Since I started teaching pickup over four and a half years ago i’ve seen a very common pattern in men’s behavior that causes inevitable relationship demise, and it sickens me everytime I hear it.  In fact, the problem i’m about to describe is so common, i’d say it’s in the top 5 causes of broken long-term relationships, if not number one.  Just two days ago I had a friend contact me through facebook and tell me his story, and lately he hasn’t been the only one.  Because this is affecting people very close to me and close to you, i’ve decided to address it here.

The pattern is this:  A guy is in a relationship with a girl for a long time, usually around 3-5 years.   He finds out that the girl has been cheating on him, sometimes only “emotionally” and sometimes physically as well.  The guy finds out and freaks out, and the girl often “needs some space” or needs “to figure things out” and decides to sleep somewhere else like her parents house for awhile.  The guy continues texting/calling incessantly, and the girl dumps him.  Sound familiar?  Well even if it doesn’t, then read on!  Cause if it’s not yet, then it might be before you know it, and even if it’s not you with the problem, someone in your life will likely need the following help…

Okay, so you understand the scenario?  If not, see the paragraph you just read.

I’m not gonna fuck around, here’s what happened.  This girl left this guy due to HIS actions.  That’s right, she’s not to blame, well not entirely.  It’s in a woman’s instinct to gain compliance from her man.  She’ll try anyway she can to gain more and more of it until eternity, and for what reason she knows not.

Women will try to gain compliance from their men in as many ways as you can imagine.  Some will ask for it directly, some indirectly, some will subcommunicate it (Baby aren’t those shoes cute?  *hint* *hint*), and some will get mad or throw fits to get it.  Basically what i’m saying is that women will act like children to get their way.  They’ll just keep trying things until they find a way to get the compliance they want.

Now… what happens when a girl gets “all” the compliance from her man?  You guessed it, she gets BORED.  So what does it look like when a guy gives all possible compliance to his woman?  Well, for starters he’ll probably tell you straight up that he (and I quote) “treats her really well and gives her anything she wants.”  It’s as simple as that.  This guy has a core belief that the way to get women is to give them whatever they want.  That belief couldn’t be more wrong.

All a woman will do in a situation where she has total compliance is take, take, take until she’s taken it all and she gets bored.  Furthermore, throughout that process she’ll use things like getting angry, emotional, etc in order to get those things and to get her way.  That makes the guy (who is simply along for the ride with his dominant female) live a life that’s a living hell until they break up.  His basic day is wake up, try not to piss off the girl, oops she’s pissed, what can I do to get her unpissed off, okay do that.  He is BLIND to what’s really going on, and 100 times out of 100 he will lose the girl.

 In addition to all of that, this guy has a high opportunity cost (all the girls he could have banged and all the healthy relationship time he could have spent with another girl).  Got it?  Dude gives up too much compliance and gets run over by his girl, his life sucks while he’s doing it, sucks worse after it’s all done, and then he ends up in the self-esteem crack-addict alleyway behind a porno store banging whatever fat chicks are left at 2:30am on the street or want match.com dates with no sex till like the eleventieth date.  Not fun.

So before I tell you the solution to all of this mess, I wanna address the common questions a guy like this has right as the shit is hitting the fan and he wakes up as he’s about to lose his relationship.  They are as follows:

1.  “Should I go over and kill the dude who she’s cheating on me with?”

No.  He’s just another dude trying to scrounge up some pussy from wherever possible.  You’d try and fuck your girl too, just like he’s trying to.  The problem is not him, it’s you, the way you’ve been handling your woman, and the core beliefs you have that govern your day to day decisions.  And some laziness in there too.

2.   Is it over, or can I get her back/not lose her?

If it’s not totally over yet and you’re still not broken up, all that you can do is IMMEDIATELY do your best to change your beliefs and your thought processes so that you can take correct action.  THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN ALONE!!!  I can’t stress this enough.  It’s as simple as this.  If you do not contact someone who has dealt with this many times in the past, you WILL lose her 100% of the time.  The fact is, that you got to the the place you’re in because of years of incorrect beliefs and action upon those beliefs, and this type of thing cannot be changed overnight.  For these reasons I recommend you seek Brad, Glenn or myself (and only us).  If you do this, we can maximize your chances at getting this girl back.

3.  How can I get her back?  What would you tell me?

I’ll tell you this, but if you’re in this place then the following advice still won’t help you much.  You’ll fuck it up if you don’t have your hand held through it.  I’m not trying to be a dick, it’s just that i’ve attempted to help several guys through this process and across the board they all are in such a bad mental place that the temptation to do something terribly transparent and ill-thought out is epic.  It’s simply impossible for them to do it, and they all end up saying something to me like “Well, I didn’t do what you said and instead I did X and I think I fucked it up for good.”  Just stating the facts here.  It sucks but it’s true.

So… that said, here’s the path out of the mess you’re in.

