18 Apr 2018 · 28 min
Dr. Aziz and Amber explain why partners pull away: autonomy, attachment patterns, avoidant responses. They recommend giving space, checking in once, then using it as material for your own attachment work rather than chasing.
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Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're gonna learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Yo. Welcome to today's episode of the show, and thank you so much for being with me and with our co host, Amber. Hey, Amber.
Hey, guys.
Yeah, awesome to have you here. And if you're enjoying the show, go to shrinkfor the shy guy.com, shrinkforthshyguy.com we have show notes there, as well as you can ask questions. I've been doing some Q and A episodes recently, so if you want to send a question in through the site, you can do that. And if you haven't gone there to get a free copy of my eBook, Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence, do it. It's literally free. You enter your email, and then you will get this huge ebook that's just got a ton of specific guidance on how you can practice these things to be more confident. It's the exact stuff that I've done that I take clients through that Amber works with people on these core issues. So definitely do yourself a favor and use that. And today we're gonna be talking about something specific and very interesting, which is what to do when she pulls away. So this is something that's come up definitely in my life and clients I've worked with and just recently came up with a client of Amber's. So I thought it'd be fun to talk about it to help you know, how to deal with this situation, because there's sort of the what to do externally, but then there's also, like, what to do with whatever buttons inside of you get pushed. So that's worth talking about, too, to see how to help you on both fronts and just really, you know, because it's a part of life and. And part of dating and part of relationships, we want to help you navigate it. So, Amber, let's start with maybe an example of what was the situation. How is this coming up so we can make it more practical?
Right. So it's very similar for everybody. Whenever this happens, and I would say it happens to everyone when they're in a relationship or getting very close to someone. And it also happens periodically. So it usually happens multiple times throughout a relationship. And so in the example of my client, she got very close to a man, and they were texting every day and calling every day and good night and good morning and getting very close. And suddenly, from one day to the next, he is texting her one time a day, or she always is texting first, or he's just not showing the same attention as he was. And obviously it freaked her out. And you start to panic and you're like, what? Like, what is happening? Like, what did I do yesterday? Everything was fine, and now he's completely ignoring me. And it's an example with a female, but it happens with men as well, where the girl is pulling away. And what I told her was that this is normal. This happens all the time to everyone. And periodically, if you're going to have a relationship with somebody. And then I had some instructions for her to follow.
Ooh, what are the instructions? Because I want to say there, and then we'll kind of explore that.
Right. So basically, first of all, it helps to know why the person is doing what. What they're doing. So why are they just dropping off the radar and suddenly wanting to create all of this space between you when you had such a great connection?
Well, that one's obvious. It's because she's not good enough. That's why she's fundamentally flawed and unlovable. And he's finally discovered that.
Exactly. So when somebody's pulling away and they're creating more space and it feels sudden, and sometimes it's like you can't really say that something specific is like they're doing something specifically wrong, but it just feels off to you. Like, you just feel that they're going away from you. And so people do this when. Especially in the early phases of a relationship when they feel like they're getting very close and they want to establish that they're still independent and they can still do things outside of the relationship and they can still be themselves. So sometimes in order to feel that, you need a little bit of distance between you and the person that you're in a relationship with. So it's not necessarily distance from you. Like, I need less of you. It's just I need more of me. I need more time to reflect or do things that I'm passionate about or reconnect with my friends or just feel like I can still be A person without you. And so basically, when you're on the receiving end of this, you want to let them do that, and every instinct inside of you doesn't want to do that. It's easy to say now on a podcast, but when it's happening to you and you feel really connected to this person, your instinct is to latch on and make sure they don't go anywhere. But this is exactly serving the opposite purpose. So they're trying to establish their independence, and you're latching on and getting angry with them for doing that. And so they feel like, oh, my God, I really am trapped in this relationship, and I can't be my own person. I can't do my own things.
