 Can we agree that finding a good partner can feel very difficult today in the dating, mating, and relating marketplace? And a lot of women come to me with deep frustration, particularly with men, who are emotionally inept, emotionally immature, emotionally constipated. One thing they ask frequently for my help is how to get a man to open up emotionally. Why is this so critically important? Because the richness within a relationship isn't necessarily about the basic needs of survival, as it was once in the past. In fact, men being provider protectors was for those base needs within a relationship, and these days we don't have that same necessity as we did in the past. And so to have a full rich relationship, it requires emotional intimacy to take the relationship deeper. And yet many men are struggling in this area, especially men in midlife. You know, midlife as I say is after baby making years and before retirement. So a lot of men in this category as well as women are divorced. I'm guessing roughly anyone over 45 years old who's actively in the dating marketplace, as I say, and what I mean by dating marketplace, they're on the dating apps, if you will, roughly 75% of those people are divorced. And with divorce can come a lot of emotional traumas. And if an individual hasn't worked on these emotional traumas, then they carry this forward into new relationships. And what I mean to say is they carry forward negative patterns, limiting beliefs, and in many cases, men shut down, or they're seeking somebody to connect with from a trauma level, meaning that they share a lot of their trauma in their previous relationships, and they can bond with someone else who also has trauma in their past relationships. And what's interesting about this is that this trauma, when a man is expressing his frustrations, his emotional effects of this past relationship or marriage, it might seem like he's opening up emotionally. And yet it's maybe a very narrow window of emotional openness he has. And I suspect many of your women are seeking men that you want to get them to open up emotionally. You want someone to be more demonstrative, more effusive. And we're going to talk about that. And yet, sadly, women chase men who are incapable of it. And they're chasing their, what I should say, they're investing in men for the not the wrong reasons, but using the wrong tools with men who are emotionally inept, emotionally constipated, emotionally immature. When I think of emotional maturity, I think of men who are their actions consistently match their words. They have a sense of victor consciousness, not victim consciousness. They have the capacity to fight fair is what I say. And what that means is they can listen when there's a difference agreement with someone, they can listen to your point of view, accept your point of view as being true for you, acknowledge your point of view. And while they might have a differing point of view, you learn to agree to disagree. That's what I call fighting fair. Next is a level of empathy. Empathy isn't just, can I feel your feelings? Empathy is, do your feelings matter to me? That's really a deeper sense of intimacy. Do your feelings matter to me? In fact, that's a fundamental aspect of trust is that the other person's best interests are in your best interest. And another form of emotional maturity is that capacity to be transparent in a relationship, to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to be transparent. Now, for many men, that's very difficult for them to be transparent because they don't even know their own feelings and they struggle with that. So I'm going to share with you how to get a man to open up because I'd like you to do this instead, instead of investing in men from the perspective of letting them be the leaders of the relationship, because let's face it today, dating today has just become a very drawn out long series of friends with benefits. That's right. I said it, friends with benefits. What that means is they're experiencing companionship with you. They're experiencing connection with you. They're experiencing sex with you without any real deep commitment involved in the relationship. So what we see today, you know, we call these casual relationships. I call them just an extended version of friends with benefits. Now, I just said casual relationships. A significant percent of relationships these days are simply casual. There's no real deep roots in the relationship. Maybe the level of commitment is centered around monogamy and exclusivity without any real direction towards partnership, without any real consciousness towards partnership. There are many experiences many women are having today, lacks a sense of intentionality towards really choosing a person that you want to go the distance with. And I think because of that, the minute there's a roadblock in the relationship, someone leaves. And what's not happening today is a deeper level of emotional intimacy. If you're not familiar with the book by Robert Masters called Emotional Intimacy. By the way, there's a link below to all the books I recommend. I highly recommend checking this out so you can get a better sense of what emotional intimacy is. Now, before you invest in a man, you must invest in yourself. I'm going to repeat that you must invest in yourself. And what I mean to say is to show up as your best self, not just physically showing up as your best self and also emotionally. Now, that means is to genuinely feel that level of self-confidence, self-assurance, self-reliance, self-esteem, self-worth. In fact, many of you know, I've written a book and I encapsulate that all into self-love. And I wrote a book, What the Heck Is Self-Love Anyway? Wow, what's going on with my voice? A journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. By the way, there's a link below to all the books I recommend. I better drink some coffee. Self-love is that capacity for us to be in our power. Women oftentimes give their power away to a man, meaning they need a man to validate them so they can feel good about themselves. And by the way, men do this as well. So this is why it oftentimes the effort that they put towards a man might appear chasing because they're putting effort with a man in the wrong way. What they mean to say is they're doing it wrong. They're doing it wrong. I don't know if any of you remember the movie Mr. Mom, where he was driving his kids to school and all the school teacher said, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. I'm here to invite you to do it a different way, to invest in a man in a different way. And I want to use an analogy before I give you the tools. So there's a TV show on Hulu, my girlfriend and I are watching, called The Good Doctor. The Good Doctor. OK, why I'm sharing about this show is that it's about an autistic man who wants to become