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
I’d love help and input on whether to move on or keep hoping. I sent communication to my ex of one month, and received this reply:
Thanks for the card… I don’t know when you sent it, it wasn’t postmarked and I hadn’t checked my mailbox in a few weeks.
I too am sorry about the way things ended. I’m embarrassed about the way that I acted that night. Anyway, I am glad that you are doing well and are focusing on your passions and things for yourself. I am doing the same.
Well I just wanted to say thank you for the card and I am glad that you are doing well. In typical Ryan fashion I’m going to cut the letter short because I’m uncomfortable with writing (anything).
It didn’t seem like invites any further contact…
Dear Sarah,
I’m curious about why you sent him anything. Do you want to reconnect? Had you been together long? Just a guess is that he’s an avoider and email is not his way of communicating. Thus he ain’t often going to “sound” inviting for more communication. So that might be normal. But he does share some (little) in this. I would see that as a positive sign. My suggestion is to wait a week or two and send another little message and see what happens. You might read When to Fold ‘Em. It is on how to determine when to give up trying to connect.
We had been together for two years. I very much want to reconnect with him, and he is a HUGE avoider. I did read your other post, but it was difficult for me to assess whether in my situation it was most applicable. I just don’t know whether further communication would be counter productive. I love him very much, but I just need to decide to I can take definitive action. Thank you.
Ah. much more information. Let’s see. Based on your guesses, he’s a huge avoider and you are a huge clinger. You’ve been together 2 years which suggests that you are into attracting avoiders (and dealing with abandonment) as a life challenge. He’s your “huge avoider.”
You probably are also challenged on learning to be patient – patient enough for someone you are attracting.(like him). I remind you that “love” doesn’t mean you like only the positive stuff (the dream) about someone, but that you move toward embracing the “whole”.
In this situation you are probably challenged to love an avoider by determining how much space he needs to feel safe with you. My guess is that you’ve had specific troubles with this. Go for the articles on Reliable Membership. Go ahead and learn the “care and feeding huge avoiders.” I firmly believe it is doable.
I also believe your choice is to work on this or give him up and go find another huge avoider and learn it then
Good luck.
Thank you again for your time and advice. That was an extremely good assessment. My final question..When you say…work on…Since he is a huge avoider, and he has left, How do I Not give up? Do I simply work on fixing myself, stay out of other relationships, and hope someday he returns? THank you.
If you love him, and I gather you do, then you give up on him a long time from now. In the meantime you reach out on a very light schedule. If you don’t reach out, I fear it sends the message that you don’t care – which is a lie. He knows you want to connect, so you say so and act congruently. You just don’t “push”. A three-four sentence newsy email once a week that doesn’t ask for a response will probably not be pushy. Use my advice from the “When to Fold em” article.
The greeting can be nothing more complex than “Hi,” or “Dear Mike,” etc. Keep this light.
Optional newsy bit is just something like “It’s raining hard,” “The lilacs are out,” “Broke my leg the other day. Doing ok, tho.” Don’t mention anything awful that they might feel obliged to fix. Don’t ever say, “I’m miserable without you,” or the like.
The clue to your work on yourself is part of my instruction to “3: Work on yourself visibly.” This should be different in each note, and I think these should be pretty abstract. You want your partner to be curious for more. Some examples are, “Seeing my counselor weekly and I am sure learning a lot,” “Wow am I learning about how pushy I used to be.” “Boy, I am getting it that I have been asleep for years.” Etc. Anything you are learning that might involve some subject of their past “complaints” might be good. An example could be that if they complained about your temper, you say, “I am working really hard on getting rid of my anger. I realized it’s been a problem to me for years.”
Lastly you include a gentle invitation (not a push) to more contact. “Love to hear from you any time you feel like it,” “It’d be fun to hear your voice.” “If you ever feel like contacting me, feel free.”
