How to Capture The Heart of a Good Man.

Show sincere interest in his life by celebrating his achievements and supporting him through challenges, remembering that small acts of kindness can leave a lasting impact. Ultimately, cultivating a bond enriched with trust and joy will not only capture his heart but also foster a profound partnership in which both of you can thrive together.

Good men crave respect just as much as they desire physical intimacy, so understanding how to show him respect is vital. Asking for his thoughts, suggestions, and ideas can make him feel valued; for example, you could say that you are contemplating how to approach something and ask for his perspective.

If you wish to be with a man you can look up to, building a relationship based on mutual respect is essential. This respect fosters admiration and trust, making it clear to him that he can rely on you. Expressing appreciation can be a powerful way to win a good man’s heart; acknowledging what he does will inspire him to give even more.

Men have a natural inclination to provide, and they often fall in love when they feel they are contributing to the happiness of someone they care about. When you let him know how much you appreciate his role in your life, he cannot help but open his heart and return that affection.

Regularly expressing gratitude fuels his sense of accomplishment and reinforces his desire to make you happy, as in his world, appreciation is invaluable. Your admiration can motivate him to evolve and reach new heights, and by regularly acknowledging his qualities, such as his intelligence, humor, and productivity, you will inspire him to embody the very best of himself.

This admiration instills in him a sense of purpose that goes beyond his individual aspirations, and when it originates from you, he will see you as an essential part of his journey, someone with whom he envisions a shared future. The gift of sincere admiration is remarkable, but it should only be directed towards a man you genuinely hold in high regard. When given authentically, it inspires him profoundly and encourages him to open his heart to you.

“When you start seeing your worth, you’ll find it harder to stay around people who don’t.” —Anonymous

About your value when it comes to matters of the heart.

First, let me say congratulations on being brave enough to lean into the discomfort.
Second, I need you to take three things away from this article:

However, when we question whether we have a sense of low self-worth, our answer will identify our perception of being worthy of love. If we perceive ourselves as unworthy, we can further explore the why questions until we get to our truth. Often, the truth is that at some point in our lives, love became conditional, inconsistent, or even obsolete. We received messages, whether from a caregiver, a loved one, a friend, or even our culture, that we must do, be, or present in some way that earns our value in love. These messages can be unlearned.

Using this logic, we come to understand that our inherent worth cannot be devalued, nor can it be increased, despite how much we try to win others over. This allows us to step off the rollercoaster of winning/losing value, and assess instead the value of our behaviors and to what degree they serve us. But the inherent value does not change… it didn’t in the past, it doesn’t in the present, and won’t in the future.

In other words, how one assigns value to others is set up long before they even meet us, and it will differ from one person to the next. There will be people who don’t take a liking to us, and there will be people who find us to be a kindred spirit – and yet our inherent value does not change… we are all worthy of love.

Of course, our search for self-worth and love from others is more complicated than what a single blog post can lay out, but next time you find yourself questioning whether you are worthy of love, try reframing the question and see what pops up for you. And remember – YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE.

I don’t feel it yet.

I know desire. It’s an old and dear friend of mine. It lured me into sex, into pleasure, and wanting. It tricked me into believing it was love. I was wrong. I hated desire for the illusion and destruction it brought. It destroyed much of life’s beauties for a while. And it still knocks on my door every once in a while.

I know control. A rather strict role he played in my life. He was sure to try and make everything follow a schedule. Everything had to happen as it pleased. It calmed me by making me believe I could and should direct all of my life. It did not just try to control my life, but also the lives of people close to me. And it too tricked me into believing it was love.

I know fear. A friend I hated but was always part of the parties anyways. It had many ways to disguise itself. One of its disguises was comfort. Making my belief that this was all I needed. It told me that I didn’t have to change and if I did that it was pleasant and comfortable. It manipulated me into believing it was love too.

Love had many forms in my life. But it was far from true love. It wore many faces, each in its own way distinct and destructive. But I want to know what love really is. If it isn’t desired, control, or fear what is it then? Are these things not love?

Hasn’t desire taught me that I cannot fill a feeling of emptiness.
Hasn’t control taught me that I can let go of the strings and enjoy what comes my way?
Hasn’t fear taught me that I am free to break from any belief I hold?

So aren’t these things actually part of love? Aren’t they good for us as long as we are empty vessels that do not reject, deny, or condemn anything? Shouldn’t we simply allow ourselves to be filled with whatever comes our way?

If our vessel wasn’t closed wouldn’t it mean everything was free to come and go? So maybe love isn’t what fills us, but the emptiness within us that is filled with joy, fear, kindness, anger, sadness, passion, and more.