a surgeon. He's already gone through med school and he wants to be a surgeon and he's doing a surgical residency at a hospital. And he's also autistic. Now, what this means, he's socially awkward and he's very uncomfortable communicating. It's one of his challenges to be a good doctor is to communicate because autistic people, Asbergs, oftentimes just simply blurt out their raw feelings without any real empathy. Or I mean, I'm not sure if it's an issue of empathy, but a real understanding how their their fact that they have no filter that they blurt out things so strongly that it may affect another person. OK. So I want you to give you some context here. Now, what's happening through this show is the evolution of his emotions, how he's able to learn to actually his emotions, to express his emotions, to be more emotionally demonstrative. In other words, he's going from emotional immaturity. And really, the immaturity is that his emotions are kind of like a child. And it progresses along, progresses throughout the show. Now, how does this relate towards men? Because in many cases, men's emotional capacity is much like a child. And I want you to think about what I said earlier about the divorce man or the man who's had a significant relationship that didn't work out. This child, emotionally, has experienced trauma. But the same things happened in this show, the good doctor. He had significant trauma in his childhood, which caused him to be closed off emotionally. And this happens to a lot of men. In fact, this is why they turn somewhat emotionally constipated in their lives. And this is why for many women, it's very frustrating because they they they're with, you know, this is the good doctor. He's a really good person. He wants to make a difference in the world. He wants to help people. And it's very challenging for him because he doesn't know how to do this, not the surgical piece, but to regulate his emotions. And in some cases, his emotions actually start to act out in an unhealthy way towards himself and towards others. So I think as I'm watching the show, I'm thinking to myself, this is exactly what many of my clients experience in the dating realm is a man who are emotionally inept, emotionally immature, emotionally constipated. And what happens is there's two particular women in the show that break him open this way. Now, there's a really quickly, there's a girl that he likes, but she put him in the friend zone. OK, there's a girl he likes. She put him in the friend zone, which is very frustrating to him. So then he approaches another girl, excuse me, when I said girl, a woman, excuse me. There's another woman at the hospital he approaches because he likes her and they like each other and they begin dating. Now, as I'm watching this, I know this is going to be a train wreck. And folks, I don't want to spoil the show for you if you do decide to watch it. But I know it's going to be a train wreck for her in particular because we've got the backstory is he cares about someone else. And yet his first experience with a woman is this other woman doctor. Now, she's investing in this person who's incapable of actually with her opening up emotionally. So she finds herself frustrated because he really does care about another woman. She knew this going in. And to some degree, I think she somewhat expected it to happen. OK, because when you when you're conscious that someone's emotionally inept, immature. You really what she did was she accepted him, which is great. She accepted him, what she didn't do. Well, she did do she did do what I'm about to share with you. But the fact of the matter is in many cases, some men are not able. They're able to open up for one woman and another woman. And this is kind of the illustration of how chemistry plays a big part in this process, how we have affinity for some people and not affinity for others. And yet in this particular case, he wants companionship, he wants connection, he wants sex, but he wasn't feeling it 100 percent. This was his default person. And sadly, many women find themselves in the default position. This is why you have to my whole coaching program. By the way, there's a link right here. There's a link below to a schedule a free discovery call with me to see if working with the coaches right for you. My whole coaching program is centered on how to vet for emotional maturity based on your personality, because if you're not asking the right questions early on, you may find yourself like her on the short end of the stick. So what I'm about to share with you is critically important to get a man to open up. And this is to recognize right off the bat that emotionally speaking, most men are infantile from an emotional level. They're in inept, they're emotionally immature. They're emotionally constipated. When you have the understanding that you probably have a better capacity at navigating emotions, we could talk about that. Why, for a moment, why this happens for men. I think it's important to recognize that ladies, you are the emotional leaders of the relationship. In fact, when I said earlier, women give their power away. It's because you're giving, you know, you give your power away because we have this this grand traditional expectation that men are the leaders of the relationship. And all you have to do is sit back in your feminine energy and just let him leave. Well, sure, back in caveman days when provider protector mean, you know, protecting you from outside tribes and going out and hunting for buffalo. Yeah, but we don't live in those times anymore. Now, in many cases, women do, you know, find themselves in dependency relationships from a financial perspective. And that means you have to put up with a lot of crap. But these days, women are capable of providing for themselves and to some degree, protecting for themselves. Because thankfully, we don't live in a world where there's constant wars going on, where there was the need for protection. OK, women are capable of taking care of themselves. Now, a lot of people will say that's the reason why we have ruined relationships because women are independent. And I'm here to say, thank God, women can support themselves because the minute you find yourself dependent on someone else to support yourself. You put yourself at their mercy. So it's great that we see a significant percentage of women that are capable of taking care of themselves. That's really great, I believe. But if you want, now we've got to deal with the men who are emotionally inept, emotionally constipated, emotionally immature. How do we get them to open up? Well, it starts, as I shared with you with the show, is to recognize that men are most likely emotionally inept. This is why you're the emotional leaders of the relationship. And I want to share with you a couple of things to contemplate going forward. First, have