Then sign it, bluntly or not at all. “Dave,” “Yours,” etc. Do not say, “Your most obedient and humble servant, begging for your orders, please, please.” J
Wow. this advice is so contrary to everything I’ve been getting from my friends. Based on his email they say I should totally go NC and let him take the initiative. I like your advice better, but don’t want to be a stalker.
Yeah, I often hear that my thoughts are different. I think their advice, to go NC, is mostly good and a bit foolish. I believe it is based on solutions to relationship troubles that are….how shall I say, a bit manipulative. I much prefer candid communication and openness.
Oh, and I remind you that you probably have often appeared like a stalker, his “stalker”, and you are into learning how to replace those behaviors. A clinger, a needy person, a pursuer, a stalker… all the same thing.
Good luck.
I really appreciate all your time, and I know you have so many other people to help, I guess my concern is, if it’s true that I could be perceived as a stalker, wouldn’t it be better to give him complete space? I appreciate your response whenever you have time, and then I will simply take action. Thanks.
I can only share what I believe. I perceive you as a stalker, clinger, etc. It is not a case of “If”. Nor do I think this is “bad.” I think it is useful to know about.
Now, I believe in giving him as much space as he needs, forever. (You don’t know yet how much is enough.) But too much space can appear as neglect. Finding that line is a critical relationship skill. And especially for the clinger in a two person relationship.
Of course the choice is yours. Go for NC if you want.
Al,
I would like to know if you have any ideas on the phenomenon of commitment-phobia. I have just been “left” for the third time by a partner who says he is a severe commitment-phobe and does not know what he wants from me in his life. I had a long-term relationship (with a prior ex) that ended some years ago that led me to your website and attempting to learn the University of Life skills. It was due to that former relationship that I attempted to practice those life skills with this current partner.
However, due to some incidences (I’m not sure exactly what because I have several different “tea leaves” to investigate and I don’t trust my mind to be objective at the moment), this partner decided to end our “dating” relationship as he felt I would not achieve long-term happiness with him and he would not work on his commitment issues while being with me. This partner of mine, who still remains in near constant contact, wishes to remain friends. I am unsure how to proceed.
I really do love this partner very much, and I would like us both to be happy. I believe my options are to A) let this partner go and pursue other relationships and cease contact (which…very much hurts me to think of), B) continue to pursue this partner and visibly work on my life skills and give him space as needed (he has come back in the past, and then left again), or C) try to let the romantic feelings go and be connected only in a platonic manner.
I am leaning towards option C as the most realistic option with the most benefits, though my own heart is screaming for option B and my anger is screaming for option A. I’m very angry with this last “break-up. There is much that must be addressed if I am to pursue a relationship with this partner. Option C is what I am pursuing currently with great difficulty. I find this option hard because I can see myself reading too much into his efforts to contact me and placing greater significance on these efforts than is realistic.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter. Most information I seem to be getting is to just write this guy off, and I feel that is unfair.
-Tamra
I’ve got a couple of thoughts.
The current (among hetero’s at least) level of commitment phobia in our culture is so great that it has changed housing patterns. People live solo a great deal. So, this is not an oddity. Since so many display this behavior, I wouldn’t use the label. I would think of it as a normal way to be.
I don’t think of it as an odd or aberant behavior and is thus not worth much of a diagnostic label. People’s experience/history of being “connected” often sucks and thus they avoid it. Prefer to live alone. I would look at his behavior and prevalidate it and validate it if you get the chance.
Since you’ve had several incidents, I would look more carefully at “how you suck to be with.” Specifics. He may have a hard time putting those into words, but they are a gold mine to you. Help you focus on what you need to work on.
If you don’t trust your “objectivity,” find a counselor or a therapist and discuss what’s going on.
Option A doesn’t look so good. Just means finding another person who will bring you to the same lessons that you haven’t learned yet. Takes time and get’s nowhere.
