[00:00:01] Welcome to the Closeness podcast. The following is based on both personal experiences and wisdom, as well as personal experiences that have been contributed to us. Generalizations are sometimes made for the sake of brevity, but are never meant to exclude or offend. Regardless of your gender identity, relationship status preferences, or sexual orientation, it's our sincere hope that you can take away something positive, construct, active and useful from each topic explored. You can support these podcasts by donating to our
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[00:00:40] Good morning Good morning. Today we're answering a question that I sadly hear a lot. How do you know when your partner has their foot out the door? Or when you're about to lose them? Another way to put it might be to ask, why aren't they just telling me what's going on? Or why are they changing their behavior from one day to the next, forgetting about me one day and then feeling like they're head over heels the next time we see each other? Why do they run so hot and cold? Or seem really invested and all in 1 minute, and then on another given day, wanting to break up, feeling like it's not going anywhere, or feeling like it's time to come to an end? This is a painful subject, so please take a moment to absorb all of these disclaimers now so that you don't find them distracting later on in the episode. It's very clear that both men and women can act one way and then suddenly change the behavior and act another. So know that when you hear me giving examples of she, it can just as easily happen with he. But for ease and use in this episode, you'll often hear me speaking from my own personal examples as a man having been treated this way by a woman, or speaking of male friends who have been treated this way by a woman, we are fully acknowledging that it's a two way street and can go both ways, and now we can move forward. I know this one's going to hit home. I can't begin to tell you how often I see friends and others who are in relationship being treated poorly by their partner, but no one would ever be able to put their finger on it because the person isn't doing something wrong, per se, or being cruel or evil or mean, but they're withdrawn or indifferent, or they've pulled back, or they're halfway in it and halfway not the way it feels when someone's watching television and you're trying to have a conversation with them. So when you go to kiss them. You get a kiss, but it's not a nice one. When you're interacting in public, she's with you, but not with you. When you're spending time together, she's sitting right there, but you know there's something wrong, but it's not getting spoken about. When you're out to dinner. Maybe her eyes are wandering or she's really off in her head, even though she's being friendly to you or amiable. One final example is when you're spending time together, things seem good, but when she's gone, you just don't hear from her. You don't know where she is or what she's doing, and your usual contact with each other has dwindled. One of the ways you can recognize this, and it's also one of the more painful experiences to go through, is when you've established a pattern, a way of being, and a behavior to interact with each other, the way you lovingly communicate. Baby, sweetie, honey, pumpkin, babe, lover. When you're going along just fine. And then one day it all comes to a screeching halt or becomes intermittent, or one day you get some of that, and another day, nothing at all. The texts stop coming in, the calls stop coming in. It's almost as if, and we're not even going to allow this as a possibility, but it feels as though the woman forgets what she just did with you, that you just made her come ten times, that you made her breakfast, that you spent a beautiful afternoon at a park or a concert, or going on a walk or at the beach, you see, to me, it's a bit of a sacred contract when you start interacting with someone that you care about and sharing intimacy with them, insofar as you both have an unspoken agreement to continue to share yourself. So even if it's silly emoji, even if you are in the habit of sending kisses or flowers or hearts to each other, and that happens on a regular basis, and one person suddenly pulls back, you create, unknowingly, a vacuum that sucks the other person toward you, even though you're pulling back. And this is a horrible, horrible way to treat someone because it almost creates a bit of an addiction. This also plays out when your partner decides they're going to give you the silent treatment or to totally shut themselves down emotionally and not let you know what's going on with them. If you've listened. You know, I'm all about communication, figuring out different sides and what's going on for people. But this is something where I stand very firmly on. It is absolutely unacceptable to completely shut yourself down to your partner. Go radio silent, not tell them what's wrong and hold their emotions hostage while you relish them suffering and writhing, wondering what they did, what's going on and what happened. It's absolutely unacceptable because you know, they're asking you, what's wrong? What did I do? And they're turning into a less attractive person to you because day in and day