Why They're Scared to Let You In

Today we're going to be talking about why they're scared to let you in. So a lot of times we find that we're dating somebody and it's going really well. But for some reason they don't want it to go forward. They seem timid. They get hot and cold and you can't figure out why, like "what is going on with this person?"

Margaret (01:04):

Or the mysterious. "He Started to pull away or she started to pull away and I had no idea what was going on."

Craig (01:11):

Yeah. So today we're going to look deep into what happens with people and why they do that. Because the answer isn't always as simple as you think it would be.

Margaret (01:27):

The magic ingredient here is being vulnerable vulnerability, and there's a lot of talk about it these days. The accepted expert on vulnerability is named Brene just the way it sounds. And she recently she's written several books, but she recently did a Ted talk. Uand which you can get on YouTube. You can get any Ted talk on YouTube,uand it's kind of the in thing. All right. So I'm going to talk about it and the Firestones here. Udid a very good job presenting it, I think. Okay. Okay. Uyou have to have vulnerability to have love. Alright. "Everything About love, induces us to be vulnerable. Suddenly we find ourselves being softer and more open. We are surprised by our feelings of tenderness and compassion for others. We are unexplainably optimistic about life. Part of what feels so good about love is that it feels so good to feel trusting and safe enough to let our guard down". And that's where the difficulty comes. ""If You put down your defenses and your walls, then you're vulnerable to being loved, but you're also risking being hurt.

Craig (02:51):

That's big. It is big.

Margaret (02:53):

It really is big being vulnerable is not at all easy. Okay. and the only analogy that ever worked for me was it's like a snake sheds its skin so that it can grow right into a bigger, better snake. But during that period, it has no defenses. So it's almost like you leave yourself kind of defenseless or like a crab. Oh yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. okay. This frightens us. What happens when this frightens us? Sometimes we pull away. Sometimes we isolate the person who works all the time and then goes on solitary hikes. Sometimes we get controlling of our partner because that distracts us from being vulnerable. And sometimes we start to withhold sex and affection.

Craig (03:46):

And I think sometimes we act out as well. Of course we do. We start fights.

Margaret (03:51):

Yup. We started for absolutely. "I'm Getting too close to you. I'm trusting you too much. This is scary. My defense is all over the place and I think you're stupid."

Craig (03:59):

Yeah. And so they look for stupid things to start a fight about, and God knows we can all find those.

Margaret (04:06):

Okay. but we have to be vulnerable if we want to love and they make three very clear suggestions on what to do. Number one is be generous. Now, what does that mean? You can be generous with your money. You can buy people gifts and that's certainly one way to do it, but there are emotional ways to be generous as well. Generous people actively look for opportunities to respond to a need of friends and loved ones. Generosity is expressed by the willingness to drop anything, to do a favor. Orlando had, it can be as simple as listening when someone needs to talk. And I think that's the biggest one, particularly your partner. Okay.

Margaret (04:54):

It's true. Because a lot of times you're so distracted by being on the phone or the TV or the video games or the computer. You're not even listening. Right. You're not even being present. I'm going to get my phone out.

Craig (05:09):

But the fact that it's an equal exchange between partners is also extremely important. If you're generous with your time and your attention, and you're listening, you expect the other party to be able to take it. And that's again, part of being vulnerable. It has to be an even exchange. Okay. And there are some people who say, "well, this is an important, if they start to feel like, you know, I really need to talk and they start their wealth. This is an important, right. I shouldn't have these needs. I'm a big tough. "

Craig (05:38):

But that's how you connect.

Craig (05:42):

Generosity is a wonderful thing. And there are some people who are sort of stingy about everything like mr. Crab on SpongeBob, he's stingy about everything, especially money. Alright. Asking for what you want is huge because people say all the time. Well he didn't, he didn't, he didn't do it. She didn't, she didn't, she didn't. Did you tell them what you wanted or needed? "Well, No," I heard just today. "I Hinted." No, hints don't do it. You have to be upfront with what you want and what you need asking for what you want is difficult for many people, because feelings of shame, often accompany wanting or needing something from another person. Shame is a painful primitive emotion that originates in early childhood from incidents when basic needs were not fulfilled. These incidents leave children feeling deeply ashamed of their desire for affection or wanting to be touched or being, or be seen or be understood.

Margaret (06:52):

And if you're a little one and you look for that from parents and they don't give it to you, the message to you is "you shouldn't have needs." And I've mentioned before I had a client who his mother actually told her that she had too many needs. Okay. And if that's the case, then it's going to be very hard to tell your partner that you really do have needs. And you have to remind yourself, you're not a little kid anymore. You know, you're a big grown up and you may risk being vulnerable, but you're not going to let it go too far. You know? And sometimes people who had those kinds of experiences in childhood become almost desperate to cover up any signs of wanting as adults. And they continue to expect humiliation and shaming. If they ask for what they want, okay. I need 12 hugs a day.

