WHY MEN PULL AWAY — And What To Do About It | Dating Advice for Women by

Has this ever happened to you? Where you're connecting with a guy, things are growing great, he's attentive, he's pouring into you, he's texting back, you guys are hanging out, like there's this really genuine, great connection. And then, out of nowhere, on one day, he pulls back, like the energy completely shifts, and he doesn't tell you why, there's no explanation, there's just that distance, and you're left sitting wondering, what the hell went wrong? Did I do something wrong? Why is he shifting how he's acting? And it's unmistakable. Like part of it is subtle, but unmistakable. If this hits home, if you've experienced this, or maybe you're experiencing right now, I invite you to watch all the way to the end, because this is for you. I'm gonna give you the unfiltered answer that most people won't give you, to why he's pulling away, but more importantly, what to do so that it doesn't rattle your emotions and send you into a downward spiral. Now, as you may know, I've been coaching women for over 15 years, and for the first time in my career on helping people in their love and relationships, I got to watch this moment occur, unfortunately, for my own daughter, just weeks ago, up close and personal. We were on a camping trip. My daughter is 11 years old, and so this is, the crushes have become, the connections are happening, and so as we're going on this camping trip, it was with a large group of other families and kids, and I knew one of the other kids who was gonna be on this camping trip, because we've done lots of camping trips together before, and I said, hey, Bella, there's this guy that is really cool, because this dude, I've known him for a couple years. He's 12 years old, and he's such a great guy. He's always the guy who, when any of the adults needs help, he runs up and helps. He was helping my son feel welcomed into this group when my son, who was just six years old at the time, came into the group. Like, he's a really, really quality guy, and so I was telling my daughter, hey, there might be a cute boy there, and he's a super cool kid, so sure enough, we roll into this camping spot, and where our camping spot was was right next to that family's camping spot, and there were hundreds of people there, and so I'm like, hey, come over and meet my daughter, Bella, and so they hit it off, and they start talking, and sure enough, it's like instant connection, and the entire first day, they're hanging out, they're throwing the ball back and forth, they're exploring the grounds, and they're having this great time. They spend most of that first day together, and then the second day, we wake up, we have breakfast. The two of them sit and have breakfast together, and then we're spending the rest of the time playing and having fun the rest of that day, but then something shifts, and this kid pulls back. I was like, oh, no. I could see it happen before my eyes. I was like, oh, my gosh, he's fully going cold. He was hot, now he's cold, and I could see my daughter being normal, being like, hey, so do you wanna throw the ball? And he's like, no, no, that's fine. He goes off with his buddies, and he comes back, and she's like, hey, so how was it? And he's like, good, and gives her one-word answers, and I'm like, first of all, this isn't how I've seen him the entire two years that I've known him. He's completely different. He was completely different than he was the day before, and I can see my daughter start to get rattled about this, and I wanna address it really gently because I'm not sure how open she wants to be, and I'm like, kinda touch it, and she's like, no, no, I don't wanna talk about it. Well, it builds up, so that night, we're all sitting, and we're doing this big campfire thing, and it's time for skits, and his group gets up to give skits, and she's like, hey, good luck, and she goes to give him a fist bump, and he just kinda taps her hand, like, I don't even wanna fist bump you, and I can see her eyes well up with tears, and she's got a little hoodie on, and she just starts crying, and my heart, as a dad, is breaking for my daughter because I see what's going on, and I know what's going on for this kid because I coach this, I teach this, and despite what a good guy he is, he's still caught up in the whirlwind of this scenario, the whirlwind of this emotion, and so finally, the next day, we drive home, and on the way home, my daughter opens up, and the number one question she asks me is one that so many of us, we ask ourselves in this moment where we have connection, and then it seems to evaporate, and the question she asked me was, dad, what did I do wrong? Like, why did he change so much? Like, what caused him to do that? And so we had a opportunity, because it was a two-hour drive home, for a really beautiful conversation, and so I will share with you what I told her about what is it that causes this scenario to occur, even with good guys, and most importantly, how do you hold it in your mind so it doesn't send you into a downward spiral or cause you to believe something that actually sabotages your love life later? Because here's the truth, and I want you to really hear this. In most cases, you didn't do anything wrong. My daughter didn't do anything wrong. I was able to watch the entire thing unfold. She didn't say anything wrong. She didn't do anything wrong. The guy pulls away not because of you. The guy pulls away because of him. Here's what actually happens in a lot of these situations. He