What Happens When You Stop Worrying About Your Relationship

I get endless messages and DMs from women who are heartbroken, frustrated and confused- they want help with their relationship and they’ve tried everything and nothing works. What’s the issue? They care too much.

Now caring is great and all, but only when it’s reciprocated! The problem is when you’re the only one doing the caring and investing. When you’re the only one putting anything in and getting nothing back.

MORE: 5 Ways to Ruin a Budding Relationship

Now what do I mean by don’t care? I don’t mean don’t love them or you’re not nice to them. I really mean don’t stress over the relationship because that feeds into a downward spiral.

I’m going to explain the downward spiral so you know what it is and can avoid it so keep reading.

Caring too much can take several forms.

1. You’re Overly Invested

It could be that you’re way too invested in the relationship, sometimes before it even is a relationship. You met a great guy, you click, he checks all the boxes, and there is just so much potential there. And you’re determined to make it work.

You may commit yourself to him before he has done the same, you may invest in a fantasy future, you may cancel your online dating profiles. You feel, whether consciously or unconsciously, that the more you invest, the better your chances will be.

MORE: How to Get a Guy to Like You

You can’t get a guy to care about you by caring about him. That’s just not how intrigue and attraction works. You get a guy to care by being your own individual person and connecting with him as a person, and building something together- not investing in him in the hopes he’ll feel a certain way about you.

2. The Compassion Trap

Now you can also develop what I call ECD- excessive comparison disorder. This only affects women. ECD is when you let your compassion override your sense of reason and your self-respect.

Usually ECD is triggered by a damage case- a damage case is my word for a guy who has a lot of potential buried under a pile of issues, and you see how great he can be, you want to lift the rubble piece by piece to get that great guy underneath. You feel bad for him and you want to help him or save him.

MORE: Signs the Guy You’re Dating is Toxic

Usually, this guy has been through a lot. Maybe he has mental health struggles, family struggles, money struggles- and you let this be an excuse for his bad behavior. You just feel bad, you want to help him, you don’t want to leave him and then make this poor guy suffer even more.

So you stay and try to help him or heal him and usually one of two things happens- he pushes you away even more, or he gets his act together and then leaves.

3. Stressing Too Much

Next, is the most common type of care, the stressing over the relationship care. You call it care- you say you just care about the relationship, but really, you’re stressing over it and it’s not the same thing. Here is what it looks like.

MORE: How to Stop Stressing When it Comes to Dating and Relationships

Phase 1: you get excited about the guy, the relationship, the possibilities. you feel amazing.

Phase 2: you want this future, you feel like you’ll finally feel happy, finally feel complete, finally feel like your life is good.

Phase 3: you start to worry about it possibly not working out. you try to stay positive but the worry grows and grows inside you, and you start noticing little incidents that could be signs that maybe he doesn’t want what you want, maybe you’re losing him, maybe he’s losing interest.

Phase 4: Acceleration … your worry has grown to a point where you can’t be the happy, carefree, fun woman who he met, the one who was emotionally present with him in the interactions.

Instead, your mood is low and fearful.

Now instead of enjoying the high you felt in the beginning with all the hope and excitement over the future, you’re feeling like you’re living in a state of constant fear and dread.

Now you’re thinking if he could just show a sign that things are still on track, still good, still headed to the beautiful future you want… then you could relax again and feel good inside… then you could be that woman you were in the beginning.

You’re chasing that high, wanting to feel ok again… then everything will be fine.

Phase 5: Crashing…

You feel completely out of control now. he did or said something that sent a chill down your spine, a sign that seems all but certain he’s losing interest and doesn’t want to be with you.

You’re panicking. what do I do?

Your behavior and thoughts are now entirely consumed with figuring out how to make him want you like you want him and get him (and the relationship future) under your control.

Needless to say, the mood of the relationship is not very fun and it becomes a self-feeding cycle until the relationship eventually ends.

Amazingly, the seed of this downward spiral wasn’t your worry or fears or controlling behaviors…

The seed was when you built it up into your mind as some vision of the future you wanted to escape into with him as your doorway to that future. That was actually the required ingredient to poisoning your relationship.

Mind you, I’m not talking about having an overall vision for what you want your relationship to be in terms of your life vision. If you want to find a man who will be a great father to children, who wants a family, who shares the same faith as you, etc. those are all very practical considerations to base your standards on.

But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about building a guy/relationship into some kind of savior that you desperately want to escape into in order for your fantasy to come true.

You get high on the fantasy and then spend the rest of relationship miserably chasing it. That’s what I’m talking about when I say “don’t care.” I’m talking about that specific form of not caring.

As soon as you withdrew your natural in-the-moment presence with him and discarded it in favor of some fantasy of how it would all work out, that’s where it all went wrong. And… that’s what you can reclaim as the first step towards it all going right again. Things can be better.

MORE: How to Enjoy your Relationship Instead of Worrying About Ruining It

If you find yourself in that category, a woman who got excited about her relationship and now finds herself desperately chasing the relationship, you must let go of everything you’re chasing.

Let go of that fantasy vision. Let go of that love story in your mind of how you want it all to work out.

Letting go of it feels like a loss when in fact it is the ultimate win.

What is an easy and practical way to do this?

Remind yourself, I will be OK no matter what. You were OK before him, and you will be OK after him

Get control over your mind and your thoughts- yes, it is possible.

When you stop caring, you have control over your love life, you’re not at his mercy. You have that cool vibe that’s just irresistible. It seems counterintuitive, but caring too much can cause major problems for you when it comes to relationships.

I hope this article inspired you to stop stressing for good so you can have the love you want. But it takes more than that to have a lasting relationship. At some point, a guy will ask himself: Is this the woman I want to commit myself to? The answer will determine everything. Do you know how a man decides a woman is “girlfriend material” as opposed to “fling material”? Do you know what inspires a man to want to commit? If not, you need to read this article next: The #1 Things Men Desire in a Woman

Here is another issue almost every woman will face: He starts to withdraw and seems to be losing interest. He doesn’t text back, he is less attentive, and something is just off. He seems like he’s pulling away and you might lose him completely— do you know what to do about it? If not, read this right now If He’s Pulling Away, Do This...