What To Focus On After The Honeymoon Phase Over

What to focus on to maintain the passion after the honeymoon phase is over.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who’s been with his girlfriend for seven months. He feels like he’s coming out of the honeymoon phase and no longer feels the same way. The relationship feels like work sometimes and he doesn’t feel like making the effort. He asks what he should focus on to maintain the passion when he no longer feels like he did before.

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

Hi, I’m Coach Corey Wayne and this is my Video Coaching Newsletter. And the topic of today’s Newsletter is going to be, “What To Focus On After The Honeymoon Phase Over”.

So this particular email is from a viewer who’s been with his girlfriend now just past the seven month mark. And he kind of feels like he’s starting to come out of the honeymoon phase. He definitely realizes he doesn’t feel the same way that he used to. Obviously he’s not affected by infatuation or getting overwhelmed by his feelings.

And so he’s noticed sometimes that it feels like effort and work to continue doing the right things to make his girl laugh and have a good time. In other words, because he’s not trying to get her or win her over or cause her to fall in love. He is out of the infatuation period and now he’s kind of getting used to it. So he’s used to having the hot girl in his life.

And so it’s a little concerning to him. He’s like, “What do I focus on?” Even though internally he’s kind of freaking out about all of this and the way he’s feeling, it’s kind of disconcerting. He’s like, “How do you approach this?” And so the reality is, for most people, 6 to 12 months is usually the honeymoon phase where you’re goo goo gaga over each other and everything’s great and wonderful.

In the beginning of a relationship, we always focus on what we love about the other person, but towards the end of the relationship, we always focus on things we don’t like about the other person. And so once you’re out of the infatuation period, if you’ve made a good choice, you vetted your girl properly. She’s easygoing, easy to get along with.

She’s nice to you, loves her dad, has a good relationship with her parents and her family. And like in this case, this girl has a pretty tight family. She hangs out with her cousins a lot, even though morally her cousins, or some of them are cheating on their girlfriends and kind of laughing about it. But she comes from a pretty tight family, and so he just spent like a week or a weekend with the family.

And oftentimes he just didn’t feel like being there. Go off and wander and do his own things. And so let’s see what he is going through here. Because you’ve got to understand, you’ve got to be disciplined. You’re not always gonna feel like you did in the very beginning of a relationship.

And if you’ve made a good choice, you’re going to continue to be disciplined and contribute and make dates and take the time to open her up even when you don’t feel like it. And it also comes to beating up her pelvis properly when you’ve had it enough, you’re not going to be like rabbits like you were in the beginning. But as a man, statistically, at least 2 to 3 times a week, you need to be laying the pipe properly.

A lot of guys, especially when they’ve been together for years, they get to the point where they’re having sex maybe every two weeks. And when you’re doing that and you only want to have sex when you want to have sex and get a release. And then other than that, you’re kind of neglecting your girl. Eventually she’s gonna resent it and she’s gonna start cutting you off.

So it’s important because this is what you signed up for. You wanted a significant other, now you’re in the relationship. And it’s just like with kids, you know, your kids are going to get on your nerves. And sometimes you’re just like, “Man, I just like some peace and quiet, not be around them. How can I like, have a time out, a dad time out?” You can’t do that when you’re having a kid.

Or when you have kids. You always have to show up for them no matter what. Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when they’re getting on your nerves, even when you just want a break from life. It’s the same thing with your girl. There’s gonna be times she’s feeling rowdy, as the English girls would say, and she’s gonna want to get some. And it’s your job to deliver.

I would never be rejecting your girl, because there’s going to be times where you’re going to want it and you’re gonna want a quickie. And she’s not gonna be feeling it, but because she loves you and she cares about your happiness, she’s gonna want to please you. So it’s important. Because if your girl really likes having sex with you, that really just solves a lot of problems. It really keeps you guys close.

Viewer Email:

Hey Coach,

Hope all is well. You’ve recently discussed my emails, How To Match & Mirror Her Behavior To Maintain Attraction and She Chased, Fell In Love & Wanted A Relationship. Thank you for your advice and I’ve put it into play.

Update:

As the months progress, hitting that seven month mark I can see what you mean when you say when you get past the honey moon stage you start to see the brass tax of things. She’s still chasing me, calling me all the time. Inviting me to come over with family. Coming over and just having trash TV dates while also going out once a week to a nice planned date where I take leadership of.

