When to Fold ’Em?
Lots of people have asked me this over the past year. “If my partner is moving away, is leaving me, when should I give up? How do I make that decision?” I did write one article on how to get ‘em to make a decision about joining you in a relationship. This article is based on the same principle involving a person who maybe acting passively at a time when you want some decision. And remember this is all based on your continued wish to reconnect.
The decision you want is a) that your partner decides to come back toward you or b) that you reasonably get to stop waiting for them.
Here is the setup. They have moved out, either physically or emotionally or both. Their actions have led you to understand that the previous relationship you had with them somehow “sucked” – enough for them to leave. So now you don’t want the old relationship back, but do want to make a new and better relationship with them. You have read my article on What to do when he/she leaves and are trying to follow the four steps.
So the question is, “How long do you wait?” The current wisdom out on the internet seems to be to not contact them at all. I do not think that a wise course. No contact may make them become aware of their “loneliness,” but also may communicate that you don’t care – that you want them to go away.
So here is my suggestion. Modify this as you chose. In its pure form it takes 5 months.
- Establish a contact channel: email, or cards are ideal. It should be cheap and easily permit the sending of a very limited amount of information. I find text messaging is not very suited to this, nor is voice mail, but you choose. You want them to receive your contact and have perfect freedom about what they do with it: read it, trash it, etc.
- Plan a message that you are going to send. You may have to send as many as 10, so make this simple. The message should contain a “greeting,” an optional bit of news, a clue to your work on yourself, a gentle invitation for more contact.
- The greeting can be nothing more complex than “Hi,” or “Dear Mike,” etc. Keep this light.
- Optional newsy bit is just something like “It’s raining hard,” “The lilacs are out,” “Broke my leg the other day. Doing ok, tho.” Don’t mention anything awful that they might feel obliged to fix. Don’t ever say, “I’m miserable without you,” or the like.
- The clue to your work on yourself is part of my instruction to “3: Work on yourself visibly.” This should be different in each note, and I think these should be pretty abstract. You want your partner to be curious for more. Some examples are, “Seeing my counselor weekly and I am sure learning a lot,” “Wow am I learning about how pushy I used to be.” “Boy, I am getting it that I have been asleep for years.” Etc. Anything you are learning that might involve some subject of their past “complaints” might be good. An example could be that if they complained about your temper, you say, “I am working really hard on getting rid of my anger. I realized it’s been a problem to me for years.”
- Lastly you include a gentle invitation (not a push) to more contact. “Love to hear from you any time you feel like it,” “It’d be fun to hear your voice.” “If you ever feel like contacting me, feel free.” (I strongly suggest you don’t ask questions. None, if you can. Just gentle invitations.)
- Then sign it, bluntly or not at all. “Dave,” “Yours,” etc. Do not say, “Your most obedient and humble servant, begging for your orders, please, please.”
- Send one message only, once a week for one month. (4 messages) Send one message, once every other week for two months. (4 messages) Send one message, once a month for two months. (2 messages) STOP.
That’s it.
If at any time he/she re-contacts you, follow my rule #4 and respond minimally. Oh, if their contact is neutral or simply newsy, read it and ignore it. The contact you are looking for is some request to connect to you coming from them. Example: if they say, “Life is crazy here,” you might feel an impulse to write back something like, “What’s going on?” Don’t do it! It’s a trap. If they say, “Tell me more about what you are learning,” that’s a move to reconnect. Respond minimally to that. Wait for them to be explicit.
Do not be surprised too much if he/she contacts you after the five months of this process. Your partner is leaving that period with a memory of your wanting them, but not pushing. That, I think, is the best you can do.
Good luck.
Hi,
I find your information very good, and I wonder what you think about my situation.
My girlfriend and I were together for about 7 years. She moved away and then I followed, and then the relationship started to decline. She became very busy and I became needy demanding what I thought was appropriate time as were had before the move. Communication suffered.
