Breaking the Pursue/Withdraw Cycle: The Power of Response

You were born to be responded to. In fact, you were born with large eyes and a round face, designed to activate regions of the parental brain associated with motivation to respond to an infant’s needs (for review, see Bornstein, 2015). When infants cry or smile, it triggers a cascade of physiological changes in the parent associated with caregiving behavior. Research suggests that an infant crying may change the level of certain hormones in the blood as well as parents’ blood pressure, skin conductance, and heart rate, and these physiological changes motivate the adult to approach the infant and participate in comforting behaviors. An infant smiling is also a powerful tool that infants use to meet their needs; infant smiles have been shown to activate the motivation and reward centers of parents’ brains, motivating adults to be close to their infants.

The “still-face experiment” demonstrates what happens when an infant does not receive the responsiveness that they need to feel safe in the world. In this research experiment, a mother looks at her baby with a neutral face and is instructed to avoid reacting to the baby’s cues for connection. Infants show a typical pattern of reacting to their mother’s still face, first starting with confusion, then desperate bids to connect with the mother. When these attempts fail, the baby becomes agitated and angry, anxious for some kind of reaction. This is what researchers call “attachment protest.” Still not receiving a response, the infant’s affect then progresses to a state of helplessness and sadness.

Any Response Is Better Than No Response at All: Attachment Protest

Adults also engage in “protest” behavior when they are not responded to in their relationships. When your partner shuts down, you might find that you become angry and start to criticize or make demands of your partner, trying to get some kind of response, any response. When we don’t receive a response from those we are close to, we panic. We want to know that we are not alone. And with this intense anxiety, we pursue some kind of response that shows us that our partner is still attuned to our needs, still with us. This could sound like:

“You're always late! Don’t you care about me at all?”

“If you can’t do this for me, maybe we should just end this.”

“I’m sick of doing everything around the house! You need to contribute!”

What these comments all have in common is that they are examples of pursuing behavior, a desperate attempt to get a response, any response, from our partner. Even if that response is an angry one, in the language of emotional attachment, any response is better than no response at all.

What Really Causes a Shut Down in a Relationship

The problem is that protest behavior can reinforce the reasons that a partner might shut down in conflict in the first place. Psychologist John Gottman’s research finds that individuals who freeze in conflict, though they may seem devoid of emotion or numb on the outside, are actually in a state of physiological flooding. Characterized by heart rates of over 90-100 beats per minute, physiological flooding is a sign that adrenaline and cortisol are coursing the veins of the shut-down partner. The frozen partner is overwhelmed due to feelings that the relationship is threatened by conflict or of personal inadequacy for not meeting their partner’s needs.

The Pursue/Withdraw Pattern and How to Break It

When one partner is stuck in attachment protest (aka “pursue” behavior), this can lead to shutdown behavior in the partner (aka “withdraw” behavior) and vice versa. Pursue/withdraw is one of the most common patterns that couples find themselves caught in. The more that one partner makes demands and criticizes (to try to get a response), the more the other partner hears the message, “I’m not good enough,” causing physiological flooding and a “freeze response.” The more the withdrawing partner freezes, the stronger the attachment panic of the pursuing partner gets, leading to more desperate attempts for a response (like the infant in the still-face experiment).

To break a pursue/withdraw pattern, both the pursuer and the withdrawer need to break out of their “protective” responses and express their needs and feelings in a more vulnerable, direct way. Instead of pursuing, share about your need to feel close and to know that your relationship is important. And rather than shutting down, tell your partner about your need to know that your partner sees the good in you and sees you as capable of meeting their needs.

If you tend to be the pursuer, this might sound like, “I know that I’ve been getting on you a lot about working too much lately. What I think I’m really needing is to know that I matter to you too and you want to be around me. If you’d be able to shoot me a sweet text while you’re at work, it would make me feel really cared about and loved.”

If you’re the one who tends to withdraw, this might sound like, “I’ve been reflecting on how I have been shutting down in our conversations when you bring up my working late. I think it’s because when you bring it up, I feel inadequate as a partner, like I’m not giving you enough, and I freeze. Would you be able to bring it up in a more gentle way that makes it easier for me to feel capable of working on this together?”

Relationships Essential Reads

Setting Boundaries in Your Romantic Relationship

How Your Partner’s Personality May Shape Your Habits

The pursue/withdraw pattern is one of the most common patterns that couples find themselves caught in. When threats to our close connections stress us, it’s natural that our bodies go into fight or flight (aka pursue/withdraw). The key is to ground ourselves in our deeper, underlying attachment needs for closeness and acceptance and to share these directly and vulnerably. When we do this, pursue/withdraw morphs into an adaptive pattern of soften/engage that helps partners connect around their needs.