She Dumped Me, But Came Back. I’m Not Sure I Want Her

Things to consider if you got dumped but she came back but you’re unsure.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who got dumped right as he was about to move in with his girlfriend. They broke up, but she came back a few days later. They’re hooking up again, but now he’s unsure he even wants her back after she initially rejected him. He asks my opinion.

My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

So this particular email is from a viewer. He’s 43. He said he read 3% Man 16 or 17 times. However, in his relationship, he says about a month ago they were making plans to move in together, and they put a deposit down. And then literally, like, within a day or two, she’s like, “Hey, we need to talk.” And she’s like, “Oh, by the way, I put a deposit down on an apartment for myself. I don’t want to move in together.”

And then he’s like, “Well, I’m not going to try to keep her.” And he was, like, getting ready to spend his life with her in his mind. And so they ended up breaking up.

And then within a week, she’s calling, texting, “Oh, I miss you.” So they started hooking up. He’s applying what’s in 7 Principles to Get an Ex Back. But now he’s like, “You know, I was ready to go all the way with her, and she’s just like, ‘Yeah, not feeling it.’”

And so they’re hooking up and things are going well, and she really wants another chance, wants to get back together. But he’s talking to other women now. He’s like, “I’m not so sure I want her back.”

So clearly, if you get dumped and don’t see it coming when you’re about to move into a place together, that tells me you don’t have self-awareness. You’re not aware. You’re unable to read the interest of the woman that you’re with.

So that’s a big problem because, whether it’s with her or somebody else, he needs to figure out what he did wrong. Maybe he got complacent. That’s what happens with guys. The longer they’re together, they get lazy, they get complacent, and they get away from the book. They don’t read it for a few years, and then they go through a problem like this and they get back into it and realize they made a lot of mistakes.

Because, you know, it happens slowly. Especially if you’re consuming traditional news and media and television shows and movies, you’re basically getting that beta male programming back into your mind. And whatever you observe, you participate in. So if you’re participating in mainstream media and entertainment, you’re getting brainwashed.

If you’ve gotten away from the book and the videos, typically what I see in these situations is the guy doesn’t date and court her properly. He’s not making her feel heard and understood. He just assumes everything’s great. They’re still hooking up, they’re moving in together, but he’s not really paying attention to the fact that her interest is dropping and she’s no longer doing all the little things that she used to do when she was in love.

Again, when you’ve been together for a couple of years, it just happens very slowly and you don’t notice. It’s, you know, the old adage about you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it’s going to jump right out. But you put it into a pot of warm water, it’s going to be like, “Hey, water’s kind of nice.” And then you slowly turn up the heat. The frog will basically boil to death as the heat gets slowly turned up.

And that’s what happens long term. So you got to be disciplined. You got to be aware. And unfortunately, this guy was not aware until it caught him off guard.

So it’s hard for the ego as a guy to take that, you know, especially if you’ve been through the book 16 or 17 times. You’re like, “Oh, this shouldn’t be happening to me.” But it does. It’s like, as soon as you get a little cocky, you fool yourself.

I wrote about that in my book. I was thinking, “Everything’s great with my girlfriend and I,” and we go to this company function, and she’s like, “I’m not happy.”

I was like, “What do you mean you’re not happy?”

She’s like, “I’m not happy with our relationship.”

And I was so busy with business that I didn’t realize that we’d gone from spending pretty much every night together to I was only seeing her on the weekends, and I was kind of putting her off. I was being a little short with her on the phone, and I just hadn’t noticed I was really doing it.

And so here I am thinking I’m the man, and then she just let me know that she, you know, wasn’t too happy because I wasn’t paying attention to her like I had been. I made her feel like I didn’t care.

And women want to be in a love story. And as soon as they start feeling like that, usually the way it comes out is they complain: “We never do anything together. We never spend any time together. You’re always at work.”

It comes out like that. And the guy quickly is like, “Yeah, we just spent all last weekend doing this,” or, “We did that,” and, like, “What are you talking about?” And he wants to argue with her when, in reality, all she’s just saying is, “Hey, we need to spend more time together.”