out, you guys aren't communicating the same anymore. And now they're sounding sad and confused and upset and don't even know how to act anymore because of how you're treating them. And it's always going to happen this way because you've damaged their relationship by shutting down like that. Even if you feel that they've damaged it by something they've done to you, but they can't know what it is until you communicate it. There's no doubt it's a game. It's a game that has secondary gain in mind for the person who's shutting down. And that's that you get to watch your partner suffer and irrationally and inappropriately feel that they care about you because they are hurting as well and don't understand what's going on. There's one simple way to deal with this. You tell them what the hell is going on with you. No matter how silly, how trite, how irrelevant, how many times it's happened. You say, look, this is what happened. Here's what I experienced when you said this. It made me feel that. When you did this, it made me feel that. And then it's out there, easy as pie. Why, on this beautiful planet, it's easier for some people to shut down, close off and ignore their partner for one, two, 3410 days while they're making them suffer because they can't seem to express what happened and what's hurting them is completely beyond me. I'll give you a very simple example of this that's easy to understand. I was once in daily sexual, intimate communication with a woman. Talking all the time about how much we enjoyed each other, sending each other sexy and friendly texts, calling, having real conversations on the phone, seeing each other in person, everything. Well, as you might expect, one day everything just stopped and ceased. And I just. So funny how that feeling creeps over you right away. It took me all of two text messages to discover when I wasn't hearing a response back or by the response I got, that something was off and wrong. I'd like to believe that we shouldn't have to ask what's wrong and are you okay? Before someone that we care about just lets us know what's wrong and if they're okay almost 100% of the time. In my personal experience, when a woman has finally told me what's wrong, I had absolutely no clue. And I think of myself as a pretty intuitive, open, and receptive guy. I couldn't have even fathomed that it was an issue. Didn't know I did it or said it or it felt that way or it registered that way. And of course, it was unintentional. And all the person wants is to be heard and understood and validated and know that you didn't mean it. The sooner you can tell us, the better. So back to my story. I knew right away I was very careful to send a message saying, hey, hope you're doing all right. How's your trip going? Of course, no response. So then those questions come out, are you doing okay? What's going on over there? And even that begins to start that vacuum of forced neediness. In any case, you're not going to believe the result. She said she was trying to take a break from me because she felt too attached and like she liked me too much. And on top of that, I followed one of her friend's Instagram accounts, and she thought that I was somehow going to be in touch with or was in touch with her. I wasn't. And this perturbed her. How? How could I have possibly guessed in a million years that these were the things that were bothering her? I knew there wasn't something specific or bad that happened because of how we were interacting before. And so this communication is essential. We're talking about how both men and women do this, but especially with so many of the men who I've spoken to and the way men act around women, there's a feeling of being in. When we like you, we like you. There's not much more that you have to worry about. I do notice a lot of consistency with men. Once we're in, we're in. We don't like you, then not like you. Then we're confused. Then we're not sure. Then we don't know where it's going. Then we're not sure if the relationship is working or not, or if you're going to be the one we're going to marry or if you're really. It's just we like you. And even if we like someone else, it doesn't mean that we stop liking you. So I want to call out this behavior right away. This pulling back and withdrawing with no communication and giving no understanding whatsoever about what's alive and happening for you. Because it's excruciatingly painful to do this to someone. And it's usually masked by your own insecurity, your own fear, your own pain and suffering about what you feel like was inflicted onto you. Really, a lot of this comes down to what to do when someone pulls back or withdraws. I'll tell you right away, this is very toxic behavior and a simple, total lack of communication. Somewhere along the line, someone is feeling some thought or emotion that makes her feel like she ought to or should or needs to pull back from you. But it doesn't get expressed. You don't know what it is and you have no idea that it's even happening. And you know, the worst part of it is sometimes it's not even because you did something wrong. It's because in her own mind, you're not a match. Or she's not sure if it's going anywhere, or she doesn't want to get too attached because she thinks that you're dangerous for her. And by dangerous, it