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Hi Priscilla,
Well done! There is always so much to learn through toxic relationships and those are the gifts. He has shown you who you are not. He has shown you how you want to be treated differently and now you are going to fight for that in the future and not settle, as the price is very high to pay! Anytime you feel that resentment, follow that thought and feeling with the statement, “AND I choose to forgive him.” It can help make the process go faster. Resentment is a pretty powerful, toxic emotion so it’s important for you to deal with is quickly and not allow it to settle into your system.
Heidi
Hi Linda,
Thank you for your question! It’s actually a very good question!
First, it’s important to understand that you cannot make anyone love you. Love is sooooo dynamic and layered and full of all kinds of fears and beliefs and challenges. Love is a risk. Some people, no matter how happy they are with someone, will not risk. My point being, you never know what someone will do as they start to connect with someone. You could be the best girlfriend on the face of the planet and yet your guy will not move forward. All you can do is be the best that you know how to be and then let the rest go. Whether he falls in love with you or not, is the risk and the journey. If love is possible here, let it grow at it’s own pace. It’s only been 2 months. I know very few people who would feel “love” at 2 months. Strong attraction yes, but love, not really. Love is deeper and requires TIME. Let it develop at its own pace and time.
Now, there are ways to be that can help him feel more connected with you and that’s what this program is about. There is so much information offered as to how to support a man, yourself and help the relationship grow. First, I don’t know how the conversation came up that he told you he is not in love with you “yet.” If you asked him that question, I would suggest that from now on, you don’t put him on the spot like that. He will tell you when and if he is ready. Many times, discussions about “love” and feelings too soon, can cause a guy to run the other direction. So give him space to feel what he feels without any pressure or questioning from you.
Next, develop the friendship. When a guy feels like he has a good friend in you, a best friend, there is no deeper bond than that. Become the person he feels emotionally safe with. Become the person who is always curious about who he is and how he is feeling. Become the person who is supportive of his life. Become the person he can count on to tell him the truth about yourself and about him. Hold him accountable to being his best self. Appreciate him for all he does. Those are invaluable things for a relationship. That is what a solid relationship is built upon. Of course, adding the romance, intimacy and flirting with it, and you have a killer combination! BUT…all of this just takes time. So for now, what you want to focus on is really getting to now each other. It’s only been a few months, so you don’t even know if you WANT him to fall in love with you. You need to see all sides to him before you know if you are physically and emotionally safe with him. You need to see how you guys argue together. You need to see how he is around all of your friends and family. You need to see how he handles stressful situations in his life.
Does all of this make sense?
Yes….you gave him a brand new experience of what a woman can be like. That is the best thing you could have offered him. My guess is, with a program like that running his heart and mind, you never would have gotten in. He never would have trusted you. He would have been waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under him at any moment.
Just something to consider for the future….a man who says something like that, is pretty wounded and doesn’t feel safe inside himself to go deep with a lady. I would IMMEDIATELY run the other direction. It’s guaranteed you will hit a wall and not to say that it couldn’t be broken down, but you are looking at some serious work and rejection and resistance. It’s just best to let a guy like that keep his perspective and not participate.
Hi Rosalie!
My guess is, he was testing the waters. He was probably seeing what you would respond like and how you would interact with him. You did a great job by offering the information and ending with a compliment.
I don’t blame you for wanting a “thank you” from him. You are doing a great job by not responding any further. This is a good time for you to take a step back and see what kind of person he is and if he treats you in a way you really want to be treated (like saying thank you). Just keep watching and waiting. It was great that he reached out! You gave him space and it caused him to reach out and test the waters. So it worked. Stay grounded in your purpose and keep your distance and just keep watching what happens. It’s a great time for you to really evaluate your relationship with him!
THoughts?
Heidi
Hi Antoinette!
Thank you for sharing your story!
You didn’t do anything wrong here. That’s the first thing I want to clear up. You were just being you and asking. It obviously triggered something in him to cause him to run the other direction, but that is HIS problem, not yours. I wouldn’t call it “needy” what you did. I would imagine, at the very worst, just made him feel like you were questioning his character. If he is THAT sensitive and isn’t able to work through it, you don’t want him anyways. He ghosted. You don’t want a guy who cannot communicate how he is feeling, whether upset, offended or disgruntled. He needs to be an adult and use his voice vs. disappearing. Again, that is HIS problem, not yours.
The answer to all of your questions is not what you probably want to hear. The answer is: it doesn’t matter. And here is why….he is not ready for you. You have a certain need for him to be at a certain place spiritually for you to feel comfortable talking with him. You cannot expect him to be a man of his word or not expect that, because you hardly know him. You apologized and did what you could to try to remedy the situation and that’s that. There is nothing more you can do. Who knows why he isn’t responding. You may never know. But truth is, that’s all the information you need anyways. The fact that he didn’t respond, the fact that he ghosted, gives you enough information about the kind of guy he could be. Maybe someday he will reach out and explain what happened. But until that point, it’s important for you to close the door to him. He hasn’t treated you with much respect by disappearing. Let go of the idea of him, let go of what happened and keep moving forward. If your paths cross again, then you can deal with it in that moment. If they don’t cross again, you will have moved on with your life and it won’t even matter.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Do you know why he ended his affair? How do you know he is still “in love” with her?
