Matthew Hussey: The #1 Dating Mistake Keeping You Stuck (Focus On THIS Over Chemistry and Build a Lasting Relationship)

This is an iHart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I am so excited to be here tonight at the AT&T Performing Arts Centre in Dallas with my dear friend Matthew Husney. Oh, we're good. I was lovely to be with you all. I was sat right there actually watching the first half with all of you and it was so fun. I enjoyed it. You were amazing. I loved it. I loved being out there with you all. It's weird to now be on this side of it. Well, thank you for coming, man. Matthew and I have been friends for a few years and I've always found your love relationship and taking advice to be so fascinating and interesting and I feel like you have such a good perspective on it all. I know a lot of people here were very excited to dive deep into it. So let's dive straight in. I want to start with probably one of my favourite questions to ask you is, how do you stay open to love when you're exhausted by dating? I feel like, how many of you are dating right now? Make some noise? Right. So people are tired of dating apps. They're tired of dating, they're tired of figuring out what to wear, who pays the bills, how much do you spend? Like, all this stuff, dating has become exhausting. How do you stay open to love when dating has become so tiring? I think dating is an interesting word because if you just take away the word dating, we are just human beings that deeply want to connect with each other. We really, most of us, I think, if not all of us, deeply want to find love, whether we admit it or not, we want to have that experience. And it's the idea of dating in order to find love is the part people hate. We don't want to do the process, but we really want the result. And I'm a big believer in the idea that we have to stop seeing it as dating and start seeing this is just an ongoing expression of parts of ourselves that we want to express anyway. Who among you doesn't just enjoy being flirtatious at times, because that's part of you. Who among you doesn't have a sexual side that wants to be expressed, because that's part of you. Who here doesn't just enjoy having a conversation with someone cute, not knowing where it might go. I think sometimes we lose that when we become obsessed with the goal all of the time. We lose the expression of ourselves that actually ironically is the thing that leads to the goal if we can access that. The problem is that playfulness gets lost. Once we start freaking out about our timeline, we start freaking out, we want a family, we're worried that we're going to run out of time. You know, we want to get married, we see all of our friends getting married. We're the one who's still left. We think there's something wrong with us. We're starting to worry that it's never going to happen for us. That kind of anxious, fearful energy robs us of our playfulness. And now we go on a date as a kind of shadow of the person that we once were when we started this process as someone taking it very seriously, as someone who the moment you give an answer on a date that I don't like, I'm not like I'm on a date with a stranger who just said something. I'm like you're wasting my time. What are we doing? I gave you an evening and you just gave the wrong answer. You just gave the answer. That means I know you're wrong for me. Why the fuck am I here now? I'm mad at you. But you don't even know this person. So we lose the curiosity, we use the play and we get further and further stuck. Yeah, the idea of switching, dating for connecting, relating, flirting is such a healthy mindset because dating now has so much baggage and that word carries so much weight. And as you said earlier, if you've started to feel that it's exhausting and tiring and draining, that word now, oh, I have to go on a date, comes with, oh God, I've got to get ready. Oh gosh, how long is it going to be? Can I get out early? And so that word's carrying so much weight now, whereas when you start saying, wait a minute, just see it as connecting, just see it as relating, just see it as flirting. All of a sudden you're like, oh, I could do that. That's possible for me. And it might be worth it for its own sake. There might be something about this process of connecting with other human beings that is worth it for its own sake. Is chemistry overrated, underrated or properly rated and defend your answer? I'm going to say we overrate the wrong kind of chemistry. Okay. And we underrate the right kind of chemistry. Thank you. Yeah. [Applause] I think that we get chemistry mixed up with a whole bunch of other things that aren't really chemistry. Like someone doesn't text you back and you get feeling in your stomach. And you go, this must matter a lot because it's making me feel awful. Why do I feel like crap right now that this person isn't texting me? I feel afraid. I don't feel good enough. And then, you know, hours later after waiting and waiting and waiting, they text you and all of a sudden you go, "Ah! I'm okay. I'm okay. Oh, that feels so good." And you go, "I really like this person." It had nothing to do with the person. It had everything to do with their absence. Are you in love with their presence or are you in love with their absence? You know, we get addicted to these cycles with people and it's kind of what we know. And it's very, very dangerous. It happens to us all the time and it happens very quickly and very subtly and very sneakily. A lot of us will get suspicious if someone likes us too much. It's so true. It's almost like if someone likes us a lot, we go, "There must be something wrong with you." But then someone comes along and they're not sure about us and you go, "You might be on to say that." It's like we date as if dating is a VIP nightclub. There's the great places. You could go and have an amazing time in these places. They're serving the same drinks. There's even better people at these places because they're not pretentious and they don't take themselves so seriously. And there's just people having a good time and they're not trying to show off by the fact that they're in the right club. And then you walk past one place and there's a big dude with a guest list. And you go, "What's that?" And you try and go in that place and they say, "I'm sorry, your name's not on the list." And all of a sudden you start wondering what amazing things must be going on back there. There's nothing amazing going on back there. They're creating demands so that you want to be in there. It doesn't make the place any more valuable. It doesn't make the experience any better behind those closed doors. But they're creating an artificial demand. And that is what so much of chemistry is. Is this feeling of I'm having to sing for my supper in dating, I'm having to win you over, I'm having to find a way to access safety. And here's, you want to know something really messed up. There were relationships that