My Boyfriend Needs Space. Will He Come Back?

When your boyfriend needs space, there’s a big possibility that your boyfriend is no longer your boyfriend. In his mind, he could be your ex-boyfriend because the thought of being with you smothers him and makes him unhappy and uncomfortable.

Whether your boyfriend just needs some space or is done for good really depends on the issues he’s dealing with.

If he’s going through a death in the family, a loss of a job, or something painful, he probably still loves you but doesn’t know how to express his emotions and work on his issues. He just knows that he isn’t happy and that he must do something about it.

But if he’s not going through anything difficult and appears angry, frustrated, and detached, then your boyfriend likely needs space from you rather than space from the issue itself. In that case, he likely won’t come back (at least not any time soon) because he’s developed a negative opinion of you and said he needed space not because he needed time to think but because he was afraid of breaking up with you.

He thought you’d give him a hard time with the breakup, so he decided to lie to you and force you to take your attention off of him.

Guys often use the “I need some space” breakup excuse out of a fear of seeing their girlfriend react with anger or denial. That’s why they give their girlfriend something that guarantees them a safe transition from a relationship to single life.

Just how some guys in relationships lie to avoid conflict, guys who want to break lie as well. They know there’s an easier way to deal with an about to become ex-girlfriend, so they make excuses and lie. By doing so, they ditch their girlfriends before their girlfriends turn around and realize they were dumped.

So if your boyfriend needs space and you’re wondering if he’ll come back once he’s gotten it, the first thing you need to do is to figure out why he needs space in the first place. Is it because something bad happened to him and he doesn’t know how to handle emotions very well or is it because he’s tired of the relationship and wants to get rid of you so he can focus on himself?

Discovering his reason for needing space is crucial as it will tell you if he’s:

1. Emotionally unavailable (incapable of giving and receiving love and not ready for a relationship).
2. Unhappy with you and the relationship (doesn’t like you anymore).
3. Or if he’s going through a rough patch.

You need to discern what’s wrong with him emotionally so you know whether you should stay hopeful about the relationship or give up on it.

In my opinion, anyone who pushes another person away in a relationship isn’t ready to be in a relationship. He’s got a lot more work to do on himself before he’s ready to deal with his problems with his partner by his side.

Not only does he have to learn why he’s pushing his partner away, but he also has to work on himself and provide his partner with the reassurance that he won’t do it again.

The same goes for your boyfriend.

If he’s facing some internal issues (not dilemmas about whether to be with you), he needs to learn how to talk to you and get through his personal issues with you. Life is unpredictable and he’ll experience many more issues like the one he’s going through now.

That’s why he mustn’t just avoid issues. He must learn how to handle them. When he does, he’ll be able to deal with stressors and unwanted emotions successfully without shoving you away and telling you he needs space.

In this post, we’ll talk about whether your boyfriend will come back if you give him space.

Why does my boyfriend need space?

When your boyfriend says he needs space, it’s obvious that he’s emotionally incapable of investing in you and himself at the same time. Something’s preventing him from living his life the way he wants to live it, so he’s pushing you away to minimize his stressors, reduce his anxiety, and have more time to focus on his own wants and needs as well as other people.

A guy who claims to need space needs to be alone because he’s exhausted himself out. He wasn’t getting what he wanted in a relationship for a very long time, so he reached a tipping point and pushed you away.

This is how he stopped reliving the negative emotions he associated with you while he was still with you and made it possible for him to be free and independent.

The reason why your boyfriend needed space isn’t just because he was unhappy. It’s because he wasn’t capable of dealing with his unhappiness the way emotionally ready and mature people do – by talking about it. Instead of talking about it and looking for a solution with you, he thought you’d make him feel worse, so he got overwhelmed with pressure and allowed relationship-breaking emotions to build up to the point that he gave up on you.

Giving up on you was the only solution he saw because giving up eased his resentments and other unhealthy associations almost immediately. It may not have fixed them, but it swept them under the rug and stopped him from needing to address them.

You probably already know that running away from issues and unhealthy emotions is easier than facing them. That must be the reason why alcoholics and drug addicts like to distract themselves rather than do something about the issues that badly need to be fixed.

Your boyfriend may not be a drug addict, but he handled his negative emotions (problems) the exact same way – by ignoring them and hoping they would go away on their own. Little did he know that people who ignore emotional issues in relationships almost always develop resentments and break up.

If your boyfriend says he needs space, you have to understand that the issue is much bigger than you think. It’s not just with his stressors. It’s also with you because he’s associating stress and negativity with you. In other words, he’s distancing himself from you because he made you into a problem whether you contributed to his issues or not.

This means that your boyfriend hasn’t learned the most basic relationship rule which is that he mustn’t project his anger, sadness, depression, or any negative external issues onto you.

The relationship and his life outside of the relationship are two separate entities. If he tries to fuse them, things can get very ugly very quickly.

Have you ever wondered why so many families or couples who work together have a difficult time maintaining their relationships and working together peacefully? It’s because they have close relationships with each other and take issues, opinions, and disagreements personally.

They don’t know how to make their work about work, so they mix the two together and often damage their friendship or romantic relationship in the process.

I’m telling you this because there’s a chance that your boyfriend also associated external stress or unease with you and broke up with you because he wasn’t happy in general.

Depressed or mentally ill people do this often. They lack the strength to perceive and treat their partners the same as before they got ill, so they drag their partners down with them. This is why it’s so important that we work on our emotional health.

