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 Al,
I came across your site searching the web for help. Thought I would share my story.
My same sex partner of nearly 10 years moved out in April. We met when we were 19 and have been together ever since. Aside from an occasional rut here or there we really had/have a great relationship. No intimacy issues, no trust issues, we have always been able to confide and rely on one another. He returned to graduate school 2 years ago and with my job we really began to be able to spend less time together. Additionally he was surrounded by people a lot younger than us. He began acting differently and I was slow to react.
By the time he brought it to my attention it seemed beyond repairing in our current state and we came to mutual agreement that he move out. Someone else did enter the picture. I won’t say I didn’t cry, or ask questions but generally despite the circumstances I’ve just tried to be as supportive as possible while giving him the space he needed. So, he went about his business for the next several months dating and so on – each time he would confide in me about how this person made him realize this and that about our relationship and we seemed to be getting into a really good place.
He shows up at my house 2 weeks ago saying he made a huge mistake, and that he was “getting there” – in terms of working through things. I was happy, didn’t over analyze and just went about enjoying his company. Then, yesterday I asked him how we should move forward and he snapped. Said he was dating another person still and didn’t have an answer for me. That it wasn’t serious but he needed to experience dating other people so he didn’t regret in his old age that he missed out on it.
I know this sounds terrible but he is not a bad person. I tried giving him the benefit of the doubt. I even tried to just say to him that we move our separate ways. I feel like I am in a terrible state of limbo and I just don’t understand what he is searching for. We have an annual vacation that we take in August and it was and still is my hope that this would be the end of it because we always return from this trip very centered. He is excited to go and we talk about it all the time.
What do I do between now and then, let him just do what he feels like he needs? I am just so lost.
Well, Thomas, another fine mess you have us in. Seriously, sounds painful. Also sounds normal for a longterm relationship that went through a Romantic period, plunged through a Power Struggle and found itself behind Door #2 (re: Map of Relationships). As you say, you don’t believe he is a bad person. I don’t either. But I think you are faced with a lot to learn.
Ideally this would be a joint project, but so frequently it starts with just one of you who is the leader for a while. Where are you leading? Vintage Love through the University of Life, via first learning the tools of the Biological Dream. That’s a mouthful and it is an abstact summary the relates of hundreds of specific skills. Just one of those skills is you learning new, wiser ways of looking at what is going on. And example is in the learning phrase, “All people make sense all the time.” Every time he has approached you, he has been “making” sense. His behavior that “appears” contradictory is sensible to him. The only reason you’ve been surprised by his actions is that you did not have access to his logic at the time. If you had access, you could have predicted his behavior, and maybe taken action to avoid the trouble. Ah well.
But, you make/made sense too, so your being “blind” to his sense, the factors driving his behavior, made sense. If you don’t change those “blind-making” habits of your, you’ll have the same trouble again.
So what can you do? Start improving your skills of living in intimacy with him. Maybe find a friend or a counselor who is good at communication, who can review with you your current and past skill deficiencies, and give you practice developing new healthy communication tactics. A bottom line is he thinks you are willing and able to listen to “anything” he says and he believes you are interested to walk with him as he discovers himself. In the meantime he also feels comfortable to chat with you when he doesn’t yet know answers – because that’s the state he is in at that moment.
You shared what sounded like beautiful Master statements about how wonderful your relationship was and has been. My “bullshit detector” was ringing as I read them and I became curious about what was like for him when this was going on for you. “No intimacy issues, no trust issues, always able to confide and rely on each other.” etc.
Lots of places to look for areas to improve and to share improvements with him. Remember, a person pulls the plug because they sense their partner is “hopeless”. All you have to do is grasp the specifics of why they think this and prove by actions that you are learning and moving forward reliably and specifically in some of the areas that are important to them.
Good luck.
hi me and my partner lost a baby in January this year after this things went rapidly downhill after. il admit I have been no saint in the 5years we have been together but we have been through so much together and always came out the otherside. A few month ago she decided she needed a break or time alone for a week or 2 which broke me I was in contact with her everyday begging her to come back, eventually she did and we started a clean slate she told me she loves me more than anything and we started to plan our future together, after a few weeks she told me is suffering with severe depression and yet again I have been told she needs space and time on her own to get her head straight and decide what she wants. what am I meant to do?