you were in where you felt an insane amount of chemistry or what you called chemistry for a while. Because I'll always say to people, be very careful if you had an amazing weekend with someone and you felt like there was so much chemistry. It was a weekend. So don't go for the rest of your life comparing the people you date in a genuine progression and evolution to someone you had a holiday romance with for two weeks. Going, "Why can't I just feel that?" You felt that because they went home. It's like fireworks. Fireworks are the best thing ever for about 10 minutes. The only reason fireworks are so magical is because they end. If fireworks didn't end, they'd be the most annoying thing in the world. When you go to Disney or wherever you see fireworks, they know there's an optimal amount of time to show them for to create that magic. And there's a moment to stop them so that you leave on that high. A lot of us have done that in our dating lives. And now we're comparing everyone to the fireworks we had once with someone that only created them because they left, because it ended. Now some of you, as I was about to say, have been in relationships where the chemistry was there for a long time. But be very careful about the relationships where you felt like you were never really safe in the relationship. Because there were relationships where the chemistry ends because the chase never really ends. You never really feel like you had the person, even when you were with them. How many people put your hand up if it ever felt like that? You were with someone for a long time. You never really felt safe. Like truly safe. Like I've got you wearing this together. And when the chase never ends, the chemistry never ends. Now we go out looking for someone to be that all over again and what we're really asking is, can you make me feel as unsafe as I did last time around? Because that would just really keep me alive. What an answer that was amazing. You reminded me of a study that I love. that talks about how we, what we don't understand with the chemicals of chemistry, are that we're experiencing excitement, but we're experiencing stress. So there's the stress of crap, are they gonna text me? And then there's the excitement of, "Oh my God, they just text me." And then there's the stress of, "Oh my God, are they gonna ask me out on a date?" And then there's the excitement of, "Oh my God, they just asked me out on a date." And then there's the stress of, "Oh crap, what do I wear?" And then there's the excitement of, "All right, they liked what I was wearing." And so chemistry is really just excitement and stress. And when you spend more time with someone, what happens naturally, the stress goes down. You know they're gonna show up, you know they're gonna message you back, you know they like what you're wearing. And so when the stress goes down, we think we lost chemistry. And so we confuse, peace for boredom. We think, "Oh, they just got really boring." Now they don't entertain me, but really it's what you're saying. So I wanna ask you, what's the difference between healthy standards and unrealistic expectations? - I come across people a lot who will tell me, I have really, my problem is my standards are too high. And I'll be like, "Tell me about your standards. What are they?" And they'll start reeling off standards they have for you know the way someone looks and the where they've got to in life. And you know how impressive this person is, how shiny this person is, and how the kind of person they need to hold them. And then I'll say, "Well when was the last time you felt that?" And then they'll start talking about some person in their life that has been treating them horribly for the last two years. They've been on and off with this person, they've been constantly kept in limbo, they've never felt like they were really chosen by that person and they're like, "That was, that's who I really feel it with, you know?" But I just kind of need to find like, if I could just get that person to commit, then I'd be happy. I'm like, so when you say you have high standards, what you really mean is you have incredibly high standards for things that are incredibly superficial or don't matter. And you have no standards for someone's character or for how they treat you. People who say they have high standards often have nonexistent standards for being treated well. So my philosophy on standards is, when we talk about what our healthy standards, we have to start raising our standards in the areas that really matter. Well, kind is someone. Can I actually rely on them to show up for me? When I was first dating my wife, on our like third or fourth date, we were supposed to meet up. I went to the theater in London with my family. And at the end of this show, I was like, "Hey, you know, why don't you come over this way and we'll go somewhere, whatever?" And she, I didn't know this until later, but she was not happy with this. Because she had been to me the last like three times. She sent me a message and she said, "Hey, there's a really great bar near me. I think you'll love it. Let's go there." And I was like, "You know, my family's here. We just went to the theater. It'd be a lot easier tonight if you came this way. Do you mind?" And she was like, "No, listen, it's all good. We'll do another night." She took it away. (laughing) She said, "Okay, let's not have a date tonight." She didn't do it in an aggressive way or even a passive aggressive way. She just said, "Let's do another night." That was a healthy standard. That was her way of saying, "You are gonna have to start meeting me halfway. Or this isn't gonna work." She didn't have to say it. She just had to live that standard. And when it wasn't being met by me, she kindly took it off the table. And the next night said, "Can you come to me?" She would have done the same thing again. That's a healthy standard. And a lot of us, when we think we have standards, what we really mean is we have a list exactly. And there's a big, big difference. 