He Doesn’t Want A Relationship But Won’t Let Me Go

When a guy doesn’t want a relationship but won’t let you go, he wants the best of both worlds. He wants you to keep giving him relationship benefits for free and letting him stay in your life without any commitment. 

The guy feels comfortable in the situation he’s currently in because he doesn’t have to try very hard to meet your needs. He can just focus on what he needs and let you take care of your problems and needs yourself.

This means he no longer feels responsible for investing in you and maintaining the relationship. Now that he expressed his desire to be a single man, he’s trying to establish some new rules. Rules that serve him way better than they serve you.

The reason he’s he’s dictating the terms of the friendship is that he’s looking for a sweet spot between being in a relationship and not being in one. He enjoys the space and privacy provided by the rejection but also wants you in his life to some small capacity.

Clearly, he gets something from you. Whether it’s validation, forgiveness, emotional support, advice, or companionship, he doesn’t want to let go of you because he enjoys the benefits you continue to provide on a silver platter.

Eventually, he’ll once again take these benefits for granted and move forward on his own or with someone else.

Most guys eventually fully let go of their ex/dating prospect. Usually, this happens when they find someone new to get relationship benefits from. They realize they can be in a relationship and also get the benefits they want, so they stop holding on to people they’re only interested in for the benefits.

That’s when they let go of the past and focus on people who make them feel only positive emotions. 

So if you’re dating a guy or used to date a guy who doesn’t want a relationship but won’t let you go, know that the guy is stringing you along and trying to get what he can from you. He’s perfectly happy with the way things are right now and doesn’t feel any desire or need to change anything.

As long as he’s getting relationship perks for free, he feels unmotivated to make any changes for you and commitments to you. Things will stay this way until better opportunities present themselves.

And they’ll present themselves when he can get more perks somewhere else.

Don’t think that he’ll commit to you if you give him everything he needs and show him how important he is to you. A guy who doesn’t want a relationship doesn’t love you. He may like you a lot as a friend, but when it comes to romantic feelings, they just aren’t there.

They may be gone due to a lack of effort, equality, emotional availability, (physical) attraction, common values and goals, or other relationship requirements.

No matter what his reason or reasons for not wanting a relationship are, it’s unlikely that he’ll want a relationship later. Not unless he’s still processing a breakup with one of his exes or grieving the loss of a family member.

If he’s dealing with something stressful, he could eventually get over it and see you as more than a friend.

But for that to happen, he’ll need to want to see you as a romantic partner. He’ll have to avoid putting you in the friend zone and consider you a worthy romantic option.

The problem with him upgrading the friendship to a relationship later is that he could get comfortable being your friend and settle for it. He could stay your friend even after he’s dealt with his problems and stressors.

This is because friendship can be difficult to get out of. Dating prospects and exes who settle for friendship tend to struggle to convince the person they love to give them another chance. 

They say the nicest things they can think of, but their crush still doesn’t feel any more regret and pain.

Why is that?

It’s because love takes more than words to redevelop. Most of the time, it requires a loss of something important. Something like health, happiness, self-esteem, certainty, and security.

People who have lost feelings for someone should realize that their lives won’t improve over time and that leaving someone who could have helped them with their problems was a poor decision.

This realization can cause them pain and regret for not investing in a relationship and trying to make it work.

In today’s article, we discuss why a guy doesn’t want a relationship but won’t let you go.

Why won’t he let go of me if he doesn’t want a relationship?

First of all, a guy who doesn’t want a relationship but won’t let you go isn’t making your life difficult on purpose. He doesn’t want to see you hopeful, attached, and in pain.

That would likely make him feel guilty or pressured. He just enjoys your presence or support too much to set you free and let you meet someone who wants to be with you.

The guy can’t put himself in your shoes and understand that what he’s doing is hurting you and making it impossible for you to love yourself and enjoy your life the way you deserve to enjoy it.

He lacks empathy and is too concerned about his own thoughts and feelings to empathize with you and understand what he’s doing to you. That’s why he’s acting like nothing happened and doing everything he can to stay in your life.

You need to understand that you give him comfort and make his life easier. I don’t know how you do that, but if you were making his life hard, he would have stopped being your friend a long time ago. He would have considered you difficult, thought of himself as a victim, and pushed you away by force.

Since he hasn’t done that yet, it’s safe to say there are parts of your personality that he likes and wants in his life. He enjoys your company or the stability you provide him with.

Because of that, he sees no need to get rid of you. He’s okay with keeping you in his life as long as you respect his boundaries. The moment you disrespect him or make it difficult for him to focus on someone else, he’ll replace you and slowly push you out of his life.

