Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 138: Jealousy, Relationship Sabotage, and the MOST Attractive Strategy for Dealing With Insecurities

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Matt and Stephen sit down to talk about: - Why comparing yourself to your partner's ex's is such a losing game - How to escape the trap of comparison - The value vs. the danger of talking about your insecurities (and why many men struggle with this) - How to be attractive without needing to be perfect -- Join us on our virtual retreat on March 18th-20th! Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com and spend a magical 3 days with us transforming your confidence and relationships... (EARLY BIRD SPECIAL OFFER - book your spot before November 30th and get over 30% off the full price! Claim your ticket here) --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey

Hello, lovely listener, and welcome to the first podcast of the rest of your life. I am Stephen Hussey, of course, and welcome to this episode. And hey, I've got a question for you. Have you ever had that moment where you get a flash of insecurity when you're dating someone or in a relationship, and you wonder, should I be honest right now and talk about this thing that is making me feel a bit needy or jealous or just in need of some

reassurance or if I say that is it going to send them running a mile is it going to turn them off heaven forbid and should I just suck it up and deal with my stuff on my own this is one of the issues that Matthew and I dive into in today's episode and we also talk about the topic of comparison if you have found yourself comparing yourself to your partner's exes or even just their imagined exes in your head or people they might potentially be attracted to, Lord knows there's a lot of opportunity to do this in today's world. And Matt and I talk about some solutions so that you don't get stuck in this happiness sapping trap of constant comparison. Also, just before we begin, we have some very special news.

We have officially announced the date of our next virtual retreat. It is the first retreat of 2022, March 18th to the 20th. And as a special offer just for this month, so ending this month, November 30th, we are doing an early bird discount. So instead of the usual retreat price of $795, we are doing it this month for $595. So if you know that you want to take your personal growth seriously, you know you want to book something in for next year to work on your confidence, maybe you feel stuck right now in your relationships or your goals and you're not really sure what direction you should be pointing in and you want to figure out how to manage your emotions and your self-esteem and everything else, come and join us. And you can do that at mhvirtualretreat.com. And again, that 30% discount, that price of $595, it will end and go up after

November 30th. So if you know you want to get on board now, go and lock in that price at mhvirtualretreat.com and we will all see you there with the whole team, me, my brother, my family, the wonderful Get The Guy team, and we'll have some fun and make some magic, which we do every time. All right, that is it from me. I will see you in the episode. Welcome to another episode of Love Life with me, Matthew Hussey, and of course my dear brother Stephen Hussey.

Steve, how are you today? Brother, brother, hello, and we're in another undisclosed London location. Got my boy in the room with me. So I'm very excited. And you should be too, listeners. I am ready for a big topic today. We had a video that came out in the last few days where I stressed that one of the red flags that can sneak up on us in a relationship or in an early dating situation with somebody is when we bring our feelings to the table about something and that person either shames us or makes us feel stupid or embarrassed for feeling that way that if we're in a relationship where

we can't bring our feelings to the table then it's very difficult to truly be ourselves. We're walking on eggshells the whole time. But we've all been in that situation where we're afraid to bring something up. And we're afraid because we're worried that in some way our insecurity about something is going to harm the relationship or is going to give up our power, is going to hurt someone's perception of us. So I wanted to really talk today about this subject, whether our insecurities are jeopardizing what could be a great relationship. And that might be because we're bringing them up once, or it might be that our insecurities are something that we keep bringing up over and over again, and we're afraid that they're starting to harm the relationship. Of course, there will be people in the opposite situation where their partner's insecurities are harming the relationship.