Yeah, anybody that’s got a girlfriend or wife, especially these days, trash TV, Love Island, all those kind of shitty shows, they love that stuff. If you love sports and she doesn’t, it’s like if you watch her trash TV, she’s got to watch your sports. It’s give and take. You go to a relationship to give even when you don’t feel like it. You have to give. Just like when you’ve got kids, you’ve got to show up.

I am beginning to get into the subtle nuances of being in a relationship.

Yeah. This is the thing with guys that only focus on pick up skills, and casual dating skills. They get really good at that. And then they’re like, “Man, I’ve Jedi mastered 3% Man. I don’t know what he’s talking about 10 to 15 times. That’s absurd.” And then they get to the phase where this guy’s getting. They really need to understand that relationship with them. They never bothered to learn it because they didn’t need it in those early phases. But when they get into a relationship, this is where they really start having trouble.

For example she’s a big family-oriented girl, which you say is a good thing.

Yeah, it’s awesome. I remember my ex-girlfriend that had the daughter that I wrote about in the book, her family was really tight. And she had a handful of friends that she hung out with, but her closest friends were her cousins. And every weekend we were all hanging out. It’s like she had three older brothers. Everybody had kids, wives or girlfriends, and usually we’d be getting together at somebody’s house so all the kids can get together and play and have a good time.

And us adults would do like, you know, one of her brothers lived over in um, was it Malabar? I think it was. And his wife at the time, her family was very wealthy. They had a big ranch and they lived in a big house. Tons of four wheelers and stuff. It was a lot of fun. And they had a skeet shooting range there. So we would do skeet shooting. It was all automated. It would shoot the clay targets off. It was a lot of fun.

And so we would just all hang out and let the kids play together. Family would be hanging out, food, grilling out, drinking, having a good time. And it was just, it was a great life. You know, I didn’t grow up with that. So getting to be a part of that was pretty awesome. Becoming part of the family. I was like, wow, this is just amazing when you see it. Like this is the way it’s supposed to be.

However I never had that so it’s hard for me to understand the dynamics of a healthy core family. She’s super close to her guy cousins. Teasing, hugging, slapping their ass, opening up to them and having fun conversations with.

Yeah, my ex-girlfriend, her brothers, her older brothers, most of them were cops and they get a couple of cocktails in them, and they want to start throwing her to the ground and wrestling because that’s what they did growing up. It’s part of the reason why they became police officers. Dad was a police officer, and, uh, it’s like they were pretty rowdy with each other. Like my ex-girlfriend, she had a, uh. I shouldn’t say that.

I don’t want to reveal that particular thing, but let’s just put it this way. She got shot. One of them shot her with a BB gun, and she still has that mark. That’s how you know, they’re a bunch of hillbillies. Her guy, cousins, even. I’m not telling tell you guys where it was, or what happened, but she’s still got a mark, let’s put it that way. It was kind of cute.

Her guy cousins even telling her their drug, sex stories and how they cheated on their girlfriends. My girlfriend doesn’t do drugs or encourage them to cheat. She tells me that her family isn’t…

Okay. Is there a word that’s not supposed to be there?

She tells me that her family isn’t used to her having a boyfriend and she feels like it’s new too but she’s getting used to it. Sometimes it feels like I’m in a relationship with her whole family.

Yep, that’s how it works. You become part of the family. And even when I see my old ex-girlfriend’s family, it’s like we still tell each other, I love you. And to me, they will always be family. If they ever call, I’ll always pick up the phone and vice versa.

We recently went to Laughlin with 16 of her family members. I was overwhelmed but kept my composure.

Like I remember, we all got together for a Thanksgiving and we met in a park. There was over 100 people there, and they’re all related, and I’d never seen anything like that. It’s like kind of like a potluck. Everybody brings something. And one of her uncles made the most incredible fucking peanut butter pie I’ve ever had in my life. And he would never give me the recipe. Nobody knew it but him. And, uh. God, it was so good.

Never showed my weaknesses like you said, “If it doesn’t help your relationship don’t fucking say it.”

Pretty much. If it’s not gonna make you look more attractive, confident, desirable, keep it to yourself. If you want to bitch about your problems, talk about with your guy friends, your therapist. Don’t dump that shit on your girl. Even if she says she wants you to do it, it’s just gonna turn her off. Especially if you’re struggling and can’t figure it out. That’s going to make her feel unsafe. And then your problems become her problems.

