not much texting between dates

So a man’s experience of life is one of striving against challenges to succeed in something meaningful to him.

That’s true when he feels like he’s winning and that’s still true when he’s feeling defeated.

It’s true when he’s in a relationship and it’s still true if he’s single.

A man’s primary relationship will always be with that experience of his life: his journey towards achieving meaning and purpose.

Now men are attracted to women. Men want sex with women.

So a man will go out with you, spend quality time with you, date you and have sex with you regardless.

However, just because a man interacts with you doesn’t mean he feels any connection to you in his heart.

His heart is in his journey through life. His heart is in his striving towards winning in the parts of life that are meaningful to him.

So the closer you are to that, the closer you are to his heart.

Men have very vulnerable hearts.

Men commit suicide at a far higher rate than women. The sensitivity and vulnerability is very real, hence it makes sense that men guard their hearts because it really is a life or death matter for him.

So a man’s default state is not to be open about what’s truly most meaningful to him.

So if the beginning impression of him is that he’s closed and doesn’t share much… yeah, that’s normal.

And even the guys who share openly at first won’t share the deepest stuff… they’ll share the stuff that’s maybe semi-deep but leave out what’s actually vulnerable in them.

Men are either pushing their edge towards the meaningful things they want to achieve… or they’re in some stage of recentering themselves after a setback/defeat.

Feeling defeated is agony for a man. And even if he’s winning, there’s pressure not to lose so he’ll even still mask aspects of his winning in order to have cover when there’s setbacks that knock him down.

If a man feels that a woman will make his losing more difficult, he will guard and hide all meaningful areas of his life from her. She will be like a satellite or accessory outside of his life, separated away so she can’t do any damage.

So he’s watching you at every stage to see what kind of woman you’d be when he’s feeling weak and defeated.

Are you a woman he can be honest around when he’s feeling vulnerable, weak and out of control?

Are you a woman who’s mindful of his heart in public?

Can he trust you to receive hearing his rawest, most wild, most uncivilized emotions?

Will you punish him for expressing his truth if its something you don’t like?

There’s a lot of questions like this, but they all center around: Is this a woman who will make my life better or worse when I’m losing?

And on the other side, the big question in his heart is: Is this a woman who brings out the winner in me?

Does she inspire greatness in me?

Does she help me feel better about my life and my possibilities to win?

Does she understand what’s deeply meaningful and important to me?

When a man sees that you’re a woman who “brings out the winner” in him, that makes him want to open up more to you.

Think about it.

What’s really the purpose of relationships between men and women?

It’s meant to be a beautiful cycle, where men and women complement each other.

The man’s winning, inspiration and ambition manifests in the outer world.

But it’s the woman who’s uniquely suited to help him navigate his emotionally inner world.

Men have to deal with their emotions, but they are not good with navigating that world.

If a woman is able to gracefully help him navigate that inner world in a way where he ends up feeling like a winner, he will want to move closer to that woman.

Helping him access that “winner” within himself is an emotional process.

In sports, this is part of what coaches do for their players. And in love, women do this for men and their “sport” is life.

Bringing out the winner in him is what pushes his love button. It’s what makes him move towards deeper connection and commitment because the closer he gets to you, the better the most meaningful parts of his life become.

He will want to open up to her more and bring her closer to his heart, because his heart is in his winning and his connection with her brings him closer to winning.

Am I making sense here?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Eric Charles.

“He recently started asking me questions like: if we continue to get along and like each other what would I want from a relationship, would I want to marry and have kids , how would I feel if he was sent away for work , would I take him home one day(my home is in another country) to meet my parents.

Is this a good indication that he might be taking this seriously?”

Excellent. Yes, these are good signs!

But remember what I said before about signs. It means you’re doing something right upstream that’s leading to the texting and the questions about what a relationship would look like!

So this is sounding good. Let’s talk about some things to consider from here:

First, it’s important that you have a great overall foundation of what a great relationship is.

Let’s make this clear, and then your actions and choices will flow from that overall vision.

A great relationship is a great partnership, where you bring out each other’s best.

So one thing you can establish before you answer these questions is to express what you believe is a great relationship.

And here would be the things I would say (again, this is me, I’m just putting ideas out there obviously don’t say this unless it fits for you, your wishes, your personality, etc.):

– I think relationships work because the two people bring out the best in each other.

– That happens because they’re able to understand each other.

– They each know that they can let their guard down and express themselves. They might not always agree with each other, but they can fully hear each other and consider each other, then they find a way forward from there.

– But more than that, they know what the other person wants deeply and they support it. They help them get in touch with the best parts of themselves, so life feels good… so the bad times aren’t as bad and the good times are really good.

– Really, a good relationship is about serving something bigger than each individual person in the relationship. We are partners in making a great relationship and with everything we do, we consider, “what’s great for the relationship?”

– And the relationship itself exists to help us create a better life than we ever could on our own. We support the relationship and the relationship supports us having our best life.

….

Establishing that sort of thing is a big help in framing this for both of you. Then there’s a purpose towards all of this. There’s a shared value. There’s meaning. There’s something bigger that you’re both building and contributing towards every day.

And it takes it beyond just two people trying to get what they want from each other. It untangles each of you from personal conflict and self-centered thinking. The big question is “what’s good for the relationship?” and what’s good for the relationship ends up being good for the people in it!

Now…

Once something like this is established, it helps frame everything you say.

You should be honest about what you want in regards to his specific questions.

I know women might be afraid to just flat out say what they want with some of these things, but frankly if the relationship won’t give you what you want for these most important items, then it SHOULD end!

Think about it. It’s obvious, but sometimes we miss the obvious if we get blinded by the emotional fear of losing the relationship.

What’s best for the relationship? Telling him plainly what you want!

Then he can collaborate with you to create those things.

He’ll do the best he can. That doesn’t always mean he’ll do everything you want the way you want it, but if he’s doing the best he can then that’s great. That’s all you can expect.

Hope that’s helpful.

I’m glad to hear this recent update, this is sounding good!