In this episode, Kimberly discusses the detrimental mindset of prioritizing connection over compatibility in dating, especially for men who have been married before. She explains why many good-hearted men fall into this pattern and how it affects their confidence and relationships. Kimberly outlines the signs of chasing connection at all costs, the emotional consequences, and the benefits of engaging in relationships based on mutual growth. By setting clear boundaries and choosing partners who can reciprocate, men can build healthier and more fulfilling relationships. Tune in for valuable insights on creating intentional dating lives and deeply loving connections.
P.S. If you’re a man navigating dating after divorce, don’t go it alone. My free masterclass was made for you—learn how to rebuild confidence, attract the right women, and avoid common post-divorce mistakes. Watch it here.
Ready for tailored support? Book your 1:1 dating strategy call with me here and let’s map out your next steps.
See you next week,
Kimberly
Here’s the transcript:
Let’s talk about something that affects a lot of really great men out there that are dating, especially men that have been married before, men who have showed up in prior relationships with loyalty, with effort, and with equal measures of their heart. And it’s this, you are probably chasing connection at all costs if you are prioritizing the feeling of connection.
Over whether that connection is actually good for you, then you are like many of the men I work with, and this might be what’s actually harming your dating experiences, and it’s certainly gonna be what’s harming your relationships. So today I’m gonna be unpacking what is this mindset of chasing connection at all costs and why does it happen to so many great men and why this is gonna be one of the reasons that hurts your confidence.
And your relationships. And then I wanna show you the opposite dynamic. I wanna show [00:01:00] you what it looks like when you move from chasing a connection with a woman at all costs. To choosing mutual growth because that shift will change a lot for you. Now, welcome to this channel. My name is Kimberly Hill. I support good hearted men to attract and keep deeply loving relationships.
And we talk about all things life, dating and relationships on this channel. So if you’re new to this channel, welcome aboard. Welcome aboard. Strap yourself in and if you’ve been watching these videos for a while or listening to my podcast for a while, then thank you for coming back and supporting me here, and I hope to continue to make valuable videos that really help you create.
An intentional dating life and loving connected relationships because we need more of those in this world. Now, when I talk about what is this connection at all costs, what does it actually look like? Well, I wanted to find this clearly for you first and foremost. When you are [00:02:00] chasing a connection at all costs, it means you’re the type of man that is chasing that spark.
You’re chasing that intensity, you’re chasing that chemistry. Those feel good feelings. When you’re with a new woman, you chase that feeling of being wanted by somebody. You chase validation and. You ignore everything else. So maybe you notice some red flags, but you ignore them, or you think maybe I need to actually have a conversation with her about this thing.
But you don’t. And you also kind of ignore that inner voice that you have, that going, that’s going. Something feels off about this. And instead of actually checking in with your own values, your standards. You probably double down. You pour more effort into the relationship. You hope that by giving more of yourself, more of your emotional energy, more of your time, maybe even more of your finances, you text [00:03:00] more, you start accommodating more.
Maybe if you can do all those things, it will work out this time. And it feels like connection to you, but what’s actually happening is what’s called self abandonment. Now I wanna talk about why so many good men actually fall into this pattern in relationships. Why does it happen to so many of you guys who genuinely wanna love deeply and be loved deeply?
And there’s a few reasons that I’m gonna highlight here. And the first is. Your prior marriage, if you’ve been married and then divorced, um, then your prior marriage likely conditioned you to be the kind of guy that makes shit work, right? If you’ve been married before, then you’ve spent years, if not decades, learning how to repair relationship, you know, learning how to stay steady.
Um, learning how to support, learning, how to fix, learning, how to, you know, hold the emotional structure of the relationship. And that conditioning doesn’t just. Evaporate or disappear when you start dating again. Okay? It doesn’t, so [00:04:00] you naturally try to apply the same good husband skills to women you barely know.
Okay? And instead of evaluating compatibility. You try to work with whatever you’re given because you go back into this default pattern of conditioning and operation. You’re all of a sudden there’s the good husband to a woman. You’re just getting to know, okay, this also happens because divorce creates a lot of emotional scarcity.
So obviously many, you’re a human being. You’re gonna have emotions and feelings and feel lost and confused, and after a separation or a divorce. Many men and women, of course, you feel lonely. You might feel really rejected you, you feel unsure of your worth. In this world, you may be not so certain if you’re gonna find somebody again, and so you’re very eager to feel connected.
And so when a woman shows even a [00:05:00] little bit of interest, when she gives you this attention, you attach to that feeling very quickly. And this isn’t weakness. This is of course human psychology, but if you’re not aware of this, it will run your dating life. This pattern of I feel a certain way, and I couldn’t mass that feeling by chasing this connection with somebody.
