Has your Aquarius man actually said the words I can’t tell you what I want from you out loud to you?
Or some version of it. I don’t know what this is. I can’t define it. I don’t know where I am with you. I don’t have an answer for that yet.
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Were you stunned in the moment because you didn’t know whether to feel honored that he was being so honest with you or completely flattened that this is what he honest about?
Are you wondering whether his confusion is the kind that changes with time, or the kind that is permanent and you should treat his words as a clear answer in disguise?
Have you been replaying that conversation in your head, trying to figure out whether to keep showing up, ask him a follow-up question, give him space, or quietly back away?
If you’re nodding through any of that, I want you to read this slowly. Because that exact sentence, I can’t tell you what I want from you, is one of the most uniquely Aquarius things a man can say to a woman, and it has a very specific meaning that almost no one will explain to you correctly.
I’ve spent years helping women decode the men they love, and that single phrase comes up so often in my work with women dating Aquarius men that I keep a private list of how to respond to it. Most articles will tell you to take his words at face value and walk. Other articles will tell you he’s just scared and to wait it out. Both are wrong, because both are generic. The right response depends entirely on which kind of I can’t tell you you’re dealing with. Let me show you the difference.
The Truth About What an Aquarius Man Means When He Says It
Here is the thing nobody tells you about your Aquarius man: when he says I can’t tell you what I want from you, he is almost always telling you the literal truth. He genuinely does not know. His confusion is real. His brain has not produced the answer yet, and he is not lying when he says he cannot produce it on command.
The reason is structural to his sign. Aquarius is ruled by Uranus, the planet of sudden change, originality, and the human mind. Your Aquarius man processes most of life through the analytical part of his brain, not the emotional one. When a question is too emotionally loaded for him to think his way through, his system simply does not produce an answer at all. He’s not stalling, he’s not stringing you along, he’s not buying time. He genuinely cannot access the answer in that moment.
In a survey of over 2,600 women involved with Aquarius men, nearly 1 in 4 described their situation as “it’s complicated.” Another 26% reported that their Aquarius man was actively sending mixed signals. Only 29% felt confident he was interested in them. That ratio is unique to this sign in our research, and it tells you that not knowing what he wants is the defining state of the Aquarius man’s emotional life. He’s not pretending. He really doesn’t know.
So the first thing to understand is that he is being honest. The second thing to understand is that honest does not mean good news. There are three very different versions of his I can’t tell you, and the version you have determines what happens next.
Version One: He Cannot Yet, But He Is Working on Knowing
This is the most hopeful version, and also the rarest.
In this version, his confusion is genuinely temporary. He likes you. He’s drawn to you. He can feel that something real is happening between you. And his brain has not yet built the framework for what to do about it, because he has never been in this exact situation before, or because his emotional system genuinely processes slower than his rational one.
You can identify Version One by what he does in the days and weeks AFTER he says the sentence. He keeps showing up. He keeps initiating contact. He brings the topic back to you on his own, sometimes weeks later, with a fragment of an answer he didn’t have before. I think I want to keep seeing you and I don’t know what to call it. I think I’m starting to want more than I said. I’m thinking about this. I’m working on it.
The keyword is working. He references the question. He keeps approaching it. He treats his own confusion as a problem he is trying to solve, not a wall he has put up to keep you out.
If this is your version, the right response is patience held with quiet self-respect. Do not press for the answer. Do not give him a deadline. Do not vanish to scare him. Just keep being yourself, keep living your life, and let him work it out at his own pace.
Version Two: He Cannot Yet, Because Something Else Is in the Way
This is the most common version, and the one that requires the hardest decision from you.
In this version, his confusion is real, but it is being caused by something specific that has nothing to do with you. He’s mid-divorce. He’s mid-grief. He’s mid-job-loss. He’s mid-not-over-his-ex. He’s mid-mental-health-spiral. His external life is in such chaos, or his internal life is so unresolved from something that came before you, that he cannot honestly tell you what he wants from you because he can’t tell himself what he wants out of his own life right now.
You can identify Version Two by what he tells you about his life, outside of the relationship. There is a clear obstacle. He references it. He names it. I’m in the middle of the divorce. I’m still trying to figure out what happened with her. I lost my dad three months ago and I don’t recognize myself. I’m in a really weird place at work.
If this is your version, the right response is much harder than it sounds. You have to honestly answer the question am I willing to be in a holding pattern for as long as this external obstacle lasts, with no guarantee of what’s on the other side? For some women the answer is yes, because the connection is real and the obstacle has an end. For other women the answer is no, because the obstacle has no end in sight and waiting will cost them years they don’t get back.
