 Lately I've been fixated on the idea of can men fall in love, can they love, can they feel loved? And I wanna dive into this conversation today because I think it's rather important that we look at this from, I'm gonna say kind of at the ground level. You know, I know many of you could watch the Huberman Lab and I'm sure there's an episode about how we scientifically feel loved and certainly there's the Helen Fisher version of love. And I'm just gonna share with you my perspective on when a man falls in love or has the capacity to feel loved. And we're just gonna have a conversation about this, whether this is factual or not, you have to decide for yourself. I think feeling love is one component of this puzzle when we talk about falling in love is does a man have the capacity to feel love from another human being? And first and in addition, the idea of being in love with someone even versus loving them. And what got me started on this conversation is a couple of things. Last night I had dinner with a matchmaker. Her name is Julie Furman. I'll put a link to check her out. And only the reason why I'm sharing this with you is I believe there are a lot of predatory matchmakers out there and Julie Furman is someone who genuinely in her heart cares about making connections. She does something called mitzvah connections if she's Jewish. So I guess that's a Jewish terminology. So I'll talk about that a little bit more in a second. But at the dinner was a gentleman who shared with me that he was a serial monogamist and he was in several relationships after his divorce that lasted a year or two. And he kind of implied that he, he loved these women but weren't in love with them. I mean, those weren't his words, but that's what I gathered from it. And it occurred in those relationship ended and he said they ended amicably. And then I might have shared with you all last weekend. I was with my men's group. And one of the men I was sitting next to who recently got married, he actually met his partner through a dating app. And by the way, since I'm talking about men over 40, I mean, everybody I'm talking about this is in that over 40 demographic. And I think it's important to know that most people who are single over 40 years old, roughly about 75% of them are divorced. So this gentleman I was sitting next to a divorced man, he said he was a serial monogamist after his divorce. He had several relationships with women that lasted a year or two, but they didn't go anywhere. And yet he met someone, fell in love and got married. In fact, I went to the wedding last year. And I started to think of the common denominator. What is the common denominator on all this? Well, I think some of the challenges we face in the midlife categories we oftentimes date with our 20, for those of us in our 40s, 50s and 60s, we date with our 20 year old self, our young self. And I think for many people, they operate from a place of lust, limerence or love attachment. Let me repeat that, lust, limerence or love attachment. There's a saying that goes, men fall in love through sex and women fall in love between women give sex to have love kind of thing. I didn't make that up, it's just something I've heard out there, but it made me think of how oftentimes we believe lust or limerence, which is extreme infatuation. This is when two people really connect with each other at a very strong level, right from the very get-go. And we oftentimes perceive that as being love, like we're love at first sight, right? But the way I've interpreted that is that is chemicals being released from our brain to make us connect with another human being, to bond with another human being, to procreate with another human being. But is that really love in the context of what we're talking about for those that are seeking partnership-based relationships? If you follow my channel, you know that I'm all about partnership-based relationships. Oh, please forgive my slurping and the coffee mug says, don't make me go all psycho roommate on you. This is very hot. Okay, so partnership-based relationships. And what I've observed that we humans oftentimes enter into the process from a very broken place. Now, that might offend some of you thinking of the concept of broken, but what I mean is from an unhealthy place. And many humans are not aware. And by the way, the reason why I say humans, I'm saying basically men and women, by the way, but I like to categorize them like humans. I like the way Abraham Hicks calls us all humans. But from an unhealthy place, we might perceive love, which is really something known as love attachment style. If you're not familiar with the book Wired for Love by Dr. Stan Tach, and I did an interview with him as well, so you may wanna do a search. By the way, all the books I recommend are listed below. You may want to learn about something known as love attachment style, and it's the way we actually perceive love in a more dysfunctional, unhealthy way. And oftentimes we could be partnered with someone where we're really actually healing a childhood wound or trauma in our life, and we choose partners who are not right for us from a long-term perspective. And yet we become so amesh, so attached that we believe it's love. And I think one of the reasons why I'm such a big proponent of doing personal development, self-help, and spiritual work, is one of the reasons why I wrote my book to encourage that. It's called What the Heck Is Self Love? Anyway, a link below to get a copy of my book. The reason why I encourage personal development work, spiritual work, self-help work, therapy, somatic therapy, all those different modalities is to actually be able to love from a healthy place, a real healthy place. Now, I know many of you will probably hear from other dating coaches about what a lot of them focus on the importance of recognizing that for men, love is a function of feeling respected and accepted. When you respect a man, when you accept a man, that's when he feels loved. And while there's elements of that, that's true. Like we, first off, don't we all want to feel respected to some level? Respected for who we are, feeling respect. Certainly when there is contempt in a relationship, it's very difficult to feel loved in that moment, okay? And certainly when men aren't accepted for who they are, it's very difficult to feel love for another partner or for another human being. In fact, there's an old saying, men marry women hoping they don't change and women marry men hoping they do change. And I think this relates to men don't want their partners to gain weight and grow old. That's the men's perspective and women want men to become like women from an emotional perspective. But accepting a person for who they is is a critically important component of being able to be in a committed relationship, right? But I want to take it a step further in feeling loved. Men feel loved when women make, and by the way, this is true for you ladies as well. So everything I'm sharing, okay, humans feel loved when there is mutual effort in the relationship. Now, certainly some men want women who are total givers and some men are takers, but I'm not talking about those emotionally broken men. I'm talking about emotionally healthy men. Most emotionally healthy men want to feel loved. There has to be mutual effort in the relationship. And what I mean is it doesn't have to be commensurate effort in the sense that you pay for everything together, you