Mel Robbins and the Four Horsemen
Next, at number two, I'm kind of surprised Mel Robbins landed here as well, but I picked a video that I think really delivered a lot of value: "The best relationship advice everyone needs to hear from the world's number one love researcher." She got some fantastic people together for it. Now, if you've read the book, I'm not big on the "let them" theory. Personally, I haven't read it, but from what I've seen and heard people talking about it, I'm not as sold on the "let them" theory. I like the opposite, kind of the "them" theory, as in, no, we're not going to let them do that. But the core thesis of Mel's video is that the health and longevity of a relationship can be predicted by how couples handle conflict, specifically by avoiding the four horsemen: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
That sounds like why I got divorced. Criticism, which I unfortunately did a significant amount of. And then my wife, ex now, brought a lot of contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Me heavy on the criticism and her heavy on the other three, which kind of balances out. I just specialized. And yes, absolutely, I am so excited for a partnership where we don't criticize each other. Not to say never, occasionally, very much in moderation, like salt, just a little bit. Don't be layering it on and giving each other high blood pressure. The people close to you do sometimes need to say something, but it should be very little. And contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling are absolutely destructive.
In my experience, if you have complaints about a partner, it can really help to slow down, look at them, and talk to other people. I remember doing that a lot in my marriage: okay, how bad is this really? That's nice for married couples, but it also helps you get a vision of what kind of relationship you could have. The clinical advice is nice, and technically the Gottmans are included twice here on their own channel. I think this is the only creator I had a little bit of overlap with. In real life, conflicts involving severe breaches of trust are harder to diffuse than simply saying "I feel defensive." It's like in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, saying "whoa, this is getting heated, we should just take a break." That can be difficult, but I intend to set the container and emotional maturity in my next relationship so that we can hold that.
And is never fighting actually a red flag? Mel says conflict avoiders are doomed. You do need to approach conflict in a relationship, but it should be done in a way that's loving and not involving stonewalling, one person always being wrong and the other always being right, or constant defensiveness. That definitely is bad.
Julian Turecki on emotional availability
Here's the next one, Julian Turecki. We're 51 minutes in and on creator four, so I guess we'll need to speed this up. I love the core thesis of her video: a healthy long-term relationship requires emotional availability, self-awareness, and the willingness to take personal responsibility for your own happiness rather than projecting it onto your partner. Absolutely. To me, dating right now, one of the biggest things I look for is emotional availability. What I'm seeing is that there seem to be so few women I'm running into who actually have any emotional availability. They're totally tied up in other areas of their life. They don't have hardly any emotional availability, and many of these women have been single for a long time. I see the same thing in lots of men. Lots of men are so tied up in their own life, making money, even going out on dates and hooking up with girls, but when I hang out with them they don't seem to have any space in their heart to really love somebody and make a partnership. And a lot of these toxic videos are not addressing this.
The self-awareness piece matters too. I want a partner who can come to me and say, "look, I'm sorry, I was having a bad day, I created this drama, and I'd like to make it up to you." That is something my ex, especially the last most of the decade of our relationship, was just incapable of saying. If you can see that these qualities are real relationship makers, then you can learn how. Emotional availability means cutting off everything that's draining you. What I do a good job of is cutting off and letting go of things that are taking up my emotional availability. I just let go of some more. I know I've mentioned my ex; it was a 15-year relationship. At 42 years old, that's a huge part of my life, a lot of lessons learned all packed into one single person. It's taken me a few months to fully unravel myself emotionally so that I'm fully available for the next goddess, the next queen, to come into my life.
I love that the mature advice is to recognize feelings of restlessness or unfulfillment often originate from outside the relationship. In the relationship I was in before, I would move these feelings from other areas of life into the relationship, and that's something I intend not to do again. If you constantly keep jumping from relationship to relationship because you get bored, or you unfairly blame your partners for your own unhappiness, her "top five relationship lessons" is a really good video to watch. She also talks about never venting to family or friends. I'd say venting and complaining about your partner is one of the worst things you can do, but at the same time you don't want to be toxically positive, always going on and never facing the shadow side. Being able to vent occasionally and get help and perspective is valid. I've noticed some people in my life struggle here; they're always venting and blaming their partners for everything. Okay, well, why is your unhappiness always your partner and not you? Especially, I've noticed men in my life doing this a lot, blaming their woman for everything going on.
