 Why does it seem like men over 40 seem less like they're likely to commit? I think that's a question worth exploring and diving deeper into how a man actually shows his level of commitment and relationship and we'll get into those seven sides in a moment. The reality is these days folks we have to address the elephant in the room is that the vast majority of human beings in interpersonal relationships are rather dysfunctional. Their emotional maturity, their relationship skills are weak. Their EQ or emotional quotient is rather weak. I think it's important to address that. I think also the delusion that most people are emotionally mature and have good relationship skills. So isn't it kind of a conundrum is that there's this belief that people are good at it and at the same time they're terrible at it. Everybody thinks that they're the exception. And the reality is I don't care who you are out there listening to this a man or woman. The vast majority of human beings have poor relationship skills and weak emotional maturity. That doesn't mean they're not capable of it. It just means that they're not good at it. The reality is especially in romantic relationships people are not good at it. How do we know this? What's the evidence? Well the evidence is here in the United States we have a 50% divorce rate for first marriages. And if you get married a second or third time it's 60 to 75% of divorce rate. What that means is the vast majority of people haven't figured out how to have a juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship. Think about that. The vast majority of human beings have not. And there's a couple of causes for this. Now one of the primary causes is childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas that go unhealed. This is true for men and women alike. For those folks that haven't healed from their childhood wounds or adult traumas. And one of the most significant adult traumas is divorce. And roughly about 75% of singles who are over 45 years are divorced. So why I'm differentiating between men over 40 versus those men in their 20s and 30s. The reality is when you turn 21 years old let's say here in the United States. By your 22nd birthday you're simply just a one year old adult. That's right a one year old adult. Think about it. When the first couple years of since birth you're literally predominantly taken care of by another human being. Just even going to the bathroom. Well not going to the bathroom but cleaning up your poop requires someone else to be involved in the process. And a person doesn't really start to begin to know who they are until maybe age 13, 14 or 15. And what happened prior to that age can indicate how that person shows up as an adult. And what I mean is did they have wounds? Did they have their traumas? So okay now fast forward. You're in your 20s and 30s because I want to differentiate the 40 year old group versus the 20 or 30 year old group. Most of your child and wounds and traumas don't really bubble up until the surface until you hit 40. This is why many of you heard the term midlife crisis. What I call that is when the blueprint of what you think your life is going to be like collides with your reality. That's what I think midlife crisis is. So we get to those men in their 40s. If 75% of people are divorced. Remember I said childhood wounds and traumas. Well this is an adult trauma. A divorce is a very traumatic event. And remember I said healed. The differentiating factor is for emotional maturity is have you healed from your childhood wounds and traumas. And in addition have you developed any good skills, relationship skills. One of the primary relationship skills to be able to master is conflict resolution. In addition not operating from a place of being right. You know there's a saying amongst my circle of friends would you rather be right or would you rather be happy. Well a significant percentage of the population in romantic relationships would rather be right than happy. Their point of view is the only point of view. And until someone has done some deep inner work. This is why I continually recommend the book. The Hoffman process. And this is I did this in their Napa Valley location or their northern or central California location. Okay this is a deep dive into healing child and wounds and traumas. And it is worth investing in yourself because just because you meet the right man doesn't mean you're the right woman. Just because you're the right woman doesn't mean you're going to meet the right man. However it's important to recognize that it starts the relationship readiness flow chart starts with being your best self. Okay both physically and emotionally. Okay so I'm going to dive into those seven signs. He's most likely to commit to you but really quickly I think it's important to discuss the five stages of relationships. That's right the five stages of relationships. And I'm going to read them off really quickly I have my notes. It's this every couple goes through this. Well they go through some of these stages I should say the honeymoon stage. The doubt denial stage. The disillusionment stage. The decision stage. And then lastly the commitment stage. Okay so I want to start off with the honeymoon stage. This is where everybody believes the minute you have this intense chemistry for one another it equals relationship success. But we've learned though or at least what I'm teaching what I've learned is that chemistry attraction is just merely the tip of the iceberg. Below the waterline is compatibility. Do you share the same values? Are your lifestyles blendable? This is for the over 40 crowd and more importantly is this person emotionally mature enough to be in relationship? And if you don't know how to pick people