Title:Baggage Reclaim - The Dating & Relationship blog | relationship advice | emotional unavailability | commitment | self-esteem | dating advice | communication in relationships | being the other woman
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Keywords:assclowns,beliefs in relationships,betting on potential,boundaries in relationships,cheating – infidelity,communication,communication in relationships,compatibility in relationships,compromising in relationships,dating a separated man,emotional unavailability,emotionally unavailable men,exception,fairy tales,illusions in relationships,interpersonal relationships,love and relationships,lovenomics,loving yourself,married men,personal values,questions to ask men when dating,red flags,self-esteem,separated men,cheating - infidelity
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Baggage Reclaim - The Dating Relationship blog | relationship advice | emotional unavailability | commitment | self-esteem | dating advice | communication in relationships | being the other woman
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Love Lessons: When You Can #8217;t or Won #8217;t Ask Questions When Dating (P4) #8211; Getting To The Answers
by NML on June 16, 2010
New here? Subscribe to my RSS feed or via email. Or follow viaFacebook or Twitter. Also check out my ebooks - The No Contact Ruleand Mr Unavailable The Fallback Girl.I #8217;ve had a lot of emails and comments over the past few days regarding what questions you should be asking boyfriends etc. Putting aside the concern that you don #8217;t know what to ask, the simple answer to that question is this:
I can #8217;t tell you all the questions that you need to be asking in your relationship because every relationship is different. There are of course, basic things that you should know, but after that, questioning people you #8217;re involved with boils down to:
1) Clarifying information that they have shared with you.
2) Filling in gaps in knowledge where there are question marks in your relationship.
3) Finding out what you want to know.
Any and all questions you ask in your relationship, should answer the following key questions for you:
Do we share common primary values? [This means you need to know what is important to you and ensure that they are of prime importance to them]
Am I able to be myself and love and live with my boundaries? [Generally, you can tell this through their actions and your reactions. Also if them saying or doing something changes this ability - it's a red flag]
Do I love, care, trust, and respect this person and am I able to act with love, care, trust, and respect towards myself? [Ditto]
Have I learned information about this person that has me hoping he will change? [Any information you have found out, have you accepted the information? Or have you rejected it and replaced it with hopes of change(Florence Nightingale and control issues)? No amount of questioning will get that hope confirmed - accept as is and decide if you can exist in the relationship with them.]
Do I like how he/she treats others? [Find out about his friendships, colleagues, family, exes - don't interrogate. You should find out this information because you witness it or it comes up in conversation, however if it doesn't - ask.]
Do I enjoy my relationship with this person? [Only you can answer this question]
Is what I want from this relationship what this person is actually capable of giving, not based on who I think they are, or who I #8217;d like them to be, but based on who they consistently are now? [If it's no, you've got issues]
Do I feel safe with this person? [The answer to this lies in listening to yourself, the answers that they give, and the experiences that you have with them and factoring it all in to the big picture of your relationship.]
Why do I want to be in this relationship? [Only you can answer this question ]
If you are not able to answer these questions or the answers throw up red flags, you either need to ask more questions and get the clarification and answers you need, or it #8217;s time to get out.
If you don #8217;t know them well enough to know the answer to these questions because you are dating, this is what dating is for #8211; the discovery and fact finding phase.
It #8217;s all very well finding out his favourite colour, your shared interests, how great he is in bed, or how much #8216;chemistry #8217; you think you both have, but do not make assumptions based off secondary values and assume that everything else will correlate.
Before you decide that you commit yourself, make sure you know the answer to these questions because if you commit before, you will love and trust blindly without basis.
Clarifying, filling in gaps of information, and getting answers comes down to reframing something that they tell you and inserting a question, asking what something means, and taking the piece of information you want to know, and asking them. That and using your powers of observation and awareness of red flags, boundaries, and values to judge the situation and their actions.
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Love Lessons: When You Can #8217;t or Won #8217;t Ask Questions When Dating (P3) #8211; Communication is Not All Verbal
by NML on June 14, 2010
Over the past couple of posts (part one and part two) I #8217;ve been talking about when you #8217;re involved with someone who you don #8217;t feel that you can ask questions of, or when you do, you get met with lies, a brick wall of silence, aggression, or passive aggressive behaviour. In the last post I focused on two key questions that you should know the answer to:
Do you have a girlfriend/wife/separated wife?
Are you interested in having a committed relationship (with me)?
The first question is about confirming that the person is actually in a position to be involving themselves with you in the first place, with the answer, if it #8217;s negative acting as a major red flag and a signal to abort the mission. The latter question, while some may consider it a difficult one, is about getting a level of clarification about where they are at emotionally and in terms of what they want out of life so that you can decide if this is something that you want to be involved in.
There is a reason why I make a point of saying #8216;a level of clarification #8217; #8211; for a relationship to progress and for you to feel that you can have mutually love, care, trust, and respect, there must be action.
