Hey there, this is clay with www.ModernLove.Life and this is the relationship inner game experience
this week in the relationship inner game experience we're going to be talking about when a guy
never texts you first, but he always responds when you text him first.
Okay?
And this is mostly directed at women, but men experienced this too, but I just, through
my work I've noticed that really by far and large, mostly it's women that are asking about
this and wanting to know why the other person never text them first and, but will respond
if they text them.
Okay.
And I believe that is primarily because women are accustomed to letting the man take the
lead.
And so it's kind of disturbing for a lot of women when he's not taking the lead, but it
also does happen between men and women the other way around as well too.
So let's go ahead and get into this.
There's a couple of different things that could be happening when he's not texting you
first.
Okay?
Number one is, in all honesty, he might just not be interested in you.
You know, he's not seriously interested in dating you or something like that and you
know, he, he might actually be out there pursuing other women and he just kinda likes hearing
from you from time to time because it kind of boosts up his self esteem and he thinks,
yeah, I'm like really hot because, you know, there's this girl who keeps texting me and
it's boosting up his self esteem so we can go out there and approach other women and
go after other women and all of that stuff.
it's unfortunate, but it's true, you know, it's not outside the realm of possibility
that that could be the case.
The other thing that might be happening, thing number two is that he could just be a shy
person, right?
He could just be very shy.
He doesn't feel comfortable initiating things and taking the lead.
And I remember he even would want to do that, but he's, he's just kind of worried that he's
going to screw it up.
You know, he, he doesn't, he's not very certain that you like him and because he's not certain
he's, he's, he's putting off texting you, he's putting off texting because he's like,
well, you know, what do I do if she doesn't like me?
I have to think up the perfect text message.
I have to come up with the right thing to say.
I have to make sure I've got my plan figured out.
I have to make sure I've got the right date figured out after, make sure I know how to
talk to her.
So I come across as charming and charismatic and all that stuff.
So that could be happening.
He's just kind of procrastinating a little bit because he thinks he needs to prepare
more. and he might actually really like you.
That's another possibility.
Another thing is that he might just be on the passive side of things.
Now, I know that most men have this reputation of being, you know, aggressive.
They go after what they want.
If they want to, women, if they want to text them, if they want to go out on a date with
a woman, they will take the lead, they'll text or they'll call her, they'll say, hey,
are you free on Saturday night?
Let's go to this place or something like that.
However, that is not the case with every single man.
Some men are just passive either because they don't feel comfortable stepping into their
masculinity or maybe they just happened to be just more passive and that's just their
nature.
Right?
And if that is the case, then you have to accept that this is a passive guy.
You're probably not going to change him unless he wants to become more of an active, a proactive
kind of person.
So you're going to have to accept that that's the way he is.
I mean, he might be shy like we talked about a moment ago and once he really knows that
you like him, he'll take more of the lead.
But if he's just a shy person, if he's just a passive person rather than, you're going
to have to be okay with that.
And say, okay, I am okay with this being a passive person and I'm okay to initiate more
than he does.
Or you have to say no, I want somebody who's gonna initiate.
I want somebody who I'm not going to have to do most of the work to get the ball rolling.
And so say, Hey, you know, you're a nice person, but I really want somebody more proactive.
So Hasta la vista, baby or something like that.
Okay. another possibility that might be going on is that he could just be really busy.
He could just have a lot of stress going on in his life when there's a whole lot of things
going on in a guy's life.
Maybe some kind of deadline with work or school or, or some sort of crazy stress in his life.
Family drama.
I don't know.
A lot of his emotional bandwidth could just be taken up by that.
And so he doesn't feel that he can be 100 percent present with you.
So he doesn't want to start that conversation with you.
It doesn't want to start things down that road because he knows he's not going to be
able to be there for the full conversation.
He's knows he's not going to be able to actually follow through and be 100 percent present
and actually be able to organize the date and ask you out and all that stuff.
So he's not initiating things with you right now.
Or perhaps his focus is just on whatever the stressful thing is, the work deadline, the
family drama that, whatever it might be.
