TL;DR Summary:

• The most-asked question in my comments has an answer nobody wants: you can’t tell by date 3. But I’ll tell you exactly when you can.

• On date 3, the avoidant guy is often the better date. There’s a reason, and it isn’t charm.

• There’s one window right after a really great date that tells you more than the whole date did.

• Researchers secretly filmed couples in a waiting room and caught the avoidant tell on camera. It’s the opposite of what you’d expect.

• “He’s so chill, we literally never fight.” I hear this constantly. It’s rarely the compliment it sounds like.

• A secure man still gets triggered. The tell is what he does in the hour after.

• He passed every test you gave him. That might be the actual problem.

Subscribe now

“How to Spot An Avoidant by Date 3…”

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can’t tell a secure man from an avoidant man by date 3.

I know that’s not what you came here for.

The most-asked question in my comments right now is some version of “how do I tell a secure man from an avoidant man in real life?”

One of them got 247 likes, which tells me a whole lotta you are sitting with the exact same question.

And the honest answer is... not yet.

Here’s the part that’ll really annoy you: on date 3, the avoidant guy is often the better date. (Yes, you read that correctly, unfortunately…)

He’s relaxed. He’s funny. He’s not blowing up your phone. He asks good questions and doesn’t push.

Nothing about him feels like pressure, which, if you’ve dated anxious chaos before, feels like a spa day for your nervous system.

And that’s exactly why you can’t tell yet.

Nothing has been asked of him.

So today, lemme give you what date 3 can actually tell you, what it can’t, the timeline where the real answers show up, and 5 specific things to watch along the way.

Let’s dive in, wooooo!!

What Date 3 Can (and Can’t) Tell You

Your attachment system isn’t running at full volume all the time. It switches on harder as someone starts to matter.

Attachment researchers Mario Mikulincer and Phillip Shaver describe avoidance as a set of deactivating strategies: ways of keeping closeness, dependence, and need at arm’s length so the attachment system doesn’t have to fully fire.

Translation: avoidant pulling away is a reaction. It needs something to react to.

And on date 3? There’s nothing to react to.

Nobody depends on him yet. Nobody needs anything from him. The future hasn’t come up. He hasn’t had a bad week with you, or a fight with you, or a night where you cried.

His attachment system hasn’t been asked to show up yet.

So the version of him you’re meeting is the version that’s never had to deal with closeness.

And in that version, secure and avoidant men look a LOT alike.

There’s research on how much early af data like this matters, and it’s lowkey humbling…

And when Samantha Joel’s team fed a machine-learning model over 100 traits and preferences from speed-daters, it could predict who’d be popular in general... but it couldn’t predict who would uniquely want whom, or their long-term compatibility.

This study measured desire, not attachment. But the lesson carries: early data is mostly the generic stuff.

So early on, you’re mostly reading his general appeal.

The stuff any woman at that bar would notice. What he’s like with you, under a little weight, takes time to show up.

Date 3 tells you about his appeal. Month 2 tells you about his capacity.

Here’s roughly when the real information shows up:

• Dates 1 to 4: early hints. Worth noticing. Not worth a verdict.

• Weeks 3 to 8: your first small needs, the first misread text, the first time things get a lil more intimate and you see what he does after.

• Months 2 to 4: the first real disagreement, the “what are we” conversation, and the first time showing up for you actually costs him something.

I know, I know.

“MONTHS??? Cody, I have a life. I do not have time to spend a whole season on a guy who turns out to be avoidant.”

Fair, and I get it.

And to be clear, during this time, you’re not sitting around waiting for him to reveal himself.

Every week you’re running small reps and collecting real data, including your own: how you feel around him once he’s not performing. (More on that in a moment.)

Let’s be honest though: three months of paying attention is cheap.

Three years of explaining him to your friends is not.

Is the potential love of your life not worth that? I know we’re so used to quick hits nowadays, but that’s not always a good thing…

Share

Are You Ready to Date, Though???

One more thing before the list, and I really want you to hear it, because it changes how you use everything below.

If you read my blog on whether you’re actually ready to date again [ “Are You Actually Ready to Date Again? (If You Have to Ask... Not Yet.)”], you know about the Watchtower.

That’s Phase 1 of dating readiness, where you’re scanning every man for threat and calling it discernment.

A list of tells, like the ones below, is basically Watchtower candy.

If you take these 5 things and use them to scan him harder from across the table, you’ll just get really, really good at watching. (Which, respectfully, you already are.)

These aren’t things to stare at. They’re things that happen when you actually show up.

That’s Home Base (Phase 2), where the question flips from “is he safe?” to “what happens when I’m real with him, and how do I feel around him?”

You don’t find out what he is by watching.

You find out by participating.

Crazy idea, I know…

Ight. Here are the 5 ways to tell secure from avoidant!

Share

The 5 Ways to Tell Them Apart

For each one, you’re getting what the secure guy does, what the avoidant guy does, and roughly when you can actually see it.

One ground rule first: nobody is purely one thing. When researchers looked at the actual structure of attachment, it behaved like a dial, not a set of boxes.

So you’re not diagnosing him. You’re reading where his dial sits once things start to count.

Keep that in mind, for him, AND yourself :)

#1: What happens after a really good date

This one’s the sneakiest, because it shows up when everything is going great.

You have the best date so far. Long dinner, a walk afterward, the kind of conversation where you both lose track of time. You go home kinda glowing.

And then... the next few days are noticeably cooler.

Shorter texts. “Crazy week at work.” Plans get a little vague.

Here’s how the two versions split:

• Secure: the warmth holds steady or steps up. A great night makes him want more of you. (Wild concept, I know.)

• Avoidant: the best nights get followed by a temperature drop. The closer it got, the more there is to pull back from.

That’s deactivation in real time. Closeness went up, so his system did what it learned to do: create a lil distance to bring things back to a level it can handle.

He’s probably not doing it on purpose. A lot of the time he couldn’t even tell you why. He just felt kinda “off” and wanted some space.

Nobody ever comes into a session calling this pulling away. They call it “he’s just slammed this week.”

Sometimes he is!! People have jobs. One busy week after a good date means nothing.

But when he’s slammed every single time things get good... ma’am, that’s not his calendar… 😅

Share

#2: What he does when you need something

Back in 1992, Jeffry Simpson and his colleagues brought dating couples into a lab and told the woman she was about to do something most people find really stressful.

Then they left the couple in a waiting room for five minutes and secretly filmed them.

(Lowkey diabolical study design, and I love it.)

Observers then coded what each partner did. And secure and avoidant men looked VERY different: in physical contact, in supportive comments, in how much comfort they offered.

The more secure men moved toward their partner as she got more anxious. The more avoidant men did the opposite. The more anxious she got, the less support they gave.

Read that again…

The avoidant tell isn’t that he doesn’t care. It’s that his support drops right when your need goes up.

In real life it looks like this:

• Secure: moves toward you as it gets harder. Your stress pulls him in.

• Avoidant: either pulls back, or jumps straight into fix-it mode to make the feeling stop. “You’ll be fine.” “Just don’t think about it.” “Have you tried...”

Fix-it mode is the tricky one, because it looks like help. Sometimes it IS help.

But if every feeling you bring gets a solution in under 30 seconds, notice whether he’s helping you... or trying to end the part where he has to sit in it with you.

(If you read [“The 7 Things I’d Avoid in Men (If I Were a Woman)”], this is a cousin of the inconvenience test. That one was about men who’d hurt you. This one’s about men who’d leave you lonely.)

What I hear in sessions: “He’s just really practical.” Or “He’s not a phone person.”

Both can be totally true! And neither one explains why he got quieter the week everything in your life fell apart.

Share

Early Hint

A tiny ask. A ride. A plan change. Telling him you’re kinda nervous about a work thing tomorrow. Does he lean in, or go a little flat?

#3: What he does with your disclosure (and his own)

Somewhere around dates 2 to 4, things get a lil more real.

You tell him about your dad. Or why your last relationship ended. Or the thing you usually save for month six.

Now watch what he does with it.

In a set of studies on attachment and self-disclosure, researchers found that secure people opened up more when their partner opened up, and they stayed on the topic their partner brought.

Avoidant people didn’t really shift. How much they shared, and how much they liked their partner, stayed about the same no matter how much the partner opened up.

Translation: the secure guy meets you. The avoidant guy stays exactly where he was, even after you came closer.

Noticing a pattern in this list yet…

Here’s what that sounds like across the table:

• Secure: stays with it. Asks a follow-up. Maybe shares something real back, at roughly your pace, without turning it into a two-hour trauma monologue. (Different blog lol.)

• Avoidant: a joke. A pivot. Advice. Or a polite nod and “anyway, have you been to that new Thai place?”

Also listen to how he tells his own stories.

Avoidant stories tend to come out as facts with the feelings filed off. “My parents divorced when I was 8, it was fine.” “She cheated, whatever, I moved on.”

The events are all there. He’s just not in them.

Women describe this guy to me as “a really good listener.” And sometimes he is!