You should say, “You know what? You’re right. I’ve been too busy at work. I got caught up. I’ll make it up to you this weekend. I’ll make it up to you tonight or tomorrow,” or whatever, and then you make something happen.

But again, a guy hears that, he’s like, “Oh, she’s just bitching. She’s just being emotional. She’s just complaining. She doesn’t really mean that. She’s just speaking in hyperbole, like women tend to do.”

And then you get what happened to him. It’s happened to me, you know. It happens to most guys. You’re going to fall back asleep. You’re not going to pay attention.

So it’s important to make sure you got into a relationship with a good-character woman. Because if you’re in a relationship with a low-character woman and you start screwing up, she’ll screw your best friend, give out her number, hook up with other dudes behind your back, start hanging out with that guy that was “just a friend.” You don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff.

So let’s see what’s going on here.

Viewer Email:

Coach Corey Wayne,

Hi Coach, my name is Bob. I am 43 years old. I’ve read How to Be a 3% Man about 16 or 17 times, and I want to start by thanking you for the impact your work has had on my dating life. My last three relationships have been a direct result of applying the principles in your book. It completely changed my outlook on dating, relationships, and how I show up as a man.

Right now, though, I’m dealing with a situation that I’m having a hard time navigating mentally.

When it happens, like, again, I know what it’s like. The first time it happened to me, I was like, “I finally arrived. I got it. I got her eating out of my hand.” And, you know, three or four weeks later, just being a not-very-good boyfriend, it bit me in the ass and her interest dropped, and she wasn’t happy, and I was stunned.

About a month ago, my girlfriend and I were making plans to move into a townhome together. We had even put down a deposit. A week later, she told me we needed to talk.

When a woman says, “We need to talk,” that’s never—what comes after that is not going to be pleasant.

She said she was unsure about moving in with me and revealed that she had put down a deposit on another apartment that same day.

Yeah, if that’s happening to you, again, she should be the one complaining, “When are we going to move in together?” And, I mean, at the end of the day, if you’re applying what’s in the book properly, she’s going to be over at your house all the time anyways, even when she has her own place.

And then your closets will be full of her crap, and your bathroom countertop will be full of her makeup and everything else. So she’ll just be, like, mostly living with you.

That crushed me.

During the conversation, she also told me that she still had unresolved feelings surrounding her divorce from three years ago, as well as the relationship she had after her divorce.

I think this is all about her feelings and emotions. Doesn’t care about what a great guy you were or that you were a great boyfriend for two and a half years of the relationship. If you’ve been sucking ass as a boyfriend the last three months, well, that’s all that really matters because it affects how she feels.

And women don’t care about what a great boyfriend you were in the past, or how handsome you are, or how successful you are, like Tom Brady. What they care about is how they feel about you. That’s the most important thing.

And so that’s why she’s bringing up the stuff about the divorce, because she’s talking about divorce. She’s talking about a breakup. In other words, “This makes what I feel right now feel just like when I was going through my divorce.” So that’s what happened.

Remember, whatever a woman feels when she’s with you is what she associates with being with you. So she doesn’t want to move in together because her interest is low, because it dropped and he didn’t notice. And on top of that, now she’s feeling the same way she felt when she went through her divorce, which is like a breakup. It’s over. It’s not good.

Nobody likes breakups. I haven’t had one—I never had one that I enjoyed. Even though it might have been satisfying, it still sucks. Like ripping your heart out. It’s not a pleasant experience.

She said she didn’t feel like we got along well enough and didn’t believe she could give me what I wanted from the relationship.

So that sentence right there tells me he was way more into her than she was into him. He was more focused on the relationship and what they were and wasn’t really paying attention. She wasn’t in the same place, at least not anymore, the way she used to be.

This is what happens when you focus on how much you like a girl, and you don’t pay attention to the fact she’s no longer reciprocating. Again, when a woman says she doesn’t feel like she can give you what you want, that means she knows and feels that you’re way more into something serious with her than she is with you, and she can’t make her heart feel what it doesn’t feel. And you did not notice this.

At that point, I accepted what she was telling me instead of trying to convince her otherwise.

