Expert: Susan Dunn, Dating Coach - 6/9/2009

Question
I've dated this guy twice now, but both times he's backed out out of no
where, with no real explanation. I've realized he's commitment phobic and
never had any intentions of keeping this as a serious relationship, despite his
making plans for our future and saying he wants to be in a relationship with
me. My friends keep saying if I give him space and start doing what I want to
do with my life, he'll come back, but I don't want him back anymore. The first
time he broke up with me he started accusing me of all these things I wasn't
so I'd leave him alone, and then he apologized and said he hadn't meant it
when we got back together. He also promised me he hadn't dated other
people while we were broken up, but I found out later that wasn't true when
the girl he had dated freaked out at me. And this last time, he made a lot of
promises he didn't keep. I don't want him back anymore, but I don't know
what to tell him  to make him realize that I don't and why, or what to tell
myself to make sure I understand that when he's all nice and happy and
relationship ready, it's just a front. What do I do? How do I break the cycle
that's starting to form?

Answer
Dear Carla,

Well I've never had trouble with this.  Here's what I do:

1.  Do not answer the phone when it's him.
2.  If you answer by mistake, and learn it's him, hang up.
3.  Block his emails.  If perchance one gets through, delete it without reading it.  Do not do "halfway" things like writing back and telling him "It's over, don't write me."  Just end all contact.
4.  Do not talk about him to anyone - his friends for instance. There is nothing to discuss.
5.  Tear up his pictures and burn his letters.  Give his clothes to Goodwill of just throw them in the trash.
6.  If your mind wanders to him, force yourself to think of only the bad things - about him, about how he treated you, about the relationship.
7.  Get it firm in your mind -  you do not have a relationship with this man.  It is over.  End of story.

There is no friendship after love.  Cut all ties.  

It isn't hard at all.

And if you think this is mean, there is nothing, NOTHING meaner than allowing someoned that you are through with to have even an ounce of hope of getting back together with you.  It is far kinder to end all contact.  You no longer have a relationship with this person, if you ever did, and so you owe him nothing.

As that great song goes, "You have no right ..."  He has no right to expect anything from you any more, and you will be kinder in the long run - to yourself and to him - to make that perfectly clear and not waiver.

All the best,
Susan Dunn, M.A.