

A Splash of Cold-Water for you — **Background** Hey everyone, I'm a contributor to this subreddit, and spend time lurking from time to time. I'm quite familiar with every attachment style. I, myself, had to earn security from my ow…

Ending a 1-year relationship: Self sabotage or gut instinct? — Edited: this blew up more than I ever expected. Grateful for all the good advice ✌🏻

Feeling conflicted, I don't know if I don't love him and I am settling or if I love him and the "cons" are avoidant deactivation? — I 33F have ve been dating this guy 32M for 8 months. He's chased me for years and eventually recently I started to feel attraction back, he figured it out and kissed me. For some months I didn't feel…

Specific Person (SP) Manifestation: No Magic, No Supernatural Forces. Just Proven Science — Hi everyone, It’s been a long time since I last posted, and honestly it was overdue. I keep seeing the same recycled LOA bullshit everywhere. Endless manifestation porn, more unqualified people calli…

March 2026 Astrology: Transits, Key Dates, and More — **Last month’s write-up, I ended with this,** *“Let’s just say we end the month in a chaotic state of energy. Nothing seems real while at the same time, there is a sense of urgency that something need…

My father is sabotaging my career and medical treatments through "smear campaigns" and monitoring. I feel like I'm living in a Truman Show nightmare. — ​I (25F) am an Indian doctor currently preparing for NEET PG, and I am living with a family led by a malignant narcissistic father. My mother and brother are complete enablers. I’m writing this becaus…

Coming to terms with possible childhood emotional neglect - curious how others turned out — As I’ve gotten older and started reflecting on my life, I’ve slowly worked backwards and realised that I might have experienced childhood emotional neglect (CEN). What’s funny is that it actually sta…

Spiritual Awakening & Instant Manifestation (wtf???) — So as the title says, wtf? I've been using multiple different ways of manifesting, manifesting with feeling, robotic affirming, and I've realized one thing. Manifesting is an act of creation that …

Understanding Infidelity — Last year, I (25M) broke up with my now ex girlfriend (26F). We were together for 3 years and were living together at the time, but I discovered that she was cheating on me with a coworker of hers for…

How to stop chronic procrastination that's genuinely ruining my life? — I am in my second year at uni and I'm doing really bad. I am currently on academic probation and if I fail to meet the semester grade requirement this semester I will be required to withdraw. I have …

Which planet and/or aspect should I focus on and work with to remedy my inability to form lasting intimate relationships and friendships? — As you can see I have a T-square between Mars, Venus and Saturn and I have Pluto on the Ascendant opposite Chiron. I'm 56, not married, no kids, I only had one boyfriend in my early twenties for about…

My APs "wealth" is just a high bank balance built on neglecting me, and she still takes credit for my success — I am so done with the "stolen valor" from my mom. She goes around telling everyone how she "put me through school" and flaunts how much money she has, but it’s all a lie built on being pathologically …

Need for validation — This one botherd me for a while and I think about this problem a lot. Here is the dilemma: People get motivated by the need for affirmation but the need for affirmation usually leads to showing off a…

How do I deal with self-sabotage if my reasons for it are these — When I was younger, I was at the top of my batch, won about 98% of all the contests I joined in, and was considered conventionally attractive. But that “success” made my elementary years isolating. …

Broke up with her, need to talk about it — Well, as the title says, she broke up with me two days ago. At first, I didn’t really feel anything, but ever since then it’s been a complete emotional rollercoaster. About a month ago, I was going t…

Is a relationship with an unhealed, unaware dismissive avoidant rigged to fail from the start? — BF of 3 years, DA, broke up with me (AP) although we were discussing about our house and marriage in the last month. The next step in our relationship was engagement. I think he was deactivating heavi…

Dumb mask-off moment — I'm an adult child of a single NMom. Last year she had a psychotic break. I had noticed her acting more and more strange but when I would try to talk to other people about it they would brush it off. …

How do you actually stick to no contact? (building something to help) — I’m building an app to help people get through breakups, specifically to survive the hardest part: not breaking no contact The idea is pretty simple, but (I hope) powerful: 1. It tracks your emotion…

When things are good, brain tells me I’m bad — Basically, I’m on a break from my therapist and things are generally going good and I’m happy. So why does my brain bring up past trauma so I start to feel bad? How do I move past the self sabotage?…

I'm fourteen and I've been in a really weird situation my entire life. I don't know what to do. — trigger warning for sensitive content such as abuse (only financial abuse is really explicitly stated), alcoholism, s icidality (in the past, censoring in case it gets the post removed or something)?…

