as far as I know I don't think there are any specifically for FAs which is pretty annoying. I recently started Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner by Jeb Kinnison but havent' gotten far. The thing is with FAs is that we really are both avoidant and anxious and it can be easy to forget about one side or the other.
I think Attached is a good place to start, first. It's a good 101 and may get you to see some behaviors in yourself and others around you. I cried a lot when I read it. Once you have that down then start looking for more resources.
https://www.amazon.com/Avoidant-Love-Leave-Dismissive-Partner-ebook/dp/B00O4QLPHI
> The way I view the world and the way it's filtered thru my lens makes the withdrawer appear self-centered, scarily immature, and a stay away from me PITA person.
The pursuer/anxiously attached person can be just as self-centered and immature, maybe more so. They act clingy, demanding, refuse to respect the other person's boundaries and are more likely to become physically abusive than an avoidantly attached person.
I've been on both sides of this dynamic. I was the pursuer in my first marriage and the distancer at the end of my second marriage. Now I'm very aware of this dynamic and the attachment style of my partners, and I do my best to negotiate these pitfalls. It's tough though.
The best resource I've found is the book Avoidant: How to love (or leave) a dismissive partner.
Yay! I'm so happy to hear that things are going well for the two of you! Fingers crossed that everything continues to go well.
Hey, I just finished a book yesterday, that I read mostly trying to understand my own Kiwi guy. I thought it was really good, and, since I think of them as long-lost twins or something, I thought you might like it too. It's Avoidant: How to love or leave a dismissive partner. It's about how to help an avoidantly attached partner who is trying to change, which describes my guy perfectly. He's avoidant, but he is doing a bunch of thoughtful things that really go against his nature, so how can I support him and not push him away? Lots of good insight, at least for my situation.
> If we were fighting and making the kids miserable, I wouldn’t hesitate to leave but the kids have no idea. They think I sleep in different areas when daddy’s snoring is disturbing me.
Have you considered the impact on the kids of growing up in a house with inauthenticity? They will eventually recognize that you haven't been fully honesty or transparent with them, and it will undermine theory ability to trust and communicate openly in their own DB. That's a shitty thing to pass on to your kids.
Kids need to be shown how to respectfully and lovingly handle conflict, as well as how to be themselves. Of course you need to maintain parental privacy and don't triangle your kids into your parental dispute, but honesty access authenticity is important too.
Kids will never notice if you neglect your duty as a parent to model a healthy relationship with the day to day playful connected spark that comes from having a solid sex life behind doors. They will see the lack of playful passion as normal, and will recreate it in their own relationships. That often leads children to develop either an Avoidant or Anxious attachment style, both of which tend to create their own DB.
At dinner point I realized that I was doing this in my own relationship, having grown up with parents who in hindsight clearly had no real romantic connection. There was absolutely no real conflict in my house but I can now see that my dad often kept the peace through accommodation and being extremely easygoing like myself. I never learned how to navigate conflict at all, and having someone be angry at me was pretty much terrifying.
In hindsight, I can see that my dad was never angry at anyone in his life, to his own detriment. And my mom was never angry at me, but I saw first hand how angry she could get when my older sister stepped out of line from what my mom thought she should be doing. And through all of this, up until I was about 40 years old, I would have said that I grew up in an almost ideal childhood with loving and connected parents. The truth was they simply never taught me to recognize what love was despite providing me with every other advantage in life.
I'm in the process of building a romantic connection with my wife after almost 15 years of marriage. Some days are easier than others, but it's very important to me to be a healthy role model to my kids, and also to be the healthiest version of myself that I can, for the sake of myself, my wife, and our relationship.
Here are some good ones I've read lately:
Avoidant: How to love (or leave) a dismissive partner. This book has been a huge help to me in being happy with my avoidantly attached partner(s). I wish everyone in this sub would read it, especially those whose bedrooms died as soon as they either married or moved in together, because attachment issues are huge in those situations.
How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything, Yes, Anything This book helped me much more than therapy.
More Than Two: A practical guide to ethical polyamory. I've read several books about ethical monogamy (which is what I try to practice) but I think this one is my favorite.
Intimacy and Desire. His writing style is so annoying! There's some good info in here though, if you can stomach the pseudo-science and spiritual mumbojumbo.
You're welcome! I'm glad if you found something new to work on, like I did a few days ago. I can understand your frustration about her not trying to do anything about vaginismus. Does she know about this subreddit? Does she try to talk with others with the same problem? For a short period in my relationship, I felt the same, but I openly talked with her about this frustration and she also explained her own frustration, anxiety and feeling powerless about vaginismus. After that, it was not any problem for me. You can also try talking/reading about the stories of other women here, so that you won't feel isolated and unknowing about vaginismus. You would understand many things your wife perhaps is not able to communicate/articulate yet. May be you could read these things together? As long as a couple is willing to hold on together and keep communicating, keep seeking help in cases of miscommunications, I feel all will be good. Hell, even the way of dealing with problems together is what is already a good relationship to me. I read somewhere else from a women on this subreddit, she was well aware of the fine line the male partner has to play between being motivating/supporting and being pushy/stressing. So it might also help you talking with these women, who are open and willing to talk about vaginismus. You seem like a loving husband, who is also totally honest with his own insecurities. I can recommend you two books based on attachment theory and much more than that, which helped me a lot finding my way to peace. 1. "insecure in love" by Leslie Becker Phelps and 2. "avoidant: how to love (or leave) a dismissiv partner" by Jeb Kinnison. They show you a nice structure and ways about changing your own failures to communicate and if your partner is also willing to work along, I think you might consider yourself a happy couple. You might be able to be back to the winning ways of backing each other up in difficulties and help eachother overcome your own shortcomings.
http://www.amazon.com/Avoidant-Love-Leave-Dismissive-Partner-ebook/dp/B00O4QLPHI