Why Do So Many Men Do This? (Relationship-related)

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I’ve been seeing this guy for a couple of months. I went into the relationship very cautiously, as you’re supposed to, setting boundaries early and not acting desperate or needy. I was cool as a cucumber. He pursued me hard, and was constantly saying and doing nice things for me. Basically convincing me that he would be the best boyfriend ever, and was so very good at it that he got me. I fell hard. I am madly in love with him at this point. We see each other 2 to 3 times a week and yes, we are sexually active. And how. We are not kids- I’m 38 and he’s 41- in fact we both have kids, but his live far away.

The last couple of weeks there has been a drastic change in his behavior. We still talk every day and see each other just as much, but that extreme-niceness thing is… gone. No more proclamations of devotion, mention of how awesome I am, or assertions of undying devotion. No more tender emails the morning after that bring tears to my eyes in their sweetness. He’s not being mean, I’d never put up with that, but it is way different than previously.

I’ve spoken with him about it- I was fully prepared to be dumped based on this new and strange behavior of his. He assured me that he has no plans to dump me, that he feels the exact same way that he did, and he does say that he loves me. He says that he just feels comfortable with me now. Ooookay, but if you love me and want me to love you back, wouldn’t it behoove you to continue to treat me like I quite obviously enjoy? I was that eating that shit up, having been single for several years and being on that early-love high. Now I almost feel as if the roles are reversed, and *I * am courting him, which is fine if that’s your bag, but I’m fairly traditional when it comes to man/woman stuff, and I don’t like to feel like I’m “chasing” someone. I also don’t much like being so vulnerable, and giving someone the power to break my heart, but such are relationships, I guess.

And it’s not just him, lately I have been hearing and reading about this phenomenon quite a bit. Seems that it’s very common for a man to pursue a woman, and then when he gets her, to pull back. Why, why, why? If you’re a man, have you done this? Why? Or if you’re a woman, has this happened to you? I’ve been trying to pull back a bit myself, and not appear to NEED him, and all that, but I’m a very emotional person and I like to talk about my feelings (a lot), as it helps me to process them. The last couple of days, I feel that he may be starting to come back around emotionally, so maybe it was a short-lived phase.

Any answers/thoughts/opinions?

2

Do what?

3

You know, that thing where you pursue a woman and then when you’ve got her, pull back.

4

Wait, what’s going on?

5

The feast of the carcass is never as exciting as the thrill of the hunt. (There’s got to be a more appropriate metaphor here, but this is the first thing to come to mind.) Women–well, some of them–do the same thing.

Not that I’m any kind of expert on relationships (ballistic missiles: yes; edged weapon combat: maybe; romance: no) but one suggestion I’d offer is not to dump all the emotional process dump with the lad. A certain amount of that is good feedback, but if you expect the guy to become your best friend and confidant, that’s a hell of a load to carry and often in contradiction to the role of being a lover.

Then again, I like cold toilet seats, so what do I know. gong

Stranger

6

We women do it too. It sucks I know, but when I start dating someone my house is immaculate, I take time to do my hair, wear make up sometimes (which is a BIG deal to me), etc. Then once they have been around for a while I start letting the place get messy, pulling my hair back, ordering pizza instead of cooking dinner when I get home from work. It is a comfort zone kind of thing and it is really helpful if both people fall into it at the same time but it doesn’t always happen that way. Pizza doesn’t mean I love him less, it means he has become a part of my everyday life and I can’t keep up the charade of being a make up wearing, clean house keeping, never farting, thinking his playing soccer is so entertaining kind of woman forever. If he doesn’t love me when my sink is full of dirty dishes he didn’t love me when it was empty either.

Besides, after a while the never ending praise and adoration starts to get stalker-creepy.

7

Beyond a point, which comes pretty early, a guy feels that he’s gotten his devotion across to you, and no longer needs quite as ardently to keep repeating himself. It seems logical enough to him that “I’ve told her how I feel about her, she understands how important she is to me, and that’s enough already.” Nothing has changed, other than he quite reasonably doesn’t intend to devote the rest of his natural life to reassuring you that the stuff he told in October is still true in December. It was nice hearing it in October, but it’s not October anymore. You’re still the same sweet person he said those nice things to, but now he has a life to return to that doesn’t require (and probably cant tolerate) the same intensity of emotion that he has showered upon you for months. He’s trying to dial it back a notch or two, and if you insist on his maintaining that level of intensity, not only will you not get that level of intensity, my guess is you’ll lose him as well.

As you might suppose, I’m a guy who has had women break up with him because I couldn’t keep supplying them with the same stuff forever that I was happy to supply for the first few months. What I could supply was different, and maybe better, after that first hihgh wore off, but they wanted me to stay where I was, and that’s unreasonable and controlling, and I was usually happy to leave when I realized that they couldn’t accept the notion that change is a good thing.

8

That’s simple. We (as a general rule) are not demonstrably emotive by nature. Being demonstrably emotive is difficult - it’s not something that comes easy, nor is it something that we (as a general rule) care to perpetuate once the immediate… well… “need” has passed.

9

Lemme see. You played stupid, silly games at the outset of the relationship and he played along. Now the game is over and you’re wondering why he stopped playing?

The question is what’s wrong with *men[/n]?

