What's A Love Language?

What is a Love Language?

So in the video Grow Together or Grow Apart I talked a little bit about love languages.

After that video I had several people ask me to do a video explaining love languages a bit.

So the reason I’m doing this video is I’m always looking for different ways to giving you guys insight into having healthy relationships. I know a lot of you guys come to me about wanting to get back an ex, just remember, even if you get them back if you don’t make long lasting changes you’re going to lose them again.

Most of us have very few tools in fixing relationships. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a screw.

Of course I’m kidding. Everything looks like a nail.

Learning about love languages is another tool in your tool box.

I got an email here from Benny who says Hey Craig, the other day you mentioned love languages.  I’m still kind of confused as to what it is. It sounded pretty interesting to me can you talk a little more about them? It kind of got my mind thinking because when I give my girlfriend gifts she doesn’t seem to appreciate them. The girl I dated before her loved it when I got her gifts. Does this have to do with their love language.

Well without knowing too much information other than that I would say probably.

A love language is a term from a book called the 5 Love languages.

The term love language can be a little confusing.

Basically it means, it’s a certain way that you experience love. Here are the 5: Gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and physical touch.

So lets say for me quality time is important. That is my love language. That’s how I feel loved. When someone spends quality time doing something fun with me, that makes me feel loved.

Now the interesting thing, is that people tend to give out the gift that they want to receive. Remember when you were a kid and you got a birthday gift for your friend. You would pick out the thing that you would hope to get right?

So, the thing that you give your partner, is probably the thing you wish you would get from her.

But the thing that they get is often not what they wanted. For example, let’s say you and your partner were little kids. You might give her a Transformer but she wanted My Little Pony.

Or she might give you a Barbie, when you wanted G I Joe. See how you wouldn’t be happy with the gift.

Over time, you would just feel more and more disappointed by what they’re giving you.

So I found a chart of the 5 Love Languages with a list of things of how to communicate, actions to take and things to avoid.

Physical Touch- Use body language and touch to express love.

Actions to take- Hug, hold hands, show physical affection, regularly, massages, make physical intimacy a thoughtful priority.

Things to avoid- physical neglect, long stems without intimacy, receiving affection coldly.

Giving Gifts- Thoughtfulness, make your spouse a priority, speak purposefuly.

Actions to take- Give thoughtful gifts and gestures. Small things matter in a big way. Express gratitude when receiving a gift.

Things to avoid- forgetting special occasions. Unenthusiastically giving gifts

Quality Time- Uninterrupted and focused conversations. One on one time is critical

Actions to take- Create special moments together. Do small things together. Weekend getaways

Things to avoid- Distractions when spending time together. Long stints without one on one time.

Acts of service- use words like I’ll help. They want to know you’re partnered with them.

Actions to take- Do chores together. Go out of their way to alleviate the daily workload. Do small things like take out the trash, mow the lawn.

Things to avoid- Make the requests of others a priority. Lack of following through on tasks.

Words of Affirmation- Encourage, affirm, appreciate, empathize, listen attentively.

Actions to take- Send an unexpected, note, text or card. Encourage them genuinely and often.

Things to avoid- Nonconstructive criticism, not recognizing or appreciating effort.

How To Make Your Ex Miss You

How To Make Your Ex Miss you

In this video, I’m going to explain what you must do to make your ex miss you. I’m going to start by explaining why most relationships fail. But, as you’ll see there is a direct correlation to why most relationships fail and getting your ex to miss you.

I have an email and after the email I’m going to give you 7 ways to make your ex miss you.

One of the biggest reasons relationships fail is due to anxiety. When we are in a relationship and feel disconnected from someone we start to feel anxiety.

When we get anxious, we do things such as criticizing, crying, withdrawing, getting angry, lashing out, manipulating our partner.

We are doing this as a way to pull them close and ease our comfort of anxiety.

When someone breaks up with us, and you didn’t want that relationship to end, most likely you want that person to miss you. We want them to regret their decision and want us back.

But then we start to have anxious thoughts. They’re going to find someone else. Or maybe you know they are dating someone else. You’ll be alone.

You have racing thoughts. Incredible and intense pain. Tons of emotions.

You may start to feel tremendous amounts of separation anxiety. Anxiety causes people to become irrational and not think straight.

Sometimes it can feel like your brain is in a fog and your ex is the lighthouse

When this happens many of us do things out of fear. When you do something out of fear it almost always leads to doing something that is unattractive.

Such as begging, crying, blowing up their phone, trying to talk to their friends and family. Trying to convince them to give us another chance.

The one that I always thought would work is the conversation. Trying to talk to them about the situation and explain why how much I cared and how I really wanted to work it out. This does not work!

In my mind, I thought I could just talk to them about the problems, get them to see my amazing personality and talk them into another chance.

None of those behaviors are attractive to your ex and even more importantly none of them work.

The answer is simple… But it’s the hardest thing you have to do. If you want your ex to miss you the best thing you can do is stop all contact with them.

