Oh, I’m really glad you brought this one up, because this is one of the most painful and confusing dynamics a person can find themselves in, and it almost never gets talked about with the nuance it deserves.
What you’re describing, the push-pull, the “come here, go away” loop, I call this the Disorganized Loop. And I want you to hear this clearly: it is not a character flaw. It is not toxicity. It is a nervous system doing something incredibly sophisticated to survive an impossible situation.
Here is what’s actually happening underneath it. The person caught in this loop is carrying high levels of both wounds at the same time. They carry a deep fear of abandonment, that terrible ache of “you’re going to leave me, you don’t really want me.” AND they carry an equally deep fear of rejection, that shame-soaked dread of “if you get too close, you’ll see I’m not enough and you’ll pull away anyway.”
So when you reach toward them, both alarms go off at once.
They genuinely need you close. And closeness genuinely terrifies them.
It sounds like: “Why are you never there for me? But wait, that was too much, I need space.”
That is not manipulation. That is a nervous system that learned, usually very early in life, that the person who was supposed to be your safe harbor was also the source of your greatest pain. Safety and danger got wired together. So the partner becomes both the solution AND the threat simultaneously.
Living inside that is what I’d describe as a kind of internal torture chamber. And being with someone in that pattern, reaching out only to have the connection withdrawn, can be absolutely destabilizing.
Here’s what matters most for you to understand, whether you’re the one in the push-pull or the one loving someone in it:
This cycle only exists because the connection matters enormously. Nobody does this Disorganized Loop with someone they don’t care about. The intensity of the push-pull is actually evidence of how much the attachment is activated.
The way through is not to try to fix the behavior in isolation, not to demand they “just get closer” or “just stop needing space.” That approach only makes both alarms ring louder. The way through is to help both people step outside the subjective panic long enough to see the shared system they’re caught in together. To recognize, together, that the relationship itself is what needs protecting.
Where are you sitting with this right now? Are you the one feeling pulled away from, or are you recognizing yourself in the person doing the pulling?
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Attachment Styles in Relationships: How Your Love Pattern Shapes Your Bond
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