Break Emotional Unavailability, Embrace Loving Relationships, Grow Self-Esteem

If They Won’t Cosign To The Truth, It Doesn’t Invalidate It

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Just tell me the truth so that I can move on

I talk to so many people who feel frustrated by the fact that they see the truth but others don’t or choose not to, because it feels as if the truth isn’t the truth unless everybody agrees to it. It’s as if they’re not allowed to have their own perspective. In reality, our perspective is our own perspective based on our own experiences, outlook, beliefs, values, assumptions, education, fears, experienced etc., and theirs is theirs.

It’s critical to have an authentic relationship with ourselves and to be able to distinguish between ‘image’ versus reality. We don’t need to be BS vigilantes leaving no BS stone unturned. It’s most important for us to know what we know.

A couple of years ago, I attended a funeral. After the service, despite staying in the background, people kept coming over and asking who I was. I told them that he was my mother’s father and then they were falling over themselves to talk about me being his granddaughter and basically rewriting history on the spot. I didn’t feel away about it but I also didn’t need to feed it either so when the many people who expressed surprise at my existence expressed their condolences, I thanked them but also said that I didn’t really know him. Actually, I didn’t know him at all.

The funny thing is that this experience helped me to realise that a lot of the reason why we cosign on to untruths is because 1) we think the truth is “not very nice” and feel guilty or bad about it, and/or 2) to make others more comfortable. What this has the unfortunate side effect of, is shaming us about the truth.

Within families in particular, there can be codes of silence and lies, where a family will clan together and refuse to admit the existence of the truth of certain events. After a while, they believe the lies and in fact, the lies are no longer lies to them because they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. What happens if we deviate from it? We’re frozen out, ostracised, or even called a liar and shamed, and this in itself can be incentive enough to tow the line.

We can feel as if we’re being penalised for being honest or we struggle to fathom why everyone would want to go along with the lie.

‘But it’s a lie! They know it is! They should want to tell the truth!’

We can’t handle the lie so why can they?

Unless we’re going to play along, we are a threat. If we know that we would not be able to remain silent, we have no choice but to leave them to their devices or step back, because the alternative – riding their arses like Zorro to see things our way – is a painful vocation that’s better left alone.

Drip-Feeding: When you get the truth (or lies) in installments

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Drip-feeding - when someone feeds you the truth in installments

When someone feeds us the truth about something one bit at a time, possibly because we keep catching them out, what they’re doing is drip-feeding information on a ‘need to know’ or more like, ‘I just got caught out’ basis. I’d say that they’re drip-feeding the truth, and in some instances that may be the case, but sometimes a person can end up drip-feeding more lies, and it ends up being like a lies version of the film Inception – a lie within another lie within another lie.

If you’re being drip-fed the truth, consider it a code red alert that something is seriously wrong and you most definitely shouldn’t proceed until you’re absolutely certain of the facts and the trust issue has been addressed and resolved. Obviously this can pose an issue because while people make mistakes and do lie (and regret it and seek to make amends), drip-feeding is just a continuation of a lie, only this time, you’re being led to believe that you’re both on a truth level when you’re not.  That person is unwilling to be upfront and is feeding you information on a need-to-know-basis and re-deceiving you time and again. It’s very difficult to feel comfortable in an atmosphere of lies and half-truths. It’s destabilising, especially when you keep taking each ‘installment’ at face value, only to discover that there’s more to come.

You start out believing that you’ve been told the truth. Let’s call it 100%. Then you receive a ‘drip’, possibly because you’ve caught them out in something. This automatically means that your 100% or whatever percentage of truth that you believed that you had at the start, was not that amount – it was less.

The Outrageous Principle: When someone tests you to see how much they can get away with

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roulette table

Recently, a lot of the emails and comments I’ve received have had an element of the author being totally bewildered by the outrageousness of the people they’ve been involved with. Like a lot of things in life, we measure other people’s behaviour by our own so often, it can make absolutely no sense to us how someone could even think to even ask or attempt to do certain things with us.

‘I don’t get! Why did he think he could even ask me to do that?! What type of woman does he think I am?!’

The more I see of some of the things that are taking place, the more I am convinced of The Outrageous Principle:

When someone takes a chance and asks or does the most ridiculous thing to test to see what they can get away with. In a dating world where there are often little or no boundaries, this means they take a risk that often pays off.

