 Well hello and welcome to Jonathan from the Heart. I'm Jonathan Asley of JonathanAsley.com and I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. Our topic, men who are serious have more doubts. Really quickly if you're brand new to my YouTube channel please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos and if anytime during this video the content resonates with you please hit that like button so I can be seen in the YouTube algorithms. Lastly these are my weekend videos I shoot out on my balcony. Very similar to the videos I shoot in my private group called Midlife Love Mastery. This is a group where you can ask me direct questions and I shoot videos based on your personal questions so check out the link below to my VIP group. So we're going to talk about why men who are serious have more doubts. Is that the kid from Home Alone? So what inspired me to shoot this video today is because I recognize that there's certainly a lot of you women are frustrated in the dating mating and relating process especially those in midlife because it seems like men are commitment phobic, it seems like men are emotionally available, it seems like men are emotionally immature, there seems like there's narcissistic men. I mean you could just rattle off all the different things you can say about men and while many of it is true the vast majority of men are good guys as I always say they're just bad daters and there's kind of there's a couple categories of men who are out there seeking relationship those are casual and those who are serious. Now when I think back to my own personal life when I think back to my 20s and I'm sharing this story really quickly to give you some context here. When I was in my 20s I was raised to you go to college after high school, get a job, meet a girl, get married, buy a house and start a family that was the blueprint I had and so a lot of men especially men that grew up in the baby boom generation is we had this programming that this is what we were supposed to do. In fact it was literally drilled in many of our heads so in most cases men certainly baby boomers and men the Gen X men were in their 20s and 30s most likely on the hunt for a wife a hunt for a wife in other words a woman that he was going to choose to start a family with and so when a man is in that space he's more likely to be intentional he's more likely to be intentional. The challenges for those men in their 20s and maybe early 30s is they're rather clueless to who they are themselves and I know a lot of men were much like me we were driven by our careers we were driven by being successful and that sort of thing so more of our energy and relationship was actually focused in our careers than actually in our marriages or in our relationships and this happens to a lot of men in their 20s 30s growing up okay. In fact I do believe the vast majority of humans are actually emotionally weak or emotionally stunted to be in a relationship. So you might be thinking well Jonathan how does this relate to men who are serious that have doubts? Well I think it's important to set up the context is that the vast majority of men and women are dating from the premise that chemistry equals relationship success. I'm going to repeat that chemistry equals relationship success and so most of dating is hyper focused on the chemistry piece without really recognizing if you share the same values with a person if your lifestyles are blendable and if there's emotional maturity. So I want you to get this understanding here and by the way lifestyles blendable is a lot different for those of us in our 40s 50s and 60s versus someone in their 20s or 30s whose life is like a blank sheet of paper and when you're what I mean by blank sheet of paper they just haven't had enough life experience to create what could be chaos when you're trying to merge your life with someone else that's why when I say blendable lifestyles I'm talking about merging lives together and a lot of people in their 40s and 50s and 60s struggle with this because they already have established lives. You're probably wondering Jonathan what does this have to do with serious men and doubts. Well I'm going to get to that in a second so just bear with me. However I'm pointing out a lot of things that you should be aware of because chemistry doesn't equal relationship success. Relationship success actually comes when you as I shared a moment ago and by the way those of you familiar with my work I talk about the relationship iceberg and I'm putting this up on the screen. So the relationship iceberg as you can see here is on the above the water line is attraction and below the water line is compatibility and as you can see their shared values blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity and so when we hyper focus on this piece called chemistry we don't know whether or not we're a really good partner for another human being as we begin to check off these boxes of shared values shared values blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity the water line begins to drop and we become more attractive or attracted to our partner. Let me repeat that we become more attractive and attracted to this partner this person you're spending time with and literally when the water line drops what you're left is not an iceberg you're left with a mountain and when you've heard the narrative that men will move mountains for a relationship well that's because they're in relationship with someone where they share the same values their lifestyles are blendable and they're emotionally mature and the difference is men who are serious about relationship understand this. I'm gonna repeat that men who are serious about a relationship understand this. Men who are mostly trying to fill the void by the way most men who choose a casual relationship are just trying to fill the void of connection and the void of sex. I'm just gonna be blunt here men who seek casual or men who are only capable of casual are only in it because they want connection with you at their beck and call and they want sex with you at their beck and call. That's right and why this is why many of you are frustrated this was why many of you watch these videos about how men fall in love and how men do this and men do that but ultimately men who are only seeking connection and the sex piece are in it casually and they and their actions demonstrated because they're not all in they're not all in and here's the thing when a man is genuinely serious about a relationship he wants to be all in so he's looking for the clues do we really and by the way he's asking the right questions and you're also asking the right questions do we share the same values in life for example I live in Los Angeles so it's a very health conscious area to live and so healthy lifestyle you know good eating habits and exercise is a healthy lifestyle is of value so if someone doesn't share that someone to chain smoker and eats processed foods 24-7 probably isn't gonna get along with someone who wants to eat cleanly in their life now that's not to say that they're not capable of being a relationship but health is an important value to be in relationship there's so many different values you might want to explore charity justice punctuality is for example is a value for me it's one of my highest values is punctuality although I will say this I'm pretty much screwed in the dating realm because I've yet to meet a woman who's ever been on time for a date but I'm bump I'm just kind of kidding I will say this though at least in my marriage I know my ex-wife was always late when we're going out and we were totally butting heads here so shared values now blendable lifestyles blendable lifestyles is really important as your life fit into mine can my life fit into yours I'm working with a woman now who's been in relationship for three years they're now going to that next level where they're going to move in together now they had a bit of distance in their relationship they had about a 30 mile