Clay: If your ex doesn't value you,
there's one thing that you can do to get the dynamic to change. That's what we're going to
be talking about in this video. But first, my name is Clay with modernlove.life, we help you get the
great loving relationship that you're looking for without having to play mind games, without
having to play hard to get, and without having to pretend to be someone or something that you are
not because you of course deserve to be loved for the unique, amazing, and wonderful person
that you are. And if you agree with me, please help me out with this YouTube channel by hitting
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Clay: But we're also talking about
connecting with your ex and really learning to deal with them in a socially savvy kind of way.
And one of the best ways that we can help you if you are looking for something along
those lines is with our course called Effortless Connection. Effortless Connection is our course on
communication. It breaks down how to communicate with your ex or your partner in a way that really
maximizes the ability for the two of you to cooperate better, be on the same team with one
another, communicate clearly with one another and also build up more consistency and trust between
each other. And if that is something that you want to learn more about, we do have that course down
below in the description box. But let's go ahead and get into this. So if your ex doesn't value
you, this can show up in all sorts of different ways. Maybe they're not returning your messages.
Maybe they are just taking you for granted. Clay:
Maybe they are using you as some sort of fallback plan or plan B or something like that in case
something else doesn't work out. But either way, it doesn't feel good. You used to have this person
in your life who would see you as an equal or maybe even they would put you up on a pedestal and
you had this great dynamic with one another and it just felt wonderful. It felt loving. It felt very
good, to put it simply, but now things don't quite seem that way. Now it seems like, at least
in their opinion, you're below them and they're looking down at you. And that's obviously not a
great place to go about building a relationship from. It's not a great place to connect with
someone with and all of that. And again, there are a lot of people out there on the internet
that will probably tell you that this is a power play, relationships are about power struggles.
Clay: You have to be the prize. You have
to cut them down to size so that they know their proper place and that you're the person on the
pedestal or something. But I think that this is an unhealthy dynamic for a lot of relationships,
because as long as you see a relationship as a power struggle, you're going to fundamentally
see your partner as a potential opponent or they're going to see you as an opponent. And
obviously this is not a great dynamic for having a relationship. This is not a great dynamic
for doing anything important in life. In order for me to win, you have to lose, in order for you to
win, I have to lose or something like that. And so what we are going to be talking about here is
balancing out the social dynamics, which isn't necessarily about power unless you are looking
at it through that filter. Clay:
What it really is about is about energy and attention. And specifically, if your ex isn't
valuing you, there's probably something that you're doing, something that's shifted
within you that is causing you to come up to the situation and come up to the interactions in a way
that is, let's just say not working out the way that you want it to. Typically this will show
up with someone putting more value on their ex's opinion of them than they put on their own opinion
of themselves. Typically, this is them walking on eggshells, wanting to make sure that they say the
right thing, wanting to make sure that they do the right thing, wanting to make sure that they
phrase everything just right, trying to make sure that they have just the right words
so that they don't make their ex pull away or make their ex lose interest or something like this.
Clay: And these are noble places to be coming from,
wanting to be considerate of the other person's emotional state and what they're going through and
where they're at in life and all of these sorts of things. However, if it comes at the expense of you
valuing your own opinion of you and saying, "Hey, here, you value my opinion of myself and then give
it back to me and then that'll be my opinion on myself." Then that's not a good place to be,
right? You obviously want to have your own opinion of yourself and they're going to
have whatever opinion they have of you, but if you have your own opinion of yourself and hold
yourself in high regard as you move forward, then that is going to reflect back in them.
Clay: They're going to say, "Oh, look at you. You're
holding yourself in high regard. That means that I should probably treat you that way as well, too."
Whereas if you're constantly lowering yourself down, decreasing your opinion of yourself,
then it shouldn't come as a surprise that they're going to do the same as well, too. And again,
this isn't about power. This is just simply about how you're bringing yourself to the interaction
and the direct effect that it's going to have. You wouldn't want to ... Let's put it this way.
If someone is coming to you from a place where they believe themselves to be lower than you,
then you're going to constantly be wondering, what is your angle here? Why are you doing this? Is it
because you're just trying to get close to me? Is it because you're just trying to get with me?
Clay: Is it because you're just trying
to get something out of me? Whereas if you come to someone as an equal, then you're going to have
a desire for that person. You can be attracted to that person and all of these sorts of things,
but it's going to be as an equal. It's not going to be someone trying to get something
from you. It's going to be like, "Okay, let's create something beautiful together."
And that's going to be much easier to see and much easier to experience if view yourself as
an equal and if you hold yourself in high regard. So you want to make sure that you are investing
more in your own opinion of yourself than you are in allowing them to create their opinion of you.
