How do you deal with a man who used to email you passionately and regularly throughout the day but is now pulling away?
My question would be that I am corresponding with a guy in another country for the past 10 months and he will be coming to my country this August. We used to email daily like throughout the day until last month when he started online school as well as working 10-12 hours Mondays to Fridays and he doesn’t email as much.
We do phone calls once a month. He keeps apologizing and I tell him its ok but I am finding it hard even though he does still email daily but our conversations are not back and forth anymore. They are disrupted and disjointed. Four months until we see each other. Any ideas to help us, especially me, feel better about this issue would greatly be appreciated. Thanks. :) ~ Andrea
See: Why Men Pull Away in Early Stages of Dating
I was once in your shoes, your story deeply resonated to one of my online dating experiences and I know how it feels.
I met this guy who was very interesting. Our online chemistry was so evident we could talk through emails whole day we would never run out of things to discuss about. We exchanged emails throughout the day even if we were both at work!
Things progressed rather quickly, at least in email, that we´ve talked a whole lot of things such as commitment, marriage, children and everything in between even before we actually met in person. In a year we were supposed to meet, and if things would go well, we´d get married.
But then sometime down the line his emails started coming less. They sounded less excited and less passionate, and disjointed. In those random emails he talked more about his moving to a new place, his mom being sick, his new promotion which required more responsibilities, all the stresses in life that he was dealing with that time, and less about our future together.
See: When to Have That Serious Talk with Him
We used to video chat once a month. It became once in two months. Until he became unavailable for video chats. His emails arrived rarer than rain. And yet we were still to meet up in person.
Missing his regular, passionate emails I became desperate. What happened to all the talks we had about our future together?
The thing was … I fell in love to the man I was regularly communicating through email long before I saw and knew him in person. So when his emails faltered, I found it hard. I felt abandoned and neglected.
See: How to Overcome Your Insecurity in Relationships
Looking back to it now I figured that I was not the guy´s main priority during that time. He was busy taking care of his sick mom, he was occupied with getting ahead at work, and he wasn´t ready to get committed to me as much as he professed early in our online dating relationship.
But I made him a major priority in my life. I wasn´t motivated to work if I didn´t hear from him for weeks. My self-esteem was knocked down if I emailed him twice or thrice already and still didn´t hear back from him.
It´s a sad, pathetic place to be.
How can you make yourself better if you are in that situation?
You must recognize that right now, you are not at the top of his list. As you mentioned in your email, he´s juggling online school as well as working 10-12 hours five times a week. That´s a lot to chew.
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This guy is still working on his “Who am I” and “How much I make” areas of his life. Unless he´s established in these areas, the woman in his life – whether she´s a girlfriend or a wife – won´t top his priority list. But that´s not necessarily a bad thing. You can chalk it up to him working to becoming a better provider to the woman that he´ll commit with in the future.
See: When You Don´t Know Where You Stand With Him
All you can do right now is to focus on yourself. Instead of prioritizing him, prioritize yourself and your own happiness. Stop making him the center of your universe. Stop making his emails the only source of your happiness.
Build up your self-confidence by doing the things that will make you happy. Focus on getting ahead at work. Treat yourself to a spa or a massage whenever you accomplish something, no matter how small.
See: How to Be Happy Alone – 9 Ways to Be Happy While Waiting for Your Soul Mate
Go out with your single friends on weekends + meet new people. It´s always good to open yourself up to more options.
Give him the space he needs to deal with the current demands of his life, but don´t sit around lonely, waiting for him.
Building your self-esteem, focusing on your own happiness and being open to many possibilities mean that if you two do meet-up in person and there´s no chemistry between you, it won´t break you and you can easily move on. These also mean that if he´s ready to commit in the future, and you happen to still be available, he will treasure you more because you have showed him the amount of self-worth you have.