just means someone who's not going to continue to either be there or provide for her or be the father of her children or be in a long term relationship. This is an episode where when I give reasons for why people do things, some of it feels like truth and some of it feels like speculation. So it would actually be great to get women on the show who want to explain behavior like this from their perspective. The important thing for everyone to know here is that it's not okay to pull back in ways that are so obvious and glaring, but you think you're being subtle about it. It's not okay to just suddenly be colder and coy or snappy or rude or distant and not give your partner any indicator as to why you're going through this. What's even worse is being totally silent or shut down or non responsive. So that when they start asking, hey, are we still seeing each other Saturday? I haven't heard from you. Hey, I'd love for you to spend the night tonight. And I thought you were, but I haven't heard from you. Are you coming tonight? Hey, babe. I haven't heard from you in 23 days. I'm missing you and what's going on? Almost immediately, these follow up messages, these very natural, loving, nurturing messages to the person that you care about suddenly sound and feel and come off as needy. And this is so disgusting to me in the sense that it comes from the two of you having been interacting so normally and so perfectly, and one person pulls back and doesn't give any kind of notice. It's completely natural and normal to then say what's wrong, to move forward as the other person is stepping back. Because for the person on the receiving end of this, it doesn't feel like we're stepping forward or chasing. It just feels like we're being a normal participant in the relationship so that when someone else steps back, there's distance and we're just picking up the slack. Where is the love? What's going on? Why aren't you talking to me in the same way? Have you ever been with someone who, when you ask them a very direct question like, what's wrong? Or what are you hurting about? Or what are you upset about? They snap back with nothing and then proceed to behave as though everything in the world is wrong, which then makes you say, are you sure nothing's wrong? How can I help? How can I make it better? What happened? What's going on? Nothing. For me personally, a couple episodes like that is enough to end the relationship and not as the person who is harboring the resentment and anger and who doesn't want to tell their partner what's wrong, but as the person who's on the receiving end, because that is never going to end well for anyone. Yes, men and women both play this game, but it's especially dangerous when a woman plays it with a man because it forces the man into a role of neediness, which is doubly unattractive to a woman, because what person loves needy behavior, frankly, from anybody, but especially with male female dynamics. And the whole thing is, and the really big point I want to address here is we're not even needy. We're not being needy as men. We're not trying to be needy. We're simply wondering what the heck happened. But by virtue of you pulling back and not communicating, not saying your shift in emotion or what you're really going through or sharing your ups and downs, we're left to pick up the pieces. And consequently, you're digging your own grave to the end of the relationship. And as soon as that neediness kicks in, a few messages like that, a few phone calls, a few of those moments that lack that usual confidence that we have as men of like, babe, I had such a great time with you last Night. I can't wait to see you again. Turns into, what happened. Where are you? Why didn't you call me back? Where did you go? Total silence. Now we're ignoring each other. Now we're in a game. And this is garbage. It's such a horrible way to live. Without fail, the person responsible is the person who's doing the shutting down every time. And you're tearing out the heart of your partner every time you do this. And the sad truth is, it can be solved by just saying I feel Dot, dot, dot, I'm hurting about Dot, dot, dot. When you said this, it made me feel insecure. When you did that, I got really nervous and insecure. When you told her this, it made me feel uncomfortable. Because when you sit at home in front of the TV all day, it makes me feel undesirable. When I come out wearing something cute and you don't compliment me, it makes me feel needy or insecure. Real truth, it may come as a surprise to you, but putting all your cards on the table and telling us what's at the bottom of your feeling, what's behind the emotion, that's authenticity. And I will take realness and authenticity any day of the week over game playing, being rude, being mean, being cruel, being distant, or any other nonsense that isn't your truth. This is the tricky part about new relationships and beginning to date people. Nobody wants to be needy, no one wants to get hurt, no one wants to say I love you first. No one wants to put their emotions on the table. No one wants to put their heart out there. No one wants to feel obligated to, for example, have to send a silly emoji all the time, or always have to say love you, or always need to put X's and O's after all your messages.
