 Hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Johnathan Assey of JohnathanAssey.com and I'm so excited to be doing this live stream for you today. Our topic, the four signs you can trust your boyfriend. And number three is a really important one. 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. Also, my coaching is what I call heart-centered radical honesty. It's direct, a little tough love and a lot of heart. Occasionally, I use expletives to enhance a sentence and if an F bomb or two isn't your cup of tea, I highly suggest logging off right now. Lastly, these are merely my thoughts, my opinions, my perceptions. By no stretch of the means, so I suggest that this is the truth. You have to decide the truth for yourself and I hope I expand your consciousness with what I'm about to share today. All right, let's talk about trust today and let's face it, trust is hugely important in a relationship and they say trust is something earned. And I've often thought is trust is something that you start with. And what I mean to say is you show up as a trustworthy person. In other words, ideally, wouldn't it be great if everybody showed up in the dating, mating or relating realm with a sense of integrity? In other words, they are showing up, doing their best and being impeccable with their word and not projecting on others and not vomiting their crap on other people. Wouldn't that be great? Because all those things create mistrust in a relationship and with trust, we can feel safer in a relationship. Now, you might have heard a moment ago, I said some things about being impeccable with your word, always doing your best. Well, that's because I think being a trustworthy person starts with the agreements you make to yourself. I'll repeat that, being a trustworthy person starts with the agreements you make with yourself. And why I'm leaning into this is because if you're not familiar with the book, the four agreements, the four agreements, I highly recommend reading this book and I highly recommend dating someone else who's also read this book because if the four agreements are the agreements you make to yourself, being impeccable with your word, always doing your best, understanding that other people's perception of you oftentimes is a project projection of them and also making assumptions. When we can eliminate from that in our life, we begin to start walking in, we start walking our life with a greater sense of integrity. And quite frankly, isn't this what we're really about? Because trustworthiness is a reflection of someone's character. Are they operating from a place of integrity? And let's face it, in the dating realm it can be rather confusing because it seems like so many people are mistrusting and most likely it's because, not because they're liars, not because they're narcissists, not because they're sociopaths, although there are people out there like that. I'm not discounting that. The reality is as most humans lie to themselves. I'm gonna repeat that. Most humans lie to themselves. We've created so many, our personality is like an onion. It's been layered upon layered over a thousand experiences in our lives that cause us to be rather kind of chaotic as human beings. I mean, human beings are emotionally chaotic. I'm gonna repeat that. Emotionally chaotic. I don't mean they're necessarily chaotic in their physical lives, but in their emotional lives. And so when people are chaotic, it's rather difficult to actually assess if you can trust this person. I mean, if they're chaotic on an emotional level. Ladies, speaking as a man, we men have a predisposition to think women are rather crazy because they can seem rather dysfunctional in their emotional life when it comes from the male perspective looking at women. I'm gonna repeat that. The male perspective of looking at women. So can you see why this is kind of a quagmire stuff? That when we look at the bigger picture, how can we determine if someone is really trustworthy to be in a relationship? And again, what I shared before would be the ideal scenario of showing up as a trustworthy person. You may have to check the boxes for yourself. So today I'm gonna lean into four signs to determine if the person you're dating is trustworthy. Okay. So I'm gonna put on my trusty glasses and by the way, these are my notes just to show you. So the four signs you can trust your boyfriend. Number one, he takes personal responsibility for his choices. He takes personal responsibility for his choices. Now, how can you really determine if someone takes personal responsibility for their choices? I think a great question to ask in the early stage of dating, centered around trying to get some indication of what happened in their past relationships. Let me repeat that. Try to get some indication of what happened to a person in their past relationships. Oftentimes how someone views their past relationships gives you insight into how authentic they're going to be in any future relationship, how honest they're going to be in a future relationship. And what I mean by, I said earlier, remember I said most people lie to themselves? Well, what I'm really piggybacking is how many people are really honest to themselves? How many people are honest to themselves and then reflect that honesty about themselves in the way they communicate. So great question, usually centers around trying to get some insight into someone's past relationships. Now, I told you, takes personal responsibility for your choices. So I'm gonna share a personal experience I went through just to illustrate this. I wish I had at the moment a male female. This is from the male perspective, but I don't have one right at the moment from the female perspective or from a woman's perspective. But I wanna give you something that happened to me. This happened some years ago. I briefly dated a woman. I think we went out for about six or seven weeks. And I remember our first and second date, I was just saying what happened in your marriage. She asked about my marriage, what happened in my marriage? And I asked her what happened in her marriage. And she said the marriage didn't work out because she was with a narcissist. I'm like, okay, I checked that box in my head. And I said, what happened to the last guy you had dated? And she goes, oh, he was a narcissist. And I'm like, what about the guy before that? Oh, he was a narcissist. I mean, literally she rattled off. She had went out with eight narcissists from the period of her marriage till the time that we had gone on her first date. Maybe not eight, let's just say it was five, okay? So I'm thinking, narcissist, narcissist, narcissist, right? And I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm not a narcissist. I'll be her hero, because that's not who I am. So sure enough, we went out for six, seven weeks and I just realized she wasn't right for me on so many different levels. While there was physical chemistry between us, there just wasn't a lot of synergy in the other areas of our lives and our values, our lifestyles and some other things as well. While I'm sharing this story with you is when we ended the relationship, guess what I saw on Facebook the following day? The caption read, just dated another narcissist. And why I'm sharing this with you is when she was sharing with me her past experiences, she pointed the finger all at the guy's fault. It was all her ex-husband's fault. It was every guy's fault of why the relationship didn't work out. And that should have been a clue to me, especially as a dating coach. So that should have been such a clue. What I thought to myself, well, I'm not one so I must be her hero, I can be her hero. What I should have been paying attention was the fact that she took no ownership in what went wrong in her relationship. Now, for those who know me know that I was married for 12 years, I'm gonna publicly say this, I take ownership for my part in the ending of the relationship. Quite frankly, I was rather naive when I got married. I was rather unconscious when I got married. I was rather selfish when I got married, not selfish like from a narcissistic perspective but I was very tunnel vision when