You may be about to go on a date and think to yourself, “Oof, I feel so nervous.” Or you get invited to a party and wince at the social anxiety of having to start conversations. 

I get that this can feel scary—I’ve been there. 

But it wasn’t until I was able to step out of my old mindset that I realized how much my shyness was holding me back. In today’s video, I share the #1 thing that helped me overcome my shyness . . . something that continues to give me confidence, and allows me to make a big impact in any room despite any nervousness. (Plus it’s something you can start doing today!)

MATTHEW HUSSEY

Whether it’s shyness or social anxiety or some combination of the two that is affecting you, I know how painful it can be to find that you don’t get excited about events or times when you’re going to be in a room with other people especially when there’s going to be a lot of people—how it can make you unable to be present and actually enjoy whatever situation you’re in because you’re spending too much time in your head, feeling uneasy, not feeling present at all, having no sense of calm. I know how it can ruin dates, how it can ruin parties, how it can just make everything feel like a really big deal.

So, my aim with this video is to give you something practical that you can use that helped me overcome my shyness and my sense of social anxiety that once I had it worked every single time I stepped into a situation that made me feel anxious. And when you’re able to do that, we start to make a bigger impact on the world and the results we get in the world start to change. That might mean more dates, it might mean attracting love, it might mean being more powerful at work, in a meeting, in a presentation, or it might mean that you’re much more fluid and confident working the room in a social engagement.

So, I’m excited to share this with you. Have a pen and paper ready. If anything speaks to you in this video, make notes.

So, I was a shy kid. And I have also, for much of my life, identified with having some form of social anxiety. That is surprising to a lot of people who see me as a very extroverted and confident person, at least on the surface. But anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a natural life-of-the-party kind of person. I identify with Stephen Fry’s notion that there is nothing he hates more than a party. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had some amazing parties. I’ve had an amazing time at some parties. But if you ask me to come to a party tonight, my initial reaction is, “Ugh.” And there’s a good chance, over the course of my life, that on my way there, I will feel uneasy or even anxious.

In fact, when I was a kid, and I used to go to birthday parties of other kids, they used to give out party bags to all of the kids at the end of the parties—slime you could throw at a wall or something, which was always the thing I wanted. If there was ever a party bag, the only thing I really cared about was something I could eat and some slime that I could throw at a wall.

But I was too shy at the end of the party to go and collect my bag. The kids would all run to the area where all the—there was a scrum of kids who are fighting over party bags, and my cousin, Kasey, who is my same age, who is my best friend in the world, she would go and get her party bag and mine, amidst the scrum, and bring them back because she was a lot more confident in those days than I was. I’ve played a little catch-up since, but she was much more outgoing and confident than me.

I remember growing up being at New Year’s Eve parties. That was always the memory in my head. It’s like going to a New Year’s Eve party with family, seeing everyone dancing, and people in my family coming over to me and telling me to go dance, like, “Come on, dance.”

It was like, you know when it turns into like almost an aggressive thing. Like, “What are you doing standing over there? What are you doing? Lighten up. Dance.”

And, it took my shyness and it kicked it into overdrive because now I felt like there was a spotlight on me. I resented the way I was being cajoled into doing something that I already felt apprehensive about and felt self-conscious about. And so, all it did was make me retreat more into my shell. 

The only time I do remember dancing with utter abandon was in front of the TV screen as a kid, watching Mary Poppins, the original, when all the Chimney Sweeps do Step in Time, which was either my cockney roots coming out and just, sort of, there was something in my blood that reacted to a bunch of chimney sweeps or dancing to Step in Time with Dick Van Dyke, or it was maybe my grandma who was sat with me who loved my moves. I mean, she really thought they were incredible. So, maybe it was a willing audience that I really wanted.

But there’s something in that, isn’t there? Because it’s not that I didn’t like dancing. I did like dancing. But the idea of dancing with my nana on the sofa and just having a crazy time in front of the TV screen was a different thing than being at a New Year’s party with lots of people and being told I should go and dance in order to be normal like everybody else.

By the way, if this video is resonating with you already and you have felt plagued by social anxiety or shyness in your life but you really do want to get out there and meet new people whether it’s to find love or to find new friendships and expand your social circle, I have a brand new free guide that shows you some very specific things you can say to connect and spark up a conversation with a new person. When you’re feeling shy or socially anxious, it can help to go on autopilot instead of having to think too hard and question everything that comes out of your mouth. This guide helps you with that. You can use them as they are or you can make them your own. Either way, they are free, they are super practical, and they’re there at your disposal anytime you need them. It is called Spark and Connect, our new free guide, and it’s available at WhatToSayNext.com.

Shyness is often portrayed as something— it could almost be cute or endearing. And sometimes those labels—although I’m a huge proponent of giving love to the parts of ourselves that are responsible for us being shy, responsible for us being socially anxious. I think that’s a very, very important approach, is to find a way to love those parts of ourselves. But I think sometimes we frame it in too much of a noble way that actually can have us clinging to that identity as a shy or socially anxious person.

I’m not going as far as to say that it feels like there’s something noble in it. But sometimes we can almost start to wear it as part of our identity, like “I am just an incredibly shy person,” like it’s an endearing thing about us, or it’s, sort of, almost some kind of affliction that we have that we struggle with. And I actually think that one of the really powerful things we can do, and bear with me as I say this because this is—for some people, this is like almost an idea that can make them recoil at first, but like I said, this has made a huge impact on my life, is recognizing that shyness or social anxiety is inherently inward-looking.

When we are shy, when we’re socially anxious, we are thinking of ourselves. We’re thinking of how to protect ourselves, how to keep ourselves safe in some way. Like I said, we should give love to the part of ourselves that is trying to keep us safe and thinks the best way of doing that is to avoid social situations or not to speak too loudly, not to say anything stupid or embarrassing. We should give love to the part of us that’s behind that.

This is actually a part of me that’s just trying to keep me safe. But it may be misguided in how it’s trying to keep me safe. And it might be especially misguided in what it perceives as danger. Because the things that it thinks are danger are actually not real danger. But maybe there was a time in our life where it felt like those things were real danger, or maybe it’s just part of our personality that we’ve taken with us from a very young age.

Either way, giving love to those parts of ourselves is important. But what if we started to see that the effect of that, which is, okay, let’s call it shyness and social anxiety. But what’s the effect of those two things? We stay quiet. We hold back. We censor ourselves. We’re extremely cautious about talking to people or putting ourselves out there or bringing our authentic vulnerable selves to the table. And it can often be, from the outside, seen as a real lack of warmth because people can’t read our minds. People only know what we tell them.

So, people can’t necessarily look at us and ascertain that, “Oh, that person is incredibly shy. That person is incredibly socially anxious.”

People don’t necessarily register that. What they register is a standoffishness, a coldness, and unapproachability.

And so, what I started to realize is that there is something very inward-looking about this fear that I have, and because it’s inward-looking, it can ironically amount to a kind of selfishness, or to put it another way, a lack of generosity.

Now, allow me to explain this. Every single person wants to exist and operate in environments that make them feel safe however they achieve that. People achieve that in very different ways. But everyone wants to achieve a feeling of safety. Anytime we go into a room, there are other people like us who are trying to achieve that feeling of safety, of feeling at home in an environment that feels strange, feels different, sometimes feels alien to them.

Our shyness actually contributes to the opposite kind of environment for those people. Through our shyness and through our lack of willingness to go out and connect and put ourselves out there authentically and warmly, we are sending a quiet message to other people in the room that it’s not safe for them to do that either.

Now, we all know that there are some people who come in very loudly and brashly no matter what, right? Because that’s their nature or that’s their style or it’s what they’ve learned as a way to feel safe. But there are other people in that room who are just like you and me, who are looking for a way to feel accepted and at home in this environment. And in our shyness, in our inward-looking, our fear of rejection is preventing us from making someone else feel less alone.

In a sense, that should be comforting because it also says to us that our shyness, our social anxiety is, in a sense, not special or unique. It’s not our badge of honor to wear on our own. We are not the sole victim of these kinds of thoughts and feelings, that they are actually extremely common. And that by recognizing that they are extremely common, we stop personalizing these feelings as there’s something wrong with me, and we can start looking at it as there is just something about being human that can make these kinds of situations scary or difficult or feel threatening, especially if certain things in my past have helped to create that association for me that’s also happened for many, many, many other people.

So, in a sense, that’s a leveler. I don’t have to see myself as beneath everyone else. I can see myself as like everyone else, in that these are extremely common feelings.

So, if there is there is this kind of communal feeling of, “It’s not easy,” then we have a choice to make—do I, in my shyness or in my anxiety, make it the responsibility of everyone else to do all of the work or do I step into a kind of generous leadership where I go and make other people feel the things that I know I would love to feel in this situation?

Quick news update for everybody out there who wants to come and join me for six days this year in September from the 9th to the 15th, my Live Retreat is happening once and once only this year. So, if you want to come and be with me on the beach and do six days of immersive coaching, this is where we do it together, and we will work through the deepest issues that are holding you back whether it’s holding you back from finding the love you want or whether it’s holding you back from loving the life you have.

It’s going to be an amazing event. Go to MHRetreat.com to apply. We have very limited spaces at this point. So, if some part of this speaks to your soul, if you are like, “I love this content, I love following this channel, and I want to take it to a new level,” this is where you can do it—MHRetreat.com.

Now, I know none of these ideas of I’m being selfish or I’m not being generous, I’m letting everyone else do all of the work, consciously go through our mind when we’re being shy, when we’re being socially anxious, but that’s actually my point, is that if we do consciously bring those ideas to the forefront of our mind, instead of saying, “I feel really shy right now,” we might say to ourselves, “Wow, I’m really lacking in generosity right now. Wow. There’s something almost selfish about what I’m doing right now. There are other people who feel this too, and I’m making it all about me, and in doing that, I’m actually depriving someone of the kind of warmth and love and authenticity of the feeling of being at home in a room with other people that I myself am craving.”

This requires a transition away from this idea that my kindness, my warmth, my authenticity, is something that someone has to come along and unlock within me, which is kind of a transactional relationship, in a sense, right? “You have to come and unlock these things, and when you do, I will give them to you.”

But if we take ourselves away from the transaction of that and simply say, “No, I am warm. I am kind. I am authentic,” notice I’m not saying, “I am confident. I am bold. I am outgoing.”

You don’t need to be any of those things. You don’t need to be anything you’re not. But if you are kind, if you are warm, if you are authentic, if you are caring, then these are things that we should offer out more freely without this constant regard for ourselves that says, “I have to get mine first.”

So, remember, number 1—other people want to feel just as at home as you do. And number 2—you actually have the power to make them feel at home by the way that you approach or treat or engage with them.

What I’m trying to say in all of this is, when you go into a room and you’re anxious, and you’re afraid, and you feel shy, and you go into self-protection mode, if you feel like, “Oh, my god. I need saving,” allow that to become a new trigger to go and save somebody else. Any time you go into a situation—and this takes seconds. Remember, this isn’t years of therapy or psychoanalyst. This is seconds. Where you go into a room and you say, “I feel like I need saving right now. Great. Then let me go save somebody else.”

And it puts us in such a generous state. It puts us in such a state of leadership where we say, “Oh, I’m the one that can make other people feel better and I am perfectly placed to do that because I, in my own shyness and in my own social anxiety, understand exactly how this feels. I have this mainline to empathy of how people feel in this situation because of what I have experienced my whole life. Let me use that, let me make it my superpower, let me make it this artery of generosity any time I’m in a situation where other people are present.”

Turn shyness into generosity and let your generosity be this strange backdoor to confidence.

Now, I don’t say that as some kind of a one-size-fits-all truth about shyness or about social anxiety. Of course, I know that there are many times where we’re crippled and certain people, on an ongoing basis, are crippled by social anxiety and the idea that I’m constantly hoarding my generosity or I’m being a selfish person any time I’m being socially anxious, for some people, would be an offensive one.

So, I understand that. What I’m offering is a frame of reference that can actually be incredibly helpful as a way to take us from a very disempowered state to an empowered one.

One of the greatest ways to get ourselves out of inward-thinking where we’re constantly thinking about how to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe is to think about what someone else needs or how we can show up for somebody else who is in need, somebody else who might be having a hard time, or how we can take all of the pain we felt and help someone else not feel it. And the great irony, the thing I’m talking about here in this video, is that by doing that, we actually take our anxiety and our shyness and we convert it into its opposite, which is a very, very powerful thing.

While we’re at it, how can we make other people feel comfortable from this state of empowered leadership and generosity that I’m talking about here?

I want to tell you a quick story in contrast to that idea of me being a kid on New Year’s Eve, being dragged to the dance floor, and feeling like I would do anything to get out of it because I felt dragged and shamed for being shy and being the way I was.

I remember a school disco. It’s a funny word, isn’t it? Disco. I must have been around 13 at the time, 12, 13. There was a friend of mine who I looked up to, and I thought he was quite cool, and I remember him saying to me, “Shall we go dance?” And it wasn’t like “I’m dragging you to go dance.” He just said, “Shall we go dance?”

And without even really thinking about it, I went, “Yeah, okay.”

I remember us laughing and being a bit silly. I remember I did a little spin. And he looked at me and he went, “That was really good.” He’s like, “Let me try.”

And then he tried to do it. And we were laughing, and he looked at me, and he went, “You’re fun, you.”

And I remember having this moment when he said that, where I went, “I’m fun. I’m fun.” And it felt so good and it felt so non-judgmental. It wasn’t like anyone was trying to look cool. It was just this idea that we were both having a good time together and someone had suddenly given me this label, this identity, that I hadn’t thought of myself as previously. It’s a very powerful thing when someone gives you an identity like that. And all of a sudden, you stop questioning what you know about yourself and how you think about yourself.

I tell you this story to illustrate that when you see someone else who’s maybe standing on the sidelines, who’s shy, who maybe would like to be more involved, or someone who just wants to feel more at home, one of the great ways to do it is just to bring them a non-judgmental loving energy that invites them into the room or ask them to teach you something, “How do you do that? You have to teach me that.” Because that puts them in a position of leadership and empowerment. All of a sudden, you’re not saying, “You should be doing this.” You’re saying, “That was really cool what you just did. How do you do that? Teach me how to do that.”

Now, you’ve made them braver by putting them in a role where they’re teaching you something. And when they do, do something that maybe is a little out of character for them, at least publicly, but probably isn’t out of character for them, they’re just finally doing something publicly that they normally do privately in the shower or in the car, when they do that, let’s not make the mistake of pointing at the thing they’re doing and being like, “You’re doing it. Look. You’re doing it. You’re dancing. You’re singing. You’re being brave.”

That is the thing that all of a sudden, makes someone focus on themselves again. And that’s the root cause anyway. Now, what you’ve done is you made me aware of myself. And in making me aware of myself, I start going inward-looking again. And when we go inward-looking, we start to close down because I start to go into protection mode.

So, when someone is engaging, when someone is coming to life, instead of pointing it out in a way that shines a light on them, just be in the energy with them. Be the energy that they are. Be beside them, with them in that energy. When in doubt, go back in a loving way to that childhood version of yourself. When you were scared, when you were shy, when you were anxious, when you were in your own head, when you were inward-looking, and find out what does that you need? What did they need back then? What kind of support or love or encouragement or teammate could they have used back then that would have helped them to feel comfortable expressing themselves more?

Once you know what that is, ask yourself who could I go out and give that to today?

And as a last point, one of the most beautiful things you can ever do that can take away your own shyness, your social anxiety, or not even take them away, just make you realize that you can still go and express yourself in spite of them, is when you recognize what they child needed, you can actually give it to yourself today. You can give yourself the very warmth and love and encouragement and the teammate, the dance partner that you’re craving on the outside because you can actually be that friend to yourself in any room. And when you do that, you will realize that you never went to any party alone. You never went to any event alone. You are always taking this incredible ally, this incredible teammate and cheerleader. And that is you.

Key takeaways from this video—number one, shyness is inward-looking. Focusing on our own fear of rejection prevents us from making someone else feel less alone in a room. Focusing outward is the cure. Generosity of spirit is the antidote to shyness. Two, our kindness shouldn’t be a transaction that depends on someone else unlocking it within us. And number three, we will worry less about our own image and our own self-preservation if instead, we think about being an expression of the love, compassion, and vulnerability that somebody else needs. And we know they need it because it’s something we ourselves are wishing for.

I know that so many people who watch this channel are simultaneously on a journey to find love, to build stronger relationships in their life in general, and to build a better relationship with themselves. And I have a place you can do all of that over the next few months and year. It is the Love Life Club where we have an incredible community of people. I answer your questions live every month, along with my wife, Audrey, my brother, Stephen Hussey. You share your experiences with other members in the community and connect with this global network of amazing people who are on the same path. And we even have some brand new live events coming up, they’re exclusive for members, this year in different parts of the world.

So, if you want to come and join this thriving and beautiful, loving community of people who are all on this path to becoming more confident, loving life more, and finding the love of their life, then come join us in that experience. And I will see you in the next video. 

By the way, if you liked this video, I think you will also really enjoy this one right here. So, if you’re in need of something else to do for the next few minutes, go check this one out.

The post If I Wanted to Overcome My Shyness in Dating, I’d Do This appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

Do you attract emotionally unavailable people? Or maybe you have a pattern of meeting good people and pushing them away because “something doesn’t feel right.”

If this sounds familiar, you may struggle to trust your own decisions when it comes to love. This often leads to us looking to others to validate our choices and tell us we’re doing the right thing (which can be dangerous for many reasons).

So how can you get out of this cycle? In today’s new video, I share 7 simple steps you can take to make better decisions in love and start building self-trust again.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

What weird reason could be responsible for us continuing in our lives to attract emotionally unavailable people? And what does going out to dinner and asking everyone else what they want from the menu before deciding ourselves what to get have in common with the phenomenon of attracting emotionally unavailable people? In this video, we’re going to find out.

Before I go any further, have you liked this video yet? Have you subscribed to this channel? Have you hit the notification bell? The one that means that the next time I release a video, you get notified first. If you haven’t, well, I would very much appreciate you doing all three of those things right now.

I am Matthew Hussey, a coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence. For the last 17 years of my life, I’ve been helping people all over the world find love. I am the author of this, The New York Times best-selling book, Love Life. If you haven’t got a copy, go to LoveLifeBook.com and grab yours either on hardback or audio narrated by the author.

Today, we are talking about emotional unavailability, specifically the weird reason why a lot of us might be continuing to attract emotionally unavailable people in our lives. So, I got a question recently from one of my members saying that she was struggling to trust herself, that her whole life she had struggled with indecision over small things like what to order for dinner. She said she would literally have to go around the table and find out what her friends would get first before she ordered her own dinner. She talked about how all her life she had picked men who were wrong for her, men who were players, men who were time-wasters, men who had no intention of ever taking anything through to a long-term relationship; and that this pattern of attracting emotionally unavailable people is something she had had for a very long time.

In fact, when she dated someone she described as a good guy, she said her friends would point out that she always found a way to sabotage it. Like, anytime there was a guy actually treating her well, there was something about it that felt inherently uncomfortable or unsafe, she said she would always find something wrong with these guys. So, she came to me and said that she wanted to disrupt this pattern once and for all, because she felt like if she didn’t, she would never, ever find happiness, not just in her love life but in any part of her life where this lack of self-trust plagued her.

So, I said at the beginning of the video that there was a real link between not knowing what to order for dinner and needing everyone else’s opinions first and our propensity to keep attracting emotionally unavailable people. What is that link?

Well, it all stems from a lack of self-trust. If we don’t trust our own decisions, then we look for other external sources to decide for us what is valuable. If someone is deemed to be popular by everyone else, it feels like, “Oh, everyone’s decided that this person is popular so I don’t have to think about it. I just have to go for this person because their value has been pre-determined by their popularity.”

