 Let's face it, nothing is more emotionally devastating that when you've invested in a person, especially physically, you've invested emotionally when they pull away, when they start to breadcrumb when they go, when they disappear. And certainly this is a search term many women look for on the internet. It's one of the top search firms searches as to why do men pull away? Now, some of the common narratives that many of those out in the YouTube universe will suggest to women that when a man pulls away, you go live your fantastic life, you don't share your feelings, you don't address the problem that this person has done something rather cruel. Why don't you think about this? When somebody stonewalls a relationship, when someone pulls away after they've made an investment in a relationship, that's a rather cruel thing to do to another human being. And so I'm not a big proponent. I don't think any of you should play the games that you've been taught how to get your ex back by living your full life and show on social media how you're having such a good time without him. Nor should you, like I know a lot of YouTubers will suggest never share your feelings with a man because that puts you in a subordinate position that gives him all the power. And I'm here to suggest that's just nonsense. I think it's time that women need to tell men to grow up. I really do believe this. I think there, now I will say this and I'm gonna get into, listen, I'm gonna go on to a rant about why I think men should grow up. At the same time, I think women need to grow up too. There is a lot of people out there in the dating realm talking about how women act very entitled, how they only go after a small percentage of the elite type of men, which is not true. And certainly there's a lot of women out there that are partying it up and they're certainly sleeping with a lot of different men. But that doesn't apply to our demographic, that demographic of the midlife folks. So ladies, if you're listening to advice out there that's really geared to a 20, 30 or even 40-year-old, that's not going to apply. That's not really gonna address our demographic. Those of us that are in midlife, which is after baby making years and before retirement. So we have to look at advice from a completely different vantage point. And I think by the time a man hits 40, 50, 60 or either 70, he hopefully treats women with a sense of respect. He treats another human being with a sense of courtesy, being conscientious, being respect, I said respectful, okay? So this is what's, I think this needs to be addressed. And so when a man pulls away, I think this is the time to call him out on his behavior. And at least if nothing else, express that this isn't acceptable and this is rather a cruel thing to do to another human being is to pull away. Now, before we get into pull away too deeply, let's differentiate between the early stages of dating where you barely know someone and you choose not to pursue a relationship. That's not pulling away. I know we call this ghosting. I know we call this bread crumbing, but the reality is, is if two people are in those first five to 10 dates where there hasn't really been a significant investment with that person, then I don't believe we should expect too much from a person that we haven't actually spent a significant amount of time together. And I was watching a video by Jay Shetty and Lewis Howe. I'm mentioning this quite frequently. What I mean is lately I've been thinking about this. Jay Shetty in this book, Eight Rules for Love. I don't know if he talks about this book but he talks about it in the podcast. He says it takes about 40 hours of face to face time just to beginning to get to know someone and it takes about 200 hours of face to face time. And this is quality face time. This doesn't include sleeping in the same bed but not talking to one another. It takes about 200 hours to really get to know someone as a decent friend. So I want you to recognize that for those of you who are in the beginning stages of dating, it's quite natural to have some doubt, to have some uncertainty and to pull away. Okay, now this is where it gets really tricky because again, men are biologically driven to spread their seed. You all know this. So what do men do in the beginning of the dating process? They come on strong, they love bomb, they profess their love. They say that you're unlike any other person I've ever been with. I could see myself marrying you and you're a total stranger. So it's incumbent upon you to recognize this about men. Now, I know it's incredibly attractive to hear all these wonderful things about you. At the same time, you have to recognize that when this is a stranger, it's not real until you've invested 200 hours of face to face time. I've been saying for years, it takes 100 hours of face to face time just to build the first layer of trust. Okay, so let's assume you've invested 100, 200 hours with each other. And now you see an energetic shift. You start to feel him pulling away. Most likely, the two of you haven't established the deep roots of trust. Now, my private coaching program, I really dig into this with my clients. I want them to understand the five elements to developing deep trust in a relationship. So if you need some support with that, check out a link right here to schedule a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. Developing trust requires some understanding of the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. So why does this happen? Why would someone pull away? Well, the reality is, is for those