 So lately, I've been pondering the thought of why do women initiate more of the divorces than men? From what I understand, studies say 70% of divorces are initiated by women. So what that tells me though, is that men are more likely to commit than women if we really think about it. Men wanna stay in marriages, they're willing to commit. All right. Well, obviously there's some real reasons for this and one of the number one reasons is psychological distress in the relationship, psychological distress. So while I'm not gonna talk about marriage for right now, I wanna go back to the beginning, taking, connecting the dots right back to the beginning of the dating process and to determine which person is capable of commitment and which person isn't capable of commitment because I think this is a deeper conversation that definitely requires some discussion. So I wanna share something with you I wrote this morning, it's not a blog per se, it was just some thoughts I was pondering this morning and it says, ladies, you're fighting an uphill battle. The world of commitment is a mess because the inner world of emotional health is fractured which causes a huge disconnect in finding a partner capable of actually committing to one another. Add to that the dysfunctional dating process we're currently living when. It's no wonder so many unhappy souls are seeking true love. It's no wonder there are so many unhappy souls seeking true love. Men and women deep in their core want to love and yet only a select few are fully capable or ready to get there. It's time to change the narrative using knowledge, experience and wisdom as your guide. It's time to use knowledge, experience and wisdom as your guide. And that's what I wanna lean into this conversation because as I just shared with you, we are in a completely dysfunctional dating process today which is brought on by technology and why there's some amazing benefits to technology and certainly just like the broken clock, there are people actually connecting and falling in love with one another with through the use of technology. We have a much bigger issue to address to actually determine which person is capable of commitment from a healthy perspective because there's a lot of people capable of commitment and unhealthy perspective because we just illustrated that the number one cause for most women to initiate the divorce is emotional distress. So there are people, there are men capable of to commit. The real question is, are they able to commit at a healthy level? And if we're dealing with a population of human beings suffering emotional discourse, emotional distress, mental health issues, unresolved childhood wounds and traumas, it's no wonder it's difficult to find a partner and it is an absolute uphill battle. I don't wanna bloke smoke up your ass. Look, I know you can follow some of my contemporaries. And by the way, some of my contemporaries, I'm gonna tell you if they don't address in their coaching practice, the emotional mental health issues out there, they're worthless. They are actual crap, okay? So selling you on some narratives of do this or just say this is going to heal to help you attract love is crap. It will, because you have a greater chance of attracting an emotionally unhealthy person than a healthy person. In fact, I'm here to say probably roughly 80% of the population, men and women alike are suffering some deep, deep, deep wounds, unhealed wounds that causes them to have weak emotional skills and weak relationship skills. So it's important to sift through those people starting first with yourself, sifting through yourself because by the way, going back to my comment about dating coaches, that relates to my shirt. People who think they know everything annoy those of us that do. Now I'm gonna say that's rather egotistical on my part. I'm going to say that. And yet I'm here to be a voice to address this important issue of contemplating the dating process from the perspective of emotional and mental health because what are the blocks to love? What are the deep blocks to love? I think it's important to address this to be able to determine which person is capable of commitment and which person is not. So I wanna just bring out my trusty notes again. Fear, fear is the number one reason why people are incapable of commitment, childhood wounds, traumas, adult traumas. Those are, that's big stuff. And if it goes unchecked, if it goes unhealed whether in your own life or in someone else's life, you're going to be in a uphill battle. And the dating narrative is so hyper focused on chemistry and attraction to launch the opportunity without really contemplating the deeper issues underneath. I don't wanna talk about that because those are the blocks to love including baggage in a person's life. Do they have an ex-spouse? Do they have a contentious ex-spouse? Do they have children? Are their children demanding? Are their children actually sabotaging your relationship? And that happens frequently for those of us in midlife that are dating with those that come previously married. And let's not forget work issues or physical health issues. That's all baggage that can directly affect those of us to attract a fully capable partner, healthy capable partner in relationship. Another thing is a lack of direction. We literally dating today is an opportunity to have companionship, connection and sex without any direction. And quite frankly, for many people it's an opportunity to fill a void or a short-lived sexual encounter. The dating process using these devices are now have made it so easy, so easy to have short-lived sexual counters because there's literally no commitment necessary today to have sex with someone. And let me tell you something ladies, that's your job to change that lack of direction. And then misalignment on values and lifestyle. Today, we're a fractured culture here in the United States. I mean, it's practically red and blue, mask, no mask, vaccine, no vaccine. Although that's probably not as much of 50-50, but my point is we have a fractured society here in the United States that have huge ideologies. You guys know the word I'm thinking of differences. Add to that what I just shared