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The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself

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A beautiful blong woman in a gray sweater against a white background is asking herself the most important question you can ask yourself. She is looking off to the side touching her cheek with her index finger.There is really only one question that it all comes down to if you peel away the layers of what's really going on...

When he hasn't called.

When he won't commit.

When he's not on the same page as you are, but you so want him to be.

When he lets you know clearly where he stands, and it's not where you stand.

When he tells you he needs space.

When he's getting emotionally distant.

When you find out he's not who you thought he was but you're afraid to let go of all the time and energy you've already invested.

When you want to believe you can change him.

When you don't want to give up on your dream of all that he could be, all that the two of you could be, if only he could see this the way you do.

It all boils down to one simple question, and it really is the most important question you can ask yourself:

Why do you want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you?

I get why you think you want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you. Because we believe in their potential. We believe in the power of love. We believe we can love them enough to change them. We believe in miracles.

We believe that if we just hold out a little longer, give them a little more time and space, they'll see what could be, too.But you, my beautiful friend, deserve so much more than this.

You can't make anyone love you no matter how hard you try.

You can't change anyone except yourself.

You can't make him see what he's not open to seeing.

And you can't open his heart and mind to be open to you no matter how much you think that would change everything. If it's meant to be, it has to come from him. The only way you have a chance at finding out what could be is by finally letting go and living your life - for you, not for him.

Any other way is no way to live.

The Simple Truth About Playing Hard To Get

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A beautiful blond woman in a black sweater sits near a man on a park bench looking away slyly, not only playing hard to get, but being hard to get. We've all heard the advice at one time or another:

Play hard to get and he'll come around and finally make a commitment. 

Back when I was single, I heard it too - a lot.

And while it made sense on one level – if he has to chase you he'll be more likely to want to – on another level, it seemed so fake, dishonest, even manipulative. It just felt like a misrepresentation of the real, authentic person I was working on becoming,  both with myself and everyone else.

But since this advice is still among the most popular advice given in one form or another, I wanted to address it here.

What I've come to realize is that while playing hard to get is the last thing you should do if you are looking for a real, authentic, honest relationship (which we know you are), being hard to get is a whole other thing.

And that's exactly what you do want to be.

Genuinely. Honestly. Authentically. Irresistibly. Hard to get.

Because if you can just see yourself the way you really are, with all that you have to offer someone who is truly deserving of you, there would be no question that you aren't going to drop everything and suddenly become available to just any guy who happens to look good in a tight t-shirt.

Be Hard To Get

You know that you have every right to be picky about the right things, every right to make sure he measures up to your high standards before you even consider making a commitment to him.

You have every right to keep living your own life – keeping your options open – until he gives you a clear rock-solid reason to do otherwise.

You know that you deserve to be called with enough advance notice that shows you're more than just an afterthought when he's got nothing better to do. You continue to make your own plans and keep them even if it means saying "no" to him if he called too late.

You know that if he doesn't call (or text, email, etc.), it's not anything to blame yourself for. It just means it wasn't meant to be right now and he isn't the guy for you at this point in time.

You don't beat yourself up about it, because you know it's his loss.

You know that your happiness doesn't depend on him choosing you. You have already chosen yourself.

You know that your worth doesn't depend on him choosing you. You already know you have worth just because you're you!

You know that you have nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and nothing to live up to. This is simply about getting to know someone better to see if you are compatible, enjoy being with each other, share the same values and are looking for similar things in life.

You know that it takes two people on the same page who want the same thing to make a relationship work, and you would never blame yourself or take more than your share of responsibility for the relationship if it didn't work out the way you wanted it to.

You Are Priceless

Because you, my beautiful friend, deserve nothing less than someone who genuinely wants to get to know you better and treats you like the confident, beautiful, priceless woman that you truly are.

This isn't about making someone love you.

This isn't about being the perfect girlfriend or perfect potential wife, or whatever else you see yourself as being to this man that hasn't given you any reason to commit to him any more than he's committing to you.

This is about two people getting to know each other better on this adventure we call life. That's it.

Don't take it any more seriously than this. Enjoy, have fun, live in the moment, and most of all, remember that this is about you living your life and raising the bar on how you choose to be treated!

You truly are all that...and yes, you are hard to get!

Help! My Biological Clock is Ticking Away!

