 Well, hello and welcome to Jonathan from the heart. I'm Jonathan Asley of johnathanasley.com. And I'm so excited to be doing this short video for you today. Our topic, guys don't fear commitment. They fear this. Really quickly, if you're brand new to my YouTube channel, please hit the Subscribe button. Hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if any time during this video the content resonates with you, please hit that Like button so I can be seen in the YouTube algorithms. Lastly, these are my weekend videos I shoot out on my balcony. Very similar to the videos I shoot in my private group called Midlife Love Mastery. This is a group where you can have direct access to me on a regular basis. And based on the questions you ask in the group, I shoot personalized videos just for you. So check out the link below to my VIP group called Midlife Love Mastery. All right, let's talk about guys and commitment and fear and all that good stuff because this is a very important topic. Because ultimately, isn't the bottom line of dating, or at least for most of you, that desire to be in a fully committed relationship, isn't that your desire? So let's explore what causes men and women to block that desire of full commitment. That's funny, I was watching a comedian the other night on his show and he was talking about phobias. And he said, a phobia is an irrational fear. And then he goes on to say, he's not commitment phobic, he just doesn't want commitment. And there are plenty of men out there that actually don't want to be in a fully committed relationship. They may want some stable ambiguity. And if you're not familiar with the term stable ambiguity, I highly recommend checking out the work of Esther Perrell. Esther Perrell, she wrote a book called Mating Incaptivity. Stable ambiguity basically is your monogamous and exclusive without any direction of where this relationship is going. And I'm a big proponent of not being ambiguous when it comes to dating, mating, or relating. And I'm a big proponent of being more forthright in the early stages of relationships. And I say this because so many of you women enter into relationships and you start, believe, in the minute you start having sex with someone, you're questioning, am I in a relationship with this guy? Are we in a committed relationship? Are we boyfriend and girlfriend? And I'm like, all of this should be established early on in the relationship. And we're going to talk about why men fear this in a moment, but I want to dig into a better understanding of relationships and commitment and why there needs to be a shift in the dating perspective to actually help you avoid those men that fear what I'm about to share in a moment. Now it's interesting, I'm wearing a Star Trek T-shirt and you've got Captain Kirk right here if you're familiar with Captain Kirk, the quintessential bachelor because he was committed not to wanting a relationship, he was committed to his professional life. And there are plenty of men that are more focused in their professional endeavors than they are actually wanting to be in a fully committed relationship. So these men oftentimes are seeking that stable ambiguity or another way of calling it would be just simply a casual relationship. This is why folks, when you hear men are the leaders of the relationship, well they're going to lead at their pace. They're going to lead at their pace. And if their pace is, hey, I want to see you at my beck and call, that's not a person that seeks a relationship, that's a person that just wants you at their beck and call. And oftentimes these folks are committed in other areas of their life or worse, their life has a sense of dysfunctionality. They're going through a nasty divorce. They've got contentious issues with their children. Maybe they have health issues. Maybe they have issues in their professional life. These are men who are incapable of making full commitment with someone because ultimately, if you want to be in a full commitment with someone, it basically requires understanding that you want to eventually take care of someone. I'm going to repeat that, you eventually want to take care of someone. Now here in midlife, I got to tell you a lot of folks in their 40s, 50s, and 60s don't want to take care of another human being. I got to tell you, I get a lot of women say to me, I don't want to be his nurse or his purse, you know? And I hear this from women. I hear this from men who have gone through a contentious divorce. They've actually reached a point where they're not capable of full commitments because ultimately to be in a full commitment with someone, you have to say, I want to take care of this person. I don't mean take care of them when they're sick. I mean take care of them through thicker, through thin, through richer or poorer, through sickness and the health. All of that stuff that takes us to the full commitment level. And it doesn't have to necessarily be marriage or living together. But I would say when you're living together, that's a far more of a commitment. And when you're married, you're fully committed to that desire to want to take care of one another. And this is where a lot of people are struggling, whether they're in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, because they haven't reached that place of wanting to even take care of someone. I'm not talking about having to take care of someone, but even wanting to take care of someone. And quite frankly, do you want to take care of someone that treats you poorly? Do you want to take care of someone or do they want to take care of a woman that treats them poorly? This is where the rub is. And this is why I think it's hugely important to understand something I talk about frequently. And that's called my, oops, my little mess here I made. My relationship iceberg. And by the way, I want everyone to see this because this is critically