Why Someone Pulling Away Can Hurt More Than Rejection, and How to Take Back Its Power
Matthew Hussey
Rejection is the thing most people fear in dating. In this video, Matthew Hussey asks whether something feels even worse: the slow, ambiguous experience of someone pulling away. Hussey argues that the uncertainty is what makes it so painful. The anxious response it triggers pulls our attention away from whether the person is right for us and toward how to win them back. In a conversation with Gabby Bernstein, and then in an exercise of Hussey's own, the video suggests that the intensity of these feelings often has less to do with the person than it seems.
Why This Topic Draws Such Attention
Hussey notes that a YouTube search turns up hundreds of videos about people pulling away, and that his own videos on the subject have views in the millions. He offers two reasons it has become such a widespread experience.
First, pulling away is easier than ever. People can slowly disconnect and disengage without ever explaining themselves. Second, he says that at least half the time we are dealing with someone who is too afraid to show they care, in a culture where nobody seems to care, and who will never actually say anything about it.
The "Standard Recipe" for Pulling Away
With some humor, Hussey lays out what he calls a recipe everyone knows, has felt, and may even have followed:
- Stop making plans for the next time you'll see the person.
- Make the gap between texts a little longer each time.
- Perform what he calls "linguistic extraction": use fewer words in each message.
- Mix and repeat until the other person has nothing left to latch on to.
For an "extra fancy" version, he adds, you sprinkle in confusing signals such as viewing their stories and occasionally liking their posts.
Why Uncertainty Is Worse Than a Clear Ending
Hussey says we obsess over what to do when someone pulls away because we have no idea what it means or how to respond. In some ways that uncertainty makes it harder than an outright rejection.
He describes how this plays out for people who are anxiously inclined. They notice when someone takes longer to reply but can't tell whether the person is really pulling away or whether they're overthinking it. Sometimes the reply is quick and positive but short and disengaged. You text, "Last night was really fun," and get back, "Haha, yes it was." Hussey captures the confusion: what are you supposed to do with that? Does it mean the person is busy today, or is this the beginning of the end? We don't know. What we do know, he says, is that hypervigilance picks up on everything, and the experience is "genuine torture."
What Emotional Reactivity Feels Like
Hussey shares answers he received after asking on Instagram, "What areas of your life do you feel your emotional reactivity gets the better of you?"
One person named texting, conflict, and rejection and described physical symptoms: a tight chest, an upset stomach, a racing heart, and an inability to function or think clearly. They said they felt a little crazy, "completely discombobulated and overwhelmed."
Another wrote that when the man they were seeing took ages to respond or didn't message regularly, their brain went into overdrive and they couldn't enjoy life. They called it a nightmare and said they try to keep busy so they don't freak out.
A third described a fling with a coworker about three years earlier. They always text first, and he always replies quickly and warmly, sometimes with a little kiss, which makes them feel he cares to a degree. But they are left hanging and wanting more, and he never gives it. They constantly check his "last seen" and "last online," wonder who else he's talking to, and wish they could be more detached. They added that they think they fell a little bit in love with him.
Not Everyone Who Pulls Away Is a Villain
Hussey says it wouldn't be fair to paint everyone who pulls away in a bad light. Being on the receiving end can cause immense suffering, but the person pulling away isn't always doing something terribly wrong, manipulative, or ill-intentioned. Sometimes they are, but not always. He describes three kinds of motivation:
- Not wanting to seem mean. Most people don't want to be the bad guy, so they stay polite, warm, and friendly. They never go far enough for anything to progress, because they aren't trying to progress anything.
- Not thinking about it much. Early on, perhaps after one great date, the other person may not feel they owe an explanation or a clear ending, because in their mind there is no "situation." They may be dating around, and to them it's obvious that if they do nothing more, nothing more is happening. Meanwhile, the person on the other side is looking for closure. Hussey calls this very common.
- Selfish or manipulative behavior. Some people pull away but keep sending small messages or visibly checking your social media so they can keep you in their life and pick you back up later when it suits them.
Whatever the intention, Hussey says, the effect on the person left behind can be psychologically harmful.
How Anxiety Replaces the Real Question
For many people, Hussey argues, someone pulling away is a triggering event. The question we should be asking is whether this person is actually right for us. Instead we become hyperfocused on how to get them and secure them.
