Life Uncut - Matthew Hussey does give a f*** about your relationship - from the Archives

Episode Date: January 18, 2026

Hey Lifers! During our summer break we wanted to revisit some of our most impactful conversations that you might have missed at the time. One of Australia's leading relationship experts (although he doesn't like to be called that) Matthew Hussey! Matthew Hussey has over 488 million views on his You Tube Chanel, and has helped millions of people live happier more fulfilled lives. Today we jump into: The concept of the one Why people stay in toxic relationships The idea of a soul mate Staying in a relationship because you're already so far deep in it and leaving is hard What makes his relationship with his fiancé unlike any other he has had You can find more from Matthew Hussey here You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Hosted by Britt Hockley & Laura Byrne Produced by Keeshia Pettit Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! XxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. Now this is one of our archive episodes and what that means is we thought during this little holiday break that we are having, we would take a walk down memory lane of some of our absolute favorite episodes since we have done over 800 of them and many, many years. I think we've done over a thousand of them now. I think you're selling a short. Who's counting? Oh, me.

All right. Well, this is, I mean, I chose this one. This is a Matthew Hussey episode. We interviewed him back on the 4th of April in 2023. Well, we didn't interview him that day. That's when the episode came out. But if you missed this or you are just revisiting this because it is so good, I absolutely love Matthew Hussey and I loved this episode.

We talked about the concept of finding the one and do soulmates even exist? We also talked about, and something I really had a personal aha moment about, was our patterned behaviors in relationships and how we often choose the same type of person on repeat and why it is that we go for that person. Toxic relationships. Yes, toxic relationships, chemistry. And I remember this one conversation we had in this, which was around when someone shows you who they really are and when someone tells you what they want in a relationship, there

was something that Matthew said, which was just this total aha moment for me. And it was around how sometimes you can't believe what people do. You have to believe what they say, but other times don't believe what they say, believe what they do. Now I know that that sounds hard, but Matthew will get into it. Honestly, if you are in the throes of dating or you have complicated relationships when it comes to dating, this is an episode that you absolutely have to listen to. And I loved talking about like that sunk cost fallacy in relation to relationships. Like when you just feel like you're too deep in a relationship, you've put so much time and effort into it, how do you get out of it? But Matthew, he's absolutely brilliant. He has had something

like 500 million downloads across his YouTubes and his podcasts. Once again, who's counting? Who's counting? Matthew. I'm counting. If you have nearly 600 million, I'd be counting as well. But we hope you enjoyed the episode as much as we did. I'm super excited about today's guest, Matthew Hussey. He is what I would like to say, the leading dating expert. He's also a New York Times bestselling author, a speaker, a podcast, and a coach, and has a particularly honest and authentic practical look at love and relationships. Now, Matthew, you have been sliding into our DMs asking to come on Life Uncut for many years now, and I'm so sorry we've been so busy. We have finally made time for you today, so welcome to Life Uncut. Can I just say I really appreciate it?

It means the world to me that you finally had me on. Yeah, we cleared the schedule. After all this time matthew if you would just do me a favor and never ever ever look at the message exchange from me to you because it will look pathetic and desperate be sending you multiple messages being like please come on our podcast dating back to 2019 or something so i actually just looked 2020 was my first text to you and you responded and you said you appreciate it congrats i'll speak with my team and see what's possible and here we are you made room in 2023 so thanks i did see what was possible. We made it happen. Okay, well, we're very excited to have you on. Now we like to kickstart every episode with our guests by asking them to share one of their most vulnerable times

in life. One of your most embarrassing stories. If you could share with us your accidentally unfiltered, we would bloody love that. I remember you asked me this Brit and I had a story at the time and I couldn't remember what it was. But the thing that immediately comes to mind was me giving a public speaking seminar. I must have been 23, 24, something like that. It was one of those, you know, back when, I don't know if what it was like in Australia, whether it was a thing there, but Groupon was crushing it in the UK at the time. It didn't really make it here. No, it did. My mum was obsessed with it. Yeah, but not the UK. I used to live there. It was everyone grouped on. You only lived via Groupon. Oh, my mum would have liked it in the UK then.

It was this weird time where you could promote something on Groupon and get a ridiculous amount of people overnight seeing whatever you had, whether it was like you were giving massages or personal training or whatever. And I was like, I'm pretty good at this public speaking thing. I'm going to promote a public speaking seminar because I'd been speaking for years at that point doing what I do now, dating advice, working on people's confidence. And so I said, I've never done a public speaking seminar before. I'll do that. And I promoted this fit. I thought maybe a hundred people would show up. We had 600 people who showed up for this event. The venue that I booked was way oversubscribed. We had people standing at the back of the room and there was a whole standing section because we ran out of seats and I must have gotten, it was designed to be a three hour event. I must've gotten about

20 minutes into the event and I was doing my thing I thought it was going well and I sometimes curse you know I swear in my sessions in my events less so these days but more so back then and there was this one woman in the third row who in the middle of the event like 20 minutes in in front of everybody just shouted at me excuse me can you please stop swearing the audacity and i mean who does that in the middle of a live show like it's not it's your show but how did you respond that's what i mean it was my show it's like you can't just do that you don't we're just in the middle of a broadway performance say excuse me this is too sexy i think the best response there is ma'am kindly fuck off well you're gonna laugh because my version was not

so dissimilar to that i said and this was me and i was immediately my you know when you get a combination of fear and anger and self-consciousness and righteousness and all at the same time i said i didn't even address this person i addressed the whole room and i said i want everybody to grab your pen and paper and everyone grabbed the pen and paper and i said i want everyone to write this down matthew hussey doesn't give a fuck what a power move well you say that i suffice it to say uh where i am in my life now that would not be my response but back then it was and i said it and the whole audience like tensed up and no one people didn't laugh they thought there was some nervous laughter but like kind of the

