My Purpose & Passions Conflict With My Girlfriend’s. What Should I Do?

What you should do if your job and lifestyle conflict with that of your girlfriend’s.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a 35-year-old viewer who is dating a 40-year-old woman who lives 3 hours away. He is a recovering nice guy and is using my work to turn his professional and personal life around. His work schedule and his hobbies, interests, passions and lifestyle conflict with hers. She complains he doesn’t do enough to accommodate her by sacrificing what he loves to do to spend time with her instead.

However, he invites her to join him, and she almost always declines. This is the beginning of how most men lose themselves in their relationships, trying to please their women. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

He says he’s a recovering nice guy, and since he gotten into my work, he said in the first month he read 3% Man 11 times. That’s typically the sign of somebody that’s a serious student, and they’re really trying to quickly and efficiently fill in their knowledge gaps, so they can change their behavior to a more efficient way of living and being and having a mindset that empowers you to reach your full potential in all areas of your life that are important to you.

He’s got a very demanding schedule, and often his weekends are already full. And she complains that 75% of the time she’s the one coming up with things to do, and that he should sacrifice more of his time, and his weekends, his hobbies, his interests to be with her. Even though he invites her to join him on the things he’s doing for the weekends, she doesn’t do it for whatever reason and then complains saying, “It should be 50/50. You should be sacrificing some of your stuff to spend time with me.”

And so, you can tell already, just a few months in, this is the kind of thing that causes most men to eventually lose themselves in their relationship. And then what happens is they get into a relationship. Two or three years down the road, he’s given up all of his hobbies, all of his interests to please her, to spend more time with her, and then she dumps him and says, “You’ve changed.” And so, it’s important to understand what your goals and your values are and make sure the woman you’re dating aligns with them.

The reality is you want a woman that’s submissive, and wants to be your biggest cheerleader and fan, and root for you to do the things that are important to you, and ideally fits into your life, and has similar goals, similar values, and likes to do the same things. So, it’s obvious in this case, there are a lot of things that are really important to him that he loves to do that she’s just not down with. So, now they’re already starting to get some friction here in their relationship, and not the good kind.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Coach,

I am (thanks to you) a recovering nice guy. I’ve found your work about a year ago and read 3% Man 11 times in the first month. Afterwards, I’ve read single passages out of it countless times when I needed it. I’ve been following your articles, and I’ve got a question for you.

I’m 35 and turning my life around following your advice. I’ve become a busy professional, as you describe in the book; I travel a lot, (business and pleasure), keep in shape in the gym, pursue my career in engineering, and follow my passions and hobbies, (salsa dancing, sailing, car racing).

Sailing and car racing are like polar opposites. Sailing is more of chill thing, once you get the sails up, obviously, and you’re coasting along. But car racing is pretty intense.

At the end of last year, I’ve met a 40-year-old woman who seemed to tick all of my boxes, plus, she was really easy to get along with.

Well, she was easy to get along with then. Sounds like things are changing a little bit.

The only downside was, she lives about a 3-hour car ride away, so we can only see each other on the weekends.

The other thing you have to consider, if you’re going to date long distance, is at some point, if you’re going to stay together, move in together, get married, start a family. I mean, obviously this woman he’s dating is 40, so her years that she could potentially get pregnant, even in her 40s, it’s going to be a lot harder than it was in her 20s and early 30s. So, if you’re going to date somebody like this, you date for 2 or 3 years, and you say, “Hey, we’re going to decide to have a family,” she’s already 43, 44 years old. It’s fine if you don’t want to have kids or anything, but these are things you have to think about.

But at some point, if you’re going to stay together, somebody is going to have to move if you’re going to be under one roof, because it’s going to get really old, really quick. And it sounds like it already is getting old, being three hours away from the woman that you’re dating. Plus, on top of that, she’s pretty much aging out as far as a woman that you potentially can have kids with. But, again, if you don’t really care about having kids, it really doesn’t matter at that point.