do this together, you do this, but you balance each other out from the component of being givers and the capacity to receive at the same time. In addition, I think men don't get enough compliments in their life. I'm just gonna say that. I don't think men in general get enough compliments. Children get compliments, dog get compliments, women get compliments. I think Chris Rock made a joke about that, but men rarely feel get compliments in a day. So I'm just encouraging you to add that to your repertoire if you're in a relationship with a man to throw out a compliment every now and again because we certainly need that. And we certainly want to be validated for our efforts. We want to be validated for efforts. When we make effort, we want to be acknowledged for them. We want to be validated for them. And we certainly want to be appreciated for our efforts. These are the things that are gonna win a man over that healthy emotional man. If a man is genuinely hurting from his past relationships and he has deep-seated wounds, it's gonna be rather difficult for him to actually feel loved from another human being. He may want that companionship. He may want connection. He may want sex. But can he dive deeper into commitment if he's struggling with wounds from his childhood or his adult life and many people in midlife? This is where midlife dating a relationship is so different because we often come with it a huge traumatic wound of divorce. And I don't think enough attention is given to the emotional calamity that happens when we unravel the tapestry of a life we once thought we had with another and then trying to reintegrate into our sovereignty. And this is certainly true after divorce if you've had several short, or remember I talked about those serial monogamous people? Well, they've had one relationship after another after another and they might have been for a year or two. But every time one of those ends there's an emotional consequence in that relationship. Many of you have been following me know I was in a significant relationship where we lived together last year and the year before that. And I will tell you that that ending and it wasn't my choice had a real emotional effect on me because of what I'm about to share because I fell in love with this person. I fell in love with this person. I think the difference between the capacity to feel love and to be in love represents the capacity to, I think love is a function or come, let me reframe that. Is it love is a function of commitment or is commitment a function of love? And what commitment represents like the highest form of commitment we think of as marriage, right? And maybe the second highest form of commitment would be well, actually it doesn't necessarily mean that I was just about to say living with someone. But I think the highest form of commitment is I want to take care of you. I want to take care of you. Like when a person can reach that space of I want to take care of you that is when a man has the capacity, let me reframe that. When a man decides he is open and willing to take care of someone. So let's do this before they ever meet. When a man decides he's open and willing to take care of someone when he's in that capacity, okay? Then when he meets the right person that they align on their values, their values are relatively shared. And by the way, there is something like 120 different values. Can someone Google list of values and put that link out there? When you share the values and you already have the capacity to want to take care of someone. You want to take care of someone. That is when he has the capacity to fall in love. So those values align. He feels appreciated. He feels respected. He feels accepted. He feels validation for his efforts. He feels acknowledged for his efforts, excuse me. All of these components come together in the capacity to fall in love. But he has to make that determination. And this is where it's tricky in the dating-mating or relating realm these days because a lot of men aren't interested in something serious. And if a man isn't interested in something serious how does he have the capacity to fall in love with someone? So this is why I want you to ask these questions very early on in the dating process to determine if this man has that capacity to go all in, to want to take care of someone. You may want to ask the question, do you want to build a life with somebody? Like that's a really good question to ask. Do you want to build a life with somebody? And then take that question a little bit further and what does that look like building a life with someone? If you haven't really processed that then how will you even know that you can be in love if you don't even know that you want that? By the way, everything I'm sharing is true for women as well. Then go on to say, do you want to take care of someone? You're going to get a lot of resistance. By the way, women do the same thing. Excuse me. Excuse me, I have to sneeze, okay? I hear this from women all the time. I don't want to be a nurse and I don't want to be a purse. If you've made that statement, you don't want to be a nurse and purse, well, guess what? Then you don't want all in relationship because ultimately, listen, for those of us in midlife, the days in front of us are oftentimes shorter than the days behind us. A big component of wanting a partner is that you're going to be there for each other later on down the road. So if you've already made the determination, I don't want to be a nurse or a purse, okay? Well, then what's your capacity to actually want to take care of someone if you've already declared that? Now, I know you're recognizing that you don't want to date someone who's already got health issues and have financial issues. I get that. But if you already have that predetermination, you're setting yourself up for failure. So do you want to take care of someone? Might be a question you might want to ask yourself and certainly a man, and what does that look like? By the way, I feel like I'm agitated right now, but I want you to know I'm incredibly optimistic for you all because I genuinely believe by listening to my channel, you will start unraveling your own perceptions and maybe find the pony in the shit, so to speak. Because I want you to be optimistic because I know good men exist out there. I just shared in a previous video, I was in a men's group of which seven men were in a relationship, five of them married, four of them met through a dating app, okay? And these are mid, by the way, all but one, it's okay, the five men are married, four of them, this was their second marriage, okay? One of them had been married since he was in his 20s and 30s. And here's a question you might want to ask a man because I said commitment is a function of love. Here's a great question to ask a man, what makes you think you are ready for commitment? What makes you think you're ready for commitment? I've been pondering this myself and then what makes me think I'm ready for commitment is I'm ready to be in an interdependent relationship where we take care of each other. Now that's for me. For some men, they might want the one up, one down where they're taking care of and the other person is in the subordinate role. And some women want to be in those dynamics as well. Some women want to be taken care of by a man and they usually choose hot men with higher resources from that capacity. I know, and so when you have clarity