If you happen to’re a single man who needs a loving, lasting relationship — however you’re uninterested in courting, uncertain the place to look, or quietly questioning if it’s even potential 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 reality: “I need actual love… however one thing’s not working.”
It’s not that these males don’t have one thing to supply. Fairly the other. Many are variety, considerate, clever, emotionally conscious. They’ve lived full lives. They’ve taken dangers. Some have been married earlier than. Some have stayed single. Most have carried out a good quantity of interior work.
So, what’s the problem?
The Unstated Actuality of Aware Males and Trendy Courting
Males had been raised with a really totally 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 not often taught methods to talk emotional reality — or methods to maintain house for one more’s.
And now we’re navigating a courting tradition that always feels transactional or shallow. Add to that the strain of placing your self on the market — after all of the life that’s already been lived — and it’s no marvel so many males really feel discouraged or hesitant.
However right here’s the factor:
Wanting love will not be a weak spot.
Eager to be seen, understood, revered, and cherished will not 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 methods to maintain house for males’s emotions. And on the similar time, males wish to present, however ladies don’t at all times know methods to 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 Greatest 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 will not be like the flicks, as folks 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 an increasing number of folks 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 peak filters at six ft, however solely 14% of males are six ft tall or greater. What occurs to the opposite 86%? Girls complain: ‘The place’s my particular man?’ However they aren’t even exhibiting up on as a potential selection.”
What I Suggest to Males Searching for Aware, Romantic Love
If you happen to’re prepared for a significant relationship — not simply somebody to go the time with, however a associate to develop with — right here’s what I usually counsel to the lads I work with:
1. Be prepared to heal what’s nonetheless tender.
Regardless of how a lot work we’ve carried out, relationships stir the components of us which can be nonetheless weak — outdated wounds, disappointments, or beliefs we picked up way back. If you happen to’ve skilled heartbreak, betrayal, or extended isolation, it’s vital 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 may not serve us now. Take time to replicate on what sort of partnership actually helps the life you wish to stay. Shared values, emotional security, bodily affection, non secular connection — get clear in your priorities.
3. Don’t attempt to do it on their own.
Too many males assume they should determine it out on their very own. I can’t inform you 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 strain to carry out.
4. Observe being open, even when it feels awkward.
Actual love requires danger — not recklessness, however emotional danger. Which may imply expressing curiosity, sharing your reality, or saying “I’m undecided, however I’m prepared to search 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 count on it to. Keep open to the likelihood that your associate might look totally different than your guidelines — or arrive by means of sudden channels. Keep curious and resist the temptation to contract into certainty or resignation.
If you’re searching for a long-term, wholesome, romantic relationship, I’d encourage you to have a look at a Retreat that provides one thing actual.
That’s why I’m sharing with you a chance: the Aware Singles Retreat, occurring June 20–22, 2025, close to Ashland, Oregon.
This isn’t a fast repair or matchmaking occasion. It’s a robust expertise created by two folks I do know and belief — Pleasure Taylor, LMT and Gavin Frye, MFT — who met two years in the past by means of SpiritualSingles.com, fell in love, married, and are actually sharing their journey to assist others to find acutely aware partnership.
Pleasure and Gavin deliver a long time of expertise in psychotherapy, embodiment, teaching, and non secular apply. Collectively, they maintain a deeply respectful house the place folks can:
- Step away from the noise and reconnect with themselves.
- Have interaction in significant conversations about intimacy, self-trust, and love.
- Expertise somatic and mindfulness practices to scale back anxiousness and open the center.
- Spend time in nature with others who’re additionally in search of a real, mutual relationship
- Meet some superb 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 type of providing), it presents an actual alternative for males who’re prepared.
Why This Issues
I consider 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 cherished.
Generally we simply want the precise house to recollect what’s potential — and the precise folks 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 alone 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 excellent alternative to expertise a retreat that may change your life for good. Test it out right here. You’ll be glad you probably did.
If you happen to’d like to listen to extra about me and my work, be at liberty to go to me at MenAlive.com.