I suspect this guy is a keeper. Better to use a modification of B) with an infusion of C). Work to set aside the romantic and fanciful stuff. Don’t lose it altogether, just shift to learning like crazy. Become practical. This partner, in the hand, has a lot to teach. So learn.
Process that sometimes problematical temper of yours. Learn from it but don’t use it to get what you want. That’s all about frustration, and if handled wrong just drives people away.
I imagine your friends, the ones telling you to find another, are caught up in the ideas of romantic love and believe in the soulmate stuff. A perfect match is someone who unfortunately attracts you and unfortunately is attracted by you. Both are, in many ways, each other’s worst nightmare. If you fell in love, spent time, and are not fighting – probably the right partner.
Read on.
Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, Al.
Wow. I wrote the previous comment while very frustrated, and I made a conscious effort to be “cold”. I’m surprised that my anger still shows through. That is something to think about. I have been pretty frustrated for a while, and have not been good at expressing it safely (because I haven’t been expressing it at all.). I wonder if that “non-verbalized anger” came off as threatening, and is one of the reasons why connecting with me “sucks.”
My partner used to say that I was one of the few people who he could talk to. He is kind of closed off with most people and doesn’t really let many people in (family or otherwise). I think he is one of those that doesn’t “talk with anybody”.
In the month or so before our recent break-up, I felt that I was giving my partner all the space he could want. But thinking about it now, I was giving him that space grudgingly, not gently or safely. So, over time, I might have became a “sucky person to connect with” instead of a safe person to connect with.
I have a lot to work on, but now I feel much more confident now that I have some ideas. I really like this partner, so I’ll keep working and practicing.
Thanks a bunch, Al 🙂
-Tamra
Hi Al!
First of all, I want to say thanks SO much for sharing all of this on your website. It has been an eye opener for me and I’m determined to become a better partner.
I’d like to ask you something – I know you’re busy right now, so any light you might be able to shed on this will be very appreciated. I was with my boyfriend for 2.5 years. He’s the typical avoider and I’m the typical clinger. Our struggles got worse, with me demanding more and more attention and getting upset when he withdrawed, and him pulling back more and more.
About a month ago he told me he wanted to break up. We had been on a break for 2.5 weeks before that, until he quit his job which was taking over his life, and the idea was to see each other again after that so he had more time and we were more relaxed. The night he finished work he went out with his workmates. I told him to give me a call to talk about plans for our meeting (I was excited, and until then he had been telling me he missed me and wanted to see me a lot, so I was going with that), but he didn’t call. I called him a couple of times and he didn’t pick up all night, so I got upset and texted him asking if I should bring his stuff with me to the meeting the next day. When we talked on the phone, I asked if the time apart had made him realise he didn’t want me in his life and he said “yes”, but he wanted to meet up and explain. I went into panic mode, but managed to compose myself for the meeting.
When he saw me, he said that I looked calm and happy and that made him feel like he didn’t want to lose me. We talked about it, decided there was still love there and that maybe we should start dating again and take things slowly. We have been doing this for about a month and it’s going well. I found your website during this time and it has helped me a lot, I’m learning the theory behind the skills I think I need to learn, the two walls, etc.
I’m letting him take the initiative in contacting me, as I want him to have all the space he needs right now. He was very communicative for the first 2-3 weeks so I felt okay, but this last week he has been a bit busier and reached out less, and I’ve noticed the abscence more, which made it a bit harder to deal with (still trying to learn to be patient and not experience his withdrawing as a personal attack, whilst I make friends with my lizard – who I named Frank – and learn to calm him down).
A couple of weeks ago he brought up the relationship. Until then he had been saying he wanted to take things slow and needed time to decide what he wanted in life, and I had resolved not to talk about us until he did. When he did, he said he had thought about it and he wanted a nice place to come back to, with a woman he knew he wanted to be with, and our relationship wasn’t great towards the end. I agreed, saying that the relationship got out of hand, it was dead now and it should stay like that because I didn’t want to go back to that either. I wanted to learn to deal with our issues better. We talked a bit about it and it looks like we made some progress, with me agreeing that I needed to stop making him the centre of my life and learn to give him space, and him agreeing he needs to understand that I need more connection and be more open to giving me attention. He even had a break through moment, saying “I want a woman around and when I have one, I’m not there! That’s stupid!”.
