Girlfriend Says She Wants To Leave, But Yet She Stays. Is This Fixable?

How to know if your relationship is salvageable if she says she wants to leave.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who is new to my work. His live in girlfriend of four years says she wants space, is done with the relationship, but yet she stays and they’re still having sex. She also stays out late with male co-workers which has led to arguments.

He wonders if it’s fixable. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

So this particular email is from a viewer who is new to my work and his live-in girlfriend of four years says she wants space, is done with the relationship. Yet she stays and they’re still hooking up.

So the other thing that’s going on that has created some friction in their relationship is that she also likes to stay out late. I think she’s from Poland, and her excuse was the guys she was hanging out with are also from Poland, and that’s one of the few people that are groups of people, I think it’s a couple guys that speak Polish. So that’s her excuse, “Oh, it’s the only people I know that speak my language,” but your live-in girlfriend of four years, I think he’s got a child from another relationship and she’s kind of like a stepmom. You’re a family, you’ve been living together and your girl’s hanging out till three, four in the morning with other dudes, so he didn’t like that. Supposedly she cut those guys off, but now at times she’s saying she’s done. She wants to be alone. She doesn’t want to be with him. She wants space. So he’s new to my work and he hasn’t read 3% Man yet, but you can tell he’s picked up some things from the videos and he’s implemented some things correctly here.

So we got potentially an integrity issue on her part, because if your girlfriend or your wife is staying out till 3 a.m. with male co-workers partying and drinking, that’s not good. That typically is the type of behavior that leads to cheating or just reveals that she already is cheating, but she’s already got one foot out the door. Probably more than likely, these guys that are friends from work are dudes that potentially she can rebound with. I mean, she may or may not be hooking up with them. We just don’t know, but that does not look good.

Viewer Email:

Hi Coach,

I’m from the UK and new to your videos so I have not had chance to read your book just yet.

Well, get to it dude. It’s free to read the Members Area of the website. Go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, put your name, your email, create a password and it’ll open up right in your web browser. You got to fill in your knowledge gap, especially with the situation that you’re in, but so far, a lot of what I’ve seen you do, you’ve done a good job even though you haven’t read the book yet.

My issue is that I’ve been living with my girlfriend for four years and now she wants to move out because she says, “I want to be alone as I never really have before.”

So women don’t dump men that they’re in love with. They dump men and they leave men they lost respect and attraction for.

I met this girl who worked at my local bar during a party with mutual friends. I went to the party with one girl and then ended up walking this new girl home. We hit it off right away although she had just finished a long-term relationship and things progressed pretty quickly. We ended up moving in together. She always said she didn’t want kids which was perfect for me as I already had a kid with another woman.

Not long into living together I unfortunately received a call from social services as something had happened to my ex and my kid had to be moved to me full time. I was so worried that my girlfriend would leave due to not wanting kids but she slipped into the role pretty quick and was really great with him.

Well, at the end of the day, interest cuts through everything. She had a high interest in you. She really likes you. She’ll typically really like your kid. If she really likes you and doesn’t like your kid, then she’s out. That’s non-negotiable. If she doesn’t like your children, doesn’t want to be a co-parent, you can keep her as a friends with benefits, sex playmate, fuck-buddy, not girlfriend or wife material. Especially somebody that’s going to help raise your kids, they got to want to be there.

We all moved into a bigger property a few years ago and everything seemed great. Unfortunately, we had some arguments about her coming home late, sometimes 4 a.m. drinking with her work friends (Which are also my friends) and not giving me a heads up and some other behavior issues I didn’t agree with! Because my mind was set on family life and what should be tolerated around my son I wasn’t thinking about what she might be feeling or going through.

Well at the end of the day, if you’re living with somebody, they should not basically be living like they’re single, despite the fact the people she’s hanging out with, I guess maybe they all work together

After each fight she apologized and I tried to talk to her but it always felt like it was just me talking.

