Watch the subtitled video above if you prefer to listen to my advice.
Today we’re gonna talk about when you screwed up with a woman. So it’s typically the small details that matter. Whether you’re trying to get an ex back, or maybe you’re just very new with dating a woman, or you’ve been in a relationship for a long time, the small details do matter.
I have a situation from a guy, he has been talking to a girl for three months, or he’s been dating her for three months, and he did something wrong and he thinks now it’s over. Can we get her back? We’re gonna get into this.
Girlfriend Pulling Away: I Didn’t Want To Commit And I Lost Her — When She Pulls Away After A Mistake
Hello coach, the girl that I have been dating for two to three months, we’ve known each other for four months and have spoken every day from September to November, and she just told me that she wants to focus on herself. She lives in a different state and she’s moving closer to me soon and we met up recently for a trip. She said before the trip that she wanted to hear me say in person that we are together. I didn’t say it because I’ve said it before numerous times over the phone that we were together and I already committed to her, so I didn’t take it that serious and when we got back from the trip she got cold and distant and said that she had a good time on the trip but was disappointed that I didn’t say that one thing.
So as you can see, the chemistry there was really there. They’ve been on a trip, they’ve been talking for a long time, they already basically were a couple, de facto, but he still managed to screw it up. So I want to talk about one concept that is very important to understand with everything: Dating, getting an ex back, or especially in long-term relationships. That is the concept of bids for attention/connection. So this is a term that has been coined by John Gottman, or the Gottman Institute. If you’ve never heard of the Gottman Institute, they’re pretty much the gold standard for research on how to maintain healthy relationships. Marriages, long-term relationships, 10 years, and so on so forth. Because obviously, the longer a relationship goes on the harder it becomes to maintain it if you don’t know how to. So the term bids for attention basically means that couples, both men and women, they always seek each other’s attention. It basically is like a small moment where we try to get validation from our partner.
So for example, a simple bid of attention could be “Hey babe, look at this dress. Don’t you think that looks nice?” or another bid for attention could be “Hey, look at that car. I really like that car! I’m thinking of buying that car” or maybe it’s like you’ve been working on a website. I used to do this a lot with my old girlfriends. I used to be kind of nerdy, like showing the websites that I was working on. Really, it’s more about trying to connect with your partner. The fact that you’re showing the website, for example, to your woman, has nothing to do with you trying to show off your website and your pride. Yes, there is some aspect to that but the core principle is actually that you crave the attention and the validation from your partner.
You want to connect with her and so the Gottman Institute basically figured out that if we don’t pay attention to these small tiny bids for attention, our partner gets disappointed. They feel kind of neglected and over time they will question if the relationship is right for them. And so guess what, who does bids for attention more often? It is typically the women. That makes sense because feminine nature is all about connection, about relationships. And so women have been studied to do this more often. They have these small moments where they try to get some attention from their partner. So this is clearly what happened here and it was obviously a bit of a fuck up on your side.
All you had to do was say we are a couple right in front of her. You did say it already on the phone or remotely via text and then when you meet up you don’t say it. It was a tiny little thing. That’s all she needed. It was her bid for attention. She was craving for the validation that you care about her. But you didn’t show it to her and this is very important to actually realize. So you say you didn’t take it seriously, and so when we go to the concept of bids of attention, this is the biggest flaw that all couples do in long-term relationships! They don’t realize how these small little bids for attention actually do matter. So for example, let’s say your girlfriend has been doing yoga for a long time and she’s been practicing a lot of different poses and I do yoga myself. So one pose that is quite difficult as a beginner is crow or side crow, which is really difficult on the abs and arm balance. And if a woman would then manage to achieve that, she would be really feeling proud of herself. And if you don’t really acknowledge that…
All she’s doing is showing you her crow pose that she’s doing in yoga. She’s so proud of herself and she wants to show it to you but you don’t take it seriously. Guess how she’s gonna feel? She’s gonna feel really neglected and so it’s really important to notice these small tiny details where a woman wants attention and you don’t have to do much. You just have to take five seconds. 10 seconds. It’s really just about the fact that you acknowledged it. That is still better than just doing something like “wow, okay, great.” It’s more just okay, take 10 seconds “Wow, I’m proud of you! That’s really amazing!” Something like that. It doesn’t take a long time out of your day because that simple act of reconnection refuels your connection bank with your woman. Alright so let’s continue.
If She Lost Interest In You: She Lost Interest So I Walked Away — Will It Work To Reattract Her?