But a man who listens to everything and lets none of it change the conversation is a great audience.

That’s different from a partner.

Share

When It Really Shows

The first time you share something heavy, or cry in front of him. That’s when you find out whether there’s room for all of you, or just the fun parts.

#4: What happens after a small rupture

Sooner or later, something lands wrong.

A text gets misread. A joke hits a nerve. Somebody’s late, and somebody else is salty about it.

Researchers have studied this too.

They filmed dating couples trying to work through a real problem in their relationship, and the men higher in avoidance were rated as less warm and less supportive, especially when the problem was a big one.

But in early dating, the avoidant version usually isn’t a fight. It’s quieter than that.

The two versions look like this:

• Avoidant: “all good :)” and then... a lil colder. No argument. No repair. Just a quiet notch of distance, and you’re left wondering if you made it up.

• Secure: names it and repairs it. Sometimes clunky. “Hey, that felt weird last night. I think I came off kinda short. My bad.”

And since this question came up in my She Rises Community this week: no, secure does NOT mean never triggered.

A secure man still gets triggered. He might get defensive for a minute. He might need an hour, or a night.

The difference is that he comes back.

A secure man isn’t the one who never flinches. He’s the one who comes back.

The one I hear constantly: “He’s so chill, we literally never fight.”

Sometimes that’s great. Sometimes it means nobody’s actually saying anything.

No conflict by month two isn’t automatically peace. It can just mean nothing real has come up yet... or that whenever it does, he handles it by going quiet.

Share

#5: What happens when it starts to count

This one has the longest timeline, and the clearest answer.

Somewhere between month one and month three, the relationship starts to count. Exclusivity comes up. Holidays come up. Meeting each other’s people comes up.

For an avoidant system, that’s the biggest closeness ask yet. And it tends to sound like:

• “Let’s not put a label on it.”

• “I’m just really independent.”

• “My ex was super needy, so I’m kinda cautious.”

• “I’m not really into the whole relationship-escalator thing.” (lmao, ok)

There’s another one I hear about all the time: the ex he still talks about like a legend. The one nobody could ever measure up to.

To be clear, this one comes from what I see in sessions, not from a study.

A perfect person in the past is a really convenient reason nobody in the present ever gets all the way in.

None of this makes him a bad guy. “I’m independent” can be totally healthy.

The tell is whether his independence ever leaves room for you.

A secure man can tell you where he is, even when he’s not ready. “I really like this. I’m not ready for exclusive yet. Give me a few weeks, and I’ll bring it up if you don’t.”

That’s it. That’s the whole difference.

“I’m not ready yet” is information. Permanent vagueness is also information.

They’re just different answers. (And require different actions from you…)

And if he’s been “not sure what he wants” for four months while acting very sure he wants you every weekend...

He told you, dude. You just don’t love the answer.

Share

He Passed Every Test Because You Never Gave Him One

Remember the very first thing I said? On date 3, the avoidant guy can look like the better date, because nothing’s been asked of him.

Now be honest with yourself: what have you been asking for?

A lot of the smart, self-aware women I work with have gotten really, really good at being easy early. You know the moves:

• No needs until month three

• Letting the misread text slide so you don’t seem “dramatic”

• “Totally fine either way!” when you absolutely had a preference

• Rearranging your schedule so he never has to be inconvenienced

• Saving the vulnerable stuff for “once it’s more serious”

On the surface, it looks chill. Underneath, it’s emotional capitalism on date two: earning your spot by costing him as little as possible.

And look what it does to everything above.

If you never need anything, he never gets the chance to fail at meeting it.

If you never name a misread, there’s no repair to watch.

If you only bring the fun parts, there’s nothing for him to move toward.

So he passes. Every time.

Then in month five you finally ask for something real, the guy who seemed so secure goes quiet, and you’re left asking “HOW did I not see this???”

You didn’t see it because there was nothing to see yet.

Being easy isn’t patience. It’s hiding the data from yourself.

It also keeps you right up in the Watchtower. Watching from a safe distance feels safer than showing up and finding out.

But finding out is the whole point!!!

And you can’t do it from up there.

“Ok, ok, I get it, can we please get to the part where you give me a tool for all of this???”

Of course, dear reader, let me introduce you to the Small Pressure Protocol!

Share

The Small Pressure Protocol

These are small, unsexy reps. No grand tests. No games. No “let’s see if he chases.”

You’re just being a real person a lil earlier than feels comfortable.

Here are the 4 steps!

Step 1: Bring one real thing per date

Every date, bring one thing that isn’t “easy.” Then scale it up as you go:

• Dates 1 to 3: a real preference. “Honestly? I’d rather do tacos.” (My personal fav!)

• Dates 3 to 5: a small no. “Saturday doesn’t work. How’s Sunday?”

• Weeks 3 to 8: a small need. “Big presentation tomorrow, I’m kinda nervous.”

• Weeks 4 to 10: a medium disclosure, and naming a misread instead of swallowing it.

Every tell above only shows up under small pressure, and you’re the one who gets to apply it. Kindly, one rep at a time.

This isn’t testing him. It’s letting him meet the real you while it’s still cheap to find out how that goes!

Share

Step 2: Read it once, in your body, before anyone else does

After he responds, and before you screenshot anything to anyone, notice what your body did:

• Did your shoulders drop, or come up?

• Did you feel met, or kinda alone in the moment?

• Did you leave more yourself, or more managed?

Then the 24-hour rule: no group chat tribunal. (I love your friends. I’m sure they’re brilliant. They were not on the date, though...)

I’m not gonna tell you your gut is a lie detector for his soul. It isn’t.

But your body is the most accurate source you’ve got on how you feel around him, which is exactly what Home Base runs on.

And it’s the first data to get lost once seven friends weigh in.

Step 3: Look for shape, not moments

One cooler text isn’t a diagnosis. Here’s the rule I give clients:

• Once is a moment.

• Twice is a maybe.

• Three times, same shape, is the beginning of a pattern.

Keep a note in your phone if it helps. Not a dossier. Just enough that the pattern doesn’t get rewritten every time he’s charming again.

This is where the timeline comes back. You’re not trying to decide by date 3. You’re trying to see the shape by month 3.

Share

Step 4: Meet the Part of you that wants to be easy

Yes, it’s IFS time :)

If Steps 1 through 3 sound simple and you already know you won’t do them... there’s a reason.

There’s a Part of you whose whole job is to keep you low-cost. It learned, probably a long time ago, that needing things was risky and that being easy kept people around.

And it’s really, really good at its job.

It’s often the same Part that’s desperate to know by date 3. They want the same thing: to skip the risk of finding out.

So instead of steamrolling it, get to know it:

1. Find it in your body. Next time you swallow a preference or text “all good!” when it wasn’t, pause. Where is it? Throat? Chest? Stomach?

2. Notice how you feel toward it. Annoyed? Embarrassed? If curiosity isn’t there yet, that’s information, not failure. See if you can bring some in, with some compassion!

3. Unblend. “This is a part of me, not all of me.” Say it out loud and notice the shift in your body.

4. Ask what it’s afraid of. “What do you think happens if I need something from him?” Then actually listen. Common answers are quiet ones: “He’ll leave.” “I’ll be too much.” “I’ll find out he doesn’t care.”

5. Update it. From your grown-up Self: “I hear you. That made sense back then. But if he bails because I needed a ride, I wanna know that in week three, not year three.”

I’m genuinely obsessed with this step, because it changes the question you’re asking.

It stops being “is he avoidant?” and becomes “can I afford to find out?”

And you can.

You’ve survived way worse than a guy getting weird about a ride to the airport.

Share

Need Something. Then Watch.

You were never trying to read him faster.

You were making yourself so easy there was nothing to read.

A secure man and an avoidant man look the same on date 3 because nobody’s asked either of them for anything real.

The difference shows up the moment you do.

And when it shows up, it’s not a disaster. It’s information you can act on in week six instead of grieving in year three.

So bring the preference. Name the misread. Tell him you’re nervous.

You don’t find out who he is by watching harder.

You find out by needing something.

You’ve got this.

And as always… Live Heroically 🧠

Share

Wrecked to Regulated in 63 Days

Start Here: She Rises Community.

Inside is a 63-day program of the exact things I did myself to go from wrecked to regulated using neuroscience.

Plus, You’ll Have Access To:

• A 63-day program to go from wrecked to regulated

• Live coaching calls with me every week

• A team of IFS practitioners

• Private workshops and masterclasses with therapists and scientists

• 1-on-1 sessions

• A room full of women doing this beside you

If you’re ready to become emotionally available, develop secure attachment, and attract healthy potential partners, this is for you!

The first 7 days are free. Join below!

Join Community

Leave a Comment

What’s the 1 thing you’re gonna bring up? Drop it below!

Leave a comment

Supporting Research

• Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2003). The attachment behavioral system in adulthood: Activation, psychodynamics, and interpersonal processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 53-152.

• Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

• Fraley, R. C., Hudson, N. W., Heffernan, M. E., & Segal, N. (2015). Are adult attachment styles categorical or dimensional? A taxometric analysis of general and relationship-specific attachment orientations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(2), 354-368.

• Eastwick, P. W., & Hunt, L. L. (2014). Relational mate value: Consensus and uniqueness in romantic evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(5), 728-751.

• Joel, S., Eastwick, P. W., & Finkel, E. J. (2017). Is romantic desire predictable? Machine learning applied to initial romantic attraction. Psychological Science, 28(10), 1478-1489.

• Simpson, J. A., Rholes, W. S., & Nelligan, J. S. (1992). Support seeking and support giving within couples in an anxiety-provoking situation: The role of attachment styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(3), 434-446.

• Mikulincer, M., & Nachshon, O. (1991). Attachment styles and patterns of self-disclosure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(2), 321-331.

• Simpson, J. A., Rholes, W. S., & Phillips, D. (1996). Conflict in close relationships: An attachment perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(5), 899-914.

• Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Share

This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your well-being, working with a trauma therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.

TL;DR Summary:

• You’ve read the books, booked the couples’ session he didn’t show up to, and rewritten the text six times. There’s one thing missing from that list, and you already know what it is

• In one set of studies, the people who settled for partners who weren’t good for them didn’t have lower standards. They saw it clearly. They stayed anyway.

• There’s a reason one good week can erase three bad months, and it has nothing to do with how much you love him.

• People stay longer when they believe the other person needs them. Over-functioners, this one’s yours.

• I’ve heard the part of you that won’t leave called a hundred different names. It believes the same four things every single time.

• Researchers followed people for nine years and found out why the next guy looks different but usually isn’t.

• There’s a way to decide when you’ll leave BEFORE you’re attached enough to argue with yourself about it.

Subscribe now

Everything Except Leave

Last week, I wrote about whether you should have to teach a grown man how to love you.

(Short version: yes for your preferences, no for the basics, and hell no for babysitting his effort.)

And the second it went live, my comments and DMs did what they always do.

Ladies came at me with some version of this:

“He doesn’t text back for two days. He forgets plans. He’s never once asked how my day went. And Cody, I’ve tried EVERYTHING.”

And then comes the list, which usually looks something like this:

• She told him calmly.

• She told him… not calmly.

• She sent him the attachment style quiz.

• She read three books on avoidance (two of them twice).

• She booked the couples’ therapist he “couldn’t make.”

• She lowered the bar. Then lowered it again.

Everything.

Except leave.

And I swear, every single time, a part of me wants to type back in all caps:

WHY ARE YOU STILL THERE???

Why didn’t you leave the second you noticed? Why is the next one always the same guy? Why are you arguing with some random dude on the internet (hi, it’s me) instead of just… leaving?

All great questions.

If you’ve genuinely tried everything, leaving IS the simple solution.

BUT it just doesn’t FEEL simple. Not even a little bit.

And that gap, between how obvious it looks from the outside and how impossible it feels from the inside, is what this whole blog is about.

Oh, and to be clear, the ladies in my DMs are not blind.

Most of them clocked this guy by date two. They can list his patterns better than his therapist could (if he had one, which… lol).

Bottom line, you don’t have a picker problem. You have a keeper problem.

The skill you’re missing isn’t noticing. It’s leaving while leaving is still cheap.

And go back and look at what you’ve been begging him for. Most of it lives in last week’s “No” pile. Texting back. Showing up. Asking about your day.

You’re not teaching him how to love you, ma’am.

You’re negotiating for the bare minimum, and you’ve been doing it for a year.

So today we’re breaking down the five reasons you stayed, why the next one keeps showing up in a different jacket, and a simple rule so you never pay this price again.

Let’s dive in!

A Quick Line in the Sand

Before we go any further, I gotta say this clearly.

This blog is NOT about abusive relationships.

If he hits you, threatens you, or controls your money, your phone, or who you’re allowed to see, “why didn’t you just leave” is the wrong question. It’s a dangerous one, actually.

Leaving a controlling partner can be the riskiest moment of the whole relationship, and it deserves a real safety plan, not a blog.

If that’s you, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. It’s free, confidential, and open 24/7.

Everyone else, this one’s for you, and for the guy who’s not bad.

He’s just ain’t it.

Share

5 Reasons You Stayed

None of these are character flaws. Every one of them is your nervous system doing a job it learned a long time ago, and doing it really, really well.

That’s exactly the problem.

Reason #1: Below-Basic Felt Normal

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… Your brain is a prediction machine.

It doesn’t walk into a relationship asking, “Is this good?” It asks, “Have I seen this before?”

If love growing up came with someone you had to track, chase, or earn, then a man who’s half-there doesn’t register as a problem.

He registers as home.

So when he forgets the plan for the third time, your system doesn’t fire an alarm. It fires recognition.

And recognition FEELS like chemistry. (It’s not. It’s a match on a really old file.)

I wrote a whole blog on this one (Secure Love WILL Trigger You), so I won’t re-run the whole thing here.

The short version is that your nervous system doesn’t scan for healthy. It scans for familiar.

Which means the guy failing the No pile from last week’s blog doesn’t feel like a red flag.

He feels like a Tuesday.

If below-basic feels normal, that’s not a reason to stay. That’s a reason to get very curious about where you learned that normal.

Share

What You Were Calling It

Nobody ever walks into a first session with me calling it “I’m used to being an afterthought.” It shows up wearing nicer clothes:

• “He’s just not a texter.”

• “That’s just how guys are.”

• “Honestly, it’s not THAT bad.”

The real words come later, usually once she’s out and can finally feel how much “not that bad” was costing her.

Reason #2: The Good Weeks Paid for the Bad Ones

Ok, so you finally have The Talk. Round seven.

And for once… he gets it.

He texts back. He plans a date. He asks how your meeting went. (Please, God, let this be the week it sticks.)

And your whole body goes: SEE?! He CAN do it!

That one week refunds the last three months.

This is intermittent reinforcement, the same reward pattern that makes slot machines so hard to walk away from.

Rewards that show up unpredictably hook you way harder than rewards that show up every time, because your brain’s reward system gets loudest around uncertainty. The maybe is the hook.

So a guy who’s great some weeks keeps you pulling the lever way longer than a guy who’s consistently decent ever could.

I’ve covered the mechanism before, so lemme just give you the part that matters for leaving…

The good week isn’t proof he can do it. It’s proof he can do it when he’s scared of losing you.

That’s not capacity. That’s a performance with an expiration date.

And every time it expires, you’re right back to explaining the basics, now with one more “but he did it before” in your back pocket.

Share

What It Sounded Like

You’ll know this one is running the show when you hear yourself saying:

• “We had a really good week, though.”

• “He’s TRYING.”

• “Things are actually so much better now.” (Six weeks later, they were not.)

One good week after the seventh conversation isn’t growth.

It’s the thing that keeps you around for the eighth.

:)

Reason #3: You’d Already Paid Too Much to Leave

Two years in. His mom likes you. You split a lease. There’s a dog with a name you both picked. Your friends finally stopped asking why you’re single.

Leaving now feels like walking out of a movie at the two-hour mark.

(Even if the movie is bad. ESPECIALLY if the movie is bad, because then what were those two hours even for???)

Relationship researcher Caryl Rusbult called this the investment model.

Your commitment isn’t built from satisfaction alone.

It’s also built from everything you’ve put in that you can’t take back: time, history, shared friends, shared stuff, the version of your future you already planned around him.

So commitment can stay high even when satisfaction is in the basement.

So, the two years don’t keep you there. The feeling those two years built does. That heavy little voice that says, “I’m in this now. I can’t quit.”

And then there’s the over-functioner twist, which I see constantly.

In a pair of studies following over 1,800 people, the more someone believed their partner depended on the relationship, the less likely they were to end it.

That held even for people who weren’t happy, and even after accounting for their own investment.

You weren’t only staying for you. You were staying because you didn’t wanna be the one who hurt him.

The two years are gone whether you leave or not. The real question is whether you spend a third.

Share

Sound Familiar??

Here’s how this one usually sounds out loud:

• “We’ve built a whole life together.”

• “I’ve put way too much into this to walk away now.”

• “He really needs me right now.”

• “He’s been through so much.”

Reason #4: Leaving Sets Off an Older Alarm Than Staying Does

Being let down by him hurts. But it’s a familiar hurt.

You know exactly how to survive it, because you’ve been surviving it for months.

Being the one who ENDS it?

That sets off something way older.

In IFS terms, there’s a protective Part of you whose whole job is making sure you never have to face that moment.

And I’ve heard this part called a hundred different names in sessions:

• “The good girl.”

• “The fixer.”

• “The peacekeeper.”

• “The one who doesn’t quit.”

• “The part of me that’s exactly like my mom.”

• “Honestly? I just call her the idiot.” (Please don’t call her that. She’s been working overtime for you.)

Different names. Same part.

And whatever you call her, she almost always believes some combination of these:

• “If I leave, I’m the bad guy.”

