When she says,"I need space"

 

Today, we stay in a society where everything is more hidden than visible. Even in the most important relationship, people hide things. I am talking about long-term relationships;i.e- Marriage. One of the most common terminologies I have heard being used is, 'I need space". Now the reason why they say the partner wanted space was because of some depression they have been going through or some mid-life crisis. Another is, I want to myself as I cannot think what I want. Or on the flip side, you think she is non-committal and is not ready for a long-term relationship. 

But these things are said because she has decided to part ways. What if I tell you, none of the above is the real reason why she wants to part ways. The problems are actually much deeper but in actuality very simple to resolve than you think. I will try and cover points such as what she won't tell you and what she can't tell you.  If you go through these modern sayings instead then it will actually rob you to save your relationship. So just read them and tell me if you believe them or not. 

So, let's begin.  She needs space not because she is going through a crisis or depression. This is just not the case. The real reason is that she is going through trust issues. She does not feel that the culture of trust, commitment and safety with you.  

Let me break it down this. She does not feel she can trust you enough to go through that midlife crisis with you. Or if she goes through some depression, you will be the shoulder to lean on. It's not that she needs space to find herself in solitude but it's that she does not believe that she can find herself with you.  The entire concept of emotional safety and emotional psychological safety was understood pretty late by me. And the real game changer for me as I improved or became a better version than what I was. 

What is Emotional Safety: It's basically having a culture where you can express everything with your partner. Your deepest, darkest secrets. Your concerns, doubts, feelings, emotions, literally anything which comes into your head. Without the slightest hesitation as to how will she/he reacts. 100% Transparency, and honesty without any fear of being judged or anything else. 

What is Psychological Safety: This is leaving out emotions. Do you feel safe sharing your ideas, opinions, and thoughts with your partner? If yes, then you have psychological safety, otherwise, think again.  

Imagine you have a Boss who is friendly, kind and always encouraging. You will open up to him and start giving ideas and expressing your opinions. This is because he listens, gives you respect, and values you and your ideas. But if the same Boss is negative and always snubs you down, you will eventually start withholding your ideas deep inside. This will start creating doubts and one day we see a resignation coming.  The same goes for your relationships. 

It's all about safety and trust. If you don't have these then the conflicts will never be fully expressed. And if you cannot express them then how will you resolve them. On the other side, if you can express when you are angry or what makes you sad, you will be able to resolve them completely. Another thing which you have to keep in mind is that during fights IQ does not matter. Do not expect your partner to make a complete sentence when you are talking in fill-in-the-blanks. The issue which you are trying to express in reality does not even exist in her head. Therefore, you have to be patient enough to break it down and make her understand. 

Wrong Evaluation: Let's say she already has reached this No trust and safety in you.  Maybe she has tried to express herself and you make too many assumptions too quickly. Second, let's say she expresses her sadness. But instead of giving her a listening ear you start your bravery story. "I have been through the same or it's just so stupid of you to be sad for such a small thing". 

Or every time she brings something up, you don't even try to understand. You try and be logical about it. Women in general are emotional. Just give her comfort that you are there and are having trouble understanding her. That should actually comfort her and become a little more vulnerable to open up and express herself. 

Now, if you do not go by this method where she does not trust you, she will ask for space. Space is because she has made up her mind that you are unable to help. You are not there to help. Even though in many cases through my experience, it's a preconceived thought. Some women just never ever open up. They have this introverted nature that she expects you to understand. She will break down and you will be wondering forever as to what happened. 

You keep pursuing her by being a good man, husband but she just won't talk. A such women should be sent to therapy. They do not belong to the society of good men. Maybe they are the real residents of the island of Themyscira. A man who loves his woman deserves to be told what wrong is he doing. He deserves full honesty. Your woman building a self-regret that every time she shares anything with her man he does not understand is bad. She needs to give ample time before she finishes that thesis. 

What Men do when they understand she wants space: Now, no man wants his marriage or long-term relationship to end. So what he does is one of these three steps or all three. 

1) Regain Control: As a man when you see the love of your life is going away, you go in shock. Now the first default human step you do is to tell her that I am here. I am here to help as you cannot do this alone. Few do this in a good way and few in a toxic way. Some even cry, beg and do whatnot. 

2) Regain Certainty - This is where you accept but ask questions. How long do you need space for ?. When will you come back ?. Where are you going ??. How will I know you won't be drifting away ?. Does this mean divorce ?. What does this mean .....

3) Regain Approval - This is where the man goes down. He accepts it and asks her for help to resolve it. He says I will change, become better. Will do anything you want me to do. Just talk and tell me. Will do anything it takes to save it. I can fix these issues. I am different from now on. 