whole audience you know raised up and this gentleman in the same row but on the other side of the row said i don't appreciate you talking to her like that oh no you've started a riot so now i'm like oh man i'm in now like i've got myself into this i don't exactly know a way out of it and i said he said i don't appreciate you talking to her like that and i said well i don't appreciate you interrupting my event so listen you guys can either stay and take what you feel you're going to get from this. And there will be some things for you to get from this. And if I swear more, just ignore it or just decide you don't want to swear in your own lives or you can leave and I'll have someone waiting for you at the door with your money, but you cannot stay and do

this. So the choice is yours. And I thought to myself, I nailed it. What I didn't realize was that everyone in between that woman and that man came together the whole of row three i don't know if it was like a company or something it was a whole group of people that came together and when i said you can either stay or you can leave but you need to make the choice the entire row stood up and left oh my 20 minutes into a seminar on public speaking i sent home row three and then what what did the rest of them do do they clap them out no it was awkward for a little while the one saving grace was i was like i got three hours with this crowd so now this is where you earn your stripes is now i've got to figure out a way

to make this event work and funnily enough there were actually some people who came up to me at the end and said that was the best part of the whole thing like that moment they were like I learned yeah I came to get public speaking advice and I learned just how much can happen when you get on stage and decide to public speak so it was like a crash course for people in in that moment what not to do that's for sure I mean it is a power move and you would never go to somebody else's show like you said you wouldn't go to a theater show or you wouldn't go to a comedy show or a public speaking event you don't go to tell them how to perform like you go to watch somebody perform so good you go to set up comedy to heckle people though don't you no they heckle the crowd but

were you someone like a prominent figure at this point when you were going on to Groupon and like how did you get 600 people to turn up to a public speaking event were you somebody yet I wouldn't say I was a prominent person I would say I was a person who I'd gained a decent amount of attention for helping people in their love lives. And, you know, I guess, yeah, I was maybe 23, 24 at that point. I'd been coaching people since the age of 19 in one way or another. So by that point, I'd been written up about in newspapers. I'd been on some TV shows. By that point, I'd done MTV's Plain Jane with Louise Rowe. I don't know if you know Louise Rowe. It was a show on like a five-day transformation process for young women. So I was part of that.

And so I was starting to become a little more known, but nothing like what's happened since. But it was a time where I was known enough to feel like that something like that was incredibly embarrassing for me and going to be hard to live down. It's also embarrassing for me to listen to. Can you tell us at 19 or 23 or 24, when you're doing these sorts of seminars, public speaking and life coaching in terms of relationships, how does a 19 year old or a 24 year old have the relationship experience to be able to impart that knowledge on people to help guide them in their lives? Well, I never knew what to call myself. I didn't like, I've never liked relationship

expert because the arrogance of any kind of title like that has never escaped me. We can take that out of the intro. I got the message. I just always, I really have always loved this kind of content for myself. I grew up loving it. My parents had the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People on their bookshelf, along with a whole bunch of other psychology books, self-development books. When I was a kid, I picked up How to Win Friends and Influence People when I was maybe 11 years old and read it back then. And I wasn't reading it because I was thinking, I can't wait to pass this on to other people. I was reading it because I was a shy kid and I was both shy and introverted. I'm still introverted. I just know how to deal with my shyness.

But when I was a kid, I was very shy. And it was like I was learning these superpowers about how to relate differently to people, to the world, how to have more impact and how to make my voice heard. And that was really, really empowering for me. So by the time I got to 19, it was really just about sharing things that I had found exciting for myself, as opposed to thinking that I was some kind of expert. And my career has just been a series of steps where I've shared things that I really love that have helped me a lot. And more and more people have listened to them over time. I did used to have the insecurity when I was in my early mid-20s, probably even into my later 20s, that, you know, what's my qualification? And people would ask me that. They would say, you know, so what's your qualification? And I felt like I never had a good answer other than I seem to be quite good at this.

And I don't know how else to say it, but I seem to be quite good at this. And people really enjoy it and it's helping a lot of people. And by now, you know, over time, it was turned from helping hundreds of people to thousands to millions across the world. And at that point, you've got this kind of mosaic that you've got of knowledge in your head from having worked with that many people. At a certain point, it switched for me. And I just went, you know what, instead of being insecure about my answer, I just will tell the truth, which is that some of us in life are lucky to find something that we're naturally really good at and I found a thing that I'm really interested in the the more energy

I put into it the better I got the same was not really true for me about singing you know but when it comes to this area of my life the more energy I put into it the better I got I really and I started to get very good and that was really encouraging to me and I just I kept going and now I kind of don't mind if someone says I'd rather have someone who's got a psychology degree or a therapist's license or that's okay those people are there too i use those resources for myself i have a therapist for myself like i believe in taking tools and wisdom from wherever it comes but i always say to people at least just check out the things i'm talking about or the videos that i have on youtube or the programs i have because we all need a certain voice that

breaks through for us and i might be that voice for you if i'm not it might be someone else it might be an Esther Perel or a Guy Winch or an Eckhart Tolle or, you know, it's, it's different for everybody. It's just, I think life is about finding voices that really resonate with you. But at the end of the day, you have done the time and you've done the due diligence and you've done the study without, you might not have officially been given that certificate, the bachelor degree or the doctorate, but you've, you've still done the time. And I think those days are gone now of saying, what degree do you have? What qualifications do you have? Because so many inspirational people and successful people that we're looking at haven't done that. They are just people that

naturally embody something. But also exactly what you said, this idea that like, it's the cut through so many. And I remember, I still remember the very first time it was my now husband who sent me one of your videos. And he was like, I think this guy's onto something. And this was quite a few years ago. And it was the first time I came across your Instagram or your YouTube channel. Firstly, I was skeptical because I think as a woman, I was like, how does this guy know so much about women I was like prove it and then the more I watched 25 hours deep and I was like yeah and then I was literally so deep in your YouTube channel and I was like far out there is so much about this and so much in this that like at what point in your life did you start to realize