on what you want, and by the way, this is what I work on in my private coaching, there's a link right here to schedule a discovery call with me, there's links below to connect with me because my whole area of coaching is to help you gain genuine clarity on who's really compatible with you, but more importantly, going into those deeper questions to determine compatibility, but more importantly, is he emotionally grown up to be in a relationship? I was having dinner with a therapist and we were talking about the amount of emotional distress or relationship incompetency of both men and women alike. And so while we might feel that lust or limerence or love attachment style, but when I talk about healthy men and women, I'm talking about those who have done the work to actually lean into a healthy, happy relationship. And so coming back to that question you may want to ask him, what makes you think you're ready for commitment? Think about this. I've been thinking about love from the capacity of children and dogs. For those of us who have children, or those that have pets, think about it. It's usually a one-way street. In other words, we're not that our children don't love us, but a parent loves their child in a different vantage point because we have to take care of them and on some level, we take care of those children for the rest of our lives and certainly pets are the same as well. There's a component of taking care. And within taking care, we can even contemplate the words provider, protector in this notion. And if a man hasn't decided for himself that he wants to go all in, that he's open or has the capacity to take care of someone, then how can he truly even feel loved when you are giving effort, compliments, acceptance, appreciation, respect? If you're able to do all those things, does he even have the capacity to feel loved if he can't have the capacity to be all in with someone? And many of you might be watching this right now and going, damn, I'm in a relationship with a man who can't do this. And if you need some support with that, let's schedule a coaching session. I have something called Get Inside a Guy's Head where we actually explore what's going on with your partner right now. I have devised a great way to evaluate a person. And so again, check out the links below to schedule a discovery call with me. All right, I've shared with you men over 40 need this to follow up. What do they need? They need to want to take care of someone. They have to want that before they ever enter into it. It's rare that they might enter into it with lust and limerence and love attachment and they may get there. That certainly does happen like the broken clock, but when a man definitely knows that he wants a life partner and he's capable to taking care of someone, that usually opens the floodgates for the capacity to feel loved by you, but also give love in return. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know if it is. Post a comment below. I'd like to hear your thoughts. As always, if you find value in my videos, please hit that like button. Please share this channel. Please tell your friends and if you haven't subscribed, hit that notification bell so you can be notified of new videos. And also if you wanna connect with me directly, check out the links in the show notes to schedule a discovery call to join my group called Midlife Love Mastery to get all the books I recommend. Follow me on Instagram and get my dating vows as well. All right, those who know that when I have a live broadcast, it's time for Q and A. If you have a question of me, write the word question in the chat box and then post the question there after or you can purchase a Super Sticker Super Chat. There's a little dollar sign in the chat box. All the monies from the Super Sticker Super Chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor Asley. That's a picture of him there with his brother Colin. He's woody, he's Buzz Lightyear. He's my son who passed away over five years ago in his honor. We donate to causes like the Hoffman Process Insight Institute and actually scholarships for coaching as well. So hit that link or hit that little dollar sign. Our goal today is $50. I'd love to give away some money today. So thanks for all the love and support. All right, let's look at the... Oh, and by the way, I did mention Julie Furman and I'm gonna put a link to her as well. Again, she's the matchmaker I mentioned. She's a matchmaker who genuinely cares. I just want you to know she genuinely cares. And to the extent that it's an investment in your life, she actually has some really low entry point opportunities. In fact, she invited me to a mixer tomorrow night where she puts 25 men, 25 women together, kind of like what I'm trying to do. And put them together and see if there's a match. So again, check out the link right there and I'll post it in the comments as well. All right, let's see what we have here. B says, I've arranged a discovery call but I got the time so wrong, can you help? You'll have to email, you'll have to go back and do it all over again, okay? That might be the best thing to do, okay? Julie is in the house. Jonathan, it seems men at middle age like more than one woman around. Should I accept his invitation to have drinks and hang out with his female friends? Did anyone see the movie must love dogs with Diane Lane and John Cusack? Christopher Plummer plays her father who was married for 50 plus years and his wife passed away, I believe, cancer or something like that. And he has three girlfriends at the same time. Certainly, when a man has deeply loved a woman for a very long time, he may not have the capacity to go all in with someone. He may want companionship, connection and sex but not that capacity to go all in. And the women know all each other. Interesting is he goes on dates with all three of them at the same time and they're willing to accept a part of him because he doesn't have the capacity to give all of them but what does that say about the women who are willing to accept a part of a guy or crumbs? I certainly don't want, I don't wanna, listen, I will never go on the golden bachelorette because I don't wanna be in competition with 16 other guys. It's just not the way I operate. If someone can't see my value right from the get-go or if we can't see each other's value right from the get-go then I'm not interested in that. So Julie, that's just my rough perceptions on that. You can do whatever you want, okay? Certainly sometimes, you know, it's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about this in my own life right now and why I'm resistant to dating right now. Because dating is so cold turkey these days, most of the time you're meeting someone who's a total stranger and actually in my last two relationships, actually in my marriage, even though we met kind of cold turkey, we had several friends in common and we went to the same, you know, grew up in the same neighborhood, we had similar friends, you know, like there was something in common. In my last two significant relationships after my divorce, we were friends before we began dating. We actually developed a little bit of familiarity with each other and I think part of my resistance right now is that the cold turkey is kind of daunting. It's kind of exhausting. At least that's how I'm feeling about it and just getting that spark going between, like if I have to manufacture the spark, if I have to climb to