 When it comes to romantic relationships, I think it's really important to understand that while there are some differences between men and women, I think what you're going to find with men and women alike is there's a lot more similarities. And I want to dive into this, particularly in the area of romantic commitment in relationship. All right, we all know that biologically speaking, men are different. You know, men have penises, women have vaginas, you know, and so forth. And certainly there's testosterone and there's estrogen that makes some differences. And there's certainly the instinctual differences between men and women. The difference of, you know, the provider protector and the hunter versus the gatherer and the nurture. There's those differences that are somewhat instinctual. And there's certainly the differences between men and women or boys and girls the way they're socialized different. You know, used to be with girls that was pink shirts of, oh, I'm wearing one and boys it was blue and that sort of thing. But there's certainly a socialization difference between men and women. Actually, for men in particular, there is a socialization that causes men to stuff their emotions, stuff their feelings. Whereas little girls are more inclined to be allowed to be expressive when their emotions and their feelings. Okay, so these are the main differences between men and women. And that there's a truth to that. And we're going to examine this from the area of commitment because especially the difference in commitment when you're in your 20s and 30s versus when you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. Okay, so here's where men and women are actually similar. They're imprinting. And what that means is childhood wounds and traumas that happens at a very young age that defines a person. And then quite frankly, where they're similar is most everybody has a childhood wound and trauma that manifests themselves in different ways. For some people, they might have avoidant love attachment style. They might have an anxious attachment style. They might feel abandonment. They might feel fear in relationship. Well, this is where the wounding itself isn't singular to a gender. You can't differentiate these wounding. Everybody has their own unique woundings, but we all have to some degree, some woundings from our childhood. Next is our age and our life experience. As I said before, people in their 20s and 30s view commitment a lot different than most of us in midlife who have most likely gone through a divorce. And maybe we've dealt with alimony, child support, visitation rights. And there's an adult wound that happens in our midlife. And then that's another type of area which requires some healing, if you will. And healing itself is not gender-based. Age and life experience isn't gender-based. It's really based on what happens in your life. And we've talked about this before, how some people might be marriage-minded, but some people might have trauma after divorce. They might have job loss after divorce. They might have children. They might have baggage. And I don't like the word baggage. I prefer luggage, but we all have this. And so this piles up all on our decision-making of when we want to commit with someone. So from coming back to biology, biology speaking, we're driven by our chemistry to want to physically mate with someone, mate with someone. OK, I'm talking about having sex. But beyond that, commitment is a whole another story. So we have to take these other factors in consideration. Also, cultural and religion plays a part in our decision-making process, and that's not singular to a gender. Whether it's person, culture, if you have Indian, you have African American, you have American Indian, you have Hispanics, that sort of thing. Asians, or Arabs, well, actually, I'm Middle Eastern, or at least my parents are, I was born in the United States. But my point is that plays a role in how we operate in relationship. And our Jewish, excuse me, our religious affiliations, whether you're Jewish, you're Christian, you're Catholic and whatnot, you're Buddhist, all that plays a role. And it's not based on gender. Then there's your socioeconomic place in life. Where are you at financially, and how are you raised financially? That plays a factor in how you operate in relationship. Let's not forget our physical health and our appearance. That plays a big role. More attractive people operate different than less attractive people, for example. People that have good physical health operate differently than people that have good physical health, and that's not gender-based as well. So when you add all this up, and then you have to look at those people who do introspective work, have they healed their childhood wounds? Have they healed their traumas? Are they doing things to improve themselves in their life? And then lastly, their emotional intellect. Are they emotionally grown up? Or are they, all of these experiences we just talked about makes them rather have clinical issues in their life? Or maybe they're rather dysfunctional in their capacity to be in a committed relationship, and this has nothing to do with men and women being different. You find that we're actually more similar in the way we operate because of these other factors. So now come to commitment and relationships when you're in mid-life. Here's the problem with it. When you're in your 20s and 30s, you're more apt to be serious about commitment if you genuinely want to have children and raise a family. I was brought up as the tail end baby boomer. The programming I had, the blueprint I had was after high school, go to college, get a job, meet a gal, get married, buy a house, start a family. And I did all that before I was 30 years old. I think I got married at 29, met my wife at 27, now ex-wife. That was the programming I had. And most folks that are baby boomers, Gen Xers, have that kind of program. Well, now we're in mid-life. This is a little bit challenging because now it's like, well, somebody else is in their 40s, 50s and 60s and they have a life and they've had traumas and baggage and luggage and all that stuff. And you have your trauma, your baggage and luggage and maybe you've healed hers and he hasn't healed his or maybe he's healed his and you haven't healed yours. And you're trying to come together and you might simply ask a man, what's he looking for in a relationship? And a lot of men say they don't know because that blueprint doesn't exist for what it looks like at mid-life. Yes, we know we want companionship. Yes, we know we want to have connection with someone. Yes, we know we want to have sex. But what does commitment actually look like in that mean? This morning, my sweetheart and I were talking and we're sharing what I think makes our relationship unique. And that's one is we're lovers. In other words, we have passion for one another. OK, that's listen, I mean, I'm going to tell you something that was part of the equation. The decision making process was good sex. OK, number two, we're good friends with one another. We've really we took time to really establish the friendship between the two of us. And last but not least, we now operate as family to one another. In other words, when there's something happening in her life, you know, it affects me. I mean, I want because I because we built trust and trust isn't just about fidelity. Trust is do I have this person's best interest at hand? So we were lovers, we're friends and now we're family to one another. That has developed the deep roots of trust that I talk about in my private coaching. By the way, if you need some help with that, let me know. But how to establish this, but coming back to this men and women, we so hyper focused. A lot of the feminine energy coaches talk about how the biology that men are provider protectors and women are the nurturers. Well, yeah, that plays a part in it, but it's a small part in the equation. You have to you have to add in the equation imprinting age, lifestyle, culture, religion, socioeconomic, physical health, introspective work and emotional intelligence. Because if you don't take all that into consideration, which has nothing to do with gender, you're going to be beating up your head against the wall expecting some what's the old expression doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know. I'd like to hear your thoughts on all this. Please post a comment below. If this resonated with you or not, if you have something to add. As always, if you find value in the group, please tell your friends about midlife love mastery. Send them to my website, jonathanazley.com. Have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group. And I'm going to sign off this video as I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Berg of self love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love. If that's okay, I'm going to ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear, a pillow, there's a teddy bear. Give it or them a hug of love, because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye now. Bye.