She Wanted To Break Up. I Didn’t. What Can I Do Now?

What you can do if you got dumped & wanted to stay together but she didn’t.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who got dumped by his girlfriend of four years after they moved across the country. He doesn’t say why she dumped him, but he let her go after telling her he didn’t agree. He shares some of the mistakes that he’s aware of.

Now he’s in no-contact and wonders what he can do. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, you never try to keep somebody that doesn’t want to keep you. If your girlfriend wants space, wants to break up, or she wants a break and you don’t want that, you’re going to say, “I’m not interested in that at all. I’m interested if we got an issue, let’s talk and let’s work it out. Just to tap out and say, ‘See you later,’ I’m not going to force you to stay, but if you don’t want to stay, then go. If you want to make things work, let’s make the effort. Let’s talk it out. Let’s see, what’s the issue? What’s bothering you? Why are you feeling this way? What’s led you to conclude that the best solution for our relationship is space, or to break up and talk it out?”

This particular email is from a viewer who got dumped by his girlfriend of four years after they moved across the country. He doesn’t say why she dumped him, but he let her go after telling her he didn’t agree, and he shares some of the mistakes that he’s aware of that he knows he made. So now he’s in no-contact and he wonders what the hell he can do.

Viewer Email:

Hey Corey,

Intro:

I wanted to reach out for some perspective. I recently ended a four-year relationship. I’m 28, she’s 26. We’re both ambitious and doing well in our careers, she’s pursuing a PhD, and I’m in a dual MBA program.

The attraction had always been strong, and she consistently expressed wanting to marry me. If I had to quantify it, she was pursuing me about two-thirds of the time while I was giving maybe one-third. She often initiated the “next-phase” conversations.

Things started to shift when I relocated across the country for my MBA, the same school where she began her PhD. We don’t believe in living together before marriage, so we got separate apartments in the same area.

Yeah, if you’ve been together for four years, it’s pretty normal that you’re going to live together at some point, unless it’s religious obligations or whatever.

I assumed her pressure for marriage might ease up once we were both here, but it actually intensified.

Well, if you’ve been four years with a woman and she’s wanting marriage, family and all those things, and you’re ambiguous and non-committal about that, I mean, women don’t have the time that us guys have. Guys can pretty much have kids and start a family pretty much until we croak. Whereas women, maybe early 40s, mid 40s tops. Once they get into their 40s, that’s really hard to conceive and carry the baby to full term. It does happen. It’s just better for a woman if she has kids when she’s younger.

So a woman who’s focused on that is not going to want to, she’s already spent four years with somebody. If you’re with somebody four years, you should know you’re ready to marry and she should know you’re ready to marry. In other words, you know you want to stay with this person long term or you don’t. You don’t need more time to figure out where you’re at. Usually within six months to a year, you’re going to know, but after four years, you should definitely know.

Again, if a woman’s pressing you on that and you keep giving her vague, non-committal answers, eventually she’s going to tap out because she’s going to realize you’re just not serious. If she’s spent four years going on five years when she’s younger, she’s not going to want to waste another half of a decade while you try to figure it out. It’s like you’re either in or you’re out. You either want it or you don’t.

Looking back, I can see she was looking for me to lead, to set the tone and direction of the relationship with calm masculine clarity. Instead, I was juggling the stress of the move, finances, and my career goals, and I wasn’t stepping into that leadership role. I wasn’t over-pursuing, but I also wasn’t offering the emotional certainty and direction she needed to feel safe.

Ungrounded:

She eventually started feeling unheard and probably feared rejection.

So I assume she was saying, “You’re not listening” and things of that nature, or she’s telling you things or complaining about the same thing over and over, and you would tell her you would address it and then you just never did. So your words and your actions didn’t match. A woman needs to know if you tell her something that she can trust that you’ll follow through with it. If you constantly say one thing and do another, she’s not going to feel safe and she’s not going to trust your masculine core.

I could sense her pulling back, and I’ll admit, my frustration surfaced at times. I may have replayed some old family patterns I thought I’d outgrown.

So it kind of sounds like she was cold, she was distant. Probably you’re getting rejected for sex, and instead of trying to figure out why or opening her up or dating and courting her properly, you got mad and pissed off, and you try to use logic and reason to argue with her and complain that you weren’t getting any. That’s the worst thing you can do.

