Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 112: YOUR Answers to the Most Overrated Things in Relationships

Episode Date: May 22, 2021

What do you think is the most overrated thing in relationships? We look at your top answers and decide if we agree or disagree! --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- Join us on our virtual retreat on September 24-26! Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com and spend a magical 3 days with us transforming your confidence and relationships... --- We also love to hear from you! You can email the show at [e-mail]    

🎵 🎵 Welcome back lords and ladies to the Love Life Podcast. I'm in my hometown with my brother Matthew Hussey. I am of course Stephen Hussey. How are you old friend? Now Steve, are you going to in every episode just call people something different? Because you've had pickles, you've had peaches, you've had pears, you've had lords and ladies. I mean, is this the plan every single episode?

It's a fan favourite. It's not a fan favourite. A lot of people message me on Instagram calling themselves pickles. And I love it, guys. So I'm here for it. We stan a pickle here on the Love Live podcast. I don't know that that's popular. I don't think you can say that you've got a handful of messages and it's just a winner.

Can't argue with numbers. So, hello everyone and welcome. I've had a COVID jab today, so I'm ebullient with relief and ready to start the very beginning of summer, which is a bit drizzly here in england but there you go congratulations steve on that i'm happy for you thank you mum and dad both had both they've had both more importantly and i'm not saying that because i love you less but i'm just saying you know they've had both their jabs now yes they have and that has put me at ease yeah it's been a it's been a lovely relief after a turbulent year to have that ticked off and so have you sort of as good as it gets isn't it it's like now that they're they're fully jabbed up it's like well that's whatever it is now is what it is right there's not a third no super jab no so now it's like that's as good as it gets, which I'll take. Yeah. I'm happy.

We're flooded with vaccine in this home. So today, what we wanted to do was throw it to you, our listeners, because we put out a post on Instagram to solicit your responses. We asked you what you find to be the most overrated thing in relationships and this garnered a wealth of responses many were fascinating and matt i wanted to throw the top ones to you and get your gut reaction whether you agree disagree i'm interested how you're going to react well do you want to now how should we do this should you read out the quality did you say the question we asked was are what qualities you think are underrated no we said what's something you think is overrated in a relationship

okay all right yeah let's okay let's hear it um okay and i think that's that's an appropriate question because then it starts To hit what some of the cliches are And where are the cliches right Where are the cliches wrong Very good So one of the biggies Was people

Talking about the idea of Combining Yourselves into one person So Janae said, she thinks it's overrated, losing the ability to stay as individuals, thinking that you now have to have the same friends, hobbies, et cetera.

Unfortunately, so many people find out as the relationships develop, the person they fell in love with is no longer the same person because they forget who they were to start with. And someone else said the you complete me oh erin said you complete me mentality which promotes codependence rather than independence that's just too much pressure to put on someone else yeah yeah it's hard isn't it because we're always i mean i agree as a romantic ideal it's certainly overrated not just overrated but but dangerous and not just dangerous in the sense that we'll

lose ourselves but dangerous in the sense that it is the great killer of attraction it's a way of neutralizing our partner till they're, they're no longer there. They're just a reflection of the ways that we've shaved all their edges, you know, you know, rounded all their edges. It, they cease to become that eclectic mix of things that they were in the beginning.

And they're now just sort of a poor rendition of our wants, but our wants, we can't even necessarily trust you know like we sometimes we want someone to do less of this do less of that don't do that that makes me feel a bit afraid or that makes me feel that and so we start telling up we start controlling our partner and telling them what to do and what not to do but it's not our attraction talking it's our insecurity talking and when they listen to everything we say and do everything that we wanted them to do and now all of a sudden we don't find them attractive it's because we've we've done that we've taken away

all of their edge and then blame them for the fact that we're not attracted anymore. Right. So we have to be very careful. And I do think that it's, I get why. I do truly understand. I mean, my God, I've done it enough in my life. I get why we want to combine ourselves to the point of oblivion. Because it's, well, not only does it feel romantic when we're madly in love but it also feels safe it we want to feel like you're not going anywhere you know we're together no matter

what and and of course there's romance in that but you both things can exist you can both make a commitment to someone that you're in it for the long haul and maintain those parts of yourself that keep you you i think interestingly it's truly helping someone to understand that you're not going anywhere that allows the two of you to do the things that make you independent because we fear someone's independence more when we're on shaky ground in the first place because everything becomes a threat everything they do becomes a threat to the relationship because we don't feel safe in the first place so i think the key to maintaining independence is to make each other feel safe. You know, we're in this, we're doing this, we're a team, we're doing this. I'm not going anywhere, you're not going anywhere.

