What To Do If Your Boyfriend Keeps Breaking His Promises
Nothing is worse than when your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises, even though he says he won’t ever do it again.
And you know that he will because he lies over and over and over. And you have been there for every one of them.
Are you sick of it? Do you wish, more than anything, that, because your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises, there might be something that you can do to change things?
I get it. Who wants to be with someone who won’t do what they say they will do?
Things To Do If Your Boyfriend Keeps Breaking His Promises:
Here are 5 things to do if your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises so that you can deal with it and decide the next steps.
#1 – Don’t Take It Personally:
First and foremost, I would encourage you to try not to take the fact that your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises personally.
People who are liars are liars. They lie indiscriminately. They lie about where they have been. They lie about the color of the sky. They lie about what they had for dinner.
People who lie are often very insecure about protecting themselves, their reputation, and their place in the world.
When your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises, it has nothing to do with you it is about him.
My client’s boyfriend repeatedly promises to join her and her mother for their Thursday night dinner. And, every week, he has an excuse not to. Eventually, my client started taking it personally, believing he would come to dinner with her and her mother if he loved her.
The reality is is that her boyfriend broke his promise not because he disrespected her but because he wasn’t comfortable, for whatever reason, with going out to dinner. Maybe he didn’t like her mom or was intimidated by her. Maybe he didn’t like the restaurant. Maybe softball always happens on Thursdays.
Whatever the reason for his lie, it was never about her that I knew for sure.
#2 – Call Him On It:
An important thing to do when your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises is to call him on it.
The key part is HOW you call him on it.
I would encourage you to talk to your boyfriend after the lie occurs. My client’s case is when she gets home from another dinner with her mom without her boyfriend.
I would encourage her not to attack but to stay calm and clear. Last week, you promised that you would have dinner with my mother. You broke that promise tonight.
If you can stay calm and not launch into accusation mode, you will likely get through to him. If you attack him, he will get defensive, make excuses, and maybe even blame you. If you calmly state a fact, what can he do? After all, he knows that he broke his promise to you.
#3 – Don’t Get Passive-Aggressive:
This is very important. If you don’t call your boyfriend on his breaking his promises, it is essential that you can’t act hot and cold instead.
Passive aggressiveness is the best way to make no progress in a disagreement. Why? Because being passive-aggressive only makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Let’s say my client came home from dinner and ignored her husband. Let’s say she got changed, turned on the TV, and answered his questions with one-word answers. Let’s say she went to bed, sleeping in the guest room this time. Let’s say in the morning; he got no breakfast.
Sure, my client was showing her boyfriend that he had upset her by breaking another promise and deserved to be ignored and treated with contempt. But doing that only gave her boyfriend the upper hand.
When they finally did discuss what happened, the conversation would be as much about her reaction to what happened as to the fact that he had broken another promise. He would be happy to deflect what he had done and focus on her bad behavior.
The discussion would dissolve into a fight, and nothing would get resolved because both of them would be focused on each other’s bad behavior instead of focusing on the cause of the issue that her boyfriend keeps breaking his promises.
So, be direct. Stay calm. And, by no means, get passive-aggressive.
#4 – Accept That Things Won’t Change:
I hear from my clients that they don’t understand why their boyfriends don’t change.
After all, their boyfriends know that they are upsetting my clients, and they recognize that they need to do things differently and promise to do so. So, why can’t they follow through and do so?
Because they don’t love you? No!
Their boyfriends can’t follow through because they are making their promises to make them happy, to stop them from being angry at them. They are breaking their promises because what they have promised is not necessarily something they want to do. They make the promise at the moment to keep you happy.
No person will change their behaviors unless they actively want to. If your boyfriend is going to change, he will have to be the one to want to do it. Until then, no matter how many promises he makes to you to keep you quiet in the moment when the time comes, he will, more likely than not, break that promise. Again.
So, don’t wait around for things to change. Know that they most likely won’t unless he wants them to.
#5 – Walk Away:
I can’t state it enough if your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises, it is okay to walk away.
I know that it might seem like some of these broken promises aren’t a big deal and that you can rationalize his behavior, but the truth is that you can’t trust or rely on someone who breaks his promises.
And trust is the key to any healthy relationship. Without it, the relationship is doomed.
Can you imagine spending the rest of your life with someone who you can’t believe what they say? How about being with someone who wasn’t there when you needed them because they broke their promise? How about knowing you can’t count on them to help you when you need help?
That doesn’t sound good, does it? Everyone wants someone they can count on, who they know has their back, and who will be there when needed.
So, walk away if you have to. The broken promises might not feel like that big a deal now, but if your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises repeatedly, that does not make a good boyfriend.
If your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises, I am so sorry.
I am sure that his breaking his promises has done a number on your self-esteem. I am sure that you feel responsible for his behavior and, if you are being passive-aggressive, that you might not be behaving the way you would like to in response.
So, it is time to take action. Remember not to take the broken promise personally. Calmly talk to your boyfriend about breaking his promises, and never be passive-aggressive. Know that unless they want to change, they won’t. And embrace the fact that it is ok to walk away.
You want to be in a relationship with someone you trust, and if your boyfriend keeps breaking his promises, you will never trust him again!
