Member-only story
Do You Recognize the Warning Signs of Pursuer-Distancer Relationship Patterns?
It’s not healthy in the long-term
Have you ever felt like you were chasing your partner to get them to spend time with you? Or maybe you felt like your partner was super clingy and wanting to spend way more time with you than you wanted with them? Or maybe it’s not time, but affection. Or attention.
We all go through phases in our relationships where we might want a little more or less time, attention, or affection with our partners, but generally, a healthy relationship includes two partners who want basically the same amount of these things together.
Many relationships run into trouble because one partner seeks more closeness while the other seeks more distance. It’s a cycle that psychologists call a pursuer-distancer dynamic.
Typically, during the initial infatuation stage, you both want to spend as much as time as possible together. Then, reality sets in. One partner feels like they’re not getting enough attention, and the other feels suffocated. The more the pursuer clings and nags, the more the distancer criticizes and pulls away.
To make things more complicated, the roles can sometimes change during the course of the relationship. For example, when the pursuer decides to move on…
