He May Have Pushed You Away, But Here’s How To Get Him Back

Getting the cold shoulder from someone after it was once hot and heavy is the worst. Do you put it all out on the line for love and risk making a fool of yourself or play it cool with no guarantee they’ll change their mind? It’s hard to decide how to strategize once you’ve been turned on. Here are 8 tips on what to do if a guy you’re interested in starts distancing himself.

  1. Start living your best life…hard. If it’s not even for the purpose of getting him back, just do this for you! Seriously, go out, have fun, set goals, and actually make them happen—and don’t be afraid to do a little bragging on your accomplishments along the way. He might see you winning and feel like he lost out for sleeping on you. No one regrets leaving behind dead weight, so make sure he knows for sure what you had to bring to the table. Make him want to beg for you back in his life.
  2. Act really unbothered. Being clingy, desperate, and needy is extra and simply unattractive. He’ll be happy to have left a hot mess behind if you exhibit those emotional states in response. What he won’t understand is why you don’t care (if you’re able to act like you don’t, that is). It’ll make him question himself and why he wasn’t good enough to make you come running after him. People are seriously confusing in this way—want them back and it’s a turn-off, but act like you don’t and they end up wanting you! Don’t question the game, just play it.
  3. Give him space but don’t totally exit his life. He may not have pushed you away because he entirely wants you gone. He may not even be sure exactly what he wants. Give him enough distance to allow him to miss you, but there’s a fine balance with this one. You don’t want to be so far removed you end up being “out of sight out of mind” and forgotten. If he gets too comfortable with your absence, it may just feel like work to start all over again to integrate you back into his routine. Be present but not stifling.
  4. Start seeing other people. Jealousy is a natural human tendency. People just want what they can’t have and tend to get stuck in comparing themselves to others. It’s easier to take someone’s presence for granted when you feel like they will always be there at your disposal. Knowing other men have your attention and someone may claim you for their own will motivate him to step it up if he’d been dragging his feet before. Even just the thought of you being with someone else might prompt him to determine if he had feelings for you already or not. In any case, just being on the dating scene will generally make you appear more attractive. It’s the same concept as holding onto a job while you’re applying for others.
  5. Work on you. Potentially uncomfortable to admit to yourself, but he may have pushed you away because you’re not the best catch right now. People seeking healthy relationships usually want to date someone on their level, not someone they have to save or have a supreme amount of understanding for. After dealing with the same nuances over and over, you just get the point where you stop making excuses for others and start adding to your list of dealbreakers. He may just view you as being too much of a project and not see a practical future with someone in your current place in life. If you step your game up a little bit by reaching some goals and smoothing out some wrinkles, he may start seeing you in a new light. Even if he doesn’t, you’re improving your life, and that can only be a good thing.
  6. Create boundaries in your relationship. He’s not going to respect someone he can just stomp all over like a doormat. He might have pushed you away because you let him come in and out of your life. The more behaviors you overlook, the worse he’s going to treat you over time. It may feel scary to say “no” and set limits because you might wonder if that will drive him away, but if it does let that toxic mess go. More likely though, you’re just enabling him to take advantage of you and he will have more respect and better behavior if you put your foot down a little more and structure your interactions. He may not actually want to lose you completely so an ultimatum could be for the best.
  7. Be more of who you were when he met you. Sometimes relationships can turn you into someone you don’t even recognize yourself. When you first met him, you were spontaneous and easy to talk to. Now all you do is nag him and try to catch him doing something wrong. You never want to go out anymore and give him a hard time about doing anything for himself. He may have pushed you away not because he doesn’t like you but because he doesn’t like the version of you that morphed out of getting close to one another. Do a self-check and be honest about your dateability. Would you want to take yourself out? If not, some personal changes may be in order to remind him of what attracted him to you in the first place and get that honeymoon phase bliss back.
  8. Do your homework. He may not even be pushing you away or it may not be entirely personal and untypical behavior on his part. Have you even checked his zodiac sign? Taurus men, for example, are known to “test” the loyalty of someone who likes them before committing to giving all of their own loyalty away. On the other hand, Cancer and Scorpio men are likely to push you away simply because they’re dealing with their own emotions and trust issues. Sometimes you just need to understand their tendencies, not take their patterns personally, and ride it out instead of immediately throwing in the towel based on your perceptions. Alternatively, researching what attracts this sign is also a helpful step. You could be doing everything that turns them off and need to find out what they even like in a woman.
I’m Cara, not to be confused with Carrie, although you could say I’m a Millennial Bradshaw of sorts. Pop culture connoisseur. Lover of all things creative and passionate about health and personal well-being. Follow me on IG @cara_vale_writer
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