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
Hi, I have genuinely enjoyed reading your posts…this was very helpful! Of course…I have a situation I would like to share with you, and receive feedback, if you can.
My relationship moved to overly complicated, after having started off on an extremely rocky note. To best summarize, I began dating a woman 2 years ago (while I was still married) and did not tell her until we were together for about a month….I know, horrible move. I did confess, divorced, and straightened that mess out the best I could and have really done everything to make that horrible lie right! Clearly the foundation began on a bad note, but she fargave and we moved forward….eventually after a year, she even moved from her city of Tampa to come live with me in Jacksonville. We made it a full two months living together….I travel extensively, and she was clingy (I enjoyed the maps of relationships) and I was an avoider…finally in a large blow out argument over her suspecting me of being up to know good (which I was not)…. I finally blew my stack and told her to leave in anger. She got an apartment the next day…but said she still wanted to be together, but also she ran to her family and almost completely abandanded me. I believe in insight and was none to thrilled to know that she shared private things between us (the dirt) with my friends, stangers she just started working with…and her mother.
We got back together shortly after she left and had plans to work things out via counseling and better communication. Flash to this week, her parents came for a visit and her mother basically hates me and has told her daughter as much (primarily because she has been mis informed on a variety of issues). She moved to being the avoider more or less, and I became the clingy one…because it hurts to be left alone, and I basically told her that it is important for her to at least keep regular routine and call and say good night, or just a Hi….she refused to talk to me on the phone when her mom was there….I asked her to let her family know that I am important to her, and if I am they need to respect it…not love it. But I do not deserve to be shelved when they visit….long story short, she told me that she was hurt by my saying that, and I told her to think about how I feel in this situation….and that it was over. This was too much back and forth and just causing too much pain.
The problem is….I love her, and I know she loves me and we can be AMAZING with each other. It now becomes the question… is love enough to overcome all of this. Now that I closed the door (I didn’t slam it) should I re-open it after her mother leaves and try to keep rebuilding…or is this episode too Springer, and way less romance movie….
Any help/ insight would be great 🙂
Thanks!
Dear Kevin, Your question is great. “Is love enough to overcome all this.” My first answer is, “No. Hell no!”
Of course I am guessing at what you mean by the word “love”, and I am guessing that you are referring to that Romantic Love that happens at the beginning of a Great Relationship. I think that that kind of love is just a bit of a blip along the way and the two of you seem to have launched quickly into the Power Struggle stage. (For most people during that stage, love is a distant memory, even if it is a glorious memory.) For me the more important question is do you want to build a long-lasting deep-love relationship or do you want to just dream about love. To me, Romantic Love is just a sip of real love, tincture-de-love, a magical promise. I don’t think one can live on “sips.”
My guess is that you have to step out of the fantasy-love game that our culture, movies, magazines, books, etc. portrays. I gave up watching Springer a long time ago, because overall it seemed to me to encourage a hopeless fantasy of “romantic love curing all”. In other words it, along with a lot of other shows, seemed to be selling products while encouraging a lot of hurt in the world.
Glad you like the Map of Relationships. Listen to it, again. Lots of hope if you learn lots of stuff.
Ohh, and always open the door again.
Hey Al 🙂
Well…where to begin…
My ex girlfriend and I own two places, about half hour apart. We have two young boys 9 and 6 and had been together for 19 years, since we were both 19.
It had been going downhill for a while. Lots of arguing, constant almost at times. Sniping, bickering. I had cheated on her a few years earlier and had been caught. It wasn’t a long thing and I deeply regretted it but was thinking with my dick I guess and maybe felt I wasn’t getting enough at home. We always had a pretty fiery relationship. She is quite a strong willed girl with her family too.
I also smoked quite a bit of weed, and though it wasn’t an issue in the early years, the time I spent alone smoking not with her, not going out with her hardly eve, took their toll and that drove us further apart.