'Cause a lot of people with a list are being treated the worst and seem to be okay with it. Audrey, how long did it take him to get the message? Where are you? I'm asking a massive wife. (laughing) That night. Oh, that night. Oh, he was on it. Okay, yeah. He was smart enough to get the message. I love that. But that's such a great example of someone also communicating their standard in a way that isn't aggressive, that doesn't create a drama, that isn't like making it a big deal. But it's just clearly saying, like, "Well, this is what would work for me tonight." What I wanna get into is, why are we so scared? And this, by the way, happens, even if you're already married, even if you're in a relationship, even if you've been together for a few years, we're so scared of communicating our actual needs. Because we're scared, it would scare the other person away. And so we'll tolerate bad behavior and accept less than we deserve. Before you came out, I asked everyone, how many people have accepted less than they deserve in the crowd when ballistic, which is always funny. But it's true, right? And I'm saying that with empathy, like we all do that to ourselves. And it's painful when you realize, wait a minute, I don't communicate what I'm saying, because I'm scared of that, pushing that person away. Walk me through that. Why do we do that? And how do we get better at it? A big problem for us is we're more connected in the moment to the fear of losing someone than we're connected to the pain we have experienced in the past by not sticking to our standards. So the pain in the moment that's more real is, I want to find love and this person seems like a viable candidate and I don't want to lose them. But we've been in situations in the past where we didn't follow a standard, where we didn't say, this is what I need. And we were in a miserable relationship as a result. Like, think of a relationship where you didn't get your needs met, just everyone for a moment. So I can think of one. I remember a relationship that was hell on earth for me where I did not get my needs met. Think for a moment about a relationship where you didn't feel loved, where you didn't feel considered, where you felt like you were always an afterthought, where you felt like someone made plans unilaterally and you never got a decision, you never got a vote. They just came to you at the end of having made them. Anyone felt that one? Horrible, right? Never know what your life's gonna be 'cause someone else is running it for you. Ever been in a relationship where you didn't feel that someone was affectionate in the ways that you needed or where you didn't get the touch that you needed or the sex that you needed or whatever it was. Think of a relationship where you're standard, although it wasn't a standard then, but your need wasn't met. I bet you, it was a special kind of torture. And when we're first out of a relationship like that, we're very connected to that torture. And that can make us say never again, but the longer we're single, the longer we're on our own, the more disconnected we become from the pain of that and more connected we become to the pain of being alone and to the fear of never finding someone. But it's a false economy to lower our standards in order to get someone quicker because going slow is faster. Going slow is faster. When it comes to love, going slow is faster. You know what, slow, ending up in the wrong relationship for five years. Losing someone in month three because you realize you're not on the same page. Or going slow and someone else is trying to like, you know, go full throttle, who you met last night and is already telling you how amazing you are and how they can't wait to see you again and how they want to have your babies. It's like, it can feel like, oh, this is in some way, we know there's something wrong with that, but also kind of it feels nice because it's like, this is exactly like, finally, someone's at least like this into me. So it can feel weird to go, to put the brakes on somebody else but we go slow to go fast. You can only know someone's impact in the beginning, you can't know their character. I don't care how great they were on a date. No matter how amazing someone felt on a date, you do not know their character, you only know their impact. Character can only be measured over time. So you need time. That resonates so strongly. I've always said, don't fall in love too fast because we start making future plans with someone and we don't even know their past. We start dreaming up what life could look like when we haven't even lived a day with them or a month with them or a year with them. And it's so fascinating how the mind is this imagination machine like with the best fiction writers in the world in our mind. The best. And we get so carried away with the version we're writing in our mind only to realize that reality never really caught up but we were living in the promise. I was literally talking to someone that a client of mine a couple of nights ago and they were just saying to me, they were like, "Jay, now as I'm talking to you, I'm realizing I was just living in the promise. I never actually had it. But there was the promise. One day will have this. One day will do this together. One day will move in. One day will do this. One day, one day, one day. And it was so fascinating. was just living in promise world and dream land, but never in the reality of where they were. - By the way, I've done this with men I've met when I go out and I like, we'll go to a social function, I meet another guy who's just like, charm to their pants off. I'm just like, oh my God, this guy is amazing. I would say to Audrey my wife, I'll be like, that guy who is the best. (laughing) I've come to learn this about myself, that I can't trust my judgment in the first hour. (laughing) Because some of the men in my, like some of the guys that made the greatest impression on me that I was enam, like I was like, I just wanna be this dude's friend. We're gonna be best friends. I know it from the way he spoke to me to like, I'm like six months later, I'm like, I can't stand this. (laughing) This guy's terrible. And this guy does this to everybody. And this guy's like, he's just, he's that guy. And I, there's a wonderful phrase that will save you all, a lot of heartbreak. And that phrase is just, we'll see. It does it, by the way, you don't have to lose your romance to say we'll see. Your friends will come to you. How was your date last night? So great. We had so much fun. Like I haven't had that much fun in a long time. Oh my God, that's so exciting. (laughing) Do you think that easy, we'll see. You can have both. You can have both. But the will see is really important because character is consistent and you can only measure consistency over time. (clapping) (upbeat music) Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Entertainment legend, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. Joy, after a breakup, joy is an empty nester. Joy, after a loss. Joy, as a caretaker. This new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you at your podcasts. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I want to ask you a question that always goes through everyone's mind and seeing as you're on fire tonight. I know how the fire this is like. Let's go for all the tough ones. How do you know if someone is the one in a world where there's plenty of fish in the sea were constantly being exposed to other people? It doesn't take that long to feel like there's a million more options. How do you know if you're with the one or if you're just settling? - I think it's really interesting. This is a weird comparison, but I think it's really interesting to watch someone who's built something really amazing in their career. Like I've watched Jay for a long time, and had been lucky to be friends for some years. But I had seen Jay doing his thing before I ever had met you. And it's such a joy to see this act of creation happening over and over again in your life, where what you started doing evolved and changed. And it keeps evolving and changing. It, the core of it is the same. And what's driving you is there and the values that you have. And it's changed over and over again because you're constantly sculpting it to be your ideal version of it. And it didn't start as your ideal version of it. It started with like a, it's got enough of what I need that I can keep going with this because I feel like I'm on the right path. That's what that journey is like in our careers. You don't find the dream job. You create the dream job. Right? (audience applauding) The thing I think that makes us never able to stick with a career or a business or an idea is that we've wanted to be our dream thing on day one. And it just doesn't work like that. It needs to be sculpted. There are plenty of people in here who have created businesses that look very different than the business you started on day one because you kept sculpting it. You realize I don't like that part of it as much as I thought I would. Let me change that, but the core of it is the same. It's like that in our love lives. When we go around saying who's the one for me, we are missing the point that what we do is we find a human being where there's enough of the good stuff, enough of the values and the compatibility and much underrated thing. If chemistry is overrated, compatibility is woefully underrated. Love is not all you need. Compatibility is all you need. We find people and we expect so much on day one. And I think that like great sex, it should get better over time. You meet someone and they learn you and you learn them and it gets better because you learn each other. That to me is what a relationship is like. So it's finding someone with enough of the raw materials and enough of the things that make you go, "Oh, this kind of works. I feel more myself around you. I feel at home in the best way. I don't feel like I'm trying to be something that I'm not to impress you. I see you, you see me. It kind of, there's something interesting here. And I think if we can get curious about those feelings, instead of looking for this kind of otherworldly feeling, we'll realize how many people we could actually work with. And then it starts to get really interesting because you realize there's a lot more ones than you know. And you don't start with the one. Someone ends up as the one. I think that's the difference. They don't start as the one. They end up being the one because of what you've built together. And now you look back and they go, they're the one. But not on day one. I think love at first sight is a very, very dangerous concept. Love at first sight is such an insult to two people who have been married for 30 years. You know what I mean? They're just the one. Okay, tell that to two people who have been married for decades and have weathered storms and one of them got sick. And the other one drove them to the hospital every week. And their relative had a drug problem. And you were had to put up with that relative with the drug problem because this is the love of your life. But you figured it out together. And you like that to me is love. Love isn't, I went on a date and now like, oh my god, I feel the best I've ever felt. I think that's so powerful. And what a great perspective because, yeah, I was thinking about that as you were saying that, you know, when me and Rady first got together and then we got engaged and got married, I thought I knew her, but it's actually through the last 12 years we've been married, nine years we've been married 12 years we've been together that I actually feel like I understand how little I knew her when I said I love you, which is a really fascinating journey to go on to your point where it's like the day we got married was not the day I loved her the most. It actually wasn't even possible, even though I may have said that on that day. And it's now when we moved to a new country and didn't have any family or friends. And when we were four months away from being broke and she said, I trust you. And then the next morning wanted to buy a plant, right? It was like, moments like that. It's moments like that. And then you move to another place and you build community and you take care of your family and rush, like it's all those moments where you go, oh, now I know what love means. And now I'm building the skills and the toolkit of what it means to truly love you. And actually my biggest mistake was I also thought I knew you when we got married. And now I realize I didn't. So what I love about the advice you're giving of create it, you don't find it, is that it's that never stops. What you're saying never stops. And that's why it's great advice. Because if you had to find the one, that means you were done the moment you found that person. And that mindset creates such a fracture with reality, which is, wait a minute, you're going to have to create and build using your words, create and build every 5, 10, 15, 20 years. It's never going to stop. And that requires discipline. It requires discipline. And it requires being connected to your wire, to your reasons why the relationship itself is important. I think that's one of the most missed things in so many relationships is, I have these things I call emotional buttons. And they are basically how I access an emotion that I want to feel again. So for example, there's a moment in the movie, The Fighter, with Mark Wahlberg and-- Christian Bell. Christian Bell. Christian Bell, yeah. There's a moment where Mark Wahlberg is-- this is going to sound crazy specific, but this is how emotional buttons are. Mark Wahlberg is about to go into the water. to his last fight and his nervous and his brother comes up to him and he puts his head on his head and he just rocks with him. And the crowd is going crazy and it's all, you could feel the chaos and the nerves and his bigger brother just comes and makes him feel safe. And that scene, I get goosebumps as I say it, that scene, I cannot think of that scene without thinking about the kind of brother I have two younger brothers. I'm not thinking of the kind of brother I want to be to my brothers. My, no, I'm not going to say that one because that one's about Audrey and it's two, she doesn't know I have this emotional button, but it's, no, because then, no, because it's a thing, it's a little thing she does. If I say it, she will stop doing it because she'll become aware of it and it makes me love her so much. But it's a little thing she does and when she does it, it re, I feel a deep, it's like a not irrational thing. I feel a deep, deep sense of love for her and I want to like make her as happy as I possibly can. I get that because I think of that thing that she does and it connects me, it connects me to my wife for why I want to show up differently in the