In this episode of the Love Isn’t Enough Podcast, Joree Rose, LMFT and Dr. John Schinnerer sharing more dating advice they followed in their successful journey, along with the tips they give their clients on how to find – and maintain – the love you so richly deserve. While some of this episode is for those dating later in life, and specifically for those who are divorced, much of what they share will apply to anyone in the dating world.

All of this is a key foundation for building a secure attachment. After all, the most important decision you make in life is whom you select for a long-term relationship!

One tricky area for people newly dating is how to talk about sex – if you’re sleeping with others, STI’s or STD’s, and what your boundaries are; these topics can feel especially vulnerable in a new relationship, and yet they are very necessary!

Lastly, tune in to hear the #1 thing you need to know about yourself when out in the dating world. If you’re ready to attract the partner of your dreams, this episode is for you.

(In this episode, you’ll learn:

– the important green flags to learn to spot

– how to set up an authentic (and effective!) dating profile

– how to not get attached too quickly to someone you just met

– ways to ensure physical safety

– the healing work you need to do prior to getting into a relationship and

– how to vet someone to see if they have done their work.

 

Connect with Joree & Dr. John and Love Isn’t Enough:

• Website: www.loveisntenough.net
• Instagram: @loveisntenough33
• Subscribe to their podcast: Love Isn’t Enough
• Join our relationship Master Class series: https://loveisntenough.net/masterclass/

Connect with Joree Rose:

• Website: www.joreerose.com
• Instagram: @joreerose
• Subscribe to her podcast: Journey Forward with Joree Rose
• Join the Podcast Membership: https://joreerose.com/journeyforwardpodcast/ 

Connect with Dr. John Schinnerer:

• Websites: www.GuideToSelf.com | www.TheEvolvedCaveman.com 
• Instagram: @theevolvedcaveman
• Subscribe to his podcast: The Evolved Caveman

If this conversation resonated, here are a few ways to go deeper:

• Subscribe to the Love Isn’t Enough podcast
• Leave a review—Scroll down and click Write A Review. It helps more couples find this work
• Join our Monthly Relationship Masterclass on building an emotionally safe and thriving ‘ship 
• Work with us directly in couples counseling or coaching. Email (below) to inquire about availability 

 About Your Hosts:

Dr. John Schinnerer is a psychologist and executive coach out of U.C. Berkeley specializing in emotional intelligence, anger, the evolution of men, and relational health. He has worked with men and couples for over 30 years. He was an expert advisor on the academy award-winning movie, Inside Out. His online anger management class has taught over 25,000 people how to reduce their anger for a happier, calmer life.

Joree Rose, LMFT is a marriage and family therapist focused on emotional safety, attachment, and healing relationship wounds. she has focused on guiding women to greater life satisfaction and purpose and has written several books on mindfulness and gratitude. 

 

Full Transcript Here:

Dating Post-Divorce, Part 2: What Are the Green Flags in Dating? With Dr. John Schinnerer and Joree Rose, LMFT

Joree Rose, LMFT: Hello and welcome back to the Love Isn’t Enough Podcast. I am Joree Rose, licensed marriage and family therapist here with my soon-to-be husband… 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Dr. John Schinnerer, and yes, we’re getting married in about five weeks. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I know. So by the time they actually listen to it, it’ll even be closer to our wedding date.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Wild. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So it’s really fun. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: We’re going to be doing part two of dating post-divorce. And I actually realize this doesn’t mean post-divorce, it’s actually just dating as an adult. So I want to qualify that you don’t have to be divorced to be able to listen to this episode if you’re looking to date.

Joree Rose, LMFT: These are great dating tips. But the divorce part is when we talk about blended families and the challenge in doing that. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: What’s fun about this for me is we have been dating for almost exactly 10 years. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: A decade. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: It’s a long time. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: It is. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I like you more now than I ever did. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I like you too.

Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s pretty, it’s really encouraging. I didn’t think it could be this way. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah, and it is because we’ve done the work and we continue to grow. We continue to heal the wounds that came prior to each other. We continue to heal the wounds that were caused by one another. And if you’ve ever been discouraged about love, keeping love, maintaining love, growing love.