If a woman feels heard and understood, the legs are going to open. If she doesn’t, the legs are going to close. As you said, she felt unheard. Probably didn’t feel understood either. Therefore ,the legs were closed and you got mad and frustrated that they weren’t open like the 7-Eleven like they used to be.

The breakup happened the day we were supposed to go on a date. By insane coincidence, as she arrived, there had just been a car accident a few blocks away, a car had lost control and crashed into a house. In hindsight, it almost felt like a metaphor for what was unfolding between us, something that started with momentum but veered off course. 

Well, the reality is that veered off course because you just you weren’t leading. The relationship wasn’t progressing. On top of that, as you said, she doesn’t feel heard and understood. So she doesn’t feel heard and understood, you’re going to have communication problems and eventually she’s going to tap out, which is what it sounds like is where it got to.

She told me, “I want to marry you. I don’t want to do this, but we have to break up.”

Well unfortunately, he didn’t really elaborate, but women don’t dump men they’re in love with. They dump men they’ve lost respect and attraction for. So it’s nice that she says she wanted to marry you, but if that were true, she wouldn’t be dumping you. She says she doesn’t want to do this, in other words, what she’s really saying is, “You’re a really great guy,” but it’s kind of like another version of, “You’re a really nice guy, but I just think of you as a friend. You’re a really nice guy, but I don’t feel any chemistry or spark. You’re a really nice guy, but I don’t really see this going anywhere.” In other words, it’s like she got to a point where she realized your goals and your values weren’t aligned. What’s most important is she didn’t feel she wanted to stay with you. That’s the thing.

Women care about how they feel about you more than anything else. In other words, she can say you’re a great guy, she wants to marry you and all that, but at the end of the day, her feelings are not there to where she would actually follow through on it. In other words, intellectually, you’re a great guy on paper. You’d be a great husband to somebody someday. That’s just typically the way they talk. At the end of the day, they don’t feel you’re in the right place to be the kind of guy they’re looking for to settle down, and after four years, things have gotten worse instead of better. So for her, she was ready to tap out because her feelings are gone. That’s the bottom line. If she really was in love with you and wanted to marry you, she wouldn’t have dumped you. That’s what’s confusing for guys like, “You say you want to marry me, but we have to break up. Like, what?”

Now, I don’t know if he asked any questions like, “What do you mean? Why would you say you want to marry me and you don’t want to do this, but we got to break up?” Most guys lock up, and they act like a statue, and they just assume they understand what it meant, even though they walk away from the conversation, scratching their heads and going, “What the fuck just happened?” So at the end of the day, based on her words and her actions, her interest is low. She doesn’t see you as a viable partner long-term, and she dipped, but she’s like, “You’re a great guy.”

I stayed calm, centered, and let her talk. She cried, we laughed, she cried again, I just listened and stayed composed, letting her get everything out. She seemed surprised that it didn’t appear to faze me, but I knew my job in that moment was simply to stay grounded and let her process her emotions.

Well, the idea is you’re trying to understand where she’s coming from and why she wants to break up with you instead of being a statue and just sitting there listening like a lampshade or whatever. So you’re making some assumptions here about what all this means. Like you’re just supposed to sit there and listen to her, but at the end of the day, your girlfriend of four years is saying she doesn’t want to stay with you anymore. The reason why she’s surprised is you’re just like, “OK yeah, whatever.” So she’s like, “You’re not bothered? You’re not going to fight for us? You’re not going to push back?” So to her, it’s like your actions show you really didn’t care and you were OK with it.

Hindsight:

Where I dropped the ball, in hindsight, was not leading the ship when things got uncertain. When her attraction started to dip and her emotional walls went up, I let frustration surface instead of grounding the moment. The truth is, that was on me, I had drifted from my center.

So again, that’s what I was saying earlier. It looks like as she was pulling back, she became less interested in sex and probably was rejecting him. Instead of trying to get to the bottom of things, he got upset and mad at her. Which is again, most guys that don’t know any better when their girlfriend or their wife doesn’t want to sleep with them anymore, they get upset. The reason the legs closed is the woman no longer feels safe. In other words, she doesn’t feel safe that you can lead her, be the man of the household and be a father of your kids that she can count on to do what he says he’s going to do.