That’s why you got to read the book. There’s a video I did years ago, How to Communicate with Women Effectively that’s referenced in the book, and I suggest the best way to really absorb this information quickly because again, you’re in the middle of a crisis basically, is that you can follow along in a digital or physical copy while you’re listening to the audio-book on two-speed, and then you can get through it about four hours. That’s the quickest way to really focus on it and really concentrate on the material versus just listening to it at normal speed, driving around in your car, mowing your lawn, doing stuff around the house, listening to his background noise. Basically, half the time you’re checked out, not really paying attention, or you’re distracted, daydreaming or your mind wanders, but when you’re sitting down, you’re looking at the words as they’re being spoken.

If you also have the Kindle and you got the Audible version, the Whispersync feature highlights the words as they’re being spoken by the audio-book, so it really helps you to concentrate on the material. So it’s really worth it to get those two to get the Kindle along with the Audible book. It’s also available on iTunes.

I recently had a health scare and have been pretty stressed about that which I did communicate to her but probably shouldn’t have as it’s extra stress. We had a huge fight a few weeks ago about her going drinking with a couple of guys because she wanted to spend time with people that speak her own language (She is Polish). It was the worst fight, she saw me shouting, not calm and emotional! We had both been drinking.

Not good. If you tend to over-drink, I wouldn’t recommend drinking liquor or high alcohol content craft beer or IPAs. It’d be best to just stay with like, a watered down lite beer, like a Miller Lite or something like that. Keystone Lite is great if you’re going to be in the sun doing things outside, because that’s pretty watered down. Then every two or three beers, suck down 10, 12 ounce glass of water if you’re going to drink throughout the day to help keep you from getting really drunk and really hungover.

The next morning she apologized and asked if I could forgive her, which I did and made a few jokes to lighten the mood. I also apologized because I usually am a calm guy as she knows.

Well at the end of the day, she’s staying out late and she shouldn’t be doing that. She’s done it in the past. So the reason why she’s done it even though you’ve had this conversation, she clearly doesn’t respect you, she doesn’t respect your authority, and she’s kind of doing it anyways because if she’s thinking she wants to end things, then quite frankly, she’s not really going to care what you think.

So those are signs of low interest. She’s basically starting to act like a single person again. No self-respecting man or woman, for that matter, is going to be OK with their significant other going and hanging out one-on-one with people of the opposite sex late at night. Nothing good comes from that. That’s not the thing that loyal, family-oriented people do. That’s what people looking to cheat and people that are single, that’s what they do.

She told these guys she wouldn’t see them again (I didn’t ask her to do that) and things seemed to go back to normal. However, she started seeming really distant, when I asked her what was wrong she just said she was OK.

If a woman says that and her body language is different, the tone of her voice, and she’s checked out, it’s like, “Don’t tell me everything’s OK. You’re distant. You’re quiet. What’s going on? We need to talk about it. Don’t tell me everything’s fine, because it’s clearly not.” When a woman says it’s fine, it’s not. Oftentimes they’ll say those things or say, “I don’t want to talk about it, “because deep down, they think you’re checked out and you don’t really care anyways. So they’ll often say that to see if you really care. You’d be like, “No, we need to talk about this. Something’s off. Something’s going on. You need to talk to me.”

After a while she started coming home late again, spending time in the bedroom drawing and listening to music, sometimes she wouldn’t come to bed until early hours of the morning.

It might be a good idea if you know her phone password when she’s not around, just to go through it and look through some of those text exchanges and see what’s going on. With the Polish guys, she might be talking in Polish, so you might not know what she’s actually saying, but again, these are the actions of a woman who looks like she’s screwing around. The only question is, has it actually happened yet or not? It doesn’t look good, let’s put it that way. These are the actions of a woman who’s trying to monkey-branch, or looks like she’s about to monkey-branch.

When I called her out on this she said she needed some time and space to think about things. (Even the foreign chicks speak the same breakup language).

I know. I say it all the time.

I said that I understood her need for space, so I backed off.

One evening I suggested a date night, which she seemed into. We went to dinner and chatted about anything that wasn’t the relationship, trying to keep things light and fun.