What if love is the emptiness, the silence we all fear so much? Wouldn’t that explain why we fear it so much? Cause we have no control over it. It is free. It is raw and untamed and that is what frightens us.

But what if love is only the empty vessel for life to enter us? Wouldn’t it mean love is part of everything? Wouldn’t it mean life is love? And that means that everything we experience in life is one with love. It is what should happen. It is what it is. And it is beautiful.

Maybe that is true love and maybe I feel it for the first time in my life. It is free and filled with everything life can be. But it will never be filled, for the vessel must remain open. So that all parts of life may enter and rejoice as one. Maybe that is true love.

Love Does Not Diminish

I do not consider myself a relationship coach by any means. I am just as inquisitive as you are. What I know is: love demands nothing of us because it is an empty vessel to be filled. This is the analogy for life itself, where love is never wasted but recirculated.

For instance, is love unconditional for you? Or does it come with requirements? What happens when those requirements are not met, do you withhold your love for another?

How can we stop water from flowing in a river? You might say: build a damn. However, if the dam is not strong enough, the pressure of the water will find its way through or around it.

You’ve no doubt seen tsunamis on TV where entire villages are engulfed by water. Water is a powerful metaphor for love because it can enrich a person’s life, yet it can also be destructive if it comes with conditions.

Do we need love in our lives? What does love offer us in return? Is it intimacy with ourselves or knowing others better? It was St Francis of Assisi who once said:  “It is in giving that we receive.”  He viewed love as something to be circulated in order to permeate our lives and the lives of others.

Love is like the Sun that gives of its energy and asks nothing in return because it is self-sustaining. The more we give love, the more of it we have. It begs the question: what happens when love is not reciprocated or the other person ceases to identify with love?

If love is not returned, it does not diminish the other person’s capacity to give or receive it. The Sun goes down in the evening and there is darkness for twelve hours. Yet, with the break of dawn, it re-emerges bringing energy to sustain life once more. It is a cycle sewn into the fabric of life and so it is with love.

It is the one true constant in our lives that is bestowed upon us from conception. We are born into love and leave this life knowing love will continue to weave itself throughout the world.

The question is: have you dared to fully express love in this life? Have you given love freely and unconditionally? We ought to be like a sponge filled with water, totally wrung out when our time comes. We ought to fill our hearts with love and not withhold it for fear it won’t be reciprocated.

Where are you withholding love in your life? How is this serving you? Does it bring a sense of safety, security, or comfort? Are you willing to let down the barriers that impede the flow of love? Love needn’t be something expressed between two people but can reveal itself through our life’s purpose, our hobbies, and our attitude.

The kind of love we all want.

Real love.

You already know that you want to have a life filled with love — receiving it, giving it, feeling it, surrounded by it. But you also know that the “love” you’ve found so far isn’t quite as satisfying as you’d like.

It doesn’t fill you up.

It doesn’t make you whole or give you genuine and lasting happiness.

Maybe you’re confused about what real love looks like, but you want to find it, fill up with it, and give it to others.

Instead, we usually ask, “what is love?”

And that’s a brain-fryer because the word “love” is an impossible mess. I mean, you can ask a hundred people for a definition of love and get just as many different answers. So it can be confusing and unclear.

When we ask, “what is real love?” — it simplifies the question to elicit a disentangled answer — Real love is unconditional love.

There is little disappointment, impatience, irritation, or anger involved in real love — it isn’t temporary or conditional. With genuine love, people are not disappointed or angry when we make foolish mistakes. They don’t sigh and roll their eyes when we don’t do what they want or even when we inconvenience them.

Sound different?

Well, it is.

Most people have never truly felt and experienced the energy of real love.

In other words, the sacred kind of love you know and feel deep inside that you yearn to share with another.

The idea of real love may sound something right out of a romantic movie, particularly if you have struggled to maintain a strong emotional connection in your relationships.

You might even wonder if it exists at all.

You might have concluded that that kind of love belongs in fictional worlds and heart-tugging flicks like The Notebook.

Sigh.

I think just about every woman who saw that movie would have chosen to be Allie for a day. The way Noah loved her was utterly breathtaking, soul-stirring, and as rare as a wild Tasmanian Tiger.

You know, extinct.

Real love is not easy to find. It isn’t always easy to hold onto, either.

That’s because real love is about soul love, and soul love is, well, real — like an intense experience that activates in the heart and soul to radiate through every cell in your body — and awakening of sorts.

We’re talking about real love.

Authentic love dances to a different beat than the ordinary.

Remember how Noah and Allie couldn’t forget their connection even after years of separation? How the flame still burned intensely in each of them despite that coming back together seemed impossible?