He recalls an extreme example. Someone once told him, "I just need someone to really like me and then I can decide if I like them." Hussey calls this "the voice of anxiety out loud": the desire to feel safe before deciding how we feel about a person. In his words, anxiety wants safety over compatibility.
He points out that if we actually felt secure with someone, we would probably have normal questions about whether they were right for us and whether we really wanted them. That questioning is a normal part of getting to know someone. Pulling away is so painful because it shuts off that calm assessment. We spiral instead, feeling not good enough, asking why we aren't good enough, and scheming to get their attention back as if nothing mattered more. He adds a general observation: anything taken away from us tends to become artificially important because we can no longer have it.
Hussey also notes that we can usually see this logic clearly when a friend or family member is going through it. When it happens to us, we feel lost, as if our body and mind have been hijacked. That leads to the central question: what do we do when we're hijacked by someone pulling away?
Gabby Bernstein: A Young, Exiled Part That Gets Activated
To answer this, Hussey spoke with Gabby Bernstein, whom he describes as having focused in recent years on how people can become their own inner healer. He frames this as especially relevant when it feels like the only way to feel better is for this person to choose us, and they aren't choosing us.
Asked what happens when someone pulls away and that person suddenly becomes the most important person in the world, Bernstein says a part of us becomes highly activated. It is a young, "exiled" part that was abandoned, didn't get the attention it deserved, or didn't receive the support it needed from a caregiver at a delicate age. The protective reaction that follows is to cling and make it work: stay in the relationship, don't lose the connection. In that state of mind, Bernstein says, losing the connection feels "like death."
Disappointment vs. a Childhood Trigger
Hussey pushes back with a common objection. Some people don't feel their reaction traces back to anything earlier. They'd say they genuinely like this person, had an amazing date, and felt the first great connection in a long time, so their high hopes have simply been dashed. Is that still about something else?
Bernstein distinguishes between disappointment and a childhood trigger. Disappointment happens when we got excited about something, felt a bond (perhaps after sex and the rush of bonding hormones such as oxytocin), and then it didn't work out. That, she says, is just life.
The second case is people carrying a core wound of not having love or attachment, of feeling inadequate, unlovable, or unsafe. What they seek in the connection is safety. So when the relationship ends or becomes shaky, Bernstein says, it brings "full terror" inside, and they will do whatever it takes to get the relationship back.
Bernstein's Four Steps for the Hijacked Moment
Hussey asks what someone should do if they are watching the video right now, unable to stop thinking about the person and wondering every waking moment whether they'll text or things will pick up again. Bernstein says she can help that person right now and walks through a process.
First, turn attention inward, notice the hijacked part, and get curious about it. Where does it live in the body? What do I know about it? How old is it? Are there thoughts, feelings, or sensations attached to it? Once there is some connection, become compassionate and ask it, "What do you need?" Then listen, breathe into the place where it lives, and give it presence. Afterward, check how you feel. Do you feel more connected, more curious, calmer, clearer, a bit more courageous? Bernstein says that if even "a molecule" of calm, connection, creativity, or compassion is present, the self, that inner wisdom, is helping, and you can simply repeat the process.
She summarizes it as four steps:
- Choose to check in. Instead of checking out by texting over and over, calling repeatedly, calling every friend, or ruminating, focus your attention inward.
- Curiosity. Ask where the feeling lives, what you know about it, and what it wants to tell you.
- Compassion and connection. Ask the part what it needs.
- Check for the "C qualities" of self. Are you calmer, more confident, more courageous, clearer, more connected? Do you have creative energy or compassion toward this part of yourself?
If any one of those qualities shows up, Bernstein says, "you've started healing."
Hussey's Exercise: "You're Not Special"
After the interview, Hussey offers his own reframe. He says there is something powerful in recognizing that our feelings are bigger than the person we have them about, and that this is almost certainly not the first time we've felt them. The pain feels immediate and specific to this person, but it comes from somewhere else. Whether we know where that somewhere is doesn't really matter, he says. What matters is realizing that the person's importance is not what's causing the intensity of our feelings.
He then guides the viewer through an exercise. Picture the person who pulled away, the one you feel indescribably anxious or hurt about. Imagine moving the center of your pain from them to your past. Hussey says this alone drains much of their potency. Then imagine saying to them, in essence: you're not special; you're one of a long line of people who have triggered this feeling in me; there's nothing new about it; I'm quite capable of producing this feeling with someone else; my mind told me you were impossible to ignore, but you're entirely replaceable; you're not the first and won't be the last, so these feelings don't deserve special importance. Hussey encourages viewers to try it and notice how strangely liberating it feels.
