103: The Erosion of Accountability - Why Women Are No Longer Participating

I believed this episode was going to be about emotionally unavailable men and the man-child dynamic.

But as I started connecting the dots, I realized something much bigger was happening.

We're living through an erosion of accountability.

I see it in relationships.
I see it in the workplace.
I see it in customer service.
I see it in leadership.
I see it in families.
And I see it in the dating world, where access is often expected without effort.

In this episode, I explore how a lack of accountability creates entitlement, why emotionally unavailable relationships continue to thrive, and what happens when women stop accepting the bare minimum.

I also share deeply personal stories about speaking up, being the truth-teller, reaching a breaking point, and learning that the goal isn't to change people - it's to decide whether you're willing to keep participating.

If you've ever wondered:

• Why accountability feels so rare today
• Why your standards seem to upset people
• Why speaking the truth can feel so lonely
• Why emotionally unavailable partners resist growth
• Or why choosing yourself feels both empowering and terrifying...

This conversation is for you.

Because the question is no longer:

"Will he choose me?"

The question is:

"Do I choose to participate?"

Your standards aren't the problem.

Your voice isn't the problem.

And the life you want begins the moment you stop abandoning what you already know.

Connect with Darla Ridilla: 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I never agreed with that when my daughter was growing up and wasn't T-ball. I did not agree with there is no winner. What that concept and the people that promoted it didn't understand is that when nobody wins, everybody loses. It didn't teach the healthy competition. It didn't teach the glory of doing a good job and winning and being rewarded for it. And it's bigger than just a T-ball trophy. They were giving the bare minimum and being rewarded. There were no consequences for not doing a good job. As grown-up adults, they evolved into entitled little toddlers that went their way all the time, that don't want to work for what they get. Welcome to You Have the Power, The Road to Truth Freedom and Rail Connection. This podcast is for women who are tired of feeling unseen, unheard, and disconnected from their own voice. Whether it shows up in dating, relationships, business, leadership, or just the conversations that you're afraid to have. The results are the same. You bite your tongue, second guess yourself, talk yourself out of what you already know. And call it patience, understanding, or being the bigger person. I'm Darla Badilla, voice and podcast monumenter, and creator of the Magnetic Connections Pathway. This isn't about becoming louder, it's about becoming unavailable for anything that requires you to advance yourself. Here, we explore the magnetic connections pathway. Presence, agency, empowerment. Because emotionally unavailable men aren't the only reason that women stop speaking their truth. They're just one of the places that it happens. And when you stop shrinking, softening and silencing yourself to keep the peace, you stop feeling invisible in your own life. You stop wondering if you're asking too much, and you start showing up as the woman who knows her voice and knows it matters. Let's begin. When I originally started developing the topic and the concept for this podcast episode, it originally started out that I was going to talk about the man-child dynamic. And this is where we have little boys running around in adult bodies. But what I realized is there's actually something else going on. It's the erosion of accountability. And I am seeing this erosion in many areas, not just in dating and relationships. I'm seeing it in the workplace. I'm seeing it in friendships. I'm just seeing it in our day-to-day interactions. And it's unfortunate because I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and our generation and the generations before us were raised to take pride in our work, to be accountable. Maybe not necessarily men to women. That's a dynamic that is evolving as we speak. But when we come to the workplace, there was this pride of doing a good job. And what I'm starting to discover is that this is bigger than just relationships. This lack of accountability is showing up everywhere. You might be out there as a woman saying, What does this have to do with my relationships? I am a firm believer in that how we do one thing, we do everything. And so a man who is not taking pride in his work at the job is very likely also not being accountable in his personal relationships. And I also think that this isn't isolated to just men. For both men and women, there's a lack of work ethic, there's a lack of accountability, and there's a lack of pride in a job well done. And as women, we really need to look at ourselves as well and the standards we have with ourselves. Because when we raise our own internal standards about how we interact with others, we are naturally going to raise the bar for people around us, whether that's work or personal life. And I think it's important to do that. Because if we want more out of life, if we want the equality we so desperately seek, we have to show up as the person that we want to attract. We have to show up as the boss that we want to attract or the career opportunity that we want. We have to