She Said She Doesn’t Know What She Wants Right Now

What it means when a woman says she doesn’t know what she wants right now.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a 46-year-old viewer whose 20-year-old ex cheated on him with another guy. They originally were planning to get married and start a family. Her parents didn’t approve and they broke up after she admitted she slept with a guy friend her own age. She came back and they hooked up, but she said she doesn’t know what she wants right now. He wonders if it’s salvageable.

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

Well, when a woman says she doesn’t know what she wants, usually it means she knows she doesn’t want you, which obviously is not good. So we got a nice age gap relationship here of 26 years. The guy is 46. The girl was 20 and everything was going great and they were planning on getting married. And then she told her parents. Her parents found out. Mom and dad wasn’t real supportive about their 20-year-old daughter marrying a 46-year-old dude. And so at some point, she started hanging out with a male friend who was her age. And I guess they hooked up. So once he found out they broke up, he went in no-contact. She reached out. They hooked up again. He wants her back, but she’s still with the other guy. She ends up hooking up with him again. She tells the other young guy, he’s basically a kid that she hooked up with her ex-boyfriend. He didn’t care. He still wanted her. So he’s willing to put up with it. And so this guy’s like, “I really want her back.” But at the end of the day, she’s clearly not gonna be loyal.

So I got the dogs in here with me because you probably hear the blowers. The lawn guy showed up. I got AC work being done here, so things are a little noisy, so hopefully they’ll stay quiet. Usually I don’t have many with me. It keeps them from barking though because they know they can get obnoxious.

So let’s go through his email.

Viewer Email:

Hi Coach,

I’m 46 and my ex is 20. We were together for about six months and had a very strong emotional connection.

So you can tell right away he’s focused on his feelings, how much he likes her, and after six months of dating, he was ready to put a ring on her finger and ride off into the sunset and have babies, which you got a date for a couple of years at least, before you get to that, get to really know somebody, because people can hide who they are for the first 90 days of a relationship and everybody puts their best foot forward. You don’t really know what you’re dealing with, and that’s why you got to get out of the honeymoon, the infatuation period, which usually lasts for at least a year, 6 to 12 months, maybe even a year and a half in some cases. But you need to get to the point where you’re out of the honeymoon phase, you’re over the goo-goo gaga, you’re used to being with each other, and know what each other is like in your good days and your bad days. What happens when you slack off? What happens when you’re working too much? What happens when you’re not taking her out dating, or as much for whatever reason? Or you’re just impatient, you got things going on and you’re not taking the time to open her up like you once did. Then what happens? What happens when their interest drops? Is she loyal? Does she try to resolve whatever differences are with you? Or as soon as her interest drops, does she just go and start talking to another guy? Because that’s what you want to know because everybody’s going to slack off. Every guy is going to get complacent in a long term relationship and not dating and courting the girl as much as she would like and not make her feel heard and understood. I mean, things are just gonna happen in life.

So what happens in those moments is, are you with a loyal and family oriented girl who’s going to seek to work things out with you? Or is she selfish and narcissistic and came from a broken home and her attitude is, “Well, if he’s not paying attention, somebody else will,” and she’ll just go date and talk to another guy? Which is pretty much what it looks like here. And we can understand mom and dad torpedoed the idea of the relationship, but she supposedly was still committed to this guy, and yet she still slept with the guy who I’m sure she’s “Oh, he’s just a friend. You don’t have to worry about him.” So you gotta pay attention to what the other person does. Because if you’re only focused on your feelings and how much you like the girl, you’re going to get dicked over and it’s not going to end well. Character is destiny.

We had even started making plans for marriage and starting a family together.

Again, you’re in the middle of the honeymoon period at that point, so you’re going to be a little delusional and living in la la land. And it takes, like I said, a year, year and a half to get past that stage. And then what happens when you don’t necessarily feel like you want to see, or you want to date or sleep with her as much as she may want it. So you gotta see how things are and go through some normal period. Is she still loyal and faithful? Or as soon as she’s upset with you, is she already giving out her phone number and accepting invitations for friendly lunches and friendly happy hours? “He’s just a friend. You don’t have to worry about that guy, baby.”

Her family eventually found out about our relationship and the age difference became a major issue with her parents, who strongly opposed the relationship and threatened to disown her. She became extremely depressed and our communication dwindled over the next couple of months until I eventually saw a picture of her and another guy together on his Instagram profile. I confronted her about it and we separated, but it was amicable and not on bad terms. A part of me understood why she did it, she’s known him her whole life and her family approves of him. Since then, her life has become extremely complicated. Her father passed away, she’s had several other deaths in her family, she’s been struggling with college, and she’s taken on a lot of responsibility caring for three young cousins who aren’t her children.

