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I keep waiting for him to call but he’s too busy. How do I make him call?

Question:

Dear Bryan,

I’ve been involved with a guy named Dave Or "Davie" as I call him for about 3 or 4 months. I love him with all my heart but recently I feel as our relationship has gone WAAAAAAYYYY downhill.

See, Davie has a problem with getting really busy with work and sports. He plays for a few houseleague teams in our town and works in a busy highrise office. I realize that he’s busy and I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to ruin his fun or be too contolling, but I really feel like he’s avoiding me even though he says he’s just busy when I ask. It bothers me a lot that he doesn’t make time even to call me and sometimes we don’t speak for weeks on end.

Bryan I need help... I dont know if Davie’s just avoiding me or not but I know for a fact that he didn’t have any work or sports committments yesterday but he hasn’t called me at all and its been weeks since we last spoke. I just really want to see him. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.

Answer:

It sounds like you’re looking for a magic formula that will change Davie into the kind of a person you want him to be. Let me set your mind at ease: Such a formula does not exist. But Davie’s refusal to be the kind of person you want him to be isn’t your real problem.

So what is the real problem? Quite simply, you’re not happy. You’re not getting what you need, want and desire in a relationship. You blame Davie but it really has nothing to do with him because you’re the one who chooses to go to Davie to have those needs, wants and desires satisfied rather than to someone else.

If you can realize, understand and accept this, your problems with Davie are solved. If you can’t, you’ll continue to get scraps of attention from Davie and be frustrated, angry and upset. But it won’t be Davie you’ll be frustrated, angry and upset with. It will be with yourself because you choose to put up with his behavior rather than reclaiming your self respect and finding another boyfriend.

A large part of your success in relationships hinges on your ability to see this concept and make it a part of your life.

Based on his behavior, Davie is incapable of giving you what you want in a relationship.

Let me explain: With your old belief system you feel you’re being victimized by Davie because you believe he’s in control. You’re saying, in effect, "Davie is doing this to me." So you have to wait until he changes. Based on his behavior, that’s going to take a long time. With this new belief system I just gave you, you accept responsibility for yourself and the situation by saying, "I am allowing him to treat me this way. And, because I am allowing him to treat me this way, I can stop this treatment any time I want."

A large part of your frustration is you feel you have no control over the situation. With your old belief system, you’re right, you don’t have control. But when you accept responsibility for yourself and the situation it puts you in complete control.

Another part of the problem is you don’t want to accept Davie for who he really is: A guy who, for whatever reason, chooses to spend his time outside of work and taking part in activities that you don’t share than to spend his time with you. When you ask him about it, he says he’s busy, effectively stringing you along for the most part and keeping you distanced from his life activities without regular contact.

Based on his behavior, Davie is incapable of giving you what you want in a relationship. You can bang you head against the wall and disagree with me all you want but the fact is you won’t get what you want from Davie. Deep down you already know this but you don’t want to accept it.

When one of my students in involved in an unhappy relationship, I teach them to ask themselves these five questions:

1. What do I want from this relationship?
2. Can this person I’m interested in give it to me?
3. Will he give it to me?
4. How much of it can he give me?
5. What do I have to go through to get it?

The first question will help you identify exactly what you’re looking for. Until you identify what you want you can’t know whether or not you’re getting it.

If your answer to this question is, "I don’t know, I just want to be happy" then you’re not going to be very successful in your relationships. Not only that, but you’re setting yourself up to be abused because people who don’t know what they want will put up with anything, which lays the foundations for being abused.

Why? Because when you don’t know what you want you also don’t know what you don’t want. Since you draw no boundaries you’ll put up with anything. Because you’ll figure, incorrectly, that any attention is better than no attention.

The next four questions (above) will save you a lot of time, frustration and anger if you answer them honestly and accept the answers as you find them.

Those last four questions pretty much tell the complete story of Davie and his interest in you. For what ever reason, he doesn’t want to give you what you want in a relationship. He can’t, won’t or doesn’t want to. No matter how you fill in the blanks, you’re not getting what you want and there’s no end in view of his behavior. The result is you’re unhappy and frustrated.

How much you love Davie and how much you want him to change doesn’t matter because he doesn’t care as much about this relationship as you do. What you want and what Davie is capable of giving you are two different things. You can fight it and be miserable or accept it, move on and be a happier person.

What did you do wrong so you can prevent it from happening in the future? In terms of your interaction with Davie, nothing. You were loving, caring, supportive and tried to help. Your mistake was in not seeing (for whatever reason) Davie can’t give you what you want.

If you can see that you’ll be able to see your frustration is not with Davie. Rather, it’s with your refusal to accept Davie for who and what he is.

You have normal needs, wants and desires for a loving, healthy, positive relationship with a guy. The problem is the guy you’ve chosen to try to get those qualities from, Davie, is not willing to give them to you.

What can you do to change Davie? As difficult as this is for you to swallow, there is nothing you can do to change Davie. The only person you have control over is yourself.

My question for you is: "Why would you chase after a guy who won’t give you what you need and deserve in a relationship?" You need to put some serious thought into this because, unless you do your homework on it, you’re going to go through this pain again with another guy who is similar to Davie.

Please answer this question wisely. Your future relationship happiness with Davie or with any other man is at stake.

Good luck and God Bless.