be the example first. So, how do we get here? Well, the generation before this one, the little kids that are now grown adults, they grew up in a time where everybody got a trophy. I never agreed with that when my daughter was growing up and wasn't T-ball. I did not agree with there is no winner. What that concept and the people that promoted it didn't understand is that when nobody wins, everybody loses. It didn't teach the healthy competition. It didn't teach the glory of doing a good job and winning and being rewarded for it. And it's bigger than just a T-ball trophy. This went into everything of our society. And so what happened was that these kids, whether it was school, home, T ball team, they were giving the bare minimum and being rewarded for it. There were no consequences for not doing a good job. There was no consequence for not taking accountability for behavior. As grown-up adults, they evolved into entitled little toddlers that went their way all the time, that don't want to work for what they get. And while that generation is not the generation that I'm looking to date or have a relationship with, there is a correlation between the middle-aged men and these new young adults. The correlation is access, access to money, access to our bodies, access to relationships and time with us. These younger generations expect to be paid to do as little as possible. The middle-aged men that are in my dating sphere expect to get access to me with bread crumbing and minimal effort. There's only one way that we're going to change this dynamic. And that is we ourselves have to be the example. We have to become the partner that we want to attract. So as women, how are we going to be the example? Well, first of all, we have to acknowledge that things have changed, that we are more and more choosing to be on our own. And that's okay. And it's okay to choose partnership as well. We also need to have a standard that if we're going to be in partnership, that the men in our lives need to respect our autonomy, that we have our own money, that we have our own homes, and that we are no longer dependent on relationships. We no longer need a man to survive. If we are in a relationship, it's not because we need it, it's because we choose it. And this doesn't mean that a man is any less valuable. It just means that in order for him to be in our life, he has to come with different qualities and different behaviors. And if he doesn't, he doesn't fit into the new way that we do things. And if he doesn't want to do the work, if he doesn't want to invest in his own personal growth, if he doesn't want to be accountable, if he doesn't want to adapt, he doesn't get a trophy, he doesn't get a reward. Access is earned. And if he doesn't do what is necessary to earn it, then we can make the choice that we are going to walk away. I also think another dynamic that has really affected the dating world is the online apps. While I have dabbled in them off and on throughout the years, I really think in a big way they've ruined dating. It's given men who are lazy or have emotional issues, such as they are avoidant. It's given them a way to get access to women without earning it. It's also given them a sense of entitlement. And I think it's ruined the courting process. I'm a little bit old-fashioned when it comes to that. I think it's really important that there be courting like there used to be. There was a level of chivalry of the man providing. That I think should remain. I think we are biologically wired that way. I also think men paying for the dates and planning the dates is really not about financial gain. It's really about is he showing leadership skills? Is he investing in me? And as women, we have to adjust what we do as well. We have to let him invest. We have to let him show whether or not he will. And that means we don't chase. We don't make the first move. I mean, certainly you can engage a man in conversation and see what he does with it, but we don't lead, we don't do the emotional labor. We have also fallen into patterns. I am guilty of it in the past as well, where I did all the work and made it too easy for the man. And not only did that go against our biological way that dating should evolve, we also weren't able to sit back like I do now and observe his behavior and make a decision on whether or not to participate. And when we make it too easy, not only is he not being held accountable, we aren't even giving him the opportunity to show himself and hold him accountable. And when we talk about the result of this lack of accountability, it is the man-child syndrome. And the experiences that I've had in my relationships is that it's it's more than just a lack of accountability. It's the passive aggressive remarks, like the guy that I held accountable when he stood me up in a date and I ran into him six months later and he just tried to blame it on that he was drunk. Great. Now you have a drinking problem too. The standing me up was a red flag, but now you just name something else. Not that I was interested anyway, but his passive aggressive remark as he walked away about my standard. When someone says something to you as they're walking away or have their back turned, that's passive aggressive, and that's not having a constructive conversation. That's creating conflict but avoiding it at the same time. Some men have been outright rageful towards me about my standards, whether it's in person or it's a troll on my YouTube