the highest room of the tallest tower, I'm like, I don't, by the way, a lot of midlife men don't have the patience for that. We just don't have the energy. Look at, I just don't, listen, you know, I'm in my midlife, okay? I wasn't, I'm no longer a warrior in the same sense that a 20 and 30 year old might chase after something. That's why the whole concept of chase and, you know, is deluded, especially for those of us in midlife. I can talk about that more and more, but anyway, those are just my rough thoughts on that, Julie. Oh, Julie also wants to remind everybody from the movie, must love dogs. Diane told her father, it hurts women's feelings when he has women around. Yeah, you know, you gotta, I respect, and he said, look, this is where I'm at. If women, by the way, a lot of times you accept what you believe you deserve. So if those women don't believe they deserve the top of the tree, they will accept crumbs and men will do this as well. So I'm glad you brought that up, Julie. All right, Julie's back in the house and she says, question, is it for their ego or did they just enjoy female companionship at this age? I think it's both. I think, you know, we men need female company, women need male company. Women need masculine energy and men need feminine energy. So I think that's a component of it, but also our ego. Certainly in that movie, he's got three women. That would be an ego boost to me. I love it when women are into me. That's a, you know, it's a very flattering thing. You know, there's nothing wrong with having an ego. You know, it's when ego does damage in your life, that's when, and again, the word wrong is kind of challenging. But when your ego doesn't serve you, then you have to examine that and that's something worth considering. So Julie, thank you for that. The magic entertainer says women accept crumbs because they have no choice if they want to see a guy. No, they have a choice. They have a choice. You have a choice. If you, by the way, ladies, many of you accept relationships of crumbs acting like you have no choice. You don't have to choose that guy. This is why, by the way, this is why I'm such a big proponent of learning the skills I teach in my private coaching. I mean, I have women, it's interesting. The minute women make investment in my private coaching program, there's a link below to schedule a call with me. It's amazing how all of a sudden the floodgates open because they let go of that kind of narrative. They accept, like, I'm sorry, they accept crumbs because they have no choice. No, when you recognize that you are a sovereign being and you have choice, you make better choices. By the way, clarity leads to confidence and confidence builds better choices. All right, no, clarity builds confidence and confidence leads to better choices. When you feel confident within yourself, you make better choices. Okay, Annette has a personal question for me. I love personal questions. I notice my perf, oh, I guess it's for you. I notice my current guy talks a lot about his experience with prior women. Do you think if you dated someone now that you would find yourself talking about Marie? So I think there's a lot of nuggets in this. So to the extent that I might share my past experience as a to give contrast, I may do that, okay? In other words, if I notice that somebody is filling a need that my last relationship didn't provide, I may share that, okay? I'm thinking I may compliment that person. I'm gonna compliment them for what they've done, but I might say that how appreciative I am because I didn't receive that in my last relationship. So from that context, I don't have a need to talk about her. I talk about it with you guys because I'm a teacher and I'm trying to share with you from my experiences and what I'm learning. See, I always think of my coaching as I'm one hour ahead of all of you. I'm doing work and I share the work I do and I do work and I share the work I do and I do work and I share the work I do. That's kind of the way I teach, talk about it from this vantage point. But, or not but, I am so immensely grateful for that relationship. I am so immensely grateful for that relationship and there's certainly qualities about her that I probably won't see in another partner, okay? That's kind of a truth and I'm certainly open to exploring our past relationships for both of us to see if we've healed. Even to some degree, Marie would come a bit publicly that she still didn't heal from her last significant relationship. I think there was a deep wound that made it difficult for her to go, to be in a space to go all in in our relationship and she needed to kind of go back to her roots, which there's an element of her childhood wounds that happened well before her marriage that she needed to heal as well. So I think it's, to the extent of exploring our past which I'm a big proponent of getting clarity on someone's past, I don't believe I'm stuck but I won't know that until I enter into a relationship with someone. So thank you for asking that question. Okay, the magic entertainer says I meant if they want to see that guy. No, again, if you want to see someone and they're a mismatch then what does that say about why do you wanna see someone that gives you crumbs? Like what's missing? I don't accept that. Don't be with someone who gives you crumbs that's how I view it. If someone gives you crumbs and you wanna see that person and roll the dice, knock yourself out, it's your life. You can do whatever you want. All right, Trista's in the house. How long would you give a man to make a choice between multiple women? He just met you but has been dating others. How long would you give a choice? Okay, this is a tricky one for me because I believe in dating, listen, I believe in getting to know one person at a time. Okay, I just believe that. I think it's a healthier way. It's very difficult to get to know multiple people at the same time. I mean, quite frankly, it costs a lot of resources from the male's perspective to do that. Certainly it might be for ego purposes to do that. How long do you give a guy? I mean, until he chooses you. I mean, yep, if you're rolling the dice with somebody who's dating multiple people, certainly don't have physical intimacy with them. Ask him if he's having physical intimacy with these other women. If the penis is going inside the vagina of other women and you're going asking me how long should I wait? I'm like, do you really wanna be with a man who's sleeping with other women? Okay, now let's differentiate between the early stages of meeting multiple people at the same time. That's a little bit different in the meeting stage. But when you've got to the point where you've gone out on three dates with someone and they're asking you on a fourth, but they're dating other people, guaranteed, by the way, it's rare that a guy, by the way, every man that I know has gone all the way in commitment. Most every guy I know that's gone all the way in commitment, he was dating one person at a time because he saw something special in her that he didn't see in the other people. And I think because broken men will date multiple people at the same time, emotionally healthy men, prefer to date one person at a time. That's kinda how I differentiate it. These are just merely my perceptions. This isn't necessarily a statement of that. Julie goes on to say, yes, we feel like we have no choice. We go along with him to get humor him and hope he