 Well, hello and welcome to Jonathan from the Heart. I'm Jonathan Asley at JonathanAsley.com and I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. Our topic, he'll fight for you and he won't take you for granted when this happens. 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 any time during this video the content resonates with you, please hit that like button so I can be seen in the YouTube algorithms. Really quickly, 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 have direct access to me on a regular basis. And based on the questions you asked in the group, I shoot personalized videos just for you. So check out the link below to Midlife Love Mastery. All right, let's get talking about what it takes for a guy to fight for you and not take you for granted. You know, lately I've noticed in relationships these days there's a big difference between people who are investing and growing with one another versus spending time with one another. And I want you to really think about this for a moment, because especially for those in midlife, and let me rewind for a second. I want you to think about in your 20s and 30s. If you're in that category, most likely when you're seeking a relationship, it's probably going to be with someone that you'd eventually like to get married and start a family with. So there's this intentionality in the dating process of developing some real strong roots with someone because you're going to grow with them. The challenge for those of us in midlife, and midlife as I always say is after baby making years and before retirement, which is the predominant group of my clientele whether you're 40, 50, 60, or even 70, is that the vast majority of people in this age demographic are divorced and whether they could be divorced and or with children. So that brings to the table a lot of different nuances that's so different for those that are in their 20s and 30s. And the challenge for those people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, especially if they do have kids, and I'm not saying this as an absolute, is the actual merging of lives together. That's even a greater challenge versus building a life with someone. And then how do you build a life with someone while you're trying to figure out the merging process? So what happens is in the midlife category, a lot of people aren't actually either merging or growing together. They're just merely spending time together. In fact, I was recently speaking to a woman who'd been dating a man for, I want to say, about two and a half months. And she had that expectation of growing with him. And so while the relationship was being formed, there was a lot of tension between the two of them in the beginning because he was operating from a place of spending time together. And she was operating from a premise of growing together. So she created all these expectations of what the relationship should be. And he was just going along for the ride, living in the moment, not necessarily, okay, I have a little problem with my computer here for a second, so bear with me. Sorry about that. So let me come back to this. Thank you for being patient with me. I had a video going off at the same time. That's so funny. Anyway, all right, so he was living in the moment, had no real expectation of actually growing with her. And she had this expectation of growing because they didn't have a real conversation in the beginning. And she was coming from a premise that he should be fighting for her and not taking her for granted. Well, what she realized as part of her own problem was she wasn't actually ready for a fully committed relationship. She wasn't ready to grow with someone. So she created all these grand expectations that he should fight for her and not take her for granted. But he was operating from a place of just spending time and living in the moment and she was expecting something greater. Now what she also decided is because she looked at her life and where she's at right now with her professional life and raising her children and a few other things with her ex-husband and everything, she goes, you know what? Maybe I'm only capable of a casual relationship. Maybe I'm only capable of a casual relationship. And she's now shifted her narrative within this relationship to look at it from a different perspective of maybe it's OK that I spend time. So folks, I'm not here to suggest that you couldn't consider relationships that are casual or situationships or friends with benefits. I just tend to talk about those relationships that are built on growing something together versus those that are casual situationships, friends with benefits. Because I believe at the end of the day, the importance of growing with someone is that the minute you start to develop feelings for someone, when you're in a casual situation or friends with benefits, it becomes very difficult to untangle those feelings when that relationship ends. Remember, repeat, that's very difficult to untangle the feelings, even if you're upfront right from the beginning. And the hard part for many of you is you don't know where you stand because you're not really good at asking the right questions right from the early get-go to determine are you even in a relationship with someone? Many of you don't even ask for monogamy and exclusivity once you have intimacy with someone. So I'm here to say, and I didn't bring up a copy of my book, Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman. But certainly before you have sexual intimacy with someone, it might be a good idea to see if you're on the same page with one another. So what's it going to take for someone to fight for you to really lean into a relationship much deeper? Well, you know, I'm not a big fan of the word fighting because that kind of fighting, that denotes a physical action. Where's my hands right here? Fighting, physical action versus emotionally investing in the relationship. So let's talk about that for a second. The difference between emotionally investing in the relationship and usually where this is most prevalent, the idea of fighting, making that effort is when there's