Why Modern Relationships Are FAILING

You've probably noticed a pretty big shift within the realm of dating, relationships and marriage, a shift that has created some significant challenges between men and women. And to be honest with you, in today's episode, I'm going to talk about some things that are probably going to piss some of you off, going to be uncomfortable. You're not going to like some of what I have to say. You might disagree. All of that's fine, and I'm sure that you'll tell me in the comments. But the reality is, is that there has been a massive shift in dating and relationships to the degree where men and women are constantly saying how dissatisfied they are, how unhappy they are. And you see it in the videos in the comment section and the breakups and, you know, the gotcha videos online. It's everywhere. And that shift can really be boiled down to one kind of sentiment that describes what's going on, which is women's relational desires are supreme and matter most. And men's relational desires, wants and needs should be questioned, not necessarily taken as seriously, and should be dished out only after a woman's wants, needs, and desires are met at full and face value. And this shift has created an inequity or an inequality within the relationship game. And you can see this online with the, you know, endless reasons why women get the ick in relationships, or the endless reasons why women decide to end their marriage or their divorce, that they're encouraged, that they're cheered on for breaking up the family system. Right? 75% of divorces are initiated by women. And yet this is something that seems to be celebrated within our culture and our society. And I understand that there's many marriages that probably should end. I'm not saying that everybody should stay together. Some people actually should not be together and probably shouldn't have been together in the first place. I get that. I've seen those couples, I've worked with, those couples where I'm like, you guys would probably just end this, right? This is not okay for you or the kids. But the truth and the reality is that this is a microcosm of something that seems to have seeped into our cultural conversation, that a woman's desires, a woman's expressions, a woman's power is celebrated at all costs, regardless of the impact, regardless of the outcome, regardless of whether that is damaging for the people. And a man's wants, needs, and desires are looked at as criticized, misogynistic, patriarchal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And another example of this that you could look at is OnlyFans. And this might seem like a strange example at first, but it's a very clear example that a woman expressing herself, selling her body online, making tons of money off of selling feet photos or whatever it is that, you know, the top onlyfans models are doing to make that money that's celebrated, that's looked at as empowerment. All of these young women selling their bodies for money is empowerment. That's great. We should celebrate that. We should cheer that. Personally, I would never want my daughter doing that. But then the men that are using those profiles, they're dogs, they're pigs, they're disgusting. There's something wrong with them. They're vile. You know, a lot of women, look, celebrate the only fans models, but won't date the man who's using the only fans models, right? And so there's kind of this interesting paradox and hypocrisy that has entered into the relational conversation and, and equation. And I see this all the time in relationships. And I think that part of it really boils down to this notion that for the most part, and this isn't a rule in the sense that this is how everybody is raised, but for the most part, men are taught how to treat a woman. They are taught how to prioritize her needs. They are taught, we are taught as men. You as a man watching this, you are taught to treat a woman correctly. Your father, your mother will have taught you how to open doors and speak to a woman and prioritize emotional conversations and tending to her emotionally. And of course, there are many, many women who have experienced relationships where that has not been the case, where they've been emotionally left, you know, they've been cheated on, they've had an abusive man, and that for the most part, there's obviously not great men out there. And I hear those stories all the time. But it still doesn't negate the fact that how we raise young boys is in terms of how to treat women is. Is how to treat them. Here's how you treat them. Here's how you should engage with them. Here's how you should interact with them. But what we don't often treat, what we don't often teach young men is what to expect from women. We don't teach young men what to expect from women. We don't teach them what behavior is okay to expect from a woman. And in fact, when you look at some of those conversations online today, I see videos online and, you know, guys talking to other guys about, you know, this is what you should expect in a relationship from a woman. These are the standards that you can hold. These are the boundaries that you can have. A lot of the commentary towards that conversation is incredibly hostile. Anytime that we start to talk to men about what to expect from a woman, that's misogynistic, that's patriarchal, that's disgusting, that shouldn't, that's not okay in some way, shape or form. And so we, we teach young men how to treat women, and some of them don't do that very well, but we don't teach them how to, what to expect from a woman. And on the other side of that, we teach young women what to expect from a man. We teach young women, here's how a man should talk to you, here's how a man should engage with you. Here's how a man should meet your needs. Here's how, here's all the things, all of the lists of things that you should expect from a man growing up. But so few women are taught, here's how you treat a man. Here's how you treat a man in a way that's going to lead to him feeling respected, loved, cared for, nurtured, tended to, satisfied, fulfilled within the relationship. And so we do a disservice within our culture. And I think part of what's happening, part of what's coming to a head is this gap that we don't teach young boys and young girls. Here's how to treat the opposite sex, and here's also what to expect from them in the dating world. Here's the boundaries that you should have. Here are the things that you should celebrate, here are the ways that you can engage, and here are some of the things that are maybe not okay. It's become commonplace that whatever a woman wants and however a woman acts should be completely accepted. It should be celebrated, it should be honored, it should be put on a pedestal, it should be cheered. And how a man engages and how a man behaves should be scrutinized to the nth degree. So much so that we can no longer define what it means to be a good man. In fact, when you talk to the majority of people, especially in more sort of progressive circles, but also in conservative circles, and you ask them, what does it mean to be a good man? What does it mean to be masculine? Oftentimes what people will say, or at least what the main narrative is in modern conversation, is a laundry list of things that a man shouldn't do. So we're trying to define masculinity. We're trying to define what it means to be a man by saying, here's all the things you shouldn't do that you can't say, that you shouldn't engage