February 27, 2022 • 13 mins
We all want to feel loved and be in a loving relationship. But for some of us, no matter how hard we try, we keep pushing people away. And all our efforts to be in a relationship seem to just fall apart.
In this episode, I'll explain why you may be pushing people away. And I'll help you find ways to let the people you love into your life.
My name is Jacob Brown, and I'm a Couples Therapist in San Francisco. To learn more, visit:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi, my name is Jacob Brown and I'm a couple's
therapist in San Francisco.
I wanna welcome you to sex loveand couple's therapy.
We all want to feel loved.
That's a universal desire, butsometimes instead of feeling
loving our relationships, feelconfusing, frustrating, and a
(00:27):
little crazy making The purposeof this podcast is to help you
clear up some of that confusionso that you and your partner can
find ways to make yourrelationship feel closer, more
connect, to do more loving.
So stay tuned.
We've got a lot of great stuffto talk about, and now let's go
talk about my three favoritetopics.
(00:50):
Sex love in couple's therapy.
Why do I keep pushing peopleaway?
That's a question thattherapists get asked over and
over and over again.
Clients come in eitherindividually or they come in as
a couple and one, or both ofthem says, why do I keep pushing
(01:14):
my partner away?
What's wrong with me?
Why does this keep happening?
When I hear that phrase, there'sa certain sadness to it because
clearly they don't want to keepdoing this, but there's also,
you can hear a certainhopelessness to it because
they've tried so hard time.
And again, and yet each timethey forge a new relationship,
(01:38):
they find themselves back inthat same trap.
Why, why do I keep pushingpeople away?
So that's the topic for today.
And that's what we're gonna talkabout, why this happens and what
we can do about, about it andprevent it from happening and
spoiling yet.
Another one of ourrelationships, as I said, this
is a really common issue thatbrings people to therapy either
(02:00):
individually or as a couple, theclient knows that they're
somehow playing a role in thisprocess.
This process of feeling distantfrom their partner or from
people in general in theirlives, but they can't quite
understand what's going on.
They can't quite understand whatthey're doing it doing in this
(02:21):
it's as if they are somehowblinded to their own behavior.
And they can only see the otherperson, but they can't see their
role.
And they plead, I mean, pleadwith the therapist to help them
understand with questions.
Like why do I keep pushingpeople away?
Or it was going so well.
And then I pushed him or heraway, when am I stop?
(02:45):
Or I find someone I like, but assoon as we start getting close,
I pull away or create a reasonto break up.
Why do I keep doing that?
It's a question that is broughtinto therapy time.
And again, many of us carry thefeeling that we want to get
closer to the people in ourlives, but that somehow or
(03:06):
something keeps blocking us.
This pattern of starting arelationship, getting closer and
then friction coming up and thenbreaking up can repeat itself
time.
And again, and it can go on fordecades.
As a cycle is repeated manypeople experience, a deep
feeling of frustration andsadness and loneliness,
(03:27):
emptiness, and even despair.
And they ask themselves, what amI doing wrong?
They look at all the couplesaround them and it feels like
they're the only one who can'tbe part of a close and loving
relationship.
And it makes them want to cry inmy work.
I've noticed a few common themesamong clients who experience
(03:47):
these repeated relationshipproblems.
The first a history of trauma, Ihave to tell you so many people
have suffered significant traumain their lives.
I, this is so common.
You know, we, we have thisfiction about happy childhoods
and, and growing up in a happyenvironment.
(04:07):
But the reality is that so manyof us never had that.
And to make it worse, often thetrauma that we've experienced
has come at the hands of thepeople who were supposed to love
and care for us abuse.
Use of parents, abusive schools,abusive partners, to name just a
few.
The pain of these experienceshas taught people that there is
(04:30):
no safety in love that thesafety of feeling of safety and
love just can't be trusted.
That even those who say they,them will in the end, hurt and
betray them and the greatertheir trauma, the more they come
to expect that betrayal.
(04:50):
And in this way, the feelings oflove that they so desperately
crave become instead a source oftheir pain.
Now this is not the reality oflove, but this is the reality of
their experience of love andfeeling close.
Often the triggering of oldtrauma wounds ignites a sense of
being overwhelmed.
(05:11):
People become flooded withfeelings of anxiety and may
experience panic attacks.
The only way they can calm thisdistress is to push the other
person away and create some.
And while they hate themselvesfor pushing their partner away,
that is preferable to theoverwhelming anxiety that comes
with feeling intimacy and tofurther confuse the situation.
(05:34):
They begin to see the partner asa source of the problem, rather
than the trauma as being thesource of the problem.
And all they do then is push thepartner further away.
And then they become sad anddespair.
Because once again, they'regonna find themselves alone.