They use your reaction to their behaviour to deduce whether you’re the type of person that they can get away with flouting the boundaries. Even if they have lured you into believing that there are no repercussions for going along with their action, some of them will make a judgement about you and use this to not only write you off as a serious prospect for a relationship, but to also give themselves carte blanche to mistreat you.

They weigh up risk versus reward and decide that if they get what they want out of things they’re in a win:win situation even though it is done at the expense of your feelings or even your self-esteem.

How do they know they can do this with you? They don’t necessarily pick up a signal from you prior to them doing it, although if they are practiced at drawing in people and pulling their behaviours, they’ll have a fair idea of the type of people that are likely to be receptive. If they’ve given you some early warning signs (red flags) and you’ve missed them, this will also send a signal.

One of the most widespread examples of The Outrageous Principle is when guys push for sexual activity within the first few dates and then, after ‘hitting it’, deduce that you’re too ‘easy’ and not wifey material. We can often be indignant that they’ve even pushed the issue in the first place, wondering what it is about us, that let them think they could ask us about having sex or even feeling us up, not realising that it’s not about us per se; they’re just getting the measure of us and working out how much we respect ourselves. Some women have found themselves going against their instincts (that recognition that it’s outrageous) and going along for the proverbial ride because they get drawn in by the perceived attraction and connection.

The worst offenders of this, are the ones that pursue you, drop all the lines on you, badger you for sex and fake a future with you, pretending that you’re both on the same page and how you’re going to move forward into a mutually pleasurable relationship, only for them to go cold on you or gradually withdraw.

The other equally common example are the guys that bounce your boundaries around by blowing hot and cold and managing down your expectations. For some of them, it’s the simple fact that you give them the time of day in spite of the fact that they have some rather dubious qualities about them. For others, it’s that once they reveal the true nature of their behaviour, our own perception of them doesn’t shift and we don’t get turned off by them, instead often increasing our pursuit the worse that they behave.

The shocking thing about The Outrageous Principle is that yes, the behaviour is outrageous, but once it becomes a regular thing, we normalise it and they expect to be allowed to continue as is, even if we suddenly realise that it doesn’t work for us.

Emotional Unavailability: He Blows Hot & Cold – You become ‘The Pursuer’

By Reading Time: 6 Minutes

In every single email and telephone discussion I have had with the many Fallback Girls, every, single, last one, has revealed that there were some, or even a lot of things that made them uncomfortable or got their ‘spidey senses’ going in the early days of the relationship, such as the blowing hot and cold and the ever changing excuses, and yet, nothing. They didn’t do anything, or at least not anything constructive that would truly benefit them. Now I don’t deny that these men are assclowns, fronters, and morphers, and some of them are extremely good at being deceptive, but the one thing that Fallback Girls are guilty of is blindly pursuing their own agenda, even though they have signals to the contrary.

The reason why you slot in so well when Mr Unavailables blow hot and cold, is that aside from the fact that it caters to your drama meter, you become ‘the pursuer’. Suddenly the tables are turned and you are no longer being pursued by them like those giddy, heady, times when you first met and he made you feel like the centre of his universe, and instead, when you pursue him despite him having a lukewarm or cold front and him disrespecting you and your boundaries, you become the pursuer, and no matter what takes place after this, you are the Fallback Girl that is pursuing her idea of the relationship and him, that is beyond the capacity of what he has to offer, and he is just the passive, lazy, Mr Unavailable who is along for the ride because you keep pursuing and you keep offering yourself.

In being ‘the pursuer’, you have become so heavily invested in the idea of him and the relationship that the reality of who he is has not caught up with the fantasy created by your betting on potential. Despite poor behaviour from him and lots of red flag behaviour, you are still trying to make the quintessential pigs ear into a silk purse. You are not only ignoring clear signals and indicators of who he is and what you’re going to get, but you’re ignoring what he says or shows he wants because you think that you know better. You think that your love is all that he needs and you have decided that you’re going to love him so he’s got to love you.

Now I can guarantee that this pretty hard for you to digest, because in most Fallback Girls’ minds, they believe that their Mr Unavailable is doing the bulk of the pursuing but in actual fact, it’s you. As I mentioned before, when Mr Unavailables use blowing hot and cold to maintain The Status Quo, it sends a signal to us to prove ourselves to them and also turn up the drama meter.

The only reason why a woman pursues a man who is a total flip-flapper who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow is because she has low self-esteem and is afraid to let go of the idea of him and the relationship and accept the reality.

