What to Do When a Partner Pulls Away
In today's episode, I'm sharing some thoughts on how to navigate a partner pulling away. If you're someone with anxious attachment patterns, a partner's withdrawal or disengagement can feel extremely distressing - and yet, many of our go-to strategies for managing that distress can ironically have the effect of pushing someone further away.
We'll cover:
What to do when someone pulls away in an early dating context
Why we feel drawn to pursuing connections with people who are inconsistent
How to navigate a partner repeatedly leaving and coming back
What to do when a long-term partner is emotionally withdrawn or distant
Navigating Emotional Distancing in Relationships
Relationships are a dynamic journey replete with ebbs and flows. Emotional distancing, where one partner withdraws or pulls away, can be a bewildering and painful experience. Handling this situation sensitively is key to fostering resilience in the relationship and within oneself.
The Early Stages of Dating: Responding to Withdrawal
When a budding connection seems to cool without warning, it often breeds confusion and distress. In early dating scenarios, direct communication is crucial. One might feel inclined to skirt around the issue, fearfully tiptoeing to avoid perceived rejection or abandoning the budding connection. However, clear and non-confrontational queries about any perceived change in behaviour can provide much-needed clarity.
It is helpful to consider your own reactions to withdrawal. Why does this withdrawal seem to beckon you into a chase? A confident, secure individual views inconsistency and flakiness as signs of a poor fit and a lack of reciprocity. On the other hand, someone who harbours self-doubt may perceive these as personal failures and an invitation to attempt to amend or adapt.
The Significance of Communicating Needs
With less invested connections, maturity in communication can open doors to understanding and potentially mending what may simply be a misunderstanding or a partner's personal issues. Presenting your observations without drama or over-emphasis can pave the way for an open dialogue – or alternatively give you the insights you need to make a decision about moving on.
Mixed signals should be a signal in themselves. Rather than obsessing over piecing together contradictory messages, it may be more constructive to recognise the red flags inherent in confusion and hesitancy. Prioritising someone who appreciates and invests in your time and emotions is essential.
Within Committed Relationships: Boundaries and Understanding
Within an established relationship, repeated cycles of pulling away and returning can create turbulence and emotional insecurity. Addressing this behaviour directly, with empathy and firmness, is paramount. It's vital to convey how such patterns impact your sense of safety within the relationship and assert boundaries regarding the permanence and stability you require.
The legitimacy of one's feelings when asserting boundaries must be acknowledged. Guidelines can be set in the spirit of nurturing the relationship, rather than as ultimatums that enforce control. Collaboration to address underlying issues and establish healthier coping mechanisms can strengthen the bond, allowing for steadier navigation through rough emotional waters.
Emotional Retreat: A Partner's Quiet Withdrawal
When one's partner becomes emotionally reticent without threatening the relationship's foundation, a different approach is warranted. A withdrawal can occur due to a myriad of reasons—stress, personal contemplation, mood fluctuations—and doesn't necessarily signal problems within the relationship.
Giving your partner the space to process their emotions without undue pressure can lead to a quicker and healthier resolution. It demonstrates trust in their ability to manage their internal state. Moreover, it is an opportunity for self-growth, finding comfort in one's own company and drawing strength from independence.
The confluence of personal growth and empathetic support often leads to a more resilient relationship, where temporary withdrawal does not precipitate a crisis but is seen as a natural part of the human condition. This mature outlook enables both partners to maintain a sense of personal integrity while being emotionally tuned in to each other.
Conclusion: Cultivating Resilience and Empathy
What is clear is that the journey of any relationship involves traversing paths of connection and moments of solitude. Understanding the nuances of emotional withdrawal, whether it is temporary or indicative of deeper issues, can make a significant difference in how we respond to our partner's needs and our own.
The bedrock of a thriving relationship is empathy, communication, and respect for each person's emotional landscape. By practising direct communication, self-awareness, and tolerance for the natural rhythms of intimacy, we can navigate the complex dance of human relationships with grace and resilience, fostering deeper connections with others and ourselves.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
1. How do you typically respond when you sense a partner starting to pull away? Reflect on the emotions this triggers in you, and consider where these feelings might be rooted in your past experiences.
2. Think about a time when a partner's withdrawal made you feel the need to 'fix' the situation immediately. Is this reaction based more on your discomfort with disconnection, or on genuine concern for your partner's well-being?
3. When someone you've been casually dating begins to show less interest, do you find yourself trying harder to regain their attention? Explore your motivations behind this and consider what it means for your sense of self-worth.
4. Can you identify a cycle of breakups and reunions in your current or past relationships? Reflect on how this pattern affected your emotional security and the overall health of the relationship.
