***QUESTION FROM A READER***

Hey Alex,

I have run into some problems with an on again off again girlfriend of the past couple of years. I was cheated on by her and she lied about it. At first she claimed that she had been raped by this guy and later she confessed that she wasn’t. At the time I felt like it wasn’t really her fault and she deserved another chance but now I know that it was her fault.

I feel trapped by the situation because she is my first love and I feel like she could be the one but she has lied to me so many times before. We don’t go out now but we talk on a regular basis (she is literally obsessed with me). I feel stupid for falling for her lies over and over but I still have strong feelings for her. I have grown from the whole experience but am still very confused.

What should I do now? Should I break it off or find a way to get over it and go ahead with our new relationship?

***MY RESPONSE***

There are many people who say you can continue a relationship after being cheated on or doing the cheating. They claim that it’s possible to move on from that dark period and continue to love each other just the same as you first did when those three magical words entered the relationship.

The truth is that a relationship dies once you step outside of it, particularly in your case. It was your first love and first loves always come with a strong sense of innocence and vulnerability. The more open you are, the more it will hurt when someone betrays you like she did. Once your trust is broken it’s almost impossible to get that naive wide eyed feeling back.

It’s always a good idea to never fully trust someone until they prove that they are worthy of your trust. Blind faith will get you hurt over and over again unless you are extremely lucky.

During the time when she should have been building that trust she was sneaking around on you with another guy. Vulnerability of a first love combined with her not creating strong trust in the relationship will create a lot of trust issues.

The only way you could trust her now would be to constantly keep a close eye on her every single day or decide to ignore your intuition all together. You can only ignore your intuition about someone for so long so we will go with the other solution: constant surveillance.

Only after months (maybe years) of close observation could you trust that she won’t cheat on you again. Constantly checking her emails, phone calls, texts for any signs of infidelity.

The problem with this solution is that your paranoia and watching her every move will cause her to lose attraction for you. This could lead her to cheat on you again or even worse stay in a non-attraction based relationship.

Then there is the question of why she is talking to you now. It could be that she genuinely wants to be with you and loves you. But there is also a chance that she is doing it out of guilt over what she did in the past. By making you happy and giving you what you want she can finally shed the guilt that has been corroding her thoughts.

There are some people who make a mistake of cheating once, come clean and break it off the relationship. They wronged the other person because the relationship wasn’t working in the first place. It was a mistake but they had enough respect not to continue to hurt the other person.

Then there is the other group of people who cheat because they believe sex is their only value. In a new relationship they feel amazing when they hear ‘I love you’ and their self esteem rises. After a while of hearing the L word on a daily basis it starts to lose it’s value and so do they. Restlessness starts to kick in and they begin to try and gather value from another source and so cheating begins.

Another reason for wanting to be with you is that she misses someone who idealizes her. Having a person look at you like you like you are the most beautiful creator that ever existed feels good. She longs to see you look at her with those loving and adoring eyes.

You need to ask yourself “is she in it for me or the way I feel about her?” If it’s the way that you feel about her then just about anyone could take your place. Any schmuck could kiss up to her and make her out to be a goddess.

The point is that you don’t fully know why she wants to be with you. I know that you deeply wish that she wants you simply for you but what if you are wrong. If you miscalculate the situation the pain that you feel now will become much greater. Pulling yourself out it will become much harder to do.

People never enjoy feeling dumb for letting others take advantage of them. It hurts the ego to such a great degree that they avoid it at all costs. If it does happen they respond by either trying to run from it or trying to mend the situation. This could possible be part of your motivation for wanting to be with her.

If you call it quits with this girl right now you will have to admit that you made a mistake and continued to do so for several years. The longer you go in the wrong direction the harder it becomes to stop. Foolish pride will often force people to continue on the wayward path instead of admitting that they were wrong.

Part of the reason why you want to be with her could stem from your desire to avoid owning up to your mistakes. You hope that she is “the one” because if she is then you get to avoid the embarrassment of sticking it out for all those years only to end up with nothing.

You mentioned that she told you she was raped by him but it turned out that she was just covering her ass. There are little white lies and then there are lies that are extremely disturbing. The lie that she told could have created a very awful situation for you or him. What if you had gotten enraged and gone to fight the guy? Taken a baseball bat to his head? Assault with a deadly weapon would have ended up with you being raped behind bars.

She endangered the lives of two people because she couldn’t tell the truth. That’s extremely neurotic and she needs to seek the help of a therapist as soon as possible. If she didn’t seek psychological help to fix her deep seeded problems then she will still be the same person. When you are that messed up to cry rape you can’t get over it without years of therapy. Has she done that?

