If you are reading this, you might find yourself in a similar situation I was in a few months ago.
Long story short, I was dating a guy who said he liked me, but I knew he was talking to another girl.
The situation was complicated, to say the least, and I felt so confused, hurt, and honestly as if I wasn’t good enough for him.
But that’s in the past now, I feel a lot better since I started to really get to the bottom of why I even ended up in that situation in the first place.
Do you want to know how I not only dealt with that situation but also figured out how to prevent it in the future?
Well, I won’t keep it a secret:
1) Ask yourself why you’re even in this situation
This might seem like a strange place to start, but the way you end up in a situation like this is often connected to the way you behave in general.
This is the most important tip of them all, so pay attention!
In other words, if you keep ending up in situations where you feel bad about yourself or are treated badly by others, chances are you are doing something wrong.
Why might you keep finding yourself in situations where you feel bad about yourself? Why don’t you walk away?
Is it because you lack self-confidence? Do you have low self-esteem? Do you feel bad about yourself?
Now: the problem is, a lot of the time we might know that this is not a good situation to be in, but we don’t understand why it keeps happening to us.
I know I definitely didn’t know what was going on.
However, this situation made something click inside of me and I started researching.
During my research, I stumbled upon the Attachment Style Theory.
The Attachment Style Theory is based on the idea that we can be either Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, or Fearful in our relationships.
The theory is based on a few studies on babies and the way they interact with their parents.
So what does this have to do with your situation?
Well, according to this theory, people with certain attachment styles tend to end up in certain situations more often than others.
They also tend to behave in certain ways when it comes to relationships and dating.
Essentially: if you know what your attachment style is, you’ll know how you behave towards others and how they behave towards you.
The Attachment Style Theory states that there are four different attachment styles: Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, and Fearful Avoidant.
I will talk about each of them shortly but first: why might someone have one attachment style over another?
It all has to do with how you related to your primary caregivers as a child.
If they met all your needs consistently, you are probably securely attached to other people, meaning you have an easy time developing healthy relationships and have no issue setting boundaries.
Now: I found out that I was in fact dealing with anxious attachment.
In my relationships, that was mirrored as poor boundaries, co-dependency, fear of abandonment, etc.
Does that sound familiar to you?
Now, I’m not saying you are anxiously attached, in fact, I recommend you go do a test here.
However, if you are still with a guy who clearly goes against your boundaries by talking to another girl, it’s time to ask yourself why.
Once I did, I realized that my self-esteem was way lower than I thought it was, and I would rather be treated with disrespect than being alone.
I started to work on myself and moved towards a more secure attachment style.
The result? Guys like this who didn’t show me that they were committed to me 100% weren’t even attractive or interesting anymore!
This is why this tip is the most important, it will really show you the truth about your situation.
2) Determine if this behavior is unique to the person you are dating or if it’s a pattern
Okay, now that we’ve gotten the most important part out of the way, let’s look at something else that is important.
You see, even when you tend to have healthy relationships, bad experiences like this can always happen.
Now: if you are secure in yourself, you probably wouldn’t even let things get so far as still being with him while he is talking to another girl, but let’s forget about that for a second.
What I want you to look at now is whether his behavior is unique to him, or whether that is a pattern in the people you date.
Fair warning: when I did this, I had a little breakdown, because I couldn’t handle the fact that it was all right in front of me the whole time.
Now: not every guy I had dated was talking to another girl, but the general pattern was always the same: I liked him too much to let him go, he disrespected me in some way or another, my self-esteem dropped further, I clung even more to him, thinking it would improve my self-esteem.
I’m not kidding when I say that this pattern persisted in each and every one of my past relationships.
Do you want to know the silver lining? Once you are finally aware that there is a pattern, you can break it.
I was oblivious to this, thinking that I kept dating trashy men when in reality, my sense of self-worth kept attracting the same person over and over again.
So, find out if there is a pattern here, and if there is, try to break it.
3) Don’t listen to what he says – only watch what he does!
If the person you are dating has this habit of talking one way while behaving in another, you might want to just ignore his words.
Instead, pay attention to what he does – because that’s the only thing that you can really count on!
No matter how much he might promise you something or how much he might want to change, you can’t rely on his words.
Instead, rely on his actions – that’s the only thing that’s truly within his power to change.
This doesn’t only go for this guy, but for any man, you will date in the future – watch his actions more than his words.
Once I started doing this, I could finally see clearly in my dating life!
4) Stop caring so much about his feelings and start caring more about yours!
If you find yourself feeling bad about this situation, chances are that you are caring too much about the other person’s feelings.
If you are caught in this situation, you might want to ask yourself why you care so much about his feelings.
Do you care about his feelings because you want to help him be happy or do you care about his feelings because you want him to like you?
If it’s the latter, you might want to start caring more about your feelings instead.