The quickest way to get someone’s attention is to remove yours.

People have a way of knowing the minute someone loses interest in them.

I have an email here from a guy who has a lot of anxiety, he then loses emotional self control. I’m going to explain exactly what happens.

Hi Craig, so I really need your help. My girlfriend of 8 months broke up with me about 3 weeks ago. When she broke up with me I begged her to give me another chance. I lost complete control of myself. I don’t know what happened to me but it was the worst pain in my life.

Craig: I think most of us can relate to that. I’m sure you would have done anything to make that pain go away.

Emailer: She said she would think about it and to give her some time and space.

I couldn’t wait. I called her the next morning as soon as I got up. She told me she needed more time. I laid in bed most of the day. I thought through every scenario. if I could just get another chance with her I could make it work. I knew she liked antique shopping and I found a special antique store.

I thought if I could just take her there it would show her how much I loved her.

The more I planned a special day in my mind I thought it would have to work.

Craig: This is exactly what happens when you get anxious and scared. I did something like this too. I planned a special day to spend with the girl who broke up with me. Instead I decided to try the grand gesture instead.

Anxiety causes you to become self absorbed and focus on yourself and what you want. You lose the awareness of the internal world of others.

In this case she wanted time and space but he wanted comfort. He didn’t care about what she wanted.

This is a really important point. So I’m going to say this again. Anxiety causes people to become self absorbed and focused on themselves. They lose awareness of the internal world of others.

You lose the ability to hear other people’s needs. You lose empathy

Now I’m not talking literally. They don’t become a chair. It’s very complicated and I’m not going to take you guys to the deep end of the pool in this video.

Craig: Neither would have worked. I know you start searching for answers but your action needs to be INACTION.

Emailer: I waited until almost 6 oclock and I stopped by her house and told her my plans for our special day.

Craig: You can see how much pain this guy is in. His separation anxiety is so bad, he is literally counting the minutes before he contacts her.

I can see it because not only does he know the exact time, but he said almost 6 o’clock. Like 6 was his goal and he almost made his goal.

That’s the problem. His anxiety is overwhelming him. He probably thinks if he had made it the extra 4 minutes until 6 she would have been happy to see him.

Emailer: She got pissed. She said “I told you I needed time to think and you haven’t even given me one day. This is your problem, you don’t know how to act like a man.”

Craig: Brutal. Harsh, but she is trying to tell you something. You are doing things that turn her off and you keep doing them.

Do not contact her again for any reason.

1)     You have to completely disappear. DO NOT CONTACT THEM FOR ANY REASON. This causes them to get separation anxiety.

2)     You have to work on yourself. You have got to spend time really forcing yourself to grow emotionally so you don’t do any of the behaviors I talked about at the start of the video.

    Start to get your anxiety under control. You have to become very conscious of your attachment style, recognizing what triggers your anxiety, and become more aware of how to manage it.

3)     In time, the negative memories will start to fade and she will tend to focus more on the positive.

4)     Appear unaffected by the break up- Go out with friends, go on dates, post pictures of you going out and living your awesome life.

5)     A makeover can help start to see you differently too. New haircut, new outfit, do a hobby or interest that you’ve always wanted.

6)     Do not attempt to change their mind about a break up. No amount of trying to reason with them or talking it out is going to make them want you back.

7)     Time and Space- The hardest, but most crucial part of making your ex miss you is time and space. Get my coaching and I will help you. The biggest thing you can do for yourself is talk about it. That is how we heal and that is why going to therapy works. I can coach you through your difficult time. Go to AskCraig.net sign up for the coaching and tell me your story.

I recommend that you think about your behavior. How frequently and intensely you do the behaviors that I talked about at the start of the video.  It may give you some insight into how anxious you are. Because many of you have been unconscious of your anxiety because you’ve had it in most cases, since you were 2 years old.

Top 8 Relationship Deal Breakers

Top 8 Deal Breakers in Relationships

The reason I want to talk about deal breakers is because you should know what your personal deal breakers are before you even start dating someone.

That way, if you know you have some, not to even start going on dates with someone who has one.

I’m going to talk about some very common deal breakers in this video.

First I’m going to do a quick update from the video Relationship Deal Breakers

In that video a woman had just broken up with her boyfriend because he has substance abuse issues. He smokes pot 3 times a day and drinks alcohol heavily outside of social settings.

One of the key things to look for if someone has a substance abuse issue is it interfering with his functioning and life. In that case it was (you can check out the video Relationship Deal Breakers to get the entire story)

Woman: I watched Choosing a Good Partner and I can see all of the issues my ex has at the moment are not signs of being emotionally healthy...
 
You're right that my ex's behavior is a 'deal breaker' and something I needed to be firm about. However I still can't help myself dwelling on and feeling guilty about the part I played in damaging our relationship too. For example I also watched the attachment style video. I think my attachment style would be mildly anxious. While I wouldn't say I was clingy or jealous, my reaction to his lifestyle certainly mirrored the example you gave about the husband who is too late home to cook his wife dinner. In fact it almost made me laugh because it sounded so familiar!