Whichever answer you give yourself, give it with your eyes open. Do not bargain with yourself about how short the wait might be. The wait is usually longer than he thinks it will be. Plan accordingly.
Version Three: He Cannot Tell You, Because the Real Answer Is Not What You Want to Hear
This is the hardest version, and the one most women refuse to see until they have been in it for years.
In this version, I can’t tell you what I want from you is the kindest, most honorable sentence an Aquarius man can construct as a soft no. He genuinely doesn’t want to hurt you. He genuinely doesn’t want to be the bad guy. He genuinely doesn’t want to put words to something that he knows will end the situation he is enjoying. So he hands you a sentence that sounds like honesty but is functionally a wall.
You can identify Version Three by three specific tells. One, he never brings the question back up on his own. He answered it once, with that sentence, and now he refuses to revisit it ever, even months later, even when you’ve earned the right to ask. Two, his words and his actions are aligned with each other in a way that should disturb you. He’s behaving exactly like a man who isn’t sure he wants you. He’s not pursuing. He’s not investing. He’s not making you a priority. The sentence wasn’t a fog. It was an accurate weather report. Three, the longer you stay, the smaller you feel. Version Three drains a woman over time, because deep down she knows the answer and she keeps showing up hoping he will give her a different one.
If this is your version, the right response is to thank him for being honest, even though he was being kind-honest rather than fully-honest, and to leave. Not in a rage. Not with a speech. Just quietly. He will not stop you, because his sentence already told you he wouldn’t. The fact that he doesn’t fight to keep you is the final piece of information you needed.
The Question You Must Ask Yourself, Not Him
Most women, after hearing I can’t tell you what I want from you, immediately try to figure out what HE meant by it. That is the wrong question. He told you the truth. He doesn’t know.
The right question, the one that actually moves your life forward, is not what does he mean. It is what do I want from him?
Because here is the secret that almost no one will tell you. An Aquarius man saying he doesn’t know what he wants from you is a question disguised as an answer. He is, in the most Aquarius way possible, throwing the ball back to you. I can’t define this. So you have to.
Most women hear that and immediately try to define the thing in a way that is acceptable to him, in a way that doesn’t ask for too much, in a way that he will say yes to. That is exactly the wrong move. He is not asking you to define the relationship in a way that is acceptable to him. He is asking you to define what you want, so he can find out whether he can give it or not.
If you say I want a casual thing, no labels, see what happens, he will probably say yes, because that is what he was already doing. And you will spend the next eighteen months in a casual thing with no labels, watching him not figure out what he wants, until you realize you wanted something different the whole time.
If you say I want a real partnership with a real label and a real future, he might say no, because he can’t honestly promise that today. But his no is the thing that lets you both make a real decision instead of dragging the limbo on for years. And occasionally, occasionally, his no turns into a slow yes a few months later because he had to actually face what he was losing.
The single most important thing you can do after he says I can’t tell you what I want from you is to figure out, honestly and privately, what you want from him, and then say it. Not to pressure him. Not to force an answer. Just because he handed you the responsibility for naming the truth, and you are allowed to take it.
How to Actually Respond to Him in the Moment
I get asked this constantly, so let me give you the exact words.
When he says I can’t tell you what I want from you, do not say that’s okay, take your time. That sounds gracious but it rewards the limbo and teaches him that the sentence works as a hold. Do not say what do you mean by that, what does that mean for us, are you saying you don’t want this. That sends him fleeing because he doesn’t have the answer and you’ve now made the lack of an answer into a confrontation.
Instead, try this. Thank you for being honest with me about that. I want you to know that I do know what I want, and at some point we are going to need to talk about whether what you can give matches what I want. Not today. But soon.
That sentence works on an Aquarius man for very specific reasons. It honors his honesty without rewarding the limbo. It puts the responsibility for clarity back on you, where it belongs, which his Uranus nervous system actually respects. It introduces a future conversation without scheduling it, so he doesn’t feel cornered. And it tells him, gently, that you are not a woman who will sit in fog forever, which raises the stakes of his confusion in a way that often catalyzes him to start working on an answer.
A client of mine, let’s call her Soraya, a 49-year-old physician from Toronto, used almost that exact sentence with her Aquarius man after he gave her the I can’t tell you line at the eleven-month mark. He didn’t say much in the moment. Three weeks later, with no further conversation about it, he told her he wanted to introduce her to his mother.
Five months after that, they were exclusive. The thing that shifted him was not pressure. It was the quiet, undramatic knowledge that she knew what she wanted and would not stay in fog forever.
That is the move. Not every Aquarius man will respond the way hers did. But almost no Aquarius man will respond well to anything else.
When His “I Can’t Tell You” Has Lasted Too Long
There is a quiet point that comes in every Aquarius limbo where the right call is to stop waiting. I want you to know what that point looks like.
