Love letter

 From Sacred Divine Masculine

A Love Letter from an Avoidant Man to an Anxious Woman...

I know I don't say much.

But the truth is...I've felt almost nothing.

Not because I don't care, but because it was never safe to feel.

I learned to survive by staying numb.

Maybe that's the real problem.

When I met you, something in me softened.

But also something panicked.

Because I saw your heart wide open

and mine still hiding behind walls I built as a boy.

You came close and all I wanted was to stay.

But I didn't know how.

Because intimacy brings emotions 

and emotions were never allowed in my house growing up.

You leaned on me, hoping I could hold you.

But I was still learning to hold myself.

When you needed reassurance, I pulled away.

Not to punish you, but to protect myself.

Because every time you came close,

I felt a flood of emotions I never learned how to handle.

I know you want closeness.

I know your criticisms and complaints are really

just ways of saying,

"I need to feel you. I need to know you're here."

But when you come on strong, I shut down.

I freeze.

I feel like I'm drowning in expectations

I never learned to meet.

When you say I don't care, it cuts deep.

Because I care more than I show.

But I've been wearing armor so long

I forgot how to take it off.

I never learned what safety felt like in love.

Only control or silence.

So now when you speak your truth,

I confuse it with being attacked.

I retreat into myself.

Even when I want nothing more that to come closer.

Sometimes I punish you for the wounds

someone else gave me and I hate that.

I push you away because deep down I think

I don't deserve someone who stays.

Because if you really saw me,

The scared little boy inside,

You might not love what you find.

When you complain,

I hear, ""You're not enough."

The shame sends me spiraling.

So I distance myself.

Not because I want to lose you.

But because I want to protect what's left of me.

It's not an excuse.

It's an explanation.

It was never about you.

It was about the parts of me I still haven't healed.

I'm trying.

I really am.

But I'm scared.

That's the part I need you to understand.

I'm not running from you.

I'm running from the parts of me

I still don't know how to face.

~Blake Goldsmith