Letting Go Of A Good Relationship When Your Goals Aren’t Aligned

How to let go of a good relationship when your goals are not in alignment.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who claims to have read 3% Man countless times over the past six years. He asks about my girlfriend from the UK I discussed in my book because the love of his life and best relationship he’s ever had is moving abroad for her PHD for three years. He’s struggling to get over this because he worries it will be another 10 years before another woman like her comes along.

He’s having a hard time letting go. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

This particular emailer says he’s read 3% Man countless times over the years, and he’s asking about my girlfriend from the UK that I discussed in the book and how I handled it or how we handled it when we broke up because she was going back to school and I was starting my new business. Quite frankly, I wasn’t ready to get married. It wasn’t a point in my life at that time where that was a consideration just because I had started a completely new business, I had basically destructed my old life. So he’s got something similar going on. He’s got his girlfriend of I don’t know, a year, year or two. He says it’s the best relationship he’s had in the last 10 years, since his divorce, but now she’s moving abroad for three years to get her PhD, and he’s really struggling because he’s like, “Man, it’s the best relationship I ever had. How long is it going to be before I meet somebody else that I click with on that level?” So he’s having a hard time letting go.

It’s never easy to end a relationship, especially when a relationship is going well and you’re not having problems, like with Katie and I, she came in to visit last year, and those video podcasts that we did with her are in the Members Area of YouTube, Spotify and on my website. You guys can watch those because we had a lot of viewer questions. People always ask, “Hey, are you ever going to bring any of those old girlfriends from your book on?” So we had her on last year and everybody really enjoyed those podcasts to get her perspective on things, because it’s not easy. It’s not a lot of fun to break up with somebody. Even when you’re the one doing the dumping, it still sucks. Breakups suck. It’s not pleasant, and you just need enough time, because what happens is your whole identity becomes wrapped up in your relationship. If you’re waking up and going to sleep every day together, showering together, grocery shopping, making meals, spending time with friends and family and traveling and you’re pretty much always together. Then all of a sudden, that person’s not in your life anymore for the most part, or like in our case, she was back overseas and going to school. It’s still not easy, especially when we didn’t have a bad breakup. Things were going amazing in our relationship, but neither one of us was in a place where we could possibly settle down. I wasn’t even ready to because I just started a new business. I had no idea how long it was going to take, and I was hoping it was only going to take two or three years to figure out my new business model and make things work, but most of the time when you start a new business it takes way longer than you think to make it successful, and it takes way more money than you think it’s going to take.

If you’re going to start a family life, settle down, get married or co-habitate and have kids together, as a man, you got to feel pretty stable in your life. My life was anything but stable at that time. Everything was in chaos and flux. I was disposing of assets, selling my houses, extra cars, jet skis, boat pictures, furniture, all kinds of things. It’s not easy to do that.

So obviously you guys can see I got the puppies with me because I just let them run around the house. They’re going to be barking and kind of going crazy every time they hear a noise in the hallway. I got dogs in the hallway, so trying to keep them calm. If I just leave them outside the door, then they’re going to be whining like, “Hey, you don’t listen.” So I appreciate your patience as you go through it. So let’s go through his email and see what’s going on with his particular situation.

Viewer Email:

Dear Coach Corey,

Like countless men who’ve written to you before, my life has been invaluably improved in so many areas due to your books, especially when it comes to women. I found your work roughly six years ago and reread 3% Man countless times.

Ocean, who is the girl, she she gets a little feisty if he gets a little too in her face, she’s like, “Grrr!.” Anyways, back to our email before we were so rudely interrupted by the puppies.

It’s made me the kind of man that other men (and women) come to for advice in their relationships. As you say, know the material so well you can teach a class on it.

Yeah, because when you know it that well, it’s instinctual. You don’t really have to think about it. You just know what to do.

Don’t be stepping on my keyboard, buddy!