important. Above the water line is chemistry. And below the water line is shared values, blendable lifestyles, and emotional maturity. And why this is so critically important to understand at this phase is that, listen, when two people meet in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, if there isn't strong chemistry, chances are it never turns into a second or third date. I mean, if there's mediocre chemistry. Now this excludes the men who just want to get laid. They'll chase anything, but they're gone quickly as well. So just be mindful of those that chase sex versus when there's a strong chemistry with one another. And let's face it, when there's strong chemistry, oftentimes they might be missing that shared values, blendable lifestyles, and emotional maturity. And as we age, it's harder to find people who share your values. It's harder to find people whose lifestyles are blendable with yours. And I know all of you women go into this fantasy. Well, if I love someone, I will compromise myself. Folks, let me tell you something. Men, going back to the Captain Kirk or the comedian I shared, they don't want to compromise themselves for someone else. They don't. In fact, as I lean into the fears that men struggle with when it comes to, it's not that they fear commitment. They fear these two things. Now first, I want to share with you. Commitment means, if you look up the definition of commitment in Google, it gives you two things. Committed to a common cause, committed to an activity or common cause. And number two, a restriction of freedom. A restriction of freedom. And let me give you an example of restriction of freedom. I've shared this before, so I'm going to share it again. My brother calls me up and says, his daughter is having an 18th birthday party and I want you to come. And I make a commitment. Hey, bro, I'll be there for your daughter on my niece. And then I wake up that next Saturday morning for the party and I'm like, I just don't feel like going. I don't want to go. This is the last thing I want to do. But I made a commitment. Feels like a restriction from my freedom. In other words, my desire not to do it. So just recognize that commitment is actually having to face those things you don't want to face. Now the second reason why men oftentimes, they don't fear commitment, they fear the following when it comes to relationship, because this happens frequently, is there's a fear that you're going to try to change us. There's a fear that you're going to try to change us. In other words, by the time someone reaches 40, 50, or 60, they become very set in their ways. And this fear causes men not to want to progress in their relationship form. We're going to talk about how to turn both of those things around in a moment. But that fear of being, what's the word I'm looking for? The intention that you're going to change us. And that's not the word I was looking for. So let's talk about that for a second. There's an old adage, men marry women hoping they don't change. And what I think that means is they don't change physically. And women marry men hoping that the men change. In other words, you're going to try to morph him into what you want. And this is where a lot of the relationship frustration lies, is that we're trying to fit a lot of square pegs in round holes and it's not fitting. This is why it's so critically important to really understand that shared values is critically important in relationship. That your lifestyles must be blendable or it's going to be very problematic. And lastly, emotional maturity. And I want to lean into that for a moment because the reality is, if you haven't seen my emotional maturity chart or relationship skills chart. Now, by the way, I want you to read the bottom. This is not a fact, this is an opinion. But roughly about 20% of the population has clinical issues, clinical issues. And then another 20% might be healthy enough that have the healthy skills to be in relationship. And then roughly everybody in the middle is dysfunctional when it comes to their emotional maturity because they haven't most likely done the inner work to prepare to be in a healthy, happy relationship. This is why I continually recommend the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. This helps men and women learn how to communicate more effectively in relationships. And one of the struggles everybody complains about is the poor communication skills and it's usually pointing the finger at the other person. Do you know, I was watching a show on a showtime called Couples Therapy. By the way, my Scooby-Doo-Bee-Doo mug, thank you to one of you sweet YouTube followers out there that sent me this in the middle, Scooby-Doo-Bee-Doo. But I was talking in the end because I shared that Scooby-Doo voice in one of my previous videos. So I was sharing about this show on showtime called Couples Therapy. And in the second season, the opening, the therapist talks about most couples go to therapy hoping to change their partner. Let me repeat that, most couples go in going, it's my partner's the problem. No, it's my partner's is the problem. No, it's my partner the problem. No, it's my partner the problem. That's the way most couples go into therapy, not actually doing the inner work for themselves that actually help them be prepared for a healthy, happy relationship. This is why folks, I wrote my book What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? By the way, all the books I recommend is below in the description, Jonathan recommend books. This book is a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work to prepare you and hopefully the guy to be in that emotional state of readiness to you actually can lean into a fully committed relationship because every relationship that gets to full commitment usually has this one common denominator, one common denominator for them to lean into a fully committed relationship