I know that I didn’t make him feel safe, listened to, understood, validated and supported a lot of the time. I’m working on this. My questions is, right now I’m in the process you describe above – minimal contact, mirroring/validating, letting him lead with when to meet, keeping my plans if I have them and he asks to meet up, etc. Boy, is this hard! At the same time, I’m really excited about everything I’m learning and I really want to start practicing these new skills, but I know I need him onboard to be successful. I would like to talk to him about everything I’ve learnt, let him know what I’m working on, explain the map of relationships and how we got to the leaving door, explain time outs and validate his need for space, explain how to communicate better and set boundaries,… but I also know that my main goal right now is to make his lizard feel safe and he needs space for that. Still, I don’t want to date him indefinitely and I would like to give him the speech you mention in another post, the one that basically says “I want to practice these new skills and I really want it to be with you, so I’ll give it X time and if you’re onboard, great, if not, I’ll be sad but move on and find someone else to practice with”.
Do you think it’s too soon for this, and I should continue with the meetings while I talk to him about everything I’m learning but don’t push him to work with me until he says he wants to officially try again? I don’t want to scare him away by making it look like I have all these demands on him suddenly if he hasn’t fully decided he’s onboard. I really want him to feel safe around me and that feels like pushing. At the same time, I’m a little worried he’ll never feel like he has to “officially” get onboard if I don’t tell him I won’t be trying to work things out with him forever if he doesn’t want to work on it.
Should I wait a little longer and see if he gets closer before asking if he wants to work with me on this?
Thanks so much again for all your help, I honestly wouldn’t have seen things this way had I not read your site.
Hi again Al,
No need to answer the above anymore. I saw him today and he told me that he loves me, I’m the best relationship he’s had and he has a lot of great memories, but he’s realised that he needs to fix his issue of pushing people away by himself. He said he needs to be single, get his life on track and make it a happy one, and make the conscious decision of letting someone in his life so he can let go of his fears and fully commit. He also said that if he was ready, it would be with me without a doubt, but he’s just not at the moment and doesn’t want to drag me along and cause me more pain.
I listened to him and validated his feelings. He said he still wanted me in his life and I told him I’d need a little time to recover and get over it, but I’d like to be friends with him at some point and I’d get in touch with him when I felt I could do it. I do understand where he’s coming from, and although I wish we could work on this together, he’s a few years younger than me and I think he really wants to not have to worry about the responsibility of a relationship at the moment. I say this because he said he’d like to be able to turn off his phone for 2 weeks and work on his music knowing that he’s not hurting anyone, which makes me wonder if he just wants no responsibilities or really wants the time alone to heal himself from the pushing people away pattern he’s developed over the years so one day he can let someone in completely. Either way, I guess it doesn’t matter much now.
He told me not to wait for him and that if I find someone who makes me happy I should go for it because I deserve to be happy, but that he loves the idea of finding me again somewhere down the road when he feels ready, finding out I’m single and us rekindling things. I admit that I like this idea, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s trying to lie me down gently. Even if I know that sometimes relationships don’t work due to bad timing and can work again at some point, I find it hard to leave a relationship where both people still love each other.
Needless to say, I’m pretty devastated at the moment, my biggest fear being that we will never be together again, even though I know we might both get over it and decide we’re not right for each other after all. I will keep reading your site and learning a lot, I’m determined to become a better partner for whoever I end up with. Thanks so much again for sharing your writing.
hey al, how are you well it me terrence we chatted a few times and you have been very helpful, was just wondering in my last conversation with my ex gf it seems like she is happy, she has put on wieight she actually looks great . my question is how do i get past the freinds stage , not trying to rush but as a man i would think if times goes by and it will one of us will move on, either her or me, im willing to wait it out to get another chance at a new relationship, at this time i cant really tell if its gona go in that direction or not..
