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I Pushed Her Away and Now She Moved On. What Now?

I Pushed Her Away and Now She Moved On. What Now?

So you found the woman you want to be with, but it didn’t work out. Maybe you had a fight. Words were exchanged. House keys were given back. Now she’s with someone else. You could definitely blame her for being “crazy” or say you “weren’t into her” (and let’s be honest, that’s your official story). But when your head hits the pillow at night, you can’t help but admit the truth: I pushed her away and now she moved on.

Ouch. That’s hard to deal with. And I won’t lie to you: It probably is your fault.

I’m not saying that to make you feel worse. But I believe in being real with people because nothing good ever comes from sugarcoating the truth.



Underneath it all, if you really feel that you pushed her away, then you probably did. And that’s bad… because imagine if a woman you really loved did that to you? What if you had been all excited and trying to get closer to her, only to have her ignore your texts, snap at you without warning, and generally act like she doesn’t care? It would be devastating.

So now that you know how you’ve been treating people, it’s time to cut that out. Like, right now. I want you to read this article carefully. You need to learn to recognize what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Otherwise, valuable women will keep slipping away.

Chances are, your attachment style is behind your tendency to push people away. Don’t know what attachment styles are? So glad you asked. Keep reading to find out. I’ll show you how knowing your attachment style can help, as well as other ways you can stop pushing women away for good.

Attachment Styles, 101

Let’s talk about attachment.

When we’re born, we’re innocent babies who have needs. We need the adults caring for us to meet those needs… so we cry out to get their attention. Similar story when we’re toddlers: We scream for our parents, whether it’s because we’re wet, hungry, or just want them to notice us.

Problem is, adults don’t always respond in healthy ways. Sure, many parents will respond immediately, and with love. But others don’t.

When you are raised by parents who don’t meet your needs as a child, you develop what’s called an insecure attachment style. That means you learn to cope by using all kinds of negative behaviors and patterns of thinking.

But if you were raised by parents who did meet your needs, you develop a secure attachment style. Your parents were reliable, so you didn’t have to resort to anything crazy.

Attachment theory was introduced by psychiatrist John Bowlby and refined by psychologist Mary Ainsworth by the 1970s. Since then, it’s been a popular way to look at how we act with other adults in relationships.

Why? Because our attachment behaviors follow us into adulthood. How you acted as a kid toward your parents is likely similar to how you treat others in relationships today.

So let’s take a look at the four attachment styles. See if any of these sound familiar.



The Three Attachment Styles

Secure

Your parents met your needs consistently and reliably when you were a child. Because of that, you have faith that people will always show up for you now. You believe you are worthy of love and expect your romantic partners to treat you with respect.

In return, you do the same for them. You also don’t have much patience when someone won’t open up to you. You’re comfortable with being vulnerable and only seek out partners who are, too.

Anxious

Your parents met your needs… but only sometimes. Otherwise, they were nowhere to be found or responded negatively. This left you with an uneasy feeling. You never really felt you could rely on your parents. That’s why, in relationships today, you still don’t trust your partners.

You feel like they won’t give you what you need unless you do the same thing you did to get your parents’ attention — cling, manipulate, complain, and otherwise be a pain in the ass until they finally give in.

Avoidant

Your parents responded negatively when you expressed your needs (or sadly not at all). It’s hard to describe what this does to a poor little kid’s heart. Disappointing and painful, to say the least.

So if this was you, most likely you learned to push your parents away. It’s much easier not to care. You got so good at pushing people away, you kept doing it as an adult. When someone tries to get close to you now, you instinctively reject them. You don’t want to risk getting close.

There’s much more to be said on this subject. If you want to know your own attachment style, I encourage you to take this quiz.

Now that you know the three attachment styles — and you’ve admitted to yourself that “I pushed her away and now she moved on” — which style do you think you are?

That’s right… avoidant.

More About “Avoidants”

If you’re an avoidant attachment style, that doesn’t mean your parents were abusive. It could mean that, but they also might have just been emotionally unavailable. Either way, that’s devastating to a child.

According to the folks at The Attachment Project, many avoidants had parents who simply became more distant the more emotional any situation became. So when you went to your parents for love, approval, or affection, they just couldn’t give it.

So you learned to withdraw in order to protect yourself. You fell into one of two types of avoidant patterns: dismissive or fearful.



Dismissives are committed to keeping their distance from others emotionally. Inside, they regard themselves highly and don’t rely on anyone for support. To the outside world, they look like they have it all together. But when it comes to relationships, they always bail when things get too intimate.

As kids, dismissives were often left to fend for themselves. They had to rely on their own resources to get by… and so they did.