Margaret (07:40):

What are you going to do about it? Okay. If you need 12 hugs a day, tell your partner. Cause otherwise they won't know that they may think it's only six. Yeah. If you're lucky "without awareness of your basic wants and needs, you have no way of knowing what is important or meaningful to you". Okay. Think about it. What do you want? I talked to somebody just recently who said, "I have no idea". You know, they had no idea what they wanted, no idea what he wanted. He was kind of hoping that the right career would come along, but he wasn't quite sure what that would be. And he said, it's kind of embarrassing, but I really don't know. All right. So of course I suggested he spent som"e time thinking about that, you know, and how well his needs were met when he was a kid.

Margaret (08:29):

I think he thought I arrived from another planet, but he was very polite. Okay. So you have no way of guiding your life if you don't know what your wants and needs are. And more often than parents even think about it for me in it, we're told not to have them, but I mean, if you have six kids and chaos in your house and her husband, who's ill think about all the crazy things that can in a family. And you wouldn't mean to do that to a child, but you easily could. You know? And the other one that's done to little boys all of the time, you need to act like a man. When the kid is saying, I need a hug, I need something. My, this hurts my that hurts my stomach. Stomach doesn't feel good. Act like a man. What kind of a message is that

Craig (09:18):

To the exact opposite, when you hug your kids and you make them feel safe and secure, then they're a lot more likely to "act like a man" when they become an adult. Exactly. Right. So the exact opposite. Yep.

Margaret (09:32):

You don't kids don't need to learn to be tough when they're little. Yeah. yeah. All right. The third one is you can express and accept affection. When you offer and accept affection in your intimate relationship, you encourage your vulnerability and discourage any other crazy behaviors you might want to do, like becoming controlling or becoming, isolating, becoming isolated. But you need to be able to sit with the closeness. And we've talked about how very difficult that is, particularly for avoided people, huge

Craig (10:08):

Sitting with the closeness. It be okay,

Margaret (10:10):

The closeness with it's what we all want, but they say that, you know, it's the thing that scares us the most. It's not easy being vulnerable. Right. And if you really, really love somebody and you're willing to be vulnerable, you're willing to let them see you warts and all. Okay. And it's scary. You got to know my good parts in my bed.

Craig (10:35):

Yeah. It's so scary because of the way, you know, social media has impacted us. You know, you see the next person and you think they're going to be amazing and shiny and new and exciting. And then, you know, the next one comes along and then you, so it's like, you don't really see as many people pushing through the difficult times and trying to make it work with the person that they're with. Right. But you're just going to wind up feeling empty inside. If you live your life, like that,

Margaret (11:03):

Being vulnerable is not easy, but it's absolutely necessary. And you don't want to risk it too quickly either we have defenses because we need them. But if you really love somebody and you want to be with them long term, you have to risk it. Okay. Again, I don't say do it lightly. Don't drop your guard lightly. Yep. Okay. remaining open and non-defensive in our intimate relationships can scare us and make us feel anxious and self protective. It's a challenge, but we can rise to it by confronting our defensive behaviors and the critical inner voice that supports it, no matter how difficult it may be to become and remain vulnerable, the goal is ultimately worth the effort. Only when we break through our defenses remain vulnerable.

Margaret (11:54):

Can we restore, loving, true pleasure and rewarding interactions with our partner. Okay. But it's not easy. Yeah. And how many times do I hear people say, well, I should be tougher. I should be able to handle this without being upset. No, you shouldn't. And don't shut off your feelings because although they can hurt you, sometimes they also are what gives color and spice and all that good stuff to life. And I think there's a big movement out there with men to shut off their feelings, to stay away from women, you know, to not try and bond or connect with them. And you know, all women are just using us. Women are just only want us because we're successful or have money, or they overlooked the fact that there may be picking women because of how attractive they are and not looking at the full picture of how they are.

Craig (12:48):

But I think that the bottom line is that these guys have been so incredibly hurt, probably starting with their mother. Just going to say this, my favorite question of how's your mother. Yeah, sure. We all want the closeness, but it's not easy. We are wired to connect. Yes. We are wired to connect. And sometimes I think we push love away out of fear and we're only half conscious of it. But if you find the right person, I hope you'll be able to do it. The more you work at it, the more you work through your own issues, whatever your particular issues are, the more likely you'll either repair things with your ex or you'll get to a healthier place the next time around and you'll choose better partners and you'll be the partner that they need. But can you imagine somebody actually shamed you? What do you need from me? What will work for you? What will make you feel loved? It's always possible to act, ask directly. Yeah. And imagine how good you would feel if somebody said it to you think about what would that feel like? What do you need from me? How could I make you feel safe and loved?

Margaret (13:52):

They probably call the police and have you evaluated, right.

Craig (13:58):

Great stuff.

3 Things you MUST Do in No Contact

Today we're going to be talking about three things that you must do in no contact. You know, when you're in a situation that you're not reaching out to your ex and you're really struggling, it can be very difficult and you are kind of all over the place. So we got three things here that I think are really big things that you have to do that you want to stick to while you're in a situation where if you're leaving somebody alone and you're trying to, you know, obviously if you want to work it out with them, you want to let them come to you. Right? But that time is so hard because every second feels like an eternity. But I got three things here that are really important. Okay. The first one is that you want to focus on understanding why the relationship didn't work out.

Craig (01:41):

That's a big one. Don't you think?