Paradox Logic - This is a very tricky trap and most of the time you just fall into it. Basically, paradox logic means, " a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion."

What it means here is something which will give you more clarity. Imagine your partner comes to you and says that she needs space, wants some time alone, needs to think better, etc etc. Basically, she wants to get away from your controlling nature again. And you on the other hand tried doing one of the 3 steps mentioned above;i.e- Regain control, Regain certainty Regain Approval. You go on to tell your partner that you are not controlling anymore and you are ready to accept. But from her past experiences, she does not trust you. She does not believe whatever you are trying to explain to her logically. You try harder and harder. 

And this is the paradox logic. You are trying to tell her that you are not controlling anymore but you are doing it in a very controlling way. You are trying to tell your partner you are not controlling by making her think that you are not controlling. When you try to convince someone or appeal to someone with logic to convince them that they are safe with you, trust you, you are not a controlling person and so on; you fall into this paradox of logic. So by doing this you kind of make her lose trust even more. This will further push her away and you wouldn't even understand. I have fallen into it and I think we all have at some point in our life. 

Now we take a step ahead, how to respond. The entire situation can be divided into short-term and long-term. Let's start with the short-term first.

Short-Term - Whenever your partner comes up to you and asks for space, the best and the most important step here is to accept and acknowledge. You can simply say, "Ok I understand you need space and sometimes even I do as well". This will acknowledge the "What" here. Now, we move to the,"why". This is the hard bit. Because you here have to become vulnerable and do the hard talk. 

The diagnosis needs to be done as to why she has lost the trust, has a lack of safety and what actually you did. This requires some talking. But the curve ball here is, she does not think you are capable enough to resolve her riddles and puzzle. So, just say something like, "I understand that you need space and I might have been difficult to talk with. But whatever depression and sadness you have, I just might not be the right person to discuss this with, right now." Then acknowledge her for the courage of bringing this out by thanking her. Thank you for sharing and bringing this out that you don't feel safe in this relationship. Thank you- for sharing your thoughts and you need space. 

And in the end, you can tell her that,I understand I am not a good listener, or I am controlling or whatever you know. I will work on them to become better. I want to be with you and will work on building that safety and trust.  This is all you can do in a short term.

Role of other-half- When you have acknowledged the issue on your own without your partner explaining everything, you only have a chance of a 50% success rate. Most women today hide feelings and hide behind the facade of being introverted. You are most welcome to be one with every single human being except your partner. 

The man is already sad and depressed due to his professional life, etc and you have given him the shock by saying, "you need space.". Now the expectation to understand what exactly is the core problem without you explaining to him even after his acknowledgement is your fault. If tomorrow, this relationship, or marriage ends up in a divorce it's your fault and not his. A man or a woman is not a mind reader. Shouldn’t you be more than happy that your partner has acknowledged your sadness? He has the guts to accept that something is not right in this relationship. Instead, you want him to be god with divine powers to understand every single concern of yours without you saying a word. Think about it !!! 

He loves you and wants you to stay in his life. But not at the cost of you blaming him to be an idiot and kicking his self-respect. Nobody said, marriage is easy but communication !!. You cannot communicate properly;y because your bloody zodiac sign has not given you the traits. It's nonsense. Learn to talk in any way possible. You cannot tell your partner how are you feeling from your own mouth and you want him to understand you to the core??

 The reason today, you know so much about him and he knows little about you is not because you are intelligent. It's because you have your own demons. He is clear as water and has opened his life in front of you. He trusts the woman he loves, and he cares for you and thus  This made you know him much better than he knows you. 

You never open up and always expect a man to ask you the right question. Well, then don't be disappointed if he does not. What troubles you down to the core you never mentioned it to him clearly. Today, when your marriage is in dire straits, he is only acknowledging and promising to rectify what he thinks he knows. He does not even know what he has done or has to do to make your fears deep down go away. To him, all this does not exist.  Therefore, his success rate to sort this out is only 50%.

Long-Term - Now, once the acknowledgement is done comes the tough part. This requires you both to sit and deep-dive into tougher talks. The entire crux here is to understand each other and talk about each other resistance. If your partner does not feel safe or has lost trust then she should start by telling you how did it start. You on other hand now are clear that you are not a good listener. So ask her to help you become one apart from the work you will do for yourself. This entire framework requires a lot of effort. I remember during my tough phase, even after acknowledging she gave me nothing to work on. I reached a stage where it sounded like I was begging her to stay than she wanted. That is the time when I decided to let go. You cannot make someone stay or talk if they themselves are not keen enough. 