5. Consider the notion that mixed signals could be a red flag rather than a challenge to overcome. How does this perspective shift the way you might approach inconsistencies in someone's behaviour during the early stages of dating?
6. Reflect on your boundaries: If you've experienced repeated patterns of a partner threatening to leave the relationship, what are some healthy boundaries you might set going forward? How would you communicate these to your partner?
7. Recall an instance when a significant other was emotionally distant due to their own issues. How did you handle giving them space while maintaining your own emotional well-being?
8. Discuss how self-reliance plays a role in allowing a partner to have their space. How can you better resource yourself when you feel a tendency to become tethered to your partner's mood and emotional state?
9. Have you ever found yourself persisting in a relationship despite clear signs of a partner's disinterest or inconsistent investment? If so, what did it take for you to shift your focus from trying to salvage the connection to prioritizing your own well-being?
10. Think about a relationship in which you felt safe to express doubts or insecurities without fearing abandonment. Contrast this with a relationship where such safety was not present. What can you learn from these experiences in fostering security within your current or future relationships?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about what to do when your partner pulls away or withdraws. So this is a question that I have received in many forms, many times from people in my community. And I think it's a big question because obviously it spans so many different sets of circumstances and contexts. And so in answering this question and sharing some thoughts around this, I'm going to split it up into different scenarios. So if someone that you're in the early stages of dating starts to pull away, you know, that's a very different scenario to if someone you've been in a long term relationship with for a couple of years is being withdrawn and pulling away. And I think while it might activate similar circuitry within you, I think what is appropriate in terms of how you respond to that might be different, and my advice would probably differ.
[00:01:28]:
So I'm going to speak to those different versions of the scenario where someone that you're in a relationship with or connected with, is pulling away. And while I haven't explicitly made this about anxious and avoidant attachment, I think it would be fair to say that I'm mostly speaking to people who probably lean more anxious here and have been in the situation of having someone who leans more avoidant, pulling away. As we know, that's the more typical scenario. So while it's not exclusively that, and of course, there will always be variations on the theme, that's probably in most cases going to be what we're talking about today. Before I dove into today's episode, I just wanted to share I've done a really terrible job at sharing this, but there is a YouTube channel that I created a little while ago that we've been uploading podcast recordings to. So you can find me on YouTube if you're someone who likes to watch. We've been uploading full length episodes, but also shorter clips from both recent episodes and then more archive stuff from a little while back. So if you're a YouTuber, it would be super helpful for me in growing on that platform.
[00:02:40]:
If you would check it out, it's I think my handle is just . You know, like, subscribe, engage all of that. And you know, as I said, if you're someone who appreciates having something to watch in addition to having something to listen to, definitely go check me out on YouTube. The second announcement in a similar vein, which is also me being very terrible at sharing this is I've had a few people ask me about transcripts and other things for the podcast. The podcast actually has its own website. So if you go to on attachment.com, we have a page for every episode. And on those pages, we have not only the show notes, and links to other resources, but we have full transcripts of the episodes, and even, like, discussion questions, reflection questions that arise out of the topic of the episode. Read sometimes get reviews and feedback from people saying that they want to listen and relisten and go back and take notes and, you know, write things down.
[00:03:37]:
If you're someone who likes to engage with the podcast in that manner, on attachment.com is a really great resource for you and and has a lot of stuff there. So those are 2 announcements that I've been meaning to make for a long time, that I've been doing a very terrible job at telling people that those things exist, but those resources are there for anyone who wants them and, of course, totally free. Okay. So let's dive into this conversation around what to do when your partner or someone that you're seeing pulls away and withdraws. And I think, as always, I like to kind of set the scene by validating how hard this can be and why it's hard, particularly if you're someone with more anxious attachment patterns. So as we know, and I've talked about this to death on the podcast, so I won't spend too much time on it. If you're someone with more anxious attachment patterns, closeness, proximity, connection equals safety. And so to have someone that you're in relationship with pull away and that can be in really explicit or overt ways in that they disappear, or they say they need space or something quite upfront, or it could be the more subtle shifts in energy that you are likely very highly attuned to and very almost hypervigilant or, you know, super perceptive to any change in temperature or energy within the relationship.
