It seemed that you hooked up but then he disappeared two weeks. The third time he called you to meet. And it went very well. Then nothing. Days later a loose WhatsApp with an excuse. Again he calls you, he needs to see you. This “neither we are nor we are not”, the crumbs of love, is called breadcrumbing, and it’s really bad. Here is a survival guide.
Why are we still there?
The magic of the crumbs, when the character in question does it “well”, is that they hook and a lot.
The psychological process behind it leads us to value above the negative aspects the fact that he spends time with us, that we feel special and that compensates for the bad.
We feel so good when we finally “we did it” (Now I explain this, because in reality it is not that we achieve it) that tastes like victory to us, and therefore we justify the moments in which this does not happen, to protect ourselves from harm. “No, it’s just that he’s busy this week”… Do you really think that no matter how busy someone is, they don’t have time for a call or a message? Reflect.
I put “when we finally got their attention” in quotation marks because that is the feeling we have, but the reality is that we have not achieved anything: his attention does not come because of something we have done, but because “it is good for him now” for whatever reason. And this makes us dust.
People need to establish a relationship between our behavior and the consequences that derive from it in order to make predictions and function in the world. For example: if I am affectionate with you, I hope you find it pleasant and you are pleasant with me. This suits us and is what we are looking for.
The problem with this type of relationship is that they destroy that association, they keep us on edge, analyzing our behavior to the millimeter to see what we have done to make him call us again, and what we have done wrong so that he has not called us for two weeks.
When the behavior-consequence relationship breaks, we go crazy, we begin to try new behaviors, to change to see if we hit the key of what makes it “come back to us”. We hyper-observe our behaviorwe make text comments with your messages and we analyze every detail to exhaustion in search of a clue that tells us what happened this time so that you have called.
This is exhausting and useless in equal parts because, I repeat: there is nothing that you have done that has pushed him away these days, nor anything that has made him come back, he does what he does because he feels like it and because he has his reasons. So he puts your head and your little heart to rest because you’re making a superhuman effort… for nothing.
survival guide
The main advice, and with which no more would be needed, is that you put an end to this story, or at least that ask for what you want. Let him keep his crumbs because what you want is a complete menu, with dessert and everything.
No, it’s not easy, because the most frequent thing is that in your mental playlist there are songs like “I’m sure he’ll change for me in the end” or “It’s just that he has a problem because of his past relationships, but with me and my help, he’ll surely believe in himself again.” love”. Look, no, let’s change couplet.
One of the reasons why we endure this type of relationship (without being a relationship, moreover) is precisely because of these ideas, because of the belief that that person will change in the end and will become the couple we imagined.
The problem with this is that effectively, it is our imagination that is filling in the gaps. We are basing the story on the projection we make of our expectations and needs rather than on the actual facts and behaviors of this person.
stop crumbs
Sometimes it is not easy to realize that we are fully involved in a relationship (or not a relationship) of this type, but there are signs that can help you to see it:
Because we deserve something else, let’s take control.
- Don’t take responsibility for the change: “It’s just that he had bad experiences with other relationships…” Yeah, okay, it’s happened to all of us, but it’s something you have to manage on your own, if you want to. Because, be careful here, sometimes it’s not that they have emotional wounds, it’s that they have a face like The Rock’s little arm.
- Focus on what he does and not what he says to you: human beings have a very beautiful thing and that is that we can say wonders but then be completely heartless. Words, although they sound like a cliché, are carried away by the wind: what is consistent, what really has to matter to you, are the facts, the behaviors. If he tells you that he’s going to call you but he doesn’t, he stops buying his excuses and you stop making them: he hasn’t come today either, and that’s what he counts.
- Make plans and don’t change them when it shows up. As they call when they feel like it, they usually catch us with plans made, plans that we often abandon because “as you called…”. Well, that’s fine: you have your plans, and if he can’t another day, he has no interest in meeting, period. Your self-esteem needs you to remember that you are the most important thing, and that includes the plans you have already made and not being at the mercy of what the friend here wants.
- Make a list of the things you want from a relationship, of a couple, the essential minimum. Beam another with what you don’t want. When this person contacts you, when they disappear for weeks, when they stand you up… go to those lists and write them down. There is nothing like having things on paper to realize the disaster.
- There are no parts, it is a whole: We tend to parcel out and divide people into their parts that we like and those that we don’t. He’s a great guy, we laugh, the sex is good… He doesn’t show any signs of life for days, but otherwise… Don’t do that, it’s not “by the way”, all of that, including the fact that he calls you whenever he feels like it, is HIM, there are no parts because it’s not removable. If it’s jealous, it IS jealous, it’s not a compartment, so don’t isolate parts and look at the whole, at the whole person.
Relationships are not always easy, sometimes they have complicated beginnings, but we should not think that “anything goes”: we deserve attention, that they love us and that they want to be with us and above all, we deserve respect. Tell him to throw the crumbs to the pigeons in the park, you don’t need them anymore.
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