that awareness that you probably are a better instigator of emotions and read the book that I recommend, Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters. And I want to share with you a couple of notes that I wrote down. By the way, I can see the sunrise in my back of my head. So first off, as I said before, set an example by being as open as possible. You know, I know many men personally, friends of mine, men, were emotionally, you know, inept. Doesn't mean they're not capable of emotions. This idea that a man are emotionally unavailable is incorrect. It's just they don't have the tools or they haven't been with someone that can evoke their emotions. And I was thinking about a friend of mine, particularly, and he was in a relationship with a woman who continually expressed her emotions. She expressed her feelings. Now, she did it in a non-confrontational way. That's right, a non-confrontational way. When you're confronting someone, that can feel like you're chasing them. You're doing it wrong kind of thing. So there's a difference by setting an example, by expressing your emotions, how you feel about certain things within the relationship. I think one of the most important things we have to deal with this right off the bat is, you know, where is this relationship going? I think the minute two people decide to have physical intimacy with one another, this is the time to have these serious conversations. Again, in my private coaching, I teach you what's called radical honesty, pre-qualifying your prospect is one of the exercises we do. We have another exercise called improve your guy picking system, because many of you are picking broken men. And the fact is, is you have a broken picker. So again, let's talk if you need that help, but set the example. OK, number two, don't force your emotions on him. It's got to be a little bit at a time in this particular show. They recognize that much like a child, it has to be spoon fed to help develop this person's emotional capacity. Now, some of you are going, Jonathan, this could be completely exhausting. Yeah, it could feel like it's exhausting, but yet you're in a position when you when two people have a strong connection with one another. And I don't mean lust or limerence. I mean an affinity to one another when you're with someone who's intentional, who genuinely wants to be in relationship with someone just like this good doctor in the show. When you're introspective, just like this doctor, he's constantly trying to improve himself. And when you genuinely like someone, this is the person you should invest in. Now, recognize it takes I was watching Jay Shetty recently is saying that it takes about 40 hours of face to face time just to get to know someone at a basic level. And I always say it takes about 100 hours of face to face time just to build the first layer of trust. Getting to know someone is getting to know who they are besides being on the telephone, physically getting to know who they are. And I don't mean sexually getting to know who they are is critically important to determine. Do you have affinity for one another? Is this person intentional? Are they introspective? And do you genuinely like them? So let me continue here. Don't force the issue. Ask better questions. By the way, if you haven't read the book, Eight Dates by Drs. John and Julie Gottman, I highly recommend this. This already lays out great questions to begin with. And I would read this book before you have sex with a man and discuss chapter one of this book while you're in the getting to know you period, while you're in that building trust period. Ask better questions. Something I was I was reading an article talking while you're in the car. You know, these days, most people spend all their time on their smartphones, you know, on their smartphones, texting one another. But a great thing to do is get in a car, drive for an hour and have deeper richer conversations while you're in the car. Just something to contemplate. Now, I said you have to take his personality in consideration when you're choosing to be the emotional leader of the relationship and just recognize that where he's at a development level is probably different than your development level. Now, men will say men are more logical and women are more irrational. I do believe that there are a lot of women who can't regulate their own emotions that have clinical issues and they're with the wrong men because they're the wrong person. But for the most part, you know, you have to consider men are probably a bit more inept. OK. And you have to give him room to practice. In other words, you have to give him room to grow. You know, it's interesting. I get calls from many of my clients now that this this radical honesty is working amazing talking about these books early on in the dating process. I'm getting so many calls from clients saying this works wonders because they're choosing better men, men who are more apt to do this. The reason why a lot of you are chasing the wrong man is because you're choosing a lot of broken men. And in that brokenness, you feel like you can be the rescuer. And you end up being the enabler of trying to fix a broken man. That's why it's chasing. Folks, it's incumbent upon you to ask better questions early on to determine his capacity. Because this good doctor, as I haven't seen the end of the series, but it seems like his emotions do progress. Now, he's probably never he's never going to be at the level of someone who doesn't have this. But what he comes to the table is that transparency, that genuineness, that honesty and he's a good human being. There are plenty of men who are like that. And I know many of you are frustrated because you think there are no good men out there. And I invite you to start saying it's raining good men. It's raining good men. It's raining good men because there are a lot of great men out there. They just need a little bit of help. And I'm a perfect example of this. I wouldn't be able to show up for my partner there if it wasn't for a woman who helped open up my emotions. And it wasn't my mother. Mothers don't do that for men, for boys. It takes a woman to open up a man's heart. And it's how she does it is by leading by example. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know. Please hit that like button. Please share this video with your friends. So I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Post a comment below. Did this resonate with you? Please let me know. And we're going to wrap up this video as I always do. First off, I've given myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrett of self love. I'm going to reach into the camera and you give you a hug of love if that's OK. I'm going to ask you to turn to someone. Pat, 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. Thanks a bunch. Bye bye now. Bye.