relationship and a lot of us don't have these emotional buttons or we don't, and we certainly don't use them consciously every day. Winston Churchill said, "People occasionally stumble over the truth but most pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing happened." We occasionally stumble over a moment of truth about why we love someone, about why they matter so much to us, about how much our relationship enriches and enhances our lives. If we don't understand what just happened that made us feel that and bottle that, we will move on as if nothing happened and then the next time we feel it, it will be by chance. If that's three months from now, you just went three months without connecting to that feeling which is three months where you might be showing up in lesser ways to the relationship. On the other end of that, when is the work too much work? Because there's a spectrum on that. On one side we're saying, "Hey, we've got to create it, you've got to build it, you've got to work on it." I'm sure there are people in the audience going, "I've been working on it for a few." Someone made me work on it for quite a while and then I realized, "When do you know it's too much work? How do you know when you're at that end of the spectrum?" I don't think there's any one moment. I think when we realize over time that we have shown up to the best of our ability and we have tried to find a teammate in them because you have to have a teammate for that. If you want something to change, you need a teammate in helping you make that change or you need their participation in that. There are so many people trying to make a relationship better on their own. You need someone to be with you in that process. If you don't have a teammate, if you don't have someone who acknowledges, that's why being with a partner who doesn't value growth is so hard because you don't have to have someone who's perfect. If you have a learner, someone who's humble, curious, willing to grow. But if over time someone shows a complete lack of willingness to figure this out with you and you've communicated that with them, that I think is its own form of closure. The problem for a lot of people is that they only really communicate how truly unhappy they are or how many things they've been struggling with on the day of the break up. That, especially in a long-term relationship, that's not a fair thing to do to our partner. I think we owe it to ourselves and to them to create the closure of, here's what I'm really struggling with. I'm bringing this to you because I actually care about this relationship and I feel safe enough to bring it to you and to have that conversation. But it's really affecting me. This is really, it's affecting me in this way and this way and this way, I need us to work on this. I need us to take this seriously. Whatever that means, whether you and I do it, whether we do it with a coach or therapist, whatever we do, I need us to take this seriously. This needs to be a priority for us. You and me looking at the problem, not you, me looking at you as the problem. You and me together looking at the problem and saying, "This is an issue. Can we figure this out?" I think then if over a series of months you're like, "I haven't got a partner in this process or things aren't getting better." One or the other, then you might make that decision. Even if you realize you do have a partner in the process but it doesn't get better, at least your partner doesn't wake up one day to a complete ambush of having no idea any of this was a problem. And then all of a sudden they get hit with it all today. I think we owe it to each other for someone not to be surprised on the day that it ended about the things that made it end. Yeah, there's such a reality to communication being the hardest part, not because we're even bad people but because we were just never trained in an emotional vocabulary. If you didn't see great love mirrored, you weren't able to mirror it. If the people in your life always just shut down when there was a problem then you may shut down or like you said, not only do you only have the conversation on the day of the breakup, you only have the conversation as an argument. So it was never a conversation, it was an argument, a disagreement, a full blown fight, it was never shared in that moment where maybe it could have been digested, maybe it could have been heard, maybe. And a lot of that, a lot of our fear of saying the thing that feels unspeakable is our desire for control. We're trying to control the situation. And when we're like a lot of us, and I listen, no judgment because I've done this, several times in my life and I'm not proud of it. But we are trying to protect ourselves and so we hold back and hold back and hold back and hold back. In the meantime, by the way, we're grieving. We're grieving the relationship. We're just not telling them that we're grieving the relationship or vice versa. I've also been on the other side of this and so many of you. That's why you can, someone can break up with you and then two weeks later they're with someone else. You're like, how is that possible? How is it possible that you moved on so fast? They didn't move on so fast. They broke up with you six months ago. You're just hearing about it today. That's because they were trying to control it. It felt safe to them to control it until the last possible minute when they felt safe to leave and then they left. Their controlling of it is what makes it such a traumatic thing for us and vice versa. Sometimes when we are unhappy in a relationship, we have to relinquish some control and allow things to break to maybe get better or not. Once you break it in some way with your partner in the process, you're also now not fully in control of the situation because they can't unknow what they know. Now that makes us have to live a little more dangerously, but that also might be the thing that makes us attracted to our partner again because now that they know, they might start doing some things and you may not even love everything they do, but it might make you start to feel that jolt of something again. Matthew, I see everyone. That was, wow. Turn up tonight Matthew. All right, before you let you go, because you've been on the podcast multiple times, which we usually end with the final five, we came up with a new version that you can join in on as well. It's called Vibe Check. I'm going to read out some scenarios in love relationships that are dating and the audience is going to decide first whether it's a vibe, which means yes, that's great, or not a vibe. Let me hear you say it's a vibe. And then not a vibe. Nice. And then I'm going to ask Matthew whether he agrees or disagrees with the audience. All right, so Vibe Check, here we go, the first one. You're dating someone who always shows up, always listens, always takes back. They're kind, respectful, but the chemistry isn't there. You keep the relationship going