Rebound Dating & The No Contact Rule

How to handle dating someone on the rebound, and when you should and shouldn’t employ the no contact rule when their ex is in the background.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who was dating a girl for about seven months. She told him she was still healing from a previous abusive relationship. He tried locking her down to a commitment after four months of dating, but she wanted no labels or commitments and wanted to keep dating.

Recently, she told him she was talking to the supposedly abusive ex she was healing from. He told her to figure out what she wanted and went no contact hoping she would choose him over the ex. He asks my opinion on whether or not he did the right thing. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

There’s a few issues with his approach here, obviously, because he’s trying to lock her down to a commitment and he’s doing a lot of things that are the opposite of what I teach in How To Be A 3% Man. There’s also some red flags that when we go through the email, you’ll see. This happened to me when I was young and I didn’t know any better, date a chick right out of a relationship. It’s like, they can be hot and heavy and into you, and the woman doesn’t take time to heal.

Say she’s been together with the guy for two or three years, and then a few weeks after breaking up, she’s dating. Then it gets really hot and heavy and serious. What oftentimes is happening is she’s trying to replace the intimacy that she had in a previous relationship with a completely new one. And then you get serious with somebody like that, and then after a few weeks, they get all squirrelly, “I’m confused and not sure where I need to be.”

And oftentimes, especially if they were together a long time, the ex is not just gone away, especially if the woman did the dumping. And most of the time, 70-75% of the time, women typically are the ones doing the dumping. And most guys don’t just go away and go “Okay, have a nice life. It’s been great.” After a few weeks or a few months, at some point they tend to come back in the picture. And if you’re dating somebody that is recently single that was in a long term relationship, you’ve got to assume that there’s a good chance that the ex is still in the background and that they’re talking to them.

And when they’ve been together several years with that other person and you’ve only been together with them a matter of weeks, or in this case, seven months, she’s going to have a stronger emotional bond to the other guy than you, just because you’re new, you don’t have enough time together yet. And so, from a leverage perspective, you’re in a weaker position. That’s why it’s really super important that you live the philosophy that Thich Nhat Hanh had said, “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”

Now, sometimes people will read that like, “Well, you don’t let them just walk all over you,” and people get really butt hurt and upset. If you go look at my Instagram account @CoachCoreyWayne, there was a snippet from the longer quote that was part of yesterday’s video newsletter that a lot of people kind of flipped out over, “I don’t agree with that!” And you can tell by some of the funny comments, you’ve got some guys and men trying to virtue signal, you’ve got some women going, “That’s not true. It should be 50/50,” and it’s kind of humorous, the comments. So, if you want, go over to my Instagram and check those out, have a good laugh. Maybe follow me there if you like, if you’re so inclined.

It’s counterintuitive. As long as you’re dealing with a normal, healthy woman who’s ready, willing and able and open to dating, the more freedom you give her, the less attached you are, the slower you go. When you’re flexible, you’re easygoing, you don’t get upset, you’re kind of indifferent. If you’re always choosing to be in a good mood ahead of time and she chooses to be a sourpuss one day, you’re going to bring the higher energy, because it’s easier to be happier and playful than grumpy and angry and upset. The best medicine when other people are upset around you is humor, and playfulness and not taking things too seriously, unless, of course, there’s some major issue that they want you to listen to or help them work through.

But it’s super important, especially in situations like this guy was involved in where he’s involved with a girl that’s on the rebound, that you don’t mess with her sense of freedom, because she’s already sensitive. And so, by doing this you create the conditions where her attraction goes up. She starts to pursue you more, and it becomes her idea to be with you. And the problem with this guy, I mean, he admits he knows some of his mistakes he made, but also trying to lock her down to a commitment after four months was just not the right move. And that’s probably part of what created a problem for the situation he’s in now.

Viewer’s Email:

Good day Corey,

I was dating this girl for over 7 months. From the beginning, she told me that she was “healing” from a previous relationship and needed to take things slow.

So, that should be something that makes your spidey sense tingle. It’s a little bit of a red flag. It’s the kind of thing makes you go, did she make poor relationship choices in the past? Typically, women that do often do so because they have a low self-esteem, low self-worth. And being with somebody that’s abusive validates their model of the world. People act consistently with how they view themselves to be, whether the view is accurate or not. And so, if she has a low self-esteem and low self-worth, and she doesn’t think she’s a very good person, she’s going to be drawn to somebody that makes her feel like she’s not a very good person and not very worthy and tolerate abuse, because it probably makes her feel similar to the environment that she grew up in, even though it might have been totally dysfunctional.