I don't know if I need help or not — Over the past two years I've been feeling depressed but is still functional. I've felt several instances that the world itself is attempting to sabotage me and destiny gives me the middle finger. I am…

I want to send an apology letter to my ex from 10 years ago — Long story short, he was my first love, first kiss, first \*everything\*; we met in high school and dated for a little under a year, but we had a somewhat complicated 3-year friendship prior to that. …

HELP ME UNDERSTAND — Hi everyone, I've been reading a lot about the subject and i'm also in therapy since 3 months. I'm already non in the relationship with this woman but i sort of need to make clarity and hear other…

How to keep manifesting what you want in bad days? — Hello there, I recently started my manifestation journey toward something REALLY big. Since I began, I’ve been feeling really good overall, because visualizing myself already having that thing that w…

Acting like nothing happened after they sabotaged you — When I was about to escape their grasp, they did everything in their power to harass me and sabotage me, I ended up faling back into depression and all my hard work and opportunities were lost. I spen…

Why do we sabotage things right when they start working? — I’ve been thinking about this a lot… It’s weird—most people say they’re afraid of failure, but honestly, we’ve all failed plenty of times. We know how to deal with that. What’s harder is when so…

Why am i so embarrassed to ask for therapy? — Hi! i don’t know what’s wrong with me, but i have a habit of shutting down anything surrounding therapy like a weird form of self sabotage even though i want to go to therapy so badly. I’ve always bee…

My mom is withholding my legal documents — Hey guys. Holy fucking hell a lot of shit has been going on and I need to vent, cry, support. I’m 26 F, I’m an RBT and work with Autistic kids. I’m also in a masters program. I finally moved out of my…

I had a very big realization about my nmom — i usually don't post and am using my alt to post since my main is very obviously me. usually i just support everyone from the comments so don't mind me ! when i was much younger my mom forcefully rea…

does anyone else feel like they have a way of existing and can’t go out of it? — i’m 16 and 6 years passed from my trauma, i don’t have certificates that proves exactly that i have a trauma/c-ptsd but i have all the symptoms, i am going crazy cs just now i’ve realised how many tim…

Does anyone else feel like they’re trapped in a version of themselves they can’t escape? — Hi. I’m 16 and I feel like I’m stuck in a “mode” of existing that I can’t get out of, no matter how aware I am of it. I went through something traumatic when I was 13 (humiliation, isolation, sexual …

Is it possible for an FA to reach out after initiating no contact with finality? — Have any FAs reached out to an ex they had dumped with finality? If a fearful avoidant dumps you and, when you reach out after a couple of weeks securely for closure, responds harshly that it’s over …

I self-sabotaged of potential connection because I got scared of the same thing happening and it turned out that I was overthinking instead of talking to him about it. It looks like I will have to work on myself a lot more. Did any of you guys ever ruined a connection because of self-sabotaging?

Day 8 of NC. I walked away from the girl I wanted to marry because of family interference and her playing games. The urge to break NC is killing me tonight. — I’m a little over a week into strict No Contact, and it's hitting me incredibly hard tonight. I’m posting this here because I'm genuinely struggling not to unblock her just to hear her voice, and I ne…

Not sure how to feel — So like 2-3 weeks ago he got beat up at work and apparently he was stabbed too because he wouldn’t leave a girl alone, she has a whole boyfriend and from what I heard he messaged her boyfriend from an…

Is a ‘final chance’ just self-sabotage when the hope is one-sided? — I’m in the middle of deciding whether to move forward with divorce, and I feel really conflicted. Logically, I know that a marriage working out would be the best outcome. For our kids, financially, s…

I feel stuck — Hey hey, Im 25m, autistic and have experienced trauma my whole life. I struggle greatly with appreciating the amount of work and success I have achieved in the past, to still keep on going. Every li…

I built an app to help you survive “no contact” after a breakup - would love your thoughts — Recently I shared an idea here about building an app to help people get through breakups -specifically the hardest part: *not breaking no contact*. I’ve now built a working version and would really a…

I need some people to hear and believe me — Someone in my life is a lot like my mother. Not someone I chose to know, I was unlucky enough to move in above her. And she's DARVO'd and smear campaigned, the list goes on. I know there's essentially…

How can I tell what’s not working in therapy? — I’ve been dealing with mild to moderate depression and I’ve been in therapy for about 10 weeks now. I know this isn’t something that gets fixed overnight, but I haven’t really noticed any progress. I …

