Honoring Your Relationship Commitments

In order for a woman to feel safe and comfortable in a relationship, her man must be a man who says what he means, and means what he says. Most men don’t realize just how important keeping their word is to women. When a guy says he’s going to take out the garbage, and then he does not. His woman will get upset and angry with him. Then he will take out the garbage thinking he’s made her happy.

However, anytime he fails to do what he says he’s going to in the future, she will bring up taking out the garbage. Why? He thinks once he took the garbage out, the issue was resolved. Most men do not understand why women keep bringing up the same stuff over and over again that may have happened years ago. The reason she brings up the garbage or anything else he failed to do in the past, is because she is trying to communicate with him that he once again is hurting her the same way he did when he failed to take out the garbage, etc. If a man continually tells his woman things he will do, and then he does not do them, this will make her feel incredibly uncomfortable and unsafe. She will feel like she cannot trust his masculine core.

So what does she do? She is forced to move into her masculine energy to make up for his weakness. Feminine women resent moving out of their natural feminine essence and into a masculine essence in order to get things done the man was supposed to do. She wants to act like a woman. When a man does not do what he says he’s going to, she is forced to act like a man to get things done.

How does this show up long-term? A woman will become more masculine, she will “butch” the hair and dress more androgynous or masculine. She in essence becomes the man in the relationship. Just go to a mall anywhere in the world, and you will see these women leading their men and children around the mall. He becomes a follower. He basically becomes the woman in the relationship. She’s always pissed off at him and constantly emasculating him. He always tries to placate her and keep her from getting upset. He walks on eggshells around her. The sex life usually ended years ago. They have become roommates instead of lovers committed to loving and making each other happy. They are miserable, but simply not miserable enough to do something about it. When their kids grow up, they get into the same types of dysfunctional relationships.

The following is an e-mail I got from a woman reader. She has been dating a new man for several months. However, he does not keep his word which totally sends her into orbit! My comments are (in bold brackets like this) in the body of her e-mail:

Dear Corey,

I came across your website not too long ago and had the chance to read some of your newsletter articles as well as your responses to relationship questions. Although your focus is on men, I am a woman however. I like what I’ve read so far and the reason your website came up is because I was searching for relationship advice. It would be so wonderful if you can offer a perspective on what I can do to make a change for the better.

After being single for 4yrs, I thought I found the man of my dreams 10 months ago. I am at a cross roads with this relationship now. Let me tell you why. We became exclusive after close to 3 months of dating. I made my intention of wanting to be in a exclusive relationship that will lead to marriage known from day one. I held back sex this whole time and did my due diligent of qualifying him, and so I felt great about my selection.

(Good for you! Sticking to your guns on what you want.)

However, about a month or so into our exclusive relationship, I find myself struggling with his friendship with his ex. They had remained friends and call each other every two weeks. I was wary about the neediness if not emotional codependency of the friendship, but I kept an open mind and an open heart in dealing with the circumstance. I wasn’t sure how I really felt about their friendship since I have not had any past experience with a boyfriend who is still friends with an ex.

(I’m still friends with my former girlfriends. As the years go by, we talk less and less, but they still keep in touch. I always will love them and be grateful for our time together. Pretty awesome women! I make this clear up front to the women that I date that I still talk to former girlfriends occasionally. I will not end any friendship I value for someone new in my life. If she has self-confidence and perceives herself as a catch, she won’t worry I’m going to go back and heat up left overs; and if I ever did? It’s my loss. However, when I am exclusive I have always been 100% faithful.)

I proceeded to initiate dialogs on 3 different occasions to gain a better understanding of what I can expect with the ex in our lives. On all 3 occasions, he assured me they were just friends and he has no lingering romantic feelings for her. She’s moved on and has a new boyfriend. Additionally, he offed to cut ties with her if in fact I feel uncomfortable with their friendship and affirmatively said it would not be an issue for either of them. A little more time went by as I observed very closely. I didn’t take up his offer until finally with all things considered, I concluded their friendship was unhealthy and would hinder our relationship from developing.

(As a woman falls deeper in love with a man, she wants more and more of his time and attention. However, its a natural fear women have that they will “lose their protector” to another woman. If a man is doing and saying things that communicate she has his heart 100%, she won’t worry about other women. However, if she senses weakness in his masculine core, or she can tell he’s not 100% committed, she will feel uncomfortable and unsafe in the relationship. Women will do as you are right now if they feel they don’t have him 100%. They become bitchy and angry. Why? Hurt, and fear it’s not going to work out causes women to try to get certainty and clarity in this area.)

I told him my reason for accepting his offer was that I felt our relationship was at a pivotal point for me and in order to feel fully secure of his commitment, let alone his emotional availability, the friendship with her can end for now, not necessarily indefinitely, but she needs to let us be. I was very clear of how I wanted our relationship to develop and spoke honestly of my position. He agreed to my relief.

(Men should say what they mean and mean what they say. If they don’t, it causes women to doubt his masculine core and feel unsafe in the relationship. This destroys intimacy if he does not.)

All sounds well, but this is where it all went wrong for us. 2 weeks after his promise to me, no action was taken.

(Not good. Any woman would get upset with that. He seems like he tries to avoid confrontations or things that are uncomfortable to him. So he takes no action by avoiding it.)

I was fuming until I exploded in rage and accused him of being dishonest about his commitment to us, etc.

(You are holding things in and not communicating in a loving manner. Emasculating your man is not the way to improve your relationship. Most women do this. Men think logically. You have to be direct and spell things out to him with step by step instructions of what you expect of him. Most women beat around the bush and use hints and innuendo to try to get him to comply with their wishes. When the men don’t get the hint… they explode in anger. Behind anger is always F.E.A.R. which stands for false evidence appearing real. Men need to feel like they can be successful at making you happy. If you keep kicking him in the balls, eventually he will give up and leave the relationship because he feels he cannot make you happy. You are making him feel like a failure as a man the way you are talking to him.)

