 Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you've been investing in a relationship with a man only to find him pulling back, pulling away, starting to bread crumb and that sort of thing? Well, I suspect that this is quite frankly, I don't suspect it's quite frankly a common occurrence. It is a common occurrence. And I wanted to dive into this a little bit and share with you where I see that women make some mistakes. I think men make some mistakes and how you might want to approach this in the future if you find yourself where a man is pulling away. Now, let's think about the early stage of dating. When two people are physically attracted to one another where you feel a sense of chemistry, a sense of connection, oftentimes it's this emotion, it's not the emotional, it's the physical that's driving the bus. And in during this period there is a bit of emotional connection that happens between two people. When you feel like you're connected to someone. In fact, when I was preparing for this video I was thinking about the TV show, Love is Blind on Netflix. And this is an interesting dynamic where they feel there isn't a physical connection with one another, a physical attraction with one another. They feel an emotional connection with one another. So this kind of in some levels contradicts what I'm about to say but I want to tie this together. So just give me a second. So many cases we meet people out in the real world and it's a physical connection where two people connect. And then the TV show, Love is Blind, it's an emotional connection where two people connect. Although quite frankly these days a lot of people are connecting on that emotional level in the beginning if they're spending a lot of time talking on the phone or a lot of time texting. Okay, let's put this in a box to understand this. And then why would someone pull away if you've made this connection? First off, and a physical attraction is quite necessary to feel a sense of attraction for someone for a relationship to work out. That's a necessity. In addition, an emotional connection is required for a relationship to work out. It's important to have this emotional connection. The reality is is most people on the emotional level are only connecting on a surface level, on a surface level or worse, they're connecting at a trauma level, trauma level. And what I mean to say, especially for those of us in midlife, most of us have childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas that are unhealed. So when two people are connecting on a trauma level, what I mean to say is they're sharing their past experiences, how that may affect them. And it feels like emotional intimacy. I'm gonna repeat that. It feels like emotional intimacy. And why I say it feels like it versus it's true emotional intimacy is because when you're connecting at the trauma from an unhealed place, you might feel a bond with this person, but it's not a true connection because it's built on, I don't know exactly the word I wanna choose, but it's built on the negativity. It's not built on the combination of our pain and maybe our joys, okay? It's not built on it. So when it's built on this level of pain, it feels like you're really connecting with a person and yet quite frankly, it's still a weak connection because it's not built on the joys. Okay, so now we put this in a box to understand this. Physical attraction oftentimes drives the bus in most dating scenarios. In some dating scenarios, especially when people are involved in long distance dating or cyber dating, as I call it, they feel a sense of connection on an emotional level. And in many cases, it's based on trauma, building a relationship through traumas. Okay, so well, Jonathan, how's this, what's this do with pulling away? Well, the reality is, is a relationship also needs what's called the meat and potatoes, the meat and potatoes. And that is the day in, day out aspects of your life and the day in, day out aspects of his life and not the talking about the day in, day aspects, but the actual experiencing the day in, day out. This includes social activities. This includes hobbies. This includes spending time with family and friends. This includes traveling together. It is through the doing where two people bond with one another. And while you begin doing life together, you might find that you're incompatible. I know one of our members in the group posted how she's recently connected with a man who's a little bit overweight and physical activity is critically important to her. Physical health is important to her and he's not in the same space. And she asks herself, would this person fit into my life because hiking and walking and doing sports is important to her as an example? And she's thinking about that. And she might consider that this person might not be a fit even though he's a good man, okay? That's one example where there might not be a synergy or an alignment in certain areas of your life. The more complicated things that happen for those of us in midlife is that we might have contentious relationships with people in our lives. Maybe it's our children. Maybe it's our parents. Maybe it's the next spouse. And this contention might cause some friction in the relationship, okay? That's one component. What about personality, okay? You might find that you feel a connection with someone early in the dating process but as you get to know them, they might find your personality grating on them. They may find it on you. You might find it on them, okay? This is where the true aspect of a relationship begins to get birth is when you're in the doing each other and also when you're in that space of being vulnerable, being authentic and transparent with one another in the building of intimacy, okay? So there's the doing of life and then the building of intimacy. And why many men pull away is because there's some level of friction between the two of you on some level. It's a misalignment. We call it, he's just not that into you as terminology but most likely there is some level of friction that is unknown to you, certainly, might not even be known to him. He might be feeling something where he starts to pull back, okay? Based on friction. There's another reason why men pull back is the reality is sometimes love it's an unpredictable tangent. You might like a person, you might like a lot of things about the person, you might get along with them, you might get along with family and friends and such like that. But that feeling of love, it doesn't transfer to a feeling of love. Now, many people are confused about the feeling of love. They actually have a wounding from their childhood that makes them believe that when they're with a dysfunctional person that is love, many of us experience love attachment style from a familiar place that relates to our childhood that might be dysfunctional with this new person, okay? But let me bring this back to the point I was about to make is sometimes a man starts to pull away because he's not feeling genuine love for you, not the kind of love he thinks it's supposed to be. And this is where it gets tricky because some men have a grandiose idea of love, some men have a dysfunctional idea of love and some men have a secure idea of love. And it's tricky on your part because it might be difficult to ascertain where he lies. Okay, so I said in the title is, don't chase them, do this instead. Ladies, many of you believe if you give more to the relationship, if you make yourself more available, if you just giving more to the relationship, it's actually going to strengthen the relationship. And I'm here to say that many times you give more, you get disappointed because he's not meeting you with that investment. And I recognize that's a challenge. This is why it's critically important in the very early stages of dating is to have deeper conversations, deeper conversations centered around emotional intimacy real emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy, what does that look like? It's being vulnerable, it's being authentic, it's being transparent, it's being radically honest with one another, it's laying your cards on the table with one another. It's also establishing the rules of engagement which simply means what are your standards for a relationship and determining if he shares those standards. Many of you are unafraid, you are afraid, excuse me, to speak your truth. I'm here to say when you're with the right person early on, when there's just a bit of attraction for one another and then you build intimacy outside of that trauma bonding, you have a greater chance for success. Now some men are incapable of crossing over from liking you to loving you. These are men typically that have had significant traumas in their life, mostly adult traumas in this particular case and in many, well, I shouldn't say mostly. There are childhood traumas that makes them doubt love but there's also adult traumas. They've been hurt, they've been cheated on. Beware of the men who have been cheated on and beware of the men who have been hurt by women. It makes them very, it can be a challenge for them to cross over into love. They might like you but crossing over into that space of love. So what do you do in these cases? You read all the books I recommend. Why do I recommend book after book after book? And by the way, you can go to jonathanasley.com forward slash book recommendations to check out all the books I recommend. I share this with you because being better prepared prior to joining or prior to putting yourself out there puts the odds in your favor. That's what you should be doing instead. By being better prepared to be in relationship by healing your own childhood wounds and traumas by addressing some of the past experiences you've had that might have been unpleasant and coming to a place of peace with all of that that puts the odds in your favor. Because many of you are chasing men by believing that if you put more effort in it's gonna make the relationship succeed. And I'm here to suggest start from the very beginning in the dating process to build intimacy. So you have a foundation of real friendship. And so if it doesn't work out, it's gonna be okay as well. You can part on a very loving heart centered way instead of the calamity based way. It seems like it's happening these days. Is this making sense? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know. Please post a comment below. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. As always, if you find value in the group please tell your friends about midlife love mastery send them to my website, jonathanasli.com have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group. And I'm gonna sign up this video as I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrow of self love. I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm asking you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear pillow. 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 bye now. Bye.