Did She Have More Red Flags Than China?

How to accept a breakup & move on so you can find someone better.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who broke up with his girlfriend about two months ago. He doesn’t want her back, but he keeps replaying the good and bad times of the relationship in his mind. He doesn’t have peace about it yet and still checks her social media.

He asks how to finally let go and move on. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, if you have to ask…

So this particular email is from a viewer who broke up with his girlfriend about two months ago. They were together, I think he said, for about a year-and-a-half. He doesn’t want her back. He kind of goes over a lot of the reasons why he broke up with her. Lots of male orbiters. It just never seemed to go away. Plus, she was just constantly, little white lies here, little white lies there. She was just never being truthful.

So he’s been broken up for about two months, and he knows intellectually and mentally that she’s just not the right person, not a good person, because all the red flags. Intellectually, he knows she’s bad for him, but emotionally he’s still hung up on her and he’s having a hard time moving on. He thought it would be easier than this. He replays in his head, we all do this when we have breakups, we replay all the good times and as the time goes by, you kind of start to look at the past through rose-colored glasses. You don’t think about the bad times so much, but again, intellectually he knows it’s over, but emotionally he’s having a hard time with it. He’s like, “How the hell do you move on?”

Well, number one, it’s only been two months and the average person statistically takes about a year-and-a-half to get over a breakup. What makes breakups? They never get any easier. No matter how many of them you’ve had, how many relationships you’ve had, they all suck. There’s always suffering that goes along with it, even when you’re the one that is the dumper, because especially when you’re together with somebody for several years, your lives become so intertwined. Especially if you’re living together, living together part-time, or actually living together, it’s like all of your activities, everything revolves around each other’s lives or families. Then all of a sudden that person’s not in your life anymore. So it’s like, everything you did, your whole identity is associated with being in a relationship with that person. You have couples that you double date with and hang out with, and then all of a sudden you’re not going to go and be the third wheel with those same couples, especially if some of them were her friends or vice versa.

So it’s like everything you did, you wake up together, you sleep together, you travel together, you do family things together, you go shopping together, you’re just living and breathing together. Now all of a sudden that person’s completely gone. Especially the longer time goes by, like your whole life, the way it was before when you were single and before you met her, like that’s just kind of like a distant memory. What happens is guys tend to let their friendships go by the wayside, especially if some of their friends that they hung out with all the time were still single. Well, you’re not going to still be hanging out with guys that are going out bar hopping and looking for girls and stuff like that. When you’re in a relationship, you’re gonna tend to hang out with more couples, especially if you got kids involved. Then you’re trying to do things to keep the kids happy and active while you can enjoy your weekend, get a little bit of peace, a little bit of fun, get a little action with your girl and the kids are asleep. Then all of a sudden that’s gone.

What’s also hard about that is we oftentimes have let our friendships fall by the wayside. Maybe we got away from our hobbies. A lot of guys stop going to the gym and taking care of themselves. The girl does the same thing. I’ve talked about this with Kuang, who I had on my podcast a few years ago, a friend of mine who’s got a CrossFit gym and he’s like, literally got it down to the month, because guys come in, they had a breakup, they’re overweight, they want to get in shape, they get fit, they get looking good. They often will meet somebody else through the gym or working out, and then they get serious. Then six months later, neither one of them is coming in the gym. Then a year, year-and-a-half, the guy is back, the girl is back, overweight, out of shape once again, same process. Get fit and in shape. Meet somebody new. Boom! They disappear for a year-and-a-half. Stop coming. Cancel their membership even. Then they come back. It’s like the same process over and over.

So with that little diatribe in mind, let’s go through his email and see what is going on, because the other thing is, once you accept that you can’t fix the person, like you’ll see here, it’s one of those things that I’m sure there’s a lot of great qualities that he loves about her, but honesty, integrity, and being truthful, he’s like, “I don’t want to sleep with one eye open the rest of my life,” and quite frankly, no guy wants that. You want to come home and have peace. You want a girl who’s hot, you want a girl who’s loyal, and is nice to you. It’s pretty simple. You want a girl makes your dick hard, not your life. If there’s constantly dudes, even though you have conversations, the dudes maybe they go away for a little bit and then they’re back and it just never goes away. This is what happens if you’re gonna date somebody that comes from a broken home, especially if they didn’t have a good relationship with their father.

