I Can't Make You Love Me...Or Can I?
Dear Duana,
Daniel and I are the same in just about everything, with one exception: I love him and want to marry him, and Daniel hasn’t made up his mind. We’ve been friends for a decade, and eight years ago he suffered heartbreak when his then-girlfriend dumped him to marry someone else. Three years ago, when I asked Daniel if we could take the friendship to another level, he said he couldn’t love anyone but his ex, and he couldn’t say yes to us because it would be unfair to me since he didn’t love me. In the years since then, it’s been a roller-coaster ride—I moved out of the relationship twice, only to come back. He’s a wonderful man, but he lapses into silences that are long and painful to me. When we meet, we have a great time together, but then he goes quiet again. I call him and he doesn’t respond. He says he feels a lot of guilt because he knows he causes me pain. It’s been a few days now since he has responded to any of my calls or emails. How can I make this into a lasting relationship, make him see we are perfect for each other, and get Daniel to reciprocate my love?
Yvonne
Dear Yvonne,
Charlotte Bronte, acclaimed author of one of the most passionate love stories ever penned, did not marry the real-life man she passionately loved, who was the basis for that novel’s hero. He was already married, and apparently didn’t return Charlotte’s sentiments.
Instead, she married the man who passionately loved her: Arthur Nicholls, a man who secretly pined for Charlotte for eight years; a man who shocked her with a proposal before she was even aware of his interest; a man who pursued her in the face of threats from her father, job loss, and Miss Bronte’s own statements that she didn’t know if she could ever return his love. But Charlotte did marry him. She did come to truly love him.
And achieving all that only took Arthur about ten years.
The problem? You aren’t courting a woman, and unfortunately, you cannot court a man. Although literature and real life are redolent with stories of men who have won Fair Lady’s heart through sheer constancy and devotion, those techniques plain don’t work on men.
Men either love you or they don’t. It’s that easy, and that difficult.
To my knowledge, there’s no controlled study where scientists tally the results when women attempt to make men love them. But there’s abundant indirect evidence about men’s emotional lives:
—Men are more susceptible to falling in love at first sight than women are. Men typically fall fastest and first-est, and they say so. It doesn’t take them years, and it doesn’t take them longer than it takes women. Daniel’s repeated denial of feeling love for you, especially over such a long time, is best taken as a fact rather than a challenge to you to make more effort.
—Men who love need little and sometimes no encouragement to pursue their Chosen One; see Arthur Nicholls, above, and data on stalkers, the great majority of whom are male. If you are looking for ways to show a man enough devotion in order to win him, you’ve already lost him.
—Men’s experience of falling in love is intensely physical, and not necessarily based on logical matters such as whether you’re an ideal match. There’s truth to the saying that men fall in love with their eyes. As Helen Fisher found in brain scans, men literally get a bit high off the sight of youth and beauty, and specifically, at the sight of their beloved. And you can be beautiful, yet not Daniel’s type. Either he feels it, or he doesn’t.
—Dopamine is necessary to the falling-in-love process for men. The longer the object of Lust is sexually and otherwise elusive, the more his dopamine rises and the more s/he becomes the object of Love.
All of which hints at two ways a woman can win a man: by demonstrating her fertility (youth/beauty) and fidelity (being hard-to-get). And there’s a third: raising one’s status by evoking competition and thus jealousy. But even that won’t work unless the man is already inclined to fall for you. And courting a man is the opposite of being hard-to-get.
So, much as I’d like to say otherwise, it seems that Daniel’s not wavering or confused; he’s simply not in love with you. It’s not your fault, or his ex’s, or even Daniel’s. He may be choosing to live in the past and nurse his pain, or he may be recoiling from admitting he doesn’t feel chemistry with you. But he’s not making a choice whether to love you; that choice has been made by his biology. It’s not in his control, nevermind yours.
In sad conclusion, it feels to you as if your love is perfect, but perfect love doesn’t rest solely on similarity; it needs reciprocity. Daniel shares friendship with you, but not more. I don’t know whether he’s languishing in dreams of a hopeless relationship, but as long as you hang onto Daniel, you are. So please, for your sake, emulate Miss Bronte and how she finally dealt with her own lost cause:
Don’t call or write to Daniel anymore; don’t spend more time with him; don’t cajole, plead, or explain to him the logic of why you belong together. Do end the contact; do grieve. And then, move towards mutual love in your life. It will not be with Daniel. But if you close off contact with him and open your eyes to What Is, you may just find that Love is there.
