You tick every box on his list, so why is he still unsure about you?

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"You're everything I've always wanted in a woman... but something's missing."

A man called Liam said that to Emma on a walk, six months into the best relationship she'd ever had.

When she begged him to tell her what the missing thing was, he couldn't name it.

He had just called her beautiful, kind, smart and fun.

A few months later he was engaged to another woman, and he told Emma he had never felt so sure of anything in his life.

If you've ever been the great girlfriend who still ended up with a man who couldn't decide, that story will sting. So what was missing?

The answer explains why so many good women end up in the same place, and it has very little to do with how good they are.

Why being perfect for him on paper doesn't make him sure

Most of us grow up with a quiet idea about love.

A man carries a list in his head, and if you match enough of it, he'll choose you.

So you work at it.

You take an interest in his work, laugh at his jokes, get on with his friends and never make a scene when he's late.

All of that is lovely, and the trouble is that the list only speaks to one part of him.

Clayton Max, the dating coach behind a program called Infatuation Scripts, says that giving a man everything he thinks he wants only reaches the rational part of his brain.

That's the part that wrote the list.

The part that decides who he can't stop thinking about runs on feeling.

A man who is sure about a woman rarely got there by adding up her good points.

He got there because of how she makes him feel.

Three friends who swore they'd never settle down

Clayton saw this up close when three of his friends got engaged in the same year.

These were men who had said for years that marriage wasn't for them.

The women they chose didn't have all the qualities these men had always said they wanted, and yet very soon after meeting them, these men wanted nobody else.

One of them moved across the country to make it work.

Clayton spent months talking to the couples and reading research on love and attraction, and he found a drive he calls the infatuation instinct.

One of the papers the program draws on, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2014 by a team led by Dr. Helen Fisher, describes this kind of passion as "involuntary and uncontrollable".

It also describes an "inability to feel romantic passion for more than one person at a time".

Once that feeling switches on in a man, he starts to overlook a woman's flaws and focus on her good qualities, and the reasons he had for holding back stop counting.

When it stays off, no list of good points will settle his doubts.

That's what Liam was trying to say on that walk. Nothing on his list was missing.

He simply wasn't infatuated with Emma, and nobody can name a feeling that isn't there.

Stop arguing your case

When a man is unsure, the natural move is to show him what he'd be missing.

You cook the special dinner and gently remind him how well the two of you get on.

Emma did her own version of this on that walk.

She pushed him to say what was missing and asked what she could do differently, and nothing she said changed his mind.

You can't reason a man into a feeling, because every point you make speaks to the list again.

It also tells him he holds all the cards.

Dean Delis, a marriage counsellor and the author of The Passion Trap, wrote that "the feeling of being in love is biochemically linked to the feeling of being out of control."

A man who feels completely sure of you, with nothing left to wonder about or earn, has very little to be excited about.

That's good news, because it means the fix is to stop giving more.

How to reach the part of him the list can't

Infatuation Scripts is built around three feelings that switch on the infatuation instinct: curiosity, investment and uncertainty.

You can start using the ideas behind them today.

• Give him something to wonder about. Share your stories slowly, keep a few plans to yourself and end conversations while they're still fun. A man who thinks he has you all figured out stops thinking about you between dates.
• Let him put in the effort. When he plans the date, makes the call or drives across town to see you, he grows more attached, so stop doing all the work for him.
• Keep a full life of your own. Uncertainty has nothing to do with ignoring his texts. It means seeing your friends, chasing your goals and letting him see you'd be fine without him, so he keeps earning his place.

None of this asks you to be any less kind, clever or loving.

You keep every good thing on his list, and you stop relying on the list to do a job it was never built for.

Clayton gives the exact words for each of the three feelings in his free video presentation.

What changed for Emma at the restaurant table

Emma's turning point came at a restaurant table, sitting across from Jack, a man she really liked, as she watched him grow bored and distracted before dessert.

This time she didn't try harder to impress him.

She used a few of Clayton's lines instead, and in her telling Jack started leaning in, asking real questions and talking about the future.

Later on, Jack was the one who brought up the "so where is this going?" talk. Emma didn't have to raise it herself.

That's what it looks like when a man is the one who's afraid of losing you.

If you tick every box and still feel him keeping one foot out the door, you don't need to become someone else.

You need to reach the part of him that decides with feelings, and Clayton Max's free video shows you the words to do it.

The program itself is a one-time $49.95 with a 60-day money-back guarantee, but start with the video.

Watch Clayton's free presentation here and listen for the moment he explains why a man's "perfect girl" so often loses out to the woman who simply makes him feel something.

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