er bands. When they pull away, they can stretch only so far before they come 
springing back. A rubber band is the perfect metaphor to understand the male intimacy cycle. 
This cycle involves getting close, pulling away, and then getting close again. 

Most women are surprised to realize that even when a man loves a woman, periodically he 
needs to pull away before he can get closer. Men instinctively feel this urge to pull away. It is 
not a decision or choice. It just happens. It is neither his fault nor her fault. It is a natural cycle. 

Women misinterpret a man's pulling away because generally a woman pulls away for different 
reasons. She pulls back when she doesn't trust him to understand her feelings, when she has 
been hurt and is afraid of being hurt again, or when he has done something wrong and 
disappointed her. 

Certainly a man may pull away for the same reasons, but he will also pull away even if she has 
done nothing wrong. He may love and trust her; and then suddenly he begins to pull away. 
Like a stretched rubber band, he will distance himself and then come back all on his own. 

A man pulls away to fulfill his need for independence or autonomy. When he has fully 
stretched away, then instantly he will come springing back. When he has fully separated, then 
suddenly he will feel his need for love and intimacy again. Automatically he will he more 
motivated to give his love and receive the love he needs. When a man springs back, he picks up 
the relationship at whatever degree of intimacy it was when he stretched away. He doesn't feel 
any need for a period of getting reacquainted again. 

WHAT EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MEN 

If understood, this male intimacy cycle enriches a relationship, but because it is misunderstood 
it creates unnecessary problems. Let's explore an example. 

Maggie was distressed, anxious, and confused. She and her boyfriend, jeff, had been dating for 
six months. Everything had been so romantic. Then without any apparent reason he began to 
distance himself emotionally. Maggie could not understand why he had suddenly pulled away. 
She told me, "One minute he was so attentive, and then the next he didn't even want to talk to 
me. 1 have tried everything to get him back but it only seems to make matters worse. He seems 
so distant. 1 don't know what I did wrong. Am 1 so awful?" 

When jeff pulled away, Maggie took it personally. This is a common reaction. She thought she 
had done something wrong and blamed herself. She wanted to make things "right again," but 
the more she tried to get close to Jeff the more he pulled away. 
After taking my seminar Maggie was so relieved. Her anxiety and confusion immediately 
disappeared. Most important, she stopped blaming herself. She realized that when Jeff pulled 


away it was not her fault. In addition she learned why he was pulling away and how gracefully 
to deal with it. Months later at another seminar, Jeff thanked me for what Maggie had learned. 
He told me they were now engaged to be married. Maggie had discovered a secret that few 
women know about men. 

Maggie realized that when she was trying to get close while Jeff was trying to pull away, she 
was actually preventing him from stretching his full distance and then springing back. By 
running after him, she was preventing him from ever feeling that he needed her and wanted to 
be with her. She realized that she had done this in every relationship. Unknowingly she had 
obstructed an important cycle. By trying to maintain intimacy she had prevented it. 

Now a Man Is Suddenly Transformed 

If a man does not have the opportunity to pull away, he never gets a chance to feel his strong 
desire to be dose. It is essential for women to understand that if they insist on continuous 
intimacy or "run after" their intimate male partner when he pulls away, then he will almost 
always be trying to escape and distance himself; he will never get a chance to feel his own 
passionate longing for love. 

In my seminars I demonstrate this with a big rubber band. Imagine that you are holding a 
rubber band. Now begin stretching your rubber band by pulling it to your right. This particular 
rubber band can stretch twelve inches. When the rubber band is stretched twelve inches there 
is nowhere left to go but back. And when it returns it has a lot of power and spring. 

Likewise, when a man has stretched away his full distance, he will return with a lot of power 
and spring. Once he pulls away to his limit, he begins to go through a transformation. Flis 
whole attitude begins to shift. This man who did not seem to care about or be interested in his 
partner (while he was pulling away) suddenly cannot live 

without her. He is now feeling again his need for intimacy. His power is back because his 
desire to love and be loved have been reawakened. 

