What REALLY Makes a Man Commit

Welcome to another episode of Love Life. I'm your host, Matthew Hussey. Every few days I'll be bringing you a new episode filled with practical advice you can use right away to improve all of your relationships romantic, family, friends, career and most importantly the relationship you have with yourself. If you've been listening to me for a while, please do me a favor and leave me a five star review in iTunes. In the iTunes app or on your desktop, just look up the show, click on ratings and reviews, and then click write a review. I'm not asking for the ego boost. It's simply because the highest rated programs get the most visibility in iTunes and together we can help reach more women by helping them find the show. Thank you so much for your help. Let's start the show. Hello everyone, this is Matthew Hussey from Love Life. We have another caller on the line today. Are you there, Carla?

I am. How are you?

Good, thank you. Your name is Kalani, am I right in saying that?

Correct, yes.

Kalani, good to speak to you. What was your question?

So, I am really puzzled by modern day commitment. It seems that people have a really hard time committing these days. There's always something better out there. I'm sure social media has a lot to do with it. People compare their lives to others. I know in LA where I live, A lot of men have Peter Pan syndrome and they don't want to grow up. But it makes me weary to get into a relationship because I feel like, you know, people are always kind of worried about maybe there's something better out there and commitment just doesn't seem to be as honored as it used to be and it's causing me some fear into getting into relationships. And I think I just wanted to get your thoughts on that, how I can maybe work through some of that and be more trusting.

Yeah, that's a great two part question. I mean, firstly, I think in general, people are worse at committing to anything these days. I think people are worse at committing to careers. I think they're worse at committing to a life path. I think they're worse at committing to marriage. I think we have shorter attention spans and also we have, I think, a certain level of entitlement these days that makes us feel like we're entitled to a job that is amazing and exciting the whole time. And as soon as it's not, we feel like we need to quit and move on to something else. I think we feel like we're entitled to a relationship. that isn't any work that's supposed to be easy. And then as soon as it's not, we start looking for the next thing. Now, what we have to understand is that there are different experiences of life. There's the experience, for example, of going out and sleeping with multiple people and having a kind of roster of people on the go that you enjoy and you just seeing where that takes you and you have all the variety that comes with that. Then you have the experience, which is being with one person and sharing your day with them and figuring, finding out how they are when they get home and telling them how you are when you get home. And, you know, you go and you go and do something with that person and you can really relate to them because you know them. You share your news with them and you want to share your news because they know how hard you worked for that promotion that you're now excited about, unlike the person you met last week who doesn't care. It's a different experience. And so, you know, people grow and as they mature or hopefully mature, not every guy does, but as they mature, they start to have They value experiences differently. Some people go through their lives and they begin to truly value that sense of real meaning and connection that comes with being with one person. Other people, by the way, never get to that stage. I actually, I truly believe that that's the minority. I think that most people actually get to a point where they want more meaning in their lives.

That's very good to hear because that's kind of what I was wondering is, you know, how things have changed, you know, and I think of my parents in the sixties or whatever, it was such a natural thing to, commit to somebody and that's what you did. And now it seems more unnatural to do that because, you know, divorce is prevalent and things. But I think, like you're saying, inherently maybe in humans, like people ultimately do want a quality experience. And so it just does, it's like a maturity thing then.

It is. And here's where the results get skewed because I think that most guys will get to a point where they want more meaning with the minority never wanting more meaning or having some sort of problem internally that stops them from accessing that part of themselves. Here's where the results gets skewed. Many guys, because of this sense of entitlement, where we think, God, before I get to a certain age, I have to have played around enough. I have to have traveled enough. I've had to have had a ton of adventure. I need to have made a certain amount of money. I need to be in a certain place in my status, in my career. They have all of these things that they feel like they need to check off before they meet the woman that they're going to spend their life with and settle down. Here's the problem. Despite this sense of entitlement, many of them never achieve all of those things by the time they meet that woman.

Right.

So all of a sudden, they're meeting this amazing woman and they think, God, I could marry this woman. I could spend my life with this woman. If only I'd been to all those countries I already wanted to go to. If only I feel like I played around enough, had enough adventure. If only I'd already made that money that I said I'd make, you know, I said I'd be a millionaire by 30. I'm not. I need to keep going with that. They have all of these things that they feel like they haven't done yet when they meet that person. And all of a sudden, They find themselves sabotaging a relationship, not because the relationship's wrong, but because they feel like they haven't arrived at that place in their life just yet.

That is so profound and is, I think, so true.

Yeah, it's tough. It's very, very tough. So, yeah, it's tough. Here's the key. The key isn't about trusting more. I think the idea of trust is actually misguided in many cases. The onus isn't on you. to just trust people blindly. That's dumb. What you do is you allow people to earn your trust and you give them the chance in the first place. That's all it is. I'm going to allow you to put in that 5% of amount of effort that allows you to get 5% of my trust, then 10% and 15% and so on. That's how any relationship is built. You don't start with the trust, you build the trust. So any guy that's going to be worthy of you has to show that he's worthy of you by the investment that he puts in and by showing you that he's actually interested in the same things that you're interested in in terms of a relationship. That's going to be built over time. The easiest thing you can do for yourself is to look for guys in the right stage of their lives instead of trying to convert guys in the.

Wrong stage of their lives. So, so true.

If you want to find a guy in the right stage of his life or you want to find out if a guy is in the right stage of his life, simply ask him the right questions. When you're early on, ask him, you know, what are you interested in a relationship at this stage in your life? Or do you feel like you still have more that you want to get out of your system? If you talk about his past relationship, why did you break up with that person? That will tell you a lot, by the way. Does he talk about it being, you know, he's the reason that they broke up because he wasn't ready for a relationship, or is it because of something that she was doing and therefore he just hadn't found the right person? If you ask the questions, he'll give you the answers. Most women never ask the questions and so they never get the truth from a guy because they don't want to hear it. So just go and be smart about it. You're going to be fine because you're clearly an intelligent person. You clearly want the result and you're clearly measured. You're not biased. You just want to find someone great. So keep going out there, keep your chin up, and when you talk to guys, measure them based on their investment, not based on what you want them to be.

This has been a very, very, very insightful chat with you. I appreciate it so much.

You're so welcome. I feel like we covered a lot of ground in a few minutes.

You did, you did. I appreciate it very much.

You're so welcome. Thank you, Kalani. I'll speak to you soon.

Sounds good. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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