Hello David, Sorry for the loss of that little one. Make sure you’ve both grieved that loss enough. Also since the word depression came up, make sure that she has some medical professional watching over her for maybe a few more months. Pregnancy lost and depression can be a problem.
The phrase “she needed a break” makes me guess that she’s probably an avoider and often has needed and will need breaks from you. I think you want to make those “breaks” so easy and so frequent that an outsider might not even notice them going on. Kind of like you making sure she get’s breaks from you a little more often that she needs them. Read my stuff on Reliable Membership. That’s the phrase. Find out what a “break” is for her, and “you” make sure “she’s getting a bit more of that than she wants.” And you take care of yourself so that you can move a bit toward that “sainthood.”
Good luck.
I am so scared, and
My boyfriend and I were dating for 2.5 years. 9 months ago, we moved in together. It was hard at first since primarily our relationship was long distance. We never had a chance to just date. After living together for a while, he started to change. I talked to him and he told me he wasn’t happy because i was being too clingy (I didn’t realize it, but it was because I was in a new state and didn’t know anything else). So I told him he’s not being fair to me in the relationship, and I ended things with him and moved out. I made it clear I still wanted to be with him though, he just has to change. He told me he “needs space” and “wants me time” and just wants to be single for a while to figure out what he wants. This was two months ago. We talked almost everyday still (which I shouldn’t have done) and he told me how much he loves me, we saw each other occasionally, etc… Then I finally told him I can’t continue this because it just hurts me. I want to be with him so badly but because he can’t give that to me, I can’t contact him anymore. He told me he understood. We went 4 days NC. Then he texted me last Wednesday. He asked how I was, said he can’t believe I’m moving on so quickly, he misses me, loves me, etc.. I was trying to be strong and offstandish and was successful at first, then broke down and said I missed him and want to be with him. He said “we cant jump back into things right now”… then saturday I broke down AGAIN and confessed my love for him, how much I want to be with him, etc.. I regret saying all of that so much and wish I could take it back. He kept telling me “i need space”. So finally I apologized and left him alone. I haven’t contacted him since. Today is Day 4 of NC and I’m dying. I miss him so much.
Now I have my own place which would give us the opportunity to date. But I found out he just became FB friends with his ex (who lives two hours away). I’m so scared of losing him for good. Do you think I have a chance like you had with your boyfriend?
Sorry for going on and on, lol, I’m just terrified.
Oh, the chaos, Molly! Very hard. Get yourself with feet on the ground. Remember, your Lizard, your fear, is your responsibility. And the ol Lizard thinks it’s dying, pretty easily. Not a good idea to depend on others to take care of your safety.
And I think it is good to realize that your “desire” for “him” is very real, but it is not “him” that causes it. I believe it’s part of your need for Vintage Love. Very important.
Go for it.
If I focus on myself constantly throughout the NC period, do you think I have a good shot of him coming back, based on our history together? He mentioned last Wednesday that the thought of being able to just date has been “going around and around in my head” but “we still can’t jump back into things just yet”.. That of course was before I found out he became Facebook friends with his ex. But I could just be overthinking that aspect and they may not even be talking as much as I’m thinking.
You have a great shot, as long as you do the work, Molly. Do your 50%. Learn patience – turbo patience. Learn to go slow and to collude with him to keep him at peace. Remember he thinks you are “hopeless,” though you are not. Show him. Don’t promise him. Learn to relax your brain so that you don’t think of jumping, running, speeding — etc. Peace.
