What to do when He/She Leaves?
Assuming you want her (him) back.
People frequently come to me with this problem. Actually, this is my most read article. To me that suggests that a whole pile of people only “really wake up” when their partner starts to pull away. And you are probably one of them, right now. I feel for you. You’ve probably done a whole bunch of things “wrong” and don’t know what for sure. I am sorry it took you so long to wake up. A lot of my work, shared here on this website, is for you. Take your time, breathe and read on. Take heart! Waking up is always a good idea – at least in the long run.
First job is to turn your partner around, or at least halt their moving away. Some years ago, in 1998 I believe, I came up with a short set of answers to this situation and have not felt the need to change them since. It works. Follow the four steps. Print this Article in PDF
1. GIVE UP ALL SIGNS OF PUSHING.
This is very important. Your partner is already moving away. Anything you do to push them will tend to make them move away faster and further. Stop anything that might be construed as pursuing or pressing them. If your instinct is to call them twice a day, start calling them once a week. If your instinct is to send them a gift, do it once a month. If you are trying to find out what they are doing by asking other people, don’t. Leave them alone – a lot, but not completely. (I do not recommend “no contact.” (See my article When to Fold ‘Em.) Let your partner contact you when they are ready. (See Reliable Membership Article.)
2. SURVIVE
Do not be surprised that you may feel awful, or sick, or depressed. This is normal when you feel left behind, abandoned. The feeling will go away – with a lot of time. We all can live alone. It’s not good for us, but we can. So, in the meantime, continue to live your life. Go to work. Eat well. Sleep well. Do more exercise. (It will help you sleep. It will help with any depression you may feel.) Be among friends. While you do this, you might consider staying away from friends of your partner’s gender. If you cannot sleep or seem very depressed, see your doctor. Some medication may be helpful for a while. If your partner speaks to you, don’t tell them how hard a time you are having. That will probably not get you the sympathy you want. Just say something like, “Well, it is tough.” And say no more.
3. WORK ON YOUR SELF, VISIBLY
See a counselor. Read books. Talk your problems over with friends, your pastor, your priest, your rabbi, etc. Learn what you can. Read my papers on Using Turtle Logic and The Two Walls. Chances are there is a lot for you to learn. Most often when a partner leaves, they have been planning it for a long time. Most often they have felt terribly lonely with you. You, on the other hand may have been taken by surprise. Ask yourself, what led you to be so unaware of your partner? What led you to be so unaware that they were in distress enough to consider leaving you? Try to not blame yourself too much. All relationship trouble takes two. And so, Get to Work. Work on yourself.
And do this work so that your partner knows. The chances are one of the reasons they are leaving you is because they believe you will never change. They have become hopeless about you ever changing for the better. By visibly working on yourself, they have to wonder what you are doing and who you are becoming. That is much better than their continuing to believe that you will never change.
When I say “visibly,” I mean that you take opportunities to let them know that you are doing something. If they call, say you only have a little time as you have to get to your counseling appointment. Say, “By the way, I’ve been reading a book on marriage. It’s interesting.” Remember to follow Rule #1, and not say much. Don’t try to “teach them.”
4. BE AVAILABLE MINIMALLY WHEN YOUR PARTNER ASKS FOR CONTACT
It is reasonable that your partner will try to contact you. They may ask for a chat. Ask, “How long?” Agree to give them half that time. They may ask for dinner together. Agree to give them a short one. They may ask for you to spend the night. Stay only through the evening. Get used to this. Think that you are trying to get a deer to come out of the forest and eat from your hand. You have to earn (or in this case, re-earn) their trust and never lose it again.
Good luck.
P.S. And when he/she stops the leaving and starts tentative connecting or checking you out, be ready. For more on this subject, particularly once you have managed to get your partner to slow down their leaving, you might want to read “Out of the Blue” means “Read the Tea Leaves”.
You will probably also want to check out my Map of Relationships to put a clear framework around what is going on and what your choices are. Being foolishly stubborn, i.e. doing what you have been doing, will probably lead back to the same “them-leaving” problem. Being stubborn about “learning-to-do-new-things” seems to be the only path.
Notes:
There are so many excellent comments submitted that I archived them in two PDF files. Aug2007–July2008 and July2008–April2010. These are good.
Click here for “all” my articles on Clingers. Avoiders.
Remember, this is just one (Reliable Membership) of the several major problems in relationships. When you solve this one, when your partner turns around and decides to consider staying with you, there are the other problems in front of you. Take a look at How to Use this Website, or Using my logic on relationships, or Where to Start. The most comprehensive place to start is always my Map of Relationships.
Good luck.
Download an audio file of me sharing 26 minutes of further discussion for $5.00.
By © Al Turtle 2002
Dear Adam,
Yup, that is what falling in love is all about. I treasure your age (me I'm 69) and your passion. Of course you want her back. I can give you two thoughts.
What you are probably experiencing toward her is wonderful and I hope you never disrespect or make fun of it. Tis what I have come to call the Biological Dream and it is wonderful and dreamy. I imagine you have a lot of learn about it and my website is a place where a lot of that information is gathered. Try the Map of Relationships material.
