In today's episode of 'Finding the Guardian of Your Soul,' Lisa Shield explores the intricate balance between commitment and freedom that challenges many modern relationships. Decoding the behaviors of men who might seem to avoid commitment, Lisa clarifies that not all men who appear avoidant are averse to intimacy. With personal anecdotes and two decades of expertise, she delves into the diverse motivations that steer men away from long-term attachments—be it the pursuit of a career, valuing their freedom, or complex family dynamics rooted in their childhood.
In today's episode of 'Finding the Guardian of Your Soul,' Lisa Shield explores the intricate balance between commitment and freedom that challenges many modern relationships. Decoding the behaviors of men who might seem to avoid commitment, Lisa clarifies that not all men who appear avoidant are averse to intimacy. With personal anecdotes and two decades of expertise, she delves into the diverse motivations that steer men away from long-term attachments—be it the pursuit of a career, valuing their freedom, or complex family dynamics rooted in their childhood.
Lisa discusses why some men maintain a push-pull dynamic, toggling between attraction and the desire for space, and how their partners can take this behavior the wrong way. she also sheds light on the male need for respect and autonomy.
This episode offers actionable steps for women seeking to get closer to understanding the men in their lives. Lisa serves as a beacon of hope, asserting that selecting a compatible partner isn't a fantasy. It is a realistic goal for any woman ready to invest in herself.
"Oxytocin makes a woman feel bonded to a man, especially when we are having repeated orgasms with him. We start to feel like, “Oh, my God, if I'm feeling this way, he must be feeling this way. If I want to bond with him and I'm feeling emotionally connected to him, he must be feeling the same way because we were both in that bedroom together, and we both had the same experience.” And yet, it's not the same for a man as it is for us. Men can compartmentalize sex. They can get turned on and excited, but those feelings do not necessarily translate into wanting a relationship with a certain woman."
— Lisa Shield
Lisa Shield [00:00:00]:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to finding the guardian of your soul. I'm Lisa Shield, and it is lovely to be here today. I haven't done a broadcast for a little while, so, yeah, these are usually some of my best broadcasts. It is snowing outside, and my hair is looking a mess because as I was walking from my house to my office, big globs of snow were falling from the sky, raining down on my perfectly beautifully curled hair. So, yeah, the bane of my existence is my hair. I don't know about the rest of you. Anyway, it is time here in Santa Fe, and this is the time of year where I look outside and I scratch my head and I wonder what made me move from Los Angeles to Santa Fe. I grew up in St.
Lisa Shield [00:01:05]:
Louis, where we had lots of cold, snowy winters and muggy, hot summers. And I spent, wow, almost probably 25, 26 years in Los Angeles with the land of eternal sunshine. And it's days like this, when the snow is coming down fast and hard, that I'm sitting here wondering what was I thinking? With that being said, today's topic, which I think is a really great one, is that not all men who avoid commitment are avoidant. And I really want you women to get this. Men are not like us. They are motivated by completely different factors than we are. They have a very different agenda when it comes to love and relationship. That is not the same as a woman's agenda or most women's agendas.
Lisa Shield [00:02:18]:
And a lot of men are just not ready to commit. It's not the right time in their lives to commit. They maybe haven't met the woman that they would want to commit to. There are so many factors, and something that most women don't realize is that when a man is growing up, when he's a boy, guys do not sit around and fantasize. They want to get laid. They're looking for some hot woman that they can get into bed and have some fun with. They may even have a girlfriend in high school if they're a really sweet guy or a guy who finds a girl whose company he really enjoys. And, hey, he's got somebody to walk arm in arm with and kiss and sleep with.
Lisa Shield [00:03:15]:
If he's getting his needs met, he will go along in a relationship and he will enjoy himself. But it doesn't mean that he's thinking long term the way most women are. So we're driven by very different motivational factors, our hormones and our timeline. If you want to be a mother and have children, mother Nature wired women to want to be in committed relationships. We want to fall in love and get married and procreate. That's what Mother Nature's agenda was for us. And this is how women are wired. So for men, they can have wild attraction to you.