And so, when you hear these kinds of things, you should be like, oh, maybe she’s just passing through. She’s a bit of a drifter. Just treat her as one of the potential candidates, not ideally somebody you want to think about getting serious with. And this is where exercising emotional self-control comes in. Because a lot of guys, when they hear that, they go, “I’m going to be such an awesome guy. You’re going to see how awesome I can be, and I’ll be so much better than that last guy, you’ll see. And we’ll live happily ever after.” And, they turn into Captain Save-a-Hoe. They want to white knight, and solve her problems, and pay her bills and do the things that they saw in the movies growing up, that when you encounter people like this that are still in the process of healing, you can fix them. You can turn them into the perfect woman. You’ve got a fixer upper.

That’s not what you’re looking for. You’re looking for a happy, whole, complete person, somebody to share your own completeness with. You’re not looking for somebody and you don’t want to find somebody that’s also looking for somebody to complete them, because you’re always going to be disappointed. Because people just simply, by their words and their actions or the things they do, if you have unreasonable expectations, they are not going to match them.

I explained I was okay with that as long as things aren’t going backwards.

So, that right there says, “I want a girlfriend, I’m looking for a relationship. I want to lock you down.” That’s the vibe that he’s giving off by saying something like that. The right attitude is, “Hey, let’s just hang out and have some fun and see what happens, see where it goes. No pressure. No stress.” Because you’ve got to think about every time you interact with her, if she feels good, if she feels positive, if she becomes happier, she can come and go as she pleases, every time you’re around her, it gives her good feelings, then she’s going to associate being with you with good feelings and good things and good tidings.

So, we had a great time practicing the HHH’s. 

He’s talking about hang out, have fun and hook up.

I did make some mistakes along the way, such as telling her I loved her and asking her to be my girlfriend after 4 months in.

He’s trying to lock her down to a commitment, because maybe he saw too many movies that said that’s what the guy is supposed to do. She says she’s healing, and he’s trying to lock her down. Why? Because he’s fearful and he’s worried that she won’t want to stay with him. You want to give out the vibe that’s like, you’re cool with it either way, because over the long term — especially if you’re going to be with somebody for several years, or maybe the rest of your life for whatever it happens to be, or a decade or two — you want somebody that really wants to be with you and really makes the effort. Not somebody that you got to commit to a commitment earlier than they were ready, because they’re going to resent it, and on some level, they’re not going to feel free. It wasn’t really their decision.

And when it comes to things like this, you want it to be the woman’s decision. And that’s why the three H’s are hang out, have fun and hook up — not hang out, have fun, hook up and lock her down to a commitment, which obviously he tried to do. So again, he’s violating principles from “How To Be A 3% Man.” But violating the principles, that’s why he sent the email in the first place, because otherwise he wouldn’t have had problems. And he wouldn’t have gotten serious with her or tried to get serious with her.

She said she cared about me but didn’t want to put any labels on us.

So right there, after four months of dating and hooking up, she’s like “Eh.” Like I said, she’s just a drifter. I don’t know if he was familiar with my work or not at that point, but that should have been something to cause him to recognize that he’s obviously way more into her than she is into him. And because she’s not emotionally ready, she’s not feeling it. And yet, he’s already thinking about marriage and moving in together, or a long term relationship, then being together forever and ever. And he just has no sensory acuity, no self-awareness, that she’s not in the same place that he is. That’s obviously why “How To Be A 3% Man” can be so helpful when you learn it and actually apply it, instead of doing the opposite, which obviously in this particular case he was.

I didn’t get mad and said that was fine. I also over-pursued early on but got better about it. 

Yeah, but you’ve got to understand that a whole vibe, you’re trying to lock her down. And this is the kind of thing that “you must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” And so, she never felt free with you. You just knew you were going to try to lock her down. And obviously you over pursued, and that’s why when you asked her to be your girlfriend, she was like, “Yeah, I care for you, but, eh.” He’s like, “I love you,” and she’s like, “Eh.”

I mean, how many times have you seen those guys at a public sporting event or something in public get on their knee and propose, and the woman just hauls ass, runs off, or just says no and then walks away. And then everybody’s like, “Ohhh,” everybody feels bad for him. That’s somebody that has no idea. They’re hoping just presenting an expensive ring and shooting their shot, “Hopefully she’ll say yes.” If he knew what was in “How To Be A 3% Man,” the woman would be like, “When are we getting married? When are we getting engaged?” But everybody’s got to learn sometime.

With that said, the time we spent together was great. She introduced me to her parents and friends. We even went on a 5-day vacation together and had a wonderful time. We had sex 90% of the time we were together. We acted like we were in a relationship without calling it that.  She often made the point of saying we were only “dating” each other.

Because, again, he’s in a completely different place. He likes her way more than she likes him. He’s focused on his feelings and not paying any attention to where she is at, which is it’s a bad way to go. It leads to undesirable outcomes.