like that if you need some support of learning how to vet for emotional maturity how to vet for compatibility. How to screen these people how to filter both filter in and filter out then check out a discovery. There's a link right here to schedule a discovery call with me to see if working with the coaches right for you. There's a link below as well. Why am I sharing this with you? Because my clients call me up all the time. Jonathan I met a great guy. Jonathan I met a great guy. Jonathan I met a great guy and they know the difference which we're going to talk about in a moment as well. So the honeymoon stage again it's that oftentimes luster limerence stage. This is where sometimes love bombing happens. This is a lot of times where they go oh my god you're the most amazing woman. I've never met a woman like you. I could see myself being married to you. Folks I've said it before doesn't make me a bad guy. It's just when you're enthusiastic when you're excited about a woman you feel this sense of euphoria because dopamine is being released from your brain into your body saying I feel good with this person. But we talked about the honeymoon stage well the reality is is that might last for a very short period of time and what's next is the doubt the doubt or denial phase because this is where you actually a man or woman leans into is this person really right for me instead of doing it beforehand they do it after this fact. And what happens for a lot of men is they go oh my gosh this person isn't right for me. I'm not feeling this love I thought I was feeling. Now some men ghost but you know what other men do and women do this as well. They do what's called fizzling fizzling and I wrote this down in incremental less effort incremental less effort. This is called fizzling. So you've got this great six weeks you know with this guy or three months with the guy and all of a sudden things start to fizzle. His communication is less his text message is less. He's not asking to see you as much. He seems to be busy busy seems to be the easy out for men and women particularly men. I'm busy busy busy all of a sudden he's busy. I can't make it this weekend I can't see you this weekend. He fizzles this out fizzles the relationship out. In some ways that's more toxic than ghosting at least ghosting is boom I'm done with you. I've moved on I'm not going to contact you again as brutal as that is. I wonder if it's worse to fizzle someone out. You know I'm just have you ever had that have you ever had anyone fizzle out on you they just started to back out a little bit if you have. Please post a comment below please write a comment in the chat box. How did that feel. You know oftentimes say go dating triggers the number one emotional health issue we're all feeling is I'm not good enough I'm not lovable and I'm not likeable. Think about that and dating triggers this relationships triggers this like nobody's business. Excuse my slurping. By the way my coffee mug says don't make me go all psycho roommate on you. Yeah I'm going a little psycho roommate on you today. By the way one of the reasons why I wrote my book what the heck is self love anyway a journey of personal development self health and spiritual work by the way there's a link below to get a copy of my book. Reason why I wrote my book is because of that place of I'm not good enough I'm not lovable I'm not likeable. Is the one of the most critical places within a person's life to establish their their sovereignty their self worth their self esteem and more importantly their self respect. So when you see a man is fizzling you call him out on his behavior. And the minute you by the way you all know I'm going to suspect you all know when you start to see a shift in behavior. I did a woman some years back for I liked her at first. We had dated for about three weeks but something you know it just wasn't clicking it just wasn't feeling and we saw each other a bunch of times and because you lived right up the street. And something clicked where I just not feeling it I couldn't put my finger as to why this was happening. And she noticed a shift in my behavior quickly. And she reached out and said I noticed you're not reaching out as much as something up. And I owned it. I owned it. I said you know what I'm just not feeling what I thought I would be feeling at this point. She goes it sounds like it isn't going to work and I'm like well I don't know what to do. Yeah maybe you know and this and that's what happened. Now some men might drag it out but you'll know the difference between men dragging it out because they make excuses instead of actually leaning into that feeling that's what emotional maturity is. Okay the next stage the disillusionment stage this is where problems become more obvious. That's kind of the winter phase I was watching a documentary on David Foster he's the record producer who's put you know so many stars on the map like Whitney Houston and so many others I can't think of them right now. But he has a habit the minute there's friction in the relationship he get divorced by the way this guy I think has been married like 20 times I'm being tongue in cheek kidding here but he get married minute there's friction he bail. He had abandonment in his life he had childhood wounds that went on on on resolved unhealed. Now I bet you he had a Deepak Chopra book on his nightstand and the woman's thinking oh my gosh you know he does so much inner work. But true inner work is that book is highlighted and pages are bent versus it's just sitting there on open how many people invest in some sort of self help but they do it so cursory that they don't actually heal from the work. I want to share with you something I'm constantly reevaluating my own emotional baseline