When They Don’t Know What They Want

If you’ve ever heard this line from the person you’re dating, you know how much it can hurt. In this episode, Lauren discusses how to handle this type of situation.

Welcome back to comeback class. This is Lauren AKA, the heartbreak nurse, a I’m so happy that you have joined me for this episode. Today I wanna talk to you about what to do if the person that you’re with or that you have just started dating tells you that they don’t know what they want. Now, this is something that has happened to me personally, and it’s something that I, I always thought was kind of a coming of age type problem where sometimes, you know, we’re not on the same page as our partner, because we are going through a stage in our life where there are a lot of changes going on. But what I found is that this kind of, this can actually occur at any time during someone’s life. And I think these feelings can occur for a variety of different reasons.

One of which being that the person claiming that they don’t know what they want likely has a lot of anxiety about the relationship and about the expectations for the relationship. And that’s not to put any fault on the other person. I think it’s just it’s just anxiety and it’s something that occurs for a lot of people. Now, of course, there are always people who will say these sorts of things you know, as a means to sort of be manipulative or take advantage of the situation. But I do think that that is the minority, I think in a lot of times when people express their feelings in this way it’s because they are sort of nervous about the situation and don’t really know what is the right decision and for them. And I do wanna say that this kind of response, or sort of not knowing what you want for your life or for your relationship, you know, whether you wanna get married or not, or, you know, anything like that.

It’s totally normal to be confused. It’s absolutely normal to have those feelings. But what I want you to remember and what I wanna offer to you is that you have a choice in this situation. If someone brings this information to you and says, they’re not sure about the relationship or whether they want to be in a relationship period or that they’re just confused. I want you to remember that that is totally okay for them to feel that way, but you do not have to wait around for them to figure it out. That is not something you have to do at all. Now, you may want to do that because you really care about this person, or you’re really hoping that they will sort of see things your way and realize that they want to be with you. And that’s totally normal as well.

But I think a lot of bus end up spending a lot of time in that waiting period. And unfortunately what that does is that takes time away from you being able to work on yourself. And you also being able to find someone that is ready for the, of things that you are ready for. So what I would say is, if you are in a place in your life where you are looking for a committed relationship, or you are looking to get married sometime in the future and the person that you’re dating or the person that you’re with is telling you that they’re not sure if that’s something that they want or that they’re willing to do. I really want you to consider what they’re saying and realize that the best thing for you is to sort of separate yourself from that relationship so that you can focus on getting what it is that, that you want because it’s likely that you are not going to get it from this person, at least not initially.

And I just don’t want you to spend a lot of time and energy trying to convince this person to want what you want, because it’s also not to them. They also need to have their time to sort of evaluate their life and really make those decisions. But you certainly don’t have to wait around until they’re able to figure that out. And the reason for this is that your time is limited. I mean, it’s sounds a little cliche, but it’s, it’s true. You know, your time on this earth is finite. And you don’t have forever to wait around. The time that you have is not a renewable resource. So therefore it is one of your greatest assets. So you really have to be in intentional with your time. And there is nothing selfish or high maintenance about that. It’s just the reality of the way that life works.

You know, we are here for a set period of time, and of course we don’t know exactly how long that is, but we, we do know, we should know that we don’t need to waste our time, so to speak waiting for other people to make decisions about what they wanna do with their life. You can still care about that person and want the absolute best for them. But you, I don’t want you to sacrifice your own limited time waiting for someone else to figure out what it is that they want. And like I mentioned before, this is something that has happened to me in the past. Probably a few, a few times at least, but most in my most recent relationship, this was why the relationship ended. And without going into too much detail I, we kind of came to a fork in the road and I kind of felt like the relationship wasn’t going in the direction that I wanted it to go.

So I, I just, you know, we had a discussion about it and that person told me that they just didn’t know if they wanted the things that I wanted and et cetera, et cetera. So I feel like, you know, when I was younger, I may have made a different decision in that situation. And me would’ve stuck around and waited and maybe tried to convince him that he should change his mind and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But seeing as I am a little bit older and wiser now, not really, but sort of but now that I’m in my thirties and I have, you know, had my fair share of relation and breakups. And now that I also am at a point in my life where I know exactly what I want and where I’m going and what my plans are.

I knew that the best thing for me would be to just end the relationship where it was. And that I think ended up being really good choice for me because I was able to you know, focus back on myself again and focus back on my goals. And I have, you know, no hard feelings for that person whatsoever. And I appreciate that he was honest with me, but at the same time, I, you know, I, my life is kind of a moving train, so you gotta get on or get off . So anyway, I, I just, you know, I have been in this situation myself, so I know that it’s kind of hard, or it’s really hard actually, especially if you, you know, really care about the person and don’t wanna see the relationship end. But it also takes a little bit of courage.