He clarifies that this doesn't mean denying you had a good, or even great, time with the person. It means recognizing that the extreme fear, anxiety, and sense of unworthiness, along with an inability to tolerate not knowing what comes next, don't belong to this person. They belong to something deeper inside us and further in the past.
Conclusion: Healing Is in Our Control
Hussey closes by acknowledging that facing our past wounds, and how they've left us vulnerable to this kind of pain, may feel disempowering at first. He argues that it actually gives us power. It lets us look at whoever has hijacked our mind and say, in his words, "What's important about this is not you. It's what's happening in my mind." However chaotic the mind may be, he says, it can heal, and that healing is within our control.
There is one thing most people universally fear in dating, and that is rejection. But is there something that feels even worse? If you do a quick search on YouTube, you will find hundreds of videos on the subject of people pulling away. The view counts on my videos alone on this topic are in the millions. Why is this such a searched phenomenon?
For one thing, today more than ever, it is easy for people to pull away. We can slowly disconnect and disengage without ever explaining ourselves. And we know that 50% of the time, if not more, we are dealing with someone who is too afraid to show they care in a culture where no one seems to care, and that they won't ever actually say anything about it.
There's a standard recipe for pulling away. We all know it. We've felt it. We may have even done it. You start by not making plans for the next time you're going to see someone. Then start making the time in between your texts a little bit longer with each text. Third, perform linguistic extraction whereby you decrease the word count in each message you send. Mix and repeat until the person on the other side no longer has anything to latch on to to continue the conversation anymore. And if you want to be extra fancy, pepper your communication with a few confusing signals by viewing their stories and occasionally liking their posts.
The reason we obsess over what to do when someone pulls away is because of the complete uncertainty about what it means and what we should do. And it is that uncertainty that makes it in some ways harder than a straight-up rejection.
If you are anxiously inclined, then you start to notice if someone is taking longer to respond. You may not know why they're taking longer to respond, but you notice, and you don't know if they're actually pulling away or if you're overthinking it. Or maybe you send them a text and you're used to a certain kind of message back. But this time, although they respond quickly and positively, their message is short and they don't fully engage. You say, "Last night was really fun." And they say, "Haha, yes it was." And you're like, "Well, what the—do I do with that message?" Does this mean they're busy today, or are we sensing the beginning of the end? We just don't know. What we do know is that our hypervigilance picks up on everything, and it is genuine torture.
No, not the buttons. Not my gumdrop button.
When I recently asked the question on Instagram, "What areas of your life do you feel your emotional reactivity gets the better of you?" here's what people said. "These feelings show up for me in situations like texting, conflict, rejection. I literally feel it in my body. My chest gets tight, my stomach gets upset, and my heart rate goes through the roof. I can't function or think clearly. It feels like I'm going loita, a little crazy, completely discombobulated and overwhelmed. It can be really intense."
Another person said, "If the guy I'm seeing takes ages to respond or doesn't message regularly, my brain goes into overdrive and I can't enjoy life. As dramatic as that sounds, it is a nightmare. I'm really trying to navigate it and make myself busy so that I don't freak out because it is so difficult."
And then another person said, "I had a fling with a coworker about three years ago. I text him first and he always replies very quickly and warmly, gives a little kiss, makes me feel like he's caring to a degree, but I'm left hanging and wanting more. He never gives it, and I'm constantly checking my phone and looking at his last seen and last online, wondering who else he's talking to, getting stressed, and overthinking and wishing I could be more detached. I think I fell a little bit in love with him."
I don't think it's fair for this to be a video painting a poor picture of everybody who pulls away. Because in truth, although pulling away can be very, very painful and cause an immense amount of suffering for us when we're on the receiving end, the person who's doing the pulling away isn't always doing something terribly wrong, manipulative, or badly intentioned. Sometimes they are, but not always.
Don't tell him anything.
So, why do people do it? On one hand, people don't want to be mean most of the time. So, they try to respond in a way that makes them not seem like the bad person. So, they're polite, they're warm, they're friendly, but they never go far enough for things to actually progress because they're not trying to progress anything.