This is generally puzzling for a woman because in her experience if she has pulled away, 
becoming intimate again reqw'res a period of reacquaintance. If she doesn't understand that 
men are different in this way, she may have a tendency to mistrust his sudden desire for 
intimacy and push him away. 

Men also need to understand this difference. When a man springs back, before a woman can 
open up again to him she generally wants and needs time and conversation to reconnect. This 
transition can be more graceful if a man understands a woman may need more time to regain 
the same level of intimacy-especially if she felt hurt when he pulled away. Without this 
understanding of differences, a man may become impatient because he is suddenly available to 
pick up the intimacy at whatever level of intensity it was when he pulled away and she is not. 

Why Men Pull Away 


Men begin to feel their need for autonomy and independence after they have fulfilled their 
need for intimacy. Automatically when he begins to pull away, she begins to panic. What she 
doesn't realize is that when he pulls away and fulfills his need for autonomy then suddenly he 
will want to be intimate again. A man automatically alternates between needing intimacy and 
autonomy. 

For example, in the beginning of his relationship Jeff was strong and full of desire. His rubber 
band was fully stretched. He wanted to impress her, fulfill her, please her, and get close to her. 
As he succeeded she also wanted to get closer. As she opened her heart to him he got closer and 
closer. When they achieved intimacy he felt won 
derful. But after a brief period a change took place. 

Imagine what happens to the rubber band. The rubber band becomes limp. Its power and 
stretch are gone. There is no longer any movement. This is exactly what happens to a man's 
desire to get close after intimacy has been achieved. 

Even though this closeness is fulfilling to a man, he will inevitably begin to go through an 
inner shift. He will begin to feel the urge to pull away. Having temporarily fulfilled his hunger 
for intimacy, he now feels his hunger to be independent, to be on his own. Enough of this 
needing another person. He may feel he has become too dependent or may not know why he 
feels a need to pull away. 

Why Women Panic 

As Jeff instinctively pulls away without any explanation to Maggie (or to himself), Maggie 
reacts with fear. She panics and runs after him. She thinks she has done something wrong and 
has turned him off. She imagines he is expecting her to reestablish intimacy. She is afraid he 
will never come back. 

To make matters worse, she feels powerless to get him back because she doesn't know what she 
did to turn him off. She doesn't know that this is just a part of his intimacy cycle. When she 
asks him what's the matter, he doesn't have a dear answer, and so he resists talking about it. He 
just continues to distance her even more. 

Why Men and Women Doubt Their Love 

Without an understanding of this cycle it is easy to see how men and women begin to doubt 
their love. Without seeing how she was preventing Jeff from finding his passion, Maggie could 
easily assume that Jeff didn't love her. Without getting the chance to pull away, Jeff would lose 
touch with his desire and passion to be close. He could easily assume that he no longer loved 
Maggie. 

After learning to let Jeff have his distance or "space," Maggie discovered that he did come back. 
She practiced not running after 


him when he would withdraw and trusted that everything was OK. Each time he did come 
back. 

As her trust in this process grew, it became easier for her not to panic. When he pulled away 
she did not run after him or even think something was wrong. She accepted this part of Jeff. 
The more she just accepted him at those times the sooner he would return. As Jeff began to 
understand his changing feelings and needs, he became more confident in his love. He was 
able to make a commitment. The secret of Maggie and Jeffs success was that they understood 
and accepted that men are like rubber bands. 

NOW WOMEN MISINTERPRET MEN 

Without an understanding of how men are like rubber bands, it Is very easy for women to 
misinterpret a man's reactions. A common confusion arises when she says "Let's talk" and 
immediately he emotionally distances himself. Right when she wants to open up and get 
closer, he wants to pull away. Commonly I hear the complaint "Every time I want to talk, he 
pulls away. 1 feel like he doesn't care about me." She mistakenly concludes that he doesn't ever 
want to talk to her. 

This rubber band analogy explains how a man may care very much about his partner but 
suddenly pull away. When he pulls away it is not because he does not want to talk. Instead, he 
needs some time alone; time to be with himself when he is not responsible for anyone else. It is 
a time for him to take care of himself. When he returns then he i