 So today, we're going to talk about what men who break your heart have this in common. And it seems like when a woman in particular has gone through a heartbreak, if we actually connect the dots, going back to the beginning of the relationship, we could find that there are some common patterns within men and actually women that cause one to end a relationship. Now let's just be honest with each other, wouldn't it be great if chemistry was an indicator of relationship success that when two people feel that spark for one another, that's all you need to make for a successful relationship. That would be awesome. And yet if you've been following my channel for a while or if you've been on this planet for hopefully more than 40 plus years, you probably recognize that humans are rather emotionally dysfunctional. That's right, emotionally dysfunctional. I think that most humans capacity for emotional maturity and more importantly, relationship skills is actually rather weak. Now here's the challenge. Most everybody watching this probably thinks, well, I'm the exception to that rule. But when I say this, I include every human on the planet, myself included. I think we all have some level of dysfunction, more so for some than others. Now the tricky thing, as I said earlier, is that wouldn't it be great if chemistry was an indicator of relationship success? See we oftentimes approach the process with a lot of chemistry in the mix and not enough real evaluation for shared values, emotional maturity, and certainly blendable lifestyles, particularly for those of us in midlife. You see, when you are in midlife, maybe I should title this men over 40, men over 40 in midlife, is that we're rather kind of set in our ways the older we get, the more grooved we are in our lives. And because of this, we oftentimes make choices that are not necessarily the best for us because many humans are rather rigid. Now women have a propensity to trying harder in a relationship. I think women tend to want commitment more so than men. I think men truly probably desire some level of freedom within the context of a fully committed relationship. Let me repeat that. Men tend to want some level of freedom even in the context of a fully committed relationship. Hence the man cave, hence the going out and buying the sports car, and well that actually is after divorce so let's not put that in that category. But certainly playing golf with their male friends and I think to some degree it is important to have a level of autonomy when you're in a fully committed relationship. But there's so much more to a committed relationship than our basal needs, our base needs excuse me, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. See when we get higher up on that tier, emotional connection is really where most humans end up failing in their relationship. So I'm going to share something with you right now, what men have in common, when they break your heart. I was reading an article some weeks ago about what people should be letting go in their lives. But this was rather apropos for this conversation because what people should let go is actually in the inverse is what they should invite in. And I think when we don't invite the following in, you'll get my drift in just a moment. These are what are typically are in common for most relationships that will end. And sadly if you are attached to somebody, if you're attached to somebody and the relationship ends, you might find that your heart might end up getting broken. And I don't want to characterize a broken heart as if some man did something wrong to intentionally hurt you. I know oftentimes it's viewed that way, but in many cases misaligned or emotionally immature people get together and find themselves in dynamics that don't work for them. So the first thing that they tend to have in common, men who are rather rigid in their lives, they're rigid in their lives. I talked about that earlier. They're kind of set in their ways. They lack a sense of flexibility. They are inflexible. See rigid people, particularly in their ideologies and the way they operate in the world, how they do things, kind of the same thing, tend to not be able to absorb somebody else's way of doing something. If they're totally rigid inflexible, you might have a different way of washing the dishes that might actually be better. I'm just using that as a crude example. And yet they're so inflexible. And have you experienced this? Have you experienced a man who's been inflexible? I am sure that if you have, it might have been the cause for the ending of your relationship. Now, I'm going through this list. One of the things I witness with so many humans is particularly an inability to listen to their partner. They're not listening. Oftentimes, some people listen to respond. But ultimately, when you're in relationship with someone who doesn't value what you have to say or worse, they're dismissive of what you say. After a while, that grinds on us, that wears on us, that affects our emotional well-being in relationship. So people who don't listen and listen to me is to not only hear what another person says, acknowledge what the other person says, validate that that might be true for them. That to me is more active listening than waiting to respond. I think a lot of humans talk at each other and not necessarily with each other. So I've noticed this habitually in common with those who have relationships that ended. Sadly, I hope you're not heartbroken from it. Okay, here's a big one. People are judgmental. I mean, if you hear someone gossip, I'm going to throw this in the mix. They gossip. They criticize. Judge other people or maybe the worst, they judge you for your behavior. That will emotionally wear on what little strength you have in the relationship. That will wear and tear on a relationship and ultimately cause for the, lack of better word, demise or ending of a relationship, somebody who is being overtly judgmental. Now, there are going to be times when a human is judgmental. I jokingly say, why am I so judgmental of people who are judgmental? I'm aware. It's interesting. I'm just going to go on a side note for a moment. It's interesting when you catch yourself in a judgment. When I think of judgment, I'm not talking about ways to improve yourself through the judgment of learning from a poor experience and how to become better. That's certainly a reflection of judgment in there. I'm talking about negatively judging another person for their behavior. I say negatively because I judge people on good behavior too and I want to acknowledge that. I make an assessment, but when it's critical of another human being, I'm going to tell you something. Judgment is a relationship killer. Dr. John and Julie Gottman talk about the four horsemen of the apocalypse in a relationship. They say it's criticism, contempt, stonewalling defensiveness. I guess within criticism, I guess that's judgment. When we criticize another person, we're actually judging them. You can criticize circumstances too. There's a variety of different things we can criticize. When we criticize and have contempt at the same time thinking we're better than someone, that judgment oftentimes wears on a relationship. Again, if it's directed towards the individual, you, for example, will most likely cause an emotional breakdown in the relationship and cause a breakup and possibly heartbreak. Another thing is holding on to grudges. Oh, my God. Some relationships people keep score. It's interesting. I have a friend of mine who says his wife has a capacity to always bring up something in the past and they have elephant kind of memories. In that capacity, there's a little bit of jadedness, a bit of grudge being held when you bring up the past transgression in a relationship instead of actually healing what might be going on. Certainly, this happens frequently in romantic