Should you’re a single man who needs a loving, lasting relationship — however you’re bored with courting, uncertain the place to look, or quietly questioning if it’s even doable anymore — you’re not alone.
I’ve spent greater than 50 years working with males and their households, and I’ve heard numerous variations of the identical quiet fact: “I would like actual love… however one thing’s not working.”
It’s not that these males don’t have one thing to supply. Fairly the alternative. Many are type, considerate, sensible, emotionally conscious. They’ve lived full lives. They’ve taken dangers. Some have been married earlier than. Some have stayed single. Most have executed a good quantity of internal work.
So, what’s the problem?
The Unstated Actuality of Acutely aware Males and Fashionable Relationship
Males had been raised with a really completely different set of messages about love, masculinity, and vulnerability. For years, we had been taught to be self-sufficient, rational, and in management. We had been hardly ever taught talk emotional fact — or maintain house for one more’s.
And now we’re navigating a courting tradition that always feels transactional or shallow. Add to that the stress of placing your self on the market — after all of the life that’s already been lived — and it’s no surprise so many males really feel discouraged or hesitant.
However right here’s the factor:
Wanting love shouldn’t be a weak spot.
Desirous to be seen, understood, revered, and cherished shouldn’t be “needy.” It’s human. And there are ladies on the market who need the very same factor.
Males get combined messages from ladies. Plainly ladies need vulnerability however usually don’t know maintain house for males’s emotions. And on the identical time, males need to present, however ladies don’t at all times know talk what they need. (They weren’t skilled to ask or share how a person can present for them.)
In my e-book, The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Levels of Relationship and Why the Finest is Nonetheless to Come, I shared a few of my very own relationship historical past previous to assembly my spouse, Carlin.
“Like everybody else on the face of the planet, I’ve wished actual, lasting love. And like everybody on the face of the planet I’ve not discovered these phrases — Actual, Lasting, Love — simple to realize.”
Like many I grew up with a perception about love and marriage that was easy:
Step 1: Discover that particular somebody, your soulmate, and fall in love.
Step 2: They usually lived fortunately ever after.
However actual life shouldn’t be like the films, as individuals know who go to my web site, MenAlive.com and watch my welcome video: Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor. What’s worse, the on-line courting world, the place increasingly individuals go to discover a associate, perpetuates the issue.
In a really highly effective dialogue with entrepreneur, investor, and podcaster, Steven Bartlett, behavioral scientist Logan Ury, and professor Scott Galloway, they level out that on-line courting makes connecting practically inconceivable for males.
“If the courting ap is a membership,” says Ury, “you’ve got bouncers that maintain most males out. Many ladies within the U.S. repair their top filters at six toes, however solely 14% of males are six toes tall or increased. What occurs to the opposite 86%? Ladies complain: ‘The place’s my particular man?’ However they aren’t even exhibiting up on as a doable alternative.”
What I Advocate to Males In search of Acutely aware, Romantic Love
Should you’re prepared for a significant relationship — not simply somebody to move the time with, however a associate to develop with — right here’s what I usually recommend to the boys I work with:
1. Be keen to heal what’s nonetheless tender.
Irrespective of how a lot work we’ve executed, relationships stir the components of us which can be nonetheless weak — outdated wounds, disappointments, or beliefs we picked up way back. Should you’ve skilled heartbreak, betrayal, or extended isolation, it’s essential to satisfy these experiences with compassion, not judgment. Therapeutic isn’t about perfection — it’s about exhibiting up complete and sincere.
2. Make clear what issues most to you now.
We modify. What we wished in our 20s or 30s won’t serve us now. Take time to mirror on what sort of partnership really helps the life you need to reside. Shared values, emotional security, bodily affection, religious connection — get clear in your priorities.
3. Don’t attempt to do it on their lonesome.
Too many males suppose they should determine it out on their very own. I can’t let you know what number of breakthroughs have come when a person merely has an area to be sincere — with himself and others. Whether or not it’s a therapist, males’s group, or retreat setting, discover locations the place you possibly can discover who you’re now, with out stress to carry out.
4. Observe being open, even when it feels awkward.
Actual love requires threat — not recklessness, however emotional threat. Which may imply expressing curiosity, sharing your fact, or saying “I’m unsure, however I’m keen to seek out out.” The extra genuine you’re, the extra probably you’re to draw somebody who’s aligned with you, not a efficiency model of you.
5. Preserve your coronary heart open to shock.
Love doesn’t at all times present up the best way we anticipate it to. Keep open to the likelihood that your associate might look completely different than your guidelines — or arrive by sudden channels. Keep curious and resist the temptation to contract into certainty or resignation.
In case you are in search of a long-term, wholesome, romantic relationship, I might encourage you to take a look at a Retreat that gives one thing actual.
That’s why I’m sharing with you a chance: the Acutely aware Singles Retreat, occurring June 20–22, 2025, close to Ashland, Oregon.
This isn’t a fast repair or matchmaking occasion. It’s a strong expertise created by two individuals I do know and belief — Pleasure Taylor, LMT and Gavin Frye, MFT — who met two years in the past by SpiritualSingles.com, fell in love, married, and are actually sharing their journey to help others find acutely aware partnership.
Pleasure and Gavin carry a long time of expertise in psychotherapy, embodiment, teaching, and religious follow. Collectively, they maintain a deeply respectful house the place individuals can:
- Step away from the noise and reconnect with themselves.
- Interact in significant conversations about intimacy, self-trust, and love.
- Expertise somatic and mindfulness practices to scale back anxiousness and open the guts.
- Spend time in nature with others who’re additionally in search of a real, mutual relationship
- Meet some wonderful kindred spirits.
The setting is gorgeous. The group is deliberately small and intimate. The method is deeply human.
They have already got 15 ladies signed up — and simply 2 males. And whereas this isn’t uncommon (ladies usually reply first to this sort of providing), it presents an actual alternative for males who’re prepared.
Why This Issues
I imagine that when males heal, relationships heal. When relationships heal, households heal. And when households heal, the world begins to shift.
There’s no disgrace in wanting connection. There’s no disgrace in wanting to like and be liked.
Typically we simply want the best house to recollect what’s doable — and the best individuals to stroll with us.
And also you by no means know, you could meet somebody on the retreat. From what I’ve heard, it occurred final yr – Cupid’s arrow struck.
I really feel blessed to have gone by myself retreat a few years in the past and met my spouse, Carlin. She and I’ve been collectively now for forty-five years. I hope you are taking the chance to take a look at this glorious alternative to expertise a retreat that may change your life for good. Test it out right here. You can be glad you probably did.
Should you’d like to listen to extra about me and my work, be happy to go to me at MenAlive.com.