Did I Do The Right Thing By Walking Away?

How to know if you did the right thing by walking away or if you gave up too soon.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a long time viewer. He was casually dating a woman he repeatedly told he wasn’t looking for a relationship. Eventually he says his feelings changed and he told her how he felt. However, he really didn’t know her because she could never open up to him. He asked her about it and she said she had a bad relationship with her father, unresolved trauma and didn’t know how to be in a relationship.

He wonders if he gave up too soon. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

So this particular email is from a long time viewer. He was casually dating a woman that he repeatedly said he wasn’t looking for a relationship, but eventually he says his feelings changed and he told her how he felt, probably when he noticed that she was kind of backing away a little bit. So then he pukes his feelings up to her.

The one thing he said he noticed is all their time together is like he didn’t really get to know her. He says trying to get her to talk was like pulling teeth. So he told her that he was interested in dating her more seriously because a lot of her friends would say, “Well, when are you guys going to get serious? When are you going to be boyfriend/girlfriend?” So he finally gets to the point where he feels like he’s ready to do that, and he says, “I don’t really know you. I can’t ever get you to talk.” She says she has a bad relationship with her father, unresolved trauma and didn’t know how to be in a relationship. So he says he walked away, but now he wonders if he gave up too soon.

At the end of the day, if a girl was raised by a good dad that taught her proper values, taught her how to be a good human being, spent the time with her, raised her properly, taught her a code of honor and integrity and doing the right thing, being honest, he has a good relationship and he’s the alpha of the family, probably did a good job, but more often than not, in these cases, the father did a shitty job. It’s not your job to fix or to save them. I say it all the time. You want a girl who’s easygoing, easy to get along with and who’s nice to you. A woman who will make your dick hard and not your life. Chicks that make your life hard can go on down the road.

So with that in mind, let’s go through his email.

Viewer Email:

Hi Coach Corey,

I’m a longtime follower of your work, and it’s helped me show up more grounded and honest in my relationships. I’ve read How to Be a 3% Man eight times in physical copy and listened to the audio-book more than 10 times. Your material has genuinely helped me raise my standards, communicate more clearly and walk away when needed. I wanted to get your take on a recent situation I had with a woman I was casually seeing, and whether I handled it the right way or if there’s something I could’ve done better to improve my outcome.

She was 23, I’m 25. From the beginning, we were hooking up casually, and I told her on two different occasions when she asked the “What are we?” Question that I wasn’t looking for a relationship.

Well, whatever the impetus was for you to say that, I would say it was probably your intuition and you were like, “Ah, this hot girl’s fun, but not somebody to have a relationship with,” but rejection breeds obsession.

Even so, she stayed involved and over time, things started to feel more emotionally serious.

In other words, he started to catch feelings.

The sex was otherworldly, passionate, submissive, deeply connected, and she was putting in a lot of effort to serve me and keep me. She cooked for me, made me coffee, offered to sew my clothes and genuinely seemed to enjoy letting me lead. She also introduced me to her friends very early, and her best friends would often bug me about making things exclusive with her. She asked about other girls I was dating, and at one point even asked if I was going to make her my Valentine.

So the one thing is that if you’re going to keep a fuck buddy, friends with benefits, especially if she’s into it or was wanting to be serious and you don’t want to, at some point she’ll tap out and give up. I suspect that’s probably what kind of happened here. Eventually she stopped, probably even after Valentine’s Day. I don’t know how long they were hooking up for, but he probably declined the invitation to be a Valentine or to take her out for Valentine’s Day. So she probably started looking for the exits and found some other guys she started hooking up with, and as he could feel, she was backing away and becoming less available, less flexible, making less of an effort to see him, she started throwing roadblocks in his way. “Work’s crazy. I’m busy. I can’t.” Then he started to pursue more.

Eventually, I started to develop real feelings and I decided to open up to her. I told her all the things I liked about her, and she seemed surprised. I don’t think she realized how much I noticed and appreciated her.

Well, you kept telling her you weren’t interested in a relationship. So in her mind, you were just fuck buddies.

Based on her behavior, I felt it was time to be honest. I don’t think I was puking up my feelings, but maybe you’d see it differently.

Well, you’re telling her about your feelings, expecting that this is going to influence how she feels about you. Women don’t care about what a great guy you are, how rich you are or how handsome you are. They only care about how they feel about you.

I mean, look at Tom Brady. He had everything, but Gisele still left, and now she’s had a kid with a jiu-jitsu guy after she cheated on Tom. Eventually, she got tired of buying the BS, the Kentucky guarantees and the false promises that he was going to be there and be more present like he always promised, but he just never made the time.

I made it clear I wasn’t trying to force anything. I just needed connection.