Well, again, if you find yourself in this situation, you’d be like, “Well, we put a deposit down. If you don’t want to move in, I’m not going to force you to, but obviously we’re going to lose our deposit if we both back out,” unless you can afford to stay in the townhouse without her.

Especially if it’s a nice upgrade and you’re like, “It’s a good lifestyle whether you get back together with her or not.” Hey, it’s an upgrade. You’ll be happy at a nicer place, nicer area. You’ll be more attractive because you’re happier. You’re smiling more. I mean, it makes a big difference where you live.

And so if where you live is exciting and every time you walk out your door you’re like, “Wow, there’s beautiful women everywhere,” or you walk out and you’re like, “This is a shithole,” you’re gonna feel a lot better walking out where you’re like, “Wow, look at the beauty everywhere.” Beauty needs a witness, as Zahn says.

But, you know, that makes a big deal in your mental health and how you feel about your life. If you love where you live and it’s a great area, there’s a lot of stuff to do, it’s a lot of fun, it just makes you happier. And the happier you are, the more you’re going to smile, the more outgoing you’re going to be, the better you’re going to feel about yourself and, most importantly, the more attractive you’re going to be to the ladies.

So again, if you can afford it and you don’t need her, just tell the leasing agent, “Hey, I’m just going to do this on my own. She’s not moving in with me.”

And at the end of the day, you must love in such a way that the person you love feels free. Your job is to create the opportunity for sex to happen. So your girl is saying, “I don’t want to cohabitate,” and you’re like, “Great, I’ll just habitate by myself, and maybe I’ll find another dance partner in the meantime.”

About a week later, she started trying to come back into my life.

So I assumed that led to the breakup. But at that point, I mean, it’s hard when it happens to you. It’s like the ego is like, “Oh.” It’s like getting kicked in the nuts. And you realize, “Man, I’m not all that. I thought I had this shit dialed in, and now I’m not. Now I feel like a chump.”

And so your natural instinct is to be like, “Well, fuck you, then. You can kiss my ass. You think you can do better than me? Then go, baby.” But remember, good love is hard to find.

And so you let her go. You don’t chase after her, and it’s her job, because she fucked it up and created a problem when you guys were about to move in together. So it’s like you’re not together anymore at this point. So it’s her job to convince you why you should give her another chance.

In the meantime, she can call you, she can text you, she can do all the reaching out. She has to do it. She moved away from you because you were clearly doing too much, putting too much effort, too much attention, too much validation, and not getting hardly anything back. And you were not paying attention to that.

That’s a costly mistake, especially emotionally. A lot of emotional difficulty dealing with these things because, again, breakups suck.

I followed the principles from your book and required her to come to my place multiple times before I considered taking her out again. She came over four times, and we were hooking up during that period.

Well, at the end of the day, when she leaves, like, it’s up to her to call you. It’s up to her to text you. And even if she goes, “You never call anymore. You never text me,” it’s like, “Well, you broke up with me, and I’m being a good guy by giving you a chance to win me back.”

So it’s like, you gotta show me something. So, you know, you can complain all you want, but you fucked up big time. I love you, but the way you treated me—and you’re just like, “Are you going a little wishy-washy in your feelings?” And you just dip out on me and sneak around and put a deposit on another place?

It’s like, you want me to just, you know, jump right back into a relationship with you. It’s like, no. You got to show me that you really understand how you fucked up, and you got to go out of your way to convince me why I should give you another chance.

I’m here. We’re naked in bed, and that’s great and everything, but, you know, I want somebody I got a future with. And I thought we had a future together. But obviously I got a little over my skis.

And so you’re going to show me something. You can complain all you want. You got to treat me like a king. And unless you do, I’m gonna eventually find somebody else. Sorry if that’s harsh, but, you know, you gotta treat me like a king.

The problem is that even though she wants to be back in a committed relationship with me…

No, don’t do it right away. Let her earn it.

…something has changed on my end.

Well, the thing that’s hard to accept, again, because the ego is like—you know, as a man, we’re egocentric. We know, like, “I fucked up. I wasn’t paying attention. I got a little beat up, cared too much, wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t objective.” That’s a me—that’s a my-fault thing.