Cheers,
Duana
Do you have a question for Duana? Email her at Duana@lovesciencemedia.com for a confidential, personal answer to your question; if it’s ever used on-site, your name will be changed and your letter edited to protect your privacy.
All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., and LoveScience Media, 2012.
Related LoveScience articles:
Love at first sight: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/love-at-first-sight-or-the-truth-about-lies.html
Men, dopamine, and love: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/when-men-wait-for-sex-dumb-like-a-fox.html
Hard-to-get: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/hard-to-get-mating-centrism-and-other-pitfalls-of-early-dati.html
Love’s dark side: jealousy as the #1 motivator for men murdering women: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/ignorance-or-ignore-ance-how-to-prevent-abuse.html
The author wishes to thank the scientists and sources linked throughout the article.
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Reader Comments (15)
If only I had seen this two years ago. In January I got out of a two year "relationship" with a man who could never reciprocate my love for him. Now, I am happily dating a guy who is head-over-heels for me. Its a much happier/ easier relationship because I don't have to force anything. Thank you for this wonderful article, so true! (:
JoAnna, I was about to provide a very similar comment -- you beat me to it! :) I can only add -- I was the one who cut off my non-relationship, and it felt like I was going to die. It sounds cliche, but I was sure I'd never find anyone so wonderful and perfect as him. I moped for months. But, I also didn't call, write, or talk to him, or even return his messages except for one very brief "Thanks for your concern. I'm fine. Sorry I'm quiet but it is what I need. Thanks for understanding." That's really important for the healing process.
Then, when I healed and was ready, I met the Best Man Ever (sorry ladies... he's now taken). He tells me he knew from the first time we locked eyes. :-) It turns out that what I thought was a perfect fit, wasn't... and I'm no spring chicken, so you think I'd know better. Perhaps there is no "perfect fit." But what was best, for me at least, was for him to know first and for-sure-est, and for me to be attracted at first, but to "know" a little more slowly. Now, all we have is love, love, love. :-) and understanding. and mutual respect. and desire and willingness to fulfill the needs of the other first. :-)
All the best to you, Yvonne. You have the strength within you to see the truth and act on it. As a very wise Friend once told me: "There's a name for girls who wait for fairy tales and miracles: Lonely." (love you, Dr. D!) Show yourself the respect you deserve and settle for nothing less than Real Love.
-- :-)
Dear Dr Duana -
I'm a guy, and based on my own in-depth observations of me . . . there's another factor worth considering in addition to youth/beauty and fidelity. In fact, since I'm in my 50s, I don't necessarily care about "chronological youth" as long as I sense "mental youth" or attitudinal youth. In other words, I am hot for a woman in her 50s who looks like she's in her early 40s and who dresses to show off her "fitness".
The other factor? The Man's Availability. A man's Availability is all in his own mind, I admit. It can be related to his financial state, or his life experiences (or lack thereof). A guy may think he needs to date and go to bed with a number of women before he suddenly decides that he'd like to be with one really good woman. On the other hand, a man who is having little luck dating women may be mentally Available to the first woman who shows real interest in him.
In my case, I loved someone for three years until it became clear that she could not be in my life. We broke it off. Surprisingly, I met another woman about two months after my breakup. She is awesome, but it has taken me a few months to feel truly Available to her. So, even though I was interested from the start, I feel like I've been slowly feeling increasing love for my new person. She's definitely worth it.
Just thought you'd find these additional observations interesting ;-)
Great topic! Since my early 20s, the older, more experienced women in my life have been telling me that when I marry, I must marry "a man who loves you (me) more than you (I) love him". In my youth, I thought it was silly and dated advice. But the more life experience I gained, the more I saw the truth in that simple yet complex idea.
These women weren't telling me to use men, or look at love as a commodity to buy, sell, and trade.... They were simply saying what was reiterated in this weeks article.... which is that when it comes to long-term partnerships, such as marriage, the most fruitful relationships tend to be ones where the man chased (and won over) the woman, not the other way around.
Dear JoAnna, Spice, and Christine, thank you so much for your own stories. Did you know that 100% of the "How Can I Make This Person Love Me" letters I've gotten are from women? Yes, yes they are.
And that's interesting in itself, don't you think? Maybe it's because of mating-centrism, my term for when we use our own mating psychology on the opposite sex, with often-calamitous results.