of us in midlife, many of us are just to begin, especially those of us who have gone through a divorce, roughly about 75% of singles who are over 45 years old or divorced, that usually sets off a series of emotional traumas. First off, our childhood wounds and adult traumas begin to surface right around midlife. What is that called? Midlife crisis. I call it where the blueprint of the way you thought your world was gonna be like collides with your reality. This is the midlife crisis. This happens around age 40 for men and women alike. And then since there's a significant percentage of people going through a divorce in their 40s, 50s and 60s, guess what else happens? There's an unraveling of the tapestry of your old life and many people don't know how to navigate life on their own in this age demographic. So what happens is if they've not addressed their childhood wounds or their adult traumas, usually the ending of a significant relationship, what happens is they bring those problems to their next relationship and for many men, they have a fear of diving in deeper with another human being. So they actually, and this is challenging because for many men and women, they want companionship, they want connection, they want sex, but they're only capable of so much. Now the sad part for our age demographic is probably 60, 70, 80% of those singles out in the dating marketplace are rather wounded. And while they're good human beings, these are good men and women alike, they're rather wounded. So what happens is, and this is true for women as well, they bring these wounds to the relationship and it causes the other person to pull away, to go to disappear, it causes the other person to get overly attached to another human being. I see this mostly from women, they get highly attached to an outcome because they make a lot of assumptions and they create a lot of expectations of what this new relationship should be like because there's this hope that it's gonna solve all the problems from the previous relationship or relationships. So we have a huge demographic of app, emotionally stunted human beings, emotionally constipated human beings. We talk about emotionally unavailable or we talk about avoidant attachment style. Men oftentimes get labeled as the avoidant attachment style. And by the way, there's some valid reasons why that happens but the problem is is very few people are actually dating with a level of consciousness from the very beginning, establishing radical honesty in the early stage of dating, laying your cards on the table and I'll talk about what this means and the rules of engagement. So let me start with the rules of engagement for a moment. The rules of engagement is basically establishing what is the standard we are going to have if we're going to explore a relationship together and ladies, the minute a man wants to have sex with you you have every right to establish your standards. Let me repeat that. You have every right to establish your standards once we have physical intimacy. Now, let me just say this, this isn't just for your benefit this is for his benefit too. You see, we've, I think here in United States I can't speak for the rest of the world but we've taken sex down to a physical experience and there's this complete neglect over the emotional experience that happens through physical intimacy. There's a scene in the movie Vanilla Sky where Cameron Diaz is driving incredibly fast in a car with Tom Cruise almost to the point I believe there's a car accident but she talks about the bonding effect of once you're physically intimate with a woman you have bonded with this person and if you're operating from a disingenuous place that's a very inconsiderate thing to do to another human being. So first, the rules of engagement simply means establish your standards of when it's to establish the standard as are we in a committed relationship? Do we call each other boyfriend and girlfriend? How often do we see each other and what is the end goal of this relationship? What is the end goal? Is it to move in together or to get married? Now a lot of people go, oh my God, that's why I barely know you. Well, guess what? If you barely know the person then you shouldn't be sleeping with someone that you're not willing to invest in them. Call them boyfriend and girlfriend, make a commitment and talk about the future. If you're not willing, this is to the men listening to right now and ladies, I want you to tell this to the men. If you're not willing to discuss these things with me then you don't get to have sex with me because sex is part, listen, it used to be, not less than 60, 70, 100 years ago. If two people wanted to have sex, they had to make a strong commitment to one another. I'm here to establish something called my dating vows. Folks, if you aren't familiar with my dating vows, I'm gonna encourage this as part of the rules of engagement. Have you ever heard the saying women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment? Well, that is rather true. Women typically choose when they wanna have sex with someone and men typically choose who they wanna commit. So you think about it, sex these days happens well before any genuine sincere commitment happens. So the dating vows is simply an agreement between two people. This is part of the rules of engagement. I agree to explore the process. This is an agreement the two of you make together. 