because it's the first healthy relationship you've ever been in. Is it a vibe? All right, I'm going to ask you to make noise on either one. It's a vibe, make noise. Not a vibe, make noise. That was like, mildly not a vibe one by a tiny amount. So they're saying it's not a vibe if you keep the relationship going because it's the first healthy relationship you've ever been in. I don't, listen, don't keep it going for like a year. But like give it maybe a month to settle in. Like settle in and see if you can get used to this new feeling because it's a new feeling. If you're used to crazy chaos, this will be boring for a minute. No one comes off of drugs and then enjoys a sunset the next day. (audience cheering) Great answer. You've been dating someone for six months, they treat you like a priority, talk about long-term potential, but haven't introduced you to any of their friends or family. And when you ask, they say it's still early. Make some noise if it's a vibe. (audience cheering) It's not a vibe? (audience cheering) Yeah. Very clearly not a vibe. Not a vibe. When should that be happening with that conversation? I mean listen, there's certain situations that are different. Like if someone has kids complicated, and you have to be respectful of the fact that someone might be taking a serious amount of time before introducing you to those. But if you're talking about like their friends or their family, even just their friends, that's a weird thing after six months. If you haven't met anyone in their world to verify who this human being is. (audience laughing) No, not a vibe. Definitely not a vibe. Great, I think we're all agreed on that. All right, last one for all of those who are struggling with dating out there. You've been seeing someone consistently, great dates, great connection, but they don't follow you on social media. They never post you. They say they like to keep their private life private. Is it a vibe? (audience cheering) Is it not a vibe? (audience cheering) Oh, that's really equal. Right, who was saying it's a vibe? Is it a vibe, make some noise? (audience cheering) Wait, they don't follow you. They don't follow you on social media. What's come on? (audience laughing) They don't follow you. It's the way it's this and it's one thing if someone's like, I don't, I mean, are they famous? (audience laughing) If someone's like, very famous and they're like, I don't wanna post about you right now 'cause it's gonna make your life miserable, trust me. But he's probably not famous. There's this whole trend right now about how if someone doesn't have social media and doesn't post, it's someone's Roman Empire, right? It's like so attractive if someone's like, I do think that. I do, listen, I don't think that it's necessary for them to post about you anytime soon. I do think that, and I think it's lovely when someone is just like, the private life is not out there in the world in that way. But it's a bit weird when they're not following you or they're sort of like not having any interaction, not, you know, I don't wanna create any kind of feedback loop whatsoever, suspicious. Tell my wife that, my wife, my wife started listening to on purpose like last year for the first time. (audience laughing) That's kind of like not following me, right, though. She's, yeah. (audience laughing) I don't think she's ever followed a single thing that I've done either. So I don't think she's just maybe not into this content. (laughs) - All right, well Matthew's been so kind that we're actually both gonna take some questions from the audience. So Paige, where are you Paige? There's Paige, Paige's up again. Make some noise from Paige, everyone. (audience cheering) So Paige is gonna come around, raise your hand if you have a thoughtful, conscious, kind question and you haven't had too many drinks here. Paige is gonna find you and me and Matthew can take some of your questions. You can direct them at both of us to Matthew, whatever you like, he's his. Make the most of it. This is great advice, great insight. (upbeat music) - Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life, but now. There's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts and everyday people will share how they find, allow and experience joy and I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting and moving on air chats. Joy, after a break up, Joy is an empty nester. Joy, after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. (upbeat music) So what do you think of the secret sauce for a long-term marriage? What's your name? - Soho. - Soho, nice to meet you. Where are you from? - Houston. - Awesome. - Well, actually, sorry. - What, in England? - Oh, no way. Well, I think you should start with this one. You've had a long-term marriage. - Long-term, yeah, that's something good. (audience laughs) I'd honestly say the biggest thing that I've seen worked for us and I've seen worked for the couples I interviewed for my last book, who've been together for decades far longer than we have, is people who never tried to change each other. Respect means I'm not trying to change you. I'm happy to what you grow. I'm patient while you grow, but I'm not forcing you to become the person I want you to be or need you to be. I'm happy to let you have the freedom to be the person you are. Because over your relationship, people are gonna play so many different roles. They're gonna take on so many different hats. There's gonna be so many different transitions that if I don't respect you and let you be who you are, that's gonna be the reason why we can't be together. And those signs of who someone was were really evident in the beginning. You just shut them out because the chemistry or the attraction overtook them. I'll give an example. For me, since Radeh's met me, my purpose has always been my number one priority. And my purpose didn't look like this when we met. It looked like me booking a tiny little room in London and speaking to five people on a Friday night. But Radeh knew that that was my priority. And ever since I met Radeh, I knew her priority was being with her family. She adores them, she loves them. She's the incredible bubbly human being because of the love that she has for her family. And at so many points in our life, my wife could have said, you work too hard, you focus too much on your purpose. And I could have said, well, we've built an amazing life. Why do you need to always go hang out with your parents? And those two things would have broken our relationship. But I understand that her family is what makes her the person I love. And she understands that me doing this is makes me the person that she loves. And so that's normal people that I've ever been. I love that, I love that. Hi, I'm Victoria from Houston. Hey, Victoria. A lot of Houston in the house. Thank you so much. I just want to know if you think cheating is forgivable whether emotionally or physically. It's a nice easy one. Matthew, why don't you go