We'll talk about it from both sides today. So that's going to be a big topic for today. We also have a smaller topic we want to just kick off with because I remember in the last episode, we talked about social media and that idea that, you know, what do we do if our partner follows hot people? What do we do if our partner or the person we're dating keeps liking attractive people's photos and it's making us jealous? And so we did a poll on Instagram asking whether you're in a situation where the person you're dating has an attractive co-worker or ex or friend that you feel threatened by. And it's making you anxious. So we're going to talk about the results to that poll, which was super interesting. So this is hot research hot

hot off the press yeah we we we haven't i don't think we've we've not really done many of these polls on instagram but we decided let's actually do a poll this time and see what people thought about it so we have the results for that poll that we're going to go into in just a moment but steve recently before we do that we put the word out asking people to send in their voice notes on what they're thinking of the podcast. I mean, yes, we've been working harder on it, haven't we? We have. And we've got some lovely I mean, we've got wonderful emails coming in all the time. You can send yours podcast at Matthew Hussey dot com and we read every single one. I even reply to some, but it is hard to get through them all because we get

lots of very, very detailed ones. The shorter you keep it, the more likely it is we'll either read it on the show or you'll get a response. But I want to play that voice note so that we can actually hear from our listener, Chelsea. Hi, Hussy Bros. I started listening to the podcast last year. It's hard to keep track of exactly how much time has passed given the time warp of COVID, but I had gone through a pretty terrible breakup of four years at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, and I was pretty devastated trying to figure out what to do with my life how to approach dating again after so much time and so I started really delving into a ton of podcasts and books and just anything related to relationships and I watched a

ton of YouTube videos of Matthew and apparently it was successful because as of yesterday, I am now engaged to a wonderful man. So thank you so much for all that you do and I will keep listening. That's amazing. I mean, you can't ask for a better result than that. Just click us on over the pandemic.

Get a boyfriend at the end of it. Well, engaged. Engaged. That's amazing. The cool thing is that you pulled that. I hadn't even listened to that before now. And I mean, just congratulations, Chelsea. I'm so happy that we've been able to keep you company on this COVID journey over the last

18 months. And, um, and I'm really, really happy for you. I, I, and, and frankly, I'm just as happy that you've been able to heal from your breakup as I am that you have been able to get engaged because, you know, for so many people out there, being able to simply heal and be at peace again after a breakup is an extraordinarily beautiful thing. Uh, and I will say to anyone out there who is going through that right now, and not just a breakup of a long-term partner, but it could be a breakup that the feeling of a breakup that you get just when someone that you were excited about suddenly disappears off the radar. You know, you could be, forget four years, you could be dating someone for four months and that person suddenly starts

getting flaky on you or doesn't give you contact anymore. That person suddenly tells you that they're not interested in what you're interested in and we can still sometimes grieve over those things as if it were a long-term breakup the feelings can feel the same if you're in that situation we actually have a free guide called move on strong at moveonstrong.com so if you go to moveonstrong.com this is literally a guide that's designed to walk you through how to get through those feelings during a difficult time when you're struggling to get over someone. And that's a completely free guide. So if you haven't got that yet, go to move on strong.com and download that. And thank you to Chelsea for sending that in. Yeah, thank you. And, you know, speaking of

other success stories, I remember I was walking down the street with you, Matt, in London Yeah, thank you. And, you know, speaking of other success stories, I remember I was walking down the street with you, Matt, in London town and someone stopped you. And I consider this, you know, as much a success as getting engaged. But someone just stopped you and said, you got me out of a toxic relationship over the last year. And they were super happy about it and said, thank you. And, you know, we consider that as much a success as someone who says I got engaged. And yeah, if you've done that as well, well done to you because that's hard to do. And, uh, yeah, that takes as much strength. And we've always said that we're as proud of the breakups we cause as we are the relationships, because the breakups, you could be with someone who's making you miserable. That person could be wasting your

life. That person can be, you can be tortured over time and you can have no peace in your life. But if you can leave someone and leaving that person gives you peace, that's just as important as the person who writes in and says, I'm now married because of, of your programs or your advice or your membership. So thank you, Chelsea. And if you want to send in your voice note to let us know something that you've gotten out of the podcast or a funny story or just something you want to tell me and Steve, send it to podcast at matthewhussey.com. Keep it short and sweet. Otherwise, we won't be able to play it, but we do want to hear from you. you can also write in as well steve let's get to that first topic this is our sort of

