When your boyfriend wants space, or if you notice how he changes his behavior to distance himself from you, then you start to fear the worst.
His, “I need space,” words hit you like a train. Your thoughts are only about how he will break up with you and you think your fear might come true.
However, the situation is quite different.
See, the overall reason why men need space in a relationship, and the reason why they pull away, is that they need to make room for themselves.
They didn’t have enough room in the first place, but now they want to learn how to make some room while being in a relationship with someone new.
When a boyfriend needs space, that is usually because he needs time to realize what he has.
He needs to figure out how he can really build a healthy relationship.
Maybe your boyfriend doesn’t call or text you for a while or his messages become shorter and less frequent.
Then you know something is wrong and that’s that your boyfriend wants space.
My advice to you is not to be angry at him or pressure him about anything.
If you ask him what is wrong, he might hit you with the words, “I need some space.” Don’t be surprised if he does that.
Your boyfriend might ask for space at the beginning of the relationship or even once things become more serious.
I know it is a terrible feeling to hear that your boyfriend needs space.
I know that your mind strategizes on what went wrong and whether it’s something that you did.
You start to think of a plan of how to make things better and get your relationship back on the right track.
Don’t be discouraged. When he needs space, it often has little to do with you. It is mostly him who needs to figure things out.
Now, let’s dig a little deeper into why he pulls away from you and why he needs space in your relationship.
Reasons why your boyfriend wants space:
1. His needs are not fulfilled
The truth is that guys are never good at verbalizing their feelings and needs.
If your boyfriend wants space, then his emotional needs are probably not being met or he feels unappreciated.
The reason why they are sometimes unable to articulate their feelings and emotions may be due to social rules.
Guys have been conditioned by society not to talk about their needs and wants.
What is even worse is that some men don’t realize their emotional deficiency. That is when you can step in and help him.
Your boyfriend won’t tell you straight about what he wants from you.
However, he will learn along the way, and believe me, he will know it once he gets it.
He might not tell you immediately that he needs your appreciation or approval.
Another thing might be that you show him recognition, but unfortunately, that is not enough for him, and he doesn’t know how to tell you that.
Instead of communicating with you, he starts to back away from you because he wants space.
He becomes distant and disengaged. You can feel that, but you don’t know how to break through to him.
2. He thinks it’s moving too fast
Passion and desire are hard to explain.
When you feel desire toward someone, you don’t think straight, so sometimes you act quickly to extinguish that desire which is burning inside you.
Sometimes, relationships move way too fast, just because the feelings are too intense.
The feelings that he has when you two spend time together might be a little too much for him too soon.
The relationship is moving too quickly for him. Him telling you that he needs space is his way of putting the brakes on things.
The main reason why he fears commitment is just that he believes that everything is going too fast.
He believes that he will lose his freedom and with that, he will lose his identity.
He will lose the ‘precious’ time that he could spend with his friends and that he’ll have to do things he doesn’t like.
Remember, you need to make him comfortable.
If you believe that this is happening to you, then take things slowly and don’t push him even further away from you.
3. He is stressed
When a guy wants space, sometimes it has nothing to do with you. He pulls away from you because he’s too stressed.
Maybe he has stress at work with his boss, or maybe one of his family members is pressuring him to get married.
You may never know what is troubling someone else.
This is the number one reason why your boyfriend wants space. He doesn’t want to talk about his problems because it might be a sign of weakness.
Maybe he has too much pride and doesn’t want you to think he can’t solve his issues on his own.
Your guy might feel like a loser or a weakling because he asks for your support or even if he talks to you about his feelings.
The thing is, women respond differently. Their approach is much more psychologically healthy.
The way your boyfriend might act is to retreat to his ‘man cave’.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that he will withdraw there and figure out a solution immediately.
However, he might immerse himself in something completely different, like playing video games or watching sports, just so as to keep his mind occupied with something else.
Men need more time to process and handle their emotions, unlike women.
It is not in their nature to share their deepest thoughts and emotions. They don’t have that kind of support system.
Believe me, it is much easier for him to temporarily escape from his feelings rather than trying to sort through them.
If the relationship is fresh, he may not feel comfortable enough to share things with you or be willing to confide in you.
