Hey there it's clay with modern love.life. In this video, we're going to be talking about what to do
when your ex pulls away or becomes defensive. This can be a really frustrating situation for a lot of
people. And many times that they don't actually know how to respond or what to do in these
sorts of situations. Now, what we're going to be describing in this video is actually a little bit
counter-intuitive to a lot of people. And a lot of the advice you may have seen out there, don't be
surprised if this is a little bit different. Um, but it's also extremely effective. And this is
how we would generally recommend coaching clients to respond to situations like this. If their ex is
pulling away or becoming defensive or something like that. First of all, there could be a lot of
reasons why this is happening most of the time. It's because of really two things. Number one
is because on some level you and your ex don't see each other as operating on the same team. Um, now
many times this is often the core reason why the relationship didn't work out in the first
place. For whatever reason, the two of you just didn't see each other as being on the same team.
Instead, you probably saw each other as being on opposite teams. Now, of course, that can take the
form of arguing and fighting and things like that, but it can also take on other forms as well, too.
Like not feeling as if you can open up and share what you're actually feeling,
not feeling comfortable asking for what you want, things like that. These are important things that
we want to address and bridge over. As we start to create this whole same team dynamic, um,
this is something that we get into inside of our communication course, effortless connection,
by the way, the, the second thing that often causes this whole pulling away and defensiveness
is an elevated level of expectation. That is to say, you know, your ex is accustomed
to seeing you through a romantic lens. And you're probably accustomed to seeing them
through a romantic lens as well too. Of course, the two of you were together in a relationship.
You can't just erase that, right? Um, and many times this is in some ways a good thing, because
it all obviously means you're not in the friend zone. We've talked before about the friend zone,
how this isn't something that a lot of people who want to save their relationship need to be
concerned about. So I'm not going to go into that here, but this elevated level of pressure
and expectation that they see you through too much of a romantic lens can be very difficult because
it causes them to believe that they have to hold themselves back. You know, they start asking
themselves these questions. Why are we meeting up? Why are we texting? Why are we spending
time together? Why are we talking so much? And they start to freak themselves out. Honestly,
they start saying, well, gosh, are we you're Dating again? Do they think that we're dating
again? Or are we dating again? Do I feel ready to date again?
Am I sending the wrong message? Am I giving them false hope in my stringing them along? Yeah. Does
that make me a bad person? If I am, maybe I should just hold back and just do nothing. Maybe I should
just create a lot of space between the two of us. So I don't risk sending the wrong message and
feel bad about myself. This can be really common, right? So what we want to do is we want to address
these two things. Number one, get on the same team by calling out what seems to be happening,
addressing it directly. And number two, decreasing that pressure. Of course, there is a time to put
pressure on your ex to get them to commit or to get them to, you know, start moving things towards
a romantic sort of direction between the two of you. But we don't want to do this too soon.
Um, so what we do want to do, we want to just start by getting curious, you know,
they're pulling back, they're creating distance, they're becoming defensive,
they're doing all these other sorts of things. We want to get curious. We want to just start by
saying like, Hey, it seems like you're a little bit defensive right now. It seems like you're a
little bit uncomfortable being around me right now or whatever the case might be. Um, and then just,
you know, continue to get curious. Yeah. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around me. So if
there's something going on that I should know about, please let me know. Um, and of course,
then they have the opportunity to come forward and just either say, you know, Hey, uh, yeah,
this is what's going on. You know, I'm, I'm concerned that I'm sending the wrong message.
I'm concerned that we're moving too fast. I'm concerned about whatever the case might be,
or they might actually tell you something that has absolutely nothing to do with you. Oh,
sorry. I've just been really crazy busy at work. Or I have this like really weird drama thing with
my sister or brother or whatever. And many times it has absolutely nothing to do with you. So we
want to, uh, start by getting curious and to just genuinely genuinely, if I can get my words out
straight here, uh, genuinely asking them what's going on, just genuinely asking them to volunteer.
What seems to be happening now? Of course, this is how, Hey, mature adult would behave
in situations like this. I'd say, Hey, it seems like you're uncomfortable. Is there something
going on? Yes, there is. This is what it is. But many times your ex may not be direct about it.
They may just give you some sort of blow off answer, like, oh yeah, sorry. I've just been
really busy. You just had a lot on my mind. Or they might just like, not respond at all.
And if that's the case, you know, what we want to do is we want to keep dropping that pressure.
Um, by, by, by doing things like putting it escape exits by doing things like using the one-way
spikes strategy, things along those lines. These are, again, these are all things that we talk
about inside our effortless connection course. Um, but you know, by, by the way, if you do like this
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But, uh, yeah, this is what we wanna do. We wanna just get curious
and start to enroll them into this whole same team dynamic. Of course you may need to things first,
such as have the same team conversation or something like that. But what we really want
to do is we want to give them the opportunity to step forward. Many times when your ex pulls away,
you'll hear advice from other people that say things like, you know, you got to play mind games,
you got to play hard to get, you got to, you know, look at this, like some sort of power struggle and
say, okay, they have this much power. I have this much power. Therefore, if I,
you know, do no contact, therefore it's going like switch the tables. And then
they're going to like crawl over broken shards of glass to miss me or something like that.
This is only going to reinforce the fact that the two of you are not operating or seeing each
other as being on the same team. So what we really want to address here is the whole same team thing.
If the two of you are ever going to be in a great relationship with one another, you're going to be
on the same team with one another. So why start out as adversaries, hoping that at some point
it's going to flip. Why not just flip right now to being on the same team and if they
can be on the same team with you, awesome. If they can't be on the same team with you
better to find out sooner rather than later. So most people can be on the same team. Oftentimes
when we advise our clients to have a same team conversation with their exes, they are very
agreeable to this. You know, they say, Hey, I had the same team conversation. They said, yeah, that
sounds cool. It happens a lot. But if your ex is not open to this, you know, it's probably because
they're, I don't know, like in some sort of like victim mentality, or maybe they have something
like narcissistic personality disorder where they just need to constantly be right and they need,
and that requires them to constantly cast you or someone else as the bad guy or something
like that. But, you know, as long as your ex is like a normal person, then, um, you know,
they're probably going to be very agreeable to the whole same team conversation. And, you know, then
yeah, we just want to remind them of that and enroll them into this whole same team thing.
Hey, it seems like you're uncomfortable with this what's going on. And that way that you
actually have the ability to deal with this together as a team, whatever might be coming up
rather than playing mind games or something like that. So anyway, that's what we'd recommend for
you. If you're in that situation, if you do want to get some help with all of this, we of course
do have our effortless connection course. You can find that over@modernlove.life slash
E C that's modern love.life/e as an effortless C as in connection. You see what I did there,
but there's also the link right down in the description box below. Anyway,
thank you so much for watching this video. Once again, hit that thumbs up
button and subscribe to the channel to help us out. And I will talk to you next time.