with, that you shouldn't want, that you shouldn't expect, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this challenge is coming to a head. And I think part of the challenge, part of the way that we need to escape from this is, is that we need to stop engaging with this notion that if a man has expectations from a woman, that that's somehow vile, that's somehow wrong or misogynistic or patriarchal. Men are allowed to have expectations too. And women also, to be honest with you, if you know how to treat a man, you are exponentially more likely to keep one. And for the most part, I think it's unfortunate that there's these echo chambers where women are in these echo chambers. And it's reinforcing that the man is the problem, that he's the singular issue in the relationship. And it's basically, well, he's just not treating me right. He's not treating me the way that I want to be treated. And there's no indication whatsoever that how she's treating him is maybe part of the equation that how she's treated him for most of the relationship, hypercritical, angry, aggressive, combative, ornery, you know, putting him down, never being happy with anything. These types of things have become acceptable within the realm of modern discourse online, especially within more female dominated containers and communities. And so we have to start to shift the lens. Yes, we as men need to do a better job at the way that we treat women. That is absolutely true. We also need to do a better job, guys, of having some expectations, have some standards. When you are dating, do not allow yourself to enter into the dating world. Standardless, expectationless. I see this all the time, especially within nice guys. And there's so many nice guys out there where they don't have any expectations of the relationship because you're just so desperate to try and get a date. You're just so desperate to try and get a response from a woman. And ladies, if we can enter, if you can just start to enter into a space of, yes, prioritizing your expectations. I'm not saying don't have expectations. I'm not saying don't have things that you expect from a man or want from a man, that that's totally fine. But also really ask yourself, do you know how to treat a man in a way that's going to Keep him around. Do you know how to treat a man in a way that's going to have him be committed to the relationship and that's going to have him be fulfilled in the relationship where he wants to continue to pour love back into you, where he's going to want to continue to go the extra mile in the relationship for. For you. That's a big gap that I see missing in most of the relationships. Men lacking in expectations. So they don't bring any expectations into the relationship. They don't really have any. They're not communicated. The woman never knows where she stands. She's kind of in the dark. She doesn't know what that guy wants. It's deeply confusing. He builds resentment, doesn't say anything, and then the relationship implodes. Right. So he doesn't communicate. Here's what I expect. Here's what I actually need from you. Here's what I want from you in the context of our relationship. And women in some ways have negated how to treat a man in a way that is going to leave him feeling fulfilled, that's going to leave him feeling loved and nourished and wanting to contribute back to the woman that he's with. And so we have to do a better job as adults raising our children to say, here's how to treat somebody that you're dating and here's what to expect from them. And we have to do a much better job of doing that in our own relationships, in being willing to get into discovery mode of how does my partner actually want to be treated? And that might be uncomfortable. It might be something you're like, oh, why do you need that? Why is that how you want to be treated? And it's probably going to be different than what you want. And that's just the reality of things.

That is the gap between most men and women. Is that how men and women want to be treated? How what men and women expect in a relationship is oftentimes very, very, very different. But when we can have the conversations to fill in the gaps. And one of the things that I've always said that makes a healthy relationship is that there is no guesswork, that I don't need to guess what you expect in the relationship. I don't need to guess how you want to be treated. I just know. And the more that we can do that upfront, the more we can have a better understanding of whether that relationship is the right one for us. Can I commit to treating you in the way that's going to leave you feeling empowered and confident and loved and feeling nourished and connected. Can. Can I meet the expectations that you have for me in the relationship? Now, obviously, there's a lot of caveats to this I can hear already. Well, what about the disorganized attached person? And what about people with bipolar and all these other. Yes, of course there's variations. There's caveats to all of this. But in a general sense, to have the conversation of how you want to be treated and what you expect in the relationship. This is something that my wife and I did very early on and has served us so freaking well. Here's how I want to be treated. Here's what I expect in the relationship. Here are my needs. Here are my wants. Here are my desires. You know, I had, for example, I had a no raising kids in Manhattan rule. It was a big thing for me. I said, if you want to get engaged, if you want to get married, at some point, just know. I do not want to raise children in New York. That was a boundary for me. Another one, how I want to be treated. I want to be treated with respect. I do not want somebody in my life who's going to be badmouthing me, who's going to be talking shit about me, who's going to be putting me down and criticizing me. I'm not interested in that at all. I expect you to communicate to me in a way that is respectful and healthy and secure and loving and kind of. And that is an expectation for me that I hold within our relationship. Now, I also am responsible for treating you like that, to treating you with love and admiration and praise. And it's a little bit different, because what she wants. How she wants to be treated a little bit different, what she expects a little bit different. She wants adoration. She wants love. She wants words of affirmation. I want to be treated with respect. Respect. And I want that to be reinforced. So. And again, notice, notice. I can just hear some of the comments coming in online and like, oh, you want to be treated with respect? That's patriarchal. No, it's just what a lot of men want. We want to be respected in a relationship. There's. I'll leave you with this one last piece. There was a study done, and it was looking at what men and women are looking for in order to feel loved in the relationship. And women wanted words of praise and validation and in order to feel loved, and men wanted words of thanks and gratitude. That's what leaves men feeling loved. Words of thanks and gratitude. Not all men, of course, this general piece of research, but for a lot of men, that leaves them feeling respected and loved that you are noticing and you are paying attention to and you are communicating how much that man is doing. So leave your thoughts and comments below. Man it forward with somebody that you think might have an opinion on everything that I laid out here. And until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.