Anyway, come last May and she calls me at work and says that the tenants in our other place had handed in notice and so would I want to go and live there? I agreed, as at the time I was sick of it all too. So I moved in a couple of weeks later. So a few months passed and though we were still in touch every day, and I would see her and the kids, I felt a distance growing…. it felt different to the last time we had a brief separation. She didn’t want me hanging around too much. There were no weekend visits, no quickies. Very little emotion it seemed to me… I started to get that feeling in my gut… she must be seeing someone else. I asked she says no. There was absolutely no evidence ever to indicate she was. So I started obsessing (probably largely because of the fact I had cheated on her previously)
About 8 months on now, so a year in total almost, I am still not sure what is going on. She has not once said she does not love me or that we are `over`. We have been out several times, once or twice initiated by her. Generally we see a lot of each other. The problem is that I keep obsessing (like I am now on here typing this!) about what is going on, about whether she is up to something, does she really love me? Why is she not affectionate at all, if she does still love me and want things to work out? She says she does, and she took the time to post me a valentines card (which read on the front: I Kinda Love You) but I feel like it’s always me who is trying to talk it through with her, and then I get frustrated and we end up arguing because I don’t understand why she won’t talk about her feelings. She is really `whatever` about it. She wants me to stop smoking weed, and pay back some debts I have, not huge but an issue. Could that really be it? That she just wants to see that change? Which is why she is not allowing me `back in` in case things are the way they were again, but also why she is not telling me outright that it’s over?
I should also note I slept with her last weekend. I kind of regretted it. She was `up for it`, but it was very one way, and no face to face or kissing or her hands on me. When I was kissing her neck at the start she said something along the lines of `dont make it weird, just do it like normal` ….haha…but seriously, I guess I’m the overly emotional one here, and she is undecided about how to respond?
Is she just hoping I will give up? That I’ll Find someone else? Whenever I ask her (which again causes heated responses, though I am inclined to believe not heated out of defensiveness but genuine anger and annoyance of my constant questioning and mistrust of her, when as she has pointed out when I have quizzed her, that I am the lying cheating **** ) about if there has been anything in the last year, she absolutely denies it. On her mothers and children’s lives. This is not a girl who would do this lightly, so I want to believe her. She has a great deal of integrity. None of her close friends who I have spoken to think she has done anything. Most also seem to suggest we have something. Also why would she deny so strongly if she did not care or want us to have a chance? Would it not be easier for her to say `It’s over I can’t go on I am moving on` – instead she says she has no interest in men, and that the boys are her priority.
Sorry to go on, but it’s a great outlet even if you don’t respond! Also writing it out I come across as a bit of a dick… I just need to control my pushiness, and be pleasant around her… make the improvements …. you think?
Anyway last
Hi James, Good to hear from you. On the other hand this looks like a very normal catastrophe-in-the-making. I like your story telling that points to so many signals from her that things needed to be worked on, and how you chose not to do the work. An example is that “Lots of arguing, constant almost at times” is the normal sign that a relationship is dying, both are killing it, and either one could stop this death spiral if either wanted to. But in our culture the majority of people, who are heading toward living single, tell you arguing is normal. They are, in my way of thinking, destructively full of sh**.
My guess is that your relationship pretty much “sucks” for her but nothing has surfaced to change it or end it yet. This is classic Door #2 ennui or boredom. The delight of Romance, the dream of Vintage Love, is so far away that both just survive, walking on eggshells, in boredom — til something breaks. Your obsession seems just a kind of panic that if harnessed correctly could lead you out of this situation. You can do it.
Good luck with getting into Door #1. Read the Map of Relationship.