And the only reason a man should move to where she lives is if she lives in a better area, a better neighborhood, and more of the hobbies and interests and things that he’s into are closer to that area. But if he loves where he lives, loves his lifestyle, his friends, his family, everybody’s there, and he doesn’t have any desire to move, then he shouldn’t. And a lot of guys make the mistake of giving their whole lives up to move to please a woman. And then when they get there, it doesn’t last too long. Because there’s so much that the guy is doing to submit to her, he basically becomes the woman in the relationship, ruins the sexual polarity, and then she dumps him anyway, because she lost attraction.

So, it’s important to know who you are, and what you want, what’s important to you, and what your goals and values are. You’ve got to know what you want, you’ve got to know why you want it, and you’ve got to have emotionally compelling reasons why you want it. That’s why it’s super important to get to a place where you fall in love with your lifestyle and your life. Because if you love your life and lifestyle, it will be much easier to attract a woman who also will fall in love with your lifestyle. And if the girl you’re dating doesn’t love and support what you do, especially your purpose and mission, she’s the wrong girl.

And, the same thing, if your hobbies, interests, all the things you love to do for fun, she has no interest in and it’s hard to find things that you both like to do for fun, long term, that’s going to create some problems. Because, at the end of the day, if you’re a busy, successful guy, you’re going to want a woman to be submissive to you, and follow your lead, and trust your leadership. You don’t want to be in a relationship with a woman that acts like a man, and you’re constantly jockeying and fighting for control. Which can definitely happen with some of these women that are career oriented, and they’re kind of stuck in their masculine, and they’re not really comfortable being in their feminine, and abdicating, and letting the man lead the relationship.

And when a woman says, I want it to be 50/50, when it’s 50/50, then her feelings become like a platonic friendship and then she doesn’t want to sleep with you anymore, so the romantic feelings go away. And this applies to heterosexual relationships, gay relationships and lesbian relationships. You’ve got to have the sexual polarity. If both people are 50/50 and their sexual polarity is similar, they’re going to just have no interest in each other romantically. And typically, the masculine one, or the guy will be interested in sex, and the woman will lose interest in it just because she doesn’t feel safe, because he’s not strong enough to stand up to her and stand up for what he believes in.

But guys get into relationships with women like this and they start complaining, “Oh, you never spend time with me. You don’t do this, you don’t do that.” And he’s like, “Okay, alright. Well, I guess I’ll give up sailing to spend time with her, and I’ll sell my boat, because she doesn’t like to sail, or she doesn’t like the water. And then she’ll stop complaining about it, because then I’ll have more time.” He’ll give up sailing, and then she starts complaining about the car racing, “Oh, it’s dangerous. Oh, it’s very expensive. Oh, you spend your weekends away from me.”

Well, if you’re really into car racing, your girl should be excited to go with you and be your cheerleader as you’re racing. And if a big part of your life is sailing and being on around or near water and on sailboats, you’re going to need to be with a woman that loves to do that as well, ideally. And if everything you love to do for fun she has no interest in, it’s just going to be really hard to enjoy your life and the things you love and enjoy and want to share with her. And yet, she’s not going to want to do it, just because she doesn’t like it.

So, if your goals and values are different, and the things you love to do for fun and your lifestyle is not something she wants to be a part of, you seriously need to reevaluate if you even want to be in a relationship. Because I’m looking at this going, she’s 40 years old, so at her age it’s really disqualifying her from being somebody you can have a family with, unless you adopt, meaning, having your own kids. And the other thing is, she lives three hours away, and on top of that, it doesn’t sound like she’s too agreeable and too enthusiastic about your life and your lifestyle and what you do. She’s already wanting you to give up all that stuff, so you can be with her.

But what happens if you stay together? What happens when you want to live together? Who’s going to move, you or her? These are all things you should be thinking about and contemplating before you agree to be exclusive with them.

Nevertheless, things were progressing really well. I was following your advice of doing about 20-30% of the pursuing and the 3 Hs [hang out, have fun, and hook up].

After about 2 months, she asked me to become exclusive, and I agreed. We’ve seen each other a couple of times after that, and things have been great. Exactly as you predict, she is demanding more and more of my time. This is where the problems start. As I’ve said, I have a busy life and many of my weekends are already booked for traveling and my passions. She shares some of them, (like salsa), and I invite her every time to come join me on my adventures. However, she recently said she feels like she must put her life on hold to be able to see me, due to my busy schedule.