I just had a personal question for you about when you went through a phase of your life you mention in the book. The relationship where she moved abroad and you had to end the relationship because you were not going to follow her.



Yeah, there was never any discussion that I was going to live in Europe. I mean, she loved the United States. If anything, she still does absolutely loves America. So there was never any discussion about me moving and following her to college or anything like that. So I don’t know where he got that because this guy says he’s read the book countless times, then he would know the story if he actually read it countless times. I was kind of breaking his balls a little bit.

I find myself faced with that situation now, where the woman I’ve been seeing for the last year is moving abroad to do her PHD for three years. The emotional turmoil of knowing I need to love her in the way she feels free to pursue her dream. It conflicts with my absolute love for this woman who has been the best partner and relationship I’ve had in a decade of dating since my divorce. As you always say, it’s not everyday a woman comes along and just knocks your socks off. Being a 3% man, it was effortless with her.

I’m just curious how you managed to deal with the harsh reality that we don’t always get to keep the love we find, especially when it’s the best you’ve experienced.

Well, a big part of, especially the guys that are familiar with me, there’s a lot of stuff in all of my books about not being attached. If you guys ever studied the Dao or Buddhism, that’s one of the things of the human condition is learning to let go of things. I’m 54 now, the older you get, things are going to happen. You’re going to lose people unexpectedly. Like earlier this year, we lost our beautiful Sunny. He ran out in the street, got ran over by a car and got killed in a very gory way in front of my former girlfriend. So now we got these two little fur babies that kind of took his place. It’s one of those things, he’s a poodle, dude’s gonna live 20 years, 21 years. The poodle I had growing up lived till I think it was like 21 or 22 years, and Sunny was only four, so those things suck. When you hear something like that or it happens, it’s heartbreaking and you just have to be present with the pain. You can’t run from it. The more you try to ignore reality or drugs or alcohol or things to distract yourself, you’re basically running from the emotions, and what you resist will persist. So you have to kind of surrender to the truth that you may lose somebody or somebody close to you, or in this case, your goals are not aligned. She wants to go get her PhD, and you are not going to want to date long distance with somebody, especially if she’s in, I think she’s going to another country. I think this guy is in Europe, if I’m not mistaken. I think that was what his email address was like, UK or South Africa or something like that. I think that’s where he’s at.

The other thing is, if your goals are aligned and she’s head over heels in love with you, she’s not going to want to leave you to go get a PhD so she can be boss girl. Even though this guy really loves this girl, if he’s in a place where he wants to settle down and she’d rather go get her PhD, then that tells me he’s probably projecting his fantasy onto her and kind of ignoring the fact that maybe she’s not as into him as he likes to think that she is. Again, if you’re in a place where you’re ready to settle down, she’s ready to settle down and she’s head over heels in love with you, she ain’t gonna move away for three years to get a PhD. She’d rather be with you. So that’s something that just kind of jumps out at me after I’ve gone through this particular email here, maybe because it’s easy and effortless for him and he’s kind of projecting his high interest onto her, but maybe she doesn’t really feel that way because again like I said, just the way his recollection of what’s in my book and the story is not actually what happened. There was never, ever a discussion of me following her to Europe. It’s just that I was starting a new business and I wasn’t ready to get married.

What was interesting for my situation was that I’d been in the same situation a decade before with my ex-wife. I wanted to move to Orlando, and she’s like, “I’ll only move with you if we’re engaged,” and I was like, “Well, I’m not really ready to be engaged or get married yet,” but I didn’t want to lose her. I was afraid if I did move and I didn’t get engaged to her, that she would just start dating somebody else and maybe the next person that came along wouldn’t be as amazing as her, but internally it just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t in a place in my life where I wanted to get married, but I went along with it because I let all the women around me that I worked with and female friends and, “Oh, you just got cold feet, Corey. That’s all it is.” I was like, “Yeah, I’m 24. I’m not ready to get married yet.” It’s like, this was my first real girlfriend. “Oh, don’t be silly. It’ll go away. Your feelings will change as you’re together longer.” I was like, “Yeah, it doesn’t really feel like that,” but what did I know? I didn’t have a good example at home or anybody in my family that had a relationship that I wanted to emulate. So I went along with it because I was afraid of losing her. In reality, I committed to a marriage that I should have never committed to it. Didn’t feel right internally, but I talked myself into it, and I allowed other people around me to talk me into it because a lot of them were older.

