Dating with fear and obsessing about your ex and no contact
August 11, 2008 by NML · 24 Comments
The more and more emails and comments that I read about how women deal with emotional unavailability and the aftermath, is the more concerned I become about whether recovering Fallback Girls recognise some dangerous things that they may be doing to potentially draw them back into the cycle.
Dating and being cautious. Going on dates, being suspicious, being scared, worried that he’s going to turn out like all of the others, downplaying him like you’re settling for fear of ending up with another assclown.
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Living in Denial with your Relationships
August 4, 2008 by NML · 13 Comments
Sometimes, when I read emails and comments from readers, I can hear the voice of Vikki Pollard from Little Britain saying “yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but yeah” and what I hear is that many women agree with what I or others have to say about certain male behaviour like emotional unavailability, but they like to leave a trail of ‘buts’ because they don’t want to write off all hope.
Whilst this is tied into a core behaviour of many women called Betting On Potential, choosing to deny the reality of someone or your situation says more about you than it does about him.
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Do emotionally unavailable men change?
July 31, 2008 by NML · 8 Comments
This is probably one of the most common questions that I am asked by women and it seems that no matter what some of you know about yourselves and him, you’re still curious. I’m not surprised…
Most women who took the time to search for information that led them to this site were looking for answers and more importantly, a solution. Admittedly though, I suspect that the ideal solution that many want to hear is one that involves:
You changing and him having a thunderbolt moment where he realises it’s love.
A step by step guide to catching him and keeping him.
Some all joyous news that says with a bit of patience, he will change.
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Does emotionally unavailable equal ‘He’s just not that into you’? Why do we care?
July 28, 2008 by NML · 14 Comments
Last year I wrote a post about whether ‘He’s just not that into you’ is another description for emotionally unavailable and I feel that over a year later, 194 comments, and a couple of ebooks later, that it is time to revisit this subject.
Mr Unavailable is as into you as he is capable of being into you.
When he’s blowing hot, he’s into the idea of pursuit and capture. When he’s blowing lukewarm he’s into the idea of retreat and managing down your expectations so that you don’t expect, want, or need anything from him. When he’s blowing damn cold, he’s into the idea of disappearing, trying his luck on some other hapless Fallback Girl, or manipulating you into jumping to his beat.
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Why you’ll always be a Yo-Yo Girl if you don’t maintain the No Contact Rule
July 24, 2008 by NML · 169 Comments
In another excerpt from new ebook, Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, I explain the assuming that keeps a Yo-Yo Girl (YYG) in her boomerang relationship with her ‘bad penny’ Mr Unavailable. This excerpt is from the chapter on The Yo-Yo Girl, from the section, You’re thinking ‘We’re back together!’, he’s thinking ‘We’re hooking up…’
The biggest question that YYG’s ask themselves is ‘Why does he keep coming back?’ and it’s simply because he can. That…and he’s the original Dog In a Manger – He don’t want you but he doesn’t want you to move onto someone else who might actually want you and prevent him from being able to have the easy access that he currently has back into your life. In order for Mr Unavailable’s to indulge in this boomerang behaviour, there has to be a facilitating YYG. In fact, Mr Unavailable’s would not be able to exist and continue with their behaviour if there weren’t Fallback Girl’s ready and waiting to co-manage this dysfunctional partnering.
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The Fallback Girl is Mr Unavailable’s Disgruntled Customer
July 23, 2008 by NML · 4 Comments
In another excerpt from new ebook, Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, I explain another example of how we fit in with the behaviour of emotionally unavailable men so well, which actually enables their poor relationship behaviour.
This excerpt is from the section ‘He can’t commit/won’t commit – You’re a disgruntled customer that won’t accept’
If you imagine that you’re Mr Unavailable’s customer, he’s selling and you’re buying. But you’re an unhappy customer. He has shown you the product, given it a whole load of bells and whistles that aren’t actually sold with that particular product, and then sold it to you and told you that you’ll be getting the pared down version because the one you want was a limited edition, that’s no longer in stock, and the one in his hand has already been reserved.
You feel confused. Why go to the trouble of making a song and dance about the product if he wasn’t going to sell it to you? Yes you know you felt a bit awkward when you were listening to his sales patter and you did wonder why he was showing you this particular product when it didn’t look anything like the one on the box. But he seemed to really want to wow you, show you a good time and make sure that you’re shopping experience was unforgettable. You remember feeling a bit uncomfortable around him, a little distrusting, wondering if this was all too good to be true. He assures you that what you have, is just fine and that you’ll love it. But you don’t love it when you get home because you keep thinking back to that amazing product. You know it’s out there, you just need to get your hands on it, but each time you ask him, he says that what you have is what you’re going to get, but then confuses you by alluding to the possibility of getting the one you really want.
