The Many Faces of the Distancer

“Distancing” is a big category. Distancers come in many shapes and sizes.  They can be single or in long-term couple relationships, gay or straight, women or men, young or old. Here are a few brief glimpses of typical distancers:


Distancer Categories

There are three broad and encompassing distancer categories: the Disappearing Distancer, the Defended Distancer, and the Distracted Distancer. Within each of these categories, there are predictable variations.

• The Disappearing Distancer

Disappearing distancers are the easiest category of distancers to identify. You may recognize yourself as the disappearing distancer who completely avoids getting into relationships. Or you may be the type of disappearing distancer who occasionally approaches courtship but is too afraid of being trapped or smothered to stick around for long.

• The Defended Distancer

The second category is crowded, so if you are a defended distancer you have plenty of company. The defended distancer gets into relationships but always has one foot out the door or seems to float in and out of relational reach. Sometimes, the defended distancer is a perfectionist, unable to settle for a “good enough” relationship, even when it’s right there at the doorstep. This is just another way to avoid feeling vulnerable: “I’ll reject you before you can reject or abandon me.”

The defended distancer is more covert in his or her distancing behavior than the disappearing distancer, but is also fearful about risking emotional and/or sexual vulnerability. Defended distancers are often tortured by their ambivalence, never allowing themselves to feel securely attached in their relationships. Upsetting themselves and their partners, they change their minds back and forth, first in, then out.

Much of what we know about gender stereotypes would make us think that most defended distancers are men. But if you are a woman who avoids emotional vulnerability, you aren’t alone. Many women keep themselves emotionally at a distance. They are less likely to be confronted about it, though. One obvious reason for this is that most men have been socialized to avoid emotional vulnerability and so the male partners of female distancers may not easily recognize what’s really going on. Also, female emotional distancing is underreported in books, magazines, research studies, and frequently goes undetected in couples counseling.

• The Distracted Distancer

The third category is the best disguised among the three major categories of distancer. The distracted distancer appears in many manifestations. The distracted distancer stays too busy to spend quality time with her (or his) partner, thus avoiding couple closeness and intimacy. Distracted distancers may be superproviders, focusing all their efforts on accomplishing necessary tasks: parenting, working, keeping up the home, doing community service, and so on. When the distracted distancer’s efforts are on behalf of the family, he or she can appear to be very committed to the well-being of the partner, even though the couple relationship is getting shortchanged.

There are many different manifestations of the distracted distancer.  One example is the crisis addict who is swept up in one crisis after another, leaving little time or space for anything else. Someone who is involved in an all-consuming spiritual practice, or is a full-time advocate for the homeless, or has dedicated his or her life to protecting the environment is likely to have a partner who feels neglected by this distracted distancer.


Adapted from Stop Running From Love: 3 Steps to Overcoming Emotional Distancing & Fear of Intimacy by Dusty Miller, Ed.D.