4. He is focused on himself now
As you have learned by now, guys can be emotional creatures too.
It might be that the reason why he is pulling away and needs space is that he needs time to figure things out himself first, before taking your relationship to the next level.
He wants to show his best self in the relationship, and he can’t do that if he isn’t aware of himself first.
You will remember times when you were going through some rough patches in your life.
And you just wanted to curl up and hide underneath a blanket, so that all the problems would disappear.
Believe me, men are the same. Sometimes it is hard for them to admit, but men also want some emotional space.
During that period, he may be dealing with problems of self-esteem or self-love.
Maybe he wants to sort his feelings out on his own without dragging you into his baggage.
5. He is not over his ex
Let’s spill the truth and say that some guys are jerks. Well, I’m not saying that your boyfriend is a jerk, but some guys are jerks in disguise.
He pretends to be over his ex, only for you to find out later on in the relationship that he is still head over heels in love with her.
If your relationship is fresh and if your boyfriend is pulling away and wants space, maybe he is still in love with his ex.
Such a boyfriend is not ready for a relationship, no matter what his actions have to say.
It is really hard to tell how a guy feels about his past relationship.
It is essential that you are cautious when a guy tells you he wants space just a couple of months after he started dating you.
6. He thinks you are too clingy
Your boyfriend is ready to commit. However, the second he does, you become super clingy, and you suffocate him and scare him away.
That may be one of his thought processes even if it isn’t true.
A guy sometimes fears that the second he commits to a girl, she will become clingy. He might be terrified by your neediness so he wants space.
When a relationship starts, some women hold on to their partner for dear life because they are afraid that things will not work out.
By doing that, they are suffocating their man and start to become obsessed.
They begin analyzing every situation and urge their partner to be in constant contact, whether that’s via text or by pressuring him to spend every single minute with her.
It is hard to admit to yourself that you are being clingy, I know that. However, if you don’t do that, your man will want space and will pull away from you.
My best advice that I can give you is to give him the space he needs, occupy your mind with other things, and try to work on something that is your passion.
7. He doesn’t think your physical connection is good enough
After doing the deed in the bedroom, does your boyfriend just turn around and go to sleep? Trust me, he will ask for space soon.
Maybe he thinks that there is a lack of physical connection that is the real cause of the problem.
Yes, you may have the most wonderful time talking to him about your hobbies and interests, and at first, you had a lot in common.
But after doing the deed, he might have figured out that there is a lack of chemistry between the two of you regarding that area and he will run for the hills.
Men and women are the same, trust me.
They believe that if they have a real physical connection with their partner, their relationship will withstand the test of time.
Nevertheless, if your date went well and you had the perfect time, but in the bedroom, something seems to be lacking, then it would be for the best that you move on from him and vice versa, because you should want your space too.
8. He is afraid to commit
Some guys have issues committing to just one person. The term ‘staying loyal to one partner’ is foreign to them. Those men exist and that is undoubtful.
You should not date that kind of man in the first place. But what if those qualities emerge later on?
Perhaps he wants to play the field while he is still young and before settling down with you.
Men like to hunt. It is in their nature. It is hard to find a guy who wants to settle down and date just one girl.
They enjoy the thrill that comes with romantic entanglements and ‘the chase’ that comes with it.
However, they seem to be afraid of what comes after that.
Commitment to one person is what scares them away and maybe that is the reason your boyfriend wants space.
Guys are afraid when they have to face relationship decisions and will often run away from you in no time at all.
They don’t know how to deal with their emotions.
So, if you try to contact him and he avoids answering your calls, this might be the problem.
He wants to run away and to avoid having to deal with true intimacy.
You should be conscious and aware that it is not you who is the cause of such a problem.
It is not your performance in bed, for example, that is driving him away.
It’s him. It is his incapability to deal with his own emotions. You should give him space and let him be in God’s hands.
9. He feels pressured and he wants space
It is a known fact that men are afraid of intimacy and commitment. This may be because of some deep fears or issues of pressure to finally settle down.
Women often have their life planned out. You likely know when you plan to marry and you know when to plan to have kids.
Because of that pressure, your boyfriend may or may not pull back because he wants space.
Some of those projections could be coming from himself or from family members who want him to get married and have kids sooner rather than later.
