Do you find…
…That you feel anxious or ill at ease at the prospect that your partner wants to discuss a difficult issue with you?
…That your partner seems to raise concerns with you in an angry or frustrated manner all the time?
…That you expect your partner to never stop asking you questions, or he/she seems to repeatedly try to talk about issues no matter what you say or do in response?
…That you feel increasingly frustrated by your partners’ tendency to be angry or demanding when raising issues they see as problems? That your partner just can’t seem to ‘get over it’?
…That sometimes you ‘lose your cool’ and find yourself yelling at your partner, because you feel like your partner backs you into a corner?
Then it may be that you’re a ‘withdrawer’
Like Pursuers, Withdrawing individuals tend to feel that issues never seem to get resolved effectively (or at least they don’t seem to get solved effectively as far as the other person is concerned). Withdrawers can feel that their partner is smothering or too intense and easily upset. They can also feel anxious at the prospect of discussing difficult issues with their partner because of the anger or frustration that complicated concerns seem to trigger in their relationship.
When conflict has been unresolved for a long time Withdrawers may exercise great efforts to avoid problems. Sometimes this can include pacifying behaviours designed to disarm their partner. Such pacifying can include agreeing to a course of action but not following through when the time comes (agreeing in the moment avoids conflict). If this dynamic seems to apply to each of you then Emotion Focussed Therapy (EFT) may be a powerful approach to help both of you understand what triggers your withdrawal or defensive responses that seems to characterise your interactions. Emotion Focussed Therapy can help couples create a new style of interactions that enable them to negotiate and manage their differences more effectively.