• “If I just try one more thing, it’ll finally work.”

• “Quitting means I failed.”

• “If I go, nobody will ever choose me again.”

And she does the same handful of things, over and over:

• Researches his attachment style at 1 a.m. instead of asking whether she even likes him.

• Rewrites the text six times so it can’t possibly upset him.

• Tries to argue that I’m wrong on one of my social media posts instead of having one honest conversation at home. (Hi again. 😅)

There’s some interesting research around this topic, too.

In a set of studies on fear of being single, people with a stronger fear were more likely to prioritize having a relationship over the quality of it, and to stay in ones that were less satisfying.

They didn’t even report lower standards...

They could see the person in front of them wasn’t very caring, yet they were still interested.

That’s why the title of this blog says it’s not low self-esteem. Your standards are fine, your exit is what’s broken.

This Part of you isn’t stupid. She learned, early, that being left (or being the one who “breaks” things) costs everything.

And behind her is usually a younger part carrying something like “I’ll end up alone” or “I’m too much to keep.”

That’s why working harder feels so much safer than leaving.

Effort keeps that younger part quiet. Leaving pokes it right in the chest.

You’re not staying because you love him too much. You’re staying because a Part of you would rather negotiate forever than feel what leaving touches.

So here’s how to actually work with her, instead of fighting her:

1. Find her in your body. Next time you’re drafting the “can we try one more time” text, stop. Where’s the tightness? Chest? Throat? Gut? Put a hand there.

2. Unblend. Say it out loud if you can: “A Part of me is terrified of being the one who leaves. She’s a Part of me, not all of me.”

3. Get curious, not corrective. Ask her, “What are you afraid happens if I go?” “How old do you think I am right now?” Don’t argue with the answer. Just notice how old it feels.

4. Update her. “You learned this when leaving really did cost us everything. I’m a grown woman now. I can survive being alone. What I can’t keep surviving is spending my 30s negotiating for a text back.”

She’s been making this call for a really long time.

You get to make it now.

Share

Reason #5: Teaching Him Was a Bet on Potential

Every lesson from last week’s blog. Every time you explain the basics again.

Every single one was a bet.

Not on who he is. On who he could be.

And you know I’m gonna say it: love is built on capacity, not potential.

Potential is who he could be under ideal conditions. Capacity is who he consistently is on a random Wednesday when nobody’s watching.

Here’s why this one hits high achievers so hard.

Everywhere else in your life, effort works.

You studied harder, the grade went up. You worked harder, you got promoted. You put in the reps, the results showed up.

So when love doesn’t respond to effort, your brain doesn’t think, “Maybe this isn’t the right guy.”

It thinks, “Must need MORE effort.” (This EXACT belief too me sooooo freaking long to break inside myself…)

But his capacity doesn’t grow because you studied harder.

If you’ve explained the same basic thing three times and gotten three apologies and zero change, you don’t have a communication problem. You have your answer.

That’s not harsh. That’s just data you’ve been refusing to read because you already know what it says.

Share

Why Is the Next One Always the Same Guy?

Ok, but what about the next guy? Love this question, now we’re thinking ahead! :)

So say you finally do leave. Good for you, genuinely.

But the #1 thing I hear a few months later is: “I finally left. And the next one was… the same guy. Different haircut, same guy.”

There’s actually research on this.

Two University of Toronto researchers used a nine-year study out of Germany to compare the personalities of people’s exes and current partners, using the partners’ OWN self-reports.

Across 332 people, current partners described themselves a lot like the exes did, even beyond how much they resembled the person dating them.

So yes. You have a type. (Shocker, I know.)

But having a type isn’t the real reason it keeps going the same way.

The real reason is that nothing about how you left changed.

You left exhausted, not informed.

You left because you finally ran out of gas, not because he crossed a line you’d drawn ahead of time. Which means you never actually found out where your line is.

So the next guy gets the exact same deal the last one did: unlimited chances, on an unlimited timeline, paid for entirely by you.

You can’t always change who you’re drawn to but you can absolutely change what it costs him to stay.

Which brings us to the fun part.

What can you actually do about any of this???

I got you.

Share

The Exit Price Rule

Let’s get practical, baby!! Here’s a 4-step process to decide what a pattern costs you BEFORE you’re attached enough to argue yourself out of it.

Step 1: Write Your No Pile Down Now

Go back to last week’s blog and pull out the basics. The stuff you shouldn’t have to teach a grown man.

Then write your top three as behaviors you could actually see, not feelings you’d have to interpret.

Not “he’s emotionally unavailable.” Try “he cancels plans the same day more than once a month.”

Not “he doesn’t prioritize me.” Try “he goes more than a day without responding when he’s not traveling.”

Three max. If everything’s a dealbreaker, nothing is.

Step 2: Set the Window

You get to say it once. (That’s what last week’s blog was for.)

After that, decide ahead of time: how many misses, over how many weeks?

“Twice in a month after I’ve named it” is a window.

“When I’ve had enough” is not, because “enough” is exactly the thing your nervous system keeps moving.

Share

Step 3: Turn It Into an If-Then, While You Still Feel Nothing for Him

This is the step with the strongest research behind it.

Psychologists call this an implementation intention, it’s a specific “if X happens, then I’ll do Y” plan, decided in advance.

In a meta-analysis of 94 studies, these simple plans had a medium-to-large effect on actually following through on goals.

And one of the things they specifically helped with was getting people to disengage from courses of action that weren’t working.

Which is… literally this relationship.

So write it out, in plain words: “If he cancels same-day twice after I’ve named it, then I end it that week.”

Do this in the first few dates, BEFORE the oxytocin and the good weeks show up and start lobbying on his behalf.

Then tell one friend you trust, so somebody outside your nervous system knows the deal too.

Step 4: When the Price Hits, Leave on the Rule, Not the Feeling

When he hits the line, that Part from Reason #4 is gonna show up with “just one more try.”

Expect it. It’s not a sign you’re wrong.

Luckily enough, people generally predict they’ll feel way worse after a breakup than they usually do, so this isn’t a reason not to do it!

A line you drew while you were clear-headed is worth more than any decision you’ll make at 1 a.m. after another “we need to talk.”

Share

Leaving Early Isn’t Cold

I know leaving early can feel harsh. Like you didn’t give him a real chance. Like you’re the bad guy in his story.

But a clear ending at the price you set isn’t cold.

It’s the most honest information you can give both of you.

He learns the basics were never optional, and you learn you can finally trust yourself to act on what you see.

You already know how to notice. You’ve been noticing since date two.

Now you get to be the woman who believes herself the first time.

You don’t need to try harder. You need to leave sooner.

You’ve got this.

And as always… Live Heroically 🧠

Share

Wrecked to Regulated in 63 Days

Start Here: She Rises Community.

Inside is a 63-day program of the exact things I did myself to go from wrecked to regulated using neuroscience.

Plus, You’ll Have Access To:

• A 63-day program to go from wrecked to regulated

• Live coaching calls with me every week

• A team of IFS practitioners

• Private workshops and masterclasses with therapists and scientists

• 1-on-1 sessions

• A room full of women doing this beside you

If you’re ready to become emotionally available, develop secure attachment, and attract healthy potential partners, this is for you!

The first 7 days are free. Join below!

Join Community

Leave a Comment

What’s kept you in a place you know you should leave? Drop it below!

Leave a comment

Supporting Research

• Rusbult, C. E. (1980). Commitment and satisfaction in romantic associations: A test of the investment model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16(2), 172-186.

• Rusbult, C. E., Martz, J. M., & Agnew, C. R. (1998). The Investment Model Scale: Measuring commitment level, satisfaction level, quality of alternatives, and investment size. Personal Relationships, 5(4), 357-391.

• Le, B., & Agnew, C. R. (2003). Commitment and its theorized determinants: A meta-analysis of the Investment Model. Personal Relationships, 10(1), 37-57.

• Le, B., Dove, N. L., Agnew, C. R., Korn, M. S., & Mutso, A. A. (2010). Predicting nonmarital romantic relationship dissolution: A meta-analytic synthesis. Personal Relationships, 17(3), 377-390.

• Joel, S., Impett, E. A., Spielmann, S. S., & MacDonald, G. (2018). How interdependent are stay/leave decisions? On staying in the relationship for the sake of the romantic partner. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(5), 805-824.

• Spielmann, S. S., MacDonald, G., Maxwell, J. A., Joel, S., Peragine, D., Muise, A., & Impett, E. A. (2013). Settling for less out of fear of being single. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(6), 1049-1073.

• Eastwick, P. W., Finkel, E. J., Krishnamurti, T., & Loewenstein, G. (2008). Mispredicting distress following romantic breakup: Revealing the time course of the affective forecasting error. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 800-807.

• Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181-204.

• Ferster, C. B., & Skinner, B. F. (1957). Schedules of Reinforcement. Appleton-Century-Crofts.