So I got tired of the situation not improving and I moved back and we ended up in a long distance relationship. We fought a lot over communication and taking me for granted. Then one day over Skype she says it is all over that I should never contact her again. Several weeks later I met her so she could give me back a pendant I had given her that was given to me by my mother when I was 15. (I am now 50) .
She refused to kiss me or even touch me. She was distant, so I respected that. Since then I have called her several times and written her a number of times with no response whatsoever. One time she picked up her phone and told me never to call her again and hanged up.
What should I do ? I still love her, but really, I feel mistreated. I don’t think I would have done this to her, meaning that at least I would have broken up in person and allowed communications to be open at least for a short time.
thanks,
Well, Fernando, that’s a tough one. My guess is your recounting of the events would be very different from her recounting – if you could ever get her to share fully. I bet she was having second guesses way back after just a couple of years. Relationships are all about putting both points of view side-by-side.
What’s this bit about “feeling mistreated?” “All people make sense all the time,” and so the way they treat you makes sense for them. “All people are chronically disobedient. Learn to live with it,” and so her behavior may be a challenge for you but is normal for her. Do you think you “should” be treated in some better way?
I wonder if communication hadn’t gone to pieces long ago. Remember the goal of communication is that both people “feel heard” and “feel understood” all the time. How was that working for you two, do you think?
Keep a learning. Check through my paper on Road to Empathy and see if you can find some gems.
Good luck.
Thanks Al! I’ve been working on it. Reading a lot. Journaling. Really thinking. Unfortunately, I’m not able to get into some good therapy right now. I can tell you I think there was a Master/Slave dynamic. I definitely played the Master role the majority of the time.
Things went ok on the day we had to meet about the car. Even though I hadn’t seen your comment yet, I did what you said. I asked a lot of questions about what he was up to and how he felt without ever alluding to our past. He definitely did most of the talking. He seemed a little down, but I’m not sure if it is out of guilt or not.
I do have a question or two.
You mentioned something about him waiting for me to make changes that his gut says he needs. With all the turmoil in my own head, how do I step outside of it and see what HIS gut IS telling him? Especially since we aren’t communicating regularly (if at all).
and how do I show him my efforts when we don’t see each other or share the same social circle? He’s definitely playing the Lizard right now and I’m trying to control my drive to chase him.
Both good questions. When my head is spinning wildly, I tend to find someone to talk to whose head is not so involved. I want a calm person’s guess or a wise person’s guess to help me. That’s one thing that a good counselor is for.
And if you can’t communicate to or with him, you can’t show him what you are doing to change. But any think you do (toward him – text/email/card/letter) is communication. If he is used to you chasing him, then the most powerful/loudest tool you have is calm non-chasing behavior. That is like one email, four sentences long, once a week or less often. No communication at all tends to send the message that you’ve given up.
So if you are sending one message a week in the first few weeks and he/she doesn’t respond at all, do you still move forward with the timeline? Does the fact that they don’t respond mean anything?
I’ve just sent the first message via text message because he never checks his email and he doesn’t have a solid address since he left. I know he read it because of the “Read” stamp. No response.
In my case, at last contact a week ago, he said he wanted to remain friends and that getting back together wasn’t out of the question. He gave me the “it’s not you its me” explanation and said he’s been very depressed. He said he just said he wants to be alone and isn’t interested in marriage (even though we were engaged for 2+ years and living together for 7). He also said he hasn’t loved me in a year, even though he cried after breaking the news to me he was leaving. No fights led to the split so there’s no outright anger as far as I can tell.
I’m learning that not actively listening to him was a factor. Still trying to work out and work on my side of the equation. I guess I just need my mind eased that there’s still a good possibility of reconciliation and renewal between us.