So, when you first started dating, she understood about your schedule and was cool with it. But now that she’s in a relationship with you, she wants you to start sacrificing that to spend more of your time and attention with her. Which is understandable. This is typically what happens. But the downside is she’s three hours away, and as you’ll see, it doesn’t seem like she’s too excited to do the things that he likes to do.

Furthermore, she said that so far, she’s been the primary driving force of our relationship, and only 1 of 4 of our activities are my ideas (true). She feels like this should be more 50/50 and asked me to sacrifice some of my plans to spend time with her instead.

So, sacrificing your plans means neglecting relationships. It means giving up hobbies and interests that are important to you. So, then the question becomes, why doesn’t she want to join you on these things? And if you love sailing, and you love salsa dancing, and these other things, like car racing, and she has no interest in traveling to see you, and complains about it, to join you for the weekends so you can spend time together, it’s unreasonable of her to expect you to jump through your butt, and in essence, give up your life, and your loves, and your passions, and the things that are important to you – the things that make you a well rounded man – just to please her, so you can drive three hours to see her in her town and do something that she wants to do.

You shouldn’t be driving to her town just to see her and only do things she wants to do to please her because you want to access to the box. You should only be driving to her town, because you really love where she lives, and you love the things that you do there. But it doesn’t sound like you’re too excited to do that. And it also doesn’t sound like she’s very willing and open to fitting herself into your life.

And so, what’s going on here is you’ve got an older woman who’s probably in her masculine, and and he’s a recovering nice guy, as he admits. So, typically, in the past, he’s been a pleaser and he’s been unwilling to stand up for himself and what he believes in. And so, now he’s obviously come across my work, read “3% Man” many times, and he’s getting pushback on that. So, he’s attracted a woman into his life that is testing his resolve to be who he really is and do the things that he wants to do.

Because in the past, the recovering nice guy, always puts his needs last and then becomes a doormat and gives up his hobbies, his interests, his car racing, his sailing, salsa dancing, all of that, just so he doesn’t piss his girlfriend off so he can hopefully have some access to the box on the weekends. And that’s not going to make you happy. Eventually, you’re going to resent it. And then you neglect yourself, you stop going to the gym, and then next thing you know, six months have gone by, and you’re totally out of shape. And these things happen slowly over time.

So, you’ve got to really take a look at your goals and values and honestly assess, do you guys really line up on that? Is she capable of being your biggest cheerleader and fan? Or is she complaining about all of the things that you do? And it looks to me like she’s complaining about what you do. And if you’re inviting her to join you, and she just declines and doesn’t want to do that, doesn’t want to drive or whatever, doesn’t want to hop on a plane, doesn’t want to make the time, then it doesn’t sound like she’s very submissive.

The thing is, I’m not willing to do that.

Well, I mean, there’s your answer, right there.

I love my life and my passions, and I would really like for her join me.

That’s what you want. You’re driving the fun bus. You’re the man in the relationship. You’re the one with the penis. And so, therefore, you want her to join you. And if she’s not excited about joining you, then it doesn’t really sound like she’s too excited about your life. And you want a woman that’s excited to be with you, excited to be a part of who you are, and what you’re about, and what you’re creating in the world. Not a woman that comes into your life and says, conditionally, that “If you want to have continued access to my box, you’ve got to give up half the things you love,” because it won’t stop there.

And once it’s 50/50, then she’ll complain, “Oh, you’re doing the car racing, and you don’t spend enough time with me.” And then what happens is, “Okay. Well, I’ll do less car racing to please her. I sold my boat, but, you know, she wants me to spend more time with her, and her friends, and her family, and doing the things that she wants to do.” And like I said, a year or two from now, all of his hobbies and interests are gone. All of his friendships, he’s let those go by the wayside. He’s trying to please her, because he just doesn’t want her to get upset at him. And this is what most guys go through.

You want a woman who’s excited to be with you and be excited to be a part of your life, not trying to change you or to get you to give up all of the things you love and enjoy to spend time with her. At the end of the day, you invited her to join you in your journey, to come on your fun bus. Not for you to completely change your life, and submit to her, and become the woman in the relationship, and give up all of the things that you love and enjoy and that make you happy. You want somebody that can be a complement to your life. And right now, she’s coming into your life saying, “I don’t want you doing this, I don’t want you doing this. It takes takes time away from spending time with me.” And that’s not a good way to start a relationship. She’s already trying to change you and mold you into what she wants.