• Fiorillo, C. D., Tobler, P. N., & Schultz, W. (2003). Discrete coding of reward probability and uncertainty by dopamine neurons. Science, 299(5614), 1898-1902.

• Park, Y., & MacDonald, G. (2019). Consistency between individuals’ past and current romantic partners’ own reports of their personalities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(26), 12793-12797.

• Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

• Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119.

• Campbell, J. C., Webster, D., Koziol-McLain, J., et al. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93(7), 1089-1097.

Share

This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your well-being, working with a trauma therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.

TL;DR Summary:

• The most-liked comment in this whole fight wasn’t on either side. It quietly proved the entire debate is about the wrong thing.

• There’s one study where the requests that felt like they FAILED in the moment were the ones that actually changed people a year later.

• There’s a 10-second test that tells you whether something is a “he should know” or a “you gotta tell him,” and most women have been sorting it wrong.

• Repeating yourself isn’t the red flag. Re-explaining yourself is. The difference matters more than you think.

• There’s a reason “teaching him” makes you resent him even when he’s trying, and it has nothing to do with him.

• A 13-year study found the couples headed for divorce often didn’t start out fighting more. They started out better.

Subscribe now

The War in My Comments Section

Ya’ll went to WAR in my comments this week.

I posted that you didn’t tell him what you want; you told him how you want to feel.

Here’s the full video if you wanna see it.

You Didn't Tell Him What You Want

The replies split into rough two camps:

• Camp one: “We shouldn’t have to give men a diagram on acting like a man.”

• Camp two: “Just tell him what you need, it’s not that deep.”

And then one woman dropped what I genuinely think is the best sentence anyone has written on my channels all year:

“Your job in a relationship is not to teach someone that a tree is called a tree.”

This is a level of one-liner-ness that I aspire to reach one day.

Another woman wrote: “It’s not even like they don’t know. They do the right things for a few months and then shut down.”

Read that again.

He’s not missing information. He had it in month one.

I hear this all the time; it’s very common in relationship research as well!

So “he should already know” is usually TRUE. It’s also completely useless. Because knowing was never the variable :)

What you’re calling “teaching him” is three different jobs wearing one trench coat.

One is yours. One is nobody’s. And one is his, and he’s been quietly handing it back to you.

So, today, we’re gonna sort them, and then I’ll give you five rules for what to do with each pile.

Let’s dive in!

The Three Jobs Hiding Inside “Teaching Him”

Okay, before any rules, we gotta sort the pile.

Because every time you think “I shouldn’t have to teach him,” you’re actually talking about one of three totally different things.

And they don’t get the same answer.

(This is where the Yes, No, and Hell No in the title come from, btw.)

Here are the 3 piles:

• YES: Preferences. How you like to be loved, what lands for you, the specifics only someone who’s dated you could know. That’s not teaching. That’s communicating, and it’s your job.

• NO: Basics. Don’t vanish for three days. Do what you said you’d do. If you’re explaining this, you’re not communicating. You’re raising him.

• HELL NO: Sustaining. Keeping alive the stuff he already did, beautifully, unprompted, in month one. That was never yours to maintain.

Camp one is right about the No pile.

Camp two is right about the Yes pile.

Nobody in the comments was talking about the Hell No pile, and that’s the one that’s actually breaking your heart.

So, let’s talk about how to sort the peeps you’re dating into these piles.

5 rules and then 1 process to use them IRL.

Share

Rule #1: Explain It Once. Remind Him Forever.

A lotta advice tells you to “say it once, clearly.” I used to say some version of that too.

It’s kinda wrong though…

And doesn’t account for how brains build new behavior.

When he starts doing something new for you, like texting when plans change, it isn’t a habit yet.

It’s a decision. Every. Single. Time.

Decisions run on goal-directed control. That’s the slow, effortful system that has to remember the goal, notice the moment, and choose the new thing on purpose.

Habits run on something else.

With enough repetition in the same context, control of a behavior gradually shifts toward the brain’s habit circuitry in the basal ganglia (the dorsal striatum, if you wanna impress someone at brunch).

After that, the situation itself triggers the behavior. No deciding required.

The catch is how long that shift takes.

You’ve probably heard it takes 21 days to build a habit… FALSE!

In a study done by Dr. Phillippa Lally, people picked one simple daily behavior, like drinking water after breakfast, and tracked how automatic it felt.

It took a median of about 66 days to hit peak automaticity. The range ran from 18 days to 254.

For drinking water. After breakfast. With a built-in daily cue.

Now imagine “tell me when you’re overwhelmed instead of disappearing.” That one shows up randomly, usually mid-stress, with zero breakfast involved.

And stress is the other half of this.

Stressed brains do the trained behavior even after its reward stopped being worth anything. They tend to lean on habit over goal-directed choice!

So the exact moments you need the new behavior most are the moments his brain is most likely to default to the old one, unfortunately…

That’s not him not caring. That’s a decision losing to a habit, which is what decisions do until they become habits.

So what does a reminder actually do? It’s the cue. It does the job his brain can’t do on its own yet.

Oh, and just to be clear, this is how all brains work, not just his, keep that in mind for later… (Ooooo, ominous foreshadowing during Spooky Season).

It gets better too (or worse, depending on how attached you are to “he should just know”).

Research on empathic accuracy, how well partners can read each other’s thoughts and feelings, found it reliably dropped after the first year of marriage. Another study found couples together for less time read each other more accurately.

Which means three years in, he’s probably reading you less precisely than he did at the start. Not because he stopped caring. Because people stop studying what they assume they already know.

So, repeating yourself isn’t proof he failed. It’s maintenance.

The line isn’t the reminders; it’s the re-explanations.

• A reminder sounds like: “Hey, text me if plans change, yeah?” Ten words. No backstory.

• Re-explanation is the full TED talk, every time, about why it matters, how it makes you feel, what your dad did in 1998, and how you’ve told him this before.

If you’re reminding, that’s normal.

If you’re re-explaining, you’re not communicating anymore. You’re auditioning for a role you don’t want.

Remind freely. Explain once.

Share

Rule #2: Run the Stranger Test Before You Call It “Basic.”

Okay, this is the one that’s gonna sting a lil.

Camp one’s whole argument rests on the word “basic.” And they’re right that basics shouldn’t need teaching.

The problem is who gets to decide what counts as basic.

(Spoiler: it’s generally you. In your head. Without telling him there’s a list.)

There’s actually research on this.

Communication researchers studied people who hold “mind reading expectations,” the belief that a partner should understand your needs without you having to say them.

They found that the more someone held this expectation, the more likely they were to get combative or give the silent treatment when their partner didn’t notice they were upset.

And the reason they found was simple, these kinds of people got more upset by the miss.

Meaning, the expectation itself turns an ordinary miss into a betrayal.

Which is why you need a filter. I call it the Stranger Test:

Would a decent roommate or coworker know this without being told?

• Don’t disappear for three days without a word. A roommate would know. Basic.

• Do what you said you’d do. A coworker would know. Basic.

• Plan a date without me having to manage it. A roommate would have no clue you want that. Preference.

• Text me during the day that you’re thinking about me. Preference.

• Know that I want to be held, not fixed, when I’m crying. Preference. (A beautiful one! Yet, still a preference.)

So if a roommate wouldn’t know it? That’s not him failing a basic. That’s a preference. And preferences are yours to say out loud.

But “say it out loud” doesn’t mean “tell him how you wanna feel.”

“I want to feel prioritized” gives him nothing to actually do.

Turn it into something you could literally watch him do. “I want to feel prioritized” becomes “Plan one date a month where I don’t have to organize anything.”

If a camera couldn’t catch him doing it, it’s still a feeling. Keep translating until it’s an action.

And lemme be really clear, preferences aren’t lesser needs.

They’re often the most important ones. They’re just not things anyone can know about you from the outside.

Share

Rule #3: Basics Get a Condition, Not a Lesson.

Now, for the stuff that DOES pass the Stranger Test? Camp One is 100% right.

You shouldn’t have to teach a grown man that disappearing for three days, three years in, is not it.

But here’s what I see my clients do… They treat a basic like a preference.

They explain it. They contextualize it. They make a lil PowerPoint about how it made them feel. And then they do it again next month.

Basics don’t get a lesson. They get a condition.

• A lesson: “When you go quiet for days, it really triggers my abandonment stuff, and I need you to understand that…”

• A condition: “I don’t do relationships where someone disappears for days. If you need space, tell me. If it happens again, I’m out.”

One is asking him to learn. The other is telling him where the floor is.

And the condition gets said ONCE. Not because you’re cold, but because a basic that needs a second lesson isn’t a communication problem.

It’s a capacity mismatch.

His nervous system, for whatever reason, can’t currently sustain the presence this relationship needs.

That’s not a moral failure on his part (no villains here). But it’s also not something your third explanation is gonna fix.

You can’t explain someone into capacity.

Share

Rule #4: Judge the Second Response, Not the First.

I wrote a whole blog on what to do when you told him exactly and he still won’t; here’s the link, so I’m gonna keep this one tight.

