How To Turn Your Relationship Around When He is Withdrawing

March 18, 2008 – 7:09 am
by Sarah Love

At one point or another, most women find themselves in a relationship where he is withdrawing and they are the ones doing everything. Calling all the time, planning everything, driving, even initiating the affection or intimacy? It’s a pretty bad feeling when you are the one doing all the work.

Pretty soon, you start to get angry. Even needy. And eventually, it wears you out. Rori Raye termed this “Overfunctioning”, which may sound a little silly, but it’s a great word when you think about how well it fits.

What that means is that you are doing the relationship work of both partners! And you know YOU don’t like it - but did you realize that HE does not like it either? He wants to be a man. However, you are emasculating him by babying him and taking over everything, leaving him nowhere to go within your relationship.

This usually starts out with the opposite intentions - you want to prove that you are NOT needy - you are strong and capable and do NOT need a man to take care of you. So you start taking charge. You start correcting him. And it goes on from there.

When this happens, the woman becomes the MAN in the relationship. The relationship then begins to atrophy because the attraction dies, which has happened because you are taking his role from him and leaving him with nothing to “be” inside the relationship.

Don’t get me wrong - your man, more than likely, does not want you to be a weak and witless wimp. Men, largely, DO like strong women. BUT he does NOT want YOU to be the man. If you are the man - then you are relegating yourself to the “friend zone” - because your relationship with him just became man to man. For the heterosexual male, this means friends.

Fortunately, you can change your behavior. This means that first of all, you must become self-aware. Most of this behavior happens unconciously - you do it and you never even realize it. Start being self-aware, and when you start behaving like the man, step back and relinquish the reigns to the one who wants them.

Begin noticing when you start feeling negative and are about to talk to yourself in a negative way. This usually means you will then try to do something to make yourself feel better afterwards, like attention seeking behavior or needy, clingy actions so your man will sooth you.

Doing this with everyone will help you see for certain when you are going to use negative behavior with your man. Maybe that is telling him that the way he is doing something is not right, or trying to take control of a situation. Either way, you can stop the behavior and begin to repair your relationship.

On the other hand, if you say or do something and he puts his arms around you, kisses you passionately and tells you he loves you, you’ve most likely expressed yourself in an open, vulnerable, feminine, compellingly attractive way! Conversely, if you say something and he changes the subject, looks away, gets quiet or withdrawn, then you know you have said something negative.

If you truly pay attention and start giving your man permission to BE the man, your relationship will start to turn around. You can have the relationship you have always wanted.

About the Author:
Relationship Advice for women by Rori Raye - Get Your Relationship Tool Kit!

Dating Tips for Women by Christian Carter of Catch Him and Keep Him

Tags:


Related Posts


Print This Article : Print This Article :

Post a Comment

Navi
TamPola Magazine - TamPola Articles Directory is proudly powered by WordPress Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS). Designed by Bob