I was in my marriage. I was more focused on getting the career going instead of actually being a good husband. I take ownership for what went wrong in my marriage. That's the sign of someone taking personal responsibility for their choices. And so a great question to ask centers around past relationships and finding out does the person take ownership on their part or not? Because if they don't, that might be a sign that this might be a person you can't trust or at least go deeper into intimacy because if someone can't take ownership on their part then it's gonna be difficult for them to take ownership when something goes wrong in your relationship. Okay, that's number one. Number two, their actions match their words. Their actions consistently match their words. As I said about in the book, the four agreements and the four agreements be impeccable with your word. Now the reality is, is we're all going to make mistakes. There's going to be a moment where you said you were gonna text at four o'clock and you couldn't make it till six o'clock or it might be that you're gonna call one evening and something happens. It's the exceptions and not the rules. If you're consistent with your actions matching your words, that's demonstrated being not only being impeccable with your word and also doing your best. And that's a great sign to determine trustworthy behavior. Actions consistently matching words. Number three, this is one of my favorites. I think it's like the most important thing. In the early stages of dating, in the early stages of getting to know someone is being what I call radically honest, being radically honest. And what that means is talking about things beyond the surface level of dating, actually talking about the emotional effects of what may have happened in your past relationships and talking about the emotional, talking about the deeper questions that I think is more important in the early stage of dating because before you give your heart to another human being. You know what's fascinating to me? Humans will sleep together and have sex together with almost total strangers. I mean, sometimes on a first date, on a third date, even the 10th date. You know, today's dating, most people tend to have sex somewhere between the fourth and 10th date. That's kind of the average. And yet, you know, really very little about the person because most of the conversation has been centered around, you like sushi, me too. You like stand-up paddle board? Oh my God, I do it every weekend. You like the Rolling Stones? My favorite band, I've seen them, you know, 10 times in my life. Oh my God, I know so much about you. That's not the deeper questions to be asking someone. I'm a big proponent of being radically honest right from the get-go to say something like, hey, you know, before we explore a relationship together, let's see if we're on the same page on what we're looking for. And I'm looking for a fully committed relationship that leads to getting married or getting married or living together. What are you looking for in a relationship? What does commitment actually mean to you? Whoa, wait, you can ask a guy what does commitment mean to him? Yes, you can, folks, and anyone. And by the way, this is how the person responds to radical honesty gives you a clue as to whether or not this is a person you can trust because people who deflect your radically honest questions. And I don't mean to vomit this stuff on the first or second date. I'm just suggesting before you really give your heart away and maybe before you give your body away to another human being. I don't mean you're giving your body away, but you give your body to another human being. You may wanna ask some deeper questions and how they respond to your deeper questions gives you insight into the person's character and actually gives you insight in determining if this person is quite trustworthy or not. Now, everything I've just shared to this point isn't an absolute, isn't a guarantee. However, let's think of it this way. If you operate the way most people date today that chemistry equals relationship success and that love will magically solve all incompatibility, you're living in fantasy land. Let me repeat that. You are living in fantasy land if you think chemistry equals relationship success and love can conquer all relationship problems. The reality is love can't conquer all relationship problems. Love is the icing on the cake when two compatible people get together and are actually more radically honest with one another from the early stages than hoping that magic fairy dust will transform an incompatible couple together. And if you're not familiar with my relationship iceberg, if you're brand new to my channel, show this to my Instagram group. Here's my relationship iceberg. And above the waterline is attraction and you can see at the tip of the iceberg is chemistry and below the waterline is compatibility which is shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. And as you start checking the boxes of shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity, the waterline begins to drop and you find yourself more and more attracted to this person from a long-term perspective. So when people don't share the same values, there's friction in the relationship. When people's lifestyles aren't blendable, there's friction in the relationship. And lastly, if there's a lack of emotional maturity, they're not grown up enough to be in relationship. This is why you have to vet for these things. And if you need some support with 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 teaching you how to ask the right questions based on your personality to determine if you're compatible with them and how to vet for emotional maturity. Check out the link below. All right, the fourth and final piece for today's broadcast to see if someone's trustworthy is transparency, transparency. If something is material to the relationship or potential relationship, then it's important to bring it up sooner rather than later. I'm gonna repeat that. It's important to bring it up sooner rather than later. Now, there's a lot of schools of thought on this because you might scare someone away being transparent. But let's explore this for a second. If somebody had an STD, when would you wanna know about it? Would you wanna know about it before you went on the first date? Would you wanna know it after the first date? Would you wanna know about it 10 seconds before you had sex? Would you wanna find out about it after having sex? You know, it's interesting to me. I think nearly one third of people who have STDs oftentimes don't tell the person that they're with until after they've had sex together. And that's not a very cool thing to do. So to me, if it's material to the relationship, it's important to be transparent about it. So let me give you another example. If a person was struggling financially, would you wanna learn about it after you've given your heart to them? Or would you wanna learn about it relatively early on? This is the tricky part. This is why radical honesty is a great gateway into seeing how truly compatible two people can be because I'll share with you all something. I was in a significant relationship back from 2011 till 2017, lasted six years on and off. We had our breakups in between. On our second date, I was radically honest with her. I was struggling financially. I was just building my dating coaching business. It was fledgling. I was in the brand new stages. I mean, I think my first year, I had only made 40,000 in income. Now, by the way, compared to most coaches, that's significantly more than 90% of the coaches out there. Even seasoned coaches don't make that much money and I now make five to 10 times that amount. But my point is, not that I gave the specifics to the woman I was dating, but I let her know that I was building a business and I was just getting started and I wasn't at the level I'd hoped to be. I wanted to be transparent with her. And actually I think I said this on the third or fourth date. Now, interestingly enough, she was dating me from the perspective of she didn't expect to be in a relationship