 Men over 40 who exhibit this make good life partners. Now, when I think of a life partner, I think about buying a house. And what I mean to say is you're making an investment in another human being potentially for the balance of your life. That's why they call it a home. That's why relationships are oftentimes talked about as going home. And if you've ever bought a house and spoken to a realtor before, they will tell you there's three primary things you need to consider when buying a house. And I'm gonna correlate this to a life partner in a moment. And that is location, location, location. Have you ever heard that before? Well, within the perspective of a life partner, there's three primary things you must consider. And let me just say this upfront. I'm gonna be repeating myself three times, but one of the most important things to consider when choosing a life partner and a life partner who demonstrates this, who exhibits this makes for a potential good life partner. Because I'm assuming you are one of those people out there that prefers to go the distance with someone. You're not looking to date short-term. And I know maybe in your 50s and 60s, you're not thinking long-term, but let's be clear. When you get to 70 or 80, you're gonna be going, are we still dating or is there something more? So the three things they must exhibit is the following, character, character and character. That's right, character, character and character. Now we're gonna dive into character today because I think just saying the word in it of itself can be actually rather vague. And I think for those of us in midlife, we have to think of character in a vastly different perspective, okay? Now oftentimes high-value people, high-quality people are considered to have good character if they're financially successful, if they're in good physical condition, that sort of thing, that seems to be the narrative of the superficial group of people, particularly in the red pill community, but red pill community, but we're not gonna dive into the red pill community. We're gonna talk about the over 40 community and what you need to be considering when it comes to a person's character. So I've listed some things for all of you to pay close attention to. Now the first thing is, I mean, and most of these are radically obvious to you, but the first thing is that their actions match their words. There is a relative consistency with this person and that doesn't mean a human can't make mistakes, okay? We might say we're going to call and for whatever reason we get distracted and we don't do it, but there's a consistency to their actions matching their words. I think that is one of the things to highly consider in the early stage of dating is paying attention to consistency. Now this becomes radically challenging for those of you that are engaging in long distance relationships and the only reason why I bring up long distance relationships in most every video is probably a good 50% of you who are actively in the dating marketplace are engaging in some sort of long distance connection, whether it's in Los Angeles, it could be 15 miles is a long distance relationship, but certainly if you have to drive hours to go see the person or you have to get on an airplane, it's very difficult to observe consistency other than making that telephone call and there's more to actions matching words than just committing to making those phone calls every evening. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know. Now number two is that they have healed from their past relationships and why I'm putting this in the category of character is people who are unhealed from their past relationships if they still have some hurt, if they have some anguish, if they have some resentment, they have some judgment, it makes it very difficult for this person to lean in to a relationship. They won't be able to lean in and I'm intentionally being a little bit mocking of the leaning back, okay? But leaning in because they have a wall up and if you have walls up, it makes it very difficult to lean into a life partnership with another human being. If you've got walls, if you have armor, if you have resentments you have your, and for this is ladies too, if you're jaded, you're bitter. I'm not suggesting you don't have good character but I'm here to suggest that when you've healed from your past, you are capable of leaning into a life partnership relationship. Now the next one I've put together is a person who is generous and kind. Now generous doesn't mean paying for dates but certainly that can be a generous act although it's almost an expectation for men to do that. But what is generosity? Generosity is helping another person. Being kind is recognizing that our words can sometimes cause pain for another. So we do it in a more diplomatic way than an accusatory way. Those are just simple examples of kindness, of generosity. And it's important to pay attention to this early on. Is someone speaking their truth from a kind way or are they coming at you with an accusatory way as one of many examples? Kindness isn't the same as fairness but ultimately kindness just means you operate from a good place, okay? And to me that's a demonstration of good character. Now in the same venue as I just talking about they communicate clearly, clear communication, logical communication, a passionate communication, emotional communication, not from a place of being right, okay? See a lot of times people communicate is I'm right, you're wrong. Do you know most couples go into therapist office, couples therapy and they always do this? It's my partner's fault, okay? See when you communicate, you simply communicate from I statements. You say things like