It’s Not Just Fear of Commitment – The Other Reasons Why Men Pull Away in Relationships
Although the fear of making a commitment (fear of commitment) is one of the major reasons why men pull away in relationships, there are many other factors that can cause them to do so as well.
Some of these reasons include:
- He does not have the skills to sustain a long-term relationship. In the beginning, he was so considerate and kind, but now he seems to have lost interest, sometimes not even bothering to tell you when he’s going out or where he is. He doesn’t seem to understand that it takes patience and effort to sustain a relationship. Or maybe he’s never been in a serious relationship so he just doesn’t have the skills. It is difficult for guys to realize that when they’re in a relationship, they can no longer just do things on their own without taking their partner into consideration.
- He just doesn’t care. The guy may no longer care about the relationship but is too afraid to tell you, so they just pull away. Or it’s just easier for them to stay in the relationship without having to actively do anything to sustain it.
- The sexual attraction is fading. Let’s face it, some guys get bored easily. In the beginning you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. But now that you’ve settled into a routine, the guy may be looking for novelty in the form of another sexual partner. Without the underlying foundation of commitment and affection, the guy may simply get tired of you.
- There’s someone else. If he’s pulling away from you, he may already be seeing someone else and may just be waiting for the right time to break it to you. Or he may just be too scared to break up with you and so he keeps putting it off.
- He’s a workaholic. He may just love his work more than his relationships. In the beginning, he may have been very excited about you, but as the relationship settled into a familiar routine, his interest waned and he just became too invested in his work again. Or he may just feel the need to work hard to provide you with the luxuries that you want. But of course, this may just be a pretext and there may be other reasons why he’s burying himself in his work.
- He may be losing interest in you. At the start of a relationship, things are new and exciting. You get those butterflies in your stomach whenever you think of each other. But now that the initial passion has faded, he may find that you don’t have anything in common.
- He feels he’s out of your league. At the start, you were so caught up in each other that the disparity in your income or educational achievements did not matter. But now you’ve settled into the relationship and your friends are making jokes about the differences between the two of you, it’s starting to make him insecure. This may be particularly so if the woman is consciously or unconsciously flaunting her greater material wealth, i.e. her nicer car or her Coach handbag.
- He is afraid of making a mistake. He may come from a background in which his parents were always fighting or otherwise had an unhappy relationship, and because of this, he is afraid of repeating the pattern. Thus, when things become too serious, he pulls away, because of these fears.
- He may not be ready for a serious relationship. He may simply be happy enough with the way things are and is pulling away because you are pressuring him to move things to the next level, i.e. moving in together or dating exclusively.
There are many reasons why men pull away in relationships. If you want to work things out and continue on in a relationship, you need to figure out if it’s even possible to do so.
You have to first figure out what the specific reason is in your situation. If he is pulling away because of fears or insecurities, you can help them get past that and continue to have a healthy relationship. Sometimes however, the relationship is coming to an end and it is best to just go your separate ways.
As you can see, there are many factors that explain why men pull away in relationships, although the main reason why men pull away is nearly always fear of commitment.