In the last month, she was doing 90% of the texting and 95% of the calling. Although, I was still doing nice things for her like taking her on nice dates, and getting her little gifts, (flowers, candy, etc.).

Dude, as “How To Be A 3% Man” says, you only buy gifts for your girlfriend or your wife. You tried to lock this girl down, you’re continuing to try to lock her down, and you’re continuing to treat her like your girlfriend, and that’s why she keeps saying, “Hey, we’re only just dating.” She kept bringing that up to remind him, because it’s like, he wasn’t getting the message. He was not exercising emotional self-control.

However, red flags were popping up. I was always paying for everything, and the last 2 times we were together she was too “tired” for sex.

Because again, you’re focused on yourself and how you feel, instead of looking at how you’re showing up is affecting her behavior, and the fact you’re not taking into account that you’re basically her rebound date. She kept telling you to slow down, slow your roll, and you just weren’t getting the message. You might slow down a little bit, but still, at the end of the day, you wanted to lock her down, and it was a vibe you were constantly giving off to her. You were constantly trying to prove yourself and get validated through her liking you and wanting to be in a relationship. Again, that is the opposite of what my book teaches.

A couple weeks ago after she had gotten drunk, she mentioned she had been texting the ex that she was supposed to be “healing” from. She told me that he was mentally and emotionally abusive to her.

So obviously, she doesn’t doesn’t do a good job at picking men.

It seemed strange that she was talking to a man again she was supposed to be “healing” from. 

That’s because she belongs to the streets! Dude, she’s a drifter, but you’re like, I’m Captain Save-a-Hoe. But in all fairness, she was telling you “I’m not looking for a commitment.” Because more than likely, the guy was probably in the background. If he was abusive and controlling, it’s because he’s insecure. And therefore, he probably never went away. He probably was always in the background, and more than likely, she might have been hanging out and having fun and hooking up with him also. You have no idea.

The way to treat a woman like this in this situation is just another potential dating prospect. But as far as a relationship, girlfriend or wife prospect, she really hasn’t qualified for that yet. I would have just treated her as one of the girls you were seeing. But this guy, again, he was paying attention to his own interests and ignoring her lack of interest, or her lack of high interest. And on top of that, he’s displaying unattractive behavior, so it prevented her interest from skyrocketing, falling head over heels in love.

Typically, if you follow what’s in the book, about week seven or eight, the woman’s going to fall in love with you and want to lock you down. But he’s four months in asking her to be his girlfriend, and she’s like “Eh.” That tells you everything about what he was doing, where he thought they were at, and where she thought they were at. That’s why when I talk to guys and I look at what she did, what he did, what he said, what she said, even if he’s bullshitting himself and trying to bullshit me, I can see right through it. Because all you’ve got to do is look at the actions. They tell you everything.

The next day, I asked her if she still wanted her ex, to which she answered, “I don’t know.”

Okay, when somebody says “I don’t know,” it means they know, but they don’t want to say. So, if she definitely didn’t want her ex back, she’d be like, “No, of course not.” It’s interesting when you study body language and tells. Somebody that’s lying will give you a long explanation when you ask him a question that should be a yes or no answer. In other words, the longer the excuse, the bigger the lie.

My response to that was, “that is an answer.” In a kind voice I told her I loved her and still wanted her…

Again, you’re like drooling all over this girl. Your feelings don’t fucking matter to her. How much you love her has no effect on her interest in you. She only cares about how she feels about you.

…but she needed to take some time to figure this out. I told her that she could reach out once she figured out what she wanted. She cried and seemed hurt but agreed.

So, again, you’re trying to lock this girl down in an indirect way, without really realizing that’s what you’re doing, or maybe you’re just bullshitting yourself a little bit. But the bottom line is that you’re still trying to lock a girl down who has mediocre interest and feelings for you. And you’re ignoring that, because you’re being overwhelmed and driven by your own high interest. It’s completely blinding you.

My thought was that we’re 7 months in, and her talking to her ex now is not “healing.”

Well, like I said, you shouldn’t have been trying to lock this girl down to a commitment at all. You should have let her continue healing and treated her as just one of your prospects, one of the girls in your dating rotation, if you will. Because you want somebody who’s ready, willing, able and open to dating, and the first thing she said is, “I’m wounded, I’m healing. I’m not a good dating prospect.” Like Maya Angelou said, who was an absolute fucking genius, “When somebody tells you and shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” But Captain Save-a-Hoe is going to fix everything.

Between that and the red flags, I could not escape the feeling that this was gonna end with her going back to him.

Well, you were driving her back to him with your incessant, needy, attention seeking and approval seeking behavior. It’s not attractive. You’re acting like an insecure girl. So, you shouldn’t be surprised. You just cannot pressure a woman, especially one like this, into a commitment. It’s never going to work like that. You’re doing the opposite of what my book teaches.