Yeah, Shannon, “no response” means something – to him and to you. To him he’s probably aware that he’s sending a message. Of course as he’s saying no words, all you can do is guess what his message(s) are. To you you may be just reading into his message all sorts of things. Tis kind of scary. But this kind of communication is pretty normal in a tentatively breaking up relationship. Generally the “it’s not you its me” usually means he doesn’t feel safe to share his thinking with you and particularly fears sharing anything about “blaming you.” I think this kind of communication is kind of silly, though really painful and awfully normal.
My guess is he’s at choice point in his relationship with you, which suggests you both have been in the Power Struggle for some time, having left Romantic Love a good while ago. Three ways to go. Read my Map of Relationships. I don’t think you can or want to go backwards.
Good luck.
Thank you for the reply Al! You’ve been a wonderful resource in such a trying time.
I called him yesterday to tie up some loose ends in our separation. He’s already got an apartment and a checking account. We just have to transfer a car title, which we plan to do tomorrow.
He asked me how I was doing during that phone call. I told him I was doing good. Then he asked if I needed any money to help out. I told him I didn’t think so.
How should I handle our “meeting” tomorrow? And is the fact that he’s setting up a separate life a definitive answer that he’s moved on? (It’s been 12 days since split.)
Sorry, Shannon, I couldn’t get back to you as fast as you wanted. I don’t always read my mail very quickly. General thoughts. Get him to do 85% of the talking using active listening (mirroring and pulling). Do nothing that might come across as pushing. Go patiently. Do not ask for definite clear decisions from him. Just enjoy being together. My guess is his decision to settle is more about really deciding that his relationship with you has got to change in big ways. My guess is he thinks you are hopeless. I don’t think you are. Check out the normal process of relationships in my Map. You’ll need to some time to prove you are moving forward in the areas his gut tells him are important.
Keep a going. Good luck.
Hi, Al!
Thanks for all this great information!
I wonder if you could help me, I have a very complicated situation and would love some opinion (we work together, she’s 10 years older than me and she broke up just saying she doesn’t love me anymore, nothing else…)
The whole story is below (sorry for the long post):
Well, ~2 years ago I met this woman at work. One day people from work went to a bar and that was the first day I noticed her, loved her voice, the way she talked, everything. Later I got to know that this day marked her a lot too.
After this day we kinda clicked at work for a few months, and I got her asking my age at least two times back then, and I noticed she was a little disappointed when she realized my age.
Anyway, ~6 months after the day of the bar (and other work related happy hours just flerting a little) we went to the same party and made out. At the end of the party I was already saying I liked her and we should go out together (I know, a bit needy), but she said no, that was it, we were colleagues and had a huge age gap.
Anyway, after this party, we kept only seeing each other as colleagues at work and on happy hours, nothing else, and I insisted on trying to date several times, but she didn’t want to. I remember this days as being very tough for me, I couldn’t forget her, I was really into her, and couldn’t stop thinking about her since the day we first kissed at the party. So I kept trying to arrange ways for her to be with me, and one day after one of theses nights out with work people I intentionally left my car at her house before going out and when the party was over I got back to her house and we made out (altough she didn’t let me sleep there, kinda kicked me out after sex).
Even after this time, she still didn’t want to be together. And we were back at work colleagues and me having a hard time thinking about her all the time.
Well, a bit later we both got in a Master’s program. So, we were work and master’s colleagues now. So, knowning that she didn’t want a relationship, I said to her that we should be FB, especially because it will be a hard time working and studying and it could be a great way to relax. She accepted and we started seeing each other a lot, mostly at my place at night, as well as on fridays and saturdays at the university and monday-to-thursday at work.
My goal, as you may deduce, was to be in a real relationship with her. And that happened ~4 months after we started our master’s (after countless nights pretending to study but making out, getting late together for class, etc).
Everything was fine since then, I knew she had relatioship issues to work, but she’s been in therapy her hole life (also she was divorced after ~7 years of a marriage that I strongly think the guy cheated on her, altough she doesn’t confirm this, and that she said that they ended because she realized she felt nothing else for him)(and her father cheated a lot on her mother too, now they’re divorced only practically, not on paper).
