Dating men who are grieving
It’s not uncommon for people, men or women, to derive their sense of well-being, self-worth, and self-esteem from how other people treat them.Unfortunately, it’s a false sense of well-being and is entirely dependent on the actions of others (thus the inevitable crippling neediness).So any interaction that a guy knows will bring him out of that sweet range of emotions is an interaction he’s going to do everything he can to avoid.
When we believe something that is out of alignment with reality, we suffer…
(Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a monster, I won’t completely cut a girl off, but I definitely won’t discuss anything along a relationship conversational thread.) This could be for a few reasons.
In the case where you dumped the guy, one common reason is that the guy doesn’t want to be alone, he doesn’t want to deal with his grief over the breakup, and he doesn’t want to “deal with himself.” When he jumps into another relationship, he can get a dose of external female validation and derive a feeling of false sense of self-esteem and self-worth from her positive attention.
I’ve heard things like: “When a guy’s relationship ends, he replaces her.
When a woman’s relationship ends, she mourns,” or, “He’s just hooking up with such-and-such to spite the ex-girlfriend,” or “Guys just don’t care” and other nonsense.