You and I are doing this. And if you can make each other feel safe in that, then everything that happens in the middle of someone having their own hobbies or their own friends or their own things they do or whatever doesn't become a threat to that. Because you feel safe in the first place. It's not a sign that someone is drifting away. It's not a sign that someone is leaving. And I think what's really important is that when we come back from those activities or those friends or those things that are outside of our partner, we reinforce to our partner how much we love them, how much we miss them, how much we couldn't wait to see them, how much we're now ready to enjoy some amazing time with them because we feel like we really need it.

You know know it's it's reminding them you're you're still safe you're you know we're good nothing got affected by that thing that is my thing yeah away from you what else did they say what are the other overrated qualities of a relationship as said by our audience okay um jessica olsen says the perfect physique is totally overrated was with the guy with the rock star body but his gym time and eating schedule took top priority i'll take the average dad bod any day over the high maintenance muscle man well what's your view on that steve what do you think i can see where i mean i'm someone who you know you're in great shape might i say thank you these i mean these days i like to take care of myself but i do i do like to think i have a lot

of balance as well i think the people who go for top tier top top physical physique i think that would be too exhausting for me i sometimes get annoyed because i want to and you i think you know this i want to spend time with you and then you'll be defiant that you're going on one of your long runs and i'll be like can we do something and you'll be like i can't i'm going on a run oh but you're making it sound like I'm like Mr. Olympia. But like, I run as a hobby. It's a way I keep myself sane and in shape. I sometimes wish you relaxed into more of a dad bod

so that I could spend more time with you. You lift weights every day. Not at the expense of time with you, sir. Oh, no. Before you get on that one, every day i invite you to come with me so that we can have quality time even while we're doing that right so you won't come on the run with me but you'll get me to come steve they're really long runs brilliant um well yeah i i think the physical, yeah, perfect physique, I think that's, there's so much work in keeping, maintaining a top, top, finely tuned body, athlete style.

You don't want to be with someone with proper, like, proper six pack. It's just a lot. It's a lot. A proper six. I've had a six pack and I know it takes a lot of work. Steve, having guns, having proper guns, you can get by, you know, just eating shepherd's pie every night and going to the gym. Like you can you can have a few steak and kidney pies a week and and go to the gym and still have some guns. A six pack is a is a lifestyle.

You've got to be down for it. OK, I Lisa says Flowers My hubby does tons of little things to make my life better instead Now I know instantly That one won't be as popular With a lot of women Because a lot of women do love getting flowers And I imagine a lot of men don't

Buy flowers enough for their partner Well but in fairness She's not to be trusted on this Because what was her name lisa lisa lisa's you know what she's saying is it doesn't matter because he does really great stuff for me that's not flowers do you know what i mean like she's she's basically saying look it'd be nice if he bought me flowers but honestly the stuff he does that's the important stuff is way more important right and that's what i value but but i think that she's saying when he's got abs that shredded you don't need to get me flowers i don't think it's about the i don't

think he's got abs i think he's like doing really showing up he's showing up steve he's doing everything right but there are usually i think for a lot of people when they talk about he never buys me flowers it's indicative of something bigger he's not doing all the other things right that make her go you know what the flowers are not even important because look at this man he makes me feel loved oh my god when i'm not there it's like does he think of me when i'm not there that's he's yeah he does all these other things that are so much more important than and maybe actually make me feel the same thing i'd feel if he got me flowers right but a lot of people say it bothers them that he doesn't get her flowers because it's indicative of the fact that he's not making her

feel that in other ways either she's not feeling thought of right she's not feeling considered she's not feeling like he's going out of his way to do the things that she would like him to do you know a lot of relationships suffer because someone always gives what they want to give. They don't ever put themselves in the mindset of the person they're with and give what that person would like to receive. You know, we give what's easy for us to give. We give what's comfortable for us to give. And the flowers thing is really just a metaphor for something bigger, isn't it? It's, it doesn't, when he gets her flowers, it doesn't benefit him's it doesn't when he gets her flowers it doesn't benefit him

he doesn't care about flowers it's not something that he would naturally his mind would naturally go to it's out of his way it shows that he's giving us something he would never think to get for himself but he knows her well enough to know it means a lot to her so he's going to do it for her it shows a consideration of that person's mind and what matters to them it's an act of empathy as well as generosity it's an act of knowing your partner making them feel known um and flowers don't matter to everybody some people don't care about flowers but the person that does buying them flowers is not everyone you could buy yourself flowers the reason it matters that he buys you flowers is so that you feel seen so that you feel thought of so that you feel acknowledged for what you like you know if he comes home and he goes oh bought us this delicious steak i'm gonna cook for us it's like it's not just an us thing that one you you like that ribeye though don't you

that lovely lovely marbled ribeye yeah exactly all right what's next uh so on Instagram as well, top, top ones. A lot of people said this thing of, you know, so Lady Spencer says, always being around each other. I think healthy relationships include equal amounts of time alone, as well as being together. A lot of top comments were on this one of just couples feel pressured to have to merge lives, be around each other too much.