Joree Rose, LMFT: I hope we gotta be a role model that it is possible. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I think you love being a role model. Having what you’ve always wanted. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. I’m not doing that from a boastful place. I’m doing it from a place of earned pride because 

Joree Rose, Top Couples Counseling Near Me: This relationship, while I do believe we were meant to be, and while I do believe it was aligned in many synchronicities when we met, has also been really hard. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Top Couples Counseling Near Me: So I don’t wanna give the listener the impression that we met. Fell in love and it was Easy Street for 10 years. This is definitely earned love. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: What we have. An earned secure attachment style. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So in the last episode, we talked about a lot of red flags, what not to do when dating. And today we’re gonna switch it around and talk about green flags and different ways of how to know if you should move forward once you’ve met someone.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. And one of the things that I look for, and I think we talked about this last time, having that list and that great clarity of five must haves and three deal breakers, and you can pick a different number if you want. Those worked well for me, but I think to have the clarity of what you are looking for is a big deal.

Dr. John Schinnerer: To me, I was looking for things like. Emotional, even keel, like emotional balance. I didn’t want someone that was emotionally volatile, been there, done that. I wanted someone I could rely on emotionally and for the most part we’re human.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Counseling: That was a big green flag for me. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: One of my biggest green flags. One of the biggest was your education, your background, your career, because it was just so aligned in our values in growth, learning, and serving others.

Joree Rose, Top Couples Therapy Near Me: Not everyone we see a lot of our clients were helping support in the dating world. You don’t have to have a similar career to find similar values, but it just was a double hit for me, for us, that the shared interest also came along with shared values. And I find that can be a big challenge for many couples is a difference in values and difference in interests.

Joree Rose, Top Couples Therapy Near Me: And we got it wrapped up into one. Our first date was really just a professional volley game of things we learned and knew and who we had spoken to or been on retreat with. And that was incredibly exciting. Yeah, it was, I think for both of us. But underneath that, the values piece was a really, big, important one for me.

Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor Near Me: And the core value I wanted in a partner was someone who wanted to learn and grow with me. Because that was a big challenge in my marriage. What led to, a foundation of the divorce for me was I was growing and I wanted someone who supported that, not from the sidelines. But to be on a growth path.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Counseling: Yeah. And I think the other value that was mixed up in there is the value of serving others. 

Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor Near Me: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because I, it speaks to compassion, it speaks to magnanimity or large-heartedness. It speaks to emotional depth. And so that was a big one for me also. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. So what are other green flags that when you’re talking with your clients, you help guide men?

Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor Near Me: And I’ll talk about what I guide most of my women clients. And since most of my clients are women, I have some male clients I work with in the dating room as well. But what do guide men as far as green flags, aside from what you were looking for? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: One of the big ones for me and, really for others, for everyone is integrity.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Therapy: It’s honesty, it’s your words match your actions. And sometimes that can be more difficult to pick up than others. Sometimes it’s blatantly obvious. Like I remember going on a date where the picture just didn’t match the person when I met them in real life. 

Joree Rose, Top Couples Therapist Near Me: All had those? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Therapy: The age didn’t match the person when I met them in real life.

Dr. John Schinnerer: So if you find someone, if you have an initial date where. What they’ve told you so far doesn’t match with who they show up as on the first date? I would say run. Like it’s not even worth your time. Don’t even try to convince yourself there’s something there. You’re just starting off on the wrong foot.

Joree Rose, Top Couples Therapist Near Me: Yeah. I think one of the big ones that I hope women are looking for green flags in men. Is emotional awareness and communication. Which is a really sticky one because men aren’t socialized for this. If you’ve listened to any of John’s podcasts, a lot of our episodes, it’s not men’s fault that they’re not.

Joree Rose, LMFT: But again, many women are looking for men who have that awareness. To want to connect in a different way. The value for men to put on a dating app. If it’s true don’t just say it if it’s not that they’re in therapy, that, that shows women a lot.

