Latest / Just Listen To Me / Why They Pull Away (It’s Not What You Think)
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. Today I want to gently explore a question I hear all the time from pursuers. Does my withdrawing partner even want connection? And if you've ever found yourself asking that question, you're not alone. Because when you're reaching, when you're trying to talk, to connect, to understand, and the person you love pulls away, shuts down, or goes quiet, it doesn't just feel frustrating. It can feel deeply painful. It can sound like, do I even matter to you? Are you even in this with me? And if I'm really honest, for many pursuers, that moment doesn't just hurt, it touches something much older. A fear that says, maybe I'm too much and somehow still not enough. And from the outside, it can absolutely look like the withdrawer doesn't care. But this is where we need to slow this down. Because in most cases, that's not actually what's happening underneath. Withdrawers tend to pull away from emotional conversations, not because they don't care, but because they often don't know how to access or express what they feel. And that didn't start in the relationship. It started long before that. Many withdrawers come from environments where emotional expression wasn't modelled, where vulnerability wasn't welcomed, where feelings weren't talked about, and sometimes where they weren't even safe. And if you grew up in an environment like that, where those skills are never encouraged or developed, how would you know how to do it? There's a concept in psychology called pruning. This idea of use it or lose it. The parts of the brain we don't use don't develop in the same way. So if emotional expression isn't practiced, over time, it can become incredibly difficult to access. Not impossible, but unfamiliar, uncomfortable, even overwhelming. And then we layer in something else, gender socialization. From a very early age, boys and girls are often treated differently when it comes to emotion. Little girls are comforted when they cry. Little boys are often told, you'll be all right. And over time, the message becomes, there's no room for this, just deal with it, just push it down. So by the time that little boy becomes a man and enters an adult relationship, He's being asked to do the very thing he was never taught how to do, to open up, to be vulnerable, to just communicate. And this is where the cycle begins to tighten because the more the pursuer reaches and says, talk to me, open up, why won't you share? The more the withdraw can feel, I'm failing, I'm not good enough, I'm getting this wrong. And then we see something that often gets misunderstood in couples therapy, what we call the blank face. That moment where the withdrawor shuts down, goes quiet, looks completely disconnected. And for the pursuer, this is often the most painful moment because it lands as, you don't care about me, I'm not important. But underneath that blank face, there is usually overwhelm. There is fear. There is shame. There is a desperate attempt to not make things worse. It's not indifference. It's protection. Let me give you an example. I worked with a couple where the female partner had a more anxious attachment style. She had experienced a lot of rejection growing up, so she was very sensitive to any sign that her partner didn't care. Her partner, on the other hand, was a withdraw. He had experienced neglect and betrayal in a previous relationship. So when conflict came up, she would get louder and say, you don't care. And for her, that was a protest. a reaching. But for him, that landed as, I'm not enough. Because in his world, he was trying to show love through action, fixing things, providing, taking care of responsibilities. So when that wasn't seen, he shut down the blank face. And then the cycle escalated. She got louder. He withdrew further. Eventually, he would leave the house and she would be left alone, crying, feeling abandoned. This is the negative cycle, not because either person is the problem, but because the pattern has taken over the relationship. So how do we begin to shift this? In emotionally focused therapy, is a phase called withdrawal re-engagement. But, and this is really important, that doesn't start at the beginning. Because in the early stages, the cycle is too reactive. There isn't enough safety yet. So the first step is to slow the cycle down. to help both partners begin to see what's happening underneath their reactions. Not just, you shut down or you get too intense, but what's driving that? And as the cycle begins to soften, as blame starts to ease, something really powerful starts to happen. The withdrawer begins to feel safer, less attacked. less overwhelmed, and slowly, they begin to turn back towards the relationship. I once worked with a couple for about a year, just helping them understand and de-escalate their cycle. And then one day, the withdrawer said something he had never said before. He said, when she gets upset, I feel completely helpless. Like nothing I do is right. So I shut down because I don't want to make it worse. And in that moment, everything shifted. Because for the first time, she wasn't looking at a wall. She was looking at someone who was hurting. And this is often the moment where something changes. Because when we can see the vulnerability underneath the behaviour, blame softens. Defensiveness softens and compassion starts to enter the room. This is project secure attachment. Not fixing communication, not teaching better arguments, but slowing the moment down enough to ask, what is happening underneath this reaction? What is the fear? What is the longing? Because withdrawers do want connection. but they need to feel safe enough to risk showing up for it. And maybe the question begins to shift from, why are you like this? To what's happening inside you right now? Because that is where connection begins again. Thank you so much for listening. If this episode resonated with you, especially if you've been sitting in that place of confusion, hurt or anger. I hope it offered a different lens, a way of seeing your partner and the pattern with a little more understanding. Take care of yourself and I'll be back soon with another episode.