Craig: Well while there is no doubt your attachment style would affect your behavior in a relationship, the bottom line is that he is still using and abusing substances. Your behavior did not influence his using it as you mentioned to me he has been using them to cope with problems for years.

Woman: Towards the end of our relationship I started to get upset, and moan, nag, criticize if I felt his smoking or drinking interfered in our relationship in even very small ways. While I accept that I had every right to bring the issue up in general I think the manner in which I did so wasn't helpful and pushed him away. It's good to have this insight.

Craig: No matter how you bring it up, if he wasn’t going to stop, he wasn’t going to stop. The only reason someone quits substances is because they want to. You can’t make them. I want you to let go of that guilt. It wouldn’t have changed his desire to stop.
 
Woman: I do find that I am wanting to do irrational things like contact him and apologize more for the part I played and even tell him I could change if he did too. However, I'm going to stick to your advice and keep doing no contact! I know that unfortunately right now this is just something I have to work on and learn from for the future. 

Craig: I think you are looking for excuses to contact him. My guess is that you are hoping that he will tell you he loves you enough to change. It’s understandable. We do a lot of irrational things for love.

Keep doing no contact, if he wants to work it out with you, make sure he gets into some type of substance abuse program first. Don’t be fooled by promises that he will.

So lets get to some of the deal breakers to keep in mind before you consider dating someone.

1)     Substance abuse- we just talked about this. If someones use of substances interferes with life functioning. They have an issue. The addiction will always come before everything else. Including their own health.  This includes smoking or chewing tobacco

2)     Any kind of abuse. Physical or verbal. Threats. One of the most important traits of a healthy relationship is safety. If there isn’t physical or emotional safety, get out.

3)     HealthyIssues or STD’s- You need to decide from the beginning if you are willing to deal with someone’s health issues or STD’s. Are you willing to put yourself at risk for them.

4)     Poor Hygeine- You don’t have to date Mr. Clean

5)     Doesn’t want kids. If you want kids and they don’t. You have a real problem. Straighten it out right away. Don’t waste your time

6)     Where you want to live. Remember Kim Kardashian had this issue with husband number 1. You better know if this is a deal breaker for you

7)     Religious beliefs- You have to accept theirs, they have to accept yours. Sometimes the differences can be too big

8)     Cultural beliefs- sometimes you cannot agree on how a kid will be raised if there are drastic differences in your cultures

Know what your deal breakers are. If you find them, its better to move on sooner than later. Sometimes things can be negotiated, sometimes they cant.

IF you sit down and try to talk through it and can’t come to an agreement, it’s best to move on so you both can have what you want.

We Can't Stop Arguing (How Your Anxiety Is Pushing Others Away)

We Can’t Stop Arguing

One of the main reasons couples split up is because they argue all the time.

But what you may not understand is why. Now I’ve talked about this a little bit in my video The Real Reason Relationships Fail. But I’m going to expand upon it more.

So today’s video is going to talk about what causes people to argue and some things you can do to help.

This video is going to be focusing on a situation with 2 healthy functioning adults.

So if you are in a situation where someone has a drug or alcohol problem or there are abuse or mental health issues, obviously those issues would need to be addressed first.

I got an email here from Stan who says Hey Craig, my girl and I have been arguing nonstop for the last few months. She said she is exhausted by me. She says I don’t listen to her. Yesterday morning she said she needs a break to figure things out. I don’t want to break up, but I don’t know what to do anymore. Can you tell me why you think we fight so much.

She says I’m too controlling because I don’t like her going out with friends. I have some issues because I had an ex that cheated on me in the past. I don’t think it’s a big deal that I don’t want her to go out with friends without me. That’s the way my family was.

So Stan has some real trust issues. The trauma of cheating in the past is causing him anxiety. So in an effort to control his own anxiety and sooth himself, he tries to control his partner.

He believes If I don’t let her go anywhere, she won’t cheat.

Can I tell you Stan, I have known some extremely controlling men and the women found a way to cheat.

If someone wants to cheat, they’ll find a way. Your controlling behavior is only going to make her MORE likely of doing it.

The reason that couples fight is because they feel disconnected.

In Stan’s case he feels disconnected when his girlfriend goes out with friends. He is so overridden by his anxiety, that he doesn’t listen to her. She even said it.

Because staying to a close protective loved one is one of the main survival strategies of humans we become anxious when we feel disconnected.

Now the anxiety is instinctual. If we do not have emotional self control our anxiety quickly escalates. We then have an emotional melt down.

The more childhood wounds you have, the more trauma you have experienced (and not dealt with) the more anxiety you have, the quicker you are going to become upset by the disconnect.

If you were abandoned, ignored, neglected, abused, you probably don’t trust people. They have only let you down. So this will trigger those past feelings and then look out.

