He Says He’s Not Ready For A Relationship Right Now

When a guy says he’s not ready for a relationship right now, you need to ignore the last part of his statement – the “right now” part because “right now” is just a euphemism for “I’m not into you.”

It means that the guy is preoccupied with something or someone else and that he doesn’t appreciate your love and effort.

He may or may not be dealing with the end of his previous relationship or something that’s weighing him down, but you mustn’t take the “right now” literally. If you do, you’ll think that you’re the right person for him but that he can’t be with you because the timing is wrong.

That will, in turn, give you false hope and torment you longer than it needs to. It will convince you that the guy wants to be with you and loves you but that he can’t commit to you because he’s dealing with something that requires his full attention.

The best thing you can do about a guy who says he’s not ready for a relationship is to accept the breakup and understand that he doesn’t feel the same way about you.

Something’s preventing him from matching your emotional investment and giving you what you expect from him.

So whatever you do, don’t hope that the guy will come back to you when the time is right. Although he might return if the problem is not related to the relationship, it’s also possible that he might be using this line as an excuse to assuage his guilty conscience.

All in all, there are only three explanations for a guy who uses the “I’m not ready for a relationship right now” excuse:

• The guy can’t connect with you because he’s still processing the end of his previous relationship and needs more time to fix his issues and move on from the past (you could be his rebound).
• He doesn’t want to stay with you because he associated stressors with you and thought that you make his problems worse.
• Or he used this excuse to lie to you and get you off his back. He doesn’t like you.

In this post, we’ll expand on these three reasons and share some tips on how to tell whether your ex or the guy you’re interested in is being honest with you, refusing to tell you the truth, or lying to you.

He says he’s not ready for a relationship right now (not over his ex)

A man’s “I’m not ready for a relationship right now” is equivalent to a woman’s “I’m not emotionally ready for a relationship.” It means that the guy has rushed into a relationship with you and rebounded because he was still dealing with the consequences of the breakup.

He was still getting over his emotional problems and therefore, needed more time to grieve or overcome the issues that were making him emotionally unavailable. But because he was impatient and unsatisfied with the past and the issues that came with it, he thought that the best way to deal with his issues was to get involved with someone new.

With someone who would distract him and make him feel good.

That person was you—and it worked. He felt better and probably seemed to be extremely into you. Everything was perfect. It was only months later that he realized he’d been acting on his desperate need for love without addressing his issues from the past.

The reason why it took this person months to realize he’s not ready for a relationship is that he was relying on his fascination for you to distract himself. He felt empowered by your presence and recognition and really wanted to be with you.

But when he got to know you better (when the relationship got through the love stage), that changed very quickly. The love hormones subsided and so did his excitement to be with you.

That’s when his emotional issues came back to haunt him and told him that he can’t outrun the problems without taking the time to address them. He needed to resolve them, but because he didn’t or couldn’t, his doubts about the relationship increased and his love and commitment decreased.

His feelings for you essentially got worse and kept getting worse until they got so bad that his stressors, doubts, and issues from the past overshadowed the good feelings from being with you and convinced him that he’s not ready for a serious commitment.

If this is what’s going on with your ex, you need to know that your ex isn’t emotionally ready for a relationship. He’s still processing the past and figuring out what he can do to feel better.

It’s possible that he wants to give you everything you want and more. It’s just that he can’t do that right now because he’s got unresolved problems that are weighing him down and making it hard for him to invest in you.

Some of the more common causes of emotional unavailability are:

1. divorce
2. recent breakup (feelings for an ex)
3. trust issues
4. fear of commitment/getting hurt
5. drug addiction
6. mental disorders (depression, dementia, bipolar, borderline, etc.)

You can tell a guy is emotionally unavailable when he struggles to stay connected with you, appears low on energy, avoids serious conversations, expresses anger or disapproval of his previous relationship, or fears committing to you.

An emotionally unavailable guy needs to work on his emotional health/understanding before he can give himself up to you and desire you. Remember that so you don’t expect him to open up to you when he’s emotionally incapable of doing so.

Here’s what it means when a man is emotionally unavailable.

He says he’s not ready for a relationship right now because he’s got a lot going on

When a guy says he’s not ready for a relationship because he’s got a lot going on in his life, this is obviously just an excuse. It means that he’s got a lot of external stressors, interests, or temptations and that he’s ill-equipped to deal with them.

He’d rather not work on them at all because he’s emotionally exhausted and would like to quit. Quitting the relationship would solve most of his issues instantaneously. It’d relieve him of his duties whereas being with you would make him unhappy and delay his unhappiness.

