Men's Health March 16, 2026 0 Comments

Unlock the Secret Blueprint to Finding True Love and Crafting the Relationship You’ve Always Dreamed Of—Are You Ready to Transform Your Life?

Ever wondered why finding “the one” often feels less like a romantic dance and more like a high-stakes negotiation? After decades of helping men and women heal and build love that lasts—through my own wins, losses, and everything in between—I can tell you: the game’s changed, but the heart’s need hasn’t. While modern culture pushes the “mate market” mindset—where desirability is a currency and love’s a deal—there’s a deeper, evolutionary story unfolding beneath all the swipes and dating apps. Love isn’t just about a checklist or “value”; it’s about forging bonds that act as our safe harbors and secure bases in a world that’s anything but stable. Drawing from fresh insights in relational evolutionary psychology and the groundbreaking work of Dr. Paul Eastwick, I’m excited to share how understanding these primal threads can transform your love life—from confusion and chaos to connection and joy. Ready to unlock the science behind true lasting love? LEARN MORE

I have been helping men and women improve their love lives for more than fifty years. There are two reasons this work has become my life’s mission. The first is that I know the pain and suffering that results when a relationship we thought was going to bring us love everlasting crashes and burns. In my welcome video, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor,” I share my own experiences. The second reason is that I also know the joy of having a marriage that has lasted for forty-six wonderful years. I share what Carlin and I have learned in my book, The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to Come.

I believe we all want to find the love of our lives and learn how to build a relationship where real lasting love is a reality. I’ve learned a lot over the years, but there is always more to discover. I recently learned about a new book, Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection by Paul Eastwick. The book has expanded my understanding of what goes wrong in our search for love and how the new science of relational evolutionary psychology can help us all find the love of our lives and build the relationship of our dreams. You can watch my interview with Dr. Eastwick here.

Paul Eastwick is professor of psychology at UC Davis, where he serves as the head of the Social Personality Psychology program and the director of the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory. He says,

“Modern media and culture have taught us a vast array of inaccurate ideas about dating and relationships. One idea is that romantic relationships are a negotiation between two parties offering value, extracting benefits, and attempting to maintain a competitive edge. Sitting at the center of it all is a person’s personal ‘mate value’ — their true, core desirability — to be leveraged on the mating market to get what they want and deserve. She’s hot, he’s rich, let’s make a deal.”

In our modern world where everything has a price and we are driven to compete to get what we need, it isn’t surprising that dating and mating has become complicated and confusing for most people. Many men and women have come to believe they can never win. Fortunately, there is a better way to live and to love.

The Science of Close Relationships

Based on Dr. Eastwick’s extensive research and study, he helped me understand what makes a bond strong and what bonds do to help us survive and thrive. Support comes in two forms. In one form, two people help each other recover from adversity. He describes this form as “safe haven” support. In the other form, two people help each other rise to meet new challenges. He calls this providing a “secure base.”

I really resonated with these ideas. One of my most popular articles, read by more than 4,000,000 people, is called “The One Thing That Men Want More Than Sex.” In the article I say,

“We’ve all heard that women need to feel loved to have sex, but men need to have sex to feel loved. Let’s look more deeply at what it is exactly that men are getting when they get sex. Sure, there is the physical pleasure, but there is a deeper need that is being satisfied. I call it the need for a safe harbor.”

To appreciate the importance of safety and security in our intimate relationships, we need to recognize the importance of attachment bonds in humans. Dr. Eastwick described the work of Dr. John Bowlby and his colleague Dr. Mary Ainsworth. In the mid-twentieth century, Drs. Bowlby and Ainsworth studied what happens to infants and young children when they are separated from their caregivers.

In those days, popular parenting advice in the West cautioned against overindulging children’s emotional needs. Many believed that too much affection was tantamount to spoiling. To Bowlby and Ainsworth — and others including Dr. Harry Harlow, famous for his studies on maternal separation and social isolation in rhesus monkeys — this advice was deeply misguided.

Dr. Eastwick noted that natural selection installed a mechanism to mitigate the danger that was present for all babies as they begin to explore their world. The young ones would seek out specific well-known others, such as fathers, mothers, and other caregivers, who are responsive and engage them in play, and comfort them when they are distressed.