10

I think a lot of people act differently when securing a relationship than when they’re in a relationship. Partly it’s because securing the relationship is more of a change than maintaining it, so it gets different energy; part of it is the new love high and when it starts to wear off. My cynical streak figures there’s a certain amount of “Okay, now I’ve got 'em, I don’t have to impress anymore” going on in a lot of places.

It can be a shock to the system, especially if one’s expectations for what’s stable in the relationship get set way wrong in the early bits. Or if one person comes out of the giddy-obsessive-they’re-so-COOL stage before the other one does, or very abruptly.

A couple of thoughts: are you familiar with the ‘languages of love’ concept? I haven’t read the book, but there’s a couple online quizzes and some essays about it – talking about the different ways people prefer to express emotions. If you and your partner naturally fall into different natural modes of expressing care for each other, you both may wind up feeling neglected. It’s worth discussing what sorts of thing translate to you as a useful display of affection so that you each know how best to express caring for the other.

11

Whoa, dude. Might be time to cut back on the coffee. Nobody played any games.

12

I think the toned down version of that is that courtship is a game in a way in then you move back into “real life” after a while. You aren’t the first female that doesn’t realize this is just a transient stage and not something that will be maintained for the duration of the relationship. Most guys in a long-term relationship have gotten the “why don’t you ___ to me anymore?” questions. In some cases in may be a legitimate inquiry but in many cases it is just delusional female behavior of this minor variety.

Where it really gets you into trouble is when your wife/girlfriend’s friend has a new love interest and he is over there making you look like crap temporarily and you have to explain this all over again.

13

He’s not pulling back, he’s started to act naturally. He wooed you, you played it cool, he wooed you harder, you fell for him. The purpose of the wooing phase, to win you, is accomplished. Now he needs to see if he wants to live with you for the rest of his life. If he didn’t want you, just wanted to get into your pants, he would indeed have dumped you after the wooing phase was over.

You can’t expect a man to carry on the wooing phase forever, that’s a deranged invention of romance novels and you’re up for a life of disappointment if that what means love to you.

If you are very very lucky you can both act naturally with each other and feel perfectly comfortable in each other’s company just being yourselves. Give it a try, you might like it. A man wants a woman he can go home to and relax with, not one that has to be “won over” again and again. Home to men is a refuge from the stress and striving of the outside world, not a place where he has to frantically come up with new praise and signs of devotion every day. To a man simply being with you and forsaking all others, is in itself a sign of devotion which you should take as more sincere than all the glurgy phone messages in the world.

14

The responses so far are pretty much what I expected. The reasons the change threw me are 1) it was pretty drastic and 2) I could have used a bit more of the courting stage, although I know it has to end sometime and I wouldn’t even want that kind of intensity for long. I just thought it would be a little bit longer.

And I do try to keep in mind that I should never expect my man to be my girlfriend who loves to discuss and analyze emotions with me, so I haven’t been discussing it with him to a great extent. I just do what women do best- pick apart everything he says, the tone of voice he said it with, what alternate meanings it could have, etc. :stuck_out_tongue: Having just gotten off the phone with him, I’m happy to report that his emotional warmth really may be on the rebound at least a little, as I’m left with warm and fuzzy feelings.

The advice to talk with him about our respective expectations and needs is good, and I will take it when I’m feeling a bit more secure with him. Thanks!

15

shudder Why, Og, do you build them this way? What purpose does it serve? Can’t you just make them straightforward? I want my damn rib back!

Stranger

16

You can label it however you’d like but your OP pretty clearly indicated that you “played it cool” and made him earn your affection. That’s all fine and dandy, but playing hard to get is a game in my book. If that’s how you want to handle the courting phase and he doesn’t mind, I’m not going to judge, but you seem to be characterizing men as flawed because he stopped courting you, um, after the courting was over. That’s the point.

If you’re not going to be OK with the sea-change in his interactions with you, you might want to think about playing it straight from the first meeting next time. I’m guessing if you hadn’t played hard to get and hadn’t made him “earn” your affection you’d have gotten a clearer picture of just how he’d treat you once the pressure was off. And really, that’s what matters.

17

I wouldn’t say that I played “hard to get”, although I can see your point if I had. He was very intense during that period, while I was more reserved, as is my nature. I prefer to hang back some and observe until I am familiar with a person or new situation. It takes me a while to warm up, that’s all. It’s not part of any agenda or devious plot, it’s just me.

18

You’ve nailed it here. He was on that early-love high too; he just came off of it before you did.

19

Here’s a question for you. What is his dating history like? Some guys are great at the sell, but horrible at the relationship. I’d guess that he has had a series of short-term relationships.

I dated a guy who I talked to for quite a while before we went on a date. He focused on the first date being the most amazing date EVER. It was a pattern with him. That was his obsession, after the first date, he turned into a complete jerk. Perhaps the thrill of the chase is what he is good at. Many cats like to play with lizards they never intend to eat.

This wasn’t a gradual weaning, it sounds like a pretty dramatic shift. That doesn’t sound like “normalizing” of a relationship. It sounds like a pattern.

20

I’ve definitely thought about that, Auntbeast. He has been married and has lived with someone for an extended period, so my answers don’t lie there. I don’t think that he has dated all that much in between. I suppose only time will tell, though. If that is his thing, I hope that he shows it soon, as someone like that is not someone I’d want to waste much time on. I just hate being “played”, and feeling like an idiot. I almost want to say that it’s just not worth the risk, but then I think of him and get that funny feeling in my tummy… sigh.