Mmm, yes. Yeah. So it's like it just. It worsens. It's. That's. This happens so often, I found, is when. So when we get close to someone, that's one way of describing that is becoming attached. And I don't mean that in, like, the Buddhist way, where you're not supposed to have any attachments and all that stuff. It's more like, you know, connecting, deeply connecting. You become attached with each other. And the more connected you are, the more attached, meaning you deeply start to impact each other. And as that's happening, a lot of stuff happens. A lot of stuff comes up for people. And one thing is that when we perceive someone is pulling away from us or we're gonna lose that attachment on some level, usually our default impulses are the very opposite thing to do. We go into this sort of, like, frantic mode that does not, you know, and obviously, case by case, you got to see what's right for you. But just what I've seen is general trends in myself and clients. So for that example, they start to be a little more autonomous and you grasp on tighter. And that is the exact opposite of what you really want to be able to do.
Right? And the other thing that you don't want to do is threaten them or be like, oh, yeah, you want to have time by yourself? How about we just break it off and you can be all alone? So some people get very angry or hurt, and they feel like the person is rejecting them, so they reject the person first to make sure it can't happen to them. But that, again, just shows, like, oh, I get punished for doing things on my own or being a little bit more independent for a few days. Like, I can't be myself in this relationship.
Oh, man. This raises just a whole bigger thing, which is way beyond what to do when someone pulls away which is how you see relationships in general. And a lot of people haven't really thought, examine that consciously, but unconsciously. The relationship is you, Whoever your partner is or desired partner or dating partner, you like, I need to get you in my life and do things with you and hang out with you and stuff. And then I'll be happy. And you, you know, if you agree to that, then you gotta do those things with me and hang out with me and then we'll be happy. And it's sort of like it leads to kind of an entitlement and also these subtle sort of demands, what are called covert contracts, where it's like these unspoken things where it's like, if you do this, then you have to give me that. And then now we don't consciously say that to ourselves, but we know what's happening. When we start to feel really angry, for example, they start to pull away and we get really angry. How dare they? Or maybe they didn't text you back right away. And part of you is scared, Another part of you is like, how dare they not do that? How dare they disrespect me? And we want to pay attention to that. Because a different way to approach relationships is as a process of self discovery, as a process of growth for you to learn how about yourself and about someone else, but about you. And how do I deeply connect with someone else? And what gets in the way? And what are my fears and what are my obstacles? What are the buttons of mine that get pushed? And so when that person is pulling away to be a little more autonomous instead of being like, how do I get them to be the way that I need them to be for me to feel good? We want to say, how do I need to grow to be more relaxed and secure in myself as I connect with people?
Right. And I think people think that the only way to connect with someone is to have contact with them. So if we're not talking five times a day on the phone and texting five more times a day on the phone and spending every night together and doing every single thing together, then we're not connecting. And if we're not together, it means we're disconnecting. But sometimes the space in between the connections that you have allows your connection to grow deeper because you get to miss the person or you get to have experiences that you then talk about and bring to the relationship. And it creates a desire in the relationship.
Yeah. Oh, this is good. This brings a couple more questions I have that I want to bring up and get your Thoughts on. Let's take a quick break right now. And when we get back, though, we're going to talk more about what to do when someone's pulling away in a relationship. How do you react? How do you keep your cool, not freak out and handle it in the best way possible and. And keep that relationship growing in spite of that little twist and turn? So stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this. She probably has a boyfriend. She's out of my league. I'd only bother her if I tried to talk with her. Why would she go out with me? I'll only mess it up if I try. Does any of this sound familiar? These are the exact thoughts that are stopping you from creating outstanding and fun dates and relationships with. With amazing women ready to break free? Go to 30daystodatingmastery.com to get a free copy of Dr. Aziz eBook, 7 Ways to Start Conversations with Women, Anytime, Anywhere, and start meeting women today. Hey, welcome back. So they're pulling away. We've learned don't, like, text them 85 times and also don't sort of say, well, you know, fine, fuck them, and kind of push. Do the old push away maneuver. You push, well, I'll push away twice as hard, you know, which is not really what you want. It's just kind of a hurt, defended maneuver. So the question I have for you, Amber, though, is in this situation with a client or how do you know if they're pulling away just because they want a little, you know, a little more autonomy or if they're pulling away because, you know, you did something they didn't like and they're not being assertive and telling you, and they're just kind of passively acting out a little bit of upset or annoyance.
