You Pull, Your Partner Pulls Away! What’s Up With That!

We see this dynamic played out in almost every relationship. One person wants more and energetically pulls on their partner to come closer. The one being pulled on backs off and resists in reaction. This resistance, of course, has the puller only pull harder. This pattern repeats and reinforces itself, sometimes for years.

This pull–repel dynamic in relationships shows up most often as one person criticizing and complaining about not enough connection and presence from the other, and their partner backing off wanting less criticism, more space and more appreciation.

Unfortunately, pulling away breeds more complaint, and complaint breeds more pulling away.

What keeps this dynamic going is our presumption that our partner criticizing or pulling away is something they are doing TO us on purpose for some negative reason. We take their criticism or pulling away personally.

Christian and I believe that we are inherently good people and everything we do has a positive intent and is meant to take care of a positive concern. There is nothing BAD intended. But when we look at our partner from the outside, it doesn’t always look that way.

Let’s look at this dynamic more deeply.

If you criticize me, it looks on the outside like you are putting ME down and not appreciating ME for who I am and all I do. I am pretty sure you are saying something about ME when you dump on me about what I did and didn’t do. This does not at first glance look like there is a “positive intent” in your actions anywhere, thank you very much.

But inside the person criticizing, there is an intense desire to FIX some issue or problem so THEY can feel close and loving with you again. THEY are actually not intending to put you down and make you feel like shit! They are screaming, in their own garbled way, for love and connection. They are actually saying, “I can’t FEEL you. I can’t FEEL us. Where are you??? Help me to feel love again?”

From the other side, if you are pulling away from ME, it looks from the outside like you don’t want to be with ME. It looks like you are rejecting ME or like you are not committed to our relationship. It looks like I am not important to you, that I am not special or desired or wanted.

But inside the person pulling away, THEY feel unappreciated and unacknowledged. THEY believe THEY are not enough and that whatever THEY do will never be enough. THEY don’t like being criticized or judged and so they back off in an effort to feel less hurt and rejected. THEY just want to feel loved and appreciated.

Both of you WANT LOVE!! That’s it! Can you see that? A desire for love is what is underneath all of this craziness! Unfortunately, your move towards love feels like a personal attack to your partner, and vice versa. Both of you are screaming for LOVE, crying out for LOVE in your own way. But neither of you are hearing this CALL for LOVE because you are too busy screaming yourself!

What to do?
Provide what is desired! Provide what is missing!

Instead of criticizing, appreciate.
Instead of pulling away, step in closer.

And if you want to add in the graduate school step, thank your partner for wanting to be close to you when they are criticizing you and watch what miracles you create! Thank your partner for how perfect they are when they pull away and notice what happens!

This will replace the pull-repel dynamic in your relationship with a mutual giving of love and appreciation dynamic that will create an upward spiral of nourishment, love and support in your relationship. Coincidentally, both of your needs will be met beyond your wildest imagination.

Now, for this to work, the withdrawer needs to accept and look for appreciation. And the criticizer needs to accept and look for where their partner is stepping closer. You both need to look for and reinforce WHAT YOU REALLY WANT!!

Now, here comes the rub: This is TRUE for EVERY issue in your relationship!!

If your partner interrupts, there is something positive desired for HIMSELF! He is not trying to curb YOUR full self-expression. Find out what it is he wants and figure out another way to give that to him, and the interruptions will stop. Your button about being interrupted and then yelling at your partner to not interrupt is not you trying to curb your partner’s expression either. You just want something positive too – to be heard! You BOTH want something GOOD!

If your husband doesn’t want to be with your kids, there is something good HE is trying to give to HIMSELF too. He just wants to feel good. He is not trying to take YOUR kids away from YOU. Find out what he really wants and figure out another way to give that to him, and he will then want to be with your kids. And on the other side, when your wife wants you to be with her kids, she is not trying to have YOU feel bad, she just wants to give HERSELF an experience of family and connection and love.

When we personalize what isn’t personal, and when we assume mal intent instead of positive intent, we make ourselves miserable, we set ourselves up to be in perpetual reaction, we close off the discovery process and we actually PREVENT ourselves from coming up with relatively simple and easy solutions to what appears to be INSURMOUNTABLE problems.

If you are in the middle of this cycle, slow it down. Investigate. Ask questions. Be like a detective trying to discover clues, without judgment of good and bad, right or wrong. Be a neutral explorer. Assume YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING about what is going on with the other person. Find out what they are trying to take care of and what they REALLY want (experience). Then you do the same and express what you REALLY want (experience). Then move TOGETHER to take care of each other and to provide the experience you desire – which is some version of LOVE.

Move towards love, look for love, offer love, be love, listen with love, look with the eyes of love, assume love and you will experience LOVE.

Or, look for where your partner is a creep doing bad stuff TO you, and you will get to be right about that.

You get to choose.

Be right and miserable, or be willing to be wrong and feel great wonderful LOVE.

Choose love, friends.