I'm feeling this when this happens. In fact, if you're not familiar with the book, non-violent communication by Marshall Rosenberg, and by the way all the books I recommend are in the link below, I highly recommend reading this book. So you can learn to communicate from the I perspective and not the you perspective. You do this, you make me feel this way. Begin to learn healthy communication, which to me is a sign of for lack of better word, good character. Now when I'm about to share next, I think is absolutely paramount. I even use the word paramount in this descriptor. They believe trust is paramount in their life. They believe trust is paramount in their life. Now what I mean about trust is I'm not talking about fidelity in a relationship. I'm talking about making sure that the other person's needs are commensurate with your own needs. In other words, you care about this other person's needs so much that you put it on equal footing of your own needs. Their best interests are your best interests. What do you think about this for a second? In our current dating environment, people engage in physical connection and emotional connection, physical and emotional connection with another human being before any real trust has been built between two people. And I've always said it takes about 100 hours of face-to-face time, coming back to those long distance dynamics I talk about, face-to-face time just to build the first layer of trust. And trust comes in, is layered. That's why they say trust is earned. I believe trust is built through the consistency, through the actions, through the generosity, through the kindness, through the communicating from a place of we-ness and not from a place of I-ness. And so they believe trust is paramount in a relationship and that doesn't always mean just being able to confide your deepest, darkest secrets to another person, but knowing that this person has your best interest at heart and when you think about it, it seems to me that trust is the weakest link in relationships these days. It's the weakest link in life partnerships or there's a false sense of trust because, okay, so folks, if you're familiar with my relationship iceberg, I'm gonna share this, please forgive the glare, but the vast majority of humans focus on attraction chemistry without really paying attention to shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity when your relationship is solely predicated on that physical attraction and the illusion of artificial intimacy that comes with attraction, let me reframe that, emotional intimacy and a lot of it is artificial because it's been curated through these devices, this artificial intimacy is communicating the attacks via text via text via text. What happens is very little trust is built through the shared values, the capacity to blend lives together. By the way, for those of us in midlife, this is critically important. This is one of the primary reasons why most relationships don't succeed because they don't know how to integrate their lives together. They partially integrate their lives together, they have occasional companionship, occasional connection, occasional sex, so they feel this occasion, but they're missing the true integration into each other's lives and then the deep roots of trust, please forgive me for spitting. See, this is critically important. I have to harp on this for a second. Integration into each other's lives builds the roots to trust. Now I want you to think of a tree in a hurricane wind. If it doesn't have roots, what will happen to that tree? It'll blow away. So if most of your roots have been built on text communication and telephone communication and it's just incessant communication of how's your day going? Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. I'm thinking of you, are you thinking of me? Hey, beautiful, hey, handsome. You might have some conversations about your day, but it is through the integration of each other's lives that you build these deep roots of trust. So what happens is when a storm happens and there's going to be an inevitable storm, every relationships have bumps in the road. It is the integration that has been built through trust that has the greatest chance for surviving so that tree doesn't blow over. Is this sinking in? I hope so. You know, really quickly, I wanna share a few more things. These are so critically important, I was watching Michael Beckwith earlier today and he's a pastor, a preacher of the Agape Church and he speaks with such verve or such passion that he yells at the top of his lungs and I'm like, folks, I yell because I have that same passion, not because I'm scolding you, although sometimes I do scold you, but I wanted to just get that off my chest. Okay, next. They don't use people. They are very clear about commitments. They are very clear that they want a life partner. People who are broken, people who are in pain, people who just want to fill a void inside of them, they will use people. Not intentionally, I think there are so many broken wounded people that they don't realize that they're using people. They see a person of good character, they are very clear about commitment. They're very clear about life partners. The challenge, oh, by the way, my coffee mug says, swear a little, you'll feel better. My Sunday videos, I don't swear. You know, a significant percentage of people over 40 are divorced. They're gun shy to having a life partner. They don't know what the container of a life partner looks like. So these people have a real challenge having clarity around commitment. This is why so many people might say the words, I'm just looking for something casual. I'm not looking for something serious. I need time. I