And so he just isn't able to focus on you.
Okay.
He might like you a lot.
It's just he could be just really stressed and busy.
Okay.
And again, like what I said before, we do have to accept him 100 percent the way that
he is assuming this is a longterm problem, you know, he has a stressful job or something
like that and say, okay, this is a stressful guy, guy who's always busy.
I either have to accept him the way he is or I have to say, you know, I'm really looking
for somebody who's not as stressed out all the time.
You're a nice person, but you just aren't the right person for me.
Thanks.
Bye.
I'm going to go find someone else, but you can't try and change him.
Okay.
Unless this is just not the status quo.
This is just like, Hey, I'm just a regular guy, but right now in this particular point
in time I'm really stressed and after a certain deadline, which I can tell you on the calendar,
this certain date when the thing is due, when the thing resolves or whatever, I will not
as stressed out, you know?
If that's the case, then yeah, cut him a little bit of slack and see how he behaves after
that deadline.
Okay.
Overall though, I would be really careful about paying too much attention to a guy not
initiating texts with you.
Okay.
Because at the end of the day, that's kind of keeping score and keeping score is not
really going to set you up for a great long term relationship.
I think we already know that in a certain degree, we've talked about this in previous
relationship inner game experience episodes, so I'm not going to beat that to death.
You can go back and listen to that one.
I'll probably link to it down below in the description for this relationship inner game
experience if you're watching this over on our website, but really just focus on making
sure that the two of you are having a high quality emotional connection.
If you're having a high quality emotional connection that it really doesn't matter who's
initiating contact.
It really doesn't matter if it's him, if it's you, if it's whatever.
I mean, you know, I'm, I'm married, I've got a wife.
And I honestly couldn't tell you who initiates contact more, her or me because I don't keep
score of that.
I'm sure if you were to somehow, you know, go and look through our text history or something,
you'd be able to say, oh, well, clay initiates more or, or Mika initiates more.
But, it's just not something that either one of us really pays attention to because we
focus more on the quality of the connection between us rather than who's initiating contact.
And if you find yourself focusing on who's initiating contact more, and you're really
focusing on that and worrying about that, then it probably means that the emotional
connection isn't that strong and would focus on that first and foremost.
Okay.
So with that being said, let's go ahead and get to our Q and A for this week.
Again, this is from members of the Modern Love Association.
They can go ahead and submit questions on a weekly basis and we go ahead and answer
five of them each week.
So let's go ahead and see what questions have been submitted this week.
The first question is from LV, LV writes in and says, hi clay.
My question concerns the progress from phase to phase.
It seems like my ex and I keep riding the dragon.
Well we have a great time when we meet up and we are connecting and bonding emotionally.
But then she pulls back afterwards and I then give her space to re-initiate things after
awhile.
Then we meet up again, all those well, and then we are back in the same cycle again.
So my question is, how can I break the cycle of the emotional pull back to make better
progress within writing the dragon and reach phase four?
Okay, so the important thing when it comes to things like this where you end up getting
stuck in a cycle over and over and over again, is that it's often because you are using the
same strategy over and over and over again.
And I noticed that you said that you constantly use the no contact thing and basically pulling
back as well and giving her space and wedding her reach out to you.
Okay?
So as long as you continuously have the same approach such as giving her space, which is
doing no contact or something like that, you're going to continue to have a hard time.
You're going to continue to get the same results.
and this is something that I've seen over and over and over again, is that people will
think that they only have one tool available to them.
And typically that's no contact.
You know, whenever something goes weird with your ex, you do no contact whenever you have
a hard time getting through your ex.
You Do, you know, contact whenever there is a poor experience, you do no contact whenever
your ex has emotional pull back.
You do no contact, right?
And sure there are times and places for cutting contact with your ex.
But if no contact is your only tool, then you're going to have a very, very, very hard
time.
That's why we give you a whole array of tools through the advanced relational skills.
We give you an array of tools that allow you to feel into what your ex is experiencing,
to ask them questions like, Hey, was there something that happened that's causing you
to be silent right now?
Or, or, or, I thought that we had a really good time, on this, on this date that we went
on on this.
maybe you don't call it a date, but on this meetup that we had, was I wrong?
Did you experience that differently or something like that.
And so as long as you continue to use the advanced relational skills and you don't just
rely on a single strategy like no contact, then you'll be able to get past this roadblock.
Okay.
So, LV, I hope this helps you out and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward
from here.
Okay.
Our next question is from Claire.
Claire says, Hi Clay.
My ex told me three weeks ago that she is completely over me and doesn't see us ever
getting back together.
She said that she wants to be friends.
Her outlook on relationships appeared to have changed a lot since the breakup.
She said she doesn't believe in soul mates anymore and doesn't want to date anyone.
Seriously.
I've been working on moving on and she's started dating someone else, which despite what said,
seems to be on track to something serious.
I don't think that it's a rebound because we broke up like three months ago and she
said that she's completely over me.
While I'm not thrilled about it, I know that I can't do anything about it.
Just so you know, time has nothing to do with determining whether something is a rebound
relationship or not.
And your ex saying that they are completely over you has nothing to do with them actually
being completely over with you.
They might still be very much caught up in you, but anyway you continue.
I've taken up new activities and have been focusing on my other friendships.
She's still friendly with me and she still cares about me.
She asks me for help on Homework, asks me how I'm doing and invites me to hang out with
other people there.
When we hang out, we laugh and tease each other and it just feels very natural.
After I leave, she usually texts me later to ask about something or invite me somewhere.
Later on she said she doesn't want a relationship but is dating this other girl.
I'm confused by these mixed messages.
I'm not gonna sit around waiting for her.
However, is staying friends with her, having emotional connections with her.
Is that okay if I want to remain open to the possibility of getting back together in the
future or should I make some kind of move so that she knows that I still have feelings
for her so that I am not cemented as a friend.
I just don't know how to keep moving forward or getting back together, which you seem so
comfortable being just friends.
You need to understand it is that your ex will never see you as completely a platonic
friend.
The two of you have a romantic history and in order to see you as a platonic friend,
she has to overlook the fact that the two of you had a relationship together.
She has to be able to look you in the face, look you in the eye and not experience that,
not experience the love that she felt for you, not experienced the attraction that she
felt with you.
Not experienced the intimate moments where the two of you were kissing, where the two
of you are making love to be able to look at you and not experience any of that and
that is not possible.
Okay.
That is just not possible for people to do that.
Whenever you have a romantic relationship with somebody, you will always look at that
person through a romantic lens.
The attraction may, however, be blocked by bad feelings, baggage history, and all of
that stuff.
That is not something that you need to deal with by re attracting.
Another person would need to do is instead work on flushing out those negative feelings.
Okay?
When we say that you don't need to worry about the friend zone, I'm not saying that you need
to act like a friend.
I'm not saying that you need to act platonically.
Of course you can flirt with your ex.
Of course you can do things that you would do with an attractive person.
You know why?
Why wouldn't you flirt with them?
Why wouldn't you just work that into your relate reward cycles?
Why wouldn't you just toss that in there?
Like what we talk about inside the course, but what I want to make sure that you also
do is that you focus on having high quality interactions that feel good on an emotional
level to see so that you're basically building up that relational equity, that emotional
equity between the two of you so that you are number one, clearing out the negative
emotions in history between the two of you and number two, continuing with the flirtatious
activity so that you are not taking it to a platonic level.
Of course you can say that you're just being friends with your ex.
Doesn't feel the pressure to define what the two of you are and so that you have this space
to actually build up that connection.
That's absolutely fine.
I wouldn't worry about your ex dating someone else.
I wouldn't worry about your ex.
You know, saying that they're not ready for a relationship and then you know, saying that
they just want to casually date someone.
Going out on dates with that personnel and see if there's any mixed message in there.
Your ex says that they don't want something serious and they're casually dating somebody
that I'm not seeing a mixed message in there myself.
so I would just focus on the quality of the connection between the two of you.
Make sure that it has that romantic vibe without necessarily saying this is a romantic interaction
or anything like that.
And I think that's going to help you out a lot.
Okay.
So, Claire, please keep us updated and have things go and a hope that helped you out.
Our next question is from K a K says hello clay.
I started the program about two months ago after struggling for a year and have seen
a lot of progress between now and then.
I practiced the advanced relational skills everyday and have been feeling like a switch
between, like I switched between stages three and four.
I'm guessing she means between the crossroads and the bridge.
My ex and I have been spending nearly everyday together for about a month and have felt like
we are together, but obviously happier and healthier than our old relationship.
However, I asked him on a date for his birthday morning, of which he resisted for the reason
that he did not want to imply that we're getting back together and did not want to take advantage.
I assured him that it would be fun and worth it and he agreed.
By late afternoon, we had fought on a couple of his birthday's in the past, so I understood
his hesitation and worry.
I explained how well that we've been getting along and that I wanted to be with him and
that he said that he was surprised that he agreed to spend it at all with me and his
reasoning was because he didn't want to be alone.
He also said, quote, you need to realize my ultimate goal is not to get back together.
I'm just doing whatever because I don't really have a direction anymore.
If something sticks, it sticks, but I'm not moving towards anything right now and to quote,
didn't want mostly.
Well, there was some awkwardness because of our anxieties, not wanting to relive the past.
He is not and has not been in a rebound relationship.
Just been on some dates and seen some people casually over the past six months, but I am
now hitting a wall with his response if I ask him about it or trying to get him to open
up.
He gets angry and agitated and shuts down.
He's been difficult to get answers about us or what he wants.
I have been empathetic and patient since I started these skills.
How do I continue our progress and breakthrough this last bit of reactants without upsetting
him or moving backwards.
Okay.
So his response, which was that he doesn't have anything that he's moving towards right
now.
It really implies that he is not at a place where he's ready to commit to a relationship
where he's ready to get anything solid down in there.
Okay.
And it sounds like you were maybe trying to go for like the commitment collaboration conversation
or something like that in that moment, which would imply that you thought that he was at
new beginnings and clearly he's not a new beginnings.
I think right now he is probably at like a riding the dragon kind of place.
Okay.
Now he may not seem particularly hot and cold, particularly extreme like you might expect
at writing the dragon because he, I'm getting this vibe from him that he's a pretty mellow,
relaxed, chill kind of person.
And so his riding the dragon might not be very extreme, but he is doing things like
saying, oh no, I don't really want to get together or I have some hesitation about getting
together with you and then, you know, getting together with you anyway.
So I think that that might be where he's at.
So what you need to do is focus on continually building the quality connections that you're
having.
Okay.
If you can continue to build those, then I think you'll build up some more relational
equity.
It will base, you know, every time you have like a positive interaction with them, you're
basically like depositing something into like a bank account, but it's not money in a bank
account.
It's like a, it's like a deposit into a relational equity account that you have between you and
him.
And the more that you deposit, the more your savings grow over time.
And the higher that becomes the, the higher the equity that you have in that relational
account becomes the stronger the relationship that you have with him is going to become.
Okay.
So I don't think that you're maybe as far along as I think that you thought that you
were.
So I would continue to build that up.
Okay.
I think that he's probably at writing the dragon.
Okay.
And so just continue to have high quality interactions with him, continued to flirt
with them a little bit, continue to create those emotional connections.
And I think that you'll eventually get to a point where you can have that kind of interaction
with him.
Okay.
Right now he says he doesn't have a direction right now.
He says he doesn't know where he's going.
He doesn't know what he wants.
And that's fine.
That's pretty typical of riding the dragon area anyway.
So don't be so caught up on what he says because what he says is based off of where he's at
emotionally, which is, I don't know what I want and what he wants will start to change
once something starts to feel really good.
Okay, once something starts to feel really good, he'll start to move towards that.
That's why you need to focus on having really good quality emotional connections.