conflict in a relationship, when there's conflict with one another. And the challenge for most humans today is they have very poor conflict resolution skills. They have very poor communication skills. And I know all you ladies talk about the importance of communication, communication, communication. But real communication, if what you're really talking about, take out the word communication because that could mean a lot of different things. Texting is communication, emails communication, telephone calls are communication. But what I think you're really talking about when you say communication is vulnerability, authenticity and transparency. Vulnerability, authenticity, transparency. And yet sadly, most folks don't lean into this very well because A, they have poor communication or relationship skills. And B, they don't have the capacity to go deeper because they are suffering deeply from childhood wounds and traumas. And this is where a lot of avoidant personality shows up. This is where a lot of emotionally unavailable people show up or my latest term that was shared by a friend of mine or someone who's emotionally constipated. That means they're stuck because they haven't healed their childhood wounds and traumas or adult traumas to actually start leaning into vulnerability, authenticity and transparency. So what's it going to take for that to happen? I think it's important to recognize folks, I'm here to say it's important to start reading this book, Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. And why this is an important book is it teaches you the skills, it should have been called Compassionate Communication, it teaches you the skills to actually learn how to communicate better. And folks, I've been at this for a very long time. I mean, I know many of you look up to me because I'm capable of being vulnerable, authentic and transparent. I've been working at this for over a decade and probably 15 years. I've been digging, digging, digging to unravel those pieces within myself that made it very difficult to actually have real, deep, rich communication because ultimately what's going to make someone want to fight for you and not take you for granted. And again, when I say fight, I mean invest in you. Is it's the importance to develop real trust in a relationship, real trust in a relationship. And trust isn't about fidelity, about the monogamy or exclusivity. Real trust is, does this person care for me as much as I care for myself? Does this person care about my feelings such to the degree that they're actually looking out for my best interest? That's what trust is. And yet so few of you know how to build the roots to trust, and I'll talk about that in a few minutes, to build the roots to trust. So you can actually know that this person is going to, for lack of a better word, fight for the relationship when there's conflict. And there's only one way to build those roots of trust. When they say one way, let me reframe that. I'll talk about how to get there. What's most important is developing emotional intimacy with one another. Into me you see, into me you see. That's critically important. This is why I continually recommend this book, Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters. So you can understand it for yourself, and then you can start leaning into it because ultimately what's going to create that intimacy or that level of trust is emotional safety. Is an emotional safety within the relationship. Think about this. And I know many of you like the idea that men are the provider protectors and they're gonna go out and protect you in the world even denote that that protection is an emotional safety protection. Most human beings haven't even reached a level of being capable of that, whether it's a man or woman. And men in particular need to be taught this and this is going to happen through one vehicle. And I'll share that one vehicle in a second. But I wanna stop for a moment and say, let me tell you why I know all this stuff. I've invested a lot of hours, over 20,000 hours of coaching and 3,000 hours of personal development, workshops and trainings. So I'm not sitting here giving you the bull crap narrative of just leaning in your feminine energy and just hoping that princess energy is going to evoke that alpha male out of a guy. And as I'm looking at the shirt I'm wearing today, it says, that's what I do. I drink and I know things. What I drink is from the cup of reading all of these books and studying relationships and watching videos and studying the, not the surface kind of stuff that you might be watching. I'm talking about studying from therapists, studying from evolutionary biologists, studying from a variety of different people to understand real deep human behavior. Because ultimately, if you want someone to fight for you and not take you for granted, it's going to require a tremendous amount of education and many of you are not willing to put in the effort. I know thankfully many of you are after watching my channel. And by the way, I'm here to say, to get to that level of emotional intimacy, it's going to require that effort on both of your parts. This is why just even to get to stage one of trust, remember I said trust is the critical component. Just to get to stage one, it takes about a hundred hours of face to face time just to get to stage one of trust. And trust is built through layers. So I'm going to talk about this for a moment because what's not going to make them take you for granted. I think every relationship needs these three components, these three components. I'll share that with you in a moment. My copy mug says stay grounded, stay grounded everyone. That's my invitation for you. But every relationship needs to get to this point from in the beginning in that first hundred hours is that you're both into each other. I know that's relatively obvious that you're into each other. I mean, you're really into each other and outside of that sexual into each other, that limerence into each other, that lust into each other, but you genuinely are into each other. There's a level of attention, affection, appreciation and