Maybe stop asking for hugs? When you ask him for affection, it’s not something that is authentic and coming from him really wanting to give you a hug. The more you reach for connection with him, the more he may feel you are “needy.” There is an aspect here where you are missing respect for yourself and men don’t respond well to that. People in general don’t respond well to that. If you don’t have respect for yourself, another person won’t have respect for you. You are the one that sets the standard as to how you are treated. So your husband went off to have an affair because he didn’t like his life and you are there, with open arms, wanting to connect and be together. You want to work on your relationship with him, while he doesn’t. He actually might respond better to you being stronger in who you are. He might have more feelings for you, if he felt your self love and respect.
Everything you have mentioned here is about HIM and how you understand he needs to grieve the loss the of his affair. Where is your grieving? Where are your feelings about your husband having an affair? Where are your feelings about your marriage falling apart?
Again, even if he does come back to you and connect, it doesn’t change there are fundamental challenges in your relationship that unless you guys address, you both will continue to hurt and be hurt. So what’s the plan here? You get him back and then what? How are you going to make changes? How is he going to make changes so this doesn’t happen again?Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Emily,
I too am confused. It sounds like he is confused as well. He obviously is still connected with you and has feelings for you. He did initiate contact. So I would say to stay low right now. If he can feel his life without you in it, it could very possibly draw him back to you. However, I would also get very clear about what you want here.
There is an aspect here where he won’t respect you without you setting some boundaries for yourself. For you to just take him back, because you love him, without any sort of boundaries of him needing to “work” for you again, means that you don’t care that he just up and bailed and ran into another girl’s arms. He broke the trust you guys have established with each other. If it’s too easy for him to come back, there is an aspect where he will know he can do whatever the heck he wants and you will waiting at the doorstep with open arms inviting him back in. He needs to feel your strength.
So let’s say he is ready to come back and work on the relationship. What do you need from him for that to happen?
Heidi
Hi Elvira,
My heart goes out to you. I am so sorry for what you are going through. It is so tough to lose your partner, your love, your friend.
For right now, friendship isn’t possible. You guys have 7 years of romance and a love for each other. In order to be friends, it’s going to take a LONG time before that can happen. There just is so much feeling that needs to be healed first, before friendship can enter the picture.
As far as your party, I would let go of the idea of him being there. I would let everyone know BEFORE the party, that you guys have broken up. That way, your party can be about you just being you, and not having to worry about explaining everything and crying. You can simply send an email to everyone saying “J and I have broken up. I’m not sure what happened. When you come to my party, please honor that I wish to keep it a fun time. I don’t want to talk about him or what happened. I just want to make it through that evening without crying. I need all of your help to just have some fun right now. It is much needed!”
I am wondering if there is something going on for J. It’s a strange thing to just end the relationship after 7 years from just 1 argument. So basically, you guys have only argued 2x in the 7 years you were together? That is also quite unusual. I am wondering if something has been festering inside of him for awhile and the argument just triggered it and solidified something he has been feeling. Looking back, did you notice any changes in his behavior? Were you guy still being intimate or did that change? Were you guys still laughing a lot together and being affectionate with each other?
Heidi
Hi Rosalie!
This is a great question. For now, I would suggest waiting about a week and giving him space to initiate. Part of not being “needy” means letting the guy feel the absence of you. If he doesn’t initiate, then you can try one more time, texting him and have it be similar to your last one where you sent him a pic of the license plate. You don’t want to text, “Hey…how are you?” kind of thing. Send him a funny video or a picture of something and just say “Thought this would make you laugh.” or “I saw this and thought of you! I had to share.”
These are texts that don’t put pressure on him to respond and have a conversation. Many people just don’t have time for that, so they ignore the message. Plus, he may end up feeling like you are starting to get “needy” again. So if you do decide to initiate a text again in a week or 2, make it light, funny and not a question, but a comment.
Does this make sense? How does this approach feel for you?
Heidi
Hello Yvette!
Thank you for sharing your struggle. It is a valid one and you are approaching it in such a wonderful way by first seeking an outside opinion. Good job!
First, it’s important to understand that although he was super wonderful in the beginning, this is very normal for a person’s other habits and tendencies to be exposed down the road. So however he behaved in the beginning, it’s no longer accurate for who he is today. The question is why? And the other question is, which part of him is the most real and dominant side in his life? Is he more romantic and he is just stressed right now, or is he always like this? That is something that only time will tell. But what you DO know so far, is he is not a good communicator and he is not affectionate.
So my question to you is….what is going on for you, that you are sticking around trying to find a way to make it work with a guy who doesn’t communicate and show affection? And FYI…his response of “I wouldn’t be talking to you right now, would I?” to your question about whether or not he wants to be with you….that is a total copout answer. He is avoiding the answer and is not being honest and basically expecting putting the blame on you. He is expecting that you should know he wants to be with you because he is still there. Nope! That does not fly with me! It is not an answer and it is not taking responsibility for himself. A good answer would be, “Oh wow. What is making you question this? Did I do something?”