[00:15:35] But here's the tricky part. If you start a precedent, to some degree, both parties need to and should be consistent. If you want both parties to feel the love, it's not that you have to do it after every single message and every single phone call and call each other every day at the same time and have this silly locked in pattern of needing to hear from each other. But it's essential to be consistent. I'll tell you another story. Once I was very much in love with a woman, and I went through something similar, actually, when her behavior changed when we went from all the babies I love you, miss you emoji hearts, this, that and the other. All that stuff ceased one day. Not subtly, not a little bit here and there. It was as if every single bit of our intimate, cozy, sweet, soft, loving communication stopped, as if a light switch was flipped off. And I want to distinguish here. I really couldn't care less about emojis or anyone sending me nice little hearts. They're endearing and sweet. That doesn't make or break my relationship. But it's the precedent that you've established and what it represents when you stop it. It doesn't matter if it's emojis or loving words or you're sending videos or Snapchats or photos. When you create a pattern with someone that's established for months or years and you cease that, it creates a total uproar in your relationship. So when that switch flipped, I felt it instantly. I knew it in the moment that it happened. And it's not about making anyone right or wrong here, or saying I did something wrong in the relationship, or she did or someone else did. It's about the behavior and the way it's handled when something does come up. So when I sensed this shift, instead of some simple communication, just the behavior changed. I felt it and my stomach dropped because I knew what the risk was if this continued. I let it fester for less than 24 hours. Actually, I think it was about a half a day. And I called her out on it immediately. I said, listen, I understand and I'm supportive of this issue. No matter what. I'm there for you, but this cannot happen. No matter how painful this might be, no matter what you're feeling, if you shut this off, if you shut our intimate communication off, you cannot just come back to it in a few weeks or a month or two or three, like nothing happened, and start all the loving communication and not think that you're going to damage our relationship. We either need to be consistent and loving and friendly together, or you're going to see right before your eyes that our relationship disintegrates because of this lack of communication. This is, believe it or not, one of the cornerstones for our intimacy. She heard it, she understood it, she knew it. But with how big and confusing the issue was, she couldn't bring herself to be the person I once knew. We went from being inseparable, unstoppable, lighting up a room when we walked in together, being so close to absolutely nothing. Sure, we're in touch, and we can talk on the phone and be friendly and cordial, but that incredible connection, that sacred contract, that bond that we had, has never been restored again to this day. And that's how damaging it can be to shut yourself down and shift your behavior so suddenly. Regardless of what the initial cause is for us, for you, for anyone else, and without assessing any blame, the story itself illustrates what happens in everyone's relationship when someone pulls back and the other person is left to guess and pick up the pieces. I'm not wanting to make this person wrong. And in sharing this, not asking you to have one opinion or another, it's just critical for you to see the devastating effects of what not communicating has on the other person. I mean, I'm a huge communicator, so you better believe I was asking, what is going on? What is on your mind? Do you love me or do you not? Are you in this or are you not? Is there someone else? Is there something else? So many of the answers I received were, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And I didn't stop there. I would say, I don't know is not an answer. Think about it for five minutes, ruminate on it for a day, and let me know what's going on. And then I could feel it. My asking and my support and my wanting to be there also turned into apparent neediness. Because then every time we spoke, instead of it being light and sweet, it was, what's wrong? And do you have an answer yet? When am I going to know? Are you starting to see how someone else's pulling back turns their partner into someone who they aren't? And then that becomes even more unattractive to the person, and then it snowballs, and then you're usually likely to have broken up by then. It's a very sad and hard story for me to tell.
