How to Attract a Man Who Emotionally Protects You

In today's podcast, we're going to be talking about how to attract a man who emotionally protects you. Now, the idea for this podcast kind of came from a funny place, didn't it, Gary?

It did.

I was watching Love is Blind randomly on, like a Tuesday night with Jessica, and this woman on there was like, yeah. Through my teens, I was always trying to find a guy who could, like, physically protect me. Like, everywhere we'd go, like those big, strong, masculine guys. And now I just want a guy who emotionally protects me. And I'm like, ooh, that's good.

Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast, where we help successful women attract high value.

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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. There's some wisdom there. There's.

There.

Guess what? There's wisdom on reality tv.

I feel like this, this is a cultural statement about society. The fact that, you know, this is a, it's, it's a genius thing to say. It's, it's very insightful, but, like, this is now the world we live in. This is, this is sage wisdom. Not coming from a book or like some ancient Greek guy in a robe. It's. Love is blind. Turns out from a contestant.

Not even like from the host, just a random contestant. I don't know or I don't know if you call him a contestant, but God, great show, that, by the way.

I'm a fan. I'm a fan.

I mean, it's, it's a dumb way to attract love, I believe.

Yeah.

But it's great television. Oh, man, it's.

It's the best of all the worst ways.

The divorce rate's pretty high. I, like, went pretty deep on the success of it. It's. It's not great. It's not a great situation.

No. The basic premise, though, of basing it more on emotional intimacy prior to physical intimacy. I'm 100 in on that idea. Yeah, it just. When there's cameras and there's competing, I mean, we're going off on a tangent, but there's a whole bunch of other dynamics going on that are not conducive to love. So.

Yeah, I agree and the thing is, what I do love about it is that it created a statement like this, which is, I want to find someone who emotionally protects me, who emotionally cares about me. It's all emotion first. And so today, I think it's worth us diving into how to attract this type of person and how to really make that a reality in our life. Even when you're going on a date and you can see the guy. Does that sound good?

Yeah.

What about that for a headline?

I like it. This idea of emotional protection. I don't know. Like, it's not necessarily something I've always thought about. And it was actually this quote. They got me thinking, like, what is this thing? And, like, what does it mean? And she's dead on. I think it's super important. I also think it's important to say, like, you know, it's not that just women need emotional protection. And because we're two guys talking to an audience of women, I don't. I want to make sure it's clear that that's not. We're saying. Because even when Adam and I first had this back and for worth, I think the second thing one of us said was, well, this is something all guys want, too, which is nice because we think about protection. It's usually physical, and it's like, guys just for. Obviously just don't need that as much. But we all want emotional protection. And I equate it. It's like a warm blanket. Like, who doesn't want that warm blanket feeling? And that's what the right partner can provide you in terms of emotional protection. It's not that you need it, but when you don't get it, it feels terrible.

Right. Right. So let's talk about what does a lack of emotional protection actually look like? What does it mean when someone is neglecting you emotionally? Well, that means they're being dismissive. They're lacking empathy. They'll say things like, you're overreacting or it's not a big deal, or they're insensitive, like making jokes at your expense, pushing your buttons, targeting your insecurities, or just a general lack of respect for your boundaries. They don't communicate some of even the most basic things. They are also the type, I would say, Gary, is they create emotional distance. Like, they avoid those meaningful conversations. You know, they tend to be more emotionally unavailable and can't just be vulnerable or share anything that's personal about them. Like, I would say a lot of these things are emotional neglect. I don't know. Do you have any Others that come to mind.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, just being unwilling to address emo. It's like, I feel like the person who's not good at emotional protection is when they see you experiencing emotions, they consider that somebody else's problem and not something they deal with. It's like, oh, you're having a bad day. Go talk to your girlfriend. Oh, you're. You're not feeling good. Yeah, I can't. I'm sorry, I can't deal with that right now. Like, I mean, it can be really profound like that. And I think, you know, one that I'm sure listeners are familiar, Gaslighting, you know, like you're having an emotional reaction to something and you need something from your partner, and they're basically just saying that never happened. You know, you're imagining things. That's not really true. They're just very, very dismissive of your emotional experience. And then for themselves, it's a partner who just lacks accountability. And so I think it's really important to talk about the negative side of these things because this is a partner that no one should want. But sadly, too many people tolerate. It's not okay. And sadly, a lot of you out there listening to this, you've dated this guy. You've dated guys who are a lot like this. And so what I think is really nice about what we're talking about today is that's the old you. That's in the past. We're just not. We're not going to do that anymore. Instead, we are going to prioritize a guy who provides emotional protection.