If you are dismissive, you probably:

Outwardly project high self-esteem, even though it masks low self-esteem
Prefer isolation
Avoid physical affection
Believe you don’t need people
Don’t like expressing your private feelings or thoughts

Fearful avoidants are also called “disorganized” because they actually flip between the anxious and dismissive styles depending on who they’re relating to. In other words, they don’t have a consistent way of coping.

As children, the person who should have been their biggest source of safety instead became a source of fear. The parent may have abused them, or been abused in front of them, for example. Still, unlike dismissives, they want to be close to others… they’re just afraid to be.

If you’re fearful-avoidant, you probably:

Desperately desire love, but expect to be rejected
Act in ways that will make your partner reject you (self-fulfilling prophecy)
Seek out faults in your partners (gives you an excuse to leave)
Express conflicting feelings in relationships (I want you, but I’m afraid to get hurt)

If any of this resonates with you, then it’s time to think about solutions, don’tcha think?

How to Stop Being Avoidant

To stop being avoidant, you’ll need to move into secure attachment. The good news is, this can be done. The bad news is, it’ll take some work (but it’s worth it).

The biggest key to getting over avoidant attachment is getting comfortable with intimacy. Sharing your feelings is the last thing you want to do, but you need to learn how.

The first step you can take is to get familiar with your feelings, period. What do you feel? How do your feelings show up in your body?

Try techniques like meditation, self-reflection, and journaling to get your emotions to surface. Then sit with them for a while. Get curious and ask more questions. See if your emotions actually fall into patterns. Document that if you can.



Also, ask yourself what you need — from other people and situations. This will help you bring up more feelings that may have been suppressed (after all, you’re used to not getting your needs met by others).

At some point, you’ll need to start opening up to other people and developing closer relationships. This is where I advise that you work with a therapist or a coach to guide you.

For example, as a coach, I help my clients work through avoidant attachment often. I used to be predominantly avoidant but was able to find secure attachment through MegaDating and my 100-Date Experiment.

Yes, MegaDating Can Help

MegaDating is the practice of dating multiple people at one time. In today’s world of online dating (and the practices I teach in my private and group coaching programs) it’s actually not that hard.

When you date multiple people at once, you can avoid getting wrapped up in a relationship before you’re emotionally ready. Instead, you keep dating casually until you’ve hit your goal, so you never jump into anything too soon.

An example of a goal I set for my clients is to go on 20 dates in 90 days. Sounds ambitious, I know… but it can be done. It’s what I teach.

I honestly don’t recommend getting into a relationship before you’ve gone on 20 dates, which is why I tell my clients how to explain that upfront and honestly to the women they’re dating so they can manage expectations and not wind up with clingers or stalkers.

By MegaDating, your relationships progress naturally without the pressure of a fast timeline, which is helpful for avoidants.

Still Curious? Read This Book

One of the best books on attachment theory, in my opinion, is Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. It’ll help you understand both yourself and the women you date.

Attached goes deeply into how to recognize attachment styles, based on real science and super-clear examples. It also includes exercises to help you get to the root of your own patterns and those of your partner — all in easy-to-read, layman’s terms.

It’ll also show you how different attachment styles interact. Did you know, for example, that avoidants and anxious styles tend to pair up? That’s because they each give the other partner an excuse to play out their preferred attachment style even more.

In other words, the avoidant can complain about the anxious partner being too “clingy,” giving them a real excuse to pull away. Likewise, the anxious partner has an excuse to cling and complain because their avoidant partner really does ignore them.



Fascinating stuff! I highly recommend you give it a read.

I Pushed Her Away and Now She Moved On: Wrap-Up

Having the realization, “I pushed her away and now she moved on” isn’t easy. It haunts you to think that you gave up a good woman for reasons that you don’t even understand. It can literally be enough to make you want to stop dating for a while.

But you need to give yourself credit for one thing: You recognized the problem. Unlike many other people, you are not so disconnected from yourself that you can’t see where your problems lie.

Being unaware of your issues could keep you away from relationships forever, but instead, you were able to stick your head out from under the muck and see things for how they are.

That’s an incredible gift. Let that self-awareness motivate you to do the inner work necessary to shift your attachment style. I guarantee you’ll be glad you did. I know this from experience. To be honest, I can’t imagine where I’d be relationship-wise if I hadn’t healed my attachment issues.

Are you ready to do the same? If so, I can help you. In my coaching and matchmaking programs, we will identify the attitudes and behaviors that have been holding you back. My knowledge and background in working with insecure attachment can help us focus on exactly what you need in your sessions.

Soon, you’ll be ready for primetime… and MegaDating at a level you never thought possible. Set up an intro call with me or one of my colleagues today so we can get started.

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