I recently received two very interesting questions from readers who are having trouble understanding what their man is thinking and, more importantly, what they should do about it.
If you’re in a relationship with a man who doesn’t seem to know what he wants, because he tells you you’re “amazing” one minute but doubts your “future together” the next…
Or…
If you have a great connection with a man you met online but you haven’t met IN PERSON yet and you’re wondering how much to trust his “feelings” for you…
You won’t want to miss reading this insight-filled email.
>>>>Letter From A Reader
Hi Christian,
I dated a guy for exactly one year–three times during that year he ended our relationship citing I deserved better, or more and that he just can’t commit to anyone.
He had a terrible marriage and married her twice. We both have children and agreed they wouldn’t be brought into this unless we felt there was a future together. Not long after, HE introduced me to his children–much to my surprise, then he met mine and they all met each other. Everything was so incredible.
Three weeks ago he came over and said we needed to talk.
He told me that for the first time in his life he had glimmers of feelings for someone (me) and how amazing I am with his kids and it blows him away–how he had never had such a sense of peace in life than when with me. He told me how great we are together, how everything we do is so amazing.
He stayed the night and in the morning, he ended our relationship–again saying I deserved more, he didn’t think he could commit to me and that his gut feeling told him I wasn’t the one for him!?? I have never pressured him in any way for commitment-just monogamy, which is what he wanted and was the first to bring that up when we decided to date exclusively.
I know that morning, I put him on the spot because after a year I was more than a little tired of the roller coaster ride I was on with him starting and ending things-he always ended them after we had an amazing weekend together. I told him that morning that I had fallen in love with him, but I agreed that if he didn’t want to be with me, then it was best to end it.
I want to be with someone who wants to be with me-he said he was on the fence. I am completely heart broken. He has called me almost every day since. He is very flirtatious on the phone, and we have seen each other twice. The second time he spent the night. Again, he told me how great we are together, yet this week he has been a little more aloof.
Is there anything I can do? Ending my marriage of 10 years was a cakewalk compared to being without him. I really need to hear from you if you get the chance. Please, I am begging for your help.
– A.
>>>>>My Response
Ok, A,
I have a couple of ideas about what’s going on here.
First, I think you made the right move when you told him that it was best to end things if he was acting like he didn’t want to be with you.
That’s because the LAST thing you want to do when a man is acting like he doesn’t know what he wants is to try to CONVINCE him that he should want YOU.
If you’ve read my eBook, “Catch Him & Keep Him,” you already know that being a Convincer when a man is Resisting a real relationship with you is a guaranteed attraction-KILLER.
I write about this in detail in Chapter 3, so if you haven’t downloaded your copy, I strongly suggest you do it right now and re-read that entire chapter, particularly pages 103-107.
Again, you can download my eBook now right here:
Click Here For Your Free Newsletter And eBook Download
Now, let me offer you a little bit of insight here about what your boyfriend might be thinking.
You say that he keeps telling you that you’re “amazing” over and over, but he just can’t COMMIT to you.
What this man is telling you is that he is very ATTRACTED to you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he wants to have a real, committed RELATIONSHIP with you.
Here’s where a lot of women get confused.
And I don’t blame them, actually.
Men can be confusing.
One minute you’re “amazing” and the next minute, they’re pushing you away.
What’s up with that??!
What’s confusing to many women is the idea that a man can be attracted to you, want to be physical with you, and may even express some kind of “feelings” for you, but may NOT want to have a FUTURE with you.
But that can happen. And that seems to be EXACTLY what’s going on here.
He may like spending time with you and being intimate with you, but isn’t interested in taking things further than that – for whatever reason.
Your boyfriend enjoys your company and the way you make him feel “at peace”, but he ISN’T experiencing the kind of GUT-LEVEL attraction and the kind of feelings he needs to have in order to want to make a life-long commitment to you.
He’s probably having doubts about a long-term relationship with you.
He may be asking himself if it’s the right time.
If you’re the right woman.
If his life would be better with you, than without you.
And then there’s the matter of him breaking it off with you, but continuing to call and wanting to see you once in a while.