channel. They're so mad about how we have changed the rules and they just don't want to play them. They just want things to always be the way they were, but they can't always be that way. They're getting away with it because as a collective, we are not raising those standards and holding them. And so for the few women and few people in our society who are doing that, it's a huge responsibility. I would rather share it. Women, I'm asking you to also step up. You owe it to yourself. Is it easy to confront people? No. Is it comfortable? No, it's not. I moved through the discomfort and do it anyway. I learned at a very young age that if I didn't stand up for myself, nobody else would. It's unfortunate that I had to learn it because my mother abandoned me and neglected me and I had to defend myself against my father as a small child. But it also taught me to live with the discomfort of confrontation and do it anyway. And ladies, you need to do the same. You need to get away from society's expectations that you have to be nice and you have to keep the peace. It's time to disrupt that peace. I think as women, we need to really band together and support each other. It's bigger than we're gonna stand up to the men. We need to support each other in our day-to-day lives and whether we're single or in relationships. There needs to be a sisterhood because that's lacking too. When a woman tells you a story about a previous relationship, a man she dated or she was married to, and you haven't had that same experience. I'm gonna ask you to give her the benefit of a doubt. Three years ago, I broke up with a man and I kicked him out. One month later, he broke into my apartment. While I don't think he took anything, nothing was broken. This is how I know he did it. The evidence was there. There was damage to the screen in my living room window. I could see where he pried it open. I had a bar there to prevent that window from being opened, and it was moved. It was out of the track and placed on the windowsill. Very neatly, too. It wasn't a jar like my dog knocked it over. It was very neatly placed on the windowsill, perfectly straight. At that time, Goliath was alive and he was 120 pounds and very protective of me and our home. There's no way that a stranger got into that apartment. Whoever broke in knew that dog. And there's only one person who knew him really well. When I started to tell some of my mutual friends that we had what he had done, it wasn't about a smear campaign. It was about, I'm concerned for my safety. Also, ladies, watch out. Don't date this man. He's not to be trusted. I walked away from several people because they decided to stay neutral, but neutral is a side. I just told them how he committed a crime and my safety was in question. And their reaction was, well, I've never seen him act like that. He's always seemed so nice when I've been with him. And they continued to be friends with him. That happened with my ex-husband too, with a very close friend. She's continued to hang out with him socially. So I blocked her. Do you know how alone that made me feel? They chose not to believe me and they didn't hold him accountable. And they continued to give him the access of their friendship. And they did it at the cost of me. Narcissists, which is what he was, are very good at hiding their real personality and character. It's easy in public to cover it up, but it's not so easy in the home day after day. I live with that man for a year. I saw a side of him no one else saw. And accountability isn't just about holding the person who did it accountable, it's about also supporting the people that tell you stories that are true. When it comes to abuse, whether it's a family member or it's a partner, in my family dynamics, I was blamed for what the abuser did to me. I was the truth teller, the whistleblower per se. But because I disrupted the script of being quiet, not talking about it, you're making other people uncomfortable. I was the one who was blamed for what they did. They weren't focused on why did this person do this? They were focused on why are you talking about it. And so once again, there were several abusers in my life and throughout my childhood that weren't held accountable, even though I told on them because other people's discomfort of what I was saying was more important to them than holding the abuser accountable. Not only did that hurt me deeply, it also kept the door open for them to abuse others. They didn't stop doing what they were doing because there was no consequence. I didn't have the support, the backup, or other people having accountability standards. Sometimes we're pushed to the limit, but it shouldn't come to that. We do need to have grace for ourselves when those moments happen, when we aren't perfect. We need to understand why they happened. And as women, we also need to understand what our role is in helping others not reach that point. And in dating, the question shouldn't be, why are your standards so high? Why are you choosing to not date me? The question should be what is she really asking of me and what can I do to meet it? What in me is being triggered by her standard? And is that something that I should be addressing within myself? What if her standard isn't too high, but my effort is too low? And whether it's work ethic or it's dating ethics, nothing is gonna change until we change how we react to it. If we keep accepting breadcrumbs, if we keep accepting bad customer service, if we