And another reason why this might be happening is because. Many men will confuse empathy with compatibility, so you might care deeply for a woman you’re getting to know. You start to feel all her feelings. I mean, she just went through a really tough divorce and she’s managing two kids on her own and you can totally understand how she doesn’t have that much time for you.
But she’s a really good person and she’s kept herself pretty physically fit. So you know, you, you know you’re going to, you know, invest some time getting to know her. You wanna make sure she’s really comfortable and you wanna support that. She’s on her own growth journey. And somewhere in that process, you forgot to ask this question, is this woman capable of supporting me?
Okay. Now, if [00:06:00] you struggle with the lines between empathy and kindness and compassion, I highly recommend watching the video I put out last week on this subject. Now, another reason you might might be the good guy that falls into this kind of trap is because you had some childhood conditioning. To be what’s known as the peacekeeper.
So, so many men that I work with and that I know have grown up learning that, you know, you can’t rock the boat, you know, you don’t wanna upset anybody. You know, make sure you keep the peace, you gotta be the calm guy, you gotta be the responsible guy. So when you’re out there dating, even small signs of disconnection start to feel like failure to you, and you chase the connection to prevent.
Discomfort. But when you have a connection with a woman that doesn’t have boundaries, it’s not actually connection, it’s survival. You’re doing this because you feel you have to keep the peace even with someone who’s not good for you, because that’s how you had to survive your childhood. And so let’s [00:07:00] actually talk about this cost of chasing connection at all costs because the price is always going to be higher than you would like or you think.
Now the first is, of course, you’re gonna overlook red flags. You see inconsistent effort from a woman. Maybe you see a little bit of emotional immaturity. You see some hot and cold behavior, but you’re really good at rationalizing women’s behavior and you tell yourself, well, it’s probably nothing. She’s probably just really stressed out.
I mean, she did tell me that she’s managing the kids on her own. And, um, you know, she did tell me that she has this big thing going on at work, um, and she’s such this ambitious woman. I mean, she’s a lawyer, she’s a litigator for, for God’s sakes, right? And, you know, give her some time. She’s gonna open up eventually, and you rationalize these red flags.
And while you are being the man that is understanding, you know what she’s doing. She’s showing you exactly who she is. You [00:08:00] just need to be listening to it. Now what happens is you start performing instead of being yourself. So you turn into the man that always accommodates her. That never says no or rarely, rarely does.
You don’t really express your needs because there’s probably no emotional space for them. You are avoiding conflict ’cause you don’t wanna rock the boat, right? You’ll send the polite text to her all the time just to make sure you’re very considerate because, well, I mean, she could break up with it at any time because she’s so busy.
Or you’re gonna overinvest in the connection and you have to remind yourself that when you’re doing these behaviors, not building intimacy, you’re building a character, you’re turning yourself into a certain version that you think could potentially work with this woman. And if you have to turn yourself into somebody different.
I mean, I’m not talking about growing and becoming a better human being and learning skills that are gonna be helpful, but if you have to build a character in order to be with somebody, you’re not building a true relationship. So what happens is you start attracting [00:09:00] the wrong women. Women who benefit from the fact that you like to self abandon and will just happily take everything you give them.
But they’re not gonna grow with you. They’re not gonna meet you halfway and. As I know from many clients and many stories, they will drain the life outta you. So what happens is you start to lose respect, but you lose respect from her and you start to lose it for yourself. And women can pick this up.
Right away they can feel when a man is chasing connection instead of actually leading himself or enforcing boundaries or saying no to a woman, and internally, you know you’re doing it too. And so you start to feel resentful. You start to feel small. You start to feel unappreciated. You start to feel rejected, and maybe then you start wondering, okay, well what’s wrong with me?
But nothing’s wrong with you. You’re just operating from fear instead of from clarity. [00:10:00] And so what then happens, and these are the costs of chasing emotional connection at all Co, is you end up doing all of the emotional work. You hold the conversation, you hold the structure, you hold the reassurance all the time, you hold the future planning, and guess what?
You’re just starting to burn out here. And you’re realizing, well, I don’t really think I’m asking for a whole lot, but I sure have to give a lot to get a little as the quintessential, you know, people pleasing type of structure. So what does the opposite look like? Because maybe you guys know this pattern all too well.
So what does, what does a mutual growth relationship actually look like? So let’s flip this around. Let’s talk about what healthy masculine leadership and mutual growth actually looks like in a relationship, because this is where great relationships come from. And you can have a woman who’s by no means perfect and still [00:11:00] create a beautiful relationship where you both expand.
You do not need to attract a perfect woman. But you have to become the kind of man that you wanna be. IE the guy that can speak his truth and say no, and have boundaries and have standards in order to attract a woman that can respect that. So when it comes to creating mutual relationships, this mutual growth means you’re both expanding because you’re not, you’re not shrinking to keep the peace.
