I received a request for dating advice from a reader in my inbox the other day, and really felt the urge to share this woman’s situation with my readers, because so many of us fall into this emotional trap when we begin to date a guy. Christian Carter of Catch Him and Keep Him calls this the “danger of a connection”, and it’s all about letting ourselves as women get overwhelmed by the emotion of a new relationship.
Here is the letter from my reader:
Hey Sarah –
Thanks for your letters, they actually have given me insight, however I have got a question about my boyfriend I just met 3 weeks ago. He only calls me at night and sometimes skips a day without calling. I felt so in love with him the first week and when I saw the bad signals that he may not be interested anymore I’m keeping that distance and I don’t know what to say to him because he is playing it silently it’s like a closed book that you can’t read every time I have to evaluate whether he loves me or not and its killing me inside. I want to ask him how he feel about me now but I don’t want to spoil it or looks like I m needy. How do I make him feel the same way I feel for him. Please help me I really need a serious commitment and really want to know if he is for me and if not how to move on, thanks again Sarah.
In need of dating advice,
Anonymous
Here is my answer to this struggling woman:
Dear Anonymous –
Thank you for writing to me with your dating problem. I am going to give it to you straight here, because I believe that is what you need, and what people value about my dating advice. Let’s examine what you have said here.
First of all, you have been dating this man for only three weeks, yet you fell “in love” with him in the first week. That is a HUGE red flag here for several reasons. First of all, if you are falling in love with someone that quickly, it is 9 times out of 10 lust and not love (or attraction) – which is not the basis for a lasting relationship. You cannot possibly know this man (as you said, you don’t know what to say to him or how to read what he is thinking) so you cannot genuinely be in love with him. So for your own good, let’s take a step back here and really try to evaluate what is happening.
I want to talk to you, specifically, about what Christian Carter says in his Catch Him and Keep Him eBook on page 55. He titles this section “The Danger of a Connection”, and this is EXACTLY what is happening to you. Christian Carter writes, “You’d be crazy to take the close relationship and love you want to find and gamble it away by betting on a guy whose greatest qualification is that he makes you feel attracted to him….For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard women talk about something they call “chemistry” or a “connection.” Women use these words to describe a feeling they have and then choose to attach their own meaning to it, without making sure the man feels the same way”.
This, it seems, is exactly what is happening to you. You said “when I saw the bad signals that he may not be interested anymore I’m keeping that distance and I don’t know what to say to him because he is playing it silently it’s like a closed book that you can’t read every time I have to evaluate whether he loves me or not and its killing me inside”.
So, you are feeling like you are in a relationship (and after only a couple weeks, that is what is called an “instant relationship”, which not really a relationship at all, but a pseudo-relationship based on feelings of attraction and chemistry). You don’t know if he is feeling the same way – which means in reality that he is NOT feeling the same way.
Christian carter says “The wiring men have inside doesn’t necessarily tie together that physical and chemical attraction with deeper long-term bonding elements the way it does so quickly for women. Men have a range of responses with women they’re attracted to. Women are generally great at reading these attraction signals. Unfortunately, women aren’t good with two important skills:
1) Identifying if he’s truly a quality future mate (above and beyond the “connection”)
2) Deciphering whether or not the energy, interactions, conversations, behaviors, and the mutual interests between the man and women can develop into a foundation for a strong relationship”.
So, there is a huge commonality in failed relationships – and that is that the “connection” or “chemistry” was the only thing the coupled shared in common. Another way of saying this is that the “chemistry” you felt with him is no indicator of your relationship’s ability to survive, as it does not involve common interest, values, or even the ability to communicate well.
Don’t get me wrong, you DO have to have a good connection with a future mate. HOWEVER, that connection MUST led to a keen ability to communicate with each other in a respectful and loving way – and already your relationship is showing evidence of a lack of communicative ability.
So – to recap – do not mistake your chemistry connection for a real relationship – it isn’t one. Make sure you are not falling in the love with the IDEA of who he is, according to Christian Carter, instead of who he REALLY is – because you DO NOT know who he REALLY is after only a few weeks. I think you need to step back from this relationship and take a good look inside YOURSELF and discover what it is you really want, and whether or not you are really ready for a relationship if you are falling for a guy so quickly. You need to make sure that YOU are getting what YOU need in a relationship – love, understanding, commitment, respect and support. You are worth waiting for those things, and you will be much happier in the end if you are choosy about the relationships you enter into.