I have said this to her, and she answered that I’m demanding a lot, and so far I haven’t sacrificed anything to be with her.

So, it’s demanding to expect to invite her to join you in the things you love and enjoy, but it’s not demanding of her to expect you to give these things up to spend time with her? I mean, this is who you were when you guys met. And if she was down with that lifestyle, she should be excited to spend the weekends with you. And if she wasn’t down with the lifestyle, she should have told you up front. And you could have just said, “Hey, let’s just casually date. I don’t want to be exclusive with you, because I’m not giving up all these hobbies and interests. Maybe there’s another guy out there that’s better suited for you, that maybe lives closer and is more into the things that you’re into.” Because right now, I don’t see their goals, their interests and their hobbies aligning at all.

I mean, he says he invites her and she complains about it, but that’s not what you’re looking for. How is that adding value to your life? This is somebody who’s expecting you to change and accommodate her. You want somebody that fits into your life, not somebody that you have to uproot your life to spend time with. And besides, she’s 40. And quite frankly, dude, you should be dating women that are 10-15 years younger than you. You should be dating women that are in their mid or even early 20s, who you could potentially have a family with, if that’s what you want. I’m just assuming that’s what you want, because dating a 40 year old woman, she’s past all of those things for the most part.

I should be willing to do so if I have serious intentions towards her.

So, in other words, “give up all of the things that are important to you to please me.” And again, he’s a recovering nice guy, so his natural inclination is going to be to do that, and he’s trying to overcome this. And this is how the universe works. God has a sense of humor. So, now you’ve attracted a woman in your life that’s trying to basically remake your life into what she wants. And in the past, he would have always gone along with that.

Now, my old nice guy inside me says to cave in, the new me says to hold my ground. What do you think?

I think you should be dating a woman who’s younger, and hotter, and more submissive, and wants to be with you, not somebody that’s three hours away, that’s 40 years old and already past most of her childbearing years. Plus, the fact that you’re long distance, it takes you a couple of years of dating long distance to really get a good feel for what she’s like week in, week out. And you’re what, three months in this? Because he said he met her at the end of last year Here we are the 28th of March, when I’m filming this particular video. And so, you’re three and a half months in, and she’s already expecting you to change your life to spend more time with her.

But what’s she willing to sacrifice to be with you? When you met, she knew about all this stuff. She knew about these hobbies and these interests. And that’s partly what attracted her to you. And now, one by one, she wants to pick them apart and tell you, “well, you need to sacrifice these things to spend more time with me.” It doesn’t sound like she’s very flexible. You want a woman that’s flexible, a giver, easygoing, easy to get along with. You said she was easy to get along with in the beginning, but now she’s not so easy to get along with.

Remember, people can hide who they are for about the first 90 days of a relationship. So, she’s kind of hidden who she was, and now, she expects you to change to please her. And just like you said, the old you would have caved and you would have resented the hell out of it. And the new you is like, “this feels natural to me.” And so, what you need is a woman that fits into your life, not a woman that expects you to deconstruct your life and reconstruct it in a way that’s pleasing to her.

That’s not what a submissive woman does or expects. That’s what a masculine woman who’s probably gotten a little bit of the feminism woke idiot virus that she’s accommodated. And that’s why she’s going, “it’s got to be 50/50.” No, it shouldn’t. Women are not happy when it’s 50/50. When it’s 50/50 in a relationship, it ruins the sexual polarity, and the women, it causes their pussies to become drier than a bucket of sand, because you’re not being a leader.

In your book, you describe that women will demand more and more time to spend with me every day. Well, how do I manage that with a busy professional and social life, especially when the girl lives 3 hours away?

Well, if she doesn’t want to participate in it, there’s really not a lot you can do. You don’t want to force her to go and do these things, because she’s not going to enjoy it anyway. And then you’re going to be put up with a sourpuss that’s going to be sapping your fun and your enthusiasm. You want a woman that adds value to your life, not a woman that starts complaining about your hobbies and your interests.