matures eventually. Do you wanna be with the child? I mean, again, you guys can make all your own choices. I'm just not a fan of that, okay? Okay, but you have to do what feels right for you. Okay, I once was briefly in a friends with benefits type of relationship, okay? Now, I basically told her right up front, I didn't think we were a match for one another, but I'm happy to have sex with you. And she agreed, okay, in agreement. And we saw each other three or four times over the course of like three months, okay? And the last time we saw each other, I said, she said something to me that made me think she was like, and by the way, we didn't speak to each other much in between these, by the way, it was really hooking up, okay? I wasn't even friends with benefits, it was hooking up. And she said something to, she said something, I go, what do you think our relationship is? And she goes, we're dating. I'm like, we're not dating. I was very upfront with you. I don't believe, and by the way, I'm not proud of this, what I'm sharing with you. I'm not, this isn't the type of dynamic I wanted, but it was early COVID, I was lonely. And by the way, and I was upfront, I was in integrity with her. If she felt used, well, she has to recognize that she kept thinking, I'm gonna change him. That's on her, it's not on me, okay? Anyway, I said, no, we're not dating. And I realized that she obviously was creating a story in her head, and I better put the brakes on it at that point. By the way, you have to take ownership on your own lives, ladies. We men aren't, by the way, I am the reason I do not profess that I am above repute, okay? I've got issues, I've got my own problems, I'm not like the epitome of the emotionally healthy man, okay? I recognize that. One of the reasons why I teach what I do is because I understand the broken man behavior. I get it. I'm just doing a lot of work on myself too. And these days I refuse to be out of integrity with someone. I try to maintain absolute integrity, and then I leave it up to a woman to make her own choices at that point. All right, Sandy's in the house. Jonathan, have you and Marie discussed that, wait, have you discussed that she, when she heals, that you might get back together? No, we have not discussed that. I think, you know what? It's like going to school. You take a class, you learn what you need to learn. You don't need to go back to that classroom to learn that. That's how I feel about that. And her healing practice is completely different than mine. We are misaligned at this point in our lives. We don't share the same vision. So I have no intention of going backward. I have no intention of asking her back. And I highly doubt she wants to come back to me, but I appreciate it. You're asking, hey, one of my Facebook members, by the way, if you'd like to join my group where you can have direct access to me on a regular basis, there's a link to join my group called Midlife Love Mastery. And this is one of our members asking a question. And she says, someone asked you a question regarding if you would do anything differently since your relationship with Marie. What I would like to know is what new questions have you learned to ask when vetting someone derived from their experience? It's actually all of the questions I teach in my private coaching program are the exact same that I would ask anyone going forward. I think it's important. The challenge I have because I'm a counselor or coach, I'm not a therapist, but I'm in a therapist of sorts, is I have a great deal of compassion for a person's challenging upbringing and past hurts. And it's differentiating between have they healed from those where now I'm going to be very clear that being in a relationship where there's, where healing and doing work together from a therapeutic counseling coaching perspective is an imperative. And that wasn't the case in that relationship. Also, we had different spiritual ideologies. And I think she jokingly said I'm woo-woo and whether that's the case or not, but I think being on the same page spiritually is another component that I would want to make sure that we're on the same page. What happened was I asked all the right questions, but I misinterpreted that we weren't really on the same page. I mean, we were close, but we weren't on the same page. We were in the bookshelf, but we weren't in the same book or on the same page. That's what I think I would pay much more attention going forward. There's a couple other things too. Oh my God, Debbie just gave us a $20 super sticker. I just want to give you a big, gigantic hug of love. Thank you so much. I decided to never be a second choice or an option. Thank you for your expertise advice. We should all recognize our work. Can I give you, can I give an amen to that? Absolutely. Don't be a breadcrumb in someone else's life. So Debbie, thank you so much for that. Jenny says, I accept crumbs from my object of limerence. I'm an avoidant and I need the dopamine. I don't want to live with him. Again, we accept what we believe we deserve to some degree. So if we believe we are, if we believe we deserve dopamine hits and without the corresponding commitments and you'll accept crumbs, you'll, you know, guess what, we're grownups at this point. We get to make our own choices. I would get to the root of that though. The magic entertainer. What do you think of a guy if a woman saw 15 times then he committed and lived with another woman but still wants to see other women but only once in a while? I think that's a man who is not ready to go all in with somebody. He's not ready to take care of somebody. He wants companionship, connection and sex without commitments. My whole channel is based on partnership-based relationships where there is commitment and trust. And so if a man chooses that and a woman accepts that, that's on her. That's on her. It's not on him. If he's, by the way, if he's in integrity, he's in an integrity. I respect that if that's, if he's in integrity. If he's lying to women, then he's out of integrity. If a woman accepts, if he's in integrity and she accepts it and she's okay with it, then there's nothing wrong with it. But if she doesn't accept it, then she has to ask herself, why do I even want this man? And there's a good chance she's experiencing what's known as the Amago or Love Attachment style. The Amago, read this book, Getting the Love You Want by Harbell Hendricks, okay? Understand Amago, I-M-A-G-O, we oftentimes accept the wrong relationships because we're trying to heal a parental wound in our life and read the book attached. When you understand why you're choosing that type of man, you'll recognize that it's you making that choice. It's not him. I don't judge that man if he's in integrity. Sandra says, I think men need to take ownership as well that and walk away when they know a woman wants more so they don't put this on just women. Sorry, I don't agree with that. Well, again, if he's in integrity, if he's in integrity with her, then it's on her. If, now here's where it's tricky because I'm gonna give you an example where I don't agree with you. My son was in a relationship with a woman for five months and he came to me. Now, mind you, it was only five months, but he came to me. And by the way, there was no physical intimacy in this relationship. He came to me at the three month and he said, dad, I'm just not feeling love for her. I said, well, maybe give it a little bit more of a chance. He