All the best,
Sarah
Catch Him and Keep Him eBook
A key aspect in the success of a relationship, according to Rori Raye, is the balance of the feminine and masculine energy. One way that we, as women, drive a relationship into imbalance is by overfunctioning within the relationship. Put very simply, overfunctioning is doing too much. Rori Raye talks about this in the Have the Relationship You Want eBook, and I would like to share some key insights with you here today.
First, let’s define overfunctioning. Overfunctioning is a term coined by Rori Raye, and it basically means doing more than your fair share. Its “doing other family members’ work, and helping where no
help is needed. It’s stepping in when you know you could do a better job, stepping up to rescue someone, jumping in to save the situation” (Rori Raye, p 116). Doing this, doing too much, will actually deprive your MAN of his ability to be the masculine partner, because surprisingly, the nurturing in the relationship is a masculine energy, and not a feminine energy.
By taking all these things on, we make it actually unrewarding for men to act like men, and
they become lazy and complacent and vaguely resentful and then, they quit trying to make us happy. “They opt out of Masculinity, hand it over to us, and let us do it all” (Rori Raye, p 117). And how many of us, as women, FEEL like we are doing it all and WISH that the man in our lives would step up and take some of the burden? Well, more than likely, we created this situation by essentially emasculating our men by over-doing and overfunctioning.
The real eye opener for me, though, was learning how nurturing is actually a masculine energy. It seems counterintuitive, right? I mean, really, we as women – moms, wives, girlfriends – we live to give love, to grow our children and help out. But, nurturing is about DOING things, giving things, and literally giving your energy away. And as we know from previous discussions (see my blog if you did not read them), when you give energy out, that is a masculine action.
“Feeling compassion, connection, love, sensual delight in the way your baby feels to your touch, excitement at the way your lover feels to your touch – is completely different from reaching over and picking the baby up when it cries, from driving the kids to school, from reaching over and massaging your husband or boyfriend’s back when he never massages yours, from starting the conversation with a man you’ve never met because he seems too shy to take the first step, from soothing a man when his feelings are hurt by you or anyone else” (Rori Raye, p 117). But feeling things is completely different from doing things. And, allow me to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with doing because we are all a MIXTURE of the female and male energies is a relationship. Where the trouble lies is when we, as women, who should be in the feminine energy, take OVER the masculine energy by doing TOO MUCH.
Do you understand what I am saying? When we are functioning in a balanced way, we have the fluidity of movement between masculine and feminine energies. But, when we overfunction, we get literally STUCK in the masculine energy. And that leads to overbalance, and leads your man to have no recourse because you have taken HIS role in the relationship.
Let’s not get confused here, though, because we cannot confuse being loving with nurturing. “We completely miss the joy of loving our men by experiencing them. Experiencing men, like experiencing a sunset, or a walk in the forest, or a work of art, or childbirth, or rain, or sex requires that we let go of the urge to Do” (Rori Raye, p 117). EXEPERIENCING these things is different than DOING these things, like taking pictures of the sunset is different than simply experiencing it. Taking a hike in the forest for exercise is different than simply EXPERIENCING what the forest has to offer you.
So try simply experiencing things – take a small moment and go outside, sit in the sunshine and experience the day. Feel the sun on your skin, the breeze in your hair, notice the smells and the sounds and the experience of it all. Don’t analyze it, judge it, assimilate it, just FEEL it. Do that until you get GOOD at it. Then start trying to do this in your relationship. Just EXPERIENCE it at times instead of fixing it.
When you are directing your masculine energy of nurturing toward your man, you may be making him feel like you are mothering him, and men don’t like that or want that. That makes you seem judgmental and apart from them. Instead, give him some attention and love, but don’t treat him like something that needs fixed. So stop overfunctioning – stop doing everything and give him the room to take it over. Instead, step back and start being cherished for what you are. This is what your husband or boyfriend wants – to love you for who and what you are.