[00:05:01]:
That's likely to send your system into some level of disarray, because we know that any kind of loss of connection or shift in connection feels like a precursor to abandonment, rejection, you know, aloneness in a way that is likely to be really triggering and upsetting and stressful for you. And so you might notice that at the slightest hint of disconnection, your system goes into full on, I need to fix this mode, whether that's by you know, trying to close the gap or testing or probing or, you know, if you've got an inkling that something's wrong, then know, asking your partner a 1000000 times what's wrong? Are you sure nothing's wrong? Really seeking that reassurance. And you know, that can be in and of itself a really stressful experience for you. Now adding to that, if someone really is pulling away and you feel increasingly sort of powerless and stressed and overwhelmed, obviously, that's not a nice place to be. And you probably don't need me to tell you that continuing to sort of grab at someone, whether literally or figuratively, you know, pushing them away is often what ends up happening, when that's the opposite of what we wanna do. We're actually trying to get some safety for ourselves, but the way that we go about it will often have the effect of pushing someone further away when they're already disengaging for whatever reason. So as I said in the introduction, I think it's useful to delineate here between different sorts of circumstances because, you know, if my partner of several years is being withdrawn, then obviously I'm gonna approach that in a very different way to if I was, you know, chatting with someone who I'd been on 2 dates with and they started to pull away or or send mixed messages. And I think that, you know, to lump them all in the same category would be reductive and and probably unhelpful.
[00:06:59]:
So I'm going to start by talking about the more casual situation where you know in a dating context, if you've connected with someone, you know, maybe you've been chatting a lot, maybe like you're really, really excited and it feels really good and you've been on a couple of dates, maybe you've even, you know, slept together or or whatever, but, like, it's feeling like there's momentum there. And then suddenly things start to shift and they start to be a little distant. They start to pull away. Maybe they're less available. You know, they're suddenly making excuses for why they can't see you. The tone of their messages changes, all of those sorts of things, which unfortunately, I think happens quite a lot. And I'm sure a lot of you are nodding your head and feeling quite seen by that situation because I know that in in the dating world, it is unfortunately quite common for people to pull away without necessarily directly communicating. And as I said, you know, all of that is likely to really be very jarring and quite distressing for you, particularly if you're someone with more anxious attachment patterns, whose tendency, I suppose, is to internalize all of that and go, what have I done wrong? You know, did they decide they didn't like me? You know, what changed? And kind of go into overdrive trying to find the answers to that and, you know, reverse engineer a solution.
[00:08:18]:
And oftentimes that revolves around how can I change myself or, you know, make them like me again? And so it becomes this attempt at earning someone's approval, working really, really, really hard to restore whatever connection was there that feels like it's slipping away from you. So what do you do in that situation where someone who you've kind of been casually seeing or there's been, you know, the early stages of a connection with starts to be a bit distant and pulling away. So I think that you're probably not going to like this answer because it's not an answer that is like a hack to get them to reengage. Right. But there's a few pieces here that I want to point to, and I think one of them is just communicate. And, you know, I think you can name what you're feeling without going too overboard with it or being too grave or serious. You can simply call out, hey, it feels like you've been a little withdrawn the past few days, weeks, whatever is appropriate. Just wondering whether everything's okay.
[00:09:27]:
Wanted to check-in. Let me know how you're feeling or whether you'd like to chat. And I think that you can generally gauge from someone's response to something like that where they're at. And if they come back with more kind of flakiness or distance, then that's probably very telling. Or, you know, they might be able to give you insight into something else that's going on in their life that it gives a little context for why they've been distant, at which point you can be sympathetic and then say that you'd, you know, love to hear from them a little more frequently or catch up or whatever. So being mature and communicate directly is a good first port of call. I know that that's probably counterintuitive for most people because again, particularly among those with more anxious patterns, the tendency to think that you've done something wrong and then worry that you're pushing someone away by being too clingy means that you're disinclined to communicate directly and advocate for yourself and just be upfront. And you tend to go for the more indirect sideways approaches of trying to gather information without, you know, opening yourself up to potential rejection, I suppose, is probably the best way to put it.
[00:10:36]:
And just asking someone outright, you know, are you still interested? How are you feeling? What's going on? You seem to be withdrawn. Can feel much more vulnerable than just, you know, tiptoeing around it and trying to figure out what's going on, but not in a way that exposes you to that potential rejection, and all of the uncomfortable feelings that might come with it. But I think that the cost of that tiptoeing is that we end up persisting in the face of someone's disinterest, right, or someone's lack of investment in us. And I think that that is very costly to our sense of self confidence, self esteem, self worth. So the direct communication approach, I think, is a really good one. The other piece that I wanted to speak to and I've sort of already alluded to it, is that it's it's really important to reflect on what it is about someone's disinterest that is so enticing to us. And as I say enticing, I don't mean like directly exciting in a conscious sense, but we have to get a bit curious about, you know, why someone sending mixed signals, someone not really showing that much interest, why does that feel like an invitation for us to try harder to get them to show interest, to prove ourselves, to earn their love, to, you know, be better, be different, be otherwise? Because I think the the secure person doesn't feel so seduced by that game. A secure person sees someone's lack of investment or someone's inconsistency or flakiness, as an indicator that that's not a great fit and that there's a lack of reciprocity in that dynamic and that it's maybe not worth investing in because they don't feel terribly respected by this person in terms of themselves, but also their time and energy.