What happens in those situations is that all of us, people that are married, they want all of their single friends to get married. People that are single want their married friends or their friends in relationships to be single so they can go out and do single fun things, chase girls, whatever it happens to be. So everybody’s trying to validate the way that they live through other people and the choices they’ve made through other people, and if you can get other people or convince other people to live like you or to be like you, that validates your life choices and it makes you feel good about the things that you’ve decided to do. It’s the same thing when you start becoming really successful and you start maybe leaving some of your childhood friends behind, or people that you grew up with, or people that you’re close to because they’re not really supportive and they kind of become nasty. It’s like they want you to be happy and successful as long as you’re not happier and more successful than them. So it just boils down to, “Where are you at?”

It’s just the worst thing in the world to end a relationship. Even our marriage, like my wife and I, we got along fine, but emotionally and internally, it just didn’t feel right. A lot of times I remember telling her that I kind of felt like I was married to a sister, and it’s not fun to tell your wife things like that after you’ve been married and you gone through an expensive wedding and all your friends and family are there, and then once you do leave, they go, “What happened? You guys were only married a year. What?” Then you got to explain the story to everybody. It’s not pleasant. There’s nothing fun about that, but what you have internally is the hope that something better is going to come. What I found in life is that, as the old saying goes, “When one door closes, another one opens.” So in this particular case, if this guy is ready to settle down and be with his girl, he’s like, “I don’t want you to go and get your PhD. I want you to stay with me and let’s build a family and a life together, but if you’d rather go be a boss girl and get your PhD, I can’t follow you on that path. I don’t want to do that. That’s not my life path. Things have been so great with us. I want to settle down and get married. That’s where my head’s at. If you rather go and pursue a career, then obviously you’re not the right girl for me to settle down and get married to. It’s unfortunate, but we have to part ways because I don’t want to do a long distance relationship for the next three years with you being halfway around the world,” or wherever it is that she’s going to end up going to get her her PhD.

So I’d say, just after reading this, I think he’s only really paying attention to his feelings and his interest in her, and kind of ignoring the fact that she would rather move away and go get a PhD than stay with him. If girls head over heels in love with you, she’s not going to want to break up, she’s not going to want to move away to be a boss girl. For me, part of what Katie was is that I wasn’t in a stable place and I was just not able to settle down, and I couldn’t give her any assurances that I was ready to do anything like that. So naturally, she continued to pursue her career and her interests. Plus, both of us going through Tony Robbins platinum partnership and all that stuff. Back then, both of us were in a transitional period in our life, and we went through this amazing transition period together in both of our lives. Then once the transition was over then, our goals were not aligned at that particular time. It’s not easy, but as the days go by, having these two little fur babies here and getting to spend time with them, I still miss Sunny. I still think about him, but being with somebody new, having new puppies, it helps. You’re going to lose your parents, you’re going to lose your close friends. I’ve lost so many people over my life. That’s the thing.

If you ever saw the original Titanic movie in the 90s, that James Cameron did, and you see that part where Jack and Rose are on the stern of the ship as it’s going under. Then there’s people that are a little further down that are getting to the water first and drowning or dying or ended up in the cold water. We’re all on a ship that’s sinking, and some of us are going to go under earlier than others. That’s just life, so you might as well enjoy the ride down into the abyss and be grateful that you have time with the people when you have time with them, but also look to the future with positive expectation. Again, when one door closes, another one opens.