With his understanding of relational evolutionary psychology Dr. Eastwick notes that sometime during the last few million years, natural selection repurposed the attachment system to apply beyond our early childhood relationships. Specifically, evolution applied the attachment system to adult mating relationships, too.

Understanding that adults have a similar need for safety and support as children, is critically important in understanding how to have successful adult relationships.

“Of course, sexuality and sexual desire remained central to mating relationships,” says Paul Eastwick in his book Bonded by Evolution. “Those elements didn’t go anywhere, and they commonly kickstart the whole process. But mating wasn’t just about sex anymore. It was also about an emotional bond, or ‘pair-bond.’”

Evolutionary Based Relational Solutions for Dating and Mating in the Real World Today

Dr. Eastwick says, “We are creatures who evolved to form sexual relationships and romantic attachments within small networks. Mate value and competitive markets have limited influence on how these bonds form and take shape, and they likely had even less influence in the environments in which humans evolved.”

Here are a few real relationship solutions that can help you find the love of your life and develop an intimate relationship that lasts forever:

Join a men’s group where you can share your truth and learn from others.

My wife, Carlin, tells friends that the main reason she and I have had a wonderful 46-year marriage is because I have been in a men’s group for 47 years. The group came into being in 1979 following a gathering with the psychologist Herb Goldberg who wrote the book The Hazards of Being Male. In the book he says,

“The male has paid a heavy price for his masculine ‘privilege’ and power. He is out of touch with his emotions and his body. He is playing by the rules of the male game plan and with lemming-like purpose he is destroying himself — emotionally, psychologically, and physically.”

Over the years we’ve gotten to know each other deeply and supported each other as we learned to open-up and share our deepest feelings. The group always supports our maleness but is also respectful and caring towards women. In recent years, some males have gravitated to groups in the “manosphere” that see women as the enemy. The opposite has always been true in our men’s group. I’ve written about our experiences in my book, 12 Rules for Good Men.

Build mixed-gender networks.

A lot has been written about the increase in loneliness, particularly among boys and men. There are many reasons for this, but the bottom line is that we need to connect with people where we can enjoy each other’s company and get to know each other doing things we enjoy together. My wife, Carlin, and I met in a Aikido dojo where men and women learned this peaceful martial art.

In recent years more and more people, young and old, spend time connecting with each other on their cell phones. Nothing wrong with that, but humans are meant to interact with each other face-to-face, in small groups. Finding places where you connect with others not only helps reverse the loneliness epidemic, but is the kind of natural way to meet that special someone we all want and need.

Understand the pros and cons of online dating.

Dr. Eastwick points out that going online certainly gives us more people to choose from, but there is a downside. The first problem with online dating is choice overload.

“Having too many options,” says Dr. Eastwick, “tends to make people more dissatisfied with their eventual selection.”

Many come to believe that there is always someone better with the next swipe.

The second problem is that online dating is often demeaning as people feel they are being judged and often selected against. It’s easy to feel there is something wrong with us, that we are inherently undesirable when we are not chosen. Dr. Eastwick also points out that when we do attract attention it many not be the kind of attention we want, especially if you’re a woman.

When we meet people in real-life social situations, our network of friends probably contains a number of people who are looking out for your best interests. They support us in moving towards people they know are safe and caring and steer us away from those who may be hurtful.

Dr. Eastwick offers good advice for finding a partner that we’re compatible with if we choose to connect in the on-line dating world: Limit the pool and stay for the third impression.

He says that people tend to go out with too many people from a pool that they have filtered too heavily. He reminds us that real compatibility can not be predicted by superficial traits. We have to get to know each other and see how we feel being together. He suggests a three-date approach, and research shows that first impressions are usually unreliable, but three impressions give us the best chance of success.

“By impression, I mean your physical attraction,” says Dr. Eastwick, “but also how they make you feel, and how much you enjoy being around them. It includes how you feel about yourself when you’re together.”

There is a lot we can learn about love and life and finding the right relationship that will last through time. To learn more about Paul Eastwick, his book, and his work, you can visit him here: https://pauleastwick.com/pauleastwick.

You can learn more about me and my work by visiting me at www.MenAlive.com. I invite you to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter where I share tips and guidance for living fully, loving deeply, and making a positive difference in the world.