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A woman who is concerned that her biological clock is ticking away and she hasn't yet found her Mr. Right is holding a biological clock near her belly.Here's a letter from one of our beautiful readers, Mady, who is concerned that her biological clock is ticking away and she hasn't yet found her Mr. Right. 

Dear Jane,

First of all, thank you for writing such encouraging thoughts on your very positive website. You’re helping a lot of people, something I strive to do as well – sooner than later, I hope. Thank you, really 🙂

I’ve been reading almost all your posts. There’s one topic I haven’t found though, and which is keeping me thinking and contemplating since at least a year now: What about those beautiful women who are still on their own, in their thirties, and who would very much like to have children?

There’s been some very important and loving men in my life. Yet, these last few years, with all the reading, building on my confidence and convincing myself that real, lasting love will one day cross my path, I feel that one of my biggest dreams would be to have children. Of course, I’m almost 32, my clock is ticking, and even if I meet someone special next year, getting pregnant can still take years of “trying”. So I’m thinking about other“solutions”. I reckon this might sound a bit irrational. I just feel the need to reassure myself by knowing that there’s an alternative, which doesn’t require waiting for/depending on the arrival of that special man.Continue Reading

3 Steps to Get the Commitment You Want

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It's time to define for yourself exactly what commitment looks like to you. A beautiful woman is embracing her man in a committed relationship after he has professed his commitment to her in an autumn woodland setting.Not getting the kind of commitment that you want from your guy? Check out this article I wrote for YourTango for a few steps you can take to get to where you want to be…

We all want to feel like our partners are committed to us. In fact, a recent study commissioned by Benenden Health, one-third of the study participants said that they would feel more optimistic about their relationships if their partners showed them more commitment. On top of that, most married participants were significantly happier than their single fellow participants.

So now that science has proven an obvious truth about couples in relationships, what do you do when you aren't getting the level of commitment you want from the guy you're dating? Here are three simple steps you can take to move towards the kind of committed relationship that you really want:

Step One: know what level of commitment you want. Like most things in life, if you're unclear about what you really want out of a relationship then you're going to have a tough time getting it. Life tends to deliver to us exactly what we focus on, so if you're not focused on what you truly want, then it's time to define for yourself exactly what commitment looks like to you. Does it mean dating exclusively? Do you want an engagement ring on your finger or is a verbal profession of love good enough for you? Are you the type of person who feels that it's not a true commitment until you drive off in the limo with the "just married" sign taped on the trunk? These are all questions that you need to answer honestly with yourself. Continue reading on YourTango.com...

He Was Never Really There

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We forget just how miserable we were far too much of the time. We forget how many of our own needs weren't being met. We forget all the waiting. We forget all the uncertainty. We forget all the times we felt like anything would have been better than what we were living. A beautiful woman is sad thinking about her recently ended relationship.It's always hard to let go of a dream. The dream of all the potential the relationship showed, the dream of all that could have been. We tend to have such a selective memory when we finally let him go or he lets us go. Either way, it's the same.

We remember all the wonderful times, the great things, that amazing potential he showed. And we start questioning ourselves and why we couldn't just have been this or that. Why we couldn't have been more understanding of him (as if we weren't already all too understanding!)

We wonder why we couldn't be content with less.

And then we start wondering if we're worth it. We forget just how miserable we were far too much of the time. We forget how many of our own needs weren't being met. We forget all the waiting. We forget all the uncertainty. We forget all the times we felt like anything would have been better than what we were living. We start on that slippery slope that has us second-guessing ourselves and leaves us spending all too much of our time and energy fantasizing about how to get him back and how different things would be this time around – if only we can convince him to give us another chance.

Stop right there, my beautiful friend. It's time to see this through your strong adult eyes instead of through the eyes of that little girl who's been trying to get that love she wants so badly. It's time to ask yourself some questions to see what was really there.

  • Did he really care about what you wanted?
  • Did he want the same thing?
  • Did he say he wanted the same thing, but his actions showed otherwise?
  • Did you feel anxious when you were with him?
  • Did you feel like if you could just be content to go with the flow, it would have been turned out so much better?
  • Would he have been perfect if only he could commit?

We can be so understanding, so forgiving, and so willing to put someone else first without thinking about whether they even deserve that kind of response from us in the first place. Is he worth what you've been putting yourself through? Is he worth your beautiful you? We can get so caught up in whether he wants us, whether he loves us, whether he's going to commit to us, that we forget that this is so much more about us than him. It's not about what if, it's not about what could have been, it's not about if only, it's about what is.

