All too often, guys who are so in love with their girlfriends or so used to the routine fail to see the signs she wants to break up. They think things are fine, it's just a rough patch, you're just busy. But then one day, she says, "We should stop seeing each other." And it hits them like a pile of bricks.
So what are the signs she wants to end the relationship? How can you be aware of them so that you can address your issues before she checks out? And is "taking a break" basically breaking up but with a softer blow? Let's talk about all that and what you need to do if you want to stay together... or not.
She Wants a Break vs. She Wants to Break Up
So what's the key difference between breaking up and wanting a break from each other? Essentially, it's this:
A breakup is a period. A break is an ellipsis...
When a girl wants to break up, it means she's done. She wants to get out of the relationship and potentially start seeing other people. You don't need to be friends and you don't need to keep in touch. It's over, done, zilch.
On the other hand, when a girl wants a break, things aren't as clear-cut. She doesn't want to cut ties with you entirely. She saying that for now, it's best if you give each other space. But sometime in the future (hopefully soon for your sake), there's a possibility that you'll reconcile. A break is basically limbo where you're not really together, but there's hope that you'll get back together again.
So now that you're actively searching for signs your girlfriend is about to break up with you, keep your eyes open for these...
4 Critical Signs She Wants to Break Up
There are a few signs a girl will show when she wants a breakup, some are subtle while others scream “leave me the hell alone.” In the next two sections, I’ll share with you some of the behaviors to look for before assessing whether your girl wants to break up or is just being moody. Keep reading…
1. She spends less quality time around you
She doesn’t free up time for you, spends more time at work than with you, and favors her friends or colleagues over you. And even if you do see each other a lot, it's more of quantity over quantity. You can clearly see that she's wishing she's somewhere else.
If you plan the weekend in, she’ll kiss you goodbye and party with her friends. Women aren’t stupid, especially in relationships, so if she doesn’t make you her priority (or at least try), it’s probably because she doesn’t want you to be one.
2. No more deep conversations
Remember when you spent hours before the date looking online for the best first-date questions, so you can have these in-depth conversations? Those times are over. You two barely talk now.
If your girl doesn’t speak much to you or she only talks about the basic daily stuff (e.g. "what did you have for lunch?", "Yeah, I'm still at work.", "Going to bed now. Good night.", etc.), looks like your relationship needs to be resuscitated.
It can also be a sign she wants to break up, especially if she spends hours staring and giggling at her phone texting other people.
3. She doesn’t want you to see her naked
This is possibly one of the most obvious signs she wants to break up, but men are in denial about it.
For no apparent reason, it seems like she has lost all interest in sex... with you. You might still see her eyeing hot celebrities or models on Instagram. But when you try to initiate sex, she might say okay, but you know she's not into it. You might even rationalize it by saying, "No way she'll break up with me because she still sleeps with me!"
At best, sex is quick and emotionless. She's not into it and she's just counting the minutes until you finish. And worst of all? She'll insist on keeping her clothes on so she can jump out of bed the minute you're done. Ouch.
This is a huge sign that she has checked out of the relationship emotionally.
4. Or she’ll immediately dress up when the sex is over
Sex has now become more like a job than an intimate act.
A woman who likes you will cuddle and stay in bed naked after the sex is over. On the other hand, a woman who wants to break up with you will put something on her right away because she doesn’t wanna be involved in more sex with you. It’s a very unconscious move but you can notice it if you pay close attention.
Does She Really Want to Break up With You?
Relationships have their ups and downs. What looks like she wants to break up may be nothing but a bad mood. Your girlfriend can change for many reasons but don’t always assume she wants to leave you just because she’s angry or sad… Unless, of course, you see any of the following behaviors...
She REALLY wants a breakup if…
- She’s already talking to someone else – A woman will break up with you in her mind long before she spits it out. It’s like she’s on PST and you’re on EST. Why am I saying this? Because during that time between deciding to break up with you and giving you the final goodbye, she’ll be setting herself up for the single life.
She’ll do this by:
A) Improving her Social Market Value (SMV): She wants to improve her choices and look better for the new guy. So she’ll lose weight, go to the gym, get a makeover, and change up her fashion choices.