relationships where couples are holding on to grudges for one another. My mother and father who were married 66 years before my mother passed away had dear friends that have been married equally as long as them. I remember one of the couples say to me, and I quote, we have a rule. Whenever we have a disagreement with one another, prior to going to bed, we do as much to resolve it. If there's any residue that needs to be cleaned up, it's the first thing we do the next day. We clean up so we don't hold on to grudges within our partners. My hope is that if you've experienced that and it's ended to the relationship again, these are the things in common from what I've observed in relationships that ended. Being overly critical, oh, my God, you know, and I'd be candid with you. I can be a little critical of myself, but the minute I've and I've observed in the past, I've been critical of someone in relationship and I realize that that was an unhealthy behavior on my part when I was critical of another person. Being critical is expecting perfectionism to some degree. And believe me, we humans are far from perfect. Oh, my God, we humans are riddled with so many issues. And it's a wonder we actually ever make it to a juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship. And I think being overly critical, and I say overly critical, I think to some degree we have to have a critical mind to assess threats, to assess alignment, that sort of thing. You know, I talked about judgment before. I remember a quote in a movie, but I'm bringing it up to critical is good judgment oftentimes comes from bad judgment. I think when we're critical, where we can't assess our behaviors in the past and say, how can I learn from it? But that's an individual thing. I think if you're being too critical for yourself or God forbid, you're being too critical for another human being. Let's bring it back to being critical of yourself that we can also be in that same venue self-deprecating. And that's not healthy for two people to go on this journey of love. You know, isn't this what it's all about? Experiencing love. Experiencing the real richness of being with another human being. You know, that, you know, we confuse chemistry and the chemical reaction of lust and limerence as being love. You know, ask yourself, have you ever met somebody who thought was love at first sight, but would you be willing to give them $100,000 cash? I highly doubt it. You don't love them enough. I think love is some real, real trust is really what we're getting at. Trust takes time to build. And when we build trust with another human being, and trust isn't just about fidelity, trust is, does this person have my best interest at heart? Does what happens to them affect my life and be conscious of that? I think that's real trust. And that's where I believe love is birthed when we can feel that space of trust for another human being. I think one thing that causes a lot of relationships to end is a lack of a neglect of self care, people that just let themselves go. You know, I think, you know, especially for those of us in midlife, you know, the days in front of us are shorter than the days behind us. I think if you want to have longevity in a relationship, it requires taking really good care of yourself. Several years ago, I neglected my health. Actually, years before that, I abused my health to some degree. I abused my health and then I neglected my health. And thankfully, I'm hopefully in a space where I can turn it around, but self care isn't just about getting manicures and pedicures. Okay. I'm sure that's part of self care, getting a massage every now and again, but I'm talking about really self care for your body. Our body is a machine and the better we take care of it, the longer our relationship will last. And so for those that don't take good care of themselves, it can actually be the cause for ending a relationship, whether it's one side or the other. I think one of the most critically important aspects of a relationship is conflict resolution and those people that tend to avoid apologizing for their transgression in relationship tend to have this in common. Because when you avoid apologizing, when you're incapable of apologizing, when you're incapable of just honoring the other person's feelings that you might have unintentionally hurt someone's feelings. Now, I realize that we're all in charge of our own feelings, but sometimes, look, I've said bonehead things. Oh my God, I once accidentally said the C word to a woman. It was because I heard it on a comedy video prior to that and it just came out of my mouth and I was effusive in my apology. And I'm still, I mean, I viscerally feel that right now as I'm sharing this with you because I took ownership. Of that insensitive comment. And again, it's just something birded out and bird blurted out. And I believe we all humans can make mistakes, you know, I mean, that five second roll of being able to pull it back. And there might be some of you who judge me right now for sharing that, I'm like, I get it, you know, I get why you might want to. But I think ultimately those who take ownership or let's reframe for those who don't take ownership in their, for lack of better word, transgressions, oftentimes is the common thread for relationships that end. I said this earlier about judgments and grudges and stuff being dismissive of another human being. That contempt can be radically toxic to a relationship. It's so sad that we humans can be so myopic, so self-centric sometimes that we're unaware of being dismissive of another human being. And after a while, that's going to wear on a relationship. And people who tend to be dismissive, this is something I invite everyone to work on when we dismiss another human being, when we get defensive, I mean, the list goes on and it really leads to our last one, because I believe relationships are a center for growth and for those people that avoid doing the inner work to heal childhood wounds and adult traumas. If they're avoiding the personal development work, I wrote a book, What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway, Journey of Personal Development, Self Health and Spiritual Work. I wrote this book as an invitation to look inward. It's not a dating a relationship book. It's a book about really finding inner peace. And it's a very simplistic book. By the way, there's a link below to get a copy of my book. It's just a very simplistic version of finding that space to invite everyone to do the inner work. Because when you do that individual work, remember I said in the beginning of this broadcast that personal, emotional maturity and relationship skills are lacking in most humans. When we begin to do the inner work, that becomes the game, if you will, of life, is how can I improve as an individual, and whether you're a man or a woman watching this video right now, and I help more men watch my videos, I really do, because what I'm hoping is to create is a recipe or a silo of knowledge to improve your well-being, particularly in the realm of dating, mating or relating. And isn't that what we want? Is the level of well-being and doing personal development work is certainly a pathway because those who don't tend to have that in common when a relationship ends. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know if it is. Post a comment below. I'd like to hear your thoughts. I certainly do my best to read them all within the first 24 hours. If you found value in this video, please hit the like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel and hit that notification bell so you can be notified of new videos as well. All right, I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrow of self-love. Please forgive the pit stains. I'm gonna give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a 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.