The block button.
I've been dating this woman for a while. Recently, we disagreed and she blocked me everywhere. I couldn’t reach her on the phone or through social media. I looked for her through her friends, and she said she needed time to cool off. After about four days, she unblocked, and when I called, she wasn't talking much, just listening to me. I guess she was disappointed because I didn't keep a promise to accompany her to a function she was attending upcountry. I was given off-duty assignments at work at the last minute, and I explained this to her. But now she's cold about everything. What should I do? We were planning to wed next year.
There are two reasons why a woman will block you. It's either a protest or a power move. When it's a protest, she'll be trying to escalate a disagreement you already have. Perhaps she's been asking you to change something hurtful to her, and you haven't done so.
When it's a power move, usually it's an attempt to gain control over you and the relationship. She's testing boundaries to see how easy you are to manipulate.
You shall respond to her behaviour according to your diagnosis of the root.
How do you respond to a protest? First, do not get angry back at her. Simply examine your ways and the last few days or weeks. Was there a running issue? Did she mention something at least twice that she needed you to change? If you discover anything, amend your ways.
A lot of men miss out on a good woman because they take too long to change to keep her. You should always try to catch good people while they care. They love with all their hearts but they also leave with all their hearts. They don't know how to love halfway or shallowly. They're either fully in or fully out.
So if your girl has protested about your flirtatious ways with other females, your habit of forgetting to touch base with her for too long, your poor spending habits or gambling, your excessive enmeshment with your mother, your alcoholic tendencies or your rowdy group of friends, think twice.
Do not pester her or nag her. Instead, focus on changing that trait. Ask yourself whether you want to lose that relationship because of such a vice.
If you want to keep this relationship, go all out and reform. Take no more than a week. Human feelings are like a river in that if they're closed in for too long, they become stale.
When you have made the changes, you can find a way to pass a message to her that expresses your understanding that she pulled back to cope with the pain you were causing her by not working on that painful issue. But now you have worked on that issue with finality, and you're attaching evidence of those changes. Would she be so kind as to consider giving you a second chance? Leave it at that. Remember not to pester or nag. Give her space to digest.
What if the blocking is a power play? Simply refuse to participate in such a narcissistic play. If she is overreacting and being unreasonable - which I suspect is the matter in your case - take that as a warning that she's a wrong number.
If you reward that behaviour, it'll continue. You should take enough time to ascertain that there's no other reason.
You do that by holding your peace and waiting for her next move. Don't chase, don't beg, don't overreact. You're keeping your cool to allow room for error in case you missed something she communicated.
If she comes back and tries to act like everything is just fine, or she comes throwing blame at you that you didn't care enough to go looking for her, block her right back yourself.
This is why you must never engage in sex during dating so that you can maintain emotional and mental distance to pull these moves when the need arises. It's complicated to walk away from a woman you're intimate with.
If you give in and reward her control tactic, this will become the norm. She will be throwing those kinds of tantrums to arm-twist you and have her way.
Does it mean the relationship is over? Not necessarily. Sometimes, you just need to set a precedent and demonstrate that you won't put up with nonsense. If she learns and expressly changes to healthier forms of communication, all is well.
But if she attempts to reverse blame or deny responsibility, that's another way of saying that she won't change.
Lastly, some people can play the block-unblock game because they're emotionally unstable. They may simply be incapable of handling difficult feelings. You can tell that this is the case because they tend to block everyone.
This is a red flag by itself. Marriage and love are very heavy responsibilities, and they cannot be handled by a person who can't manage their own feelings. You should save yourself the headache of having to babysit this person's outbursts and emotional fluctuations for good.
This is not the kind of flaw that you can educate a person out of. Emotional maturity is a deep issue that takes a lot of personal growth to develop. If someone hasn't taken the trouble to grow themselves in that regard, dating them is signing up for endless war.