The important thing to remember here is that all the topics you pick up need to end up in win-win situations. Also, make sure they are discussed and resolved on the emotional level and not on the logical level.  Biggest understanding you as a partner need to have which I have seen missing in most girls today is a powerful bulletproof mindset. The bulletproof mindset does not mean here strong willpower, journaling or taking a solo walk in the park every evening. It's all about how you can re-interpret events in your life, and relationship so that you remain calmer. 

Let's take the example from here only. If your interpretation of your partner asking for space is that because she is going through a midlife crisis, depressed, non-commital and she is not ready to stay in the relationship your mindset will be different. There is a big chance it will make you anxious, and panic and actually very difficult for you to remain calm and have a healthy conversation with your partner. 

But if for example if you re-interpret it differently by saying it's not about midlife crisis or commitment it's actually about trust and safety, your approach will change. Your emotions will change, you will be calmer and most importantly you will have clarity of thoughts. This is the bulletproof mindset. If you lose your emotions quickly, this will end in up loss of trust and safety. By being bulletproof you create safety in direct and indirect ways. No matter what challenge will come, I can tackle it and eventually get through it.

Hypothesis & Antithesis - Most of us get into the state of hypothesis and ask questions based on that. Rather than hypothesise we should work on antithesis. Such questions do not usually take you to a win-win situation. For example - Asking or telling me that I need space?? why do you need space ?? Why you are not talking ?? . These are genuine questions but most of them are being asked with already a preconceived reason given by yourself to just you. Leading questions are hypothetical questions. 

So, what are antithetical ??.  It can be something like, "I know that you are sad but are you feeling sad because of this act of mine ??? . Am I reading you right or is there something else ?". Now, this approach is where the other person is being given an absolute centre stage with a mic in her hand. The man has made no judgement, no preconceived thought behind your action. Instead, he is cross-checking with you if he is seeing you in the direction you want him to look.  This is Antithetical. 

Another way is, "I know you need space but I also know that going away solo will not resolve much. I feel you have reached this conclusion because of XYZ, maybe my thinking is all wrong here. Can you please stay and tell me what is going on and we can work together on this."  . If after all this effort of yours, she is still unable to tell you or value your efforts I guess you have hit a dead end. 

When a female has self-decided to not give a chance in a relationship which is not that old or to a marriage. I guess you should just stop. Because when you are being this vulnerable as a man and asking her these questions, it's because of your curiosity and pure humility. By being antithetical you are telling your partner that you can listen, she can say whatever she wants and also understand. This should help her get an idea that she can build trust and safety again. This should lower her guard. 

Thesis - Furthermore, whatever you achieved in this relationship so far has come to a standstill. Not just for you but for both of you. Now, to move further and in a better realm you have to bring in change. No matter how difficult, you as a couple has accepted that it requires and both of you are willing to make it.  But the funniest part is that when you make a change people start assuming things. They start to doubt you and be suspicious of you. 

For example; you are asking questions to your partner, you have started listening more, and you now want to dig deeper and resolve conflicts. But instead of being happy, your partner starts questioning your motives. Why are you asking questions? Are you trying to manipulate? What's wrong with you? Are you watching some youtube videos? who is your new friend giving you this advice ? . She starts doubting everything you do.

This is where the difference is. Picking things to fight with your partner because they do not have the right mindset. When they are filled with doubt they back down and the one trying just stops doing changes. Obviously, you just don't get up and change. You talk to your partner and then start doing the above. Sneaky behaviour is questionable no doubt. The point is communication.  But when your partner starts questioning your changes and you stop. This will also go against you because now she will say, I knew it. You are only words and no action. I have faced it and it just hurts worse when it happens. Because it's only you who knows what are you going through for her and your marriage. In the end, you just accept it and that's it. But you did try to fight it is your self-conscious satisfaction. 

Conclusion - What your partner does not understand here is that these changes she is pointing to have stopped for her and not for the man himself. Any change take time but now he has a different and wiser mindset. He will continue to improve and will become successful. So you be on your track to change for 6-8 months consistently. If she is still avoiding it and cannot see it then I guess she is just intentionally blind to you. 

Change takes time and this pressure from outside to go back to where they were is the reason people do not reconcile.  They are pushed to back down and most of them accept and stop it. Being able to adapt to this new you and new identity. Being able to work on oneself is not an easy task and if your partner does not help even then do it for yourself. I feel like a different person today. But then at the same time, these are not just the only mindset changes, its a lot more to a successful marriage. 

Taking a break from your partner and staying separately for months still might not do the trick. It will only work if both of you are willing. The changes are not being acknowledged, and the effort to talk is not being reciprocated. Instead, you sit and make a list of demands and how to loot his money will never ever get you happily ever after with anyone on the planet. 

In the end, all you have to learn is just to talk and communicate better. Leave egos aside at least 1 person out of 7Billion.