First and foremost, your favorite words in the world are now the words calm, assertive, and unreactive. Anytime you’re faced with a decision about what to do, the correct action will be whatever action you can take that’s calm, assertive, and unreactive.  Furthermore, you should try and make sure that the action you take isn’t a transparent action designed to incite jealousy and that your action can’t be perceived by the girl as a bitter action.  Got it?

Let me give you an example.  Your chick leaves and says that she needs some space, and then she texts you for the first time three days later and says “I don’t appreciate you telling people our business.”

What do you do?  Do you:

A.  Text her “What are you talking about?  I didn’t say anything to anyone.”

B.  Wait a couple hours then text back

C.  Dead air her (don’t text back at all)

I would choose option C.  Remember, the idea behind all of this is to create a sense in the girl that she just doesn’t know where you’re at with the situation and what you’re thinking, because when our actions cause a girl to be uninformed and possibly a bit confused without telegraphing any bitterness to her, she’ll naturally start to question if she has done the right thing in leaving and acting the way she has.  This is the first step to regaining dominance.

 I wouldn’t choose “A” because it’s a reactive thing to say, and when you’re on the defensive you’re in a submissive position waiting on her to dictate where the relationship will go.  Also, generally when “teaching” girls how to act around me, I don’t like to reward malicious or negative actions from a girl with attention.  When a girl does something I like, I reward her with my attention and time, and when she does something I don’t like I take away that same attention.  Got it!?!  Attention is the currency women are after.

Once the girl is re-examining herself and her actions (usually takes 5-7 days of laying low and taking correct, well thought-out action to make this happen), soon her curiosity will cause her to seek to reconnect with the guy so that she can try and get a grasp on his mental state (because we’ve created this need in her through lack of information).  To try and assess her man’s thoughts, she will often text him about something plutonic in nature, like the logistics of getting something out of your place, something to do with her or your kids, etc.  It won’t be about the relationship yet.  It’s important to understand that when she texts, really she doesn’t give a shit about the thing she texted about.  Instead, she’s looking for a read on what kind of energy her man displays through his response so that she can gauge where he’s at and what her next action will be.  And her next action will be based purely on the emotions she experiences through that exchange of energy.  

Again i’ll give you a real-life example.  On the 5th day after leaving a close friend of mine and having an “emotional” affair (and possibly physical as well) and asking for space, his girlfriend texted him:

Her:  “Hannah (her daughter, not his.  Name changed for privacy) will be in and out of the house today.  She is hanging out with friends.”

Can you see how non-relevant this is to anything?  It’s simply a logistical detail about normal day-to-day goings on around the house.  What would you say to this text?  

This is a tricky, tricky text, and a great example for that reason.  If you’ve been reading up to this point and you’ve got the idea that when you’re in this situation the correct answer is always just not to text the girl, you’re dead wrong.  In this situation, not texting back would telegraph bitterness to this girl, and she would shortly after know exactly where you’re at with her.  You’ll appear bitter, angry, frustrated, and upset.  It’ll likely cause you to lose her.

Instead, the correct play here is to act calm and not bring anything about your relationship or your emotions into this texting exchange.  This will demonstrate to her that you’re in an unaffected state, not an angry bitter one.  She will see and feel this from you and it will confuse the shit out of her.  She’ll think about it non-stop and it’ll cause her to again question what you’re thinking.

I would wait a half hour (to not demonstrate neediness) then text her exactly this:

You:  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

Cordial, yet dismissive.  Wait though!  How could you be angry and bitter if you’re thanking her?  Something is amiss.

In this real-life example, this caused the girl to text the following morning first thing.  She texted:

Her:  Are you available tomorrow to talk?  I know you’ve been telling people we are over so i’m not sure you even want to talk.  Let me know.

Nice result!  Now just 4 days after this girl leaving the house and “needing space” she’s nicely asking if he’s available to talk, and she’s confused about what the situation is and saying “let me know.”  Now to the untrained eye this might not look so good yet, but this is a total 180 from her dominant behavior 4 days previously.  This behavior is so out of the ordinary for her, in fact, that the guy I was helping texted me “dude you’re a fucking genius” immediately after this happened.

Also note at the end of the conversation that she’s saying “let me know.”  This is also a 180 turn-around from 4 days previous when she was saying “i’ll let you know.”  Can you see the shift in dominance? It’s subtle, but to me it looks like Evel Kneivel just jumped the Grand Canyon.  This is a great step, but I still don’t want to play all of our cards yet and i’d like to both give her another day to be confused about what’s going on and also have that day to train my friend on what he’s going to say during “the talk” that he’s inevitably going to have with her, likely very soon now.  So next I have him text her:

Him:  Tomorrow doesn’t work for me.  

The idea with this text is to make her have to say something like “Well when does?”  and when she is forced to write something like this back to him, she further takes on a more submissive role, now being at the mercy of his decisions.  As expected, she writes him:

Her:  What day does?

Nice.  Now we send her:

Him:  Still giving this some thought, let me get back to you on that.