You mentioned that she could be the one but I have some harsh truth for you…there is no such thing as the one. There is not just one person out there that is your twin flame or soul mate or someone who will complete you. It’s a concept created to make relationships and married seem more romantic then they really. And to sell more Meg Ryan movies.

With three and a half billion women walking the planet today statistically speaking there  are thousands (if not millions) of women who will be almost exactly the same as this one girl. There will be tons of women who share the good qualities that this girl posses but without all the complications.

If it was me I would walk away from her completely. If you decide to stay you might end up losing those rose colored glasses you are wearing and see the situation for what it is and her for who she is. At that point you might be married with three kids and a mortgage, making it very difficult to break free of this woman.

This advice is coming from experience because I was in a very similar situation when I was younger. This girl I was dating claimed that she raped by one of her “friends” despite the fact that she continued to hang out with him. It was a lie but I was too blind to see the situation for what was really going on. Luckily I woke up before something bad happened like getting married or contracting an std.

If you choose to stay single the first thing you need to do is break ALL contact with this girl. No sobbing good byes or one last fuck. No talking. No texting. No emails. Nothing.

When she is in your life in some form your judgment becomes skewed by your loving feelings. Around her the truth gets buried deep beneath the tingle she sends up your leg. Remove her from the equation and take the time to look at your relationship and her from an OBJECTIVE point of view.

Not having any contact with her will be quite difficult at first because of your history together. You’re an addict and she is your fix. Remove her from your facebook, block her email and even go as far as block her phone number so as to have no temptation.

Become disciplined in your decision to never see her again. Over time the truth about her will start to rise to the surface. Loneliness and confusion will be against you but your resolve will lead you to do a day where everything becomes clear. In one monumental moment everything will hit you like a ton of bricks and you will no longer miss her.

She will go from a painfully cruel joke to just a joke. You will look back upon it and barely believe that it was you in that tragic tale.

By http://ingredientx.com/

Today’s man doesn’t have a lot going on for him. He doesn’t have a mission, hobby or passion for life. He works a job that he wishes he could quit. He goes out and gets drunk with his buddies wishing he had better friends. He feels stuck in his position in life wanting, waiting, wishing for something better to come along.

Out of no where comes a beautiful woman who wants to spend time with him. He is thrown off guard by this pleasant surprise, so much so that he completely forgets about everything else. Most of the time when a guy starts dating a new woman she becomes HIS WORLD.

Soon after meeting her he begins to lose any sense of self he once had and puts her first above all else. Everything he had done before he met her has been put on the back burner for his new flame.

He ditches his friends at the drop of a hat to spend some time with this girl who he has only known for a short time. He takes off of work to go to the beach with her even though he can’t afford it.

Little does he know that this type of behavior is exactly what will drive her away. He is thinking everything is ok while she is looking for the fastest exit out of there.

NEVER MAKE ANY WOMAN THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY IN YOUR LIFE. Putting your girlfriend or date into the number one spot will kill the attraction quicker than anything else. For many reasons:

1. She knows that your self esteem is not high enough

When you put a woman in the number one spot you are basically saying her happiness and well being is more important than your own. You might think it is romantic or cute to put her needs above your own but it isn’t.

It sends a direct message to the woman that your self esteem isn’t high enough to take care of number one: yourself. Low self esteem men rarely get the girl. Even if they do, they unable to keep her around.

2. Fear of losing the girl

“If I don’t do what she says or put her first she might leave me”- If you do end up putting a woman first and she does leave you should consider yourself lucky.

When women are put in the number one spot everything goes to absolute hell where cheating, lying, manipulation and NAGGING become the day to day routine. The small attraction that was once there is completely gone.

At that point you will be better off if she decides to call it quits. I have seen and heard some absolute horror stories when the woman decides to stay in it for whatever reason after the attraction level has hit zero.

3. It’s Dishonest

Humans are basically selfish creatures, we look out for our own survival and do things for us. When you put other’s needs above your own you are lying to them about your own desires.

For example, your date or girlfriend says “hey lets go get hot dogs” and you hate hot dogs but you go along with it because you don’t want to upset her. You are being dishonest and lying to her about what you truly want.

People rarely do things for others without attachments. Most of the time they do for others because they want something from them, be it attention, love, friendship or sex. They believe that they are being “nice” but their niceness comes with a price and almost always has an agenda.

Being selfish and putting your needs first is simply being honest and honesty is something people can trust. Trust builds attraction on dates or in a relationship.

4. Not knowing any better

Society, parents and religion have all shoved the romantic notion of sacrificing everything for a woman to prove to her your love down your throat . This fairy tale story ONLY works in the movies, never in real life. In real life, as MANY of you can attest to, it kills the attraction.