with me. And however, the more radically honest I was with her, the actually closer we got together and the more she felt safer. Because isn't that what this is really about? So being transparent early on if it's material to the relationship actually builds deeper trust with someone. And when you build the deep roots of trust, if you do hit some bumps in the road, you're going to be able to navigate them a lot easier than shoving things under the rug. And that's not my invitation for you all. I'd like everybody to explore the dating, mating or relating process with a sense of confidence within yourself knowing no matter what you say, if it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. By the way, that's actually chapter nine in my book, what the heck is self love anyway? Because chapter one is if it's sincere and from the heart, or excuse me, chapter one is speak your truth do it with kindness, chapter nine, if it's sincere and from the heart, can't say the wrong thing to the right person. So all of this is my invitation for you to pay attention to, do they take personal responsibility for their choices? Did their actions consistently match their words? Can they be flexible and open to radical honesty? And lastly, are they transparent with you? Because if you find a person that's hitting off on all four of these cylinders, you've got a good chance of having a potentially trustworthy partner in your life. And I hope that helped today. If it did, please give me a thumbs up right now. All right, it's our live stream Monday here today. We are going to take questions. If you're listening to the recording, you won't be able to ask questions. This is only for those that are on the live stream, on the chat box on YouTube. So if you post a question, write the word question, then write your question thereafter, or you can purchase a super sticker and super chat to donate to, and actually all the monies from the super stickers, super chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor for those who know me, know my son Connor right there with my father. That was actually just taking a few months before he passed away. And the scholarship fund is his name and the monies in that fund go to defray the cost of personal development and also is given to charities like Hoffman Process and Insight for those who are seeking to improve from the inside out. So I hope that helps. Super sticker, super chat. All right, let's jump in and take a look at the questions. If you have a question, post the word question and write your question thereafter. And let's scroll up here. Lolita says, my neighbor goes to massage parlors while he lived in a friend's stay at place, unbelievable, very sad. I'm not sure why you shared that, but thank you. Sherry says, Jennifer, like and hit subscribe and notification bell. You wanna be notified when Jonathan goes live. Thank you so much. All right, if you have a question, oh, here we go. All right, Jennifer writes, question. Do you have a schedule when you go live? I set up notifications, but oftentimes I'm busy. So for those listening, my lives are Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, Monday and Wednesday at 4 p.m. Pacific Coast time and 3 p.m. on Friday's Pacific Coast time. Thank you for your question. All right, let's, do you have a relationship question? Post the word question and write the question thereafter. Catherine says, I agree, deep personal questions are so important. Yes. All right, let's see. Melissa, just first, just a super sticker. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I know we had another super sticker earlier. Sky says, I'm currently reading eight dates in self love. Look at the two books, eight dates in self love. Great books, by the way, there's a link to all my recommended books in the below, Jonathan recommends and also selflovethebook.com. Okay, Nicole says, question, how many dates would it be considered to be more committed relationship? How many dates would it be considered to be a more committed relationship? That's an interesting and great question. All right, so this is first where you have to decide what does commitment look like for you? What does commitment look like for you? Now, for those who know me, I share what I'm seeking in a relationship and I invite you all to do the same. I'm gonna recite what I'm seeking relationship because this develops your standard. What is your standard? So my standard is I'm looking for a relationship where we spend three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, team work building skills both in our personal and our professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy that leads to either moving in together or getting married. That's what I would like my relationship to look like. Now, let me be clear, that's not what I'm seeking on the first, second or third date, okay? That's what I want in the form of relationship. Dating, the purpose of dating is to vet the other person to decide if you wanna be in relationship with them. I better repeat that. Purpose of dating is a vetting process to decide if you wanna be in a relationship with them. So how many dates does it take to decide if you wanna be in relationship with them? How many dates does it take before you decide you wanna be in relationship with them? For some people, it could be as early as three or four dates to explore a relationship. For some people, it could be more, it could be 10 dates. For some people, it could be a few months. For some people, it could be six or seven months before they wanna explore a relationship. First, you have to decide what is it you want in a relationship? I just shared with you my standards. So if someone can't meet that standard, I don't invest in dating someone who's only available once every other week because for example, they might be raising children, they might have a demanding job. It just doesn't fit into the lifestyle I have for myself. So I invite you to come up with your standard. Your boundary then is what's okay or what's not okay for you. Ultimately, you gotta decide what does commitment look like for you? Now, to me, commitment starts with the agreement of monogamy and exclusivity. I'm gonna repeat that, monogamy and exclusivity. So to me, if we're going to have regular sex together, I would prefer it to be monogamous. I repeat that, if we're gonna have regular sex together, I would prefer it to be monogamous. And if we decided to have regular sex together, I also, for me, I wanna be exclusive with that person, meaning I don't want to be dating other people. And if they feel the need to date other people, then that crosses one of my boundaries because if I wouldn't want someone to do something, let me, how do I say this properly? If not, I'm not saying someone has to not stop dating other people, but if I'm going to agree to stop exploring the idea, exploring, see, again, if you're exploring a relationship with one person, but you're saying, no, I need to date other people so to keep my options open, when you've decided you wanna explore a relationship, to me, that's the agreement of being exclusive together. And that's really the first stage of commitment. And roughly these days, it takes about 100 hours of face-to-face time, 100 hours of face-to-face time to really get to know a person that's stage one. So if you've seen each other once or twice a week over the course of about six to eight weeks, you're probably gonna accumulate close to 100 hours of face-to-face time. And hopefully you've asked really good questions to determine if you're compatible. You've asked really good questions to see if your lifestyles are blendable. You've asked even better questions to determine if they're emotionally mature. And at that point, you may wanna explore a committed relationship. Now, that's the way I operate. Everybody has to decide for themselves what that means to them. The reality is is most people today are dating very casually without any intentionality. I'm gonna repeat that, they're dating casually without any intentionality. And I think this is one of the reasons why we're seeing this proliferation of starts and stops, starts and