Have The Relationship You Want

Here’s a comment from Regina – it’s so powerful, I felt so passionate about my answer because it’s so at the core of all women’s problems in love that I’m reprinting it whole and then letting fly:

“Rori, Please HELP. I am so lost and feel so alone. I have been dating Robert for 4 years and you could say we have lived together all this time. We both have our own place, but from the beginning he always wanted me with him. SO I came to his place every day after work and stayed there on weekends. I had a key to his place and he has one to mine. I would get off before him and he wanted me to come on over and make myself at home and wait for him.

He always made sure he was home right after work and we would eat dinner and then he would help with the dishes and then we would sit together and watch tv or a movie. Then we would get up and shower together washing each others backs and making love afterward and then falling asleep in each others arms.

It was the best 4 years of my life and on weekends when he had his kids we spent all the time together like a family. Then a month-and-a-half ago out of the blue he started telling me he was going to go out with some guys from work and then he would come home to me very drunk.

I would try to guilt him into not going. Which just made him mad at me. I know that was wrong. I finally just stopped since it didn’t help and then the parties stopped 4 weeks ago and then I woke up one morning a month ago for work and then he kissed me good bye like always and told me he loved me and would see me tonight for dinner.

Then like clock work he called me around lunch time and while we were talking he just told me he wanted to break up and that he needed space. But he loved me and wanted to keep me in his life as his friend, because he sees me as his best friend.

I was crushed and tried to make him change his mind. It didn’t work. Then a few days later he came by to fix some things he knew needed fixing and we talk and he asks if I was willing to be friends and to be exclusive sexually.

I was desperate not to lose him, so I agreed. And I would see him every other night and he would come by, spend some time watching TV with me, holding me on the couch and kissing me and we would make love and he would stay for an hour or more and then kiss me good bye and go home.

I know he went home because I would drive by and check a little later and also in the morning to make sure there wasn’t anyone else there.

I haven’t found another car there and he is always home. Then the other night I saw him at a going-away party for a friend of ours and we ended up coming back to my place and making love and him sleeping over. I became curious and wondered if there was another woman and looked at his cell phone text messages and calls. ( only friends) He woke up and caught me and was so mad and left.

I haven’t seen him for 3 days. And then I see him at the gym (we work out together once a week) and he showed up because he knew I needed help with the free weights. He played around with me some and gave me a few hugs, but he didn’t try to kiss me like he use to.

Please Rori help me win him back. I know I shouldn’t have invaded his privacy but I was so desperate to know he wasn’t with another woman. I am so scared I lost him for good. Which is hard because I see him at the fire department we both volunteer at twice a week.

I know he loves me because of what we have been through, but my insecurities keep messing things up, because I have been cheated on by an ex-husband and ex-fiance in my past. I desperately want to find a way for him to return and spend a life with him and his children.

Regina”

Regina – you aren’t going to like this.  It’s tough love, so don’t read if you don’t want to hear it.

You’re in a friends with benefits situation, and you’ve been there a long, long time.

The “losing” of him (if you ever actually “had” him, and I don’t believe you did) happened a long time ago.

He’s long gone.

Some men don’t need more than what he has with you right now.  There may not be another woman. There may be many other women.  There may not be another woman for years.  Makes no difference.  He may never be into ANY woman. He may frequent prostitutes for all you know. Every time you sleep with him you are physically endangering yourself (I hope you’re using condoms).

Here’s the Truth: He’s not into you. This is what the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You” is about – and I suggest you see it (perhaps rent it and watch it over and over and over again until you get it the way the characters finally do).

Here’s what I want you to do, and if you decided to read this – I know all the women on this site will help you to stay strong:

1. Drop him out of your life. Completely.  NO CONTACT.

This means – no gym unless you’re sure he’s not there – best thing to do is take a month’s free trial at another gym, perhaps some interesting dance classes, something new, but if you can’t, then make sure you go when he’s NOT going to be there.

Same with the fire department.  Take a month off, or make SURE he’s not going to be there.

Yes – he will complain.

He will show up on your doorstep.  He will call you.  He will try to belittle you, he will call you crazy, he will get angry, he will try to make your life a hell until you start sleeping with him again and being his friend.

You’re going to have to be very, very strong and tell him this:

“I feel so bad, so vulnerable, so lost and sad.  I feel like I haven’t taken care of myself.  I can’t handle seeing you.  It feels too bad.  I can’t be your friend, and I don’t want to be your friend until I no longer feel attached to you.  So please don’t call me again, or come over.”

And if he DOES call, or shows up at your home – I suggest strongly that you hang up the phone, slam the door before he says ANYTHING.  If you need protection, call the police.

Yes – I’m totally serious here.

You are – (and I’m going to start a series about this, because I use this harsh terminology with my clients all the time – it’s very helpful to see it from this perspective) – you are a JUNKIE.