She doesn’t rely on you to carry all the emotional weight and make all the plans or whatever it is she needs you for. You both show up, you both invest and you both grow. And what happens is you choose women who have the capacity to show up as equals. So you look for a woman who can demonstrate consistent effort.
Now, if she can’t, you also call her out on it politely, and then maybe that triggers her to go, shit, if I don’t start acting better, I will lose this man. Instead of you worrying that you need to [00:12:00] be perfect and you’re gonna lose her. Okay? So you choose a woman who shows up as an equal, which means she takes her own emotional responsibility.
She’s. Curious about who you are. There’s some genuine reciprocity there. She respects you and your time, your boundaries, and your values, so you better know where they are, what they are, so you can communicate those. Because mutual growth isn’t about perfection, it’s about shared investment. It’s two people that are like, yeah, I’m gonna put something into this relationship, not just see what I can take from it, and then gaslight this man into thinking he hasn’t done enough for me when I’m not even lifting a finger.
So. You need to set boundaries early, and that’s through clarity, not through punishment. For example, you’ll say to a woman, look, I’m looking for consistency. I don’t do hot and cold dynamics. I, I, I want honesty more than I want. Perfection. That’s leadership, that’s honest, that’s calm, that’s grounded, that’s self-respect.
So you [00:13:00] become the type of person. Who can express your needs without fearing the loss. Because if a woman leaves, when you express a need, she just was not your person. If a, if a woman leaves when you say, Hey, there’s something I need, she was not your person, and how long were you gonna emotionally invest into that relationship?
Before asking for something and finding out she wasn’t the person for you. So you can learn a lot about somebody by how they respond to healthy boundaries and healthy standards early on. And it’s because you understand that connection isn’t a byproduct. Connection isn’t something that is manufactured by overgiving and overinvesting.
Um, it’s something that naturally forms between two emotionally mature people who are showing up for each other, and I guess it’s honesty, not perfection. So mistakes can be made, but they’re all. Repairable and fixable with good dialogue and good boundaries moving [00:14:00] forward. So let’s talk about, just for a minute here, a couple tangible examples.
Maybe this will be helpful section as well. Now, examples of chasing connection at all costs is a woman cancels on you last minute and you respond, yeah, no worries. Totally fine. Whatever works for you. You think you’re being easygoing, but you’re actually teaching her that your time doesn’t matter.
Contrast this with an example of mutual growth is she cancels and you say, no worries. Let’s find another day that works for both of us. And if this pattern repeats, you step back with grace and clarity. You know, if a woman can’t make time to get on a date with you, she can’t make time for you, let alone make time for anything else that might need to be a requirement to being in a loving relationship.
So another example is. When you’re chasing connection at all costs, you will overshare too quickly to try and keep your intimacy alive. Whereas mutual growth is you’re letting intimacy build naturally. When [00:15:00] you chase connection at all costs, you accept inconsistent effort from a woman. But when you’re building a relationship with mutual growth, you match consistency.
You don’t chase, you invite into your world. So the truth is, while connection feels good, uh, mutual growth will lead to the kind of connection that actually changes your life. And for many of you men out there that are truly, genuinely wanting, um, steady, healthy love. Then you cannot chase connection at all costs.
You have to start choosing relationships where two people are growing. Uh, and that means you have to be able to understand your boundaries, standards, values, and how to set them and enforce ’em with kindness and compassion when necessary. So I hope this has been an illuminating and helpful video, um, as to, you know, men that are dating again and really.
Have [00:16:00] been too heavily focusing on the connection versus the mutuality and the mutual benefit That can come from building a relationship that is, of course, based on mutual growth and mutual love, and of course, this is something that you’re really struggling with. You find that you tend to attract women that.
Are kind of taking advantage of you, then that tells me that you need to get some clarity and awareness around communication, your own boundaries, your own standards, so that you can stand on your own two feet and feel really good about being the chooser of whom you let into your life versus the kind of man who.
You know, quote takes what he can get. And it’s really important that you are choosing a partner not accepting one. And I think that’s an important distinction to make. So I hope this video has been helpful. Please share it around to other men, or you know, women that need to hear this message. I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, so please drop them below.
And look, I never really say this in my videos ever, but if you enjoy my content or you enjoy today’s video and you wanna hit subscribe, I’m [00:17:00] Cheekly doing my own personal goal of really wanting to get to a hundred thousand subscribers. That would just freaking blow my mind. Um, and so if you wanna be part of that journey, I’d welcome you to subscribe and, uh, stick around for some other good content that I bring out each week.
Thanks guys. Chat soon. Bye.