If we neglect it, chances are that we’ll project our pain and frustrations onto our partner and suffer when our partner reacts to it.

The infographic below shows 5 reasons why your boyfriend needs space all of a sudden.

Let’s now talk about the three main reasons why your boyfriend needs space.

1)He’s emotionally unavailable

If the guy you were with recently broke up with his girlfriend and immediately monkey-branched to you, the guy likely tried to heal/distract himself after the end of his previous relationship by getting involved with you. He wanted to skip the grieving and self-improvement phase and thought that you would be the solution to his problems.

And he was right. You definitely helped him in terms of validation and emotional support.

That’s why he was really into you and seemed like a perfect match for you. At least at first because he gave you a lot of attention, spent a lot of time with you, and probably even talked about the future.

But when the issues he swept under the rug caught up with him, he quickly started to pull away. This is how he proved that he wasn’t okay emotionally and that he needed to work on his issues before he could bond with you or with anyone else.

Emotional unavailability is something many guys deal with. Especially guys who get broken up with and find someone to date right away. Such guys aren’t honest with their new girlfriend, so they end up shattering her dreams and hurt her.

Of course, they don’t hurt her on purpose. But they still cause her a lot of pain that could have been avoided.

Some guys also deal with emotional unavailability because of unresolved mental health issues. Such guys also try to get involved with someone new too quickly. They don’t take the time to heal and improve themselves, so they get so close to their partner that they blame her for their issues.

As a result, they become emotionally exhausted and think that the only way to be happy is by shutting their partner out of their lives and focusing on themselves.

If you really like your ex, the best thing to do is to leave him alone and let him become emotionally available on his own. He’s responsible for his emotions, so let him take care of them while you take care of yourself.

2)He’s unhappy with you and the relationship

The biggest reason why boyfriends need space in a relationship is that they fail to communicate their wants and needs efficiently. They feel like their girlfriends don’t listen or understand them, so they become unhappy or annoyed and give up on their girlfriends.

This is why they often get angry and hurt their girlfriends in the process. Some guys say the breakup is only temporary, some ghost their girlfriends, some tell their girlfriends it’s their fault, and some blame themselves.

Only guys who understand their emotions and care about their karma break up with their girlfriends properly (apologetically in person) and offer to help their girlfriends get through the breakup.

But then, there are also guys who are neither angry nor extremely eager to help. Those guys just look after themselves and break up with their partners without actually breaking up with her.

They do this by giving their girlfriend one of the following excuses:

• It’s just a break
• I still love you
• I just need some time to think
• I need some space

Guys like this may not want to cause harm, but they end up causing harm anyway. They usually hurt their girlfriends days or weeks later when their girlfriends realize that the relationship has ended.

So if your boyfriend was unhappy with the relationship and said he needed space after an argument or a period of reduced intimacy, keep in mind that your boyfriend isn’t interested in fixing the relationship.

He’s interested in getting space from you which means that he likely won’t get back to you in the near future. Not unless something goes horribly wrong on his end.

While your boyfriend is MIA, make sure to follow the indefinite no contact rule so you can preserve your worth and minimize the number of emotional setbacks you experience because of him.

3)He’s going through a rough patch

Some guys are so bad at dealing with their unwanted emotions that they shut down and block out anyone who tries to help them. They want to look strong in others’ eyes, so they refuse to show vulnerability and signs of weakness.

They’d rather deal with their issues themselves.

Many guys are programmed by parents, guardians, and society from a young age to be strong and self-sufficient. They’re told to be emotionally strong like robots, so that’s exactly what they become. They turn into stoic robots who have trouble expressing the kind of emotions their society classifies as weak and undesirable.

That’s why they hold difficult emotions inside and become emotionally unreceptive to their girlfriends and push them away when their girlfriends get too close and try to “meddle” with their difficulties.

Guys oftentimes just don’t want their girlfriends to help them. They may need help, but because they’re taught to deal with certain difficulties themselves, they reject their girlfriend’s help and feel misunderstood and/or disrespected.

How could they not feel that way when they always needed to fend for themselves? If you ask me, this is a big issue in many societies because it takes a lot to overcome such deep-rooted thoughts and behavior. It takes self-awareness, willpower, and oftentimes even professional help to identify that a person has these emotional blockades.

So if your boyfriend pushed you away because of something he’s not ready to deal with, bear in mind that your boyfriend wants to deal with his issues on his own. The best thing to do is to let him do that while you take care of your separation anxiety and self-esteem.

When/if he comes back, you can decide if you want to be with someone who pushes you away when things get difficult for him.

Will my boyfriend come back if he needs space?

If space is all your boyfriend needs and you provide it to him, there’s no reason why your boyfriend shouldn’t come back. The guy won’t associate stress and pain with you, so he’ll come back once he’s resolved his issues.

But if your boyfriend’s need for space is merely an excuse to break up with you without facing the consequences of breaking your heart, then your boyfriend might not be back any time soon. He’ll likely need to enjoy himself for a while first and then decide if leaving you was a good decision.

To put it simply, your ex-boyfriend will need a lot of time to himself and will possibly need to date other women to weigh the pros and cons of your relationship. This is why you mustn’t think that he’ll come back while you’re waiting for him to come back.

Most guys come back only if they fail and suffer badly. That’s when they engage in introspection and learn to respect their ex-partners again.

Does your boyfriend need space and you’re wondering if he’ll come back? Post your comment below the post.

And also, if you’re looking for personalized advice regarding your (ex)boyfriend’s need for space, sign up for 1-on-1 coaching here.