He is like the needle you can’t wait to stick in your arm.

You’re giving him your body, your heart, your friendship.  And for what?  For the thrill he gives you when he’s with you.

Same with heroin.

It makes you high, and then it destroys your life.  But you can’t let go of wanting the “fix.”  He is your “fix.”

Regina – I want you to take a square look at what is really happening here – a “nice and friendly” version of the classic “booty call,” and then, I want you to….

…DATE!

Every single man who even looks at you kindly, I want you to smile back at him.  I want you to take every invitation you get to anywhere.  I want you out of the house and in the company of some man.

I want you to experience what it feels like to be with a man who is not like heroin.  Yeah, maybe a boring man, maybe a quiet man, maybe a not-so-sexy man, maybe a man you can’t or won’t fall in love with.

This man is not toxic in himself.  He may be a very nice man.  But he’s heroin for you.  There is no “easing out of this.”  Cold turkey is your only option here.

Please get started Circular Dating this minute, get a support system in place (blog here night and day if it helps you – we’re here 24/7, and living all over the world on this site), get at least my ebook so you get the basics of what you need to do here.

Now – if he ever should show up and want more than friends with benefits – you can still be easily fooled.  So you have to get yourself in a place where you are dating so many men, you can handle him being one of them, should you so choose.  In my experience – when you get to that point you will no longer be interested in him.

So – this is your plan, should you choose to accept it.

If not – and this is your choice, and a choice I don’t recommend -  you can use as many of my Tools as you can get and practice with this man.  But the first Tool is always around “Boundaries” – and right now, your body and heart must be “off limits” to him.

Regina – if you decide to get on your own side, instead of working against yourself and your life – I KNOW you can do it.  I KNOW you can have what you want.

Your task is to rebuild your self-esteem in the company of men who WANT to be with you, who want to make you happy, who want to give you what YOU want. It’s very difficult to lift yourself up in the company of a man who always makes you feel bad.

What’s going on for you here is something we’ve ALL been through.  And now it’s ENOUGH.  Enough is enough. Save yourself.

We’re all here to support you.

Love, Rori

We said goodbye to our cat Maggie yesterday.  She was way too young at 6 years, she got sick way too suddenly and shockingly and mysteriously, the wheels of diagnostic medicine turned way too slowly, and we were faced with a choice we didn’t want to make way too soon.

Along the way to goodbye, we met an extraordinary vet, felt helpless, hopeful and hopeless all at the same time for weeks, experienced huge emotions and memories coming up from our whole lives, tried to make wise decisions based on little evidence, and saw how differently we all – my husband, our nearly grown daughter and me – experience life, emotions and decisions.

Maggie was my “husband’s” cat, our dog is “my” dog.  And so the decisions were ultimately my husband’s to make.

And our marriage, and our connection, and keeping the important things front-and-center, and our ability to feel and to love and to share and be real with each other and get through together and accept even this tragedy as something to bring us all closer – that all showed up.

There is such a huge difference between feelings and thoughts.  When tragedy and high emotion hits – it’s so clear to see.

Love is always the answer, and yet it’s so much more comfortable to run from it.

There’s love you feel, love you radiate, love you give, love you make a mental decision to bestow, acts of love, things you do that are loving, love you receive…

Some love requires doing something, like taking care for someone or something or especially ourselves.

And some love requires only that we feel.

So – can we “do” love even if we can’t “feel” love?  Can we “feel” love even if we’re paralyzed and can’t “do” love?

Almost all of us have “limits” of what we can feel at any one time without blowing out our circuits – or so we think.

Something that happens right now can trigger a long-ago trauma that would be emotionally nearly unbearable – even though what’s happening right now is very, very bearable – perhaps even an opportunity for “personal growth.”

But the trauma is so intense, we can feel ourselves shut down – like a film goes over our hearts and bodies, like we just fade into the background, everything fades to white…and we cannot feel.  We go numb, right when we most want to feel love or do love.  Right when we want to be here, we go away.

And when you’re saying goodbye to someone you love, the feelings and the traumas and all you want to do and say and change, everything going on in your heart and everything going on in your mind – and everything that seems to be happening inside you like it’s on “automatic pilot,” all the intense pushing from inside you to resist saying goodbye, to change the ending, to alter the universe, to throw the scientific “steps” of grief out the window and create your own new truth…

…it pushes you right up against the one thing that makes the difference in your life, and that’s faith.

I don’t mean religious faith, though that can be wonderful for so many of us, or spiritual faith in a more mystical and new-agey way, or even faith in ourselves and our ability to survive and bounce back and take care and manage and make decisions.

I encourage you to explore and use all of these, as I do, to help you find and practice the bottom line of faith – and that is that you can ACCEPT anything that happens, feel ALL possible and seemingly impossible to bear feelings – and decide to be happy anyway.

