Christian Marriage Counseling: Avoider Pursuer

In our Marriage Counseling practice, Marriage Rescue Associates, we normally hear how one spouse chases and begs the other with unhappy results.


The following illustrates a dynamic popular to mankind. It really is even prevalent in the globe of nature. Understanding this dynamic will be highly important in regaining your spouse's interest.


Relationships are like seesaws. For example, if a single individual expresses all the optimism and self-confidence, the other individual is invited to feel all the pessimism and insecurity. One goes up—the other goes down.


Spouses quite often balance each and every other in this way in what is named the "Avoider- Pursuer" dynamic. When a single person's position is extreme, it literally forces their spouse to adopt an equally extreme position in the opposite direction.


When a single individual wants the marriage to function, fairly typical patterns emerge. The spouse who desires to preserve the marriage desperately pursues their mate, attempting to reverse the momentum of the alienation. Frequently there is pleading, begging, crying, threatening—anything—to try to win back the departing spouse.


"I know deep down inside you nonetheless enjoy me," she says, in an effort to convince him to preserve trying, or "What about all these years together?"  We have a history that should not be thrown away," she tells him, hoping he will see the light. "I promise I'll adjust, I know it can operate," he tells her, praying she will give him one particular much more chance.