Do you have any advice on how to tell if a guy loves you?
I’ve been seeing this guy for almost a year know and though he says he loves me, I just can’t tell if he’s just saying what I want to hear or if he really does love me.
He’s not the type of guy to gush with lots “romantic talk”, but it’s more than what he says that makes me worried… sometimes I feel like if I didn’t text him or set up dates, he’d disappear or forget I even existed at all. Is it possible for a man to say he loves you and not actually be that into you? How do you know if a guy loves you?
Let me begin by saying: Love is obvious.
That is to say, when you really have love and a relationship that’s working, you aren’t asking yourself the question, “Does he really love me?”
Sure, he might not wear his emotions on his sleeve, he might not break into poetic confessions of love (like in the movies) and he might prefer hanging out at home versus getting all dressed up and going out to dinner.
Regardless, you know that he loves you. It shows up in his enthusiasm about you and your relationship.
When a guy loves you (or is on his way to falling in love with you) the relationship starts with a lot of enthusiasm on his part. The guy can’t wait to see you. He’s excited to be around you, to share things with you, and to bring you into his world.
The thought of how to “get him to chase you” or “be a challenge” would never even cross your mind because you simply enjoy each other so much. It’s really that simple.
As the relationship continues, he includes you in his world. He tells you about what he’s doing and your relationship has a feeling of partnership to it.
MORE: 5 Steps to Make Any Man Fall in Love
The fact is, I could go on and on about signs a man loves you. The problem is, there are many times that a woman will ignore all the warning signs and red flags of a relationship, pick out the one thing she sees on a list of love signs that the guy is actually doing and then victoriously proclaim, “He loves me – my relationship is meant to be!”
Rather than give you a laundry list of signs a man loves you, I want to tell you the one most important lesson of all when it comes to men, relationships and love:
First, I need to talk about a widespread myth that is killing most women’s chances to have a successful love life. I don’t know where or why this idea started, but somehow women all over the world were tricked into believing that men communicate in some sort of secret code…
That’s not the case. Men aren’t transmitting secret messages to you through their words and actions…
The actions of men are obvious and, by extension, a man’s love is obvious.
It’s bad enough if you’re obsessing about what his words and actions mean (as if it’s not obvious)… you can make a bad situation worse if you’re obsessing about signs he loves you (or signs he doesn’t)…
To be perfectly frank, this is probably the entire reason why the book “He’s Just Not That Into You” was a popular book on dating/relationships… it basically said, “Stop reading into his words and actions like a secret code. If his love isn’t brain-dead obvious to you, he’s not into it.” (There if you’ve never read that book… I just saved you the cost of the book and an afternoon of reading.)
The majority of the time, when women ask me relationship related questions, it’s because they want to take a relationship that isn’t working and magically turn it into one that is working…
… they want to make a man they’re not compatible with suddenly into a man who is compatible…
… they want the result without having any of the ingredients that create the result!
You might read that and think that sounds ridiculous, but people do it all the time. They want to take something that never really worked and force it to work.
So I’m going to share something with you that I learned years ago that changed my love life forever.
The lesson is simple:
Being great in relationships isn’t about knowing how to fix mediocre/broken relationships… it’s about not settling for less than what you want.
Now I can imagine when you read that, it might bring up a few objections.
For one, you might think that sounds selfish or unloving. The reality is that it’s the most compassionate thing you can do… if you really love them, don’t you think it makes sense that you don’t feel like you’re settling for them? Don’t you think it would make sense that they’re already enough for you, exactly as they are, exactly as they’re acting right now?
In fact, some of what you call “selfish” might be good for your relationship. I say this because the majority of women fall into a relationship trap precisely because they’re afraid of being selfish.
The woman gets into a relationship with a guy… the guy starts to show less interest and the woman, in an attempt to reel him back, starts putting in more energy and trying harder to win the man’s attention back.
Meanwhile, the guy senses that the woman isn’t going to leave no matter what and ends up putting even less energy into the relationship… sometimes to the point where he thinks to himself, “This is great, this woman will do anything for me and no matter what I do, she’ll never leave… I wonder if I could have two girlfriends at once?”
When it comes to human nature, people (men and women) only value what they worked to earn. It’s just a fact of human nature and the sooner you can embrace it, the better off you’ll be in your relationship future.
However, this lesson has often led women to believe they need to somehow make a man work for them or chase them… so they end up doing all sorts of weird stuff and playing games because, at the heart of it, they’re afraid the guy won’t value them if they don’t.
MORE: How to Make Men Chase You Without Playing Games (And Why it’s So Important)
You’d be amazed at some of the things I’ve seen where women think they’re somehow attracting a man by pushing him away. I understand the confusion, though – there are tons of movies and TV shows portraying women acting rude, stand-offish, and uninterested in the guy… then somehow the movie or TV show ends with the guy confessing his undying love for the girl. There’s even a book title out that suggests that men love “bitches” (and I can’t even begin to tell you how incorrect that idea is… yeesh.)
There is, however, one almost-magical recipe to make sure you will always be the woman that gives him enough space to chase you… and practically forces him to put in his best effort to please you and keep you happy… and ensures that his feelings of love and devotion are crystal clear to you…
And that solution is: Never settle.
Seriously… it’s that easy. Stop settling for a relationship that isn’t what you want. Stop settling for a relationship that maybe possibly could be good one day if something magically changes.
The solution is simple: Know what you want and remain single until you get it.
Yes, you can (and would do well to) be pleasant, charming, radiant, attractive, nice and loving. Yes, you can (and would do well to) enjoy your time with him and treat him well.
I’m just saying to avoid the biggest relationship error that the majority of women make: Don’t choose a relationship that isn’t the way you want a relationship to be and then try to change it.
I’ve seen women waste years trying to change a broken relationship into a good relationship… when it was never really “good” to begin with. And all the meanwhile, they were becoming more helpless and more hopeless. The harder they tried to fix something that was broken, the more distraught they became… the more their self-esteem and confidence dropped.
All they need to do was just drop the relationship that wasn’t working and start again, fresh.
I’ve known women who stay in relationships that aren’t working for several years, then when they’re single, they immediately dive into another dead-end relationship again. Then they argue with me that this is just how relationships are (umm, no) and that they’ll never find love.
No. There are tons of men who would be delighted to have you, who would think you’re perfect and who you’d be completely 100% compatible with.
When you’re with a man that you’re 100% compatible with, your relationship is obvious and effortless… even when things are tough, you know what to say, how to say it, and what he really needs from you. He knows what you need too and he’s happy to provide it.
Women make the mistake of … (continued – Click to keep reading Ask a Guy: When a Guy Loves You…)
Written by Eric Charles