Joree Rose, LMFT: A, if they are a divorce, it’s that they’re working on healing from whatever had gone on in the marriage and divorce. They’re interested in growth. They’re learning skills and communication. They’re having humility. They know how to ask for help. They’re learning. They’re growing. The list goes on and on for me, what that would represent.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, and I think the other piece of this that is significant to me is does the person have the ability to take accountability? For their behavior in the past? And you can see this in how they talk about their exes. If you get someone that talks about their exes and every one of their exes is crazy, every one of their exes is to blame for the relationship going sour, that they take zero accountability or responsibility for what’s gone on in the past.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Therapy: I would say that’s not a good sign. It is a good sign if you’re talking to someone and he or she can say yeah, my ex showed up this way. I had a really hard time with it and this was my part. This is what I’ve discovered or learned was my responsibility. Or I found out that I had an avoidant attachment style, and so I was showing.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Therapist: I was running away at times and I’ve been working on that and I’m looking to work on that in my next relationship. Like that to me would be a green flag. 

Joree Rose, Top Couples Therapist Near Me: Absolutely. Humility. Humility is a big one. Yeah. Humility there. I love, I remember one of our first dates, hearing more about your past and your divorce and not at all being like, Ew.

Joree Rose, LMFT: That’s how he’s talking about what went on and you had a very hard divorce. So I was able to witness, I think on date number three when we went for drinks, but not dinner. Here’s an interesting question. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: This is one I get asked a lot by clients and so this is a post-divorce related question, how soon?

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapist Near Me: Should I find out about why they got divorced, how long they’ve been divorced? At what point in meeting somebody new? Let’s say you meet in the first, like even you’re chatting, you meet online, you’ve been introduced, you’ve been texting, you’ve been chatting, things are going well, you set up a first date.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapist Near Me: What’s your opinion on when to find out the divorce details? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Therapist: I don’t know that there’s a hard and fast rule, but I would, my personal experience, My preference is, I would say within three, four or five dates. Yeah. Because it, post-divorce, I wasn’t in it to waste time. and, some of these things took time to learn.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Like I had to learn. How to balance my divorce story in a way that I was taking responsibility for my part in that and how to share it in a way that I wasn’t just coming across as angry and hurt. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And then that takes a little bit of work and some healing. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. Okay. So how do you want to share that? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Therapist: The other thing that took some awareness and some practice is I really began to practice radical honesty. Radical transparency. Yeah. I thought I’m just going to share my story as honestly and transparently as I can, and if someone doesn’t like it, they can opt out and that’s fine.

 

Speaker 3: information to have. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Counselor: I’m not trying to paint a facade of something that’s not there because again, that’s starting out a relationship with some degree of. Distortion, if not dishonesty. 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapist Near Me: You combine that facade with limerence, which is that euphoric feeling. We all get early on in a relationship in which we’re looking for a rose-colored lens. So you get the impression management creating a facade combined with limerence. That’s not the reality of what this relationship is starting off at.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. At some point, inevitably six months down the line, it’s time now. Who are you? Yeah. Because that doesn’t have you shown up in the past six months, but yet this is now your true self. Now you’ve got challenges in the relationship. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Counselor: Yeah, you can answer your own question.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor Near Me: That’s really why I asked it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I know. 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor Near Me: I don’t need to know the details of what went on in the divorce early on in dating, but I would say by date number two or three, I would want to know how long you’ve been divorced. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Counselor: Oh, good. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Because I really advise my clients against getting into the next long-term relationship, which is different than just dating, which we can clarify. True.

Joree Rose, LMFT: I advise them against getting into the next long-term relationship before the other person or your own divorce is finalized. For a handful of reasons. The divorce process, even in the best-case scenario, still sucks. It’s hard. It takes time. It’s emotional, it takes energy. You’re dealing with lawyers, mediation, custody arrangements.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor Near Me: It’s taking a toll. And if that’s what you’re in the midst of going through, that’s likely what’s in your consciousness to be talking about. And then you can be trauma bonding. And not really showing up as a whole separate self from your marriage and divorce. So I think that’s a really key piece of information to say, “ Hey, I’m just curious.”

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor By Me: How long have you been divorced? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Counselor: Yeah, I think on that front, another interesting question is what work have you done to heal yourself since the divorce? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: You may not have to heal since my divorce. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Uhhuh. 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor By Me: Yeah. Some people may not realize that, but yes.

 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Counselor: I think a lot of people are going to be like, “Look at you with a stupid expression. Like what?” 

