About two months after our engagement, she told me she’d started counselling again.

She’d seen this person on and off for years. I wasn’t around the previous times she’d gone through it, so I didn’t think much of it at first. I just wanted to support her in whatever way she needed.

She told me the counsellor had asked how supportive I was being.

 And she’d said I was always there, patient, present, understanding.

She even admitted she should have been feeling on top of the world. After all, she’d just got engaged. But “should” and “did” are two very different things.

A year later, she went back to that same counsellor.

Only this time, she came back with a new message. She said she’d been told to be single for a few months, to spend time on her own.

That always struck me as strange advice. How can anyone else tell you to walk away from a relationship that isn’t toxic or unhealthy? We weren’t perfect, but we were committed. We were building a life together. The only thing wrong was that she started to doubt something that had once felt certain.

When she said she needed space, I thought she meant space from everything.

 But the truth was, the only person she wanted space from was me.

She still had time for everyone else. Her friends, her routines, her life. She just didn’t have space for the one person who’d always been there. And yet, she didn’t let me go completely either. She kept me on the end of a leash, sending messages when it suited her, calling when she needed comfort. Enough breadcrumbs to keep me hopeful, but never enough to rebuild what was falling apart.

And I stayed. Because when you love someone deeply, you don’t walk away when they’re struggling. You hold on tighter. But in this case, the tighter I held, the more she slipped away.

I’ll never forget the night she said, almost casually, “I’m trying to detach.”

 No emotion. No hesitation. Just words that landed like a quiet goodbye.

This was the same person who used to call me ten times a day. The same woman who said she couldn’t wait for us to wake up together every morning. And I honestly believed we’d be fine. That once she worked through her doubts, she’d come back.

But she didn’t. Because detachment wasn’t a phase. It was her way out.

If she ever reads this, she’ll probably say I’m bitter, obsessed, or holding on.

 But this is the same person who once couldn’t go a day without hearing my voice. Who said I was her future, right up until she decided she needed a future without me.

The truth is, I’ve moved on from that version of love. I’ve learned more about myself through that pain than I ever did through the relationship. The person I fell in love with was wearing a mask she couldn’t keep on forever. When the excitement of the new relationship faded, she retreated back into the comfort of who she really was, someone unable to sustain intimacy once it became real.

It took time to accept that. But once I did, I stopped seeing myself as broken. I started seeing the lesson instead, that real love doesn’t vanish when things get hard, and that the right person doesn’t need to run to find peace.

Counselling didn’t destroy us, but it gave her permission to let go, to call it healing even if it left me broken.

And I’ve learned something since. When someone has narcissistic or avoidant traits, they often run the moment true closeness becomes real. They crave connection but fear dependence. They say they want love, but what they actually want is control over when, how, and how much they give it.

So when they start to detach, it isn’t random. It’s survival, at least for them.

 They call it space. You experience it as rejection.

 They tell themselves they’re protecting their peace, but really, they’re protecting their ego from vulnerability.

And that’s the hardest truth to accept. Sometimes the person you love most doesn’t know how to stay loved. They pull away to feel safe again, leaving you to carry the weight of every word they once said.

They call it growth. You call it grief.

 And both can be true.

This piece reflects my own personal experience and emotional growth. It is written from my perspective only and is not intended to describe or diagnose anyone else.

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that kind of emotional withdrawal, my books The Narcissist Handbook and The Journey Back to You were written to help you understand it, survive it, and eventually heal from it.

 Both are available now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.