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,
Hey, thanks for this site. I’ve already felt pretty comforted.
Here’s my situation.
I am a 27 year old male and was dating a 23 year old female. We fell in love pretty fast and spent nearly every day together for 7 months. We had conflicts that would arise mostly over petty things, nothing that was a major characteristic of who we were. Around the 5 month mark I broke up with her because I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted. We had just gone through a bad weekend. After examining our relationship I realized I wanted it, with the goods and bads. She was thrilled and told me it was just a rough patch and we’d get through it. At the 7 month mark I was leaving for a week. We got in a fight the day before I left, but mildly resolved it. She was saddened with my lack of communication while I was gone. I missed her a lot, but I didn’t communicate it enough. And I do think she wasn’t being unreasonable. When I got home (quite late) she was at a wedding with her friends and I was too tired to see her after. The next morning she came over told me we didn’t have to talk about it. But then broke up with me.
Over the past month I told her I wanted to give her space but asked if we could meet again in a month to talk with less emotion. I spent the entire month writing letters to her/me (not sent), evaluating what I wanted. And realizing the depths of my love for her.
We met. She said she really does believe she was in love, but fell out of love and didn’t believe in us anymore. She expressed that it wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do. That we were different in how we interact and our interests. She told me it wasn’t big issues it was little things she overlooked because she wanted to be in love and find the person she would marry. But she thinks it was immature of her to rush into it. And didn’t have time to think about all this because we spent so much time together. The frustrating thing is that the week I was gone even up until the day before we broke up she had emailed me about how much she missed me and loved me and wanted me to always feel like she was on my side and wanted to love me better. She told me it was a last ditch effort and in some ways (although she said this is not true) it feels like that my poor response to her that week and me not seeing her that night ended it.
She said she doesn’t see us getting back together. Which I have a hard time with believing. Not because it will necessarily happen, but because it’s hard for anyone to know the future.
Anyways, I told her I loved her very much. Missed her. Was sorry for the ways I didn’t love her and make her feel wanted all the time. But that despite it’s detriment to me at this time I wanted her to know I loved her and wanted her to be happy. But that if she ever feels vulnerable or scared or unsure that it was okay to talk to me, that she didn’t have to do this just because she felt like she needed to see it through. She said okay.
She says she can’t fake it and wants someone for me that will be 100 percent into it.
Soooo….. all that to say.
I’m not going to hang myself up on this woman for the rest of my life and I’m working at being healthy for just me. But I also want to do what I can to slowly open her up to remembering why she loved me. I think she felt that it was too difficult for 7 months. She feels stress free and happy being alone right now. She doesn’t want a boyfriend, so it’s not that she’s leaving me for anyone.
How do I slowly invite her back into my life? Or at least create an environment where she might want to know more and more about me and feel safe.
Thanks so much.
I am reminded of how young relationships are often about “trying the waters.” It doesn’t mean they can’t get serious and develop into long lasting relationships, but often, looking back, people seem to be trying things out. I would read my Map of Relationships and then casually seek to be friends with her. That old “falling out of being in-love” is a normal part of relationship, can’t be avoided, can be understood as progress.
She does remember the good times and the uncomfortable times. Always will. I like your focus on safety. A good way to go is to focus on memories of the “unsafe times”, what you could have done that would have been safer for you both, how to build that into new habits, and let her know that’s what you are up to. One clue is your phrase “We had conflicts that would arise mostly over petty things”. I think those were not petty conflicts even if over petty things. Those were probably life & death conflicts about “which one of you is boss.” Check out the Master/Slave paper. You both might have been trained to act like bullies.
Good luck.
So my question then has to do a bit with your “When to Fold ‘Em” article.
I’ve probably already done some damage when we met up after a month of being broken up. I told her all the ways I loved hear and could have done things better. And that I’d love her no matter what. I made sure to hear what she thought about us and the relationship and all that. I wanted to try and express to her that she was being heard and understood.
Right now it feels pretty hopeless that she’ll even WANT to love me again.
She did it once though. And nothing largely traumatic happened. So I feel like we could get there again.
So I’m trying to hang out to your “When to Fold ‘Em” method. But let’s say I contact her infrequently like you say and she responds with a type of message that says “thanks for telling me this, but we can’t keep talking all the time.”
I mean doesn’t sending her a message just about how you’re doing make her feel like you’re trying to win her back?
Well, you are trying to win her back. Nothing wrong with that. You just want the method you chose to express it does not come across either a) pushy or b) reminding her of the old stuff she’s trying to get away from. And at this point “love statements” and “promises” probably won’t work. I think you are at the stage of shifting from “romantic drama” (aka romantic bullshit) toward realistic, honest, and reliable friendship/intimacy. Make sure you check out my Map of Relationships. Good luck, Billy.