The second reason is that they're not thinking about it too hard. Maybe it's very early stage. You had a great date together, but they don't necessarily feel they owe an explanation or a definitive ending to the situation because they don't feel there is a situation. Maybe they're dating around and they don't even think about it in these terms because it's obvious to them that if they don't do anything more, nothing more is happening. But from our side, we're looking for closure. This is a very common situation.
And lastly, you have that group of people who are on the more selfish and even manipulative end of the spectrum who pull away but continue to send you little messages or check your social media in a way that you can see so that they can keep you in their lives and pick you back up at a later date when it suits them. Whatever is the case and however well-intentioned or badly intentioned someone may be, it can have a really harmful effect on us psychologically.
While we are on the subject of managing our emotions and our emotional reactivity, I have something coming up later this month that I know so many of you are going to be excited about. It is perfect for you if you feel like you are at the mercy of the behaviors of someone else in your life or other people in general, and you feel like your brain and your emotions are constantly hijacked in a way that you cannot control.
It is called the CALM Method, and it is a free three-day event that I am doing from the 29th of September until the 1st of October, where I'm going to be sharing with you a three-step process that I have used for the majority of my adult life anytime I feel myself losing control of my emotions and I want to put myself back in control. It is simple. It is easy to use. It is powerful. And anyone who knows me will tell you this is something I use daily in my life.
Until now, I've only shared this on my retreat to the people who come and see me on that program, but I'm going to share it with all of you as a one-time-only event in the CALM Method on the 29th of September. You can sign up for free by going to 3DayCalm.com, and I will send you the reminders so that you do not miss it on the day.
And by the way, when you join, you will have the chance to join a free community of people all going through this at the same time. If you joined us for Five Days to Mend a couple of months ago, you already know how that works. Thousands of people adored that event. This is going to feel very much the same. So, come and join us for this one, too. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait. I want the whole community there.
When someone pulls away, for many of us, it is a very triggering event. We are no longer focused on the thing that we should be focused on, which is whether someone is actually right for us. We are suddenly hyperfocused instead on how we can get them, how we can secure them.
I once saw an extreme version of this where someone confessed to me, "I just need someone to really like me and then I can decide if I like them." This is like the voice of anxiety out loud. The desire to feel safe before we worry about making up our mind on a person. Anxiety wants safety over compatibility. But we have to remember that if we actually did feel safe with someone, if we felt we had them, we would likely have questions as to whether they were actually right for us, whether we really wanted them. That's normal in the process of getting to know someone.
And that is why someone pulling away is so painful. We're no longer calmly assessing whether someone's right or wrong for us. We are instead spiraling anxiously, not feeling good enough for them, wondering why we're not good enough for them, and coming up with ways to get their attention back, as if getting their attention back is the most important thing in the world. Never forget that anything in life that gets taken away from us has a way of becoming artificially important to us because we can't have it anymore.
But why is it so hard for us to see any of this logic when we're in it? We're good at rationalizing these things for a friend or a family member who's going through something like this. But when it's us, we just feel lost in it. It's like our body and our mind have been hijacked. What do we do when we get hijacked by someone pulling away?
I sat down with Gabby Bernstein, who has turned her attention in recent years to how we can become our own inner healer. And this is perfect for situations where we feel like the only way we're going to feel better is by this person choosing us and they are not choosing us. So we are just stuck in this hellish loop. How can we become our own self-healer in these situations and get ourselves back to a place of calm?
What is happening when someone pulls away and we feel ourselves get triggered and all of a sudden this person just becomes the most important person in the world to us?
It is a part of us that's super activated. A young part that's a young exiled part of us that was abandoned, didn't feel like we were getting the attention that we deserve, didn't have the support from the caregiver that we really needed at that delicate young time. And that's the part that's triggered. But then the protection mechanism is go fawn, cling, make it happen, stay in the relationship, don't lose that connection. Because if you lose that connection in your mind, it's like death.
Are there different versions of this for different people? For some people, they won't even know or they won't have this sense that this traces back to something from before. They're just like, "No, no, no. I really like this person. I've had an amazing date with this person. This was the first great connection I've felt in a long time. So where this comes from for me is I just had such high hopes for this and all of a sudden those hopes are dashed." So for them, it's like their brain is telling them, "No, no, it really is this person that I feel like I had an amazing connection with." Does it still go back to something else?