stops, starts and stops, relationships that take off like a rocket and then crash down to earth because they run out of gas, because there's a lack of intentionality. And it's because many of you, especially women, hyper-focus on the idea that men are the leaders of relationship and all you have to do is sit back in your feminine energy and everything will just magically work out because it'll clean you. Like really, folks, a relationship is a two-lane street. It requires mutual effort to have any chance for success. Yes, they're the exceptions to the rules, but the problem with the one up, one down dynamic, meaning the men are in charge of the relationship and you're the follower, is that you're basically at his beck and call of how he wants to do things. And if you're not on the same page, that's gonna create a lot of drama. And quite frankly, do you want a man in charge of your relationship destiny? God, I hope not. I hope everybody here wants to be in charge of their own relationship destiny. Folks, if when the number one search term for women is why are men commitment phobic, why do men ghost, why do men disappear? Maybe that tells you, you don't wanna give the job to the demographic that tends to be the one that doesn't want, I'm not saying men don't want relationship, but if they're struggling with it, I invite you to be in charge of your relationship destiny. So to come back to your answer your question, when does commitment happen? You have to decide that for yourself. I've just laid it out to you how I operate. And my hope is by what I shared, you might get some insight in coming up with your own answers. Are you willing to come up with your own answers? If you have, please post a comment below, I'd really appreciate it. And if you need some help in learning how to ask those questions, yes, schedule that free discovery call with me to see if working with the coach is right for you, it's in the link below. All right, great question. I wanna thank you so much, Nicole, for that question. All right, the sunshine fee, right, question. If a man says he doesn't wanna get married anymore and it's your wish to get married in the future, should one cut off the relationship? If a man says he doesn't wanna get married. Okay, so this is a great question and this is really important for those of us in midlife. Okay, so let me just say why that is. So the thing is most folks in midlife, which I say midlife is after baby making years and before retirement, roughly 75% of singles who are actively looking for love in this age demographic are divorced. And a lot of people right after divorce are very reluctant to ever wanna get married again. I'm gonna repeat that, people that have just come off of divorce are very reluctant to get married again. I know after my divorce, it was a good five, six, seven. I said, I never wanna get married again, I never wanna get married again, I never wanna get married again. And now it's funny because now I so wanna get married, but it's been 15 years since the ending of my relationship. So one is oftentimes people that don't wanna get married, it's because they had a really bad experience in their marriage. Now that doesn't mean that they may not change their mind at some point, but I think ultimately what you might want to find out is why they don't want it to get remarried, why don't they wanna get remarried? Because if someone is really reeling from pain in their past marriage, it's understandable. I was reeling with a lot of pain from my marriage, the divorce in it of itself, because I want you to think about it. Divorce is an unraveling of the tapestry of an old life. And then you have to learn to create a new tapestry on your own. And a lot of people just go right back together with someone else. We human beings are rather codependent. In fact, if you're not familiar with the book, Codependent No More, people oftentimes gravitate to new relationships very quickly without healing from their past relationships. That doesn't mean that they wanna get married, I'll show the book one more time, Codependent No More. Doesn't mean that they may, just because someone wants to get into a relationship right away, doesn't mean they wanna get married. So going back to the original question. First off, you wanna get a sense of how far have they healed from their past relationship and what's causing them to be reluctant. I know my friend says, one of my dear friends says, what's the point of getting married if I'm not gonna share assets with someone? And that's a really good point. Ultimately, marriage is going to be about a commingling of assets. This is why I said to you earlier, I'm looking for myself, I'm looking to either get remarried or live with someone at some point because I don't wanna have a relationship where we're living in two separate houses. Now, some people can do that. Some people can live in separate homes and carry on for years in a relationship. Now, as I just said that, some of you might be thinking long distance. Let me just be clear about something. It's fun to do long distance when you're young and you have the energy, but I just want you to think 10, 15 years in the future. Do you wanna be constantly getting on a plane to see each other? At some point, if you're not either moving towards getting either in the same home or at least live close to one another, relationships are very problematic because how can you be there for a person during the tough times? For example, later today, I'm a dear friend of mine. She needs a ride home from the hospital and her boyfriend can't make it. Now, I happen to be a dear friend, okay? And she's blessed to have that, but her boyfriend does it nine out of 10 times and I just happen to be there. That's what proximity can do for you which is very difficult to do when you have distance involved but that's a whole nother conversation. I'm going off on a tangent. Anyway, go back to your original question. What was the question centered around marriage? Listen, you've gotta decide for yourself. Just because someone says they don't wanna get married, I at least ask a few more questions to determine if you're on the same page or not. And if you are, you may wanna explore it if you're not, you may wanna move on. Great question, sunshine. Thank you so much. All right, I saw another super sticker a moment ago. I wanna thank Nicole. Nicole, thank you. You're very welcome. I wanna thank Tim for the super sticker. By the way, if you purchased a super sticker, super chat, I'm so grateful. Thank you so much. Okay, Elaine says, question. Do you have to be exclusive to build a relationship? Do you have to be exclusive? Okay, so folks, everybody has a different opinion. I know a lot of dating and relationship coaches suggest dating multiple people. But I want you to think about dating multiple people. Okay, if you're dating three or four guys, and the guy is dating three or four women. First off, when do you have enough time to date multiple people? Now, I wanna differentiate between meeting people and dating people. Meeting people and dating people. So let's differentiate this. First off, listen, if you meet someone and you never see him again, that's just a meeting. If you meet someone on a Monday, never see him again. You meet someone new on a Wednesday and you never see him again. You meet someone new on a Thursday or Friday and never see him again. That's not dating three people. That just happened to be meeting three people in a given week. Now I want you to change this scenario. You're actively dating three people at the same time. How much, so in the other person, let's just say the guy isn't dating multiple people. Let's just go with that for a second. All right, he calls you up and says, hey, what are you doing Thursday night? You know, one of the guys, this guy says. And you go, well, I've got plans somewhere else. And he's like, oh, that sucks. Okay, and then, you know, that guy, okay, let's say the one guy calls you up on Friday and what are you doing? You've got something else going on because you're dating multiple people. Well, you might be missing out on a great guy who goes, look, you don't seem