Articles & Reviews

Connect And Commit Review: An Honest Look at Amy Waterman's Commitment Course

Meta description: An honest Connect And Commit review: what's in the 330+ page course and 14 hours of audio, who it suits, who should skip it, the $167 price and the guarantee.

Disclosure: this review contains affiliate links. If you buy through them I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Connect And Commit is a long course about one thing: how commitment develops between two people, and what each of you can do to help it along without pressure or games. It's sold on meetysweet.com with separate sales pages for women and for men, and the author named on both pages is Amy Waterman, a writer on attraction, dating and relationships.

I've gone through the sales page in detail, and here is an honest look at what you get, who it suits, who should skip it, and whether $167 is fair.

What Connect And Commit is

It's an instant-download course in three parts. The core is an ebook of over 330 pages. The whole book has also been recorded as audio, read by the author, which runs to over 9 hours. On top of that come over 4 hours of audio interviews with dating and relationship experts, with written transcripts. In total the page counts over 14 hours of audio.

The page says the course was formerly known as From First Dates to Soul Mates, so it's an established book that has been renamed and repackaged.

Who it's for

The course is written for two groups. The first is people already in a relationship who feel stuck: together a while, fond of each other, but not moving to the next step and not sure how to raise it. The second is single people who keep ending up with partners who only want something short-term and want to understand why.

It suits readers who like to understand the reasons behind advice. A lot of the book is exercises and self-examination, so it rewards people who will sit down with a notebook.

Who it's not for

If you want a script that makes someone propose, this isn't it, and to its credit the course argues against that kind of thinking. Its first piece of advice is never to give an ultimatum.

It's also a big course. If you only want a few quick tips, the free tips on the sales page may be enough. And if your relationship involves abuse or control, a book is the wrong tool: please talk to a qualified counsellor or a support service in your country.

What's inside

The contents list on the sales page is long. These are the parts that stood out to me:

• The 6-step commitment timeline. A map of the psychological development of a relationship, stage by stage, so you can see where you and your partner are right now. Lee Baucom, Ph.D. of SaveTheMarriage.com is quoted on the page saying it matches his own findings.
• 20 do's and don'ts. Short rules the author says to read before you do anything else.
• The Belongingness Audit. A self-check of how ready you are for a committed relationship and where your own barriers might be.
• The 5 Cs of Attraction and an Attraction Quotient quiz. A way to see which areas you might want to work on, single or not.
• Conflict tools. Why the first argument can be a good sign, a Conflict Style Analysis, five tips for healthy conflict, and a section on getting through the first crisis point.
• 'The Talk'. A three-part discussion strategy for raising feelings and needs without it turning into a fight.
• The commitment-shy partner. Three pointers to frame the issue and avoid over-reacting.
• Patterns from the past. Exercises to spot the habits you bring from one relationship to the next.

The page also refers to a Rutgers University study on three things modern men and women look for in a marriage partner. That's the product's claim; I haven't seen the study itself.

The bonus interviews

Five audio interviews come with the course: two with clinical psychologist Richard Wheeler (one on staying together, one answering readers' commitment questions), one with Renee Piane, author of 'Love Mechanics', on communication, one with life coach Marie Forleo on keeping attraction alive, and one with Mark Joyner, author of Simpleology, on getting clear about what you want. The interviews are where you get other voices on the same subject, which is useful in a field where one author's view can only go so far.

You can see the full list of contents and bonuses on the sales page: see what's inside Connect And Commit.

What I liked

The advice is respectful. The free tips on the page are about becoming the kind of person your partner is better off with, supporting their goals instead of trying to change them, and not handing out affection only when they do what you want. That's a long way from the manipulation tactics sold elsewhere in this niche.

The timeline and the exercises give you something to do with the ideas, and the audio edition means you can work through it on a commute or a walk.

What to keep in mind

The sales letter is old-fashioned and pushy in places, with lots of capital letters and some big claims, and it mentions iPods and burning CDs. Read the contents list and judge the material, not the hype. It's also a lot of material, so plan to work through it over a few weeks.

And the obvious one: no course can make another person commit. What it can do is help you understand where you stand and change what's in your control.

