 Well, hello, and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of JonathanAsley.com, and I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. We're going to talk about men who sabotage great relationships. Now, before I get started real quick, if this content resonates with you and you go, gosh, I love getting the male perspective, and if you're a woman who's seeking dating and relationship advice, and you want to schedule a call with me, click the link below to schedule a one-on-one call with me to see if coaching is right for you. All right, let's talk about why men sabotage great relationships. Ladies, I think we have to look at human beings from the perspective of the fact that most of us have suffered some sort of childhood wounds or traumas in our childhood. You know, now, when we think of traumas, oftentimes we think of the severe things like beatings or abandonment and that sort of thing. And while those are certainly incredibly painful for anyone to experience and certainly those who have had multiple parents, I mean, like in other words, they've had parents and step-parents and all that kind of stuff, it can be very emotionally chaotic, we all on some level suffer some sort of wounds or childhood traumas. And for many people, they are deeply entrenched in their childhood wounds and traumas. It's one of the reasons why a lot of people, both men and women, choose relationships that are very similar to one of their parents. A lot of times you see women who gravitate towards men who are like their fathers and you see men who gravitate to women who are like their mothers and not necessarily the good qualities in those parents, but they oftentimes are attracted to the unhealthy qualities in relationship. But there's not just the upbringing from your parents, but there can also be a trauma that happens in childhood. For example, in my particular case, I'll never forget, I was in third grade, I was taking a test, it was a math test and I spent like days preparing for it. It was doing our multiplication tables, one through six and I had my father help me out and create a little graph, one times one, one times two, two times two, six times six, a little graph, so I could prepare for it. And I was studying and I was studying and I was studying it. And when it came time to the test, I put my little notes away, my book, and took the test and I aced it, I got 100%. In fact, none of the kids could get past their four times tables and I did six times six, I did it all. And I studied really hard. And the teacher was like, oh my gosh, Jonathan, what a great job, blah, blah, and then all of a sudden she rushes over to my table and unopens my books and sees my notes. And she said in front of the class, you cheated, you're stupid. I mean, she said it loudly in front of everyone. And I was crushed. And in that moment, that defined who I was because ever since then, I felt like I was stupid. I felt like I was unworthy. And at that time, I tested very high, I think I had like 140 IQ, 139, 140 IQ when I did some testing. And from that point on, I did poorly in school. That defined who I was. And to this day, I still have a script saying I'm stupid and I'm not good enough. And I share this with you, I've worked very hard on healing that, but I share this with you because that trauma wasn't done by my parents. That was done by a teacher. And so these little things that define us as we grow older is one of the reasons why many people, whether it's a trauma, a wound that happened in their childhood or a trauma in our childhood, or even an adult trauma, even like a divorce or something happening in your professional life can affect us viscerally. I mean, not just emotionally, but physically affect us. Many people go into depression. They start drinking alcohol and doing drugs because they haven't gotten a hold of their childhood wounds or traumas or adult traumas. So one of the reasons why I highly recommend people check out the Hoffman process, the Hoffman process. I did an eight-day deep dive into healing all of these wounds. Did a deep dive in healing all these wounds? Because I had a pattern of choosing the same types of women over and over again, and then I would sabotage those relationships because they weren't healthy relationships for me because I didn't have a healthy relationship within myself. So one of the reasons why men sabotage great relationships is because they haven't healed their childhood wounds or traumas and they're repeating patterns over and over and over again. And they're oftentimes choosing the same type of woman over and over and over again. And this is true of women as well. Women, you do the same thing as well. You tend to choose the same type of man over and over again. If you're not familiar with the book, Getting the Love You Want, Getting the Love You Want by Harvill Hendricks, he does a deep dive into explaining this, deep dive in explaining this. Because here's the bottom line. The vast majority of the population has very poor relationship IQ. Very poor relationship IQ. It's one of the reasons why I'm a big proponent of doing personal development, self-help, and spiritual work on a daily basis. And if you're not familiar with my book, What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway, you gotta check it out. Look at the back. It's all about doing a deep dive into healing that part of us because the reality is is dating and relationships trigger the number one emotional health issue. And that is, I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. I'm not likable. And when you don't feel lovable, you don't feel likable, you don't feel good enough, you're gonna constantly be testing people and sabotaging a relationship because you don't feel safe. But ultimately you have to become safe within yourself because when you're safe within yourself, you can navigate any relationship for the most part with someone who's also relatively healthy. But if two emotionally unhealthy people get together, they're gonna be budding heads. And so the reason why people sabotage in ladies, it's not always you. Sometimes you feel like it's you and it's not your fault. It could be that you chose a partner that's struggling emotionally. By the way, I just noticed my picture is off. I'm just gonna fix that. Ha ha ha ha ha. Anyways, I think you get the gist of where I'm going. I'm really encouraging for you, anyone who's watching this, man or woman, is start doing a deep dive into personal development. Start to love on yourself because when you love on yourself, all this stuff is gonna be much easier when it comes to romantic love and relationships. But the reason why men sabotage really great relationships is because there's some healing that most likely needs to be done. And here's the thing. Sometimes it can happen in relationship. In other words, you can still be together while someone's healing, but oftentimes someone has to go on their own hero's journey. Alison Armstrong calls it the tunnel. And not always is a good time to be in relationship when someone's in the tunnel. I was in the tunnel for 10 years after my divorce, probably longer than that. I mean, I want to say 12 or 13 years. I wasn't in a healthy place to be in a relationship. And I sabotaged really great relationships because I had to go through my own healing. Doesn't mean you have to break up with someone who's going through the tunnel, but just be prepared that it could be a messy ride for that person. And I highly encourage you. If you're gonna be in relationship with someone, if you're gonna have an intimate sexual relationship, then you work on the relationship together. And if you're not familiar with the book, I'm gonna grab it right now. Eight Dates by Dr. John Gottman. If you're gonna be in relationship with a man, you're gonna have sex together, then be reading this book because that's gonna help you with your relationship IQ. It's gonna absolutely help you with your relationship IQ because that's what sorely needed because when you have good relationship IQ, you're most likely not going to sabotage a great relationship. Okay, I covered a lot here today. I covered a lot of books and stuff. I wanna hear what your thoughts are. Please post a comment if this resonated with you. Have you something to say? You got something to add? Please post a comment. And as I said before, if you'd like to have more of a personal touch and you wanna do a deep dive into relationship IQ, then click the link below to schedule a call with me to see if coaching is right for you. Okay, I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do, giving you a big gigantic Jonathan Bear hug if I have your consent. Aw, thank you. Wishing you a wonderful day. Thanks so much. Bye-bye now.