He ghosted me after I said I cared about him!

Our letter today comes from Tazz, who had some amazing sex with a man she met online and thought all was going great, until she made the "mistake" of telling him she cared about him and didn't want to see him hurt again.

Her Story:

I met a man online, met him a few times, had amazing sex with him, but after I told him I don't want to see him hurt again..as he is going through a divorce and trying to heal on the inside ... said he could take care of himself wanted to break from me for a bit and ghosted me.

He texted me last night he had a good day, went out on a date and missed me ... he is an amazing man and I messed up by telling him I worry about him...

I can't lose him but I'm not happy with his ghosting me either what should I do to bring him back???

My Response:

He's made it so clear what you need to do to bring him back, Tazz. They always do, if we listen to them.

Don't tell him you worry about him. Don't tell him you care about him. Don't do anything caring, loving, understanding that triggers him because he doesn't believe anyone can love him that way without eventually turning on him. And of course this is why you said what you did because your sensitive intuitive soul picked up on precisely this part of him.

But of course it's also the very thing that attracted him in the first place to you!

See the irony here?

You can't win with a man like this.

I know, because every man I ever loved (before my husband, of course) was like this, Tazz. And they confirmed it years later.

Yes, I had read them right. No, they could never have admitted it at the time, not until they were looking back regretting what they let go of back then, even as they still weren't ready to receive that same kind of love now.

A kind of helpless, watching a car go over the cliff and yet not being able to do anything about it kind of an attitude. Helpless despairing, I can't accept your love, I can't go deeper to figure out what's wrong with me that I can't accept the kind of caring you're showing me because it makes me feel ashamed that I still can't accept it.

And so he watches, helplessly, yet having all the power in the world within him to grasp this thing once and for all, fight his demons, and actually DO something about it.

No, he's not that weak. And no, he's not as strong as he pretends to be either.

He's somewhere in between.

Human. A human being. Not worthy of being put on the pedestal we put him on. Not anything as special as the lifeblood to our veins that we feel him to be. He's not any of that.

This is who he really is, Tazz.

And my experience, mixed with the experiences of the overwhelming majority of every woman I coach, will tell you the same thing. There are some men you can get back by simply being yourself and remembering who you are and getting back to her. There are some men you can give enough space to and there's real hope that they'll come back eventually once they have the security of knowing there's still room for them and their space.

But with men like the one you're describing here, where they ghost you simply because you "messed up" by expressing your care for him, there is no getting them back without you changing this part of you to someone who can exude the energy that says you really don't care, while retaining the woman you are that won his heart in the first place.

It's a contradiction that sets you up for failure and leaves you frustrated and spending far too much time and energy trying to figure out what's wrong with you instead of seeing that the problem lies with this torn, confused man who has so many deep issues within him!

If you can't be that woman who balances the fine line between not caring and caring, between not showing you care and showing just enough that you care, if you can't walk that tightrope between being what he wants and needs you to be and most of all accepting him exactly as he is without adding any of your own commentary or hope for what you see in him he has the potential to be, it won't "work".

The only question left for you is this, Tazz; Do you want to fix this guy?

Is it actually a real relationship you want with him if you have to do this much work already just to continue to have any kind of a relationship with him? Or is he something to make you feel better about yourself, someone to measure your worth by because out of all the women who came before you, you're the one whose love he picked to take all the pain away and show him what's possible with real love?

It's so important to know the difference between what draws us to someone because it means something so much more than love to us, and the mutual love that happens between two equal people, on the same page, who can actually talk and have conversations about real life and real love and what they mean to us.

If you don't have that - if he's not actually your equal - what does the future look like together with someone like him?

If you always have to be the one walking on eggshells, trying to figure out if you've said too much or cared too far or shown him too much concern that he's gone over to the "she's trying to control me" side that his past programming set him up to see, and he doesn't understand that he's actually in control of this kind of his own thinking, then you have to ask yourself if that's a relationship you really want to be a part of.

Try the usual things - giving him space, time, being less caring and loving and so much less available.

You can leave him a message now and then, making sure there's enough time between them and a certain tone of nonchalance to make sure he doesn't get the wrong impression that you haven't changed a bit. Even though later on he'll say he never wanted you to change a thing and it was him all along  - if he ever finds the courage to own his own stuff enough to say it.

And then after you've tried all those things, if he still hasn't come back, you can know for sure it wasn't really about him, but the difference will be you'll be able to live with yourself so much better because you'll know you actually did try everything.

For what you'll realize then is what I always hear after the fact. It wasn't me. It was him.

Yes, Tazz. It wasn't you. It was him.

I hope this helps.

Love,

Jane

Have you ever been where Tazz is now? Tell her what you think she should do in the comments below!