first? I should have gone first on that one. I think I heard Robert Green once use the phrase, if someone, nobody ever does something once. If someone did something, assume it's a pattern or that they've done it in the past many times. Now, I think that's really great survival. If I was giving, like, handing out a survival advice for life and human behavior, I would say that's a really, really important lesson. I also have to temper that logic with a bit of humanity and compassion for ourselves, which is that probably everyone in this room has done something in the past that they regret and wouldn't do again and learned from and wish they hadn't done. And that informed your life. It changed your life in some way. There's a British poet, David White, who can't stand the culture of no hashtag, no regrets that we all live in today. He said, "Any time I hear someone say no regrets, I think where have you been?" Regret is actually important. It serves a very important function. When you regret how you treated someone in high school because you would mean to someone or you bullied someone and that affects you, it might change the way you treat people for the rest of your life. If you didn't regret it, you wouldn't change. Do I believe once a cheat or always a cheater, I think life's more complicated than that. And I think that part of having compassion for ourselves is realizing that other people are capable and worthy of forgiveness too. And there is a really, really, really big butt here. It's not your job to fix what someone else broke. (audience applauding) The trauma of that kind of betrayal is deep for most people. Extraordinarily deep. So if you betray someone in that way, you better, if you want that relationship, you better understand the journey that is ahead because there is a long journey ahead. You are not in a sprint. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that's a sprint. You're in a marathon. And you saying sorry might be an acknowledgement today, it might help someone feel seen today, but in six months it won't stop their emotional flashback. It won't stop them having a revisit of these feelings a year from now when they think about that betrayal. And you're going to have to be along for that right. And respect the damage you have done. And respect that your job now is to be an enormous part of the reparation of that damage. What I see routinely is people who have been cheated on trying to do the work for the both of them. Like can I be back with them? I don't know. What are they saying right now? What are they saying? Are they saying, you know, I know what I've done. I know that this is cause deep damage. I know this is going to take a long time. I'm going to be with you the whole way. Not only that, I'm going to, the thing that happened for me, that what triggered that is never going to trigger me again in that way. That's never going to be my response. So that trigger again, because I'm going to go out and do the work to make sure that that's never my response to that trigger again. And that might mean therapy over time, might mean coaching over time. That for is going to be a long journey for them. Right? There's a great line. Jacob and Broad said, consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll realize how foolish it is to think you can change someone else. How many of you at the beginning of every year set a resolution that's really, really, really important to you and then by the end of January, you've broken it. That was something you decided to change and you couldn't stick to it. Now imagine being with someone who cheated and even though they're sorry because it's inconvenient right now that the relationship is falling apart. They don't actually want to change the fundamental part of them that made them cheat in the first place. They don't want to do that work. There's no amount of forgiveness on your side that will make any difference to this relationship whatsoever. So be forgiving. That's a very kind and compassionate act. Don't be a fool. [Applause] Mike Drop. No need to know additions. That's a beautiful answer and no need. Hello. Hello. What's your name? My name is Fira Nantang. This is Mike Dranjou by the way to be here. I'm Neatum J. Thank you. So great for you. How do you deal? I think this is so Matthew, since you're the dating expert. Not that I don't trust you, Dave. I haven't dated in a long time because it's been a lot of work to figure myself, deal with the traumas, blah, blah, blah. And I'm in a place where you would think that I'm ready to date because I am who I know who I am. But at the same time, I'm 43. I'm independent, I pay my bills, I take myself on dates, I accept my friend requests. I mean, I love my company. But then I also crave, I've always had a dream about having a partner. So it's like I want to meet somebody. But at the same time, I can do bad by myself. I don't want to get in a relationship where I have to build somebody up. I don't want to get in a relationship where I owe somebody what they feel like they are improving my life because right now I'm taking care of my life in every way. I don't mind eating alone. I buy myself a purse, I buy myself everything I want. And I'm not rich, but I'm happy. Got it. So how do I go out like, how do I start like, how do I, like, what do I do? I'm happy. But. Thank you. It's a wonderful thing that you have gotten to that point in your life where you know who you are, you've done all of this work on yourself. And there's a safety that you have created in the life that you have built. What I hear is that there's this other part of your life that you really want, that you keep saying you want. But it represents an area of life that you can't control the way you can control everything else. You can control your work, you can control how you take care of yourself, you can control the food you eat, you can control, you know, if one friend lets you down, you find you, you put your effort on another friend, you like, you've built all this safety. At a certain point, what you call independence is really a desire to keep clinging to control. And that, by the way, that would be fine, Pierre Vett, if you were incredibly content and happy and wanted nothing more from your life. But you do want something more, which is why you stood up in front of this whole room and expressed a desire to find a relationship. So you want more, but you're afraid of what a relationship could bring. And my guess is the part of that is in learning to really trust yourself, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that what you're really afraid of is someone coming into your life who you God forbid like. And that sucks everything up. Because all of a sudden it feels like there is an element of your joy that you do not have complete control over. And maybe what's happened in the past is you have been in a situation where you like someone and all of a sudden you felt very out of control