(05:54):
The second common theme is afear of being discovered, and
you can look at this as alsokind of a question of
self-esteem or low self-esteem.
And unfortunately, some of usgrow up with a deeply damaged
self sense of self-esteem.
Some of us may go through lifewith a sense that we are a fraud
(06:17):
that they, a current thoughtthat if he or she only knew the
real me they'd leave me.
And as time goes on, rather thangrowing to believe that their
partner truly knows them andloves them, their feeling of
being a fraud, only intensifies,and soon they are so
uncomfortable with their ownperceived duplicity.
(06:38):
The idea that they're hidingsomething from the person, they
love that they have to escapethe relationship to, to let off
that pressure.
In some cases, they may even seeending the relationship as an
act of bravery.
They justify leaving by thinkingthat they are sparing their
loved one from thedisappointment of finding out
the true with about who theyreally are.
(07:01):
And in this way, they can seethemselves as leaving for their
partners.
Benefit A third theme for peoplewho push their loved ones away
is the belief that allrelationships are doomed.
We see this often in individualswho have grown up in chaotic
(07:23):
households, households in whichthe relationships are really
unstable, filled with anger andinfidelity, that experience can
seriously damage an individual'sability to believe in a lasting
love.
Some people, especially thosewho parents divorced when they
were young, come to believe thatall relationships are
(07:45):
essentially unstable and doomed.
They believe that it's only amatter of time before things
begin unravel, given theirbelief that the relationship
won't last, they hold themselvesback and never commit.
They never really lean in orgive themselves to the
relationship or to the otherperson.
(08:08):
And in fact, this is one of thedrivers for the relationships
faltering and failure thatthey're so convinced it's gonna
end.
They hold themselves back.
And that holding back actuallydestroys the relationship
itself.
The fourth theme is a rigidpersonality and some of us just
(08:32):
have that, that some somehow theway we were born or how we
adapted to life, some of us area little more rigid than others.
And while some of us can adapteasily to changes and can live
in the kind of the gray areas oflife, others have a more black
and white version of the world.
And for these people, there's astrong sense that there's a
right way and a wrong way.
(08:55):
And this includes everythingfrom how to make a peanut butter
sandwich, to how to express andreceive love.
The more rigid our thinking.
The more often we'll come intoconflict with our partner,
because we think, oh, they'redoing it wrong, but it's not the
(09:16):
disagree agreements that causethe problem it's that we see
these disagreements as beingalarming or even toxic rather
than seeing the conflict as twodifferent points of view.
These people whose personalitiesa little more rigid, have an
overwhelming sense that there issomething wrong with their
partner.
(09:36):
There's causes tremendousanxiety and suddenly they see
their partner as damaged orcrazy or untrustworthy or, or
somehow other and different fromthemselves.
And that sense of othernessdrives them to escape.
And the fifth and last theme isthe theme of shame, plays a
(10:02):
powerful role in pushing peopleaway.
Those who carry shame feeleither I'm not enough or I'm too
much to handle.
Or in some case they feel bothin either case, they feel as if
there's something so deeplywrong with them, that the
(10:26):
relationship is doomed from thebeginning and they need to get
out of there.
That the only way they can savetheir lives, that they can find
comfort is to end therelationship.
So how do we deal with some ofthese barriers to intimacy these
themes, which keep coming upover and over again in our lives
and keep us separate from thepeople that we love and feel
(10:49):
close to?
Well, the truth is there is noeasy way to over overcome these
barriers to intimacy, regardlessof their origin.
In many cases, these barriersreflect fundamental for
personality traits about who weare, or the result of deep
traumatic wounds or theseexperiences that we've had
(11:10):
growing up and what we've beentaught and what we've been
shown.
And in any case, these are noteasy to overcome, but I strongly
believe that there is a path torecovery.
I believe that healing comes bysteadfastly working to keep the
search light on ourselves ratherthan on our partner.
(11:30):
It's common that in thesesituations to only focus on our
partner's faults, that's theflashing red light that gets all
of our attention.
It's so much easier to blamethem, to look inward and
recognize that carry within us,the wound or the pain that needs
to be addressed as a therapist.
My role is to turn the questionaround and help my clients to
(11:54):
search out their role in therelationship problems.
It's impossible to changeourselves.
If we're caught in the cycle ofblaming others, change starts
from accepting yourself as youare both the strengths and the
weaknesses, the good and thebad, and showing yourself some
self, some compassion for thedifficulties that you've had in
(12:15):
your life and how they areshowing up in your
relationships.
It's only once that we'rewilling to see our parts in the
relationship that we can reallybegin to change.
I hope this has been useful andinteresting for you.
If you have any questions orthoughts, please make sure to
(12:36):
leave me a comment.
Well, that's our episode fortoday.