and I do it with my partner there's a picture of my sweetheart there. I'd say every day I do that because I have some significant wounds in childhood. That creates a very anxious behavior in me makes me not trust love and certainly after losing my son. Right there that's my 19 year old son who passed away Connor. There's this hole inside of me because and it feels like an abandonment to love someone and then have them be gone. That's a deep wound within me and I'm still working on healing that though I'm choosing to grieve with love. Okay the fourth stage and I want to get moving on so you've gone through the disillusion that's the decision making stage. Do you end the relationship do you know do nothing and be miserable or do you stay and try to fix it and that's the fifth stage is actually working on your relationship together that's a co creative relationship. Those are the five stages so now we're going to lean into those seven great signs he's ready to commit to I want to blow through these really quickly because I felt like I got a baseline for you. Those seven sign he makes time for you and keeps in touch with you that's rather obvious. You know I and by the way it's not text messaging. He actually makes a telephone call and he actually makes time to physically see you on a regular basis but it seems to me the most healthy successful relationships are the one where they see each other significantly. Doing shared activities hobbies mutual interest where they're really developing the friendship. Number two his actions matches words. You know that's a sign of integrity. You know if you haven't read the book before agreements highly recommend reading the four agreements for yourself. This is where actions match one's words along amongst other things. Number three he's transparent about his past whether we like it or not our past is a clue to how someone is going to operate in the future. And it's rather I think critically important to get a baseline of someone's emotional maturity to have healthy discussions about our past relationships and experiences. And in some ways if you can even laugh about them and what I don't mean to laugh in a. In a disingenuous way I just simply mean to go wow look at all these trials and tribulations I went to to get to this place in my life and I sometimes laugh at it merely to say wow why wasn't I taught this stuff sooner. Back to my private coaching I hear this all the time. Jonathan why didn't they teach me this in school why didn't my parents teach me this why didn't I learn this before I married the wrong guy. That's because everything we've learned about relationships is wrong. That's the reality of it. Everything we've learned about relationships is mostly wrong. Number four he engages you in his life. He asked for help he asked for your opinion. He even does housework you know it's funny in my relationship my partner again there's a picture of Marie right behind me with the Buddha right there. She was in India we were just talking about that last night. You know she like I was a bachelor I could go days with the stuff in the kitchen sink. You know I wasn't so particular I did make my bed every morning but I wasn't as particular when I live by myself and now with a partner. She likes to wake up to a clean kitchen. And you know what I'm okay with that. I didn't get into a power struggle with her it demonstrates just simply doing the act of keep you know being engaged in your relationship. And she asked for that that demonstrates a sign of commitment when people scoff at your desires. They scoff at your desires of actually living in a better home as an example. That's a sign of relationship weakness number five he asked to meet your family and friends. He wants to see your life and he wants to invite you into his life and while this alone isn't always a guarantee. It certainly means that you're moving in the right direction. He's protective of you and not just in the physical sense he's protective of you and the emotional sense folks. Many of you know that the most important aspect of relationship is trust and trust isn't just about fidelity trust is does this person care about my feelings as much as I care about my own. Does this person have my best interest at heart. That is a true protector in a relationship not just in the physical realm but also in the emotional realm and I don't mean avoiding conflict as a way to protect. Well I didn't want to hurt you so I didn't want to tell you I was meeting my ex-girlfriend for coffee. That's not protecting a real protect if you were if someone was going to meet their ex for coffee for whatever reason. A healthy person if they really wanted to protect your emotions would simply share that this is going to happen. This is the boundary I'm going to set around this and I will follow up with you immediately when I've wrapped up and there's probably some sort of significant reason why when they're secretive. That's that might be to protect you while I didn't want to hurt you. I think most men have adopted the philosophy it's easier to get forgiveness than permission because anyone ever had that happen it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. Being protective means opening up to the emotional aspects of life and being emotionally protective of you in the sense of being fully transparent with you. And lastly he understands that relationships are about the future versus living in the moment seems like these days every guy wants to just let's just live in the moment let's just have fun let's just live in the moment. Listen the minute two people engage in regular sex together that is a relationship but more importantly is it a casual relationship. Is it what I call a relationship it's a friends with