Majority of people get their dating/relationship model from their parents. Unfortunately most of your parents relationships aren’t healthy and lack attraction.

Mommy orders daddy around while daddy spends his nights fantasying about a life that doesn’t resemble his. He imagines how it would feel to be in a LOVE filled relationship where the ATTRACTION is still going without all the arguing and mothering.

Most men figure that this is the way a relationship should be. They have no idea about the possibility of having long lasting attraction based interactions with women-they simple don’t know any better.

5. It’s downright needy

Nothing reeks of neediness more than dropping everything in your life to be with a woman. Men do this because they are trying to fill a whole inside of themselves. They feel they lack in someway and need a woman, a car or money to finally feel good about themselves.

When you lose your identity in a relationship you are making the woman the center of your world. This puts an extreme amount of unnecessary pressure on her.

When you put her above all else it makes the woman feel like she is obligated to be with you forever. She feels like she owes you the same commitment that you have made to her.

If the relationship takes on a ‘together forever’ it will start to freak the girl out. She will start to act a little strange but it reality she is planning her exit strategy. Don’t be surprised if she sits you down and says “we need to talk.”

I suggest that you do two things if you are or have in the past put women first above ALL else:

1. Become Selfish

I don’t mean be selfish and eat all the chips in the bag but more putting your desires and priorities first.

2. Get your priorities in line

“The most important person in my relationships is ME”

That should be the frame to keep in mind whether it’s a first date or it’s your two year anniversary. ALWAYS put yourself above ALL else because at the end of the day when you close your eyes and go to sleep there is you and you alone. You may have been with this girl for ten years but you have been with yourself for a lifetime.

Become selfish. Become honest and do things for yourself. Make yourself the most important person in your life.

Touch her because YOU want to. Kiss her because you want to. Go out to a bar because you want to. Don’t go out to a bar because you don’t to-whatever it doesn’t matter as long as you are doing things on your own terms.

*note: it doesn’t mean that you don’t ever do anything for her, it simply means that you do things because you want to. Example: you give her a gift or a back rub because you want to enjoy the pleasure she gets from receiving a back rub or a gift. Don’t do it because you want to get her to stay with you or like you.

Get your priorities in line

1. Your health- without your health you can’t have a relationship in the first place. Don’t sleep with a woman if you are tired because you would be putting her needs above your own. She might enjoy the sex but the attraction and respect she has for you will go down every time you do it.
2. Your integrity- Never sell out your honesty or core values for a woman. Even if she doesn’t like that you stuck to your guns she will respect you for it and the attraction will grow.

3. Your mission- “Never break your mission for a woman. She needs to know that your mission is greater than her or your relationship” An example of this: Just as I’m typing this my girlfriend called to talk to me. I told her I was writing and to call later on because I was on my mission.

For more information on being on your mission check out How to Find and Live Your Mission:

http://innergamereframe.com/how-to-find-and-live-your-mission/

4. Your relationships with women, family and friends

She may say that she doesn’t like that you are selfish and put yourself first but the truth is she will LOVE it. She will love it because she has finally found a man who isn’t weak or needy, doesn’t put her first and has a strong sense of self and purpose in life

]]> http://innergamereframe.com/putting-her-in-the-number-one-spot-biggest-datingrelationship-mistakes-part-five/feed/ 6 http://innergamereframe.com/not-leading-biggest-datingrelationship-mistakes-part-four/ http://innergamereframe.com/not-leading-biggest-datingrelationship-mistakes-part-four/#comments Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:59:20 +0000 Alex Strandberg http://innergamereframe.com/?p=345

Women are attracted to MEN, not little girls posing as men. They want men who are leaders, not boys that look to others to take control of the steering wheel for them. They want a man to be the driver so they can sit back and relax in the passenger seat while they go on an adventure.

Women don’t have respect for today’s men but how can they. Today’s men have been emasculated and controlled into having no spine. Today’s man is more akin to a robot that has been programed to wait for orders from it’s user. Because of this most men simply don’t know how to turn women on.

Being the leader is one department that most men lack in and it kills the attraction in the relationships and dating each time. There are several reasons why guy’s don’t lead:

1. They get so excited in a new relationship/new date that they forget to lead

It is very easy to get caught up in the emotions of a new relationship and completely forget what needs to be taken care of: leading her.

The girl is so used to being the one to make the decisions and call the shots that it has become second nature to her. She leads without thinking.

Typically the girl suggests something and you are so excited, happy or whatever that you just agree to it without thinking before acting. Before you know it you are off doing whatever she wants to do, even if you didn’t actually want to.