Bottom line, what he knew walking in tells you almost nothing. What he does with information once he has it tells you almost everything.

Dr. Gottman’s newlywed study found that husbands rejecting their wives’ influence was one of the patterns that predicted divorce.

Other research found that when the partner being asked to change responds with hostility, the partner who asked starts feeling less sure about their commitment over the next year.

Which tracks, right? You don’t learn he doesn’t care when he gets it wrong. You learn it from how he reacts once he knows.

So sort his response into one of these:

• Information + effort. Green flag. Even if the effort is clumsy. Especially if it’s clumsy, honestly. Clumsy means he’s actually trying something new.

• Information + debate. He re-litigates whether your need is reasonable every time it comes up.

• Information + amnesia. “You never told me that.” (You did. Twice. There are texts.)

• Information + the month-one special. He does it great for a few weeks, then it quietly evaporates. (We’re coming back to how to handle this one in a moment)

How to See It Early

Ask for one small, Camera-Testable preference in the first month. Something low-stakes. “Send me a text when you get home.”

Then don’t track whether he nails it. Track what happens when he forgets, and you remind him.

Does he go “oh shoot, my bad” or does he go “why are you keeping score”?

Then listen and accept the answer :)

Share

Rule #5: You Can Hand Him the Book. You Can’t Be the Book.

This is the one where “coaching him” quietly turns into mothering him, and most women don’t notice the switch until they already resent him.

There’s a sociologist named Allison Daminger who studied what she called the cognitive labor of running a household.

Not the physical chores. The thinking work: anticipating what’s needed, figuring out options, deciding, and then monitoring whether it got done.

In her interviews, women did more of it overall, and especially more of the anticipating and monitoring.

And because that work is invisible, often even to the person doing it, it became a constant source of conflict.

Now look at what “teaching him how to love you” actually involves:

• Anticipating what he’ll miss

• Planning how to bring it up

• Monitoring whether he did it

• Following up when he didn’t

That’s not a relationship. That’s a full-time job. And you’re the only one who knows it exists.

Let’s bring in some IFS, because there’s usually a Part of you running this whole operation.

I call her the Project Manager. She’s brilliant. She probably got you through school, through promotions, through a childhood where if you didn’t track everything, things fell apart.

And she’s convinced that if she just manages him well enough, love will finally feel safe.

It won’t.

Every lesson you give him makes him a little less of a man you’re attracted to and makes you a little more of a supervisor he’s avoiding.

So here’s the line:

• Handing him the book: “This podcast on attachment helped me a ton, you might like it.” Once. Then let it go.

• Being the book: Sending him the podcast, asking if he listened, quizzing him on episode four, and explaining the parts he “didn’t get.”

The exit signal isn’t that he doesn’t know. It’s that he needs you to be the one who makes him know.

His education is his job. Your job is noticing whether he’s doing it.

Share

Month One Is Not His Baseline

Let’s go back to the comment: “They do the right things for a few months and then shut down.”

What’s up with this?! Why does this happen?

There’s a long-running study by Ted Huston and colleagues that followed newlywed couples for 13 years.

What predicted who ended up divorced wasn’t mostly couples fighting more and more over time.

It was disillusionment. Love fading. Affection dropping off. And a slowly shrinking belief that their spouse was actually responsive to them.

Even wilder, one group of couples who eventually divorced had started their marriages on a particularly HIGH note.

The faster and more passionate the courtship, the more affectionate the spouse seemed as a newlywed, and the steeper the decline in affection over the next two years.

Here’s how I’d translate it.

Early romance lights up the brain’s dopamine-rich reward system.

Everything is new, he’s motivated, he’s on.

A lotta the effort you got in month one was borrowed capacity: real behavior, funded by novelty, not by who he actually is on an average Tuesday.

So when it fades, it feels like he stopped loving you. Sometimes, though, what you’re seeing is simply the loan coming due.

Month one wasn’t his baseline. It was his highlight reel.

And that changes what you’re actually asking for.

You’re not asking him to learn something new. You’re asking whether he can sustain what he already knows how to do when there’s nobody left to impress.

That’s not a teaching problem. That’s a capacity question. And it’s his to answer, not yours to keep alive.

Share

The Yes / No / Hell No Sorting Tool

Ight, enough theory. Let’s get practical!!

Here’s a 5-step process you can run this week, whether you’re single, dating, or three years in.

Step 1: Dump the List

Write down everything you’ve ever thought, “I shouldn’t have to tell him.” All of it. Don’t filter. (Yes, even the petty ones. Especially the petty ones.)

This works because your Project Manager Part has been carrying this list in her head for years.

Getting it on paper takes it out of the anticipating-and-monitoring loop so you can actually look at it.

Step 2: Run the Stranger Test

Next to each item, write Y, N, or HN.

• Y: A roommate wouldn’t know this about you.

• N: A decent roommate would.

• HN: He used to do this without being asked.

Most women find their list is way more Y than they expected. That’s not bad news. That’s the most fixable pile.

Step 3: Camera Test the Yeses

Turn every Y into something a camera could capture.

“I want to feel prioritized” becomes “I want you to plan one date a month without me organizing it.”

Then ask, once, clearly.

Remind as needed. No TED talks.

Step 4: Write Each No as a One-Line Condition

Not a paragraph.

One line. “I don’t do relationships where someone disappears for days.”

Say it once.

If it needs a second lesson, you’ve got your answer about capacity, and you got it in a week instead of two years.

Step 5: Watch the Hell Nos for 90 Days

Name what faded, once, without the lecture: “You used to text me good morning. I loved that. I miss it.”

Then stop managing it.

For 90 days, don’t remind, don’t hint, don’t build a plan.

Just watch what he does with what he already knows how to do.

This is the only way to find out whether you’re dating the man or the highlight reel.

Share

So… Should You Have to Teach Him?

“Should I have to teach him?” was always the wrong question.

The real one is: what does he do with what he already knows, once he’s not trying to get you anymore?

Your preferences are yours to name. His basics are his to bring. And his month-one effort is his to keep alive.

Your only job with that last one is having the guts to notice when he doesn’t, and then DO something about it.

And if you’re reading this thinking, “Okay Cody, but I noticed all of this in month two… so why TF was I still there in year two?”

Great question, and the topic of next weeks blog :)

You were never supposed to be his teacher.

You were supposed to be the woman who knows what she wants, and stays only where it’s given freely.

You’ve got this.

And as always, until next time…

Live Heroically 🧠

Share

Wrecked to Regulated in 63 Days

Start Here: She Rises Community.

Inside is a 63-day program of the exact things I did myself to go from wrecked to regulated using neuroscience.

Plus, You’ll Have Access To:

• A 63-day program to go from wrecked to regulated

• Live coaching calls with me every week

• A team of IFS practitioners

• Private workshops and masterclasses with therapists and scientists

• 1-on-1 sessions

• A room full of women doing this beside you

If you’re ready to become emotionally available, develop secure attachment, and attract healthy potential partners, this is for you!

The first 7 days are free. Join below!

Join Community

Leave a Comment

What’s on your list that you’ve been calling “basic”? Run it through the Stranger Test in the comments, and I’ll tell you which pile it’s in.

Leave a comment

Supporting Research

• Overall, N. C., Fletcher, G. J. O., Simpson, J. A., & Sibley, C. G. (2009). Regulating partners in intimate relationships: The costs and benefits of different communication strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(3), 620-640.

• Overall, N. C. (2018). Does partners’ negative-direct communication during conflict help sustain perceived commitment and relationship quality across time? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(4), 481-492.

• Gottman, J. M., Coan, J., Carrere, S., & Swanson, C. (1998). Predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60(1), 5-22.

• Stanley, S. M., Bradbury, T. N., & Markman, H. J. (2000). Structural flaws in the bridge from basic research on marriage to interventions for couples. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62(1), 256-264.

• Wright, C. N., & Roloff, M. E. (2015). You should just know why I’m upset: Expectancy violation theory and the influence of mind reading expectations (MRE) on responses to relational problems. Communication Research Reports, 32(1), 10-19.

• Kilpatrick, S. D., Bissonnette, V. L., & Rusbult, C. E. (2002). Empathic accuracy and accommodative behavior among newly married couples. Personal Relationships, 9(4), 369-393.

• Thomas, G., Fletcher, G. J. O., & Lange, C. (1997). On-line empathic accuracy in marital interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(4), 839-850.

• Daminger, A. (2019). The cognitive dimension of household labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609-633.

• Huston, T. L., Caughlin, J. P., Houts, R. M., Smith, S. E., & George, L. J. (2001). The connubial crucible: Newlywed years as predictors of marital delight, distress, and divorce. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(2), 237-252.

• Niehuis, S., Reifman, A., & Lee, K.-H. (2016). Courtship progression rate and declines in expressed affection early in marriage. Journal of Family Issues, 37(11), 1487-1511.

• Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (2020). Research on marital satisfaction and stability in the 2010s: Challenging conventional wisdom. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(1), 100-116.