You need to understand that a guy who’s playing the stress card isn’t telling you the full story. He’s hiding his real reasons for leaving because he’s afraid of telling you the truth.

His real reasons for abandoning a relationship are:

• a lack of emotional strength and commitment
• poor problem-solving and stress-managing skills
• unhealthy thinking/behavioral patterns
• negative perceptions of you
• GIGS and various temptations

The stressors this guy is dealing with are just excuses he uses to take your attention off of him. He knows that if he blames something else that you’ll give up on him without causing a scene.

So if your ex or the person you dated/wanted to date told you that he’s not ready for a relationship because he’s dealing with a lot of things at the same time, bear in mind that he associated stressors with you or just made up an excuse.

Either way, he doesn’t have the will to fight and overcome his emotional barrier and is probably better off on his own. At least until he’s learned to embrace his romantic partners rather than push them away when things get serious or difficult.

You can tell a guy who states he’s not ready for a relationship is not telling you the truth when he:

• talks badly about you
• blames you for the way he feels
• appears upset, angry, or vengeful
• looks relieved when he’s not around you
• starts dating someone else

A person who’s got a lot on his plate will appear sad, depressed, and at the same time, friendly with you. He won’t be on cloud nine, hang out with friends all the time, and argue with you when you reach out. That’s not what it means to not be ready for a relationship. It means that the guy isn’t ready to be in a relationship with you—and only you.

It’s one of the typical breakup excuses guys make when they get tired or bored of the person they’re with. So keep in mind that guys use this excuse as a means of rejecting a person. They don’t even realize or care that they give the person they’re rejecting false hope.

He lies to you and says that he’s not ready for a relationship right now (lies to you)

When a guy lies to you and says he’s not ready for a relationship right now, it means that the guy just wants to get out of the relationship as quickly as possible. He doesn’t care about his morals and helping you understand what went wrong.

He just wants to reject you and be done with you so he can emotionally and physically distance himself from you and eventually date someone new.

The difference between a guy who makes excuses and a guy who lies to you so you can leave him alone isn’t very significant. But the former is often based on cowardice and ignorance (a lack of self-understanding) and the latter on shameless deceit.

If you can’t figure out if the guy you dated or wanted to date lied to you or genuinely believed he had too many problems to overcome, you can probably tell which it is by observing what he does after the rejection.

If he dates other people and appears elated, that’s a strong sign that he doesn’t have any problems with himself but that he has problems with you. But if he focuses on his issues and does his best to solve them, then he probably associated stress with you or wasn’t emotionally ready for a relationship.

Finding out what went wrong with the relationship can help you get closure and make you feel better. Just make sure not to pester your ex/the guy who rejected you about it. If you’re not talking, it’s always better to get to the bottom of the mystery on your own.

What to do when a man says he’s not emotionally available?

Whether the person in question lied, gave you an excuse, or genuinely wasn’t emotionally ready to be in a relationship with you, you must respect this person’s wish to be alone and give him space. You must do it even if he starts dating someone else and makes you feel stupid for taking his word for it.

As a person who got rejected, nothing good will come out of confronting your dumper. It might make you feel good for a moment, but when you unleash your fury, extract more information out of your ex, and realize that you pushed too hard, you’ll regret acting on impulse and suffer.

You’ll feel worse than you did before you talked to your ex because you’ll know that you’ve made things worse.

That’s why you mustn’t seek answers from the person who rejected you. Look for them within yourself because you already have all the information you need. Sure, you don’t have all the details, but you don’t really need them. The details make you analyze your ex like crazy whereas the information you already have slowly relieves your anxiety and helps you move on with what you’ve got.

Remember that leaving your ex alone might not necessarily encourage your ex to come back to you. But it will allow you to distance yourself from the cause of pain and make you respect yourself again.

So handle the rejection maturely and avoid making as many post-breakup mistakes as you can. The better you handle your emotions, the less you’ll push your ex/the person who rejected you away, and the quicker you’ll recover.

Controlling yourself is extremely important for your health, growth, and your ex’s perceptions of you. So start no contact and wait for the person who rejected you to come back for you. If this guy really isn’t emotionally ready for a relationship right now, he eventually will be.

And that’s when you’ll hear from him again.

Your job until then is to stay composed, get over the rejection, and portray yourself as a person who’s got her life under control.

What do you think it means when a guy says he’s not ready for a relationship right now? Do you think it’s an excuse, a lie, or the truth? Share your thoughts and ideas below the article.

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Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.