The anxiety will come out in forms of being dramatic, screaming, crying, protesting, trying to control our partner, saying and being irrational.

You don’t care about me. You’re selfish. Why are you doing this to me? I hate you! I can’t take this anymore! You don’t love me!

A big one from men is: You’re not going out looking like that!

This is all because they feel disconnected and they are trying to pull you close again. Ironically, it just winds up pushing you away.

All of this behavior is insecure, needy, clingy. If you were secure and confident, you would be like okay have a great time.

Because deep down you know, no man will be better for her and if she does something to screw things up, you’re gone and she misses out on your awesomeness.

She Might Be The One (Should I Propose To Her)

She Might Be The One

I’m going to be talking about when you’re feeling in love and are ready to propose.In today’s video I’m going to be sharing an email from Peter Parker who I have worked with locally for some time.

Peter says Hi Craig, I wanted to update you and get your advice. But first I wanted to say that I love the channel, I watch your videos Monday- Friday and I am doing better in relationships than I have done in years.

Me and my gf have been together since January. I feel like she’s the one and it’s driving me nuts. We are both in love and I know this. I think it may be too early for the grand gesture. If I decided it would be in our 1 year anniversary. My gut tells me its early but my heart wants it so bad. I think being engaged would be the way to go, then maybe have her live with me.

Craig: My spidy sense is tingling and I say this guy has got it bad!

Congrats Peter. I’m glad to see you are happy and found someone that is making you happy. I can tell that you are really in love with this girl and are toying with the idea of getting engaged, but you know something isn’t quite right.

Peter: I know it’s the anxiety but I haven’t talked to her. I keep it to myself. I got to wait and see if she gives me clues to where she is in the relationship.

Craig: And I agree with you. Your anxiety is causing you to want to lock her down. Remember, when we do things out of anxiety and fear, it usually causes the opposite to happen.

So in your effort to lock her down, it’s ultimately going to push her away.

How do I know? Well you said I got to wait and see if she gives me clues to where she is in the relationship.

Let me make something clear. When a woman is ready to marry you, the clues are clear and present. They do not hide what they want.

They start talking to you about their friends getting married, places they want to go on their honeymoon and then…

They become like Smeagol obsessed with the ring. “My precious. I wants the precious”.

Then if that doesn’t work they go full Gollum on you. “Me needs it!”

Now, you also have to understand that your brain has been taken over and held hostage by hormones.

All those amazing chemicals are being released. Serotonin, dopamine, Oxytocin, vasopressin.

It’s going to cause you to overlook many red flags! Such as Attachment styles, Depression, alcoholism, anxiety, poor communication skills, commitment level

After 2 years, the chemicals in our brain go back to normal and then we start to see all their faults.

For that reason, I highly highly highly recommend you are with someone for 2 years before getting engaged.

If you’re still in love after 2 years. THEN get engaged. Because that is the person you’re really going to be with.

Grow Together or Grow Apart

Grow Together or Grow Apart

Today’s video I’m going to teach you about the importance of growing together.

Relationships need constant attention. If you don’t continually invest in it, you slowly become distant to your partner.

When we are not attentive to our partner, and feel disconnected our anxiety will be triggered. Then, when the anxious person reaches out to the other person, if they don’t get reciprocation, it will lead to them pushing for that person’s attention more. They will become upset, turn away, and then have an emotional melt down.

You know the emotional melt downs “I hate you! You don’t love me!  You don’t care about me! Do you even listen to me?” All of that is because they are feeling disconnected from their partner and when they reached out, the other person didn’t make them feel loved and connected, so it triggers their anxiety and they lose emotional self control.

So I got an email from Al that says, hello Craig. I really like how you look at things and see that you are very genuine. For that reason, I am coming to you for help with my marriage. I found your work when my wife said she is ready for a divorce after 10 years. I have to admit, I really just thought about ending the marriage. However, I thought 10 years is a long time to throw away without making an effort to see if we can really fix things but we keep discussing divorce

Thank you for the compliment Al. I appreciate you having trust in my ability to help!

Okay, if you are BOTH serious about working on your marriage. I would highly suggest you both throw the divorce word out right now. The relationship needs safety. Neither one of you is going to feel safe if divorce is an option. Divorce cannot be an option for either of you for 4 months. If you can commit to 4 months of trying to make it work, I think you have a real shot. Take a look at the calendar. Right now we are almost halfway through August. Since 4 months from now would be around Christmas time, I would suggest you guys commit to trying to work it out until the end of the year. Get through the holidays and see where you are at in early January.

We have had different work schedules for the past 2 years and I think it has really hurt our relationship. She says we are growing apart. I try to be a good husband, but nothing I do seems to be good enough. She is constantly telling me I don’t love her. I always tell her that I do. She says we don’t do enough together but I tell her we go out and do things about once a month.  She gets angry at me if I’m on my phone checking the score of a game. She says things like “you care more about that score than me”

So the problem here is that she feels disconnected from you. She isn’t feeling loved and you are making it worse by arguing. When someone says you don’t love them, you don’t use logic and reason.