That’s real love.

We, too, can experience that kind of love in our lives, but we have to be open to it.
An article published by Cambridge Community said:

I knew there existed a deeper kind of love in my heart and that it eluded me within that relationship.

Intimacy expert Joanna Shakti gives a great explanation when she says: “It means that you embrace, express, and embody — all of who you are. It’s self-love at its finest.

It means that you are who you are — warts and all, perfections and imperfections, strengths and weaknesses, and you willingly let another see you in all of that.”

When my second husband arrived on the scene, I knew that I was ready to invite more profound love into my life — I needed more from a partner. I craved to be seen, accepted, and understood by a mate; I needed more profound love and connection — emotional closeness and a soul-deep bond.

This MBG Relationships article nails the feeling:

When you think about it, to know someone is in love with you is to know their soul. It is to know without a shadow of a doubt that they love you without always needing to hear the words “I love you.”

So, what is real love?

Here are a few fundamental qualities to look for:

Emotional honesty in a connection is a feeling of alignment and intimacy between two people beyond surface-level conversations, physical attraction, or even intellectual similarities. Instead, it feels as if you’re connecting on a deeper soul level — and most importantly, you feel secure connecting that deeply.

Instead, you’ll want to treasure it.

In other words — their flaws.

Real love will love them regardless, if not more, for their beautiful imperfections and, at times, annoying nuances.

For example, my husband sometimes compares me to who I was during our earlier years to the woman I am today. He is right that I have changed. I might even drive him a little nutty with my ways and our differing opinions, though he doesn’t love me any less for it. On the contrary, his love for me has deepened over time.

Because that’s a hallmark of real love, it matures and strengthens as we change and grow and will always love you just the way you are.

It has no hidden agendas, self-interested or self-invested angles.

It is an easy flow of naturally wanting what is best for your mate. Their happiness is important to you. Even when it directly opposes your wants and desires.

Real love doesn’t cling, spy or distrust.

Example: From the very beginning, my husband always said that it would tear him apart if I ever chose to leave him, but that he would never stop me if that’s what I wanted to do.

Why?

Because he is aware enough to understand that love doesn’t mean ownership and that we have no right to control someone else’s life — married or not.

We all have our unique paths to follow, regardless of who we love or have loved. It’s a mindset that I have always admired about my husband.

Real love does not claim or dictate conditions. It just is.

On the flip side, you honor each other’s need for personal space and don’t feel threatened or jealous when the other person isn’t always within reach or available to catch an episode of Big Brother.

Truly loving someone isn’t about demanding all of their time.
It’s more about recognizing that it’s beneficial to give each other the time you both need to decompress and organize thoughts and feelings away from the world.

I crave my alone time.

Solitude plays a crucial part in my life. Without it, I’d lose my mind for sure. During my privacy time, I can process and sort through stuff like relationships, mounting obstacles or issues, the current world crisis, or unexpected interactions with others to gain peace of mind.

My extroverted partner respects that part of me and thankfully doesn’t feel the need to be in my pocket every other minute or keep an eagle eye on me and what I am doing at all times, as was the case with my first extremely possessive husband.

Research & Experts Say…

A 2011 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology surveying small groups of undergraduate students found similar results. On average:

That said, there’s no definitive amount of time it takes to fall in love that applies to everyone. Some people wait much longer to say, “I love you,” whereas other people swear they’ve experienced love at first sight. “Like most things, it does depend on the person and the circumstances,” licensed couples’ therapist Lexx Brown -James, Ph.D., LMFT, tells mbg.

Case in point: An 2018 survey of 1,000 British men and women found that while more than half of them take over three months to say, “I love you,” 32% of women and 29% of men say it in one to three months—and 10% of women and 14% of men say it in just one to four weeks.

There’s some science that backs up the concept: Some research suggests people decide within seconds whether they’re romantically interested in someone, and neurologically speaking, it takes only one-fifth of a second for the neurochemical reaction associated with feelings of love to fire off.

But other research discounts the theory. A 2017 study in the Personal Relationships journal orchestrated a bunch of first encounters between single strangers, and the researchers found feelings of instant attraction can indeed happen in a first encounter. Some people described these feelings as “love at first sight“—however, these people didn’t report feelings of intimacy, passion, and commitment as part of their experience. The main predictor of a “love at first sight” experience was finding the other person physically attractive.

In other words, romantic love usually cannot happen at first sight, psychologist and sex therapist Lauren Fogel Mersy, PsyD, explains to mbg. “There can be a strong attraction at first sight, but romantic love for someone requires knowing who they are, the fullness of their character.”

Don’t put pressure on it.