It usually arrives around the ten-to-twelve month mark of being in some form of undefined situation with him. By that point, if he is going to move toward you, he has started moving. If he is still standing in the exact same place he was in three months ago, saying the exact same sentence, your situation is the situation. Time is not going to change it. Patience is not going to change it. A different version of you, more available, more accommodating, more understanding, is not going to change it.
The thing that tells you it is time to walk is not anger. It is the quiet realization that you have started to make your own life smaller to accommodate his limbo. You stopped accepting other invitations.
You stopped pursuing things that conflicted with his availability. You started organizing your week around the possibility that he might text. You stopped imagining a future for yourself that doesn’t have him in it, even though he has told you, in his own honest way, that he might not be in it.
When that has happened, the answer is to leave. Not in fury. Not with a confrontation that gives him the chance to fight for you, because he will not fight. Just by quietly resuming a life that is full enough to hold you on its own. Sometimes he comes back. Often he doesn’t. Either way, you get yourself back, which is the part that actually matters.
When you do want to keep the door warm without pressing, here is something you can send him in a moment of softness: “Thinking about you. No expectations. Just wanted you to know.” That single message reaches an Aquarius man’s heart without triggering his retreat. If you want a complete library of messages like this, designed specifically for the in-between with an Aquarius man, Magic Phrases for Aquarius Man walks you through them. Every line is built to land softly on his nervous system instead of crowding it.
Your Aquarius Man Questions, Answered
“Should I take ‘I can’t tell you what I want from you’ as a hard no and walk?”
Not necessarily. It depends entirely on whether his confusion is Version One, Two, or Three above. Version One almost always evolves into clarity over time. Version Two depends on the obstacle and your willingness to wait through it. Version Three is functionally a soft no and walking is the right call. Use his behavior in the weeks after the sentence to figure out which version you are dealing with, not your hope about which version it might be.
“How long should I wait after he says he can’t tell me what he wants?”
My rule of thumb after years of watching these situations is six to twelve months. If you’ve been in the same exact place you were the day he said it after twelve months, the situation is the situation. Set a private deadline for yourself, don’t share it with him, and use it to make your own call. Don’t extend the deadline because of a single warm gesture from him. Look at the overall pattern over months, not the spike of any one good day.
“Can I ask him what he meant by that sentence?”
Yes, but the way you ask matters. Don’t ask in the same conversation where he said it. Wait a week or two. Then ask in a low-stakes moment, ideally during something else. Hey, when you said the other week that you couldn’t tell me what you wanted, can I ask what kinds of things you were thinking about? That phrasing invites him into the question without making him produce an answer on the spot. Sometimes he’ll have something more for you. Sometimes he’ll repeat the original sentence. Both responses are useful information.
When you want to start using your own clarity differently with him, here is one specific thing you can do this week. Decide, privately, what you actually want from him by the end of this year. Write it down. Don’t share it. Just hold it for yourself. Then, whenever you are with him, behave like a woman who knows what she wants and is not waiting for permission to want it.
That quiet self-knowledge changes the temperature of every interaction. An Aquarius man feels it almost immediately. For a complete day-by-day approach to reaching an Aquarius man’s heart while staying fully rooted in your own life, the 30 Day Challenge for Aquarius Man gives you one specific, gentle action a day.
You Deserve Clarity, Even If He Cannot Give It
I know how disorienting it is to be told, by a man you care about, that he doesn’t know what he wants from you. You did not imagine the closeness. You did not invent the connection. And his honesty about his own confusion is not, in itself, an answer to your question about what to do next.
Most of the women I work with come to me at exactly this point. He has said the sentence, or some version of it, and they don’t know whether to wait, to walk, or to confront him with their own clarity. They need a framework for reading his real situation accurately, and they need permission to want what they want without apologizing for it.
That’s exactly what I walk you through inside Aquarius Man Secrets, my complete guide to the Uranus-ruled, freedom-coded, brilliantly confusing emotional wiring of your Aquarius man. Inside, you’ll discover how to read every signal he gives off, how to tell genuine confusion from kindly disguised no, and how to either bring him fully toward the relationship you actually want or set yourself free with no regret.
If your Aquarius man has told you he can’t tell you what he wants from you, this is where to figure out exactly what to do next.
Click here to learn more about Aquarius Man Secrets →
Share Your Story
Let’s talk in the comments. Has your Aquarius man said some version of I can’t tell you what I want from you to you, and what exactly did he say? Tell me below. I read every comment personally, and your story might be exactly what another woman reading this needs to finally make a clear decision about her own situation.
Wishing you all the luck of the universe,
Your friend and Relationship Astrologer,
Anna Kovach
