The 'Well-Intentioned' Behavior So Many Women Have That Pushes Men Away
Is he pulling away, or are you pushing him away?
Rowan Jordan| Canva A client said to me once, "Virginia, I can’t believe what I just did! Steven texted me last night, 'I miss you' and that’s all he wrote. So I texted back 'I don’t believe you, why haven’t I heard from you in 3 days? What’s going on?'
I haven’t heard from him all day and I just want to die, I’ve probably lost him for good. Help!"
When a relationship doesn’t go the way we want it to, we get scared. My client's impulsive reaction to Steven’s text is all too common.
There is a common 'well-intentioned' behavior many women have that pushes men away.
Like her, it’s easy to jump to conclusions and lose perspective.
When we think a man is pulling away, we experience a loss of power and instinctively go on the attack to get it back.
Why do men pull away? Research tells us it's because men and women experience stress differently, with men more likely to pull away from you to conserve their energy.
We blame him for making us feel victimized and we lash out. None of us like confrontation and yet that’s exactly what we jump to when we fear losing a man's interest. Emotionally we go from 0 to 100 in seconds and end up acting recklessly and doing something we wish we hadn’t.
The mistake we make when he loses interest is automatically making him 'wrong' for doing something we don’t like.
We blame and shame him for not treating us the way we think he should. We create a story in our mind about how he’s feeling toward us and then act on our belief as if it were true.
We should be asking questions and remaining open. But instead, we overreact and end up pushing him farther away.
Even if a man is cooling in a relationship, he isn’t gone yet. He may show signs, like Steven, with an overdue "I miss you" text.
Pexels / Andrea Piacquadio
However, the last thing we should do when getting sparks instead of fire is to smother them with our fear. In my client's case, Steven still reached out by telling her he missed her. The last thing she should have done at this point was to attack him.
If he was truly just leading her on, challenging him may be justified. But at this point, she doesn’t know for sure if that’s the truth.
We have to stop assuming what a man is feeling and actually ask him what’s going on.
The lesson here is to remain curious and open, even if he loses interest.
Fear will always keep us from finding out the truth. If we let fear of losing him take over we’ll miss the chance of saving the relationship and giving it a chance to grow. If we want a man to stay with us, we have to stop thinking we know what he's feeling. We need to remain available to hear his side without making him wrong.
I told my client that I don’t think Steven is gone for good. Most likely, he cares for her and has realized he should have gotten in touch sooner. He’ll probably give her time to cool down and reach out to her again. Hopefully this time, she will take the opportunity to remain open and make herself available to what he has to offer.
Virginia Clark is a relationship coach with decades of experience. She's the author of It's Never Too Late To Marry: How to Have the Man and the Marriage of Your Dreams.