My husband and I have been together 9 years and married 6.. we had a child after being together 2 years and things were great we had a wonderful marriage. Well then my son was 8 months when I found out I was pregnant again and we were happy but then he started being distant and being mean to me but ended up asking me to marry him and 6 months later got married then 4 months later had my daughter.. so things got a little better and I thought we were in a great place so when my daughter was one I decided to go back to work to help with bills.. come to find out he had started cheating on me.. I was devastated and we spent a few days apart and I thought we worked through it. Well then the secrets started again and the girls kept coming and the cheating kept going on.. then came along the drinking and we split up he just up and left for work one day and texted me and said he wasn’t coming home. He was gone for 6 months and one night he just decided he wanted to come home he wanted to be with me and his kids. So things didn’t change cause the drinking was worse he still had nights he wouldn’t come home and I never knew where he was who he was with. So him coming home lasted about 2 maybe 3 months and again he left for work one day texted me said he was done and moving out again. I can’t seem to accept this all. It’s not what I want and he won’t talk to me he won’t text me and he don’t even See the kids. I don’t know whether to give up on the marriage and accept it or take a good long break and wait to see. I am lost.
It’s Time to Worry about You ~ Just like He is doing
Yup. Accepting this relationship as it is, I don’t think is helping you or him or the kids at all. My guess is you’ve been trained to “just accept,” and so you would pick a partner where “acceptance” isn’t a useful tool. At some point he has to “grow up”, become responsible, and certainly quit the drinking. This process will probably take much longer if you enable him. I suggest you check into Alanon or some other local resource to help you take on the kind of self-care/self-responsibility that is require to take care of your side of all this.
I often think about which one, in a couple, has to lead the way. In Clinger/Avoider problems it is always the Clinger. In most problems it doesn’t matter who leads. But I think in the case of “drinking” it is the sober one who has to step up, take care of themselves first, and provide the firm ground for their partner to grow upon. Sometimes that involves lovingly putting new locks on the doors. Not easy.
I am so afraid of losing my husband. Even after everything he has done to me and our kids I still love him.. every time I try and talk to him he ignores me or sends my calls right to voicemail. He has said over and over he wants a divorce but it’s been 3 months and he has yet to file for one.. When I ask him when he plans on ending our marriage he blows it off. He will just ask me how much money i need. Its not even about the money and he dont see that. Then he tells me i take everything for granite and i dont i appreciate everything he does and did for me..he wont even look at me. Yeah we had our problems just like every normal couple does but I can promise I’ve tried and it wasn’t me and yet I feel like this is all my fault.
Not all your fault, Rachel, but probably it’s half your fault. Learning better skills seems to me the way forward. As I mentioned to Molly, the Lizard thinks it’s going to die, but it won’t as long as you take care of it. Taking care of yourself so that you can listen to him say all sorts of silly stuff and stay relaxed, is a great idea.
Keep pluggin ahead.
Al,
I’ll keep this short but I’m curious how to apply this to my situation. The basic situation is this: My girlfriend and I were doing great. We were discussing moving in together in a few months and getting engaged shortly after that. Then one day, about a month ago, her ex (and father of her child) came by and told her that he still loves her. We talked about it and she made it clear that she didn’t have any feeling for him but she needed some space to process everything and wanted to slow things down. I agreed that that was probably a good idea and asked her to call me when she was ready. After a few weeks she seemed better and asked if we could get together. When we did she said she wanted to just put all that behind us and move on. I was thrilled. We picked things back up and in hind sight that might have been too much to fast. When she said that she still felt distant and it might be easier if we went slower for a bit I thought that made sense. She said she wanted to figure things out and I shouldn’t worry, that it would get better. Then while not quite out of the blue it did seem to be a drastic step she said she needed a few weeks of no contact to work through things, when I said I understood and asked her what “a few weeks” might mean and what exactly “no contact” should entail she said basically that she wanted to break-up because the idea of me “waiting for her to figure it out” was too much pressure and it was too much for her to deal with (she is also under a lot of stress at for graduate school right now). She said she had nothing to give to our relationship right now and she felt guilty taking and that was making it worse.
While I get that what she said makes sense and I understand her need to be alone for a while to process everything, the definitiveness of it really hurts. I guess my question is, while it seems clear that not pursuing at all is very important, I’m not really sure how to “work on myself” since I don’t really have any idea how this has anything to do with me in particular and more to do with her conflicting emotions. Thanks for any insight you might have.