You also want to watch the level of investment that you're putting into the
interaction versus their level of investment that they're putting into the interaction.
Clay: So for example, you might say something, you might
contact them, you might text them, you might start a conversation with them or something like that.
And then if they don't return that same level of investment or maybe a higher level of investment,
then what you don't want to do is you don't want to double down and continue to keep plowing
forward and say, "Oh, well, really, it sounds ..." You send them a message or something and
then they send you back a two word response or something like, Hey, I heard some interesting
things about what's going on in your area. I just wanted to see how you're doing today." And they
just respond with, "I'm good." And then you don't want to follow that up because that's a low level
of investment on their part. Clay:
You don't want to follow that up by doubling down and saying like, "Oh really, you're good.
Tell me more about that. I was wondering how this was going to go, and it's really nice
to hear that you're doing well these days," and all of that stuff. Because that's just going to
create an imbalance in the social dynamic. It's going to again, create that sense of,
"Whoa, I just said I'm good and now you're really coming at me with all of this energy.
It makes me wonder if you have some sort of ulterior motive or some sort of hidden agenda
or something like that." And so we want to make sure that our interactions are more or less
balanced. Now, of course, obviously a social interaction is going to be dynamic. So there's
going to be times when maybe you're a little bit more over-invested or they're a little bit more
over-invested. Clay:
So don't look for it to be totally equal, but just look for it to be like, "Okay, they're
actually opening up. They're actually contributing something to this interaction," and yeah, you are
probably going to have to up the stakes a little bit, but it should be incremental and it should be
reasonable given wherever you are currently at in terms of your interaction and your investments
with one another in that interaction. And then you also want to, again, continue to follow social
cues. If it seems like they're not emotionally ready to connect with you right now, if they're
just giving you these one or two word responses or something like that when you're texting them,
then you obviously want to say something along the lines of, "Hey, it seems like you're not in a
place right now where you're free to talk. That's totally all right. I'll let you go. We'll just
catch up later when you have some more time." Clay:
Or, "Hey, it seems like you're not available to talk right now. It seems like you might be a
little bit uncomfortable to talk with me right now. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable,
so if there's something going on, please let me know. If it's all in my head on the other hand,
no worries." So here we're having the space to let them go or let them come, which is a
powerful place to be in because it shows that we value ourselves enough to not be attached
to making this look or seem a certain way. We're okay to just say, "Hey, if you're not in a good
place to talk right now, or if there's something going on that's causing you to feel uncomfortable
talking with me, let me know. And if you need some space, that's totally cool. I'm not going to try
and force anything if it's not there." Clay:
That way they have the freedom to come or go if that's what they want to do. And they're
not feeling as if they're being corralled into some sort of outcome or some sort of situation
that they don't even necessarily want to be in. So we want to be careful about these things as
we're going about interacting with our ex. And we want to be careful about these things because,
yeah, we do want to have a more or less balanced social interaction with one another, because if
it does get too far out of balance one way or the other, then it's just going to get a little bit
awkward and a little bit weird. And that's what can happen and that's what can be happening that
is causing your ex to not really value you is most likely the balance is way out of whack.
Clay: What typically needs to happen
is you need to start saying, "Okay, how is it I want to bring myself to this situation? How is it
I view myself in this situation? How is it I want to view myself in this situation?" Start turning
your attention back on yourself and stop letting them dictate how you should feel about yourself.
And then also just make sure that those interactions are more or less balanced, make sure
that level of investment is more or less balanced. Of course, yes, you are going to have to probably
stick your neck out there a little bit, just to get things moving, but you should be meeting that
with something about the same level of return. If you are getting about the same level of return,
maybe a little bit higher, maybe a little bit lower, maybe about the same,
then you can go ahead and move upward again and see if they follow you upward.
Clay: But if you're going upward
and they're just staying down here, then you don't want to just continue to move upward in terms of
your investment. Otherwise, you're going to end up with that high level of imbalance. So once again,
if you do want a little bit more help when it comes to communication and connecting and all that
stuff, please make sure you check out our course called Effortless Connection. We just launched it
back in November, but you can find that down below in the description box. And once again, if you
do like what we're doing here on this channel, help us out with that algorithm by hitting that
thumbs up button, leaving a comment down below, letting me know what you found most helpful about
this video. And please also subscribe to this channel as well, too. If you do want to know more
about what your ex is thinking during this whole process of breaking up and getting back together,
please check out this video over here, or you might want to check out this video right here.
But once again, my name is Clay. Please take care. And I will talk to you next time.