Why Men Pull Away
Matthew Boggs author of “Cracking the Man Code” writes about the biochemistry of men and women in love. The main idea is that women’s feel good chemical suppresses men’s feel good chemical in the brain.
There are two reasons men pull away. There are men who aren’t emotionally mature enough for a committed relationship and so they will pull away permanently when a relationship becomes more serious and intimate.
Then there’s the men who want a serious relationship and are emotionally ready, yet feel an instinct to pull away temporarily. This happens to them especially after being very close to a woman. For most men, they aren’t aware of why this happens.
Although, men and women are very similar — we also have very significant biological differences and if we understand and increase our awareness of what those differences are, our relationships can become much easier.
One of those differences is the way our biochemistry interacts with one another. So just to simplify, a man’s biochemistry gets charged with dopamine (his feel good chemical),
and dopamine gets triggered we're in action, competition, goal achieving, things like that; whereas a woman, her biochemistry is charged with oxytocin (her feel good chemical)
and oxytocin gets triggered when a woman is talking, communicating, connecting and collaborating.
When you’re being romantic, and you’re hanging out and you’re talking and you’re snuggling and you’re spending quality time together and there’s all of these connections, a woman’s oxytocin will rise and rise until she’s feeling super connected to her man. Well, the way nature is wired up, oxytocin naturally suppresses dopamine. So as women's oxytocin goes up and up, his dopamine will go down, down, down, until he feels this instinctual need to pull away and go do something that fires up his dopamine, something action-oriented. That’s why guys love action movies/TV and sports, something competitive. They’ll go play sports with their buddies
or they’ll go to their workshop or man cave and want to build something.
All they know about that moment is they have the urge to pull away from the one thing that’s depleting their dopamine - which is you. This can be extremely confusing and extremely irritating for women because right as you’re at the height of connection,
and right at the height of love, with him, he’s like, “I got to go.”
The Art of Loving a Man means understanding this —allowing him his dopamine time, and allowing him to pull away and get that charge up without taking it personally. Yet, what usually happens at this moment, if he’s pulling away, is a conversation initiated by a woman that goes something like this,
Woman - “What’s wrong?”
Man - “ I don’t know. Nothing’s wrong.”
Woman - “Talk to me, what’s going on. Did I do something? You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”
Man - “Nothing is wrong, I need to go”
If a woman allows him to get his dopamine time and doesn’t take it personally, because it’s really not about her, it’s simply about him getting his needs met on a biological basis, then he'll get his charge back, and he will return wanting emotional connection again and wanting to show you affection. This will only happen if he was allowed his time without punishment.
If a woman can just be with it, deal with her feelings and not panic she will be rewarded. If she allows a man time he will return fully charged and ready to connect again. It takes mental discipline to not allow your mind to go down the bad path of thinking “he does not love me as much anymore” or “he does not want to spend as much time with me now.” You must trust and know that it is just what he needs to get his chemical re-charge. It’s temporary.
Just remember there are the types of men who are running because they
are just not mature enough to be in an intimate relationship and those that are just following their chemical needs. You need to figure out which is true. If he is calling you, pursuing you, is able to be intimately connected to you and committed, then it's just the chemistry dance and a true Goddess allows for this. If you allow nature to takes it course, it can create a beautiful balance in a relationship and love and acceptance can flourish.