And we don't want to turn our soulmates into unpaid therapists. This overlaps with what was said, I think, in Matthew Hussey's advice, that you don't want one person to be your best friend, your therapist, your equal, your lover, and your business coach. That was a mistake I made with my exes. My wife doesn't need to also be my business coach, my lover, my best friend, and my therapist. I should have separate roles: a therapist, a best friend, a business coach. Often within the relationship, a lover and a co-parent is enough.
John Gustin and the lonely dad trap
Man Talks at number six is very high on the practical relationship side, "avoid the lonely dad trap: why modern fathers are burning out in isolation," with John Gustin. Obviously this hits home for me as a single dad. The core thesis is that modern men are burning out because they isolate themselves under pressure to be stoic. You've got a lot of these popular male dating coaches telling men to be stoic, be a perfect provider. Really, you need emotional vulnerability, repairing mistakes, and maintaining community outside the home. The concept of repair is the best advice in here: to face what you've done wrong.
That can be difficult, especially in early dating, like when you've gone out on one date with somebody and then quickly canceled the next. I wonder if any of these women who canceled quickly with me have ever regretted it. I've certainly regretted being too quick to say no to someone. It can be hard though, especially in early dating: okay, we haven't slept together yet, we have this kind of weak connection. But the one woman who reached out to me, we had a bad first date, and I was like, I'm not seeing her again. That was before I did this research. She reached out and said, "look, I was in a bad place last time we went out, I'd like to see you again." We had a much better time when I saw her again. It was kind of amazing, like I was going out with a totally different woman.
One area I've been firm on lately: especially with somebody in early dating, if they're already expecting me to be wrong and apologize, I'm never getting into that dynamic again. But at the same time, sometimes I'm not nice, sometimes I'm not considerate, sometimes there is an area where I haven't been nice. This gets difficult and deeper. Okay, at what point am I people pleasing and trying to do whatever somebody wants versus honestly looking and saying, "I could have done a better job at that, sorry if that hurt your feelings, I'll make this adjustment in the future." So if you're a man struggling as a married father, or a woman wanting insight into the pressures men face, this is a great video. And this is a point that, even though I'm not married right now and I am a single dad, is very helpful from my current perspective too.
Now, sometimes women can potentially hold it against you if you are vulnerable, then disrespect you and things like that. So it depends on the exact relationship, the exact man and woman and dynamic. Ideally, in a highly secure, healthy marriage, vulnerability is not going to be held against you. But that means, generally people have told me, you should be vulnerable with your male friends first, before your partner, if you can do it that way. Again, it depends on your relationship. There's a discussion here: does being a better husband and father sometimes mean spending more time away from your family? The hustle and grind is burning men out, so it's important to look at why vulnerability, not stoicism, holds a marriage together. Generally there's a nice balance of spending enough time in person with people to develop a connection and be present, but past a certain point it can get to where you're around too much.
Terry Cole on emotional safety
All right, we have 93 of these left, so let's see if I can keep these to one minute going forward. Terry Cole, number nine, "relationship skills that help you feel safer in love." Great title. Core thesis: emotional safety doesn't happen by accident, it's built intentionally over time through small, consistent behaviors like deep listening and taking accountability. Yes. And the best advice: saying "something feels off to me, I want to talk about it." Exactly. I am very good at doing this, and I'm really excited to be with a woman who can do this with me, who can say, "yeah, something feels off to me, let's talk about it," instead of "I'm fine."