I really understand not just relationships but I understand kind of the female dynamic as well as to how we show up in relationship firstly I really deeply deeply care about the subjects I'm talking about and the ones that you hear me talk about less and less are the ones I tend to care about less and less you know they're the ones that I'm not as naturally drawn to I you know someone might come to me and say Matt what are the three great texts to send someone for this or whatever and I'll play along because I have enjoyed giving very practical advice at different points in my career and I think there's something very useful about that for people but when it comes to talking about people's healing or dealing with why is it that people go through their lives going from one

toxic situation to another? Why is it that they accept less than they deserve? Why is it they don't do what they know they should do or what their friends and family know they should do? Or why is it someone doesn't value themselves or doesn't see that they can increase the perception of their value in other people's eyes by the way that they treat themselves or the way that they create boundaries those things are infinitely interesting to me and I care about them I really care about them and I think when you really care about something you pay attention to it you really ask yourself why is this happening you don't just give out kind of bumper sticker logic to things like let me just throw out a fun Instagram quote here that's inspirational to me I feel like I

could have had a much bigger Instagram account if I put out much more inspirational kind of quotes where they were just like plain inspiration. Seize the morning, seize the day. I don't know. I feel like if I'd have been more on the nose with things, I would have done better. But I just, I really struggle with that because to me, I'm always obsessed about the nuance of things. Like when is that true? When is it not true? For example, when someone says, watch, you know this is good advice right when you're dating someone watch what they do not what they say that's good advice that will save you from a lot of bad situations in life if someone keeps telling you they love you they're i care so much about you i always want the best for you but

everything they do is damaging to you and they're inconsistent and they treat you poorly and they disrespect you and they cheat on you they lie well their words really cease to matter at that point their behavior is telling you everything you need to know about the person but what would happen with me is i because i've worked with so many people now over 15 years i would always hear something that would stop me in my tracks and make me go oh hang on i feel like i need to go back to the drawing board on this and an example for that piece of advice which is good advice is when someone would say to me but matt i'm with this person and they literally treat me like i'm their girlfriend they take me to meet their family like we've gone on these amazing

trips together he's big with these gestures and he spends all this time with me we speak for hours on the phone and yet he tells me he just doesn't know if he wants a relationship and so many people have experienced that yeah so if you apply watch what they do not what they say to that scenario you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble because what they're doing is showing you all the right things through their behavior but what they're telling you is that they don't want a relationship well that to me is nuance you add a layer of complexity there where you say, oh, well, actually what appears to be true empirically is that you should follow the rule of watch what they do, not what they say, unless what they say to you

is inconvenient for them to say and wouldn't help them in any way. So if I'm a guy and I want to continue to have this intimacy and this connection and regular sex and all of the things that come from doing that with a person. I don't want to tell you I don't want a relationship because it might hurt what I'm getting. You might decide, oh, if that's true, then I'm out. So I'm risking the things that I'm enjoying by admitting this. And if you imagine for a guy like that, he feels like he has to say it or he should say it or he wants to, to keep your arm's length, but it doesn't help his cause and if something doesn't help someone's cause but they say it anyway you can believe that thing then it's almost like the rule inverts because now it's like the small print at the

end of a pharmaceutical ad a pharmaceutical ad is this whole commercial where the whole time they're like showing people bouncing in a field who you know were struggling with back problems but now they're having a great time and look how great their relationship is and look how great life is and it's changed their life taking this back pill or whatever it is and then at the end of the commercial very very quickly it races through the fact that this pill is going to make you suicidal you might vomit you might have diarrhea you might it might ruin your life like it might ruin your sex drive yeah but you could be happy in a field as well and here's the thing those are the things that they have to say they wouldn't say it

if they had a choice, but they have to say those things. So you don't necessarily know if any of the nonsense marketing was true, but you know, the other things are true because they wouldn't say them unless they had to. So when someone's telling you something that doesn't help them to tell you, that's usually the part that's true. Even if their actions are giving you lots of hope. It's so obvious, but it's so important because like even me reflecting on my past experiences, and I mean this is well spoken about in the podcast I dated a guy for almost a year and a bit where he kept saying he didn't want a relationship but he was behaving like that and I just wish someone had said it so obviously to me at the time because sometimes you lull yourself into

this sense that like well if you wait if you hope if you try harder if you do more then something will click in them and they will come around and want to be with you I've seen that get so many people into trouble and that's the you know the short answer to your question is when you spend so much time obsessing over something and you really care about it and you're interested in the nuances you start to arrive at better answers than the average answers and that's been my entire adult life is arriving at that level of nuance that hopefully says it simply but arrives at something that actually might have taken someone years or decades to arrive at on their own or they may never have gotten there, which we see in people all the time. They live and die in relationships

that make them unhappy. I'd love to hear your idea on the idea of a soulmate or that we have this one person out there that we're destined to be, and then they end up being the one that got away. And how do we ever replace that person? What are your thoughts on this idea of finding that one penguin? I don't believe in the idea of the one. I think that the person, the ideal person is a bit like the ideal job. I don't think I'm doing my ideal job or the one job I was supposed to do. When anyone says to me, Matt, you found your calling, I always think, I don't believe in things like that. I believe that I've stumbled on something I'm good at, the Japanese term ikigai. I forget. It's the combination of finding something you're good at, something the world