Remember, hang out, have fun and hook up. Create an opportunity for sex to happen. If she’s got something she wants to talk about, she’ll bring it up, because if every time you guys are together, you’re fighting and you’re arguing, you’re getting on her case, “Where are you going? Where are you at? Why are you coming home late?” It’s not really having fun. So every time she’s around you, there’s bad friction. So it’s good that you try to interrupt the pattern there and go and have a fun date night, because the family that plays together stays together, and you guys hadn’t been playing together very much to the point where she went and was playing with other people. We just don’t know the extent to how far she went.

We went to a few bars and then ended up seeing a band. Whilst the band was on we were dancing and she was kissing me. We then took a moment to sit out on the terrace and she told me that she wanted to be alone and not with me anymore. She told me that she’s never really had time to herself.

Again, that sounds nice and logical, but at the end of the day, what she’s really saying is, “I have no romantic interest in you, and I think, I feel that I don’t want to be with you anymore.” You’re not going to force her to stay, but at the same time, you have to make it clear that it’s like, “Yeah, it’s like you’re either in or you’re out. You either want to be with me or you don’t. You got to make the effort. We live together. We’re a family. We’re a team. If we got some issues, if you’re upset about something, we need to talk about it and work through it.” It’s pretty simple, but it takes two to tango. She has to be willing to participate in that.

I told her that I understood although I didn’t agree with it and although I knew she was thinking these things I was still shocked as we were having a great time. I made a few jokes to make her laugh and we left. We still had sex that night!

Well, that’s the important thing. You had the happy finishes because you got to remember, women speak in hyperbole and at the end of the day, she still went home with you and you guys had sex that night. So what she’s basically doing is she’s sharing that she fears, or she feels that the relationship is not going to work out. So she’s saying this to you. Sometimes they say these things to see if you don’t want that, or if they think you don’t want to be with them anymore. They’ll suggest breaking up or splitting up, or taking a temporary break to see if you go along with that. If you go along with that and they were just fishing, then they’re going to typically get upset and cry because they’re like, “Why don’t you fight for us?”

So when a woman says she wants a break, space, wants to break up or take a temporary break, you’re like, “No, I’m not doing that. We’re in it to win it. You either stay and work things out or you can pack your stuff and leave. I’m not doing a temporary break. I’m not going to sit at home for the next couple of weeks or a month, and you go out and hang out till all hours of the day and night trying to find somebody else while I’m sitting here with my life on hold and my child wondering why his stepmom’s not around. So you either commit, you make the effort, or you leave, and you get to explain to my child why you’re breaking the family up,” because again, when a woman wants space, what she’s basically saying is you’re smothering her, you’re being overbearing.

Obviously in this case, no man is going to like his woman hanging out till three, four in the morning with dudes that he doesn’t know. Well, he did say he knows these people but still, it just doesn’t look good. What if your parents are out one night and they see your girlfriend with one or two men, and they all look like they’re having a good time together like, “Hey, it’s like 11:00 at night and your girlfriend is with some dudes. Are you guys OK or are you still together?” You don’t want to have to explain that to your family. You don’t want to get asked those questions. I mean, that’s just common sense and mutual respect.

I still backed off and let her be on her own at home and I didn’t blow her phone up whilst she’s been out. Going back to my health scare, I told her not to worry about collecting me from the hospital as I can sort my own problems out so she doesn’t need to worry, I got this!

Yeah, why throw something else in there that’s not going to be helpful?

I did apologize over text one day for the arguments and my controlling behavior before and she apologized for being a dick.

Well, that was nice. It’s important that you guys can apologize to each other when you’re wrong.

I said, “How about we apologize to each other over some wine?” She replied with, “Sure, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea as I’m nearly at peace with my decision.”

When a woman says, “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” in other words, “I don’t want you to think I’ve decided to stay because I’m nearly at peace.” Again, women don’t care what a great guy you are or the fact you’ve been living together for four years and she’s a stepmom to your kid. What matters most is how they feel about you.

The most important thing in situations like this, aside from the potential that she might be cheating on you, is that you want to do things that are going to cause her interest and her attraction to go up, because as that happens, even though she’s talking about leaving, she’ll actually stay because she’s talking about leaving but at the end of the day, she stays and you’re still hooking up. So if we bottom line her actions, she’s still with you. That’s the important thing for now.

