There’s nothing worse than feeling a man’s interest start to slip. The last thing you want to face is that his feelings for you may be waning. All too often, at the first sign he’s withdrawing, we lose our sanity and we panic.
When we’re in this fearful place we become insecure. We assume his pulling away is because of us so we blame and beat ourselves up. As a defense against the pain, we make excuses for him, “he’s too busy at work” or “he has too much going on right now.”
Instead of investigating the changes that may be happening in the relationship, we go into desperation mode. We cling to how great the relationship used to be rather than acknowledging what’s going on in the present. We put our focus on strategies to get him back and engaged. We ignore the fact that his behavior is telling us important information, the fact that something’s wrong.
All these reactions are ways we try to avoid heartbreak. But they don’t work. There’s a much better way to handle the reality of your partner pulling away that just might save your relationship. It requires you to challenge your fears and be willing to face the truth of what’s going on.
It requires that you have a face-to-face (not texting) conversation with your man so you can bring up what you’re feeling before it’s too late. If you don’t act quickly you will give him time to drift farther away.
Many of us are scared to ask a man questions about what may be wrong, we’re afraid of hearing an answer we won’t like. But the outcome of this kind of talk can actually depend on the way you approach it.
You want to start the conversation by expressing genuine interest in finding out what is going on. Curiosity is one of the best qualities to cultivate in a relationship. Approaching a man with curiosity will keep you from sounding like you’re accusing him or making him wrong.
If you remain open and available while listening to him, you’ll get valuable information about how he’s feeling and why he may be pulling away. This will give you the opportunity to address his feelings and share your own. This is how you can make changes before things get past the point of no return.
When you put off facing the truth, it only creates more separation between you. Sometimes we just need to air out our thoughts so they can change. It’s a fact that when we get a problem out of our head and bounce it off someone else, it may no longer seem like a problem and surprising solutions appear.
Having this dialogue about your relationship will allow you to understand each other better. It will create a natural sense of closeness and deepen your intimacy. It will help you know if he’s really the man for you. It will test the strength of your connection because if you can’t talk about the hard stuff, the relationship probably won’t last.
In the end, the men that aren’t right for you will fall away no matter what you do. But how much better you’ll feel when, instead of avoiding it, you faced the truth.
Release what’s been standing in the way of finding your special someone.
