I Didn’t Emotionally Engage With Her So She Cheated On Me!

The importance of dating and courting your woman properly and making sure she is a person of integrity.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a 31-year old viewer whose casual girlfriend of a year cheated on him. However, he did not date and court her properly and always avoided conversations about being serious. He basically treated her like a friends with benefits. He mostly acted like he wasn’t really into her and sometimes didn’t pay much attention to her.

He only started to care once he saw her with another guy. They are still seeing each other, but now he doesn’t trust her. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

What you notice in this email are the consequences of not dating and courting your girl properly. Because a big, important part of being in a relationship with somebody is they have to feel like you actually care for them. And the way this guy behaved or treated this girl, he treated her like he just really didn’t care for her that much. And quite frankly, that’s pretty accurate.

Remember, rejection breeds obsession. And so, what ends up happening is he goes over to her house and sees her walking, holding hands with a male coworker of hers. Obviously, he was devastated. And so, from that point forward, he goes from not really caring too much, to rejection breeds obsession, to “I’ve got to make her my girl.”

I’ve done so many phone sessions over the years with guys that were in situations similarly with somebody. There was no cheating or anything, but they were in a relationship and they weren’t really putting their best foot forward. And then eventually, the woman recognizes, because you probably heard me say many times, if you don’t date in court your girlfriend or your wife properly, eventually some other guy will.

And so, that’s what happened here. I’ve done countless phone sessions with guys, whether it’s their wives or their girlfriends, and they want to leave their husbands or their boyfriends just because the guy doesn’t really care. And when we start out on the phone session he says, “Yeah, I really wasn’t that into her.” It’s like, they only cared and wanted her back because they got dumped, because rejection breeds obsession.

And then you help them get the girl back – I wrote about this in 3% Man – and it’s not like she changed or became somebody different. Everything that turned you off about her before, it’s still there. She’s still that same person. That’s why, most of the time, when these guys get girls back, that they feel this way about and that they treat this way, it doesn’t last. But at least the second time around they can have peace that when they do end it, that it really wasn’t meant to be and it was time to move on.

Everybody watching this either knows somebody, or maybe the ones watching this are somebody in a similar situation with somebody that’s just staying too long. You know they should move on, but they don’t. Because people don’t like being single, and because you never know, you have no idea when the next great love of your life is going to come along – somebody that you really connect with emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically. Most people tend to settle. I mean, the divorce rate is over 50%. I think it’s like 74-75% of time, women are the ones filing for divorce. And it’s obvious most human beings are not making good choices when it comes to their intimate partners.

My work is all about the woman of your dreams – not a mediocre, average, boring marriage or boring relationship – somebody that you genuinely care for, and you genuinely like being around, and you feel like you connect with her on a soul level. When you talk to her, you complete each other’s sentences. You have similar goals, similar values. You just have so many things in common, you get along so well and you connect so well, just like you do with your closest friends, that a really great connection is worth the wait.

And until you find that next great connection, go out and date and have fun. Hang out, have fun, hook up, whatever it is that you want to do. And when the right person comes along, you’ll know it, you’ll feel it. Because guys that feel this way, yet continue to engage with these women, they’re wasting their time and they’re wasting her time. It’s not fair to themselves and it’s not fair to the woman to try to keep roping these women back in to situations where, really, they need to go their own separate ways. Because at that point, you’re inhibiting them finding somebody that’s ideally suited for them, and vice versa. You’ve got to create a space in your life for somebody new to fill.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Corey,

I am 31 years old, have a professional medical sales career and keep myself busy with investing. I run a real estate investing portfolio and am also starting my own small business. My personal development and career development have always been my top priority and continue to be so. 

As they should be as a competent man. This is what attracts a woman to a man in the first place – that he’s competent, he’s got goals, he’s got dreams. He’s got a mission and a purpose. And she can join his fun bus and be his greatest cheerleader and teammate.

I have read your book 3 times (not 12-15) and keep up with your podcasts.

Well, the reason I say 10 to 15 times is people that don’t, they only read it a handful of times, they’re the ones that always have the most difficulty and the most challenges.

I started dating a girl I met about a year ago when we both moved back to our hometown for work. She is 32 years old and a successful doctor.  The first 3-4 months of dating was amazing; I had her around my finger, and I knew this was the girl I wanted to be with. However, I have been in relationships before where things go too fast, too quickly and I don’t let her come to me. 

If you’re not letting her come to you, that tells me you’re trying to force things. Therefore, you tend to be a little needy and a little controlling.

As you always say, “go at a pace just slower than her, so she feels like she is chasing you.” 

That’s actually not what I say. I say you want to go at a pace that’s slightly slower than she is. It’s always better if the woman thinks that she likes you more than you like her. And if that’s the case, if you’re acting masculine and you have a mission and a purpose, she will do most of the chasing. Women naturally, instinctively do these things, because they want to get your attention. They’re designed to do that. They do this naturally.

