If They Don’t Value Your Presence, Respond With Your Absence

When you fall for someone you believe is full of potential and are so sure could be something real, it is very easy to ignore the evidence that begins to suggest otherwise.

For example, maybe everything started out great but then one day their energy shifted. Their tone changed when they spoke to you and the way they looked at you wasn’t the same either. They stopped asking you questions and their replies to your texts became more sporadic and less engaged. They only seemed to be “available” when they would benefit in some way, or if you were the only option they had left.

Over time, this person you saw as the real thing began to look more like a bygone thing, a distant thing, an “I don’t know, maybe?” thing.

And yet, that damn rose-gold hope you felt at the beginning still feels too promising to look away from. You can’t let yourself lose sight of the fact that, at one point, they put in more than the bare minimum and went out of their way to let you know they were interested and present. That they saw you as something real, too.

You cannot understand what went wrong, and you begin to determine that maybe nothing is wrong and that you are overthinking it. You tell yourself that maybe you’re being clingy and asking for too much.

But here’s the tough, but liberating truth: People are not as complicated as we may wish that they were. In fact, people will always show how they feel about you, not just through their words but through their actions.

Pay attention to the signals you are receiving from someone else because this will tell you exactly what you need to know about them, the relationship, and their feelings towards you. And if someone is behaving as if they do not really care about you, take this as fact. If someone is treating you as though they could take or leave you, take this as fact. If someone is saying they are too busy to see you, take this as fact.

Someone who cares about you will act as though they care about you. If someone values your time and wants to invest in you and the relationship they share with you, they will act as though they value you and are investing in you and the relationship. Someone who wants to make time for you will make time for you.

And it hurts so much. I know. But when someone has repeatedly shown you that they do not value your presence, the best thing you can do is respond with your absence.

Be unavailable. Stop reaching out. Stop rushing to the phone when they call. Stop rearranging your schedule to accommodate theirs. Stop showing up. Stop making all the effort. Stop carrying the relationship on your back and watch it cease to exist altogether.

And while you fade away from their life and them yours, invest in yourself. Commit to your own growth and healing. Become so deeply in tune with self-love that you finally realize you weren’t being too demanding and wanting too much.

You were simply knocking on the wrong door.