And so your natural instinct is like, “No, screw you. I’m not giving you another chance,” because your ego is bruised. And why should you? But at the end of the day, you weren’t disciplined with the book. You weren’t disciplined to keep her attraction high, and you didn’t notice that it had dipped.

And again, the chapter “It’s All in the Numbers” lays all that out for you, and you were not paying attention. Again, it happens to all of us. I did it. I wrote about it in the book. It’s like, I’m not perfect either.

So as Jocko says, discipline equals freedom, and that’s what that means. You gotta be disciplined to date and court your girlfriend properly. Otherwise, if you neglect her too much and too long, look what happened to Tom Brady and Gisele.

Just like, “Alright, he chose football over me.” All she really wanted was him to spend more time with her. And he kept promising a Kentucky guarantee and saying no, he was too busy. He didn’t even try.

So at that point, she’s like, “It’s not going to work.” And then the flip side is, well, then the question is, why didn’t he feel like he wanted to spend more time with his wife? Maybe he wasn’t really that into her at that point. And it wasn’t until she was moving on, he was like, “Oh,” then he actually started to make an effort.

So probably part of it was Tom Brady lost attraction and interest in Gisele before she started to dip. And then she just took it and went and cheated and had another man’s baby, basically. She was a savage.

I’m still guarded because of what happened. Before she ended things, I was prepared to build a life with her and move in together. After hearing that she had doubts about us, had already secured another apartment, still had unresolved feelings from previous relationships…

Again, remember? That’s why a woman will bitch about you not taking the garbage out from three years ago. Because what she’s trying to say is, “I feel the same way. When you didn’t do that, you let me down the same way.”

In other words, you gave me your word and you didn’t follow through. And in this case, like I mentioned earlier, this is what women do. They use relational examples. So she’s talking about the divorce, which she’s trying to say is, “I feel the same way I did during the divorce, which is we’re breaking up and it’s not going to work because my interest is low.”

Again, all women know is that their feelings have changed. They don’t understand why or how that happened, for the most part. That’s why they want space and they want to get away. They think, “Oh, maybe it’ll come back.”

And that’s what happened. You gave her a full dose of life without you, and she got to experience the silence. She got to experience a new place, you moving on. And she could feel that. She could feel you completely stop moving forward.

And so she didn’t like what life was like without you, and then that’s why she wanted to come back. Her interest dropped, and then she realized that you could do fine without her. Remember, the strongest negotiating position is being able to walk away and mean it.

Women have to know that if they push you too far, you’re going to walk and never look back. And she felt that, and it made her wet for you again. It’s just how the attraction works, man.

But you can’t fall asleep, whether you take her back or not. This is an issue you gotta fix because the next girl, if you do the same shit, the same thing will happen. She’ll leave you for the same reasons.

“She still had unresolved feelings from previous relationships and didn’t think she could give me what I wanted.”

Again, that means that you cared more about her than she did about you. And you were clueless.

…and didn’t think she could give me what I wanted, I started questioning whether this is actually the woman I want to build a future with.

Well, that is a good question to ask yourself. And only you know what’s on the inside and what your heart feels.

Now that she wants me back, I’m realizing that I’m not sure I want the relationship anymore.

Good. That’s fine. That’s a fine place to be because it’s her job to earn another chance with you.

The mental hurdle I’m struggling with is ripping the Band-Aid off and simply telling her that I’m not fully committed to this relationship anymore. I care about her, but I also don’t want to stay with someone simply because she came back or because we have history together.

She came back because you acted attractive. That’s what happened. Her feelings changed because your behavior changed. You started to act more masculine. That’s how it works, dude.

To be completely transparent, during this period of uncertainty I’ve also been approaching and talking to other women. I think part of me is already looking elsewhere because I haven’t been able to fully recommit emotionally to her.

Well again, she has to earn it. And maybe you don’t get there. And that’s quite frankly not your fucking problem. It’s her problem. But again, you gotta have an awareness. You’ve got to be able to read where she’s at.

So my question is: When a woman walks away, comes back, and does everything necessary to rekindle things, but you realize that her leaving changed how you feel about her, how do you handle it?