[00:20:23] Yes, we're on good terms now. Yes, we can talk to each other and FaceTime and be friendly and laugh. And I think if you asked her if she loves me, she'd say yes. And if you asked me if I love her, I would say yes. But did there need to be that much suffering? I just think so much could have been cleared up through communication from all parties. Let me break it down a little differently. If you know someone who you love and care about very much, husband, a wife, a son, a daughter, a boyfriend, and their behavior went from being extremely consistent to totally unavailable, silent, tuned out, not answering their phone, not responding to messages, you would notice not only does this cause quite an alarm in your own nervous system, this is a huge, huge red flag that she or he might be on their way out. So I want to walk you through the steps of how this type of behavior plays itself out so you can be aware of it. If you love someone, you care about them, and things seem like they're going great, and then all of a sudden, the typical behavior shifts or stops, and there's no real explanation and you can't seem to communicate about it. And when you ask how she's doing, everything seems totally fine. That specifically is the red flag I'm advising you to look out for. So there's a very specific formula that happens here. The person doing the withdrawing behaves in such a way, they're so masterful at it that it makes the other person feel like they've done something wrong. So it plays out like this. First you'd say, what's wrong? Usually this isn't met with much of a response. Then you can't quite put your finger on it, but suddenly you're asking your partner out in weird ways because you know they're not being themselves and something is not right and they're not telling you about it. In other words, instead of just saying, see you Friday or can't wait to see you, it's like, are we seeing each other this weekend? Is everything all right? Did something happen? Do you want to see me? There's something that makes you want to ask it in a different way because she or he seems like they're not all on board. So at a certain point of trying to be your same loving self, it's not being met with the same response. So most people start to feel like they're the problem, like you've done something wrong to create this. To me, sometimes this is even how codependence starts, by you taking on the responsibility of other people's poor behavior. You make yourself the problem, and then you start trying to prove yourself, to show your partner that you really are doing everything you can. And sometimes that's not even the issue. It starts in those little disconnects of communication. That's easy to say, but no one does it right. Very few people actually express what's on their heart vulnerably. And very few people can hear someone's vulnerability. Listen to it, not freak out, not run away, not judge it, but be there and feel that other person listen to what they need and have to say. That's extremely critical. Now let's explore how else is this rare? Its ugly little head. We talked about this in other episodes, about busy people or people sharing their physical location, but it's also in our habits with texting. Texting is not new. We have generations of kids now who have grown up, and their preferred way of communication is through text message. It's not that a few people have cell phones and some of us don't. It's not that we don't have receptions sometimes. It's not that we're so busy that we don't ever check our phones. Everyone has their phone on them every single day at all hours of the day and is available almost anytime. Sometimes people have an Apple Watch. We get notifications on our tablets, on our notebooks. We've all seen people be very communicative when they want to be.
[00:24:00] And so if you suddenly are experiencing something like having your girl text you all the time and call you all the time, and you've seen her be at her own place or your place in 510 15 minutes, text conversations with her girlfriends and guy friends, you know that she's more than capable of responding to you. Everybody takes a bathroom break. Everybody goes and grabs a snack and checks their phone. Even if they're in a photo shoot or they're busy at work or they're in the middle of something. We always go and check our phones. It's just fact these days, it's not okay to have countless hours regularly going by to not hear back from someone who's normally consistent with you unless there's been some terrible emergency. If it's the norm that you've got a friend who just doesn't reply for two to three days at a time, that's their personality. Sounds like they've got some communication work to do, or they really are anti technology, and that's fine. But when you know the behavior of someone, that's when it hurts. And frankly, I think the best way to handle this is to call someone out on it to say, look, hon, I know you communicate with your girlfriends, and you respond quickly. I know you're on Instagram. I know you're on Facebook and Snapchat. I know you're checking news articles and blog articles and all of your updates. If you want this to keep going, we have to mutually respect each other. We have to communicate with each other the same way you communicate with everyone who you don't even care about nearly as much. In fact, if we're really into each other, you know, it should be ten times better than that. It's a great direct communication approach, but even sometimes that won't work because you have to show someone instead of telling them. So let's say you're speaking to someone who is in the habit of responding to you within a few minutes or even an hour or two.