Let me also ask you this….how do you know he even likes you anymore? If he is not affectionate and he doesn’t communicate to you, then what IS there left in the relationship to make you feel connected to him?
If you did want to approach this, you can say something like, “I need to be honest and let you know that the how you and I function in a relationship is not working for me anymore. I am realizing that I really love being affectionate and I really desire to communicate more. I want to exchange stories about our day and I want to hear about what you are thinking about stuff in your life. But it just doesn’t seem like those are things you need in a relationship. Is that true?”
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Peggy!
Well done in preparing. If you hadn’t, I’m not sure you would have handled it so gracefully. I do that many times as well….pray and center myself BEFORE entering a potentially argumentative situation. That is such HUGE awareness on your part and because of that, you role modeled for him the kind of women he is losing and that it IS possible to have a peaceful and respectful ending. Many men don’t know this is possible!
Thank you for sharing this with all of us!
Heidi
Hi Lola,
What kinds of plans do you have with him for the holidays?
Considering his pattern and how he is behaving and designing his life right now, I would not rely very much on his ability to be excited about anything right now. It doesn’t sound like he is even in a place of being able to fight for your family. He is in such survival mode right now, so he will just keep making decisions to take care of himself right now.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Lola,
What kinds of plans do you have with him for the holidays?
Considering his pattern and how he is behaving and designing his life right now, I would not rely very much on his ability to be excited about anything right now. It doesn’t sound like he is even in a place of being able to fight for your family. He is in such survival mode right now, so he will just keep making decisions to take care of himself right now.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Monique,
There is this thing called the “upper limit.” This is the reason why people don’t better as they get better. I know it’s confusing, so hopefully this description will make it more clear.
Imagine we all have our own giant tub. That tub represents our capacity to receive love and be happy. How full that tub gets is DIRECTLY linked to our low self esteem. So if someone has a LARGE part of themselves that believes they are not good enough, their tub will only fill up just a little. For someone who has a HUGE capacity to receive and they love themselves greatly, they can fill that tub up! So what happens is, if someone comes along in your life and he is wonderful and amazing and is able to offer you so many wonderful things, it will go against your STRONG belief that you are not enough. You don’t deserve compliments, you don’t deserve to be loved for exactly who you are….your upper limit (the limit of which you will allow yourself to be happy) will get reached VERY QUICKLY. Then, you will start to sabotage because you won’t allow yourself to get past your limit of how happy you believe you deserve to be. So…your low self esteem is in complete control of how happy you can be. Your other self, that wants more, that wants to receive love is not in the driver’s seat. So that’s why people who start to get what they want, they will sabotage because they are not set up to be happy and get what they want. They have too much low self esteem to allow such goodness and love into their lives.
You increase the upper limit by facing the low self esteem. For example, if you cannot receive a compliment and allow it to get into your system to where you can feel the beauty of it, how can you expect for an amazing man to enter into your life and enjoy being with you? If you just keep rejection his vision of you, he won’t stick around. So by facing your low self esteem and healing the reasons why it is there in the first place, you slowly begin to raise your upper limit.
Does this make sense??
Heidi
Hi Alexa,
Be kind to yourself. Stop wishing you were different that who you are. Even if you did handle things “perfectly,” it still would have come to this point. Truth be told, this guy does not match what you want. So the inevitable just happened sooner than what you were ready for. And as I recall, didn’t you ask him if he was okay? You presented opportunities for him to be honest about how he was feeling. Besides, it’s not YOUR responsibility to get him to communicate. That is HIS job, so this is NOT about you doing anything different. Let’s be real here….he didn’t want to fight for the relationship. That extra “time” you gave him by giving him space, allowed him to feel what he needed to feel in order to be honest with you. So again, this is not about you being or behaving any differently. He is just not a good match. You want a guy who sees you for who you are and loves that! Your good, your ugly, your silly, your limited self. This guy did not have that vision of you and that is NOT YOUR FAULT. Again, I bring you back to this….if he hadn’t ended it now, you would have just grown more and more miserable with his lack of connection and communication. When a guy pulls away like that, it would drive any woman crazy! SO many women on this forum find themselves feeling desperate for communication and connection, because their guy has pulled away for some reason or another. It’s a pretty normal reaction to lose your ground and your center when someone you care about pulls away.
So be kind to yourself. Your heart is hurting because you feel rejected. And thank goodness. This guy does not have the makings for a good relationship with you. You wanted to fight for a man who wasn’t fighting for you back. It’s time to turn that attention towards yourself and be caring and gentle and kind with your beautiful heart.
No need to be embarrassed. Risking takes strength because you never know how it will turn out. Be proud of yourself that you could risk, because so many people don’t. How else are you going to learn unless you take risks with relationships??
In regards to your pattern of the men you are attracted to, what do you understand about it? Do you know why this is your pattern? You choose men that are not able to offer what you want or need. So what do you feel is happening inside of you, that would make those kind of choices?
Heidi