because you couldn't trust yourself not to keep overgiving in a relationship, not to show up in ways that eventually meant that you got walked over or that your happiness was compromised. And so there's a desire never to return to that. And when we have a desire never to return to that, what we really say is I just got to keep myself away from that temptation because I know if I get too close to it, it's not someone else will mess up my life. I will mess up my life because the reality is, and this is the important thing for you to remember, if you trust yourself, you don't need to worry about the impact anyone else is going to have on your life. You don't have to trust anyone else. People, how can I learn to trust again? Don't worry about it. Just trust you. Trust not that someone's never going to betray you or they're never going to come along and start taking too much or taking advantage of your generosity or the trust that the moment someone starts doing that, you can have a boundary. And if that boundary isn't respected, you have the power to walk away. And you trust yourself, you don't need to worry about someone else coming in and screwing everything up. The one thing that I learned to my cancer journey, I'm a recent survivor, is that I don't, I know how you said the whole no regret things. I do have one regret, but one thing that I learned is that to forgive myself for the regret or whatever, was to say, well, that's the information I had at that time and I made the best decision at that time. And I know that me, I don't do things impulsively that I'm very deliberate at doing the research. So I need to trust myself in the future about what I did in the past. So where I'm at right now, I'm glad I said that because I just have to have faith that who I am today, that I've found who I am. You've already successfully protected yourself. Yes. You've already done it. So the thing, the fear that someone's going to come in and they're going to take, they can't, you already did it, you already achieved it, you're already fine on your own. So you can go back to that anytime you want, you just proved that with the life you've been living. Now go out there and make an actual impact because you didn't create all that safety so that you could never leave the house. You created all of that safety so that you could leave the house and you could go blow shit up and know that you could always come home if you had to. I think we've got time for one more question, Paige. My name is Maya Piotta. Nice to meet you, Maya. Thank you. Nice to meet you too. I would like to ask, when you're looking for somebody who can just take you to the next level, I guess, in relationships that I've been in, I have, sometimes I feel like I I love from a place of wanting to make someone else feel better or bring them up or show them love that maybe they haven't experienced before when I can see that somebody is hurting. But giving of my energy to the point where I feel drained and have lost myself, I don't want to compromise like that again. I think I want to be, well I know that I want to be with somebody who can improve my life and my situation and maybe my question is how not to let overgiving turn into something that's too costly. Like my pleas or my safety. Who things come to mind, Maya? The first is that that overgiving is something that's meeting a need for you. It's working for you on some level. And it's important to figure out what that's doing. It might make you feel safe because when you find someone who just needs a lot from you, that's not the kind of person that will abandon you. But when you actually go out meet an equal, that's scarier shit because that person can leave you. Just like Piavette can leave someone. She's a scary woman. She can leave. That makes her a force. That makes her much scarier to date than someone who absolutely needs all of the help in the world. So it might be that for you right now overgiving makes you feel safe, makes you feel indispensable. It might be that that's a model for love you've learned. That you only really feel safe in a situation where you're giving more than the other person is. That you're not worthy of being in a situation where someone just loves you for you and not because of everything you do all the time. The second thing I want to say is that you are, when you go into a situation trying to give like that because it seems nice and it seems like a kind thing to do and someone else needs you. There's another human being in that room that also needs you. When we're in a room with one friend, there are two human beings in that room. And our responsibility is just as much to us if not more than it is to the friend. Because our job is to take care of ourselves. It's the only job we'll ever have for the rest of our lives. It's the only job we've always had our whole lives. You are your human. Your job, no one else out of the eight billion people on this earth, no one else has the job of taking care of the human that is you. No one. It's your job. So the next time you find yourself in a situation where you're overgiving, say to yourself, what are you doing? You had one job. You had one job. Take care of this human. And right now this human is starving for love because you have put her in a situation where she is giving non-stop to somebody else and not getting her needs met. And the truth is the reason that's happening is because your human is scared of being in a situation that is completely different than that. Because it's so this dynamic that you don't like that you complain about is also a dynamic that's very comfortable for you because you feel very safe in it. Now the job is to live a little more dangerously and to start making space for the idea that there are relationships out there that will be truly reciprocal. But when you first find one, it's going to be scary to you. It's going to be uncomfortable and you're going to feel the urge to keep giving, like, you're going to find someone healthy and you're going to try and give all this stuff to them all the time and it's going to scare them away because they're going to be like, why are you doing this? I don't why, why? Just be a normal, be a person. I don't need you to do this. That's what they're going to be like. And your job is going to have to be to realize, oh, I'm going to have to put my normal way of getting significance down so that I can create space to be significant in a new way. And ultimately in a much more rewarding way than being in relationships where someone is dependent on me and can never leave because I just do so much for them and they absolutely need me. Guys, give it up for Matthew Hussie. If you love this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussie on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships. Make a list of the things that are truly important for you to find in a partner and then be that list. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.