Joree Rose, LMFT: If you wanted the divorce, they’re still healing to happen. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. Otherwise, you’re bringing baggage in from your marriage into this relationship. 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor Around Me: If you don’t heal the patterns that led to the breakdown of the divorce, you’re likely to repeat them. 

Speaker 3: Uhhuh.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor Around Me: So there’s one other piece I want to say about when to find out the divorce details. I like this idea of you can be honest without being fully transparent, upfront. Being honest would be saying like, “ Hey, you know what? It’s been really hard. We’ve not been able to agree on a lot of things, and it’s been a year and a half.”

Joree Rose, LMFT: That’s not details, but that’s still the headline. And that’s still true because I believe someone has to earn the right to your story so you can over time get into greater detail when you feel safer, more secure, and the person of what that looked like. But I still think, to be honest, “Here’s where I’m at, here’s what it’s been like going on.”

Joree Rose, LMFT: But I have had a couple of clients over the years who. Soon as soon as their partner or they move out, they jump into dating, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Dating is fine. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapist: It depends on your goal. 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counselor Around Me: That’s what I was saying. Dating for the sake of dating. And maybe you can clarify that because you were trying to do that till like him along.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapist: Yeah. I have no problem with people, like after they’ve separated, if you have an agreement with your ex, we’re gonna go ahead and date. So to go out and date and be very transparent with other people and say, “Look, I’m just getting out of a relationship. I’m healing. I’m just looking to date.”

Dr. John Schinnerer: I’m not looking for a long-term relationship right now. If you want to sign up for that, great. If not, I totally understand. No harm, no foul. You’re both adults and if you’re both consenting, if you wanna 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counseling Around Me: sign up for that, 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And I’m assuming they’re both adults, but let’s assume they’re both adults.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapist: So I think that’s a little delayed. That’s a delayed dig though. So I think if you go into it, there’s a good space. 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Counseling Around Me: A Taylor Swift song. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapist: You go into dating. You realize it’s just dating, and I’m not really looking for a long-term relationship. I’m just looking for some companionship.

Dr. John Schinnerer: I’m looking to find out if I’m desirable. Like all those are good things to learn after you come out of a long-term relationship. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I add one thing to that? Yeah. It’s an ego boost too, because divorce is demoralizing. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. You find out that you’re sexy and desirable and wanted.

Dr. John Schinnerer: That’s all good stuff, I think. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Can I add something else, and maybe we’ll come back to it? I know there’s, I think we both have so much to share about it. For the sake of dating and not being in a long-term relationship and have that honesty.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy Around Me: One of the things that I know is helpful for me, although the just dating wasn’t always up to me because I wasn’t asked out on a lot of second dates. I think I intimidated and scared off a lot of men by just being me, which wasn’t helpful actually because it served to create the continued narrative in my head.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy Around Me: That’s my own work. But dating for the sake of it, I learned a lot about myself. In the dating process, I learned who I was at this point in my life. I learned what I liked. I learned what I didn’t like. I learned what it was like to just have a conversation with strangers. I learned what it was like to tune into my body of does this feel comfortable or does this feel icky?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Counseling: Yeah, along those lines, one of the things I learned is I learned how to. Reduce the pressure on the outcome. At a certain point, I was like, oh, I wanna meet someone, I wanna get a phone number, I wanna have sex. I wanna find a long-term relationship.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Counseling: Like I had all these outcomes in my head, and I realized that wasn’t serving me. And so what I did is just dialed everything way down, where I was like, I’m just gonna go out and meet someone and exchange some stories and maybe make a friend, maybe not. So I had very little expectation, and I would just set up coffee dates after I got better at dating.

Dr. John Schinnerer: So I had to figure out what the heck I was doing, and just it would be a half-hour date mid-morning during the day. We would talk. And I got really good at saying, you know what? Thank you so much for sharing your stories with me. This isn’t a match for me. I wish you all the best in your dating. Thank you so much for your time.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because so many of us have such a hard time disappointing other people that we get sucked into relationships where we know there’s no real future here. But we don’t wanna hurt their feelings upfront. And so we get into it two weeks, three weeks, eight weeks, and then we’re in a lousy relationship for six or 12 months, and then it’s even harder.