Right. And one other thing I would add, to those who are not in relationships, even a guy who is lacking emotional protection is a guy that you might be in a situationship with or a casual relationship. And he's only interested in one thing, and that is getting his sexual needs met. And he doesn't care about your feelings. He doesn't care. I mean, he'll say anything he needs to say in order to get you into bed. He'll do anything he needs to do to make that happen. He might even love bomb you and tell you the most perfect person in the world, and all he wants is sex. That is being very, very flippant with someone's emotions. They don't. They don't care. And it comes from a place of immaturity. I mean, you know, you go back 25 years. I was probably that guy doing that sometimes, you know, and it's not. It's. It's just a total Lack of emotional care. That's why like the classic father will always say to the guy that's taking his daughter out on a date, like, don't you hurt her, man. He's saying, emotionally protect her. I don't care. Have you ever said that with your daughter?

I'm not, I've not said it. I've, I've, I've wanted to, but I have not.

You emotionally protect her, man. You emotionally protect her hard.

All right, I just give the dirty looks like I'll kill you if you hurt her. I just give the non verbals, like.

Look here buddy, I will physically kill you. I will not protect you physically.

Yeah, you're, you're done. And I think the important thing here with the emotional protection is it's not that the guy is overtly mean, it's just that he's indifferent. He just doesn't care enough about your emotions because that's not what he's there for. And I think that is, is really important because, you know, we can notice a guy who's overtly mean and unkind, like that's easier to spot. Like a lack of emotional protection is a little bit more difficult because we'll get into it. But I think, you know, let's, let's contrast the lack with what emotional protection actually is. And so when you're emotionally protected, and again, this is for men and women, it's feeling safe in who you are and how you feel. It's that sense that I can authentically be myself, knowing that my partner likes me, respects me. It's a partner who makes you feel seen, heard, understood. And so emotional protection is all about respect. It's support, it's care, communication, it's patience, kind, liking the other person. And I know that sounds obvious and I always, I say this like it's a partner who actually likes you. There's plenty of people that are in relationships where they're, they're allegedly very much in love with a partner who they kind of feel, oh yeah, they don't really like me. I feel a strong bond to this person emotionally, but they don't actually like me. And so it's about safety, trust and emotional care. And so. Yeah, go ahead.

I was just going to add to that idea of liking your partner. My mother is a divorce attorney. She has facilitated probably over a thousand divorces in her very, very long career. I think it's a, about a 40 year career at this point. And I asked her what is the key to a healthy relationship? And she said it's really simple, like your partner, just keep liking your partner. That's it. Like if you don't, where and, and you look at from the opposite, where do relationships just break is they just stop liking each other. And it sounds so simple and it's so basic, but it really is at the core of a relationship is you're just, you're just friends. And I can think of a few relationships in my life and I'm like, oh, they just don't like each other, they don't care about each other's emotions. You know, you go many layers deeper, but at the core of it, they just don't like that person. Yeah, that's awful.

It's awful.

That can happen.

It's tough. And you know, I. This is going to feel like a little bit of a right turn here. Um, it's going to feel like a bit of a tangent, but bear with me because this conversation we're having makes me think of a client conversation I had about two weeks ago. And so this is a client who's been with us, has really tons of growth, tons of progress and is kind of sometimes like after you've struggled and then you're successful in love, you also have to learn how to deal with success. And so this question is a really good example of that. And her question was along the lines of when you're secure and not chasing the wrong things, how do you know you're in love? Because in her own words, she used to chase all the wrong things. Like she was focusing on nervousness and excitement and the feelings. And she, her words was she was chasing rainbows and unicorns all the time. And so, and then she's like, I know that's wrong and I know that's not what I'm looking for now. But like, because that's what I equated with love. What is love now? And so the reason I think like that pops to mind is the short answer is like, how do you know you're in love now? And I think the answer is you feel emotionally protected. Someone who like, it's comfort, it's calm, it's stable, it's safe, it's the relationship warm blanket. Like that's what love feels like when you're, you know, dating in a mature way and you're very secure.