When he’s with you, he has doubts about your relationship for whatever reason.
But when he’s apart from you, he realizes that the experience he really wants with a woman isn’t so easy to find.
Dating can be frustrating for men, too, in case you didn’t know that ;-)
And men get lonely, too.
He sits around thinking about you and how “welcoming” you are when he calls you or wants to see you. And he misses you.
So he calls you, or gets together with you.
But when he’s with you, all those doubts and all the reasons WHY he knows he can’t commit to you come rushing right back.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I’m sure you’re a great woman. You probably have a lot going for you.
It’s just that for some reason, he’s just not feeling what he needs to feel in order to make the conscious decision that you’re “the one” for him.
There’s a huge difference in being a woman a man will spend time with, or being the kind of woman who makes a man feel so incredible when he’s around her that he doesn’t ever want to be without her.
The difference is all in the EMOTIONS he feels when he’s around you.
No matter how much you want a relationship to work, or try to make it work from your end, a man has his OWN reasons and his own timelines for committing to one woman.
There can be lots of reasons why a man commits. But ALL of these reasons, and I do mean ALL OF THEM, stem from one simple thing –
And that’s the EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE a man has when he’s with you.
So what experience are you creating with your man?
Is he feeling that magic and intense emotion we call ATTRACTION when he’s around you?
Are you triggered these intense, fun, playful and loving feelings in him?
Or are you, in the desire to have something more, actually making your experience together feel more like “work” and trouble than love and fun?
I’ll tell you some reasons why he WOULDN’T commit to you –
He won’t do it because you keep being “nice” and agreeing to see him whenever he wants to see you.
That’s just a twist on the Convincer role, and it never works.
He also won’t decide it’s “real” for him because of a few “amazing weekends” together being physically intimate.
He won’t want to be with you and ONLY you because you finally give him an ULTIMATUM or “break up” with him out of frustration.
No, that isn’t how commitment works for a man.
He’ll commit to you when he feels that his life will be BETTER with you in it, every day.
It needs the relationship to FEEL RIGHT for him on a deep, emotional level.
In my “From Casual To Committed” CD/DVD program, I will show you how to get in touch with that part of a man that will get him to FEEL, not “think”, that you’re the one for him – now and always.
You’ll learn:
- The deadly mistake nearly all women make that makes a guy put his guard up INSTANTLY. and refuse to take it down (If you’ve ever had a guy completely disappear from your life after having “the talk” with him, it’s probably because you made this common mistake)
- How to understand and control your own internal conflicts and emotions, so you don’t make mistakes that you WOULDN’T have made if you didn’t care so much about the situation
- How to tell if your relationship is where it should be (Many women make the mistake of thinking things are moving too slow with a man when in reality they are going just fine. Here’s exactly how to know when you can relax, and when you need to make something happen)
- And much more.
So what are you going to do?
Keep wondering why your guy isn’t wanting more, and keep resisting and fighting this reality?
Or are you going to stop hoping that he comes around and start creating the experience and the relationship in the HERE and NOW with him that he won’t ever want to be without?
If you’re finally ready to never again be in the awful and painful position of trying to convince a man to want a relationship with you…
And you’re ready to start enjoying the feeling of your man feeling so open and free with you that he can’t help but want more of your time and attention, and BEG YOU for a commitment…
Then go here now to discover how a man recognizes you as the one woman he is comfortable committing to and try my “From Casual To Committed” program free for 30 days:
Good luck, and let me know how it turns out.
Now here’s another letter from a reader with a very different concern:
>>>>Letter From A Reader
Hello Christian,
I have recently been talking to someone I met online and he tells me, after only 2 weeks of communicating how much he feels love for me in his heart.
I am very attracted as I have already seen his pictures and have responded in kind to his affections with my own philosophy of what love means. He has expressed a wonderful connection to me as a result of this. Part of me is still uncertain as we have not met yet. I am hopeful however that it can grow for me as it has for him so easily.
I have never met anyone that has expressed himself so easily. I want to be able to trust that he is not just desperate and lonely!
