Commitment and commitmentphobes
Today I am joined by an amazing guest to talk about commitment. Her name is Harriet, she's a health and wellbeing coach and speaker. She also does tonnes of work with women. So guess what? I am going to treat you again! I know I'm forcing upon you lots of women's perspectives on love and relationships. And I want to talk to you because I actually had an interesting experience with one of my coaching clients.
To paint the picture he's in his late 20s, successful guy. He's met an awesome women by online dating, the sex is great. She's got an amazing body. They get on well. They have loads of fun. A slight sticking point- he's come to the realisation that he's not quite ready for commitment. He still feels like he has boxes left on ticked.
Not ready to commit
And you know what, I hear this quite a lot. You don't feel ready to be with a woman. If you think:Well, I haven't explored relationships with different women. I haven't approached that many women yet. Nor did I have that many sexual experiences. I don't know what I want, because I haven't had enough of it. And I'm afraid of falling into a relationship with someone who isn't the right woman. Not because it's the choice that presents itself to me in the moment.
I want to show you that there is a way through this conundrum. And it doesn't involve you hurting her, lying, or being stuck in a relationship that you don't want to be in. This is the third way principle. And Harriet is going to be here to discuss it with me.
The Interview
Hey, Harriet.
Harriet
Hey, great to be here today, Hayley.
Hayley
The principle. A lot of the time when we're thinking about relationships between men and women, there's often an idea there. Men want to have as many sexual experiences as possible. And we women would like for you to marry us, have babies with us and knit. At the very leas. So there's a conflict there, right?
When you're with a woman, when you're in this early dating phase, and you're thinking: Oh, gosh, I'm not not sure I'm ready to give her what she wants, you can jump to the assumption that she wants a very, specific, monogamous, committed long term version of a relationship. And in fact, that's not the truth.
Harriet
I would agree with that. There's only one way to find out, first of all, what she wants, and that's to ask her, do not make any assumptions. When I used to work in the city, one of the teams used to have this big sign above their department that said, assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. And that applies as much to running a business as it does to relationships.
Hayley
I completely agree. The thing is, when you go into that, what you're going to happen then is, you're not going to be behaving . You're gonna feel that you're putting on false facade. And correct me if I'm wrong here, you're going to be 90% honest and open with her. But there's going to be 10% of your brain, which I call the People's Republic. So it might be the People's Republic of Adam. Or the People's Republic of Raj, which is rebelling, and saying: You know what? I'm not happy with the status quo here. We shouldn't be with this woman. What about all the other women out there, we're not done with our journey.
That will tear you apart in the end. Not only will it create a lack of open communication and vulnerability between you and the woman that you're seeing, you're also going to start to feel confused and torn in yourself. Thus, your actions are going to start to get screwed up. And the irony is, none of this needs to happen. You can have space to explore or you can be open about the fact that you want to explore and not hurt the woman you're with. Being more vulnerable and learning how to communicate this. And the best time for you to communicate it is early on.
Harriet
Early warning sign, that's for sure. If it's something that's discussed quite near the beginning, and as I said, you never know what the girl might want. That prospect might excite her. A lot of girls would love to know that there's something different out there. Perhaps they're not feelingthat way too.
Hayley
Yeah. She's might not be up for a long term relationship. She's focused on her career, she's in a different zone in her life. Not all women are queuing up waiting to marry. There are guys who want to commit to the relationship. Your goal is to connect with a women that is on the same page as you because then it's not a problem. In fact, you are both enhancing one another's life.
At the beginning of a relationship it would be wrong of her, or strange for her to be extremely disappointed. If right at the start you have a massive romance for six months, then it's going to painful. So the earlier you can be honest and communicate who you are, you're going to feel better because you're going to be accepted. This also gives her an opportunity to take a step back. It doesn't mean that you guys will not be together, it means that for this period in time, you're on different track. But you know what, sometimes tracks come back.
For more advice on commitment head over to Hayley Quinn Club and for the whole episode click on the button below!