Two or three weeks pass and the high of being in a new relationship or dating begins to subside and she is now the one who is in control. This dynamic is established because you didn’t do what needed to be done and now it’s much tougher to reverse the roles.

After the high attraction, freshness and excitement of the beginning stages of a relationship begins to fade it will become apparent that she is the one calling the shots.

When this moment occurs the attraction she felt will begin to go down a sliding slop until it hits the bottom. The fun, exciting, loving, caring girl you knew when you first met will change into a bossy, controlling, nagging chore of a woman .

Solution: It is more than ok for a women to make a suggestion as to what you can do but you need to be the one making the final decision. To calmly make a decision instead of just reacting to her request I suggest you get into the habit of taking a deep breath and pausing before deciding what to do.

2. Fear of losing the girl if you take the lead

For most guys, they are shocked when a girl finds them attractive and is actually willing to spend time with them. They aren’t used to beautiful women being into them so they develop a huge fear of losing the woman. It’s similar to a homeless person finally getting fed and being paranoid of people trying to take his food.

They want to do everything “right” in order to not screw this up and go back to being lonely again. Ironically, them trying to do things “right” will cause the women to lose ALL attraction for them.

3. Not knowing how to lead

In the past there used to be training on how to lead and become a man. There was a right of passage that turns boys into men.

These things haven’t been around for generations so it’s unlikely that your father ever learned how to lead and become a man. In as much, he never taught you how to lead either.

How to Lead

THE ONLY PERSON YOU CAN EVER LEAD IS YOURSELF. This is very key to keep in mind when you developing the masculine leadership side of yourself.

When you try to get others to follow, you are basically asking them if it’s ok with them if you took control of the situation. You are essentially looking to them to let you lead.

When this happens THEY are the ones who are in the lead because at any time they can stop letting you lead and do their own thing.

A TRUE LEADER leads without needing any follows. He doesn’t mind if people go in the direction that HE CHOOSES but he DOESN’T NEED them to because he would do it anyways.

He knows what he wants in life and doesn’t care if people want to go down that direction. He doesn’t manipulate or control them into going where he wants to go, he simply goes WITHOUT PERMISSION from others.

A true leader goes without the approval of the pack. It takes courage and strength to push beyond group mentality because as humans we fear losing approval of others (it’s hardwired into us). Ironically, this type of leading will get people to follow you the most.

In order to properly lead you MUST first KNOW where you want to go in life. You must know what it is you want to accomplish. Without that knowledge it is doubtful you will ever get anywhere-you will end up wondering the sea without a port for an eternity.

Here is an exercise to develop leadership:

Next time you are in a group of people or with a friend and you want to cross the street or go into a store, DONT say anything and just do it. Don’t look back to see if they follow you, just keep walking.
If they don’t follow you become comfortable with the uneasiness that comes when you stray from the group.

Take this exercise and do it ALL of the time. When you are at a club and you want to dance, just go dance without asking anyone else or checking to see what everyone else is doing.

Apply the reverse as well. If a girl or your friends want you to go dancing with them but you don’t really want to, DON’T.

Leading Date/Relationship exercise

Tell your girlfriend or your date to close her eye’s and hold your hand. Tell her that you will be leading her and that she needs to trust you. Then walk her around for a little while with her eyes closed. Just make sure she doesn’t trip on anything.

This will put you in the leadership role and her in the follower role. As well, it will build mass amounts of trust and attraction between the both of you.

First step is to know what you want and where to go. The second step is actually going in the direction you want regardless of what others think and what other people are doing.

For more on developing an idea of where you want to go in life, I suggest you check out my article: How to Find and Live Your Mission

http://innergamereframe.com/how-to-find-and-live-your-mission/

Subscribe to IGR newsletter on the right and learn how to get relationship and dating mastery in your inbox.

I know what you are thinking, you aren’t her father so why do you need rules and boundaries? No you won’t be playing the role of daddy but you can go ahead and give her a nice spank on the ass anyways.

“People treat you the way you train them to”

Ever have a friend that was too nice and as a result people walked all over them? Think about how those same people treated you. Unless you are the nice guy who is a human doormat, they treated you much differently because you have self respect and a back bone.

Why did they treat him with such disrespect and not you?

Even though the people were the same, they treated you is different because you trained them to treat you that way.

Creating rules in which to adhere by is all about self respect and love. You tell them what is and what is not acceptable when they interact with you, not only for women but for everyone.

With women it WILL create a lot of attraction. Without rules the attraction will be KILLED and she will make your life a living hell.