we're like an old movie showing we've got an a topic and a b topic okay all right double feature and you've been playing scientist here because essentially we have a researcher's dream audience here where we we have an audience of a million instagram followers 1.1 steve probably 95 female uh and you are throwing out questions to them now well we yeah and we we put out this question is there someone who your partner or someone you're dating has in their life who is attractive and who makes you feel insecure or anxious or jealous which doesn't mean there's anything untoward going on it just means that maybe they have a co-worker that they go to work and see every day maybe it's an ex that they don't even speak to anymore but you happen to have seen pictures of their ex on instagram and that

shit made you jealous or it may be or it made you insecure or it may be a friend that they have where it's completely platonic but that friend happens to be very attractive and you find yourself comparing yourself to him or her are you in a situation where that is ridding you of your peace? Where comparison with someone else is ridding you of your peace? 72% of our audience said, yes, and I hate that feeling. So 72%, the vast majority of people said that there was someone in their partner's life, or I think we can say this is not just about having a long-term partner, but in early dating, there's someone who is making me feel anxious. Let's talk about this. And we won't spend long on this because I want to get to our big topic, which is also to do with anxiety and insecurity.

But I want to talk about how comparison rids us of our peace and what we can do about it what are your thoughts on this Steve um I mean comparison definitely does rid you of your peace in all areas of life and the thing is what I've realized is it doesn't matter how successful or how much you improve yourself comparison is always possible i think there's a myth people have where they think if i maxed out all the stats enough and i was really happy with my looks my money my career my success everything else then i wouldn't feel that anymore and i've seen that that just isn't the case people get what they thought they wanted yesterday and then you can still compare. There's always people who have a bit more of something you would like, which is why I think

reducing yourself to top Trump stats, basing your confidence on stats like my looks, like my height, my money, my job, my friends, that's the the killer to me is when your self-esteem is wrapped up in your stats it has to be looking at you as a complete person if you're reducing people to these numbers to these characteristics you're always to find ways to make yourself miserable, to torture yourself. I 100% agree with that. Here's how I think about comparison and how I think we could get off of this comparing ourselves with other people that gives us fear about our partner leaving us for somebody else. Here's how we can deal with that fear. People don't fall in love with features.

They fall in love with a package. I'm going to repeat that. People don't fall in love with features. They fall in love with a package. You are not a feature. You are a package. You are not how tall you are. You are not how clever you are a package you are not how tall you are you are not how clever you are you are not how funny you are at a party you are not how great your eyes are or how perfect your body is and

there will always be someone who beats you on any one of those things always you will never be the best looking person in every room you'll if you'll never be the funniest person at every dinner party yeah you'll never be the richest person in every room you'll never be have the best body in every room you could have spent a year getting into the shape of your life and you'll still see someone who's got their shirt off on instagram and you go oh man i don't look like that or you'll you'll feel amazing in your body or you'll be the person that is comparing yourself to someone who's really really funny and you're not that funny right you don't even have to be funny to feel insecure around someone who's even funnier you could be someone who's just not that funny and you go oh my god my my partner is gonna fall for this person because they're super funny

well guess what they're funnier than you they're funnier than you or if you're a dude guess what that guy is taller than you it just is but that doesn't mean that the person you're with is leaving you for the person who's taller or the person who's funnier or the person who has more beautiful eyes it doesn't mean any of those things what it means is that person is more of that thing than you are but that's a feature. You're a package. You are everything that you come as to your partner. You're your personality, your looks, your ambition, your outlook on life, your history, all those little quirky things that they love about you, those idiosyncrasies that they notice about you that other people don't even know about. You're the conversations you have in the morning. You're the conversations you have at bedtime.