And you, my beautiful friend, deserve nothing less than a real relationship based on reality; a reality of two people on the same page who want the same thing and are committed to making that happen regardless of any extenuating circumstances.

Because if you don't have that, what do you really have?

Is Your Relationship Moving Too Fast?

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Why did he pursue me like that if he didn’t really want to be with me? A man is romancing his woman with lavish gifts and flowers.
While flowers and romance can be wonderful, too much too soon is a red flag.

One of our readers wrote to me last week saying "I have a friend who recently met a man who is going absolutely overboard with professing his love (after 2 dates) and giving her gifts. She's, of course, eating it up while all I see are red flags."

This is one of the questions I’m typically asked after it’s all over (which is usually fairly quickly), but not when it’s still going on. The question is commonly phrased something along the lines of "Why did he come on so strong if he wasn't interested in a committed relationship with me? Why did he pursue me like that if he didn't really want to be with me?" But in this particular case the woman in question has a beautiful friend who is looking out for her, and is concerned about the situation while it's occurring.

I have to say that I agree with her concerns. While I'm sure there are some exceptions to the rule, the whirlwind love-at-first-site romance that turns into a lifelong love affair is, unfortunately, very rare. It's much more common that the intense burning flame quickly turns into a flame-out.

I've lived through it myself many times, and I've heard too many similar stories to count. How is it that he can treat us like such a princess, going almost overboard with flowers and gifts and romantic gestures, and then just disappear from our lives as soon as we’re completely smitten and ready to say I do?

There is a reason.

It’s because this is what he does best! This is what he’s all about. It’s the chase, the conquest, the prize – this is what it’s all about to him until he knows he's got you and suddenly he realizes on some level that this has become all too real and now it’s his turn to deliver on his promises and make a commitment. It’s at that point that everything starts changing. For reasons that have everything to do with him, and nothing to do with you, this is the MO of the guy who we have the hardest time understanding.

Because it doesn't make any sense. At least not to us.

You see, my beautiful friend, this guy knows all the moves, all the right things to say and do because he’s practiced this more than a few times. He may say he wants a relationship and a commitment, he may see he’s just never met the right woman before, he may say he wants exactly what you want, but the reality is, he hasn't figured out what he needs to do to make this happen, and his own insecurities give him no motivation to do anything different. He hasn't looked into what holds him back, what makes him not want to commit, what makes him fail to get past the incredible beginning of a new and exciting conquest. And he doesn't have to because we keep making it so easy for him to continue behaving like this with us!

It may help to know that your friend is not the only one who’s fallen for this type of man. Most of us loving, giving, caring, believing women have experienced him at one time or another. This type of surface relationship catches most of us off guard because it seems – he seems – too good to be true, but at the same time it feels so true. And we so want to believe it, believe in the fairytale.

And that should be our red flag.

Because the reality is, he doesn't even know who you are yet! He doesn't even know (yet) that you’re worth all this time and energy and expense this early in the relationship. And he certainly doesn't know if he's in love with you yet.

And just like you don’t even know him yet, or know if he’s worth giving any part of yourself too, yet, you need some time to spend getting to know him and who he really is, not getting caught up in all the surface things he’s doing or saying, no matter how flattering it is!

My advice.

My advice to your friend would be to make sure, through all of the abdominal butterflies and fireworks, to remember what it is she's really looking for: a real guy who’s looking for a real relationship with a real woman, like her.

She can enjoy the attention from Mr. Speedy while making sure that she keeps her head clear and her eyes and ears open to reality. She can also keep things at a more realistic pace on her own terms – If he's not happy with that and disappears, then she has her answer – he wasn't the real thing after all. And she found out sooner rather than later.

On the other hand, if turns out to be the real thing, and he's proven to her that he's in it for the same reasons she is, and that he values the same things she does, he wants the same kind of commitment that she wants, then things will just keep getting better and better. Until she knows that for sure, none of the words, gifts or romantic gestures matter.

I'll finish with a short story:

I was out with one of my girlfriends on the day I met my husband, and she met a guy the same day. By the time my husband and I had arranged to get together and he picked me up for our first date, they had been together 24/7 for about a week straight, and were already planning to move in together. She told me that she knew it was the real thing, it was just so intense, so passionate, so amazing.

A month or two later, just as we were starting to get serious, their relationship was over. Now, about twelve years later, my husband and I just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.

Some things just can't be rushed.

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