Explanation:
The single-biggest thing women are seeking in a long-term mate is provision and protection, and the single-biggest sign that a man will provide and protect is his level of commitment--his sheer love and devotion to that particular woman. Thus, men who pursue, especially in the face of dire odds against success, are very often rewarded for it, even when the woman did not initially love (or sometimes even like) him. Faithful lover often wins Fair Lady's hand.
The problem comes when women turn this around and apply it to men, assuming that because More Pursuit might win their own hearts, More Pursuit will win their chosen' man's devotion. It will not. More Pursuit will turn a man off, off, off. Men, seeking signs of status, value what is difficult to obtain, and pursuing a man is the very antithesis of hard-to-get.
Upshot? We can't force a man to love us, but we sure as heck can force him not to. And it's very often tempting to use the exact tactics to turn a man on that will instead turn him away.
So I am delighted to hear that all three of you have found your way out of biases/relationships that weren't to your happiness. And JoAnna and Spice, kudos on having fallen for the men who found and fell for you !
Christine, I loved your letter because you pointed towards a topic I'd like to treat in more detail in another column: Is it more important for the man not only to fall first, but hardest?
Yes.
I've often witnessed that men who must be dragged into a relationship must be dragged all the way through it. Women sometimes believe that 'he'll change once we're married', and they are right; he will be even less interested in the relationship than he was before.
If a man is letting the woman do the heavy lifting in courtship, she can look forward to doing the heavy lifting in the entire relationship. It's not to say that he's a bad man; for another woman--one he felt like working to have--he could be a splendid catch. But he's no catch for the woman who feels she must do the work of catching him.
So yes, Christine, marry a man who loves you more than you love him. That's a path towards a full partnership, one where you are treated with love and concern; one where love makes the time pass rather than time making the love pass. Science to come in another article!
Hi, Tom,
Thanks for your letter. I appreciate your insights and the addition of your masculine take to this discussion.
You're right, men don't solely base the youth part of 'youth and beauty' on chronology. Youth and beauty are about vigorous health/fertility signs; we've probably all known technically young people with few such signs. And conversely, there are women who maintain an appearance of youth past youth itself.
But most men do discriminate in part based on chronology. Many studies show that in online dating, men filter for particular ages without bothering to look to see if particular women might defy the stereotypes; by their fifties, most men want a woman at least 12 years younger than themselves, and many of those men screen accordingly online. The richer the guy, the more apt he is to do so, since he's more equipped to trade with what women want.
But with all generalizations, even those heavily data-driven, there are exceptions. To wit, only around .02% of Americans require mitral valve repair surgery, and even fewer in my own age range. Yet I've had that surgery. Just because something is unusual doesn't mean it's non-existent. There are guys who date older women, or women who are older than what the science usually finds men searching for.
The desire for at least the appearance of youth and beauty, though, seems to be pretty constant. More on that here: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/women-as-sex-objects-youth-beauty-and-beating-the-odds.html
And Tom, I do indeed find your own love story very interesting. Also, kudos on finding someone you love! I am happy for you both.
You point out something that has confused me a bit in the science. On the one hand, it's almost a truism now, per science, that men fall in love not just first and hardest (when they fall), but that men fall in love *longest*. That is, data show that the person who gives up on or ends a relationship first is usually the woman; that most divorces are filed by women; that women usually say they've moved on emotionally sooner than men say they have.
Yet it's the formerly-partnered men who often get involved in a new relationship, particularly a serious committed relationship, *sooner* than women. Following a divorce, men usually remarry in a year or so; ditto for men's behavior after the death of a beloved spouse. Women usually take longer, if they marry at all. The reasons for women's hesitation, and men's seeming rush by comparison, are complex and numerous.
But the fact that men say they love longer, yet get involved sooner after the ending of a love affair, has me wondering what's up, emotionally. Any ideas?
And then there's this question a woman we'll call Tabitha sent me privately:
"Your article implies that women can be won over and men can't. I've seen it too. I've seen something else as well. I think women can choose whether to love. Do you agree?"
Dear Tabitha,
Yes. For at least some women (many more women than men, I vouch), there is a choice of whether or not to love. Women can be downright logical and calculated about shutting their hearts, or at least moving on in spite of their feelings, whereas men seem to have far, far less choice in the matter.
My first encounter with that to me shocking possibility came years ago when a cousin casually informed me that she had decided against loving a particular man. "It's a choice, you know."
Really?!
Yes, I now think. Really.
