I have been with my boyfriend for over a year and I do not understand why he won’t stop flirting with other girls. I give him everything that he needs sexually, emotionally, physically and mentally, but still he flirts with other girls and has sexy conversations with them. He never meets up with them, though.
I know he loves me because he told me first and he is a genuine person, but I hate feeling like I’m sharing him. What should I do?
You’re making a whole lot of assumptions in your question…
You say that you give him everything he needs sexually, emotionally, physically and mentally. That’s a pretty massive claim… you’re basically saying that you’re his perfect dream girl.
Maybe what you meant is that you’re giving him everything *you think* he needs sexually, emotionally, etc. That’s an entirely different animal.
Oftentimes, we love other people in the way that we want to be loved – and while you make certain adjustments toward him since he’s a dude, it’s not safe to bet that you’re satisfying his every need…
But let’s say that you were satisfying his every need. Why would he be having these sexy, flirtatious conversations with these other women? I mean, all of his sexual needs are completely met by you, right? So it can’t be that he desires sex with them…
And all of his emotional needs are met by you, so it can’t be that he enjoys the ego boost of feeling desired by a woman…
My point in all this is that if you believe that you’re meeting all his needs, you will be blind to areas where the relationship needs to grow. If you want the relationship to move forward, find deeper areas where you can reach him and inspire him.
But let’s take a completely different side of this… because I know there are women reading this thinking, “Why should a woman do anything for this flirtatious disrespectful pig of a man?”
Relax – put down your torches and pitchforks.
Here’s the deal – you’re asking me this question because you do not find his behavior acceptable. And yet, you’ve been demonstrating to him that you’re OK with it.
Sure, you may complain about it or get upset. But a guy knows when a woman isn’t going anywhere. A guy always knows a woman’s real limit is measured by how much she’s willing to tolerate.
Women feel this instinctively and will usually try to put up a front, claiming that they won’t stand for his bad behavior and making empty threats. The problem is that guys know a woman’s bluff from a mile away… and the moment you start bluffing about how much you’re willing to tolerate, he knows you’ll tolerate just about anything.
Why? Because if you’re afraid enough to lie about your limits, then it’s pretty likely that you don’t actually have limits you’re willing to enforce.
Do you know what’s at the core of why women put up with behavior they find unacceptable? Fear of loss. Fear that they couldn’t do better than the guy. Fear that this guy is the one true love of their life. The reality of it is that if you want to mentally and emotionally be in a place where you have any say in your relationship, you have to diminish your fear of loss.
Let me shift your attention to the fact that you chose this guy. You chose him – you knew what kind of an animal he was when you started going out. It’s not like one morning he just went out and started having sexy flirtations with other women all of a sudden and you were shocked.
From the get-go, you chose him… but secretly you hoped and believed that he would change for you. And now, a little over a year into the relationship you’re disappointed that he’s still the same guy… and you want to change him.
People do this all the time, but it doesn’t make it right or sane. The fact is, this whole pattern of people projecting a fantasy version of someone onto the actual person is ludicrous.
There are times where one person might inspire change in another person, but it’s because the other person wanted the change themselves as well. There are times where one person will get their act together because they’re afraid to lose something good or they’re determined to win something good.
But I can’t think of a time where the insecurity of one partner inspired a change in the other partner. Especially when the insecure partner isn’t willing to walk away regardless of whether or not they get what they want.
Rather than wanting him to change, the better path is to move towards understanding each other better.
Understanding each other is the basis of connection. The fact is, he has these sexy flirtations with other women, but you don’t really know why… you don’t know his motivation or what he “gets” from it. Instead, you’re focusing on how YOU feel about it and that YOU don’t like it.That’s understandable, but it’s not helpful.
You can feel hurt and victimized or you can open your eyes to the bigger picture… and maybe learn something valuable about your guy in the process (maybe some need that he still needs met).
Some people have voids inside them and they forever try to fill them – with having other people desire them, with sex, with power, with money, etc. In many cases, the void that people feel is caused by a feeling of separateness – a feeling that we don’t belong and aren’t acceptable.
When men act out in whatever way they act out, you’ll find what I just described at the heart of the matter: a deep feeling of separateness, insignificance and undesirability.
Most guys would never admit to feeling anything like that. Most aren’t even consciously aware of those feelings. But if you can see past your own hurts and desires, you’ll see men everywhere trying to fill emotional voids through their actions and achievements.
When you can accept him as he is, you start to show him a path towards filling that void. When you can recognize what he “gets” from his behavior and you can truly understand him as a man, you might not take his actions personally anymore. You might see a bigger picture – a picture of what he really needs.
I had a girlfriend who was very flirtatious by nature. She would light up a room and sexuality radiated from her effortlessly. There were times that she’d flirt with other guys, but I understood that she was a girl who came alive when she had an audience. Having an audience was reward in it of itself for her.
If I were an insecure jealous boyfriend type, I would have flipped out. I would have looked at her actions as meaning something personal about me, felt bad and then demanded that she not do what made her feel alive because it made me feel bad about myself.
It may seem narcissistic, but people do it all the time. They look at their partner’s behaviors and take them personally as meaning something about them. Then they shame, punish or guilt their partner into stopping that behavior.
Then… one… two… three… five years into the relationship… they wonder where all the passion went. Not just in the relationship, but in their own life.
As a dating coach, I can tell you that people get the most stuck when they look at other people’s behavior as meaning something about them personally. It’s the biggest relationship trap possible since it blinds us to understanding them and floods our mind with negative emotions. Instead of wanting to understand them more, we want to make our self-inflicted (ego-inflicted) pain go away.
To sum it up: His actions mean nothing about you as a person. You chose him… and if you want to continue on with him, your best bet is to continually move towards understanding him more and more.
Hopefully he’ll be able to understand you more and more as your relationship continues as well. That can only happen if you drop the insecurities (taking things personally).
A lot to think about.
Hope it helps,
eric charles
Written by Eric Charles
