Pursuers often end up in the “all bad” feeling

The dynamic for many pursuers is that they end up in a place where they are left “all bad.” This is often the outcome of the negative cycle where their avoiding partner distances them out of their fear of confrontation, leaving the pursuer triggered into abandonment feeling, and more and more escalated and carrying the feeling of all the badness. It is my experience that pursuers, on the whole, end up carrying the “self-badness” feeling far more often than avoiders. The reason for this is that while avoiders typically clam up in defense as a response to conflict, pursuers become escalated and increasingly disregulated as they keep trying to reach their avoiding partner who is pulling away. In essence, the abandonment panic leads to escalated reaching on the pursuers part, which only shuts the avoider down further, resulting in a frustrated anger within the pursuer, which then causes the pursuer to become hunkered down or withdraw further. The pursuer then begins to feel that somehow the whole terrible cycle is their bad… that somehow they end up feeling that they themselves are the very reason they don’t get the contact they so desperately need. Over time, it is not uncommon that the “hopeful pursuer” eventually becomes the “burned=out pursuer.” This is a dangerous development in the marriage… if this situation persists too long without repair or therapeutic intervention, the pursuer can begin to profoundly detach and withdraw from the marriage, putting the very survival of the marriage at risk. Bringing the burned-out pursuer back into marital re-engagement can be a very challenging and uncertain process.