Another way we feel this is if a friend is telling us this person is amazing, this guy is amazing, or we hear people at work talking about how attractive someone is. We then feel like we have a green light to find them attractive because other people have said they are so. The same phenomenon takes place when someone is hard to get, because even if no one else in our world knows this person that is being hard to get with us, our brain makes a connection that if they are hard to get, they must be valuable. In other words, they’re not choosing me, they’re off somewhere else doing something else. They are rare, they are valuable, they have a status, and that’s why they’re hard to get.

Very dangerous connection to make, by the way, that someone being hard to get is an indicator of their value.

But when we’re not trusting ourselves, when we’re only looking for external validation for our decisions when someone is hard to get, we instantly think they must be valuable and we start chasing them. Meanwhile, someone who is actually choosing us is scary because we’re not choosing ourselves. So, what is wrong with you that you’re choosing me? I’m not a thing to be chosen. I don’t have an inherent value. I attach myself to the value of things on the outside. I am a gray, amorphous matter that chameleonizes itself to everything else. Why are you choosing me? I’m nothing.

If you choose someone who chooses you, you have to trust your own opinion, not who the world tells you is valuable. And that is the biggest struggle for those of us who don’t trust our own opinions, who have learned not to trust our own intuition or not even to trust our own needs.

Now, look, many of us suffer from this indecision, from this lack of self-trust. And I think a lot of us feel almost ashamed or find this difficult to speak about, because if you don’t necessarily know where that comes from, especially if you associate it with having been loved in your life, then you don’t really know where does this lack of self-esteem even comes from. And it could have come from anywhere. It doesn’t have to have come from abuse. It could come from someone constantly invalidating your decisions or someone bringing you up to think that they were always the smartest person in the room and that you had to go to them for their help, you couldn’t just trust your own judgment. Maybe you weren’t empowered enough growing up. It’s not essential that you go and do an excavation of your past to learn where these things come from for you. What’s important is to know that progress can be made by training a new muscle–the self-trust muscle. So, how do you do that?

I’m going to show you how to do this in seven specific ways.

Number one: Stop giving everyone else so much credit. When we have struggled to trust ourselves—and I know this because I’ve fallen into this trap many times in my life—we start to put everyone else and their opinions on a pedestal as if they are all-knowing about what is right and wrong instead of realizing that everyone else is kind of just making it up as they go along as well. Some of them may appear to be more sure of themselves than others, but ultimately, we are all just pioneering in our own lives. None of us have all the answers. None of us have all the answers for our own lives, let alone for somebody else’s. So, be very wary anytime you think greater wisdom lies outside of yourself than inside yourself for what you should do next in your life, especially when it’s in an area as personal as your love life. The core belief here that we have to dismantle is that everyone else knows what they’re doing but me. Instead, we have to replace it with, we’re all just trying to figure it out. So, how do I train the muscle that makes me better at making decisions for myself, especially if my decisions for myself aren’t going to be inherently worse than anyone else’s choices for me.

To follow on from that point, number two, do not let a committee of your friends tell you what to think about someone you are dating. Look, I’m an advocate in situations that are potentially abusive or disrespectful—one where you really don’t feel like you’re being treated right or you’re experiencing really negative emotions because of someone. I’m all for in that situation going to your friends and family and people you trust for an objective opinion. But if you are just experiencing good feelings with a person and you’re seeing where it goes, you do not need to go to your friends and look at every text they have sent, every conversation you have had, allowing them to break it down and project their stuff on to it. You know, he texted back a little quickly there. That’s a little bit much. Is it? Is that too much? Or is that just, he likes you so he sent a message back faster than someone who doesn’t care?

Don’t let everybody else project their stuff onto your situation. Only you need to like this person. And the way that you know whether you like this person is to connect with how this person actually makes you feel. Do they make you feel safe? Do they make you feel peaceful? Do they make you feel more like yourself? Do you laugh around them? Do you feel you could be more vulnerable around them? Do you like the version of yourself that you are when you’re in their company or speaking to this person? You don’t need everyone else’s opinion on that, so do not allow your love life to be decided by committee.

Now, obviously, if you feel like someone is behaving in an abusive or disrespectful way, that’s a different thing. And sometimes the objective opinions of friends and family can matter in those situations when we’re too close to it. But if someone is making you feel good, if someone’s making you feel safe or more peaceful and you’re having a great time, don’t feel that you need everyone around you to also think that this person is hot and sexy and awesome in order for you to continue liking them.

Number three: Know what you’re optimizing for. What is actually important to you? You know, we just talked about some of these things, whether it’s peace, safety, feeling that you’re really understood by someone, feeling that you have this very deep connection with the person, feeling like you can be everything you truly are around someone or feeling like you’re growing around someone. What is it you need in order to be happy? If we’re not careful, we just follow what everyone else on the outside thinks is valuable, which are often the most superficial qualities—charisma, charm, how much someone lights up every room they walk into, can dazzle a crowd, can tell a great story at a dinner table, how they dress, what their job is, how well-regarded they are in the world. We look to these things instead of the things that are actually going to make us happy. We must not allow our ego to drive because our ego often wants to impress other people or to go after and get what other people find impressive. Our soul is going to be driven by what actually makes us happy. So, connect to what you, you, you are optimizing for in your love life.

Now, look, I’m not saying that some of these things aren’t important to us or that we don’t need a baseline level of attraction with someone. I’m not denying chemistry as a crucial factor. But how you end up feeling chemistry or the way someone looks that might turn you on or the sexual connection between you may not come in the form that will naturally impress the people around you. That may be something that’s very unique to you.

Everyone has been attracted at some point in their life to someone that wasn’t their type or someone that on paper they feel like they shouldn’t be or wouldn’t be attracted to, and yet here I am feeling this incredible chemistry or sexual connection with someone I never would have thought. People have that experience all the time, but then they get thrown off because their friend says something like, “Have you seen the trousers they’re wearing? Have you seen the shoes? I mean, their hair is a little bit crazy, isn’t it?” We start hearing these things going, “Oh, maybe I don’t find them as attractive as I thought I did, maybe I don’t have the sexual chemistry that I’ve been feeling.” We start second-guessing ourselves.

So, those things are important, but it matters that they’re derived from within, not from without.

Number four: Give yourself permission to make wrong decisions because we do that all the time. Anytime you’re out there aggressively making things happen in life, making decisions, you have to make peace with the fact that you’re going to make some wrong decisions. Now, people who have a story that says “I can’t trust myself” will, anytime they make a wrong decision, attribute that to their own poor decision-making. They will say, “Here I go again, I never get it right. I can’t trust myself.” Whereas people who don’t have that story will make a wrong decision and they’ll say, “Well, that’s just one of the hazards of living a life of action. That’s one of the hazards of making progress in life, of being aggressive about living is you’re going to make bad decisions or you’re going to make decisions that are wrong.”

What people with that more empowering story do is just self-correct. They realize that the price of success in any area, including our love life, is being able to make decisions and then correct course along the way if we’re wrong. Now, that might mean that we commit another two weeks to seeing someone; and if it ends up not making us feel the way we want to feel, if it doesn’t feel right, if it doesn’t progress in the ways that we want, then we correct course and put our energy into someone else or being single again. We don’t stay the course indefinitely if it’s wrong.

But we recognize that good leadership is not making the right decisions all the time. Good leadership is the ability to make a decision, and that’s no less true in our own love lives. Good personal leadership in our love lives is making decisions knowing that we’re not always going to get it right but also knowing that we reserve the right to correct course and change direction any time.

And, by the way, know that since you’re gonna make some wrong decisions, it’s important not to bet the house, metaphorically speaking, with every decision. That’s why we don’t quit our jobs, sell our house, and move across the country for someone we met a month ago. We make decisions, but because we know we’re going to make some wrong decisions, we make calculated bets where the losses or losses we can afford.

Number five: If you want to build self-trust in big ways, like, who you decide as your life partner, start building the muscle in small ways like deciding what you’re going to eat on the menu for dinner. So, if you go out with your friends, maybe you’re the one who picks the restaurant tonight instead of asking everyone else what they want to eat. When the menu comes, you decide what you want to order without having to ask everyone else what they’re ordering. Or maybe you’re planning a vacation this year, decide where is piquing your interest and book the tickets instead of having to get the validation from everybody else about where you’re deciding to go. If we train ourselves to make empowered decisions, knowing that our decision is not inherently more wrong or worse than anybody else’s, then we’re starting to send a very clear message to our brain that we can make good decisions, and, maybe most importantly, that there is no such thing as an ultimate right decision, which brings me on to point number six.

Leaning into something or someone is very often the thing that makes it great. When we actually start to apply our energy to something instead of being divided by indecision, we start to see what the potential for that thing really is. It’s, like I said, if you pick a vacation spot for this year, and then between now and leaving, you spend the entire six months deliberating about whether that was the right place to go on vacation, you’re not going to have a good vacation, you’re not going to bring great energy to it. But if instead you say that’s where I’m going, now, let me just make the best of this vacation, then it can be as good as any vacation you have ever been on.

What we have to recognize is that something being revealed to be a good decision is something we actually have agency over. We are empowered to make something a good decision by how much we throw ourselves into it with a beautiful energy, with an aggressive attitude of I’m going to make the best of this.

Now, the same is true of our love lives. Have you ever known anyone who spends their whole time debating whether the person that they’re dating is the right person or not, instead of actually being really present with that situation, going 100% in, and allowing that situation to either become great or reveal itself to not be capable of that greatness. I know that there are times in my life where I never even knew how good something could be because I spent my whole time living in this state of paralysis about whether it was right or not. And, as a result, I never even threw myself into it. I never even tried. Can you relate to that? Standing on the sidelines and just questioning it instead of actually going all in and seeing what it could become?

The best relationships are actually co-created. They are the result of two people giving their best energy to the relationship and seeing what it becomes when they do that. That’s the true one plus one equals three of any relationship. Best relationships don’t just come ready-made, they come from two people actually leaning into them and giving them their all.

And sometimes we’re afraid to lean into something because we think, “Well, I don’t want to give more to something if it’s not right.” But very often we find out more by leaning into something than we do by standing on the sidelines deliberating. Have you ever had a relationship where it felt like you wasted months and years, with half of you in, half of you out, never really getting any answers? Well, when we lean into something, we do get answers, right? They either succeed, in which case the argument is put to bed and we go, “Oh my god, this is amazing;” or they fail faster. They reveal themselves by us throwing ourselves into them.

That’s true of relationships, it’s true of business decisions. How many times do businesses go, well, should we do this? Should we not do this? Should we try this new product? Should we try this new service? Will the customers like it? And we learn more by just getting it out there in some way and getting the information so that we can then make another decision. This is just as true in our love lives. This doesn’t mean that leaning in is about going all in for the next year, right? We haven’t got that amount of time to waste. But it might mean I’m gonna give this my all for the next 30 days and see what it could be. And at the end of that, I might have more clarity either way than constantly debating within myself whether this is right.

You’re not going to get all the answers about someone right away, you’re not going to know exactly how you feel on every level in the very beginning. This idea of love at first sight and when you just know, you know I think can be quite a destructive one. I think what’s more true, for most people, is that you have to give an amount of energy and investment and curiosity to a situation to get to the next stage, at which point you can decide whether to continue or not. But if you never get to that next stage because you never invest appropriately, you never actually lean into something, then you’ll just spend your life in deliberation, waiting for a feeling of certainty that is actually earned through investment and trying and two people co-creating not from the sidelines.

And, by the way, remember, you reserve the right to change your mind at any time. If you lean into something and it doesn’t become great by leaning into it, you can leave. That’s also data. But I think we learn more by investing in something and seeing if it can become great. And, by the way, seeing if it just reveals itself to not be able to be that, because that’s information too, then we do by standing on the sidelines, debating it with no information.

Lastly, number seven, remember that people take their cues from us. When you are dating someone, if you have decided someone is amazing and awesome and you go and communicate with that energy to the people in your life, that is going to be infectious. That’s going to do more to determine what they feel about this person than any casual observation they make of this person in watching how they are around you or what they’re like in their life. Because, remember, they don’t really know this person, but you do. So, they are looking to you to tell them how great this person is.

Think about it when someone comes to us and does the reverse and keeps complaining about their partner and keeps saying that, “Oh, I’m dating this person and I’m not really sure because they keep texting me and they’re suffocating me or they’re being really annoying and they did this thing the other night that I didn’t like.” Eventually, your friends don’t know this person at all, but they’ll hate them. They’ll be like, I can’t stand this person. They’re so annoying. But really all they’re feeding off of is your energy about the person.

I know couples who everyone thinks are the greatest couple in the world. But the reason they think they’re the greatest couple in the world is because of how that couple speaks about each other. They’re constantly singing each other’s praises; they’re constantly talking about how the other one is the best person in the world. And so, everyone on the outside of that relationship. Of course, no one knows what that relationship is like on the inside behind closed doors, but everyone on the outside is like they’re the greatest couple because of how they speak about each other. People take their cues from us. 

When you lean into something, you make that thing the best it can be and you communicate to the outside world that that thing is right now the best thing you could be choosing. And when we do that, it has the effect of making more things great. It has the effect of colouring positively the perception of everyone else for what we have chosen so we have agency.

And we have to get out of this mindset that is the disease of lacking self-trust. That is that, there is one true right answer in life, whether it’s for what to have to eat tonight, where to go on vacation this year, or what partner to choose to spend our lives with and that other people have more information on what that right answer is than we do and instead realize the truth that there is no one answer, that there are many great vacation spots in the world, that there is no one right cuisine to eat tonight, and that there is no one partner that could make us happy, and that we have the best information to make these decisions, because we know what we need and value for our own happiness, and that once we’ve chosen if we lean into the decision and if we give it all we’ve got and if we talk about it with excitement, that that decision will be the one that people look at and go, “Wow, you chose really, really well.”

But we will have orchestrated the success of our decision. It won’t be that we objectively made the best decision in the world and know that, at any time, if you make what is clearly the wrong decision, which you and I will many more times in our life, we can correct course. And the ultimate self-trust is not built in having a perfect record of making great decisions, it’s in the knowledge that you make decisions and when you get them wrong, you’re able to correct course any time you need. And guess what? When you remove all of this power from everybody else about knowing what’s right for you, or even in determining objectively what is valuable in the world, you will stop valuing people simply because they’re the most popular person in the room, because other people tell you that they’re eligible, or because they are hard to get when you try to reach them. You’ll start to see that those are at best subjective markers of value and at worse than more dangerously fake markers of value, and that the real value is in what’s going to make you happy. You will no longer choose someone because they’re unavailable, you’ll choose the person you feel the best around. And I can tell you who that will never be—the person who is not available to you.

Before you go anywhere, I have a brand-new free guide called Spark and Connect that shows you nine effortless ways to start up a conversation and connect with someone new. It is at WhatToSayNext.com. It’s easy, it’s practical, and you can use it today to go out there and meet someone new. So, go create some great options for yourself—WhatToSayNext.com is the link. And if you want to continue your video journey with me, right here, right now, then go check out this video because we have picked a recommended video for you to watch after this one. So, check this one out and enjoy. I’ll see you soon. Don’t forget to leave me a comment on this one as well. I will be reading them. And I’ll see you next week. Thank you so much. Be well, my friends, and love life.

The post The WEIRD Reason You’re Attracting Emotionally Unavailable People appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

What is a relationship with a narcissist really like? 

If you’re an empathetic person, it can make you feel crazy: You doubt yourself constantly. You’re always second-guessing. Your boundaries and sense of self are slowly broken down by emotional manipulation and gaslighting.

Whether you’re still feeling the wounds from a past narcissistic relationship, or are trying to figure out if you’re in a relationship with a narcissist right now, today’s video is your next step. I walk you through the 7 signs you’re dating a narcissist, and show you how to spot these traits faster in your next relationship.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

What are the signs that you are with, are dating, or have fallen for, or been married to a narcissist? 

There are certain types of people in this world that will never make sense to the rest of us. Those are the narcissists. And I don’t mean that word in the kind of generic way that it gets thrown around a lot these days, where anyone seems to be able to be construed a narcissist based on one or two things that they’ve done. I am talking about someone who truly fits the bill. And you know one, if you have been with one because they don’t just tick the box on one count, they tick the box in almost every diagnosable criteria of a narcissist. 

If you have been with one in the past, I think this is going to be a very cathartic and healing video. It’s going to help a lot of people feel a lot more sane. If you are with one right now, it’s going to help instruct how much information you have about the person you are with. If you have just come out of a situation like this and you’re still in the devastation of it, I think it’s going to help you understand a lot about what’s just happened to you. 

Thank you, by the way, for watching my YouTube channel. I am Matthew Hussey, a coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence, and for the last 17 years of my life, I’ve been helping people all over the world find love. Don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to this channel, and hit the notification bell, so that the next time I release a video, you are the first to be notified. 

All right, let’s do this. 

Number one, they can be great sometimes. 

Despite all of your suffering, despite all of the ways that they cause you pain, all of the betrayals, all of the ways that they invalidate your feelings or gaslight you, one evening, they come home and they’re amazing. They’re kind. They’re sweet. They have great conversations with you. They’re playful, they are loving. They are everything that you always hope that they would be. And when this happens, it’s so maddening, because we think “This is it. They are capable of being this. It’s not that they’re never capable of being what I want. They are being exactly what I always want, right now.” And we then start playing the game of, “If I can just keep this going, this is the relationship I always wanted with this person.”

What we have to remember is that a narcissist might actually come across as a delightful person once all their needs have been met. That’s not always the case, but for some, if all of their needs have been met, if they have their supply, as it’s known. If they feel validated and adored and there’s nothing they want for, then they might see you in the evening, they might see you at some point, and be wonderful to be around. But what you’re really experiencing is them being great because every box is being ticked for them right now. The danger is who they are when they’re trying to get their needs met. 

I like to think about it like a broken watch. A broken watch is right twice a day. It’s wrong most of the time, but for two brief moments a day, a broken clock is correct. Don’t mistake a relationship that works a couple of moments a day, a week, or a month, with a working relationship, you have every right to be loved, considered, and seen in every other minute of the day too. 

Number two, your empathy for them gets you worse treatment, not better treatment.

The very quality that can make us so special, our empathy, our compassion with people, our ability to truly see behind what’s going on with the person, or to understand, to see them at their core, not to just blame or judge on the surface, can actually be the thing that gets weaponized against us. 

Think about in a relationship like this how often you end up forgiving someone, or empathy is often the horse that forgiveness rides in on. Right? Empathy is the thing that ushers in forgiveness. When we understand someone. When we know their story. When we are able to see the hardships that they’ve endured in their life, the things that they’ve been through, that maybe it feels like uniquely predisposed them to this bad behavior, to treating us this way. It breeds a kind of sympathy, maybe even a kind of pity. “They’ve had it hard. They’ve been through a lot, they can’t help themselves.” And that empathy is what allows us to keep forgiving someone, to keep making allowances for their terrible behavior in the present. 

And of course, when we finally say enough is enough, that person will often shame us. Shame the part of us that wants to feel compassionate by saying, “How could you? How could you leave me? How could you judge me? How could you not forgive me? You know me. You know what I’ve been through. You, of all people I thought would understand.” In those moments, their story, and all of the reasons that we should see them as sympathetic can get weaponized against us using our empathy, which is something we pride ourselves on. So we have to be extremely careful of that. 

But the real insidious part of this is that one would think that the person who lives on this island with the narcissist who gives them the most sacrifice, the most compassion, the most empathy, would be the person that they treat the best. Sadly, the person living on that island with them is usually the person they treat the worst. 

For a narcissist, our empathy isn’t seen as some beautiful quality that signifies our value. Our empathy is seen as their ticket to doing whatever they want. It is seen as their perpetual Get Out of Jail Free card anytime they want to get their needs met in any disrespectful or terrible way, and they know at the end of any terrible behavior they can always rely on and—because of their entitlement—expect forgiveness. 