Well, Kyle (?), not much to go on, but I can see a little and make guesses on that.
Assuming you “fell for her”, then there’s probably quite a bit going on. First off is the Clinger Avoider stuff. Right on the surface her sentences sound like very normal Avoider stuff, and since those behaviors are aimed at you, my guess is you come across as a Clinger. My thought is her “drastic step” was just a firm and loud message to you when she thought you would not listen to anything quieter. “No contact” I believe is an online term, so I guess she’s been in contact with people online who need space. All of this seems normal Avoider.
If so, your lessons would probably involve reviewing what you know about her to determine how to become the “source of space and quiet time for her.” The goal is that whenever she needs space, she comes to you to get those needs met, rather than gets away from you in order to get space. Most Avoiders need space from all sorts of people and things. I think you want to not be one of those “push sources.”
So learn patience. Become an expert. I had to.
Second guess has to do with how you use the word “sense.” Might be you want to study Master/Slave so that you can remember to avoid referring to “sense” in the abstract and learn to refer to it as belonging to someone: i.e. her sense / my sense. It saves you from “judging” her sense (which leads to all sorts of troubles) and helps you to simply appreciate her sense and remember to appreciate your own.
Good luck.
Al,
I get what you’re saying and that makes some sense. And yes, I did fall for her, hard, and for time, she fell for me too. I will add that in or relationship, up until the “talk with the ex” she was much more of the pursuer. She even said so. That she felt like she was pursuing me more than I her and didn’t want to scare me away but was worried I’d leave if she pushed too much. (it was her idea to explore moving in together for example) I promised her that if I felt like there was something in our relationship that needed work on, we’d talk about it. One of the things I love most about her is her ability to communicate with me. I think what has shocked me so much is the rather sudden role reversal and the lack of communication. I know she is seeing her own therapist to work things out for herself but I don’t know where our relationship factors into that. Obviously, right now, pressing her for an explanation is not going to work. I am afraid of losing complete touch with her but that seems to be what she wants right now. She’s shut me out of her social media profiles and I haven’t even tried to call or text her. I thought of sending her a short note like you describe in the “know when to fold ’em” article but I am afraid even that would violate her wish for “not talking” and push her further away.
Ah, Kyle, much more info. Not much you can do but practice patience. You can write a short email (4 sentences or less) to let her know you are “here” and “still interested”. Probably no more than once every two weeks to start.
My guess is she’s working on something (somewhere between graduate school, her ex/father of child, and maybe someone else). So plan on keeping yourself in good health and waiting. You are in the dark cuz she’s keeping you there. And she makes sense lying (passive form) to you. Its a tough but common situation. Sorry. In this situation the goal is to work to get her to stop lying to you. That means she has to want to chat with you about what is going on for her. And she does have a counselor for that.
Hang in there, my friend.
Thank you Al. I do not think there is someone else (I can’t see how she would have any time for that quite frankly) but there probably are some lingering issues w/ her ex. I know she wants to focus on school. Do you have any posts that could help me work on practicing patience? I’ve started a journal to act as a funnel for all the things I WISH i could say to here and that seems to at least help get the thoughts from circling around me head constantly. I’m trying to stay busy with friends which is somewhat helpful, although they all seem to have some level of advice that may or may not be helpful (a lot say to just move on). The hardest part is that literally everything I see or hear has some memory connected with her. It is like she is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Even just 4 or 5 days ago she would send me “thinking of you” or “have a great day sweaty” messages. It is just so strange to be completely cut off from that. She had said that she knew she was having issues but was going to make them a priority. Is it possible that the avoidance behavior is not so much to keep me from pushing her, but to keep her own thoughts segregated so she can focus on school/whatever else without feeling burdened to make this a priority right now?
Of course, Kyle, I can guess. I imagine her actions are both to help her focus on what she wants to focus on (college or whatever) and to fend you off. Your goal is that she comes to believe she can focus on her goals with your help and not sensing that she needs to fight you off.