to have time to be in a relationship with me. So that's one of the challenges. Now I know a lot of coaches will tell women to date multiple people so they don't get attached to the wrong guy. Let me think about this. If you have a propensity to get attached to the wrong guy, maybe you might want to heal the wounds that cause you to get attached to the wrong guy. For example, a lot of women get attached to the bad boy and the player. I'm gonna repeat that. They get attached to the bad boy or player. There's predominantly two reasons why this happens. And if you're not familiar with the following two books attached by Amira Levine and Rachel Heller and Getting the Love You Want by Harbell Hendricks and Helen Hunt, okay? While you want to read these books as first, love attachment is when you get biologically attached to another human being based on three attachment styles, anxious, avoidant or secure, okay? So we can actually be attached to the wrong person because of a childhood wound that happened in our lives that causes us to get attached to the wrong people. In addition, Getting the Love You Want talks about the amago, the amago. So what the amago is all about is we oftentimes choose partners that are very similar to one or both of our parents and in their personalities. And usually the unhealthy aspects are one of both of our parents. So here's the thing, you're dating multiple people. You're not really paying attention. You get attached to the wrong person. You let go of a great person because you're dating multiple people and he loses interest in you. And then where are you left? One or two years down the road, heartbroken. I'm a big proponent of dating one person at a time once you've agreed to explore a relationship together. And again, most men who are genuinely serious about seeking a life mate, a partner in their life actually make time to date only one person at a time. So I think as a common courtesy, you wanna also date one person at a time. That's just my belief system. Everybody has a different opinion around this. You have to ultimately do what's right for you. I do wanna caution everybody on this because of the internet, because of swipe dating. We are in a unique period in our lives where we have this thing called perceived choice, perceived choice. In other words, because we have this belief that there's so many choices because we can swipe, we have actually now been desensitized by human beings. And if you're not familiar with the TED Talk, the paradox of choice, I'm gonna say it slowly, the paradox of choice, the paradox of choice. It's a TED Talk. I highly recommend checking it out. That 20 minute TED Talk will give you some insight. It has nothing to do with dating, but it has everything to do with the problem we have of dating, it's not dating at all, but the fact that this belief that we have all these choices. And let me just tell you this folks, you may miss out on a great guy because you're dating multiple people and you get hooked with the wrong person and you might let go of a great person because you're spreading yourself too thin and I'm not a big proponent of that. Look it, it only takes three weeks to decide if you like a person. If you see each other once or twice a week, over three or four week period of time, you'll ultimately know whether or not you wanna explore a relationship with them. And if you followed my principles in this conversation about being radically honest in the get-go, you might avoid the need to date multiple people to protect yourself. And again, folks, if you ever have to date from protecting your hearts, then you're already setting yourself up for failure because protecting your heart puts up a wall. I'm a big proponent of having an open heart, knowing yourself, having that self-discipline, knowing that you won't get attached to the wrong person because you've done the inner work to get there. And if you need some help doing the inner work, I highly recommend doing the Hoffman process, the Hoffman process. This is a great book to really heal the childhood wounds and traumas that cause us to choose the wrong people in our lives. This is a 50 hours of worth of work and I think every one of you is worth it. So that's my thoughts on dating multiple people at a time. When you come from a healthy place within, you hold space for the right person to come in your life and then you only need to date that one person and state in multiple people to protect your heart. Hope that helps. Thank you so much for that question. All right, let's go swimmin', let's go swimmin'. Okay, Judy says, question. Dating man for about six weeks and he definitely copied and pasted me in his future. Is this too soon or a good sign? I love this, copy and pasted me. For those who are not familiar with the work of, where is she? Allison Armstrong, Allison Armstrong. She's a very sweet friend of mine. She wrote the book called The Queen's Code. One of the things she talks about is what she calls what men do is cut and paste a woman into their life. Now I have a different terminology. I call it future rising or try it on for size. And I can't tell you, when a man is excited, when we like somebody and we're excited, we are amped up on lust and limerence. And for those of you, everybody knows what lust is. That's where I wanna fuck your brains out. And limerence is extreme infatuation. When I feel extreme infatuation, I'm like, matter of fact, if I have a wedding to go to, I'm like thinking, how can I get her on the guest list? If I've got a trip planned, I figure how can I get her to go with me on that trip? If I've got an event to go to, I'm like, oh, how do I get that person to go with me? And I start describing it. And this happens very early on. This is because men, when we like someone and when we're enthusiastic, we wanna try it on for size to see if this person can fit into our life. That's a great sign when a guy does that. Now, for some of you, that might feel like he's coming on too strong. I'm gonna repeat that. That might seem like he's coming on too strong. And yet some of the nicest high value, high quality men do this. So is it a red flag that he might do it? And I know that wasn't the question. Red flags merely mean ask more questions. Just recognize this, ladies. When a guy is excited, that's a good thing. If he's more focused on the sex, that's not a good thing, okay? But when he's excited, that's a good thing. That doesn't mean you two are right for each other. It doesn't mean that you're the right relationship for one another, but that's certainly a good start. Don't we want to be excited? Don't we wanna get enthusiastic? Don't we want, by the way, women used to do this all the time. They would be going Catherine Asley, Sharon Asley, Tammy Asley, trying out my last name on for size. Although my last name's a pain in the ass to say. But so it's very common to feel and want those things. So cut and pasting, I call it trying it on for size or futurizing. It's a very common thing men do. I just consider that a yellow flag, not a red flag, not a green flag, it's just a yellow flag. It just means, when I say yellow, it means he likes you, but be a little careful because we can like you and then not like you later, okay? And this happens too, because not everybody is compatible with one another. Not everybody shares the same values, has blendable lifestyles or emotional maturity. All right, great question. Thank you so much for that one. I really appreciate it. I want to thank Tin for the super sticker as well. All right. Bum, bum, bum. Carol says, thank you for the coaching. The seasoned man that I thought was a good match had threwed my interest in me, found out he wasn't transparent. Thank you again for the coaching. You're very welcome. Okay. All right, question. Jennifer says, do you think never married men in their late 40s and 50s will ever want to get married? Single forever, great question. So there seems to be a significant percentage of men and women in their 40s and 50s and 60s who have not gotten married. It's an, I say significant percentage. It's still probably only about 25% of the population have reached that point where