with you, the emotional maturity, the relationship skills, the unhealed wounds. And then let's go deeper, the lack of trust being in relationship. Think about this today. You can have sex with someone with little or no trust built. And trust isn't just about fidelity. Trust is, can I count on this person to care about my feelings as much as they care about their own? Do they have my best interest at hand as much as my own? Think about that. And ladies in particular, the reason why you have an uphill battle because you are the ones giving your bodies to men. And quite frankly, today it's so easy. And there's so many women making it so easy for men to take advantage of women. And then like I said earlier, lack of commitment and conviction and sex before any commitment because it used to be there was a recourse for having sex before commitment. You could end up with a baby or worse, alimony. Think about that. There was a consequence for men who had sex with women who they weren't committed to. There was a consequence, potential alimony. So what's gonna change this narrative? Well, that's what I wanna lean into today because I've been contemplating what's the real pillars of connection? What's the real pillars of committing to another person? What is needed for that? Because I've talked about chemistry, shared values. Chemistry, shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. And I think to understand this, it's important to understand where men's roles are and women's roles are. So I'm gonna talk for a moment about what I call the four pillars of connection. And you could read, it says mind, body, spirit, emotions. Mind, body, spirit, emotions, okay? Lean into that for a second. Men tend to be the logical creatures in relationship. They tend to be the more rational ones or at least they believe that about themselves, okay? And men tend to be in charge of the physical world, hence the body, both their physical attraction and desire for sex within a woman and also being taken care of the physical world. And women abdicate themselves to that because that's traditionally what it's been for hundreds of thousands of years. Whereas women's roles is to help men connect with their spiritual side, their heart-centered space, both their spirit and their emotions. And that's the, when I say women are in charge of their relationship destiny, what I mean to say is women are in charge of the emotional components of the relationship. And this is why I continually recommend reading the book Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters, Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters. And by the way, for those that get pissed off that I repeat myself, it's because there's something called practice makes perfect, okay? You have to practice this stuff. So I got off on a tangent. Let me come back to emotional intimacy. Ladies, you are the containers of the emotional side of the relationship. That's, to some degree, your responsibility because men can't get to their heart on their own. They're just, we're not set up for that way. We are indoctrinated. We are beaten down as children, little boys beaten down to suppress our emotions and use violence to demonstrate our worth. Violence, and I don't mean violence, necessarily physical violence, but just the competition of violence. There's violence in competition to get ahead, okay? That can be a violent thing. So we're conditioned in that sense. Women are more, I'm here to encourage understanding true emotional intimacy and that you are the guide for us to get there. I didn't get to my heart if it wasn't for a number of beautiful goddesses in my life, both in my dating experience and relationship experience as well as my circle of friends. And so it's important to understand that that's your role. This is why I highly recommend you being the director of your life by directing the conversations to reveal the emotional health and the capacity if a man is capable of actually committing in a healthy way. Let's see what other my notes here to say. Women drive the bus of connection. There's another thing. Women, I want to encourage you all to take charge of your lives because women inherently are agreeable. You tend to be more agreeable than men. So it's no wonder you give your power away to men. And so many of you give your power away to men. You just release it to men because you tend to be agreeable. And this is why I continually recommend the book Why Men Love Bitches and Bitch Stands for Babe in Total Control of Herself, yes. This is an empowerment book so you don't give your power away because you are meant to drive the emotional bus of the relationship. And yet many of you are afraid to speak your truth, to speak your truth to a man because for fear that he's going to go. And as I wrote in my book, if you haven't gotten my, by the way, all the books I recommend are listed below, Jonathan recommends books. If you haven't got my book, What the Heck Is Self-Love? Anyway, A Journey of Personal Development, Self-Help and Spiritual Work. Chapter one is speak your truth, do it in a kind way. And chapter nine, if it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. This is why radical honesty needs to be on the forefront of the early stages of dating and not the romantic way that so many humans have adopted. And yet what happens? We have a 50% divorce rate here in the United States. Probably the other half are still married, half of them are miserable. We have a 65% divorce rate for second marriages and 75% for third. There's a reason for that. Remember I said knowledge, experience and wisdom, it's to understand what causes all this and maybe operate from a different narrative. I think it's important to begin a practice of having deeper conversations from the very beginning to understand another person because as I said earlier, we are dealing with a population of really wounded human beings, men and women alike. And so the dating pool is filled with dysfunctionality and worse, toxic people as well as all the confused people, men and women alike. And it's time to heal your individual wounds. First, this is why I continually recommend the book The Hoffman Process, The Hoffman