I replied with, “I understand, but we do need to talk.”

When we got to talking, I asked her what were the thoughts coming up to this decision and she told me that it was too much, things happened too fast, she was overwhelmed with work which we had fallen out about before, she told me that I expected too much and that she can’t give me what I want…

In other words, “You’re way more to me than I am into you.”

…As I want a girl to hug all the time and she is more breezy and casual.

So that tells me that you’re probably touching her and initiating physical contact when she’s not open to it. That’s why you got to get into the book, dude. If you want to turn this around, you got to get into the book, fill in your knowledge gap and create the conditions where everything she’s doing is about pursuing, chasing you and getting your attention.

She was crying, getting a bit angry and I stayed calm.  Each point I said that I heard her, I understood her and tried to expand on that and apologize for my part. 

I did say that, “I want to work on things and now I know what has been wrong we could do that.” She said, “No because it would be fake.”

This is kind of testing, “Are you really serious? Do you really mean this?” So women say things like this, remember they speak in hyperbole. In other words, hyperbole means they kind of blow it out of proportion. It’s way bigger than it really is because again, women are mostly driven by their emotions.

I replied, “No, it’s me finding out what the person I love needs and learning from that. There’s nothing fake about that.”

That was a good response.

She replied with, “I’m so tired. No,I can’t do this. I’m fucking done.”

I told her that I really do understand, but if she wants to go then she should go. I know my self-worth, and why would I want to waste my time on someone who doesn’t want to be with me?

Good response.

I told her that I love her and there is a loving family here for her, but I’m not her keeper and if she has to go then she should and we’d still be here if she changes her mind and I’m still available.

So it tells me he’s probably been going through 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back. You did good. Those are good responses, dude. That’s not an easy thing to hear from your girlfriend of four years, especially with everything going on. The fact that she potentially has cheated, is cheating or is about to cheat.

I also told her that she should explain to my son why she is leaving and breaking up the family.

That’s correct, because again, those are painful things and the woman’s going to avoid that. Unless of course she’s checked out, then she won’t give a fuck and she’ll leave afterward.

Afterward we had a few jokes and watched a film. I went to bed, she asked if she could join and I said, “Do whatever you want.” We had sex this morning before she left for work.

See how that works? He was masculine. He was manly. He was like, “No, I want to stay together. However, I’m not going to force you to stay. If you want to go, then go pack your shit and go. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I want to work things out. If you are going to go, then you’re going to have to explain to my child why you don’t want to be their stepmom anymore.”

My question is, I don’t know when she is thinking of leaving.

Well, that’s the point. She’s just thinking about it. She hasn’t decided yet. The only thing that really matters is how she feels about you. The important thing is she’s actually staying because women vote with their feet. If she’s with you, it means she voted for you.

I’m still backed off, I’m still making jokes, having fun and suggesting dates, but should I suggest she stay longer, get the Christmas period out of the way which gives me a longer time to re-attract her, or should I just not mention it and accept the inevitable? Do you think I can win her back? If she leaves I’ll still continue on my path, but it is worrying when you’re a single father that can’t get out that much.

Thank You,

Bob

I wouldn’t mention it at all because it’s unnecessary. Your job, as the book says, is to create an opportunity for sex to happen. To hang out, have fun, and hook up when the signs are there, she’s ready to be touched, kissed, and seduced. So you’re already kind of letting her come to you at her pace. She’s asked for space, so I wouldn’t call, I wouldn’t text, I wouldn’t do anything. When she comes home, “Hey, babe. How was your day?” That should be the first thing. Get her to talk. Get her to open up. Get her to talk about what’s going on in her life, what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. Again, create an opportunity for sex to happen. Hang out, have fun while you’re hanging out, and then hook up when the signs are there that she’s ready to be touched, kissed, and seduced, which you have done twice now on two separate occasions. That’s the important thing. It’s not like she’s sleeping in a separate bedroom, or she’s staying at her mother’s house and you haven’t had sex in six months.