Now we’ve officially turned the tables.  She’s gone from telling him she needs space and making him wait for her decision to her wondering about him and waiting for him to decide what’s going to happen.  Note also on this previous text the precise wording.  The word “this” can possibly mean either the situation they’re in with the relationship, or possibly it could mean he’s thinking about when he can meet up.  She won’t know until he just doesn’t text back that day, and only then will she realize it’s the former.

Now for the meat and potatoes.

4.  What do I say when we have our talk?  

There are a couple different ways to view what’s going on in this relationship and how to view the cheating by the girl.  I like to look at them from the perspective of whether or not the man feels empowered or disempowered by the events.  Obviously, the normal guy in this situation feels completely disempowered.  He doesn’t know what happened with his girl, he feels hopelessly lost in understanding why she would cheat on him, and he feels a barrage of emotions that seem to have just happened to him.  His unawareness of the reality of what’s going on leaves him simply with fear that he’ll lose his girl, and that fear in-turn causes him to have needy, desperate, angry, bitter emotions.  All or any of those emotions, if acted on, will cause him to lose the girl, and this is why it’s so hugely difficult to get him out of this situation.  And that’s where I come in.

Here’s how I view this situation.  I think that it sucks that he has done such a poor job with this girl, but the reality is that she could have talked to him about her emotions instead of just seeking fulfillment outside of the relationship.  Usually in a situation where you’ve got to have a difficult conversation with a woman, the best thing to do is first communicate your awareness of the situation by objectively labeling what has happened.  From there… With all of this in mind, i’d probably tell her something like this:

So here’s the deal.  Immediately when I found out that you were cheating on me or whatever, I got really angry and I was frustrated with you and I felt a bit helpless about the whole situation and unaware about what was happening.  I blamed you for everything until I thought a little bit about why this would happen and I realized that you’re probably feeling a bit bored of me and of our relationship on the whole.  Is that fair to say?

I mean let’s be honest here, I’ve given you most everything you’ve wanted in our relationship including this $10,000 ring that i guess i’m gonna have to try and trade at the pawn shop now for some boating equipment or something (this guy likes boats and stuff).  The reality of all this though is that when you ask for something like this and you push for things all the time, there are lots of times I don’t want to give them to you, but because i’m lazy and you get mad it seems to be the best option for me to give you what you want so I can just get you to quit being mad and get the situation over with and I can relax.  When I do this over and over I think it’s probably easy to start losing respect for me and taking these things I do for granted, and it’s a shame that that’s the way it has worked out with us, because I don’t view myself as a pushover and I never have.  I realize now that it’s a better decision in those moments for me to talk with you and really tell you what I think instead of just letting you get your way all the time.

So I get it.  I haven’t been the best boyfriend and i’ve done some things that probably make you feel bored a lot with me and it’s not so exciting.  I can handle that and I take full blame for it and for being in the wrong.  However… when this all happened, instead of having a girlfriend who comes to me when things get tough and talks it out, instead i’ve got a girlfriend who when faced with a tough situation I know will abandon me and our relationship.  So now i’m in a situation where i’m forced to decide if I want to leave a girl i’ve been with 5 years and have feelings for, or if I want to stay with a girl who I definitely know will choose against the relationship when times are tough knowing that even if I stay there’s some damage that’s been done that isn’t going to just go away overnight.

So what am I supposed to decide?  Well I guess I really don’t know what I want to do honestly.  I figured I would just talk to you and tell you how I feel, cause I obviously haven’t been doing that really well lately, but right now I really don’t know if I even want to continue this…

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Are you still with me here?  Congratulate yourself for getting this far, cause if you’ve been paying attention to this and thinking it through as you go, then you’ve probably ran through a bunch of things in your head and as a result have learned quite a bit.  The long and short of it is that most every guy is vulnerable over the long term to some slippage in the dominance department, even one who starts his relationship from a healthy place.  If you’re a guy who has had or is in the middle of a situation like this, then you know first hand how difficult of a situation it can be, and how it’s even more difficult to keep your relationship in circumstances such as these.  The guy i’ve used as an example above is the first who has been able to take direction from me throughout this process and follow my instructions to a tee.  After having the above talk, his fiance told him that she had been looking for a new apartment and was going to cancel her appointments for the next day in lieu of their conversation.  She also told him that she was AMAZED at how aware he had become of the situation and asked him how it happened.  He told her he had sought out professional counseling (me, haha) and she commended him on his resolve during hard times.  

Will the relationship work out?  That i’m not sure of yet because this story is still in progress, and i’ll be sure to update this as I find out more.  One things for sure though, he has learned a lot through this process and regardless of the outcome will be a better man for putting in the time and effort to learn about what has happened.  If you or anyone you know would like to learn more about this or have my personal help dealing with these types of issues, please feel free to contact Drew at (702) 516-8879 or email customerservice@bradp.com and he can set you up with a phone consultation with me or even a live recorded training of this information from last week’s theory session with the pickup mansion students.  Until next time!