they're 50s, where they're not married. I heard in a long enough timeline, 90% of the population gets married. So that's an interesting statistic there. So for those ones who haven't gotten married, there's still a 50-50 chance that they might. I have a friend of mine who didn't get married until he was 45, had his first child at 48 years old or 49, no, no, 49 years old. So it's certainly possible. Here's the way I look at it. Okay. Someone who's been married and divorced, what makes them any better candidate to be in relationship? What if they've been married two or three times? What makes them a better candidate to be in relationship? I mean, they've had relationships that ended. Well, by the way, a person who never married could have had three significant relationships that all lasted eight years. That's a pretty big deal. What you might wanna look for is what's their relationship history? Because tying the not-not isn't necessarily a guarantee of commitment. Let me repeat that. Let me reframe that. Tying the not means getting committed. Committed, like going to the hospital. No, I'm just kidding. Committed, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're capable of being in a relationship. And by the way, can you think about this? We have seen a proliferation in the last 50 years of marriages of 20 years or longer getting divorced. What does that say about our ability to choose good partners? You've been married for 20 years and got divorced? That number is huge. So that doesn't necessarily guarantee relationship success. Someone having been married before. Yes, they made a commitment once. By the way, think about this. And this came back from a previous question. What about those people that have been divorced that never wanna get married again? So you're almost in a catch 22. Think about that. A big percentage of people that have been married and got divorced don't wanna get married again. And the people never been married. You're rejecting them because they didn't make a commitment once. So here's the bottom line. Let's not focus on what their status was. Let's focus on their character now. Do that, and let's come back to the four signs you can trust a guy. Does he take personal responsibility for his choices? Does his actions consistently match his words? Is he, can you have radical honest conversations? And lastly, can you be transparent with one another? That's a better way to approach the dating, mating or relating process than whether or not they've been married before. Because let's face it, a big percentage of the divorce crowd don't ever wanna get married again. So I gotta scratch my ear. Sorry. All right, great question. Thank you so much. All right. Theresa says, gotta go Jonathan. Tune in next time. Thank you so much. Nicole says, that's cool. Thank you. Nicole says, I'd rather date a great guy just to know him first than dating multiple guys. I'm the same way. Thank you. Well, dating women anyway. All right. Let's go swim in. Let's go swim in. Coffee, coffee, coffee has a question. The guy I've been dating for six months told me he killed a nuisance stray cat on his property. In your opinion, is that a deal breaker? Whoa. I don't even know how to respond to that. You know, everybody, you have to, well, the thing is, I wouldn't ask Jonathan that question as a deal breaker. I would be asking myself, how do you feel about that? Was there a good reason for doing it? I'm not a big proponent of that. I would prefer somebody capture it and give it to SBC. What's the place you go to stray dogs and cats? I suspect that person had a reason behind it. But ultimately, you've got to decide that for yourself. That's not something I find very attractive, but everybody has their own points of view on things. You know, I would certainly want to find out what was his true reasoning about it, try to get a sense of that person's personality. I do appreciate that he was honest and he told you about it. That's something that's at least a good sign of trustworthiness that he shared that with you because some people might be reluctant to share that with you. So that's in that sense, it's a good sign, but you have to decide that for yourself. I don't know if that'd be a deal breaker for me, but I'd certainly be going, hmm, what else have they killed in their life? I'm just kidding. I've killed ants, I've killed flies, I've killed lots of things, but I haven't killed an animal like that. Although I, look, I eat meat, I eat chicken, you know, so things, I don't know. I'm going off on a tangent here. That one, you have to decide for yourself. But thank you for the question, coffee, coffee, coffee. Honestly, I just didn't know how to answer that. Julia Asley, nope, won't work. Jonathan sounds like a backdoor buddies. Nope, nope, nope, you're funny. All right. All right, let's see what questions we have. Post the word question or purchase a super sticker, super chat. Jennifer says, thank you for answering my question about marrying late in life. I'm interested in 51 year old, never married man, great guy, he's been engaged, but ended it. Then I would just keep going. Again, divorce men aren't necessarily any greater guarantee that they're gonna want a relationship. All right. Sarah says, what does it mean when a man says another person says they're going to get married to you as they're talking to you? What does it mean when men say another person says you're going to get married to you? I don't understand that. So since it wasn't a question, we're gonna pass on that one. All right, let's see. If you have a question, post the word question. It makes it easier for me to find, oh, here we go. Joy says, question. It's been 10 years now since my fiance ended things. He's single now. His daughter says he wants to contact me. I don't know why. We ended on a bad note. I moved out west, unsure what to do. Wow, that's an interesting question. So if I understand correctly, the daughter reached out to you saying he wants to speak to you. Here's my feeling on this. While the door, while the relationship is over, we still have an energetic connection to the people that we've been intimate in our lives. Certainly if we've been intimate, both physically intimate and emotionally intimate, we have kind of a tether with these people. And oftentimes for some people, there's unfinished business. For some people, there might be a need for closure. For some people, they might want to share an apology. Isn't it interesting? One of the things in the 12 step program is to make amends. And sometimes when we've gone through a period of time, like 10 years in this particular case, maybe there's been some emotional growth on his part and he wants to make amends to you. Now, you may not feel comfortable in having that conversation. That's okay. That's a boundary you can set for yourself. And if you set that boundary, I'm not interested in engaging in a conversation with you, then that's okay. He doesn't get a chance to make his amends or maybe he can make his amends in writing to you, which a lot of people do, is they send a letter making amends and that way it doesn't create that uncomfortable conversation if you're talking face to face or over the phone or FaceTime or that sort of thing. So in this particular case, you've got to decide what's right for you. I'm here to say most likely, there is this tether from his part or from your part that has the two of you connected. There might be some unfinished business. There might be the need to make amends. That's just one of the possibilities. If you have love in your heart and you know that you are loving on yourself, then it doesn't matter what he says, you feel in your sovereignty, your self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence, it's okay. Or you can pass on it, that's okay too. You just got to decide for yourself what's right for you. Enjoy, that was a great question. Thank you so much. All right, jazz mom says, question, I'm 35 and started dating a man 10 years younger. What's your thoughts or concerns on dating a younger man? So I once did a video on this. It's related to probably the over 40 crowd of women, but here's the thing