benefit relationship but you just don't know about it or is there a serious conversation and dialogue about how to take this to a future level. I think one of the benefits of being in a long distance relationship is we quickly made a decision that if we wanted this to work we'd have to move in together we made a big commitment to one other. Listen, could have that blown up in our face. Papsa effin Lutley that could have blown up in our face. I think though, because we had done so much personal development self help and spiritual work. Since we did a lot of healing from our past and we unpacked all those things very early on when we did radical honesty lay our cards on the table and establish the rules of engagement. It probably it certainly amplified our relationship and I'm grateful now that coming up on a year we still get long grade haven't had any major fights and because I think we did. I can only say this look we met through a dating app dating site. I practice what I preach and I use the tools in my private coaching that many of you have already experienced a juicy delicious happy relationship. I practice what I preach and I use my tools to attract a great partner in my life and I want the same for you as well. All right, did you find value in this video if you did please hit that thumb button please hit that like please hit the likes please share this video please subscribe to my channel hit the bell. If you need some support there's a link below in the description in the show notes to schedule a discovery call with me to join my low price low cost group to check out all the books I recommend to check out the naked discovery naked recovery group to join my membership and get all the books I recommend in the link below. All right, I think this is a great place to start taking questions if you're familiar with my format. If you have a question for me write the word question then post the question thereafter or you can purchase a super sticker super chat. All the monies from a super sticker super chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor Asley who I mentioned earlier. He's my son who passed away a few years ago and his honor I donate to causes like the Hoffman process and insight Institute. And if you're watching the replay there's a super thanks button as well. All right, if you have a question for me post the question there write the word question posted thereafter so it'll be easier for me to find Karen did right. He says he wants forever no calls yet he wants to chat for a while before we talk two and a half months. You know folks listen. It seems these days people accept crumbs. They accept because they believe that they're listen. When you've created a belief about someone you have yet to meet you have yet to speak to that and you've created some sort of story around this. That's delusional thinking in my opinion. The reality is this at least the way I see it. Until two people meet it isn't real. It isn't real. And until you spend regular time together it isn't real. It's important to now I understand by the way I scratch because I there's dust in the air. I recognize that there isn't important because we're meeting total strangers is important to do some sort of vetting ahead of time to do some you know see if you share the same values and what not. Dang it a lot of dust. So it's important to do that I get that to build some familiarity at the same time you got to meet and then explore it from that place. At least that's my invitation for you. All right. Let's go to Suzanne who has a question question in long distance relationship. I'm talking seven hours driving should the man come to the woman first or should you meet halfway. Thanks for all you do. You know that's a tricky one because I wouldn't want to drive drive that long and just spend one day with a person so I there's a couple options you can meet halfway. Okay that's an option. You can have you can go to him I don't recommend that he can come to you but I if he comes to you then I'd suggest that he gets a hotel room and you spend one or two days together I certainly would take sex off the table. For that first meet but then ultimately the real question is how are you going to is your how do you is this a relationship where your lifestyles can actually blend with one another. Women oftentimes compromise their lifestyle on behalf of the man and I'm not a big proponent of that unless it truly fits within their life so you know you have a couple options. I would say one option is to meet halfway but then again you know I'd get a hotel room and maybe you know and I've done that before I've had one woman lived in Colorado and I live in Los Angeles I mean we met in Las Vegas. Boy that turned into an absolute fiasco. Oh my God. I know I listen you are taking a big risk sometimes when you don't do a good job vetting when you don't do when you don't do FaceTime conversations by the way I highly recommend zoom or FaceTime conversations with anyone long distance or at least be involved in their Facebook page at least get some sort of social medium background on them. And before you meet but those are just my quick thoughts on that so thank you so much for that question Suzanne Vanessa right question. We've been seeing each other for months many ups and downs he has social anxiety and every event is an issue and he doesn't go with also we have not spoken about the future. Well Vanessa that's not oh here we go. She goes on to say he lives an hour away we both make effort to stay over at each other. Well you don't really have a question that I guess the real question I asked for you. How do you feel about this relationship. Your feelings are your barometer. If it feels uneasy are you capable of having deeper