need to take it slow. Not that taking it slow isn't important, but it's odd to me that men will have sex with you very fast, but the emotional and commitment, they will drag that out. See, if a man is legitimate about taking it slow, then sex is off the table until some level of commitment, some level of monogamy, some level of exclusivity, some level of trust has been built. There's an integration into each other's lives. Now the next one is obvious about good character, but they have their act together. You know, they're not in financial debt. They're not constantly in fear. They're not in pain. And I'm not suggest that we don't, and by the way, let me reframe that. You can own a home and be in debt to a bank. So it's not that, but I'm just saying they're not struggling in their life just for the survival needs. People that are struggling for survival aren't necessarily ready for a fully committed partnership with someone unless there has been some real radical conversations between two people and they're fully aware that a relationship sure is a mutual exchange and whatnot, but they have their act generally together. And that means both in their physical, logistic world, but most importantly in their emotional world. See, we're swimming with the sea of humans that are rather dysfunctional in their lives. And this leads to the next one, which is critically important. They are introspective and work on themselves to grow beyond their limitations, their wounds and their traumas. See, this all demonstrates a person who is capable of being a life partner with someone. And the last one I'm gonna share today, and then there's something I wanna talk about is that they're empathetic. You know, it's one thing to be sympathetic, but it's another thing to genuinely come from the heart and really feel someone else's pain. You know, a lot of people are closed off to their heart. We have a significant percentage of the population, men and women alike that their heart is closed to just even being empathetic to another human being because we are oftentimes in this silo, this bubble of myopic thinking. And it's why, you know, you hear so much about narcissism and whatnot, but really the issue is we are kind of a self-centric society to some degree, at least here in the United States, I can't speak for every part of the world, but there is a lack, a distressing lack of empathy from men and women alike. It's all about what my needs can be met instead of about being of service to give that generosity, that kindness I shared before. So what's the antidote to all this? Well, folks, let me be clear. Coming back to the original, men over 40 exhibit this make good life partners, character, character and character. And how do we determine character? We vet another human being. We vet them. We have the hard conversations earlier in the dating process. Now, I know this goes against all the rules, just to have fun, it's all about having fun. Just have a good time. I recognize if you're meeting a total stranger, it takes a couple of dates to build some level of rapport with one another, but the challenge with that, first off, you can ask some questions about alignment, for example, and I'm gonna have to use people in their 20s and 30s. I want children, I don't want children. If you're in that camp and it probably doesn't make sense to even go out on a first date. So you can get some pre-qualifying things done early. I'm a big proponent of that, but the deeper questions are imperative to determine if someone is right for you. And I wanna read you someone just recently wrote to me. Okay, and this is so critically important. Jonathan, I wanna tell you, I've been watching your channel for a couple of years now. Last night, I had the opportunity to use one of your techniques that you preach. I asked a new guy questions about his last relationships. This felt a bit uncomfortable. I'm gonna repeat that. This felt a bit uncomfortable for me, but I just kept hearing your voice, cheering me on. He was totally open and vulnerable with me. And now I have information, the information and need to decide, and then I need to decide my next steps. I'm proud of myself and I have you to thank, now looking at men from the angle, is this man a good match for me versus does he like me? This is a big difference. Vetting is an imperative tool to determine someone's character. And just remember, as I said earlier, if we hyper focus on attraction, you're buying that house, not on location, location, location, you're buying that house with a weak foundation. And I'm here to offer some perspective so you can try it differently. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know if it is. Please to post a comment below. I'd like to hear your thoughts. Please like this video. Please share this video. And if you follow me on YouTube, please hit that notification bell so you can be notified of new videos. All right, I'm gonna wrap up this videos. I always do. Oh, one last thing. Since this was posted in my private group called Midlife Love Master, if you wanna have direct access to me on a regular basis, check out my group called Midlife Love Mastery. If you're watching this now, send this video to your friends. Send them to my website, jonathanasley.com. Have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group. And you can have direct access to me on a regular basis. All right, I'm gonna wrap up this videos. I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrett himself 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, a 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. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye now, bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye.