1. He is unclear about his feelings
You never know where you stand with him, he never brings up exclusivity or reveals his feelings toward you. He has never introduced you as his girlfriend to anybody.
He hides his emotions. He acts casual and his behavior shows that he likes you but nothing more. You even feel at times like he is incapable of emotions.
If this happens at the beginning of a relationship, it’s nothing out of the ordinary.
He can’t know he loves you or where you stand after a short period of time.
But if you have been together for a long while now and he is still unclear about his feelings, he is just using you as a backup plan.
2. He avoids talking about the future
He never makes any long-term plans. Talking about something you will do next month, let alone next year, is mission impossible when it comes to him.
All the future plans he talks about never include the word ‘we’; he only talks about his life.
And if you ask him directly about some future plans, he will change the topic and continue talking about something else.
The painful truth is he doesn’t see his future with you, that’s why he is avoiding talking about it.
3. He changes behavior when he is with you and when he is isn’t
You could almost say that he is somebody else entirely when you text him and when you are staring at each other’s faces.
When he is with you, his behavior is spot on but as soon as he leaves your sight it’s a totally different story.
His texts are rare, and in them he seems uninterested and distant most of the time.
You are usually the one who texts first and it always takes him a long time to respond.
He hardly ever calls. In a nutshell, he wants you around but he is still not fully committed and he is keeping you as an option.
4. You have never met any of the important people in his life
You have never met his closest friends or hung out with his other friends. You are unsure if his family even knows you exist.
He doesn’t talk about them a lot, he keeps that part of his life to himself.
All these are signs that he is not making any room for you in his life. A man who knows what he wants and where he is headed with you would introduce you, after a certain length of time in the relationship, to the people who are most important in his life.
If he is not doing that, he is keeping you on the back burner.
5. You are afraid he might walk away at any point
You walk on eggshells around him. You are scared that if you make one wrong move he will be gone.
Maybe there is something in his behavior that leads you to think that way.
Maybe he is acting like you should be happy to be with him at all. You have the constant urge to prove your worth to him and to impress him in any way.
Maybe he even blackmails you that he is going to leave if you don’t do everything his way.
The truth is, when you are in a healthy and committed relationship, both partners are equals. There is no need to impress or bow down to anybody.
If he is manipulating you with threats of losing him, he is not only treating you like an option, he is using your love against you. He is most definitely not the one you should be with.
6. The only person he accommodates is himself
He skips out on your plans if he has something better going on. He discards your plans but gets mad if you don’t go along with his.
He does everything that is convenient for him and that makes him happy without considering your needs.
He won’t mind you bending over backward to please him but he would never do the same for you. He is selfish and his own priority.
So if he is not making any steps to accommodate you or make you happy, he is just stringing you along.
7. He is always ‘busy’
He never has enough time for you but you can clearly see that he finds time for everything else that interests him.
He is using ‘busy’ as an excuse to bail on your plans most of the time or to justify not getting together with you for a while.
The truth is, the one who cares will make time for you even if he has none.
He would like nothing more than to spend time with you and he will take all the steps in that direction.
If he barely spends any time with you and uses ‘busy’ as an excuse, he is not busy, he is simply lacking interest and making you his second choice till someone else comes along.
8. He never opens up about anything
All your conversations are superficial and he never says anything that is really important.
You could even say that all of your get togethers could resemble two strangers having small talk at the bus station.
It’s not uncommon for a man to keep his guard up early on in the relationship.
But if after he really got to know you and spent a lot of time with you, he still has no need to open up about his emotions, troubles, or his life, he is holding himself back from wholeheartedly entering into the relationship and he is holding you at arm’s length.
9. He is too concentrated on his phone when you are together
Most of us these days are slightly addicted to our phone and until it crosses the border of normal behavior, it’s considered usual.
But if your boyfriend spends most of his alone time with you staring at his phone and not paying attention to you, it’s a bad sign.
Not only is he rude and he lacks common courtesy but his behavior indicates that he is disrespectful toward you and doesn’t consider you as someone who should have his full attention.
Talk to him and see if things can change and if not, don’t settle for being second choice while his phone, social media and whoever he is texting comes first. Things shouldn’t go that way.
10. He lacks effort
He lets you make all the plans and he never even suggests something you could do together.
You are usually the one who asks first when you are going to get together.
You usually call or text first. You reschedule your time to fit his needs and he never does the same. And the list goes on.
The bottom line is you are the one giving your everything while he doesn’t give anything back, and it shouldn’t be like that.
A man who cares and considers you a priority will show up, make plans and give back everything he receives and maybe even more.
If there is no reciprocity, you are in a one-sided relationship and you are being treated like an option.
11. He is more interested in lovemaking than in loving you
He is all sweet and nice when he wants to take off your clothes but as soon that’s done, he is cold and distant.
He doesn’t want to know anything about you or really hear anything you have to say, the only thing he cares about is the sexual aspects of your relationship.
And though sex is an important part of a relationship, not everything can be based on it.
If a relationship lacks love, emotional involvement and support, he is just using you to relieve his needs.
That’s not the kind of guy who stays or the kind of guy you really need. He is just using you as his backup plan.