You pursue him because him pulling away triggers your flight or fight reflex and you’re too scared to walk away, so you fight for it instead.

You pursue him because you believe that something you have said or done has triggered his pulling away, so you pursue him to make things right, but instead show him that you don’t care enough about yourself.

You pursue him because you are focused on the initial great behaviour rather than the reality of the majority of his behaviour. You believe the beginning is an indicator of the end.

You pursue him because men like this appear far more attractive when they appear to be less interested in you.

You pursue him because it sets off your internal fears, which combined with the very real external fears (his behaviour), set off the drama meter.

You pursue him because it’s your relationship pattern.

You pursue him because you are heavily emotionally invested, even though there is very little substance and want to justify your investment.

But most of all, you pursue him because you want to demonstrate that you’re the ‘right’ girl for him so that he can validate you so that you don’t have to go through believing you’ve been rejected. You can just about cope with the small rejections with each withdrawal but if you don’t win back some attention from him, that would be total rejection.

You pursue him, you pursue your own agenda, you pursue the relationship, and you pursue the dream that has arise from betting on potential. After a while, you’re so blindly focused on what you believe are your feelings and of course, the anxiety and insecurity generated by your fears, that the reality of the situation and the reality of who he is, no longer matter.

I’m often asked why do emotionally unavailable men keep coming back when they know they can’t give you what they want, and aside from the fact that these guys are users, they do it because you keep offering it, and after a while, it’s almost like they shrug and go ‘Oh OK then!’ and succumb to taking what’s on offer.

Unfortunately, no matter what you intended, every time you throw yourself at the mercy of this guy, he perceives you as desperate, needy, foolish, but also fair game.

This is how they manage to let themselves off the hook: they believe that you’re pursuing things even though they have shown who they are, and that they’re only giving you what you want (or their watered down version of it), when in actual fact, they’re taking advantage of your low self-esteem and enjoying the fringe benefits.

They are still pursuing you, it’s just that it is rarely to the extent that they did at the beginning of the relationship unless they truly believe that they are in serious danger of losing their ego stroke. The difference with Mr Unavailable after the beginning of the relationship, is he switches from giving you, let’s say 80% attention and effort, to drip feeding you various levels of attention and effort, to which you respond disproportionately because he has managed down your expectations.

So if you take the typical relationship, the tone gets set and he reduces down to 50, 40, 30, 20, or even 10% attention and effort instead of the original 80%, and you respond to whatever he throws you with often as much as 100% of your attention and effort.

This switch of control and effort is what creates much of the difficulty with letting go of Mr Unavailables. In being so focused on his initial behaviour and your expectations of him, you don’t even notice the switch in who’s doing the pursuing and you are unaware of what you are doing to exacerbate the situation.

You have to let go of your expectations of him and replace your thoughts and aspirations about him with the very real him. You also have to stop believing that whatever effort and attention you give a relationship is reciprocated because in reality, this only happens in relationships with solid foundations, with people with healthy levels of self-esteem, and who both have both of their feet firmly in the relationship with minimal baggage. That is not you, and it’s certainly not him.

You have got to let go of this idea of he runs, you chase, you run a little, so he chases, and building a negative relationship cycle. Many women believe that it’s not a relationship worth having if they didn’t fight for it, but I think they’d take a very different view if they looked at it from the perspective of repeatedly pursuing these men. Despite the evolving of the sexes, most women still want the man to do the pursuing yet Fallback Girls are pursuer’s. Some of you are downright obvious about it and others are more subtle, placing themselves in just the right situation to gain his attention and draw him back in.

A classic example is the Fallback Girl who works with her Mr Unavailable, who makes sure he sees her looking hot to trot, or talking to another guy, or spreads rumours that she’s with someone new. Yes, like the typical assclown Mr Unavailable, he’ll come running, but, she pursued him. Fallback Girls keep finding a reason to set the wheels in motion again when in fact, it should be their opportunity to bail.

You must stop making excuses for their behaviour and treat them like grown men who are responsible adults, accountable for their own behaviour. And you need to apply the same rules to yourself. You may believe that he just needs time, that he’s emotionally immature, and that you know that you’re destined to be together but aside from attempting to raise these men from the ground up, it’s like treating them children and assuming that you know better. These men aren’t trying to be got!

