Have you ever noticed the way a guy changes once he thinks he’s got you?
He was so awesome when you were dating. He made you feel special. He listened to you. He swept you off your feet.
Now he just expects you to take care of him.
He expects you to be there. All the time! He doesn’t consider your needs. He doesn’t make an effort.
Because he knows he’s got you. He can treat you however he wants, and you’re not going to leave.
In this situation, most women do one of four things.
- Get mad and confront him about it.
- Start acting hard to get.
- Look for ways to make him jealous, or
- Threaten to leave.
In fact, if you ask your friends what they think you should do, they’ll probably tell you to make yourself less available or let him see you with other guys.
But there’s a problem….
Nearly every single guy on the planet has had those tactics used on them.
They’ve been in a relationship, and their girlfriend has started flirting with other guys or suddenly not answering their texts.
They know why women do this. It’s an attempt to manipulate them.
So it backfires. He used to think you were amazing, and now he thinks you’re unreasonable, untrustworthy, and no different from his exes.
What do you do instead?
You use this science-backed strategy to make him worry about losing you in a way in a healthy way, so you’re closer than ever before.
Time Together, Time Apart
Psychotherapist Esther Perel is a global authority on desire.
She knows what keeps relationships hot, why people cheat, and what kills desire.
It comes down to understanding one fundamental truth:
Passionate, long-term love thrives on separation as much as it thrives on togetherness.
This is one of her most famous quotes:
Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while desire is energized by it.”
Which means the more you’re in love…
The more you try to do everything together and become one of those couples who acts like identical twins…
The more desire starts to fade.
Desire thrives on understanding that he is not yours, and you are not his.
No matter how much you try to get inside each other’s head, you will never truly know each other. You’ll always have the capacity to surprise each other.
That’s where we want to start.
Take Time for Yourself
When he sees you as a separate person apart from him, who’s mysterious and unknowable, with her own mind and heart, then he values the fact that you’ve chosen to be with him. He sees your presence as a gift, rather than something he’s bought and purchased.
How do you remind him of that fact?
Well, you’re not going to do it by pouring all your time and energy into the relationship and making him happier than he’s ever been!
You do it by building space into your relationship. Space for you to be who you are, separate from the relationship, and space for him to be who he is, separate from the relationship.
The aspect of you that he finds most mysterious and unknowable is your femininity. You’re a woman, and he’s not. So begin there.
Take time to do things you want to do as a woman, and don’t let him invite himself along.
Go out with your girlfriends. Create a studio space in your house that he can’t enter without your permission. Go away for a women’s retreat. Sign up for dance classes without him. If there’s something he doesn’t want to do with you, fine. Do it anyway.
You can even do little things like closing the bedroom door when you’re getting dressed or closing the bathroom door when you’re doing your makeup, so he doesn’t get to see your secret feminine rituals. He just gets to see you emerge like a goddess, completely transformed.
“Me Man, You Woman”
Men love it when the women in their lives do “women things.” It makes them feel like more of a man.
The more you play up that difference, the more you take time to do things that nourish your feminine soul, the more he sees you as someone separate from himself. You’re like a whole other species! He would love to know what you get up to when he’s not there, but he doesn’t get to know, because he’s a man.
And it goes both ways.
He gets time and space to be a man. He doesn’t have to tell you what he’s doing when he shuts himself up in his shop. He doesn’t have to give you a blow-by-blow of what happened on his last boys night out.
You respect his privacy and mystery, and in exchange you expect him to respect yours.
What do you do to take time for yourself and make yourself feel like a woman? Let us know in the comments!
Let us know what you think!