by Christian Carter, Catch Him and Keep Him
This time I'm sharing a great question from a reader.
It's a question I get all the time from women that points out a common misunderstanding women have about men.
Reader:
Dear Christian, I'm sorry but I need to ask you a question. I need advice and help. Me and my ex have been together off and on many times, recently we just broke up and now he's dating someone else. (he doesn't know what he wants) But I know he still has very big feelings for me and I want advice and help on getting him back. Even though he's dating someone right now, he still has feelings for me, and I need help on getting him back with me and not with her.
Please help!
Sincerely,
Needy and Hopeless
My Answer:
Thanks for writing, your email has about 147 great things here.
Let's look at a few of them...
The first important issue is that you're ignoring all the important signs your ex is giving you.
Men send a ton of silent “signals” that are out there waiting for women to tune into and pick up on.
And to learn from.
Some of these signals that men send are indirect and unintentional - but others men know they're sending out.
Please don't be naive.
Wake up!
Realize what's going on here.
If he's dating someone else, you've got to start moving on.
That's a direct and intentional signal.
He doesn't share your feelings of wanting to get back together in a committed relationship with you.
If you challenge this idea, you need to recognize something important...
That he's not in the right place in his life to share what you want with him.
What you really need for yourself is to find a healthy way to take some of the focus off of him and put it back on you and your life.
This doesn't mean you have to go out and date right now, but you need to take your mind off him.
I know it's hard to do this when you still have intense feelings for him.
But the simple truth is that you're setting yourself up for ALL KINDS of pain and disappointment...
Yeah, I've seen couples get back together like this - but the odds are things don't look good for this old relationship.
The more you can distance yourself from your ex whose dating another woman, the happier you'll be.
Trust me.
And I know doing this is tough, but you've got to do it if you're going to find your way to a new and improved situation - with or without him.
Here's something else critical going on for you...
You're making a lot of assumptions about HIS feelings when you say “he has very strong feelings for me.”
Do the math.
You know he's dating someone else.
By thinking about how you believe he FEELS inside is only keeping you stuck on him and your beliefs about the good person he can be and how great things COULD be together.
Let me put it another way-
What are his actions and behaviors saying?
If you listen to the signals your ex is sending you, you'll see that his “feelings” he shares are just his way of holding onto you for his own comfort and benefit.
Why wouldn't he want to keep you around if he's “unavailable” to really commit - because being with the other woman and still being connected to you keeps him from being fully involved in any real situation with either of you.
He's already dating another woman.
That should give you a clear idea of where his mind is at (not focused on getting back with you) and what his “feelings” TRULY are.
Here's what I want you to do first and foremost...
Think about making some decisions for YOURSELF.
Right now it sounds like your waiting for him to make all the decisions.
Think about what YOU WANT to be happy, and remember all the things your ex has done and said to let you know he's not committed to sharing his love with you.
If you give him and yourself some space, a funny thing might happen you won't expect...
Your ex-boyfriend won't have the comfort of two women who both want his affection.
He won't know that you're still there waiting for him - and this will trigger thoughts and actions in him that will ultimately help resolve your situation.
Until then...
For your own well-being, it's important you let him know he can't keep sharing his intimate feelings with you while he's dating another woman.
HERE'S A RULE YOU NEED TO REMEMEBER: ****
Never allow men who have “someone else” in their life to keep sharing and expressing their feelings for you.
****
It's wrong on several levels... for you most of all.
When a man can have the affection of two women, and he's in a place where he's emotionally non-committed to either, odds are he will try to keep this situation going for as long as possible!
Not all men would do this, but men who are “unavailable”, as it sounds your ex is, can continue multiple initimate situations at once.
You don't want to date a man that's in this place in his life... and I know because I've been this guy in my past!
NO AMOUNT of talking, experience or reasoning with him can get him to feel the way you want him to feel.
You can't change a man's emotional depth and where he's at in his life.
“Getting him back” is a bad idea.
Rarely does this give you what you think you want.
It's a losing battle, and you're going to end up being hurt or upset again as you undoubtedly keep moving farther and farther away from what YOU ideally want and closer and closer to whatever strange and unhealthy situation he's creating.
If you feel like you HAVE to see this through, then be careful. You're going against the odds.
Don't be “that girl”.
And I promise that you'll ruin your chances if you think you can “convince” him to come back to you through shows of affection, appeals to his desires or other “gifts” to bribe him.
I've watched this EXACT thing unfold so many times.
IT DOESN'T WORK!
Instead, you should think about the times you've broken up and the times you've seen that he wasn't personally ready for a relationship.
Those things are as real as the strong feelings and emotions you feel that keeps you coming back.
Use the issues and challenges you had together as a guide or a reminder of what's keeping you two apart now.
And once you start doing this, I think you're going to be strangely surprised at what starts to happen for you...
Once your guy notices that he doesn't have you waiting around for him like a puppy dog to figure it out, while he's off doing god knows what with other women, there's going to be a big change in his attitude and behavior.
It doesn't make “sense”, but that's how it WORKS.
****
THE CRITICAL SKILLS OF UNDERSTANDING MEN'S SIGNALS AND IDENTIFYING GOOD MEN FROM “UNAVAILABLE TOADS”...
****
You've got to learn to understand and identify “EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE” men.
If a man doesn't know what he wants, he generally doesn't want what he's got.
This may sound harsh, but it's the truth of the situation. And even when it isn't completely true, it's a good rule to go by.
A good man who is the right person and wants to be with you will find his own way to his “Emotional Truth”.
