You Should Have Your Life Together If You Want To Lead A Family

Why you should have your life together if you want to lead a family.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a 29-year-old viewer who was dating a 35-year-old woman. He is financially unstable and doesn’t have his life together. She’s ready for kids and a family and dumped him because he simply isn’t ready and she is running out of time.

He’s in no-contact and wonders if she will come back. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Especially if you’re a 29-year-old dude dating a 35-year-old woman who wants kids because her clock is running out.

So this particular guy, I guess he’s in Europe. He’s financially unstable, and you could tell it just sounds like he’s like a college kid. His room is a mess, his house is a mess, he just doesn’t have his life together. So his girlfriend dumped him because she’s ready for kids and a family, and he just he’s not financially ready. He doesn’t have his act together. I mean, his place is a mess. It’s like, these are not the things that are going to cause a woman to think, “Oh, this guy would be a perfect father for our kids! I can count on him to support us,” if she’s going to be a stay-at-home mom. Plus, he’s 29, she’s 35. It’s like man, it’s like her time, her window is so short, and the average woman is just not going to wait for a dude to grow up and get his shit together.

So if you’re thinking about being a family man, having your kids together doesn’t mean you got to be rich, but it means you got to know what you want, you gotta know why you want it, and you’re taking massive action to make it happen and you’re making progress, and it looks like you’re going to get there, but if you’re constantly struggling financially, you don’t even organize your place, that’s not going to make a woman feel safe and comfortable starting a family with you.

Viewer Email:

Hi Coach Corey,

I’m 29, based in Luxembourg. My ex is 35, a Georgian lawyer. We broke up in early June 2025. Dated for almost two-and-a-half years. Her main reasons were my financial instability and our misaligned timelines. She values stability, planning, and children soon, while I am still building my IT business, paying down debt, and realistically need 6–24 months to reach stability.

Well, more than likely, your time frame is off. It’ll probably take you two or three times as long, so you’re probably four to five years away from reaching the stability that you want. That’s just realistic. I wrote about it in Mastering Yourself. You got to think in terms of decades. You’re probably being a little unrealistic in what your abilities are. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a decade.

Her culture expects the man to provide, and she has told me that a 50/50 arrangement turns her off.

So it sounds like she wants to be a stay-at-home mom and be with a guy that she can count on to be the provider and the protector.

We always lived separately, which I disliked.

Well, that just tells me she never felt safe and comfortable enough with you as her man to move in with you. Women vote with their feet. If they’re with you, they voted for you.

Who likes to come home to an empty house with no hug or dinner waiting? My place was too messy to host her, and although she once stayed a week to help me organize it, we only got halfway done.

I read something like that I’m like, come on, man! It’s like, you’re almost 30 years old and you can’t even organize your house, and it’s just a fucking mess? It’s like, what are you like, Pig-Pen from the Peanuts gang? Jesus, dude. That’s just ridiculous. When you’re behaving that way as a man, it’s like she’s your mommy. She’s not your teammate. It’s like she’s mothering you because you can’t even take care of yourself. It’s like, at some point, you gotta fucking grow up.

She didn’t feel comfortable there.

Well, obviously.

A year later, basically at the end of May 2025, we decide we decided move into my family home with me, with my mother relocating to another nearby property, but just before that, many life changes hit her: She had to share her small apartment with family, move her belongings, and prepare job interviews for two relatives. She grew cold and distant during this period and didn’t want to see me. I mirrored her distance instead of leading, while also hiding my financial struggles as unpaid debts and taxes piled up.

Yeah, you just don’t have your life together, dude. You got things that are a little more important and pressing that need to be focusing on. So it’s kind of unrealistic to expect her to to sit around for the next four or five years as you get your shit together, maybe. I mean, you’re 30 already. Why didn’t you get it together 10 years ago?

Before moving in, we tested living together for a week, and it went poorly. I caught a cold, gave little intimacy, and wasn’t talkative. I overheard her crying at night and ignored it, assuming she was sad because her sister moved quite a bit further away with her partner and dog – My ex loved that dog like it was hers.