Price and guarantee

Connect And Commit costs $167 as a one-time payment, with instant access. The guarantee is a 60-day money-back guarantee: if you're not happy for any reason, you email support within 60 days of purchase for a full refund. That gives you time to read the whole thing and try the exercises before you decide.

Verdict

If you're in a relationship that has stalled, or you keep repeating the same pattern with partners who won't commit, and you want a thorough, respectful guide rather than tricks, Connect And Commit is worth a serious look. The 6-step timeline alone could change how you read the stage you're in. If you want a quick fix or a guaranteed result, skip it.

Women and men have separate pages with the same core course. Read the full Connect And Commit page here.

7 Commitment Mistakes That Push People Away (and What to Do Instead)

Meta description: Want more commitment in your relationship? Seven common mistakes, from ultimatums to rationed affection, and what tends to work better instead.

Disclosure: this article contains an affiliate link. If you buy through it I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Most of us have lain awake at some point wondering why a relationship that feels so good keeps stalling just short of the next step. You've met the friends, you've talked about holidays a year away, and still nobody says the words out loud.

Wanting more commitment from a relationship is completely reasonable. The trouble is that the things we do when we feel unsure often push the other person further away. Here are seven common mistakes, and what tends to work better. Several of these come from Amy Waterman's course Connect And Commit, which I'll come back to at the end.

1. Giving an ultimatum

The deadline speech feels like taking control: decide by Christmas, or I'm leaving. But an ultimatum asks for a decision under pressure. If the other person hasn't already decided they're better off with you, you'll get a rushed answer, and rushed answers are the ones people regret and resent later.

Instead: say what you want and why it matters to you, then give them room to answer honestly. You'll learn far more from a free answer than a forced one.

2. Rationing affection to get your way

It's easy to slip into it without noticing: warm when they do what you hoped, cool when they don't. Over time the other person gets tired of the game and stops trying to win your affection at all.

Instead: keep your affection steady, and raise disagreements as disagreements. Mixing the two teaches your partner that love comes with conditions.

3. Trying to change their goals

If your partner wants to retrain, travel, start a business or run a marathon, it can feel like competition for their time. Push against it and you become the obstacle. Support it and you become the person they want beside them while they do it.

Instead: ask about their plans, and mean the question. People grow closer to the people who are on their side.

4. Expecting the wrong stage

A lot of commitment worry comes from expecting one stage of a relationship while you're still in another. Three months in, you might want a level of certainty that most couples only reach much later, and the gap feels like rejection when it's really timing.

Instead: learn the stages. Connect And Commit maps them in a 6-step timeline, so you can see where the two of you are and what usually comes next.

5. Treating the first big argument as a bad sign

The first real fight can feel like the beginning of the end. It's more often the beginning of the real relationship, because it's the first time you find out how the two of you handle disagreement.

Couples who last aren't the ones who never argue. They're the ones who learn how to disagree without trampling on each other, and that skill only gets built by practising it.

Instead: treat it as practice. Notice how you argue (do you go quiet, raise your voice, or keep score?) and talk afterwards about what would make the next disagreement easier.

6. Putting off 'The Talk' until it explodes

When the future feels like a dangerous topic, we wait for the perfect moment. It never comes, the topic builds up, and it finally comes out sideways in the middle of a row about something else.

Instead: choose a calm moment, start with how you feel, then what you need, then ask what they need. Keep it a conversation, not a verdict.

7. Repeating the pattern from last time

If several relationships have ended at the same point, in the same way, the common factor deserves a kind, honest look. Not to blame yourself, but to spot the habit you might be carrying from one partner to the next.

Instead: write down how your last few relationships began, where they stalled and how they ended. Patterns are much easier to change once you've seen them on paper. If you're single right now, this is the most useful exercise on the list, because it works before the next relationship starts.

If you want to go further

These seven are a starting point. If you'd like the full version, Connect And Commit by Amy Waterman goes into each of them in depth. It's a 330+ page book with an audio edition read by the author, over 4 hours of interviews with relationship experts, a 6-step commitment timeline, a three-part strategy for 'The Talk', and self-examination exercises for spotting your own patterns. There are separate editions for women and men.

It costs $167 as a one-time payment and comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee. No course can make someone commit, but this one can help you understand where your relationship stands and what's in your hands. See the full contents here.