Don’t jump to conclusions when your guy asks for some space, because there are numerous reasons why that is happening.
More times than not, those problems have nothing to do with you. And they have absolutely everything to do with him.
Be prepared to give him space no matter how in love with him you are.
If it doesn’t work, start the healing process and move on, as the right one will find his way into your life.
10. He realized he is not as into you as he thought
There is a probable and possible reason why a fairly new relationship has come to an end.
Maybe he figured out that he doesn’t like you that much to be in a relationship with you.
Let’s be real. Men’s brains are wired differently from women’s and that is a fact.
Men need some time to figure out what they are feeling and to focus on one emotion at a time.
Most men are not great at verbalizing their feelings, which leads them to eventually ask for space.
It may seem easier for him to just ask for some because he doesn’t want to pursue things further.
This is his way of saying, “I’m breaking up with you.” He will distance himself in the hope that you figure out the conclusion by yourself.
I know it sucks and the feeling is terrible but you escaped a tricky situation there.
11. He is scared of being hurt by you
Despite everything, men are emotional creatures too.
Past relationships can leave emotional scars and you know this better than anyone.
Instead of moving on, what is left is baggage, which causes a man to distance himself because he is afraid of being hurt again.
Having a heartache is the worst. He tries to evaluate whether it is worth risking his heart getting broken again.
If he was previously with a partner who broke up with him when he was in love with them, then he is afraid that this exact scenario might happen with you too.
If your boyfriend wants space, this might be the reason behind it. As a way to protect himself, he pulls away and distances himself.
However, this doesn’t apply to just men. Women can also feel this way too.
Love is a strange thing. When people are in love, they do all sorts of odd things, and sometimes they even self-sabotage themselves.
That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have feelings for you at all, it just means that he doesn’t know how to process and act on those feelings.
He is still figuring out whether he can trust you or not.
12. He wants to regain his masculinity
Relationships change people, whether we accept that or not.
A guy changes his emotions in the sense that he becomes more vulnerable and eventually learns how to verbalize his feelings.
Many men don’t know how this feels, so their natural reaction to this would be to move away from the person who causes them to change, and in this case, that is you.
Maybe your boyfriend wants space because he wants to ‘recharge his batteries’ by doing things that he enjoys doing by himself.
Those man things that I was talking about, in that place of comfort and masculinity mostly called a ‘man cave’.
He might spend more time without you at his place in the early stages of your relationship.
However, as time progresses, he might call his male friends to enjoy some time with them.
He does this as a way to reconnect with the part of his personality that he might think was weakened by your relationship.
A man’s feelings really can be tough to explain.
Don’t let emotions govern your actions if your boyfriend wants space.
If you are in a situation where your boyfriend asks you for some space, let him have it. Don’t let a fear of loss determine your future actions.
I know you are overwhelmed with negative feelings instead of positive ones.
At the beginning of your relationship, you were not afraid of him leaving you. You were not worried to lose him.
Because you acted like you had nothing to lose, he was attracted to you. A man wants to be with someone who is secure, happy, and relaxed.
The feeling that someone is slipping away from you must be one of the worst ones. Many emotions arise from such a feeling.
You start to behave differently. You feel scared, panicked and you start to freak out.
Those actions that you previously took out of happiness and contentment have now shifted to panic, fear, and loss.
Suddenly, you are doing everything that is in your power to reassure yourself that he is not leaving you.
You start to control his actions, rather than spending time with him. You should not do that.
The moment you start doing that, the man you like will have a strong urge to get as far away as possible from you.
You don’t like to be controlled either, am I right? This can and will destroy your relationship.
So, you may ask, “What can I do if he wants space?” Well, the answer is simple.
Just give him enough space to figure things out by himself and if it is meant to be, then he will come back.
Many guys need space just because they need to sort out their thoughts about the relationship.
As he spends more time without you, he will build a desire to see you again, trust me.
When you haven’t been in contact for some time, he will start thinking about you more and more, about what you’re doing and whether you have any desire to see him again.
That will only happen if you give him space, believe me. You need to do so, and then he will feel closer and more connected to you.
That is why clinginess or obsession will drive a guy further away and it will backfire every time.
You need to make him miss you and it is then likely that he will eventually come back.
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