needs, something that provides for you, something you actually enjoy, something that gives you fulfillment. And in my work, I found my icky guy, but that doesn't mean to me that that's the only thing that could be my icky guy. There are many things I think that could have done those four things. And a relationship is the same way. I think we find someone who has the raw materials to be an amazing partner in our life. And then we build with that person. But just like the ideal career, the ideal career isn't found. I don't believe that you two just stumbled into something that is an amazing career for you. You sort of found something that had some core ingredients that made it enjoyable to you, fulfilling, challenging, and then you sculpted it and

you're still sculpting it right now you're always I'm sure asking your questions like what's okay this part's working and we really enjoy this but we want to do less of that how do we make that leap to doing less of that and that involves some risk but I think we can do it and I think you know and gradually over time you end up with something that you have fashioned into an amazing career that other people look at and go i want your job and they don't realize that your job is something you didn't find you sculpted and an amazing relationship i believe is really a lot like that you find a great person to build with and it doesn't start as the most beautiful thing ever it starts as something that has an awful lot of potential and that potential becomes realized

because two people actually demonstrate that they're willing to build together and then you end up with something extraordinary but that's why i kind of i understand what people mean when they say love at first sight but i always find the concept a little bit uh hmm i mean a bit hollywood fairy tale disney i think it's like some people experience love at first sight and then it's almost like luck plays a part in it actually working out long term like i met my partner on The Bachelor and we are now married and have two children. And it's truly the best relationship I've ever been in, obviously, because I married the guy. But I think for me, I got really, really lucky and had this, and I would never say that it was like a love at first sight

because, you know, I didn't love him then. I saw him and I was like, oh, I will bone that man. That doesn't exist. But that is about it. But I think that for the people who truly strongly believe in it, because they feel like they've experienced it then there must be some sort of luck element because I know that chemistry can lie I think so many of us have been in situations where we thought oh my god that's the love of my life and then you almost hold on to the relationship for too long because you believe so much in the beginning that they were the love of your life even though it's toxic af but love has so many layers you can't love someone at first sight when you know

nothing about totally what they've been through their morals their values their wants for the future you can lust the fuck out of them like you can be like hot damn i want to get you naked but i think the idea of this all consuming all empowering love at first sight physically is impossible yeah how many things that we actually need for an amazing relationship do we know about someone in the beginning this is one of the ways that for people who get very nervous when they have a great date and suddenly they're scared to go on the next one because they like this person so much it's actually a great way of sobering yourself is to realize usually when people get off a date and they tell me Matt I've you know this is like the most eligible bachelor oh my

god like I can see they've built themselves up they've built this person up they've built the possibility of the relationship up and I look at it and I go well let's run through what you think makes them eligible I'd love to know what you already know makes them so eligible and it will be they're handsome it will be they're so charismatic it will be we had such a great connection that by the way is the deepest one that I'm going to mention yeah and it's not that deep there will be they're super successful they're financially independent or very well off there's all these things that go into making them super eligible and none of those things are the things that are actually going to make the biggest difference to quality of life in a relationship

i can't tell you the number of times someone i've worked with has got that person and then looked in the mirror and gone what the hell did i get like what am i getting here it's terrible this is toxic i'm not happy this person doesn't care about my needs this person is selfish this person doesn't actually see me they don't understand me i feel alone in this relationship i don't get the attention that i need i don't get the time that i need and forget how many of those you know, those great qualities you thought you had in the beginning of eligibility, all of the stuff that actually mattered, you didn't have. And that's because once we think someone has this value, we stop asking ourselves whether they're actually made of the stuff that's

going to make for a great relationship. And we just get obsessed with getting them without ever really asking what we're getting in the process. And that's a very dangerous place to be. I believe in this kind of de-pedestalling process that you should go through whenever you feel yourself getting too carried away, where you ask yourself, write down on a piece of paper, what are the things that I actually want in a relationship? The things that I think would make an amazing partner, write them all down. You know, how this person argues, what making up looks like after an argument, how long it takes for us to make up, what's the level of humility in this relationship, what's the ability of us to say sorry to each other how does this person treat my family they

don't have to like them but they have to respect them and they have to at the very least they have to respect my relationship with them and that they're important in my life how much do they try with the various elements of my life all of these things write all those down and then anytime you get too excited about someone actually ask yourself how many of these things do I have and I guarantee you you will have so few it will be embarrassing because what you'll realize you've built this up on is this imagined idea of how great this person would be not what they've actually shown you and not how much they've invested in you and I think also like this idea of potential we get so exactly what you're talking about you can get so caught up in the potential of

someone the potential of what you thought the relationship would be but also not just I guess potential but this idea of like the time invested in it so maybe you've spent two years in this relationship and it's still not good and it's not heading anywhere but but thinking well I've already spent two years in this relationship I don't want to throw this away even though it's shit for nothing because being on my own is so scary or maybe nothing better will come along how do you coach people through situations where they feel like they don't necessarily want to leave because they're frightened of what's out there or they're frightened of having even less by being alone? Yeah, that's such a great question. That's called the sunk cost fallacy.