I’ve seen this happen to many dumpees. The dumper got tired of his dumpee when he convinced himself it was morally acceptable to leave his ex behind and move on to someone else.

Don’t think that a guy who won’t let you go will stay your friend forever. He might, but it’s much more likely that he’ll hold on to you only temporarily until he runs out of reasons to keep you in his life.

And he could run out of reasons when he:

• learns to rely on himself
• finds someone else to talk to and rely on
• changes his opinion of you
• sees you want more from him than he does from you
• stops feeling bad for rejecting you
• disconnects completely and grows distant

The simplest explanation for why he doesn’t want a relationship but won’t let you go right now is that he likes how he feels or can still tolerate it. He’s okay with the amount of attention and space he gets, so he doesn’t need to cut you out of his life completely.

He could let you go when his desire to focus on himself or someone else increases. That’s when he could stop treating you like a friend and message you only once in a while. He could respond slowly, coldly, and strangely—and make you wonder what’s changed.

With that said, here’s why he won’t let you go if he doesn’t want a relationship.

Currently, the guy considers you his support system or even his safety net. He has more to lose by letting you go than he has to gain. Until his views change, he’ll continue to hold on to you and confuse you.

He won’t see anything wrong with keeping you around because he won’t know or care that he’s giving you false hope and delaying your recovery.

Therefore, his lack of self-awareness is one of the main reasons for stringing you along. 

What do I do if he doesn’t want a relationship but won’t let me go?

If a guy doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you but won’t let you go, you shouldn’t stick around and hope that he changes his mind. You should remind yourself that he doesn’t need nor deserve your attention and that you must do what’s best for you.

And what’s best for you is to exit his life.

The guy doesn’t have your best interests at heart. He may care about you as a friend, but that’s as far as his caring goes. Romantically, he doesn’t want to invest in you and be with you, which leaves you with no other option but to take back control of your life and say Adieu.

The guy had plenty of chances to get to know you better and commit to you. Since he wasted all those chances, you must now stand up for yourself and let go of him. You must distance yourself from him whether he wants you in his life or not.

What he wants and doesn’t want no longer matters. Since his romantic expectations differ from yours, the only thing left to do is to protect your feelings and preserve your dignity. Do that by doing what the guy couldn’t or didn’t want to do.

Tell him you don’t want to be friends and that you’d like him to give you some space to process things.

A respectful person will realize you aren’t happy with the friendship whereas a disrespectful/immature one will guilt-trip you and try to hold on to you despite expressing your discontent and desire to break free.

Fortunately, most people understand where the person they rejected is coming from and let him or her go. They don’t like it, but it’s not super hard for them to let go since they don’t have any romantic feelings and plans to be in a relationship.

If the guy in question doesn’t let you go or keeps reaching out, you can reiterate you need to focus on yourself for a while and that you’ll be forced to block him if he doesn’t stop contacting or pleading to stay friends with him.

The next time he ignores your warning, you should proceed to block him as someone who doesn’t respect your wishes doesn’t care about your feelings either. He only cares about his feelings and things he can get from you.

Don’t feel bad for ceasing communication and doing what’s best for you. When a guy doesn’t understand or care what he’s doing to you, it’s time you do something about it.

And the time to do that is now.

Express that you need some time to yourself and that you’ll let him know if you change your mind.

He won’t get as hurt as you did when you learned he didn’t want to be in a relationship with you. He may be disappointed about losing a reliable friend, but other than that, he’ll recover pretty quickly.

You’ll need much longer than him to disconnect from him and fall back in love with yourself. You’ll probably need a few months to feel like yourself again.

So don’t worry about how the guy will feel after you’ve expressed the desire to go separate ways. Worry about how you’ll feel if you allow him to string you along, give you hope, and confuse you. 

You have to put yourself first and spend time with those who value you and want you in their life as badly as you want them. If they don’t want what you want, you need to let go of them and focus on yourself.

There isn’t much you can do when a guy doesn’t want a relationship with you. All you can do is end things with him and focus on recovering. Once you’ve healed, you can then search for someone who sees romantic potential in you and won’t do what this guy is doing.

So for now, explain that friendship isn’t working for you and free yourself from him. You’ll feel much better when you stop interacting with him and learn that you’re obsessed with him for the wrong reasons. 

Is a guy preventing you from moving on even though he doesn’t want a relationship? Why do you think he’s doing that? Share your views below.

And if you want our opinion on why someone who doesn’t want a relationship is sending you mixed signals, get in touch with us here. Together, we’ll analyze your situation and discuss the plan moving forward.