I think there's a big difference between disappointment and a childhood trigger. The disappointment is we have experiences where we got really psyched about something. We thought it was going in the right direction. We felt that bond. Maybe you had sex and had all the oxytocin, whatever was going on. There was bonding hormones and then it deads. It doesn't work out and you're super disappointed. That's just life.
Then there's the folks that have that core wound of not having the love, not having the attachment, feeling inadequate, unlovable, not safe because they didn't have it. And so what are they seeking in that bond, in that connection, is safety. So when that relationship ends or is wobbly, it's full terror. It's a full terror inside. And so then they will do whatever it takes to make that relationship come back.
So what is the answer to that moment where you feel fully hijacked? A person is there. They're in that state. They're like, "Watching this video now, I cannot stop thinking about this person. I cannot get them off my mind. Every waking moment, I'm just thinking about whether they're going to text me, whether it's going to pick up again."
I want to help that person right now. I can help them right now. They're watching. They press play. They're hijacked. There is a moment right now where they can check inside and focus their attention inward and notice that part of themselves that's hijacked and become curious about it and just ask some questions and notice, "Where does it live in my body, and what do I know about it? How old is it? Are there any thoughts or feelings or sensations that might be attached to it?"
And once they have a little bit of a connection to that part, they can become compassionate and ask, "What do you need?" And listen, listen to the part, and then breathe into that space where it's living inside and just give it some presence and check in and see how do you feel. Do you feel a little bit more connected to it? Do you feel more curious? Do you want to know some more about it? Do you feel calmer? Do you feel clearer? Do you feel a little bit more courage? And if even a molecule of that calmness or connection or creativity or compassion, even if a molecule is there, Self is helping them, that Self-energy, that wisdom inside is helping them.
And so it's rinse and repeat. These are four steps. Choose to check in. So instead of checking out and texting, texting, texting or psycho calling or calling every friend or ruminating, that's checking out. You check in instead. And so you focus your attention inside. That's the first step.
Curiosity is the second step. Becoming curious, where does it live inside? What do I know about it? What does it want to tell me? And then compassion and connection. It's just asking, "What do you need?" And then the final step is check for those C qualities of Self. So you check, am I calm? Am I a little bit more confident, a little bit more courageous, a little bit more clear, connected? Do I have some creative energy? Do I have compassion towards this part of me? Any one of those C qualities, if they show up, you've started healing.
There's something really powerful about recognizing that the feelings we are having are bigger than the person we are having them about and that this situation is almost certainly not the first time we have felt these feelings, which suggests something important that holds the key to our feeling better. This pain, the one that feels so immediate, so important in the moment, so specific to this person, comes from somewhere else.
Now, we may know where that place is or we may not. It doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is this: that we look at whoever appears to be causing us so much turmoil right now and realize that it's not their importance that is causing the intensity of our feelings.
So, try something with me. Place in your mind for a moment that person who pulled away. That person you feel indescribably anxious or hurt over. Picture moving the center of your pain from them to your past. Already when you do that, you take away so much of their potency. Then imagine yourself turning to them and saying, "You're not special. You are another in a long line of people that have triggered this feeling in me. There is nothing new about this feeling. If there's one thing I've learned in my life is that I am quite capable of reproducing this feeling with somebody else. So while my mind has told me that you are unignorably important, you are in fact entirely replaceable. You are not the first and you will not be the last. So I don't need to give these feelings I'm having about you any special importance."
Try it and feel how strangely liberating this is. And this doesn't mean denying that you had a good time with someone, maybe even a great time. It just means recognizing that these extreme feelings of fear, anxiety, and unworthiness, along with our intolerance of the uncertainty of what will happen next, do not belong with this person. They belong to something deeper in the past and deeper inside us.
Making contact with our past wounds and the way they have made us susceptible to this kind of pain may seem disempowering at first, but it's actually the thing that empowers us to look at whoever has hijacked our brain and say, "What's important about this is not you. It's what's happening in my mind." And no matter how chaotic my mind might be, it can heal. And that healing is in my
Control. This is exactly the kind of work that we are going to be doing together in The CALM Method starting September the 29th. If you have not signed up yet, go do it now at 3DayCalm.com. It's completely free. It's going to be an amazing process we're going to go through together.
And thank you as always for watching this video. Leave me a comment. Let me know what you think. And if you enjoyed this video and you want to see a video that pairs beautifully with this, like a gorgeous cheese with fine wine, check out this video next.
Delicious.
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