[00:12:25]:
Whereas I think when we're coming from a foundation of low self worth, that does feel like this seductive challenge almost of they're giving me some attention, or they were giving me attention, but now they're not. So how do I get back to that place? What can I do? What can I change? How can I be towards them that will bring us back into connection? Because I've internalized the loss of connection as being a comment on my worth, as being my fault, as being something, you know, wrong with me. And so I have to restore that so that I don't feel like there's something wrong with me. All of that to say, I think a lot of it is our own work and our own self reflection. There's a lot there to explore and understand about ourselves. Why is this appealing to me? Why do I find myself? Particularly if this is a repeated pattern for you and you are continually finding yourself in this situation of persisting in the face of someone's lukewarm attention or very hot and cold inconsistent flakiness, why do I see that as something worth pursuing rather than just spending my time and energy with the people who are interested in me? So I think that in summary, in that early dating kind of scenario, be upfront in communicating. I think the other thing, and I've said this before, sometimes rather than trying to decipher which of someone's mixed signals are the truth, If someone's saying one thing and then saying another thing, I think that actually just realizing that the fact of someone's very mixed communication, inconsistent messaging, if you're racking your brains, feeling really confused and full of doubt at the very early stages of a relationship, is that something that you want to continue to invest in? Because that's a pretty big red flag at the outset for you to be feeling so unsure of how they feel about you, how invested they are. And so I think that when we kind of march past those signals and then later wonder, you know, where it all went wrong, maybe we're not being fully honest with ourselves about what was apparent in those early stages and what we were willing to look past in the interest of maintaining a connection because it felt good.
[00:14:44]:
So I want to pivot now to the other scenario, which is, you know, if you're in a relationship with someone and they are pulling away, withdrawing. And when I say relationship, again, there's a 1,000,001 different variations of what that could look like. But something that is, you know, committed and, you know, clear that you are together. It doesn't have to be super long term, but at least there's some clarity that you're in a relationship and and the level of investment and kind of mutual understanding there. And I think that when someone pulls away in this scenario, again, there's sort of different branches of the tree because pulling away might be, you know, someone actually saying I need space or I don't know about being in this relationship anymore, you know, actually trying to maybe end the relationship and then coming back again. Or it might just be someone kind of emotionally withdrawing while still in the relationship. So I think in a scenario where someone is repeatedly pulling away in the sense of saying, you know, I need space or I'm not sure about this. I don't know if this is going to work out, you know, actually going and then coming back again, in a way that feels like it's leaving the existence of the relationship in question in some way.
[00:15:55]:
You know, are we actually still together? Or it's, undermining that really, the foundation of the relationship. I think in that scenario, boundaries and kind of a firm conversation around that is really, really important. I've said this before, I think threatening a breakup or having cycles in a relationship where you repeatedly break up and get back together is just so detrimental. It's virtually impossible to build a secure relationship where that is a theme that is recurring in particularly in your conflicts, if that's always on the table or, you know, if that's where things escalate to every time they escalate, then it's impossible to have any emotional safety. It's impossible to have really vulnerable conversations because there's always this existential threat looming over the relationship. And so it's really easy to go, you know, I don't wanna say that thing because I don't want it to escalate in that direction because I don't wanna lose the relationship. And so I think it creates this this culture inside a relationship of suppression and hiding and tiptoeing, followed by these big blowouts and then no adequate repair. And it really is very, very hard to build anything sustainable or healthy from that place.
[00:17:07]:
So if it were me and my partner were going through cycles of saying, you know, I don't think I can do this or, you know, I need space. So I think we should take time apart or whatever again and again and coming back and going again. I think the for me, it would be a very firm boundary of I understand whatever, you know, doubts you might be having, and I don't wanna make you wrong for that. But equally, it's very challenging for me to persist in this environment of uncertainty in the relationship. And that's just not gonna work for me going forward because I know what that costs me. So if we're gonna continue to be in this relationship, I need to know that you are committed and I really need to draw a bright line in the sand on the threatening to leave or the leaving and coming back again because that level of of kind of chaos, uncertainty, unpredictability around the very foundation of our relationship is untenable for me. So, you know, talking to someone pretty firmly and saying you know, advocating for yourself in that, while seeking to understand it's not making them wrong because there's some very valid fear or pain that is driving them to behave in that way over and over again. It's not just them trying to hurt you, I can guarantee it.