Boundaries versus control, and the war-zone problem
Everything can look great on the surface and still be anxious and crazy as hell underneath, and then comes a blow up. I really liked this one. If you're recovering from codependency, if your marriage is struggling, if you're carrying resentment and you want to build secure attachments, this is a good video to watch. That said, the war-zone anecdotes were a little extreme. It highlights not being a controlling spouse, but at the same time, expressing valid fears in a deadly situation is something you do need to be able to do. This is exactly why nothing in one single situation or one piece of advice really covers everything. It's why I've done this whole thing as a kind of meta-analysis of dating content, so you can take in the full picture and get a bigger and bigger perspective.
The challenge is: where's the line between a healthy boundary and controlling your partner? The more you set boundaries all the time, the more it starts to become control. Yes, it makes sense to set a boundary here or a boundary there. But when you've got 5, 10, 15, 20 boundaries and everything is a boundary — and I've had that boundary conversation before — when everything in your life all the time is a boundary, that's controlling. That's making you unavailable to truly be with.
Number 10 — Tom Boswell: anxious attachment and self-abandonment
Number 10, Tom Boswell: "Anxious Attachment — Why We Chase Love That Hurts and How to Heal." This is great. His core thesis is that anxious attachment and an intense fear of abandonment begin with self-abandonment. Yes. It's about learning to regulate your own nervous system. I've done a lot of work on this. I struggled in my marriage with regulating my nervous system. We also had a dynamic where she wanted to blame me for everything — she wanted me to be dysregulated so that then everything was always my problem and my fault, and she did contribute to that. But still, that's on me to make sure I've got my own nervous system regulated. I get massages every week. I do a lot of work.
It's important to diversify your sources of connection. Looking back at my marriage, even though I tried with Alcoholics Anonymous and having friends, I still did not have my sources of connection diversified enough, especially around talking about my business. So this idea of treating your emotional needs like an investment portfolio, where you stop putting 100% of the burden on a single romantic partner — that is an absolutely valuable idea. If you identify as a chronic people pleaser, if you keep ending up in short, intense relationships, this is the anxious attachment pattern, and it's a very good video to watch.
While forgiveness can be beautiful, there are also situations where "fuck them" is the best approach — where you just don't go there again. I definitely believe in diversifying your emotional needs like an investment portfolio. However, I also noticed that I consistently kept getting crushes on women, especially toward the end of my marriage. That's an example of a warning sign: if you're "diversifying" by getting crushes on other women, that's a sign there's a serious problem in the marriage. And that problem needs to be worked out, or you need to get divorced.
Caitlin V — presence, emotional safety, and what men don't know they need
Caitlin V: "I've Dated Both Men and Women — Here's the Difference." A lot of dating advice for men and women misinterprets female behavior as manipulative or transactional, when in reality women's attraction and desire are often driven by presence, emotional safety, consistency, and alignment. The reframe from Caitlin around intimacy and connection before sex — treating a woman's need to feel emotionally connected as real — I'm big on this, because a lot of us men are unaware that we need the exact same thing too.
I've been surprised by this in my own life. The last woman I had sex with was actually more ready than I was — she was ready before I was — and I was quite turned off and not feeling the connection, and I went through with it anyway. That was not good on my part. If I had been fully in integrity with myself, I would have said, look, and I would have had her leave hours before, when I wasn't feeling it, instead of just treating it like a hurdle to be gamed. I don't just want sex. I don't want sex with somebody I don't feel emotionally safe with, someone I don't feel safe giving my loyalty, my time, my attention, and my emotions to. Men are often very unaware of these needs in ourselves. If you're a man frustrated with modern dating, who's consumed the red pill or the alpha male advice, then this — like me — is definitely a video to watch.
Now, the absolute dismissal of hypergamy or physical status may be an overcorrection. There do seem to be some elements of hypergamy and physical status, but again, they don't totally explain everything. I've seen some data suggesting that when women are around men for months, how attractive those men are and how much status they have tend to totally slip away. It really comes down to emotional safety and personality. To me, that seems to indicate that being in communities with women naturally, where women over time can start feeling safe and getting to know you, is the way to truly have connection with women. You don't need to play hard to get or run all those games. A lot of that toxic advice dysregulates a woman's nervous system rather than sparking desire, and that seems very accurate to me.