You're the person who stepped up when they were having trouble with their mother, their father, their brother, their sister. You're the person who was there for them when they were sick that day. You're the person who supported them in that job promotion. You're the person who has been kind to them over time. You're the person who's got history with them, person who's got a story with them. You are all of these things. So when you see that picture of their ex or that colleague on Instagram, when you go to that party and they introduce you to their friend who you worry is, oh my God, super sexy. That person isn't everything you are to your partner or the person you're dating. Now, look, if the person that you're dating decides that the package this person, this other person represents is something they want more than the package you present, then the person you're with wasn't for you anyway. That was never your person. You can't hold onto something that isn't right for you.

So if they decide that somebody else, the package somebody else represents is more for them, then they should go be with that person. You can't protect yourself from that. But you don't have to worry that you're going to lose someone to a feature. And if you do lose someone to a feature, then the person you're with had no depth.

The person you're with didn't depth. The person you're with didn't actually, wasn't ever looking for a real relationship. They're looking for a feature. And someone who's looking for a feature will always pay the price for looking for a feature. Absolutely. Someone who's looking for the best looking person in the room is going to pay the price for that. Someone who's looking for the person with the biggest bank account or looking for the person who just seems to be the most accomplished person in the room, they're always going to suffer. That's their torture that they're going to go through in life because they're going to pay the price for that. But someone who's looking for a

real relationship isn't going to, you're not going to lose them to a feature. You can only lose them to a package. And if you do lose them to to a package that wasn't the right person for you anyway i always think it's a really uh telling sign if someone says oh their new girlfriend isn't as good looking as their last girlfriend and i always think that says something about how you see that person's value whereas you're not seeing all the ways that their previous girlfriend might have been a total nightmare yeah they might have caused all kinds of drama frustration resentment problems but you're going oh but his new his old girlfriend was more attractive yeah but it's like you are not seeing

what they're seeing which is they're seeing like you say a whole package they're seeing everything that comes with that person and if you are looking at people as like that person was richer that person was better looking it's kind of a tell as to how reductive you're being about people about judging them and there's this concept in greek philosophy called amor fati which i think about in this case where it's it's called love your fate as in like there's a there's an idea like love your ups and downs and the difficult times and the good times and if you can kind of fall in love with your full story it's like a stoic principle in that you don't curse yourself when certain things are difficult all the time or when you have shortcomings you can kind of

assimilate them all and like love your fate and i think there's something in that with not comparing yourself with other people like you need to love the things you've overcome the difficult things you've had you've uh done all these you've got all these rich character things that people haven't seen and battles you've won internal battles and the more you love them the less you worry about where you're stacking up on superficial features well that's extraordinarily beautiful and a wonderful point and can be extended to say the right person for you is going to be the one who falls in love with your story. That's going to be the right

person. The person who doesn't fall in love with your story and all your ups and downs is the wrong all right before we move on i want to talk to everyone very quickly about a very exciting announcement we've got our virtual retreat which steven i think it's safe to say has become kind of one of the great headlines of our company yeah i mean we fall in love fallen in love with the virtual retreat over since the pandemic it has become probably the most sought after experience in our company is happening again from march the 18th to the 20th 2022 this is a announcement. We have had so many people waiting on the dates. We've had a waiting list of people who missed out on the last one, who have seen all of the wild things that happened on that program. There were surprises on that program,

Steve, we didn't even tell anyone about. They weren't even things we used to get people excited about coming to the program. We just kept them a secret. And then we did them on the program, special guests, people never would have anticipated special moments, experiences alongside all of the life-changing content that people didn't even know about unless they came. And there are a lot of people that now learn about those things and they wish they had come to the last one. Well, you haven't missed your shot because you can come on March the 18th to the 20th, 2022. This is your chance not only to get in on this program, but to get in on an early bird special offer, which is a huge discount on the actual price of the program. The price is normally just under $800 for the program.