goes, I care for her, I like her, I enjoy her company, but I'm not feeling the feelings I think I should be feeling at this point. So he stayed in it a couple more months longer, okay? Some, and my point in any end of the relationship because he wasn't feeling is sometimes we don't know how to quantify our own feelings, okay? So it takes time to really understand this. Even Marie had told me she kinda knew months earlier that this relationship wasn't working for her, but she had to sift through her feelings, okay? Now, I do agree when you definitively know you don't want someone long-term and you've implied that right from the get-go, then that's out of integrity, okay? I agree with that and a man has to take ownership. But if a man has been in integrity with a woman and she's choosing to stay, that's on her. But sometimes we have to, it takes a while to really think about it. Love is an intangible, it's an intangible with that in love is an intangible. And it's quite possible that some men enter into a relationship they don't have the capacity to fall in love with someone they might have the capacity to care for someone but they may not be ready yet. That's why I like asking the question what makes you think you're ready for commitment? Because if their answer is I'm not ready for commitment then they don't have a capacity to love. And if they're upfront about that and a woman still accepts it going, I'm gonna change him. If I just show him how wonderful I am, I'll change him. And usually that relationship ends and he marries the next woman but that's a whole nother conversation. That's how I think about what you just shared. By the way, Michelle wants to know do extremely dismissive avoidant men 43 never married in long-term relationship will ever commit marriage? I mean, I'm gonna say yes and no. I mean, yes, yes they can. And most of the time they don't. I mean, you said extremely dismissive avoidant. Wow, if somebody's got, you know, like I would say if they're okay, so there's basically folks there's anxious avoidant and secure, right? And I think the closer a person is to secure the greater chance that they can actually fully embrace love and commitment with another human being. So if they're at the extreme level of anxiousness or extreme level of avoidance, I think it's gonna be rather difficult. I mean, I think we have to get closer and closer to being closer to being secure with oneself to actually be able to fully commit to someone. Annette, when a guy calls you girlfriend does that need to be defined these days or is it exclusively inferred? I infer it in an exclusive relationship but I wonder if that's, oh, great question. Okay, what color, by the way, what color is this? Some of you might say blue. Some of you might say light blue. Some of you might, I mean, there might be a different color in the color category that represents this color. Okay, so do you realize that each person can view this differently? So the word relationship, the word girlfriend, what does that mean to you? What does it represent? You see, context is hugely important and I absolutely believe we need to get clarity on what that means. And if someone avoids wanting to go deeper, then chances are they have a challenge to go into deeper intimacy with someone. So it could mean girlfriend could might mean that I'm monogamous and exclusive, but I wanna keep, I'm monogamous and exclusive but I don't want to go the distance with you. That's what that could mean. Every person has a different context to words. That's why this is so critically important because perception and context is everything. The word relationship to me looks like this. We spend three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork, building skills, both on our personal or our professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy that leads to either moving in together, getting married. That's the context of girlfriend, commitment, relationship that I see. That might be yours, right? And to a guy, it's like, oh, I just wanna see you at my beck and call. I want companionship, connection and sex, but I really, I don't have a capacity to commit. Will you each use the word relationship? The context means everything. So I love that, thank you so much. Julie wants to say, thank you, Jonathan. I discovered an example of what bread crumbing is. Glad to hear that. Okay, lighthouse says sometimes men think they are clear with their words, but they are not that clear or can deceive or confuse someone with their actions. Yeah, that's true. I mean, human beings are flawed. I'm here to say that, I was watching M. Night Shemalong. What the heck is his name? M. Night Shemalong, Shemalong, whatever movie, called Split. And it was about James McEvoy had 24 distinct personality. And he has what's called dissociative, no. Something D.I.D., a personality disorder, okay? Oh, just, I can't remember what D.I.D. stands for. But you know, it made me think of how we all have different facets of our personality that we have all these different masks that we put on. And I think it's because humans are just at the precipice of trying to understand their emotional wellbeing. This is why I recommend everybody read two books, okay? The Hoffman process is a deep dive into healing childhood wounds and adult promise. But I recommend this book, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. It's, to me, and by the way, all the books I recommend are listed below. I think this is a great book to learn about your emotional wellbeing, how the voice is in our head. And so I, you know, like I'm still deciphering my emotional wellbeing on a regular basis. And it's rather fascinating how we have layers upon layers of programming and beliefs that cause us to act in out of integrity with ourselves. This is the challenge with most everybody is, it's not that they're, you know, the thing is not only are we out of integrity with other human beings, but we're out of integrity with ourself. This is why I'm a big proponent of doing this work. Especially with a partner, because when you can do it with a partner, you can accelerate the growth process. Yeah, listen, she just looked at Joe Eka, just said the difficult part is most people are not honest with themselves, nor their parents, I think you meant partners. And they rather talk the real issues with other people rather than their partner. Yeah, that is, I am in agreement with that. Melissa wants to share with us that my boyfriend is 54, never married, no kids. He believes the only reason to marry someone is when you want to have kids. Sometimes they will never marry. You need to ask them and talk if you want marriage. Okay, he's your boyfriend. So you've, by the way, he says he doesn't want to have children, I'm guessing he doesn't want to get married. And you have to ask yourself, if that's okay with you, then you can stay in this, you know, you can do whatever you want. But if you want marriage and he doesn't, you're gonna, the relationship will end at some point. But Jonathan, if I just stick it out and if I just say how wonderful I am, he'll marry me. No, he'll end the relationship with you and marry the next woman is what will happen. Ty says, great questions this morning. I really do believe these questions are critically important. The magic entertainer says, but it's very selfish for a man to continue to see a woman after she told him, after she told him many times that she loves