Yup, Terrence, can’t never tell “which way it’s going to go.” But you can improve the chance of it going the way you want, and you can really guarentee it won’t go the way you want. Original romantic love is a cool thing but never lasts. Generally real love builds out of being friends, – real friends. I’d work on that. That’s plenty to keep one busy. Good luck.
hi al, man my ex gf has been revealing some deep things to me some are very dark she told me that we were never in love with eacother we had great times, and bad times but from her persepctive on things i would say that dam i was a horrible partner, it even stings to now we have a history and to have thought we were in love with eacother she says that i was never really there with her maybe physically, but i guess in other ways i was not , now im asking myself how do i get her back after all of this sometimes even the strong are weak, i dont doubt myself but its actually been five months since our breakup, were freinds but i dont see any sign of her wanting to date me again as for now, she wants me to be her friend, she also told me that she has been hurt that she didnt no which direction to go in so that is why she left me. i would like your help but my situation is starting to seem very dim , is there any light at the end of my journey, seems like she is not convinced at all that i will change and she does not believe anything i tell her its hard to get thru to someone when they wont meet you half way, she will give me little pieces here and there but she has her guard up big time,
Sounds as if you are waking up after a long sleep. Well, it’s good to be awake. Relationships seem to me often about coming into awareness of things you weren’t watching or noticing. Again, I would suggest finding a counselor who can work/walk with you. I’m a long way away and don’t have lots of time to work with you on each detail.
hi al its me again terrence, well im thinking i should hav maybe wrote letters instead of seeing her in person from time to time, for 6 months i though i was actually going somewere with her just to see that were on different pages, she only wants to be freinds, i though we were being freinds working towards getting back together, it hurts because i really want to be with her seems only now she doesnt see me that way anymore,
during the 6 months split i asked her on a regular can we get back togehter my mistake for running that subject into the ground, she tells me that she doent really now if well get back together it may take a year, in which to me i feel insnt fair but its my opinion and that she feels i have not changed and also that im not ready to be with her,
what is it that she wants i have no clue, for 6 months seems that i have’nt made the progress that i would feel good about, she wont call me i initiate all our contact but she will respond, if i try to get personal she gets defensive, dont no which direction to go with her, she allows me to come by from time to time and if i call her she will speak but that is as far as it goes how to i get her to put her guard down just a little ….. i dont want to give up
Well, you’ve had some time to learn a bunch. Keep-a-going. One thing I can suggest is that you don’t want to “get her guard down.” I think you want to support her is building a stronger guard, but also you want to be a person she doesn’t think she needs to guard against. Work on being a source of safety to her.
hi al its me again terrence, well i have not contacted my ex gf for weeks now, but feel some kinda way from the last conversation i had with her, if she wants me to leave her alone why wont she be a woman and tell me, im really not going anywere with her, being a source of safety is a good idea, but what do you do when your trying and she still has no interest, nothing i do works, if i dont call her she wont call me , running out of hope…
Sorry about you running out of hope. Tis a sad place to be in. I don’t recommend “No contact” as a way of moving in a relationship. It can send the message that “you don’t care” just as easily as constantly trying to contact when your partner asks you to back off can.
When you are out of hope, you can a) learn more and lead the way toward Vintage Love, b) give up, lay low, and wait in a state of numbness or blame or guilt or c) move on to someone else and start again. Tis my way of seeing the choices. These are tough lessons in life. What choice do you plan?
your right i don’t really want to give up , i guess before giving up maybe lay low for a while , is there any way to understand her better, it is really hard just being friends but that is what she wants from me, i figure because i have’nt too her serious about it , is maybe why she is pushing the reconcile stages back further and further away.. i do care about her, just need a different approach, any suggestions other than what you’ve already told me
Well, if you don’t want to give up on her, then your overall goal would be to take that part of you that cares and teach it how to look like it cares. If you care and come across uncaring, then you’re cooked. My guess is that you’ve come across as uncaring for quite a while and she will not be able to forget this.