• Aron, A., Fisher, H., Mashek, D. J., Strong, G., Li, H., & Brown, L. L. (2005). Reward, motivation, and emotion systems associated with early-stage intense romantic love. Journal of Neurophysiology, 94(1), 327-337.

Share

This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your well-being, working with a trauma therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.

TL;DR Summary:

• There’s a 10-second test you can run before you send a boundary that tells you exactly which part of you is about to panic. (Your thumb is involved.)

• One of the five reasons boundaries feel mean is that you actually were being mean. It’s the least common one, and it’s the one you gotta rule out first.

• Researchers ran five experiments with over 2,000 people and found the person saying no gets one thing wrong, consistently. Even with their own partners.

• The most common reason has nothing to do with being a bad person. It’s a part of you running a retention strategy on a sentence about Saturday.

• Over-explaining a boundary doesn’t make it kinder. It actually makes the next one harder, and the reason is kinda sneaky.

• The 3-part script that keeps the boundary AND keeps the relationship. Part 3 is the one everybody skips.

Subscribe now

Don’t Hit Send Yet

Ight, before you read another word, I need you to do something for me.

Pick one boundary you’ve been avoiding. The real one, not the cute practice one.

Open your notes app (or your texts, if you’re feeling spicy) and type it out.

Do NOT hit send.

Now just sit there with your thumb hovering over the button for a sec.

What’s your body doing? Chest getting tight? Throat? That lil drop in your stomach like you missed a stair?

Ok. Now underneath it, type what you think is gonna happen if you send it. Not the boundary.

The prediction. (oooo, foreshadowing…)

“She’ll be so disappointed.” “He’ll think I’m being dramatic.” “They’ll stop inviting me.”

Hold onto that. You’re gonna need it in a few minutes.

Because that feeling you’re calling “mean”? It’s almost never information about the other person.

It’s a Part of you running a full abandonment simulation on a sentence about Saturday.

Share

How We Got Here & Where We’re Going

This blog exists because a woman in my She Rises Community asked a really simple question: why does setting boundaries feel so mean?

It turned into the biggest support thread in the whole community. 49 comments, and most of them were some version of “SAME.”

And these are not women who don’t know what a boundary is. (Half of them could teach the workshop.)

Knowing what a boundary is was never the problem. Sending it is the problem.

After 1,700+ hours in sessions, here’s what I can tell you: when women describe that mean feeling, the predictions come back in about five flavors.

One of ‘em shows up WAY more than the others.

And one of them, I’m sorry to report, means you actually were kinda mean. 😅

Let’s begin the countdown! Five reasons boundaries feel mean, least common to most common, then the exact script to get you to hit send.

Let’s dive in!

Guilt Is a Relationship Alarm

Let’s hit some science before the countdown, as usual :)

First of all, guilt isn’t random.

In a big 1994 review, Roy Baumeister and his colleagues made the case that guilt is fundamentally a relationship emotion.

It shows up mostly with the people you’re close to, and its job is to protect those bonds by pushing you to repair, apologize, and treat people well. (God forbid)

So the alarm itself is legit. It’s built to go off when a relationship might be at risk.

The problem is what it learned to call “risk.”

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Guilt researchers don’t think there’s just one kind of guilt. When they actually measured it, they found several, and each one is scared of something different.

Same “ugh, I’m being mean” in your body. Totally different fear underneath.

So I’m not gonna pretend there’s one part behind it.

Here are the five I see most, counting down from least common to most common.

Share

#5: You Actually WERE Kinda Mean 😂

Sometimes the guilt is right…

Ouch, I know, but it’s not because you set a boundary.

It’s HOW you set it.

What do I mean? Here are a few ways this happens:

• You said it mid-fight, at full volume, to win.

• You announced it as a punishment. (”Fine. Then I’m not coming to ANY of your work stuff.”)

• You’d said yes for eight months straight, then dropped it with zero warning, so it landed like an ambush.

• It came with a side of contempt: the eye roll, the sigh, the “obviously.”

This kind of guilt is useful.

It focuses on a specific thing you did, and is different from shame, which turns the thing you did into a verdict on who you are.

Guilt is the one that tends to motivate repair. Shame tends to make people hide or get defensive.

So this kind of guilt isn’t saying “you’re a bad person.” It’s saying “that delivery was off.”

Fix the delivery. Keep the boundary!

A simple test for this is just asking yourself: “Was I protecting me, or punishing them?”

A boundary protects you. It’s about what you’ll do. A punishment is about making them feel it.

If it was a punishment, apologize for the delivery and keep the line: “I’m sorry for how I said that. I meant the part about leaving at 10. I didn’t mean the tone.”

This is the LEAST common reason boundaries feel mean, but it’s still important to mention!

Ok. That’s the one that’s actually about your behavior.

The other four are about a Part of you, which is a whole different conversation.

Share

#4: The Good Daughter

This one mostly shows up with family, and it’s sneaky, cause it sounds like love.

What It’s Predicting

• “Mom’s gonna be so hurt.”

• “Who do you think you are?”

• “That’s not how we do things.”

• “After everything they’ve done for you.”

The Good Daughter’s (or Son’s) job is to keep you in good standing with the house rules.

Every family has ‘em, and most are unwritten: we show up, we don’t say no to family, holidays are non-negotiable.

Guilt research has a name for what this Part runs on: separation guilt.

It’s guilt about becoming different from your family, or building a life that doesn’t look like theirs.

So when you say “we’re leaving Christmas at 4,” the Good Daughter doesn’t hear a time.

She hears “I’m not one of you anymore.”

That’s how a sentence about pie and a departure time ends up feeling like treason.

Ask me how I know lol…

Share

What You Call It

Nobody has ever walked into a session with me and said “I have separation guilt.” They say, “I just don’t wanna make it a whole thing.”

And sometimes your mom would genuinely be fine! This Part isn’t reacting to your mom today. It’s reacting to the rulebook.

The update this Part of you needs is that you can love your family, and still live by different rules than the house you grew up in!

Promise :)

#3: The Low-Maintenance One

This Part’s job is to protect your spot by being easy.

Somewhere along the way, it learned that being lovable means having no needs, or at least never saying them out loud.

What It’s Predicting

• “He’ll think I’m high maintenance.”

• “I’m being dramatic.”

• “It’s honestly not that big a deal.”

• “I don’t wanna be one of THOSE girls.”

Psychologist Dana Jack built a whole measure around this, the Silencing the Self Scale.

Wild name if you ask me…

It captures the habit of holding back your feelings and putting a partner’s needs first to keep the relationship safe.

In her early work, higher scores went hand in hand with depression in women.

So to this Part of you, a boundary doesn’t just feel mean. It feels like breaking the identity.

The euphemism I hear for this one constantly: “I’m just a really go-with-the-flow person.”

And lemme be real with you, guys have this one too. In my world it’s called Nice Guy Syndrome, and I’ve had a raging case of it.

After one of my own relationships ended, I looked back and saw it clear as day.

I’d slipped into old patterns: not communicating my needs, not noticing how little I was getting back for the effort I was putting in, not noticing I’d stopped being a priority.

And I never said a word. Cause saying it felt like being “too much.”

The irony? Not saying it didn’t protect the relationship. It just made me invisible in it.

Bottom line, a woman with zero needs doesn’t read as low-maintenance; she reads as someone no one can actually get to know.

That’s not being easy to love. That’s being impossible to love accurately.

The belief this Part usually needs is that you can have a need AND still be worth keeping around!

Share

#2: The Thermostat

“She’ll be so disappointed.” “He’s had such a rough week.” “I’ll ruin the whole night.”

Sound familiar??

This Part’s job is to manage the emotional temperature of every room you’re in.

If somebody’s mood drops, the Thermostat kicks on and does whatever it takes to warm it back up.

Usually at your expense. (Guilty as charged on this one…)

Guilt research calls this omnipotent responsibility guilt.

What a name.

This is essentially the belief that you’re responsible for other people’s happiness and well-being.

Not just your actions. Their feelings.

I’ve found that these Thermostat Parts often don’t even think they’ll leave. It just can’t stand them being uncomfortable.

So ask yourself: if you KNEW for a fact he’d still love you tomorrow, would sending it still feel mean?

If yes, you’ve got the Thermostat on the line.

The euphemism for this one is almost always “I’m just an empath.”

Someone being disappointed isn’t an emergency. It’s a feeling, and adults are allowed to have those.

When you let someone be disappointed without rushing in to fix it, you’re not being cold.

You’re trusting them to handle their own feelings.

That’s respect, and you gotta start giving it to the people you love.

Ok… drumroll please. 🥁

It’s time for #1!

Share

#1: The Retention Department

This is the big one. The one I see way more than any of the others.

Its job is simple: keep people from leaving.

When women type their predictions out (like you did at the top), here’s what fills the screen:

• “He’ll be mad at me.”

• “He’ll think I’m selfish.”

• “They’ll stop inviting me.”

• “He’ll find someone easier.”