And I wonder if in a way that that speaks to our time maybe a little or the way that you know particularly in the western world we expect a certain level of independence autonomy and we've gotten you know look even in pandemic and lockdown and all these things we expect to be able to have a lot of our own greedy time and we're like i don't i don't want to just uh hand over all of that and and you know esther perel was obviously spoke wonderfully on this conflict between independence and dependence but you know and and the need for both in a relationship, the need for comfort and for distance. But yeah, it's interesting. That one was popular there as well. I think that when we...

What do I want to say? I think that there's a strange thing. Look, we all know that we are sort of walking contradictions a lot of the time, right? We, you know, a lot of people when they're with their partner, you know,

they think, Oh God, there's things I need to be getting done, but I'm not getting them done right now because we're together all the time. Or there's things, hobbies I'd like to do or things i i'd normally be doing that i'm not doing because i'm with this person all the time and so you sort of then start to crave you you almost whether you're you would characterize yourself

as an avoidant or not you start to sort of crave that time you know you you start to want to almost you become a little avoidant in your attitude and you start looking for that getaway, even if it's for a day or two, just to get your space again. Especially if the other person isn't actively providing that space. But then, of course, when we're away from someone, we crave that time with them. And you know, where it gets tricky is we want our own space or we want time away, but just the right amount before we start getting insecure that they don't want to see us just the right amount that we don't start feeling unloved. Like, Oh,

they don't, I, you know, I needed two days, but they needed four, you know? And I, I was good with the two,

but they want, or they're're not they're content with not seeing me for the rest of the week yeah that was more i got more than i bargained for you know so one of the tricky parts about the space thing is that it it depends you know one person's idea of getting space is different from another person's uh so i think that it's it's look it's certain things we've talked about it's making someone feel special it's making them feel loved even when we're absent from them you know still making them feel like i'm excited to see you still making them feel like um you're thinking of them in some way um and uh not to excess but you know enough to let someone know that you are actually looking forward to the next time you get to be together yeah and look

communicating communicating sometimes when we're apart it's easier to assume certain things about our partner especially if you're an anxious attachment style it's easy when you're away from them to start dreaming up all of the ways that they've gone off you we haven't been together the last three days now you start thinking are they still into me i don't know if they really like me as much as they did three days ago i don't know if they do they still love me i don't know do they do they feel this about me we they haven't really texted me today and i felt so secure when we were together and i felt good and i felt like i was okay and now that we're apart i'm starting to worry that they don't they don't feel that about me

was it all a lie did i imagine it did they you know so it's it's about communicating and i think i mean a lot of relationships so much of it is just about being able to see what's real yeah and what's not real um very true uh another one uh i'd call these sort of there's a bundle i'd put together as sort of you know living conditions so juanita this had quite a lot of likes just said living together she thinks it's overrated which i thought was funny megal said sharing a bed i like my space lol um that's one i've had some couples have had success through you know separate beds at night where they sleep um i it's weird i can totally practically see that and i do sleep worse when i you know when i'm in a relationship and sharing a bed with someone.

I do get less quality sleep because, you know, the moving around wakes me up a bit more. It's kind of like a bit more broken sleep. But I know somehow psychologically I would feel uncomfortable going to another room to sleep. It somehow would make me feel like it's a distant act. But I can totally understand, like it's a distant act but i can totally understand like having a cuddle and then saying oh i'll be next door to go and actually sleep i like i just

like a cuddle too much yeah but it gets hot sometimes you're cuddling close open a window mate do you not do like cuddle for a bit then separate on separate parts of the bed yeah of course yeah yeah you can't i mean you know yeah spoon for the whole night it's hard but uh but yeah but it's hard psychologically isn't it to separate beds but i do understand i get it um uh there's one here from audrey godwin who says having each other's passcodes is overrated like you either have trust or you don't well audrey i wouldn't give someone my passcodes and not because i have some demons to hide but because something's got to be private private and sacred and i don't i don't know i don't understand these couples where they would need access to each other's inbox