And here’s the kicker: every time you ‘pursue’ this guy and engage with him, it’s like disregarding your judgement of the situation. Pursuing Mr Unavailables is about wanting more than what is on offer, even though he is effectively out of emotional stock. As you learn to be happier with you, you’ll lose the urge to pursue and put yourself at the mercy of these men.

This excerpt is taken from Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl by NML/Natalie Lue, the founder of Baggage Reclaim.

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Tips for Sending Dirty Emails To Your Lover

By Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Don’t do it on work email! Some companies have very strict email policies but you may also get the content put through a filter which could be very embarrassing if it gets flagged up.

Only send these emails to a trusted lover. Trust me when I say that if you are sending these types of emails to a guy that could fit into the ‘prick’ category, he may not be the only person that’s reading them. You don’t want to find that your well intentioned email has become an email forward winging its way around the world.

Build up the ‘dirt’ over a few emails, especially if you’ve not emailed each other like this before. It might be better to start with ‘I’ve been thinking about you bending me over the kitchen table and taking me from behind’ rather than ‘I want you to tie me up and strangle me’. You can start out by stating what you want and then using subsequent emails to expand into the finer details. By doing this, it gives him the opportunity to ask questions like ‘What will you be wearing?’ etc.

Be descriptive. It’s a bit pointless going to the trouble of sending a ‘dirty’ email if you’re going to be tame. The great thing about writing an email is that you don’t have to get all tongue tied and you can be as explicit as you like without having to see facial expressions. Tell him:

– what you’ll be wearing. Don’t say ‘I’ll be wearing underwear’ say ‘I’ll be wearing silk knickers with a suspender belt over them, high heels and peep show bra’

– when this will be happening
– where
– what you want him to do
– what you want to do to him
– any specific instructions (no talking, for instance)
Drip feed these details to build up the anticipation!

Check that you’re sending it to the correct person. I don’t know what it is, but when you need to send something dirty or secretive, you can somehow find yourself accidentally sending it to an ex lover or even a parent! If you’re multi-tasking whilst writing your email, double-check that you’re sending it to the right person!

You can continue offline by having Post-It notes leading to the bedroom, or text messages on the way to your get together.

Also check out general tips for talking dirty in Talking Dirty to Your Man (The Starter Edition)

Rules for ‘Honesty’ in Relationships

By Reading Time: 2 Minutes

1. Don’t ask questions if you’re not prepared to accept the honest answer. Honesty is not about hearing what you want to hear.

2. Don’t beat them up for being honest about a past that you weren’t a part of. Laughing and joking along about their past and then using it against them later down the line is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

3. Do expect as much honesty as you give.

4. When a guy is honest enough to tell you that he’s a) an asshole, b) married, c) otherwise attached, d) a wife beater, e) anything else that screams run for the hills, listen to him instead of thinking that you’ll be the one to make a difference. There are a lot of guys who won’t even bother to be upfront! Consider yourself slightly more fortunate!

5. Don’t have predetermined answers. Guys hate feeling like they are damned with their answers and deciding on the answer before they speak is like setting them up for a trap.

6. Don’t be fluffy with your questions or your answers. You don’t need to be brutal, but you do need to be honest so that there is no ambiguity. There is for instance no point in saying that you want a casual-ish relationship if the reality is you want a serious relationship.

7. Don’t say what you think they want to hear. Many people spend their time bumbling their way around the truth for fear of other people’s reactions, but often the reaction is not as bad as what you think it will be and the truth always eventually comes out.

8. Don’t hold back your honesty so that you end up feeling resentful.

9. Don’t get caught up in that ‘your version of honesty bullsh*t’. Some people wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped on them and shagged them. The truth is the truth – no in betweens.

10. Don’t drip feed information. I had a reader complain that her boyfriend told her that he had a crush on another woman. Over the next few months the truth unfolded drip by drip and the final story was far different from the original. Telling 90% of the story and omitting the vital 10% is a waste of time. Either say it all or say nothing.

11. If you’re going to be honest about something, be clear about your motives. Is it to make them feel better or to make yourself feel better and unburden the guilt?

NML is the editor of Baggage Reclaim

We’re Hearing But We’re Not Listening: Turn On the BS Meter

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

It’s a new year, new start, blah, blah, blah, yet, what I’ve been hearing about is the demise of many relationships and when I hear the stories, much as I think the guy involved is a dickhead, I’m inclined to also feel that the women in question need to get truly honest with themselves and get their feet into reality. What’s becoming very clear from these stories is that as women, we are prepared to listen to complete shite in our quest to maintain status and be in a relationship. We don’t ask enough questions (sometimes we don’t ask any), and we’re hearing, but we’re not listening. Wake up and smell the coffee ladies. A man can only get away with what he’s allowed to. That doesn’t change whatever he’s going to be and do but what it does change, is whether he’s going to be doing it in our life. If he wants to behave that way, it’s time for him to step and what we’ve got to stop doing as women, is letting our propensity for bullshitting ourselves about men propel us into accepting less than we deserve including substandard behaviour. If we listen to BS, the BS just multiplies.

I’ve often taken the piss out of guys for not listening properly, but the tables need to be turned on us women. Why the hell are we listening to crap? I heard a story recently of a four year web of lies that from the moment I heard the first lie, I knew without question that he already had a girlfriend. Now if I can hear that in ten seconds flat, what the hell is this woman doing for four years? Why do we believe so easily? This guy said he couldn’t be called after 10.30pm, he could only see her on certain days of the week, she couldn’t stay at his because his sister was an epileptic, he rarely stayed at hers and generally acted like a complete penis. It turns out that he didn’t live in the same city with his sister like he claimed; he lived in another city with the girlfriend of nine years. What about his behaviour was giving indicators of a man and a relationship that was befitting of her?

We need to open our eyes and ears and operate with our full senses. This means that we have to stop ignoring things that are staring at us in the face. If situations like that joke of a relationship continue, it’s because the woman has poor self-esteem and wants to believe it rather than face the truth. I’ll tell you why we want to believe so easily: It’s because we bloody well want to!

I was on the tube recently and I was shocked to overhear a woman saying that she had just discovered that her boyfriend of five years was married. How the hell did that happen?, I wondered. Naughty of me to earwig, but it transpired that he was telling both the wife and the mistress that didn’t know she was one, that he was away on business all the time. He had a whole other life and somehow his dodgy excuses, secretive behaviour, only seemed to make sense after he admitted that he was married.

Things occasionally come out of the blue, but in general, when these shady situations unfold and ‘surprise us’, all the hallmarks were there but we just didn’t pay attention. Some things are obvious like crap excuses and other things are more subtle, but we need to get a grip. Our happiness and wellbeing is at stake!

I’m frightened for the woman who will stay in a relationship with a man that is clearly deceiving her. Ask questions when they come up with this crap. Pick holes in their story and be aware that beyond a certain point, certain things are far from being acceptable.

It takes a matter of months to a year for a relationship to be serious and if your man won’t let you stay over when you’ve been together for several years, I’d say he’s hiding something or he’s just quite odd. If it sounds like BS, it is BS. If it walks like a cheat, acts like a cheat, talks like a cheat, it [he] is a cheat. Stop making excuses for him and stop listening to them.

We are hearing, but we’re not listening.

Hearing means that we hear the words, the sentence and take it in and accept it, but listening means that we hear it and listen to it properly and interpret it to fit in with whatever else he has said or the relationship overall. Listening means that we note the body language, the change in tone, and listen for the BS notes. Listening means that we’ll question instead of accepting at face value. It doesn’t mean that you become Inspector Clueso, or Nagging Significant Other by badgering him with questions and not believing anything he says, but it does mean that the bullshit meter is in full operation.

The allowing of certain behaviours is all about acceptance. If our significant other says or does something that we don’t approve of, we can either accept or reject their behaviour. If we accept it, we send a clear signal that the behaviour is acceptable, even if it is wrong and it is likely that that person will repeat the behaviour, however if we reject it, the person is on notice and either has to accept the fact that the behaviour is unacceptable or reject it. If they accept it, happy days and you guys get to move on. If they reject it, two things can happen: It’s either game over for the relationship, or they chance their arm again at the boundary busting behaviour and the cycle starts over until we halt them in their tracks and tell them to bounce. It’s all about what we are prepared to accept or reject behaviour-wise, and if we don’t want to find ourselves with a man who takes advantage, we need to be harder and smarter. Yes it may mean some ‘lonely’ nights in the double bed. Yes it might mean that we’re single for a while. It won’t kill us. It won’t kill you.  You’ll sleep easier at night, trust me, and you’ll reap the benefits in the end, with a guy that is willing to respect you and the relationship.