Dating in Your 40’s and Beyond for Successful Single Women

Real quick, before we start the pod, if you know a single woman in your life who is struggling, looking for love and needs a little bit of guidance, don't be afraid to share this podcast with her. It really help us out a lot, and I know it would help change her life. Go ahead and share it with a friend and let's jump into it. Gary. I had a woman the other day, she was in her 40s, probably about 45, and we were talking about dating, and she's like, adam, the dating pool in your 40s is kind of like jumping into a pond full of leeches and snakes. They're just gonna bite you. And I was like, I was dying. I don't even know what accent that was. It was like a combination of like Irish, Southern. I'm so bad with accents. But then I kindly said to her, but the pond can also be full of beautiful fish. You just need to jump in and see what there is. Needless to say, she pushed back a little bit, but so this podcast is for her and all of those beautiful women who are in their 40s, 50s, and certainly beyond who feel like their dating pool is an absolute disaster. We're going to help you reframe the situation and get out there and attract the right person. Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy, and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Lodolce, professional dating coach and founder of love strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy. What do you think, Gary?

Yeah, I mean, I can imagine where that was coming from. I wish I was on that session. I can imagine where that's coming from. The leeches and the snakes and whatever accent that was. But I get it. Like, it feels unfair. And that's. The women that we work with are all smart, successful, amazing women, and they've had all this great success, but the one thing that hasn't been successful is their relationships, right? And that feels like, how can that possibly be? That you've had all the success and all these other ways, but. But you're still missing this one key piece. And yes, dating can feel hard, but it feels downright impossible when you're trying to balance career success with life success and you. You start realizing, like, you're not 25 years old anymore. You start feeling like you're running out of time. You wonder how another person's even going to fit into your life. And, you know, no one wants to settle for Billy Bud Light or Bobby Budweiser. Like, you don't want to settle for these random. Or Mark Miller Light. I don't know. I feel like we always pick on Budweiser.

Adam Anheuser, I don't know.

But it's, you know, you have all the success and this is what of course, you always wanted in life. But in some weird way, it can start to feel like it narrows options, and then a scarcity mindset sets in. And then it can encourage you to start making bad choices. And so we're here today to help you unwind some of that and help you avoid making some of those bad choices.

Yeah, I mean, I think when people are dating in certainly their teens, but even their 20s, there's kind of a naive. We're somewhat naive when it comes to love and dating and relationships. And then cut scene 20 years later, once we're in our 40s and 50s, we become just downright cynical. And so what we like to do with our clients, and I think our coaches, yourself included, are incredibly, incredibly skilled at doing this, is reframing this idea of having experience in your love life as a positive and realizing that you've had all these incredible experiences. You are so much more established than you've ever been. Let's take those as a positive and try to chip away at some of those cynical ideas that perhaps we've. We brought along with us throughout some of those failed relationships, push those aside and be able to date with experience, but also date with a youthful mindset and be excited about it again. And that's what we're hoping to do today. I think it'll be helpful for all of you.

Yeah. And so I think one of the key things to get get this started is a realization that what feels familiar may not be ideal. And so what I mean by that is what feels familiar to you is based on your past experiences. And so your past experiences is your relationship track record. Was it good? Because if you have a track record filled with a bunch of guys who are not ideal relationships that didn't quite work out, that's going to be problematic. And don't feel bad about it. That's true of most people. Most people are going to have a relationship track record that is full of a couple misses because a lot of people don't have relationship education and training to avoid those problems. And so the thing is, if you use that, this is going to sound nerdy as your data set that you're relying on to make future relationship decisions, you're going to have a problem. And so this is where sometimes when clients will say, I'm going with my gut on this, it's like, what's your gut based on? Your gut's based on a lot of prior experience. And it's like, this might be misinformed. And so I literally just had a client the other day who was talking about, you know, I'll call her Sandra, which is not her. Her real name. She said, you know what, Gary? What I've realized is I've always liked the bad boy. There's something about that guy who's a little distant, but he's big and strong and hyper masculine. And I can just bring out that softer side of him. There's just something really. And she would. And she kind of embarrassed me and was like, it's hot. I'm like, I get it. I get it. Right? But she's like, what I've realized from this program is that when I look back, it starts the same way, which always is full of promise. But then it all fizzles out, and I can't keep being shocked when this happens. And I was like, here's the other shocking thing. All guys aren't the same. You don't have to keep dating that guy. You don't have to keep dating what feels familiar, because what feels familiar is what we're attracted to. But if you've been in a bad series of relationships, you got to break out of that familiarity because what you were doing before, it's not working. Branch out. Keep an open mind. Open yourself up to the possibility of dating. I. I even tell people, date. Intentionally date somebody you think is just not going to work at all. Intentionally date someone that you think is the complete opposite of what you've been doing. Because what everybody always realizes is those guys aren't bad. The guys that are completely opposite of the bad boy. And all these other things that you go on a date with that guy, you can realize he's okay. And it's like, oh, wait a second. There's this whole other world out there, and that's really important.