So what’s going on now is she feels like it’s not going to work out. That’s why she’s talking about it, but you’re doing the right thing by staying strong, being clear in your intent that you do want her to stay. It’s like you don’t have to ask her to. It’s live in the moment. Live for what’s going on today. Respond to how she’s showing up today. The future will take care of itself. The reason why you got to stay in the present moment is because that will help you do more things right than wrong and be the most attractive self that you can be. If she’s just hanging out, having fun and hooking up, and she can talk whenever she wants to talk about certain things and feels like you’re listening, then she’ll stick around.

Again, women vote with their feet. So she’s still living with you. She’s still fucking you. She’s not leaving you yet, even though she’s talking about it. So as the weeks go by and you continue to act masculine, you don’t dump your problems on her, your game is tight and she’s having fun when you’re together, she’s getting her brains fucked out, you’re making her orgasm multiple times. Everything with being around you and your child is all good, positive things and most importantly, elicit good feelings.

The most important thing is how a woman feels about you. It doesn’t matter what a great guy you are, that she’s a stepmom to your kid for four years or all the history you have. What matters right now is how you show up. Having arguments and being controlling, getting angry, that’s just going to push her away and make her want space. Letting her come to you at her pace is the right response, and it’s the right thing to do. So far, everything you’ve been doing, good job dude. Even though you haven’t read the book yet, you’ve watched enough from the videos and 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back that you picked up some really important things, and that’s good. That tells me you probably a lot of things you already kind of naturally understand about attraction, and the book can help you clean up the rest of that behavior. It’s important.

Again, if you think about when you first met, what were you doing? You were excited to hang out. You were excited to get to know her. You were excited to ask her questions. You did a lot of listening, made her feel like you cared. She was already naturally attracted to you. Sex and intimacy happened. You quickly moved in together, even though that’s not what I would recommend. You’ve lasted for years, so I would continue hanging out, having fun and hooking up.

Like I said, there’s nothing else really, I mean, I don’t see anything in your email that I would have to say you really fucked up or this or that. It’s like, you definitely got some self-control. Even though you’ve made mistakes that you own up to, it takes a lot of self-control and a lot of masculinity to be able to keep your shit together when your girl’s talking about leaving you. Plus, she’s been staying out all hours of the night, potentially cheating on you, but let’s assume that she was just hanging out in a friendly manner. Unless, of course, you go through her phone or something and see that she’s sending nudes back and forth and clearly has been hooking up with other dudes. The important thing is that you guys are still hanging out, having fun, going on dates, and hooking up. Most importantly, it’d be a lot worse if you were hanging out and not going out on dates and she wasn’t sleeping with you, yet she’s staying out all night long because then it would definitely look like she’s not having sex with you because she’s fucking somebody else, and she’s just biding her time until she leaves. So don’t get too caught up in the things that she says about leaving. Just look at it as a reflection in the moment of how she feels.

Remember, women’s feelings and emotions change like the weather. So the more your game is tight, the more she’s around you and it’s just positive, it’s uplifting, it’s playful, it’s fun, it’s sexy, and the sex is great, what will happen is her interest will keep creeping up, and she’ll talk about leaving less and less. Until one day she tells you how in love she is, how glad she is that you made all these changes, the relationship is better than ever and she’s sorry for the way she treated you. If anything, when she falls head over heels in love with you, she’ll own up and confess anything that she did that was really bad. Like I said, dude, you’ve done a done a good job despite the fact you haven’t got through the book yet. I mean, you’re doing exactly what I would want you to do as a Coach, so pat yourself on the back for that.

You still have a chance, but keep your eyes open. If you can’t, it might be a good idea to go through her phone, not so she knows you did it because you want to be like James Bond and just see if there’s stuff in her texts and her WhatsApp messages or whatever, that is inappropriate with these other dudes, because you said yourself, you know who she hangs out with. Maybe you guys are in a service industry or something like that, bartenders, waiters, things of that nature. So that’d be the only way to really be sure, because in these cases, most of the time women lie about it, and she kind of looks guilty, like she’s been doing bad things, but maybe it didn’t go all the way yet. Maybe she didn’t hook up with anybody yet. We don’t know that.

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