him and wants a relationship, but she just, she gets breadcrumbs and even told him, yeah, he's being selfish. He's being selfish. Why does she, by the way, but it's okay, we can criticize the guy, but why does she accept breadcrumbs? And you know, you can't absolve, and by the way, I'm not folks, I am not giving a pass to the men who do this. I'm acknowledging he's selfish, but you have to acknowledge your part. If you don't take ownership in your part, and I'm not suggesting you magic entertainer or any woman, if you don't take ownership of it, it's like you're pointing the finger at guys, but you're forgetting these three fingers pointing back. You're gonna, by the way, you'll repeat this pattern over and over again with the next guy and the next guy and the next guy until you take ownership of your part. Question, why are you still single? Personal question from Karen. I have not met my life partner. That's the why I've not met my life partner. It's just simple as that. There's something like 50 million singles over 50 years old in the United States. I'm in company with a lot of other people. I just haven't met my life partner. And when I do, I'm, but it's not a reflection of I'm not willing to go all in, but I haven't met someone that I've clicked with in that capacity. I thought it was in my last relationship. I went all in. I went all in. I'm proud of myself. I am so fucking proud that I went all in for the really the first time in my life. And I think God, universe, spirit, Gus wanted me to experience all in so I could be ready when I meet that life. When I meet my life mate, that partner, that life partner, I'm ready to go all in. If we click and the stars are aligned, I am ready Karen. So that's the answer to your question. Julie says, Jonathan made a good point in one of his videos when he said, a good man would cut you loose if he knows you'd like a relationship but doesn't. Yes, I was trying to differentiate. If I didn't say that earlier, I apologize. Broken men will use women. And be out of integrity and selfish and all those things. Healthy men, like my son, when, okay, remember I shared the story about my son? He said to me, dad, I don't think I'm in love with her. I go give her a few, give it a little bit more time. And then he ended the relationship because he had to get it. He wasn't feeling what he thought he should feel at this point. And a good man will cut you loose after they've processed their feelings. Absolutely, Julie, thank you for reminding me that I've said that. Joe Heka says, when a guy really likes a woman doesn't make no excuses for commitment. I don't know why women want to needle everything to make excuses for male behavior. Yeah, when a guy, by the way, when a guy is clear, he's clear when an emotionally healthy man is clear. He's very clear. He's in integrity. When a broken man is out there, he's out of integrity with himself, with you. This is why asking those deeper questions helps you at least put the odds, may the odds ever be in your favor. Hunger games. Honesty is honesty. Like when a girl learned his boyfriend liked men too. He's girlfriend liked men too. He was bi. When the girl asked him, why you never told me that you like men and you've responded, you never asked, is omission a lie? I think he knew better. I think when you know better, you're lying. If you're George Costanza, if you believe it, if you believe you're lie, it's not a lie. Jennifer says, I'm sorry, this is totally off topic and I mean this in a compliment because I'm a fan, but I just realized who you remind me of. Fred Schneider of the B-52s. I bet you could sing. Oh God. Oh God, I got it. Rock Lobster. Rock Lobster. There's more B-52 songs I can't think of right now. Power of Chee wants to remind everyone. Ask hard questions up front. Okay, so I wanna tell you the story of something that happened. I was sharing this at dinner the other night, okay? So there was a woman on a dating site that I noticed I looked at her profile, she looked at me, I looked at her, she looked at me, I looked at her, she looked at me. This went back and forth like 12 or 15. And there was a part of me that was wondering if she was gonna write me. I was just sitting back and wondering if she was gonna write me. So, and the reason why I didn't write her is I saw some things in her profile that was misaligned with me. So I thought, what the heck, I'm gonna write her. And I said, we both looked at each other's profiles a dozen times. And I said, I'm gonna tell you why I had a reservation of writing you. And it's because there's a couple areas that you that we are misaligned. I'm gonna talk about politics and religion, just to name a few. And there was distance involved. So I wrote this out. I wrote like two really good sized paragraphs. And I sent it and I noticed she was online. So I'm assuming she saw it. And a couple of hours go by, she doesn't respond. 12 hours go by, she doesn't respond. A day goes by, she doesn't respond. Two days, five days, 10 days, 25 days. 45 days went past and she didn't respond. And she then wrote me. And she said, to be honest, I was taken aback by your email. I was taken aback by it. I'm like, okay, I recognize she could be taken aback by it. And she said, I was a little bit intimidated by it or something. And she then went on to say that she goes, you made some assumptions about me. And I'm like, no, I was just stating facts and doing a comparison, but she used the word assumptions. But she said it occurred to me. You were very serious about wanting a relationship. And I felt uncomfortable with that at first because I'm used to most men not being serious. See, her interpretation is most men are not serious. So when she got a guy who genuinely is serious about commitment, it took her aback. So we ended up getting on a phone call and I'll be honest with you, just within minutes of talking to her, I was like, I just felt this wrong vibe between us. I just felt it and I just didn't want to meet her. I mean, I just felt, just didn't click with her on the phone. And I mean, I certainly, if she was in the neighborhood and wanted to meet for coffee, that's about as much effort as make, but I didn't want to drive 20 miles to meet her. That's just how I felt. But Jonathan, you could be missing out on the love of your life. You just never know. Jonathan, you just never know, you should do it. Like, no, I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. I didn't want to meet her, it's not fair to her. But my point was, okay, bringing back to the point, I was serious. It turned her off. But then she realized that there was something about the seriousness that was unique to her. And she was willing, and by the way, then she wrote me after our telephone call and she said, thank you for opening my eyes to the importance of asking the hard questions upfront, just like Power of Cheese said. Listen, when you are aligned to who you are and what you want, it's not hard questions. It's just speaking your truth. And just as I wrote in my book, chapter nine, when it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. If she was the right person that I felt to click, she wouldn't have taken 45 days to respond. But anyway, just want to share with everybody. Yes, asking those hard questions makes a difference. Julie wants to remind everybody, that's a good butt Jonathan. Some people get offended by my butt Jonathan voice because it's a very overtly feminine type of