This means that you must not go into simple mode and assume that if someone says something that it makes it so, because whatever they have said only means something if it is backed up with action.
The answers to your questions take on meaning based on the action around them. If the persons actions match their words, then you are with someone with integrity who is acting in line with themselves and being authentic.
If the words don #8217;t match the actions and in fact contradict them or throw up even more questions, it is a glaring red flag that you are not able to trust in what they say so you must base assumptions you make about them on their actions.
I get women explaining to me that they do ask questions but that their guy lies and he can #8217;t be trusted so they can #8217;t be sure of the answer. That #8217;s not true #8211; you have the answer.
Make sure you look at the bigger picture and don #8217;t get lost in chasing the answer to one question or a few questions #8211; if someone cannot be trusted to tell you the truth, has told lies and has been caught out on it, and still leaves questions over whether they are telling you the truth, it means that they cannot be trusted. Either they are untrustworthy or you don #8217;t trust them but either way it adds up to the same thing #8211; a relationship that cannot work.
Suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine that you are sitting at a table in an examination room and you have to make a judgement on your situation based on the information that you possess right now. What would you write down on the paper?
If you ask a question of the man you are dating or in a relationship with, and you get lies, aggression, follow up passive agression, silence, or a sustained period of The Dripfeed Manouver (when someone feeds you the truth a drip at a time), the answer is get out of the relationship.
Stop being an investigator and use the intelligence and common sense that you would apply outside your relationship inside your relationship.
You #8217;re in search of 100% definitive answers ideally being said to you in the way that you want it to be said. Just like how someone doesn #8217;t have to say that #8216;I want out of the relationship #8217; to communicate that they want out of it, you must remember a fundamental thing about communication that will save you throwing away your life being the bounty answer hunter:
Communication is not all verbal.
It #8217;s what you say, but also what goes unsaid. It #8217;s what you do, but also what doesn #8217;t get done. This means you must take in both visual and verbal cues and make a judgement instead of relying on words.
Actions speak louder than words.
People who don #8217;t tell the frickin truth are all about taking advantage of the reliance of people on words instead of actions.
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Love Lessons: When You Can #8217;t or Won #8217;t Ask Questions When Dating (P2) Do You Have a Girlfriend/Wife?
by NML on June 11, 2010
I n part one I talked about the tricky issue of when you can #8217;t or won #8217;t ask questions of men that you #8217;re dating or in a relationship with. Aside from us actually possessing most of the answers to our questions if we #8217;re prepared to open our eyes and listen while working out where there is a disparity between actions and words, there is an avoidance of hearing information that may cause us to have to either ask more questions, recognise the reality of a situation, or opt out.
We don #8217;t ask questions because we want to keep living the dream, we #8217;re afraid of what we might hear, we #8217;re afraid of quiet truths being confirmed, we fear conflict and change, plus we hear but don #8217;t listen and have a habit of hinting and being indirect.
A relationship with too many questions, not enough answers, and a fear of asking questions and/or a fear of getting the answers, is a very unhealthy, illusionary relationship.
One of the first things I #8217;m always asked when I speak with people who have questions but no answers or who don #8217;t question things anyway is #8216;But how do I ask questions? #8217; or #8216;What questions should I be asking? #8217; which is worrying in itself.
The reason why we get involved and stay involved with assclowns and Mr Unavailables is because we don #8217;t ask any or enough questions or when we do receive information that should impact on our decision to stay or alter our perception of them or the relationship, we don #8217;t do anything with the information.
You #8217;re likely taking up one of two roles although some people straddle the fence of both:
The Ostrich #8211; Head.In.Sand. You may not ask any questions or be someone with Women Who Talk and Think Too Much, but you just won #8217;t hear or see information and will blatantly ignore what has been said, decide you know better, or continue to stay invested.
The Investigator #8211; Some of you have thinking and investigative powers to rival a CSI, detective, or FBI agent. Trouble is, you #8217;re applying your resources to the wrong areas and you don #8217;t process your evidence and draw a conclusion. You #8217;re like a CSI who has questioned the suspect, gathered the evidence, and put it all together #8230;and then decides to go back out there and ask more questions because you haven #8217;t heard the answer you want to hear.
If you actually want to know who you #8217;re with, what you #8217;re involved in, and actually be in reality, it is time to learn how to ask questions, probe further, but also do something with the information.
If you fear losing someone because you want to ask a question, the relationship is doomed because you are associating loss with truth. You #8217;ll perpetuate that fear of loss by doing things that keep out #8216;threats #8217; to the relationship and illusion, and in this case it means ignoring, shutting out, redressing and sugar coating the truth.