Thank you, and appreciate the new CD you have out!
– J.
>>>> MY RESPONSE
Hey J,
Ok, so let me get this straight.
You’ve been “talking” online to a guy for 2 weeks and he’s already expressed “love” for you.
But you haven’t met.
And you’re not sure what you feel for him.
But you hope that your feelings for him grow as easily as his have for you.
Yikes!
You’re setting yourself up for what could be a potentially disastrous situation.
And I’m not talking about the possibility that this guy MIGHT be some kind of “desperate” or dangerous weirdo. That’s beside the point.
(Which could definitely happen, and you wouldn’t be the first woman who was “duped” by some guy who misrepresented himself online.)
No, I’m talking about the potential for you to waste precious time and emotional energy on a man you might not be attracted to AT ALL if and when you DO meet in person.
That happens all the time.
I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve heard this story…
You meet a man online, and you hit it off right away because he happens to be very expressive, witty, charming, “real” and interested in you.
Suddenly you find yourself having feelings for someone you’ve never laid eyes on (pictures don’t count) and thinking about him all the time.
The longer you “talk” online, the more attached you get.
Getting an email or IM from him is one of the highlights of your day.
Then the day comes that you finally meet for a drink or coffee or whatever, and.
IT’S A TOTAL LETDOWN!
He isn’t AT ALL what you thought he would be.
6’1″ is really 5’6″.
“Athletic” body type is really “couch-like.”
And he’s not as witty, or charming, or funny. He’s a little “off” in a way you can’t quite put your finger on.
He doesn’t look quite as attractive as he did in his photos (from the late 1980’s).
And there’s something about the way he moves and talks that’s a downright TURN-OFF!
So – depending on how much time and energy you’ve spent building up “feelings” for this guy online, that’s the level of your shock and disappointment.
Why does this happen so often? What’s the disconnect between “knowing” a person online and knowing them in person?
Think about this fact for a minute:
Something like 95% of communication is NON-VERBAL.
That means that when you first meet someone, you base a lot of your opinions about that person from how they walk, sit, smile. How they hold eye contact or not. How they fidget or sit dead-still, or look relaxed and confident.
Have you ever met a man who was generally attractive and seemed to have a lot going for him, but there was something about him that you just didn’t like? And you could never even IMAGINE being romantic with him?
The only way you could explain it was that you felt you didn’t “hit it off” or have “chemistry.”
Yeah.
That’s because his non-verbal communication was sending you all the wrong signals.
There was something about what he was DOING with his body that just didn’t “sync” with you. It most likely had little or nothing to do with the CONTENT of what he was saying.
It had everything to do with ATTRACTION, which, by the way, is more about HOW you carry yourself than WHAT you say.
Anyway, getting back to your little online romance here.
Since you have no REAL VISUAL to base how you experience this guy’s non-verbal communication, your mind is making it up for you.
In your mind, he’s displaying the PERFECT non-verbal communication.
Whatever you imagine the “perfect” man to move like or carry himself – that’s the picture your mind has create subconsciously when it comes to this guy you’re talking to online.
In my opinion, that’s why a person you talk to online can “feel” right to you in that context, but feel completely different in person.
This is why it’s a big mistake to build a “relationship” with a man totally online.
You’ve been emailing him for 2 weeks? That’s already too long.
Sure, he may turn out to be a one-in-a-thousand catch who is everything you’d hoped for – attractive, expressive and totally open and honest.
Or, he may turn out to be a TOTAL loser.
And how will you feel then?
Trust me, you don’t want to go there.
In my “Finding Love Online” program, I offer specific steps and tips on what to ask and what to say in order to quickly discover if a man is being TRUTHFUL in how he represents himself in his profile or in his emails, but more importantly, I lay out certain “ground rules” for being safe and successful with online dating.
These are the unspoken rules that if you don’t know, the good men who are online are going to quickly pass you by and you’ll never connect with them.
Which leads me to RULE #1 when it comes to finding love online:
Emailing, texting, IMing and talking on the phone is NOT a relationship.