B) Exposing herself to more men: Going out much, showing more skin, posting hot pictures on Instagram or making her account public, or even showing up on Tinder and other dating apps.
- She stops nagging you to get better – Women want to be constantly assured that they made the right decision selecting you. That’s how they sleep peacefully at night. If they notice, however, that you’re becoming less manly, the female narrative will push her to nag, complain, and tease you so you can catch up, get better and become the manliest version you can possibly be.
This doesn’t mean that all complaints are good complaints. A woman will also complain just to see how you’d behave under pressure – we call it a shit test. They feel happy when they see you stand your ground.
Complaints aren’t bad as long as you know how to handle them. However, the only thing that should concern you is the absence of those complaints. The moment a woman starts being so cold she doesn’t even bother nagging you is the moment you realize she’s moved on.
- She’s getting her needs met elsewhere – If you don’t satisfy her in bed she’ll leave you sooner or later (unless she’s really unattractive no one else would have her but you). Women are sexual creatures just like men – or even more – so never expect a relationship to survive in the absence of great sex.
Ask yourself, am I pleasing her in bed or not? If it’s not yes, then she’s either cheating on you (which means you should break up with her), or she’s patiently pleasuring herself until you fix it up. Otherwise, she’ll cheat or call it off.
- She asks to see other people – This is never a good solution to fix a bad relationship. Just watch how Will and Jada’s marriage broke apart after she asked for an open marriage. When a woman asks to see other people, it subconsciously says “I want space so I look for a better deal.” As sexual as they are, very few women are polygamous.
Yes, they can date multiple guys at once but they rarely fall for more than one guy at the same time. If your girl asks to see other people, it’s a big sign she has lost interest in you.
She’s keeping you at arm’s length like a safety net till she finds a better dude, she may find one and she may not. However, even if she returns back to you, most women will lose their respect for their man just because he agreed to let them play around like Will.
She doesn’t really want a breakup if…
On the other hand, there's the time when she's acting cold but not yet on the verge of wanting out. Take the following signs are warning signs that you should act quickly before things get really bad.
- She still complains – As I said earlier, nagging can be annoying, but the absence of it is a dead end. So if she still tells you what's wrong and what she wants you to do about it, consider it constructive feedback. It still shows she cares about you and wants you to fix things.
- She’s moody because of other unrelated things – Women can be moodier than men, so don’t underestimate the effect of some circumstances on her mood, and subsequently your relationship.
Moving to a new country, family problems, work problems, giving birth, or losing a baby… these situations can make her retreat a little and keep a distance from you. She doesn’t hate you, she just needs to cope.
What to Do When You See Signs She’s Going to Dump You
We don’t recommend trying to fix a lousy relationship. Very few couples last after the first break up. They’ll get back together for a while then hell will break loose again and they’re over.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t be the exception (but it’s quite hard). Whether you want to stay or leave is up to you, but read this section first before making up your mind…
If you want to stay together, make her jealous
Never underestimate what a jealous woman can do. Jealousy hits hard because women are competitive. They are wired to look for the best possible candidate for mating and raising their kids, and seeing you getting friendly with someone else will make her feel like someone who kept a million-dollar gem for years then threw it away by mistake. Especially if this new woman is hotter and younger.
Jealousy can also work by assumption. You don’t need to actually date another woman to make yours jealous. You can have the same effect just by making her feel that she may lose you for another girl. How?
- Take good care of yourself – Luckily, men aren’t supposed to be beautiful to mate. You don’t need an extremely handsome face to attract women. You just got to throw in some muscles and lose that fat around your midsection and your attractiveness score will double.
Eat clean, exercise, and upgrade your wardrobe and she’ll soon begin to worry. She may even tease you or sabotage your efforts by feeding you crappy food, but that shouldn’t stop you. Within six months, you will be a whole new man who can attract better women than her. She will notice it, and so will you, and then you can make the decision to either stay with her or spend your time with another girl.
- Spend more time with your buddies – The cooler they are the more jealous she’ll feel. Most guys drop their hobbies and friends the moment they get with a girl. Unfortunately, this is the quickest way to turn women off. As much as they want attention, women still don’t want to be the center of your entire world.