I kept this in mind for this relationship as I didn’t want to be the needy one in the relationship. Throughout this time, she asked and wanted to talk about what our future looked like. I would put her off on that conversation and tell her that I wanted to take a lap around the sun with her to really get to know her before we had any serious talks like that.

So, if you’ve been dating for several months and she wants to be serious, she wants boyfriend/girlfriend labels, and you’re just putting her off, do you think that makes her feel like you care for her? Or you’re just using her for access to the box when you need a release? Because the longer that goes on, eventually she’ll be like, “It’s never going to go anywhere with this guy,” and then they’re going to move on.

I continued to shut her down. 

Does this sound like a woman who is totally knocking this guy’s socks off? Because if it was, he’d love to be around her all the time. And that’s just not the case. It’s important to note that.

During this time, I dove head first in my work, investments, and company; putting her to the side for when it was convenient for me to come back to her. 

Again, you were just treating her like an occasional friends with benefits. It’s not somebody that you passionately cared about and even wanted to know anything about. When she brought up anything serious, you just changed the subject. Those are the actions of a guy that doesn’t want to be serious with somebody. It doesn’t matter what you say, because at the end of the day, you’ve gotten rejected, so you tend to look at the past through rose colored glasses.

All I have to do is look at your actions and what you actually do. It doesn’t matter the flowery language that you put in here, trying to convince us early on that you were more into this girl than you actually were. You were with her for a year. You can hide who you really are for about 90 days. And you’ve been with this girl for a year, so your actions give everything away.

After several months of not being emotionally available to her, she found emotional connection and support from other guys. 

If you don’t date and court your girl, eventually some other guy will. They need that connection. They need to bond. And if you don’t give it to her, she’s going to find it from somebody else. Because you’re making her feel like you don’t care. And if I look at your actions, your actions are the actions of a guy that doesn’t care. You only cared when you found out she was talking to other dudes.

She had fallen into a dark depression and was seeking help, not having any friends, etc. in the city, and she was looking for any type of connection. 

Well, that almost sounds like you guys went weeks without talking or even seeing one another. And you can’t be in a relationship with a woman and act like an emotionless zombie. That tells me you were probably just getting together occasionally to hook up, and once you got your release, you were on down the road. And so, you constantly made her feel like you didn’t care.

The reality is, if we’re honest here, you didn’t. Your actions give everything away. It doesn’t matter what your words are now. Your words are clouded by your emotions because you got rejected.

One evening, I made plans to hang out with her. She said she was working late and would let me know when she got out. I didn’t hear from her for hours and got worried something happened to her. 

Sure.

I went to her apartment to check on her, only to catch her walking with a coworker holding hands. 

If it had been a girl, he would’ve been like, “Hey, I like this. This is interesting. I could work with this.” But it was a dude.

My heart dropped and my stomach sank. 

Rejection breeds obsession. Because the bottom line is he felt, over those preceding weeks and months, that she was slipping away, and he knew deep down he wasn’t putting in the effort that he needed to put in to make her feel heard and understood, and loved, and supported, and cared for. He acted like he didn’t care. And any smart woman is eventually going to figure out that you just simply don’t care.

I approached her after witnessing this, expressing my disapproval. She stated, “What do you care?”

Just like I said at the beginning of the video, you have to care for the person. You’ve got to make them feel like you care. If you care, you ask them personal questions. You want to know what’s going on. So, this girl is depressed and going through a rough time. Did you make her feel like you cared? Of course not. You only cared about getting access to the box when you needed a release.

It doesn’t matter what you say. All you have to do is look at your actions. Look at her statements here. It’s like, whatever BS you wrote in the email, I can see right through it. It’s the same thing I do in phone sessions when guys are bullshitting themselves. They can’t bullshit me, because I know how this stuff works.

“You haven’t been there for me, and don’t act like you even want to be with me.” 

That’s exactly an accurate assessment of how he feels about her. And so, eventually, she realized this and she moved on.

It was at this moment I realized how absent I have been from her emotionally and haven’t met her needs. 

Really? Sure, dude. I’m sure it was just in that moment you had an epiphany. The only reason why you had an epiphany is you were thinking, “Oh, I don’t want to lose access to the box, so let me make her think that I really do care and try to save this, so she doesn’t dip out from what we have to go be with somebody else that actually cares for her.”

I have been suppressing my own emotions in fear of telling her how I really feel…

Sure, dude. For a whole year? That’s bullshit.

…only for it to come back and hurt me more.

So, this is your excuse, this is the story that you’ve invented. Because now you’re feeling emotions, because rejection breeds obsession. We want what we can’t have. Scarcity creates value.

Since this event, I confessed my feelings and love for her.

Rejection breeds obsession. There it is again, “I confessed my feelings and love for her.”  Yeah, you were so in love with her, you didn’t even want to hang out with her, or talk to her, or see her, or even sleep with her, probably for days or weeks on end. Maybe you just got together once a week and hooked up. You probably didn’t even take her out. You just invited her over, plowed her field, and sent her on her merry way the next day. And then, you were busy and unavailable until the next time you want a release.