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Right, Right. It's like, I'm sure she used to equate love to a roller coaster ride. You know, skydiving, jumping out of an airplane. It's exhilarating. It's so exciting. Where what you're saying is those things can be a little bit dangerous.

Yeah.

Like maybe not a roller coaster, but skydiving, you name it. Jumping off a cliff, going skiing, things like that, they're. They're dangerous. Whereas true love is instead, you know, you're sitting in your log cabin under a blanket, sipping some tea, talking to each other.

Yeah, yeah, right. Like, long term love is like hanging out at the ski lodge with, like, hot buttered rum by the fire. Like, it's just chill. Right? It's not. It's not, you know, going down the moguls on the black diamonds. It's. It's not. It's just not. All right, so we want to figure out how to find a guy who's going to offer this emotional protection, a guy who values your emotion. And so for you ladies, as you're going out dating, it's really important to prioritize the right thing, which is compatibility and connection over chemistry. So connect with guys as a person. Don't lead with the physical, care about their character. Don't emphasize your physical qualities, and don't prioritize his physical qualities. Which I know it's easier said than implemented, but it's really, really important. The other thing I think about chemistry is sometimes people think of it as this all or nothing thing that either you have it or you don't from the beginning, and then that's your one shot, and that's just frankly wrong. What we know from the research on people who build connection and chemistry together is it doesn't have to be an instantaneous spark. That instantaneous spark. Chemistry is really just lusty feelings based on superficial physical qualities. You can build chemistry over time, and what that looks like is shared laughter, jokes, getting to know each other, as Adam was just talking about liking the other person. You spend time with people you like and you value and you get along with and you're compatible with. Guess what happens? You build chemistry. You start liking each other. You start being able to pick up on like little jokes and little nuances and all that stuff. And it like creates those sparks build into something much more substantial. That's the way to deal with chemistry and relationships.

Yeah. Which I think leads us really importantly to the second point, which is just focus on how you feel around this person. And it's not necessarily jittery or excited. Like that tends to be also what you feel when you're in danger or in an uncertain situation, or you're on edge or you're about to jump out of an airplane with a parachute. Right. The real question is do you feel safe? Do you feel seen, do you feel heard, do you feel understood, respected, or. All of this comes down to just really coming to terms with yourself is how you feel around this person and do you feel that emotional protection around them?

I always equate it because sometimes it's hard to like put this in a relationship context. It particularly if you haven't experienced it before, but you've all experienced this in other contexts. And so how do you feel when you're around your best friend? That's literally exactly how you want to feel when you're around your romantic partner. And so too often we separate those things as if they're two completely different types of relationships. And they're not. Like when you're around your best friend, you can say anything you want, they're gonna accept you. Even when you say something dumb, they're gonna be like, haha, that was dumb. And then you're fine. Like it's, it just kind of, it's not this high wire act of I better say the right thing. If I don't do the right thing, they're not gonna like me. It just, it's the safe, warm acceptance. And that's when we say like focus on how you feel. Your nervous system should feel calm, not oh my God, oh my God, like you don't want to feel like that.

Definitely. And just, just a draft on this idea of treating that person like you would your best friend. I also want to put it on our listeners to just reframe it. Like when you're with your best friend, the way you're treating your best friend might be different than how you treat your romantic partners. And it might not be a positive thing. Like when you're with your best friend, are you constantly nitpicking everything that they do? Right. Are you constantly like you left the cabinet doors open, what is wrong with you? Right. And I get it. Like you spend a lot More time with your romantic partner than your best friend. But I think that if we can bring a little bit of that, like, kind of let it go attitude with our. I'm saying just how we show up in relationships. And this might be a tangent, but it's been something I've been thinking about a lot of, because I tend to be a nitpicky person in general with everyone in my life, which is something I'm working on. But, like, you just let it go, and it makes your life and your relationship so much better, and you're emotionally protecting that person as well. Curious on your thoughts, Gary? What do you think about that?