So she didn’t feel safe and comfortable. Her interest was low and it’s not so much she didn’t see a future. She didn’t feel there was a future. Since she didn’t feel it, she dipped. That’s the important thing. Again, that’s why she says nice things about you that she wants to marry you and you’re a great guy on paper, “But I’m not feeling it.” That’s what the bottom line boils down to. If you’re not leading like you said you were, you’re not opening her up and you weren’t dating and courting her properly, then when when you were getting rejected for sex, you’re complaining about it, that tells me you don’t understand how attraction works. You got to spend time with the book. That book you don’t read will not help you. I think I have that quote on my website.

I realized I was seeking the physical connection as a way to decompress from the chaos of the move, finances, and career pressure that were hitting all at once.

In other words, he wanted to bust a nut and the legs were closed at this point because he never took the time to date and court her properly and didn’t make her feel heard and understood. On top of that, he was arguing and complaining that he wasn’t getting any pussy.

But because I wasn’t leading from my center, her walls started to go up, and my own frustration and reactivity only amplified that dynamic.

During our conversation, I was not being direct about what I wanted, but rather listening. Perhaps I should’ve calmly told her that I didn’t agree with ending things and that I wanted to continue seeing her, not from a needy place, but with masculine certainty. Instead, I just listened and gave her space to unload. When we parted, I hugged her and hinted that I did not agree with this, but if we have to I can do this, and then parted ways.

She said she couldn’t understand how I seemed so unfazed. I did process my emotion later alone, but I kept my composure with her.

Well again, it just you kind of acted like a robot in the end there and you’re like, “Well, if you don’t want to stick around, OK great. See you later.” You didn’t give her any kind of push-back.

Future:

The next day I went out with friends, had fun, met new women, and reconnected socially. I got a few numbers and ended up spending the night with one of them. It reminded me of my own value and masculine energy. I’m not trying to numb the pain; I know I have to feel it to grow. But I also know life is meant to be lived fully, career, friends, success, laughter, women, all of it.

I agree with that. At the end of the day, if we were to take a step back and look at what led to this, you guys been together for years. It’s clear, by the way you talk and the way you think, that you were not 100% convinced this was the right woman for you. Quite frankly, you weren’t acting like it was. You weren’t treating her like she was that special.

It’s now been a week of no-contact, the longest we’ve gone in four years. Part of me wants to reach out to express that I don’t agree with ending things, since I wasn’t clear about that during our conversation. But another part of me knows I need to stay. 

Well, you did say that you hinted that you didn’t agree with it. I don’t know what you said specifically, you didn’t mention it, but you could call her up and just say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about what you said last week, that I was unfazed. It’s not that I was unfazed. I was kind of in shock and I wanted to stay together, but you’re like, ‘We have to break up.’ You didn’t seem like you were willing to listen to anything I had to say. Anyways, you had your mind made up and it’s like, I’m not going to try to keep you if you don’t want to keep me. If you don’t want to keep doing this, I’m out, but I wanted to call and just let you know that I really want to work things out. If you’re not willing to make the effort, then it really doesn’t matter. Then it means it is over and I’ll wish you the best. If you change your mind, you can reach out. If I’m still available, we can go out on a date, but that’s all I can promise you at this point.” So you could do that.

Again, you were real vague because you said you didn’t say anything about it, but then at the end of that paragraph, you said you hinted that you let her know you didn’t agree with it.

Part of me still feels drawn to rekindle things, but I recognize I need to reset my foundation first, emotionally, financially, and mentally. The move across the country shook me more than I expected, and I see now that I lost a bit of my centered-ness. If I do reconnect, it’ll be from strength, not emotion. Regardless of the outcome, I this will make me a stronger, more grounded person.

I’d appreciate any perspective on how to approach this the 3% way, both in rebuilding myself and handling potential future contact with her.

Thanks for your work, man.

Bob

Well like I said, if you really were vague and didn’t say anything, didn’t make it clear that you didn’t want to break up, then call her up and tell her exactly what I said. You can rewind the video. I’m not going to go through it again, but that’s what I would say to her. She might say, “Well, I don’t know. I got to think about it.” Just say, “Alright well, you think about it and I’m going to proceed as if it’s over. Probably I’m never going to hear from you again. I don’t like the idea of that, but if that’s really how you feel, if after four years you’re willing to let me walk out of your life, then obviously it wasn’t meant to be and there’s really nothing to salvage then. So you got my number, hit me up. If I’m still free, whenever that happens to be, then we can go out on a date. That’s all I can promise at this point.”

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. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.