I did realize though that the conversations with her cousins tend to be more natural and fun, she seems more interested in engaging with them.

Well, that’s why you should be hanging out with her parents and everybody else, just getting to know them and shooting the shit. And that’s what I loved about her family. There’s so many cool people, and I just had a blast. She’d go out and be wrestling with her brothers, trying to tackle each other. And, you know, they’re using police skills on her grappling skills. And, uh, it was like, we’re all just laughing, having a good time.

I figured, “well she hasn’t hung out with them like this, so she probably missed them.”

Yeah, you shouldn’t get butt hurt or upset if she goes and does that, and spends more time with them. Or sometimes it’s going to feel like she’d rather talk to them than you. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You’ve got to be okay on your own. You can’t be going there and demanding she stay at your side the whole time. You want to be able to hang out and basically be part of the family.

You’re hanging out with the kids, you’re playing games with the kids. You know, we had the thing was with the cornhole, with the beanbags, stuff like that. They’re driving, they’re a little remote control things around their little battery powered cars. So you’ve got to be able to socialize with other people, not use your girlfriend as like a security blanket because that’s unattractive. If she walks away and you just sit there all by yourself not talking to anybody, then her whole family’s gonna think you’re a fucking weirdo.

So you’ve got to engage with everybody, and you create rapport with all of them just by being inquisitive, asking them questions, get them to talk about the things they enjoy talking about. Usually because so many of her family were in law enforcement, I’d be always hearing these really gory stories that some of them were kind of funny just because, you know, you’ve got to develop that kind of a sense of humor.

Anybody that has family that served in the military, you kind of have a macabre sense of humor because you’re dealing with death and destruction all day. And seeing how the worst people in society actually behave and live. So there’s that.

I figured, “well she hasn’t hung out with them like this, so she probably missed them.” I don’t have to impress her by over talking, but when I felt like I was being ignored or left out, I’d go take a walk around the casino enjoying my time and she would always come look for me and hold my hand.

Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. But again, if you’re at a family function, don’t go sit in the corner by yourself and ignore everybody. Go talk to her parents. Hang out with her mom. See if there’s something you can do. Hang out with the guys around there in the grill or whatever. But obviously, in this case, it seems like they’re at a casino or a vacation, like a Hard Rock or something like that. Or maybe they’re in Vegas. Actually, no, he did say where they went. Laughlin. I don’t know where that is though.

I feel like before, our conversations would be more fun and exciting with her trying to initiate the conversations like she did with her cousins.

So what he noticed is that she seemed to be preoccupied with him. Then he just went and did his own thing. And then after a while, she looks around, she’s like, where’s my boyfriend? And she goes to find him. And that’s the right thing to do. You’ve got to be happy in your own right. You don’t you shouldn’t be looking at your girlfriend as like your emotional support human and somebody that’s supposed to be always at your side.

And the fact that he just went off and did his own thing because he was curious and she came looking for him. That’s exactly what you do. It’s just like the cat. She almost seems like she’s bored with you, but she’s just catching up with family. So go entertain yourself.

But as time passes by, we’re having more “silences” or boring conversations and I tend to be the one who’s asking the questions more to the point where it just feels like an interview whereas before it was more teasing and playful which is her natural state since she said that’s what drew her into me at first. How annoying I was.

Well again, if girl grows up with a bunch of older brothers, she’s used to being teased mercilessly and that’s why it works so well. Breaking a girl’s balls and teasing her. Because again, it’s like the things that her brothers would say to her, and do to her was like, compared to most girls, they wouldn’t be able to handle it. But she was really tough. And all of her brothers and her male cousins were really good with women. They all had hot wives and girlfriends.

You say the goal is to get her to laugh but lately it’s been feeling like work.

Well, that tells me when you start to feel that way, that again, this is why you got to have a well-rounded life. You got to have your own friends, your own hobbies, your own interests. And so when you’re hanging out with your girl and it starts to kind of feel that way, you’ve got to be able to go and do other things. Go have a beer with your dad or your buddies, go to the gym, go for a walk, go for a drive, go do things without her.

Don’t just stand around and expect her to be your endless source of entertainment. Because at the end of the day, when you go to do your other things, it gives her a chance to be away from you and to miss you. And then when you come back, as you’ll see here in a second, it completely changed her attitude.