Well, we traveled, spent mine and her birthdays in awesome places, etc. We were having a great time together. I think I just have to point out 3 things that might be relevant during the relationship:
1) I always said “I’m crazy about you”, “I really like you” since the beggining of the relationship. But always felt afraid of saying “I love you”, thinking that right after she would run away. Well, she didn’t say it either, until 8th November 2014, when I said it first and then she said it too (that was 10 months after our official relationship start).
2) We talked about marriage and kids a little bit. Altough I think she never completely affirmed she would marry me, she liked the idea, we even thought of a place. And we also wanted to have 1 or 2 kids.
3) She was always nervous when I mentioned living together. After I said “I love you” for the first time, my apartment rental period was also ending, so I mentioned us living together but she said it wouldn’t be good due to out busy times now. So I renewed my apartment rental.
Now, this last month (december, 2014) was hard. She was taking medicine that made her hormones crazy, she was pressured at work with her boss complaining for late work and her master’s supervisor was quite hard on her too, pressuring her weekly. At the start of the month I had a health problem and stayed the whole month away from work. Also, due to her working late a lot and having to do master’s related stuff at home at night, we practically didn’t see each other in december. Also I know I was stupid here, because I too was crazy studying and didn’t pay more attention to us. She was needing me and I was just letting things happen. Although I felt something strange, I let it go, because I knew she was stressed (she was pissed with friends, colleagues, family, everyone.. too silly for me to think it wouldn’t get to me sometime). Still during december, she travelled to her home town for a friend’s wedding (I couldn’t go, since I was sick) and also on Christmas week she stayed there from 20th to 29th. Again, I was stupid, we barely talked, I was studying and despite feeling something strange in her, I thought it was stress, so I was always insisting she slept well, which was something she was always complaining about over the past few weeks.
Anyway, she came back to town on 29th, we saw each other only at night, as usual on december she said she was tired and just wanted to sleep. We just exchanged christmas gifts and went to bed. I didn’t want to force her to say anything, even feeling something strange, because I knew she was stressed, stupid again.
Well, on the 30th she showed up at my place after work without telling me. And then she said we needed to talk, and she broke up with me. She said she didn’t know why, but she wasn’t feeling what she once felt for me, that she didn’t love me anymore. She said I was her best boyfriend ever, and was not my fault, it was hers. I kept asking things trying to figure out why, but she couldn’t explain, she said it didn’t matter why, she said the thing was that she didn’t love anymore and she knew herself enough to know that it wouldn’t work with her not loving me, and it was better for the two of us to break up. She said she’s been thinking about it for a few weeks, and when she came back from christmas week in her home town and spent the night with me she wasn’t missing me, so she said that that’s when she confirmed she didn’t love me anymore. On 30th after breaking up, she left me alone in my apartment (I was really struggling to not cry in front of her), but later that day I sent her a sms wanting to talk, but she said we already talked everything we needed and she needed to sleep. On 31st, with advice from a friend, I wrote her a handwritten letter that basically remembered all the great things we had together, ending with a “You were very important to me, thanks for all the great things we lived together”, and left the letter under her door. She showed up at my place a few hours after she got the letter to return my stuff that were on her place and get hers that were on my place. She also said she thought the letter was beautiful. We talked a bit, I again tried to make her see that we had a very tough last month and that it didn’t feel right to end such a great relationship, but, again, she was decided.
On 1st January, I found some more stuff that was hers at my place, so I used it as reason to go visit her. I called her and she agreed that I went there to return her things. When I got there we talked like friends but after a while it was kinda obvious I didn’t want to leave, but I started saying I was going to, and a bit before leaving I again tried to ask her back, begged for another chance (I know, needy, stupid), and at the end left her with a card saying I loved her and wanted another chance.
Anyways, after this day I haven’t exchanged a single word anywhere with her. A bit before being sick I had deactivated my facebook acount and it still is off.