This doesn’t mean that you should stop caring about his feelings altogether – but you might want to start focusing more on your feelings instead.
Remember: your feelings are important, too!
When you prioritize your own feelings, you will start to feel stronger and more self-sufficient.
5) Ask yourself what you want to get out of the relationship
This is a great question to ask yourself in any situation, but it’s especially helpful in a situation like this.
If you find yourself struggling to get out of the situation, try to determine what you want to get out of it by staying.
If you want to get out of it, you have to ask yourself why you have decided to stay.
The more you ask yourself these questions, the more clarity you will get – and the easier it will be to walk away or break whatever is holding you back.
You see, when I truly started asking myself why I was staying in this situation, I realized that I was not clinging to reality, I was clinging to the potential I saw in my own imagination.
The sad truth was that this was not real! As soon as I noticed that, letting go felt easy.
6) Determine if it’s really worth it (and if it isn’t, walk away)
This is another important question to ask yourself in any situation.
If the situation you find yourself in is truly worth it, it will help you grow as a person and make you feel stronger as a result.
But if it doesn’t, it’s probably not worth it.
If it’s not worth it, it’s not worth it. You don’t owe anyone anything.
At the end of the day, you are the only person responsible for your own happiness. If a situation isn’t worth it, walk away!
If the person you are dating has a specific behavior that you know is not the best (but you feel stuck in the relationship anyway), just tell yourself that it’s okay to walk away.
That might sound like an obvious piece of advice, but often we try to change people or make them be who we want them to be.
This rarely works and usually leads to resentment on both sides.
So if you spend time trying to change your partner, while they do nothing to change themselves, a part of you will always be filled with resentment.
Instead, do yourself a favor and learn to walk away. I did, and it was the best decision I could have made.
7) Learn from your experiences and recognize when something feels off
The more experiences you have, the better equipped you are to deal with them.
If you have had a similar situation before, you might have learned from it already.
If this is the case, you might want to ask yourself what you learned from that situation. What do you know now that you didn’t know back then?
If you haven’t had a similar situation before, you might want to take note of how you feel when you are in that situation.
What do you feel? What do you notice? Is something off? If so, why do you think that is? What do you think might be causing that?
Learning from this experience will help you see experiences in the future from a different point of view.
I learned here that when a man is truly into you, he will leave no room for doubt in your mind.
And if there is doubt, he isn’t that into you.
It was a hard pill to swallow, not gonna lie, but once I accepted the truth, I felt so much better.
8) Stop wasting time on people who make you feel bad about yourself
If you find yourself feeling bad about yourself while dating someone, there might be a reason why you feel that way.
If you find yourself in this situation, you might want to ask yourself why you keep spending time with that person.
Do you want to spend time with them because you genuinely want to or do you want to spend time with them because you feel like you have to in order to be happy?
If you feel like you have to, you might want to ask yourself why you feel like you have to.
If this person makes you feel bad about yourself, you have every right to stop spending time with them.
This relates back to the attachment styles: do you feel so unsafe in your own company that you’d rather feel bad with someone else than being alone? That is something you need to look at and acknowledge!
9) Don’t rush into things in the future
You don’t have to rush into a new relationship. You don’t have to rush into anything.
Take your time and don’t feel pressured to do anything in a certain amount of time.
Remember that you deserve to be treated well and you deserve to be happy.
If you rush into a new relationship, you might miss out on the opportunity to really get to know yourself, heal, and grow as a person.
If you rush into things, you might end up regretting it – which would make you feel even worse about yourself and make it even harder to move on.
When it comes to dating, don’t rush things!
Take your time, heal, and only start dating when you feel ready.
In the future, be more selective with who you date and how quickly you enter new relationships.
You see, when you now take time to integrate what you have learned about yourself and your attachment style, you get the chance to actually make a difference in the future!
10) Give yourself time to recover
This one is super important!
Don’t rush things and don’t beat yourself up if you find yourself in a situation where you feel bad about yourself.
Give yourself time to heal!
Remember that the way you deal with a situation like this is often connected to how you deal with all other issues in your life.
If you feel bad about yourself in this situation, it probably means that you don’t feel great about yourself in general.
This is why it’s so important to give yourself time to heal – so that you can come back to yourself and deal with life in a way that feels authentic and genuine for you.
Even if you weren’t super serious with this guy, a situation like this can still be painful, so don’t be afraid to take some time to grieve.
What now?
If you find yourself in a situation where you feel bad about yourself and have no idea how to get out of it, these tips might be helpful for you.
They are based on my own experience with this issue and I truly hope that you maybe saw yourself reflected in some of these points and have a clearer view of your situation now.
You deserve to be with someone who chooses you over anyone else and makes you feel loved and wanted.
Can a relationship coach help you too?
If you want specific advice on your situation, it can be very helpful to speak to a relationship coach.
I know this from personal experience…
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