The other thing I can share is that this feeling is in you, it is yours. You carry it, I believe as part of your life. She doesn't give it or create it in you, yet it may seem that way. The only thing that will make you forget her is your next partner.
Now the question for you is “are you ready to give her up and look for the next” or “is there some reasonable basis for continuing to work with/for her?”
I think that either way there is a lot for you to puzzle out and learn. I wish I had started learning at your age. Having a truly great relationship is worth it. While those partnerships may seem to start magically, they build through lots of learning, practicing.
Here are a couple of specific suggestions.
“You can't get her back, because a) you never had/owned her, and b) going back is not possible. You have to move forward.
The guy can't steal her away, cuz she is not property to be stolen. If she left you to be with him, she was the one doing that choosing. I think it is useful to remember how powerless we all are to control another person. She'll do what she wants.
The guy is not an idiot, no more than you or she are and “good looks” don't seem all that important in the long run. I'll just remind you that all of us end up looking like the bark of oak trees and our love has to be built on that awareness.
And I can hear your anger and sadness. Oh it seems so real— and is.
Keep diggin' There is someone for you, I firmly believe.
Al
dear AI,
I need your help. Your advise is quite interesting and very helpful, so i wanted to say how grateful i am to you. Unfortunately i just can't forget the girl im in love with. Her name is olive, we're both 18 and yeah, still in college…..but the sad part is some idiot stole her from me. A very good looking guy, and yeah, she loves him but not me. He stole her from me. Now i feel that there is no hope for me… :'( please AI , is there anyway or anything at all i can do for now to get her back? to win her heart? im begging you, i can't do this by myself. Compare to me and that guy, im just a trash, im nothing. Please, do u know any way?
Ok. My definition of “hearing deeply” is that you get to hear your partner's story about their daily life, thoughts and of course feelings. The goal is that they share fully about whatever topics interest you, and you share fully about whatever topics interests them. Another way of putting it is that both keep the other up-do-date and free from surprises (Article: To be safe you must share). The principle is that both must be prepared to share a bit more than your partner wants to hear on any topic. (Article: How Much should you tell.) My definition.
Most people don't do this or even come close, but intimacy and safety are ultimately based upon this.
That is a goal, and to my way of thinking most everyone is on the way toward that goal. We all start where we start. Moving in the other direction (sharing less) or not moving at all, I fear, leads to trouble.
You ask, “Do I ask direct questions or do the art of pulling”? Well, if I am working on the Art of Pulling, a direct question is sometimes the right thing to do. Sometime, more often, it is not. The goal is to get the flow of data from your partner to be smooth. If direct questions help, do 'em. If direct question shut him down, then don't do 'em.
I, myself, had a partner who, for a time, did not share much or who did resist being asked questions all the time. I still have her as a partner, and I long ago figured out that what I was doing had a lot to do with her choices to not share with me. In those days I fear that as I became more worried by her withdrawing and silence, I unconsciously began to act more like a prosecuting attorney or an inquisitor. I became truly obnoxious! Bad tactic. Understandable, but stupid – cuz it didn't work. It took us a long time to bit by bit build trust enough for regularly sharing stuff.
My guess is that you two have some distance to go, and the good news is that you can do the most about this, I think. Lead the way. Read my stuff on Reliable Membership and the Testicle Principle and work to apply it. I learned to take my partner's silence a a clue to me having to improve my communication skills.
My guess, based on his phrase “Can't I have any thoughts to myself” and your phrase “talk it through with him,” is that you have a lot to learn about communication. In some way I bet you kinda “suck to talk to” at least for him. Gotta get rid of any “sucky” talking habits you have.
Good luck.
Hi Al,
Just reading your comments there I got to wondering – 'if you aren't hearing deeply from each other daily, then you are probably headed for trouble' what exactly do you mean about hearing deeply daily? Do you ask direct questions or do the art of pulling? And what if you have a partner who either doesn't say or resents being asked these sorts of things daily? I know in my marriage sometimes when I would sense something was wrong or he was quiet and so on, I would ask him if something was bothering him, and he would usually say 'oh it's just something I have to work out' or 'something with work is worrying me' and when I tried to talk it through with him further he would get frustrated or angry and say 'look just let me work it out' or 'can't I have any thoughts to myself?'. Which of course he can, but when you are brushed off like that what do you do?
Really fascinating, the things people can do to each other.
Well, some thoughts. I don't think he did this out of the blue (see my article with that title). It was ootb for you cuz you were so little informed about what he was thinking.
Sounds like a relationship which had no fighting, but no genuine growth of intimacy (into-each-other-seeing) either. Sound as if you were in the dark and he promoted that you be in the dark and you did not notice how in the dark he was keeping you.
Is there a possibility of reconciliation, hmm, well sure. But once you discover how much he was keeping from you, you probably cannot rebuild that consciously or unconsciously deceitful relationship. You will be, hopefully, a whole lot more wary about living in the “fantasy” that all is ok.
My general belief is that if you aren't hearing deeply from each other daily, then you are probably headed for trouble. But I learned that by being blind-sided, too.
A great learning lesson.
Guess it's time for you to learn to listen deeply to him, and by listening, help him to develop more integrity and candidness.
If you want to.