All I can think about honestly right now is how your example of the cabinet doors sounds oddly specific. That's. That sounds. It's, like, really a weird example, and it's really specific. So that just makes me think you're a cabinet. Like someone in your life must be nitpicking you about cabinet doors being left open.

She's accepted it. It's been 10 years. She's finally just cool with it. All cabinet doors open.

Thank God. All right. In her. I'm sure she's not cool with it. I'm sure she tolerates it and it annoys her a little bit each time, but she's just like, whatever.

She loves it.

She does. I know Jess. She doesn't. I'm sure she does not love it. It's annoying. I'm on Team Jess with this all the way. Close the damn. Close the damn doors, Adam. Close them. Um, so the next one is don't accept less than what you deserve. And so what I mean by this is, be careful with your kindness. Because when we're feeling in love, and particularly after there's been some physical intimacy, it makes us extremely tolerant of lots of things, of a lot of flaws. We'll start just being okay with the general emotional neglect, because, as they say, love is blind. It's deaf. But it's also a little dumb because we're not being honest and objective with the information we're getting from our partner because we have all those chemistry feelings. And again, particularly after there's been some physical intimacy shared between you. The other piece here is the lack of emotional protection is neglect. And if you've experienced a lot of emotional neglect in your life, this experience from the partner is going to feel really familiar. You're just going to basically chalk it up to, this is how relationships are. You might also fall into something I call kind of, you know, all. All men syndrome, which is, oh, yeah, you know, he's not very emotionally available. He doesn't. He's not offering a lot of emotional protection. But, like, all men are like this. And so that just is setting yourself up for failure. It's something I call all the time the tyranny of low expectations. You just kind of like, oh, all men, they're not emotional. They're not emotionally engaged. Like, so you're basically giving your guy permission to be terrible at this with no hope of ever getting better. And then the last piece of not accepting less is the saddest one, I think, which is the I deserve this. Like, I don't deserve better than this. This is the best I can do. This is what I've always gotten. So this is what relationships are to me. And, you know, Adam and I, we're here to tell you that that's not true. You know, as I say, all. Everyone deserves a great relationship. And you can't have a great relationship unless your partner is offering you emotional protection.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you've. If you grew up as a child with neglectful parents, then don't be surprised if you're comfortable later in life with a neglectful partner. Because in life, we don't usually seek what's best for us. We seek what we're comfortable.

What.

What's comfortable for us. And. And so if we look at this from the other perspective as well, which is if you are used to being someone who is neglectful, then when you're with a guy who is emotionally protecting you, don't run away from that. Because at first it might feel a little icky. It might get. There's a love. Love is blind thing that they're saying a lot is it gives you that ick. That ick factor. It's like, I don't know. He's. Like, he's showing up a little too much for me. I don't know. It's not really that hot. I'm not really that into it. And then once again, because it's uncomfortable. And I get it. Some guys are over the top and there's that ick factor, whatever. But in the general sense, if your pattern is to always go for guys who are emotionally neglectful, when you're with a new guy who's showing up and he is protecting you, he cares about your emotions, he's doing all the things we've talked about, lean in a little bit because it's going to require some discomfort to finally raise your standards.

I love that you brought up the ick, because in our the newsletter that I send out to all of our clients, there's a study that just came out that's actually not even going to be published until a couple months from now, but I got an early copy all about the ick. And so the thing for women that gives them the ick the most is a guy who's not quite masculine enough. Like, he's kind of betraying his masculinity. He's, like, a little too feminine. And I think that this really important with the examples you just gave, because a lot of times kindness and compassion, depending on your definition of masculinity, it doesn't quite go. And so you see a guy being kind and emotionally available and protecting your feelings, it's like, it feels a little feminine, which can be like. Right. I mean, this was, like, probably three weeks ago at this point, but. And yet you hear this a lot from clients in the sense that if they've had not a great experience with emotionally available guys. This one client was saying, you know, I was sick the other day, and my partner, he just showed up at my door with soup. And she's like, I didn't. I didn't know what to do. And I was like, just. Just say thank you. Just say thank you. Just say thank you. And she's like, I just. I don't. I don't know what this means. I don't know. And it's like, oh, you've never experienced before a guy who is emotionally protective. Right. Like, you've not experienced. And so it felt weird to her, and she was like, I don't know how to make sense of this. And it's. It's a striking thing when you see it live and you kind of see people process, like, oh. And then other people like, oh, yeah, you know, with my guy, he does this. I didn't know how to think about that, but it's like. And I. And so I finally. There was like, a bunch of sharing of this kind of thing, and I just kind of said, hey, everybody, can we just pause to just like, isn't this nice? Like, isn't this amazing? Like, isn't like, it's the relationship you knew you always wanted, but you didn't think you could have? But now that you're approaching things the right way, look at what you're having, and you're finding these basic acts of kindness from men extraordinary.