Lisa Shield [00:04:07]:
They can be completely turned on by you, love, touching you and going to bed with you, and making wild, passionate love and sex and all with you. And for most women, when we have those feelings for a man, it automatically kicks in our oxytocin and we start to think about bonding. Men don't feel the same way. In fact, it has been said that when a man has an orgasm, he will have the same rush of oxytocin that women have. And so often, that's why when a man is in the throes of orgasm, he may shout out, I love you in the midst of that orgasm. And that could be oxytocin that's causing him to have those feelings. But then what happens is testosterone washes over a man after he climaxes, and those feelings are subdued. They're washed away by this rush of testosterone.
Lisa Shield [00:05:23]:
Women, on the other hand, are left with a rush of oxytocin, which makes us feel bonded to a man, and especially a man that we're having repeated orgasms and sex with. And so we start to feel like, oh, my God, if I'm feeling this way, he must be feeling this way. If I'm wanting to bond with him and I'm feeling emotionally connected to him, he must be feeling the same way, because we were both in that bedroom together and we both had the same experience. And yet it's not the same for a man as it is for us. Men can compartmentalize sex. They can get turned on and excited, and those feelings do not translate into wanting to bond long term with women. And so one of the big mistakes that we often make is because we're feeling these feelings and because a man is paying attention to us and doing a lot of the things that we think a man who's in love with us or falling in love with us or has feelings for us would do. We start to interpret that as he must be falling in love, too, because we have to be feeling the same way.
Lisa Shield [00:06:51]:
In reality, men can really enjoy the dating process. They can be loyal, they can go along in a relationship and still not be thinking about something long term with you. They can just be enjoying themselves. In fact, I've read many, many times, and if you think about it, imagine, I don't know if any of you have ever really been a fly on the wall, if you get a chance, go to a bar and just sit next to a couple of guys and eavesdrop on their conversation. Or listen to some of your male friends. Like, if you happen to be at a table with some men and they're opening up and they're kind of hanging out and just being dudes with each other, sit back and listen to what men talk about. Women, I can't remember. There's a funny term for how long women can go.
Lisa Shield [00:07:54]:
Two women can go with having a conversation, if anybody knows what this phrase is called. There's actually some sort of joke about a study that was done that women can't go more than a short time hanging out and talking together without that conversation going into some kind of discussion around men and relationships. Guys will just sit around and they'll shoot the shit. They don't get deep. They don't talk about, oh, my gosh, I met this great woman. I wonder if she's as into me as I am into her. They don't sit there and talk about how the relationship is progressing or not progressing or whatever. It is a very different thing for a man to want to commit to a woman.
Lisa Shield [00:08:58]:
It's not something that they aspire to. It's more like suddenly they meet this amazing woman who really catches their heart and their attention at the right time. So this is another really important thing to remember with men, timing is everything. It's not like you're going to meet a guy, and if he's building his career and he's really focused on whatever his career path and building men really build a strong sense of self and an identity through their career. And so many, many men, no matter how great a woman is, if they're building their career and they're just not ready for a long term, committed relationship that is heading toward marriage, they will often pass on certain women that they know are relationship material or wife material intentionally, because they're not ready for those things. I performed a wedding for a couple that I coached many years ago, and I met the brother of the groom. He was adorable. All the women loved him.
Lisa Shield [00:10:25]:
I mean, the guy was so real and handsome and charming, and he was a really great guy, being a relationship coach. And of course, I was there to officiate his brother's marriage. I asked him, how come nobody's captured your heart? When are you going to settle down and get married? And he looked at me. I think he was in his early 30s. Incredibly great guy. Very likable, charming, not fake in any way, shape, or form. I mean, really, this really super great guy. And he was nice to everybody.
Lisa Shield [00:11:09]:
Everybody. He talked to all the women he helped out. He was charming. He was just adorable. And I said, hasn't some woman captured your heart? And he said, there's been a lot of women who have captured my heart. In fact, I meet so many great women, and I said, so how come you're not with one of them? Why aren't you engaged? Why aren't you looking at a future? And he said, some of these women are women that maybe in five years or eight years I would consider marrying some of them. But he said, right now isn't the time. I'm not ready to get married.