Dr. John Schinnerer: To break it off. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Counseling: So I got really skilled at just deciding quickly, upfront, this isn’t worth my time. There’s no future here. And part of that was due to the clarity that I had from that list of five must-haves and three deal breakers. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So I’m curious on this of your opinion, if that’s easier for men to do than women.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy By Me: I’m gonna argue, I think it is easier for men to do that than women. I think the dating pool for women is a lot harder. I agree. Men are looking for younger women. So many women in their forties or fifties feel like they’re not gonna be able to compete. Women are generally inclined to be relational.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy By Me: Men are generally inclined to be more non-committal. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapy: I think it’s also hard related to our attachment style. Hundred percent. Which skews like, ’cause I think the anxious anxiously attached are gonna have a harder time with this. ’cause that fear of abandonment, and it skews 70% women.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapy: So there’s some overlap there, but it’s not exclusively female. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I just think that gender-wise, that’s an interesting question. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, I do. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: but there are two things underneath that I wanna name here, one of which it’s easier to do that. To care less, which is one of your hallmark phrases that you said for years.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy Near Me: and I wanna say more about that in a minute, but underneath that ability to care less is to know your worth. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: foundational skill I would say. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: is what I wanted to get to. Knowing your worth is easier said than done, especially post-divorce.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy Near Me: Why wasn’t I worthy of my partner doing the work for me? Why wasn’t I worthy of a second date? A second? All of it. Which is why it’s important to do the healing work post-divorce. So you do know your worth. Take accountability of your role in the divorce or the end of the relationship to understand what didn’t work for you and not being the victim of abandonment.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, for those of you who are interested in self-worth, I just did a podcast on the evolved caveman, which is. Had some really great responses on self-worth versus self-esteem versus self-confidence. I think it’s critically important. Basically, in a nutshell, self-worth is how we feel about ourselves globally.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapy: Self-esteem is also how we feel about ourselves globally. The difference to me is self-worth is based on internal validation. Self-esteem is based on external validation. External validation being things like awards, promotions, how much you’re paid for your work, what you do for your work, 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy Near Me: compliments, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Couples Therapy: Likes on Instagram, compliments, those kinds of things.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Therapy: It’s a really. Uneven profile that leads to emotional volatility because it’s connected to how you last did, how you last achieved, how you last performed, and when you perform well, you feel great about yourself. When you don’t or when you don’t get the accolades or the reward, you feel lousy about yourself and your mood goes down. It leads to a lot of volatility in terms of your emotion and mood.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Not a great way to go. Far better is self-worth, which is based on internal validation, which is largely based on knowing your top three or four values. Behaving in accordance with those values. When you do, you pat yourself on the back for doing so, and this takes some practice and some repetition. The other thing I think, five tools that I discussed in that podcast about how to increase self-worth, and I also really think it’s one of the most important things you can work on heading into the dating world, period.

Joree Rose, Top Relationship Therapy Near Me: One of the things, and I would say this has been spearheaded by John, but really something we together as parents to our three teenage daughters have done is instill in them, “ Know your worth.” And what’s amazing at 19 and 21 years old, these three girls.

Joree Rose, LMFT: They know they’re worth because they’ve been told that they are worthy. They’ve been told that they’re worthy of how to be treated, of how to be respected, of how to be talked to, of how to be listened to, of how to be adored, and anyone listening has the exact same worth. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And it’s been modeled for them by us. 

Joree Rose, Top Relationship Therapy Near Me: Hundred percent.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Therapy: We’ve also told them that they’re all young goddesses repeatedly. And so to have an expectation that you’re, whoever you’re in a relationship with, should adore you, should respect you, should talk to you with kindness for the most part. Obviously, there’s going to be disagreements and fights and that kind of thing, but you want to find someone that treats you with respect.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counseling: Treats you with respect. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I had a really proud mom moment. My daughter broke up with a guy she was dating after six months, and when she called to tell us, one of the very first things out of her mouth was, Mom, I know my worth. And this wasn’t the right relationship. And John and I were like, high-fiving each other. We instilled this top value because if you go into dating. Not believing you’re worthy, you’re going to settle for shit. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counseling: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And I think this is a big problem because you mentioned harder dating for women, and I think there’s truth to that in the sense of, I think the pool of marriage-worthy or long-term relationship-worthy men out there is thinner in general than for the women.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And there are a bunch of reasons for that. Part of it’s how we’re socialized, but we know at a younger age group, like twenties to thirties. Marriage is on the decline, and young women are having a really hard time finding men that are of high enough quality to get into a long-term relationship with for a variety of reasons.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counseling: They earn more money than them. They’re more educated. They have a better job. They’re more put together. Their life is solid, like their life is complete. They don’t need anyone to save them or fix them, whereas a lot of young men are stuck in their parents’ basement smoking weed and gaming. Too anxious to go out and learn or try.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counseling: Granted, that’s a huge overgeneralization, but there is some truth to this. In general, I talk about how men are socialized and how it’s not men’s fault. However, it is our responsibility to begin to learn and evolve to make ourselves more desirable if we want to be in a long-term relationship, which we know is better for us on a number of levels.

