Oh, I love this question. I really do. Because the fact that you’re even asking it tells me something important about you. You’re watching yourself do it. You’re not just in the pattern blindly. You’re curious about it. That’s actually the beginning of everything.
So let me tell you what I think is really happening.
What you’re calling “pushing people away” is not a character flaw. It is not proof that you’re broken or too much or not enough. It is a survival strategy. Your nervous system learned this before you had any conscious say in the matter. Long before you could even put words to it.
Here’s what I mean. When a child learns that getting close to people brings pain, rejection, overwhelm, or disappointment, they become the adult who protects themselves through distance. They retreat. They get quiet. They go inward. They pride themselves on not needing anyone, because once, needing someone cost them something. Their whole body learned: “Do not expose your need. Do not burden anyone. Stay contained.”
Therapists call this a withdrawer pattern. And here is the thing I need you to really hear. Withdrawers are not cold. They are not incapable of love. They are terrified of rejection. The distance isn’t indifference. It is a shield they built so early they forgot they built it.
But there’s another version of this too, and maybe it sounds more like you. Some people grew up learning two conflicting truths at the same time. “I need you” and “I need to get away from you.” These are people who pull close and then push away. Who say something hurtful just to see if the other person will stay. Who create chaos right at the moment of real intimacy. If that one lands, it’s not confusion. It is the wisdom of someone who was raised in impossible circumstances, where the same people who loved them also frightened them or disappeared.
So the pushing away? It makes complete sense. You found something that worked. Something that kept you from getting hurt again. The problem is it’s costing you something now. It’s keeping away the very thing you want.
Here’s what I always tell people. The first step is just to study it. Not judge it. Not fix it. Study it. What happens in your body right when someone gets close? What’s the feeling right before you push? Because usually underneath that pushing, there’s a very young, very scared part of you that is terrified of something. Terrified of being abandoned. Terrified of being rejected. Terrified of finding out you’re not enough. And that part of you needs to be witnessed, not managed. Not shamed. Not fixed.
The lead becomes gold, as I sometimes say, when you can actually go toward that scared part of yourself and say, “I see you. I know why you did this. And I’m going to love you through it instead of running.”
That’s the work. And it is worth doing.
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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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