You know, this idea that, you know, people do it in casinos. I keep throwing good money after bad because I have to recover my losses. It's an easy way to go broke. And doing it in a relationship is an easy way to go broke on time in your life. And you can get money back, by the way. You're never getting your time back. You know, if you're in your 30s and saying, but I've already invested five years in this relationship and you're 35 now, you're never getting 35 again. This is the only year you ever get to be 35. And the same is true at 40 and the same is true at 50. And so we have to start getting real with ourselves and saying, okay, this idea that I've invested this much so far, so I should keep going. Is that based on me being happy right now? No. Otherwise

I wouldn't be asking this question. I wouldn't be having this conversation with my friends. and tortured at night as i think about how i'm feeling about this relationship or how much my needs aren't getting met so i'm not happy so if i stay presumably it's based on the idea that i will one day be happy in this relationship so you have to then ask yourself can i be happy if nothing changes and if you've got to this point where you're not here because you're being entitled or taking your partner for granted. You're here because your fundamental core needs, the level investment that you need from someone in a relationship, those standards aren't being met. So if it stays this way, I can't be happy. And this, ask yourself, do I want this

pain forever? Forget, do I want this relationship forever? Do I want this pain forever? And if the answer is no, then the only way you can stay is if you convince yourself that it will one day be different that there is a a level of investment that you're going to put into this relationship that is going to make it shift from where it is right now and i always ask people what is your evidence for that on what is this based other than hope because hope isn't a plan so what's it based on usually when people get to this point they've already tried a lot they've cried they've got mad they've screamed they've gone quiet they've withdrawn they've aggressively pursued they've done everything to try to get this relationship to be the way they want it to be what emotion do

you have up your sleeve that you haven't shown this person yet to get them to change or to get this relationship to change and usually there isn't one people do not normally have a good answer for that so then we have to say if the truth is that this person isn't changing and that's always going to be the part where people trip up is but maybe this person is going to change if the truth is they're never going to change the only option that works for your happiness is to leave even if the world is a question mark even if everyone else in the world is a question mark at least there a question mark where you are you have to start believing and reminding yourself that where you are is a full stop where you are as a period it's not a question mark anymore you've turned

the page a hundred times and it's always the same page you keep reading over and over again it's no longer a question mark it's already a period and oh but maybe this person will change one day anyone who has ever tried to change anything about themselves knows how hard it is to change it's so stupidly hard that it's amazing that any of us make changes and sometimes we shouldn't have to change somebody I mean I don't think you should why would you date somebody that you feel like you need to mold into the person you want to be with that's compatible with you with your argument styles or your love languages or what you want for the future I think that that's a bit of a ridiculous statement and it does come down to maybe this will be the best I get so I'll take

it now. And then I'll try and pottery mold it into something that looks like a beautiful vase that I want to put in my house. That was the weirdest analogy I've ever done. I love that you don't necessarily say the answer that people want to hear or the diplomatic answer. You say what you truly believe. It might offend somebody, but there's one particular thing that I want to talk about. We wrote a book last year, We Love Love, and I did reference this from you in the book. So I do hope it's still your opinion. It's surrounding sex on a first date. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because we do get a lot of questions about this and it is controversial the idea of of course it shouldn't matter be sexually free do whatever you feel in the moment

and we truly believe that but I did hear you speak a little bit about the fact that maybe it's okay to work on the relationship first so I'd love to hear your opinion on sex on the first date if you're looking for a relationship sorry I should add in which is where to me it starts to become not controversial anymore because controversial is when you're making a judgment about a gender for having because that's where all the controversiality comes from is there's this idea that if you imply that a woman should wait then it's not progressive and it's regressive but i want to remove that from it because the truth is i'd say exactly the same thing to a man i wouldn't say a different thing to a man about this i think that you have to just say if i'm not

being intentional and I just want to have fun, then go have fun. Like go enjoy yourself. Who cares? As long as you're keeping yourself safe, then go enjoy yourself. But if you're being intentional as a man or a woman, we have to ask ourselves, what's the best path for me to get to where I want to go? And I know that there was a time in my life where I realized for myself, oh I don't know that I'm doing myself any favors by hooking up with someone quickly and I learned this lesson a little late to be honest with you like I kind of feel like I wasn't even like I wasn't being intentional for a long time and I didn't even really realize that I wasn't I told myself I was looking but I wasn't really willing to sacrifice anything in the looking I was still

like but I just want to do whatever feels good and what feels good is like you're on a date with someone and you like them and you're like why not let's just go home together this feels good but doing what feels good might not serve what you actually want do you imagine like what is a lot of love bombing you know love bombing is a term that's become bigger and bigger these days and it's used to describe that person who tells you all of these grandiose things and does all of these big gestures and makes big promises very early on and then essentially doesn't back it up right they do all of that and then they just disappear that's love bombing well love bombers tend to be really high in impulsivity for a lot of them there's this feeling of i don't care about

the concept i don't believe that every love bomber is just manipulative some are there's a like very dark side to some people where it's like I'm going to say all of these things just to manipulate you into giving you giving me more than I would be getting from you at this stage organically but some people love bomb kind of almost unintentionally because they feel something they're on a date and they have that feeling that we've all had at some point in our lives where we think oh my god I love this person well you've already planned your wedding before the main meal comes out, you're like, oh my God, this is my human. Yeah. And some people who get accused of love bombing are just the people that said everything out loud that the rest of us keep in

our minds for a few more days. And then they can't back it up. They wake up the next week and they're like, oh my God, why did I say all of that? I didn't even know this person. I'm now realizing they're really annoying. That happens to people a lot. And so if you remove the word sex from it and just say, how quickly am I moving with someone that I don't know very well? How quickly am I telling this person? I've never met anyone like you. You're this is the greatest date I've ever had. We're like full of chemicals and we're so excited and someone shows potential and it is like it's intoxicating. So I don't blame people for that, but we have to understand that acting on our feelings all the time can actually have consequences and sex itself can really interrupt

our perception of who this person actually is and how close we really are to this person it makes us feel close to someone it makes us feel like not everyone some people don't feel close at all through sex which is another problem because if you're someone who does feel close through sex and someone else doesn't then you've already got this mismatch now because you've done it and now you're feeling bonded and they're not and you think they're in the same place as you but they're not but at the end of that you can do it because it feels good and now think oh we're like having sex we're quite close we're moving fast but actually nothing's moved fast sex is such a gaslighter it's so manipulative and it makes you think yeah sex is a gaslighter it is sex is a