distance in their relationship thankfully though they worked together they spent she spent time in his home he spent time in her home and now they've reached that point because they've invested a fair amount of time together really determining can our lifestyles fit together do we share the same value so they're moving to that next level and and in the beginning this comes back to the doubt piece that I didn't address a moment ago the doubt piece is the doubt is does this person really check these boxes does the person really check the boxes of shared values do they really check the boxes of our lifestyles blendable and then the most important one is emotional maturity that's right emotional maturity and if you're not familiar with my five signs of emotional maturity it's your actions match your words you have victor consciousness not victim consciousness what that means is you take personal responsibility for your choices number three you know how to fight fair and what that means is when you're having a disagreement with someone when you're having a disagreement with your partner do you listen to your partner's point of view and do you accept their point of view as being true for them number four is empathy and empathy isn't just I feel my feelings empathy is I care about your feelings and I also care about my own feelings and this is hugely important this is one of the reasons why I wrote my book for all of you called what the heck is self-love anyway what the heck is self-love anyway it's a journey of personal development self-help and spiritual work so you can shore up that piece of empathy for yourself by the way there's a link below to my book and lastly is transparency and what that means is if something is material to the relationship you're going to speak up about it and what's fascinating to me is so many of you women I'm going to judge you here for a second but so many of you women are like this you don't speak up you don't speak up about your feelings and just to come back to my book chapter one is speak your truth do it with kindness and chapter nine is if it's sincere and from the heart you can't say the wrong thing to the right person so I really want most of you to lean into the understanding of this relationship iceberg and my coffee mug says coffee taste better when shared do we all agree coffee taste better when share post a comment below as you can see my t-shirt is MTV I grew up watching MTV in the 80s actually one of you fans out there recommended I get this t-shirt so I went ahead and bought it on Amazon so I'm a was I don't listen to me and MTV anymore mostly watch my videos from YouTube all right so coming back to this doubt piece because this is now where we're going to lean into why serious men are continually evaluating the relationship to see does this person could this person make a good partner in my life could this person make a good part of my life now most men who are genuinely serious about a relationship at the midlife stage 40s 50s and 60s will come to this determination relatively quickly now for men in their 40s it's most likely going to be about two years before they really know is this the right person for me by the time someone hits their 50s it's a little bit closer to one year and by the way these aren't absolutes and this is a little bit anecdotal so by about one year they know is this the really the right person for me and certainly men in their 60s I've noticed that this comes they they determine this much sooner it usually happens around the six month mark and I worked with the woman who was 65 years old she went through my private coaching program by the way if you're interested in private coaching check out the link to free discovery call to see if working with the coaches right for you she was 65 when we worked together a year later she met a guy 67 online they had a great magical first date which was a coffee date that led to dinner later and then literally they were attached to the hip from that point on and about at the eight month mark he asked her to marry her asked him to marry him excuse me and they went off to get married within 14 months when they met now I'm talking about men who are serious now it doesn't have to lead to getting married but men who are serious who want a life partner they're going to be evaluating you so it's not going to be all romantic and all perfect because men who are serious are not driven by the lust piece they're not driven by the limerence piece which means extreme infatuation they're driven by the fact that they want a partner in their life so it's not going to be overly romantic and it's not going to be love bombing and it's not going to be excessive communication someone who is serious paces themselves at a rate where they recognize because they actually care about their partner they're not going to make promises they can't keep repeat that they're not going to make promises they can't keep so men who are serious are going to be in a state of a little bit of doubt however this doubt is really their evaluation period of the relationship now ladies I said a lot about the men you should be doing the exact same you should be in a level a little bit of doubt or in these what I mean to say is you should be evaluating the relationship in this person and do they have those five signs of emotional maturity because I got to tell you something most humans today are suckling on the nipple of victim consciousness they have no clue of really healthy conflict resolution skills and quite frankly most humans men and women alike are very myopic they're not very empathetic in other words they're more focused on their own needs or they don't care about their own needs and just because empathy is you I can feel your feelings that's also I care about your feelings and I also care about my own feelings this is why folks I'm a big proponent of reading books like the four agreements the four agreements to shore up your emotional maturity and then this book how to be an adult in sorry for my camera how to be an adult in relationship how to be an adult in relationship and lastly I got to talk about my books and lastly nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg it should have been titled compassionate communication folks I'm here to say without true emotional maturity you can enter into a relationship but the likelihood of excuse me and the likelihood of it turning into a happy juicy delicious relationship is very slim if two emotionally immature people entering a relationship and and everybody thinks they're emotionally mature that's the crack up in all this and I say this because I was unconscious throughout my life until I started to study and read this stuff so I can have an understanding and awareness of the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship and by the way I recommend the book eight dates by doctors John and Julie Gottman it fell on the floor but that's a book I recommend to understand the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship men who are serious have doubts those doubts are simply they're evaluating the relationship and you to make sure you're a good fit for them and he's a good fit for you and that's what I want you to look for all right I'm sure you have some thoughts here please post a comment below if you like my t-shirt make a comment on that my coffee mug coffee tastes better when shared certainly I want to read your comments I'm gonna do my best to read all the comments if you have something to add I'd like to hear about it as always if you find value my group please tell your friends refer this video or for my channel to others I'd be truly grateful and I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do first I've given myself a big gigantic Jonathan bear hug of self love I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone Pat a teddy bear or pillow and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and let's face it we can all use more love in our lives thanks a bunch bye bye now