Why we push then pull in relationships
Break free from this dysfunctional dating dynamic
“I want you … No, I don’t want you.”
“I fancy you like crazy … Urgh! I can’t stand the sight of you. ”
“Come close … No, stay away!”
Sound familiar?
This is how I dated for years, pulling then pushing, pushing then pulling, until the poor guy was so dizzy he had to sit down.
I was the queen of ambivalence. The master of mixed messages.
And the worst thing? I had no idea why I was doing it.
I remember one gorgeous Irish guy I dated. We went on a romantic getaway to his homeland. I couldn’t wait to fall into his arms and rip his clothes off. Extraordinarily tall with a rugby-player physique, he was my prince.
A week later, back in London, I couldn’t bear to look at his muscular white legs. I felt completely turned off. It was like someone had flipped a switch.
Like others before him, this lovely man was left wondering what on earth he’d done wrong.
Of course, he’d done nothing wrong, except perhaps choosing to get involved with me — a chronic commitment-phobe who was doing a great job of pretending she wasn’t.
You see, I craved love and affection with an insatiable hunger. I desperately wanted to be with someone, so I chased men, tracked them down, reeled them in.
Yet as soon as I got close to real emotional intimacy, to the very thing I thought I wanted, I got spooked and pushed them away.
When it came to sabotaging my romantic relationships, I had numerous ruses.
I would find fault with a guy who the day before could do no wrong, judging him on anything from the style of his shoes to the way he crunched his cornflakes.
Or I would make up reasons why the relationship could never work out.
Sometimes, I’d ask for a six-month break, because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by knocking it on the head. (Incidentally, stringing it out hurt his feelings even more). Other times, I’d use that tried and tested line, “It’s not me, it’s you”, to make my escape.
This push-pull dynamic pervaded all my romantic relationships, until I finally saw the light.
Bemused as to why all my relationships failed, I realised that I was the common denominator in every sorry case — and I began to do something about it.
To understand my present-day behaviour, I had to go right back to my past.
Early on in my childhood, perhaps even before I emerged from the womb, I didn’t feel safe.
I had shaky foundations, a deep sense that I wasn’t welcome, a notion that I’d done something wrong. These shaky foundations left me ill-equipped to deal with the challenges that would follow: a mother who struggled with her own emotional and mental health; a father who felt distant even before he moved out; and my parents’ separation and subsequent divorce.
My late Mum and Dad, bless them, did the best they could with the tools they were given, but sadly their toolbox was missing some vital instruments.
I still remember the day my dad sat me on his knee and told me he was leaving the family home. In that moment, my little heart broke and, deep in my subconscious, I made two life-changing decisions:
- I’m not lovable (how could I be if Dad was leaving?) so I must not let any other man know me or see me fully because they’re bound to reject me and abandon me.
- Love equals excruciating pain and unbearable hurt so I must never get close to a man again. From now on, my guard will stay up.
These two decisions set me up for decades of love addiction and love avoidance. I kept men at a distance, making sure I had one foot in the relationship and the other firmly wedged in the door so I could scarper at any moment.
I also kept men at arm’s length by compulsively overeating from my late teens to my early 30s — the extra layer of fat acted as a buffer. Plus, if I hated myself, who was going to love me?
And I kept guys at bay by criticising them and finding fault.
Yet at the same time, the child inside me desperately wanted to be fully seen and fully known, and she longed to be loved more than anything else, hoping that new love would replace what she had lost and soothe those early wounds.
Once I understood this, once I understood why I pulled people in and then pushed them away, I could start to date differently.
When I found myself finding fault with my boyfriend, I’d see it for what it was — my fear of intimacy was leading me to sabotage my chances of finding love — and I’d try and silence the critical voice.
When I found myself listing reasons why the relationship wouldn’t work out, I’d ask myself the crucial question: is this my intuition or is this my fear that’s telling me to leave?
It was hard to find the answer, but the very fact that I was asking the question gave me a better chance of making a healthy choice than ever before.
I put my newfound knowledge and self-awareness into practice and, following a few bumps in the road and some meandering turns, I found healthy love and committed to a relationship in my forties.
I married him at 48.
This marriage is, perhaps, the greatest achievement of my life.
I’m still amazed that I found the courage to understand my fears of commitment and intimacy and to walk through those fears, albeit after a fair amount of flip-flopping. The push-pull dynamic dominated the early years of our courtship. In fact, I walked away from him three times. But then I came back and I stayed. Thank goodness.
So that’s my complicated love story. Now over to you.
If you can relate to what I’ve written and get stuck in the push-pull dynamic yourself, please know two things:
- You’re not alone (there’s safety in numbers).
- There is hope, if you want to change.
You may have to do some more “work on yourself” (don’t you love that expression?) or start your self-discovery journey if you haven’t yet begun.
You may need to explore some deep wounds and process some buried grief.
You may need to face some big fears and make some courageous choices.
And almost certainly, you’re going to need a fair bit of support, which will require being vulnerable and asking for help — hard if we’ve experienced abandonment.
But, whatever your desired outcome, be it marriage, a loving partnership or simply the knowledge that you are no longer hurting yourself or hurting others, it will all be worth it.
Katherine Baldwin is the author of How to Fall in Love, a love, dating and relationships coach and a midlife mentor, empowering others to love themselves, love their lives and find love through her writing, speaking and coaching. She is a former international journalist, having worked for Reuters, Bloomberg, the Guardian and other media and her writing on relationships has been widely published in the UK press. Katherine lives on England’s south coast with her husband and cocker spaniel and swims in the sea as often as she can.
You can sign up to Katherine’s Love Letters here: www.katherinebaldwin.com