[00:25:42] And this is very key right here. They say something to you like, I'll call you in an hour, or I'll text you in a little bit. To let you know I'm okay, or I'll keep you posted about my night in case you want to come out. Something that gives you an indication that you should expect to hear from them. It's not. Listen carefully. It's not about you trying to control your partner or keep tabs on them or needing to know where they are at all times. It's that a precedent has been established that you're always in the habit of talking or communicating or to the point she or he has even said to you that they're going to let you know where they are or what they're up to in a couple of hours. But today they haven't gotten back to you in seven or eight or 10 hours. And you know, they're just hanging out with their girlfriends or at some special event. And you especially see this on trips to Vegas. Speaking from my own experience, I'm actually someone who doesn't need to hear from my partner all the time, at every given moment. I don't need constant updates or anything like that. There's no law about how much you should or shouldn't communicate or how much is too much for one person. But here's the hard part. As soon as it becomes too much for one person, that person tends to pull way back or become cruel or mean or distant or not know how to say it, or they just start ignoring you and what that creates in the other person, especially if the person too many messages communicates that it's too much and they kind of judge the other person or point the finger or say, hey, it's really needy. I don't need to be contacted so much. Please stop texting me so much. What do you suppose the other person is going to do? She's not going to pull back 2% or 5% or 10% or the appropriate amount, which would probably be something like 20, 30%. She's going to pull way, way back. Maybe never message you again. Maybe only respond shortly to your messages. Maybe replying with just little snippets. Yes. No. Cool. Because they're in a fear and panic state about either not wanting to lose you, not wanting to hurt you, not wanting to offend you, or not be rejected and left themselves. These are the games that we play and that we have to navigate every time. And I say, for God's sake, just simply use communication. This would be my direct approach to a situation like that. So, hon, I like you a lot. I love hearing from you. I love texting you and talking to you, but I know myself really well. And it's just a little much for me. It's how I am and how I like to communicate. Not something that you're doing wrong, because I know you're doing your best to be with me. I'm not asking you to dial it back 80 or 100%. I just need a little less. And this is something I want to work on with you until we get it right, because I want to keep you in my life. Will you talk to me about this? And can we make that work?
[00:28:22] That should elicit a pretty nice reply. If someone asked me that, I would be floored and more than happy to play along and workshop whatever necessary to keep the new relationship that I had. You need to hear more of a response than yeah, sure, or okay, and then moving on with their day. And you need to watch their facial expressions. If they bat their eyes really quick and look down or get quiet all of a sudden. If someone closes up, all of those responses are not going to move things in the right direction. Wanting to workshop something together so that you stay in it is very different than someone withdrawing, pulling back, and demonstrating to you that there's something wrong in the relationship and they're trying to eject it. Mutual communication means keeping it alive, keeping it together, and someone withdrawing is usually their really bad way of trying to get out. If you wanted to take the more loving approach, you could say, well, that person needs something and they're unable to communicate it and articulate their needs properly. So if you can help bring that out of them and figure out what they need and want, that you can save the relationship and salvage it. That's one way of looking at it. But you're also not in a relationship to be someone's savior or to force them or make them communicate, or try and be so over accommodating that they communicate. It's a two way street, and you're in this together. If the person that you're intimate with can't communicate to you, who else would possibly be responsible for them to set their thoughts, feelings, boundaries, needs and expressions, if not themselves? I do believe it falls on both people to just ask, is there something you want to tell me? You seem a little off. This distant behavior doesn't work for me. Do you want to let me know what's going on? But I also find that a lot of people don't respond well to words, affrontation, and anything that has to do with a real open communication. They'd rather just show it to you in a painful way that makes you suffer. And this is true. If you've got the guts, you can experiment with it yourself. If you're in a rocky situation, you can flat out ask, tell me exactly what's going on for you. Do you not want to be with me anymore? And watch the other person writhe and suffer and squirm at their inability to say, yeah, I don't want to be with you, or no, that's not it. But here's what it is. People just love the idea of get the hint. Getting the hint is a really, really poor way of communicating and expectation to put onto others. Because a hint is only a suggestion. And someone can only understand a suggestion if they're in on your way of thinking, your way of being, and your way of acting. And we've been raised so differently and so uniquely in all of our upbringings that nobody has consensus on what the right way is to do anything. So why on earth would you expect anyone to get your hint instead of just saying, here's what my truth is.