She was still super affectionate on the trip. Hugging me, telling her family her man was gonna take care of things. Throwing me kisses across the lake. And lovemaking even though she has had surgery recently that stops us from having sex. You can probably tell from the tone of my email that I am coming from a place of insecurity that I don’t make her laugh as much as her cousins or “not being enough”.

Well, I would look at that as that as, “Well, now it’s her cousin’s turn to entertain her”, so that’s a good thing. So that should give you the space and time to go do other things. It’s just like when she says, “I’m going to go to lunch with my mom or my girlfriend’s.” Like, “awesome, babe, have a great time.” And you’re like, yes. You’re like, now you can catch up and do the things you want to do.

Clean out your garage. Hang out with your buddies. This is where guys get themselves into trouble, is they give up all their hobbies, their interests. They stop hanging out with their friends to please the girl. And a girl like this, they grew up in a tight family. She’s going to love you having your own friends and your own hobbies and your own interests. That’s why it’s important if you want a long term relationship, especially if you want to raise kids together.

It’s better to have somebody that comes from a family she loves hanging out with. And at the end of the day, if you’re going to stay with her long term, her family does become your family. Her parents, her cousins all become aunts and uncles and grandparents to your kids. This is part of the vetting process also. Because there’s many times when you’re not around and she’s going to be around them and they’re going to have influence on them.

The weird part is at one point during the trip I was like “fuck it” I’m tired of trying to initiate conversation, she noticed & and she was all over me.

Talking and asking questions. I thought how bizarre. I back off and become calm, and she comes to me asking me questions.

See how that works? It’s a woman’s job to get your attention. And if she’s just spent a lot of time with you and it seems like the kitty cat got a little bored, then again, go do something else. Then after a short period of time, she’ll be coming looking for you. It’s just like the analogy from the book. Like my ex-girlfriend’s daughter, I’d go do something and she’d be playing with her cousins, and 10 or 15 minutes later, she come and sit in my lap and ask me a few questions, want to talk for a bit, get some reassurance, and then she’d go back out and play.

15, 20 minutes later she come back and she’d do the same thing. And women are like that when they grow up, they really love being around you, and it seems like they want to go do their own thing. So you let them go do their own thing and you’re not bothered by it. You’re happy. You’re glad that she went and spent some time with her mother. Because again, when you’re in a relationship, women want your attention all the fucking time. So you want her to go off and do these things and also have a well-rounded life.

She told me that when she’s with her family she likes to put her attention on them, and she knows it’s not the same as when we’re together alone.

You should be okay with that again. You should be excited about it.

I told her it wasn’t a big deal and let’s have fun. I feel like I’m hovering over her starting to wait on her hand and foot, so I am taking a week to re center myself and spend time with friends and family.

Good job. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Because you can’t let the other parts of your life just fucking die on the vine and neglect them. You’ve got to water that part of your garden as well.

She called me after the trip to thank me for coming out and how much she appreciated me and can’t wait to see me again the next weekend.

So now he’s kind of busy and tied up. And guess what? She’s thinking about him every day. And she got used to being around him all the time. And now this week, she’s not seeing him very much. And that’s the kind of thing that makes her worry, gets her little insecure. And so when they get together the next week and she’s going to be all over him like white on rice.

And that she even dreamt of me after our trip about how calm and center I always am. It’s an illusion Coach I’m freaking out.

Well, this is why you fake it until you make it. Don’t let her see you sweat. Don’t let her know that you’re freaking out. Just masculinity is calm, so let her see the calm side, even if you’re freaking out on the inside. And I was early on this as well when I first started dating this particular ex-girlfriend of mine.

But once you get used to being with her, you’re just like a again, you look forward to those times when she’s busy and tied up with other friends and family, because it gives you the opportunity to do the same thing. Two people come together to share their completeness.

My question is, how do I overcome that feeling of not feeling like I’m not funny enough or get more confidence in myself?

Well, you just need plenty of time in with her. You’re doing great. You’re adapting and you’re handling yourself appropriately. You’re recognizing that you spend a lot of time with her, and it kind of will feel at first like she’s taking you for granted, but she’s got to give herself to everybody and her family and spend time with everybody, and you’ve got to let her do it. And you got to do the same thing.

And when you’re not bothered by it, when like in this case, you can just go walk around the casino and just have a blast by himself. Then she comes looking for him. And that’s how it is. But again, he didn’t grow up like this, just like me. He didn’t grow up in a really tight family. So this is kind of thing is unusual for him.