Number three, they are able to move on impossibly quickly after something terrible they have done to hurt someone they love, which may mean you. 

I want you to think about the things that this person has done to hurt you. And as a thought experiment, I want you to now imagine that you had done any of those things to them. That you had caused that kind of hurt to someone you love. How long would it take you to move on from that? You, not them. How long would it take you to move on from that? How hard would it be? How much work would it take for you to forgive yourself, for you to let go of any shame that you felt? Any guilt that you felt at having done that? Any anxiety that you felt at having been what you might think of as a bad person. How long would it take you? How hard would it be for you to move on from that? Then consider how easy it was for them to move on from that. 

Many narcissists will never apologize and expect you to move on. But even the ones that can apologize will often expect that once the apology has been issued, the situation is over. And if you continue to have any feelings about the betrayal that you’ve been through, the pain they’ve put you through, the hurt they’ve caused, they will start to become incredibly impatient or even angry at the fact that you are still making a big deal out of it. “Why are we still talking about this? I thought it was over.” Their response is devoid of compassion. 

And by the way, that doesn’t mean that they won’t grovel in the beginning or perform grandiose gestures in order to win back your good graces, in order to prevent from losing you. They’re only doing that in order to get back to the status quo so that they can get back to getting their needs met. So that they can get their supply again. 

They’re not doing it because they fundamentally feel bad, because what they have done has gone against some fundamental moral compass that they have that they now are finding it challenging to reconcile or forgive themselves for. What they want is for you to move on as quickly as possible, because they moved on the moment they did it. In fact, for them, there was nothing to move on from. 

By the way, never let someone else’s ease of moving on gaslight you into believing that what they did wasn’t so bad after all in a situation like this. Their ease of moving on has nothing to do with the scale of what they did. It has everything to do with the absence of empathy and compassion that they feel when they do bad things.

What’s up, everybody? Sorry. To interrupt my own video. I just wanted to let you know that we only have 35 spaces left for my Live Retreat in Florida this September from the 9th to the 15th. If you want to spend six days with me, getting to know more about your story, helping you through some of the deepest things that you want to work on. This is the place we do it. It’s only happening once this year, and this is your chance to get on board. So, go to MHRetreat.com, grab one of those 35 places before they’re gone, and I hope I will get to see you there. 

Back to the video. 

The fourth sign that you’re with a narcissist. When caught red-handed, they will make excuses that are almost unbelievable. Which, by the way, we might still believe. 

You might have clear as-day proof that someone is cheating on you. “I literally found the messages on your phone,” and they will say something like, “What are you doing on my phone?” And come to think of it, “That’s my private life, and has nothing to do with you.” Inside you’re thinking, “But we’re in a relationship.” Before you know it, you are on a different planet to the one you thought you were on, having to defend yourself for not being a good partner to this person who, three minutes ago, you found out was cheating on you. 

You ever heard the law Occam’s Razor? Occam’s Razor is essentially the idea that the simplest explanation is the most likely one. “I found evidence of you cheating. That’s the most likely thing that has happened, is that you have cheated.” What they are telling you is the complete opposite of Occam’s Razor. It is the most complex, ridiculous, insane version of events that somehow leads to them being innocent or being the victim. And, ideally, you being the perpetrator. Though you just found that part out. 

It’s almost like the excuses version of Murphy’s Law. David, what’s Murphy’s Law is kind of anything that can go wrong will go wrong, right? Or anything that can happen will happen. In this case it’s any excuse that can be made will be made, and even the ones that you think couldn’t be made will be made. Remember, if the excuse sounds wild, then it’s more likely an indicator of the person you are dealing with than just how fantastical the reality really is. 

You didn’t think I’d be able to fit Occam’s Razor and Murphy’s Law into one point? Did you? 

If they’re deeply uncomfortable with the contents of this video, they’re a narcissist. And that, my friends, is Matthew’s Law. 

The fifth sign you’re with a narcissist, even when you are at your worst, in a moment when you are sinking and you think they wouldn’t let you drown. They do.

This, I think, is one of the most earth-shattering, reality-bending realizations that people come to when dealing with true narcissism. They may have seen bad behavior over time. They may have seen it consistently, reliably, predictably. But, there’s something in the back of their mind that tells them, “Yes, but if I was truly in trouble if I was really on my worst day, this person would be there for me. Of course they would. We’ve been together all this time. We have history. I’ve sacrificed so much for them. I’ve always been there for them. We are lovers. We love each other. At the end of the day, we are like this.  Despite all of the chaos on the surface and all of the friction in our relationship and all of the challenges we’ve had, at the end of the day, we are there for each other.” 

And in a sense, it may feel like we never truly put that to the ultimate test, until something dreadful happens in our life, until something goes truly wrong. It might be a point of financial devastation. It might be at the point of a health diagnosis. It might be a time when your life falls apart in some very real way with your family or your mental health. You believe that in that moment when the chips are down, they’ll throw you a life raft, they’ll be there for you. And in that moment, you watch as you’re going underwater, and they’re not there. They stand by, either with indifference or with excuses. 

In short, you cannot know the extent to which a person like this will abandon you in the key moments until those devastating moments actually happen. And for a lot of people, that moment is a moment of true realization. It’s almost for a lot of people, a moment that they can never go back from. They will never forget that in that moment when they were drowning, the other person did not save them. And you can’t unknow that. 

It’s almost like we can’t bring ourselves to believe that we’re in a relationship or married to an alien. And some people are watching this, and it applies for them with a family member or a parent. But it’s hard to believe that this person that you have been wed to in one way or another, is actually an alien to you who does not operate by the same set of laws in life. 

So we still identify with them, and we say “No, no. When it really goes wrong, they’ll behave like I would behave.” And that’s the mistake. Is that right up until total devastation, we still believe that they will behave like us, but they will never behave like us because they don’t operate according to the same set of laws. 

By the way, don’t ever shame yourself for feeling like a fool when it comes to this. It is one of the most mind-blowing, reality-shattering realizations that you will have about a person, and long after it’s happened, you can still fail to understand how the hell that person was happy to let you drown. 

Don’t shame yourself for finding it hard to wrap your head around that reality. The fact that you can’t really wrap your head around that reality is a sign of who you are and your character and just how different you are from them. 

Sign number six, they show emotion, but their emotion doesn’t come from the same place as our emotion comes from. 

So it’s very tempting when we threaten to leave someone to see their tears, to see them cry, to see them get upset. And to think, “Oh, they do have the same emotional register as me. Look, I keep talking about them like they’re this cold, calculated, unemotional narcissist. But, look how much pain they’re feeling right now. Look how many tears they’re shedding. Maybe they are like me after all.”

Now it’s not that their tears aren’t real, it’s not that their tears are an act. That’s just another falsehood. Their tears may well be real, but their tears aren’t for you. Their tears are for them. They are feeling a loss, and that is what they’re upset about. 

In other words, when someone hurts you and they risk losing you, they’re not hurting because you’re hurting. They’re hurting because they’re hurting, and their pain is the most important thing in the world to them. So they are capable of feeling immense pain, but we mustn’t mistake it as having the underlying foundation that our pain has. 

When we feel pain, it’s often from a place of having caused someone else pain. Our pain is our guilt, our pain is our self-loathing. Our pain is our self-admonishment that we could have done something like that to someone. Their pain is that whatever has happened has cost them something. And that’s where their sadness or their hurt is coming from. Don’t confuse tears that are over you for tears that are for you. 

The seventh sign that you are with or have been with a narcissist, is how quickly and seemingly easily they can discard you once it’s over. 

It is another shocking realization. I feel like every narcissistic relationship is sort of a series of shocking realizations to wrap your head around. And, in many ways, the final shocking realization that people have is that this person that they thought once they finally left the narcissist, or once they finally stopped giving in to them, would continue to hurt, or would in some way, continue to do the right thing afterwards, or continue some strand of connection, how easily that person severs all connection with you. How they can seemingly just move on, as if you never existed. And any communication with them from that point is tantamount to an inconvenience to them. Unless it still represents some kind of supply. Right? 

If the narcissists can continue to get supply from you, in some way, then there may still be some passing interest. In other words, if they can still get validation from you, adoration from you, if they can still get their needs met in some way, then maybe they’ll hang on to that connection. But the moment you refuse to be their supply anymore, which means having boundaries, having standards for yourself, going forward, the moment you are no longer supply they discard you as if you never existed. 

And for people who have so much history with someone, in many cases, have built a life with someone, or been raised by someone, or raised someone the idea that that person could just cut them off and move on to another life at lightning speed is the most disorienting, bewildering thing. But that’s exactly the experience so many people have when it comes to narcissism. 

This can have the effect of being almost this kind of “exit gaslighting” that happens on the way out. This feeling that this situation that has gaslit us all along, on one level or another, this is like the final gaslighting. Is that “I made the whole thing up. I thought we were soulmates. I thought we were this couple that looked out for each other. I thought we had a marriage that meant something at the end of the day, after years or decades of being together. And, seemingly, it counted for nothing. It is like it was all just a hallucination of my own.”

Whatever they thought of the relationship, or how different it was in their mind to how it was in yours, your love was real. The relationship may not have been in the way that you thought, but the way you loved, and the ability you had to love them, your feelings for them, were real. And the beautiful thing is you can now take all of that that you still have, because it’s yours, no one can take that from you, and you can point it in a direction that deserves it this time around. And I don’t care how late in the day, you have told yourself it is for you in life. I don’t care what season you are in, it is never too late, while you are still breathing, to take all of that love that you have and to point it in a direction where it will do good and blossom into something beautiful for you and for somebody else. 

If you enjoyed this video, leave me a comment, let me know what it meant to you. The feedback on these videos means a lot to me and helps me direct future videos. It also is encouraging to me to know that people are out there and that you heard it and that it made a difference to you. 

I wanted to give you something as a gift from me today. I have created a free and very practical guide for communicating bold standards. In many cases, standards you may have never communicated before, and when we’ve never communicated them before, we need to learn the language of them. What does it actually look like to communicate these new standards that I want to have in my life? And this guide is designed to help you do exactly that. 

Remember, if you have gone a long time without communicating standards, or you’ve never had them, and you’ve never known how to set boundaries, then it’s like learning to walk for the first time, and that’s okay. When we’re starting out learning a language, we need to know the basics. 

So I put together a guide for you to be able to create bold new standards going forward. And it’s really going to show you what they look like, literal sentences that you can say to people to have the kinds of standards that are going to create a better life, a better relationship for you in the future, and protect you from the kinds of relationships you may have had in the past. 

Go to BoldStandards.com and you can download that guide for free right now, and let me know what you think. I think you’re really gonna love it. 

And thank you for watching this video. I’m so happy to have you here and let’s keep working on our standards together.

I’ll see you next week. Be well, my friends, and love life.

The post 7 Things Narcissists Do That’ll Never Make Sense to You appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

Have you felt the heartbreak of losing the “love of your life,” and now you want them back? Or perhaps you feel trapped in sadness after a breakup and don’t know how to move on. 

Either way, this is the first aid you need right now.

In today’s video, I explain the #1 thing that defines our reality during a breakup, and show how the obsession we might feel during a breakup can have its roots in the early days of dating someone. And if you’re on the fence about getting back with your ex, the 3 steps I share today can help you make that decision.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

If you’re in pain right now because the love of your life ended things with you, and you want them back, this video is for you. Because in this video, I am going to talk about what it might take to get someone back and how we can use this advice to also move on from a person.

For those of you that don’t know, I am Matthew Hussey, a coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence. And for the last 17 years of my life, I have been helping people find love.

So, welcome back to the channel, friends. Don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to this channel if you haven’t already, and hit the notification bell, so that the next time I release a video, you get notified.

Now, I don’t normally talk about this subject for obvious reasons. It’s an extremely sticky subject and questionable as to whether we should ever want someone back especially if that person didn’t treat us right. But there are relationships where someone didn’t treat us badly and the relationship ended for reasons that perhaps could shift. But the beautiful thing about it is everything I’m going to tell you is also going to be the thing that actually helps you get over them.

I have divided this video into three separate parts. Before I get into these three parts, allow me to tell you a quick story. A person that I coached, a man, had someone that he broke up with, that he had been with for many years, but no longer felt was right for him. He had a couple of big issues with the relationship that weren’t anything to do with this person’s character. But just things that he was really struggling with. And he got to the point where he felt like he needed to make a clean break and go back out into the world to see what else was out there.

In the wake of this break-up, both of them suffered. She suffered from feeling like she lost the love of her life. He suffered from losing someone that he had broken up with and was feeling the pain of missing constantly. But despite them missing each other and despite him being in pain, he never went back to re-initiate the relationship.

That is, until one day, ten months later, when the two of them met up, and he saw something that made him reconsider everything.

Part 1, what happens in a break-up?

Okay. So, someone breaks up with us. It is devastating when we loved that person. It feels like we have lost the one thing in the world that we need for our happiness. It feels like we can’t breathe, we can’t eat, we can’t sleep. Our world is falling apart. And in that state of obsession, which in some ways is not entirely unlike the obsession that we can feel in early dating when we like someone, that obsession that we feel when we go on a few dates with someone and we’ve decided, “Oh, my god. I think this is it. I think this is my person. I see the potential. I see where this can go. I see everything that this could be.” And then they don’t call us back. That obsession that we feel in a break-up is actually very connected to that early dating obsession because it has its roots in the same thing.

“This person holds the keys to my happiness and my future.”

When someone breaks up with us, we had pictured a future with that person. We had pictured a life with them, a reality where both of us existed together. And now, that reality is shattered. The only difference in early dating is that we have a lot less evidence for that reality. There’s far more projection involved than is involved in a multi-month or multi-year relationship where we’ve had a lot more evidence for the fact that this is going to be a big part of my life or this is going to be my whole life.

So, there’s a kind of obsession that takes over. And that’s what turns into that obsessive rumination that we feel in a break-up. For many of you, you’re there right now in that obsessive rumination. And for those of you that are there, I am sorry. It is the absolute worst. It is a terrible place to be. And it does feel when you’re in that place like nothing is going to make us feel better. And part of the reason that it feels like nothing is going to make us feel better, part of the reason that it feels like this is catastrophic for us, is to do with our focus and what we are connected to right now.

In a breakup, we become connected to one thing and one thing only—the loss that we have experienced.

Imagine that you have this giant spotlight and where you shine this spotlight determines your reality, the story you’re telling yourself, and how you feel.

And so, this giant spotlight that you have, which is the most powerful thing, imagine that this spotlight is the bringer of all emotions. It’s the most powerful thing you have. And you take this, the most powerful thing you have, and you shine it on this area of your life where you have experienced this loss, this person who no longer wants to be with you. And as long as you’re shining the spotlight on that loss, which isn’t just a present-day loss, it’s also you’re shining it on what feels like the loss of your entire future. So, there’s the story there. The reality is I’ve lost this person. The story is I’ve lost my whole future. And all the emotions that come with that are the pain, the desperation, the obsession, the grief. All of that is coming from shining a spotlight on this break-up.

Now, that may not even be a new thing. It might be that you’ve been shining that spotlight on the relationship for the entire time you were in the relationship, saying, “My reality is this relationship. And that the story is that this relationship is the best, maybe the only really good thing in my life, but it’s certainly the best thing in my life.” And all of your emotions are coming from that relationship which, by the way, might have been good at times. “I’m elated. I’m excited. I feel fulfilled. I feel loved.” But it also might have been the reason why in the relationship, you felt terrible a lot of the time because any time that relationship wasn’t perfect, any time you didn’t get a text back, any time you didn’t feel loved, you felt desperate with anxiety. You couldn’t get through the day. You felt like you couldn’t focus on anything else until you had resolved that argument with that person, until you had got their confirmation for the third time that day or that week that they really love you.

That spotlight was on the relationship then. So, it might be that now, this is just a graduation of where the spotlight already was.

Why am I saying all of this? Why such emphasis on this spotlight?

Well, because where that spotlight goes determines our reality, our story, our emotions. So, what happens in a break-up is the spotlight gets shone on one place when, in fact, our life is much bigger than that. Our life is made up of many things, many components. We have our friends. We have our family. We have ourselves and our inner world and our inner growth that is just ours. It doesn’t belong to anyone else or isn’t in relation to anyone else’s. It’s just ours. And it’s very common to become disconnected from everything else in our world. And the key to starting to feel better is to get connected to other things in our world, to really lose ourselves in the friendships we have, in the family that we hold dear, in something we’re learning about right now that we’re curious about that we have a powerful curiosity about.

Every single one of these things is a universe of its own. There is so much depth to all of them. You could lose yourself in all of them. And all of them tell their own story and have their own emotions attached.

We can take that spotlight and shine it on any other part of our world we want at any time. And it feels like the most unnatural thing to do when we are obsessively ruminating over this one area that we have lit up right now. But it’s actually the answer. We have to get connected to everything else in our world.

And I say this to people not just in a break-up, but in the beginning of dating. In the beginning of dating, it’s really important when we like someone that we get connected to everything else in our world that’s important to us, and that we stay connected to it. Because what happens is, we’re experiencing a lot of joy from different parts of our life and things that gave us meaning. And then we meet someone that knocks us over with their charisma, the way they light up a room or how big their life is. And we suddenly forget everything that’s important to us in our lives, everything that makes our lives special, everything we love, everything that gives us a deep sense of meaning. We lose connection with those things. And this person becomes the only thing that matters.

The moment we decide we like someone is the most dangerous moment in attraction because we lose focus on all those other things. Whether it’s in a break-up or in early dating, never ever let anyone make you feel like your world is small without them. That your world doesn’t matter. Stay connected to what’s rich in your world.

And by the way, if someone comes along in your life, and it feels like, “Oh, they’re big, and they’re exciting, and they’re shiny, and they have such an amazing life, and they’re so impressive,” don’t ever let that person distract you from what’s magical and what’s important in your world. You might be a nurse who works with five dementia patients. And outside of that very difficult and long days, you go and see your friends who you love. And you have a hobby on the side that you really enjoy and that gives you a lot of meaning. And between those three things, you have a big life. Just because someone comes along and it looks like they have a bigger life or somewhat something that’s outwardly splashier and more impressive. Don’t ever let that distract you from the rich meaning that is in your own life. But you have to connect to how big and rich your life is. Okay?

And that’s something that we often lose in a break-up. It’s often something we lose while we’re in a relationship especially when we’re spending so much of our time pleasing someone else, trying to be what we think they want us to be, trying to show up for them and their needs, and never tending to our own garden, never looking at our own life and the richness in it and connecting to it. So, we can be forgiven in a break-up for forgetting just how big and rich and important our own life is.

There is a wonderful quote in the movie, A Man for All Seasons, that I included in my book, Love Life, for anyone who doesn’t know. It’s a moment where Sir Thomas More is giving advice to an ambitious Richard Rich who feels that he won’t be worth anything unless he achieves his grand ambitions. More wants him to know that there are more profound ways to achieve a sense of significance than the kind of superficial goals that Richard Rich is trying to attain.

More says to him, “Why not be a teacher? You’d be a fine teacher. Perhaps a great one.” Richard Rich, “If I was, who would know it?” Thomas More, “You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public that.”

That is a beautiful exchange that shows one person who thinks that the richness of his life is going to come from this big thing, this big achievement, or in some cases, in our love lives, we think it’s going to come from this person that we date and what they add to our lives. And another person who sees that the richness of this man’s life could come in far more subtle ways if he really connected to it.

Now, in the story I told you about, the danger for the woman in that scenario is that she would now spend months and months, maybe even years, shining the spotlight on him and how he was her world, and she had lost her world.

Did she do that? We’ll find out.

Part 2, the Matrix.

Those of you who have read my book know that there is a chapter called The Identity Matrix. And in this chapter, I described a certain kind of confidence that comes from having multiple sources of validation and significance in your life. I draw a square, and inside that square, I draw smaller squares that represent these different sources of significance, and validation, and identity in your life.