Read ‘em fast, and they sound like four different fears, but if you take a closer look, you’ll notice that every single one is a version of they’ll leave.

That’s not a bunch of different anxieties. That’s one Part, doing one job, in a whole lot of women.

Luckily for this Part, oftentimes, it’s fear is unfounded in actual data!

Researchers ran five experiments with over 2,000 people on what happens when you turn down an invitation.

The people saying no consistently overestimated how upset, angry, and disappointed the other person would be, and how much it would hurt the relationship going forward.

They also figured it’d cost them future invites, and it mostly didn’t.

One of the researchers did mention that declining over and over can eventually cost you, so just don't push it to "never” if you’re worried about it!

They also found that the people who got turned down were a little bummed, sure.

But they weren’t focused on the “no.”

They were focused on the person, and they mostly assumed the decline had been thought through instead of thrown at them.

And this held up even when they ran it with real couples.

To be clear, they studied invitations, mostly to everyday stuff like dinner.

A boundary with your partner or your mom can sting more without a doubt.

But the direction of the mistake is the point. When you predict how someone will react to your no, your forecast runs worse than what actually happens.

And this Part isn’t dumb.

If love went cold every time you disappointed someone growing up, keeping everyone pleased WAS how you kept them.

That’s not dramatic. That’s a smart kid doing math. It’s just running numbers from a house you don’t live in anymore.

Ok. Five parts in one blog. If you recognized yourself in three of them, congrats, you’re a normal human with a nervous system.

Share

Why It Still Feels Mean on Rep #10

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. “Ok, Cody, I know which part it is. Why does it STILL feel awful when I do it???”

Such an astute question, imaginary reader in my mind!

Unfortunately, the feeling doesn’t leave first.

You hold the line, nothing bad happens, and you’d think your brain would go “oh cool, false alarm, deleting that.”

It doesn’t.

Research on how fear gets unlearned shows the old prediction isn’t erased.

Your brain learns a NEW one that competes with it: “I said no, and she stayed.” But the old one stays on file.

And Dr. Mark Bouton’s work on extinction shows the old one can come right back with time, or when you’re in a new context.

New relationship, new boss, first holiday with his family? Old prediction, back on shift.

So your 10th boundary might still feel mean. Quieter, probably. Shorter. But still there.

That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. That’s what doing it feels like for a while.

And then there’s the thing that makes it last way longer than it needs to.

The footnotes.

You know the ones. The boundary is one sentence, and then there are three paragraphs of “it’s just that work’s been crazy, and I haven’t been sleeping and I totally get it if…”

Nobody calls that over-explaining, by the way. They call it “just giving context.”

In anxiety research, it’s called a safety behavior :)

It’s something you do to prevent the outcome you’re scared of.

These kinds of safety behaviors can keep a fear alive, though, because they rob you of the chance to find out the bad thing wasn’t gonna happen anyway.

So you send the boundary with all the footnotes, she says “totally fine!”, and your part concludes… phew. The explanation saved us.

Not “having a need was fine.” The explanation gets the credit.

That’s the wrong lesson to learn here!!

The footnotes steal the credit for your safety.

Which is why the next boundary can feel just as hard as the first one. The Part never got the new evidence.

So lemme give you a better definition of “mean” to walk around with:

“Mean” isn’t what you feel when you hurt someone. It’s what you feel when a Part of you is scared of what happens next.

Share

The What Stays Script

Ight. Enough about why. Let’s get practical, baby!!

Here’s a 4-step process you can use on the boundary you typed at the top of this blog.

Yes, that one. Don’t pretend you deleted it.

Step 1: Read the Prediction

Before you touch the boundary, figure out who’s talking.

Your prediction tells you:

• “They’ll leave,” “they’ll stop inviting me” → the Retention Department Part

• “She’ll be so disappointed,” “I’ll ruin it” → the Thermostat Part

• “He’ll think I’m too much” → the Low-Maintenance Part

• “After everything they’ve done” → the Good Daughter Part

• “Honestly, I kinda want them to feel it” → that’s not a Part warning you. That’s #5. Fix the delivery first.

The second you can say “a part of me is predicting she’ll be crushed” instead of “she’ll be crushed,” the prediction stops being a fact.

It becomes one Part’s forecast.

In IFS, we call that unblending, and that lil bit of space is where your choices live.

Step 2: Run the Protect-or-Punish Test

One question, two seconds: protecting me, or punishing them?

Punishing? Go back to #5.

Protecting? Keep going.

That’s it. That’s the step.

Unsexy, but it rules out the one kind of guilt that’s actually right.

Step 3: Write It in Three Parts

Need → Action → What Stays.

1. Name the need. What you’re protecting.

2. Name the action. What you’ll do about it.

3. Name what stays. What isn’t going anywhere.

Here’s what this can sounds like:

• With a partner: “I need my evenings to recharge. So I’m not taking FaceTimes after 9. I still wanna hear about your day though, FT me at 7?”

• With a friend: “I need a slow weekend. So I’m skipping Saturday. I miss you though, coffee Tuesday?”

• With your mom: “I need part of the holiday at my own place. So we’re heading out at 4. We’ll be there for lunch, and I’m bringing the pie.”

What Stays is the part everyone skips.

It’s also the part that talks straight to the Retention Department Part.

It says: the connection isn’t going anywhere.

So, don’t skip it!!!

Oh, and remember, no JADE!

Don’t Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain.

What Stays is reassurance, not an explanation.

If part three starts with “it’s just that…”, the footnotes are back.

And a quick one from the guy side, since I am one: the What Stays line is what sticks.

“Not after 9, call me at 7” doesn’t read like rejection to me.

It reads like a woman who knows what she wants and still wants me in it.

That’s attractive.

The three paragraphs of apology? That’s what makes a guy nervous.

Share

Step 4: Say It, Then Let the Part Watch

This is the step that actually changes the feeling over time, so don’t skip it for the fun ones.

Before you send:

1. Find the Part in your body. Chest, throat, stomach. Don’t analyze it. Just notice where it lives.

2. Notice how you feel toward it. If you’re annoyed at it, that’s another part. Ask that one to scoot over for a sec, and see if you can bring some curiosity and compassion to this Part.

3. Unblend in one sentence. “A PART of me is scared he’ll leave. Not all of me.”

4. Make it a deal. “I see you. Gimme 60 seconds. Lemme send this, and then you can watch what actually happens.”

After you send:

5. Report back. “They said ‘Tuesday works.’ We’re still friends. Noted.”

Parts don’t update from arguments. They update from experience. (That’s neuroscience!)

That last move is you handing the Part the new evidence directly, instead of letting the footnotes take the credit.

Share

It Was Rent

That mean feeling was never a verdict on your character.

It’s a forecast from a Part that did its math a long time ago. And forecasts update.

Not from reading blogs (sorry), but from data and EXPERIENCE!

Every boundary you send with What Stays attached is a data point that part didn’t have yesterday.

Disappointing them is survivable.

Disappearing yourself to avoid it was never love.

It was rent!

You’ve got this. And as always… Live Heroically 🧠

Share

Wrecked to Regulated in 63 Days

Start Here: She Rises Community.

Inside is a 63-day program of the exact things I did myself to go from wrecked to regulated using neuroscience.

Plus, You’ll Have Access To:

• A 63-day program to go from wrecked to regulated

• Live coaching calls with me every week

• A team of IFS practitioners

• Private workshops and masterclasses with therapists and scientists

• 1-on-1 sessions

• A room full of women doing this beside you

If you’re ready to become emotionally available, develop secure attachment, and attract healthy potential partners, this is for you!

The first 7 days are free. Join below!

Join Community

Leave a Comment

What makes setting a boundary feel mean to you? Would love to hear below!

Leave a comment

Supporting Research

• Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1994). Guilt: An interpersonal approach. Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 243–267. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.2.243

• O’Connor, L. E., Berry, J. W., Weiss, J., Bush, M., & Sampson, H. (1997). Interpersonal guilt: The development of a new measure. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53(1), 73–89.

• Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345–372. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145

• Downey, G., & Feldman, S. I. (1996). Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1327–1343. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.6.1327

• Givi, J., & Kirk, C. P. (2024). Saying no: The negative ramifications from invitation declines are less severe than we think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 126(6), 1103–1115. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000443

• Jack, D. C., & Dill, D. (1992). The Silencing the Self Scale: Schemas of intimacy associated with depression in women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 16(1), 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1992.tb00242.x

• Bouton, M. E. (2004). Context and behavioral processes in extinction. Learning & Memory, 11(5), 485–494. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.78804

• Craske, M. G., Treanor, M., Conway, C. C., Zbozinek, T., & Vervliet, B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: An inhibitory learning approach. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 58, 10–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2014.04.006

• Salkovskis, P. M. (1991). The importance of behaviour in the maintenance of anxiety and panic: A cognitive account. Behavioural Psychotherapy, 19(1), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0141347300011472

• Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal family systems therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Share

This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your well-being, working with a trauma therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.