Thinking of deliberately failing some of my graduate school interviews because my parents are forcing me into programs that i have no desire to study. Should i do it? — For some context they want me to do a public policy masters because they want me to work in consulting or policy but I want a political science masters and work in academia. They seem to not know that…

Reached my breaking point, but my mom suddenly changed her behavior and now I have doubts — I'll try to keep this brief. I've always had a bad relationship with my mother. We've never agreed politically, she mocked my multiple suicide attempts as a child, blamed me for getting bullied at sc…

Someone Please Help Me. — So my engagement with my ex-fiance ended after 9 months. I’m an anxious attached person. I will admit I created a push-pull dynamic for my partner towards the middle of our relationship when arguments…

How to stop feeling like the other shoe is going to drop? — \*I also posted this on cptsd I have been attending a weekly group get together where we hang out and do different stuff. It's been really enjoyable and I actually look forward to it. What I can't s…

I feel you. I’ll give you my experience as a FA then suggestions. - I also transitioned from anxious to avoidant our the years. I was never full on AA but more anxious leaning FA as a child. Now I l…

Ok I’ll explain. She’s claiming that people who vents about avodant discord is really just coping with the break up in a maladaptive way. When in reality avodants self sabotage good relationships. I …

I feel more tense and anxious, as my feelings grow. I use to self-sabotage by limiting how much I contact them. Every time I initiate contact I have to work up the courage. I'm afraid to text becaus…

I feel this! The stakes are higher when I truly love/like someone (idk about you OP but for me this even extends to platonic friendships/ coworker relationships) and so my fear of messing up and pushi…

The advice to not discuss negative aspects of your personal relationships with others is good advice. It is also good advice to not jump on the bandwagon against someone else's SO because when they re…

Some avoidants bring up marriage and children on the first date and if they don't receive 100% positive feedback it is a great reason to assume that there is no chance to build something and sabotage.

We start the sabotage as soon as we feel an attachment, too. That could be as early as the first date. My bf is also DA and he behaved horribly during our first date. It was almost comical

Not at all. He was interested until he saw her with someone else .. he made assumptions then made a self sabotage attempt or a reach out for clarity over jealousy. At this point, his anxiety is showin…

I'll look into this, some of what you said rang very true, I also have a lot of fears when things are too good, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop so I'm always on edge, things can't be good …

I think dating is for you and self sabotage is common. I think a key, a lot of the time is, is to go into most situations with no attachment to outcome. Find people you like, date and just see how …

Yeah. I’ve felt this way for a while. Sabotaged or otherwise failed at every relationship I’ve been in. Always been a stepping stone instead of someone’s “someone.” Stopped dating and been happier sin…

I have done some self-work and I might not be the most severe example of an AP, but I find that in a secure relationship I can become secure myself. I had an 8 year relationship with I believe a secur…

Making a longer comment to OP in your reply because I want to dive deeper into this: >Not being into someone =/= avoidance. Youre correct in this, however avoidance does make it harder to judge if y…

This happened to me with my BF! I was nitpicking certain flaws and questioning if I was attracted to him, even though on the 1st date he was hot AF to me. It was my avoidance finding ways to self sabo…

I feel you completely but that’s because the guy I was dating was genuinely not very good looking. We had so much in common, could talk for hours, but I genuinely couldn’t utter the words “you look go…

How can you differentiate romantic interest if some avoidant people, the more they love you, the more they fear you and self-sabotage by pushing you away?

Yikes I definitely understand. Also pretty similar to me. Mine wouldn't really 'blow up' but would just let it leak out as resentment during a fight. When I tried to ask him to lean in and share the t…

Use video conversation exclusively for a while. Trust me, it helps. If he's too raw and unhealed though, it will continue to sabotage your progress. Make sure he's doing his part to heal too. He does…

FA's can really lean into DA and bail when true intimacy is on the table. Committing to a relationship can really freak them out. ***To an outside observer***, FAs look like they can discard just as e…

I’ve recently got into a new relationship with a great guy, it’s been about 3 months and before this we were dating exclusively for the previous 3. We are technically long distance but I spend 80% of …

Have you ever tried mentioning anything about attachment theory or being an FA at the beginning of dating? Or does it feel like it’s too soon and may sabotage things? For me it feels like I’d rather t…

So much time has gone by and they abandoned themselves by not addressing the matter and instead probably making narratives in their own head about the whole thing. They sound like they felt slighted b…

I found an engagement ring in his office and fucked everything up. I've been with my boyfriend for 2ish years now, he's definitely avoidant but secure leaning. Since the beginning, we have had the sa…

Try Anyway. One of my FA tactics was using logic to self sabotage.