For example, she says we don’t go out and do enough together, don’t say we go out once a month. Say let’s go do something! And take her to do something fun.

You aren’t giving her quality time. Everyone has certain things that they need from their partner to feel loved. Quality time is one of them. She is saying: We don’t go out together so that tells me she wants quality time.

Have you ever heard of the book the 5 love languages?

Here are the 5 love languages: 1) Receiving gifts 2) Physical Touch 3) Words of affirmation 4) Acts of Service 5) quality time

Knowing what your partners love languages are can help you make them feel loved.

Often times we give other people the love we wish we received. If we like giving gifts we may give them gifts. Meanwhile, getting gifts may not make them feel loved.

All of these little things are just that she is disconnected. That is the main reason we fight. We want to connect with our partner and when we don’t, we get anxious and then lose emotional self control.

I suspect it’s how you are communicating with her. When she says

If our relationships we must make our partner feel safe.

Al: I know that you cannot save a marriage based on just one email but I know you could give me some steps on what to do next.

The first thing I highly recommend you do is watch the following 8 videos.  Write these down.

If you are having relationship problems these videos will help get you back on track!

The Real Reason Relationships Fail, She Wants You to Hear Her (not solve her problems), How to Make Your Partner Feel Loved, What’s An Attachment Style, Disconnection Hurts, 3 Ways We Ruin Relationships, The Struggle of Intimacy, and Be Her Best Option.

They will give you a lot of insight into what is going on and help you make some immediate changes.

If she is receptive to the idea ask her to watch those videos as well.

Try to plan a fun day or activity together of doing something that you both enjoy. The day needs to focus on being present with her. Looking at her in the eyes, holding her hands, making her laugh, listening to her. Being emotionally attuned with her.

You want romance to happen.

I would suggest you sign up for a skype coaching with me after you watched the videos and have gone on your outing. You can tell me where you’re at, what problems you see are going on, what mistakes you’ve been making.

I can help you process what you’re feeling and come up with a plan.

I would highly recommend you talking to her about going into marriage counseling. Look for a therapist who is educated in attachment theory, imago therapy, object relations, or John Gottmans work.

Don't Kiss and Tell

Don’t Kiss and Tell

So today I’m going to be talking about the importance of being discrete when you start dating someone.

A woman’s reputation is very important to her.

Obviously some women don’t care, but a lot of women do.

So to play it safe you must always be very discrete about dating a woman.

I got an email here from Carl that made that very mistake

Carl says: hey Craig I think I made a big boo boo.  There’s a girl at my job will I’ve been pretty interested in for a while.  I wasn’t sure if it was wise to mix is Nis with pleasure.  However because she is not a subordinate the company does not have any policies against it

If you guys ever decide you wanted data coworker, especially when you’ve got to the point where you are in a car rear, you should really think through if that person is worth dating.

Since people can often acting very different at work than they do in their private life, you may find out that she is very different in her romantic relationships.

This could lead to serious work drama especially if you break up.  They could share details about your life that you to want other people to know.  Also when some people are hurting, it will go out of their way to hurt you.  They may try and make you look bad to co workers in any number of ways.  They can start rumors or even outright lie.  They could share your sexual preferences to people that he will work with.  What you need to remember is that if they are hurt enough and find themselves leaving your job, they can cause you a lot of embarrassment.

Sometimes they may even do it by accident as we are going to find out.

We wound up going out for drinks and hooking up for about three weeks.  One of our coworkers saw us out one evening and asked me about what was going on.  I trusted him so I mentioned that you guys had started dating.  The next morning he mentioned it to her female friend at work, who apparently had not even told her close female friend.

I was a little surprised and disappointed that she had at least not told her.

So you can see that her interest level was not that high in him yet. If a girl likes you enough, she’ll tell everyone. This girl at this time, was still keeping it quiet.

People love office drama. So the minute one other person found out, you can bet most of the office knew by the end of the day.

She was furious at me. She said she couldn’t believe I told anyone. I explained how our co worker had seen us out. She said “what’s wrong with you, you could have just told him we were hungry and had to discuss a project”. I felt so small. She said, everyone in the office knows and has been asking her all kinds of questions.

She said I like you, but I’m not ready for anyone else to know and now I feel all this pressure. I asked her what she wanted to do and she said “I don’t know”. What should I do Craig?

Well, you put yourself in a difficult situation. She is angry at you right now. Ask her what she would like you to tell people. Keep it to that answer and change the subject.

Give it some time and space and try to keep your behavior similar to what it was like before you started dating. I don’t know how often you interacted with her at work, but keep it to that.

Do not display any affection to her at work. No flirting. Keep it professional.

I would not contact her outside of work. If she wants it to continue, she’ll contact you. If she doesn’t contact you, it probably means she would have not wanted for things to go any further.

If you had that discussion, she would have just been ending things anyway.