I hope you found it interestingand useful, but most of all, I'd
like to thank you for listening.
If you have a minute, please hitthe subscribe button and give us
a rating.
And I hope to see you again soonon another episode of sex, love
(12:58):
and couples therapy.
Hi, my name is Jacob Brown and I'm a couple's
therapist in San Francisco.
I wanna welcome you to sex loveand couple's therapy.
We all want to feel loved.
That's a universal desire, butsometimes instead of feeling
loving our relationships, feelconfusing, frustrating, and a
(00:27):
little crazy making The purposeof this podcast is to help you
clear up some of that confusionso that you and your partner can
find ways to make yourrelationship feel closer, more
connect, to do more loving.
So stay tuned.
We've got a lot of great stuffto talk about, and now let's go
talk about my three favoritetopics.
(00:50):
Sex love in couple's therapy.
Why do I keep pushing peopleaway?
That's a question thattherapists get asked over and
over and over again.
Clients come in eitherindividually or they come in as
a couple and one, or both ofthem says, why do I keep pushing
(01:14):
my partner away?
What's wrong with me?
Why does this keep happening?
When I hear that phrase, there'sa certain sadness to it because
clearly they don't want to keepdoing this, but there's also,
you can hear a certainhopelessness to it because
they've tried so hard time.
And again, and yet each timethey forge a new relationship,
(01:38):
they find themselves back inthat same trap.
Why, why do I keep pushingpeople away?
So that's the topic for today.
And that's what we're gonna talkabout, why this happens and what
we can do about, about it andprevent it from happening and
spoiling yet.
Another one of ourrelationships, as I said, this
is a really common issue thatbrings people to therapy either
(02:00):
individually or as a couple, theclient knows that they're
somehow playing a role in thisprocess.
This process of feeling distantfrom their partner or from
people in general in theirlives, but they can't quite
understand what's going on.
They can't quite understand whatthey're doing it doing in this
(02:21):
it's as if they are somehowblinded to their own behavior.
And they can only see the otherperson, but they can't see their
role.
And they plead, I mean, pleadwith the therapist to help them
understand with questions.
Like why do I keep pushingpeople away?
Or it was going so well.
And then I pushed him or heraway, when am I stop?
(02:45):
Or I find someone I like, but assoon as we start getting close,
I pull away or create a reasonto break up.
Why do I keep doing that?
It's a question that is broughtinto therapy time.
And again, many of us carry thefeeling that we want to get
closer to the people in ourlives, but that somehow or
(03:06):
something keeps blocking us.
This pattern of starting arelationship, getting closer and
then friction coming up and thenbreaking up can repeat itself
time.
And again, and it can go on fordecades.
As a cycle is repeated manypeople experience, a deep
feeling of frustration andsadness and loneliness,
(03:27):
emptiness, and even despair.
And they ask themselves, what amI doing wrong?
They look at all the couplesaround them and it feels like
they're the only one who can'tbe part of a close and loving
relationship.
And it makes them want to cry inmy work.
I've noticed a few common themesamong clients who experience
(03:47):
these repeated relationshipproblems.
The first a history of trauma, Ihave to tell you so many people
have suffered significant traumain their lives.
I, this is so common.
You know, we, we have thisfiction about happy childhoods
and, and growing up in a happyenvironment.
(04:07):
But the reality is that so manyof us never had that.
And to make it worse, often thetrauma that we've experienced
has come at the hands of thepeople who were supposed to love
and care for us abuse.
Use of parents, abusive schools,abusive partners, to name just a
few.
The pain of these experienceshas taught people that there is
(04:30):
no safety in love that thesafety of feeling of safety and
love just can't be trusted.
That even those who say they,them will in the end, hurt and
betray them and the greatertheir trauma, the more they come
to expect that betrayal.
(04:50):
And in this way, the feelings oflove that they so desperately
crave become instead a source oftheir pain.
Now this is not the reality oflove, but this is the reality of
their experience of love andfeeling close.
Often the triggering of oldtrauma wounds ignites a sense of
being overwhelmed.
(05:11):
People become flooded withfeelings of anxiety and may
experience panic attacks.
The only way they can calm thisdistress is to push the other
person away and create some.
And while they hate themselvesfor pushing their partner away,
that is preferable to theoverwhelming anxiety that comes
with feeling intimacy and tofurther confuse the situation.
(05:34):
They begin to see the partner asa source of the problem, rather
than the trauma as being thesource of the problem.
And all they do then is push thepartner further away.
And then they become sad anddespair.
Because once again, they'regonna find themselves alone.
(05:54):
The second common theme is afear of being discovered, and
you can look at this as alsokind of a question of
self-esteem or low self-esteem.
And unfortunately, some of usgrow up with a deeply damaged
self sense of self-esteem.