Creator 18 — Sex with Emily: keeping chemistry alive
Creator 18, Sex with Emily: "The Secret to Magnetic Chemistry and Long-Term Relationships." Her thesis is that sustaining chemistry in a long-term relationship requires active, intentional collaboration, energetic presence, and playing with sexual polarity — rather than just hoping the early-stage honeymoon feelings will magically return. Absolutely. I put some work into this in my last relationship, and I'm very excited to put it into the next one. My ex found it difficult to talk about sex directly, and I found that I struggled to talk about sex too — it was just incredibly vulnerable. I always felt very vulnerable to being criticized and attacked by her over boundaries, especially toward the end, when everything became a boundary. That's a boundary, that's a boundary, that's a boundary. At a certain point there's no more fun, no more play. It's very important to be able to have conversations about sex. Absolutely.
If you're feeling disconnected or struggling with mismatched libidos — I have a very high libido. Especially in a new relationship, I could have sex three, four times a day. If the woman had just moved in, I could have sex morning, noon, twice, and night. And if we're only seeing each other once or twice a week, I want it until it falls off. I want a woman with a medium-to-high libido, for sure. Some women are perhaps intuitively sensing when my libido versus theirs is off — and that's good; you don't want that mismatch.
At the same time, the framework of masculine and feminine energy, even carefully caveated as non-gendered, can easily slip into traditional gender-essentialist stereotypes. If I've communicated anything across all of this, I hope it's the nuance and complexity of dating, where the phrase "all women" or "all men," gay or straight, never quite works. I've got several more gay and lesbian creators coming along. You can never put just one thing about one gender or one sex — even saying "heterosexual women" or "heterosexual men" and trying to break things down doesn't work, because there's so much depth, so much complexity, so many different kinds of people and personalities. It's amazing when you can find someone compatible with you, and it's naive to think everybody operates the same way.
I remember getting some bad advice from a friend who usually gives good advice. He's in his 70s, said he'd been with more women than he could count, had been married three times and divorced three times, and had kids. When I was telling him I was struggling in the relationship with my ex and thinking I'd like to get divorced, he said, "Jerry, all women are the same. Don't get divorced. Just make it work." And I got divorced, and I think — that was such bad advice. Women are not all the same, just like men are not all the same. I'm a drastic example: there are some men you could compare with me and we'd be like night and day, and I'm sure there are plenty of men you could line up who'd be pretty similar. But with Sex with Emily, the point stands: you don't want to go into roommate mode. My ex and I definitely got into roommate mode. It's important to keep that polarity alive in the relationship.
Number 26 — Jade Fox: embracing the messiness of vulnerability
Number 26, Jade Fox: "Even More Free Therapy — How to Date, Fight Loneliness, and Touch Me Not." It's the Jade Fox show. Healing your attachment style and learning to accept love requires you to stop trying to be perfectly healed and to embrace the messiness of vulnerability. Yes, exactly. This summarizes the core of moving through avoidance, over-attachment, and hyper-dependence. It's very relevant to me as a hyper-independent person, kind of an avoidant attacher. Jade admits that sometimes the "healed" response is to just say "fuck you" to people in traffic, and I absolutely agree.
A woman the other day was talking about how some man was criticizing her, and I said, fuck him — tell him "fuck you." You don't need to tolerate that. She was trying to be nice and was feeling bad, and I said, just tell him to fuck off; you don't need to let someone treat you like that. The other discussion here is whether being an ultimate giver is a selfless act or a trauma response. You need both — you need to give and you need to receive — and ideally you find a partner where what you give is exactly what they want to receive, and vice versa.