I wanted to stand up for what I wanted and show that I can walk away when the terms of our “arrangement” are no longer acceptable to me.

Well, she’s not your girlfriend, so there’s really nothing to walk away from. She was just a fuck buddy, basically. She was a friend with benefits. She was your sex playmate. And she constantly told you where she stood, but you constantly didn’t listen.

Did this help my future situation with her, by walking away while she still seemed interested?

No. This is not how you employ the no contact rule. When you employ the no contact rule, typically guys in that situation, they’ve been dumped, they’ve been pushed away, they’ve been rejected. The girl moved out of the house or whatever, and they’re stuck in friend-zone, even though they’re still trying to get her back. That’s when you walk away. That’s when you say, “I’m not interested in friendship, I’m interested in romance. If that doesn’t work for you, give me a call if you ever change your mind,” and then you move on with your life.

You don’t do this to try to manipulate somebody that you’re dating and sleeping with into being in a relationship with you. That’s a bitch ass move. That’s not what a man does. That’s what a little boy does. There’s a big difference between boys and men.

Instead of waiting to let her do it?

Again, you should have let her do most of the calling, texting and pursuing. And just as a “How To Be A 3% Man” said, your job in the courtship is to create an opportunity for sex to happen, to hang out, have fun and hook up. That’s it. Not to lock her down to a commitment, especially a woman like this. But you didn’t listen. You did not follow instructions. You cherry picked and you got blown up. You blew yourself up, man.

Or was I too hasty?

Too hasty. You did the wrong thing, dude.

I am employing no contact until she reaches out. Is that the right path since I told her to take the time?

Thanks,

Bob

Well, at the end of the day, as a man you’ve got to be congruent with what you said. You’ve got to live with your choices. You’ve got to be a man of your word. Because if you were to call her now and go, “I fucked up. I’m sorry. Can we start hooking up again?” more than likely, she’s probably spending time with this other guy trying to get clarity on where potentially things are going to happen with him. So at this point, you’ve got to be congruent with your words, because if you go back on your word and start pursuing her, she’s going to know you’re a bitch, and that will actually drive her closer to the other guy.

What’s done is done, my man. I would let it be. Be congruent with your words. If you hear from her, assume she wants to see you, hang out, have fun and hook up. And if it was me, I wouldn’t be trying to turn this girl into my girlfriend. Why? Because she belongs to the streets! Look at the red flags. Obviously, she’s got self-esteem issues. It’s not your job to fix her, it’s not your job to save her. But you’ve got to see reality as it is — not better than it is or worse than it is, but as it is. And in this case, you’re seeing reality is way better than it is. You’re just not seeing the present reality.

And if she does come back, I’d let her do 100% of the calling, texting and pursuing. Stop with all the “I love yous” and the gift giving, all the other crap, all the other bribes for sex and a relationship. It’s not working for you, dude. And you need to read “How To Be A 3% Man” 10 to 15 times. You can go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, subscribe to the email newsletter, and you can read that for free. You can read “Mastering Yourself” for free, my second book, as well. You’ve got to learn the fundamentals, because you’re not going to be successful with her or the other kind of women who are ideally suited for the kind of relationship that you want if you keep behaving this way. It’s not attractive, it’s gross, it’s effeminate. It’s what a little boy does that doesn’t know any better.

So let the girl be. If she reaches out, assume she wants to see you, hang out, have fun and hook up. As far as the other guy in the picture, it shouldn’t matter. She’s just one of the chicks in your potential rotation. And if you have two or three other girls that you’re dating, it’s like a practice squad. I used this in a video a few weeks back. You’ve got to think of it like the NFL football teams that have practice squads. And so, they’re constantly cutting players, signing players, promoting players off the practice squad to the team. And so, that’s the way you need to look at it. She’s just one of the girls on your practice squad.

You’re not going to go sign one of the girls in your practice squad to a fifty million dollar contract unless she’s earned it, unless she got from the practice squad to the active roster and then proved herself over many months. This girl is just simply not a candidate for what you’re looking for, and you trying to force or manipulate her into doing that, it’s just a beta male move. It’s a simp move. It does not work.

So if you’ve got a question or a challenge you’d like to get my help with, whether it’s your personal and professional life, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.

“Love is allowing. Love is freedom. Love is about giving. You go to all relationships to give. To help each other grow and become more. Love is not attached. Love is not possessive or jealous. Love has no control or restrictions. Love also respects each other and establishes healthy boundaries that all parties honor. Love is humble and kind. Love does not tolerate abuse or mistreatment. Love is standing up for yourself, your values and principles. By giving the other person the freedom to come and go as they please and to choose someone else if they think they can do better, this creates the conditions where they choose you, only want to be with you and almost always are at your side as your teammate.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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