My ex is confused, what should I do? 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 deserve to be loved for the unique, amazing, and wonderful person that you are.
If you agree with me, do me a favor by hitting the thumbs up button for this video and by
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It's kind of like you're paying it forward. Help a guy out, help me out, and help maybe
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do like this video. It is a popularity contest, YouTube is. Anyway, today we're talking about
what to do when your ex is confused. I was on a group coaching call yesterday,
actually pretty much all day yesterday. And I kind of started to notice this theme of,
okay, there are people who are maybe stuck in a certain situation where their ex isn't
choosing to really let go of them but they're also not choosing to be in a relationship
with them. They're kind of stuck in this sort of middle gray area. Obviously I don't want
you to get stuck in this middle gray area indefinitely forever.
That's not good. There is a time and place for that gray area. We've mentioned this before
in previous videos, how it makes sense to have that gray area where there's no label
between the two of you so that you can actually spend time together, connect more, build up
that emotional connection and all of that. But there is going to come a point in time
where you want to leverage the emotional connection that you have built up to get them to choose
to either commit to you or to not commit to you. Okay? Typically that's what we need to
do when your ex is confused, when they are kind of definitely into you for some reason.
Romantically, physically, emotionally, whatever, but they're also not ready to commit to you
for another reason, out of any other possible reason.
We want to kind of get them to show their hand. This is tough. This is really tough.
Especially for a lot of heart-centered people out there, you have empathy, you can feel
your ex's pain. You can feel their confusion. You can feel the struggles and challenges
that they might be experiencing, and you want to give them compassion. You want to give
them consideration. You want to be respectful of what they're
experiencing, but here's the thing. You have to take a stand for yourself and for your
own needs, because your ex might not have your needs in their best interest. Your ex
might not be taking your needs into consideration. They might just be kind of steering the boat
in whatever direction suits them. That's not necessarily going to get your needs met, especially
if you're busy being concerned about them. There's no one really looking after your needs,
so you need to love yourself enough to take a stand for you and to make sure that you
are getting your needs met. With that being said, when your ex is confused ... Yes, by
all means, be compassionate and empathetic but do so secondarily to making sure that
your needs are met. What you want to do is you want to use what we call the one way spikes
of doom strategy. Basically what this is, is how certain parking
garages or car parks ... They have these metal spikes that you can drive over one way and
the spikes go down and everything's great. But if you drive over them the wrong way then
there's some pain, right? You kind of regret that you did that because you just ripped
up your tires. And so what we want to do is we want to kind of use the one way spikes
of doom strategy to kind of help your ex to make certain decisions.
What often happens in these situations where your ex is confused is people kind of end
up getting stuck in this sort of cycle that goes around and around and around. Maybe they
end up getting close, they get close, they get close, but then something happens. Their
ex pulls away. They say they're not ready to commit. They say that they just want to
be friends. They say that they should not see each other romantically anymore. And then
they pull back for a little bit, and then they start to warm up again.
And then the cycle kind of keeps going around and around. We don't want this to happen because
it's not going to help you get into the relationship that you want, to be kind of stuck in this
sort of half quasi relationship indefinitely. What we want to do is we want to find out
sooner rather than later if your ex has the capacity to actually commit to you or if they
don't have the capacity to commit to you. If they do have the capacity to commit to
you, okay, let's get them to play their hand so that the two of you can get committed,
get into a relationship, explore what that might look like.
Maybe get married, start a family, all that stuff that you might want to do once you actually
have this whole relationship part of your life handled. Or if they don't have the capacity
to do that, let's find out sooner rather than later so that you're not wasting months or
years of your life potentially with someone who doesn't have the capacity to commit to
you. What we want to do is we want to break that
cycle by laying down some of these one way spikes of doom. When things start to get rough,
for example, your ex is pulling away after being very nicely connected to you for a while.
They say, "Hey, I think that we shouldn't be together anymore. I think that we should
just be friends," or whatever the case may be. Then what you want to do is you want to
get curious. You want to get curious and you want to say,
"Oh, you want us to not be in a relationship and you think that we should just be friends.
Is that right?" And then they have the opportunity to say yes or no. And if they say, "Yes, that's
right. I think we should not see each other anymore and I think we should be friends."
And then you say, "Okay. Are you sure you want us to just not talk anymore? Do you really
just want things to be over for us once and for all?" And again, we're giving him the
opportunity to say yes or no. We're kind of pointing out the spikes that they're driving
over. That gives them the opportunity to say yes or no. And then we say, "Okay. Well, where
I'm at right now ..." This is where we're kind of enforcing a boundary.
We're kind of saying what is important for us and what our values are. "Well, where I'm
at right now is I actually do want to be in a relationship." Depending on where things
are between the two of you, you might say, "Well, I was hoping that I might be able to
be in a relationship with you. If you're not open to that, that's totally okay."