We right now have an early bird special for the month of November. So only in November 2021, we have a price of $595 for the virtual retreat. So get in now on that early bird special. And Steve, for me, you know, I truly believe that the reason to get in now is not just the price, but so that you can have something in your year next year that's already guaranteeing your growth. And for anyone who doesn't know what this program does for people, it is a program that is designed to transform your confidence, transform your sense of happiness within yourself. Your peace. Your ability to manage your emotions.

Your day-to-day ups and downs. It's a program that recognizes the reality that life isn't always good. But we can always adapt if we know how. And that to me is what creates true confidence. Is the ability to adapt how we manage our emotions. How we manage our circumstances, how we manage our circumstances, no matter what happens. It's a program that helps you achieve your goals on the outside, as well as become the person you want to become on the inside in the process.

So that virtual retreat is happening from the 18th to the 20th. Go to mhvirtualretreat.com to go and find out about the special early bird discount that is only happening in November. And put this date in your diary so that you can go and get that growth that you want next year. I also found, Steve, and this is a very quick point, but once you have a thing like this in the calendar, it's not just what it does for you when you do it. It's what it does for your mindset in the lead up to it. Yeah, absolutely. You and I are obsessive course takers as well. Like I do a lot of online courses and things now, and I love booking them in for the next year and knowing, okay, these are the things I'm going to be doing for my personal growth. And I know they're coming up and I get in a state where I'm ready to actually attack that area. I think it makes you knowing you have that date in the diary, it makes you do more now. It makes you achieve things now and

grow now because you want to be, you want to have a head start by the time you get to the program. Absolutely. So it's not just a way of guaranteeing your growth next year. It's a way of getting yourself moving now in anticipation of that event. So go to mhvirtualretreat.com and grab that early bird discount only happening in November. Steve, our main topic of this episode is, are your insecurities jeopardizing a potentially good relationship? Now, this came out of a video that we just released where I talked about people who bring, you know, we want to be with a partner. You were talking about red flags, right? It was all about red flags. Which is a hot topic on the internet right now people are posting all those memes what's a red flag what's a warning sign people are really

looking out for those flags right now and we said you know one of the red flags is when we're in a relationship with somebody or we're seeing somebody who when we bring something up that that is making us unhappy they make us feel ashamed of it or they make us feel ashamed of it, or they make us feel embarrassed for even saying it, or they suddenly make us feel like we're not secure in the relationship because we've now brought this up. And the fear of that is of course, what stops us bringing things up. We get very afraid. If I bring this thing up, am I going to lose my power? And, and as I was watching that video back in the last couple of days, I thought to myself, if I wanted to critique this video, if I was looking to say, well, actually what Matthew Hussey's saying here is quite dangerous. Here's what I'd say. I'd say, yeah, but what about when

you're with someone who keeps bringing this thing up that they're insecure about over and over again? And what they're bringing up isn't valid. What they're bringing up is, you know, for example, rooted in a jealousy that's not rational. And they keep making my life hell over it is it really incumbent on me to continue to placate them to continue to understand or show compassion at a certain point isn't it on them to stop bringing this to me because it's not a fair thing to bring to me right and there are plenty of examples of this. You could have the example of, you know, a guy or a woman getting jealous when their partner

goes out with their friends. And maybe it has nothing to do with whether that person's doing anything wrong. It's just that they have insecurity around that. Or maybe it's to do with our partner working and we get insecure that they're not contacting us enough when they're working or that they're not, you know, our, our, we're not being reassured that they're still thinking about us. We feel like we're with someone who works very hard and we would like to be texting during the day and hearing from them but we're not hearing from them it might be i'm quite a bad during the day texter right now again we fall into this the situation where in a relationship someone could call you out and say i need that more from you and you can say but that's not me so if someone kept bringing that up with you at what point should they change versus you be understanding about it um

so we have lots of different scenarios that this can take place in but i'd love to talk kind of from both points of view when you're with someone who keeps bringing up something that is unreasonable or that you think is unreasonable at what point do you say it's no longer on me to be understanding you keep bringing up the same thing which is unfounded or unfair or to do with your demons not mine i suppose in a way what we're asking is is there a point where too much vulnerability can occur? Is there a point where vulnerability gets worn out? Yeah, I mean, that and that's it's tricky, right?