Lisa Shield [00:11:54]:
I'm enjoying myself. I like being single. I'm focused on my career. I like my freedom. And speaking of freedom, this is a huge value for men. When they think about getting into a committed, long term relationship, the first thing a man thinks about is that falling in love and getting into a committed relationship means that he will have to give up his freedom. Now, I know there's a lot of independent, successful women who may be listening to this podcast or this broadcast who might be thinking, yeah, I'm concerned about the same thing. Well, then think about how men feel, because that's how they feel, too.
Lisa Shield [00:12:45]:
They've worked very hard. They're building or have built an empire, and they don't want to give up their freedom. They don't want to lose their financial freedom, their sexual freedom, their freedom to come and go whenever they want without having to answer to anybody or explain themselves. And so a lot of men will also avoid committed relationships because they've been in relationships with women who were desperate and needy and controlling and insecure. And those women really did try to manipulate and limit that man's sense of freedom. Some of you are probably getting really pissed at hearing what I just said, but it's true. A lot of women do not understand this basic, deep need that most men have, that they don't want a mother. They do not want the kind of partner where they feel she's constantly watching his every move.
Lisa Shield [00:13:57]:
He can't come and go as he pleases. If he wants to go and have a drink after work with the guys, he has to explain himself, or he has to deal with her being upset when he gets home because he took a couple of hours after work to hang out with his friends. Now, I know for a lot of you, it's hard because you go home, you may have kids, you may be in the house, maybe you work from home. And you're sitting there all day waiting for your partner or your husband to come home. Maybe you need him to help you with the kids. Maybe there's things around the house that you've been waiting for him to help out with. Maybe you're just lonely and you need some adult companionship, and you want to see your partner. And the more you try to control a man, the more you limit his freedom to come and go, the more he's going to resent you.
Lisa Shield [00:15:04]:
And often, men will push back. They'll hide. They'll keep secrets from you. Now, some men are going to do this anyway. Some men. That's in their nature. But even good men are not going to feel comfortable or safe or want to get closer to a woman who they feel might be mothering or smothering. And so these are things that women really have to look at.
Lisa Shield [00:15:30]:
I remember when I met my husband, and we were talking. Somehow a conversation about marriage came up, and we had already said we loved each other. We had already talked about spending the rest of our lives together. And I actually just assumed that he would want to get married. And I said something to him. I was just talking, and I said, well, when we're married. And he stopped me, and he said, I wasn't thinking about getting remarried. And he'd been married twice before.
Lisa Shield [00:16:06]:
And it just threw me for a loop. In that moment, I completely fell silent. I was dumbfounded. And I really didn't know what to say or do because I knew that if I tried to convince him or I tried to challenge him on that, it was going to have the exact opposite effect from what I wanted. And so I just didn't do anything. I sat there and I said, lisa, how do you want to handle this? This was all internal. And the answer came back that, don't try to convince him to see things your way. It'll backfire.
Lisa Shield [00:16:59]:
And I just looked at him and I said, well, why wouldn't you want to get married if you met the love of your life and you were going to spend the rest of your lives together? And he said, because I just wasn't thinking about getting remarried. And I took a deep breath, and I looked at him, and I said, well, I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my life, and. And I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone. And if you tell me that you will spend the rest of your life with me and you don't want to get remarried, then we won't get married. Now, I had been married before as well. But I loved Benjamin with all my heart, and I didn't want anything to stand between us. I really wanted to be partners in every sense of the word. So I said, I would never ask you to go against yourself or do something for me that didn't feel right for you.
Lisa Shield [00:18:09]:
I didn't want him to do something at his own expense. He had done that in his last marriage, and it cost him dearly, financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. He really had suffered because his ex wife didn't want a divorce, and she refused to let him out of the marriage. And it took a lot of work, and it took a real toll on Benjamin's well being to get out of that marriage, and I didn't want to do that to him. I knew how he was feeling, and I knew why he was feeling the way he felt. And I didn't make up a story that he was damaged or wounded. And why did I have to pay the price? Because I wasn't like his ex. I was different from her.
Lisa Shield [00:19:00]:
I didn't try to convince him of that. This is one of the biggest mistakes women make. We think that we're going to talk through everything. We think that we're going to convince a man. Many, many women in that situation, myself included in the past, would have said, well, why should I have to suffer because of what your ex wife did? I'm not like her. I'm different. No. Instead, I showed him, through my actions, that I was different than her.