What makes breakups really hard is your whole life, like I said in the beginning of the video, your whole identity becomes wrapped up in everything you do with that person. Then all of a sudden the next day they’re not there anymore, or you can no longer pick up the phone and call your mom and say hi, or tell her that you love her because she’s gone, or your best friend or your dad, or maybe one of your kids. I had an email I did many years ago, probably eight, 10 years ago, for a father who was a big follower of my work, his son had died unexpectedly, and he was just so torn up about it. I remember he was talking about the funeral. Hundreds of people showed up for his son. I was like, “That’s amazing. Your son was such an amazing man that hundreds and hundreds of people showed up to his funeral just to pay their respects, because they loved him and they missed him.” As a dad to create another human that many people loved? That’s pretty impressive. So there’s nothing to feel bad about. I mean, obviously you’ve lost your son. That’s horrible. I wouldn’t want to go through something like that. I can’t imagine what something like that is like, but I know what it’s like to lose somebody really close to you. I lost my mom. It’s been 20 years since she passed away. It was 20 years this past June that I found out that she had passed away. Same thing, all my grandparents are gone.

As time goes by, you realize again, it’s like being on the the stern of the Titanic. We’re all on the Titanic. It’s all going under. Some of us, it’s going to happen sooner than others. It’s like, what can you do about that? Life is a big tragedy anyways. All you can do is accept it and enjoy the ride down because it’s not going to last, so try to have fun until it’s over. In this particular case, if this woman would rather go get her PhD than stay with you and build a life and a family together, well then obviously she’s not as into you as you thought she was. You got to do some reflection. You always got to see reality as it is, not better than it is or worse than it is. I suspect that he’s probably seeing this relationship and reality as better than it is, if she would rather move away and pursue a PhD and leave her relationship with him behind. So it’s like if he really wants her to stay, “I want you to stay because I want to continue what we have together, but if you’d rather go pursue your career and let our relationship go, then obviously the relationship is not that important to you. I’d rather not be with somebody who doesn’t value our relationship as much. If you’d rather go move away and go back to college and get a PhD, as painful and difficult and as unpleasant as that may seem, I’d rather go find a woman who would do anything to avoid something like that. She’d rather stay with me.”

I don’t know what kind of conversations he’s had, but he’s like, “Well, I don’t want to stand in the way of your career.” You can say that, but at the same token, you also got to speak up for yourself, for what you want. “I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay with me.” Maybe he’s not in a place where he wants to settle down. It’s just that their circumstances are that she’s going to move away. Maybe he’s kind of in a similar situation, like I was with Katie, where as painful as it was and as unpleasant as it was, we got along fabulous. I mean, everybody in the comments were like, the chemistry is off the charts between her, a decade and a half after we were together last. It’s hard to let people go like that, but when you love somebody, when you really, truly, deeply love somebody, you want them to be happy, even if it’s no longer with you.

So you got to tell this girl, if you want her to stay? Tell her. If she’d rather leave and go pursue her PhD, then maybe he hasn’t read the book countless times like he claims to, because if she’s a normal, healthy woman and he was applying it, she’s not going to go anywhere if he really wants her to stay. Katie and I had a lot of serious conversations about that. We even looked at her going to a college in Orange City, Palmer Chiropractic, which I think it’s the top chiropractic school in the world, but it was going to be very expensive and they were not going to transfer a lot of her college classes that she took in the UK. So that was going to add another year and a half to two years of course load, and I wasn’t in a position where I could afford that. Again, I wasn’t ready, and because she was from the UK, unless she became a full time student, I just wasn’t ready and I wasn’t in a place where I was ready to commit to be all in with her as a family and a team. That’s what it boiled down to.

