By Susan Dunn

It’s the saddest thing to listen to a man who has lost his heart’s darling. The hardest part is when they don’t know why, and I hear this more often than you would imagine.

The plaintive, “But I loved her,” is followed by, “I have no idea why she left.”

It’s bad enough to lose your love, without being stupefied on top of it all. Generally there are two explanations for this, both of which you can work on.

The first is denial, like the gentleman who told me he’d lost his wife and didn’t know why but when pressed said it “might” have been because he had an affair, but “it shouldn’t have mattered” because “she knew it didn’t mean anything.” The answer to this one is to quit fooling yourself. No one can pull the wool over your eyes except you. Rationalizing something you do that you know has about as much chance of hitting a home run as swinging at bad pitches, and then blaming the other person because you struck out is the victim stance. Get out of it and get responsible for what you do.

The second is from general cluelessness. If you often can’t figure out what’s going on around you, you may be in this category and it, too, has a remedy.

Staying in either place will insure you’ll love again and lose her again. Or worse, because you’re confused, you’ll be afraid to love again and will choose women who are inappropriate and unavailable and then complain that it never works out. You’ll stay safe, which is nice, but you’ll be miserable, which isn’t nice.

If you’d like to minimize that possibility, here are some tips.

DEVELOP YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

EQ is emotional fluency. It’s the opposite of cluelessness. It begins with being aware of your own feelings, and extends to include understanding the feelings of others – the world of feelings.

The worse this possibility sounds to you, the more you probably need it.

Many men start thinking about what’s in their heart because making it a mental thing feels better, but the end result is that you’ll end up confused. Women don’t like to be with a man who’s confused about them. They want it straight and true.

In order to relate to the woman you love, and to keep the relationship alive, you have to know about this “confusion.” If not, it will die, and you can claim you don’t know why, but is that what you want? Learn to know why.

DATE HER

The second solution is to date her.

“I did,” you’re saying, confused.

I mean date her continually. Continue to date her.

Most men are so good at dating, it must be innate. The trouble is, it’s aimed toward the initial conquest, or getting her in bed, and then they think it can be abandoned.

“Whew, glad that’s over,” you think. “Now I can get back to the ball game.”

Wrong! I think there’s an explanation that you’re a super-dater when the hormones are raging. If you interpret this as “feelings,” and they die down over time, which they always do, you may not “feel” like dating her any more, though you now live with her, or are married to her. The key is to not quit doing it.

Now let’s define dating. What is it you do so well when you’re dating? You pay attention to her. You call, you email, you send cards and flowers. You hang on her every word. You look deep into her eyes. You express your emotions verbally (“I love you.” “You’re beautiful.”). You hang around, in fact you can’t be away from her. You remember what she tells you, and you remember her birthday. You’re trustworthy and you’re there for her, listening endlessly and effortlessly as she talks about her emotions, her day, her dreams and plans, or your relationship. In fact it doesn’t matter what she talks about, you listen and you listen as if you care, because you do. It a means to an end that you want so you’re highly motivated.

If it worked so well, why don’t you continue doing it?

KEEPING IS HARDER THAN GETTING

If you want to not just get her, but keep her, you have to generate this sort of behavior not constantly, but enough. It means acting and showing your love, not just thinking about it, or worse, assuming it’s no longer necessary.

Don't be one of those guys who say, "Of course I love you. I married you didn't I?" unless you want to hear one sad day, "Of course I don't love you any more. That's why I'm leaving."

How do you do this when you don’t feel like it? The same way you do your job. It matters to you in the long-run, so you do it well even on a day when you don’t feel like it. It’s “taking care of business,” and you know how to do that.

So apply this same logic to keeping the woman you love and generate the behavior you know will win you what you want.

As someone said, “You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, she is beautiful because you love her.” The relationship between the two of you needs your care and attention too. You can make it beautiful and lasting as well. It’s never too late to start learning how to do that.

Good luck!

©Susan Dunn, MA, Personal Life & EQ Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc . Offering coaching, Internet courses and ebooks for your personal and professional development. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for free ezine. I train and certify EQ coaches. Email me for information on this fast, affordable, comprehensive, no-residency program.

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