gaslighter trademark yeah yeah no that's a good phrase it's good but it's true and that's why it's almost worth saying to people look do you lose anything by taking a beat I'm not saying And by the way, as I'm saying this, it's really important people understand, I don't care. I don't care how quickly you have sex with someone. I'm not coming from any kind of conservative place. I'm not coming from a religious place. I'm not a prude. I love sex. I've done it all in my lifetime, so I'm not judging what someone else is doing in theirs. like none of it comes from any of that stuff for me. It only comes from hearing from so many people who do things that don't actually serve them. And that's especially true. If you know that sex can be very distracting for you or intoxicating for you, or it can make you feel like if someone doesn't then follow up, it's going to make you feel used. And it's going to make you feel like you've given more than you wish you had. Like that's a good principle by the way, is don't give

more than you're willing to lose if you're happy to have sex with someone and they don't call you after that then have sex but if you know that you have sex with them and it doesn't go anywhere it's going to make you feel really badly about yourself then wait because if that's how you feel that's going to come out after sex in a kind of desperate feeling of i have to hold on to this person now because I can't bear that feeling that we have sex and then they disappear. No, and it's not like you just said, it's not that you believe that people shouldn't be having sex on the first date because we've done it. I think people can do what they want as well. My current partner, Ben, we slept together on the first date, thought it was going to be a one

night stand, wasn't. I also think it comes from this idea, and I know you touched on it, Matthew, but it's like, we live in a very sex positive society at the moment. And like, it's had a real renaissance especially female sexual empowerment and this idea that if you were to say don't have sex on the first date that that's almost then shaming somebody for being in touch with their sexuality but I do think by only leaning into that side of the story we neglect this idea and coming back to again what you said this idea of intention and this idea of well if it's not sex that you're looking for then maybe that shouldn't be the first main priority of what it is that you're developing with someone look I want to restate this because it's important if I had a guy in front of me

and I knew he was serious about finding a relationship and he happened to go on a date tonight with someone he really liked and as he was leaving that date and figuring out whether to try to take that person home for the night or go home I'd be like if you want a relationship and you actually had a great date and you like this person go home by yourself alone because what's going to be gained from speeding up the process right now like name one great thing that will come from this okay fine it will might feel spontaneous and in the moment but it might also have her misinterpreting you as a player it might have her seeing you as just someone who does this all the time it might have her see you as someone who's not that serious because you're

not really trying to get to know her it might have her seeing you as someone who's impatient like there's lots of misconceptions that could come from that and what comes from it that's good you have a fun time tonight but your biggest goal isn't to have a fun time tonight your biggest goal is to find a partner. So you have to start going, is the priority to find a person that is compatible with me, or is the biggest priority to have as much pleasure as possible in the short term? Those will change your decision-making. And I also want to say the delicate balance to strike is never, ever, ever, ever, ever do I want to give women the impression that sex is their power. because if you think sex is kind of this valuable thing that you've given up then you've lost your

power the moment you have it that framing of it is what has women a lot of the time acting like their power has dissolved the morning after and if you think that's true you will start behaving as someone with no personal power the moment you've had sex and you'll lose it all not because you had sex, but because you start behaving as someone who's given up their biggest card, that part of it, I really make sure people never, ever feel. It's more that again, if you remove the word sex from it and you just say any kind of investment or effort, everything is a kind of investment, right? If you didn't know someone in business and someone came up to you on the street and said, Hey, could you sit down and plan my business for me? And you said, yeah, I'll spend

the next week with you it would be strange it would be like wait but i haven't done anything for do i have to pay you is that is there a reason you're giving me this much time and energy this hasn't been earned at all so it's true in every part of life if a guy showed up on a first date and at the end of the date he said hey i just wanted to tell you i liked you so much from your profile that i bought you a new car and is waiting outside so at the end of the date the keys are yours like here it is if someone would be happy yeah i'm sorry there was a problem there no britt i you would think this is this guy's this is the creepiest thing i've ever seen i'd take the keys but i'd leave the dinner drive away very very quickly you drive away as fast as

possible it would freak you out because yeah if someone did that for you years in in a committed relationship, you might think, oh my God, what a beautiful grand gesture. So we have to start saying, if I want people to put value on things, I have to put value on them myself. Whether it's I love you as a phrase, whether it's sex, whether it's my time, whether it's introducing you to key people in my life, whether it's inviting you to my birthday party of six friends, and you're going to be the seventh person at this table. Like if I just invite you after a date, because I'm like, you seem awesome. Come to my private, intimate birthday party with people. I've been friends with my whole life. It's not going to come across like you value those seats at that table.

But if someone's got close enough to you that you now say, Hey, I want to invite you to this thing. It's all my close friends, but you've become a special person in my life. I'd love you to be there. That's now going to mean something. So it's about what you want things to mean. that's a personal decision for all of us men and women Matthew I wanted to ask you for somebody who understands the workings of relationships and I would assume as well you have had a clear idea of what you want for yourself in your relationships have you ever felt pressure I guess like pressure in your own dating life or pressure to have things perfect I would think almost having so many tools it creates even more of a problem because I would feel that people might think that they don't

measure up or that they're having to perform almost like have you Matthew put dating yeah like you in your previous dating life I know that you're happily engaged now with a beautiful fiance but did you ever find pressure in your own dating life to kind of get it right I guess especially when you're then speaking to everybody else about dating I did feel that feeling that people sort of have around christmas where their grandma is asking them if they've found anyone yet and you know they're like well no i haven't and then people say well why not why haven't you found someone you know like that that feeling that a lot of people get at the family dinner table i felt an element of that but just from globally a million people no pressure i remember stumbling