Now, for some of us, our matrix, I call it the identity matrix, is dominated by one very large square that makes up the majority of our sense of significance and our identity where we get our validation. And for a lot of people, that’s their relationship. Not for everyone, for some people who don’t have a relationship, it’s their career. For other people, it’s their kids. For other people, it’s their looks.

People can have a very dominant square in their matrix and the danger of a very dominant square in your matrix is that it’s responsible for too much of our identity, our significance, what we think makes us attractive, or worthy. That means that when that square goes away, we don’t just feel like we lost that thing—that career, that relationship, our looks as we age. We feel like we have lost our entire identity and sense of worth.

And in a way, what I’m talking about with the spotlight is that over time, when we spotlight one area of our matrix, that thing can grow and grow and grow. But it often grows to the detriment of the other parts of our life.

So, if our relationship ends up being how we identify ourselves, we put so much pressure on that relationship working and never going away, that we start to suffocate that relationship or we start to become too anxious in that relationship or we start to contort ourselves to whatever we think someone else wants us to be in order to keep that relationship going, and we lose ourselves in the process, maybe we even lose the respect of the person we’re with.

Ironically, in our identity matrix, the key to keeping a square strong is knowing that we have other squares that can support us if that square were to ever go away.

I think about this matrix like a tabletop. And the tabletop is our confidence. And underneath it are the legs that support that tabletop. Well, if you only have one leg supporting your confidence, and that’s in the case of this particular video, your relationship, the relationship you’ve just lost, then when that relationship goes away, it feels like your entire confidence is shattered.

But if we build up other squares in our matrix, we’re putting other sturdy legs under the table. So now, that one thing is no longer a crutch supporting the table. It’s just one of several strong and sturdy legs. That means that when we lose it, it can still hurt. We can still grieve. It can still be a tremendous loss and a tremendous disappointment. But it’s no longer catastrophic to our confidence or our sense of self.

So, what we need to do with this matrix is have a very honest look at how much of our pain right now is coming from simply the grief of losing someone important to us and how much of it is not just that grief but a whole other level of suffering that is coming from the fact that our entire identity and worth was built around this relationship, their desire for us, and our ability to retain it.

So, the important takeaway for all of this is that our identity matrix is a huge part of what is making us so unhappy in a break-up and what prolongs heartbreak for so long. But that we, actually, have full control over our identity matrix. It is malleable. We can change it.

And the woman in the story I’ve been telling you about changed her identity matrix in crucial ways that made a huge impact.

What’s up, everybody? Sorry to interrupt my own video. I just wanted to let you know that we only have 35 spaces left for my Live Retreat in Florida this September from the 9th to the 15th. If you want to spend six days with me, getting to know more about your story, helping you through some of the deepest things that you want to work on, this is the place we do it. It’s only happening once this year and this is your chance to get on board.

So go to MHRetreat.com, grab one of those 35 places before they’re gone, and I hope I will get to see you there. Back to the video.

Part 3, My Challenge to You.

So, we have talked about the fact that during a break-up, losing someone that was really important to us, one of the things that makes it so hard is we take this powerful spotlight we have and we shine it only on that, and we lose connection with all of the other sources of richness and beauty and confidence and meaning in our world. And the identity matrix is a very visual illustration of how we may have done that over time both inside the relationship and now, in losing it.

So, if we want to start to feel better, it stands to reason that we should find a way to diversify our identity matrix away from that one square, so that there are other areas of our life that can bring us a new reality, a different story, and better emotions when we shine the spotlight on them.

My challenge to you is to do this in one of three ways, if not all three. The first way is to take a square that already exists in your matrix but has started to shrivel and atrophy over time because this other giant square that perhaps was the relationship got so much of your focus. What in your life has withered that if you started to invest more time and energy into it would start to grow and blossom and flourish again into a deep source of meaning and richness in your life?

We value what we invest in. So, if you’re thinking right now, “I don’t want to do that. I don’t really value that part of my life,” know that there’s a very strong chance that’s because you haven’t been investing in it. When we start investing in something again, we start to value it more. And when we value it more, we can find that, magically, this other thing that held so much value for us starts to feel a little less important because other areas become more important.

So, one part of this challenge is to diversify your squares in your identity matrix by focusing more time, energy, and investment in one that already exists but has atrophied over time.

The second way is to create a brand-new square in your matrix, one that never existed before. As a thought experiment, just think of something that you’ve always said you wanted to do, maybe it’s dancing and taking a dance class, maybe it’s a new skillset or qualification that you wanted to get, something that you wanted to go back to school for, or it could be something that you wanted to do for the first time.

It doesn’t matter what it is. What matters is that this didn’t exist before in your matrix but could begin to exist as a new source of validation, significance, meaning, identity.

By the way, it doesn’t make sense for all of your self-worth to come from any of these things. But it can help us to add something that starts to allow there to be more sources of confidence in our life because having too few makes us vulnerable. So, adding a new square. What could that be for you? Maybe leave a comment and let me know. What’s a new square that you would like to add to your matrix? Something that you think could be a new source of confidence for you if you actually started to do it.

And by the way, that doesn’t mean you have to get good at that thing. It doesn’t need to be something you get good at to become a source of confidence. It just has to be a new interest, something that you derive richness from, something that you derive meaning from, something you enjoy that takes focus away from certain other things that you thought were your world.

The third part of this challenge is to take something that is already something you have in your life that you could be grateful for if you shone that spotlight on it but maybe until now or for a very long time, you have taken for granted. Because our identity matrix is only made up of things that we actually put focus on. That doesn’t mean it’s made up of everything that exists in our life.

So, I’m going to give you an example from my life. For a long time, I have been speaking, focusing on my ability to public speak, to make videos, and I’ve also been writing. I wrote my first book over ten years ago. I’ve written many articles. I just wrote a new book. But my writing and my speaking were things that for a long time, I kind of took for granted. These days, I don’t do that. I remind myself that if I lost everything, if I no longer had a cent to my name, if for whatever reason, my whole life imploded, what I would still have is my ability to speak well, to have a facility with language, and to write well, hopefully. 

My ability in those two areas is something I am now intensely grateful for. I appreciate it. I’m shining the spotlight on it. And in doing that, even though I’ve been doing them for a long time, they weren’t necessarily part of my matrix. But now, they are because I am shining a spotlight on those things.

So now, they are powerful sources of confidence and security for me. I know that everything else in my matrix could go away, and I’d still have those skills, and those skills would give me a sense of courage and security in knowing that I’ll be okay because I’ve got these skills.

What could those things be for you? It doesn’t have to be skills. It could be the love of certain people in your life whether they’re family or friends. Maybe you’ve taken for granted the love that you have around you and actually, that’s one of the greatest forms of security there is.

George Bailey, at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, he gets called the richest man in town not because he has the most money but because he has the most friends and support, the most people who are willing to show up for him. Are you already the richest man or woman in town because of the love you have? Have you taken that for granted? If you started to actually shine a spotlight on that, could that become a whole new giant square in your identity matrix? That doesn’t even need more effort, just more recognition. And that by recognizing it, you’d realize that this story you’re telling yourself that everything in your life is bad, that your life is over because you lost this one square, is actually not true at all.

So, those are my three challenges to you. You could do one of them or you could do all of them. Put more effort and investment into a square that has atrophied to make it bigger and stronger again, create a new square out of something you’ve wanted to do for a while, and lastly, put focus, shine a spotlight on something you already have but maybe has gone underappreciated and undervalued.

Now, earlier in this video, I told you a story of a guy I coached who broke up with someone he had been in a long-term relationship with because he no longer felt it was right.

What happened the day those two met up again ten months later?

He noticed something profoundly different in what he was seeing.

Now, what I didn’t tell you earlier is that in those ten months, she had changed her identity matrix. In the relationship, he had often felt like she didn’t have her own sense of purpose outside of him. In those ten months, she went and got a job. Not just any job, but a job that made her really happy, a job that gave her meaning, a job that made her feel fulfilled, a job that allowed her to feel like she was getting better at something. And that made her proud.

What the job also did was it gave her a brand new circle of friends, an entire new community that she was starting to connect with, and get closer to, that was becoming a source of connection in her life, outside of anything she had previously.

And that just so happened to be another one of the challenges he felt back when they were in a relationship. That he was her only source of connection. That she didn’t have friendships of her own. That she didn’t have her own world socially outside of him.

When the two of them met back up again, as she began to talk about her life, the things that were going on in her life, the things she was excited about, the things she was proud of, as her phone lit up from messages, from people that were excited to see her this weekend, as she talked about what she’d been doing this week in her new job, he started to see a very different picture of the person she was and her identity matrix.

That began a brand new relationship between them. In the weeks that followed, they started talking, reconnecting, and became exclusive again, in a brand new relationship.

And new is the important word there. It wasn’t the same relationship. They didn’t restart their relationship. They began a new one on new terms, on new attraction, on a new way of looking at each other.

What’s so important about all of this is that she didn’t do these things for him. She did them for her. They were an authentic indication of her intention to move on with her life and strengthen her own identity matrix. But when he saw that new identity matrix, he found it incredibly compelling, so compelling, in fact, that it took his spotlight and shone it on her. And in doing so, he saw a new reality with her, a new story of what the two of them could be, appeared, and he experienced new and powerful emotions towards her.

And let me issue you a warning. When you do these things for yourself, there is a very good chance the side effect will be that these things that draw this person back to you will be the very same things that make you no longer need them. And when you no longer need them, if they’re wanting you back, you’ll be able to now objectively assess whether you want them. Now, instead of needing them back, you’ll no longer need them back and you’ll be able to assess whether you want them back.

And for many people that I do this work with and get to this point, they find that they no longer want the person. They needed them before because of the way that their identity matrix was set up. But now that their identity matrix is structured differently, they’re able to see that, “Now that I no longer need them, do I want them? Actually, I’m not sure I do. They’re not nearly as impressive as I was telling myself. This isn’t a good partner. This isn’t someone I want in my future.”

So, be prepared for that. If you actually take this advice in this video, six months from now, you may find yourself in a place where the thing, the person, you thought you needed to breathe, now that you’ve learned to breathe on your own, is someone you realize you don’t actually want.

And if you realize that’s true, and you want to go out and meet someone new, I have something really cool for you.

I have just created a brand-new, free guide. So many of you have been asking for this for a very long time because it’s been years since I created a new free guide in this kind of a practical, written format. I’ve just created a new free guide called Spark and Connect where I give you nine things that you can say to spark up a connection with a brand new person.

So, if you want to go out there and create more opportunities with new people, and why wouldn’t you? Why limit yourself to the possibility of someone from your past coming back to you? Even if there’s some part of you that would like that, don’t ever limit yourself to that. This is a way that you can go out and expand your options, and dare I say, find someone even better for you.

To download this guide for free, go to WhatToSayNext.com and it would take you ten seconds. And like I said, this literally spells out nine different ways that you can connect with new people in life.

Thank you so much for watching this video. I have really enjoyed making it for you. And I look forward to reading your comments. Don’t forget to go to WhatToSayNext.com and download the guide before you forget. And I will see you next week. Be well and love life.

The post My Best Advice on How to Get Over Someone… (Or Get Them Back!) appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

“How and when should I have the conversation that I want marriage and kids?”

Good question! And definitely a tricky subject for most people. We are told to be honest about what we want, but we also worry about scaring someone off if we bring it up too soon.

I get so many questions on this exact topic every week, because getting clear on this can save you a lot of time and prevent unnecessary heartache down the road.

In today’s video, I give you 6 practical steps to help you determine if someone shares your goals and timeline, figure out exactly what you want (and come up with a plan for each possibility), and approach these conversations in a natural and confident way. 

MATTHEW HUSSEY

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the channel. I’m Matthew Hussey, a coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence who, for the last 17 years, has been helping people find love. I’m the author of the New York Times bestseller, Love Life. Check it out.

And in today’s video, I give my honest advice for the very real challenge that is faced by so many single women who feel that they are running out of time for one of their major life goals—to have a family.

The way that I want to talk about this topic is in a series of six practical steps that I outlined today. And these steps were actually a response to a real question that I got from one of my Love Life Club members, Maryam, who asked me a question about the tension she felt in dating, knowing that she wants a family and she wants one soon, but not wanting to make bad choices. So, I gave her six practical steps that I know are going to relate to you too if you’re in her position or one like it. Also, stay until the end of this video because I have something very exciting and free to share with you. All right. Onto Maryam’s question.

“I wanted to share my Love Life story to get a different perspective from the stories I have created in my head.”

Smart. We all do that, don’t we? Create stories in our head.

“I am a 38-year-old woman who has never been married and has no kids. I have dedicated the last 15 years to working on getting established in the U.S., learning the language, completing college, getting positioned in a good job after coming from Malaysia. All of that is done and I’m proud of my accomplishments. But I shut down my love life for several years. My thought was, that will eventually happen. It will come. And here I am now thinking, it should have come already. I want a family but the biological clock is messing up my brain and I don’t want to make the mistake of choosing the wrong person because I am close to being 40.”

“For some reason, I’m starting to be attracted to younger men. I’m talking about five to six years younger. And I have never dated someone that young. Help.”

So, I’m going to take this in steps. The first step is to be clear with yourself about what your path is.

Now, it sounds like Maryam, to a large extent, has already done that. She has communicated that what she wants is to have a serious relationship and to start a family. But it’s really important to be clear with ourselves about the level of priority that’s apt for us. Because if we don’t, then we suddenly could come across someone we’re very attracted to. The fact that we’re very attracted to them and we have a great connection with them can make us forget all about these goals we have, and figuring out whether that person has any of the same intentions we do.

I always am quick to point out when someone in Maryam’s situation, let’s say, goes even younger. Let’s say, someone in Maryam’s situation finds that she’s out one evening and meets a 24-year-old. And that 24-year-old is fun, and charming, and sexy, and they hit it off, and they start dating. I’m always quick to point out that that is a very, very dangerous game that Maryam or someone in her position would be playing in getting swept up in how she feels about someone and ignoring this goal that she has had for a very long time that in a much calmer, more objective moment, had surfaced as a priority at this stage of her life.

So, for anyone out there in Maryam’s position, be clear with yourself right now. What is my priority? Not just what do I want but what’s the order of importance? I might want attraction with someone today, then I can have a great weekend this weekend, seeing someone I like. But a bigger priority, it could be, and I’m assuming for Maryam this is true, is finding someone who has the same goals as I do in the area of having a serious relationship and starting a family.

That doesn’t automatically mean that if Maryam gets attracted to someone five years younger, that’s a problem, right? That’s not the biggest age gap in the world. But it does mean that she has to pay attention to the very real challenges that can come from even a five-year age gap when someone is a few years behind her, even if they want children, is a few years behind her in wanting the same thing. Because for her, those few years matter.

Step 2, know your options. Of course, one option is that you go out, you meet the love of your life, and you have a family with them. But is there an Option B? Have you been clear about whether you’re prepared to not only make peace with Option B but be aggressive about making Option B happen if your life calls for it?

In Maryam’s case, she’s 38. At what point does she decide, you know, what? Having a family is so important to me that I actually might consider doing this by myself. Now, it may be the case that Maryam never wants to do that. And that’s fine too. None of this is prescriptive. It’s all personal. These are intensely necessarily personal choices. But it’s important for Maryam to actually come to terms with whether that is an option for her. And the reason I say that is because those options create a sense of power, a sense of autonomy, a sense of confidence, and they are a pressure valve. What it allows Maryam to do is date, always knowing in the back of her mind that if someone isn’t right, she has a Plan B that she can go to at any time if she really wants to, or that there is an age by which she says, “Enough is enough. I haven’t met my person yet. I’m going to do this because I really want to do this.”

So, getting clear about what your options are can create a true sense of empowerment. And part of that conversation for so many women, though not all, because it’s not available or possible for all, is egg-freezing. So, I’d encourage Maryam, if you haven’t already, to at least have that conversation with a fertility doctor, to look into whether it’s something that’s possible for you. I say that knowing full well that it is cost-prohibitive for many people, not available for some in the part of the world that they’re in. And for many people, it’s simply too complex and too invasive a procedure for them to want to go through with, not to mention that egg freezing is by no means a guarantee when the time actually comes to use those eggs.

So, the calculation on whether to do egg freezing is for many people, razor thin, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a conversation worth having for someone in Maryam’s position or for you, even if you’re a few years behind Maryam in your position. Those are not conversations that I am an expert in but they are conversations that your fertility doctor is an expert in. And I encourage those conversations because those conversations are power. And like we’ve been talking about, they remind us of our options, and options are power over your own circumstances.

Now, you’ll notice that Step 1 and Step 2 are both steps that you take before you’ve even met someone that you like. Now, let’s talk about what you do when you do meet someone you like. And of course, for many people, especially those who are running out of time to biologically have their own children, who really have this as a major life goal, maybe the major life goal at this stage in their lives, meeting someone they like can feel incredibly disempowering because instead of just being able to organically get to know someone, they feel like they’re bringing this baggage, not that it really is baggage, but it feels for so many like baggage, of, “I have this big thing that I want and you hold the keys to it, and I have to somehow go through this fun, playful, attraction that’s carefree and nonchalant and enjoyable, at the same time as having this deep, desperate urge to move quickly on something that’s window is rapidly closing.

That leaves many in what feels like an impossible situation.

Now, the whole point of Steps 1 and 2 is to actually start to take some pressure off of that, that if we know what our choices are, that if we get clear about our goal, and you create the options for yourself ahead of time, then you no longer do feel like you are solely relying on this person to make that dream come true.

So, let’s talk about from, hopefully, a slightly more relaxed place, what to do when you meet someone you like.

Step 3, communicate to that person where you are in your life. That means we have to be brave enough to actually communicate our goals to someone. The big question is when, right? Because it feels like if I do that too soon, I’m going to scare someone away. If I do it too late, I run the risk of wasting tons of my time when I don’t have that time to waste.

But I like to think of this, not in terms of when is the right time to say it because I actually think that’s a red herring. What it does is it suggests that this goal that we have is baggage like we’re revealing something dark and scary, and ominous instead of just talking about a goal that we’re excited about.

I’d like to think of the example of if you had a dream to start a flower shop in the next three to four years. You wouldn’t feel embarrassed or shameful or scared to bring up the fact that you’re really excited to start a flower shop, and you have very clear intention to do so. It would just be one of the goals in your life that you’re excited about.

I want to challenge you to put getting married or having children in the same category as the flower shop. Now, I know it feels different in that situation because it feels like, well, yeah, but with the flower shop, I’m not asking them to co-sign on the flower shop and dedicate their time and resources and life savings to doing it. And it’s the fact that when it comes to marriage and children, I am asking them to co-sign on these really big things that makes me feel like I have the potential to scare them off with this conversation.

I get that.

But what if we reconnected with that optionality that we talked about in Step 2, knowing what your options are, and that allowed you to talk about the fact that you want to get married or you want to have kids in a much more similar way to the flower shop?

In other words, you told yourself, a) this is not a bad thing. Let me remind myself of that. This is a beautiful thing that I want to do. And right now, the fact that I want to do it actually has nothing to do with this person, especially on date 1 or 2 or 3. It has everything to do with me and my future. And by the way, I know in my mind that I would not do this with the wrong person. You have to know that in your mind. Because if you know that in your mind, it will come across when you speak to that person, and that will be power. I’ll show you how in just a moment. But that you wouldn’t do it with the wrong person. And that at the end of the day, if this is true, I’m only speaking to the people this is true for. By the end of the day, if you’ve decided that at some point, you’re going to call time on doing this with another person and be prepared to do it on your own, then that’s yet another source of power when you speak to someone about the flower shop, that I’m doing this with or without a person. So, this really genuinely has nothing to do with you in front of me right now.