Margaret (01:43):

I don't know. She, she just got cold on me. I don't know what happened. Yeah. Okay. How do you do that? Yeah. How do you think about it? How do you go about thinking about it?

Craig (01:55):

Well, I would say, you want to think about where you guys had fights or arguments, disagreements.

Margaret (02:02):

What did you use to have fights about? What did you fight about? What did you disagree about? Right.

Craig (02:07):

Another big thing. I would say you want to look for is, was there something that this person kept saying they needed from you or asking from you repeatedly and you weren't doing it? Because that's telling you that they have this unmet need and they're trying to express it to you repeatedly. And you weren't meeting that, whatever it is, right. You were on your cell phone too much, or we didn't do vacations together. Or we spend too much time with your family and not enough with mine, whatever it might be. But you have to really think about what went wrong. Because if you don't know what went wrong, how are you going to fix it? Right.

Margaret (02:48):

You can't do it. And you know, it's nice if your partner can cooperate in that. Yeah.

Craig (02:55):

But a lot of times your ex doesn't really tell you the reason,

Margaret (02:58):

You know what I hear the most often? They said they needed space and that they had to focus on themselves.

Craig (03:04):

That's a big one. But usually those are the, like the generic reasons. There's no authentic reason there. Because a lot of times they feel like if they're telling you the real reason, then you're just going to try and say, "I'll fix that. I'll change that now. Well, if you just give me the chance, I'll do it." Right. But at that point, they're frustrated, it's too late. And you're trying to talk them into something when they don't want it.

Margaret (03:29):

But if you take a long, hard, honest look about, like you say, the things that somebody might have asked from you that you didn't do. And probably one of them is, you know, they weren't present enough. They worked too much. And when they were here, they were just on their phone. Yup. Those are big ones. Those are big.

Craig (03:47):

You have to know what happened. And obviously Margaret and I go into a lot of deep issues, looking at factors like individuation, mental health attachment styles, all the different areas that we explore that help you really look at your own situation and kind of put things together for what happened. Right. You know, you have to be willing to look at it. Yeah. You know, if you keep looking at this cliche stuff, that's out there, you're not really going to get to the meat of the problem. Right. You know, which is what you gotta do here. You know, you also want to think about how long they may have been unhappy. Right. You know, you might have a situation where your ex has been unhappy for months and they didn't tell you. Right. I had a situation today where the woman didn't tell him that she was unhappy and I think it was because she was afraid he would freak out. So she kind of was quickly navigating how to get out of the situation without telling him.

Margaret (04:51):

What was she afraid he'd do?

Craig (04:55):

I think she was afraid. Honestly, I think she had a lot of her own issues. And I think that she had a lot of trauma growing up. And so she's kind of maybe afraid of men's reactions,

Margaret (05:05):

Any risk rhat somebody might get out of control and really angry, scared, whatever.

Craig (05:10):

Yeah. So I think sometimes your ex or your, your partner doesn't want to tell you what's going on because they're not good with confrontation or they're not good with handling negotiation

Margaret (05:23):

And many people are not good at it.

Craig (05:25):

Yeah. but it's really important to understand where did this go wrong? What, what happened? What did you do that may have turned them off? What did they do that may have caused issues in the relationship? Cause both of you were responsible, you know, it's definitely not all on you, even though it feels like it. So you want to think about the reasons they gave you. Sometimes there's real authentic stuff there. Sometimes it's just the same BS where they just don't want to deal with something. Right. Right. But, you know, I think that's a big step in figuring out how to fix the situation. Yeah,

Margaret (06:00):

Absolutely. Well, you can't treat without a diagnosis. How's that?

Craig (06:05):

Okay. The next thing you want to do is after you've kind of spent time really looking at what happened, your mistakes, where it went wrong, when you had issues, all those things, you want to come up with a plan, right? Like what are you going to do to make it better? Why is it going to be better next time? How are you going to make sure that when you're in this situation next time, where that thing that you argued about 25 times doesn't become an argument again? Right, I mean, that's a tough thing to do is actually come up with a strategy and stick to it.

Margaret (06:38):

It's not easy. Yeah.

Craig (06:41):

But you know, you want to kind of imagine what it would be like when you get back together, like what are the scenarios where we did struggle?

New Speaker (06:50):

What kinds of things do you need to look out for? Yeah. What kinds of things do you need to do that you didn't do? Like talk to each other, which is the biggest one.

Craig (07:00):

I was always the kind of person to over prepare for things like I would, my anxiety would cause me to prepare an over-prepare. Right. Like, especially when I was doing standup comedy a lot and I would, you know, do a lot of shows and professional shows. I would be the one comic that would go over material again and again.

Margaret (07:21):

At least it's a constructive symptom. Yeah. It helped you work harder and better.

Craig (07:26):

Yeah. And that was one of the things that I would make sure that I was on point a lot of times, because I wouldn't know my material inside and out and I would practice it and I recite it. And you know, before a show or a big show, a lot of times I'd be outside pacing around going over my notes over and over and over again. But it kept me on point when the time came. And so I would over-prepare and that's what I want you guys to do because you know, you don't want to under prepare and then regret it. Right. It's better to over-prepare and be over. Yeah.

