The Hilary Silver Podcast - #89: Why He Won’t Commit (And Why You’re Still Waiting)

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

When a man keeps you half chosen and half confused, the real problem isn’t his hesitation but the part of you willing to wait for it! Ever been strung along by a man who gives just enough to keep you hopeful but never enough to give you certainty? One day he’s all charm and chemistry, the next he’s conveniently unavailable? You start analyzing his behavior like a crime scene. Does he have trauma? Is it timing? Is it me? Hilary calls BS! In this episode, Hilary dismantles the obsession with figuring him out and asks a better question: Why are you waiting for someone who won’t choose you fully? Mixed signals are signals. If it only feels good when he’s present but wrecks your peace when he’s gone, that’s not romance — that’s chaos dressed as potential. And if you’re tolerating crumbs, playing it cool, or bending your boundaries just to keep him around, you’re accidentally auditioning for the role of “almost enough.” Hilary’s message is blunt but liberating: stop chasing clarity from him and start demanding consistency for yourself. You don’t need closure, you need standards. So ask yourself, are you in a relationship or just holding space for someone who hasn’t decided? And if you stopped waiting on his decision, what would yours be? Episode Highlights: Why “understanding him” is just a distraction from reclaiming your own power What mixed signals in dating are actually telling you How pick-me energy sabotages real commitment Signs you’re emotionally unavailable too The mindset shift that ends situationships for good Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why Women Stay Stuck in Non-Committal Relationships 01:34 The Trap of Overanalyzing His Mixed Signals 03:18 Emotional Burnout from Chasing Clarity 04:21 How to Evaluate a Relationship Beyond Chemistry 05:24 The Hidden Cost of Self-Betrayal and Pick-Me Energy 07:31 When You’re the One Afraid of Commitment 09:17 Shifting from Waiting to Self-Ownership 10:00 Final Call to Stop Settling ✨ I’m Hilary Silver, LCSW, former psychotherapist turned master coach and founder of Ready for Love. I help high-achieving women show up in love as confidently as they do in their careers. 💡 Through this podcast, I share my WOMAN-centered, SELF-centered approach—time-tested methods that blend psychology, brain science, relationship skills, and no-BS dating advice. 🎙️ Since 2017, we’ve helped over 10,000 women with a 98% success rate, making Ready for Love the #1 program in the world for women who’ve tried everything else. ✨ Ready to stop repeating the same patterns and finally create the love you deserve?  🎯 Watch my free masterclass to learn the proven 4-step Ready for Love Method: https://readyforloveinc.com/masterclass 💬 Apply for a free Love Breakthrough Call with my team: https://readyforloveinc.com/apply

Have you ever been in a relationship with a man who's half in and half out, in enough to keep you there, but not in enough to actually be committed to you? It's amazing when you're together, but then he's flaky about seeing you again. Or he says all the right things, but his actions don't line up. So one minute you're high on the connection, and the next, you're left empty-handed, confused, wanting more and wondering how can it feel so good to you, but apparently not good enough for him to be all in. I know it sucks. So today, I'm going to help you get out of this situation or ensure that you never find yourself in it ever again. Yes, really. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Ready for Love podcast. Thanks for tuning

into the conversation today. If you haven't already, it would mean so much to me. If you'd take a minute to just click that five-star rating on your podcast app, leave a review. and subscribe so you never miss one of my episodes. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider sharing it with a friend because if you like it, they will probably like it too. When you're together, it feels so good and the potential is so high. But then there's this, the distance that you feel when you're apart, the excuses that he makes, the lack of consistency. It makes total sense why you obsess about it. Why won't he commit? What's going on in his head? What is he thinking? Does he have issues? Is it another woman? What's wrong with me that he doesn't want more? What's wrong with him? And I get it. His words and actions are sending you mixed signals. So of course you're spinning. Of course, you're hanging on, hoping that maybe this week, this date, maybe this time, he'll realize how amazing I am or how amazing we are together and just be in. It's like a drug. You're hooked, addicted to the

highs and lows, and it creates intrusive thoughts, distracting you from daily life. Intrusive meaning intruding into your daily life and keeping you from being present at work or with your family or with your friends. So where everyone else gets this wrong is trying to figure him out to read his mind, understand his intentions, decode his actions, and diagnosing him with avoidant detachment and all the things. He has mommy issues where he feels so much with the he gets afraid, blah, blah, blah. So listen, none of that matters. So just stop. Stop trying to figure him out. Whether you realize this or not, this isn't actually about him at all, which we will be talking about in just a minute. Making excuses for his behavior, being an armchair therapist,

and projecting your interpretation of his behavior as his deep subconscious psychological traumas is misplaced empathy. All of that is a way to soften the feeling of rejection that his behavior is triggering in you. The truth is, you will never really know, even if he tells you, he'll say it's not you and that it's me. He'll tell you that you're so great, but I'm not ready for a relationship.

You'll waste time, energy, and your emotional bandwidth, and you'll burn yourself out, you'll burn out your nervous system and your adrenals with all the roller coaster of ups and downs, and trying to figure out this mystery of why he won't commit to you. So just stop, and if you ever find yourself in this situation, catch yourself doing it. This is giving away all of your power. It leaves you hanging like your hand is in the air trying to do a high five with someone who

already walked away. It's standing on the tennis court and you just keep hitting the ball back to him, waiting for him to send it back to you, but he never does. He just holds it and holds it. You're sitting in his waiting room while he decides if you're good enough or if you're the one for him. And fuck that, ladies, that is just a big fat no. So here's what I want you to know. First of all, it is none of your business, what he is thinking, and what is going on with him.