conversations with this person about the uneasiness in the relationship. You know this is really important stuff by the way if you haven't read the book, making your second marriage work making your second marriage work. That's again my my audience is predominantly midlife what I love about this book is a matter of fact chapter one chapter one. Avoiding the same mistakes what's the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results chapter two. Conscious commitment. That's this is really an important chapter to learn what is conscious commitment. Just like in the case of my relationship we had a conscious conversation to talk about how we would make this relationship work. This is an intentional way of approaching relationships instead of the passive way many of you operating where you just sit back in your feminine energy and just hope the man will lead. Listen most men at midlife are winging it. They're winging it they're clueless. Because commitment as I said earlier when a man is in his 20s and 30s he's oftentimes on the hunt for a wife making babies and having the mother of his children. But by 40 when you go through divorce commitment is a very convoluted question for many people. Because they haven't resided themselves to the fact that they either want to live with someone or they want to get married. And if you don't have that in your deep rooted consciousness the idea of commitment might just simply be monogamy and exclusivity without any of the built deep building the the the building blocks for deep trust. This is something again I work with my clients with on. Okay. All right so you didn't have a question but that was my quick thoughts on that. Natalie wrote. It seems most men are flaky. Don't they know what they want. Even if initially they say they're looking for a life partner or or they just want friendship because they want to work on themselves. What do you think about those that are working on themselves or need to prioritize their children. Well I'm a big proponent of everybody working on themselves. And I also believe children are a priority. But I just said a moment ago. You know my here's a question I highly recommend asking every man before the penis ever goes inside the vagina. What does a relationship look like for you. And what does commitment look like for you. Not you know and and all you can even add what does it mean to you what does a relationship mean to you what does commitment mean to you. Really dive deeper many of you are having such surface conversations. How's your day going. Did you have a good day. I hope you had a good day. Seems like everybody all they care about is your day. Not about the deeper feelings. Remember I said earlier in this conversation emotional emotional IQ is going deeper than the surface and peeling the onion of what does a relationship mean to you. What does that mean to you. Means everything to me. I mean I mean not to you know to to belabor you know my relationship with my partner but being partnered with someone is is a real treasure. Something to covet something to value because it's not easy. Let's face it in our dating dysfunctional dating world today. It's incredibly complicated to even meet someone they have a bit of chemistry with and share values and lifestyles are blendable and they have emotional maturity. And you know to some level we are we because of our devices. You know we have been disillusioned to believe that there's someone just better just to swipe away there's someone better that fear of missing out. Oh you know this this person is good but there's someone even better out there. The relationship means to me it means being all in. And the minute I say the words I love you it means I'm here you matter. We are important. I've got your back. I'm not going anywhere and I only want you. I just again there wasn't a question there but I wanted to share that. So what do I think of all those things. Listen. Let me tell you something. You said men don't know what they want. Well let me be clear about something. I get women reaching out to me every day. Jonathan. I know what I want. I know what I want. I know what I want. You know then they go through this proprietary coaching program I creating. Can I tell you what they say every single time after they finish it. Why didn't I learn this in school. Why didn't my parents teach me this. Why didn't I learn this before I married the wrong guy. The fact is is everything we've learned about relationships is wrong. And if you need some understanding of the building blocks to a healthy happy relationship I highly recommend reading the book. Here's a great book. You don't have this can be replaced the word. Okay. That's called the seven principles of making marriage work. Just replace the word marriage and just say commitment. The seven principles for making commitment work the seven principles of making a relationship work. This is a great blueprint to understand. And I guarantee you Natalie and no disrespect. Most women don't know the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship. And so the expectation is men know what they want. It's because humans don't know this. My girlfriend and I watched the show them the Indian matchmaker. And what I love about the way at least those from India and again that she was there's a picture of her in India. At least they're more conscious about it. Especially within arranged marriage. They really understand the complexity of what is the purpose of marriage. If you don't know the purpose of a relationship. If you don't know the purpose of dating. Then believe me. Oh, everybody thinks the purpose and just have a good time. It's all about having a good time. Let's just have a good time. Yeah. You know what you have a good time