Eventually, she stopped responding to my messages and calls on November 1st, and on November 14th she unfollowed me on Instagram and hid her stories. I reached out one last time to let her know I enjoy spending time with her, etc, but I won’t do the whole no communication thing with someone whom I committed to and she finally responded and said ‘Hey Tim, thanks for sharing your thoughts with all this. Honestly, I’ve been dealing with some personal things but as far as us, it’s a loaded answer. I expressed to you how I felt from the beginning and clearly didn’t receive this type of effort that I simply asked for until this very moment. I’m not going backwards accepting what I should have been getting from the start. We vibe and all but I’m going to take this time to focus on myself. Hope everything is working out well for you and if I am back in New York, I will let you know.’…
So first of all, good job on having boundaries and telling her that you don’t want to do this “no communication” thing. If you committed to each other, then you’re not going to do something like silent treatment or ignoring each other, or playing hard to get and playing games. And so on that’s a good thing and it’s also a good thing that you messaged her one more time to let her know “Hey sorry! I messed up! I really do miss you. I really like spending time with you.” So it shows her that you figured out “okay, I made a mistake. Sorry about that. Please let me make it right.” Good thing! So one thing that I want to mention here is I have an assumption that maybe she has an attachment style that is insecure. Precisely, anxious. So what that means is she needs a little bit more validation than the average woman which means that this is most likely why she wanted to hear you say “Hey, we are in a relationship“…
Now, even a woman who’s very secure, obviously, wants to hear that we are in a relationship but maybe because she’s a little bit more anxious than the average woman she’s seeking for a little bit more validation and so I believe what might be happening right now is she’s retreating because she was seeking for the validation because she is a little bit anxious maybe… And what we then call this is a protest behavior. A woman who is anxious and actually wants validation from her man, she will sometimes ironically retreat when she doesn’t get the validation that she’s seeking.
That seems paradoxical but to a woman who is a bit anxious, she might think okay if I retreat, he is then going to come back and show me that he cares about me. You maybe have seen this in the past with an extremely insecure or jealous woman where she has super insecure attachments. Super anxious. And they will often play these extremely very well-calculated games just to get your attention and affection. And in that case, obviously, it’s kind of toxic. In this case, I think it’s just a small detail. She’s not really toxic but she definitely maybe thinks that “maybe if I retreat a little bit he’s going to realize he messed up and he’s really going to show me he cares about me.”
I Messed Up And She Left Me: Will No Contact To Get Her Back Work If She’s Pulling Away & Moving On?
I know I messed up by not saying what she wanted me to even though I’ve said it plenty of times prior to our trip. I’m going to just fall back and do my thing even though I do really like this girl. I did have a moment of weakness and let her know that I didn’t want to lose her and we can work this out to which she didn’t respond to. I also broke a two-week no-contact to say ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ to which she didn’t respond to that either. I shouldn’t have done it, I know. But hey, it was a mistake. I’m just going to fall back to do my thing. Go non-contact again and if she comes back I’ll take it from there. Also, during the trip, we had sex multiple times even to which she stated that she missed me being inside of her.
So yes, it was a bit of a mistake to let her know “Hey, I made a mistake” or trying to say “Happy Thanksgiving” but I think in this case it might actually play in your favor because she is slightly anxious. So you’ve basically reinforced one more time “Hey, I messed up” and now all you basically have to do is wait for time to do its thing. Like you said, you kind of live a little bit far apart but she is planning to move to your city. I don’t know when that’s going to be. Maybe it’s in a month. Maybe it’s in two months but I think it’s a good thing that you’re trying to focus on yourself and I think you said also you’re gonna start dating again. So all you have to do is wait for her. She clearly received the message from you “Hey, I’m sorry. I messed this up. I should have just said we are a couple. I know I made a mistake here.” She’s heard this at least two times. You did it twice quite directly.
The second time you said it very directly. You didn’t want to lose her and then you reached out one more time for thanksgiving. You didn’t say what you actually said but basically, you told her three times “Hey, sorry I messed up” So she definitely got the message. So if she is anxious, I think she kind of got a little bit of validation. You can’t really do more at this point. Now all you have to do is wait and hope that she is not so anxious that she’s going to play more games because if she’s really super anxious, she’s going to keep this up over and over. But if she’s just moderately anxious, which a lot of people are… Most people who come to my channel who find some of my videos with titles like “I messed up, does she miss me?” or “What to do if she’s losing interest?” and so on…
These are phrases that people typically google or search for who have anxious attachment styles. So it’s a very common thing in people to have some anxiety or anxiousness about losing someone. So I don’t think that she is that extreme. So all you have to do is basically just wait for her to come back.
All of this started on November 1st and we only spoke one time this entire month. Do you think she’s completely done with me and has moved on to another guy?
It is possible, of course, that she moved on to another guy but it sounds to me that you had a lot of good chemistry. You were pretty much almost a couple already so I think if you play your cards right you can turn this around. Of course, there’s always a chance that she finds another man or that she’s dating someone but there’s also the chance obviously, that it’s not gonna work out. I don’t think that you screwed up so much that you can’t turn this around. You had a lot of good chemistry and if we look at your situation, you’ve basically only have not been talking for a month. So it’s not that long. Just give it a little bit more time. I know you probably feel anxious but I think in this scenario it’s not that bad.
Just wait. Maybe she will reach out for Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Maybe you won’t hear from her for three months or six months. It’s a good thing that you are gonna continue dating other women. That’s the right way to go because obviously you never know for sure. You haven’t been really in a long-term relationship so you didn’t bond that strongly yet but I have a feeling that you have a good connection with each other and she even told you once that she misses you being inside of her. So this girl definitely cares about you and she probably really enjoyed the sex with you. There must be a lot of good bonding that happened in the short period that you’ve dated.
The Power Of Walking Away From A Woman: Stick To The No Contact Rule When She Pulls Away
The last time we spoke on the phone, she said that she didn’t know where she stood with me and felt like she was only the one putting effort into the relationship.
Yeah, see? She’s confused. She doesn’t know where she’s standing. She’s looking for validation and she doesn’t think that you are putting effort into it but now you’ve shown her multiple times “Hey sorry, I messed up.” So now she just has to reflect a little bit on it and if she then doesn’t make up her mind and realize “okay, this guy has learned his lesson” and if she then doesn’t give you another chance, well you can’t do anything about it. It’s just part of the game. Sometimes you date a woman who has an attachment style where you haven’t dated long enough yet and then it doesn’t play in your favor. It’s just part of the game but that’s why you continue dating more and more women. Never stop dating. Never give up. Never develop Oneitis. Because the next woman could also work out.
I did do a bit of IG stalking from another account that I have and noticed that she just stopped posting stories. So I backed off because I assumed she thinks that it was me watching her stories. I still haven’t been blocked anywhere yet, but I will continue with no contact and seeing other women. I look forward to seeing the video reply. Thank you.
So obviously, the stalking with the IG is not the smartest thing. She probably figured out this is you because you know, there’s some stranger following her stories. I don’t know if it’s you on the profile picture but she probably figured it out. But I think it’s a small little detail. Obviously, it would be better if you wouldn’t have done it at all but long term it wouldn’t really matter. If you think about it, in three months from now, six months from now, she will probably have completely forgotten about this, or even if she still remembers it, she really doesn’t care about it, to be honest. And if she’s anxious it might even have given her a little bit of an ego boost and a validation boost. So I think you shouldn’t sweat it too much. It’s not a bad thing. Your situation is not hopeless.
There is like I said a chance that she will never be back because she ends up dating someone else and she’s completely happy with that guy, but you shouldn’t neglect that you had a lot of chemistry. It’s good that you are continuing to date other women. That’s exactly how it should go and obviously, the next time when she comes back don’t forget to pay attention to her bids for connection.
If she says: “Hey I love you” or if she says “Hey, are we a couple?” these kinds of things, she just wants to hear it. That’s all there is to it. So sometimes we hear these small little things from women that seem kind of ridiculous or they don’t make sense to us… “What do you mean? I said it already three times that we are a couple! So what is the difference if I say to your face now?” Well, it does make a difference to her. It doesn’t matter if you can’t understand it properly. She just wants to connect with you. So all you have to do is acknowledge okay, she wants to connect with me, she cares about me. “Hey babe, I love you too. I care about you too. Let’s spend some time together. Come, give me a hug! Give me a kiss!” Whatever she craves.
And that is pretty much everything that I can give you as my advice. Like I said, your situation is not that hopeless. Just give it some time. I’m pretty sure you can get her back but keep on dating. So that’s my final advice for you. Thanks so much for watching the video. Again, thanks so much to all the 500 people who subscribed to my channel. I can’t wait for the next 500 and then I’ve reached my big first milestone of 1k. Thanks so much! Don’t forget to give me a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and as always, don’t forget to unleash the king within! And you, by the way, you seem like a king. You seem to be focused on yourself, so that’s perfect. Keep following your purpose and keep following your goals. She’s probably going to be back eventually. Don’t forget to unleash the king within!