acceptance. Attention, affection, appreciation, acceptance. Those are four critical things to be needed in a relationship. Attention means you're present with someone. Affection means you're physical with one another. If you're not familiar with the five love languages, physical touch is critically important. Attention, affection, appreciation. You know, many of you say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm talking about start using the words of appreciation and gratitude for each other, not to vomit at every 10 seconds, but to make sure that each other feels appreciated and then finally acceptance. That friend I was sharing with you before, she finally had to come to the understanding that this is the way he operates and she has to accept that because ladies, do you know what the definition of drama is? Drama is your expectations are here, his capacity to give here and that space in between, that's called drama. And many of you are so hyper focused on trying to fill the gap instead of actually recognizing where that person is at and growing together, growing together, attention, affection and appreciation. So I told you there's three things, three important factors in a relationship that I think is important to recognize that you're into each other. Number two, that you're into life, that you have passions outside of a relationship, that you actually, you look at life from a place of curiosity. Now this is my own personal preference because me, I'm a sapiosexual, I'm a junkie for philosophy and different voices and different opinions. This is why I don't subscribe to one political party or one religious party at the extremes. I'm looking in the middle to go and this passion for life and my invitation for you is to all make sure that you have a passion in your life so you're not dependent upon the other person to fill all your needs. And lastly, and this is the most critically important piece of all, is that you're into yourself. You're into yourself. This is true for men and women like, and I don't mean it from a narcissistic selfish perspective. I mean it most importantly from the perspective of self love. This is a copy of my book, What the heck is self love anyway? By the way, there's a link below to get my book. Folks, the vast majority of human beings are suffering on the inside in some way, shape, or form, not feeling good enough, not feeling lovable, not feeling likable. And this is causing a distressing amount of stress in the dating, mating, or relating process. And it's so incumbent, as I said in the earlier part of those childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas to actually begin healing on oneself and choosing most likely people that have also done some introspective healing work. And there's only really one way you're gonna get there is to shift from this current dating narrative of it's all about being on the phone. It's all about being on the phone. It's on the phone, we're on the phone, we're on the phone, we're on the phone. We're texting, texting, texting, texting. Because ultimately, if you wanna build those deep roots of trust, if you really wanna build those deep roots of trust, it's gonna happen predominantly in one way. And that is through social activities, hobbies, mutual interest, and spending time with family and friends. I'm gonna repeat that. Social activities, hobbies, mutual interest, spending time with family and friends. That is the primary vehicle to build the deeper roots to trust. Now, I know many of you might be going, but Jonathan, I'm in a long distance relationship. I can't do that. Yeah, the long distance relationships are really tough and it creates so much dependency on the telephone to create connection. And for the most part, men don't bond through the telephone. So I'm here to say, if you're expecting that type of level of trust, it's going to be very difficult. Cause think about it. Up until about 20 years ago, most people dated within their community, it's only because of these devices that we've started this long distance narrative and that's becoming, and people attach themselves to long distance cause they feel like there's nobody else available for them. And I'm here to say, if you want that kind of relationship that's going to go the distance, then you better start with that level of radical honesty right from the get-go, asking better questions right from the beginning to determine, is this person just looking to spend time with someone or are they looking to grow with someone? And my area of expertise is a dating meeting, dating relationship coaches to teach you how to ask the right questions based on your personality to determine if this person is really compatible with you and is willing to go the distance. By the way, there's a link below to schedule a discovery call with me to see if working with the coach is right for you. All right, so what do we learn in all this? I hope you've learned the difference between spending time and growing with someone. I hope you've learned the distance that trust is the only vehicle, trust meaning your feelings matter to each, you both feelings for each other matter to each other because when there's conflicts, it is that mattering to one another that's going to make you fight and then eventually not take you for granted when you have that attention, affection, appreciation and acceptance. And again, remember into you, into life and into yourself that you love on yourself. All right, I think you get the gist of where I'm going here. All right, I think this, this would be a great place to wrap up. I'd like to get your thoughts and opinions. Please post a comment below. I do my best to read them all. Let me know what you think of my t-shirt. By the way, this is from Graham of Thrones. And I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do. First off, giving myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrock of self love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm going to ask you to turn to a friend, a pet, a teddy bear or a teddy bear or a pillow and give either them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.