Viewer Email:

Hey Coach,

I wrote to you once before, and on a live stream. You said that people date multiple people until exclusivity is established.

Well, especially women do that. You think about the easy access to guys on dating apps. They just have an absolute all-you-can-eat buffet. So they have lots of choices and lots of options, and they go wherever or move towards whichever guy makes them feel most attracted. Even more often than not, if the guy’s not a good person, and especially if the girl came from a broken home because she’s not going to recognize he’s not a good person because dad’s not around to help warn her of those guys and have those discussions.

I’ve been trying to apply your teachings, but there’s one situation I’ve been struggling to let go of.

I was with my ex for about 1.5 years. She came from a difficult family background…

It’s not your job to fix her, to save her, or rescue her from the fact that her dad did a shitty job. You’re looking for a teammate and an equal. Somebody that was raised right, that shares your goals, shares your values. If the girl doesn’t share your values, like in this case, I mean, she may want to be loyal. I mean, cheaters and liars, typically they want to be loyal and faithful. At least that’s what they say, but at the end of the day, character is destiny, and lying, cheating, being devious, if that’s what they grew up with, that’s just who they are. By the time they get to be their 20s, 30s, pretty much the die is cast.

People typically don’t change who they are. They may become a better version, but they typically don’t change. Somebody that’s just constantly lying to you, deceiving you, and constantly inviting attention from other men, if you set the boundaries and she continues to violate it, well it’s just not fixable. So you have to, very bluntly and matter-of-factly, just look at her actions and judge her based on that. If she’s constantly displaying low character and disloyal behavior, it’s not somebody you want to wife up. It’s not somebody you want to have a child with because your kid’s going to grow up and be ratchet just like they are.

…And throughout the relationship I noticed she had issues with people-pleasing, boundaries, and honesty.

Character is destiny. It’s not your job to fix or to save her. She’s the one that would have had to have made the conscious choice to be a good person if she came from a difficult environment. Unfortunately, whatever is modeled at home for you growing up is typically what you’re going to emulate, unless you have some serious pattern interrupts.

One thing that repeatedly bothered me was that she would sometimes hide interactions with male orbiters. There were instances where she was meeting or talking to guys and didn’t tell me until I found out myself.

So if your girlfriend, supposed girlfriend, is hanging out one-on-one with other dudes, their boss late at night, going to drinks, going to the club, hanging out with a bunch of single girls or girls that are in relationships that constantly are cheating and looking to hook up, well you are who you associate with. If she’s constantly hanging out with men, they’re not there to be her pal. They’re not there unless they’re gay. They’re not there to get yoga tips. They’re not there for grandma’s oatmeal and raisin cookie recipe. They’re there because they want pussy. They want your girl’s pussy. If she’s constantly giving out her number to new guys and meeting them out, then on some level she’s giving them the ability to try to seduce her. She’s giving them the green light.

Even though she says, “Oh, I have a boyfriend,” well, if the guy persists and then seduces her, she can say, “Well, it just happened. I couldn’t say no,” and most guys, unfortunately, they don’t give a shit. They’ve seen too many Disney movies. They think, “Oh, this guy’s stupid. He’s neglecting her. He doesn’t appreciate what he’s got. I’m going to show her what a great dude I am.” Bottom line, she’s putting herself in situations where seduction can happen. She’s not saying, “I have a boyfriend. No, I can’t, that’d be inappropriate. If you want to hang out with us. I’d love for you to meet my boyfriend.” She’s not doing any of that. She’s giving the guys a green light to hit on her because she likes the attention, because again, she didn’t get it growing up. Dad wasn’t around. Therefore, she seeks it in dysfunctional ways. She likes the masculine attention. Who was there to teach her these things? Nobody.

It wasn’t always the interaction itself that bothered me. It was the secrecy and the feeling that I wasn’t getting the full truth.

Yep. Love cannot exist where there is no trust. Your ex-girlfriend was a fuck buddy, friends with benefits, sex playmate, the town bicycle. That’s it. You practice safe sex, and when you find somebody who shares your values, then you say, “Hey, it’s been great, but I’m going to get serious with this other person.”

Another major issue involved her ex. He had been a source of problems before, and despite everything that happened, she eventually followed him back after our breakup.

Well, that’s just really shocking, isn’t it?

Looking back, I feel like I kept hoping she would change instead of accepting her as she was.