and phone messages I think that's something very extreme about that that I would find just a total invasion of my privacy well I think that's become trickier because our phones are no longer just a the home of our text messages

they are also I mean for me at least my phone is a sort of diary you know i write notes to myself me too you know i i i write thoughts sometimes i write you know my gratitude journal on my phone sometimes i write things i'm i'm struggling with and working on, I, you know, there's some, there's, there's private thoughts in there. And those are my thoughts. So I think, look, you could say trust is being able to give someone your passcode and trusting that they're not going to go into that diary. You know, like there's, I don't, I have a journal too. I don't put a lock on that journal. You know, I, my girlfriend could find that journal and decide to, well, I say she could find that journal. She can literally go to that

journal on the desk anytime she wants, you know, and, but I trust that she won't because it's my journal, you know, that's sacred. So that would be a violation for me if she did read that um so i think i think that we more than ever are afraid of giving up our passcode and there's two levels to see it we get afraid to give up our passcode because there's more information on there than ever on our phones so there's that so there's in a way there's you might argue another level of trust is you give someone your passcode but you also have a like you express to that person hey you can have my passcode because i got nothing to hide from you but there's also parts of my phone that

are deeply private to me because they're my thoughts or they're you know yeah or private conversations with your family or something well so and to that extent i don't i think that someone having your passcode is is a misnomer i think that's, it's about the trust that they're not going to go digging into, you know, conversations or message or your journal or your private notes, whatever it may be. It shouldn't require a passcode to stop your partner from doing that. And I think that's the important thing. I don't think that the debate should be whether your partner should or shouldn't have your passcode. I think it's about trusting that your partner is not. And by the way, we're not talking about someone.

We're not talking about early in dating here. I don't think, you know, we're talking about in well with it well into a serious relationship um where you are very much you know your lives are very much combined yeah um i don't think you should have to hide your phone from someone any more than you would hide anything in the house but you could still say to someone you know with a physical journal that that's my journal and i'd you know i those are private thoughts and trust that your partner won't read that and i think actually in some ways it's quite lovely that like with my girlfriend at least i i find it lovely that i can just leave my journals lying around right you know like i don't because i could just i I don't every time I leave the house hide all of the the notes that I write to myself for fear that those are going to be read I trust her so I just think that's okay

like I'm I'm not you know I I can put those things in there because there's trust so I think in a way that you could argue even if you're arguing for privacy on your phone, you could still argue for the passcode being something that you have. Yeah. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying there's an argument that the passcode is actually the red herring. Right. Yeah. It's distrusting not to give someone your password.

Yeah. Your passcode for fear that they're going gonna go rummaging in the first place um another one carolina says giving updates of where you are at all times i i understand that one carolina um the brie says celebrating anniversaries every month. Yes, Brie, I agree with you. The over-celebrating of milestones and random things. Who's celebrating anniversaries every month? I think it's like, it's our something anniversary. It's our three-dateversary.

It's our, the anniversary of the time we went and got those cookies. Or, you know, just the over-celebrating of things. Cute little celebrations are fun, but when it's too much of an event every time, it sort of takes away from the... Well, I think you can pick key moments. Like, if you have a restaurant that you ate in together on your first date, the coordinates of that restaurant can be very beautiful. Yeah.

A symbol or the restaurant itself or the meal that you had that night, you know, cooking someone that meal six months from that moment or, you know, those things have value. I don't know about arbitrarily just sort of celebrating every month. Yeah. I mean, look, better than not celebrating ever yeah look mini celebrations are useful but i if there's a lot of pressure around it it's probably a source of stress if it becomes stressful something's gone wrong yeah um okay so this is one i am not sure on but it's debatable jd salas says someone who shares similar interests who cares similar goals ambition yes but you don't have to like the same music movies books hobbies etc

sharing new experiences with another person is what makes it exciting i agree with that but you have to combine that with the quality of curiosity and openness if it's to work agreed the thing is though you probably have to share and my friend george and i were talking about this you probably have to overlap a bit on like if you never liked the same movies that would be weird right if you totally everything you loved they drew a blank on you probably would think

if you're on a first date and you're reeling off a bunch of films and you're like I love The Sopranos I love Lord of the Rings I love Breaking Bad or whatever I love Ernest Hemingway. And everything was just like, oh God. You would think, oh, I don't know if this is going to work.