You don't know. However, in my relationship, like, like I said, if you're in a relationship, it occurs periodically where the person maybe needs a little bit of space or needs to be a little bit independent or you notice something is just kind of different than usual. And I would say, ask them once. Just be like, hey, is everything okay? You seem a little bit off. And if they say they're fine, then just believe them and let them go through whatever they're going through. But don't be like, you need to explain to me what's going on, what's happening. And. Yeah.
Mm, yeah. Because that gets back into, like, the very thing that's gonna freak them out because you're like, you want space, huh? Let me get into your psyche. Tell me everything. Why don't Leave me. Right? Yeah. So that's. That's really interesting. I had a very strong autonomous streak in me. Part of it was not really having that long of relationships and having a lot of autonomy in my life and a lot of dating, but not a whole lot of, like, really long, serious living together, committed relationships. I only lived with one girlfriend for a very short period of time, and that was primarily due to circumstance. Like, I was moving in a month and my. I left my apartment, I was like, hey, can I live with you? So it was different than, like, hey, let's, you know, live in a house together. So the first time I really lived with someone, it was with Candace. He's my wife now. And, man, I had a lot of stuff to work through. I had a lot of. It was really helpful that we could talk about it. And we even came up with a name for it, which was autonomy man. And that was like the part of me that was like, I need to do whatever I want whenever I want. And I had a history of being the nice guy in relationships where I would stuff autonomy down. Autonomy man down, and try to do whatever I think was, you know, okay, let's. You want to text five times a day, I'll text five times a day. You want to talk in the morning, I'll talk in the morning, like, whatever you want. And I would do that for X weeks, you know, three, four weeks, and then just burn out and break up. So I wanted to approach this relationship very differently. So I was like, let me ask for what I want and say what I want and really explore what she wants. So we had a lot of conversations. But what I found in my own experiences with autonomy is it was kind of like working on it on both fronts. One is having the courage and the assertiveness to say what I really wanted. Like, hey, I want to. I don't do this anymore because we got kids. But I loved, loved going on Friday nights alone, not with my wife, but to go play Magic the Gathering tournaments at what I call the Nerd Dungeon down in downtown Portland. Where you'd go there, it'd be like these, you know, it's like a bunch of fold away tables with like 75 sweaty nerds in this room playing Magic the Gathering, which is a fantasy card game. And they have their tournaments, they call them Friday Night Magic just to really hammer home the point that none of us, like, had lives. So we would put it on Friday night. Why not? What are you nerds gonna be doing? So I would go do that, and you Know, that was sort of autonomy for me. And then we'd hang out other days on the weekend, and so I would be able to claim what I needed or maybe I needed some time on a Saturday afternoon and just do my own thing. And I got better about asking for that and saying that. At the same time, though, I also needed to work on my capacity to be close with someone and that sometimes my autonomy urges were not just, oh, I need to reclaim myself. It was like, I'm scared of getting really close. I'm scared of merging. I'm scared of that for some reason I can't even explain. And so at times it would be asserting what I needed and taking space, and at other times it would be calming myself and going deeper and connecting more. And that's something I wanted to throw out there because for anyone listening, when we don't. When we have fears around attachment, whether we have an anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment style. I talk about that in the book. Not nice, by the way. If you want to find out more, we have to learn how to develop more and more secure attachment with each other. And so sometimes it involves kind of leaning into what's scary or uncomfortable.
Yeah, I think we're kind of similar in that way. You're pretty introverted as well, right?
Yeah, big time. Even this. Even this is terrible. I just. Talking to anyone? No, I'm kidding. But, yeah, no, I definitely. I definitely need some recharge time. Absolutely. Solo time, for sure.