[00:18:19]:
It's them trying to protect themselves from something. So certainly seeking to understand, but having that conversation of how can we go about managing this or, you know, how can, you know, you support yourself? How can I support you? How can we support each other in a way that doesn't look like you leaving all the time? Because that's just not going to fly. Finally, in this scenario where you're in a relationship and someone's just kind of emotionally withdrawn, but it's not, you know, that that thing of, like, pulling away or, like, actually leaving and coming back in a way that's ever throwing the relationship into question. For me, sometimes in my relationship, Joel will pull away in the sense of when he's stressed or when he's just not feeling great, he's feeling a bit flat or whatever. I know that he withdraws into himself. That's what he knows to do. That's very much his, like, default mechanism. And in the past, that was really challenging for me because, you know, again, all of the anxious patterns there see someone's withdrawal as some sort of precursor to something bad happening, or at least this sense of I can't reach you when you're there, so I don't know how to make this better.
[00:19:35]:
And feeling like you don't know how to make something better when someone else's pain feels like it's threatening the connection. They can feel very out of control, and you can feel like you kind of have your hands tied and someone has put themselves behind a brick wall, and you don't know how to reach them, and you don't know what to do about it. And you can feel really powerless and, you know, feeling bad for them that they're in that experience, but also kind of selfishly not knowing how to make it better for yourself when you feel like your comfort and security is tied to some level of harmony and connection. So that used to be really challenging for me. It still is sometimes. I don't love it when he withdraws into himself. But I think we've gone to a place now where I can kind of trust in his ability to manage that. And I know that it's not about me.
[00:20:21]:
I know that that will pass and that I can, you know, offer a level of support without needing to rush in to try and fix it. And funnily enough, my, you know, giving him space to be in his process typically means he comes out of it much more quickly and easily than if I'm kind of hovering around and and trying to, you know, probe or fix or make it go away. Because I think that from his perspective, when he's withdrawn into himself, it's because he doesn't want to inflict his internal state onto me. And he's kind of doing that as a way to not only protect himself, but also protect me from whatever's going on. So, you know, having had conversations around that and, you know, having a level of, for me, self regulation and ability to just, you know, take care of myself when, you know, he's a little withdrawn or flat or moody or or those things without spiraling into making it about me or needing to fix it. Actually, just going and doing my own thing and and trusting that it will pass has been really, really effective. And I think that that's kind of good advice in many cases, in this scenario where it's not like something really tumultuous is happening, but your partner's just a little bit withdrawn or or pulling away, maybe unavailable for connection or a little bit kind of moody or irritable or or just going through their own stuff in a way that leads them to pull away from you a bit. I think that trusting in the the macro picture of the relationship rather than fixating on micro moments of disconnection and urgently needing to fix them, rushing in.
[00:22:02]:
I think that that can be really supportive for both of you. And, you know, I say both of you because I think having that practice of, I can be fine even if I'm not connected to you right in this moment. There are plenty of things that I can offer to myself that are really resourcing, that I can, you know, go and, you know, spend time alone or with other people or do things and not allow my mood and my state to be tethered to yours in a way that, you know, I feel really off center because you're not a 100% yourself. So, yeah, I think that that's good advice. Of course, having some communication around it, but it doesn't have to be something that you need to eliminate in a relationship because I think the more we can increase our tolerance for someone ebbing and flowing, even when it's not our preference or it's not comfortable for us, I actually think that that's a really positive growth experience. Okay. So that was some thoughts on what to do when a partner's pulling away. Someone that you're seeing is pulling away.
[00:23:02]:
I hope that that's been helpful in giving you some things to think about. I'm I realize that that's kind of covered a big spectrum, and and hopefully there's something in there for people at lots of different points in the journey, whether you're dating or in a relationship or somewhere in between. As always, if you've enjoyed this episode, I'm so grateful if you could leave a rating or a review. I read every single one and I'm always so touched by your very kind and generous words of feedback. So thank you all for continuing to support the podcast in all of the ways that you do, and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:23:05]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
attachment styles, relationship advice, overcoming insecurity, healthy relationships, relationship coach, partner withdrawal, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, communication in relationships, dating scenarios, long-term relationships, YouTube channel, podcast transcripts, show notes, relationship dynamics, self-esteem in relationships, self-worth, boundaries in relationships, relationship uncertainty, emotional withdrawal, managing stress in relationships, self-regulation, coping with disconnection, relationship commitment, secure attachment, relationship patterns, mixed signals, relationship consistency, partner support, relationship resilience