So even though internally he’s kind of freaking out, he’s just got to spend enough time with her and her family and in a relationship with a woman like this to where he just gets used to it, it becomes his new reality. It’s just like when you first start working out. It’s weird, it’s awkward, but when you do it for a while, you get really good at it. Repetition is the mother of skill. Excellence is not a singular act. It is a habit. You are what you do repeatedly.

And so I think you’re doing phenomenal even though you’re freaking out internally. You’ve got to understand I don’t know how old he is, but you spent your whole life being away without having this. So now you’re getting used to it and it feels unusual. I remember just saying, I love you to her and her daughter. It just made me feel weird inside saying that because I just never heard that growing up. Now here I am throwing I love yous around.

Telling her parents, I love you or her brothers are coming up telling me how much they love me and appreciate me. And it was hard to say that I felt weird and awkward. I wasn’t used to it. But again, after several years together, it’s like it becomes like breathing. You don’t really think about it anymore. So you just you just need to keep doing what you’re doing. I think you’re doing amazing.

And lastly shouldn’t the woman be as intrigued in her man as he is or is it the man’s job to do all the questions?

Well, again, when you notice that if you feel like you spend a lot of time together, it’s like you run out of things to talk about sometimes. So you should take that as just feedback like you did that you need to spend some time with some other people. And so when you go and spend time with those other people and do other things, now, you got a lot of stuff that’s happened in your life that she wasn’t privy to.

And so when you do get together now, there’s a lot of stuff that she’s been doing at that time, like, what was she doing? Who were you hanging out with? How was lunch with your mom? How was dinner at your cousin’s house? How was this? How was that? And he got things to talk about because familiarity tends to breed contempt.

And so when you feel the vibe changed, when you feel like she’s not as into you or paying as much attention to you as she was, then go do your own thing and she’ll come find you. Cats always find their way back home. She’ll be back. And when it happens enough, again, you just get used to it. So it took me a couple of years to get used to it. And you’re seven months in, so maybe it takes another year or so. But the good news is you recognize how things were different or they were off.

And because you’ve been a good student, you’re now applying the book properly, the relationship part because you clearly learned enough of it to where you’re doing great. And again, when you’re dating a woman that comes from a tight family like that, they’re pretty easy to get along with and they love and respect their dad, it makes it so effortless. But the more jacked up her upbringing was, the worse her relationship with her parents is, the more problems you’re going to have.

Dating and being in a relationship with women that love their dads it’s like the easy button in life. It’s the cheat code. Why try to fix a broken woman or a woman that came from a shitty environment if she’s not willing to do the work on herself and fix herself? It’s not your job to do that for her.

It feels robotic at times.

Like, yeah, sometimes you’re going to feel like you’re going through the motions, but you’ve got to understand, like Jocko Willink says, “Discipline equals freedom”, and you must be disciplined. You must do these things even when you don’t fucking feel like it. And a lot of times you’re not going to feel like it. Just like working out or eating healthy, or going to work or doing stuff you know you need to do, you’re not going to feel like it.

But when you get used to doing things like the best way to build the muscle of discipline is do more things that you know you need to do, especially when you don’t feel like doing them. And the more you do that, you’ll think about something you’ll recognize you don’t really feel like doing it, but you’re going to do it anyways. Just like Jocko gets up every day, 4:30 a.m. takes a picture of his watch.

Usually you see some sweat on the ground where he’s been working out. He’s just doing it. It’s just he’s always been doing it for decades since he was in the Seal teams. That’s what it takes, man. You’ve got to water your garden, otherwise it withers and dies.

I am working and gonna book a one on one coaching session with the Godfather soon, LOL.

Thank you for reading this and wish you well.

Bob

Well congratulations on your success. I think you’re doing great dude. The important thing is you recognize a vibe shift here. And you realize that what’s the quickest way to get somebody else’s attention? You remove yours. That’s what it means. This is exactly how it plays out in a long term relationship.

Doesn’t mean you don’t see her for six months or two weeks or two months. It just means, well, we spent a shit ton of time together, and I really need to catch up with my friends and my family so she can miss me a little bit. So that’s all you need to do. But you’re doing great and I look forward to a phone session.

And if you or anybody else who is watching this, would like to book a phone session with yours truly, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the coaching tab at the top of your screen on any page, my website and book a coaching session with yours truly.

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