And what I would add to Sandra's situation is that when. And I'm sure you did, is when you do go out with a guy who would be the good guy, the guy who might not knock you off your chair on the first date, but he's a good hearted, respectable man. Don't run away at first just because the quote unquote feels aren't there just because you don't have. Remember in the past, the butterflies are what actually led you astray. You were chasing butterflies. So don't be surprised if you go on a date with a guy and the butterflies aren't there. And don't be surprised that it might take some time for love to build, but you're doing it differently. It's unfamiliar to you. So you have to also allow time to exist for that relationship to actually build. Because so many clients will. Or I've clients we work with on this. But like with people I talk to who aren't clients, they'll say, yeah, I've tried that. But like, God, after, like the second date, it's just like so boring. And it's like, yeah, you didn't give it time. You didn't even know the person. You know nothing about a person after a second date. Like, you got to give it time and you got to invest in it and you got to not run away because it's different. As humans, we constantly gravitate to what we are familiar to and in many cases, what was familiar to us with our upbringing and our childhood. And if you're not, you know, I know this is a tangent for a second. We said we weren't going to do tangents on this podcast, Gary, but I'm doing it. But if you look at your childhood and your role models and your family, if it was total chaos, you're likely to repeat that in your adulthood. And guess what? If you date someone who is not pure chaos, who is actually showing up for you, who's giving you love and affection, that's gonna feel weird. It's gonna feel weird. It's gonna almost feel icky. Like I've heard clients say, like, use that word. Like, ah, I don't know, it's just like, it's, it's kind of icky. Like he's actually, he brought me flowers. Like, we've only gone is like, that's good, that's good. You've never had that before. Don't run away from it.

And that's, and that's a really important lesson. Right? If you've kind of grown up in relationships, in chaotic, not so great relationships, the good ones are going to feel weird at first. Yeah. Point blank period. Like, it's just, they're going to. The good stuff is going to feel weird at first because it's unfamiliar, but this is a time unfamiliar is a sign of growth sometimes too. And so embrace that unfamiliar feeling and just embrace some of that good stuff. The good stuff is actually normal. Like that's how it is most of the time.

Amen. And speaking of dating in a way that feels unfamiliar, let's go to number two, where when it comes to dating, and I know a lot of you might push back on this at first, but bear with me here. When dating, when you're not in an exclusive relationship, you are still single, get out there and meet lots and lots of guys. The old traditional style of dating would be you meet one guy, you like him a lot, just see where it goes and then you try again. But that is not the way we recommend to date. And we have a lot of data to support this. Doing this wastes a lot of time and it encourages really bad decisions. Because the problem is if you get what we call oneitis where you're emotionally exclusive to one man, but it's not actually exclusive yet, like you haven't had the talk, you're not yet at that point, then it's likely we're going to stay in that connection for longer than we should because we don't have any other options. It's really hard to leave those situations because you're so emotionally invested. Whereas when you follow the little love steps and everything we teach, we're going to have you talking to multiple people at the same time. Exploring your options doesn't mean you're going to be dating 10 guys at the same time. Two, maybe three guys that are viable prospects for you exploring them. And if you find out a piece of information about one of them that is not a part of your vision for your life, what do we say, magic four letter word next and move on. And you can do it much more easily if you're not just solely focused on that one guy. So definitely date multiple people at the same time. A hundred percent.

Yeah. I think one of the big pushbacks with this too, particularly with successful women, is you want me to date a whole bunch of people. I don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. To which I always reply the same thing is you don't have time to be in a bad relationship either. You don't have time to spend the rest of your life single. When you want to share your life with somebody, like time's all relative. And so you do have the time for anything that's important. And this frankly, is important. Actually, I don't think anything's more important than finding the right person to spend the rest of your life with. And so you just have to be willing to date multiple people, go on a lot of dates, and give guys second chances. Right. Going back to something you said earlier, Adam, it's like people say, oh, I went on one date with him. He's not. He's not great. It wasn't great. I know everything about him. He's not good. It's like, no, that's completely wrong. Would you think someone can find out everything they need to know about you in one date? You would, you would say, no, absolutely not. But yet we try to do that to the people we're dating. And it's just. It's this weird incongruity that it just doesn't make sense. And so spend the time to get to know people. Worst case is you learn something. Best case is you find love. And that's the way to think about it.