I'm a 51-year-old man, divorced twice, with autism and severe anxiety. I've been completely socially isolated with no friends. I met a woman online 6 weeks ago and we've had 1.5 in-person dates. I'm f…

Your anxiety is stemming from the fact that you are abandoning yourself in this relationship. It’s also why you self sabotaged. Clearly the relationship has been struggling before this even happened. …

Sorry this is long. I’m 27, I have only been on dates with like 10 guys in my life (I don’t understand why getting a date, let alone a relationship is so incredibly hard, but that’s a different topic)…

I recently met a guy that I really like. He's amazing, patient, kind and consistent. He FaceTime me all the time, asks to see me when he can. On days when we aren't in the office, we go work together …

This is me currently! 😢 he actually blocked me and told me he’s done and doesn’t want to be around me anymore. I’m devastated. It’s like all the chasing, crying, begging and people pleasing I’ve been…

Okay so what I am seeing is that your work culture has become toxic. And her changing the status of the friendship was a breaking point or maybe just when it all came to a head and was brought more pa…

Yeah I guess that's an interesting perspective, thank you. I guess I can see how fear of rejection would show up. I do think part of him feels that the right person would just know and things would ju…

I’m here to read more advice cause I’m similar to you. Are you an ENFJ as well? Gosh, we can be way too empathic and altruistic to the point that we self-sabotage 😮‍💨

I'm not the person you responded to, but in my opinion, insecure attachment patterns (like trauma dumping early on, keeping score, or obsessively seeking out your partner's time) create "faux-closenes…

Separation/space/distance triggers feelings of loneliness and abandonment and even though you aren't breaking up, you may self sabotage to either reconnect to feel connected or to breakup first. Here'…

This isn't necessarily true in your situation, but you might know the saying that is something like "If you walk into a room and smell shit, leave. If you smell shit in every room you walk into, check…

I initiated a breakup almost two months ago, and now my attachment system is in full panic mode. We’re still in light contact and see each other about once a week, and I really want to reconcile but e…

More often than not anxiety is telling us that something is off. Maybe it’s that we are abandoning ourselves in some way. Sometimes it’s red flags we are ignoring. Other times it is our own lack of se…

I often feel there’s a co-mingling, and i’ve been told by my researcher friends that it’s often difficult to distinctly separate one from the other because of how deeply intertwined the two are over s…

In anxious attachment (well any insecure attachment styles) we have limiting beliefs about ourselves and relationships that may float beneath the surface and they cause us to gravitate toward situatio…

I bet if you truly reflect there were red flags that existed early on but were glossed over. We lose our perspective when we focus on potential instead of the reality of things. I’m not downplaying he…

It is unfortunate that as we get older we do tend to grow apart from old friends. It is a normal part of life. It still sucks, but it helps to keep the perspective that all people (even secure ones) g…

Got it... Thanks... I couldn't express my needs with the avoidant I was seeing, he would flip out the moment id require more than 2h so we would talk about our needs and boundaries we have regarding r…

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imo, you should talk to him about what you need for "fun" before calling it quits. i also sometimes let abstract feelings or needs sabotage my relationships. i think you need to find a way to break…

I’m new here… wanted to ask some advice. I’ve been dating a man for a year and he is also my coworker. We had kind of a bumpy road, and have even broken up twice in Aug and then September but came bac…

You and I are very similar. I struggle with self sabotage and have a deep lack in confidence in my self and I have ended relationships prematurely out of fear of rejection. I don’t think it’s a waste…

Speaking from experience, I had a track record of 6 - 10 month relationships and never really knew what the deal was. Then I went to therapy and learned that I was very emotionally unavailable and ha…

Congrats! I think the internal scepticism is common, I had it for a couple of months when I met my bf, like my subconscious was trying to sabotage me. Hope it keeps working out for you 😊

Well I fucking threw away a relationship. Right now I’m just really disappointed and feel very toxic. I know he doesn’t want to deal with my bullshit and that makes me sad but I also get it. Going to …

I’m aro/ace + dismissive avoidant 🙃 I’ve never had a romantic relationship and I’m 19. Even friendships feel like they’re too much sometimes. I’ve pulled away and made my fair share of enemies- of …