Some of us may go through lifewith a sense that we are a fraud
(06:17):
that they, a current thoughtthat if he or she only knew the
real me they'd leave me.
And as time goes on, rather thangrowing to believe that their
partner truly knows them andloves them, their feeling of
being a fraud, only intensifies,and soon they are so
uncomfortable with their ownperceived duplicity.
(06:38):
The idea that they're hidingsomething from the person, they
love that they have to escapethe relationship to, to let off
that pressure.
In some cases, they may even seeending the relationship as an
act of bravery.
They justify leaving by thinkingthat they are sparing their
loved one from thedisappointment of finding out
the true with about who theyreally are.
(07:01):
And in this way, they can seethemselves as leaving for their
partners.
Benefit A third theme for peoplewho push their loved ones away
is the belief that allrelationships are doomed.
We see this often in individualswho have grown up in chaotic
(07:23):
households, households in whichthe relationships are really
unstable, filled with anger andinfidelity, that experience can
seriously damage an individual'sability to believe in a lasting
love.
Some people, especially thosewho parents divorced when they
were young, come to believe thatall relationships are
(07:45):
essentially unstable and doomed.
They believe that it's only amatter of time before things
begin unravel, given theirbelief that the relationship
won't last, they hold themselvesback and never commit.
They never really lean in orgive themselves to the
relationship or to the otherperson.
(08:08):
And in fact, this is one of thedrivers for the relationships
faltering and failure thatthey're so convinced it's gonna
end.
They hold themselves back.
And that holding back actuallydestroys the relationship
itself.
The fourth theme is a rigidpersonality and some of us just
(08:32):
have that, that some somehow theway we were born or how we
adapted to life, some of us area little more rigid than others.
And while some of us can adapteasily to changes and can live
in the kind of the gray areas oflife, others have a more black
and white version of the world.
And for these people, there's astrong sense that there's a
right way and a wrong way.
(08:55):
And this includes everythingfrom how to make a peanut butter
sandwich, to how to express andreceive love.
The more rigid our thinking.
The more often we'll come intoconflict with our partner,
because we think, oh, they'redoing it wrong, but it's not the
(09:16):
disagree agreements that causethe problem it's that we see
these disagreements as beingalarming or even toxic rather
than seeing the conflict as twodifferent points of view.
These people whose personalitiesa little more rigid, have an
overwhelming sense that there issomething wrong with their
partner.
(09:36):
There's causes tremendousanxiety and suddenly they see
their partner as damaged orcrazy or untrustworthy or, or
somehow other and different fromthemselves.
And that sense of othernessdrives them to escape.
And the fifth and last theme isthe theme of shame, plays a
(10:02):
powerful role in pushing peopleaway.
Those who carry shame feeleither I'm not enough or I'm too
much to handle.
Or in some case they feel bothin either case, they feel as if
there's something so deeplywrong with them, that the
(10:26):
relationship is doomed from thebeginning and they need to get
out of there.
That the only way they can savetheir lives, that they can find
comfort is to end therelationship.
So how do we deal with some ofthese barriers to intimacy these
themes, which keep coming upover and over again in our lives
and keep us separate from thepeople that we love and feel
(10:49):
close to?
Well, the truth is there is noeasy way to over overcome these
barriers to intimacy, regardlessof their origin.
In many cases, these barriersreflect fundamental for
personality traits about who weare, or the result of deep
traumatic wounds or theseexperiences that we've had
(11:10):
growing up and what we've beentaught and what we've been
shown.
And in any case, these are noteasy to overcome, but I strongly
believe that there is a path torecovery.
I believe that healing comes bysteadfastly working to keep the
search light on ourselves ratherthan on our partner.
(11:30):
It's common that in thesesituations to only focus on our
partner's faults, that's theflashing red light that gets all
of our attention.
It's so much easier to blamethem, to look inward and
recognize that carry within us,the wound or the pain that needs
to be addressed as a therapist.
My role is to turn the questionaround and help my clients to
(11:54):
search out their role in therelationship problems.
It's impossible to changeourselves.
If we're caught in the cycle ofblaming others, change starts
from accepting yourself as youare both the strengths and the
weaknesses, the good and thebad, and showing yourself some
self, some compassion for thedifficulties that you've had in
(12:15):
your life and how they areshowing up in your
relationships.
It's only once that we'rewilling to see our parts in the
relationship that we can reallybegin to change.
I hope this has been useful andinteresting for you.
If you have any questions orthoughts, please make sure to
(12:36):
leave me a comment.
Well, that's our episode fortoday.
I hope you found it interestingand useful, but most of all, I'd
like to thank you for listening.
If you have a minute, please hitthe subscribe button and give us
a rating.
And I hope to see you again soonon another episode of sex, love
(12:58):
and couples therapy.
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