Yeah. And just so you all know, all right, we want you to be with a man that you are massively attracted to that you can't stop thinking about, that you are deeply, deeply in love with. It's just the way in which you get there may be different than how you imagine it. It's like we're on the same page about the end result. That's the thing with me and Gary. We want you to have that person that you come back to us with and be like, gary, my favorite testimonial. We got so many of them. When a client's like, adam, I would have never considered him if it weren't for you guys. And she's like, and it is the best relationship of my life times 10. That is like the feels right there. I'm like, yeah, let's go. Because she did the work. She did the work. She pushed through the initial, like, I'm not so sure about this. I'm not so sure about talking to multiple guys at the same time. I don't know. Boom, there we go. All right, real quick, before we get to the rest of the pod, I want to give you a special gift for being here and investing your time in learning relationships and dating strategies that are going to help helping in your love life. I have a special virtual dating coaching training. It's 100% free@thelovesteps.com get into that right now. You're going to learn a step by step process to be able to get out there, feel more confident and attract high value men that you truly deserve. All right. Let's get back to the pod. Yeah.

And you know, a lot of this dating more. The big holdup is the timepiece. This next one, this is also a time issue with people. The third one here is date slow to find love fast. People who are successful have a really hard time with slow anything. They're impatient, they want to move. What should take a month, they want to do in a week. What should take a year, they want to do in a month. And it's just like, go, go, go, go, go. And it's. Some things take time. Dating is going to feel new. If, particularly if you haven't done a lot of dating, it's going to be exciting. You want to find your person. Everyone wants to skip to the end of the story and see how this thing all works out. But don't do that, because if you start getting impatient, you're going to start making bad decisions. Here's the hardest thing that we ask people to do. You find a guy, he's amazing. You have an amazing date. Don't spend four hours on that first date, even though it's going well. End it a little early. Everything's going well in this relationship. You want to see him every day of the week. Okay, maybe you're going to be reasonable and only see him two or three days this week, two or three days next week. Because you're being a responsible human being. No, no, no. Slow it down even more. Date slower. Because this creates tension. This helps you maintain the mystery. This helps you avoid making decisions just based on all the feels. And it allows you and him to both actually get to know the real person that you're spending time with. Because how you date sets up the kind of relationship you're eventually going to have. And so if you go fast and it's amazing, it's a really hot, intense, quick burn. Those things die out. You date that way, it dies out. If you build it slow, nice, slow, continual flame that lasts a very long time.

I want to create a parallel for all those corporate people who are listening right now who have ever hired an employee, because it's very, very similar in this sense of it, okay? Where when you hire someone, there's the saying, hire slow fire fast, right? Hire slow fire fast. And what you do when you hire, because we're doing a lot of it here at Love Strategies, you get out there, get a lot of applicants, like as many as you possibly can, Just put it out there to the world and you explore. You go on some interviews. When it comes to hiring in this Case with dating, you go on some dates, then you find a couple that you like, then you slow it down. You spend some time with that person before you actually hire them. Lots and lots of interviews when it comes to hiring, spend a lot of time with the person. And guess what? The more time you spend with that person before you hire them, the more information you get. And then guess what? Once you can reasonably assess that the person's a good fit, you hire them. Great. That is the same parallel as being an exclusive relationship. But guess what? If you find out something is not in line with what you wanted or is not a good fit, dump his ass, fire, get out, leave the organization you're not in. And so it's so similar in that sense. Now when you're on a date, you don't want to go into like interviewer mode. There's a number of things we talk about, but for this just general idea, it really is the same. Go out, meet lots and lots of people, very consistently, move slow once you meet a guy you like, and then if you are in a relationship with him, it's not a good fit, fire him. Boom, that's it.

Yeah, Move on. Move on. You know it's not your guy. Move on. Yeah. Number four for this is online dating isn't what you think. And so this is, you know, if you're dating in your 40s and beyond, you didn't grow up in a world of online dating. So this online dating thing is very new and it's important just to put out there. It's not weird anymore, right? It used to be kind of a thing where it's like, wow, who's doing that now? It's something literally everyone who's dating is at least online somewhere at some point. It's just a thing. It's a skill. You want to. You want to build that skill. It's. Everyone calls it online dating. It's a misnomer. It should really just be called online searching and sorting. Because your whole point with online dating is just searching and sorting and prioritizing who you actually want to date. No, actual dating should take place online. It's just helping you meet people. You meet them and you go and have an in real life date, organic, meet them, sit across from them, meditate, do something so you actually get to meet them in real life. We've had a lot of other podcasts about online dating, so I'm not going to go too far into this other than just to say it's probably not what you think, but make sure you educate yourself and soak up a lot of the information that we already have put out in other places.