So I’m sure these are the logical explanations she probably was giving him. “Oh, this is why I can’t see you as much. I’m just so busy. Work’s crazy. I got this, I got that.” But at the end of the day, remember, she was like, “Alright, let’s live happily ever after and have a family.” And she’s like, “Oh, I’m just too busy. I got too many things going on.” So her interest was dropping and he didn’t realize it. I assume he’s kind of new to my work.

Several months later, she and I reconnected. We began talking frequently again, sometimes for hours.

So he’s probably talking on the phone all the time, clearly not following what’s in the book.

She repeatedly told me she didn’t have romantic feelings for her boyfriend and viewed him as a friend and only got with him because he was there for her when she was struggling so hard with her depression.

Well, what about you? You were her boyfriend and so she chose to hang out with this other guy because the parents approve. I would say more than likely what probably happened is when mom and dad said, “We’ll disown you if you don’t stop seeing the 46-year-old,” he probably pursued more, tried to convince her, and he’s seeking her attention validation, which is unattractive. So as she lost interest, he continued to pursue more, she kept fading away, becoming less available and giving him all these excuses about all of her commitments. But the glaring thing that was going on here is she still had plenty of time for the other guy that she was sleeping with her boyfriend. “Oh, but I don’t really care about him.” So she’s just telling him what he wants to hear and he’s buying everything. He’s swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

She also complained to me about behavior from him that concerned her, including repeatedly calling when she didn’t answer, jealousy, and controlling behavior. She told me she missed me, still loved me, felt safe with me, and that I was the person who made her feel normal and happy.

OK well, that sounds wonderful, but yet she can’t seem to find a time to be with him.

We met in person, kissed, and the emotional and sexual connection between us returned. Though she did not leave her boyfriend and told me her heart is confused and she doesn’t know what she wants right now.

She knows she doesn’t want you. That’s the important thing, we have to bottom line, a woman’s actions, not just by everything she says. So if you’re in this position and you recognize that you’re supposed girlfriend was cheating on you with somebody else that you supposedly weren’t, didn’t have to worry about, well she’s obviously a liar and a cheater. We can say, “Oh well, she’s young and immature,” but who cares? She violated the commitment. If he takes her back and marries her and has kids, she’ll just cheat on him again because she got away with it the first time. She’s 20 fucking years old. Why would she think any differently? He would validate the fact that she can get away with being disloyal, and he’s just focused on how much he likes her and is ignoring reality. As Ayn Rand said, “You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”

So again, this is a girl that’s nice to have fun with her. Hang out, have fun, and hook up. Practice safe sex. You don’t want any unexpected pregnancies, especially if you’re a well off dude living in a blue state where the laws are slanted in the woman’s favor.

But as we became closer again, and it started feeling like it did when we were together, we started saying “I love you…”

Probably he started saying it first again.

…After phone calls. She even told her boyfriend that she and I had been intimate, but he refused to leave her.

Because he’s a cuck too. Might as well. You know, you could probably get a two two for one special in the cuck chair. You can give one to her boyfriend and one for yourself.

Then she began to gradually pull back from me.

So again he went right back into pursuing. Which drove her into the arms of the guy he supposedly didn’t have to worry about.

She eventually told me that her feelings for her boyfriend had developed into something real.

Shocking!

I told her I couldn’t compete with another man and needed to let her go.

Which is not very attractive. But again, she’s a fuck buddy, friends with benefits, sex playmate. The way you treat a girl like this is you never call, you never text, you never initiate. If she complains about it, just say, “Look, you were cheating on me. I’m willing to hang out and see what happens, but I can’t promise I’m going to want to get back together with you. I mean, we were talking about marriage and family, and then you just went and started fucking somebody else. Now I can understand your parents are like, ‘We’re gonna disown you.’ But now your father’s passed away, which is awful. But they weren’t supportive of our relationship, so how can I trust you? Why should I give you another chance? Why should I commit to you? I committed to you already and look how you treated me. Why would you honor a commitment a second time around? Why don’t we just be friends with benefits and we’ll just see where it goes? That’s all I can promise. At this point, I can’t offer any more.” And she says, “You never call me,” it’s like, “Well, you were the one that cheated on me and left for another guy. But I’m down to hook up and be friends with benefits and give you a chance and see what happens. But I can’t promise anything.”

Our final exchange was emotional. She told me that what she felt for me was real, that I became very important to her, that I was the first person who treated her with the care, patience, and respect she’d always wanted, and that letting me go was going to hurt her too.

But at the end of the day, she was still willing to let you go. That’s the important thing. Because her interest was low and quite frankly, she has zero integrity.

She also said she’s still conflicted about her feelings and trying to understand her own heart, but she doesn’t want to make me promises about the future.