Hey Al,
I commented on this form when a little while back when the break up became official. Your advice helped guide me in a great direction and I am in a better place because of it. That being said, it is almost time for me to reconnect with my ex after almost 8 months of minimal communication. She is going to return from a study abroad trip in a week or so. She left me with minimal to no hope but also with the prospect of a lunch date after she gets back from her trip. My questions are thus, do you have any suggestions on how to initiate that lunch and do you have any suggestions of how i should act/present myself after not seeing her for so long?
Thanks!
Sure. I have a couple of ideas. First you probably want to do less than 10% of the talking. Goal is to be relaxed and curious and accepting of anything she says. Don’t push. Particularly don’t push any agenda you have. Just listen.
Now I can modify this a bit. Read about Clinger and Avoider on this website. Reliable Membership. Decide if you were the Clinger or Avoider. In either case let her know you are learning a lot. If you were the Clinger then do 5% of the talking and tell it you are practicing giving other people space to talk. If you were the Avoider, then do 20% of the talking. Share about yourself and your learning. Do not share much about you pain when she was gone.
You want, I think, to learn about a) who she has become since you last saw her and b) who she was back in the old days when you didn’t know about her needs.
Good luck.
Dear Al and Dane
I really enjoyed reading what you both wrote, and would love to add some encouragement and a suggestion based on my experience as a traveller – which may or may not be useful for you.
I find after living overseas, coming back and trying to fit new me into an old space and to integrate what I have learned is always tough. The conversations I really appreciate are those with a skilled listener who lets me talk and shows genuine interest in the specifics of my experience. So I love invitations like ‘tell me about someone you met who really made an impression’ or ‘tell me about your three favourite places’; questions like ‘are they like us’ or ‘what is their food like’ are more difficult to answer, because they are too general (and I don’t like to generalise about a whole country) and I think comparing everything to ‘home’ is a narrow way of looking at the world. Being invited to go into detail about one person, place or meal feels more intimate and sharing a personal experience in that way can build trust.
Then when she finishes talking, say ‘Wow! thanks for sharing that with me’. Do not say ‘that reminds me of this time when…’!
For me, coming home can feel isolating because I’m carrying all these relationships and experiences and have just left behind all the people I shared them with, so the people who can let me talk about them, and miss them, and be happy that I have left some of them behind and am home again, become special friends – and sources of safety. Also, it’s inevitable that she will have changed, and will be encountering a lot of people who are expecting the old her back – so if you let her be who she is now, and make her feel welcome, I think you will go a long way to making a good connection.
As for how to act/present yourself – be yourself, but a better version than you were 8 months ago 😉
Good luck!
Thank you for sharing Sarah. I appreciate the insight and perspective. I haven’t had the opportunity to travel yet so its really great to hear from someone who has experienced what my ex is probably experiencing at the moment. Honestly everything you have stated sounds very viable in the context of my break up as well.
All I know is that this will be a long and slow process. Attaining her trust in the new me is difficult becuase its been made clear that I want to reignite our relationship and start anew. Thus, in her mind, the changes I have been making are to win her back.
Genuine change has occurred not for her but because of her. How can I best communicate this fact through my actions?
Ultimately I am more than willing to put in the time because she is beyond worth it.
Hey al , Anthony here. Yesterday my friend came to talk to about the girl I’m with saying that he remembers now what she told him before she had left. He said she told him she went to join the Navy to finally see me again. At first I thought it was sweet but then realized the problem had worsened. I don’t know how long Navy training is and how long she has to serve for but if I go into the NROTC it is gonna be over 4 years until I see her again and by the time I finish my service I don’t what will happen with me and her. I have horrible feelings that there is another reason why she never told me she was going into the Navy that I may not want to know. Another awful feeling I have is if she decides to not wait for my return and move on. I know it’s bad for me to think like that but I don’t know what to do and could use some guidance
Gosh, I’m 71 and this seems like a long time ago, that I joined the service. I would love to share some “older person” perspective, but it might sound silly. You will probably find that “Ms. Right”s will come along. 4 years may seem like a long time but the goal is to keep moving toward Vintage Love, prepare for it, learn its skills, and keep going. This gal may be your final partner. The stuff I teach will be useful with her or whomever.
There are probably many many reasons why she didn’t share about joining the Navy. Only one who knows for sure is her. First problem is to get her to stop moving a way and then start working on why she wouldn’t or won’t tell you. The reasons always seem to be about safety. Learning to help her Lizard (and yours) feel relaxed is worth a lot.
Good luck.