Sound familiar? It should do. You, the Fallback Girl are the disgruntled customer who wants an exchange.
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Understanding the The Cheater
July 22, 2008 by NML · 9 Comments
In this excerpt from new eBook, Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, I give an insight into what is running through the mind of The Cheater, the man who likes to have his cake and eat it too, whilst lying on it and promising the world….
The Mr Unavailable that cheats is a special breed. This guy has made it down the aisle or appears to be in some form of committed relationship (or at least his partner thinks so!). But this doesn’t make him any less emotionally unavailable.
The mistake that the Other Woman makes with these men is assuming that because these men appear to be committed to someone else, that these are the type of men that commit, and that they’ll eventually commit to her.
It is possible for Mr Unavailable’s to be in relationships or even married. It doesn’t change who they are, it’s just that for whatever reason they have chosen to take the plunge. It could be through fear, it could be through a desperate urge to keep that one woman who wouldn’t tolerate his behaviour and made him jump through hoops, or he could even have found himself trapped. It could be for any number of reasons but for whatever reason, he hasn’t changed, or if he did, he has now reverted back to his old self. It is not a victory to get an emotionally unavailable man down the aisle. If he’s not married but is cheating, it’s very possible that the woman that he’s in a relationship with is clutching at straws with him too. The reality is that there are a lot of people out there who are prepared to believe that they are in a committed relationship, even when they aren’t. If you’re reading this book, you are one of them!
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Overestimating Yourself:The Consequence of Change vs Inertia in Dating and Relationships
July 21, 2008 by NML · 9 Comments
I’ve just been over visiting some of my favourite peeps HoneyandLance and Honey has written a brilliant post called People are Inherently Lazy: Or, Why We Over-Rank Ourselves, which was actually in response to a post by dating expert Evan Marc Katz called Do You Overestimate Yourself? Both of their posts were in response to a recent post on the Freakonomics Bulletin (Freakonomics is one of my favourite books) about people’s tendencies to seriously overestimate themselves.
Which got me thinking of course about Baggage Reclaim readers and the various problems that you come up against, particularly Mr Unavailable’s. In my new ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, I repeatedly talk about value and the correlation between that, your self-esteem, and why you will find yourself knock, knock, knocking at assclown door…again and again.
There was a standout line in this standout post:
“So we’re willing to put what might seem to be a disproportionate amount of effort into convincing ourselves and the world that we’re great, because we’d have to put far more work into actually becoming great.”
This is the whole Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl problem. Change seems far more scary than sticking in a bad situation so Fallback Girl’s put a disproportionate amount of effort into their relationships so that they can convince these men of their greatness.
I think on the whole, whilst it is good to be aware of your fabulousness and place a good value on yourself, we, as women need to be aware that we often place too much value in the wrong things, and not enough in the right things.
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Relationship Advice Guest Post: Am I wasting my time with my mixed signals guy?
July 18, 2008 by NML · 13 Comments
I have a guest post from Emily of X & Y Communications which is an all too familiar scenario with Baggage Reclaim readers - trying to read a mans mind and interpret signals that are either mixed or non existent….
Maureen asks: My dilemma is that I have been dating this guy for close to eight months. I am almost ready to tell him that the only way I’ll continue going out with him is if things are going somewhere and if he is not seeing someone else because I don’t want to waste my precious time.
I don’t like that when we are having dinner or at the movies he keeps answering text messages to I don’t know who (this happens even when he is driving). He says he really wants to get to know me better but sometimes his actions tell me different.
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Relationship Advice: Should I stick by emotionally unavailable army guy?
July 17, 2008 by NML · 8 Comments
Amy asks “I fell in love with a wonderful, a younger man (yea for me) and then, he was called to active duty. Sad, sad day that was. He was in the Reserves, here in the U.S. at the time.
So our relationship became long distance as he was in another state preparing to go to war. I’ve never known or been in relationship with a military guy, so this was all new. The thought of also knowing someone not only military but going to war was beyond my comprehension.
Nonetheless, it happened. He went to war and I stayed by his side. I endured much of his stress during this time, they actually have a name for it ‘vicarious trauma’ and found it to have effected me greatly about the time he was ready to come home. it’s tough to wait for someone for 15 months, and to hear of bombs, friends dying etc in his letters. hard times, for sure.
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