Margaret (08:06):

Yeah. And you feel more confident when you're doing that too. It'll keep you sharp.

Craig (08:10):

Yup. Right. Yeah. Cause then you'll imagine, Oh, I already felt like, yeah, I'm ready. And then you stay calm and you feel more confident, relaxed about it. Right. And here's the third biggest pointer and this is really important. Okay. You thought about what went wrong. You come up with a plan, maybe you've done a coaching with us and you've, or you've done the workbooks and you were working on all the skills. Yeah. Have to stick to that plan when you're in front of your ex.

Margaret (08:42):

Right. If you get the ex back, don't stop doing what you were doing. Right? Yeah.

Craig (08:48):

Stay motivated, stay watching the channel, stay committed to the personal growth. Don't go back to your old ways. You should see how many people I've seen that will, you know, do all the right things. And then they get so overridden by anxiety or emotions that their ex says or does anything to trigger them that they make a million mistakes go back to the same behavior.

Margaret (09:18):

So it's like, "well, I got, I accomplished my goal. I got him or her back. So now I can just relax again." Yeah. Oh, don't do that to yourself.

Craig (09:28):

I can guarantee that when the time comes, that when you get in front of your ex, your body is going to be overwhelmed with anxiety and you are going to want to start a five hour text conversation or stay on the phone with them for three hours and talk about everything. And all of the plans that I tell you. Like, if your ex reaches out, you want to set a date, you want to do this in person. I had somebody email me recently that they said, "Oh, my ex finally reached out and we've been texting for the last six hours."

Margaret (10:08):

There are some things you really need to do in person

Craig (10:14):

Six hours?! Why didn't you set a date with them? And it wasn't somebody that coaching with me, but I was just so like, Oh gosh, I know this is going to be gone before you even realize it, because they're going to know everything about you. That excitement of not having talked to you in months is going to be gone by the time you get together.

Margaret (10:34):

I had somebody say to me, very hesitantly, "maybe there are some things you shouldn't do over text." Yes. There were lots of things you shouldn't do over texts. Yeah. It's not as personal as being in the room with someone

Craig (10:49):

You're not trying to text your ex back. You're trying to get with them in person so they can remember what it's like to actually be in your presence and feel that energy and that connection that you had even from when you initially started dating, it's not going to help you to throw all that out. And that's what I'm saying is like, you didn't stick to the plan, right? The minute they reached out to you, you panicked, you came on too strong. You said he spent two hours or three hours on the phone. You spend all this time texting. When what you needed to do is get in front of them and show off all of these changes that you'd been working on for probably months. Yeah.

Craig (11:32):

Very disheartening for me to see to happen to you guys. You got to stick to the plan, right? Figure out what went wrong. Margaret and I are here to do that. If you don't do a coaching with us, you know, there's tons of information we have. Like, I don't even remember how many hundreds of videos at this point. Was it 700, 800 videos I don't ever, I don't even remember off the top of my head. We had the workbooks, You could do a call with us, but really assess what happened, what went wrong, figure out a plan for yourself or do one with us and stick to it when that time comes.

Margaret (12:07):

And personal growth feels good. Otherwise who would bother to do it? It really does. Yeah. It's exhilarating. You can get really excited. Yeah.

Craig (12:16):

Yeah. So so important that you stick to those strategies and then stay committed to the personal growth.

Craig (12:24):

Even after you get him back, I say, put yourself on probation for like nine months to a year. That's good. Because you know, I did a call with somebody today that got their ex back, gave up on the personal growth and six months later they're broken up again. Yeah, it is because he had done so much work. So near and yet, so far. Yeah. So very important. You stick to these kinds of strategies.

I Think About Breaking No Contact Every Day

Today we're going to be talking about: I think about breaking no contact every day. Oh dear. How difficult? Yeah. You know, it is difficult, you know, a lot of times when you're going through a breakup, you go online, you have no idea what no contact is. You come across all kinds of coaches with all kinds of ideas on what to do, how to get an ex back. Some give absolutely horrific advice, that are borderline stalkish behaviors. They almost have you stalking your ex, right? Others, have you ignoring your ex, but when we talk about no contact, we don't want you to ignore an ex. We don't want you to ignore them for a certain amount of days. We simply want you to stop reaching out, to allow them the time to process things, to deal with it and to miss you.

Craig (01:48):

Because quite honestly, if they were frustrated or upset with you or unhappy with the way things were going, you know, they get into an emotional state, but having time away from you oftentimes gives them enough of a space to think, "you know what, those things do bother me. But overall, I really do love this person. " Yes. So I got a quick email today and we're going to talk about this. They said, "hi, coach Craig and coach Margaret. I hear quite a few of the coaches talking about no contact. Some say to do it, some say not to do it. It's confusing. I wish I had found your channel first because I trust you to the most. No contact is so hard because I think about my ex every day, the first thing I do every morning is check to see if he texted, I feel addicted to the phone because I'm constantly looking to see if he's texted or posted on Instagram. I'm unsure about no-contact. I wonder if it's a mistake. I wonder if my ex will think I don't care. I wonder if they will move on", Okay. So in a situation like this, we don't know the details of your situation.

Margaret (03:29):

Do we know how long?