But she can accept change, trying to do better (caring), learning. Laying low may come across as doing nothing. That’s why I recommend the four steps in this topic. Until she turns around a little bit (I imagine her as walking alway from you or at least standing still with her back to you), then tis best to follow those four steps.
I really prefer that people don’t give up on each other.
Al, your site has been exceptionally informative. Thank you so much for all the insight! I am currently in the depths of dispair and I could use some advice. My girlfriend of 3 years left me about a month ago. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with her. It was no surprise that I am/was crushed.
It was undoubtedly my behavior that caused her to fall out of love with me. This break up has been the biggest wake up call I have ever experienced. The newly found perspective has changed my life both physically and mentally. I have spent time meditating on what went wrong and it really comes down to the fact that by the end of our relationship I was selfishly and obliviously the worst validator ever. This lack of validation caused her to lose the unique love we once shared and resulted in diminished feelings and hope. She stated “I ended our relationship because I lost hope in us. I stopped being able to see a future together.”
Now that I have realized how to remedy the majority of our issues, I want her back more than anything. All I want is another chance at being the man she deserves. The driving factor of all of this is, that in my mind, the potential to achieve vintage love was there and I diverted us from that outcome. Currently, she does not seem to have any confidence that we can reignite that spark. It may be worth mentioning that she could have been considered the “clinger” in the relationship. I feel like this makes things even more difficult in a lot of ways. Recognizing that she has broken away from those feelings really induces more pain in me. I let it get to a point where she had had enough. I am now the one clinging to her.
Our communication is completely one sided at the moment. It has been devastatingly hard not to contact her every day and I have definitely slipped up more than once. I have set her flowers and everything with no reply. She ignores about 90% of any contact that I initiate. I would like her to recognize or even get a glimpse of the improvements I have been making both physically, mentally, and emotionally and I have no idea how to go about doing this with almost nonexistent communication. I realize that I need to give her space. Determining how much space is a real issue.
I ended up writing her a letter and mailing it to her. The letter contained an apology and outlined my desire to give our relationship another try. After reading the letter she replied with little to no hope for our future. Some things that were stated were “In my heart I feel like if we were meant to be it wouldn’t have come to this.” and “I don’t want to give you false hope. We need to both move on with our lives if we’re ever going to grow.” Ultimately she ended by saying that in 6 months, when she returns from studying abroad, we can have a lunch to see where we are at and reevaluate the situation. This lunch date has given me just enough hope to keep me hanging on whole-heartedly. My inner dialogue regarding this lunch date has been soul crushing. I cant move on and at the same time I do not want to because I want to be with her more than anything.
At this point I do not feel equipped to handle this situation on my own. Any advice would be extremely appreciated and well received. Considering that there are no guarantees what are your professional predictions in terms of possible outcomes? How much space should I give her? What can be done to fix this and how can I go about getting her romantically interested in me again?
Again, thank you for everything you do. I appreciate the time and effort you put into helping people like me. It is absolutely inspiring.
Ah, Dane. Professional opinions I don’t have any more. I am thoroughly retired. But I have ideas. (If I have time, and I am extraordinarily busy right now, I can share.
How much space do you give her? Exact answer. Just slightly more than she wants. (Of course you have to spend the time figuring out how much she wants.) If you give her too much she’s likely to think you don’t care and will wander off. If you give her too little she will keep pulling away. If you give her just exactly “slightly more”, then she will start moving toward you. Your goal, I think.
So here is one way of seeing this. She has a bunch of great reasons for selecting you. Those reasons are not gone, she just now has a bunch of additional reasons for holding back or moving away. It would be nice to know what those latter are. Those are the things you want to work on.