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I frequently get questions like the one below about how to make your man commit to a relationship. Well, ladies, here is the scoop – you can’t make him commit. But, and Christian Carter says this all the time – you CAN make your boundaries clear, the consequences clear, stick to your guns and get what YOU want out of your dating life or your relationship. Read on for more….
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Hi Sarah
Thank you for your emails & here is my question. I have been with my boyfriend for 2 years now and he still won’t commit. He says all the usual stuff, I don’t have time, I’m too busy, I don’t want a relationship with anyone blah blah blah – and I believed him – until – 2 weeks ago when I found out that when we were broken up last year for 4 months, he joined a dating agency, paid $2000 for a 6 month membership, went on dates with 6 girls, went on 2nd dates with each of them, he wanted more from them but they didn’t want him – ha ha. I also found out that he wanted somebody younger, and he wants to have more kids ( I knew that) but he wants children with someone who doesn’t already have kids. When I found all this out I confronted him (I didn’t tell him how I found out) & he admitted that he did want a serious relationship last year. I can’t believe a word he says. Since then I have stopped being his ‘girlfriend’ (he keeps telling me he doesn’t want a girlfriend) & I have stopped doing everything. I don’t cook for him, have sex with him, help him with his problems etc etc. He came over last night, annoyed that I hadn’t organized dinner (do you believe?) so he brought dinner with him. When we went to bed he tried to have sex with me & I said no – nicely. He kept trying I kept saying no. I said give me what I want & I’ll give you what you want. He kept saying, what do you want? And I kept saying you know what I want (he knows I want a relationship). Then he got really mad (do you believe?) and went to sleep. He woke up this morning at 6am and tried to leave at 6.30am (Sunday) I wasn’t happy of course and let him know it. He was still really angry this morning. Boo hoo – he’s had it too good for too long – he’s been spoiled. I have looked after him & his children, done everything – and two years on and no commitment in sight. So Sarah – my question is – what do I do? I don’t want to be with anyone else. He has his own business & does very well financially with that, he is a very good devoted father and has other good qualities. I have decided that if doesn’t commit to me by the end of May I am going to move away and I have told him that I am going to move away but he doesn’t know when. Please help.
Kind regards
A Loyal Reader
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Hi Loyal Reader –
First of all – let me commend you and say that you are on the right track with this. He won’t commit to you, so it is perfectly fair for you to withhold sex from him and make yourself unavailable for the creature comforts he is looking for. However, let me give you a little more direction on how to do this in a constructive and mature fashion.
Dating and relationships are never easy, especially when your boyfriend wants one thing and you want another. This is where a lot of women go wrong, though, according to Christian Carter, and they react in a fashion that could be a little more mature and constructive. So let’s go over what you are doing:
A) You have stopped having sex with him. Good job! And I don’t mean that because it hurts him – I mean that because as a strong, confidant woman, you should not be having sex with ANYONE until and unless they agree to a log-term committed relationship with you. It’s about self-respect, not hurting him.
B) You have stopped cooking for him and seeing to his other comforts. Again – good! But, you are doing this for the wrong reasons, or so it seems to me. Christian Carter’s philosophy on dating and relationships is all about YOU and respecting yourself. It seems to me that you are doing this to be hurtful to him because you are angry. That’s not the right reason, and the effect is NOT the same. You DO need to stop catering to him, absolutely! However, you need to take care of YOURSELF in his stead. You need to see to your needs – which includes – DATING OTHER MEN.
Notice I said DATING – not sleeping with – but conversing with, going out on dates, dinner, movies, fun times, to see who else is out there and to emphasize that if your boyfriend is not going to be committed to you, then you are not going to wait for him to make up his mind, you are going to go out and find what YOU want.
So – you need to stop being mad at him and showing that anger by pouting, giving him the silent treatment or other ways that we women tend to express ourselves. We do that – by the way – because we think that if we SHOW him how angry we are and how hurt we are that he will actually SEE it (which half the time he doesn’t even see it, and the other half he has no idea what to do with it) and he will fix it. No – if you want to show him that you are not going to put up with his unwillingness to commit to you – then do that by dating other men and seeing to your own needs in a mature and adult manner.
Thank you for writing in with your dating advice and relationship questions, I really appreciate it! And in the words of Christian Carter of Catch Him and Keep Him…
Best of luck in life and love,
Sarah
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