Again, we want to be accepting of them how they are, "But what I want is a relationship.
So if we're not going to be together, then I might need to go out and date other people.
Is that okay with you?" Again, the one way spikes, the opportunity to say yes or no.
If they say yes, it's okay for you to go out and date other people, then you say, "Okay.
And anyone else that I might date, they're probably not going to be comfortable with
the way that the two of us have been interacting." You know, if you're doing that whole cycle
thing where they pull back and then you get warm and you're spending time together, maybe
being intimate with each other and all of that. "I think that we should maybe end things
between you and I. Is that okay with you?" And again, we're giving them the opportunity
to say yes or no. If they say, "No, it's not okay," any step
along the way in this process. "Okay, great. We can talk about it." But if they say yes,
again, they're driving over those one way spikes. And we're saying, "Okay. Well, if
that's really what you want to do, we can do that. Where I'm at is I do enjoy spending
time with you and I do want to see what might be possible between the two of us. But if
this is really what you want, we can do that." And then this is the hard part, is after they've
gone over the one way spikes, you have to enforce that boundary. Because if they come
back and go back to that cycle that just goes around and around and around, you're going
to end up in that dynamic again. You have to love yourself enough to break that dynamic.
Yes, you can be compassionate for them, but you have to take care of yourself first. You
have to love yourself enough to take care of yourself. You have to put on your own oxygen
mask before you put on someone else's. We can often lose sight of ourselves as we try
to take care of other people or you try to be considerate of other people, but you have
to take care of yourself first. Because if you don't, there might not be anyone else
out there taking care of your needs for you. So please, love yourself enough to enforce
that boundary. Sure, go ahead, extend a golden bridge or something so that they have the
opportunity to come back to you and to save face if they want to. But you have to let
them experience the consequence of their decision to not commit, the consequence of their confusion,
the consequence of their inability to get clear about what they want or what they don't
want. If that means that they might have to spend
some time without you to really feel that weight, to feel what it's like to not be in
that cycle, then that's what they need to do. As they start to experience that consequence
they may realize, "Oh, wow, it actually sucks not being able to be close to you. It's actually
not fun to not be able to have that positive cycle up on that circle."
Then they might start to come back to you, especially if you've extended a golden bridge
so that they know that they can come back without being embarrassed and they can save
face and all that. But you want to be able to do this so they can come back. And when
they do come back, you want to make sure that something is actually different.
Something has changed. "What changed now? Last time we talked, it seemed like you were
really against the idea of us being in a relationship. It's totally fine if we take it slow and we
just see how we connect with one another. But what changed since then?" Just give them
the opportunity to tell you if or what has changed since then, so that they can kind
of come back and so that you can know that you're not getting into the same cycle that
goes around and around and around indefinitely. And if they haven't shown any substantial
change, then again, you have to love yourself enough to have that boundary, to keep those
one way spikes of doom pointing back so that they really can't come back into unless something
has changed. All right. It's tough. It is tough. It's hard to enforce these boundaries.
It's much more easy to stay in your comfort zone and just to go with the flow or whatever,
but you got to do this if you want to break the cycle. If you want to find out sooner
rather than later if the two of you have the capability of being in a relationship, of
actually having that relationship. I don't want this vague nebulous thing to
just stretch on forever and ever, years and years and years, decades, even. Will you miss
out on the opportunity to celebrate wedding anniversaries, have your friends and family
at your wedding party, start a family, share all these moments together.
I want you to have those things, and so that's why we can't just screw around here going
in this circle forever. You have to love yourself enough to hold that boundary firm. If they
do come back, that's great, but make sure that something's different. All right.
Anyway, that's what I want to talk about today. I'm going to be taking the next week off.
I have some videos scheduled and queued up and all that stuff that I filmed beforehand,
but I'm taking the next week off to go to some small towns outside of the city here
to see if there's actually the kind of place that we'd like to live in. Maybe we might
make an offer on some houses if we find the right house for us or something. But yeah,
that's what I've got going on next week. Who knows? Maybe the next time I sit down
and do some of these videos, I might actually own a house. We'll see how that goes. But
I hope you have a great weekend, I hope everything's well for you. And once again, if you do like
what we're doing here, please do me a favor. Hit that thumbs up button, subscribe to this
channel if you are not already subscribed. Maybe share it with someone who you think
might be able to benefit from some of this advice, if you know someone that might be
kind of going through one of these circular patterns or something like that.
Anyway, thank you so much. If you do want to learn more about common problems and issues
that people have getting back together with their exes, there is this video playlist series
over here. Or you might want to check out this video over here. But once again, thank
you so much. Please take care, have a great weekend and I'll talk to you next time.