She wants you to go out and have hobbies and friends, even if she complains each time Freddie and Tom call you for a Friday darts game. Spend more time with your buddies, especially those with a reputation for being womanizers. It will scare her and make her jealous, which can be enough to keep her around until you fix things up again.
- Travel – I canceled a date with a chick I was dating and took a week off with my buddies to a 5-star, adults-only coastal resort… and it freaked her out. She texted me a few times to check on me and I intentionally didn’t respond right away, not because I’m mean – well, kinda – but because I was actually having fun AND I wanted her to get slightly jealous.
She’s been trying to play games for a while so I gave her some, and by the time I went back, she became nice and sweet again. If you want to make your girlfriend jealous, take your buddies out to Vegas or somewhere noisy, turn off their phone – or stay on limited communication – and let her mind do the job for you.
- Get some female attention – You don’t want to go the whole mile and date other girls while trying to keep your girlfriend around. That will be too much for her to handle. However, you still need enough female attention to make her jealous. Just like there’s no soccer without the ball, there’s no jealousy without another woman.
If you spend the whole day working from home and playing video games then she won’t feel insecure about losing you even if you look like Brad Pitt or Ryan Reynolds. You need more women in your life asap so she can feel just a little threatened.
Pick up a hobby that includes women, like dancing or yoga. Or better, expand your social circle so women come to you by default. This can be anything from getting more Instagram followers to moving to a company with a higher female-to-male ratio.
If you don’t want to stay together, break up with her asap
The person who walks away first suffers less after the breakup. This may sound vindictive, but it’s your mental health that we need to take care of right now. Waiting until she breaks up may put you in a miserable place that you don’t wanna be in. On the other hand, jumping the ship before her robs her of her “victory”.
Remember, no woman wants to be seen as the one who was ditched. That will hurt her so hard she may want to get back to you just to get back at you. I’m not alienating you against her, but we’re all children with big egos, and being the one who called it off will make the pain of losing her more tolerable.
If you want to stay together, bang her really well
Whether she leaves you or not, bang her like it’s her last, and you may win her. Never underestimate the power of an orgasm on women. A woman may stay with a loser just cause he’s masculine and gives her good D. It doesn’t matter if she orgasms through intercourse or oral sex, she’ll associate the positive emotions to you as long as you played a role.
- Pro tip – Bang her and don’t cum
Here’s one of my favorite quotes by David Deida, in his book, The Way of the Superior Man:
“When a man has no control over his ejaculation, he cannot meet his woman sexually or emotionally. She knows she can deplete him, weaken him, empty him of life force. She has won. When a man ejaculates easily, he creates ongoing distrust in his woman. At a subtle level, she feels he cannot be trusted. She, and the world, can deplete and depolarize him easily.
This subtle distrust will pervade the relationship. She will not only doubt him but actually act to undermine his actions in the world. By undermining him she demonstrates and tests his weakness, but she also hopes that through such tests he can learn to remain full.”
Personal story:
I read this quote years ago but only discovered the power behind it a few months ago. I was dating this girl – horny AF. I had a meeting with a big client the morning after and I knew that I will feel lethargic if I ejaculate.
So, I made her orgasm then pulled out and told her that I had work in the morning and I’d better stay focused… and it drove her crazy. She was doing the impossible trying to make me go and started behaving like that girl from Friends who bought Joey fruit baskets because he never came before her.
It was something she saw never before from a man plus she felt insecure about not being good enough in bed for me. The next day, she texted twice in the afternoon to see if I made an impression with the new client. Then she came over to celebrate with homemade Brazilian brigadeiro that she baked herself.
If you don't want to stay together, be cautious
Some women will hate you so much they’ll try to screw you over before breaking up with you. If she seems like the vindictive type, then make sure you covered your ass before telling her to see the door. Keep your important stuff – papers, files, IDs, etc. – in a safe place until you break up. You don’t know what she’s capable of.
When you know all the subtle and not-so-subtle signs she wants to break up, it's easier to prepare yourself. Whether you want to stay with her or you want to let her go is up to you. The bottom line here is to be mentally, emotionally and physically prepared for when your girlfriend decides to call it quits... or if you decide to do it before she does.
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