across you and i remember when i was speaking to rebel about you i was like surely this guy's got to be the best human in the world to date because you know every aspect well it seems like you know every aspect of everything there is in a relationship you have the best advice i imagine every woman that's ever dated you has just been like fucking bingo this is gonna be a breeze no i think the opposite i think it would be like fuck fuck fuck fuck ah like over analyzing god i'm gonna fuck this up oh no he's gonna be analyzing b and then he's gonna think i'm crazy just like kicking back being like he's got this no i think it probably was from a point of view of having tools about you know that I'd learned over time about how to have a great relationship

with a person that was the most powerful part of it and that's the part I wouldn't take back for anything the perception of it was only bad really because someone could only come in either not being themselves because they assume I'm analyzing things which anyone who knows me and is close to me will tell you is like is so far from who I am as a person you know how you meet certain people you know like you I don't know I've never been interested in matchmaking anyone ever I'm a coach but when you meet matchmakers and even in their spare time they're like oh I think that person that person would go well together and it's like they're doing it all the time they're always thinking about it for me it's the opposite with friends family girlfriends whoever it's always

been the thing that I'm like, this doesn't enter my personal world at all. If anyone ever asks me for advice, that's a different thing. I will never, if you're a friend of mine and you come to me for help, or if you come to me with something going wrong in your life, I'm never giving unsolicited advice because I just want to connect with people. But that wasn't necessarily everyone's perception. And I think that probably some people were maybe too in their head or their expectations were too high and they were severely disappointed by the person they ended up dating. You know, I and my fiance herself will kind of tell you all sorts of stories about how we had to work through things. And there were things I thought I had dealt with and I hadn't

dealt with. And I was learning on the job, so to speak. And so I don't know. And I love it that way it's meant that we've been able to grow together and and learn together and I think that's what makes someone great for us is that you meet a person who encounters your stuff right and hopefully we have a decent amount of our stuff either worked out or at least we have an awareness a whole we have a sort of our arms around it a little bit of what by the time we meet someone yeah yeah and then there's always going to be things we haven't worked out like this idea of you have to have your own stuff figured out by the time you meet someone is bullshit no one comes to a relationship for having figured out all of their stuff no one comes fully

healed no one comes like when I met so-and-so I became the most confident version maybe but you still had stuff and you still hadn't worked it all out I love when married people look back and they that you know when they like tell their friends who are still single you need to learn how to be okay on your own first. And you're like, you were on your own for five minutes before you got married. I love this because I think so often we tell people like you need to have everything sorted for yourself before you can show up in a relationship. But I think relationships can be, not that they're going to fix you or heal you, but I do think you can meet somebody who the things that might've been inflamed in another relationship, they will not

inflame those things and they may work with you to bring out the best qualities in you and I think you can grow to heal in a relationship I really hate the saying that like you have to love yourself before anybody's gonna love you because I think it tells people that if you are going through periods of self-doubt or periods where you don't have that confidence in yourself completely that therefore you're unlovable it's a very black and white almost saying I think it's about what you just said it's the intention and knowing when you go into a relationship knowing the stuff that you still have to work on the awareness I should say the awareness of what you need to work on I know when I just got into my relationship not that long ago five six months ago I knew the shit that I was

taking into that I laid it out pretty early I was like hey this is something you know that that's happened to me in the past and I have boundaries around this and just so you know this angle might not be easy you know like and I put it out there and it was fine from the get-go he's like thanks for letting me know. And then we work around that and we work together. No one goes into a relationship as a whole perfect circle, whole perfect pizza. There's always like a slice that's been taken. That's so right. I want a book of your analogies and metaphors. I think the right person is someone who, when they come along, we find ourselves and our parts that get inflamed, we actually find them soothed by the way that person handles those parts of us and so often

in life we find ourselves with someone who just agitates the parts of us that are already inflamed and then we blame ourselves for that and we think that we're doing a horrible job and we go oh why can't I just feel safe I wish I could just be the kind of person that could feel safe but often we find ourselves with someone who's not safe and we're trying to feel safe. And that's the worst possible eventuality for someone who's already got stuff going on. They've already got trauma. They've already got things they're trying to heal. And now they're trying to do it in an environment with someone who's not safe to begin with someone who's already saying to them, I just don't know if I want this. I don't want a relationship. And they're like going in and

out of this situation with this person. And meanwhile, they'll come to me and say, I just wish I could feel confident with this person. And the thing I'll say to them is you don't feel safe because you're not safe. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you're never going to feel unsafe with someone who is safe. There are going to be times where you meet the right person and there'll still be moments where you feel unsafe and it won't be because there's real danger. It will be because there's perceived danger but in those moments the right person tends to have a healing effect it tends to have a soothing effect they bring us you know if you want to talk attachment styles if we're anxiously attached i believe that the right person brings us more to the middle the wrong

person mutates our attachment style to its worst possible version of itself and we blame ourselves for that. Totally. I mean, we could speak to you forever, but I know you're a busy man, so we'll wrap it. But I do want to know, what are your, personally, your core foundations for a successful, healthy relationship? And in saying that, how did you know your fiance was the one? Sorry, that was a really deep. Just a quick one to end on. Let's just wrap it up. Tell us how to have the perfect relationship and why do you love your now fiance? So to wrap it, what is the key to life yeah yeah literally I know that the thing that has meant the most to me aside from there are certain baseline things I feel we need like loyalty teamwork