His reaction to me was to make a new promise that he would call her the next day and will take care of things. The next day I was still around and he made no attempts of addressing the issue until I lost it again and yelled at him for his inaction.

(He was acting pretty weak. I understand your frustration. Maybe his balls are really the size of BB’s.)

His reaction this time was to pick up the phone and call her right away with no communication plan in mind. So of course, as anticipated, she was not happy with the situation and accused him of not being fair to her since he had not made any efforts for us to meet thinking that would have mattered somehow.

(I agree with her that he should have had you two meet long before things got to this point.)

At this point he came back to me to renegotiate hoping I would agreed to having a meeting with her, and that I would feel better about their friendship somehow. They must have thought I felt threatened or jealous as jealousy was a huge issue when they were together.

(Understandable. However, he still did not do what he promised. That’s weak. It would drive any woman nuts!)

I made it very clear that I was not feeling any of that, but instead I am simply making a choice that will optimize the development of our relationship. I wasn’t making the choice from a place of fear.

(You wanted him to honor his word. He kept looking for ways to weasel out of it. It does not sound like he wants to end things with her. Actions always speak louder than words.)

So the argument went and to make a long story short, at the end he called her back the second time to cut off ties with her. I would think that was the end of it, but unfortunately, fast forward to today. I have since lost a lot of respect for him, but worse, I can’t trust him the same. In my eyes, not only is he weak, he had broken a bond that was so fragile. Particularly the fact that it happened in the early stages of our relationship. We never even got around to building a strong foundation that could have helped weather my disappointment and sanity. So my resentment remains and my anger is growing still. I am now fault finding and becoming verbally abusive to him when we fight. I blame and I am mostly angry.

(He does not understand how he hurt you. You must tell him the REAL reason you are upset. You are upset because he is not keeping his word. That destroys trust and intimacy. If he won’t do the right thing or what he says he’s going to, how can you possibly believe he will follow thru on anything else he says now or in the future? Tell him how uncomfortable a man not keeping his word makes you or any woman feel. He’s trying to “fix” things between you and his ex so you get along and play nice. However, you simply want him to do what he said he would. You need to explain things to him in words he can understand, logically. Tell him, “If I can’t trust you to honor your word, I will be unable to love and trust you long term. If that’s the case, we will have no future together.” Your boyfriend needs to read my book. He sounds pretty clueless like most guys. He does not understand what he is doing wrong, or how to make things right. I know its obvious to you and me, but most men do not know or understand what I know. So if he is unwilling to learn what he needs to in order to have a healthy relationship, you’ll have to improve your own communication skills to make up for it. Most men are too egocentric to admit they need help.)

He is trying to gain my trust back by following through on his words these days, but that was not without my help in clearly defining what he can do to gain my trust back.

(Sorry honey, you’re going to have to become a better and more effective communicator if you want this relationship to work. Read my book, it will help you. There is a ton of great communication skills and techniques in my book that will help you. You can download the Amazon Kindle version of my book to your Smartphone, PC, Mac or iPad in under 60 seconds for only $9.99 by CLICKING HERE.)

Even so, still he is inconsistent. As a result, his efforts remain unsatisfactory.

(Yep, you still don’t trust his masculine core. Totally understandable.)

A part of me feels that I should have ended the relationship when he showed reluctance and hesitation cutting ties with his ex. There should not have been a second chance because now I feel like I held onto something that has been broken and can never be fixed.

(You must give it your best shot. Read my book and start applying what I teach. See how you feel in a few months after trying what you learn. Then you will be able to say that you gave it your best shot. If he still keeps acting weak, is unwilling to change and get better, then you will have to conclude he is always going to be this way. If he’s not going to change, then you can either accept and love him with his shortcomings, or end the relationship and find someone who does. I bet the jealousy issues with his ex-girlfriend were because he simply does not keep his word. She felt uncomfortable with his masculine core as you do. Men get dumped by different women for the same reasons. Why did he break-up with his ex? That’s something to think about.)

My angry outburst and ugly mood swings are eroding us.

(Yep, the more you do it, the more he will withdraw. The more things will spiral out of control.)

It has been a little over 3 months in which we have been trying to work things out. We have little fights escalating to big fights.

(Men who understand women and women who communicate lovingly don’t have arguments. They’re simply focused on giving and loving unconditionally. The purpose of all relationships? You go there to give. That’s it!)

I don’t fight fair and I bring out the big guns.

(That is not healthy and will lead to the end of any relationship. Women don’t fight fair period; that’s why I teach men not to argue with women. They’ll never win! He’s trying to “fix” things and you want him to act like a man.)

He’s left wounded on several occasions by my harsh under the belt words, it’s awful.

(Yep, I know how you girls can demolish a man in seconds with your words.)

I really do want our relationship to work. I want to stop feeling angry toward him and respect him again.

(Effective adult communication and both of you working TOGETHER to meet each others needs is the only thing that will make it work.)

I just don’t know how. Even with the smallest mishap on his part, gets me to declare war these days. How do I regain my personal power?

(Simply decide to. Simply decide you are going to learn what you need to so you can give it your best effort. If after that, things don’t change, go find a man who will give you what you want; or love and accept him the way he is.)

Is this relationship salvageable, or is it time to move on to someone new?

(It takes two. You both need to improve your relationship/communication skills.)

Your expertise is greatly appreciated, and can really help me remove this road block that is consuming me negatively on an almost daily basis.

(After you finish reading my book, you can book a phone coaching session with me if you still have questions by CLICKING HERE.)

Stuck In Limbo Land

Those that are the hardest to love need it the most.