Yeah, I'm super introverted as well. And so in the beginning of my relationship, now, like a few weeks in, we were spending a lot of time together, which I'm really not used to doing. I never had a relationship where I started saw the person more than twice a week. So, like, just because we never lived that close. But my boyfriend and I now are almost neighbors, so we saw each other a lot more often. And I started feeling really anxious, and I felt like I didn't have time to write or reflect or think because I like to think a lot or have time to go salsa dancing. And I was like, oh, my God, he's texting me twice a day. Oh, my God. And I was just honest with him about it. And I told him, hey, I feel like I need a little bit of space just to do my own thing throughout the week and maybe spend a night or two at my own place. And I had to explain it to him because he's very extroverted. So he has that need less than I do. And we could just work through It. And it definitely was, like, scary for him as well, because if you're on the other end of it, it's always scary because you think the person is going away from you and doesn't want to be with you. But that wasn't the case at all. I just needed a chance to have the space to desire to see him again and to kind of, like, reflect and do my writing and go salsa dancing and do things just for myself, to establish my independence again. And the thing that he did was he let me do that. And so for a day, he just let me reach out to him and I had my alone time. And then I could just relax because he gave me exactly what I needed and wanted. And then I wasn't scared anymore. I didn't feel like I was getting smothered. I was like, oh, okay, I can still be my own person. And now, like, the more you let the person be independent and have their space, the less they need it, because they just need to know that they can have it if they want it. Yes.
That is a huge point.
Yeah. And now, like, I see my boyfriend probably every day for two weeks at a time, and then I maybe have one night that I spend at my place. But that would not have happened if he didn't give me that space initially in the beginning of the relationship.
Yes. For all our extrovert friends. You got to start seeing the introvert friends of yours as, like, you know, they're just like. They're deer who need to know that there's an exit path should there be a predator. We have to be able to flee. You gotta get away. Yeah. No, I think that's such a key point, is that knowing that you have that autonomy or sovereignty, you don't have to exercise it all the time, but just knowing you have it really creates a sense of safety, relaxation. Okay, I'm not going to get smothered. I'm not going to lose myself. I think that's really helpful for people to realize. And I remember something about. It was a Tony Robbins event, and he was talking about this masculine, feminine dynamics, energy, relationships. And he was saying something to women. And this is sort of addressing women who are in relationship with men. So some generalizations here. Obviously, not all relationships are that, but, you know, if you can give your man that freedom, then basically you will own him forever. It's like this kind of paradox, right? Like, if you really. And that's when he said that, I saw that was instantly true. That's how Candace is. Like, she gives me that Autonomy. And I am hers. So there's no, there's no coercion or control. And the way this shows up for me, that alone time is just as important as it ever was. It doesn't go away. And I just have gotten more dedicated to how I get it. And so I wake up butt ass early, usually between 3 and 4am and have a couple hours in the morning. That's just for me. And some of that time I go to the gym. So I'm around other people, but I don't have to interact with them a whole lot if I don't want to. And at least an hour of that is like alone in my, in a room by myself to do whatever I want, meditate, write. Sometimes it's just entertain myself or whatever, nourish myself. And that alone time allows me to be more because, you know, with little kids and stuff, I don't have as much freedom to be like, eh, I just don't feel like it. Today you, you take on more of the duties. See ya. I mean, I could, but that would come with its own consequences. And I remember one time over the summer I was like, I need a personal retreat. And I took two days and went out into the woods by myself. And she gave that to me. She's like, all right, I'll watch the kids. And by doing that though, so she's taking on more for those two days. I'm hers. So I'm like, I show up so fully and give so much of myself. So this is really cool benefit when a partner can be like Amber's boyfriend or my wife Candice, where you can give that to someone and, and it really builds that connection to be able to do that.
Yeah. And by the way, with the coaching client that I mentioned earlier, that was on Thursday, that she was like, oh my God, he's pulling away. I'm losing him and I'm so scared and blah, blah, blah. And then now it's Tuesday that we're talking and I talked to her this morning and she was like, oh yeah, he came back. I was like, yeah, of course he did.