Amen. Which leads us to the next one, which is boundaries. Setting boundaries in relationships. It's kind of sexy, right, Gary?

Yeah.

And look. Yeah. I mean, look, the benefit of being in your 40s, 50s, and beyond is that you know yourself better, right? And you know what you want in a relationship. You know what a good person looks like. And if you don't get some education on that front or some coaching. So you do know it. But let's say you do know what you want. Don't stifle it. A lot of people will try and push that down and say, you know what? I'm just going to go with the flow. I'm going to be easy. You know, I don't have as many options as maybe I used to have. Don't be afraid to be clear about what is and is not okay in a relationship and how someone treats you. And the thing is, like men, when you do that, men will respect you so much more. They will either step up to your level of expectations or step down and not be in your life anymore. But if you don't set the boundaries, then suddenly you're just opening yourself up to all different types of behavior. For men, that is not acceptable. So set those boundaries. Be clear about them. If he oversteps those boundaries, communicate clearly how he did that and how that's not acceptable to you. And if he does it again, we're firing fast again. Fire his ass. That's it.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the one piece of boundaries that sometimes women are like, but he's not going to like me. That it's like, no, no. Boundaries signify value. Everything that's more valuable has more boundaries between you and that thing. You cannot get to the most expensive pieces of real estate in any town because they have gates on the driveway. They just don't let any old Amazon truck drive up to the front door. Right. Dave Gates. You go to a jewelry store, where's the best jewelry? It's not hanging out right in the front. It's behind glass. Right. And the boundaries show that something is valuable, and that is how guys will perceive it. Kind of segueing from the jewelry thing. Number six here is if you're successful, you know, you're in your 40s, you're in your career, successful, there is a chance that you're going to make more money than him. And I know that creates some feelings because it's not traditional. This is not how we've been brought up. This is not how it's supposed to. The guy's supposed to make more money. This doesn't have to be a problem because in the grand scheme of the relationship, there's two people. One person's always going to make more than the other. And for decades, centuries, the guy has made more. And that hasn't been a problem necessarily. Right. And I think it just speaks to this idea that you have to get comfortable with the idea there's more to a person's value and there's more to a guy's value who's making less than you than just his bank account. We talk about something in our high end program, this idea of an emotional millionaire. And I don't have enough time to get into that here, but it's this whole way of thinking where there's a lot more to people than just how many dollars they have in the bank.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think it's incredible that we have come to a place where. Where women are in many ways outpacing men in other ways. They're not when it comes to money. But we're making progress and I think that's a wonderful thing. And my mother is like an incredible 1960s feminist who really led the charge on that. I'm so proud of that. Like, in many ways she was, she was a part of that. And now we have to come to the reality where so many of our clients are outpacing men and many. I mean, we have clients who are making half a million, million more, many millions a year in income. And they're like, where's my guy who's making tens of millions? And I understand that because it's coming from an old frame of thinking when it comes to love. But the reality is, yeah, sure, maybe you can meet a guy who makes $5 million a year, but is he going to have the qualities that you'd be looking for in a partner? And the answer is maybe. But how hard will it be to find someone in that bracket who makes more than you, who has those qualities? You're significantly cutting down your dating pool. And the reality is you don't need it. You want it, but you don't need it. And that's a tricky one. I get it. This is a tricky one. We work with literally thousands of women. This is a tough topic, but it's a really important thing for you to think about because you are. If you are significantly established, then really think about the needs that you have in your life. Where are the Gaps and financials. Although, is it hot to be with a guy who is making five, $10 million a year? Because it's not about the money, it's about his access to resources and ability to make that type of money. I get it, it's hot. But you know what's also hot is a guy who is deeply committed to you, who's respectful, who's not a narcissist, who cares about you and leans in. So start with those qualities. And by the way, if you get a guy who does make more than you, it's a bonus. It's great.