So, what I encourage you to do is instead of trying to think of the perfect moment to say all of this, think of it like the right moment to say these things is when we’re just talking about what we’re excited about in life. So, you could ask me what I’m excited about or, you know, what’s on the horizon for me. And I say, “You know, I’ve spent many years of my life now, 15 years of my life, securing my place here in the United States, which was a dream of mine, and working to learn the language, and getting myself to a very secure place financially, where I feel like I have a good job, and my life is settled. That didn’t allow a lot of time for me to think about a relationship, let alone a very serious relationship. And it didn’t allow me a lot of time to think about my ultimate goal of having a family, which is something that really excites me. So, I’m now at a place in my life where alongside some of the other things that I’m excited about in life, I am really excited for the next chapter of my life, which for me is about taking the next steps in the next few years to having that family and to, hopefully, finding an amazing person to do it with. But, you know, I also know for me, doing it with the wrong person is something I would never do. It’s something I’m excited about and it’s a beautiful vision I have. But I would never do it with the wrong person. It would have to be the right person. And if it wasn’t, I’ll do it on my own because it’s something that’s just really important to me.”

And when you’re saying all of that, you’re talking about it in a very positive way. You’re not talking about it as this big, heavy thing. I actually think that Maryam’s story that she told, when I was reading her question about how she moved to America, and learned the language, and worked really hard to get where she is, and hasn’t had the time or the bandwidth to think about having a family, I found all of that really endearing when I read it. I don’t know about you. When I read it, I was like, wow. That’s really endearing. She was having to do other things. And now, she’s in a place where she is ready for this. There’s something very beautiful about that.

So, she shouldn’t be ashamed of that. I actually think her story is part of the way she should frame it and talk about it when she’s speaking to someone on a date.

Now, once you’ve talked about the flower shop, your goal of getting married or having children as an exciting next chapter of your life, there’s something you can do in Step 4, which is really, really powerful.

Step 4 is demonstrate non-dependence. And the way that you do that is by taking the optionality that you had created in Step 2, and finding a way to casually communicate that optionality in the way that you talk about this goal.

So, for example, after you’ve talked about the fact that you’re excited about that chapter of your life, you can say, “But one thing I know about myself is that I would never do that, any of that, marriage or kids, with the wrong person.”

You can even frame that up by talking about other people you know. “I know people. I have friends who, I know, have rushed into things because they really wanted it to happen. But they did it with the wrong person. And that’s something I could never do. I made the decision a long time ago that if I didn’t meet the right person, I either wouldn’t do it, if that’s true, or I would do it on my own, if that’s true.”

When you say all of this you take away that effect that a lot of people are worried about, that they’re giving up their power when they state this goal, as if they’re saying to someone, “You can now do no wrong because I really need you for this thing.” Instead, what you’re saying to someone is, “I don’t need you for this thing. I may want or even need this thing in my future but I don’t need you for that thing because if you turn out to be the wrong person, I’ll find someone who’s right or I won’t need someone at all. I’ll do it by myself.”

What you’re, in essence, saying to someone is, “You can’t mess this up because I don’t need you. You still have to win me over, in the same way that I have to win you over.” This is still just two people on the same level dating. It is not that now that I’ve stated this goal, I have handed you all of the cards.

Now, in this stage, where you’re just enjoyably sharing goals, you don’t need to know for sure if they’re exactly on the same page as you. And bear in mind, being on the same page as you doesn’t mean that a) they have the same goals, that b) they have the same goals and the same timeline. It’s entirely possible that Maryam meets someone who’s six years younger than her, wants kids one day, but doesn’t want them in the next four years in the way that she does. So, it’s not just about whether they have the same goals. It’s, do they have the same goals on the same timeline?

So, Step 5 is when it starts to get serious, then we have to get clear about whether they have the same goals on the same timeline.

So, even if in the first few dates they danced around the subject of what they were looking for in the next few years, and you let that slide because you were like, “Hey, we’re in the fun, get to know each other stage. I don’t need to know everything about this person’s timeline right now.” At the point of spending lots and lots of time together, at the point of, I’m now seeing this person to the exclusion of everyone else, at the point of agreeing on exclusivity, you and I are in a committed, serious relationship, I do need to know whether this person is on the same page as me.

And that conversation can go something like, “Hey, I know that you and I have a really good thing going. I am so enjoying what’s developing between us. I’m excited about the prospect of giving it a real try with each other. But I also don’t know whether my goals and my timeline for those goals is something that you see for yourself. And I’m not suggesting that this is a tomorrow thing for me. But it is a, in the next two or three years thing for me because that’s the timeline that I’m on. And that doesn’t mean by the way you couldn’t turn out to be wrong for me a year from now or I couldn’t turn out to be wrong for you a year from now. That’s just normal. That’s relationships. We’re still getting to know each other. But if it works, then I know that that’s going to be something that’s important to me in that time frame. And I know that no matter how much I like you, I wouldn’t be getting into anything serious if you weren’t on the same page as me in that department.”

So, what you’re allowing for in this conversation is a) complete and utter transparency but b) you’re still not putting that pressure on. This isn’t that traditional kind of pressure of, “I like you and I want children with you. And you’re going to want them because I want them with you,” which makes someone go, “Ah. We’re just getting started and I’m already feeling like I have to make a decision about having kids with you.”

This isn’t that. This is the, “I am on a certain timeline for when I want these things. You and I are still getting to know each other and there’s still room for us to decide that we’re not right for each other. But if it continues, and if it works, I would need to know that you could see that for yourself on the same timeline.”

So, you’re removing the forced pressure of you and I are going to do this together. But you are introducing a standard that you have for who you choose to have a relationship with, which is that if someone’s not on the same page as me, I just wouldn’t bother having a relationship with them no matter how wonderful and sexy and attractive they were or how much fun I had with them, all of which is true for you, by the way. I cannot stress enough how important this is as a standard. Not a wish that they want the same things as me but a standard.

So many women have a standard for how attracted they want to be to someone, for how much of a connection they want to feel, for the chemistry that they want to experience. But they don’t have a standard for having aligned goals and intentions.

So, we have to start to raise our standards in this area. I can still have a standard for attraction but I better couple it with a standard for someone who has the same goals and intentions as me. Or all I am doing is acting as a co-conspirator in the theft of my own future.

Step 6, our final step for this video, be honest with yourself about whether there is the appropriate level of progress within the relationship as time goes on.

If you’re two years into dating this person who you’re only dating because in the beginning, they made clear when it was becoming serious and exclusive that they did have the same intentions as you on the same timeline. If you’re finding that that person cannot, will not, have the conversation about the progression, about when you might start thinking or looking at those things, if they can’t have those conversations, something is going wrong. There is a level of squeamishness from their side that might be able to be tolerated in a relationship where two people have all the time in the world but can’t be tolerated by you in a situation that is predicated for you on the two of you being on the same page.

So, don’t have the conversation once at the beginning of the relationship, and then bury it because you’re afraid to have it again in case it sabotages the relationship.

That’s a good reason to sabotage the relationship. And that doesn’t mean it has to be brought up every single day, but if after a year, you start talking about those things, and maybe that person says, “You know, I’m really excited about it. I just need a little bit more time but I am. I’m with you. I want the same things.” If you talk about it six months after that, and nothing is shifting for them, they just keep acting afraid to have the conversation, and make you feel like you’re treading on eggshells, then that is a sure sign as any that you are not on the same page. Because anyone who has a natural intentionality on the same timeline as you, doesn’t make you feel afraid to have a conversation about something. The conversation is easy. It’s fluid. It’s transparent. It’s more of a planning conversation than a, “Oh, you’re bringing up the war conversation.”

You have to be willing to have the conversation and then be honest with yourself about whether there is a sense of progression. If there’s not, never be afraid to stop the relationship. Never be afraid to walk away while there’s still time. Okay?

There’s a great—what’s that Mr. Rogers quote where he says, “I can stop.” I really want to find that quote. We can maybe—let me see if I can find this right now. So, this is what Mr. Rogers said. There was actually a song but he said, “It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong and be able to do something else instead and think this song. I can stop when I want to, can stop when I wish. I can stop, stop, stop any time. And what a good feeling to feel like this and know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there’s something deep inside that helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a woman and a boy can be someday a man.”

Know that there’s a feeling deep inside you that is not going away, that is an expression of who you are and what you want in your life. And if the person you’re in a relationship with isn’t having the same feeling, you can stop. You can change direction. You do not need to stay in a relationship that you’ve sunk time and energy into just because of the so-called sunk cost fallacy that I need to make good the investment that I’ve already made. If you know it’s wrong, if you feel in your gut that this person is not going to get there with you, you can take that feeling that you have and leave that relationship, and use that feeling to express your full self to self-actualize and achieve and create everything that you always wanted.

Let me know what this video meant to you. Leave me a comment. And please pass this video on. Is there someone you know this could help? It would mean the world to me for you to help me reach more people with these messages. I think they’re messages we don’t hear nearly enough. I think many people have no idea where to go with these feelings that they have with the anxieties that they feel, with the panic that never leaves them. Please help me spread the word about this. Send this to your community, if you have one. Post about it. Send it, email it to friends and family. Help me spread the word and help more people.

Also, before you leave, I have something very exciting to share with you. Drum roll, please, Audrey and David. I’m not sure you can even hear that drum roll. But we have created a brand new, free guide for anybody who wants to get out there and start meeting better-quality people. Maybe you’re a little tired of the apps, you can’t stand this messaging random strangers online and hoping for that lightning-in-a-bottle feeling that you might get with someone. But you want to actually go and meet people in real life.

I can relate to that. I met Audrey, my now wife, at an engagement party of my friend. Didn’t know her before that party. I’m an advocate for the old-fashioned ways. Not to say dating apps are a problem. But, you know, we get tired of them. They can burn us out.

If you want to go out and meet someone in the real world, this guide is called Spark and Connect. It’s free and it gives you nine conversation starters that you can use with anybody you see today that you want to connect with. It’s super practical. It gives you very specific things you can use. And I know that you love my advice for that, for giving you very practical things that you can use just like this video has. So, if you like this video, you’re going to love this guide. Go to WhatToSayNext.com to download it for free right now.

By the way, if you haven’t already, like this video, subscribe to this channel, and don’t forget to hit the notification bell, so that the next time I do a video, you get notified. Thank you for watching this video. I will see you in the next one. Be well, my friends, and love life.

The post My Honest Advice to Single Women Who Want a Family appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

Do you get obsessed too quickly in the early days of dating? This is often dangerous because it places WAY too much of our happiness in trying to attract and keep someone (even when we don’t really know them yet).

Thankfully, this kind of “anxious dating” is something you can actually solve. In today’s video, I dive into where this obsession comes from, and give you 5 things you can do to stop falling for someone too quickly and self-sabotaging in early dating.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

Hello, everyone. I am Matthew Hussey, the author of the brand new book, Love Life, which became the New York Times’ best seller a few weeks ago. I’m also a coach, specializing in confidence and relational intelligence, who, for the last 17 years has been helping people find the healthy love that they want.

So, today’s video is based on a question I got from one of my Love Life members. And if you don’t know, I have a year-round program where I coach people who want to find love. If you want to make me your coach, officially, then I’ll leave a link below for you to check that out. It is LoveLifeClub.com.

But this particular Love Life member asked me about obsession in early dating. What can you do if, whenever you meet someone you like, you immediately become obsessed, get too carried away, and then risk ruining the whole thing, either the enjoyment of it because you just feel anxious all the time or actually sabotaging it by being the person that we become when we get obsessed?

So let’s talk about this. Why do we get obsessed in early dating and what are the five things that you can know today that will help you the next time you find yourself in this situation?

By the way, it would mean a lot to me if you would like this video, subscribe to this channel, and hit the notification bell, so that the next time I make a video, you get notified, and you don’t discover it three months later, and think to yourself, “I really could have used this video back then.”

So, let’s talk about this idea of obsession in early dating. What are the five things that you need to know?

Number one, identify the feeling that you have. When we are out there meeting someone, falling for them very quickly, and then very quickly becoming anxious about the fact that they’re not texting us or worried that they might not like us as much as we like them, it’s very tempting to think of this as being a sign of how important this person is, a sign of how much our happiness resides with this person and the possibility that they end up choosing us as their partner.

What this feeling actually is, is anxiety. And it’s important that we label it as anxiety. This is a form of anxious rumination.

“I really like them. They don’t like me as much as I like them. And if they don’t like me as much as I like them, my whole life is going to get worse. I’m going to be heartbroken. I’m never going to get over it.”

“They’re not texting me right now. Oh, no. This person that holds the keys to my happiness doesn’t want me back. I’m about to lose someone who is right for me.”

We have these thoughts and they are not an indication of how valuable this person is. They are an indication of the intensity of an anxiety that likely long predated this person.

And you can do a test on that. Is this the first person you’ve ever felt this anxiety with, or is the anxiety a constant in your life? If it is, good news, it’s not that this person is the most important person in the world. It’s that you are coming to the table with a pre-existing level of anxious attachment.

Now that we’ve identified that feeling as anxiety, let’s get to point number two. That anxiety will follow you anywhere you go. It will follow you to a different person in the future. So, if you move on from this person and feel good again afterwards, after weeks or months of feeling of heartbroken that this didn’t work out, that anxiety won’t have gone away. It will just be dormant, lying in wait for the next person. When the next person comes along, if you decide you like that person, the anxiety re-appears.

And it’s not just true that the anxiety will transfer to the next person. It’s also true that that anxiety will follow you into every stage of the relationship with this person if it actually works out.

Think about it this way. When we’re single, the anxiety is, “I’m never going to meet anyone.” When we meet someone, the anxiety is, “They don’t like me as much as I like them,” or, “They’re not texting me right now and that’s bad news.”

If it turns into an actual relationship, our anxiety is now around losing this person. “That they’re going to find someone else. That the next time they walk into a coffee shop and see someone who’s objectively more attractive than me, they’re going to leave me for that person.”

And even if you feel completely safe with this person, like, “They’re never going to leave me for another person.” Even if they manage to get you to trust on that level, the anxiety transfers to, “What if they die?”

So, the anxiety never really goes away. It just keeps finding a new home, a new target. Now that can feel quite defeating, in a sense, to feel like, “Oh, my god. I’m never going to be rid of this anxiety.” We can, of course, start to mitigate that anxiety. We can turn it around. And we’ll talk about that in a moment.

But far from being this horrible conclusion, that the anxiety is going to follow me everywhere, it can actually start to be this wonderful way of getting perspective. In other words, any time our anxiety finds a target, knowing the anxiety is the constant, not the target, we realize that the target of our anxiety, the thing we’re convincing ourselves in the moment, is the root cause of our anxiety, is not nearly as important as we’re making it, and may not be important at all.

Once you realize that when this target goes away, my anxiety will just find a new one, there’s no target that feels that important anymore. It just feels like this long and almost farcical cycle of hopping from one thing to the next, and every time, telling ourselves a story that the thing I’m focused on now is the most important thing in the world to be worried about. And when there’s no longer that thing to be worried about, we try to convince ourselves or anyone who will listen, “Oh, no, no. You don’t understand. This one is the most important thing in the world to be worried about.”

And I want you to hear yourself telling yourself that story each time, to become aware of that story, and almost to start to laugh at it. Like, how can everything be the most important thing in the world to be worried about? How can everything be this worthy of my anxiety? How can I keep convincing myself every time, “No, no, no. This time, it’s really important. This time it’s really scary.”

Realize that if your anxiety is the constant, then the targets become a farce.

Number three, we have to recognize that behind the anxiety that we feel, when we get obsessed with someone in early dating, is a need. The anxious obsession feels objectively like a bad thing. But embedded within it is just an unmet need. There’s a, kind of, cry for help that, you know, we get obsessed with someone because we like them. And liking someone isn’t a problem. But when liking someone, when being on a date, and realizing, “Oh, this person’s great. I really like them or I admire them or I respect them. I’d like to spend more time with them if they’re open to that.” When that crosses over into, “I’ll die if they don’t text me back,” something’s happened there. It’s no longer just an admiration for them as a person or a, kind of, excitement about the possibility of another date with them. It’s turned into a sense of danger that if they don’t reply, if they don’t like me, if this doesn’t progress, I won’t be okay.

Beneath all of that, there’s this need that’s being expressed. It can be a need for safety, a need for consistency, a need to feel wanted or acknowledged or seen or worthy, that there is a need there. And the need is trying to express itself. But what happens with our anxiety is the need gets transferred to something — or in this case, someone on the outside.

There’s nothing wrong with the need by the way. We all have these needs, and especially when we have been through a lot in our life—we have certain traumas from childhood or relationships. We can come out of those situations really needing a sense of safety, really needing a sense of peace or consistency. There’s nothing wrong with that. But where we get ourselves into trouble is that that internal need transfers itself to an external target. We suddenly nominate someone that we have known for five minutes or three dates, as the sole provider of this need that we have.

“Your job, person that I’ve decided I like, is to make me feel safe. And the way you’re going to make me feel safe is to communicate as often as I want you to communicate, to tell me all of the things as often as I need to and as intensely as I need you to say them, to reassure me and to demonstrate that you like me as much as I like you, preferably a bit more, because that will really make me feel safe.”

And if this person does not provide these things in precisely the way that that voice inside of us needs, then our anxiety goes through the roof. And then a version of us, of course, comes out that has the ability to sabotage situations.

Here’s the really tricky part. We start saying and doing things that push away healthy, secure people because secure people feel that something is going very wrong if they are suddenly being made responsible for too much of our happiness, too soon. But it has a very insidious effect with people who are not well-intentioned or people we might think of as toxic who realize the amount of power that they can have over us by saying and doing the right things.

So, if our anxiety demonstrates an extreme need, and they can fulfill that need by showing up in very grandiose ways early on, by saying exactly what we want to hear, we feel a false sense of safety with this person who is saying things that really, they have no business saying right now, in the same way that our need that has nothing really to do with this person, has no business being quenched by this person.

So, an out-of-proportion need is being met by a totally false sense of security from the outside, and that’s how we find ourselves getting our hearts broken by the love bombers, the manipulators, the narcissists, the sociopaths, the people that are looking for precisely the right intensity of pain, anxiety, and need to come along and be the answer for.

So, bottom line, we have to stop nominating people on the outside as the answer to that anxiety we feel on the inside because the obsession that we have for this person in dating is nothing more than the expression of our internal anxiety and that need that wants to be met.

Now, like I said, it’s okay to like someone. We don’t have to become indifferent to protect ourselves. We can openly like someone. We can even openly want more with someone. But any time it strays into a feeling of pain, that’s out-of-proportion with how well we know this person or how long it’s been going on for, we have to go back to that reminder. “Ah, this is anxiety and that anxiety is coming from a need.”

How, in this moment, instead of asking for validation, reassurance, and intensity from the outside, do I start to create a home within myself?

So, I want you to write this down if you’ve got something you can write on right now. Number four, create a safe home within yourself. I want you to tell yourself, “If I want to make someone else a part of my home, that feeling of home, I first have to create a home within myself.”

So, number four, we have to create a safe home within ourselves.

I want you to take a scenario where maybe you feel a little nervous or a bit anxious, take a party that you find yourself at on your own. Imagine the feelings that you get being at that party—not knowing anyone, wondering what everyone’s thinking about you, feeling embarrassed or awkwardly shuffling around, and trying to look like you’ve got something to do, like checking your phone as a way of looking cool at the party when, in fact, you’re not really checking anything. You’re just trying to look like you’re not that strange person standing on the sidelines.

Feel that feeling, that lack of safety, that desire to be comforted. That desire, that very quickly gets transferred onto the room, and that thought of, “I wish someone would come over and make me feel good right now. I wish someone would come over and welcome me into this party, that they would reassure me, that they would find me interesting, that they would save me from the sidelines.”

Now, notice that that is us trying to find a home outside of ourselves in this party. When, in fact, we don’t need to go anywhere or talk to anyone to create a home within ourselves. The feelings that we are seeking on the outside, we can create on the inside.

Now, how do we do that?

Well, let’s recap for a moment. We’ve understood so far in this video that the desire for someone to come over, the desire for people to come and make friends with you, that is anxiety. We’ve understood so far in this video that in this situation, that kind of obsessive thinking of, “I need someone to come and make me feel better. I need people to be friends with me. I need to raise my status in this party and not look like the sad, weird person on my own.”

That is anxiety. It’s not representative of something that’s truly important. You’re not going to die. You may not care about any of these people or even see any of them again. None of this right now is actually important.

So, the thoughts aren’t real. It’s all anxiety. So, we label it that. We recognize that beneath that anxiety is a need, a need to feel safe, a need to feel accepted, a need to feel loved. That part of you isn’t you as a whole. It’s just a voice within you. One of many. What it’s doing is it’s looking for reassurance on the outside. What we have to do is give ourselves the reassurance that we seek. We have to be the safety we’re looking for.

The temptation is to identify with it and to think that, “Me and this voice are the same thing.” But actually, this voice is the part of us that is scared. You could think of it as the inner child. You can even think of it as like a screaming toddler that is anxious or afraid or just trying to get a need met.

But it’s not the adult in the room. And if you think about a child screaming in the back of the car, you wouldn’t turn to that child and say, “Hey, here’s the keys to the car. You drive then.”

You acknowledge that, “Oh, there’s a scared child here. How do I turn to meet them in a way that is effective, productive, compassionate, loving? How do I give that child what that child needs?” Which is different, by the way, to what that child wants. We’ll come on to that in a second.

So, let’s move on to point number five. What does the child need? What does that voice inside need?

It’s looking for safety on the outside. But what if could give it a feeling of safety on the inside? What if we could talk to that part of ourselves in a loving voice? First, acknowledging them and connecting with what they feel, “Hey, you met someone you like. It feels scary all of a sudden. I get it. You really want to find love and I know you’ve been burned in the past. And this brings up so much for you. And I understand. I understand why you’re feeling what you’re feeling.”

And of course, by the way, by being us, we are the ones uniquely placed to know everything we’ve ever been through that’s made us this way. That gives us this amazing vantage point from which to give ourselves compassion, to view ourselves holistically and contextually and say, “I get you. I know why you feel this way. I know why you feel so obsessed right now and so anxious right now. You’ve been through a lot.”

You’re looking for safety because you never had any. You know what that story is. So, you can reassure yourself that that part of you isn’t crazy. It’s just reacting to its history. But that part of you also isn’t you.

So, you can speak to it in a loving, compassionate voice.

“You’re going to be okay. And even if this person doesn’t text back, we’re still going to be okay. Why? Because we’ve been okay in the past. We’ve successfully survived this life so far, we will survive it again, and this person isn’t the most important person in the world. We’re just afraid. It’s okay ”

You give yourself that love, that affection, that presence. But what we also do is we’re firm with that part of ourselves. That’s what being the adult in the room is. That’s what being the parent is. Remember, it’s not about just giving that voice what it wants. It’s giving that voice what it needs. And what that voice might need right now is a firm hand, is us saying, “I know you want to turn this into something really important but we’re not going to do that. I know that you want to keep thinking about this person over and over but you know what? We’re going to go do something else. We’re going to go work out. We’re going to go hang with our friends who have been around much longer than this person we’ve known for five minutes.”

“We’re going to do something we love, engage in one of our passions. We’re not going to sit here and ruminate about this person. And no, we’re not going to go and call all of our friends and tell them how amazing this person is and oh my god, this could be the one.”

“We’re not going to do that either. We’re not going to entertain these things. We’re going to accept it for what it is—someone that I had a great time with, someone that maybe I have an admiration or respect for, based on how well I know them right now. But also, someone that I don’t really know. But who I’m looking for to get to know more, providing they feel the same way. I’m not going to allow the thoughts to go any further than that.”

We have to know when to cut ourselves off and say, “This is no longer productive. This is just anxious rumination by another name. Namely, that this person is the one for me.”

“No, no, no. I don’t know that yet.”

The next time you hear that voice go, “This person is the one,” go, “You’re anxiously ruminating. That’s what this is.”

All right? So, we have to be firm with that voice at the same time as being compassionate and affectionate with that voice.

So, let me know what you thought of this. Leave me a comment. I’m excited to read them. What spoke to you most about this video? Are you someone who obsessively ruminates about someone when you first start dating them? Do you get carried away too quickly? How does that affect you? And how has this video helped? I’m excited to read your comments.

And by the way, thank you to everyone who shares these videos. It means so much to me. I can’t do this work on my own. I want to get these messages to as many people as I can, people that may not know that there are tools out there to feel better. There are messages that can soothe the pain that they’re feeling right now. For everyone who shares this video, with your platform or just with your friends and family, thank you. And I promise to keep delivering videos like this that can help you going forward.

And for anyone who wants to share more time with me, in September of this year I’m running my Live Retreat, for six days, from the 9th of September until the 15th, in Florida. We’re going to be together, all in one resort. Is going to be an amazing experience. 

If you want to continue your growth work with me in a very immersive way– live, in person– then I encourage you to apply. The link is MHRetreat.com. Go check it out. We’re down to a small number of spaces now. There’s only so much space in the room, and it’s not a very big room, is an intimate program. So, come join us, and I hope I’ll get to see you there. 

Thank you so much for watching this video, as always. I look forward to reading your comments. And I will see you next week. 

Be well my friends, and love life. 

The post If You Get Too Obsessed Too Quickly When You Like Someone… WATCH THIS appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

Do you sometimes feel like you’re still carrying trauma from a narcissistic relationship? Perhaps you’re haunted by regret over the fact that you didn’t leave earlier. Or you’ve been through so much in recent years that you’re not even sure you know who you are anymore . . . and have no idea how to start the healing process.

In today’s video, an incredible member of my Club 320 inner circle asked 3 beautifully vulnerable questions (and gave me permission to share them with you). From a painful childhood to a 10-year relationship with a narcissist, she wanted to figure out how to release shame, heal, and find her true self. 

No matter what your story is, you don’t have to carry this baggage forever. I think that after listening to Cara’s story, you might start to look at your life, your history, and your future differently.

MATTHEW

So I just got back from a weekend in Zion National Park with a very special group of people as part of my Club 320 program. And there was a moment during the weekend that I thought would speak to a lot of people out there. Cara, one of my Club 320 members, talked about the self-esteem issues she had that led to a 10-year narcissistic, abusive relationship that she is still struggling to heal from.

We talked about her healing and how she could learn to forgive herself for the time she spent in that relationship, which is something she has been struggling to do. Cara kindly and bravely offered for us to release this video. Thank you, Cara, for being vulnerable enough to share your story, and I think you’re going to get a lot out of it. And without further ado, I present to you, Cara from Club 320.

CARA

Can we sit together on the floor across from each other in the middle of the circle?

MATTHEW

I’m quite happy to sit on the floor.

CARA
You’ve already helped me with the first thing, which is just knowing that I could ask for something from a man, and have him care enough about me to give that, so thank you for that.

The story that I have about myself is that I’m not lovable and that I’m not likable just as I am—that I’m only lovable for what I can do for other people. I’m still trying to figure out who I am, and trying to figure out who’s the real me, right? So not the former college athlete me, not the mom me, not the hard worker me, and not the trauma survivor me. So my question to you is: How do I release the shame that I feel, find my true self, and step authentically into that in front of others and show up in a fearless way with my real self? 

MATTHEW

What is the shame you feel?

CARA

I felt shame, I think, ever since I was a kid. So my brother committed suicide when I was six, in our house. My family basically fell apart, and no one was there for me—to deal with my pain as I was dealing with that. My brother was my best best friend, and then I felt like I had to perform for love, for my dad, and that was the only way I really got his attention. And then I ended up in a 10-year relationship with a narcissist who I have two kids with. I feel proud of myself for leaving, but I feel shame for having stayed for as long as I did.

MATTHEW

Thank you. So, you were a child who had nowhere to take that emotion—had no guidance. You realize a child needs . . . in order for that situation to not be something that they spend many years trying to process and deal with in unproductive ways, needs amazing guidance. You didn’t just not get amazing guidance. You had really bad support—completely absent support. More than that, this invalidation: “I’m not allowed to process this. I can’t deal with this.” 

But you were a child, so let’s keep that part really simple. You were a child. Since then, you have been doing the best you could every step of the way.

That shame you feel . . . there are accidents that happen all the time that people can’t predict—that they look back on: “If I’d have only just not left the door open to the house,” “If I’d have only just not left my kids for five minutes in that situation,” etc.

There are situations like that every single day, and it’s just we’re lucky it wasn’t us that day. Should they all feel shame? No, we’re human beings. We do shit. You got into a relationship, and every step of the way in that relationship, you did the best you could in that relationship, and the best you could do for a long time wasn’t being strong enough to leave, because you didn’t have the tools, you didn’t have the resources, you didn’t have the DNA, you didn’t have the childhood, you didn’t have a whole cocktail of things that would have made it possible for you to leave five years sooner.

For you, something really drastic had to happen, and that was a wakeup call. That doesn’t deserve shame. It requires compassion. You have done the best you could. And guess what? Today’s best is better than yesterday’s best, and that’s exciting. 

There’s a story you’re telling yourself, and that story is actually getting in the way of your true nature. It’s getting in the way of who you can really be. And honestly, the whole “Who am I?” thing, I don’t know how productive that is. Because who are any of us? What are we? Just a kind of composite of things we’ve gotten good at, books we’ve read, memories, stuff we’ve done in our lives?

We could have been a completely different composite if we’d just read a different book or been called a different name or grown up somewhere different.

I don’t know that that’s as interesting to me as what you can do and the peace that you can feel if you actually let go of this attachment to this identity you formed to yourself, and to your story, because you’ve been beating yourself up for a long time. I know that. I’ve spent my lifetime beating myself up. So has my mom, we’re fucking pros at it, and my journey has been the same as yours. What do I do to stop doing that? 

Well, firstly, I realized that so much of me beating myself up is just another story. I can wake up today and I can be whoever I want to be. I can show up however I want to show up.

What if I let go of that baggage, and maybe instead of trying to discover who I am, what if I just made it my mission this year to find peace within myself? I’m just going to find peace within myself, and then I’m going to see what I feel like creating from that place of peace. I’m going to see what I feel like doing from that place of peace. I’m going to see which kinds of relationships I’m interested in from that place of peace, because what you’ll find is what you choose to do and create, who you choose to spend time with, will be completely different from that place of peace than they are from a place of shame. A completely different life comes from that.

CARA

Will that make me feel like I could be more myself and feel more lovable and feel more like I can show up in relationships authentically?

MATTHEW

What does it mean to show up authentically?

CARA
To not be second-guessing what I need to be for everybody else. To just be like, “This is who I am. Take it or leave it.”

MATTHEW

Yes, but who are you? Like, I wake up every day and I know that I want to try to be the best person I can be, right? I mess up all the time. I get agitated too easily, or I get anxious and I make a mistake, or all of those things happen. 

But every day, I wake up and I try to just connect to: What does the most loving Matthew want? How does he want to show up? How does he want to treat people? And every day I’m looking for: Is this thing coming from ego and insecurity and greed and fear, or is it just coming from love? How would I show up right now if I were just coming from a place of love—love for myself and love for other people? How would I show up from that state?

And I don’t think you need to worry about discovering who you are. I think you need to worry about losing the shame and reconnecting to: How does Cara show up when she’s actually just coming from a place of love? That’s going to be the difference—not from insecurity, not from “I’m trying to feel whole by getting somebody else,” or “I’m trying to get validated by having someone want me.” 

How do I show up if I’m just coming from a place of peace and love? It’s a very different thing, and I don’t want you to be preoccupied with this discovery, because I do think it’s kind of a red herring.

I think the issue is that right now, you’re identifying too much with all of this. You are not your mistakes. Your mistakes arose out of parts of you that were trying to get their needs met. You’re not those mistakes, right? The parts of us that are trying to get their needs met can create a lot of problems in our life, right? But what was behind those things wasn’t bad. It wasn’t evil. It was just something that was trying to be okay. Something was trying to be heard—a need was trying to get met—and you were doing your best in that moment with the tools you had. That’s it. We don’t have to think any more about it than that.

Now what we have to do is for you to start giving yourself the things that all along you’ve been trying to get from everybody else. 

I personally don’t want to be defined by who I am now, in this room—a speaker, a coach, or whatever. I don’t want to be defined by those things, because what I’m doing is . . . is that who I am, really? If I do that, then I’m just defining myself by what you will think of me at the end of the day. That’s my worth now. 

Well, what if I have a bad day? My worth plummets because you will think less of me today? That can’t be it. What you do isn’t who you are. So you don’t need to figure out: What do I do in life that’s who I am? Right now, it’s about losing the shame and going into the next day of your life from a much more peaceful place. You can’t keep looking backward. We’ve got too much to do now, right? We’ve actually got stuff to do.

And one last thing. Why are we sitting on the floor?

CARA

(laughs) Partly because I wanted to be closer to you and have like, better eye contact, and partly because I felt like, if I was on the floor, I felt more safe, and I would not, like, pass out or something.

MATTHEW

But there was also another element you said: If you could ask for something and it be given to you. So that thing that you wanted given to you, that had to be you giving it to you, right? What if I’d said “no”?

CARA

I would have had a hard time.

MATTHEW

So then I own you.

CARA

I understand what you’re saying.

MATTHEW

Then I own you. Because what you’re saying is that I have complete power over you. I don’t even need to fucking move. In fact, I can sit exactly where I am in that chair and have complete power over you and your emotions.

I don’t want to have that power over you. I don’t want you to give me that kind of power. I don’t want you to give anyone that kind of power. Because if that’s the case, you’ll go to the next relationship seeing if he’ll do the thing that you need him to do, so that you can feel okay.

CARA
And that’s what I’ve done in all my relationships all my life.

MATTHEW

“I just need you to text me back in the next hour so that I know that I’m okay,” right? Whatever that was that you wanted from me, that’s the thing you have to give to yourself.

“I needed to know that if you sat here with me, that that would make me feel safe, because it would make me feel like I could get someone to do something.”

That cannot be where your safety comes from. It has to come from you saying, “What’s the safety I’m looking for outside of myself in the first place? What’s the validation I’m looking for outside of myself in the first place? How do I start giving that to myself?”

And you’ll have examples of it, because you’ll know that there are people in this room who have made huge mistakes in their life, and you don’t think that discounts them from a life where they receive love.

You don’t think they should forever live in shame for their mistakes, right? So what makes you so special that you should just be a shame ball for the rest of your life? Where’s the exceptionalism for you? Does it make sense? You’re a human in this room. We’re all just humans in this room. You’re another one.

Why does it make sense you would treat you worse? And I don’t know if you’ve read my new book, but the whole point is, we’re all just humans, but the only difference is, your job isn’t to look after these humans for the rest of your life, or to make them happy for the rest of your life. Your job is to do that for you. 

The only thing that’s really different about you is that you’re the one who has that job, so time to start doing that job. Cara, thank you. I really enjoyed this interaction. 

CARA

Thank you. I really appreciate it.

MATTHEW

I think community is this ingredient that we get to foster in our lives. And if we build a strong community with like-minded people—if we find our people, and we form real, authentic bonds with those people, then it becomes this great ingredient in our life. What I love about this is that Club 320, no matter what, they have these connections they’re formed with each other.

Thank you so much for watching. Leave me a comment and let me know what part of Cara’s story resonated most with you. Also, every Friday now, I write a personal advice email to my community on my mailing list. It is, I think, one of the best things I do every week. It’s free. You can join at The3Relationships.com.

It will take you 10 seconds to join, and then you can look forward to my private email this Friday. Every week, I give advice on finding love, getting over heartbreak, managing our emotions, improving our confidence. It’s really practical. It’s filled with free, valuable information. And I also write things in this email that are quite personal to me that I don’t write anywhere else, and this is the only place to access it. So if you want to get this email from me straight into your inbox every Friday, all you need to do is sign up. It’ll take you 10 seconds at The3Relationships.com, and I’ll see you in your inbox this Friday. Be well and love life.

The post How to Heal From a Narcissistic Relationship appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

Have you ever wondered how you can move on from someone you never dated? Perhaps you’ve been pining for them for months (or even years) . . . hoping they’ll finally notice you and see your value. 

This great question is one of 7 I answer in today’s new video, based on the comments you left me last week. I also dig into topics like:

• What’s the best way to start a long-distance relationship?
• What’s your dating advice for people over 40?
• Why did they change their mind about being ready for a relationship?

Don’t miss these, and once you’re done, be sure to leave a comment with a question you’d like me to answer next time!

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the channel. I am Matthew Hussey, a coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence, and I’m widely known for helping people find love. Last week, I answered a whole bunch of questions that you had sent in and left in the comments, and we thought we’d do a Part 2 of that video by having me do the same thing this week.

Before we get into the video, I would really appreciate if you would like this video, subscribe to the channel, and hit the notification bell, so that you do not miss the next video when it comes out.

Also, I made a commitment a long time ago to deliver free content for everybody on an ongoing basis. And one of the places I do that, in addition to this YouTube channel, is my ongoing newsletter where I am sending out a free newsletter full of advice, practical wisdom, and ideas that could help you find love or heal from lost love every Friday. And many of you have already signed up. It’s completely free. So, if you haven’t already, it’s at The3Relationships.com.

Kelly says, “What are your top tips to starting a long-distance relationship?”

Firstly, be very careful about when you start calling it a relationship. There’s nothing wrong with meeting someone online, through the apps, someone long distance, and having this fun, flirtatious connection that starts to build. But in that time period, it probably isn’t the right thing to call it a relationship unless you’ve explicitly had that conversation. But it would be strange if you had it too soon. It could even be a red flag if someone is saying that to you too soon. But after a certain period, when you have that desire to start calling it a relationship, don’t let the desire turn into a reality in your mind that you’re now in a relationship when the two of you have never actually had that conversation. 

Over the years, I’ve watched many, many hundreds of people give to this situation like it’s a relationship—be exclusive, give time, give energy, give effort, make trips—when the other person is not behaving like they’re in a relationship at all. And they never really had that conversation. It just became this assumption.

If you feel you’re in a relationship, I would start by having the conversation, so that you’re both on the same terms: “Hey, do we both feel the same way? For me to continue giving to this, it would have to be on the basis that we’re really giving this a try as a relationship, and that it’s an exclusive one.”

And once you’ve set the ground rules for that—okay, both of you have said yes to that. Now, you’re in a long-distance relationship. And at that point, it becomes: How do we navigate the difficulty of something that feels wholly unnatural, which is, we’re trying to have an intimate relationship at a geographical distance?

Well, firstly, there has to be a time on the horizon where you know you’re going to see each other. You’ve got to have something to look forward to. And as the relationship progresses, I would argue that there needs to be some kind of a vision for how you’re going to solve that issue in a sustainable way. What does this look like in a year, in two years? Are we actually going to be in the same place?

That doesn’t have to happen on Day 1, but there does gradually start to have to be a vision for: How does this problem get solved? Otherwise, we’re in a relationship where neither of us are actually taking on the reality that we haven’t solved it, and maybe we haven’t solved it because neither one of us is actually willing to do what it takes to permanently solve this situation.

In the meantime, when you’re trying to navigate it, I would say mixing up the energy that we bring to the table. It’s very easy for us to say, “I am long distance, so the kind of energy I give when I’m in the same room as someone, especially romantically, is off the table. Instead, I’m just going to do what I can do, which is to have very long in-depth conversations.”

But if you think of any relationship where all it is, is one note of very long, in-depth conversations, eventually, it’s going to get boring. It’s going to get stale. It’s going to feel staid.

So, we have to mix up our energy. Are you being flirtatious? Are you still bringing your sexuality to the table, obviously, in ways that feel safe to you? Sending nudes and things like that represent real challenges and risks when it comes to potentially breaking up with someone or someone you can’t trust. That’s a whole different subject. But we’re talking about still bringing your sexual energy to the table, still bringing your playful energy to the table.

Can you have a 60-second funny voice note or call AND three hours spending the evening together, talking for that long? Can you be both?

The last thing I’ll say about this is: there’s being together in conversation and there’s being together in company. When you think about a relationship, sometimes you’re having conversation, and that’s quality time. Other times, you’re just in company with someone. You’re sitting next to each other on a sofa, reading books or watching a movie. It would be hard work if quality time always meant being in conversation.

If someone learns that the only way to connect with you is to have conversations with you, they’re going to start to feel the stakes are really high any time they want to be with you or around you, because it’s going to involve trying to have a conversation, and at a certain point, you will run out of things to talk about. That’s just natural.

So it might be time to be in company with them. That might mean hitting play on a movie at the same time from a long distance and watching a movie together. And then talking about the movie afterward. Don’t just be in conversation. Pick times to be in company, and that will lower the stakes for the time that you spend together. It also means that time spent together doesn’t always have to mean time away from other obligations and responsibilities that both of you have.

Glori says, “Do you see a connection between the physical pain you endured and the newfound level of love and vulnerability you orient from?”

Well, firstly, that’s a lovely compliment. Thank you. For those of you who don’t know, I write in my new book, Love Life, about my own journey with physical chronic pain, and how it lasted for many years. Part of that I still have, so it hasn’t completely gone away. It certainly did kind of crack me open. I think every challenge we have, every challenge I’ve ever had in life, has been an invitation to a greater degree of compassion, not just for myself, but for other people. I think every time we go through a challenge, we get more connected to what other people go through in life if we can widen our lens and not just see it as our pain. Because of course, none of our pain is original. Other people have experienced it—are experiencing it.

I always find that any challenge gives me a window into the challenges that other people have faced or are facing. That’s made me a more compassionate, loving, humble person every single time. My chronic pain was, I suppose, in some ways, my first encounter with something that truly made me miserable that I didn’t know how to change. I didn’t know how to make it go away. And I had to change my relationship with it. That was one of the most humbling experiences of my entire life. It was also, in many ways—and I’m not someone who throws this word around lightly—it was a spiritual experience to come to a place of acceptance with that. 

So, yes. I don’t think it’s the only thing that’s made me loving and vulnerable, but I do think it gave me access to a depth that I hadn’t had access to before when I felt like I could always fix my problems. In this case, I couldn’t fix it. I had to change the impact it was having on me by changing my relationship with the challenge itself.

Marie says, “Why am I so obsessed with looking for things wrong in my relationships? Things that will hurt my heart, like looking at their exes on social media and then overanalyzing everything.”

So, on one hand, it might be that there’s a familiarity for you in looking for those kinds of things—that simply sitting back and enjoying the peace you might feel right now is deeply uncomfortable and unfamiliar, which is why it’s uncomfortable. Instead, going and looking for something that creates drama gives you something to feel jealous about, gives you something to feel insecure about. It’s much more familiar. And we’re drawn to what’s familiar—not necessarily to what makes us happy.

I want you to imagine that so far in life, your behavior in dating has been like an old vinyl record. And the groove in that vinyl that plays the song a certain way has been long since established.

So when you go on another date or when you start seeing someone you like, what happens is you put the needle on that record, and that record starts to play, because it’s the groove you established a long time ago. 

You don’t necessarily have access to a different record to play right now, because you haven’t established those grooves. But you can. It requires conscious practice. It requires an awareness of, “Oh, I’m going to look at this person’s profile right now and dig deep into who they’ve been with before, or what their exes are like, or what they have that I don’t” as a kind of compulsion, because that’s the record I’ve been used to playing. I’m used to feeling these feelings of jealousy, of anxiety, of tension. I’m not used to not doing that and feeling a sense of peace.

But if I become aware as I’m about to do it—that that’s a behavior I feel drawn to not because they’re doing anything underhanded or behaving badly or giving me reasons to be suspicious, but because that’s the way the record plays for me. That’s the groove I’ve worn in over time.

When we get conscious of that, we become able to take a different path. And it may be that that path in the past served a need, maybe the need to feel safe, and as a result, that hypervigilance that’s had you looking for problems so you can go and meet them (instead of them surprising you) is something that’s made you feel safe. It’s felt like a form of control. But maybe these days, you’re ready to accomplish a feeling of safety in a new and more productive way—for example, in just having trust in yourself, that if anything were to come to light that would reveal this person wasn’t a good partner, you would be able to walk away, which means you don’t need to anticipate every problem. 

You just need to show up as the best version of you and pay attention to the present and to what you’re actually seeing from this person, not trying to anticipate everything they could be or do in the future.

Grizle says, “I would love to hear more tips and advice for dating in our 40s and 50s. Everything seems to be targeted toward the younger generation. Why is it so hard to find love again, and what can we do to become our best self to attract a partner?”

Look, I have always maintained that the things I say are applicable at every age. I don’t think that, even when I’m talking about things like flirting, often people think, “Oh, you’re talking to younger people there.”

But of course, what makes us attractive at any age is the ability to both be sincere, but also be playful—the ability to be flirtatious, to not lose that energy.

I would challenge you to ask yourself: “What is the part of what Matthew is saying that I don’t think applies beyond a certain age?” Because I think the fundamentals apply at any age. If you’re in your 50s and you have come out of a long-term relationship or a divorce, or perhaps you’ve just struggled to meet someone in your life, the fundamentals are the same: How active is our life? Is it the kind of life that brings us into contact with other people?

A lot of the time, the older we get, the more our life contracts. We get into these routines and rhythms that can become quite staid. They’re very comfortable to us, but they may not be the kinds of routines that actually engage us socially with people we don’t already know.

Do our lives include communities, environments, events that bring us into contact with new people? Are we being brave in those areas? Because it does require some bravery. It’s hard.

The last thing I would ever tell you is that it’s easy, because the reality is, many people do experience feeling more invisible, feeling like they don’t have nearly the same amount of attention they had at a different stage of their life.

I think for that reason, we have to find ways of enjoying the process, because otherwise, we’ll never do the things that bring us into contact with opportunity. What are the activities that I might like to do regardless of whether I meet someone . . . but by doing those activities, I might actually meet someone? What other ways I could engineer my life to build myself into more new communities where I could meet new single friends? Where I could meet different types of people than maybe I’ve encountered in the past by not over-relying on only one thing, like a dating app?

You know, it’s very tempting to get into the comfort of a dating app. But then it can be very demoralizing when we find we’re not getting matches, or the kinds of people that are matching with us are sleazy or they’re not our type of person or they’re scamming us, which is very common these days. It can be extremely demoralizing, which is why I say you can do those things, but don’t make it your only source of new people in your life. That’s what we do, again, from a place of comfort and not actually putting ourselves out there in the real world.

I do empathize with what you’re feeling and what you’re going through. It’s hard when we’re not where we want to be at a certain stage in our life, and we feel like it’s gotten harder in the process. But I also want you to entertain the idea that at least a part of that is—not all of it, because some of that difficulty is real—but at least a part of it may be a story we’re telling ourselves about how it’s impossible, it’s never going to happen, or no one is ever going to want us. Instead, consider the idea that if you just woke up into your body right now at the age you are, and you felt the desire to meet someone without any of the baggage of the past, you might take a different approach and have a different energy toward going out there and meeting someone. And that energy might be the reason you do meet someone.

Min says, “How to move on from someone you have never dated? Feelings for him are so strong that it feels like something is dying inside.”

I’ve spoken about this at length in my book, Love Life. For anyone who hasn’t got a copy, I strongly advise that you read Chapter 2: “How to Tell Love Stories.” Because in it, I talk about the value we’re often placing on the wrong things—that a real relationship is so much more than the story we invent about how important a person is.

I have a much more backward-looking approach for relationships than forward-looking. In other words, a forward-looking approach is: Look at all the potential for this person. Look at all the potential for how happy they would make me. Look at what we could be together. And that is, by definition, a projection of a future that does not exist. So we could be right, I guess, but we’re only right if that future that we’ve anticipated actually happens. If it doesn’t happen, then we were wrong about how important this person was.

Whereas a backward-looking approach is saying: “Look at how extraordinary this person is who is in my life—all the ways they have shown up for me. Look at what we’ve built together. Wow, this is an important relationship. Wow, this is an important person in my life.”

And you don’t need your imagination for that exercise. You’re saying it because it’s true, because those are the facts, and I would argue that in order for you to feel like something is dying inside right now, you need a lot of imagination, because there’s an imagined idea of how important this person is in your life when they’re not living up to that idea at all, or the two of you would actually be in a thoroughly-fulfilling relationship with each other.

Once you realize that your pain is not actually coming from the importance of this person, but from the importance of the story in your mind, you can start to see that story for what it is—a story—and separate from it and observe it, the same way we do with our thoughts and mindfulness practices. And start to realize that the story is making it painful, not the reality.

Ana says, “Why was a guy telling me from the beginning that he wants something serious with me, and after two and a half months, all of a sudden, he said he is not ready for a relationship?”

Well, there could be many reasons for that. Maybe he got overexcited in the beginning and couldn’t back it up. It might be that he himself got excited about the possibility of a relationship, but the reality of a relationship was something he wasn’t really ready for. In which case, after two and a half months, he did you a giant favor, because it’s better that you learn that fact two and a half months in rather than a year in. 

That’s the case for a lot of people: They get excited in the beginning—and it’s a sign of real immaturity. It can also be a sign of manipulation. Of course, their perspective is: “I tell you I want something serious even when I don’t, because I just want to get something from you.” But like I said, it can also be a sign of immaturity: “I feel so strongly. I’ve never felt like this. I haven’t felt like this in such a long time. You make me feel amazing. I want something serious with you.”

Especially if he felt like you would only be into him if he wanted something serious, and maybe felt you’d pull away a little bit. And he was like, “No, no, no. I want something serious with you. I can’t lose you.”

There’s an immaturity to that if the reality is he’s not available for a real relationship when it comes down to it. He starts noticing that a real relationship means that he actually has to get to know you, not just your projection. He has to be known. He has to actually share more about himself instead of just being the heroic version of himself.

When someone is immature about love and isn’t ready for an actual relationship, just a feeling of a relationship . . . they may initially get excited and then when those things start presenting themselves, when having a relationship actually requires a few calories, all of a sudden, they get completely overwhelmed by the reality of a relationship. And it sounds like two and a half months in, either he had been in manipulation mode or he had been very immature about his version of love or his idea of love. And he couldn’t then back that up when the reality of a relationship presented itself.

The other alternative is that during those two and a half months, he discovered that it wasn’t right for him, for whatever reason. That doesn’t mean it has anything to do with you. There can be many, many reasons why something isn’t right for someone that aren’t to do with you. And it was easier to tell you that it turns out, he wasn’t ready for a relationship, and to tell you he didn’t want a relationship with you.

The important thing for you to realize is that someone has made their intentions clear. All you need to do is look at the situation and go, “Is there anything I would like to do differently next time? Did I bring my best self to the table?” And if the answer is, “No, I didn’t. I’d like to do some things differently next time,” then this was a gift in giving you that insight. And if the answer is, “No, I brought my best to the table. This person just misled me about their intentions for a relationship or decided I wasn’t right for that relationship,” then you need to grieve the disappointment and keep moving forward, because the right person for you will last longer than two and a half months.

And Ana, if you haven’t already, I would suggest that you go and check out Dating With Results. It’s a free training that I put together to help you seek out healthy, mature people who are ready for a real relationship, avoid the people who are not, see the early warning signs that someone is not, and have the conversations along the way that actually lead to something real.

For anyone out there dating right now, if you want to date productively, if you don’t want to waste your time, if you want to find the kind of love you’ve always been looking for instead of just more casual dating or something that presents as very exciting but then disappears as quickly as it came, this will be one of the most valuable hours you could spend for your love life. And it’s free. 

All right. There seems to be one more question. This one is from Audrey Hussey, who asks: “Who is more tidy, you or me?”

It’s definitely me. I don’t—she thinks that she’s more—she has a strange perception of herself as a more tidy person. What makes you think you’re more tidy?

AUDREY HUSSEY

I tidy up more than you do.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

No, you don’t. 

AUDREY HUSSEY

I do.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

I’m way more—I do way more to—do I? I don’t want to say anything that isn’t true. I’m always tidying up after you. In our bathroom, your makeup is always everywhere. And I always put it back in the bag and put it there because every time we have a nice, clean bathroom, and your makeup is just—you just leave it out. Do you think it just magically goes back in the bag? Do you think you have a magic makeup bag?

AUDREY HUSSEY

You’re my magic makeup bag.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

You’re right. I’m your magic makeup bag. There you have it, folks. She’s not untidy. But I do more to tidy up after you than you do to tidy up after me. And that is a fact. And you could ask anyone, literally, anyone.

JEREMY

Yeah, but there’s a difference between who tidies up as they go, versus letting it all pile up . . . 

AUDREY HUSSEY

You may do the makeup; I do everything else.

MATTHEW HUSSEY

Whose side are you on, Jeremy? Why are you defending this? (laughs)

Well, join us sometime in the future when we do this again, and Audrey uses this very public forum to air out her own personal grievances with me. 

Leave us a comment, so that I can read them, because I like reading your comments on our videos. And I will see you soon.

The post Long Distance Relationship? AVOID This Mistake appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

“How can you tell the difference between love bombing and genuine interest?”

This is just one question out of 10 that I answer in today’s rapid-fire Q&A video, which also includes answers to: 

• “What Dating Advice Would You Give to Your 16-Year-Old Self?”
• “When Did You Last Cry?”
• “How Can I Get Over the Shame of Having Stayed Too Long in a Relationship?”
• “Is It Worth Reaching Back Out to an Ex Who May Have Changed?”

. . . and much more.

It was super fun to read and answer all your questions. Be sure to leave me a comment with any questions you might have for part 2!

Well, well, well. Here we go again. Another YouTube video after 17 years of making YouTube videos, and I’m still going. But every now and again, we need to mix things up and do something a little different. So today, we are going to answer some questions. I put the word out on my Instagram at @TheMatthewHussey and said, “What do you want to ask me? Love life-related, confidence-related, life-related? What do you want to ask me about me?” And so, we picked some questions. I haven’t actually seen most of these questions. So, we’ll see how I do on the fly. I’ll get through as many as possible in the time that we have.

And also, if you haven’t already, join my newsletter, because if you like free stuff like this video you’re watching right now, every Friday, I’m releasing a new newsletter, a written open letter from me to you with ideas, philosophies, strategies—general wisdom that I think could actually help you in the Three Relationships in your life that matter the most—your relationship with yourself, your relationship with life, and your relationship with other people. It’s at The3Relationships.com. It’s free. And I’ll see you in your inbox this Friday. 

On to the questions. Our first question is from Jenny, who says, “Hi, what are three things you would say to your 16-year-old self about relationships?” 

Three things that I would say to my 16-year-old self. Let me think of one thing first. I probably would have said to myself: “Relationships will happen. You’ll have them. When someone comes along, it’s not your last opportunity at a relationship. So if someone comes along and they seem to represent a few things that you like, it doesn’t mean that you have to jump into a relationship with that person immediately because no one else will ever come along. You can take your time. You can pay attention to the things that actually aren’t right about that relationship, maybe even grounds to not have that relationship. You don’t have to come from a place of scarcity that everyone you moderately like, you need to jump into a relationship with because you may never get another one.”

I also sort of think that those relationships were important for me to have because I learned a lot from being in relationships at a time in my life where I was just getting experience. Didn’t you learn a lot from that time in your life too, having some relationships that weren’t right for you? And we don’t maybe think of them like this at the time, but they’re sorta practice relationships, aren’t they, for later on? So, I don’t even know if I want my 16-year-old self to follow that advice. 

Let’s move on to the next question. “When did you last cry?”

I almost cried yesterday because Audrey brought up a film that we watched together when we were on our honeymoon in Japan. The film is called A Silent Voice. And it’s a film about a teenage boy who hates himself because he bullied a deaf girl. And he hates who he was and he hates what he did to her. And the movie is about how he evolves as a person, but even though he’s evolved to be a better person, he still can’t stop hating himself. The movie follows that journey as well as this young girl’s journey. And it is just—Audrey was telling me about it. And then as she started telling me about it, I started to get teary. And so, that was that.

So, that was probably the last time I almost cried. I was on the verge of crying. If you haven’t seen it, A Silent Voice is a Japanese anime movie that is just beautiful.

Sven says, “I have heard so many sayings along the lines of ‘don’t read the same chapter twice, as the ending will still be the same.’ But people change. So, I’m wondering if it’s worth reaching back out to someone who I briefly dated and had an amazing connection/chemistry with who just ‘wasn’t ready for a relationship’ . . . after, let’s say, a year or so has passed. I’m aware that it’s crucial for an individual to have moved on way before reaching back out to allow themselves clarity in making this decision, but I’m wondering what you’d suggest.”

So they had an amazing connection with this person who said they weren’t ready for a relationship. Now, a year or so has passed.

I worry about this one because, look, is it possible that someone has changed? Yes. Maybe they didn’t want a relationship and now, they do want a relationship, and you reaching out at this moment is suddenly going to put you back on their mind in a way where they go, “Yes, I remember this person from a year ago. Now, that I want a relationship, they could be right for me.”

But I also know that so many people say they’re not ready for a relationship as an excuse because they just don’t want more with a person. And we shouldn’t necessarily take that personally, because there are all sorts of reasons why someone doesn’t want more with us that have nothing to do with us or aren’t related to things we need to worry about changing or any of that. We’re not right for a lot of people and that’s fine. That’s the natural order of things is that we’re not right for a lot of people. We shouldn’t be. We’re a unique individual. We are right for a certain group of people, and that’s a small percentage, most likely, especially if we’re being ourselves.

So don’t take it personally if someone doesn’t want you. But remember, when someone says they’re not ready for a relationship, it might be code for: “I just don’t see it with you, and this is the best thing I can come up with right now for allowing me to part ways with you.”

So we have to be a bit careful a year later of looking at that, taking it at face value, and saying, “Maybe they’ve shifted and the only reason, the only barrier that was getting in the way a year ago, was that they didn’t want a relationship, and maybe they do want a relationship now, and they’re going to want it with me.” 

I have to assume that if they felt that you were perfect for them back then, but they just didn’t want a relationship, and that was the only thing standing in the way of you and them and your perfect life together . . . and now, they want a relationship, you would be the first person to come to mind, and they would already be calling you. If they haven’t, then it feels much more likely to me that what you’re doing is constructing a story that allows you to reach back out to someone that you still hold a candle for because you’re telling yourself a story of potential instead of there actually being potential.

My vote would be, don’t reach out to this person. Move on and find someone where the reality is that they like you, and they’re ready for a relationship. Not that you have to come up with this entire narrative that has to make sense for you to reach back out to them. I worry that reaching back out to them just sets you up for another disappointment that you’ve already experienced with this person. 

Linny says, “What is the difference between love bombing and genuine interest?”

Love bombing and genuine interest. I think, actually, your question gets at the heart of what can be really challenging: When someone in the beginning of the dating phase starts really showing a lot of interest in us, how reliable is that as an indicator of whether their interest is going to hold, whether they have real potential, whether they really like us for us? Or is what they’re experiencing some kind of projection that they’ve put on us? Have they idealized us in really unhealthy ways? Are they trying to manipulate us in ways that are more insidious to try to get us to give more than we reasonably should at this stage?

It’s quite possible, for example, that someone says to us, “I like you so much,” and it’s coming from a place of genuine feeling of, “I like you so much.” It’s also possible that someone might say that because they really want to egg you on to give them a lot more, they’re trying to manipulate the situation.

I think the truth is, we only really know someone’s intentions over time, which is why instead of playing detective on whether someone is love bombing you or not, you dictate the pace yourself, take it slower, and see if their interest is consistent or if it comes in fits and starts.

I will say this, though, if someone is being incredibly grandiose and telling you things like, “I love you: I’ve heard from people I coach that people have said things to them like, “I love you” after just a few hours of talking in their first conversation. “I really want to come and see you.” “I feel like you’re the right person for me.”

When people say things like that in the beginning, either they have this wildly immature version of love that they adhere to, which is a major red flag, or they are someone who is scamming you or is trying to manipulate you into giving way more than you should. 

Joy says, “How do I forgive myself and stop feeling shame for having stayed too long in an unhealthy marriage?” I mean, welcome to the club of people who felt like they stayed in something, in any area of life, for too long. Hands up if you felt like you stayed in a job longer than you should have. So many people. Leave a comment if that’s you.

How many of us have stayed in a relationship for too long knowing it wasn’t the right relationship, but we were too frightened to leave because we were worried we wouldn’t be okay if we were on our own—that we would never meet anyone else? And of course, that’s compounded when you’re in a marriage, and you have that extra level of commitment that you’ve made. It makes it even harder to leave a situation like that, to admit that, “This is the wrong relationship. I shouldn’t be here anymore.”

That’s an intensely human thing. What I see in you, Joy, is a human being, a person who has lived, a person who has gone out there, taken a swing, tried for something. You could have just stayed in your bedroom and met no one. Instead, you went out there, you took a swing. You met someone, you took a swing at a lifelong relationship, and it didn’t work out. And you didn’t leave the moment you realized that it wasn’t working out. 

Well, welcome to the club. It takes a long time to get up the courage for many people, for most of us, to do something that hard. And guess what? It wouldn’t take you as long the next time around, right? I would bet that you wouldn’t walk straight into a marriage with someone like that again, and I would also bet that if you were dating someone like that again, you’d see the signs quicker, and you’d act faster. But those are only things you’d be able to do because of the experience you’ve already had. You don’t get to be the person you are today with the wisdom you have today without having been the person you were then.

To wish that you were who you are today then, it’s science fiction. You don’t get to be who you are today without having taken as much time as you did then. And is there something frustrating about the time that we lost? Is there sometimes something tragic about how long it takes us to come to these conclusions?

Of course there is. If only we could come to them faster. But guess what? We didn’t, because that’s life, and you know what? You’ll do it again. There will be an area of your life where you’ll do it again. It might not even be your love life. It might be a different area. But there’ll be an area where you sit on a decision too long, where you take too long to figure something out, where you lose something as a result, whether it’s time or finances or anything that you value. It will happen again. And that’s okay too, because that’s part of living. We make these mistakes. Give yourself a break. You’re in good company.

Mlle. Francophile says, “What’s your take on rumors? I was told about rumors from different people that didn’t know about [my partner and me], and I confronted him. We all make mistakes, and I’m of the opinion that if I wasn’t there to see it for myself, why would I trust what anyone else says? I care about honesty and I asked him to let me know if these rumors are true or not. And he said no, they’re not. On the other hand, rumors don’t really come out of nowhere. I’m a little torn here. If he knows that, for me, something like this would be considered in the past, would he still deny it, so that I don’t think any worse of him?”

This is a tricky one. I’m inclined to say, do you trust the source? There’s real merit to what you’re saying that in these social settings, rumors often don’t come from nowhere. And they might, but do you want to stake your time, your energy, your emotions on the idea that they have just come out of nowhere?

If I were in your shoes, I think it would be a kind of red flag for me. It might not be a red flag that makes us completely turn and run the other way. But it’s almost the kind of red flag that if we’re going to continue, we need to put a pin in that information and go, “I’m going to let this play out with you and be very honest with myself about how you’re coming across, about how you’re showing up, about whether your actions align with your words, whether you seem to be a person of integrity, whether you are reliable, whether you’re consistent, and I’m going to be really real. I’m not going to let my emotions color what I think about you and your behavior. I’m going to pay real attention to who you really are and see whether that aligns with what I’ve heard.”

But I do think that if you’re going to proceed, you have to go in in a very sober way, understanding that there may be truth to these things, and that while you don’t need to play detective, you do need to be honest with yourself about whether what you’re seeing actually aligns with those rumors.

Penny says, “Being a love expert yourself, do you still face challenges in your own relationship?”

I hate the idea of being a love expert. What does an expert in love even mean? I don’t know. I don’t feel like a love expert, but I’ve been doing this for a long time and I like the idea that what I’ve learned is helpful to people. Of course I still have challenges in my relationship. I always say that even in healthy relationships, and I consider myself to be in a really healthy relationship, when people post things on Instagram, you’re still not seeing everything in that relationship.

When we look at people’s relationships online, we’re not just seeing relationships that are incredibly unhealthy posing as really happy relationships. We’re also seeing really healthy relationships that are only showing you the healthy parts of the relationship. They’re not showing you the argument they had last night, because why would they? That would be oversharing.

So, yeah, Audrey and I have arguments. We have our frictions. We have our tensions. I think that what has been our saving grace, both of us, is that we’re really, really good communicators. We’re able to be honest with each other. We’re able to talk vulnerably with each other without just freezing each other out.

We have a really good recovery time on arguments. I think of recovery time a lot. What’s your recovery time? What’s the half-life of an argument you have? Does it take three days to get over it, or is it something that you can get over in 30 minutes? And if you have more tools, you are able to get over these things quicker together. You can navigate—I think the better you are at communicating, the more you can see the landmines in the argument before you step on them, and decide not to step on them.

 “I know if I say that thing, it is going to make this 10 times worse.”

“I know that my ego here is going to get in the way of me resolving this conversation with this person I love.”

That’s another landmine, is ego. So, over time, I’ve gotten better at seeing those landmines and being like, “I’m not going to step there. That’s going to make things worse. And I am going to step here because that’s going to make things better?” 

“Mythundr” says, “Why does an ex almost always return with the crystal-clear assumption that we’d be thrilled to have him back in our lives? Let’s just say, I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, and he’s got a lot of gall to think that I would welcome him back with open arms.”

I mean, I don’t know. Maybe he does always think that he’s going to be able to waltz back into your life because the partners he’s picked in the past have always allowed him to do that. Maybe there’s an element of narcissism in him that says, “I’m always wanted back and you’ll want me back too.” So the idea of you saying “no” to him is just not even a reality for him.

While I don’t know specifically why he seems to assume so boldly that you will absolutely take him back, it’s very common for people to come back. I get asked all the time, “Why do men always come back?”

I think the answer is because it’s easier. People take the path of least resistance. And when they go out there into the world, looking for someone else, who knows what they’re looking for? They think they’re looking for this thing, or this thing that’s different from you, or they just think that they’re going to be happier if they’re single, and if they’re able to play the field, or whatever is the reason. 

Very quickly, when people hit any kind of a roadblock of loneliness or fear that they’re not going to find someone . . . such as a difficult weekend where someone else isn’t texting them back . . . whatever it may be, the path of least resistance becomes: This person over here who I already know, who accepted me once, who wanted me, who didn’t want to break up with me even though I broke up with them, it feels like a pretty good chance that if I reach out to them, I’m going to get attention again. 

And by the way, they’re often right. They do get attention again from that person. They do get welcomed with open arms by that person.

So a lot of people learn that it’s not just the path of least resistance in their mind, but in reality, their exes are often the path of least resistance because their exes, if they haven’t gone on to meet someone else, if they’re having a lonely time, if they’re struggling with it, will not view them coming back as weak or selfish, but instead, will view it romantically, and that’s, in a sense, what they’re relying on, that you will view them coming back romantically instead of cynically.

Piece of advice for everyone out there: Remember, if an ex comes back, they better be offering something different than when you knew them before.

Butterfly & Rose says, “What happened to the daily newsletter that you promised in one of your live sessions?”

I did not promise a daily newsletter. I promised a weekly newsletter every Friday. I said I am going to do a new thing where every Friday, I release, I send to you, a brand-new newsletter, handwritten by me on a laptop that I send to you.

I don’t think I ever mentioned a daily newsletter, did I? Jeremy, have I ever said daily? That’s madness. You wouldn’t have time to read a daily newsletter from me anyway. Let’s face it: Weekly is enough.

Shanie says, “When are you coming to Australia?”

Well, I am not coming to Australia anytime soon. Where I am going is Florida in September for my Retreat. For anyone who wants to join me there, go to mhretreat.com. We actually don’t have nearly as many spaces as we normally do. By this point, there’s only 50 left, my team tells me. So, if you want to come and join us, go to mhretreat.com. Come from Australia to Florida, and we’ll be together for six days.

Thank you so much for watching this video, everyone. I’m going to make this a two-parter because I have a lot more questions I want to get to. So if you didn’t get your question answered, ask it in the comments below, and I’ll pick a new batch to do in the next video. Let me know if you enjoyed this format. And don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and hit the notification bell so that you’ll get notified the next time the video comes out. And leave me a comment. I’m going to read them.

Thank you so much, everyone. Be well and love life.

The post Why They ALWAYS Come Back + How to Reach Out After It Ends appeared first on Matthew Hussey.

Is love enough to keep a relationship going?

You may have asked yourself this question when you’ve faced a difficult breakup. In today’s video, I go deep on this question, and talk about 7 compatibility tests that can help determine whether your relationship will last.

These are some of the most underrated qualities in a partner, and after watching, you’ll never look at compatibility the same way again . . .

Why isn’t love enough when it comes to finding a long-term relationship? In my new book, Love Life, I talk about how compatibility is an essential ingredient of a long-term relationship, and how many of us love someone we do not have compatibility with.

In this video, I wanted to talk about what compatibility actually looks like by going into seven key areas of compatibility. As I go through each of these areas, I want you to think to yourself: “Are we compatible in these ways, or am I just in love with them?”

Number one—are your goals compatible? In other words, do you want the same things as this person? Do they want the same things as you? Do you want marriage and they also want marriage in their future? Do you want kids and they also want kids in their future? Do both of you want to continue living where you live now, or do you want to move to a different city?

Wanting the same things is highly underrated when it comes to the dating process. So many of us focus on attraction, how great we feel in someone’s company, but we don’t actually focus on the fact that someone is telling us that they want very different things than we do. And if that’s the case, there is a real danger that over time, this person is going to make us incredibly unhappy.

Number two—the timing of our goals. In other words, if we want the same things, do we want the same things on the same timeline?

Now, people aren’t exactly aligned all the time. There are times where you might say, “I would like to get married in the next year,” and this person says, “I’d like to be married in the next two years.” 

It might be the case that one person wants a family now and another person wants a family a little way into the future. And in some of these cases, these timings can be resolved, because ultimately, neither one is going to have to truly sacrifice their ultimate vision. You’re going to be able to both achieve this thing that you want, and maybe you meet in the middle somewhere on your timelines. There’s a little sacrifice here or there. Or maybe just one person makes a sacrifice, but it’s not that big of a deal because you end up in the same place anyway.

But sometimes, our timings with someone are so different that being with this person risks too big of a gap in waiting for what you really want in life—too much delaying of your happiness, of the things that are important to you, or in some cases, it might mean that you miss your window altogether.

I mean, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where you’re 10 years older than someone and you have this incredible attraction, and you really love each other, and you want to be together, but you want children in the next couple of years because your biology dictates that you’re going to have to if you want to have a good chance at that happening, and this person wants children in seven years. And if that’s the case, you might both want the same things, but on completely incompatible timelines.

So it’s not that what you want is incompatible. It’s when you want it that is incompatible. And again, we have to be very honest with ourselves. If what I want is something that’s fundamental to my happiness, then no matter how much I love this person, if their timeline robs me of something that for me is a non-negotiable for my happiness, then we are still ultimately not right for each other.

Number three—are our lifestyles compatible? Am I a giant introvert and they are a giant extrovert and it means that the lives we want to live on a daily basis are completely different?

Of course, there are many relationships that work where one person is more extroverted or introverted, but if you are with an extrovert who wants to go out all the time and has no understanding of the fact that you want to stay in sometimes and you don’t want to go out as much as they do, then you’re going to have an area of constant conflict.

Are you extraordinarily messy and they are extraordinarily tidy? Can you negotiate the differences that you both experience there, or is it a constant source of stress and resentment? Are they a workaholic and you’re someone who works to live? And the hours they work and their commitment to their job or their business is something that you’ll never be able to truly understand or get on board with?

Now, not all of these differences on the surface are a reflection of fundamental incompatibility. We can see someone else living a certain way and be inspired by it. The introvert can realize there’s a real value to getting out of the house and being around people. The extrovert can learn that there’s a value to silence and being in their own company. It can be the case that the tidy person realizes they take everything a little too seriously, or the messy person realizes there’s a value to being more organized. The workaholic realizes it’s good to have a life outside of work, and their partner helps them do that. Or the person who doesn’t care about work at all realizes the value in having some goals and starts to push themselves in new ways.

Sometimes differences on the surface can reveal that we’re inspired by our differences, and we can even find ourselves beginning to talk more of the same language. Or our differences reveal fundamental deeper incompatibility because when those differences and the tensions that arise from those differences come about, what they show us is that we do not speak the same language at all. We don’t understand each other, we don’t have any desire or any ability to make progress in these areas, and these areas will always be a source of frustration, resentment, and even contempt long into the future. 

Number four—do you make a great team when it comes to hard times in life or arguments between the two of you? 

Often, people have such different styles when it comes to these things that it makes them incompatible. When the shit hits the fan in life, one person goes into a very resilient and proactive place, and tries to see the best of it, and the other person is unresourceful or doesn’t show up in the same way, or has a very, very negative attitude about it. And those two styles clash anytime things get hard in life.

When things get hard, we see whether we’re a great team with someone, and being a great team is at the heart of compatibility. Of course, this highlights the importance of not deciding on a first date that someone is “the love of your life” when you haven’t even been through any hard times with them. So, this is actually one way to stop yourself from getting too obsessed with someone being the right person, especially if you’ve never been through anything together.

But the other part is arguments. In an argument, do we have styles that really clash? Do I want to resolve this thing and you want to freeze me out for the next four days because you’re hurt?

And it’s not just about style. It’s about standards. Someone can have a really low standard for the way they argue, and you can have a really high standard. You might have a high standard for the things you say in an argument. In other words, you don’t say really spiteful things or things you can’t take back, and they may have a very low standard for the things they say where they’re willing to say absolutely anything to get one over on you in an argument, including things that are going to deeply wound you or are deeply spiteful.

So our style and our standards matter when it comes to compatibility in either hard times in life, where we need to be a team, or arguments, where we need to find a way to come together and resolve things. And when we’re incompatible in those two areas, we’re going to find that in hard times, we’re incredibly lonely, or in arguments, we are incredibly frustrated or wounded by the differences.

Number five—and this is an interesting question—would you be happy with this person raising your children if you weren’t around anymore?

I find this to be an interesting thought experiment even if you’re never intending to have children with someone, or if for any reason in life, you’re unable to have children with someone. “If we did have children, would I be okay with this person, with their values, their outlook, their behaviors, their habits, their way of living, raising my children if I were no longer around to participate?”

The reason I find this to be an interesting question is because it really highlights areas of incompatibility. All those things that make us frightened of that prospect, all those things that make us feel deeply uneasy with the idea of that happening, away from our view, are signs of incompatibility today with us.

The difference is, we’ll often ignore these incompatibilities when we’re on the receiving end of them. We just don’t ignore them when we think of innocent children on the receiving end of them. And isn’t that interesting? If the person you’re with has values, behaviors, or habits that you wouldn’t want to subject someone you love to, then why would you subject yourself to them today?

Now, let me be clear. This question has nothing to do with whether or not you want kids. You may never want kids. It’s a thought experiment designed to explore incompatibility in a relationship where there aren’t kids. 

Number six—are they capable of loving you in the way you need to be loved? And are you capable of loving them in the way they need to be loved?

Now, the words “capable” and “need” are really important here. If you need a lot of physical affection, it’s not something you want. It’s something you need, like a flower needs water and sunlight. Your emotional or psychological survival requires physical affection. It’s a need for you.

Well, let’s say that that need meets someone who is incapable of meeting that need, either because they are completely unwilling or they don’t have the tools to be able to do that. They don’t know how to be physically affectionate. They never learned. They’re a very cold person physically, or maybe they’ve been through things that have made it extremely difficult to give physical affection. Whether they can or can’t at some point is a different story. But if your experience of them is that they are incapable of giving that to you, then you are met with someone who is fundamentally going to make you unhappy.

If someone has a need to be told what they mean to you, and you are incapable of communicating in that way, then they are going to experience a very lonely and difficult existence in this relationship.

We all have our ways that we need to be loved in order to be happy. Is the person opposite you capable of loving you in that way? If they’re not, no matter how much you love them, you’re never going to be loved in a way that makes you happy.

Number seven—do you have the same vision of what commitment is?

Now, firstly, I want to say that it is an obvious but often unacknowledged area of incompatibility when one person wants a commitment, wants a relationship, and the other person doesn’t. There are so many situations where two people say they’re in love and one of them is saying, “Despite being in love with you, I just don’t know if I want to be in a relationship with you. I don’t know if I want a relationship at all. But I love you.”

This is a prime example of how love isn’t enough.

So, if one of you wants a committed relationship and the other one doesn’t, that is a fundamental area of incompatibility. That is not some kind of detail—that’s incompatibility. But even if two people want commitment, do they have the same vision for what commitment actually is? Do they have the same idea of what monogamy entails, or does one person want a very different kind of relationship? Do you have the same vision for what loyalty is or for what freedom looks like?

One person’s version of loyalty might be: “I can message as many people as I want online as long as I don’t sleep with them.” Meanwhile, the other person’s version of loyalty is that “I don’t emotionally betray you in the things I say to people or the way that I acknowledge people online.” Or one person’s version of freedom might be that “we trust each other to not only exist together but also have our independent lives and friends and go on trips and be able to do all of those things and be happy for each other,” and another person’s version of freedom might be, “You’re allowed to leave the house looking hot, but only as long as I’m standing next to you.”

At the essence of this point is: Does being with them make you feel safe in the ways that you want to feel safe, and free in the ways you want to feel free? And, of course, the same is true for them.

What this video is really about is widening our lens for how we assess compatibility. Too many of us think of compatibility simply as, “I feel very strongly for them and they feel very strongly for me. We have a great time when we’re together. We have some shared values. We can talk for hours on end.”

We feel like these things mean compatibility. And they do, by the way, in a sense. But they’re only talking about compatibility on one or two frontiers. And the truth is, the kind of compatibility that makes a relationship work over a lifetime is compatibility on many different frontiers. It’s a much more holistic view of compatibility.

If someone doesn’t want the same things as us in life, that’s not like, “I’m so great with this person, we’re so compatible, but for these pesky circumstances that they don’t want a relationship and I do.” Or “I want children and they don’t want them for another 20 years.”

Those aren’t simply circumstances or details that get in the way of a compatible relationship. They are compatibility by another name. We have to start seeing it as such. There’s no such thing, for example, as “right person, wrong time.” Because the wrong time makes them the wrong person, at least through the lens of compatibility, because timing is part of compatibility.

So we have to start recognizing that it’s possible to love someone and simultaneously accept that loving someone isn’t enough. And there may be many times in our lives where we have to walk away from someone we love because we don’t have the compatibility that will allow us to be happy.

None of the things I’ve talked about today in these seven areas of compatibility should be seen as something intimidating or unachievable. Instead, they should be seen as a great qualifier for the extreme desires and attractions that we feel—for the obsession that we can feel in dating or with someone who never chooses us but we’ve been really attracted to or we’re really smitten with. These areas of compatibility are actually a great pressure valve for those feelings in lowering the temperature and realizing that someone might not be as right for us as we originally thought after all. 

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Thank you so much, everyone. Be well and love life.

The post Why Love Is NOT Enough! (And the 3 Things You Need as Well) appeared first on Matthew Hussey.