Okay.
Kay, I hope that helps you out and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward.
From here, our next question is from Aa.
Aa says, hi clay.
My ex and I have had multiple breakups during four years.
Therefore it was hard for me to know if it was real this time, but we've been apart for
a bit over a year now.
Currently a long distance relationship.
We've been in touch since September of last year, but this year we made a lot of progress.
We talked almost daily since April with ups and downs.
He expressed feelings for me.
We forwarded and had video sex often even though he has been discouraging me a lot in
between.
We've still kept in touch regularly and talked for hours.
I thought that we were in phase four, which I'm guessing she means the crisis point.
When he sent me a gift in August saying that he kind of loved me and that I said that I
was in love with him, well flirting.
He asked me to meet up two weeks later, he told me that he wasn't ready to meet for a
relationship and we had to cut contact because he is not well and going on a different path,
although later he said that he didn't want to cut contact but doesn't want to flirt anymore
because it's something one should do in person.
He suffers from depression and anxiety and therefore has some mood swings.
He's started to get better and two weeks ago he moved to another country for his career.
The week before he had thought about what we could have done differently in our relationship.
After his move, he's been a bit distant and closed up.
We had some good interactions though and I think I reached out too much, so I've turned
it down a notch.
We had a good talk this Saturday and they asked me to talk more the next day.
The following day he seemed annoyed and we didn't have a positive interaction.
He called me later and apologized and we managed to have a quite rewarding interaction after
all, sharing more personal things again, he said that he's stressed and has low capacity
to talk to anyone, not just me.
It's hard for me not to get affected by his words when he is so low.
I don't know whether or not it's actually writing the dragon or how he really is.
How can I keep us getting closer emotionally and moving forward.
Okay.
So I would probably guess that it is riding the dragon just because he is going through
a lot of changes in his life.
He's moving to another country which probably involves a lot of logistical things such as
wrapping up all the loose ends in whatever country he lived in before.
A dealing with all of his belongings, packing up some of them, selling others, getting rid
of the rest, and then of course moving to another country, getting setup.
They're handling all the logistical things, finding a place to live, a unpacking, going
out and buying things that he needs for the new place and all that stuff.
Not to mention the work.
And all that stuff, and it on top of that, he has anxiety and depression, you know, there's
a lot for him to deal with right there.
So given all of those shifts in his life, I would not be surprised if he is at writing
a dragon and I wouldn't be surprised if he is kind of putting the brakes on a lot of
his personal relationships, not just with you but with other people, um, as he goes
through this transition and as he goes through this transition towards getting his own footing
in his new life.
So what I would do on when it comes to the emotional connection is, you know, sure, be
as connected with him as you can to the degree that it feels good on an emotional level,
um, as it seems like you are, but also cut him a little bit of slack, right?
Let him come to you sometimes.
Let him get his own bearings and find the space and time to come to you when it makes
sense for him.
Okay. remember that your agenda is not necessarily his agenda and the timeline that you want
to get back together on, which is probably like yesterday or as soon as possible, is
probably not the timeline that's going to feel the most emotionally rewarding for him.
Okay.
Remember, he just is stepping into a new life.
He is adapting to a lot of new things right now.
He's going through career changes, country changes, living changes, changes in probably
his, his entire environment.
Even.
So let him adapt.
Let him focus on that as, as possible and you know, connect with him on this stuff.
Ask Him, you know, what, what's interesting in the new place that he's living in, like
if he could live anywhere where he'd want to live, what the two of you would do if you
were together there, that, that weekend or whatever, just go ahead and start to be curious
about his experience and let him tell you more about what's going on with him on his
own terms.
Okay?
So I hope that helps you out.
Aa and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward.
From here, our next question is from Linea.
Linea says, Hi Clay.
Thank you for answering my question.
In episode number 27, I'm having mixed feelings about my ex being at riding a dragon.
It's my fault because I haven't been consistently practicing the advanced relational skills.
He called me for the first time about two weeks ago because he hurt his hand at work
and couldn't text.