will get excited. He'll feel the connection. He'll feel the chemistry, and in that moment of excitement, he starts sending these signals, right? He'll talk. He'll spend time. He'll invite you to hang out, just like this kid was inviting my daughter, hey, let's go over here. Let's go walk over here. Let's do that, and what happens is his level of interest, his level of excitement, he starts to think that he's communicating a level of interest that might actually be ahead of where he really is emotionally. It's like the next day, he wakes up, and he's like, oh, what if I overinvested? What if I sent her the wrong message that I'm way more emotionally invested than I actually am? And so if he feels off-balance that way, if he feels like he's over-signaled to you that maybe he set up an unreasonable expectation that now you wanna be exclusive with him, or he thinks that you think that he's falling in love with you or whatever that might be, and then he'll catch himself, and he looks at what he's put out there, and something inside of him says, put the brakes on. Like, dude, you need to balance this out. You over-signaled her. You're not ready to commit. You're not ready to be in this relationship. You're not ready to be exclusive. And so that part of him that says you're not ready says we need to balance the signals out and let her know that we're not ready for commitment, and that's when he'll go cold. That's when he'll pull back. That's when he'll say, oh, we need to create, we need to get this thing back into a level where I actually feel. And so ultimately, he likes you, but he doesn't want to be exclusive yet. There's chemistry there, but he's not certain that he wants to really dive in deep with you. Again, this isn't because of something that you did. It's simply because of where he is and his balancing act of trying to course-correct what he's signaled you. And in many cases, he over-corrects. And here's the honest part. His behavior is actually immature, and it's so important that we ground that because what a mature man does is he actually communicates to you. And he says, hey, I just want to let you know where I am at, what I'm feeling, and the connection that we're creating together. And he can know that about himself and he can communicate that clearly with you. The immature man panics and pulls back, or panics and disappears because he gets scared. He gets scared of how that conversation is going to go and what if he hurts your feelings and so on and so forth. So the question is never, what did I do wrong? The question is, what do I do now? And I've got three things that I'm going to share with you. I shared these three things with my daughter on the ride home, and it was so beautiful to watch her completely get it and not take it personal. And it was so empowering. So stay to the end because I'm going to share with you what her conclusion was. But what do you do about this? The first belief, the first principle that you really want to anchor in yourself is to separate your worth from the outcome of the interaction. So in other words, you want to hold this belief in your mind when it comes to love that it's really hard to screw up the right thing. Let me say that again. It is really hard to screw up the right thing. So in other words, if this was the person that is truly meant for you, if this relationship is supposed to unfold, then the connection that you have, whatever you said, whatever the conversation was, whatever the texts were, are not going to derail it. Your energy, if it's a little off, you're a little nervous, is not going to break that connection. One moment is not going to end it. The fact that he pulls away tells you something really, really important. It's not about your worth. It is all about him, his readiness, his emotional state, his level of interest because you know the right guy is going to be interested in you. So if he's not that interested, then that's a great signal, huh, this is probably not the right guy. So here's a way better question to sit with than what did I do wrong? If you're emotionally distraught about this, like it's really hitting you hard, great question to ask yourself that unlocks more empowerment is, what am I making this rejection mean about me that may not actually be true? Because when someone pulls away, we have this very human tendency to make it mean something about us. Like I'm too much or I'm not enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not interesting enough or there's something wrong with me. And I want you to challenge that story because almost always it is not true. It's not yours to carry. You are not the problem. His immaturity is the problem because he's not communicating clearly with you, openly, honestly with you. So you want to separate your worth from the outcome. The second principle that I invite you to really own and bring it into your whole system is this. Rejection is God's protection. In other words, it's this or something even better. It's like you're getting rejected for a reason. You're getting, another way to say it is, rejection is redirection or God's redirection. So in other words, this or something even better still. It's not the end of the story. This is you being guided to something even better still because really there's only two outcomes. You're either going to connect with this person or you're going to connect with somebody even better than this individual. I know it might sound like a cliche where one door closes, another one opens, but I can tell you over 