Well, you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. Every guy wants to rescue the little damsel in distress. You got to be the hero and the rescuer, but some women are just not fixable, and it’s not your duty to do that. Your duty is to find a good teammate who was raised right and shares your goals and values to build something great together.

To be fair, I wasn’t perfect either. I became frustrated, judgmental at times, and probably stayed in situations longer than I should have. I spent a lot of time trying to understand her behavior and help her make better decisions…

It’s not your job to do that. You can guide her, but if she doesn’t take that, it’d be different if she takes that on board and that’s it, it never happens again, but that’s not what happened. You set your boundaries, you tried to guide her, and despite the guardrails you put in place, she crashed through every one of them. That’s a her problem. It’s not a you problem. So you’re projecting your fantasy of what you wanted her to be onto her, and then you’re ignoring the reality that she’s not living up to it and couldn’t live up to it until it just became so obvious, because you never are going to have peace with a woman like this.

…Instead of asking whether she was actually the right partner for me.

Well, you got to vet for character. Character is destiny.

There were also a lot of good memories.

I’m sure there were. Sex is usually really good with girls like this because they’re very experienced. They like men and, quite frankly, men like them.

We shared many first experiences together and built a strong emotional connection. That’s what makes this so difficult.

Yeah, because your identity is, “But it was so good at this point,” but there was all this other bullshit that was not fixable, and that’s the hard part. You could see the girl’s potential, but at the end of the day, you can’t make good wine from bad grapes.

When I think back, I remember the laughs, the trips, the conversations, and all the moments that made the relationship feel special.

Yeah, but that’s not all sunshine and roses. It’s the bad part. It’s the suffering that you got to go through with the character issues that you just realize the juice is not worth the squeeze, and she’s just not. She’s not respecting the guardrails of the boundaries. Why? Because she doesn’t share your values. That was a parental problem, not your problem.

The reality is that I don’t think I could ever be fully at peace in a relationship where I felt I had to constantly question what was going on behind the scenes. I don’t want to spend my life sleeping with one eye open wondering if I’m getting the truth.

Yep. That’s what we want, to come home to peace and joy. Instead, you come home to, is she telling me the truth or is she full of shit? We don’t want to deal with that.

The strange part is that I don’t actually want her back. We haven’t spoken in two months. I’ve been focusing on my studies, fitness, hobbies, and self-improvement. Yet I still find myself checking her social media and revisiting old memories. It’s like my mind understands the relationship is over, but part of me is still emotionally attached to what we had.

Yeah. Remember, this is why it’s so powerful, especially you guys that are in sales, you understand this. When you get a client emotionally hooked on your product or service or really liking you, it’s hard to say no. It’s hard to turn down an offer of a good deal from a friend. So we make our decisions based upon our emotions, and then we use logic and reason to justify those decisions.

So in this case, you stayed with her, as you said, longer than you should have, and you’ve done that before. Quite frankly, most of us do that. We all do it. I’ve done it. It’s the way it is. You want things to turn out better and you keep hoping because you remember how long it takes to go through a breakup, to get over it, to get back into dating, and then during dating, and then eventually finding someone you really click with and you go through a relationship, it’s just a long process. So the thought of hitting the reset button, starting over, and being single all over again, you think, “Well, let me give it a little more time. Well, let me have another talk with her,” and it just ends the same way with her walking all over you.

So the other thing to understand about that, again, this is super important. What comes with age and experience and getting your heart broken enough is that even though emotionally you’re still attached, you still want or you still desire, or you think about all the good times. Intellectually, what wisdom brings is, “Yeah, but I’m just going to keep experiencing pain. So as much as I desire her, I have self control to override my emotions.”

When you’re younger and you’re inexperienced, you tend to just let yourself get carried away on your emotions, you get dopey, and you just see the good things. It’s not until the infatuation wears off and you’re out of the honeymoon period, usually after around 12 months, sometimes more, sometimes a year-and-a-half, but what probably happened here is once you got out of the honeymoon period, you saw your girlfriend for what she really was, a liar and a cheating hoe-bag who wasn’t going to be loyal to anybody. She was incapable of it because that’s not her value system. It clearly wasn’t demonstrated that way at home.

My question is this: How do you completely let go when you know someone isn’t right for you, but you still miss the memories and the version of the relationship you hoped it could become? How do you stop checking up on an ex when you don’t want them back, but you still feel emotionally hooked?

Thanks, Coach.