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapy Near Me: One of the things that I see clients getting really stuck in is giving someone the benefit of the doubt over and over and over again.

Joree Rose, Best Couples Therapy Near Me: And not trusting the messages they’re receiving 

from this other person. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Best Couples Therapy Near Me: Or not believing what someone is saying. Oh, they don’t really mean that. They really do want to be together with me. And I just don’t believe that when they say I’m not available for a relationship right now, that they actually mean that.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And like this, we’re talking about, questioning a stranger’s words. Which is funny to me. Not funny as in judgmental, but you gotta understand this person essentially is a stranger. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Best Couples Therapy Near Me: And we give strangers power to determine our worth. But we also have a hard time believing what we’re actually hearing, so I really want to advise if someone says, I would like to just be friends, trust them.

Joree Rose, LMFT: If someone says, I’m not available to be in a relationship right now, trust them. If someone says, you’re not the right person for me, trust them. Because I’ve seen a lot of people continue to pursue despite the messages they’re receiving. It generally leads nowhere other than frustration to say how come I haven’t found my person yet?

Joree Rose, Best Couples Counseling Near Me: I think because if you’re not picking up on the cues that people are giving, it’s gonna be hard to pay attention to the ones when they’re actually there. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Best Couples Counseling Near Me: That’s a big piece because I do believe, and our relationship aside, I have witnessed enough clients go through the dating process that when there is mutual interest.

Joree Rose, LMFT: If there is mutual interest, you will create the time to get to know this person more. I promise you. Trust that.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counselor: Yeah. I think the only thing I can say to that is when someone shows you who they are with their words or their actions. Believe them. Yeah. And we really struggle to believe them. I think it’s back to self-worth. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counselor: I think the other thing that shows up a lot for me when I’m working with clients who are dating is that feeling of desperation in many people.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And desperation is an emotion that leaks out around the edges, whether or not you’re aware of it. And I see it more in women than men. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: No. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counselor: I think men are more avoidant, so they can easily walk away or more easily. But the desperation is something that we’ve gotta become aware of and we gotta get a handle on.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because it goes back to knowing your worth. If you know your worth, you’re not desperately pursuing someone who is meth about you. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And so there’s this. Qualitative difference between someone who’s into you and is pursuing you and wants to meet with you whenever they can, versus someone who’s bread crumbing you and texts you every three days and maybe we’ll see you once every two weeks.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Counselor: Now, there might be some reasons for that if they’re really busy and some other things. Don’t delude yourself into thinking this is a great relationship with high potential. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: They just don’t know it yet. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Therapist: Showing you exactly how into it or into you. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. Which also goes to speak to this point of don’t assume by what you read on someone’s dating profile.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Let’s actually wait to meet in person and get to know someone before making the decision. This is a great match for me because. We gotta take time to get to know another human being, not just as a human, but in a relationship. Because how someone shows up in a relationship is different than how they show up with their friends.

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So I think that’s a really important point. Back to the desperation piece. I’ve seen it before where people put deadlines on when they wanna have a partner by, oh I’m going to this wedding, or I’ve got this trip, or I’ve got this event and I don’t wanna go alone. I understand that.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And it creates a dynamic in which you might be making decisions that you might not otherwise choose. You might be letting certain values slide. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: One of the challenges I know many women have in dating is feeling safe.