Decide that you are important to the world, that you being able to feel, to share your feelings, to feel however you feel at any given moment and still choose happiness over despair for the long haul is important for the world.  It is.

A decision to bring peace, love, and happiness to the table of the world is the right decision.  And the decision has to be made with your mind, first, and then your heart will show you the way…moment by moment.  Right here, right now, this leaf, this flower, this piece of paper, this book, this fluff on the carpet, this sound, this cloud…

Not that you’ll always feel happy, because feelings are always morphing, the “Soup” is always holding all feelings for us to feel. But the “mindset” that whatever happens will not take you down for long will allow you to bounce back up, and then find a new place for yourself at a higher level of happiness.  A higher level of love.

The mindset is that your reason for being here is love – to feel love and to do love and receive love, and that when you get that straight in your mind, and then let your body feel what it feels without restraint – all the bouncing from feeling to feeling and thought to thought and even from intensity to numbness seems – right.

You don’t have to fix it.  You just have to love it.  You don’t have to control it, you just have to love it.

You can look at goodbye in many ways.  Choose the one that feels the most intensely positive for you. Even if you feel foolish choosing a positive, fanciful, spiritual,  imaginative way – choose the one that makes you smile, makes you laugh, makes you lift your chin up and look around.  Choose the one that offers possibilities.

We all want to shut doors and go down dark roads.  It’s how we were brought up.

Change direction.  Even in grief, love speaks loudest.

My loving wishes for you as you say goodbye to old ways of being, to old thoughts that no longer serve you, to people and animals and things that move on in a mysterious way.

Make a faith for yourself that makes it okay.  It’s okay to make it okay. It’s okay to cry and feel anger and still smile at things that catch your eye and remind you of why you’re here.  Love.  Whatever it looks like.

I’ll be here with you, swimming around in my soup, bouncing and crying and smiling, and looking my husband and every one I meet out in the world in the eye while I feel all that. Let’s do this together. Let’s allow our minds, hearts and bodies to open to love. Right here, right now…this leaf…this word…this chaos… this sound, this rain, this breeze, this person…

Love, Rori

Disgusting as it sounds, apparently January is officially “National Break-Up Month.” My friend Eris Huemer (if you have my Interviews With Relationship Experts CD series, you’re listening this month to the great interview I did with her) told me more relationships end over the Holidays than at any other time…and so I asked her to let me publish this as a guest post:

Can I Win Him Back After He Dumped Me – by Eris Huemer…

We have all, at some point and time, experienced a very bad break-up.

Out of the blue he tells you that he doesn’t want to be in the relationship anymore, or that he’s no longer “in love” with you, or he’ll no longer call or text you 10 times a day, or the worst – he’s seeing someone else (or wants to).

Or, even worse you share a mortgage and kids together!

Suddenly, you feel like your life is over and you’ll never find a guy like him again.

You feel helpless and alone.

I get it. I’ve been there!

One of my new clients, Sheri, just emailed me this letter:

“Dear Eris,

I have been dating this guy for the past 4 months. I am totally in love with him. We got along wonderfully, liked the same things, had similar goals and values. We loved to spend time together. He would call me three times a day and texted and e-mailed more. I met his friends and family. He told me that I was the one for him. I felt that he was the one for me. It seemed as if everything was positive with no negatives.

Then, out of the blue, things began to change. He slowed down on the calls. He didn’t want to see me. So, I called him. He informed me that his friends set him up on a date and he realized that he wasn’t ready to settle down. I said, “What about me and us?!” He informed me that he didn’t have feelings for me and he still needed time to explore.

I was (and still am) devastated.I thought that he was the one. This is so hard because my feelings for him won’t go away. I don’t know what to do. I want to be his friend in the hopes that he will come back to me. I want to win him back. I feel like we are meant to be together.

I cry every day. I can’t sleep at night. I’m trying to keep busy but its not working. We still talk once in a while but he doesn’t want to get together. My hurt doesn’t go away. What can I do to get him back to me? Please Help!!!

Love, Sheri”

I totally know how Sherri feels. I have been there. In fact, the man that I thought was my “soul mate”, ended things without a warning. We were planning our future together and I felt in my heart that he was “the one”. Or, so I thought.

He dumped me without a warning. I was devastated. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop crying, and couldn’t manage my life without him.

What was even harder for me to except was the reality was that our relationship was O-V-E-R. He didn’t want to be with me anymore and I had a difficult time understanding why.

That break up was actually what inspired me to write my book

That being said, I suggest to Sheri, and so many other people going through this experience, to write my book Break-Up Emergency, my first step in becoming a relationship expert and helping people heal their broken hearts.