keep accepting the bare minimum in any area of life, if we don't give them a consequence for their actions, they won't change. There's no hope of it. Are there men who will never change? There are. And there's nothing we can do about those. But if we expect something different, we can't keep doing the same thing. You know, the definition of insanity. If you want a healthy relationship, then you need to decide what expectations are going to give you that and hold them. And if that does mean you're by yourself, so be it. Isn't that better than you being miserable? You feeling like you're at your boiling point all the time? We can't be concerned about the reactions of others. If a woman keeps attracting unhealthy men, she needs to start asking herself, why am I doing that? What standards do I need to raise? And what boundaries do I need to set and hold so I can get what I want? I need to take an active role, not be passive, not accept the bare minimum. And we need to stop asking if he's gonna choose us. We need to stop asking, will he like us? And we need to start just being ourselves, expressing ourselves in a way we prefer and seeing how he reacts to that, and then decide if we choose him. If they want to be dysfunctional, we don't have to participate in it. We don't have to accept it. And even though it's hard and it can be lonely at times, every time you walk away and you choose yourself over others, you will become stronger. You will actually get to the point where your life on your own is so precious that it's gonna take someone pretty spectacular to convince you to give it up. That's a good place to be in. We do have a problem with a lack of accountability, emotionally unavailable men, but we also have a choice. If we want an emotionally willing one, then we have to be willing to say, I no longer participate in anything that doesn't meet my standards. What we're really talking about is our voice and using it without apology, without guilt, being willing to use our voice, even when other people might not react well to it. Because whether it's in relationships or it's in your job and your family dynamics, wherever it is, using your voice is actually you giving yourself power. And what I've found is that women expressing themselves and using their voices can show up in so many different ways. There are many of you that are going to listen to this podcast and you're gonna be inspired to use your voice in your personal life, in your relationships. But I think there's a lot of women out there that also have a story of their own to tell. They're growing, they have something they've overcome or something they've learned to do, and they're being quiet and they're not sharing it. In the back of their mind, there's this desire that they either don't know is there yet because it's so quiet they can't hear it, or it's been banging on their door for a long time. I have something to say, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid what people are gonna think of me. They're gonna judge me. I don't know how to do it, I don't know anything about the technology. All of those things we tell ourselves, I need to be perfect before I do it. Whether it is you speaking up in a relationship, or you decide, hey, I'd really love to have a podcast and tell my own story about my own experiences. It isn't about showing up perfect. It's just about doing it. Because the more you do it, the more you speak up in your dating standards, the more you decide to hit publish on a podcast, not only do you get better at it, not only do you get more confident at it, you're gonna get more comfortable with it. Because I bet you you've got a story within you, whether it's shared privately or publicly, that no one else has. And only you can tell it. When we break a mold and we start doing something differently, there's no telling who's watching us. There's no telling how many we've inspired. The whole reason I started riding a motorcycle years ago is because back in the early 2000s, I met this really cool woman who rode her moon motorcycle with her husband. They rode side by side, and I thought she was the biggest badass. And I wanted to be like her. And I had to get over my fear of getting hurt, doing it wrong, failing. My desire to be like her was so strong that I worked through those fears and became my own version of a badass. That's what you can be, whether it's using your voice in your relationships or deciding to fight that bullet and hit publish and become a podcaster. If sharing your voice publicly is something that you've privately wanted to do, and you're like, yes, I'm afraid about, you know what? I need to start acting on it. I'm gonna invite you to my free course. You have something to say. And listen to those three shifts. They're gonna help you to move forward. I know you got a story in you. I also know the world is waiting to hear it. You have the power. So now it's time to act like it. Thank you for listening to You Have the Power, the Road to Truth Freedom and Rogue Connection. If something stirred in you today, don't talk yourself out of it. That is how women lose themselves. Not all at once, just one quiet compromise at a time. If the episode challenged you, like it, share it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's next. The life you want isn't waiting for you to be more confident, it's waiting for you to stop abandoning what you already know. Your voice has been there all along. Now it's time to trust you.