Lisa Shield [00:19:34]:
I showed him, by hearing what he was saying and respecting his wishes, that I was different than her. And I said, if I ever have second doubts about wanting to get married, I will go and see a therapist, but I'll never bring this up to you again, because I also knew that many women would tell a man what he wanted to hear, and then they'd come back and renegotiate it. Right? They'd think, okay, time has passed. Surely his feelings have changed, and then they think that they can renegotiate something. And I knew that that was not how Benjamin operated. He was a man of his word, and if he said something, that was his truth. And the most important thing that I needed to demonstrate to this man was that I respected his thoughts and feelings. And so I gave it up.
Lisa Shield [00:20:41]:
I literally let it go. I had a feeling in my heart that he would decide to marry me, which he did. A month later, he was looking for rings for me. Didn't take him long, but my love for him and my respect for him and my understanding of his need for space and freedom as a man were so deep that I was willing to let go of getting married to him if that's not what he wanted. And by letting it go, really letting it go and letting it be his decision, he was able to make that choice himself. Why do men value their freedom so much? What is it about being a man and having freedom that is so deeply important to men? Partly growing up, men are told what to do by their mothers. And so some mothers are terrific mothers. They're very successful at being raising boys.
Lisa Shield [00:22:04]:
I actually have a girlfriend, Randy, who I love. She has three sons, and I love hearing her talk about these three boys because the respect she shows them, the space that she gives know she honors their choices and doesn't get involved unless they ask for her opinion and her input. Even if she isn't fully on board with their choice in partners, she supports their choice in partners because she wants what's best for them. And she knows that they're men and that they have to choose the women that they choose. And so I know she supported the marriages of all three of her sons. She may feel closer to some of her daughters in law than she does to others, but she welcomes them all. And she has an open heart, I know, to all three of these women, even if she doesn't always agree with the choices or see why they chose those women. So she's such a wonderful mother.
Lisa Shield [00:23:20]:
But not all mothers are as able as Randy is to grant their sons the respect and the space that they deserve and that they need in order to go off and become the men that they want to become. And so a lot of the pushback that women get from men that they meet is because it goes back to these men's relationships, to their mothers. They may have been with mothers who didn't know how to give them space. Some mothers who were single mothers have very complicated relationships with their sons, especially because their sons may have taken the place of their husbands when they left or the husband or the co parent that they never had. And they may have found themselves leaning on their sons when they shouldn't have, where it should have been a mother son relationship. The son also may have felt very protective of his mother because she didn't have a husband and a partner, and he may have felt overly responsible for her. Some sons see their mothers as weak and they pity their mothers. Some mothers can create almost like a husband wife relationship with a son.
Lisa Shield [00:24:58]:
And so those relationships then get carried into romantic relationships, and men can have a real push pull dynamic with a woman that they may meet and have romantic feelings for, but have a very conflicted time of getting emotionally close to her because of some of these dynamics that were set up early in their childhood with their own mothers. And so most men, whether they had a good relationship or not, most men really do want to find women that they can feel respect and honor their need for space. And many women can become deeply insecure when they start to have feelings for a man, and they can feel out of control and they can hold on too tightly and make men feel smothered. The other thing that can often happen is that women can feel a man's pushback when it comes to commitment. If the woman is pushing for a commitment too soon, if she doesn't give a man time and space to get to know her and develop emotional feelings for her, a real deep emotional connection, and if she doesn't give the man the space to do that, many men will push back if they feel that a woman is moving a relationship too quickly. So if you're starting to ask too many questions about where this is going and what his intentions are and where he sees things three months from now or a year from now, and you've only just met, and especially even after you've just slept together for the first time, you may talk about sexual exclusivity and you may talk about exploring what this relationship might develop into. But you do have to be very careful about talking about a future, a commitment and marriage and all too quickly, or you will push even good men away. It takes longer for most men, and I'm talking about secure men.