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 while sexually, while we have regular sex together, that's a fair thing to ask. I agree not to actively seek to meet and date others while we're in the dating process, including taking down our dating profiles. I agree to speak up if this isn't working for me versus ghosting, pulling away or disappearing. And lastly, I agree to invest regular time together getting to know you, which looks like whatever you establish as your rules of engagement. Okay, that's the first piece. The second piece in this equation is laying your cards on the table. Folks, we have to recognize that past experiences indicate future experiences. So unpacking someone's past relationships is a vital, is critical to get a sense of who this person is because keep in mind, when you're meeting total strangers, you don't know anything about their backstory and here's the scary part. Even if I'm sharing this suggestion that's not a guarantee, the scary part is they can tell you whatever they want. This is why I'm a big proponent of even doing background checks and doing, search their social media footprint to get a sense of who this person is. If you're going to physically explore a relationship with someone, you have every right to ask as many questions about their past to get an insight into how they operate in the future. And one thing I've observed for men and women alike is that they take little or no ownership on their part to the ending of a previous relationship or relationships. They take little or no ownership. So if you take no ownership in your past, if it's always someone else's fault and you go, oh my God, this person is so wonderful. They got abused by their ex-partner. They were cheated on. They were emotionally beaten up by their ex-partner. I'm going to be the loving partner to save them. Let me just give you some insight. If you're listening to this right now and you in the future accept someone who throws their previous partner under the bus, be warned right now because guess what they'll do to you when they end the relationship with you, they're going to throw you under the bus. So laying your cards on the table is about talking about your past. And last but not least is radical honesty. Radical honesty is being vulnerable, being authentic, being transparent. Transparency, by the way, we need transparency. I want you to think about this. If something is material to a relationship with someone else, don't you think they have a right to know how your lifestyle, your actions, your previous behavior, your current financial status could affect someone in the future? It's really sad that we're living in a world where we are using people. That's right, people are getting used. It's very sad. I think part of the problem is with the abundance of perceived opportunity through the internet, through dating apps, it's given permission to treat human beings as disposable. So I'm here to, by the way, and I'm sharing all this because if you want to change your narrative, lead by example, transparency, if it's material, you share it. Authenticity, look, don't you wanna be your true self instead of pretending to be someone else? I'm here to encourage authenticity and vulnerability is sharing those insecurities. So vulnerability is also calling people out on bad behavior. That's what radical honesty does. So coming back to the person who's pulled away, and I guess if it's the first couple of dates, that's just kind of natural par for the course. But if you've invested emotional time with another human being and they do something cowardly like bread crumb or start to pull away, then have some, if you catch them before they've disappeared or pulled away, have some real dialogue about what can we do to improve our relationship together? I want you to write this down. What can we do to improve our relationship together and have a serious dialogue? Because most of you are having such surface level dialogues. How's your day going? Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. If you really want to change your narrative, then it's time to have some serious conversation. And if a person pulls away, listen, living your good life like a lot of people tell you to do, yeah, you should do that. But you know what? What I want you to do right now if you've gotten this far into the video, if you've ever had a man pull away, I want you to call them out on their bad behavior. And whether it goes on deaf ears or not, I'm here to say, it's time that all men get a bit of a wake up call. And you should tell your male friends to call the guy. You should tell every one of your male friends to call that guy and call him out on his bad behavior because we need a lot of butt kicking right now to shift this dysfunctional, disastrous dating world we live in today. And I think we need to all join together and start calling people out on their crap. All right, that's my rant. Did you get value out of this? I'd like to hear your thoughts. Please post a comment below. If this resonated with you, please hit that like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel. And if you need some support, there's a link below to schedule a discovery call with me to join my group to follow me on Instagram. And the dating vows I shared earlier is listed below. And for the record, 90% of guys will bail on the vows but the guys who don't, you have a greater chance of success with those guys. Is this sinking in? I hope it is. All right, I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic John the bearer of self love. I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'll ask you to turn to someone, a pet teddy bear pillow and give Iter 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.