whiny kind of voice. And it's intended to be that way. Folks, I'm intending to be sometimes antagonistic. Folks, I want to share something with you and then we're going to wrap up soon. And then I think this is really valuable. I've been exploring that some of my content can feel cynical. I've been exploring some of the anger and rage I have over kind of the injustices in the dating, mating and relating realm. I will tell you that I have a bug up my ass, okay? I'm just going to own that. Like I said, I'm not perfect. But there's something that I recognize that's been missing in my life since my relationship with Marie-Anne did. And that is optimism. Optimism, feeling optimistic. And so I've gone back to my own coaching and I'm going to read something to you. And these are just, by the way, this is my love mantra, okay? Just going to share it. Two full pages. I'm just going to read you a paragraph from it. Our mutual physical attraction for one another feels stimulating and passionate, including verbally expressing this attraction towards one another and a regular practice of flirting with one another through words of affirmation and adoration, physical touch and quality time feel sensational. The communication between us feels liberating and more importantly, it feels respectful and balanced. We mutually feel seen, heard and understood. We experience a deep sense of intimacy while choosing authenticity and transparency as our daily practice, which feels safe. Or we feel mutual comfort and ease when we're together, which feels grounding. And there's more that I have listed here. Dating is exhausting and daunting. Going from one relationship to the next can genuinely make us feel less enthusiastic. And I remember, and I started to really think of what gets me up every day to talk to you all is because I'm a hopeful romantic. I really am, I'm a hopeful romantic. Not a hopeless romantic, I'm a hopeful romantic. And so I have to remind myself to be optimistic because sometimes we're swimming in a sea of dysfunctionality and it is slimy that I can take a shower and remember that it's raining great women, it's raining great women, it's raining great women, it's raining great men, it's raining great men, it's raining great men, it's raining great women, it's raining great men, it's raining great women. Yes, I'm a realist and I can point out the flaws but I have to remind myself and not in a Pollyama, Pollyana perspective, but just from the perspective of, just from the perspective of that if you really want something in your life and the reason why I want a life partner, my why is because life is better with company and at the same time I'm absolutely okay. I'm absolutely okay by myself too. But life is better with company, that's why I want it. I wanna grow more as an individual, I wanna cuddle, I wanna spoon, I wanna have sex, I wanna go travel with someone, I'm not a good traveler by myself, these are just some of my foibles if you will. Being optimistic, that's the message I have for all of you, there are good men out there, I've witnessed good men out there. Yeah, there are selfish men, yes there are broken men, yes there are men who use women and there are women who are entitled, women who are gold diggers, women who are users as well, women who are broken, they accept, and by the way, accepting crumbs is not healthy. We talked about accepting crumbs but at the same time I wanna invite everyone to be optimistic, to be optimistic. Ah, Gigi says we can't let the dysfunction out of integrity humans to ruin our journey, there are great men and women out there, let's stick together and build each other up and encourage optimism. Oh my God, can I get an amen? Power of Jesus, I love your honesty and realness that you share with us in your videos and lives, your journey as an example of what life is, please don't ever change, but if you do change, it's for, thank you, I don't believe my base personality is gonna change too much but I do wanna grow past. Listen, I have fears, you know, when the days in front of you is shorter than the days behind you, it's a little bit scary to think I'm gonna die maybe in the next 20 years, maybe tomorrow, maybe today, I don't know. And so, and you know, and I'm okay with death, you know, many of you know I lost a child, there's a picture of Connor right there. You know, I'm learning to accept that and I believe we are infinite souls that do this journey multiple times. I don't even know if maybe we even go back and do this exact journey a different way next time, who knows? I have a lot of different beliefs and philosophies, which I'd love to be with a partner and share all of my wacky perceptions on reality. I wanna talk about atoms and aliens and sex and magic and intellect and things that make you, you know, your fears, you know, this is a meme I talk about. Many of you know I hate small talk. Look at, I'm just a human doing my best I can. I share what I learned hours before and I then share it with you all. I share my perceptions about men and how they fall in love and the importance of, and whether I'm right or wrong, you have to decide that for yourself. I'm just here to share what I hope helps everybody achieve what they want in life. That's my hope for all of you. And I'm optimistic that each one of you has a capacity to draw in that juicy, delicious, healthy, happy partnership type of relationship that makes you feel seen, heard, and understood, and more importantly, to feel loved. That's my hope and wish for you all. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know if it is. Post a comment below. I'd like to hear all your thoughts. As always, if you find value in my videos, please hit that like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel and hit that notification bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if you wanna connect with me directly, schedule a discovery call with me. Join my group called Midlife Love Mastery. Follow me on Instagram and all that good stuff. And I've gotta get props right now to a net for that $10 Super Sticker. Look it, we have a few minutes left. We got $20 more to go. We just collected $30 of love from all of you. So thank you so much from Debbie and Annette. I wanna just give you your props right now. All right, folks. I guess there's some conversations. Powerachie just gave me a hug. One of our Facebook members said, amen. Thanks for keeping us company on this Saturday morning, Sabrina says. Debbie, thank you for that $20 of love. I appreciate it. And she says, amen. All right, folks, I'm gonna wrap. Oh, Betty says, another great video, thanks. Let's go team. Let's contribute. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, folks. Let's be optimistic. That's the message that I'm going to encourage everyone to move forward. All right, we're gonna wrap up this video as I always do. Elena says, another great conversation. I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic job. The bearer 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, a pet, a teddy bear pillow and give it or 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. I wanna thank Betty and Joheka and Ty and Elena and Annette and Debbie and Diane and Karen on Power of Chee and Lighthouse and Jan and Diane and Sabrina and Sue Ann and Gigi and Janie X and Julie and Diane and Lighthouse. Everybody, big hugs have a wonderful fan to A1111 or at least one hour and 11 minutes. I have a super duper one.