Yeah.

When they shouldn't be. Right. And that's. That's what we're here for. Yeah.

I can just imagine them, like, analyzing what type of soup.

Exactly.

What type of chicken soup was it? What do the noodles look like? What does this mean? You're like, just say thank you.

It's a. It's a nice thing. Just like, let's take the win. Take the win. All right. So the last sign of a guy's ability to offer emotional protection is his emotional iq. And so it's. You can't just give a guy an emotional IQ test on the first day. Like, hey, fill this out, pal. Let's. Let's see if you. You check out. So there's a couple things you just want to look for to see if a guy's basically good at handling, dealing, recognizing, acknowledging, sharing emotions. And so here's the one thing. First, to make sure you ignore. Some guys use their emotion thing for attention seeking. Like, he just way too eagerly talks about his emotions. Like, I'm good with him. Like, any person who's actually good with emotions doesn't have to jump out and say, I'm good with emotions, right? And so, like, don't listen to his words. Let's see what he does. Right? And so a guy with a good emotional iq, he's going to show genuine interest in you and your feelings. He's going to ask good questions. He's going to follow up. He's going to remember stuff from previous conversations to show that he's all in and really listening. He's going to make good eye contact. He's going to stay on topic. He's not going to turn the whole thing all about him. He's going to be a good listener. He's going to be able to take turns. He doesn't cut you off. And here, what I think is one of the. So that's like a bunch of basic communication things. Here's another big one. He takes perspective. He can see things from other people's perspective. And when he does, he shows empathy, not sympathy. And that's a big difference. They sound the same, but they are very not. Sympathy is like feeling just bad for somebody. Empathy is actually putting yourself in their shoes and actually being able to understand how they feel. And so I think a good test of this is, like, how do people think about homeless people? We went to the city, my wife and I with, with our really good friends a couple weekends ago, and, you know, you go, new York City, there's homeless people around. And it's like, how people react to that, I think is a real good test of empathy versus sympathy. Because there's a lot of people that just, oh, I feel so Bad for them. But it's like, okay, but why, like, what part do you feel bad about? And, like, seeing if people can process, like, really the emotions that those folks are going through is a real good test of perspective taking and dealing with emotions.

Yeah. Yeah. I have nothing else to add to that. I think that that's beautiful. So, I mean, I think with all of this said, we created this podcast to not only realign what we might be thinking we're looking for when it comes to love, we call it a love vision. Like crafting your love vision and aligning it with what matters most. We not only want to do that, but we also just need to raise our standards on the things that really matter. And emotional protection is now going to be a two words. We're going to be saying a lot moving forward. It just resonates too well with our clients and everything we do because ultimately that if you're protecting his emotions and he's protecting yours, that's going to create a force that is unbreakable between the two of you. And if either of you are lacking on that front, the relationship will crumble. So I want you to think about what is your priority moving forward? What have you prioritized in the past with guys? Has it been emotional protection and moving forward? What is important to you? Gary, this was a great one. Thank you so much for your time, man, and I hope you all got a lot out of this.

This was great. Thanks, Adam.

So now you've reached the end of the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. And because you have proven that you are serious about attracting love, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't feel that way.

What I'd love for you to do is go to loveapply.com where you can apply for a complimentary love strategy session where a professional love strategist on my team is going to speak with you directly and be able to see whether or not our executive love coaching programs can be transformational for you and your love life. There's absolutely no fee whatsoever. All you gotta do is head on over to loveapply.com schedule that session, and you could be speaking with someone on my team over the next couple days. All right, thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Bye.