Craig (03:30):

No, this is the whole email there. So we don't really know how long it was. All we know is that they ended the relationship. And for many of you guys that if your ex has ended the relationship, we really do think that you have to leave him alone. Right? Okay. And what you do in that time is important. The changes that you make in that time are important because if they were unhappy with the way things were, then there are things that you want to go back and look at and fix, right?

Craig (04:08):

And being in no-contact gives you an opportunity to work on that. Take a look at the relationship, what areas you struggled, they struggled what you can do to make it better and how to handle things when they come back for you. You know, we talk a lot about attachment and the different types of attachment styles. You know, everybody struggles with their own attachment issues. You know, you might be secure, but most people have insecure attachment styles where you tend to be more anxious about the relationship and getting abandoned, or you feel smothered and trapped by the relationship. But it doesn't matter if you're anxious or avoidant. People still miss you after a breakup. And I get a lot of people wondering my ex was avoidant. They're not going to miss me. Will you talk about dismissive avoidance not missing you, Margaret?

Margaret (05:12):

That's the, well, that's the dilemma of the avoidant. They too are wired to want connection. That's why they were in the relationship. Chances are they ended it because they felt smothered. But that doesn't mean they're not going to miss you and being avoidant doesn't mean you don't get attached, even though it scares you, you do get attached. So even an avoidant is going to miss you. So don't despair if your partner was avoidant, but I know as the days and weeks go by, people get more and more anxious that they've moved on or they've forgotten about them. That's a big one right there, but you have to understand that it's a process. And we live in a world of instant. Okay. And emotional processes. Take some time. I had somebody say to me today, well, it's been 30 days. 30 days is not a long enough time to really process anything. You can make a good beginning, but sometimes we're talking months here.

Craig (06:13):

Yeah. It's so normal to think about reaching out and coming up with all kinds of reasons to reach out. And it's overwhelming because the intrusive thoughts just don't stop. Right. And it's exhausting. You, you literally are looking for any kind of connection to reach out to them. So I would say most of you will struggle with, you know, no contact or reaching out for a long period of time until you eventually get to a place where you're like, "you know what? I'm not going to reach out. They can reach out to me when they want to talk to me". And you're focusing on yourself, you're doing those workbooks. If you have them 20 to 30 minutes every day, that's why I did workbooks. So you can focus on improving those skills, working through attachment issues, getting a local therapist.

Margaret (07:12):

Right? Exactly. That's one of the things we recommend and I'll always ask people, what did your partner tell you when they broke up with you? What did they tell you that the problems were? Some people are honest and other people will say I'm not attracted to you anymore and I need space, which really doesn't tell you anything. Yeah. That's so true because in any real relationship, you're more attracted at some times than others, etcetera. So those really don't tell you very much. It's nice to know what it is you need to work.

Craig (07:44):

Yeah. Yeah. But if you're sitting there struggling and every day you're thinking about reaching out and, you know, contacting them, you know, we wouldn't recommend it. In general. Of course, there might be something specific to your situation that, you know, it would be okay to reach out. But for the most part, we're saying, let them come to you.

Margaret (08:10):

And give them time to miss you. No matter how angry they might've been or no matter how cold they are. And we hear that often cause people have to have to get called to do the deed of breaking up. It doesn't mean they're forgetting you.

Craig (08:26):

Yeah. That's big. It doesn't mean you're there forgetting you at all because people don't forget people they're attached to. No, they don't. They don't, they really don't. Even if it's years, they'll still remember you. That doesn't mean they're going to come back necessarily or the one, another chance to work it out. But they're not going to forget, you know? Right. Even the dismissive avoidance, Margaret,

Margaret (08:47):

Even the dismissive avoidance, we're all wired the same way. Remember the avoidant has been horribly disappointed in an early relationship and you may have helped them reconcile. Some of that. You've got to give it time. Yeah. You have to. Which is the worst news on earth for you. We understand that.

Craig (09:11):

I know it's. Yeah. I've been there where it's like, literally every second of the day feels like an eternity. You just feel like you're in a fog and all you want to do is contact them. But if you do, it is a risk.

Margaret (09:25):

The other thing is even if your partner wasn't able to give you real reasons for the breakup and maybe the ones that they thought would be easier for you to hear, think about what you fought about. And that will probably give you a good idea as to what they were upset about.

Craig (09:41):

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. And I would say one of the big things is that you might be in a situation where your ex was saying they needed something from you or they wanted you to change something about yourself and you didn't do it. And now you're like, I'm willing to do it. I'm going to do whatever you need me to do. I'll be happy to do those things now. Well, they probably got to a point where they don't think you're going to change and telling them that is not going to make them want you more. You have to show them. You have to truly do the work that when you're in front of them again, you don't go back to those old mistakes. And that's why I say put yourself on probation for nine months to a year. Right? Because you'd be surprised how many people will get their ex back and then go back to their old ways, three or four months later, whatever. And then wind up in another breakup.

Margaret (10:35):

One of the things that often works is to be able to go back to somebody and say, I've gotten into therapy. That's like gold. If somebody's been begging you to change something and you haven't done it.

