 This weekend I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who belongs to a group out of San Diego called the Eden Group which is a couples group to help strengthen the relationship of the couples to help heal couples that may be struggling but more importantly it's actually couples that are really in a good place to build the deep roots of trust and commitment so I can sustain some of the bumps that do occasionally happen in relationship and one of the conversations I had with the woman was what's oftentimes missing today with couples and then I thought well let me take this into dating is a level of commitment to the work commitment to the work and I thought yeah that's kind of what happens in dating today there's there's a real lack or ambivalence or nativity to the commitment to the work and what I mean by the work is you know these days when we're dating it's oftentimes I think here are particularly in the United States but this could be true across the world all over the world is a real lack of there's this ambivalence if you will there's this it's just about having a good time you know people made it in the past because there was a real reason for it there was a bonding of families there was a procreation to make babies so those babies can take care of you when you get older and now I think we live in such in a society that's all about self-pleasure self-pleasure think about that I don't mean pleasuring oneself but it's all about self- pleasure that the dating process is just a pleasurable process for some people meaning it's about getting their personal needs met whatever that might be companionship connection or even sex without any real desire to commit to another person without a real desire to bond with this person and build a life with this person so it's no wonder that the current dating marketplace is such a mess if there's no real commitment to the work and so let's let's let's look at this because women are guilty of this just as much as men I think men are habitually guilty of this but women are as well first is getting a clear understanding the first bit of work is getting a clear understanding of who is truly compatible with you you know we have this belief that if there's this amazing chemistry well we'll solve all our relationship problems and yes amazing chemistry is great and it's an important route for a relationship but what's also important is do we share the same values with this person is this life is this person's lifestyle blendable with ours and lastly is this person in a good emotional place does this person have relationship skills to actually carry the relationship beyond the initial dating or courting phase I want you to think about that takes work to really get clarity on this this is why in my private coaching one of the things I help women with because they all come to me going Jonathan I know what I want I know what I want I know what I want and they go through my proprietary coaching program and can you guess what they say every single time afterwards oh my gosh why didn't they teach me this in school why didn't my parents teach me this why didn't I learn this before I married the wrong person part of this equation is the initial work to get clarity on who you are what you want and more importantly the individual personal development work to learn the skills it takes their skills required to be good communicators I hear women say to me the importance of communication and relationship and yet many women are terrible at communication and I mean to say is while some women can vomit their feelings and I just mean it's just throwing your feelings out there without any regard to is it landing on this person in a healthy way yes women can might be capable of that but real healthy communication to be seen heard and understood or I see a lot of women do is they're afraid to communicate their thoughts and their feelings and relationships so you say you want good communication and yet you're fearful because you're afraid the guy might run away okay so first is doing the individual work so you're better prepared to be in relationship and then the second piece of work and I listen when two people are closely aligned to each other there isn't a lot of work in relationship the work is really sticking to the commitment you've made with one another to ride the storms that's really the only pit of work and then learning active listening skills and conflict resolution skills that's really that's where a lot of relationships get bumped off you know because they're they don't know how to really navigate the little bumps in the road so that's part of the work now the other piece of the equation is then vetting the person that you're dating this is why again coming back to my work and what I teach in my coaching is I help women get a better sense of is this person really capable of going into the deeper roots of trust so here's the thing by the way ladies there are some really great men out there this last weekend I was with a group of amazing men who are have done a lot of personal development work that have gone to therapy that have healed their childhood wounds and traumas are healing them and they're good communicators in relationship I just want you know there are lots of great guys out there there really are you know to me women tend to study relationships more so than men so I think that's one difference women watch videos and read books related to relationships more but I would say from a personal development standpoint real self-help I would say it's probably relatively equal the amount of people that do work in this area so if you're doing the work then go to places where also men are doing the work the personal development the self-help the spiritual work because you're you're probably gonna be if this is work you're doing in your life you meet someone else who's doing that work you might and if you share the same values your lifestyles blendable you might be aligned with each other to navigate those storms because commitment today isn't as necessary as it was in the past and that's the real crux here is a real commitment to it's interesting when my girlfriend I after we when we agreed we were gonna explore a relationship we really went in it with intentionality with real intentionality we are exploring this relationship for something long-term we said those words to each other which was a commitment to each other to say is this something that can work for us we were we were mindful of it we weren't just oh let me just see how it goes you know let's take it slow I think when a guy says he wants to take it slow for example it's because he doesn't have a direction or a real intent to want to listen I know it's difficult to choose who you want to make a commitment to that's a really tricky thing and it does take time to build that because these days we're meeting total strangers and we're meeting total strangers it's hard to know who's really compatible with us it really is you know I have an idea I locked it I would like to lock a couple into a room for 30 days I'll have come up with some title around the 30 days lock up and for 30 days you're with each other and you're only allowed to have sex for a half hour in that day and then you have to spend the rest of your time together seeing if you're genuinely compatible with one another what does everybody think about that locking yourself in a room I know you probably go oh my god and this is you have to do this before you have sex with one another so or maybe that would be just the part of the process like that show love at first sight or something like that where people are all in a in a home together trying to figure it out maybe there's some value to doing that I don't know I'm just playing here right now but my point is how committed first off how committed are you to finding a partner and are you willing to do the pre-work ahead of time that's a question and then are you really committed to determining if this person is a really good potential mate for you instead of just the enjoyable pleasure because I think today we are more hyper focused on the pleasure aspects of dating and not the real practical aspects of is this person really suitable for me is this a potentially good partner now this makes it tricky because then you're all in your head I get that it's it's hard if you're all in your head and you're not really experiencing at all and yet if you're meeting a total stranger I think we have to first figure out if we're going to invest time with someone is this a real good potential person to invest time and I think through a few phone calls early on you can get a better sense than just taking it cavalier late and I think a good couple good questions to ask is what does a relationship look like for you what does commitment look like for you are you committed to wanting a fully committed relationship and just ask a few questions along the way is this making sense is this resonating with you please let me know post a comment below I'd like to hear your thoughts alright I think this will be a great place to wrap up for today if you find value in our group please tell your friends about midlife love mastery send them to my website Jonathan asley.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 Barrick 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 pat teddy bear pillow and 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 bye