So he’s seeking her attention and validation at this point. So at some point, she was wanting to be exclusive and he didn’t want it, but when she no longer cared and is probably drifting away because again rejection breeds obsession, he started developing feelings and he decided he needed to lock her down, but at this point, the moment had passed, her interest had dropped and he probably hadn’t noticed it until it was a little too late.

I calmly brought up how difficult it was to talk to her, that she didn’t really share anything about herself, and that trying to have conversations often felt like pulling teeth.

So that tells me that she had checked out a long time ago, and he was like the last one to realize it. He could feel her slipping away, so he tried to force things by locking her down to a commitment. That’s what it really looks like happened here.

I asked her directly, “What am I supposed to do about that?”

Meaning the conversations are like pulling teeth.

Well, if the conversations are like pulling teeth, all that tells me is she’s just not interested and he didn’t realize because again, by this point, she had checked out, was pulling away, moving on, and he could feel that he could feel that she wasn’t as interested. So he fell under the illusion of action thinking, “I got to do something,” because he’s thinking, “Well, everybody was always asking me when we were going to be exclusive,” but that was a long time ago, and he was mistakenly assuming that it still applied to today. He looked at it and thought, “Well, she wanted to be my Valentine,” and he didn’t at the time.

The only time he really started to care is when she cared less. When she stopped caring, when she stopped making the same effort, he could feel it. So in his mind, if he just locks her down, that’ll fix everything. So what had happened? The power had flipped. He went from having all the power to her having the power, and she probably met somebody else and was moving on, and he didn’t realize it.

And she told me to just be patient. I told her I liked her and saw potential between us, but that I couldn’t progress the relationship if we didn’t build a real connection.

She admitted she didn’t know how to be in a relationship and blamed her trauma…

Remember, she wanted to be his Valentine. She wanted to be exclusive before. Her friends were all saying, “Hey, when are you going to lock this girl down?” So this is the logical excuse that she gives. It sounds like it makes sense, but at the end of the day, her interest is low by this point.

…Her dad abandoned her when she was young and she’s carried that wound ever since.

So there was no dad, so right off the bat, that tells you dad wasn’t even there, so he did a shitty job. He did no job, actually. He abandoned her.

I ended things respectfully and told her I hoped she healed. A few weeks later, she started watching all my stories and liking regret-themed love posts.

Again, when I read that, I want to read that again: “A few weeks later, she started watching all my stories and liking regret themed posts.” So at some point he noticed that she was no longer really paying attention to him, and she had checked out, had kind of left and was moving on, and he could feel that. So his solution was to barf his feelings up and try to lock her down. Then when he did it, he realized Elvis had already left the building. She was already tapping out.

I missed her and started wondering if I gave up too early, so I reached out.

Again, more rejection breeds obsession. Second guessing himself because again, she drifted away.

She responded calmly but said she wasn’t looking to revisit things.

In other words, she probably already met somebody else and had moved on.

I haven’t contacted her since.

I’d appreciate your insight. Did I do the right thing by walking, or could I have handled it better without compromising my standards? Thanks for everything you do.

Regards,

Bob

Well, you made the mistake of trying to lock her down to a commitment, and you weren’t really paying attention until you realized that she had kind of drifted away and wasn’t into it anymore. So your solution was the illusion of action, “Oh, let me lock her up and tell her how much I care,” because he’s probably talking to some women in his life and they’re like, “Just tell her how much you care and how important she is to you and all the things you love about her, and that’ll fix it.”

Again, I say it all the time. Women don’t give a fuck about how much you like them, how much you care or what a good dude you are. They only care about how they feel about you. At the point where he was ready to do something about it, I think the only reason he wanted to lock her down was because he could feel her slipping away, and the reason she was slipping away is she realized after his insistence that he wasn’t looking for a relationship and probably telling her that he was dating other girls, that he wasn’t going to become her boyfriend. So she met somebody else and basically started moving on for the most part, and this was like his last ditch effort to lock her down and keep from losing her, but by that point, Elvis had already left the building.

So if we look back to how he felt before she drifted away, he didn’t care about her enough. The connection wasn’t there. They were at arm’s length. She was strictly a booty call and he was a booty call to her, but when he started feeling that he was losing his booty call, that’s when he started to care, because rejection breeds obsession. Then he tried to lock her down and hold on to her, but by that point, she was already gone. So once he broke things off, she probably got more serious with whoever it was and that’s why she was like, “Yeah, I don’t really want to revisit things. Have a nice life.”

So this was inevitable, and I think it’s a good thing that she met somebody else and moved on, because you didn’t care until she stopped caring. Whoever cares the least typically has all the leverage. You went from caring the least to caring the most, and by the time you cared the most, she was already gone and you didn’t realize it. So in this case, you’re trying to turn a fuck buddy into a girlfriend, and then you completely ignored the fact that she just didn’t have the background that would make her capable of being a good girlfriend because dad was never around.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.