Latest / Just Listen To Me / When Women Withdraw: The Pattern Nobody Talks About
Transcript
- Julia Shay: Hi, I'm Julia and welcome back to Just Listen To Me. If love feels confusing or painful right now, you're not broken and neither is your relationship. Let's slow this down together. We've been told a story about relationships that women pursue and men withdraw, that she reaches and he shuts down. But what happens when that's not true? What happens when the woman is the one pulling away? In the last few episodes, we've been exploring pursuers and withdrawers, what drives them, what's happening underneath the protest, and why these patterns can feel so intense and so hard to shift. And today, I want to gently turn towards something we don't talk about enough, because for some of you listening, this dynamic doesn't fit your relationship at all. Today we're talking about female withdrawers, and this matters more than you might think, because when your experience doesn't match the story you've been given, it often comes with more confusion and more shame. Female withdrawers exist across all relationship types, heterosexual relationships, same-sex relationships and everything in between. But because it challenges the stereotype, it often goes unseen or misunderstood. So let's slow this down and look at what might feel different here. One of the first things you might notice is that female withdrawers don't always look like they're withdrawing. Because while many male withdrawers tend to go quiet, shut down, or physically leave the space, female withdrawers often do something very different. They over-function. They're not shutting down. They're replying to emails, organising the house, solving problems, getting things done. And the more overwhelmed they feel, the more capable with they become. To the outside world, and often to their partner, they look like they have everything together. But internally, they've left the emotional space. Because instead of withdrawing physically, they're withdrawing emotionally. They move into their heads to get away from what feels too much in their body. And this is where it can so easily be misread. Because it can look like coldness or distance or disinterest. But underneath that, there is often overwhelm. A nervous system that doesn't feel safe enough to stay present in emotional intensity. And then, there's another layer. One that often stays hidden. Shame. Many female withdrawers carry a quiet belief, I'm not nurturing enough, I'm not what I'm supposed to be. And that doesn't just come from the relationship, it comes from something much bigger. Cultural expectations, gender roles, unspoken rules about what it means to be a woman in intimacy. So now, Not only are they overwhelmed, they're also questioning themselves. And for some women, that shame doubles. Because there's also an expectation that women should be the emotional pursuers. So if you're a woman who withdraws, it can feel like you're getting it wrong on both sides. And that can feel incredibly isolating. But just like we've said in previous episodes, withdrawal is not a character flaw. It's a survival strategy. So what's happening underneath this? Because for so many female withdrawers, just like male withdrawers, there is a deep vulnerability here. Something that sounds like, I don't know how to do this. I'm going to get it wrong. I'm not enough. I want to show you how this can play out in real life. I worked with a couple where the female partner was the withdraw. And her withdrawal didn't look like silence. It looked like work. She stayed late, brought work home, filled every available space with productivity. And from the outside, it looked like dedication. Responsibility. Drive. But when we slowed it down in the room, something else emerged. She was the eldest child growing up. And without anyone explicitly naming it, she had become responsible for her siblings. She was exposed to a lot of her parents' conflict, far more than the younger children. And what she learned, very early on, was this. Emotional intensity wasn't safe. It was overwhelming, unpredictable, too much. So she adapted. She moved into doing, into functioning, into coping. And now, in her adult relationship, that same pattern was playing out. Work became a place of control. A place of distance. A place where she didn't have to feel. But for her partner, this was incredibly painful. He would tolerate the distance for a while. Try and make sense of it. Push it down. Until eventually, something small would happen. And he would explode. Not because of the washing. Not because of the moment. but because of everything that had been building underneath. And this is where the cycle locks in. Because now, he looks aggressive, she looks unavailable, and both of them are sitting in shame, quietly wondering, why does this feel so hard? Why can't we get this right? He feels shame for needing more, for wanting closeness, for not being as independent as he thinks he should be. And she feels shame for not being more present, more available, more nurturing. And underneath all of it, they're both asking the same question. Do I matter to you? There's one more layer I want to gently name here. And this is important. When the dynamic is a male pursuer and a female withdrawer, the emotional intensity can sometimes feel different in the body. Because male pursuers, particularly when overwhelmed, may express that intensity through anger or escalation. And even if nothing has ever happened, the body still registers something. The difference in size. The intensity. The energy in the room. And sometimes, that's enough to make someone pull back even further. Now I want to be really clear. This doesn't mean every relationship like this is unsafe. But it does mean we need to pay attention to how power, intensity, and the nervous system interact inside the cycle. You might also see this in same-sex relationships, where one partner's pursuit feels more intense or more aggressive, and the other partner withdraws further in response to that pressure. So again, this isn't about gender being the cause, it's about the cycle, how it interacts with history, identity and safety. And this is where project secure attachment begins. Not by asking, who's the problem? But by asking, what is happening underneath this pattern? What is the fear? What is the longing? What is your nervous system trying to protect right now? Because when couples begin to see this clearly, blame softens, defensiveness softens. And instead of asking, why are you like this? They begin to ask, what happened to you that makes this make sense? And that question changes everything. If you take one thing from today, let it be this, female withdrawers don't pull away because they don't care. They pull away because something inside them doesn't feel safe enough. to stay. And the work isn't to become someone completely different. It's to begin creating moments where something new can happen. Moments where it feels safe to stay. Thanks for being here. And as always, let's keep building project secure attachment together.