Craig (10:47):

Now, the thing is you don't want to look like you're trying to say it for approval. You want it to come out naturally, not "here is this new thing that I'm trying to display. Now you happy? " No, you don't want to do that. No. You mean it. You want to secretly do it, get into it. And then when they've reached out, it naturally comes up and then they're like, Oh wow. They really are making changes. Get into AA. If you've had an alcoholic issue.

Margaret (11:19):

Or whatever "A" you need.

Craig (11:22):

But telling them and trying to act like you're trying to present some grand thing to them, don't do it like that. It's better to do it for yourself. And they'll think you're being more honest about it if you are doing it for yourself. Right.

Margaret (11:39):

Yeah. It's a great way to gain credibility. And the other thing is it also gives you a sense of process and that feelings take time. Right? Once you get into therapy, that becomes very obvious to you.

Craig (11:54):

I understand that it's confusing. And you think about reaching out every day, right? I've been there. Yeah. I've been there and I understand it. So I know exactly how hard that is, but, and confusing. But your ex, isn't going to forget about you. And if you allow them time to feel the loss, that attachment is going to affect them as well.

Margaret (12:24):

Whereas if you give them a fix, it will stop the process.

Craig (12:28):

Yeah. So hopefully this will be helpful to you.

Why They Left a Great Relationship

Today we're going to be talking about: He left a great relationship. Why did he do that? Well, we think we know, don't we. So a lot of times you're dating somebody and it's going really well. And you just can't understand what is going on. They want to break up out of nowhere. You didn't see it coming. You were happy. You thought they were happy and you're just devastated. Right? And we have seen that a lot where you are in a relationship with somebody and it's going so good that you didn't even realize there was a problem going on. But what you have to understand is that everybody has issues with relationships and attachment and those struggles that we have don't show up right away, unless you're really extreme.

Craig (01:46):

Like you may have heard me talk about the girl that loved me, or she told me she loved me four times on the second date that screams to me, massive amounts of trauma. Yeah, of course. Yeah. That she would tell me something like that on a second date that, you know, she just doesn't really know me. So you're going to see issues come out, but it takes time.

Margaret (02:10):

And remember we're blinded in the beginning by those happy hormones.

Craig (02:14):

But our ability to attach is going to be directly related to our ability to stay in a relationship. And in the beginning you don't know what they're capable of for a longterm commitment or what their attachment style might end up to be. A lot of times you'll find yourself dating somebody who has an avoidant attachment style that can't do a longterm commitment. Okay. what happens is things are good, they're happy and they're really enjoying things, but all of a sudden they feel overwhelmed, right? You want to talk about that overwhelming feeling?

Margaret (02:58):

If you have an avoidant attachment style, then being clearly close with someone can get very frightening. People are afraid of being sort of engulfed of losing their identity or of being controlled. And oftentimes you hear avoidant people say, well, I really value my independence. And if they feel like that's threatened, they will oftentimes in the relationship, and we then get a call from someone who has no idea what was wrong and what was wrong was things were going too well. And it felt a little too close

Craig (03:36):

And that just scares the heck out of them. Right. Yeah. It really does. They have that over. It's just like an overwhelming feeling of, Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. But they don't put it into words

Margaret (03:51):

Feeling smothered here. Yeah. I feel like I have to do things for her now and it might interfere with my independence. Oh my God, I gotta run.

Craig (03:58):

Yeah, absolutely. But you know, depending upon the situation you have somebody that is like that. If you allow them some time and some space, there's a good chance. They're going to take another look at it and think, you know, this person was really great. Right. But when it happens so often is when, you know, all of a sudden they tell us they can't do it anymore. Out of nowhere, we're devastated and that's it. We're shocked. Yeah. Things were going well. And that's when we start to try and, you know, trap them or lock them down or lose emotional self control. But I have a really good success story from somebody that I did a Skype coaching with last year. And I remember exactly who she was because she had a great personality. And she told me she was going to share a story. And this is funny cause she starts it off with dear babe-alicious, babe,

Margaret (04:57):

To which you responded very happily, I notice. He says smiles when he says that.

Craig (05:02):

Well, cause I know her personality and she was really funny. So I was like, okay. Yeah, I get, I know she's having the, having some fun, she got your attention. She said, happy new year. It has been seven months since our coaching session. And I am so happy to provide you with an update. When we last Skype, I told you about my situation with my then ex-boyfriend he left our seemingly perfect relationship after a series of devastating losses. And I was desperate to win him back. When I finally reached out to you, I was feeling completely hopeless. The losses he and I went through were so very painful, including a miscarriage of what would have been our first child, that I was feeling literal physical pain from the overwhelming sadness of him leaving me. Yeah. Yup. And we're going to talk about that in another video soon with us dealing with death and breakups. Yes. Talking to you, provided me with a lot of comfort and insight. I still crack up when I remember one thing you told me that you thought my ex would eventually come back because dating is hard and most people are boring.

Margaret (06:24):

You were letting her know that she was not boring and good for her.

Craig (06:27):

It's such a great sense of humor. I'm like, there is no way this guy is going to just forget about that because she was really funny. You got to remember, I've done standup comedy for over 15 years. And when somebody stands out to me as being that funny, it just sticks with me and humor is a wonderful, healthy thing. And it's just such a great energy, right. That she had such a great energy. So I guess I picked up right on that in the session. And I told her.