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Mr Unavailable #038; The Fallback Girl #8211; Get 20% Off Before The Price Increase
by NML on June 11, 2010
In a rather long overdue move, I will finally be putting up the price of Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, my ebook on emotionally unavailable men and the women that they default to or #8216;fallback #8217; on for a shag, an ego stroke, a shoulder to lean on while becoming the man of diminishing returns.
The price will go up on Monday (it #8217;s currently £12.50 which is around US$18.38 or euro 15.19 #8211; currency automatically converts at the checkout ) and until midnight on Sunday ( I get confused with the systems timing but I think it #8217;s West Coast USA timing so European readers etc will still get the offer for part of Monday), you can also use the code IAMNOTANOPTION to get an additional 20% off. After that the price will go up.
I have received a tonne of mail over the last few months with some great words of praise for it #8211; thank you! Here are a small selection #8230;
I would just like to give you some feedback.. OMG OMG OMG.. I CAN #8217;T stop reading the ebook, especially the chapter on the other woman (OW). I have been the OW for around 8 weeks #8230; I saw the red flags before I down loaded your book, but now it is even MORE clear that he is a ASSCLOWN. Love your work. #8211; Donna
You have done an incredible job of so clearly deconstructing the games played by the Mr Unavailable but more importantly, my epiphany moments of personal clarity and seeing the WHY of why I signed up for those games has done more for me than getting inside his head. Victoria, Arizona USA
First off all let me express my admiration of your power of convincing and also of the your skills for the very profound analysis. I red a lot of books on this subject. And very honestly found them quite primitive. I usually do not find something that can give me the elements for the prospectives. This is really first time I am so impressed and even beside the fact that it helps me emotionally and making decision, but I really enjoy it intellectually. Thank you so much! It is really a breath of the fresh air. #8211; Francine, Canada
I am an ex journalist and have worked for major newspapers and magazines, and, since reading, or rather sobbing my way through BOTH of your impressively insightful books, have come to the conclusion that I am a textbook Fallback girl with the emotional intelligence of an ant! #8211; Karen, UK
Thank you this is the best thing I #8217;ve ever purchased. It has given me alot of insight about myself. Thank you very much! #8211; Janet
I am (finally) getting some help in (my little sis is coming to work/intern for me) now that she #8217;s graduated and looking for a job which means I can actually get some work done and I will be sharing lots more snippets from readers #8211; thanks for your support #8211; it means a hell of a lot!
Oh and did I mention that Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is going to be available on the Kindle? It #8217;s actually on Amazon already but need to do some tweaks #8230;
Have a great weekend! Nat x
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Love Lessons: When You Can #8217;t or Won #8217;t Ask Questions of the Man You #8217;re Dating/in a Relationship With (P1)
by NML on June 9, 2010
Following on from love lessons about getting the relationship you expect, not every man is worth keeping, and trying to get men to be the exception, here is another (rather big) love lesson:
A relationship with too many questions, not enough answers, and a fear of asking questions and/or a fear of getting the answers, is a very unhealthy, illusionary relationship.
When your relationship has question marks all over it and they #8217;re not being answered, and are possibly multiplying and you #8217;re burning up brain energy wondering what #8216;this #8217; all means, it is a red flag #8211; either your mind is working overtime and you #8217;re dramatising your relationship or the person is doing things that cause you to question who they are and what you #8217;re involved in. Either way, questions are not being answered.
I dated a guy several years ago who ended up being my epiphany guy/relationship because I looked at myself and my love habits in a totally different way that made me face my own contribution and it became nigh on impossible to go back to the Me Before Him. In our barely there relationship of five months, I didn #8217;t know where I stood with him. He #8217;d pursued me, texting, emailing, phoning, and wanting to spend time together and within two weeks of finally #8216;getting #8217; me, he started to veer between warm, lukewarm, and cold. I wondered:
What #8217;s going on with him?
Why isn #8217;t he calling/texting/emailing like he used to?
Is he not over his ex?
How does he #8217;see #8217; us?
Are we in a relationship?
Until I told him to take a run and jump, I did not directly ask him any of these questions and I barely asked them indirectly. I cracked jokes, used sarcasm, dropped barely recognisable hints, and avoided being #8216;needy #8217; or asking #8216;difficult #8217; questions for fear of either scaring him off or me asking him for the status of something that I wasn #8217;t even sure I wanted #8211; yes, I was a walking conflict of interest with commitment issues.
There are two things (of many) that I can teach you that are unavoidable facts about relationships:
1) Often, you actually hold the answers to all (or most) of the questions that you have about your relationship and/or him without having to ask the guy a thing.
If you have your eyes open, your feet in reality, the fur coat of denial and the rose tinted glasses removed, plus use of instincts, gut, judgement and awareness of your boundaries, red flags, and matching actions with words, you have all the answers #8211; you just need to process the evidence.
2) If you can #8217;t or won #8217;t ask questions of the person that you #8217;re in a relationship with or are dating, you are sealing the demise of the relationship and setting an unpleasant tone.
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