You’ve identified a couple. a) become a fantastic validator. Even work with others practicing this and finding out all the barriers you have to being that fantastic validator. Takes perception and perseverence. b) become a magnificently empathic person who is appropriately selfish. Don’t lose yourself, but also find out and fix what make you come across as negligent of others. c) get great at being reliable and open and warm. If she was the clinger, she probably saw you as a closed stone. Gotta fix that. These things you can work on while she’s gone, but you have to be ready to show some progress on them when she shows up or when you write to her, etc.
Keep a-going. You’re a good man and good men (like me) often have a lot to learn. A good woman can really help us to study.
Al, some of these people who leave us may be personality disordered. I thought the person I was with who left was the love of my life, and put the work in doing the steps to get him back, just as you suggested. But, over the last month I have realized that he has narcissistic borderline personality disorder and has attachment issues, likely because of his relationship with his mother as a child. He was not really the person that I thought he was, but was utterly convincing. Some of these relationships, while they seem validly to be based on shared values and hopes and may appear to be “the one,” are a product of disorder that we can do absolutely nothing about. And some of these people can carry on this ruse for years before they finally give up and decide their partner is not worth the effort or don’t give them the narcissistic supply they need anymore. When I read up on this disorder I was able to check off almost every one of the list of characteristics for my ex. While I don’t believe this is very common, it could be an issue for some of your readers. Just something to consider.
Painful story, April. And it illustrates a whole lot of points.
First of all it sounds extremely normal and commonplace. Back in the 1970s when we were trying to stop the rise in divorce, the most common complaint of divorcing people was that “He/she was not the person I thought he/she was.” It all sounded, at the time, like a kind of fraud situation. And in response to this complaint the whole country rallied around and made divorce easy. That’s a whole lot of state laws that got changed on the basis of “helping people more easily extricate themselves from a fraudulent situation.” Of course it only took a half dozen years for us to discover that we’d made a mistake. The principle I’ve come to believe in is that “both people select their worst nightmares” but they may discover it at different times.
Another thought is the one of labeling him as “personality disordered” and having “narcissistic borderline personality disorder and has attachment issues.” Those are great labels. They simplify decisions about what to do. And they can be understood in many ways. I’ve been involved with this kind of labeling for over 40 years. I am assuming and very glad you are reading up on this. The terms “narcissistic personality disorder” “borderline personality disorder” and “attachment issues” are very familiar. To me they discribe three groupings of kinds of behaviors. Those behaviors are aways treatable (by skilled people). People recover from these, learn to do better, all the time. But sometimes those behaviors become so disruptive to the person’s life or to the lives of people around them that the person is treated by professionals and 3rd party providers (insurance companies) require use of these labels.
In my experience probably 70% of male partners have some level of narcissistic personality disorder, probably 60% of women partners have some level of borderline personality disorder and typically these people marry. I’ve seen lots of narcissitic ladies and borderline guys over the years, too. And, to my way of thinking in most couples who struggle both have attachment issues.
Also, to me, labeling these behaviors definitely helps in how to work and deal with them, to join with them in recovery and how to improve the situation. Most of what I write on my website meant to be useful.
Good luck.
Thank you for your really it means a whole lot to me that you took time out of your busy schedule. I appreciate it! I am going to concentrait on giving her slightly more space then she wants and Im going to really identify those things that are holding her back. In order to find out how much space she wants do I just ask her (which is hard because she responds 10% of the time) or do I have to just deduce this with the information I currently know?
How much space? At first you have to deduce it from her behavior. Later she may help and be able to take more responsibility for her need for space. That’s how I learned in my life. When my partner shifted into moving away, that’s too much. When she moved toward me, that was too little. When it wasn’t clear, I had to guess. Over time my guesses became more accurate. I think an avoider has lots and lots of tiny behaviors that signal “I wanna move away.” Can be a turning away, physically. Can be a change of subject. Can be very subtle until yo get the hang of it.
Good luck.