Is the man you love distancing himself from you? Does something feel “off” about his behavior in your relationship? If you feel chronically distraught about the state of things and are desperately trying to keep him interested, you may be pushing him further away.
Here are 6 cheat codes every woman should use to keep a man interested:
1. Stop treating him like a prize
Women have been trained to treat men like prizes. When we have a good man in our grasp, we can’t help but worry we might lose him. It’s like we are in a constant state of worry, wondering if today is going to be the day we are rejected and put back out there on the brutal dating scene, as explained in an American Psychological Association (APA) study of implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships.
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2. Realize emotions get entangled in a man’s every move
Deep down, we know if we could keep him interested and snag his attention, everything about our lives would be OK.
I used to feel this way. I put so much pressure on myself to behave the right way. I quietly agonized over how I should reply to a man in a text message or how long I should wait to call him. I nagged my friends with questions about when to bring up a chat with a man about something like commitment or whether it was OK if I planned a date.
I worried about this when I was married, too: “Why is he in a bad mood, is it something I did?” “Should I wake him up to talk about my feelings or let him sleep?” “What can I do to grab his attention and keep him interested so I can avoid losing him to another woman?” Research from the APA shows this can be a result of betrayal trauma.
3. Stop the constant worrying
Constantly worrying about a man’s lack of interest in the relationship can make you emotionally unstable, as supported by a study from the Journal of the Association for Psychological Science, on rumination and worry in daily life. You soon start to question everything you do and feel like nothing you do for him is going to keep his interest.
It’s draining and exhausting to work so hard at love. It also makes you feel jealous and irritated. You start comparing yourself to other women and beating yourself up over each flaw. You feel like you could somehow keep his interest if you were more perfect in a hundred different ways: better looking, better in bed, funnier, more smiley, more confident on dates… the list goes on.
But what if you never had to worry about how to keep him interested? What if men were more interested in dating and pursuing you than you currently are interested in keeping him?
4. Embrace your goddess-ness
I know it feels like it’s all about him and managing his feelings, but your level of self-worth dictates everything in your love life. The truth is you are a goddess. And you can have a love life worthy of a goddess.
When you are entirely focused on a man, he can feel it. He can sense there is tremendous pressure on him to make you happy. It’s a sixth sense telling him your emotions are dependent on his. This feels “heavy” for him. And it makes you unattractive because he translates it to mean your self-worth is wrapped up entirely in him, as suggested by a 2018 APA study.
Soon, he goes from being emotionally heavy about something outside the relationship to emotionally heavy because of the relationship. It’s like you’ve done it to yourself, and your preoccupation with trying to keep his interest has pushed him further away.
5. Put the focus back on you
The key is to stop seeing him as the prize and start finding a way to feel like a prize worthy of any man. Next time you are around your man, instead of fixating on the lonely, rejected, scared feelings and on all your strategies to keep him interested, put the focus back on you.
Imagine your heart pouring over with love, a love beyond beautiful. Imagine your love is sparkly and shiny pink, like pink glitter, and your heart can POP! like a piñata and pink glitter bursts into the air. Imagine all the pink, glittery love twinkling as it flutters to the floor — lighting up the world with rose-colored, festive, soulful goddess love.
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6. Know you are brim-full of love to give
That’s your problem right now. You have so much love to give and only this one half-interested man to give it to.
You are too wrapped up in the rewards of loving him when you can be loving yourself and all the universe around you. You are letting this man wrap you into a pretzel when the truth is the love you need is the love you already have inside you. You need to honor your inner goddess and send yourself loving vibes in moments when you are concerned with trying to keep his interest.
Next time you are with him and start feeling a separation, your mind jumps to plot ways to keep his interest, stay grounded, and focus on covering yourself with pink glitter. Stay with the visual until you feel more “filled up” with love — drunk on your intoxicating energy.
While you do this, believe your man is hypnotized by your pink glitter. Imagine it makes him feel as wonderful inside as it does to you. Even if he appears to be moody or preoccupied with something other than you, feel it in his heart, he is enchanted.
This will change your vibe. This will make you stop worrying about him and focus on his feelings, and it will put you at ease; you will have faith. To him, you will feel calm and inviting, and he will want to come closer.
Kristina Marchant is a writer and author with a BA in psychology from Barnard College at Columbia University. She is also a relationship coach who advises women on men and healthy relationship skills.