You can’t really force someone to fall in love with you, and it’s important not to put pressure on the other person to get there before they’re ready. “I would steer away from trying to do things to move the process along because it can easily become inauthentic and unsustainable,” Brown-James says. “Not to mention it can feel like a betrayal when one person feels that love is owed to them as a reward for behavior.”

Get vulnerable.

Consider trying the infamous 36 questions to fall in love, a research-based experiment that many couples say has helped them create feelings of intimacy. “What I really learned from the excitement around those questions and desire to have a person fall in love is that vulnerability is the key to building relationship connection,” Brown-James says. In other words, one piece of falling in love is being able to share really personal parts of yourself with the other person, to be truly open and vulnerable with one another.

Grow your emotional connection.

Having an emotional connection with someone means that you’re able to connect on a deeper level, beyond just having fun, physical attraction, or intellectual similarities. Being emotionally connected means you can rely on each other, feel seen by one another, and have shared feelings of romantic attachment. While you can’t make someone fall in love with you, you can find ways of deepening your connection as a couple.

Have fun doing the boring stuff together

Before it got awkward, one of her friends gave me the slightest of head nods towards Emma.

Ah, I’m supposed to kiss her back, I remembered. And so I did. A wild passionate romance followed, ending with a disastrous unpredictable breakup that took me years to understand.

Emma and I were distant coworkers at a famous hotel, but we flirted whenever our roles forced us to interact. I’d often make my rounds, purposely steering my way towards her department just to say hello.

Our relationship crossed a rubicon the day we started to hug and kiss whenever we greeted or said goodbye. At first, we’d kiss on the cheek, but that evolved into kissing on the lips. Inappropriate work behavior? Sure, but hey, this was the 90s. We were horny twenty-somethings working 70 hour weeks, rarely socializing with the outside world.

Despite our affection, we never saw each other outside the hotel. But that changed when Emma casually invited me to meet her at a wine bar one evening with some of her friends.

That was the night we not so unexpectedly kissed. We went home alone that night, but the fury of our mutual desire unleashed the following day.

Minutes after arriving at her apartment, we started making out on her couch, engaging in the most passionate few hours of my young life. We skipped dinner, going ten hours without a morsel before dragging ourselves to her kitchen for leftover Chinese food.

I left the following morning and called my roommate as I trekked home from her apartment. “I’m officially in love,” I told him.

We ended our brief tryst with a courtesy hug. It may as well have been a handshake given the deterioration of our feelings for one another.

What happened?

Both of us had mistakenly attributed our passion for love when it was really infatuation. Our intense feelings existed and disappeared as if we were under the influence of a drug, and when it wore off, we crashed.

When novelty turns to familiarity, the frenzy fizzles, and the relationship dies. For a small minority, a seed remains behind, something to nourish as it grows out of sight beneath the surface. With enough commitment, it matures and establishes itself.

I’m lucky to have fallen in love for real — just once, which turned out to be enough. It didn’t happen fast, like my infatuation with Emma. It developed bit by bit over time.

We were friends first, drinking buddies, running buddies but never intimate buddies. Our mutual friends had always schemed to get us alone, thinking that if they set the right conditions, magic would happen.

These stealth dates never amounted to anything, but all the while, those nascent feelings nurtured and blossomed underneath the surface until she announced her move out west, fifteen-hundred miles away. That’s when I gave up hope of any romance with her.

After moving on, I reluctantly met her for a drink. I was tired, but the bar was across the street, so I figured why not? We bonded over a few beers and then kissed outside a 24-hour diner at 3 AM. Storybook, right?

Two months later, she moved out west, but by then, our connection rested on a sturdy foundation; we survived the distance. That’s the difference between infatuation and love.

But sometimes, a remnant remains behind — a seed that can mature into love. It’s a slow process that develops and grows from patience and commitment.

To succeed, you must begin with the right mindset.

The pressure of making it work almost guarantees it won’t. Adding too much stress early on can break your relationship before it ever has a chance of succeeding.

That’s why it’s best to free yourself of expectations. The freedom to fail frees you. It’s easier to reveal your true self. You don’t feel compelled to impress. You allow your flaws to poke through your outer shell. By the time you cross the friend-lover threshold, they already know the real you.

Can you have fun together on a hike, chilling out at a coffee shop, or making dinner together? If you enjoy yourselves doing everyday activities, your relationship rests on solid footing. If you can’t find happiness doing the everyday humdrum stuff, the big-ticket experiences won’t save you.

When you fall in love slowly, the day will come when you both know it. And the best part? It feels natural. The passion and love overcome any awkwardness and jitters (usually).

Relying on destiny is complete bullshit.