And who cares anyway? All you really need to know is this one thing. This isn't it. You don't like this. It doesn't feel good to you. It's not what you want or how you want to feel or how you want to feel or how you want. to be treated by someone that you're in a relationship with. This is not what you want, right? You like how you feel when you're together, but guess what? You don't like how you feel when

you're not together. This is all information for you about what it's like to be in a relationship with this man. And so this is not it. You can't gauge a relationship only based on how you feel when you're together. It's how you feel when you're not together too. It's how you feel, overall in this relationship with him. And this puts the power back into your own hands. It shifts the dynamic entirely. Can you feel that? It's a leaning back. This is who you are. Remember that. You decide, not him, how this relationship will go. If you want commitment, then it's all or nothing. And if he's not in, then he's out says you. You might really, really like him a lot. Maybe you even think that you love him, so I get that it would be really hard to walk away from that. But if you love you more,

then it's actually not that hard to do. Hi, it's Hillary. You know I love anything that makes everyday life feel just a little more luxurious, and cozy earth bedding absolutely qualifies. Their sheets are made from viscose from bamboo, which means they're ridiculously silky and soft, super breathable, and even help you sleep several degrees cooler, which helps me sleep through the night. No more waking up hot. Honestly, it's one of those small upgrades that makes a big difference in how rested I feel. And when you're building a life you love, quality sleep is non-negotiable. Every evening, I literally start looking forward to slipping into the sheets. That's how good they feel. In fact, these are the only sheets my family and I sleep on. And right now, Black Friday

came early. You can stack my code ready for love on top of cozy Earth's site-wide sale for up to 40% off. Try them risk-free with their 100-night sleep trial, but I promise you're not going to send these back. Shop now at cozyearth.com and use code ready for love. And if you get a post-purched survey, be sure to mention you heard about cozy earth from me. Second, all this sitting around and waiting and hoping and praying and dreaming and hanging on, this is an energy. And it is part of the problem here. Yes, this is Pick Me Please Energy. I'll wait for you hanging on behavior. It's a vibe and it's just backfiring. Listen, he's in with you because you are so great. You're fun and sexy and charming and loving and giving and you're a great listener. You're all the things. But then

you betray yourself and allow this kind of shit. It tips your hand and reveals your deep lack of self-worth. It shows him what you will tolerate and put up with, that you want something so badly that you're willing to abandon and betray yourself to get it. Uh-uh. No. And over time, you accommodate and bend to his wishes and his ambivalence and you settle for his crumbs and you put his needs before your own. This is not powerful. It's weak and it's not the best version of you. and that is partly why he's having trouble being all in with you. It's not consistent with all the other parts of you that he stays for. Can you see that?

So you are contributing to the wishy-washy hot and cold when you are allowing all of this. And then there's this. If you act like you're fine with the casual because you don't want to lose him, you continue to throw yourself under the bus. You want more, but you play it cool. You let the no label, no pressure thing, drag on because you think it'll make him want you more. But your nonchalant vibe tells him it's fine to keep it light and undefined. Maybe you accept friends with benefits because that's what he wants and what he's capable of at the moment.

But you really want commitment. I've heard many women tell me that they've tried polyamory because that's how he rolls and that's the way he likes to do things, when in fact that is not at all who she is. And let's take this one step further. Perhaps it was actually this way from the start because maybe you invited this noncommittal dynamic in the first place. Like attracts like. So you just have to ask yourself, am I the avoidant noncommittal one?

If you're ambivalent about getting into relationship, you have fear about being vulnerable and you don't know how to do real intimacy, or you're afraid of losing yourself in a relationship again, or of getting stuck in something that you can't get out. of it's you my love who is attracting non-committal men because you yourself are non-committal and then together you're stuck in this game of cat and mouse a dance of avoiding the thing that you really want but are so also afraid of getting at the very same time so on the outside you're there but on the inside you've got walls up you're scared of letting him see the real you because if he doesn't like what he sees he might leave and you'll be crushed so you keep him at

arm's length, you're emotionally half in and half out. But when you don't see this in yourself, it looks like he's the problem over and over and over again, creating this pattern. So let's put this all together. If you find yourself in a painful cycle of non-committal situationships where you get some of what you want, but not all of it, where he or both of you are half in and half out, the only way to really interrupt this pattern is to look at how you are contributing. How are you showing up? Are you also noncommittal? Are you afraid of getting into something that you can't get out of? Are you afraid of picking the wrong man again and making another mistake? Are you afraid of getting your heartbroken and being hurt or disappointed again? Are you holding back

some of the parts of you behind a wall of protection and only letting him see the carefully curated parts of yourself that you like and accept and that you think he will like. Are you allowing him to come and go as he pleases because something is better than nothing? I know this is all very hard to hear, but it is the ticket out of limbo land, I promise you. You can have what you want in love, someone who will adore you and make you a priority who will be all in with you and be your ride or die, not going anywhere, even when things are hard, partner in all things in your life. But this isn't about him. So please stop focusing on him, what he's doing or not doing. And instead, accept that it is about you, how you are showing up and what you are allowing,

period. And then that means that you can very quickly make a few key and critical shifts in your approach, and it won't take long before you start having a dramatically different experience in love. Thanks for listening today. If you enjoyed our show, please rate and review us. It really helps other people find us. And if you know someone who needs to hear this, please share it with them. We have grown so very much in the first year. And that is thanks to all of you listeners helping get the word out. So let's make sure that women who need to hear these messages are able to find us and join the movement of women who are done settling. See you next time.