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
Al,
Its been a long time since I've posted on the site and I still follow it, and still review my hundreds of pages of printouts from here regularly. Jonathan's comment struck a chord in me and I wanted to respond. He says that he realized it was all his fault. I see it very differently. I believe that in any breakup, both parties bear some of the responsibility. Whatever Jonathan thinks he was doing that caused the breakup, I believe that his ex created an environment where that behavior was acceptable, at least for a while. I have become a huge believer in the lizard and safety concept as being at the core of relationships, and I believe that most relationship issues ultimately boil down to being safety issues. I think that the behaviors that make us effective or ineffective in relationships all come back to our lizards going into unsafe mode. In Jonathan's case, I think that there were times his lizard went into unsafe mode because of behaviors of his ex and prompted behaviors that may have ultimately contributed to the breakup. Was that Jonathan's “fault”? I don't think so. I think he was reacting in the only way he knew how at the time.
I have greatly steered away from assigning “blame” or “fault.” If I truly believe “All people are doing their best at any given moment, even me” (and I do), then why do I have to beat myself up for doing my best. I really look at things now from an “effective” or “ineffective” standpoint. Was this behavior effective in this situation or relationship, or was it ineffective.
To summarize, while I think there are likely areas where Jonathan was ineffective in the relationship, he was only doing the best he could at the time. I don't think he's being fair to himself to shame himself (which is how I see “it was all my fault”) for this. I think a more effective way to look at things was “Okay, my behavior then wasn't effective in the relationship. How can I be more effective in the future?”
As my favorite relationship wisdom author says, that's just my opinion. That and $5.00 gets you a small coffee at Starbucks.
Dear Linda,
Wow. I think it is sometimes almost cruel how life treats people. But it seems, looking back, that all my great lessons started with a whole bunch of pain. Please breathe, take some time and follow the steps in this article.
And you might read lots more on this website. Don't be alone. Might follow the advice I gave Jonathan.
Good luck.
Dear Jonathan,
Please know that you are not alone, nor will the pain last forever. The advice in this article seems to work. I suggest following the four steps.
Step 2 & 3 might involve connecting to one of the online resources for people in your situation: E Not Alone or Marriage Advocates come to mind. This is a tough situation where being alone is probably not a good idea.
Good luck.
Jonathon,
I don't know if this will reach you, but I am going through something similar. Only my husband has left me, and I am in California, and he is at this moment on a bus to Philadelphia. I don't know what I did so terrible that he keeps leaving me, and it hurts so bad. i am trying to go to work, and keep my mind busy, and I know that I need to work on myself. However he was the one who continued to lie to me, and do things that he wasn't supposed to do, and everytime I forgave him and took him back. What do I do? Have you had any luck? Anyone out there have any advice on what I should do? Do I have to give up on him? Should I get on a bus and go to Philly and see him?
or should I stay here and see if he comes back to me?
Signed,
L. Smith
I am in that boat. My man left again for the 10th time in ten years we have 4 kidss and one I just had 3 weeks ago. I need advice. We still talk everyday butn he’s in buffalo and I’m still in florida
Dear Tigris, Sounds rough. One thought is that the advice you are looking for is probably among all that stuff people have said to you over the years. !0 years is a long power struggle. I would suggest you check out my Map of Relationships, find a counselor or a support group quick. Get some more serious help searching through what is going on to find the path you have to follow.
You are so right. We’ve been talking about counsling but never went. I’m already setting that up noow. I believe that’s what’s gonna help us work. We seem not to be able to fully move on after each break up so we need to find a solution to. Make it work. Thanx for responding. I will take a break from communicating and work on myself.
Hi
My partner and I were fully committed and he even talked about marrying. Some malicious people told him some untruths about my past and we went through a really rough time as a result. For the last six months, he wouldn’t come to my house (as the people who had said those things about me lived across the road). He recently went to a psychologist in order to make him move on from this and so that we could have a proper relationship. The psych told him that he should not have a relationship with me and only speak on the phone until he works on his issues. He said that it would only be for a few weeks. At first he told me that he missed me but now he has become distant and doubts my past. He texts me and tells me that he loves me everyday but won’t commit. He has broken my heart. I need advice on what to do. Please help
That sounds very painful. Sad. The distance between “fully committed” and “broken heart” seems so far and yet can happen so quickly. My guess is that you went from the Romantic Stage across to deeply in the Power Struggle fast. (ref: Map of Relationships) So the only way to go is forward. I’m sure it feels hopeless, but I don’t think it is.
I would suggest finding yourself a person who has experience with relationships who can help you understand both what is going on and what you have to do. None of us can escape our pasts. None of us can just automatically have durable trust. Oh. and he can’t break your heart. Only you can do that. We are all designed to grow and rebuild and repair.
In reading your piece, I took the phrase “All people make sense all the time” with me. I found myself wondering why he reacted so hard, seemingly so quickly. I wondered how this whole thing seems to have caught you by surprise. I wondered what you or the psych mean by a “proper relationship.” This one seems fairly normal to me – this collapse of trust after a discovery. The pain also seems normal, I am sorry to say.
If he can speak on the phone, do that rather than texting. Start looking around in this story for what you do, maybe are kinda blind to, that makes him so unsafe. Remember to talk it all over with an experienced friend, counselor, etc. Sounds like a whole bunch of sorting things out.
If I can help more, let me know.
After 10 years and a marriage of 6.5 years. I don’t know what you’ve been though but lies do not go with marriage. My husband used to right the book of lies. He could not remember what he said to who and everything have a way to come out. ” AFTER I use to be there for him, one could see it eats away’ who they are. And I can honestly, say we not equipped to help a sick person who lies, they first need to choose….. to want to become a better person. Remember, they just become better a smoother with there lies even though you have forgiven him. The leave absolute nothing in life for themselve to dream about the walk into there dreams and us humans needs to dream. I hope you find piece, but you will be amazed of what you,ve missed out and how amazing strong you are till there is know more of his lies. You stronger ans will accomplish alot more without him and reach goals he never could his holding you back of becoming the best part of you. With kids I’ve reach more he ever could because my life is without lies. And I have my self esteem back after ” .they do not change “
Hi Al,
I'm trying to work on this leaving relationship. I realized it was my fault in the first place. I tried to work on myself using this website and many others. How do i prove to my girlfriend that I've changed? She's having a lot of fun with her friends right now, what if she completely forgets about me? or even worse, finds someone better than me? I notice her lizard has been freezing most of the time I talk to her, and she's been avoiding me a lot. I really want to make this relationship to work, but I've dissapointed her many times before, I even lost her trust. and to top it off we're in a long distance relationship, so it's been really hard for the both of us. Pls reply Al. Thank you
Jonathan