Bob

Well, the quickest way to get over a woman is to get underneath a new one. I did a couple success stories last month. The two guys who are going through exactly what you’re going through. They got back in the book. They got out there and both of them hooked up with somebody new, and man, they felt right as rain because again, what you’re missing is the fantasy of what you wished she was, but the reality of the fact that she couldn’t live up to your fantasy is why you left. Intellectually, you left. Even though emotionally you’re still attached, it just takes time. So as soon as you meet somebody you really like and light you up on the inside, you’re going to forget all about this girl.

So the hard thing is to keep moving forward because most guys, after about 90 day, are going through what you’re going through, especially if they go out on a few dates and then they just start thinking about all the good times and then they go back. It’s usually after, I’ve discussed this many times with the girls in the podcast, they break up with their boyfriend or their boyfriend dumps them, and within 90 days they’re trying to come back because they didn’t find anybody better. So you got to resist the urge, especially in the next couple months, to want to go back to her and think that you’re going to fix her again, because it just ends the same way. So maturity and wisdom force you to move on even though you still feel like shit.

So something that can help alleviate those emotions so you can process it and move it through your nervous system is the consciousness exercises on the home page of my YouTube channel. So if you just go to @CoachCoreyWayne, scroll to the bottom, there’s stages one through 12. I’d say put it on your big screen TV, spend an hour, hour-and-a-half, maybe three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday doing them, stages one through 12. Just do them in order. That’ll help you feel better, but getting out and getting around other people because sitting around ruminating over what was, is what leads to depression, sadness, and loneliness.

So if you’re not working, you should be out of your house doing something fun that lights you up on the inside. Just like when I get done editing and uploading my videos for you guys, I’m going to go do something fun because I’ve been working all morning. So it’s important to enjoy your life. When you’re enjoying your life, you’re going to smile more and just being around other people. Even if you go just sit in a nice restaurant, take yourself to lunch or dinner. There’s a cool vibe, a cool environment, and people watch or be around other people and just go do something. If you belong to some kind of club, a country club, yacht club, anything like that, some kind of social club, Elks Lodge, whatever it happens to be, VFW, whatever, go hang out with other people, especially if there’s beautiful women around.

Just looking at a beautiful woman completely takes your mind off of what was. Then you start thinking about what could be, because if you’re sitting at home by yourself, you’re ruminating your problems, but if you’re going out, even if you’re just taking yourself to a nice lunch or dinner someplace, it’s got a great atmosphere and vibe, there’s cute girls around, you’re gonna feel better because again, you’re looking at all these girls. You’re like, man, you’re thinking in terms of possibilities and no longer being stuck in the past.

You gotta remember, what causes suffering? Suffering happens when we don’t accept reality. We want reality to be other than it is. So in this case, not accepting that it’s over and something that helps you move on is to go out, socialize and mingle with other human beings, and doing something that’s just fun because then you’ll forget about it, but sitting around doing nothing and you ruminate and you feel like shit, remember, whatever you focus on or focus your brain on, it’s going to expand. So if you’re sitting at home by yourself feeling sad about what was, you’re going to feel worse, but if you force yourself, even though you don’t want to, to go out and mingle, that’s where the magic happens. Who knows? Maybe a cute girl sits down next to you, and maybe she just had a breakup and she’s single and ready to mingle, and you just start clicking and you find out you enjoy the same things. Next thing you know, a few hours later, you’re bumping uglies in your place and a new love story begins. You won’t care when that happens.

So you got to put yourself in situations where those things can happen. Again, I can’t remember the names of those video newsletters I did in the last month or two. That’s about the last 45 days. There’s two guys.One guy met a chick at a bar, another guy met somebody on a trip or something like that, and they were right as rain afterwards because they’re like, “I can do it. I still have it. I can still attract a new girl.” So you can do the same. So read the book 10 to 15 times and get out there. Well, read it and practice. Enjoy your life and you’ll get better. Repetition is the mother of skill.

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.

If you haven’t already signed up for our exclusive premium Members Only content, in the video description is video, there are links to join on YouTube, to join on Spotify or our website UnderstandingRelationships.com. Just click the “plans” tab when you get there. You can do a 7-day free trial to check out all the great content you get for your money. If you choose an annual plan, you can get a 25% discount at the end of the 7-day free trial. So go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the “plans” tab, and sign up for a premium membership trial today.