about dating a 25 year old man when you're 35. I'm thinking of my son, where's Colin? There's a picture of him, he just turned 25. I hope to God, I mean, he just started dating someone. I'm praying for him, I'm praying for him, I'm praying for him. And what I mean to say is I hope it's something that has some potential because he seems like this great person. Here's the thing. Some men like my son Colin are very mature old souls. They might be, make good candidates for someone older. In fact, they might be better candidates to be with someone older from their perspective. A lot of young women for men that age are rather immature for men who are old souls and who are quite mature. So I'm a big proponent of that. If this person is rather an old soul or rather mature, it might work out fine between the two of you. The only thing is if you're past your baby making years, here's where it becomes problematic. I would say someone 25 is probably not ready to have children, when I say emotionally ready to have children, until he's been an adult for at least 10 to 15 years of adulthood. So that puts him at 28 to say 32. And if you start getting to the point where it's difficult to have children, then the scary part is he may end the relationship with you to go find someone he could have children with. So that's one of the challenges. If you already come to the table with children, a lot of men that age have a very difficult time taking on the emotional responsibility that comes with raising children. Now you didn't state that in your question, but if you do, that's one of the challenges. A lot of younger men aren't able to take on the emotional responsibility of someone else's children. It's hard enough to take responsibility for our own children, but someone else's children as well. So these are some of the things you might wanna consider. But on my gut, if he's an old soul and rather mature for his age, might be a good fit for the two of you. All right, great question. Thank you so much. All right. Oops. Again, you can purchase a super sticker, super chat to say thank you for the work I'm doing. That would really, I would really appreciate that. And again, the funds go to a scholarship fund. Here's our next question. How do you discover that men have held from their divorce? I don't wanna be their, or healed. Okay. How do you discover that a man is healed from their divorce? I don't wanna be the rebound or fun girl. Great question. So I wanna tell you the story about when after I, my now ex-wife and I decided to split up and I put myself out on the dating sites. In fact, it was six months into the dating process. And I was on Yahoo! Personals. Does anyone remember Yahoo! Personals? So I was on Yahoo! Personals and then eventually became match.com, or was it AOLpersonalsbecamematch.com? But on Yahoo! Personals, I met a woman and she said, how long have you been divorced? I said, well, I'm actually been separated five months. And she said, reach out to me in a year and a half, or excuse me, 18 to 24 months after your divorce and after you've had one to two transition relationships. I'm gonna repeat that one to two transition relationship. And I wrote her back. I go, no, no, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready to be in relationship. Sure enough, a few months later I met this fantastic woman, great woman, three months into the relationship. I so wasn't ready for anything serious. And we ended it. That was my first relationship. And then about a year later, I had another relationship and I realized I so wasn't ready. And I was dating a lot. I mean, I was having some, I was serial dating and casually dating, but I realized I wasn't capable of a serious relationship. And then sure enough, two years later, that woman who I mentioned wrote me the message saying, reach out to me after 18 to 24 months or one or two transition relationship. This is when I actually became a dating coach at this time. I wrote her back and I said, I finally get what you meant. You are so right. I so wasn't ready for a relationship shortly after my divorce. I needed one or two transition relationship just to get a sense of my bearings. And quite frankly, the divorce was contentious. And the last thing you want is to deal with someone when they're going through a contentious divorce. So my feeling is this. It's very risky to date someone who hasn't healed from their divorce and hasn't healed from their dating process. So folks, I've been on a journey since my divorce for 15 years now. I've had a couple of relationships, significant. Well, I've had one significant relationship, a couple short-lived relationships. And a lot of that time I've been working on myself, a lot of work on myself. In fact, some people might be wondering why you're still single, Jonathan. Look, I've gone through a lot of trauma in the last few years of my life. My significant relationship ended four years ago. And then six months after that relationship ended, I lost my mother. There's a picture of my mom and dad. And then six months later, I lost my son. That's him caught it right there. I'm still probably healing from it. And there's fear in getting attached to somebody because I have a fear of abandonment now. I've been talking to my therapist about this. And while I feel rather secure in who I am, there's, I can't say that I'm not feeling a sense of fear. Have I fully healed? I don't know if I ever fully heal from the loss of my son. Does that mean I'm not capable of being in a relationship? No, that doesn't mean that. Healing is an ongoing process. What's most important is, are you catching someone? Here's the thing. I want you to think of they're going into the pit of despair. Are you catching them on the way down? Are you catching them at the bottom? Are you catching them on the way up? Are you catching them on the way out? I feel like I'm on the way out of the pit of despair. The tricky part is trying to figure out where they're at in this upside down belt, this bell curve, if you will. One of the reasons why I'm a coach is to help you ferret this stuff out sooner rather than later by being radically honest by asking tougher questions right from the get go, especially before the penis goes inside the vagina. You want to get a sense of how legit is this person? Healing is an ongoing thing for men and women alike. We're all healing in some way, shape, or form of abandonment, of trust issues, of fear. Everybody, the number one emotional health issue facing almost everybody is I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, and I'm not likable. So we're all dealing with emotional stuff. I'm a big proponent of doing work, whether it's therapy, whether it's personal development, whether it's self-help or spiritual work. It's why I wrote my book. It's a journey of personal development, self-help, and spiritual work. That's why I recommend all the time getting my book so you get started on this process. Do you have to be with someone who's going with therapy? No. Do you have to date someone who's going through personal development? No. Have they done some healing from their past? Those are some questions I'd want to have answered to determine if they may. And by the way, remember I started this broadcast off. The biggest challenge of all is most people lie to themselves. This is why you have to become a great detective, and this is why I teach everyone in my coaching how to pre-qualify your prospects. So if you need some help with that, again, schedule a call with me. All right, great question, thank you so much. Zenlife Balance, thank you for the 999 Super Sticker. I appreciate that. All right, there we go. Oops, wait, I'm going here. NJ says, I've been divorced for five years. I've had my two rebound dating situations, but most of the time has been spent healing and becoming my authentic self. Way to go, love that. Yay, all right. All right, we're gonna take, let's see. Ask the word, okay, here we go. Beth says, can we go for a latte next time on LA? I already feel like we're besties. Thanks for being so vulnerable and there for us. Oh, thank you, Beth, I appreciate that. Yes, for those of you that happen to