Ty Gibson — when an avoidant goes silent
Ty Gibson: "When You and an Avoidant Stop Talking, This Happens." His thesis is that when a dismissive avoidant goes silent after conflict, they predictably progress through different stages and make indirect attempts at reconnection. The warning at the end is: don't use attachment theory to excuse your partner's behavior. If you're currently dating someone who shuts down or pulls away — shit, that might be me. Especially for those who tend to be anxious about silence and treat it as a sign they're unloved. Damn, that's not good. That sounds just like me. It depends on the person I'm with, but often, especially in early dating, this unfortunately does show up. I'm avoidant, and it's just showing up. It hasn't been appreciated at all. But maybe being avoidant at least means I've got time to do my own work, and I'm not distracted by someone I'm reaching out to who's avoiding me.
The throughline across all of these — Tom Boswell, Caitlin V, Sex with Emily, Jade Fox, Ty Gibson — is that attraction might get you in the door, but regulation, emotional availability, and the willingness to do the repair work are what keep a relationship. This is the exact kind of deeper work I love to go through with people. If you want to keep working through this with me, that's what the Jerry Banfield Family and my community are for — come join us, book a Zoom call, message me, talk to my AI, or read my books. Doing this work alongside other people is how it actually sticks.
The downside with a lot of this content is there's not much actionable advice about what you can actually do differently. And I think diagnosing your partner too much definitely backfires. Trying to label somebody is overly simplifying them, and I'm generally not in favor of labeling people and calling them all these psychological names unless you do that professionally.
The Gottman Institute — 30 Questions on Love
The Gottman Institute technically had a little bit of overlap with the Mel Robbins video from earlier. Their video, "30 Questions on Love with Dr. John and Julie Gottman," has a line I love: true love is not receiving or maintaining mystery, but a continuous process of giving, mutual knowing, and unconditional acceptance with healthy boundaries and radical transparency. I love that. That is my exact version of a relationship I'm looking for.
I love their advice on conflict, which is why it showed up earlier too: admitting how you messed up and your role in the miscommunications is the hardest thing to reveal. But what makes this hard is when you're in a relationship with a person who is defensive and will not do this back with you. To me, I need to be in a relationship with someone who will also do this with me. Because if the other person's not going to do it, then I'm never going to be the person again who's always doing that while my partner's always right. Not always necessarily, but where it's all my fault. Yes, it was all your fault. Yes, this is what you did. No, I didn't do anything. Everything I did was right. That's miserable.
So it's worth watching if you're looking to deepen your bond, or if you're an individual tired of modern dating games — which I would hope, if you're reading this, you are. I have no interest in modern dating games. I intend to meet my queen. No games. I want to meet my queen and we're going to have a beautiful life together. This video is a philosophical Q&A rather than a breakdown, so it doesn't have that many step-by-step instructions, but there's a lot of the other stuff in there. One discussion: do you really need to love yourself before you can be loved? I don't think so. It certainly helps to love yourself as much as you can, but I think other people loving you will help you love yourself.
Dear Future Wifey — the Father's Day special
Here's the Dear Future Wifey Father's Day special, talking about how his daughter met her husband in seventh grade. The core thesis is that a healthy, enduring marriage is built not on expensive rings, but on long-term commitment, mutual respect, open communication, and a willingness to grow together. What I could work on is extending grace through mistakes, especially.
I remember I felt consistently disrespected in my last marriage, and what I've learned I need to do to adjust for that is demand respect. That's a boundary for me: don't disrespect me. What is disrespect? Putting me down in front of my friends or in front of your family, not even thinking about or considering me, and using language that blames me for things instead of taking responsibility for yourself — making everything my fault is disrespectful. This is really important.
Tay's point about the key to long-term love is choosing each version of your partner that they become. You change a lot over time, and this definitely is something I've always thought about a lot — loving each version your partner becomes. Unfortunately, sometimes you grow apart. My ex and I grew apart. We were a lot more compatible earlier, and some of the choices I made, like switching my diet, she was annoyed with my eating for years. That was something she really missed, and she was really happy to date a guy where she could just go out to regular restaurants and eat without somebody trying to eat plant-based. So sometimes you're going to grow apart, but choosing to grow together is really important. And is extreme traditional dating making a comeback? I don't know.