You kind of have to just put yourself and your, you know, what you want above everything else. And sometimes that includes saying goodbye to people that you really care about because you are priorities and your visions for the future are not aligned. But it’s, you know, like I said, it takes courage because a lot of people don’t wanna be alone or they’re afraid of losing a, a good relationship and I’m not gonna lie. That part definitely sucks. But you just, like I mentioned, you just can’t waste that time. It just, it’s not going to serve you to sit around and wait for someone to love. You wanna be with you wanna marry, et cetera, et cetera. Now, this also kind of goes back to what we talked about last week and how sometimes breakups, or a lot of times breakups can affect your self-esteem.

So if someone says to you you know, I’m just not sure that we want the same things you may think, well, what is it about me that makes them not want these things? And you really have to avoid thinking that way that it has something to do with you personally. A lot of times it just the person, it, it just is overwhelmed. It doesn’t know what they want. It isn’t ready to make that decision. It’s not that they don’t like you don’t care about you. A lot of times we make assumptions about these things that, you know, the person just doesn’t, we’re just not good enough for them, or they don’t like us enough or, or whatever. And I just wanna offer to you that that’s probably not the case. It might feel like that, but I guarantee you in a lot of these situations, it has more to do with them than it has to do with you.

So try not to let it affect your self-esteem too much. I think once you start figuring out exactly what it is that you want for your life and what your goals are, and in terms of a relationship, you know, that may mean being in a committed relationship or being married or something like that. And once you decide that those are the things that you want to have you will no longer ex Sept things that are not aligned with that vision. And this is something that I have talked about many times, and I’ll continue to talk about, but once you become really clear on what it is you want for your life, you won’t even entertain things that, that are not aligned with that. And it’s actually really, because it’s very easy to just, it, it makes things much easier to let go of like it, when you decide that you wanna be, you know, loved by somebody, the way that you loved them.

And you realize that that’s not what you’re getting in your relationship, it makes it a little bit easier to say, okay, well, you know what, the person that is for me, the person that I see in this vision for my life is going to be just as into me, as I am into them. And so you can just kind of accept it for what it is and realize that the person that is meant for you is on the way. And in the meantime, the best thing that you can do, which again, I say over and over and over is, you know, work on your personal growth, work on yourself, be come EV become even more clear and definitive on the things that you want for your life. Because once you do that, then it will make it so much easier to make these kinds of decisions that there there’s still hard decisions, like I said, but you will be so focused that anything that’s not serving your greater good or you know, serving a purpose for you, you’ll, it will be that much easier for you to eliminate it.

One of the most important things that you can learn when teaching yourself how to have better control over your mindset is to remember that you are in control of your thoughts, feelings, and action, and everybody else is in control of theirs. So when I say, I don’t want you to sit around wasting your time, trying to convince someone to wanna be with you it’s for that reason, because you cannot, you cannot change someone’s mind unless they are willing to and want to, to change their own mind. It just, it just doesn’t work like that. And, and you can pressure somebody as much as you want. But then let me ask you, do you want to be in a relationship with somebody that felt pressured to be with you? No, of course you don’t. So if you are in this situ, I just want you to keep this in mind that no matter how much pressure you put on that person, ultimately it is them who has to make the decision and ask yourself if you really wanna be in a relationship with someone that is maybe just with you, because they feel guilty.

I’m gonna guess you probably don’t. There is absolutely no reason to settle for less when, what you want is out there. And I know it can get discouraging sometimes when you feel like you have tried relationship after relationship after relationship, and it’s just not working out, you just wanna throw in the towel and give up, trust me, I’ve been there too. I totally get it. But you just have to have faith that things are going to work out for you at exactly the right time, but you also have to be able to recognize when the situation that you’re in is not so ring you. And it’s just not that time. You have to have the courage to say, you know what? I, this is not a situation that I need to be in. I’m gonna remove myself and I’m just gonna keep moving in the direction that I’m supposed to be going in.

The most important thing that I want you to do is to recognize and value your self worth and not let it become diminished by being in a situation like this. Number one. And number two is that I don’t want you to, to waste your precious, limited time on this earth, waiting around for other people to decide how they feel about you. I want you to have the courage and the dignity to say, I know self worth. I know who I am. I know exactly what I want. If you don’t know, then that’s okay, but I need to keep moving, letting go of something that you really wanted to work out can be really difficult. And, and I do understand that. But what I want you to know is that what is meant for you is not going to pass you by the relationship that you are supposed to be in, will show up that that person will show up at exactly the right time and you just have to believe it to be true. I wanna thank you so much for joining me for, for this episode. If you are enjoying the podcast, please go ahead and subscribe so that you can get notified when new episodes come out and also please feel free to leave me a review. I would appreciate it so so much. I am so grateful that I now have this platform to be able to help and speak to more people. And I’m just so grateful that you’re here. So thank you so so much, and I will see you in the next episode.