If his truth is that he wants to be with you, or not be with you, you have to respect that.
But I see women do it all the time.
The guy will be sending all kinds of subtle (or even direct) signs that he's not “available” or interested in something “serious”, but the woman ignores them and just pays attention to the fact that he likes being with her when they're together.
In other words, she substitutes the physical connection, or even the occasional emotional connection, for the real relationship she wants to be in.
WRONG!
Men have a different “love equation” from women:
A strong connection does NOT necessarily equal any interest in a relationship.
That's why it's CRITICAL that women learn to read the signals that a man sends about where he's at.
Because he's surely not going to just lay it all out there for you.
I promise.
If he does, write me an email, tell me all about it, and give me his mailing address so I can send him his prize.
When a guy isn't interested in a relationship, and he's hdoing something like seeing other women, here's what most women start doing that makes things go from bad to worse...
They start trying to “fix” things, and “fix” the guy.
And then comes the “convincing” behavior, trying to convince the man that they are the right one for him, and that because they have such a great connection, a loving “relationship” is the only right way to go.
I know, it sounds bizarre.
Why would a man have a great woman and a great connection with her that felt amazing when they were together, and not want a relationship?
I'll get to that later...
The thing I'm worried about here for you is that in trying to get your guy back, you're making these mistakes that are like “man-repellent”.
So I'll say it again.
You can't convince a man to want to be with you.
I don't know the specifics surrounding your off-and-on with the ex, but it speaks volumes.
Especially when it's combined with him not “knowing what he wants”.
This is CLASSIC man-speak for “I'm not emotionally available and I'm not ready for a real relationship”.
When he can't get in touch with his feelings and isn't open to exploring them, it's a text-book case of unavailability.
I don't mean that he can't share feelings or some level of intimacy with you...
In fact, I'm sure he still likes to connect with you when things are easy-going and he's not feeling “pressure” around you.
But your ex sharing his feelings with you can easily confuse you into thinking that he is potentially the right guy and ready for a long term relationship.
I'm sure you've seen this since you've been back and forth with him. But when a guy is unavailable, he has a fear of getting deeper into a relationship that he knows he's not ready for.
In his own way he's tried to tell you this several times.
Here's what he's saying:
Yes, I have “feelings” for you.
And no... that doesn't mean I want to be in a relationship with you and be faithful.
Take some time to think about the past with your ex, and then compare that to what will honestly make YOU happy, and what kind of relationship you want in your future.
If you're honest about it with yourself, I don't think he'll fit well into that based on his actions and behavior.
Put more value on his actions, not his words.
Get back to the things that you enjoy, the places you like to go and avoid places or things you used to do or see with your ex.
Spend some time with your friends and give yourself the space you deserve.
The less you talk about your ex and this situation for now, the better off you'll be.
And I think you'll be amazed at the results.
First, I think you'll just plain old feel better.
But even better than that, you'll be breaking the old connection that you had with your “x”.
And as counterintuitive as it sounds, breaking out of your old connection is actually the thing that's going to change the situation for you the most and help get you the results you want.
Right now, your convincing him and your wanting him back, even when he's with another woman, is making you come off in all kinds of ways that men just don't respond well to.
I know it seems like the best idea to keep trying to stay in touch with him and keep the connection alive.
But the truth is that you're just keeping this same old situation alive by pumping your time and attention into it.
If instead, you step back and stop chasing him or trying to convince him you're the right woman, you'll have an opportunity to do something that can honestly be ATTRACTIVE to him-
You first leave a space that he'll not recognize and not understand, which will first get him thinking about you and then wondering why you aren't acting the way you used to.
Men love “new” things and curiosities.
Plus, you'll also be able to give him the space he's tried asking you for in his retarded emotioanally unavailable “man-speak”.
Something funny happens when a man gets the space he asked for-
If you do it in the right way, he's forced to deal with himself and his own feelings to figure out that all the things he is worried about, afraid of, fearful of “committing to”, etc.
And being by himself, he'll see that these things are really just in his own mind - and not bad things about YOU.
In other words - he won't keep taking all the old “stuff” from the past that wasn't working and keep identifying it with YOU.
But you've to go know the way to “re-wire” the connection once you've broken the old one.
And if you can do this, I guarantee he'll come calling wondering about you.
In my ebook, “Catch Him And Keep Him”, I spell out specific ways to communicate with men that will help you build that new connection.
There are several psychological and behavioral “keys” that will help to open a man up.
And just as important, they will make him feel that electric spark of ATTRACTION with you again.
I'm talking about the kind of attraction that gets a guy feeling, at a deep level, that he wants to be with you right now AND far into the future.
This goes for the “unavailable” guys too that seem to keep withdrawing and don't communicate much about their feelings or what they want.
These guys are the toughest ones.
If there's just ONE PIECE OF ADVICE that holds more power for women than any other when it comes to men, it's this concept of only dating emotionally available men.
In my ebook, I also talk about how to identify good men from the “unavailable” ones.
If you're dating, wouldn't it be great to know what kind of guy you're dealing with FROM THE START?
And if think you're already got an unavailable guy on your hands, and you're wondering what you can do after all the frustrating disappointments that have gone on...
There's AN ENTIRE SECTION of the book dedicated to helping you both understand the emotional world of a man (yikes, right!) and how to lead him to a better way of being with and understanding you.
So make the choice to do something about your love- life and create the situation you want in your life.
Go check out my ebook now.
You can download it and be reading it in just a couple of minutes.
Check it out here:
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Thanks for reading and best of luck in life and love.
Your Friend,
Christian Carter