See? See how he just rationalizes away all that stuff? “Oh, it’s no big deal. Everything will be fine.” This is what most guys do. “Oh, it’s just better not to deal with it. Just pretend it’s not there.” Ignoring the truth does not make it go away.

Later, we talked about the crying and I confessed that I heard her crying at night but ignored it, very damaging.

It just makes her feel like you don’t give a shit and you don’t have the emotional maturity to handle things like that. You can’t handle your girl and organizing your place and paying your bills. How are you going to handle kids?

At the same time, I stopped taking her out because of my finances, even though I knew she needed that effort.

Well, that’s what most guys do. They think, “Oh, I just won’t court my girlfriend anymore so I can save money.” Women want to be in a love story. I mean, even if you’re doing a picnic, you got to make some kind of an effort. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, but you just decided to stop the courtship. You don’t date and court your girlfriend, eventually somebody else will.

Since the breakup, I’ve done strict no-contact. I blocked and unblocked her 2-3 times on social media but always kept my WhatsApp reachable.

Yeah, that’s not very mature.

She hasn’t reached out. I’ve been focused on self-improvement: I lost nine kilograms, exercise regularly, eat healthy and have started reducing my debt drastically. Emotionally, I feel more acceptance now. I’ve read 3% Man 1–2 times and I am re-reading with the audio-book simultaneously again. Your material worked well with most women, but with my ex, it sometimes felt like it didn’t fully land…

Well, I can tell from your email you were not applying what I teach dude, so don’t tell me it didn’t fully land. You weren’t even applying it, and with only reading the book once or twice, you don’t even know what the fuck is in there. You have no idea what you’re doing.

…Which makes me wonder if she’s simply not the right fit or if I misapplied things under pressure.

Well, I would say you’re probably misapplying things. Again, you’re not going to know this stuff by reading the book once or twice. I don’t know how long you’ve been following me for, but that’s just a piss poor effort. You’re just not serious.

So this is the whole problem with you. You’re not taking your life seriously, you’re not getting your shit together, and you’re expecting a woman to sit around and fall in love with you for your potential. You got to participate in your own rescue, and you’re just simply not doing that. It’s just selfish and unrealistic for you to think a woman who’s 35 can wait around for five or 10 years for you to get your life together.

If she does reach out, I would follow your principles: assume she wants to see me, set a date, keep it light, let her do the pursuing.

Well, you should be following what’s in 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back. She should come to you. She should make dinner at your place in the evening with you. You don’t meet her out, pick her up, go to coffee or any bullshit like that.

My questions are: If she returns, how do I calibrate pace and expectations given the kids timeline and her provider expectations?

You got to read the book because again, you’re just looking for the quick fix, the magic line, that’ll fix all this. In reality, you need to work on everything in your life as a man. You need to get your shit together, get a second job, do whatever you got to do to pay off your debts, clean your fucking apartment or your house up and get your shit organized. No woman is going to feel safe and comfortable having a family with you when you’re like a child, you’re like a big man baby. You’re almost 30 years old, you can’t even organize your place, you got financial issues. It’s just unrealistic for you to expect her to wait around on you to grow up someday.

And at what point should I stop entertaining the hope of reconciliation and fully move on? 

Thank you for all you do!

Bob

Well, you should fully move on now. That’s what 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back says. Assume it’s over and you’ll probably never hear from her again. If you do, invite her over to make dinner at your place, but if it’s going to take you five to 10 years to get your shit together, don’t waste the last few years of her baby rearing years on your potential. If you don’t have your shit together, she’s not going to feel safe and comfortable with you as the leader of the household. Again, she came over to help you organize your place and you got a halfway done, and it looks like you just gave up and never did anything with it. It’s like, come on, dude! At some point, you got to grow up. At some point, you got to man up. You’re almost 30 years old, dude.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.