You must take action to make it happen. Yes, there’s a chance the other person might not return your feelings, or maybe they get scared and run away. But love doesn’t come without risk.

Falling in love slowly.

I know. Who has time for that crap when you can just pull up a bunch of attractive options on a dating app? That’s not real love; it’s infatuation.  If you want’ the real thing, it takes time. 

It’s the most misinterpreted love language, and it may be harder for you to understand if it’s not also your own.

The purpose of Dr. Chapman’s theory is simple: if we know how our partner prefers to give and receive love, we can better help them feel loved.

If you and your partner have different love languages, you can find yourself in a bind if you don’t know what your partner’s love language is. You or your partner may end up feeling neglected and unloved.

Let’s say you prefer to receive compliments, but your partner prefers to receive acts of service. Gift of the Magi-style, you keep telling them how great their butt looks like while they just want you to carry in the damn groceries every once in a while. You are DYING to hear a “thank you” once in a while from them while they keep taking your car through the car wash.

Both you and your partner are showing your love to the other, but it’s not translating. You’re speaking a different language. See the problem?

Beyond showing your partner that you love them, you may also need to know some things about their love language for the why of it. “Physical Touch” is the most misinterpreted love language, and it may be harder for you to understand if it’s not also your own.

Touch, when meeting someone can be as easy as shaking someone’s hand or hugging them, but it can also be continual. If I’m chatting with someone and I sense I don’t have their attention or they’ve made me laugh, I might place my hand on their arm.

Sometimes my touching someone else has triggered my more insecure partners.

One of my partners lit into me because I’d touched a man’s arm twice. I’d known this man for a few years, and he was the husband of my friend. I was “obviously” expressing sexual interest in him, my partner told me. I’d “crossed” the touch barrier. The “touch barrier” being a term to describe the untold boundary between two people that once crossed can lead to…other forms of physical touch.

My partner’s reaction was very much about him and not me. He had been cheated on in his most recent previous relationship, so he was hyperaware about anything that might seem like pre-cheating.

Regardless of his issues, it still made for a not fun evening, and it took him some time to come to terms with hey, I’m just being a nice human and this is how I show it. It did also help that I reserved some specific types of public touches just for him (such as my hand on his waist or side).

You could fulfill your partner’s needs by holding their hand, laying your head on their shoulder, hugging, kissing, giving light massages, or even giving them a quick shoulder or hand squeeze. It doesn’t have to be excessive enough to make other people uncomfortable, but it does have to be recurrent.

Whenever we are walking somewhere, I want my husband to hold my hand, or touch my back or shoulder. We hold hands in the car or he puts his hand on my neck. I want frequent hugs, back rubs, and massages. Cuddle sessions while we watch TV or talk. I want him to hold my face while he kisses me, and bring on the make-out sessions.

While it may feel like too much, those little touches add up to make for you a very happy and satisfied romantic partner.

Whenever I am struggling, I seek out my husband to get a good long hug. He’s my anchor, and even if he’s the person I’m mad at, I still want and need his touch to know that he still loves and cares about me.

But I’ve also been in romantic relationships where a partner would withhold physical contact from me every time he was angry. It felt, every time, abusive and purposefully neglectful.

One of my exes would punish me by withholding touch from me for days. He’d recoil if I tried to hug him or touch his arm, and he’d sometimes take a few steps out of his way just to make sure our bodies wouldn’t brush against each other in the event we were walking past one another. As someone who feels loved and cared for when I am touched, I felt…hated and reviled by him.

If that’s not how you want to make your partner feel, then don’t be cruel. It would be reasonable for you to need an hour or two to take a breather, but not days. If this is a pattern for you and your partner, it’s not healthy and it’d be time for you to consider seeing a couples’ therapist.

While “Physical Touch” can be the most misinterpreted love language, it can also be the easiest. What could be more simple than reaching out to hold someone’s hand? It doesn’t require coming up with a thoughtful gift or taking time out of your day to plan something special. It just requires you to reach out and touch the person you love.

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Featured Image by: Morteza Yousefi on Unsplash

Do you have a mental list of what you expect and desire in a partner?

We often attract our partners in an unconscious manner that does fulfill what we want in a life partner. Sometimes it’s enough, while other times it doesn’t come close to what we desire. When you meet your soulmate, you know it. There is an undeniable attraction that goes beyond that list that has been mentally creating itself since childhood.

But what happens when some characteristics or qualities don’t appear in our partner?
 How do we know what to look for? 

Here are 11 qualities that let you know if your partner is your soulmate or not:

A healthy partnership has the ability to compromise without hurting one another.

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Featured Image by: Gustavo Fring from Pexels