[00:31:22] I don't mean to sound so morbid, but I find that year after year after year of so many different experiences and talking to different men and women, this is how people do it. They use excuses like, I don't want to hurt the person, or I don't know how to say it or I don't know what I'm feeling or going through, or it's me, not you. And they do this little behavior of pulling back and being distant. I'm not one for games, but the way to respond with distance, sadly, sometimes is the same thing. If you move forward while someone else is pulling back, you immediately become needy. You're not needy, but that behavior becomes needy. They're moving back and you're stepping forward. They move back, you step forward, they move back, you step forward. Now what are you doing? You're chasing these unconscious games get set up and then you find yourself in that pattern. And when you're chasing, even if you're not intending on being needy, your questions, the way you articulate them, the way you're following up, the way you're trying to figure out what's going on with her or him, the way you're trying to. Just want to figure out what's happening this Friday, just want to figure out if we're seeing each other. All of that becomes needy. And it's not that you are that way, but it's because someone treats you poorly like that. This really comes down to people being terrified of being hurt. Everyone is so scared of getting hurt. So no one wants to put their cards on the table, no one wants to play because of this fear, and then no one wins. What is my most authentic, truly heart centered, but from a grounded place? Advice for people who are in this situation. You need to risk losing the entire relationship. You need to be in a place or a mental mindset where you're prepared to lose and not be thrilled about it, not celebrate it, not not be sad or hurt, but not being afraid to say things. But more to the point, do things and demonstrate your behavior in a way that communicates. Look, if you're not going to respect me, my time and who I am, and we're not going to share mutual love and affection for one another, I'm out. I'm done, I'm gone. And when someone feels that, not when you tease it, not when you're passive aggressive, not when you warn about it, not when you threaten to do it, but when you really demonstrate with your behavior, if this keeps up, it's done. That's when change happens. You may go through relationship after relationship, or quick interaction, or sex date after sex date, or whatever it is, until you find someone who's willing to be accountable with their time, accountable with their words, accountable with their actions. And that's when you know that person, at least in that regard, is a keeper and a winner. We all deserve to have our time valued and respected, and we deserve communication, especially if we're giving that to someone else. And that is a good place to wrap up episode one of this podcast. But before we do, let's really take some action here before moving on to the next podcast, or the next segment of your life, or the next activity that you need to do?
[00:34:26] Is there someone in your life who needs to hear something from you? Can you clean something up in your life right now with a real phone call and some real communication? Can you get clarity on where you stand in your relationship? Or tell the person who's probably confused where they stand, where you are in this?
[00:34:46] Where do you stand?
[00:34:49] Do you need to let go of someone?
[00:34:52] Can you have a closing phone call that severs or cuts your energetic bond or ties to each other? Because so much of our energy gets poured into our romantic and our intimate connections, we don't even realize why we're so exhausted, why we're so drained. If we've got one or two or three people in our lives pulling us in opposite directions, that takes a lot of mental energy. Can you release someone from your grasp? Or can you call someone and tell them it's time for you to let them go. Or better yet, and my favorite can you get a little closer with the person who you're spending time with?
[00:35:29] Can you move things in a direction that gives you clarity on where you stand? That type of radical honesty and radical communication, if done in a loving, considerate and thoughtful way, will change your life. I'll see you in episode two. Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this immensely. You can learn more about the closeness, lifestyle and movement by visiting Getcloseness.com. If you've been touched by what you've heard here today or this has made a measurable difference in the quality of your life or sex life, or if you'd like to get one of your own intimate questions answered on an upcoming episode of the Closeness podcast, please consider donating to our
[email protected] closeness. All of these links links can be found in the description. Until next time, stay close.