we need someone who is actually committed to us you know when you have those baseline things that give you a feeling of safety and you say well what takes a relationship from feeling safe and mean that in a positive way not a derogatory way what takes it from being a safe relationship to being a great relationship I know that one of the big things perhaps the most important thing for me has been feeling seen and feeling like oh this person that that was one of the things to answer your question about my fiance that was one of the things that Audrey did that was so special for me is that I felt I truly felt like I could be myself and I could reveal new parts of myself even the parts that I thought would not be impressive the parts that I thought would not

would be embarrassing the parts that I thought were kind of weird or too quirky or too just the parts of myself that i wouldn't say in a youtube video because i'd feel like oh that's just a bit too people aren't going to get that that's going to be a bit strange or you know i could say those things and it just made her love me more and the things that weren't manly the things that i had worried if i showed those to a woman they would it would be emasculating it would be too insecure it would be perceived as weak and ugly they didn't push her away and you know I think the paradox is we can't be those things all the time because then we really might end up driving someone away because we're only being one version of ourselves we're only being the negative

version of ourselves or the sad version of ourselves or the weak version of ourselves or the vulnerable but I felt like I could let her into those parts of me and she both saw them she really saw me and I would I would see that in little moments I'd see it in little moments like a morning routine that she thought was super ridiculous that I would have that was actually important for me to be in the right state of mind for the day it's not like a public ritual that I would do in front of other people but it's like something that allows me to feel emotionally in the right place for the day she would learn those things and just think that's such an interesting and lovable quirk about you and then like I might wake up one morning and she had set

up the room for that for me next door so that I could go and do it because she knows it's important to me even though she wouldn't care about doing that thing at all and never will like when I arrive next door and she'd set up the room in that way or done I would be like oh my god she knows me she knows me and she accepts me and so I think that's one of the most important things a person can feel and the other thing I just want to say because I think is a really important lest I sound like I'm saying all you need for long-term relationships is to be seen we also have to accept human behavior and human behavior is you know Esther Perel talks about the difference between love and desire in her book Mating in Captivity which is a important read for anyone

who's serious about making a relationship last and love is this the coming together of two people and all the ways we want to close down the space between us and get each other in our pajamas and live there forever and desire is exists in the space between two people you know love is constant and stable and wants to join and desire is a fickle bitch like desire is that moment we see someone across the room and they're dressed up and they look good and they don't feel like they're and they don't feel like a sure thing the irony of desire is desire's mission is to get you in your pajamas so that you feel safe but it sounds like once you're in your pajamas if you stay there too long there's no desire now the suit's not coming desire so i'm a big believer in maintaining

those two things in a relationship. And I think that relationships suffer because people come to think love is enough and love on its own. It can overcome an awful lot, but it's not enough to make us want to stay on its own. And that's the trick is not just making an environment in a relationship where it's good to stay, but continually helping ourselves and our partner want to stay. I mean, we spoke to Esther recently and it was an incredible episode. We read the book. It was great. We went and saw her.

She's so great. Oh, she's so great. But it sounds like what I just took from you then is it's not just that Audrey gave you the space to be you, but she went the next step and encouraged and embraced you being you. So she didn't just say, I see you and, you know, I'm accepting that you do this. She went one step further and she was creating the room for you to go and do whatever weird ritual you do in the morning. Really lean into your crazy Matthew. Here it is.

Here's a whole room to do it in. But I think that's really important. It's not just about locks the door. She goes, I don't actually want to know what you're doing. Yeah, totally. But it's so important to do that and say not just like, oh, I see you. That's cool. You do you.

But to feel like you're supported in what you're doing. That's such an important distinction you just made because you're right. That is the distinction. It's more than acceptance. It's a leaning into the way that person is. and that's it that's got to be one of the most beautiful things you can do for a person and that by the way is where desire comes from right love wants us to be one desire kind of wants to feel like they're the other so that i can bring them closer so don't lose the things that make you

the other you not in a bad way but in a good way don't lose those things that give you a sense that you are your own entity and that there's always more to be discovered and like the pajamas and the suit need to meet halfway like suit jacket on top pajamas on the bottom I feel like I've got no credibility in this area because living in LA I've sort of taken to wearing only clothes that feel like pajamas regardless of where I'm going that's also parenting that's where I'm at Matthew thank you so much this is I mean a long time coming again I'm so glad that you could finally make the time for us here at Life Uncut because you've been on the hit list not just from us but from the listeners for a very long time every time we've put it out there just so you

know how loved you are down under every time we put it out for guests it's always Matthew Hussey Matthew Hussey if you're ever gonna do a Groupon tour in Australia like let us know Sydney is your bloody Groupon tour again all right it's not discounted but we'll definitely tell everyone it's happening Groupon is cursed I have such a wonderful time anytime I'm in Australia there is something special about our audience there and I want to thank you both for having me on and sharing your platform with me because I know you're wildly successful at what you do and you have a massive audience and I really appreciate it and I always feel a special connection when I go over there it's always crazy when we say we're coming to Australia the rooms sell out so quickly

and I've always just so appreciated it because people are they want to learn they want to grow and they've been really really kind to me over there so i appreciate you having me and i hope we can do it in person sometime and i also say by the way for anyone who's listening to this who wants to kind of continue your journey with me but you can always come and watch my videos on youtube every week for free but i have a an actual coaching membership for anyone who says how do i actually get coached by you and in all of the things that you teach and it's called the love life club and i'm pouring energy into this thing this year we have amazing master classes we have speakers in there who are experts in their areas it's just a really amazing place to be right now

and you have an entire community of people all over the world who are on the journey with you a lot of people feel very alone in these things and you are part of an app that has its own in book community and people make friends they don't need to be on facebook or anywhere else it's all inside the app and it's just a really it's a special thing and it's helping a lot of people right now so if anyone wants to come and do it it's you can literally do it risk-free there's a 14-day free membership right now for a trial that you can come and just check it all out at Thank you.