once and a good time twice and a good time three times and a good time four times. I'm talking about different people. Pretty soon that wears on your emotional. Your emotional sovereignty. Remember I talked earlier about fizzling. Those people that fizzle you out on your life after a while. Do you know. Not feeling good enough. Not feeling likable. Not feeling lovable. Becomes your belief system and it makes it more difficult to attract a healthy happy partner in your life. All right. I went off on. I went off. All right. Thank you so much. Question. Can you have a relationship with a good guy that's not your type? I like guys. I like guys your size. He's the opposite, but so sweet. And he phones me often. We just don't have chemistry. I'm waiting. The answer is you can absolutely fall in love with a person's personality. The reality is for those of us in midlife, we're aging. We don't look like the Photoshop version of ourselves. Okay. We're aging. Not all men are six foot two. The vast majority of men are five foot nine. I think that's the average height. So, you know, they don't have a full head of hair. And by the way, for the record, everybody listening. I do not dye my hair. Mary and I should talk about that in the next video. So you get honest proof from someone. I just my younger brother is gray. I mean, like you can't believe my father didn't start graying until he was 60 years old. And, you know, I've been, I mean, I do have some here, but I'm given blessed. My parents gave me two of the most important requirements. It seems like height and hair, but not everyone is in that place. So what, how it's not about so much about the outside. It matters more, way more about the inside. And I've watched, I've witnessed women over and over and over again fall in love with men that weren't their type. Weren't their type. And yet value the person for who they were on the inside. Great question, Wanda. Marcy writes question. I'm in my early forties met a nice man online for the initial dating phase and getting to know each other. Is it best to wait to be physical until we decide to be exclusive kissing, et cetera. It certainly puts the odds in your favor. If you do take more time to get to know someone, first off, Jay Shetty says it takes about 40 hours of face to face time just to begin to get to know someone, just to begin to get to know someone. I've always said it takes about a hundred hours of face to face time just to build the first layer of trust. And Jay Shetty goes on to say it takes 200 hours of face to face time to build a friendship. And that's usually within a short period of time. And it doesn't count sleep over time, sleeping in the same bed time. So to answer your question, but at the end of the day, trust should be the number, trust and some level of commitment. Should you be your highest priority before you become physical with someone as a rule of thumb? Great question, Maribel. All right, let's keep swimming. Elizabeth writes question. What if I'm seeing a guy, but not in a relationship? He says after we tried being together for a very short while that he doesn't want a relationship, his answer, why he doesn't want to be. You know what? This is going to sound, I'm sorry to throw my son under the bus. That's my other son there. He dated a woman some about a year and a half ago for about five, six months. He really liked her, liked her company. They liked doing things. But for whatever reason, he wasn't feeling it. He started to notice it after about the second or third month, but he was confused. He was really reflecting upon why, you know, like, I'm just not feeling it. Do I need more time? You know, emotions are a very complicated thing to understand for a human being, especially if you have divorce in your background, like my son has and he lost his brother, you know, which certainly plays on his emotional heart strings, if you will. In fact, he lost two of his dearest friends. My point of bringing this up is our emotional maturity is a makeup of our experiences in life. And at the same time, emotions are a difficult thing to grapple at any age. In fact, as men age, we've been taught to stuff our emotions and feelings. So in this particular case, you know, why isn't, you know, he pursuing something, you know, it's just this is this is really complicated shit, folks. We think it's so easy because we've seen Disney movies that make it seem like all you have to do is fit into a glass slipper and everything will magically work out. And the reality is, is our emotions are very complicated. If you're not familiar with the book Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters, I highly recommend reading this. So you get a baseline of understanding how emotions your own emotions work for you as well. Oh, by the way, there's another book. Speaking of the language of emotions by Carla McLaren. I highly recommend reading these books. I don't have these on my bookshelf just for decorations. These are required reading for many of my clients because there is so much value in $15 that you can change your life. But Jonathan, all you do is recommend books. By the way, all the books I recommend are in the show notes there. I recommend these books because for 15 bucks you can change your life. You don't need to spend $25,000 on someone's six month coaching program. All right. Honey writes question. How do I know if the man I'm dating is totally healed from his past? Well, hopefully he's not incessantly talking about his past. If he's incessantly talking about his past, then there's still more healing to be involved. Now, quite frankly, you could be part of that healing process. You know, I look at it like a bell curve, upside down bell curve. Okay. When people are like falling in the pit, if you will, they operate from a place of victim consciousness. Okay. When a person is healing, they're operating from a place of victor consciousness. They're evaluating their past relationship and saying, you know, they're really assessing, you know, why did I make those choices in my life? Why did I accept that behavior? People that are falling into the pit, they're in blame, they're in victim consciousness. When they're coming out of the pit, there's a healing. Even in my own relationship with my partner, you know, I'm still healing from my marriage. I'm still healing from my past relationships. I'm not stuck in those areas. I'm not stuck. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just recognizing that healing is an ongoing process. So it depends on where he's at. If you want to schedule a call with me to get a baseline on that, let's do that, honey. So thank you so much for that question. Ah, Suzanne writes question. Any thoughts on dealing with a guy who has not done online dating before? What kind of guidance, if any, would you need? Well, are you talking about a friend? Does he need help or is this someone you're dating? Because if you're dating this person, why would you even care that he goes online? Folks, here's an example. And I'm going to throw you a little under the bus, Suzanne. And again, if this is someone you're interested in, why do you even care? Now, unless they're a dear friend and they want some help, that's a certain good reason to care about wanting to help them, okay? But ladies, oftentimes you care about the way men think. Instead of caring about the way you think, the reason why I said the seven great signs men over 40 want to commit to you is to ask yourself, are you experiencing this from a man? Instead of focusing on the man's needs, do you focus on your own needs? Do you focus more on your desires in the relationship? That's what I'm here to encourage from you. All right, hey, here's a question from someone in my private group called Midlife Love Mastery. There's a link below to get a copy to join the group. Question, why do men who live over three hours away or more contact me from dating apps? I clearly state my relationship goals. They never follow through with chatting online with me and they rarely talk to me on the phone. Great question. So I talked about this in the most recent video. What was the title of it? The shocking reason why men don't commit. I think, and when I shared in this video was, this was just the video I did a couple days ago, live stream. So go to the live stream button on the, on my channel. So when I did right before this one. Loneliness is probably the number one cause of, of seeking relationships these days. Many people are experiencing deep loneliness. This happened during COVID. This was amplified on COVID. And because we no longer, for the most part, meet people in our organic circle, in our real world, our devices allow us access to hundreds, if not thousands and tens of thousands of people all over the world. So the minute you make a connection with someone, it doesn't matter where they live, you just made a connection with someone. And that deep loneliness, that desire to, by the way, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Tony Robbins, you know, needs of six human needs, connection and community is one of the most important needs. So that's the why. My question is, why do you care? That's one question. Another question is, why do you engage if you engage? See, what's more important is what are you doing for yourself? How are you engaging? How are you operating in this sphere? That's the more important questions to be asking, not why guys do things. Listen, my channel is predicated on why men do shit. What's the channel called? Understand men now. Why? Because you ladies are fixated on why men do whatever they do. Now, the titles, seven great signs men want to commit to you, but it's all about how you are evaluating men based on these things. It's really, my channel is more about how you interpret your inner world with respects to men. So, my invitation for you. Why do you care? But more importantly, if you're engaging, why are you engaging? And my real question is simply engage with people whom you can meet in your real world. Now, here's where it gets tricky. My beloved lived 1,800 miles away. And you guys all know I am so anti-long distance relationships. Now, I'm anti-long distance relationship because most human beings don't have the emotional maturity. Most human beings don't know how to vet the way I do. But most importantly, I vetted this person to determine that we had so much compatibility within the city I live in that it made sense to explore it. If that weren't the case, if it didn't make sense for her to consider, and by the way, she has two younger lives here. One of her dear friends lives just literally 500 feet away from us. Her best friend lives an hour away. She has a lot of other people in her social circle that live in this general vicinity, whether Orange County or San Diego or whatnot. And she grew up in Los Angeles. So it made and this was a place she considered living. So that made sense. But many of you are engaging, for example in long distance relationships where it doesn't make sense for the two of you to live together. So why have you been exploring it? Because you have this fantasy that you can talk yourself into changing your life. Don't do that. Stop it. Stop it. Alright, thanks for that question. I appreciate it. You bet, Wright's question. I have a first blind curated date from a service I paid for. What are two or three good questions to ask at an utter stranger? Well, I think we always start with what are you looking for. But this is such a tricky question