Fellow women often have this question: “He’s not as nice to me as before/when he was pursuing me/during the passionate period. Does that mean he doesn’t love me anymore?”
Your best friend might tell you: “My man is the same way. I can’t do anything about it.”
A wild emotions expert might tell you: “Men are all like this, they don’t cherish what they have.”
A slightly more advanced emotions expert might tell you: “He doesn’t stop loving you, he’s just showing it in a different way.”
There are only two choices in front of you, either to break up or to continue to persist.
But no matter how you choose, it seems painful. You still can’t be sure if he loves you, you still don’t know how to change this situation, and it’s likely that you’ll experience this stage in every relationship.
Today, I want to tell you that if you feel he’s not as nice to you as before/when he was pursuing you/during the passionate period, it has nothing to do with love. This only means that your real romantic relationship has finally begun.
Both men and women are prone to a misconception, thinking that the passionate and intense state is love, only to find the bare and boring truth after the passion fades.
Especially for women, it’s easy to feel lost at this time. You will miss his endless affection when he was pursuing you, and you will often compare how caring he was when you just got together. You wish everything could freeze in those moments, but reality hits you, and you can’t go back.
The fiery pursuit and the sweet period of love are just the prelude to truly building a relationship, but the lost you mistakenly think this is the true face of a romantic relationship, naturally leading to discomfort and doubt.
You must understand that although the sweetness and romance you experienced are not fake, you and your partner at that time were not genuine.
It can be said that everyone in the early stages of a relationship is not their true selves, not making genuine contact with each other.
When hormones are raging, all the enthusiasm and care will be excessively consumed. The caring him and the gentle you at that time were both produced in a romantic context, a kind of “false self” state, or just a part of yourself.
Everyone knows that the most important thing during the pursuit and early stages of a relationship is to solidify the relationship. To accomplish this crucial task, more effort will inevitably be put in, and a more perfect performance will be inevitable.
So, even if neither of you intentionally played a “false self” to confuse each other, the subconscious has already triggered that part, and it will naturally be brought into play.
It’s like when you first start working at a company, the most hardworking time is always the probation period. Once you sign a formal contract, just like seasoned employees who reduce their efforts and may even start slacking off.
This cannot be considered a flaw in human nature, it’s just that everyone has a bit of cunning. We understand that living in pretense every day will eventually lead to the inevitable resignation and finding a job that doesn’t require so much effort.
When the passionate period is over, the false self exits the stage. He’s not as meticulous with you anymore, and you’re not as understanding anymore. Your true selves or a more comprehensive self start to emerge, and this is when the real love begins, as I mentioned. After all, it’s very difficult to build a genuine emotional connection when both are “performing.”
At this point, the first issue you need to deal with is how to adapt to this state of love that is genuine but not perfect enough.
Don’t think that only women will feel disappointed at this time. Men will also have such doubts: “She doesn’t seem as lovely as before, she doesn’t seem as understanding as before, she seems to have become more nitpicking.”
Neither of you has done anything wrong, it’s just that when the true self suddenly appears in front of each other, the interaction between the two “true selves” becomes less pleasant.
After all, your understanding of each other still remains at the “false self” stage, still measuring each other based on past behaviors. If you could understand earlier that the passionate period will cool down, maybe you could be more tolerant of each other.
However, some people will be unable to accept the gradually cooling relationship and will think, “If he’s not as nice to me as before, then I don’t want to continue this relationship.”
This feeling is understandable, but this idea is very absurd because it’s completely a wish of a big baby.
Only in our infancy, when we don’t yet have complete independent behavior, is it possible for us to receive meticulous care and attention. As we grow, still hoping for someone to give up their life to treat you the way you want every day, this regressive expectation itself is very childish and proves that your view of marriage and relationships is not mature.
The mutual care and attention between partners have a prerequisite: you must first take care of yourself, be good to yourself, in order to have a healthy romantic relationship.
For those who continue to hope that their partner will continue to dote on them as in the passionate period, what you’re looking for may not be a boyfriend or husband, but rather reverting to the infant stage and seeking maternal protection.
Although many so-called emotions experts will teach you how to control a man, how to make a man treat you as he did during the passionate period, they won’t tell you the results and costs of doing so.
If a man can treat you as passionately as during the passionate period for decades, can you accept what he has given up for this?
A person’s energy, thoughts, and time are all limited, but the tasks and growth in life are almost infinite. Throwing almost everything into one aspect will inevitably weaken the gains in other aspects.
I have not encountered a man who can find ways to please his wife every day and also thrive in his career. If there really is such a versatile man, then it’s a miracle to meet him, but not meeting him is just life!
He has his career to focus on, friends to socialize with, parents to take care of, and needs to cultivate hobbies and spiritual world to nourish himself. Expecting him to spend almost all his time, energy, and thoughts on you as he did during the pursuit and early stages of love will only leave other aspects barren. Do you want a man who might regress in other areas? Is it beneficial for you to become a big baby and receive someone’s kindness?
In modern society, women actually have just as much to do as men. You also have your own life priorities to balance. Constantly thinking about why he’s not as nice to you as before is encroaching on your time and opportunities to pursue progress in your career and life. If you allocate time to yourself, the trouble this brings to you will inevitably decrease.
If you really hope to change the situation, be careful not to keep asking endlessly. What you need to do is to balance your own needs.
The passionate period will leave women with “sequelae,” always taking his previous niceness as the standard, which raises your level of demands.
It may stimulate your needs for situations where you originally didn’t need him to take care of you or do something for you. This temporary state should not become the norm. You need to distinguish which needs are “exaggerated” and unnecessary, so that you won’t become insatiable and will be more likely to objectively look at his efforts for you.
If you really have something to communicate or express, don’t adopt an attitude of accusation and complaint. Using the “true self” to communicate doesn’t mean displaying negative emotions without reservation, because not only will it not solve the problem, it will also hinder the other person from opening up.
I have also experienced that hesitant stage, always watching how the other person treats me after the passion fades. That feeling made the other person uncomfortable and made me uneasy.
But after seeing the true face of love, I can better accept a relationship that is plain and not too passionate, because I understand that true kindness to me is not about fulfilling my false high demands everywhere, but about both people first taking care of themselves, managing their lives well, and then genuinely loving each other.