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So one of the things that I always did is when I went out on a first date with someone, especially if I was driving out of my town to meet someone somewhere or go 20, 30 minutes away, I would always let my best friend know where I was going. I was just driving places.

Joree Rose, LMFT: But I would tell her the restaurant where I was going to, if I had access to, like a social media profile, I would send a screenshot like, this is a person I’m gonna be with. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I didn’t go anywhere without somebody knowing where I was and conceptually who I was with. And that felt really safe.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Therapist: Yeah. And I think if you’re taking Ubers, you share the Uber ride with a friend. I think that’s just common sense. You wanna make sure that you’re safe, that you’re covered. And I would even let people know. 

Speaker 3: That. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: If you’re going to a date with someone, say, Hey I just wanna let you know, I let my friend know that we’re meeting here at this time.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because you just don’t know. And the other part of this that I think in terms of safety is learning more about people that are mentally unwell. Narcissists, borderline, even people with sociopathic tendencies, like figure out what are the key identifying factors so that you can pick up on these tendencies or these patterns of behavior more quickly to suss them out and get rid of them.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Maybe that’d be a great podcast episode to do. I think that’s important because 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Therapist: I think we’re talking about, I would say out of all three of those, we’re probably looking at one out of 10 to one out of 15 people. So it’s not that uncommon. And you wanna find out. That was one of the things that, I was really thankful for from my past relationships, is I knew about that stuff.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Couples Therapist: I had lived it, so I could sniff it out really quickly. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. So the last piece on that is, I don’t know that many men pick women up at their houses anymore for days. Do you have clients who do that? Do you have friends who do that? Honestly, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Therapist: I never did.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because I don’t think it’s, again, it’s a safety issue. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Therapist: And I would rather meet them somewhere at a restaurant, at a bar, at coffee shop, wherever. And even if you’re going to meet and go to San Francisco, meet at a park and ride or something, or meet at a coffee shop and then take a car together, That can create problems where there doesn’t need to be. And I think you can do it a few dates in. Maybe five dates in once you know the person a little bit better, but I think you want to be careful of sharing where you live too quickly. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. I think I had one person once, and I think it was even like someone that might’ve.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Been introduced by someone I knew, so it wasn’t like a complete random stranger. Like that might create some different safety as well, too. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Go ahead. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: No, you go first. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Therapist: We were talking about how to find the man of your dreams kind of thing.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counselor: And one of the questions that came up is how do you find an emotionally intelligent, emotionally available man? Which is a really difficult question to answer. How do you find a man that’s done the work, that has a growth mindset, that has some emotional granularity that can communicate, and all the stuff that I think women are looking for the most part.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counselor: But one of the ideas that I love that a client of mine did a few years ago is he got divorced. He knew what he was looking for. We had talked about the must-haves and the deal breakers, and then he wrote a letter. To about 20 business associates, best friends, acquaintances, family, friends, and so on, and said, this is who I am, this is where I’m at.

Dr. John Schinnerer: This is the healing that I’m, that I’ve done. This is what I’m looking for. Do you know anyone that you would be willing to introduce me to that you think you might be a good match? And he got, I think, 20 to 30. Possibilities from that and went out on 20 to 30 dates and ended up finding someone of superior quality.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counselor: Just an exception. And they have an 

Joree Rose, LMFT: amazing relationship now. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counselor: Yeah. And he’s super happy. And I think that’s a hell of an idea for people to do. Now, you may not get 20 to 30 men, you might get 20 to 30 women with that approach. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: What I love about that story is it shows his vulnerability. Which, if I’m the person receiving this letter and I might have a woman in mind, the mere fact that he wrote it and put out his needs and requested help, there are so many green flags in just that, like I, I’d be curious of just who that person is based on their confidence and security to be vulnerable.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counseling: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counseling: Now you mentioned care less earlier. Do you want me to get to that before we wrap up? One of the things I realized in my dating experience was that I was getting too attached too quickly to women that I began dating. I realized that I was giving up too much power too quickly, and so I was like I gotta put an end to that. So let me think about how to do that. And what I came up with was, I’m just gonna date. I’m gonna date multiple people. I’m not gonna look for a long-term relationship.