Margaret (06:57):

That's a strength. I'm glad you let her know she had it.

Craig (07:00):

You and I talked a lot about attachment styles and how my ex appeared to be an avoidant attachment style with this in mind, I decided to give him an abundance of the things he seemed to need the most, space. This was incredibly difficult and painful because it required me to be patient and have faith that if it was meant to be, it was meant to be. I spent all of this time working on personal growth. I read so many books, including attached.

Margaret (07:33):

Okay, good, great

Craig (07:34):

Went to therapy sessions and did a lot of guided journaling. And there is a lot of stuff like that in the workbooks that you can work through stuff like that. There's a lot of things that are going to get you to reflect and to grow. And so that you can show changes when your ex does reach out, which hers did whenever he did pop into my life, which was quite frequently. After a period of No Contact, I would wait a while before responding with warmth while not being overeager. I played it super duper cool, which took pressure off of him and I both. After some time passed, I even started dating other people. It is so funny that you and Margaret talk about how our exes can sense it when we start moving on, here we go. Now this is going to be great. There's a great part to this story. I'm a disruption in the force. And we say, because the craziest thing happened a couple of months ago, I had met someone and I was excited about it and found my thoughts would drift to him throughout the day and not my ex early one morning, my phone vibrated and I saw I had two notifications at exactly 7:20 AM on the dot, both my ex and this new man text me good morning at the exact same moment. I love it. Okay. I have a screenshot of this. I'm going to cross out their names, but you will see both at 7:20 AM. Unbelievable. She says, you should have seen my jaw hit the floor. It's like, he knew that this other man was moving in and they both thought to message me simultaneously. She says crazy. It is crazy. Isn't it?

Margaret (09:42):

That's a really super duper airway.

Craig (09:44):

And it's such an odd time. After a lot of time apart and so much personal growth and soul searching, I am so happy to report that my ex and I are back together. Great. And our relationship is even happier and more solid than before. I cannot thank you and Margaret enough for all you do for people like me and will continue being a loyal supporter. If I could provide one piece of information for other women and people out there who were like me and are anxiously awaiting for the love to come back, it is this. Leave that man alone. She wrote that in bold, bold caps. Seriously do not wait for him. Do not put your love life on hold. Do not send him long text messages or emails all the ways about you love him. No, just don't. When you're feeling anxious, go to the gym and listen to Craig and Margaret's timeless wisdom and then dust yourself off and keep going. It was not until I started to truly move on that my ex finally came to his senses and if he hadn't come back, I have grown enough since last year that I would have been just fine regardless. Much love to you all. And looking forward to all the great videos to come this year.

Margaret (11:15):

Wonderful. What a lovely, lovely, lovely story to share. And she learned about avoidant. I think she probably gave him the space he needed after they got together. Again, I have one piece of advice for them now, and that is remember to talk about and greive the miscarriage, that was serious business.

Craig (11:32):

Yes it is. Yeah. but it sounds like, you know, she did a lot of work on herself and she got to a place where she was going to explore dating again. And look at that, they text message the exact same time. Unbelievable that we see this of stuff all the time. Although, although not particularly like this, that's why I got really wonderful. Yeah. I love that. She shared that with us. Great stuff and a great success story. And like she said, she was absolutely hopeless and convinced she had no shot with this guy. Right, and here they are.

Margaret (12:07):

It's not easy, but look what she learned. Yeah. Yup. And sometimes it can be worked out if you understand that the other person needs X amount of space and don't take it personally that they don't want to spend time with you. Yep. Right.

Craig (12:23):

Okay. So if you want to get our help personally, just go to my website askcraig.net, sign up for the coaching option that works best for you.

What If My Ex Doesn't Reach Out NOW? Does that mean they're over me? NO!

In this video, I'm going to be talking to about what if my ex doesn't reach out now? Does that mean they're over me? Well, obviously there's a lot going on in the world right now. We've got a big health pandemic going on. A lot of people are scared. A lot of people are anxious and stressed. There's a lot of financial issues going on and you're already overwhelmed with the breakup. And now you have all of this stress going on where you're worried about your health or your friends and family's health. It's pretty tough right now. And it's really difficult to go through a breakup, especially in a situation that we haven't seen since we've started the channel. It's been interesting for us to see how this has been affecting breakups. I did a little poll on my Instagram a few hours ago before I filmed this and I'll share the results of the question I asked in regards to hearing from your ex.

Craig (01:42):

But I just wanted to give you an update on what's going on with the channel. As many of you guys may know Margaret and I live in the Orlando area and right now in our area there, of course, practicing social distancing, and most stores are closed right now, except for what's been deemed as essential, like grocery stores and pharmacies. So we've been pretty much isolated and we are safe. So you guys can relax that we are doing everything that we need to do to make sure that we're both safe. Obviously, I'm more concerned about Margaret and making sure she is safe and isolated and she is so, but that's not why she's not here right now. I wanted to give you an update. Okay. Margaret and I already had a feeling that this was coming. I had a suspicion that things would happen probably a month ago when I started seeing it happen in other places.