Hi Al, I sought your advice a about 4 years ago – I had been married for 24 years, 4 kids and went through a hellish time when my spouse left. Over the last 12 months or so, my former spouse has been coming over nearly every weekend (he lives two hours away). Some weekends were because two of our sons play football, so he would attend matches and stay at my place (not sleeping with me). He also gradually started doing jobs around the house. 6 months ago, he bought me a car as the one I had was on the way out (I did not ask him to do this, he just turned up with it one sunday). He has given me Christmas and birthday presents and cards (during the last few years of our marriage, getting a card was impossible) and when he arrives he often brings little things (foody type things he gets at farmers markets). He never mentions reconciliation (nor do I – I have learnt not to push) and my family all have opinions on his behaviour (most say he wants back in). I have no idea – I do not know what he is thinking and don’t even try and guess. My question is this – I would like to know what’s on his mind – if he does want back in or whatever. How do I go about this? Should I just come out and question him? The other thing is (and this is quite a paradox) I was always the clinger – took the breakup extremely badly, went through all the angst (your website was invaluable – thanks) but I’m not sure if I want to know the answer! If he wants back in – I don’t know if I want him back now – he still won’t talk about certain things – I will not be the same blind thing I was during our marriage. Al, I would appreciate any thoughts.
Regards, Kez
Ah, working on the safety-in-communication issue, Kez. The cutting edge is you both need open data flowing between each other. There are habits present, probably in both of you, that scare/threaten the other. Finding those specific habits and removing them from your communication process is what you are up to, I think.
Broken down to two pieces it sounds like this. What specific things do you do when talking, did you do when talking, that threatens his lizard. Stop those behaviors, replace them with their “safer” forms. AND What specific things does he do, did he do, when talking that threatens you. He’s got to stop those habits, and replace them with “safety making” habits. But you both don’t want to get rid of current and past useful and safe making habits. Sounds like you tried the “throw out the baby with the bath water” routine. Clumsy, even if in the right direction.
So yes you want to ask him and find out how to ask him in a non-threatening way. For example: “Do you want back in?” could be awesome threatening. “I’d love to hear your thinking about how we are doing and do you think its moving in the right direction?” is better but could still be scary. “I want to make us both really safe to share everything. How’m I doing? Got any thoughts on how I could do better?”
Stand firm in that sharing is the way toward safety for both. But the method of sharing can be improved.
Hey Al,
My girlfriend left me 5 weeks ago now (we were together for a little over a year). She had lots of issues around me having a past (I was married once, and had 3 children). So I had to keep in contact with my ex-wife about the kids. My girlfriend didn’t like me having to keep in contact, and I’m pretty sure she hated not having any control over the situation. She did like to control a lot of things. Which then led to her being very insecure about a lot of things.
I shouldn’t have kept her very distant from that part of my life. I know that now. I should have made everything wholly and soley about us. We loved each other very much and were very close, but we had a massive fight one night and she left. She’d had enough.
Over the past month we’ve barely spoken (except about splitting our things up), and in the first couple of weeks I really poured my heart out. I pushed her away further. She got colder and colder, but showed glimpses of times where I could tell she was really missing me and wished for things to be different. She did say that who knows where things will end up down the track for us. But to move on for now.
Anyway, over the past few days she’s started checking up on me and asking how I am and even came and visited me for a coffee. She said I’m looking and sounding really well and to keep it up. Then last night emailed me the same thing and suggested another coffee some time soon. Do I just keep my cool and wait to hear back? I didn’t even say yes, I just made a joke about the coffee shop we went to and that it was fun. I had lots of very positive things happening and she was so happy for me. She actually managed to get a job in the meantime which made her very happy.
I want to pour out my heart again so bad, but I know that’s the wrong thing to do. Is she starting to wonder that she’s missing out maybe?
Spice
Hello Spice, Lots of stuff to learn, here. First things first. What do you want? If you sense you want a long term relationship with her, then go for it. But that means learning to deal with what comes up.
You mention she likes to control things and that led her to being insecure. Nope, other way around. Control people are insecure and that leads to their trying to control things/people. So if you want a long term relationship with an insecure person, that means you have to become an expert and nurturing insecure people. Not a giant problem, but it does take a bunch of skills. (And you’ve probably had lots of previous experience with controlling people.)
On thing is to figure out the “ex-wife issue”. My guess is that your girlfriend doesn’t trust that you will be there for her, if you mess with your ex-wife. Called the issue of Reliable Membership. So all you have to do is somehow convince her, prove to her, that you will reliably be there for her, first. Lots of things you can do. That way, she doesn’t worry about the ex-wife.