15 years of coaching women in love, how many times one thing that they wanted didn't work out and it absolutely led them to something even better. So imagine in your mind that everything, every step, every experience, a date that doesn't go well, a guy that goes to you, everything that happens is happening for you, for your progress, moving you in the direction of the relationship that you ultimately want. So that's the belief. And then here's the question that can unlock the wisdom. How did this one experience move me closer to the relationship I actually want? What did I learn about what I need in this relationship? Or what did I learn about what I won't settle for? One more question, what did I learn about how I want to be treated? That's so powerful because every moment, every situation, as you get clearer on the answers to these questions, it helps make you a match for the kind of relationship that you're going to attract in your life. So remember, is this or something even better still? The third principle, and this may be the most important one, is it is okay to feel whatever it is you're feeling. Remember this, what you feel you can heal. The feelings are literally energy that want to move through you. And there can be the temptation, depending on how we were raised, to push the feelings down or to act tough or to try to convince us, oh, it didn't bother me, and they can act the way they want to act. But the idea is if you're feeling that feeling, the fastest way to actually transform that energy is to let yourself feel the emotion and then transform it. Now, there's a catch where you don't want to get stuck in the wallowing of the emotion, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about when that emotion is naturally welling up in us, the emotion of we feel sad or we feel scared or we feel discouraged because of whatever the situation is. Let yourself feel what it is that you're feeling. It's not weakness to do that. It actually takes courage to do that. And so here's a question that you can ask yourself to help yourself go into the feeling and then let yourself ride on that emotion and transform it. And the question is this. Close your eyes and sit with the question, what does my heart need to hear from me right now? And so it might be that you're feeling rejected. It might be that you're feeling the thought is, what if I'm not enough? And if I were better, it would have worked out better. And what your heart needs to hear from you is that, no, I am fully loved and accepted just the way that I am. I love and accept myself fully and completely. This isn't a message you need to hear from him. It's a message you're gonna give from yourself. Maybe your heart needs to hear that you did nothing wrong. Maybe it needs to hear you are so worth it. Maybe it needs to hear that you're proud of yourself for showing up regardless of how he showed up. Whatever your heart needs, say it. Give your heart that message. Allow yourself to feel the emotion because what you can feel, you can heal. So let me bring you back into this experience with my daughter, Bella, because that second night she was feeling the emotions and she was crying, and so I just hugged her and I said, it's okay to feel these emotions. Let them out. And so she cried. And the next day on the car ride home, she asked, dad, what did I do wrong? And I reminded her, Bella, you didn't do anything wrong. You are not the problem. He pulled away because he wasn't emotionally mature to have the conversation with you to say that maybe he got scared, that he over-invested, signaled that he liked you more than he really does and he doesn't want to be exclusive. He actually wants to just be friends. And she was like, I wish you would have said that. I was totally fine with just playing together. That's all I wanted to do. And so she said, well, what could I have done differently? And I said, the one thing you could have done is when you noticed him pulling away is to go have a direct conversation and call it out. And here's what's beautiful about it. That makes you the normal one. That helps show that you're the mature one, you're the grounded one, and he's the one who got weird. Where you go up to him and you say, hey, I noticed you're acting a lot different than you were yesterday and you're not wanting to hang out, which is totally cool. You don't have to hang out with me, but I just want you to know I don't expect anything. I'm just wanting to be friends and to hang out. So if you're up for that, I'd love to hang out. If not, it's totally cool. You can go do your own thing. And then let him respond to that. And then that helps clear the air. And if he gets weird after that, you know he's being the weird one and he's not emotionally mature enough to hang out with you. And so that's my message for you today is that you really receive that you're not the problem, you didn't screw it up, you're not broken, it wasn't because you weren't enough. If some guy's hot and then cold, it has everything to do with him. And just by having gone through that experience, you are one step closer to exactly what you are looking for. So my question for you is if this resonated with you, if you like this video, share it with somebody that you know might need it now or they might need it in the future, subscribe to this channel. And my question for you is what do you do that works for you if someone ghosts you or acts hot and then cold? I appreciate you. Here's to your amazing love life. Thanks for watching. I'll see you soon. ♪♪♪