Maybe that’s the place where this guy is at, but it’s like, if you want this girl to stay, you got to tell her. Then you got to move forward. If you’re not ready, then yeah, you got to let her go and wish her all the best and and understand that you’re still higher up on the stern of the Titanic. So you got time. You got time to find somebody else. So what if it takes you another 10 years or five years or whatever? You just never know when somebody amazing is going to walk into your life. I’ve just found that the right person always comes along, or the right group of people comes along, or the right business opportunity, when you’re open to it and you’re really, truly ready for it, it just shows up in the most weird, magical and unexpected serendipitous, synchronistic way. That’s the magic in the beauty of life, because we never know when it’s going to end, and all we really can do is enjoy it while we’re here and love the people around us and contribute to the people around us. If your goals and values are truly aligned, you’re not going to be able to get rid of them. They’re not going to want to go anywhere.

So this guy’s got some reflection, dude. He probably has to have some more serious conversations, but it’s just time and Repetition. Partly the other thing is he’s kind of in a little bit of a scarcity mindset because as hard as it was for me to let Katie go, by that point I understood the stuff that I wrote in my book backwards and forwards, and I didn’t have to think about it. As unpleasant as it was, I knew that eventually I would find and attract somebody else. I’ve had several great relationships since then that have been wonderful and have been magical. It’s like my life has been really charmed. It’s like I’m one of those guys that checked off my bucket list in my early 30s, so everything that’s happened since then is like fucking gravy to me. I did all the material things, I traveled all around the world, I had killer businesses, nice cars, nice houses, influential, powerful friends, successful friends, people that you would know if I mentioned their names. So the way I look at it is, I’ve been really blessed, so I don’t have any regrets in life. When one door closes, another one opens.

When someone matches you physically, emotionally and intellectually. How did you bring yourself to accept that you had to let this woman go?

It’s just time. Then as soon as you meet somebody else, it’s like all that goes away.

I keep busy, train 4-5 times a week, run a successful media agency, have women check me out and flirt with me often. I don’t doubt for a moment that I could find another attractive woman to date should I choose. But I don’t even care about all that, because it took me a decade to find a woman like her and it’s unlikely another will come along tomorrow. I honestly don’t want anyone else.

How did you do it?

Kind Regards,

Bob

It’s part of life. You have an attachment to it. When we want reality to be other than it is, we’re going to suffer. That’s part of what’s going on, is you have this identity and this reality of your life as it is, and that’s all coming apart. The reason you’re suffering is because you’re holding on to something that’s dissolving. Once things have completely dissolved and you have enough time to heal, the best thing is to get back out there. Do all the exercises in the book, write a list of what you want. Probably maybe one of the things is that, it’s nice to have a woman that’s successful and smart intellectually, but our goals have to be aligned with your goals. In this particular case, her goals are not. If your goals aren’t aligned, then it doesn’t matter anyways. You’re not really a match, as much as you may love her and feel good feelings for her and feel love for, your goals are not in alignment, so the relationship is not going to work anyways. That’s part of life, it’s letting go and trusting the process, trusting that you’re going to meet somebody else on a long enough timeline.

If you’re watching this video, it means you’re still here. It means you haven’t completely gone under yet on the stern of the ship. So look around in the stern of the ship and see whatever cute girls are hanging out there with you and have a few more love stories and then enjoy your life because it’s not going to last. Everyone you love, everything you build, it’s all going to turn to dust. That’s all you can really do. That’s the difficult thing about life, but it also helps you mature when you learn to let go of things. A big part of my journey in 3% Man was learning to let go of fantasies, learning to let go of ideas that really weren’t my own that society taught me about women and how men are supposed to act to attract and keep the women that they want. You guys that are familiar with the book know that what society teaches us and what actually works are two completely different things. So my whole book was just shedding all of these aspects of who I used to be, so the person I really was on the inside can feel comfortable enough going through life and being and playing full out and damn the torpedoes, damn the consequences, and if people don’t like it, as the late, great Steve McQueen said, “I live for myself and I answer to nobody.” That is the true measure of a free, independent human being that is self reliant. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. I am the one that is driving this ship after all, even though the ship is slowly going under and slowly sinking, you can have fun until it’s your turn to go under.

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