Thursday, June 12, 2025
A relationship needs maturity
As I look back on the distancing, the silence, that one cold response, and finally the ghosting, I gained many insights. Avoidance isn’t strength. It’s all fear in disguise.
When a connection becomes real, intimacy may trigger insecurities in the person especially if he/she hasn’t healed from the past – be it past relationship or childhood. They are conditioned that connection is risky, that love equals to pain, that opening up leads to rejection, so they build walls, even thick walls. And when someone warm, someone real comes along, they may desire the connection so they seemingly accept you but with fear. So what if they reciprocate and say they like you, are sincere, and will take care of you. You offer stability of a relationship but they are wired for defense.
But when things start to get real, they don’t lean in, but run. They tell themselves they are being strong, that creating space is maturity, but what they are really doing is really retreating into emotional safety. They are not stepping into growth. True strength is to be able to be honest even when it is uncomfortable. It is being able to sit down and say to you “it is not working for me and here is why!”.It is able to exit a relationship without destroying the other person’s sense of closure and worth. Real strength comes from communicating instead of shutting down. They ghost to avoid confrontation. They detach to avoid being hurt but in doing so they rob themselves of healing, connection and inner transformation.
On reflection the cold moment from her was not running away from me but from the vulnerability she was not prepared to face. But one can never run away from true emotions forever. That decision, that act of disappearance may feel like control at the moment, but over time it turns into missed opportunity to level up and growth.
What you suppress often comes back louder. What you don’t heal gets carried into the next relationship. So when you see them pulling away and gives you nothing but silence, don’t mistake that for strength, maturity, or stoicism. I now recognize it for what it is-fear dressed up as strength.
Godly strength
Real strength is showing up for the hard conversation, staying in the presence of uncertainty, choosing to be uncomfortable in the name of growth. That’s what I was willing to do, but she ran. She ran from someone who was willing to love them through her fears, someone who would have stood by her if she just had the courage to stay.
Godly strength is to remain open, honest and brave even when they weren’t. In a world where many wear a mask and many relationships are just surface level, I look for the inner side of a person, the inner beauty, to love also her broken pieces and see her for what she can be (not what she is). I have seen through all her armor and defense, and even heard what she was not saying. Perhaps I was a mirror who reflected a lot of her insecurities. Instead of being a catalyst for their growth, sadly some may distance and run. Maybe I can be too real. Real love that sees you fully terrifies avoidants.
Regret cannot undo avoidance. Fear doesn’t disappear when you distance yourself. Unless you chose courage you just suppress everything without growth, and be remembered for not someone who had the strength to run away but someone who was not brave enough to stay, and to evolve. Walking away doesn’t make you stronger. In fact it is quite the opposite.
There is a narrative that leaving is power, that ghosting means you are protecting your peace and that shutting down is setting boundaries. But none of that is real growth. Growth does not happen in isolation. It happens in the hard messy vulnerable conversations. The truth is she didn’t level up, but checked out.
Avoidant people often live by the idea that if something feels threatening they should run; if it feels emotionally intense they must back off; and if it challenges them they need to disconnect. They have trained themselves to associate closeness with danger, so the moment something becomes real, whether it is intimacy, conflict or accountability, they hit the EJECT button. And at that moment they may feel in control and may even think it is protecting you and her. But what they don’t realize is that by leaving they aren’t just avoiding pain, but her avoiding inner transformation and God’s unfolding of the business journey that He has carefully planned for us together. So many opportunities has opened up since she left.
Staying is what leads to growth. Growth is staying when it is hard. It is learning to communicate instead of stonewall. It is showing up when the instinct is to hide. Even though it scares me but I want to do better than just hide. That is maturity, That is healing from your fears. Not running away from our God-given destiny.
But sometimes your avoidant partner may not choose that path but instead choose the shortcut. They choose the door instead of the mirror. While this might give them temporary relief from their internal demons, it will cost them in the long term. The opportunity to evolve, transform and heal comes in the staying. It happens with working through it together during the uncomfortable moments.
Open communication is paramount
What is so difficult to tell the person who loves you what is going on and what you need instead of ghosting? It is a safe space to practice an honest open communication and to practice that kind of growth. Communication is the cornerstone of any relationship.
None of us demand perfection from our partners. I just asked for effort, to try, and she could not even give that. In future she may be in someone else’s arms, in a new relationship, but she missed a chance to be better. Old patterns and behaviors remain if there is no healing or growth, even when in new relationships.
A good man will often be a mirror. The mirror will reflect on somethings that are uncomfortable. There may reflect on some growth needed and accountability. I won’t settle for surface level love. Instead of stepping up, she stepped away. That wasn’t strength. That wasn’t growth. That was avoidance!
Life is full of endless possibilities and probabilities, and destiny has made its turn. Looking back the nostalgia is the vision of what she could have been, the version of her that I believed in, the version of her that I tried to reach out to, but she didn’t rise up to meet the moment.
Fear never leads to freedom. Ghosting is not power. Disappearing instead of communicating is not a flex. Peace doesn’t come from running away. It comes from resolution and ghosting leaves everything unresolved, unanswered.
Ghosting doesn’t give you power. Real power is in growth, and growth takes courage, to be strong to stay and to speak when your throat is tight with emotions, to listen when every part of you want to shut down and run. That’s the work they weren’t not prepared to do. She wasn’t not prepared to evolve, to face the part of themselves you reflected back to them because you weren’t not just asking for their love but also their presence. And presence comes with emotional maturity. She didn’t have it. Instead of growing up she chose to vanish, pushing away someone who wanted to love them well. I wasn't asking for too much, but a relationship built on honesty, consistency and emotional depth.
