In many cultures men are taught to repress their emotions. They can become defensive and pull away when emotion is being expressed to them unless they know how to speak the language of emotion.
Emotional withdrawal has become their go-to response. When this is happening, women can help their men by helping them to feel safe. Be patient and give them time to find words for what they feel. In fact, it sometimes takes a skilled therapist to help them connect uncomfortable tension in their body with feelings of sadness, hurt or fear.
This one often requires professional help. Both men and women who have been traumatized learn to disconnect from their feeling awareness when they are threatened. They dissociate separate from their own emotions to protect themselves from feeling pain.
You can make this happen by feeling her pain while she is having a new experience of being loved and accepted. A therapist can help the woman to 1 recognize dissociation and 2 become the loving presence her partner needs to stop running from his trauma triggers.
Sounds like work! We hope you have a better understanding of emotional withdrawal and how to begin to create a safe environment for open emotional expression in times of happiness or hurt, joy or sorrow. Sharing emotion makes a relationship fun. Regier, Ph. Give me a call to learn how I can help you understand and break your cycles of emotional withdrawal. Share on Facebook Share. Share on Twitter Tweet.
Some people are more sensitive than others; an amount of emotion that may feel perfectly tepid to one person may be scalding to another. When somebody floods, their emotions are overwhelming them. And even though their surface may remain placid, inside they are a tantruming toddler. When someone is flooded, they are unable to respond rationally and struggle to normalize their emotional balance.
Flooding is often a sign of some unresolved trauma, the emotions triggered having more to do with the past than the present. If your partner is easily triggered, work to be supportive and patient while encouraging him or her to address the underlying issues. If you find that you are easily overwhelmed, make resolving your trauma a priority. Some people wear their anger on their sleeves, leaving no doubt as to the emotion at the helm.
Others are more covert, either because they have been trained to hide anger or because they are afraid of addressing the underlying problem face on. And furtive anger can often lead to withdrawal when one partner steams in silence.
When anger is at a peak, it is often advisable to retreat for a time to calm down and think more rationally. That respite should be followed by approach, communicating the anger and working together to resolve the broken boundaries. If one or both partners consistently fume from afar, the anger will only mutate into resentment, causing a more permanent rift in the relationship. Some people simply require more solitude than others.
If you are the more introverted partner, it is your responsibility to communicate your need for alone time to your spouse and make connection and intimacy a priority when you are together. If you are feeling left out by an introvert, learn how to establish connection without overwhelming their senses.
Marriages do not exist in a vacuum. We all have demands placed okay, sometimes heaped upon us from outside the relationship. Withdrawal can occur anytime someone is feeling overwhelmed and overworked.
A marriage can survive a short-term starvation of attention and energy. Yet leave the tourniquet on too long, and there will be no marriage to return to. Work is usually his number one priority. Irritating, right? Be quiet, be non-judgemental, and keep any defensiveness to yourself if you ask him to open up to you. Do not make it about you. He must be able to feel safe and that you genuinely want to hear him.
You would not coax a dog to you promising him happy things like love and food and then kick him as soon as he gets close, right? Of course not. What would happen? If you think you are able to listen in the manner I described, then in a compassionate voice you can tell him something like this:.
Overly emotional clinging does not need to be a part of this process. Then you back away and leave it up to him to choose what he feels he needs. Most men, if they feel safe enough, will eventually share with you. And if not, they will sort it out in their own mind and before you know it, he is back with you again, grateful for your love, support, and willingness to allow him his space. It helps immensely just for him to know that you are patient and understanding when he goes through this.
I will be honest here though, that is entirely up to you and what kind of woman you are. If you are patient and understanding and have been as long as he knows you, your chances of him opening up to you are quite a bit higher. Because you have kicked the dog already. It can be done but you will have to truly want to dial back the drama and create trust again.
It all depends on what you want your relationship to develop into — a place of trust or a place of fear. It is your choice to be in this relationship and it is also your choice how much you help it to grow and flourish.
There is never anything to be gained by keeping score over who is doing more in any relationship. It serves no positive purpose. When one person in a relationship leads by example, it is never long before the other person naturally follows that lead.
Women are by far better at understanding the finer nuances of relationships. There is nothing wrong with taking responsibility and learning what works and then putting that into play to create a better relationship for yourself. Your happiness is not dependent on anyone or anything except for your own self.
Your life is exactly what you make it. I hope this article helped you understand why guys withdraw in relationships. Is He Losing Interest? Take the Quiz.
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