Like I said, most guys are very soft and this is what you see in society, and they start giving up all these things to please her. And then eventually, a few years later, they’re like, “I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I gave up everything that I was, my relationships, my friendships.” He may have moved to be closer to her. And then his friends, his family, his hobbies, his interests, the stuff he used to really love and enjoy, he no longer does, because he doesn’t want to piss her off.

There is another red flag with her I recently discovered: she doesn’t have any real friends, (girls or guys). Is she structured?

Well, I mean, she just sounds kind of difficult. You know, you want a woman who’s easygoing, easy to get along with. And she may have been easygoing, easy to get along with the first month or two, but now that you’re in a serious relationship, she’s not so easy to get along with anymore. She’s making unreasonable demands on you. She’s trying to get you to change your life to please her. And this is where you’ve got to say, no thank you.

And you may lose her. She may break it off with you and say, “Well, we’re just we’re just too different.” That shouldn’t be a big deal to you. You should have the confidence to be dating women that are at least 5-10 years younger than you. You shouldn’t be dating a woman that’s five years older, especially if you’re 35 and she’s 40 and you want to have a family of your own someday. You know, typically, you want to date a few years before you have children.

And like I said, she’s 40 now, and you’re going to date for 2 or 3 years before you decide you could even have kids, what’s she going to be, pushing 43 at that point? The chances of her being able to get pregnant and carry it are severely diminished compared to a woman who’s 5 or 10 years younger than you are.

These are all things you’ve got to take into consideration. Is she a net value add to your life, or not? Or is she going to be destructive to your life, and your hobbies, and your interests, and your overall sense of well-being? You spent the last few years building your life up to be what you wanted it to be. And now, this woman is wanting to come in and hit the reset button. And, obviously, you don’t want to do that, because you just mentioned that in your video.

Thank you for your work, you have helped me tremendously so far.

Bob

Like I said, I’d have a talk with her. And if she’s not into doing the things that you’re into, you can’t force that, you can’t fix that. It’s either you just don’t do certain things together and you see her when you can, or you find somebody whose goals and values and interests and hobbies are more aligned with your own. And it just doesn’t sound, from what you shared here, that you’re aligned. And now, you’re kind of in a power struggle with a woman who’s really in her masculine, who’s trying to take control of the relationship, and run your life, and get you to cave.

And again, this is part of the struggle. This is the way the universe works. It brings you a woman to really help you reach your full potential, to help you overcome the chinks in your armor, so to speak. If you’ve always been a nice guy and a pleaser, and you’re trying to overcome that, you’re going to attract women into your life that are going to see how serious you are about standing up for yourself, your values, the things you have passion for, and what you believe in.

And so, I would seriously be reevaluating if you even want to see this girl or be exclusive. You just say, “Hey, we just have so many values, and goals, and interests that are in conflict. You don’t like to do the things that I do, and I’m not willing to give these things up. I’ve spent a lot of years building my life and my lifestyle, so I can do these things. And I like you a lot, but I don’t really want to give these things up, if that’s what I have to do in order to continue to see you. So, why don’t we not be exclusive. Why don’t we date casually, and you date other people, I’ll date other people.”

But I wouldn’t be exclusive with a woman who’s making all of these unreasonable demands that you give these things up. Because, like I said, in a couple of years, everything will be gone. You won’t be sailing anymore. You won’t be doing car racing, you won’t be doing salsa dancing. And most of your your weekends will be filled up with doing things to please her, hanging out with the people that she wants to hang out with, and doing the things that she wants to do. And then you’re going to be miserable. You’ll be missing the life that you used to have.

Again, you want a woman who’s going to add value to your life, who’s excited to be a part of it. And this woman’s not excited to be a part of your life. She’s already complaining and expecting you to change your life to be with her. “Oh, it’s just 50/50. It’s just a few things.” It’s like, it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t end. She’ll be relentless. And then, even when you give in all the way, then she’ll still be miserable and unhappy, because you’re too soft.

So, standing up for yourself, and your values, and your principles, it may cost you your relationship with her, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be. You want somebody that aligns with you, that makes it easy and effortless. And it’s not going to be easy and effortless with this girl. This is just a pain in the ass. I wouldn’t want to deal with it, but it’s your life. You do, you boo-boo.

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.