Just say, “Honey, I love you. I appreciate the effort you’re making, but it’s like, again, this just happened a few weeks ago, so it’s going to take some time for me to get over it. And I can’t promise you that I’m going to be feeling differently in three months.”

“But it’s like, right now, I want to keep things casual. You went and got your place. I got my place. So you wanted some distance, so you’re going to get that. And I’m not going to jump right back into a relationship with you because, again, we put a deposit down and then you backed out.”

“So you broke your word. So that tells me it’s like I can’t really rely on your word. So, you know, you got to prove something. You gotta prove it to me. So, you know, again, you’re upset, you did this, you broke us up.”

“Again, I’m willing to give you a chance, but I can’t promise anything right now. This is where I’m at, and I may decide that I don’t want to get back together in the future. It’s brought up a lot of things, so I don’t know.”

“You know, that behavior that you exhibited doesn’t tell me you’re a true ride-or-die. You’re like, ‘Well, my feelings have changed, so here I’m just going to go behind your back, even after I committed to your face, told you I loved you, wanted to move in with you, and commit to another apartment, and then tell you after the fact, after I already spent my money.’”

“It’s like, that’s pretty—that’s kind of devious. So again, that doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzy.”

Do I need to give this more time and see whether my feelings come back naturally, or is my hesitation itself telling me that I need to end the relationship and move forward? I know your philosophy is that a man should never try to convince someone to choose him. But I’m realizing there’s another side to that: just because she chooses me again doesn’t necessarily mean I have to choose her.

Well, that is correct. But again, why did her feelings change? Just because you got complacent, weren’t paying attention. You had no idea. You’re moving in with somebody, and you had no idea her interest was low.

You need to get back into the book, dude. Because again, if you decide not to take her back, well, you get with somebody else in the future, guess what? You’ll do the same fucking thing if you don’t fill in your knowledge gap and figure out where you went sideways.

I’d appreciate your perspective on how to handle this honestly and respectfully without dragging things out or leading her on.

Thank you again for everything you’ve taught me. Your work has genuinely changed the way I approach dating and relationships.

Bob

So again, she wanted space. She wanted the distance. She wanted the break. She wanted to get her own place. So your job is to create the opportunity for sex to happen. It’s her job to convince you to be all in again.

But again, that was pretty shitty, what she did. So I can’t tell you what to do. All I can do is tell you where you’re at. But you got a knowledge gap. You got a blind spot, and you better fucking figure it out.

Because, you know, you take her back and you don’t fill in that knowledge gap, guess what? In three or four months, you’ll be doing it all over again. Maybe the next time, you know, she wants to move in with you, so you got to pay attention to it.

But at the end of the day, you got 3% Man, so you can always find somebody better if it doesn’t feel right. Dude, just be honest with her down the road. Just say, you know, say three months from now you’re still feeling the same way, and she wants you to quit—it’s like, “I just can’t get past it. I’m sorry. I love you, but I just—I can’t do it. It’s not right for me.”

“And I want to date other people, and I’m going to continue dating other people. And we can continue to be friends with benefits without being boyfriend and girlfriend again or moving in together. I don’t know that I’m ever going to get there.”

“So again, you did this. This was your best thinking. I mean, maybe if you were feeling that way, you should have come to me and talked instead of just going and doing something like that behind my back. Because again, love cannot exist where there is no trust. And you had an issue, and you didn’t even bring it up.”

However, we have to assume that you probably weren’t asking very good-quality questions in your relationship anyways, and that’s on you. But again, if I was in that situation, I explained how I’d handle it.

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 on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly.

If you haven’t already signed up for my Exclusive Premium Members Only Content in the video description is video, there are links to join on YouTube, or you can join on Spotify or our Website UnderstandingRelationships.com. Just click the “plans” tab when you get there. And the good news is with my Website, you can do a seven day free trial to check out all the great content and extensive library of additional content that you get for being a Premium Member. And if you choose an annual plan, you can get a 25% discount at the end of the seven day free trial. So go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the “plans” tab, sign up for a seven day free trial for a Premium Membership. And until next time, I will talk to you soon.