I love what you said. You don't need it. Because what's actually going to make your life better, what's going to make your relationship better, has nothing to do with money. Nothing. And so the money that you want him to have, what is it? What, what is that actually a stand in for? Is it a stand in for someone who's confident in themselves? Is it a stand in for someone who's successful? Is it a standard for someone who's just comfortable in their own skin? Is it a stand in for someone who's got time, freedom, someone who's self employed? Like the money. Actually if you really start getting into like, why do you really want that? Why, why, why? It's probably not the actual dollars. There's other things that go with it. And so what we suggest is optimize for those other things because that's what's actually going to bring you more happiness in the long run.

And by the way, just as a, this is clearly a nuanced topic, we're not saying you're going to be with some broke, broke guy who doesn't, who has tons of debt. Okay. We're saying the guys who, if you are in the top, top tier of financial income, then perhaps opening up yourself if you're making half a million a year, being willing to go out with a guy who's making $200,000 a year, $150,000 a year. That's what we're saying. We're not, we're not saying that you all are going to be with a guy who's a million dollars in debt and is a total deadbeat. That's not our goal here. It's just broadening our horizons so that we can find someone who fills the gap.

Yeah. Like once somebody makes or meets the minimum threshold of success or financial comfort, the rest is just bonus. Right. And that's really what it comes down to. So. All right, so this whole thing is about Those who are successful at work save the best one for last in a way, because this last piece is what works at work doesn't work in dating. And this is hard because if you're successful, you're type A. You're all about checklists and productivity and efficiency and being demand and aggressive, directive, kind of calling the shots all the time, being very on top of things. Guess when that doesn't work, you bring that same energy. You bring that same energy to dates. No, nobody's gonna like that. And that's not like, oh, guys are uncomfortable. No, no, nobody likes that. If a guy brought that same energy to a date, you wouldn't like that either. That's just the facts. And so you can't bring that same energy to a date. And so what I am not saying, though, is that you need to change who you are as a person. I'm not saying be less successful. I'm not saying hide your success. What I'm saying is we are all multifaceted. We all have different sides to ourselves. You have to embrace your multifaceted nature and realize that in all aspects and areas of your life, you bring different parts of yourself to those interactions. The biggest, toughest corporate lawyer, when they're talking to a puppy, doesn't they talk? They melt. If that corporate lawyer talks to a baby, they use baby voice and they talk like that. Because we're multifaceted, we can be multiple things. And so sometimes the like, that's just who I am. I'm that person all the time. That's one of those things that sounds good but is really just a subtle form of avoidance. And so you have other sides to. You bring those sides to the table.

Yeah, don't, don't be afraid to step into your feminine. It's going to look, if you're a type A attorney who is a go getter, you're gonna want to be with a guy who is also a go getter. And you're going to be attracted to men who are similarly type A. And so if you. If a type A. Hardcore type A. Type A is not even the right word. Two masculine energies combine is going to create a repellent. It's not going to work. So there's a decision to be made. Either you stick with that masculine energy and you're willing to date a guy who's much more beta, who just listens to you and does every little thing that you want him to do. If that's what you want, go for it. If that's what works for you. But chances are that's not what you want. So if you do want the guy who is masculine, who is the type of guy who plans dates, who, the type of man who is able to take control in a non toxic way, in a way that you would desire in certain situations, then it requires us to step back into our softness. And like Gary says, you're not going to talk to him like he's a baby. But the point is you can find your energies. You shift your energies based on the environment. And when it comes to dating, it might require you to, to release a little bit of control. He wants to take you to a place on a first date that is not your ideal place. So what? Go for it. See how it goes. Step back, see what he plans and you can judge him every single step of the way. See if he's a fit for you. But lean back, see how it goes. And that is the key to all of this stuff. If you're able to do that, then suddenly now you're going to have a lot more fun while dating. It's just a much more enjoyable experience for you and for the guys that you're going out with. So Gary, this was a fun one, man. I really appreciate this. And for all those women who are in their 40s and 50s and 60s and beyond, you can do this. You absolutely can do this. And you have so much value to add to the dating market. Don't forget it. Don't give up. And we're here for you every single step of the way. That was great, Gary. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Adam.

All right, so that is the end of today's pod. But the fact that you are still here means that you are truly, truly ready to invest yourself in getting out there and attracting the right person. Because you know how important it is that you find the right man and the right relationship in your life. So what I'd love to offer you is a free love strategy session with someone on my team who can dive into your unique situation and be able to set you up for long term success. Special link is in the pod or you can go to Love apply.

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Apply for that session. Book your session with someone on my team and they are the most compassionate, incredible human beings that I personally know and I highly recommend you take that action today. So head on over to loveapply.com and we'll speak to you soon. Bye bye.