That being said, I suggest to Sheri, and so many other people going through this experience, to not try and win him back. I know how difficult this might be to hear right now – but, the reality is that you are no longer together. All to often when a relationship ends, we dwell on what our ex did, is doing, or how to win them back.

This is NOT a good idea.

For now, I suggest that you erase his number, don’t text, e-mail, IM, drive by his house, show up where he goes, etc. (trust me, I know because I have been there).

During this time of healing your broken heart, you might experience fear, confusion, and intense emotions. I know that I did. If you do, I suggest that you write down or put a voice to whatever you are feeling, figure out what you can do about it, and do it. If you focus on healing your broken heart and set it as your most important intention right now, you will.

If you are meant to be together it will happen – eventually. But, not because you make it happen. (Trust me, there are no magical or manipulative tools that you can use to win him back.) The only thing you can do is take care of YOU, get YOUR power back, and become a strong individual.

Once you heal and become strong within yourself and get a hold of your feminine, you will give yourself the opportunity to attract a man who will give you the love that you want and deserve.

Many times we need to go through difficult experiences in order to change. So, the good news is that your relationship ending does not mean that your life is over. It means that it is about to begin!

Start reflecting on yourself and take an honest look at yourself in the mirror. You can use this Break UP experience and make it a Break THROUGH.

I love Eris, and I think she’s great – and she knows about breakups and how to change your life for the better after one…she’s doing a 6 week teleclass starting January 26th, and I absolutely wanted to let you know about it – she’s going to walk you through Step-By-Step how to heal your broken heart and Transform your Break UP into a Break THROUGH – so you can (like the title of her terrific new book)  go from Break UP to Break THROUGH AND BEYOND.  You can find out more about the teleclass here->

Let me know if you’d like more posts from me around what to do about a breakup – my work is about getting you back on your horse and Circular Dating as quickly as possible – and sometimes you need an extra boost to get your energy away from any one man and back where it belongs – on YOU.

Love, Rori

Here’s a heartbreaking letter from Leslie, who’s suffering the surprise and sudden end of her 6 year relationship:

“Rori, I thought I was in a wonderful relationship with a man I have been with off and on for 6 years. He had given my an engagement ring and we planned to get married next June. We just had a HUGE blow-up and he called it all off.

He says he has “tried” and just doesn’t feel “chemistry” with me and never has. I have been “fooled” by his frequent calls, e-cards, trips to see him, and him telling me he loves me. I love him and felt “chemistry.”

Why couldn’t I see through it all? I am hurting and I want to be strong, but it’s hard. I am a “nice” person, probably too nice. I can see that I have done lots wrong. I was living my dream, not his. Why did he deceive me? Also, what can I do about not drowning in my sorrow? I can’t meet men and I do not want to get on a dating service and meet men who just aren’t interested in a real relationship. I am going to study your e-book now. Thanks, Leslie”

Here’s my answer:

This is a situation so many women have found themselves in – with a man for so long, finally getting the engagement ring and the wedding date, and then having it called off with the reason – “I never felt it for you.”

And Leslie is asking herself every minute of every day why she didn’t see it coming, and what she could possibly have done to cause him “not to feel it for her.”

I can’t know what’s going on in her man’s mind – so I’m going to guess – He didn’t marry her after a year in the relationship because he “wasn’t sure” – and then he just thought she was the greatest – “nice,” good to him, sexy, and so he didn’t want to let her go.  So he held on.  For 6 years.  Until, finally, he couldn’t say no to her anymore, so he signed up for marriage.

Then – a fight gave him the excuse he needed, and although he didn’t want to let her go, he made the choice to do so rather than marry her.

And – though it’s hard to know what kind of Red Flags he might have been waving during the 6 years  (the number one Red Flag being taking him so long to ask her to marry him) – it might have been IMPOSSIBLE for Linda to see them, because the level of emotional connection cannot have been deep enough for her to FEEL it.

The first question to ask is about the “big blowup.” If continual “blowups” are the main way anger gets resolved in your relationship – then your communication is not helping you.

No matter how bad a “fight” is, though – it would never break a relationship unless it was already nearly over.

And attempting to “avoid” fights by always deferring to him, or stuffing your feelings, or never, ever speaking up on your own behalf – will push a man away even FASTER than a fight will.

The way to go here, and what you can learn, Leslie, by – yes – DATING men (even men who aren’t serious about a relationship so that you can PRACTICE working with my Tools with them), is how to EXPRESS your anger, fear, distress, upset and pain in an emotional way that will actually BRING a man CLOSER – instead of making him want to run away.

Learning how to communicate in this way ALL the time will absolutely INSURE that your relationship will get deeper and stronger instead of just fizzle out the way yours did.

My heart goes out to you – and I hope you will start dating, just for the experience, and let me know how you’re doing.

Love, Rori