All right, we're going to speed this up. We've got over two hours here, an incredible amount of material, and we've still got two-thirds of the creators left. I've tried to focus on the best ones up front, the ones that make the most difference, and we'll keep diving further.
Number 43 — Clay Andrews, why talking doesn't fix relationships
You can't just talk. You really need to do much more than talking. My ex and I talked a lot — there was a lot of talking — and especially, in my opinion on her part, there was not enough action to make some significant changes to grow together. There was significant action to get divorced and separate our lives though, which, when she didn't want more kids than I did, makes sense.
If you're going through breakups, this can be very helpful, especially with the no-contact rules and the alpha posturing and all that. At the same time, telling someone who's just been dumped for a rebound relationship to say "I hope we can stay in touch and spend some time together" — for most people trying to stay close friends with an ex, that can make it very difficult. I don't know if I'd be in touch much with my ex if we didn't have kids together. Since we do, we have to stay connected and make that connection the best it can be. But in the past, I've always burned a bridge completely with all my exes, so I do believe we ruin real connection that way. Posturing is the unvalued high prize when we're actually hurt. Absolutely.
Margarita Nazarenko — de-center men and watch your entire life change
She's saying you want to actively remove men from the center of the universe and obsess over your own life. I agree with that. For me, I've been putting women at the center of my life for a long time, especially being married, and now I'm putting my health, my community, and my work at the center of my life. Relationship anxiety often stems from not having enough going on in your own life. Exactly.
This is another masculine-versus-feminine one, and it's worth watching if you've got a chronic anxious attachment style. At the same time, is de-centering men real empowerment or reverse psychology to get a ring? It's difficult, because if you're going to have a relationship, that person is going to take up a lot of space in your life. And I see a lot of the people who are single are not having a problem de-centering men — at least the women I see. They're having a problem being emotionally available. A lot of people in tough relationships are having the de-centering problem, but a lot of the people who are single are having the opposite problem, which is why, again, you need to take in a lot of different context.
Coach Lee — they didn't leave because they stopped loving you
People often leave partners they do love, drawn to misunderstood chemical highs, temporary relief from pressure, the desire for life change, peer pressure, or unresolved psychological trauma. Your partner's name should be safe on your lips. There should be loyalty, where other people don't get to see your dirty laundry. I like that. My ex and I did have a fantastic relationship, and it's a difficult balance between love and light versus also looking at the things that didn't work. So I hope I haven't been too disrespectful to her here, because I said I didn't like the disrespect.
This is why dating is so tough. How many women would read to this point and still want to go out with me without seeing red flag after red flag? If we can just acknowledge the difficulty of dating, I think what can really help from seeing all this content is that we really do need a deeper level of love and acceptance and a deeper level of giving people a chance. But then that goes into scarcity mindset too — okay, this person is definitely not right for me, but should I give them a chance anyway? This is why it really helps to have a community of people on the same journey thinking the same way. So if you've gotten to this point, I am absolutely confident you will love being a member of the community, and I'd invite you to jump on in there with us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
Creator 53 — Coach Lee and Artifex
As we're wrapping up with Coach Lee and Artifex: I think people artificially maintaining an ex as a placeholder replacement definitely borders on manipulation. That's not something I would do. And I definitely think serial dating damages our ability to commit. Most of the creators ranked below Coach Lee have been ranked there because they promote serial dating, or things that lead toward serial dating.
Coach Craig Kenneth — your ex won't forget you in no contact
The idea of being out of sight and out of mind is a myth in relationships. This woman I talked to, the one I've probably talked about the most, I've thought of her like every day. Sometimes there've been hours a day I've thought of her. And I'm glad I don't have her phone number, because I'd be blowing her up texting her. But here's the interesting thing: would she really react well to me texting her? Last time she didn't. She'd wait 24 hours to respond to me, which is aggravating. And there I go with zero tolerance — why does it take you 24 hours to respond to my text message? That makes me not want to text you at all.