If she does contact you simply take her out and have fun. If she brings up the situation (I wouldn’t bring it up unless she does). Apologize one time, and say that if she ever feels at a point where she wants things to progress between you too to talk with you about it and let you know what she would like other people to know.

Guys, always let the woman be the one to tell other people about you. You can’t go wrong by allowing it to be them. If she is telling other people, it’s because she really cares about you and is proud to be with you.

Don’t get upset and offended if she isn’t ready yet. And definitely don’t pressure her because you’re anxious and worried.

You want really consider all those I discussed earlier before you date somebody you work with.

School Separation Anxiety (How it affects kids, parents and relationships)

Sorry, no blog to attach to this one.

Best Strategy To Get An Ex Back

The Best Strategy to get an ex back

In this video I’m going to give you the best strategy to get an ex back.

To help you understand why the strategy works, I’m going to give you a little bit of an overview about how we work.

Human beings are very social. We form bonds and become attached to others.

We are biologically wired that way.

In relationships we can feel abandoned and we can feel smothered. It’s a struggle (I talk about it in depth in my video The Struggle of Intimacy)

So depending on our needs at the time and our partners behavior, we may feel like they are smothering us or are abandoning us.

When we come on too strong, by being needy, controlling or clingy, we make our partner feel trapped.

When we do that, their instinct is to push us away. In many cases they break up with us.

So let’s say we were trying to be controlling or we kept telling them how much we needed them and they felt trapped. So they break up with us.

Now, we feel disconnected from them.

When we feel disconnected from someone we are attached to, we feel anxiety. Separation anxiety.

It literally causes us pain.

So in an effort to pull them back close to us, we beg and cry and plead for them to give us another chance.

But, remember, they were already feeling trapped. That’s a big reason they broke up with you to begin with, and now you are trying to trap them even more.

So, if someone is going to break up with you, simply agree to the break up. Tell them I love you, I want to work it out. Give me a call if you change your mind.

Now here’s the strategy. Don’t ever contact them again for any reason.

Now there is tons of bad advice online for the best way to get an ex back. Trust me. It’s garbage.

I’m going to explain why.

If you were acting needy and clingy and it pushed your partner away. Any form of contact you do, is only going to push them more away.

What they need to feel is separation anxiety from YOU.

That will only happen if you do not contact them for ANY REASON. I cannot stress this enough!!!

Most of you will try to find some stupid excuse to contact them. They will see right through it and know they still have you. Thus killing their anxiety over losing you too. DO NOT CONTACT THEM FOR ANY REASON. THEY MUST FEEL SEPARATION ANXIETY.

Now this is what absolutely blows me away.

Anxiety leads to the beginning of desire.

I’m going to say that again because this is huge. Anxiety is the beginning of desire.

They are opposite sides of the coin.

Whatever triggers ones anxiety triggers desire

So what someone desires is what someone is anxious about.

Here’s a great example. I was just talking to one of my female friends about this. Her boyfriend lives out of the country.

He recently told her that he wasn’t sure about things between them.

She told me her interest level skyrocketed immediately. She was like oh my God I’m totally in love with him. She flew to see him within a few weeks

The second she became anxious about losing him, the second her interest level shot up.

Think about the picture I always describe to sum up attraction. He loves me, he loves me not.

That thinking is in the basis of anxiety.

I got an email here from Erik that discusses the success of the strategy from someone I did coaching with.

Hey Craig. I cannot believe it, but your advice worked. I had dated a girl for a year. I had no idea she needed space. I was clueless. She broke up with me and I was absolutely crushed.

Thankfully I did a coaching with you and you told me, do not contact her for any reason.

The funny thing is that I felt great after our coaching and was going to stick with no contact. But here’s the crazy part, my good friend was going through a break up too. Only he got dumped about 3 weeks before me. I told him what we talked about and he said I was going to lose her forever if I stuck with your ideas. I panicked and got anxious.

That anxiety will cause you to screw up! Watch my video Have Discipline or Fail. And sign up for a coaching when you need my help! That’s what I’m here for. Just go to AskCraig.net

He told me he had planned a grand gesture and it sounded great.  I pictured it in my head and it seemed so romantic.

Grand gestures only work in the movies. I know, I tried it and it doesn’t work. My advice works.

So my friend actually went to her house to do the grand gesture and another guy answered the door. Ouch.

Meanwhile she had told him she didn’t want a relationship.

All that means is that she didn’t want a relationship with him.

I felt awful. I love my friend, but he gives terrible advice. I’m sticking with Craig.

Your anxiety causes your thinking to be cloudy. Guys let me tell you your anxiety will cause you not to think straight. CONTACT ME AND SET UP A COACHING IMMEDIATELY. THAT’S WHY I’M HERE!!!

I’m really busy. You need my help don’t hesitate.

So as hard as it was I didn’t call her.

Now I mean no contact. No calling, texting, social media. You must stop ALL forward movement.

Your attitude is that you are moving on with your life. If they don’t do something they are going to lose you forever.