What? I wasn't scared at all. Right. And that's one thing I want to, I want to touch on before we end today, which is, remember I talked about, you know, how you approach relationship? What is it about? And it's about self discovery and growth as well as, you know, connection and magnifying your emotional experience and fulfillment in life and sex and intimacy and closeness and pleasure. Like it's all of those things. But we really want to have a growth mindset around it because inevitably a couple of core wounds are going to get pressed on. And as you get close to someone, one is the core wound of, like, I'm shame, like, I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. And then there's going to be fear, like, oh, my God, I'm going to be left. I'm going to be abandoned. I'm going to be left alone, and I won't survive. It's like this core stuff for when we're infants that gets, like, imprinted in our nervous system. So you almost want to anticipate that those buttons are going to get pushed because you want to be able to see them for what they are, which is something in me that needs to get healed so I know where to go and what to do with it. So, like with your client, when she has that, like, ah. And we've all been there, right? Oh, no. We want to have some part of our awareness, even though a lot of us is freaking out, some part of our awareness be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, Everything like this is, yes, okay, you're scared. You feel like you're not enough. You feel like they're leaving you because you're not enough. Let's work on that. And if you can have that awareness, then you can kind of keep it contained inside of you. And that gives you a power to be able to behave a little bit more independently of your freakout. You can say, okay, here, you know what? Reasonably, I'm going to respond by just giving them a little space. Now let me tend to my own feelings. And what does that mean, to tend to or work on? Well, my program, the confidence code, I think is really good for that, about how to really be with yourself and treat yourself with compassion and work through uncomfortable feelings. But any of my. Any resources or this podcast, you just basically take care of yourself, do some written exercises or the double column that Amber was mentioning in a previous episode, something. But it's really about holding it as your stuff to work through. And then, of course, at the same time, if you want to have a conversation, like Amber was talking about telling her boyfriend, hey, I need a little space. Or I was like, hey, Candice, I need two days for myself. So you can have those kind of conversations, but you want to be doing that inner work so it doesn't come out like, why are you smothering me? And then it's all. Then it gets to this weird blame fest and then they're defending themselves and it's much cleaner if you can take ownership and then just ask for what you need or check in with them and see if they're okay, so forth.
Yeah. And the more you experience this because it does happen periodically in a long term relationship for both people, the less you'll freak out each time because they're like, oh, they're just kind of doing their own thing. Like, my boyfriend also sometimes needs space. I can just kind of sense it. And I don't have that reaction anymore at all because I kind of just recognize it as what it is. I'm just like, oh, okay. He's just doing his own thing. And I'm first of all confident that he'll come back just because I know the nature of it. But I'm also on a deeper level, confident to know that no matter what, I'm okay on my own if somebody does leave me. And I think that's the scariest part. Like, what if they just go and don't come back? And that's where you need the confidence to know that no matter what, you're okay on your own.
That's a huge one. Yeah. Because if you don't have that, then you're gonna get into some weird kind of control and manipulation behaviors. No matter how sophisticated or subtle we do it right if we feel like I cannot handle it. Like on some level, some part of us thinks of that as like death. And so we're just gonna do whatever it takes. And it's okay if I do some weird stuff to manipulate them. But really what we want to get to is a place of I can handle it. And the truth is that it's just feelings. If they were to leave, it's just feelings. Even if they were to die, it's just feelings. Now it's fucking painful feelings and it's hard. But it doesn't mean that we cannot work through those and live and survive and then thrive again. So once we have that knowledge, that deep trust and confidence that I can handle it, it's going to be painful, but I can handle it. We stop needing to control. We stop needing to do all this other stuff that actually ends up pushing them away. And then you become way more attractive to people when you have that kind of self confidence and that spacious love. It's not all graspy. And people want to hang out in that. They usually don't want to go anywhere.
Yeah.
Awesome. Good stuff. Well, so much here. Thank you so much for being with us today, Amber, and sharing insights. This is really fun. We'll do this again for sure.
Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome.
Yeah, of course. And if you are curious about working with Amber, go to the Social confidence center page socialconfidencecenter.com and that's our main page. And go to the Coaching tab and just hit the that you're interested in coaching. You can also go to the contact section of that page and just send a message directly to us and just let us know that you're interested in working with Amber or finding out more because she's rock star helping people. So awesome. Thanks for being with us today and until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.
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