So he clearly is really doing everything he can to try to get her to commit to him. He’s acting like a woman, and that’s why he’s getting nowhere. But at the end of the day, as soon as she’s unhappy, what happens? She goes and fucks somebody else. So she’s disqualified for being a wife, a baby mama. She can be a fuck buddy, friends with benefits, sex playmate. But that’s it.

I’m respecting her relationship and stepping away rather than waiting in the background. What I’m struggling to understand is why someone can still have strong feelings for an ex, describe that relationship as loving and healthy, yet choose another relationship she previously expressed serious concerns about.

Well, very simple. Women vote with their feet. If they’re with you, it means they voted for you. And in this case, she clearly voted for the other guy.

So again, you need to read 3% Man. If you’re new here, it’s free to read in the Member’s Area of the website, put your first name, your email address, create a password, and the book will open up right in your web browser. So I highly recommend you read it and fill in your knowledge gap, because a lot of light bulbs will go off once you start reading the book and you go, “Ah, now it makes sense.” But at the end of the day, this relationship was doomed. It was never going to work because you were in a relationship with a woman that doesn’t respect it. She’s just not loyal. She’s not faithful. She’s not family oriented. And again, if you take this girl back at some point, say she’s good for a year or two, then you get busy with work, busting your ass, trying to provide for your family. She’ll probably be talking to this guy, or giving out her phone number to other dudes, and they’ll be coming over beating up her pelvis while you’re at work all day, and you won’t even know until maybe ten, 15 years down the road. When you start to realize that some of your young kids don’t really look like you, and then you realize that they’re not actually yours.

From your experience, does this sound like a situation where circumstances, family pressure, familiarity, and timing outweighed the connection…

Uh, interest cuts through everything. Attraction is the only thing that matters, and her attraction for you is clearly lower than her attraction was for the other guy.

…Or am I interpreting her conflicted feelings as more significant than I should?

Bingo! Yeah, you’re buying the load of bullshit that she’s trying to sell you because, quite frankly, she wants to keep you around because she’s young. She doesn’t have any life experience, and her feelings are all over the ice as the other guy acts weak. She probably calls you more and texts you more as the other guy does things right and things go well. You probably hear from her less. That’s why I wouldn’t do anything. I’d still hang out and have fun and hook up with her if you like, but I would just give her a little diatribe that when she wants to be exclusive or talks about it, just say all I can promise is friends with benefits. I would never call. I would never contact her for any reason. She contacts you. You invite her over, hang out, have fun, hook up, and if she comes over three times in a row, then you can meet her out and pick her up and go on other dates if you like. But I wouldn’t get serious with a girl like this because she’s just. She’s not going to be loyal and faithful. She needs to know what it’s like to lose a guy like you. But unfortunately, as you can see, the other guy didn’t care if she cheated on him because he’s young and dumb, doesn’t know any better. And she’s going to be. So what she’s doing, she’s got two men that are teaching her she can fuck whoever she wants and there’s really no consequences. So why would she? And now her father’s not around, so why would she respect any boundaries? She’s just not going to.

And regardless of why she chose him, is complete no-contact and moving on the healthiest course for me now?

Yes. If you hear from her, invite her over. Hang out, have fun, and hook up. Again, if she comes over the next three dates in a row and you hook up all three times, then you can pick her up and meet her out and do those things. But I would really just treat her like a fuck buddy, quite frankly. I’d invite her over and hook up and then if she complains, you never take me out. I would be like, “Well, as far as I know, you’re still seeing the other guy, and I’m not really comfortable going out and dating you after everything has happened. Llike I can offer you friends with benefits for now and we’ll just see how it goes. That’s all I can promise.”

I still love her and want her back, but only if she can freely and completely choose me.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Bob

Well, if you don’t change your game, which clearly is sucks and is subpar because she chose a younger guy over you and you just turned into a total beta male and started jumping through your butt trying to please her. And I can tell by reading your email you still have not read the book yet. So if you don’t read the book, you’re just going to continue making the same mistakes with this girl and any other future woman that you meet that has high interest. But again, this girl’s just a hook up girl sex playmate. And then once she decides to run off with somebody else and she stops calling, it’s like, who cares? So if you’re looking for somebody to have a family with, it’s not her, obviously. So I would just get back out there, start meeting and dating new women, applying what’s in the book and spend a year or two, at least get out of the honeymoon period and see how a woman behaves with you, because this girl is just not loyal to anybody. And now her father’s not around, so it’s like she’s kind of fucked. So you can have fun with her until you find somebody else. But I would never commit to her. And I would always practice safe sex. I wouldn’t be finishing inside her. I wouldn’t be raw dogging it. I’ve done plenty of emails where guys do that anyways, and they get the girl pregnant and they knock up somebody they should have never knocked up, because now you got the next 20 years of your life are intermingled with hers, whether you stay together or not. And this girl is just not going to be loyal to anybody. She’s not a good person.

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