be in Los Angeles, and if you happen to be in Redondo Beach, that's where I live, and if my schedule works out, there's a great coffee shop right up the way. I would be happy to treat for that cup of coffee if you happen to be in my neck of the woods and the timing works out, so thank you so much, Beth. Linda says, Jonathan, I understand you, Jonathan, you've been through. It's also doing so much better now, bless you. Thank you so much, folks. Listen, I don't preach anything I haven't done. The reason why I'm such a big proponent of doing personal development, self-help and spiritual work is because my hope is now I can show up as a better boyfriend, I can show up as a better partner because I'm more emotionally mature, because I'm capable of communicating my thoughts and feelings in a way that's seen, heard, and understood instead of dismissing my own feelings, but worse, dismissing someone else's feelings. When we dismiss our own feelings, we oftentimes will dismiss someone else's feelings, and at the end of the day, our feelings is what matters most in relationship other than the outside world, unless you are in the need to be in a co-dependent relationship where you need someone to financially support you, you might have to endure a lot of pain and suffering is the trade-off. I'm not a big proponent of that. Show up self-confidence, self-reliant with your self-esteem, your self-worth, do your best to show up that way. Not that you're fully in love with yourself, but you're working on yourself and find a partner who's already is doing the same, and you might have a greater chance for success than the way most people are dating, which they're winging it, they're winging it, all right, you know what? Let's see if there's one last question. All right, this is gonna be the last question of the day. Question, how do I lovingly release someone who's not in the same space and who you care about, but it's not progressing, hope to remain good terms and friendly? Great question. So how do you end a relationship? I highly recommend reading the book. Conscious Uncoupling, Conscious Uncoupling by Catherine Woodward-Thomas. By the way, I'm on page 220, I'm on page 220 in this book, me and my ex-girlfriend, you have to read it to find out. The idea to lovingly say someone is just, first, do the Oreo cookie, do the Oreo cookie, start with a positive, then share what, you don't have to share the specific, just simply say this relationship isn't working for me, and end with something positive. You don't have to go into full detail what's wrong. Now you may have to share some of the things that are going up, start with something very positive, give the filling, and then end with something positive. Read this book first and that will help prepare you, okay? All right, this is gonna be our last question of the day because it was a super sticker, so bear with me. This is our last question of the day, everyone. Question, why does everything written from women say to stand back because men only want women they have to chase? It's so confusing, I don't chase, but the do nothing and wait is confusing. Okay, hold that thought for one second, everyone. Unfortunately, this book ruined it for many of you. This book is a, the book, the rules. It's a manipulated way of approaching relationships. So the idea is when you create tension, by keeping space, by keeping distance, a man will chase you and chase you and chase you because there's this belief that from a biological perspective, men love the hunt, men love the hunt, okay? That's the belief system that men love the hunt and men are natural hunters and natural chasers. Now let's think about the word hunt. What were men hunting in caveman days? Were they hunting, I wanna be in a relationship, I wanna be in a relationship, I wanna be in a relationship? Were they fucking hunting buffalo, okay? And they were competitive with their friends, okay? And whoever shot the buffalo first got to go around, I shot the buffalo, you know, with my bow and arrow, I shot the buffalo. Hunting has nothing to do with whether or not your relationship is gonna be successful because let's get real here, ladies. How many times have you pulled back, guy chased you, he then hooked you, you guys had sex together and all of a sudden he stops being romantic, he stops being effusive, he stops being Dermont Smith. Chasing, there's this belief that if a man chases you and catches you, he sees you as more worthy. He sees you as more worthy. That's not worthiness doesn't come from that. Yes, men are competitive oftentimes with other men. Men are territorial, they'll claim you, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna make a great partner. So the reason why I don't like a lot of this dating rhetoric is because it temporarily hooks a guy, temporarily hooks a guy who is either emotionally immature or emotionally stunted or he's driven by his testosterone and not necessarily by the desire to be in a fully committed relationship. So I'm a big proponent for someone like myself. If you really wanna read a great book, thank you for the super sticker, I would read the book if the Buddha dated, if the Buddha dated. The idea here is to take out the bullshit narrative of penis and vagina or men and women and look at relationships from a spiritual perspective, from a heart centered perspective. That's the way I am encouraging everyone to look at, to look at a relationship like a two lane street. If he makes effort, you make effort. If you make effort, he makes effort. It's about mutual investment. This is one of the reasons why I love Matthew Hussie. I'm gonna talk about one of my contemporaries, Matthew Hussie. When you listen to one of his videos, he continually talks about mutual investment. When two people are mutually investing, you have a greater chance of forming a bond with someone other. You're mutually investing. If he's investing, and you're pulling away, he might temporarily capture you because he's doing it from an egoic space and not from a health centered, healthy, emotionally healthy place. So both mutually invest and then create a bond with one another. That's my invitation for everyone. I would rather you read this book than the book, The Rules, which is all manipulative and game playing. And that's what leaning back is to me is oftentimes a can be, I'm not saying is, but can be the idea that you're manipulating the guy to get him back. And that only works temporarily, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee longevity. And that's what I want for everyone is those longevity type relationships because they approach it as a grownup. And here's what I would recommend. I recommend purchasing two copies of the book, eight dates by doctors John and Julie Gottman. Two copies before the penis goes in the vagina, buy two copies of this book and read it together. These are eight great conversations to have to determine if you're compatible with one another. And that will go a long way to creating a healthier, happier relationship than leaning back. Who's with me on this? Can I please get an amen? All right, this would be a great place to wrap up today. All right. Folks, I wanna thank you so much for allowing me into your life today. Just as a reminder, the four signs the man is trust. What is it? Four signs you can trust your boyfriend. Number one, he takes personal responsibility for his choices. Number two, his actions consistently match his words. Number three, he's not afraid of radical honesty. And number four, he's transparent if it's material to the relationship. And those are great signs of trustworthiness. And I hope you start paying attention for that in the future. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Please post a comment below. I do my best to read all the comments and questions in the comment section. I wanna thank all those that you're on the live stream both on Instagram and on YouTube. Thank you so much. And I'm gonna wrap up today as I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic shot at the marriage of self 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 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.