Some might do it for the former reason but it’s not wise to use it as an attraction technique because it won’t be congruent. You will be putting on a fake mask of masculinity and you will be quickly exposed.

You should set rules and boundaries to make your life peaceful. It should be for your own self respect and sanity, NOT just to get her panties wet.

I am a really simple person with simple needs. I desire for my life to be as peaceful and calm as it can be. Right now my life is pretty peaceful and setting rules for how people should treat me has made this possible.

I have heard some horror stories from guys that let women do whatever they want and never tell her what is and is not acceptable.

To effectively have rules and boundaries you must NOT fear losing that person. When you fear losing someone you will only go so far to keep your boundaries before caving and giving in.

If you cave and allow unwanted behavior to happen the woman will lose respect for you. She will understand on a deep level that you fear losing her more than you value respecting yourself.

When that moment happens your relationship is on a downward spiral and will end soon enough. She understands on a deep level that she can do WHATEVER she wants and get away with it.

Get over your fear of losing anyone. When you transition from being a doormat to someone with a pair you WILL lose people in your life.

They will tell you that you have changed or are weird but its all bullshit. They are just upset at their inability to control their little whipping boy.

“but isn’t that manipulative and controlling?”

Setting rules and boundaries is simply being HONEST. When she decides to flirt with your best friend, on the inside you HATE it but you don’t do anything about it. Why? Because you don’t want to lose her.

You are selling out your integrity and honesty in order to keep someone around. You are lying about your real desire for her to not flirt with your best friend to get what you want- that’s true manipulation.

Why should I set rules and boundaries?

“Whenever we give our power away to others and take crap from them, it closes our hearts and causes us to pull back. It’s painful to be open with someone and have them take advantage of us or treat us not so nicely.”

When you don’t own your strength by setting rules your heart closes, making it harder to forgive and love people. Whenever a person disrespects you or gets away with a little too much and you do nothing about it your self esteem WILL DROP.

You put up with the crap because you don’t love yourself enough to not let people treat you that way.

After a while it becomes a catch 22 situation. You need high self esteem in order to have the energy to set and “enforce” those rules but your self esteem drops every time that you don’t.

Eventually you just don’t have the energy to do anything about it. You want to make changes but you just don’t have it in you to do so.

Trust will be lost in the process of not setting and enforcing your personal boundaries. Trust in others and trust in yourself will start to disappear.

If you can’t trust yourself enough to have a back bone with others you will keep people at a distance. You will become extremely paranoid about being taken advantaged of.

The whole point of a relationship is to be open and close with someone, to grow and trust each other and to love one another.

None of this can be done if you don’t trust yourself enough to know that you wont let anyone mess with your heart.

She wont be able to trust you because how can anyone trust someone who is weak and never stands up for themselves?

People ONLY respect those that respect themselves.

Without the trust that comes by having self respect she will have no choice but to keep her distance. She can’t open up to someone who isn’t be strong enough to protect her when she is vulnerable after opening up.

“Nice Guys”

“Nice” people are some of the angriest people you will ever meet but their anger is mostly internal. They constantly beat themselves up and have tons of resentment towards others that is rarely seen because of how “nice” they are.

The truth is they aren’t really angry with other people, they are angry with themselves for not developing a spine and putting up with too much crap. They let people walk all over them and ask for more because they don’t want anyone of to disapprove of them.

That fear of disapproval and fear of losing others is so strong that you would be amazed at the amount of disrespect they allow.

By not having and “enforcing” your own personal rules you will end up with “friends” or women who will make your life miserable.

Without rules, women will use your dignity as a dishrag to mop up any remaining shred of masculinity out of the sink.

Transitioning From Doormat to a Person of Strength

Start small and take it slowly. If you are dating someone DON’T go gung ho and blast her with 50 million rules and expert her to follow all of them at once.

Going too fast too soon might freak her out. Slowly integrate them into your relationship.

If you are just starting out in your relationship get the rules down as soon as possible. It’s far better to start a relationship off right than to try repair the damage.

Write out a list of things that you will and will not tolerate from other people. Here are a few of my own:

-Only energy allowed in my relationships is love
-Treat me respect and I will do the same to you
-Be nice or be gone.
-If you cant talk to me in a calm, relaxed manor then you must calm down before we talk
-Honesty, integrity and compassion aren’t optional

The first time you let someone know that they over stepped your boundaries you WILL be nervous and scared. Don’t expect yourself to be zen like when you are standing up for yourself for the first time.

Over time and with much practice standing up for yourself will become as easy as asking someone for the time.

*Make sure to hit the stumbleupon button-there are many people who need to know this information.*

Let me know about your experiences with keeping your boundaries and your self respect. See you in the comments