I’m a mess since then, cried a lot the first two days, but now I’m trying not to, went back to the gym and started looking for help online.
On tuesday I will go back to work and I have no idea on how to behave there. We work at the same room, although not very close and not directed to one another. And we used to be there at the same hours (arrive late, leave late).
A few people at work knew we were together but didn’t mentioned to anyone, although I think most of the people there sensed that we were together, without being sure about it.
I don’t know what to do. Should I go NC? I think it’s a bit hard to do so, because people might notice and it can be akward, since we talked a lot in groups at work.
Also, should I change my work hours? I can ask my boss to arrive early and leave early (saying I wanna change it because of the health problems that made me stay away from work the past month) to try to minimize our time together, but again, that might seem akward, don’t you think?
These 2 questions are there because I saw people saying that no matter what future brings (she comes back or not), I should try to minimize contact. I still am not sure of this, though, and if in my case (working together, break up supposedly due to stress) I should.
I really want her back and I think it was a tough time for us, but it’s life. I think she was also pressured by her family during christmas (you know, asking her when she would marry) and also by her friends during the wedding she went on december. And that with all the pressure from work, master’s, and me not being quite there for her. Maybe all of this together made her think she doesn’t love me or made her not love me for real. Also, next week, january 7th, we would make 1 year on our relationship (official relationship, unofficial it’s been ~1,5 year), and maybe she freaked out because of her relationship issues. I knew something was strange with her, but I though it was her stress, and never thought it would end our relationship.
I don’t know what to think, am I being crazy?? Will she be back??
I’d really appreciate any help. Thank you!
Dear Settion (or Ricardo, not sure what name is best), I held your post for a little while as it was long and usually I respond personally to such long and thoughtful posts in email rather than on this site. But I really think your did a good job of sharing a lot of detail about the beginnings of a relationship and the troubles that can surface.
Here are a couple of answers to your questions.
“Are you being crazy?” Absolutely not. I am sure things seem confusing but as “completely normal things” are going on I think as you gather more knowledge the confusion will decrease. That confusion comes from a) not knowing how people behave and think and b) not knowing what is going on in her. The latter is solved by the major task of building great communication skills. The former you can probably gather by reading stuff on my website here.
“Will she be back?” Of course that is up to her. All you can do is things that increase or decrease the likelihood of her coming back and also that speed up or slow down her coming back. The Article you’ve posted this under is particularly on that subject – what can I do.
“Should I go NC?” I do not believe that is ever a good idea. But you can go “polite no contact” at work. PNC means to interact at work with politeness, patience and nothing more. Any deeper contact would be via email or at her initiation. Use Text messaging only in response to her Text and only with the purpose of setting up face-to-face or phone-to-phone meetings.
One thing to hold in mind is that this is not a first relationship. You both carry histories, experiences, which make things different – sometimes more hair-triggered, sometimes more slow. I don’t think the age difference is any more than a normal issue you two will have to resolve. If I see anything it is the trends of Clinger – Avoider or Reliable Membership. Study up on that, the Map of Relationships, Master/Slave and go for it.
Good luck.
Dear Al,
This article and its advice….is it something that can be applied only right after the split or can it also be applied months after all contact was lost between the two parties in question as well? Thank you.
Hi Bill, Not sure how you plan to use the lessons in this article, but I think the answer to your question is “Yes.” The purpose of it was to determine when to end a relationship, stop working on it, stop waiting, and move on. That process seems important. Humans do seem remarkably able to get stuck in a waiting pattern. I think this can be worse if a relationship is long distance or involves a lot of text-messaging as normal communication.
If you haven’t been communicating at all for some time, you might start with a first email, then one two weeks later, then one a month later and if you hear nothing, move on. That’s a total of two months to make this decision. Not too bad. But then remember to go find someone else to work with. Your life is worth it, methinks. (Of course if you hear from her, then act accordingly.)
Good luck.