Process. It's a deep dive into healing childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas that cause negative patterns and limiting beliefs in one life because here's the problem. What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So coming back to the men that will commit and what we're really talking about because we just shared in the beginning, look at 70% of men will stay in a marriage. They'll be miserable and stay in a relationship. It seems like men are more committal than women if we use that metric of commitment. And yet how happy, how emotionally healthy are these people? Because ultimately the guys who commit are the ones who are emotionally healthy. Well, who are those men? You're gonna ask me, Jonathan, who are those men? They don't all have to do emotional or personal development, self-help and spiritual work. Not all of them. Many men and women have been raised with really healthy homes, really, really, really healthy homes. Yet most probably have not. I mean, given the fact that we have a 50% divorce, the probability of meeting somebody who has gone through a divorce is 50-50. I mean, their parents went through a divorce. So they were raised with some dysfunctionality. There's very few really truly healthy, emotionally healthy couples out there. So they have to have that going for them. Most likely they're gonna have to have high IQ and EQ in their lives to be able to navigate the responsibility of, or let me reframe that from responsibility, to have the relationship skills, the true relationship skills to lean into a relationship. And most don't have that. So who are more likely to be commitment ready? I'm gonna tell you, it's the men who have done personal development, self-help and spiritual work, including therapy. Now, not all therapy makes a person healthier, but I'm gonna tell you, doing something is better than nothing, having had some work on healing childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas, and true introspective work, true introspective work. In addition, I think it's important for women to really lean into the importance of getting some level of agreement with a man, commitment before you have physical connection with them. You don't always have to have this, but boy, if you're gonna have regular sex with a guy, it's hugely important to have this. This is why when I created my dating vows, and some of you know this, and I'm gonna read it out loud because there's an important lesson here to demonstrate which men are capable of commitment and which won't. Because I say here, I've heard the saying, women are gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment. The dating vow basically is an agreement between two people, an agreement to say the following. I agree to explore the process of getting to know you with the intent to declare something serious within the next three to six months. I agree to be monogamous sexually while we're having regular sex together. I agree to not actively seek and meet and date others while we're in the dating process, including taking down dating profiles. I agree to speak up if this isn't working for me versus pulling back, ghosting or disappearing. I agree to invest regular time in the process of getting to know you, which looks like the following. We spend X amount of time together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends. 90% of men won't do this. I'm speculating here. And there are so many women that will have sex with men without this. So you are fighting an uphill battle, which requires you, unfortunately, to do the heavier lifting. And what that means is establishing your standards and boundaries. And more importantly, learn how to vet for the men who fit the category I talk about versus the ones who don't. This is why if you need help in that area, check out the link to a free discovery call with me. My area of expertise is to teach you how to vet, how to ask the right questions of a man to determine which category they're in. Now, quite frankly, you can throw a dart and pretty much guess that 90% of men are in that dysfunctional category. And by the way, you women are no picnic either, okay? Did you watch the Amber Heard trial? You women are no picnic either. What's gonna change this narrative? I'm here to say it's time to shift the narrative by first doing your own introspective work, your healing, and then begin to put yourself out there from the perspective of radical honesty, being in your empowerment, setting standards, setting boundaries, open communication, and you're going to lead the bus. Because remember what I said in the Quadrant, the men tend to be mind and body and women are the spirit and the emotions. And if you really wanna have that collective successful relationship, you have to help men connect with that spiritual side of themselves and more importantly, that emotional side because men just like yourselves are deeply interested, not interested, deeply desire to be loved because the number one emotional health issue facing almost everybody is, I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable and I'm not likable. That's the wound we all carry and just like you, men want to feel that love. We just don't know how to get there so I invite you to take the journey, do the work, follow the teachers that talk about the emotional health issues versus the rhetoric of just sitting back in your feminine and leaning to be claimed. All right, I think you get the gist of where I'm going. Is this resonating with you? I'd like to hear your thoughts post a comment. If this resonated with you, hit that like button. Share this video with friends. Hit the subscribe button to join my channel. I welcome you to watch my next video. I have no idea where I'm going next, but I hope you found value in this one. Please let me know. All right, I'm gonna sign up this video as I always do. First off, giving myself a big, gigantic Jonathan Barak of self love. I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear, a pillow. Here's a teddy bear and give either them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. Let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye, bye-bye. Find the guys who'll commit.