Lisa Shield [00:27:40]:
I'm not talking about anxious or avoidant men. I am talking about men who are securely attached and who can have healthy, emotionally connected relationships with women. Even those men will get turned off and they will pull away if they feel that a woman is attaching to them too quickly. Now we have a couple of comments. I'm almost afraid to look oh good. Anita said, true this. Thank you. Anita and Deborah said, really interesting stuff.
Lisa Shield [00:28:22]:
Thank you both for listening and for the feedback, for the comments. I really do appreciate it. I know that it is so hard to walk this tightrope with a man because we come at relationships from such totally different angles. But I can also tell you that doing some good work on yourself, working with a great love coach, it doesn't even take a lot. You can do a course like mine, which is just twelve weeks long and literally, it will transform your entire approach to men dating relationships. If you found what I just shared interesting, imagine twelve weeks of diving into men, how they think, what they're looking for in a partner, what turns them on, what turns them off, right. And also looking at yourself, your own blind spots, the things you don't know, you don't know that are hurting you. There are so many things that we say and do as women that turn men off, just like there's so many things men say and do that turn us off, things that we don't understand about them and they don't understand about us.
Lisa Shield [00:29:53]:
And a little knowledge in this part of life can go a very long way to transforming your connections with men. In fact, the women who do my course are so blown away, even in a very short span of time, just the little bit that they learn. In fact, I was looking at some of the quotes that some of the women who have gone through the course, some of the testimonials have said. Here's one that really captured my attention this morning. My client Emily wrote, lisa, I can see how my mindset is shifting, and I'm becoming much more comfortable getting emotionally naked and asking for what I need in a relationship. I've tried classes with Matt Schaefer and Rory Ray, and nothing has compared to what I've gained in your class in just four weeks. I'm in awe of this course and want to thank you so much. So this is one testimonial out of the many hundreds of women who have successfully gone through my course and found what we call a guardian of their soul.
Lisa Shield [00:31:15]:
I would love to talk to, or we would love to talk to each and every one of you, if you're interested and you want to learn more about what we do, and you're ready to find the love of your life, stop pushing men away because you're so anxious to know how they feel and what a future would look like and if they're ready to commit. If you want to learn how to talk to men and be the kind of woman that a man will pursue, the kind of woman who can have her choice of extraordinary men and not just have to look at each guy who shows attention or shows interest and think, oh, my God, are you my guy? Are you my guy? We want you to be in abundance. We want you to have a steady stream of amazing men and for you to be doing the picking, not them. You're not waiting to be chosen. You're supposed to choose your partner. This is something that so many women don't realize. They get these ideas that with online dating, men have so many choices, and it's just a playground for men. And they just go from one woman to the next.
Lisa Shield [00:32:45]:
And there's always someone better. Well, there are men like that, but there are also so many great guys who know when they meet a high caliber woman who doesn't just think she's high caliber, but knows how to interact with men in a healthy, loving, playful, fun, attractive way. Those men will be lining up to date you. And trust me, I don't care how old you are, I don't care what the color of your skin is. I don't care where you live or what you do for a living. Any woman can do this. So if you're interested what I want you to do, I'm going to put the link right here. Lisashield Comreserve and this will take you to my online calendar.
Lisa Shield [00:33:44]:
And all you have to do is fill out a short form and it will take you right to the calendar where you can grab a spot, you can speak to a member of my team and she will show you how we can help you get this solved in just twelve weeks. It will be the greatest gift you've ever given yourself and the best investment you could ever make in your long term future and in your love life. So we can't wait to talk to you. Go ahead, write that down. Lisashield Comreserve. You can also watch my free 45 minutes presentation if you liked what I just shared. There's lots more information in that presentation so you would find that by going to lisashield.com. The button to find the webinar or the master class is all over my website.
Lisa Shield [00:34:44]:
You can also find tons and tons of testimonials, both video and written testimonials on my praise page. I've been doing this for over 20 years. I have hundreds of marriages and babies and matches to my credit, and you can be one too. I'm Lisa Shield. Thank you so much for watching. I do this broadcast every Thursday, so come back and see me again. I also do a Sunday broadcast with my husband called getting Inside the right male mind. You can send us your suggestions for podcast topics to podcast@lisashield.com I wish you all the best.
Lisa Shield [00:35:33]:
Come back and see me again and we can help you find the guardian of your soul. Bye.