because men can give you relationship talk. I'm looking for a relationship. Your ideal relationship is this. His ideal relationship is this. Do you know that space in between? That's called drama. Because you have an expectation here. His expectation is there. Okay, that said, what are you looking for? But more importantly in the deeper question is what does a relationship look like for you and what does commitment look like for you? Those are deeper questions. I would also find out if you share the same values. I'm a big proponent of asking political and religious questions. Those gives us insight and what, by the way, since most people share this are somewhat in the middle on their political and religious views. You're looking for the extreme outliers. I highly doubt someone who loves Donald Trump and would die on the sword for Donald Trump is going to share the same values of someone who loves Bernie Sanders and would die on the sword of Bernie Sanders. I don't care what side of the political spractrum you're on. You just want to ask some questions to see if you're aligned with one another. Instead of talking about do you like sushi? Me too! Do you like to stand up paddle board and pickle ball? Oh my God, I love it! Do you like the Rolling Stones? Yeah, I've seen them in concert five times. That's not compatibility. That's familiarity and it's good to share those things. It's really good to share those things. But that's not compatibility. All right, Claudia, thank you for that question. Honey says thank you again, Jonathan. I really appreciate your effort for teaching us here about relationship skills. I'm totally clueless before and there's a lot of homework to do. Yay, I'm happy that you're doing that. Wanda writes question. If your religious views are different, will that be a problem? So, you know, not that I'm in love. Okay, so there's a book. Neil Clark Warren is the founder of eHarmony. He wrote a book called Two Dates. He talks about the 25 most popular must haves. I think it's important. Let's go to page 73. Let's go here. He outlines 25 most popular must haves. And when you have these 25, your relationship has a greater chance for success. So let's go through this real quick. So, let's go through this real quick. Emotional health. I just talked about that. Strong character. I talked about that. Energy levels. I didn't really talk about that, but are your energy levels the same? Intelligence, chemistry, financial security, verbal intimacy, conflict resolution skills, personal habits, spirituality, shared interest. I talk about that all the time. Similar political and social views, interest in parenting, and this is, by the way, here's the thing about midlife folks. It's even more, by the way, it's one thing to share the same parenting skills. It's another thing to blend lives when you have children. And believe me, children can be the most problematic part of any relationship, especially if you're with a covert incest, a person who has covert incest, and that's another emotional incest with one of their children. Personality. Values. I talk about values all the time. Skills, ambition, age, race, education, religious affiliation, sexual history, height and body shape, okay? Facial features, even clothes. It's funny that clothes on here reminds me of my sweetheart. She didn't like the fact that I was a jeans and flip flop kind of guy. She would have loved me when I was in my Mr. Big period of time in my life as a suit and tie kind of guy. I live at the beach, kind of jeans and flip flops. Certainly, though, I do appreciate her sense of style. I think she is, by the way, you've watched videos with her. You've noticed that today I'm wearing just a polo shirt, but you've noticed that I've upgraded my level because there is something about clothes that even matters. I just did a video on how to create sexy confidence with a man consultant. The clothes we wear can be a reflection of how we feel about ourselves on the inside. I would say after my divorce my jeans and flip flops and other things because I really got beaten up during that period of my life and I was really kind of regressing a bit. It was really a regression. I used to read GQ magazine in my 20s. I was the double breasted suit guy even to a biker bar with my friends. So these are 25 things the book two dates or less talk about and compatibility is a big component of that. So thank you so much for that question. I think this will be a great place to wrap up for today, our little Saturday morning coffee. Don't make me go all psycho, roommate on you. Please forgive me if I was a bit boisterous here. I hope you found value in this. If you did, please post a comment below. Please hit the like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel. Again, if you need some support check out the links below to a free discovery call with me. Check out my group called Midlife Love Mastery. Check out my Instagram page. Check out the books I recommend. Get my free gift. Get my dating vows that's listed there and all the other goodies there. If you did find value, please say Jonathan, I got value out of this conversation. All right, I'm going to wrap up this video because I always do first off giving myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrow 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 turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear pillow and give Iter 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 want to thank my Midlife Love Mastery members who joined. I want to thank Maribel and Wanda and Honey Who and Claudia and Yvette and Pan Suzanne, Elizabeth Natalie, Vanessa I think I said Maribel Vanessa, everyone thank you so much. Have a fab evening. You be well. Take care. Bye now. Bye bye.