Last week he sent me a good morning text.
Whenever I go out with somebody, he always asks who I went with.
I want to believe that these are signs that he still likes me, but just yesterday he asked
me to come pick up my book at his house and I couldn't because I didn't have enough money
to call an uber there.
He didn't respond.
I realized that I'm still in damage control mode and don't want to lose him because of
it.
I was wondering if I should do limited, no contact to practice advanced relational skills.
I might even need to see a professional, but I don't have the funds to do that yet.
I've been attached to outcome and I know that that's not good and if I want him back, I
cried.
The thought of losing him for good and I realized that maybe I'm still needy.
Even if we were to get back together, he'd break up with me again.
How do I change without worrying about losing him in the process?
What if it takes a while?
Okay, so it.
It definitely sounds like you.
There is some damage control mode stuff going on there and the important thing here is that
you get serious about improving the quality of the interactions that you have, that you
get serious about shutting off the BS machine in your mind.
Okay?
Because these are not helping you.
These are not helping you at all.
And so if in the past you did sort of a halfhearted ANC or something like that, if you've halfheartedly
practice the advanced relational skills, now is the time to do it.
I don't know if it means you should do limited contact, no contact, whatever, but you know,
the only reason you would do no contact is if you wanted number one and easy stakes situation
or context to work on the advanced relational skills.
And number two, if interacting with your ex felt bad on an emotional level and was driving
the two of you apart.
So if that's happening, then you need to contact your ex even less or even, you know, cut contact
entirely until you can interact with your ex and have it feel good on an emotional level.
And of course, practice the advanced relational skills everyday on a daily basis are you don't
need to do each one every day, but you know, depending on what the skill is, if it's something
more more big and dramatic than do that one once in a while, but if it's something small,
like striking up a conversation with somebody and, and, and taking an impact that a point
of view towards their world and then go ahead and do that one every day.
There's no reason not to do that when every day.
but just go ahead and practice the advanced relational skills, do the exercises that we
lay out in the course and that's a great place to start practicing them.
Um, if there's any that you are having difficulty with, you know, by all means, go ahead and
reach out to us and contact us and maybe ask a question next week or something like that.
But overall what you need to do is you need to get serious about improving the quality
of the connection that you are having, the impact that you are having on the interactions
with him and take full responsibility for your role in those interactions.
Take full responsibility for your role in how you're bringing yourself to those interactions.
And as that happens, you can start to change the dynamic that's happening there.
Okay?
You'll be able to start getting out of damage control mode as you start to work on the advanced
relational skills as you start to shut off the pas machine and you'll be able to actually
start to have interaction to feel better on an emotional level.
Okay?
You won't start to panic every time.
Something that happens, like he says, Hey, I want to give you this book back and you
think that it means that the two of you are never going to talk again and that he's moving
on completely, or something like that because that is kind of a stretch.
The way that you describe it to me, it seems like a stretch and I would not jump to that
conclusion if I were you.
So Linea when it comes to holidays, you gotta put in the work.
You gotta put in the effort.
You got to take time to work on the fundamentals.
Okay?
There's no silver bullet.
It's going to do the work for you that's going to help you skip past the fundamentals and
the hard work needed in order to actually create high quality interactions.
You just gonna have to put in the work.
Take the time to learn the advanced relational skills.
Take the time to get good at them.
Take time to turn down the volume on your bs machine and that's when you'll start to
see some real progress.
Okay, so I hope this helps you out and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward
from here.
Okay, and those have been our questions for this week.
Once again, thank you so much for submitting those questions.
Everybody in the MLA, once again, this has been clay with www.ModernLove.Life.
If you have liked this episode of the relationship inner game experience, please go ahead and
like this on youtube, subscribe on Youtube, leave a comment down below or subscribe on
itunes or leave a review on itunes or head on over to www.ModernLove.Life and feel free
to support us by signing up for a course that makes sense for what kind of outcome you want
over there and you're dating or relationship life.
Anyway, this has been Clay and I'll go ahead and talk to you next week.
Take care.
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