5 Behaviors Of Men Who Regularly Lose Good Relationships, According To Psychology
Over time, these behaviors quietly push even the best partners away.
Alexey Demidov | Pexels Whether you are the friend trying to help another friend discover where she stands in her relationship or you're searching for answers in your relationship, knowing what he has going on in his head and heart is a challenge.
Sometimes the only way to figure out whether a man loves you back, or couldn't care less, is with a little help from an outside perspective. Men who seem to lose relationships tend to reinforce keeping people away by letting them know they aren't interested through their behaviors.
Here are 5 behaviors of men who regularly lose good relationships, according to psychology:
1. They make excuses not to see you
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A guy who is in love actively wants to spend time with you. He will move heaven and earth to spend time with you.
Now, I am not saying that your guy doesn’t love you if he goes to a baseball game with the guys or has dinner with his mother. But, if every time you are supposed to see each other, your guy regularly has to work late or has problems with his car or suddenly gets struck down by a gastrointestinal illness, there is a strong possibility he is making up excuses not to see you.
If he is making excuses to not see you, he isn’t in love with you. Because if he were, he would be sitting right there by your side, and you wouldn't be reading this article.
2. They go ghost mode on you
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- Does he disappear?
- Do you text him and not hear back for hours, or even days, and when you do, there is talk about a broken phone or a dead battery?
- Are you supposed to meet him for dinner, but at the last minute he tells you he can’t make it, and then you don’t hear from him for a day?
- Does he tell you that he isn’t feeling well enough to hang out with you, and then spends the night posting on Facebook or Instagram while not reading or responding to any of your messages?
If a guy ghosts you in any way, he doesn’t love you. A man who loves a woman treats her with respect, and that respect means that he responds to her clearly and honestly. He is clear about his actions and his intentions, and he shares them with her. So, if your guy disappears regularly and offers excuses that fall flat, he most definitely isn’t in love with you.
3. They prioritize their hobbies over you
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If your man has a hobby, that's great! Everyone should have a hobby that makes them happy. But if he regularly puts his hobby ahead of you on his playlist, he doesn’t love you.
It's time to find a man who has (or is willing to take up) a hobby he wants to share with the woman he loves. A 2021 study of time spent together and relationship functioning showed, "couples who spend a larger proportion of their time together talking reported greater satisfaction, perceived more positive qualities in their relationships, and experienced greater closeness."
4. They aren't nice to you
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- Do you come downstairs after carefully dressing for dinner, only to hear a snide remark from your boyfriend about your make-up?
- Does he think it's funny to comment about your horrible cooking in front of your friends?
- Does he mock new ideas you might have about your career?
If a man does any of these things, he doesn’t love you. A man who is in love with a woman treats her with the utmost respect and would never dream of being unkind to her. He knows love is connected to wisdom as explained in a 2019 study, which says that "relationships influence the development of wisdom, especially long-term intimate relationships in which couples share many important life experiences, and that wisdom, in turn, influences relationships."
Of course, some men are clueless and will say something innocent about your dress or your professional ideas without meaning to, but if he is regularly unkind to you because he thinks it's "funny," he doesn’t love you.
5. They don’t want to give up anything for you
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- Does he refuse when you ask him if he can watch the kids one night so you can go out and have some much-needed fun with your girlfriends?
- Does he insist money could be better spent elsewhere, even though you specifically saved up for a new dishwasher that would make your life just one tiny bit easier?
- Does he always insist he's too busy when you say you want to spend some quality time with him?
Men who love their woman want to give them what they want because they know when she feels taken care of, she also feels loved. If a man is always selfish and doesn’t care about what you want or why, it's because he doesn’t love you.
Research from the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that "when people achieve psychological need fulfillment from sources other than their romantic partner, they view their relationship less positively, perceive greater quality of alternatives to their romantic relationship, and think more about ending the relationship."
If you're still feeling uncertain, consider this: if your best friend was telling you about a man who fits the criteria above, what would you say to her?
And what would you hope your friend would say to you if the positions were reversed?
Read this list. Keep it. Memorize it. Use it now as motivation to get rid of a guy who doesn't love you, and save it for later use by yourself or a friend. Hopefully, you won’t need it again, but keep it close in case you do.
The man who will truly love you is out there. Don’t settle for someone who pretends. Move on now!
Mitzi Bockmann is a NYC-based Certified Life Coach who works with individuals who strive to heal their toxic relationships so they can have their happily ever after. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, Psych Central, among many others.