The reason you are doing this is because THEY must feel separation anxiety.

Remember what I said Anxiety is the beginnings of desire.

Sure enough after 2 months, she sent me a text saying she missed me. She texted me in the evening around 830 so I waited until after work the next day.

Yes! You have been listening. Remember, when someone breaks up with you they are no longer a priority in your life. Waiting until the next day will cause her anxiety to increase. You should be out on dates with other women. They left you. You can’t let someone leave you and then take them back like that. There has to be a consequence for doing it or they’ll think they can do it again.

I did as you instructed and told her to come over with a bottle of wine. She came over and we cooked dinner. I kept reminding myself of what you say, that women are more attracted to men who’s feelings are unclear.

I didn’t tell her I missed her or anything. I just laughed with her and was playful. We hooked up that night. I’m going to do what you said and wait for her to call me or contact me again.

Yes, I know you say she has to come to me at least 2 more times to start earning me back, I’m going to make her do it.

Awesome email! I’m so pumped for you. Now, let her do 100 percent of the contacting for the next few months. THEN, you can cut back to her doing 80% of the contacting. But if a woman is chasing you, she won’t be getting rid of you.

I got a second email here from Charles. Who says Hey Craig, what do I do if after a girl breaks up with me wants to stay friends.

My girlfriend broke up with me a few weeks ago. She said she still wants to be friends but she doesn’t want to be in a relationship right now.

What that means is she doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you right now.

She may not want to hurt your feelings. But the truth is, if her attraction level was high enough, she wouldn’t be dumping you, for any reason.

I hear stories all the time about women who break up with a guy and say they don’t want to be in a relationship “right now”

Which is true, because like I say all the time, women do things and say things based on how they feel in that moment.

Do you think I should try to spend time with her as friends to try and get her back?

Absolutely not! She might want to date other people and keep you as back up.

If someone breaks up with you, a lot of times the timing is because they have someone else in mind.

A good friend once told me, A man doesn’t throw away his only pair of shoes.

This is how some people cushion the pain of a break up. They line someone new up and they keep you in friend zone.

A break up is a LOT less painful when you have someone new lined up. Cause now they start to think about and fantasize about this new guy.

AND they keep you as back up in friend zone so they think they can take you back if they want.

They must feel the anxiety of losing you. That only happens if you cut off contact with them completely. Remember, anxiety triggers desire.

So, if a womanbreaks up with you and says they want to be friends.

Be sweet, kind and sincere when you say it. But let her know, you say I don’t want to be friends.

I’m moving on with my life. I don’t want to be friends.  I still want you and desire you. Call me if you change your mind.

Then you must walk and never look back.

She may start dating someone else. She may even get serious with someone else. But most guys don’t know how to make a relationship work so he’ll screw it up.

That’s when she will start to think about you and wonder about you.

When she contacts you, assume she wants to see you and invite her over to come out and hang out.

Don’t go to her. Don’t take her on a fancy date. She must initiate 100 percent of the contact and come to you for at least 3 times.

We Create Our Own Value

We Create Our Own Value

I’m going to talk about our perceived value of ourselves and how it affects attraction.

This video is important because how we behave shows other people how valuable we are. I’m going to teach you some ways to increase your value, and things to stop doing that decrease your value.

People value what other people value, what is scarce, and what they have to work for.

We are all supposed to be equal. But we don’t act like it.

Human beings tend to unconsciously look at other people and on some level rate how valuable another person is. We’ve done it for centuries. We even use titles: Kings, Queens, Presidents.

In today’s society, we rank celebrities as more special and treat them that way.

If you are treating someone like they are celebrity, it’s like saying you’re more valuable then you. Most men tend to treat beautiful women like a celebrity.

But everyone wants someone that they perceive is an equal to them, or higher value.

The sad thing, is that most people put a low value on themselves.

Why? Because they are insecure. They did not feel valued and loved as a child and formed an insecure attachment style.

If you were repeatedly treated like you weren’t important, you start to believe it and internalize it. If your own parents didn’t do a good job saying, you are the most important person in the world, for whatever reason- I’m not trying to knock them, you started to believe you aren’t important.

You are important. You are worthwhile, you are special, you are unique.

There’s only one you. And you need to find that light that shines within you and share it with the world.

You have to believe that. You have to put a high value on yourself.

Your beliefs about yourself lead to your behaviors.

This is really important to understand because you want to become more aware of your beliefs so you can do more attractive behaviors.

Now, here’s the good news. Even if you don’t believe you are a great catch in your mind, but you display behaviors of a great catch, the woman will see you as a great catch.

I got an email here from Elliot that says: Hey Craig. I really hate dating and am on the verge of giving up. There is something that really makes me angry about women that I can’t get out of my mind. Women are always attracted to jerks. I cannot tell you how many times I see the guys at my work who are complete scumbags get these really great girls. Why? Why are women so stupid?

