When He Pulls Away, Should I do the Same?

Published by Deep Soul Love 2020

# Instead of viewing this experience as rejection, reframe it as research into finding someone that you can connect with

“It’s not you, it’s me” and “ghosting” have become popular rationalizations or explanations of break-ups across time, but what does that really mean for us that are getting “ghosted”? 

We can be in a relationship where everything is going according to plan, then our love interest starts to back away.

When people back away from a relationship it is likely that they are feeling overwhelmed in some capacity, though reasoning varies across individuals. 

We can wonder about why another person backs away, but at the end of the day, we can’t control their feelings and behaviors. The truth is we may never get to know the other person’s reasoning and, though it can be unsettling, it is okay.

The only thing we can control is our response.

When feeling like someone is pulling away, we may be faced with the feeling of rejection. Rejection is uncomfortable and we resist it in different ways. 

We may have a desire to chase after the thing we are ‘losing’ in an effort to reclaim it, or we might feel a desire to distance ourselves by saying “I didn’t care anyway”, and moving to the next relationship.

Oftentimes the fear of rejection is a fear of not being good enough. 

When we can get in touch with what this fear is about for us, we can realize that maybe this person didn’t actually meet our needs for a relationship. Perhaps we simply connect with this person on some levels and not others. 

When we can accept this, and realize we are in fact “good enough”, our need for others acceptance shifts.

In order to participate in behaviors that are authentic to our needs and feelings, we need to validate, be curious of, and honor our feelings to move through our response. 

When we give ourselves space to feel the feelings, we can better understand why we wanted the relationship in the first place.

So what should we do? 

Instead of viewing this experience as rejection, we can reframe it as research into finding someone that we connect with, that also connects with our uniqueness!

Logan Brantley, LGSW – www.vivapartnership.com