It’s just a fact-gathering mission before you take the next step of actually meeting someone in person to see if you have “chemistry” or not.
The internet is a GREAT place to meet and find the one man who is right for you.
I have dozens of friends who met their partner that way. I know it’s possible, and I know it works for a LOT of people.
But you need to know how to do that in a way that feels natural and works to KEEP a man attracted and interested in you BEYOND the first email or coffee date.
And you need to know how to screen out the “desperate and lonely” weirdos from the QUALITY men who are looking for a great woman like you. Ones who will know the difference between real love and umm.. warm and fuzzy feelings brought on by email.
That’s why I suggest you check out my “Finding Love” online program today.
This program and some great free online dating tips are here:
Whether it’s this guy, or the next guy you meet online, you’ll feel a lot more confident and savvy about who you should take SERIOUSLY and who you should quickly “delete” off your list.
Go here to read more:
I hope you check it out BEFORE you get in “over your head” with a guy who isn’t everything you think he is.
And let me know how it goes.
I’ll talk to you again soon, and best of luck in Life and Love,
Your Friend,
Christian Carter
maria says
wow i felt so identified with the thing u commented about the man who doesnt want commitment it happens the same with me.. and i kinda feel that things are going better with us..but i dont know i wanna be with him and i wish we could rush things.. i dont wanna wait a lifetime.. how can i do to “push” him in a light way..? in fact, how can i make him understand that he will be happy with me in a relationship? i mean.. we had a short relationship.. but he got a busy schedule and then we had some rows too..coz i felt he was very distant and so on.. and the other day he told me about his doubts.. then i knew he didnt have good luck with his ex.. but he always writes me, says that he loves me.. and he thinks he is clarifing his mind.. what shall i do?? coz we love each other.. and i wanna be with him.. we need to talk this in person but we have some holidays now.. till 15th july.. and i dont think its convenient to ask him out before.. pls i need some advice!! i really liked what u wrote
Jenny says
Why is it that dating advice columns are always geared toward women? Why don’t men have to figure out what makes a woman tick and then make an effort to get them? It feels like women have to do all the modifying of their expectations for the man and the man just gets to fart around being indecisive, regardless of the effect it has on the woman. Yeah, dating may be confusing for men too, but everything you ever read is all the same in that it goes on about how the woman has to suck it up and change the way she reacts to the situation, be patient, understand his perspective. Try understanding our perspective once in a while. Women like men who are mature enough to recognize that in a relationship, there are two people and their actions have an impact on the other person too. Dating is like discovering all these sucky little boys who are afraid of dealing with their emotions, so just diss the woman because it’s easier.
Leah says
ok so theres this guy i met him on the internet hes (real) we have never talked in person and we havent seen eachother face to face. we started talking and later on 2days later i gues?? we were going out and he kept tellin me he loved me and he wanted to stay with me and meet me in person. then later on that day we had a huge fight. he called me a hoe, bitch and asked me why did i even bother. the the next day he told me he wanted it to work and he wanted me back. and we text eachother. but i dont know what signals hes sending me. what should i do???? i hardly know him but i wanna get to know him.
-Confused
Mia says
@Leah,
If someone is calling you derogatory names (especially someone you haven’t even met yet), that is a very bad sign. I would count yourself lucky that you didn’t invest more time in this person and move on.
Shawna says
Hello, My name is shawna Earle. My fiance and I have been together for a little over a year. His grandma passed away in april and We moved into her house and out of my parents. The electric got shut off and it was a nighmare but it brough us closer because all we had was eachother. We then found a new apartment and well the problem is he is adddddicted to xbox crazy! And his cell phone always closing out of stuff when I walk by or sit next to him. We got into a huge argument and my parents hate him he told me he doesn’t think we can get married or be engaged or even be together at all with my parents not liking him… and he says he loves me but his mind sais he doesn’t. He told me i should go stay somewhere for a couple days so he can think through so when I called my mom to see if i can come back home he got all pissed. but ?I don’t know if he is cheating, Or doesn’t have interest in me or what, HELP please i need advide bad!