Hey Al I’m back again. I’ve been doing fine lately and my friend told me that the boot camp for the Navy is on a base near Chicago, 20 min away from where I currently am. I have been thinking whether or not to go there an visit the girl I’m with if I am allowed by the navy to visit her. At this point I’m just confused at what I’m supposed to do and not sure whether or not if I visit her she would welcome me or not. I could definitely use some help here.
Heck, you are on the scene. Anthony. You have more info on what to do, than I do. Boot camp can be a lonely experience. A visit can be a very nice thing.
What does it what does it mean when a guy says, “Okay well, leave me alone and ill get ahold of you.”
First a lesson: The meaning is not in the words. The meaning is inside the person who spoke/wrote them. The words are just a possible way of sharing that meaning. (Sorry to be so teachie!). So, what does HE mean when he says, “leave me alone, and I’ll get ahold of you.” My guess is the context would help clarify his meaning. And you didn’t share the context. So I can just guess (a wild a@@ guess). He’s an avoider. You’ve been clinging, pushing, pursuing him. He’s saying, “Back off!” But he isn’t saying, “Get lost.” – yet.
Hope this helps or at least starts things off. Share more.
Hi al I don’t usually go to find help about things like this but I think I may need sooner help or guidance. I’m in a long distance relationship and the girl I’m with I thought trusted me as numerous times she had her brother confront me on our relationship problems which did not go well for me as I felt I was on trial. I confronted her about it and told her to trust me and talk to me about the problems in our relationship. She had agreed with me and after a few days we put the whole thing aside. After that I was not in contact for a few weeks as I was talking to Marine recruiters for the NROTC and gathering info and prepping for my classes for school. I didn’t want to tell her because before she was starting to plan a date where we could meet which became set in stone as I learned she is tough to negotiate with. When I began talking to her again he had asked where I had been. Knowing that if I lied it would not get me anywhere I told her. She was a bit disappointed that now it may be years before we meet. She gradually accepted it though however as of last week I haven’t heard from her at all. I have not been doing well and my friends noticed it. They are persistent so I told them what happened and they all suggested I let her go. Naturally I refused to but the I reason I won’t forget her is because she is one of the only 3 people I have ever made an emotional attachment to and to me she is very important. I asked another one of my friends who talked to her and she told him something (before I stopped hearing from her) however he cannot recall what it was. He said he knows how to find people and said he could find out what happened to her but I feel that it is a breach of trust and she will be angry with me if I get in contact with her that way. I am not sure what I’m supposed to do trust her and wait or enlist my friends help. Any advice and/or feedback would be appreciated.
Dear Anthony, Seems as if Trust, you for her, and her for you, is a challenge and thus something for you to learn a lot about. I had to. (Lizard paper. and general topic of Safety.) How old are you two?
Getting into NROTC seems like a great idea. Learn a lot. Long distance relationships are quite difficult. Much too little data passes back and forth.
Confronting people seems only useful if it is part of an overall plan to build more intimacy and get rid of the confronting. I would work on learning to be a source of safety to her and her you. .
Al thank you for the advice and I read the lizard paper and had began to think afterward. Growing up in an environment with a very militant background was never very simple as I wanted to follow my brothers and father as soldiers (though my strenghs are mostly intelligence). I never formed any emotional bonds with the exception of my father, as my mother began to notice this she had me brought in to see what’s wrong. The doctor said the that the sight of soldiers(particularly my father) brought me to revere them with greatness. I often was with my father at the bases learning and had become obedient and disciplined. When I was at the age of 5 I went saw the training of the Marines. I always enjoyed the sound of boots stomping and marching loudly in unison and my father and mother both knew I wanted to be a soldier. When my family came to Chicago and I entered kindergarten I never made friends very well as they were the roudy children they should be. I grew to dislike them and as I grew up hoped discipline would follow. When I was 10 I realized the behavior I acted with was odd not theirs. When I was 11 I formed a second attachment to my dog still with me today. With my dog spending most of her time with me and now she has discipline I have not found in others. I have always studied hard so as to not dissapoint my parents. The behavior of the girl I am with contadicts mine through many ways but find it rather comforting something I have not often felt in my family. The lizard paper and your advice have helped a lot and I now know the best I can do is trust her and let it be her to come back instead of me chasing after her. The only hope I have is that she returns before I leave to begin the NROTC.
In my experience certain trainings make for more difficult relationships. The worst training is that in the military and particularly the Marines. I have worked with lots of children of “marines” and marriages with marines. They just have a harder time. The core of their trouble is the concept of “truth.” I suggest you steep yourself in the Master-Slave material, but then again maybe you shouldn’t. It might make NROTC training more difficuilt. I support your serving in the military. I’m just warning you that you may have to do some extra work to become a loving partner. Good luck.