and that's what we're going to talk about right now. What's that common denominator? Folks, reason why chemistry is important because let's face it, if we're not attracted to someone, we're not going to want to invest in them. Number two, if they don't share our values, it's going to be very problematic to be in relationship if there's contention in each other's values and nothing demonstrate this more than what's happening here in the United States, the practical, the difference between the blue and the red and the Democrats and the Republicans, for example, I got to tell you, for those that are on the outlier extremes, those folks are not compatible with one another because their political views is also a reflection of their values and let's talk about lifestyles. The reality is it used to be 50 years ago, you only dated someone who lived around the corner from you. It was easy to develop that time it takes to get to know one another. It takes roughly 100 hours of face-to-face time just to get to level one of trust in the beginnings of a relationship and if you're not having just easy way of getting to know one another becomes more problematic and this is where long distance makes it doubly harder to actually get to know someone and then do their lifestyles match one another and ladies, I've got to keep saying this over and over again you have this fantasy that because love will solve these problems. Listen, if you two live 30 miles apart and he has his gym and you have your gym over there and you've got your family there and he has his family there, you might be together for a couple of dinners here and there but ultimately it's going to require someone making a shift in their lifestyle and usually men don't want to make shifts in their lifestyle. This is why folks, if you're gonna invest time getting to know someone from a long distance perspective you better be buying the book Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman, Eight Dates before you ever sleep together and start talking about the deeper mechanics of a relationship because ultimately once you understand the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship the one common denominator almost every happy couple has and I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of happy couples is they're actually friends with one another. I'm gonna repeat that they are actually friends with one another, they genuinely like each other they play together, they have social activities they have hobbies, they have mutual interests they spend time with family and friends it's not just about the physical intimacy it's about emotional intimacy that space where you can look in each other's eyes and say into me you see, into me you see because they're vulnerable, authentic and transparent with one another those are the relationships where there's a genuine friendship and I don't mean friend zone kind of friendship I'm talking that space where you can go I've had a hard day I just wanna tell my partner I've had a great day I wanna tell my partner I need some advice I wanna ask my partner when two people can reach that space of sharing their woes, sharing their successes and seeking advice from one another the way you would a friend those are the relationships that go the distance and I'm gonna tell you something most of you are in situationships you're in casual relationships because you didn't properly vet the guy or gal if you're a guy watching this you didn't properly vet each other to determine if they're actually capable of a serious relationship and if you need some support on that check out the link to a free discovery call with me to see if working with the coach is right for you my area of expertise is helping you understand true compatibility with one another and how to ask the right questions early on based on your personality and how to third vet for emotional maturity so if you need some support with that check out the link below because that's my area of expertise so let's bring this full circle listen, most men don't fear commitment they fear expecting you to change us or they fear restriction of freedom and ultimately the relationships that reach a level of saying I want to take care of a person when a person in their heart says I wanna take care of another person and when both people can reach that point that's when you're gonna reach that level of full commitment and the way to get there is to genuinely establish the friendship piece that piece of intimacy into me you see and those of the relationships have a greater chance for success than the ones that most of you are in where you're winging it, you're winging it, you're winging it and you're expecting that if you just sit in your feminine energy the man will claim you what nonsense is that first off if you don't understand human behavior you're already behind the eight ball on the dating mating or relating realm and my hope is as the contrarian here out there I'm turning you on to books and things to look for that actually shifts your perspective to lean into the dating process with a lot more consciousness and I'm a big proponent of being intentional rather than being oblivious naive or ambivalent in the process does that make sense, is that sinking in I'd like to hear your thoughts on that please post a comment below I do my best to read them all if you like my shirt, if you like my mug please let me know as always if you find value please share this with your friends I'd really appreciate it if you want to speak to me directly, check out the links to either Discovery Call or my group called Midlife Love Mastery all right we're going to wrap up this video as I always do first off give myself a big gigantic Johnathan Bear hug of self love I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm going to ask you to turn to 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 thanks a bunch bye now