Okay, Elliot I can see that you’re hurting. You don’t understand women so you put them down. Women are amazing. You just have to understand that they operate differently than men.

I don’t know much about you, but I’m glad you can recognize that your approach with women is not working and that you can do something different.

So lets start with the idea of women are attracted to jerks. Well a lot of women are attracted to jerks. Why is that? Well there’s a lot of reasons.

In my video We Are Attracted to the Familiar (Which I highly suggest you watch), I talk about how we are attracted to people who are similar to our caregivers

Here are a few very basic examples:

We are attracted to people who will hurt us in the same way that our parents did.

So if you had a father who ignored his kids. You are going to be attracted to a man who ignores you. Because that is what love felt like.

If you have a dad that isn’t attentive. You are more attracted to a partner who is inattentive.

Here are some other reasons women are attracted to jerks:

The jerks that most guys complain about appear to be confident. Their behavior displays that they are a great catch. They don’t chase girls, they don’t over pursue, and so women chase and wonder about them. These guys don’t act too nice. Because they’re not nice.

Now these guys are often the most INSECURE people. BUT women do not see this at first and often they have already fallen in love and go through a very painful relationship and break up. Desperately trying to get the attention of someone who really and ultimately don’t care about them.

This is the hard part to swallow. They simply don’t care about these women.

Those “jerks” they have been hurt and have an avoidant attachment style.

They also want someone who is an equal. A lot of guys drive women crazy when they are constantly trying to please her.

If she asks you where do you want to go tonight? Tell her. Stop being a pleaser. Nobody likes a pleaser. It’s like Smithers from the Simpsons.

IF you act like a pleaser, you will turn her off!!!

Acting scarce increases your value. You do not want to appear too available to someone. There isn’t any mystery or excitement with that. This is why I suggest you only set up dates once a week. A woman needs time to think about you. Don’t be so readily available to see someone. They’ll unconsciously be turned off thinking, why does he want to see me so bad?

For example: If you truly believe you are an amazing catch and someone cancels a date, you are going to be turned off. You’re certainly not going to jump at them trying to reschedule.

If a woman breaks up with me, she is going to get none of my time. I move on and I don’t look back.

Think about how little of a value you exhibit by spending time with someone who just said, I don’t want you. When a woman is breaking up with you, it’s because you are not valuable in her eyes. You just went on clearance.

When she changes her mind and wants me back, she’s going to have to earn my time.

She is going to have to do 100 percent of the calling, texting and pursuing.

She was foolish enough to break up with me, and have the belief that you aren’t valuable. Don’t worry, it wont take long for someone else to see my value.

A lot of you guys keep trying to overcompensate your insecurity about how valuable you feel, by trying to sell yourself on a woman. She needs to sell herself on you. Especially if she breaks up with you.

So You must act in ways that show a woman what YOU BELIEVE your value is.

I got a second email from Tim who says, Hey Craig, your work is incredibly insightful and it’s helping me a lot. I’m dating 2 women at school. I’m not exclusive with either of them. Occasionally one girl will see me out with the other one. Is this bad? We go to a small school so it happens at times. I’m afraid that they will stop liking me if they see me with other women.

I used to believe that too Tim. If I could give you guys one magic quality, it would be to make you appear to be attractive to other women.

People value things that other people value. It’s essentially someone appraising your value.

When a woman sees you out with another woman, it will most likely make her want to chase after you even more! As long as you aren’t trying to rub it in her face.

It lets her know, you are valuable. Women want to be with you. Women will think, what does he have that she wants. And they want you even more.

This could be done in person, through your reputation, or through social media.

Always put yourself first will increase your value.

Why? Because it’s your life and you have to be the star in your own movie. Don’t make someone you don’t even know the star of your movie!

If you put them higher than you, it tells them they have a higher value than you. And ultimately, they want someone who is an equal or someone that is a challenge.

Make someone work for you. Think about something you’ve had to work really hard for. A degree, a diploma, a career. Maybe you saved up for your first car or house.

You valued those things because of all the hard work you had to put in.

Now think of the kids with the rich fathers who give them everything. They don’t value those things as much because they didn’t have to put in any time or effort to get them. Make a woman put in time and effort to get you.

Now a message to all you women are looking for a real relationship. People don’t work for what’s easy.

If you have sex with a guy right away, in many cases he isn’t going to put a high value.

Some guys may who are looking for easy women are not going to like me telling you that, but I want to teach you guys to have meaningful relationships.

If you want to sleep with a guy on the first date, absolutely go for it if you want it could lead to something. BUT, he willmost likely value you more if he has to work for you.

A lot of men will think, well if she sleeps with me on the first date, she may sleep with a lot of guys on the first date. Like I said earlier, guys will value what they have to work for and what is scarce.

Think about this: Would you rather play a penny slot machine that you win every time? Or play the big play off machine where you can win a huge reward.

You can be the penny slots or you can be the jackpot. You choose which one you get to be and act like it. But your actions must be congruent.

If you act like you have high or low value, women are going to believe it.