Take the evidence of women ending most of the male-female relationships that break up. Take the evidence of women saying they are over it sooner than the guys are. And then take the evidence that women tend to open themselves to men who are good providers and protectors. It's pretty easy to find stories, whether in history or just your own town, of women who began to fall for a man, discovered he lacked resources, and then chose another man instead. Or of women who, upon finding that a man with resources would not share them, broke it off with him.
When women choose men, they are making a life/death decision...at least, from the standpoint of the inherited psychology we women share. The choice is between someone who can and will keep us and any offspring safe, and someone who cannot or will not do so. A man's ability to provide can be seen on a balance sheet, but his willingness is only conveyed indirectly~through devotion, commitment, ambition, love. It can take a woman quite some time to discern that willingness. A wrong guess could and still can be devastating to her, and to her children.
So here's what I think: Just as many women *can* be led to love a man they don't initially care for, many women can also make a choice about it. It's a choice to open one's heart, or to close it. And it's about survival.
"But the fact that men say they love longer, yet get involved sooner after the ending of a love affair, has me wondering what's up, emotionally. Any ideas?"
Oh Yeah. I have ideas ;-)
You may be already aware that I was in a fairly long-term, long-distance relationship recently. I loved her and she loved me, and we both knew it. But there came a point where she expected more of me - but at the same time offered less than I would have needed in order to stay in her life. I balked, and she then wrote a "Maybe I would be better without a man" letter. I took that as a sign that this relationship was going to end, and after a certain amount of mutual hedging, she did indeed end it. In other words, she responded to one of my cheery attempts to communicate with "Please stop contacting me."
At that point, I did stop. And my heart stopped wanting her, wanting what I knew I would not be able to have with her. BUT . . . this is the important part . . . I felt very CONFIDENT in myself then. I felt like "Okay - I felt love and I liked it. I liked doing love for someone else. I can do this again with another person, someone who is actually in my own town." I got on Match.com about one month after ending with S. I just figured I would meet some new, interesting people and enjoy going out with them. Go figure, I met someone who felt as excited about meeting me as I did about meeting her . . . within three weeks of joining Match.
I am not sure whether this new love is going to end with us being together long term. It's been six months plus. I have never had a one-night fling, anyway, and this is no exception. But I am finding that I am GROWING in my caring about her, because it has taken some time for my previous attachment to get out of the way. I still agree with you that men fall first, and fall harder, and stay in love longer than any woman I've ever known to do. And I am concerned that my new love's initial attraction to me can evaporate at any time, for reasons obscure and random. She has given me strong signs of interest so far . . . and she has also blown her cool (reacted negatively to things I've done, things I didn't see as big things). That makes me take each day as it comes. I'm not looking for anyone else. One person at a time in my life.
Tom, personal experience and heartache can be enough to keep emotions at bay until trust has been established, I agree, and am sorry not to have acknowledged the point in my initial response.
I am reminded of a man who told me he couldn't go near the mushy greeting cards section of stores for years after his marriage ended. He was able to enter another marriage, but not to relax into the safety of the second relationship for a long while. His experience was one of simultaneous yearning for love, recognizing he'd found it, and anxiety that stopped him from fully feeling it. The result was a gradual unfolding of love that was already there...or perhaps better-said, a love that was there but a trust that had to build.
I am happy for you that you are building trust with someone new.
"Lucky is the man who is the first love of a woman, but luckier is the woman who is the last love of a man."
I can hear the collective hand-wringing for Yvonne from all the women reading, about how true Dr. D's response is. And though I sometimes feel that I "caught" my love, the truth is that during our very long courtship, there were three pivotal moments where I "left" (including the final time where there was Competition) which align with Dr. D's past advice to other women (was it Ingrid?). Once my sweetheart finally let go of the ghost of his unattainable First Love, I became his Last Love (fingers crossed for a long life together!)
Don't give up your Youth & Beauty to someone who is not Head Over Heels.
Wise words, Jackie~ and well-done on your own behalf! Kudos!
As a P.S., I always look forward to a Guy's Perspective from Tom.
And I had a thought: We like to think that we are so complex and unpredictable. I thought my experiences were unique to me and my courting dyad. But, Dr. D., you comb the science. I am surprised at how often my "gut" response when reading a reader's question, aligns completely with the science. Your writing style just adds tremendously to the fun of reading it.
Thank you, Jackie, how very kind and humbling. When I first began poring over the science, I was simultaneously humiliated and vindicated; humiliated because my experiences weren't as unique as I had imagined; and vindicated, because that very lack of uniqueness meant I could Do Something about the future.
Thanks for reading and commenting.