I am aware though, rejection breeds obsession and don’t want this feeling of rejection to be the reason I share my true feelings and intentions with her.

Well, it doesn’t matter. You’ve already done that. And so, on some level, he knows he’s bullshitting himself, but you can’t bullshit the coach, dude.

I am not sure what to do now.

Well, if you were a man and you had integrity, you would take a step back and go, “You know, rejection does breed obsession, and Corey’s right. If I look at my actions, this is a true reflection of how I really felt about her.” Because when you love somebody and you care for them, you want them to be happy, even if it’s not with you.

And the bottom line is that there’s a guy out there somewhere that’s really going to truly love and care for this woman and will show up for her. Because you’re not. You’ve never shown up for her. You did in the first few months, until you got bored and then you didn’t care. And the only reason you want her back now is because it wasn’t your choice. And so, to do that, to take her back, you’re wasting even more of her time. And quite frankly, you’re wasting yours. Because if you want something spectacular, it’s not going to happen by going back to what you weren’t really that into in the first place.

It has been a month now, and I have made her more of a priority in my life and have been emotionally available for her, realizing I need to continue to court her through our entire relationship. However, it is hard for me to fully trust her now and believe she isn’t still talking to any other guys who have connected emotionally with her during my absence. 

Well, I don’t really know what kind of a commitment you really had to her, because it doesn’t sound like you guys were together. Because, as you said in the email, you kept putting her off and treating her like she was just a friends with benefits. So, if I was advising her, I’d be saying, “Keep your options open. That dude’s not that into you.” That’s a fact of life.

How do I trust her?

Well, love cannot exist where there is no trust. Can you imagine 20 years from now thinking back to that moment, “Yeah, that’s who I married,” and telling your kids, “That’s what your mother did,” and that was the kind of relationship it was. “Well, I just settled and she settled,” and “Go have something exactly like what we’ve got.”

How do I know this won’t happen again?

Well, the reality is, if we look at your actions over the past year, you’re going to be on your best behavior until you think you’ve got her. And then, once you think you’ve got her, you’ll slowly drift back to the same way you were. It may take six months, it may take three or four. It may take two months. I don’t know. But the bottom line is how you really feel. You can’t make your heart feel something it doesn’t feel.

How do I communicate this with her? 

Well, you telling her that you’re insecure and you’re worried that she’s going to cheat on you, that’s not going to make you look attractive.

Is there still hope in this relationship?

Bob

Based on your actions over the last year, I’d say no. I’d say you’re living a lie. And I’d say you’re lying to yourself, you’re lying to her, and you lied to me and the audience, for that matter, because your words and your actions are not congruent here, dude. That’s just a harsh reality. You only cared when you got rejected. And as you said, “I’m aware, though, that rejection breeds obsession and don’t want this feeling of rejection to be the reason I share my true feelings and intentions with her.” Were those really your true feelings? You didn’t seem to have any feelings at all until you saw her holding hands with another dude.

I’ve done countless phone sessions over the years with guys that are in similar situations to this. They’re friends with benefits, and the girl, they just treat her like absolute dirt. Eventually, she moved on. And then, when she moved on, because she was tired of getting her heartbroken and tired of being with somebody that didn’t care for her, she went and met somebody new. But because the new guy was new to her and she was more emotionally bonded to the person I was coaching, he had more leverage. And so, it was fairly easy when he did the right things to draw her back in. But the reality is, a few months later, they were right back where they were before.

I would say, you need to have an honest heart to heart with yourself and with her about what’s really going on, what you really feel. Because it’s going to be really hard to have a healthy relationship with somebody like this, because now, in your mind, she cheated on you. I mean, I didn’t see anything here about you saying that this was your girlfriend, because you kept putting her off when she brought it up. And eventually, she stopped bringing it up.

And then, she was going through a rough time, and on top of that, you didn’t care. He didn’t even think enough to do anything. So, if I look at how you behaved, then that’s a true reflection of how you really actually felt about her. Everything that’s going on right now is you’re just bullshitting yourself, you’re putting on an act, and you’re not being authentic and real. So, you should be a man about this situation and do what’s right. It’s not fair to her and it’s not fair to you.

She’s 31 now. Maybe she wants to have kids and a family and you keep wasting her time. That’s not what a man does. That’s what a bitch does. A man says, “Hey, it’s been a great run, but we’re not really right for each other and I want you to be happy.” And so, you should encourage her to go find somebody that she can really be happy with, and you do the same. That’s why I say read “3% Man” 10 to 15 times, so you can meet the woman of your dreams, not a chick that you settle for, so you can be in a boring, lame-ass marriage for 20 years with somebody that you have a hard time getting your dick hard for.

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 and book a coaching session with yours truly.