Dr. John Schinnerer: I’m just going to see what that’s like. And this was totally foreign to me. I had never done anything like this, but it was a great experiment for me because it meant I couldn’t overfocus on any one person. It showed me my worth. It showed me my desirability. Then I did that for, I don’t know, I think five months, give or take.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counseling: And then I met Jory and I shut the whole thing down because I thought, wow, here’s someone that’s amazing. I really wanna pursue this as a long-term relationship. And I think it was a really good experiment. I was upfront with everyone that I talked to. I said I’m just looking to date. I’m not looking for a long-term relationship.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counseling: If not, I totally get it. It kept me, it was interesting in that it protected me from my own tendency of getting overly attached too quickly. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And so the other thing I would do is mantras of care less or just finding ways to be okay with disappointing people.

Dr. John Schinnerer: ’cause one of my biggest problems was. I would disappoint women that I went out with once and they would get angry or pissed or attack or and I was like, I don’t, there’s no obligation here. Like I just went out with you once, or people that I didn’t even go out with at all. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: right.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Therapy: Would attack me. And I’m I haven’t done anything wrong. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I actually saw that happen during our breakup. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Therapy: Yeah. It was there. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: There was some crazy lady. John and I were both on dating apps for the couple of weeks during our breakup. And I got a message because we had all this information out online with each other. Yeah.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I got this scathing message on Instagram from some woman that John never even actually met in person. And she was raging about him to me. Yeah. I’m like, wow, this is fascinating. Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I was like, I never met her. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. That was bizarre. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: A couple of messages with her via the app and that was it.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah, that was so bizarre. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I want to end on just one thing because it goes to the careless of if you’re dating multiple people, the question of sex and dating, and I think for many people, everyone’s gonna have a different opinion about this. There’s no right or wrong. I think that’s what I just wanna say on it.

Joree Rose, LMFT: As a woman especially, I advise my clients to have the conversation of, Hey, look, I don’t need to be exclusive with you yet, but I do need to know if you’re sleeping with other people at the same time for my health and protection. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Which is a tricky gray area because you’re now trying to figure out within the first few weeks or months of dating.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Are they seeing other people? Have you talked about that? Is that an open part of the conversation? Is that okay with you? Do you have a right to ask those questions? I remember someone telling me, assume he’s dating someone else unless he specifically says otherwise. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, and I think many adults are doing that. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: and they are, which is why, let’s just be open and talk about it for the protection of our physical health when it comes to sex and safety.

 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Therapy: also brings up the conversation about STIs. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: hundred percent. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Therapy: “Do you have any sexually transmitted disease and can I see the blood test results that are current that show that ?” I think those are very critical and uncomfortable conversations to have. But you’re talking about your health here and.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And don’t trust someone just because they said, “trust me.” 

Joree Rose, LMFT: You’re still strangers at this point. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I don’t want to carry permanent baggage for the rest of my life 

Joree Rose, LMFT: or like herpes or she’s, nice, so I trust her. Yeah. So I, I just wanna end on that piece because it’s hard to be vulnerable, but it’s also a skill to practice.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And as you practice that skill of vulnerability, how somebody responds, is great information. If they yell at you, shut you down, accuse you, great. You know what you just told me. How you’re gonna show up in an argument, I need to know. Thanks for letting me know right now. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapy: And I think that’s a critical differentiator is how does someone show up during uncomfortable conversations?

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because you’re gonna have more. If this turns into a relationship, I guarantee it a hundred percent. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapy: How does this person show up? How do they deal with these difficult topics? Can they deal with these difficult topics? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah, it’s all a foundation.

Joree Rose, LMFT: What I say to clients is, look, you’re gathering information. Whether you’re gathering information to stay with someone or to break up with someone, you’re gathering information. Everything is information. Trust it, believe it, honor it. But most importantly, honor your gut and how you feel around this person.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Not to rationalize, justify what they say on paper. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counseling: All right, so hopefully that’s been helpful to you all. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counseling Danville CA: What else do we have to wrap up? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I think that’s it. If you are wanting more support in your dating and relationship life, please message us or go to Love isn’t enough.net.

Joree Rose, LMFT: We’ve got our masterclass series. You can get one or the whole series for the whole year. But we are also available to work with couples who are looking to strengthen their relationship, to have the love that you know you deserve. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counseling Danville CA: Until next time.