I agree. I agree with that. Which is why I say if someone is open, like if someone doesn't know the artists you like and then you play them songs from those albums and they can actually get into some of it sure then you can still have a good time together yeah right they don't doesn't have to become their favorite music but if they don't mind no and look some of the favorite films you may just be like

oh it's cute it's nice yeah it's like it might not you know you might be like oh i i think that the again common interests is is a misnomer i think that's that's misleading as a concept i think um having a massive disparity in the quality of your taste is a problem. Right. I think if you have good taste and they have bad taste. You mean that's harder? That's harder. Because you can have good taste in music and your musical preferences be different. You can have good taste in movies and your movie preferences be different. You can have good taste in movies and your movie preferences be different. You can enjoy different sports. They could both be great sports, but you just enjoy different sports.

That's okay. If you're with some, if you have good taste and that person has horrendous taste like that, I think is, is a more difficult problem because then you're just not understanding each other. Like I can, I can go somewhere with someone and, and they can talk to me about art and it may not be my hobby, but I can appreciate why they like it oh i get that this is good right i get that this is interesting i get i'm not even saying you have to agree on art you can have massive disagreement about art but i'm saying if consistently you're just like this person just has horrible taste then i i think you have bigger problems. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

You know when someone has just bad taste in movies? Oh, yeah. It's not that you like different movies. It's that they have bad taste in movies. And nothing good they enjoy and they love everything trashy and terrible. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a problem. That's hard work. Because now you can't even introduce me to good movies I wouldn't normally have seen. Yeah, so that's an interesting one. There was people saying about sharing relationships on social media, selfies and couple posts to show how in love you are. People thought that was really overrated. I think I agree with that although although i get the instinct you know you feel something

you want to share it and we like sharing things that we're passionate about i mean look people share plenty of things that they're passionate about on social media don't they that's what you know the the social media that we that we lord that we say is more often a better use of it is when people share their passions not just their you know ass yeah and you could argue that the person you're in love with is a that's a passion you know the same way that some people their dog is their passion you know or one of their passions and so on so it's it's kind of comparing partners to dogs but you know but i think if it comes down to intentions doesn't it i think what gets sickly about the kinds of postings we're talking about is that they often feel like a form of signaling they're often a form of theater uh and and disguise because people, we know, you know,

you see those posts from people who are all loved up and, you know, say the most extraordinary things and then a week later they're broken up. And you go, well, something, there's some strange thing going on here. You know, was it that you just wanted us to all think you were okay because you guys knew you weren't okay yeah i get a little fearful when anyone does too much

couple posting i always get a little fearful for the relationship i think that it can be beautiful as a way of expressing to the world that you really care about this person and it also can be a beautiful gesture towards that person in the same way that you know studies have shown that in companies the more people when you want to praise an employee praise in public yeah the more people you praise them in front of the more significant that is yeah to that person so no it can be a beautiful moment it can be a lovely way of saying here, I love this person. But it's a problem when it's either trying to mask problems in a relationship or when you as a couple become addicted to the validation you're now getting from people. Because you look like couple goals. If it's not about...

You look like an aspirational thing yeah if it's not about an expression of love anymore but a need for validation where it's i want to i love we love sitting and reading all the comments of people telling us how beautiful we are together that is now you're into ego territory that's not that's no longer a generous act it's a it's the ego just finding a new way to get validation yeah i totally agree well that's great so i mean a lovely one to end it on that sums it up uh is from liz who says what's overrated is the idea that relationships have to be a certain way or like a cookie cutter shape e.g living arrangements marriage kids how you spend your time together

or apart the list is endless whatever works for you as a couple and how you define your relationship is the most important thing and having confidence in that when outside influences threaten to dismantle or question it and you know i've i've always said it's very well said and i do believe that there isn't in societally culturally there is often an over prescribing of this is the exact way couples have to be whether it is living together sharing the bed doing this this is how much time a couple should spend together. This is how they should be. There are a lot of external pressures on how it looks cosmetically. And actually, you know, sometimes for people,

things that deviate from the norm work well for them. And so I agree with you, Liz, that people do try and box people into how it should look to everyone else too much alright well these were wonderful thanks so much for your amazing contributions and this was super fun to discuss

so thank you so much we will put out more of these questions on social on Matt's Instagram and Facebook so follow us there if you don't follow matthew hussey on those platforms so you can be with a chance to be mentioned on these future episodes and you can also email the podcast at podcast at matthew hussey.com send us your thoughts your reflections your questions we'd love to hear from you and uh that it leave us a review, we'd love a review

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