Craig (02:50):

So I planned for that with her and we have filmed a bunch of other videos. They are ready to go. They're already edited and uploaded. So you're gonna see videos coming out with Margaret and I for probably another month or so with the both of us. And they're already filmed before this social distancing and people were supposed to be leaving their homes and such. So don't worry. Now this evening, a few hours before I filmed this video, I did a poll on my Instagram. And I asked if you had heard from your ex not heard from your ex or heard from other actors, but not this previous one. Okay. And as of right now, the results actually surprised me a little bit. There were 251 people that have answered as of right now. And if you guys go on my Instagram and answer the poll, I'll update it when you do that.

Craig (03:56):

Okay so as, as of now, 85, people had heard from their ex out of 251. So that was pretty good. I was actually surprised. I, I didn't think that many people would reach out. So 85 had heard from their ex's 251, 105 51 had not heard from their ex and 16 people had heard from an ex, but that the most recent ex, which kind of shows that people don't forget about you. We say it all the time. You have other ex's reaching out and please feel free to leave comments in the comments section if you've heard from your ex or if you haven't, or if you've had, have heard from previous sessions cause we want to know. Uh so if you go on my Instagram and answer the poll, I'll put a, whatever the final results are. So you guys can see yourself.

Craig (04:56):

But very interesting. I did not think that many people would reach out or use the Corona virus as an excuse to reach out, but they did. So that's a good sign. Now, a lot of you guys haven't heard from your ex and you're terrified I get it. I understand how hard this is. I know you're really scared and your feelings are probably really hurt. I was thinking about this and you must just feel like, well, if they're not reaching out when a crisis, like this is going on, they just don't care about me. They don't want to talk to me anymore. I'm never going to hear from them again. I simply don't think that's true. I really don't because the way people are in a breakup in a lot of situations is, if they're not ready to talk to you, they're not gonna do it.

Craig (05:54):

I don't know what your particular situation is. You might be in a place that is really struggling with it. You might be in an isolated place that hasn't had many issues come up. Yet. Many of you are hoping that they're going to care enough about you to reach out, cause they're afraid for your safety. But the reality is there probably not that scared for your safety right now. Okay. Doesn't mean they don't care, but just because they haven't, it doesn't mean that they won't reach out in the future. I really, we believe that because I just see how breakups go. A lot of the times where you could even be in like a car accident. Now, maybe it's not something major, but maybe they see on social media, you've been in a car accident and you've broken your ankle and you've sprained your arm or something like that.

Craig (06:51):

They might not even reach out for something like that. It's just this phase or place that your ex's in, that they feel like they've got to cut contact with you. Okay. They feel like they want, want to cut contact you, or they need to cut contact with you, whatever that person is going through. You know, it's a little bit different for everybody. I just know that, you know, if I was going through a breakup you know, years ago and my ex didn't reach out, I would be hurt. I would be sad. I would be disappointed. I would just feel more hopeless that the situation wasn't going to turn around, but I just know that sometimes something like this, even isn't gonna make them reach out. They have to go through whatever they're going through for whatever reason it is. And I know that's hard.

Craig (07:54):

And some of you, people may be angry about that. Some of you may say, well, you know what? If they don't reach out to me now, then I don't ever want to hear from them again. Hey, that's your right. If you feel like that, that's okay. You don't have to forgive them. You don't have to take them back if you don't want to. And you can just move forward. But I don't think it's as bad as it feels for you. Okay. And I wouldn't be surprised if even though many of you haven't heard from your ex right now that you won't hear from them and probably a month or several months down the line, when they've had time to process this and deal with this. I mean, you have to remember, they're scared, they're frustrated. They might be dealing with work issues or family issues with family members that have health issues or their own health issues, whatever they're going through too.

Craig (08:56):

Or maybe they're just at this point, focusing on somebody else and thinking that somebody else is going to be the most amazing person in the world. And they probably will argue and fight if they're quarantined together. You know, I'm going to be interested in seeing how people make it through a quarantine Ccuse that's going to be really stressful too. And we just don't know the effects of this yet. But I did want you to know that just because they haven't reached out yet, it doesn't mean that they're not thinking about you. It doesn't mean that they won't ever change their mind in the future. I know it's scary right now and it's stressful and we're all dealing with some issues. But if anything, I have found that more people reached out because of this, then I actually thought would, so make sure you go to my Instagram and vote because the story won't last forever, you got to get that in there.

Craig (09:57):

And I will post the final results when I get them. I'll put them on my Instagram on a story or I'll put them just as a post so you can see it there, but we're going to be okay. I know it may cause a major disruption for a lot of us, but you just have to stay home. That was the perfect time to work on yourself. Those of you have the knowledge workbooks, do them. There's tons of content. There's more than enough to get you through this quarantine and then some, and just take it easy, find any way that you can to find peace during the stressful time. And remember that we have plenty of videos that are already filmed and edited, uploaded, ready to go with Margaret and myself for at least another month or so, depending upon how often I release videos, but I will let you know that when we have started filming again so that way you guys don't think that we're not social distancing and taking care of ourselves over here. So I hope you guys feel a little bit better after this. And I just wanted to keep you updated on how the videos will be released for us.