Coach Craig says you recognize your overwhelming panic and urge to reach out is driven by separation anxiety. Yes. If you've recently gotten divorced, the anxious attachment styles definitely crept in a little bit for me, straight up. Straight no contact — I deleted this woman's number before, because I would reach for it when I was in a good mood. When I was euphoric, I'd reach for it, and then it would lead to a bad mood and disappointment. At the same time, you don't want to get false hope that just because you're not talking to someone, you're automatically going to get back with them. You don't want to foster that.
Last First Date — do I even want to date again?
We're two-thirds through this. Last First Date asks how to figure out what you really want. I know I want to date again, that's for sure. But it is essential to differentiate between genuine presence and fear, and I've definitely been having a bit more fear and self-protection from heartbreak. The thought experiment is stripping away everything: if a person simply appeared, would you want a relationship? I would love a relationship. If a woman appeared right now in my doorway and was interested, was ready to live a healthy lifestyle and have a family and be encouraging when it comes to my work, I would say yes immediately. I would be happy to turn down any other option. Absolutely.
Distance is not the dealbreaker; opting out is
I was just telling my matchmaker that I'm willing to meet someone who lives hours away from me, someone who is interested, have a virtual date, and then see about starting a long-distance relationship. I'm very interested, and I'm glad that on this one I'm at least very clear about it. At the same time, friends and community will not replace the kind of physical intimacy you will have with dating. Sure, some women are opting out of dating, but to me they have an inaccurate calculation about the trade-off. Yes, it is better to be single than to be in a bad relationship. But having a great relationship is so much better than being single. It's hard to even calculate how great that is. I see a lot of people, men and women, probably more men than women, saying it's not worth the trouble having a relationship. And I'm saying, bro, you've never had a great relationship. You don't know what you're missing. You need to try for that relationship.
Nafali Moses — heal your wounds or choose your partner?
Nafali Moses asks what to look for in a relationship: heal your wounds, or choose your partner? The claim is that you cannot fix or scrub your emotional wounds. I'm not sure I fully agree with that, because in my experience you can do a lot of reprogramming. But the point is that your unacknowledged wounds will unconsciously dictate your choices, and I do agree with that. So you do need to do the work. At the same time, the advice here is great: you don't need to view your emotional needs as something you must magically get rid of before you can love. I've talked about that a bit before.
So if you're a person who constantly finds yourself repeating cycles of painful relationships, this philosophy makes sense. It is a bit abstract, but also concrete. Do your unhealed wounds secretly pick your partners? I don't know. That's kind of a leap of faith.
Number 80 — The School of Life on those terrified of love
Number 80 out of 100 is The School of Life, on those who are terrified of love. When a relationship with a previously long, loving partner becomes inexplicably cold, you're often dealing with deep avoidance and fear of love, and your best move is to leave. Yes — I stopped trying to talk through a partner's avoidant behavior, and that's true. The idea of giving it four chances and then you're off, though, is pretty arbitrary.
This is why you need a community
It's tough. This is why you need a community, ideally in person, but also having an online community can help. That's a big part of why I built the Jerry Banfield Family on Skool. You really need to get feedback from others to figure out a complicated relationship. In my own case, I guess everybody told my ex to get divorced, and everybody told me to stay married. I'd decided we should get divorced, and I agreed with her, even though everybody I talked to told me to stay married. Nobody I talked to said we should get divorced. But I guess most of the people my ex was talking to did tell her to get divorced. Looking back, was that good? I don't know. It's all ups and downs. I'd like to think it's going to be great for the long term. It's certainly been fun and an adventure, but also challenging in the short term. Every relationship is going to have some complexity. I think usually the right thing to do is lean in — but again, it depends.
That's how I made it three-quarters of the way through and kept going, hitting all 100 of these creators across a three-and-a-half-hour live stream, because I wasn't chasing a C, I was going for the A, all the way to 100%. If you want to see every creator I broke down and follow the whole journey, it all lives in my Dating playlist.