My guess is that your girlfriend has gotten a bit clingy toward you. Which suggests that you tend to avoid. Well, that will become a fun issue as you go forward. Again its the Reliable Membership issue. Will have to become expert at this.
Of course in general you two will be moving into the Power Struggle phase of your relationship. I think its worth digesting my Map of Relationships so that you can see the process as “normal.”
I just believe, if you want a great relationship with her, it is do-able. Good luck.
Thanks for your reply All. I’ll do some reading now. I think the hardest part is being able to prove to her when she won’t even really talk to me. She’s gone into her shell and I can’t communicate with her anymore. Thanks for your help though.
Well, Spice, hold in your mind that she’s gone into her shell in order to keep herself together. If you care about her, I think you do, then celebrate that she has such a strong shell. Figure out how to act in ways that signal to her that she can open her shell around you. My guess is that you’ve stumbled into signalling to her that she needs that shell to protect herself from you.
When I learned this lesson was one day, remember I’m a clinger, my wife asked, “Do you know what you look like?” I said, “No.” She said, “You often look like an alien, from the movie (1979), running straight at me.” No wonder my wife had a great shell. (Turtle humor!) I love the strength of her shell. If I get silly or drunk or whatever and slip into acting pushy, she can always easily stop me with that shell. Of course, I’ve learned to make it easy for her and she’s learned to do it gently but firmly.
hello al,
Me and Sofia have been together for 4 years we met when we were 17, in that time we have worked in France for a year together, got engaged, and learned a lot about ourselves and each other in these life defining years. She told me that when she was younger she always imagined travelling and exploring on her own, but meeting me and opened her way of thinking and that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me and travel and experience everything out there. I felt exactly the same way and our lives were perfect. We spend so much time together everybody we meet calls us the dream couple, nothing has ever been a problem too big for us to overcome.
However the past couple of weeks she has been very distant so i called her up on it. She explained to me that those old feelings have come back and that she didn’t want to have to rely on anybody or have anybody rely on her. its been very difficult. she hates herself for doing this to me and tells me she wants to still be with me over this summer and take the break up slowly. ive agreed as i feel it is more for my benefit than hers. im just really struggling with the idea that there is a deadline on our relationship and there is nothing i can do to make her change her mind.
It’s painful to know that im not going to be there for her. i want to protect her and know she wont be fucked around or miss treated by other people. shes so beautiful it hurts so much to know somebody else is going to enjoy her and i wont be in the picture one day. i know writing a message to somebody i dont know isnt going to make anything better, but getting it written down and heard seems important. i just feel like my future is over before its began.
I’ve really been trying to look at the bigger picture and hope that we can leave eachother with a positive out come because thats what we’ve always been like. im even more scared of being alone, not having somebody to wake up next to or hug or tell them i love them.
Thank you very much for taking the time to listen to me i dont mind if you dont write a reply im not looking for any magical words to make things better. just a pair of impartial ears to listen to my thoughts and words.
Hey, Zack, Welcome to the world of relationships. Lots of troubles. Those years for me, between 17 and 25 were fairly chaotic: really blissful at times and really horror filled at others. I envy your youth and fantasy how much more wonderful times in life I would have had if I had run into my website when I was your age.
So you’ve got pain in your heart. Losing Sophia – bad time. Think you can’t change her mind and feel awful. Well, you can change her mind, if you knew how. So it is all a matter of learning.
“Wake up next to” “hug” great things. Really great. Reminded me of a great poem, called Feeling Fucked Up.
I like your phrase “someone else is going to enjoy her” as if Sophia’s a popsicle. Well, she’s gonna drive other people nuts, be their worst nightmare – too. All about learning.
Big picture! Best I have is my Map of Relationships. Took me 45 years to come up with it. Lots of false starts.
Wrote all my stuff down online so people like you can get Sophia (your partner) back, quicker.
Go for it.