Because you want to people see the idea of a relationship as I can say what I really feel. And maybe I do feel insecure a lot and that's that's the truth of what I'm feeling right now but you also know every time like you say if your default mode is I feel insecure I feel threatened you know that eventually will push someone away they will be exhausted by that and so is the answer that you look for someone as secure or insecure as you or is it on you to suck it up a bit and say i've gotta figure this shit out because this can't be nice for someone to always hear that i'm feeling threatened or feeling you know they didn't text me for half an hour and i feel abandoned and scared and who's who's the onus on here because like you say the vulnerability thing has been very emphasized and there's probably been good to that where it's been emphasized in the culture more but when does vulnerability become like you are just smothering me with your stuff and i don't i don't

need to deal with that all the time well i think that we have to start from the place of saying what a lot of people call vulnerability is not vulnerability in other words if i said to you steve you don't text enough and you know it's because you're not thinking of me and because you are you know everything else is more important than me and and you know it's really hard to be in a relationship with someone who just isn't communicative that's not vulnerability what i've really done there is made you wrong about a lot of stuff i've judged your level of communication i've made a an assertion a statement that i'm not important to you and everything else in your life is more important to you. Right.

You've interpreted all my actions negatively. And judged you. Exactly. So, and done it from an angry place with a tone. This is not vulnerability. Underneath all of that is vulnerability. But this is not vulnerability vulnerability this is brandishing our weapons this is i brought my weapons out here i brought my weapons to the party

i didn't bring my my wounds to the party i didn't bring my vulnerability because vulnerability would be actually telling you what i was feeling how how I was feeling, not necessarily judging you for your actions, but explaining how I'm feeling and what I'm scared about or what's making me sad. In other words, vulnerability is about us. It's not about judging somebody else. Yeah. But let's that, you know, we have all sorts of programs that can help people with that. But let's just step out for a moment. Let's say someone is bringing it in a vulnerable way. Let's say someone is coming to you and saying this is how it's making me feel and you know

i'm struggling i'm sad i'm upset yeah they're just they're being honest about insecurities yeah let's say they are doing that well there's still potentially a point at which that starts to wear thin in the in the video that we just released, which I would encourage everyone to go and check out. It's on all of our feeds, or you can actually go and watch it on the, the blog on the brand new how to get the guy.com website, which we should say, give that click, give that baby a click. We have a brand new website for you to check out how to get the guy.com. If you put forward slash blog, you'll go and see that video on the, on the brand new blog. But in that video, I call this dumping that there's vulnerability

and there's dumping. Vulnerability become becomes dumping when we restate the same vulnerability over and over and over and over again without actually doing anything about it. So I don't just tell you, I'm not feeling sexy right now. I'm just going through a bit of a phase where I don't feel sexy. It's telling you that five times a day and expecting you to make me feel better every single time I say it. Now I'm not taking responsibility for my feelings. I'm making you responsible for my feelings. I'm saying it's your job to make me feel better every time I feel bad. That's no longer vulnerability. That's abdicating responsibility.

I'm dumping my responsibility for how I feel onto you. And that's what starts to hurt relationships. texts. It's a free guide that gives you nine very specific text messages that you can send to get more attraction with someone you like. It doesn't matter if you met them yesterday or if you've been seeing them for three months, you can send these messages to someone to create more attraction, to create momentum and to move the whole thing forward because none of us want to get stuck texting, do we? But the way to not get stuck texting is to send better messages. Go to 9texts.com to download the guide absolutely free right now. That's 9texts.com. Now back to the episode. look i you you raised an important point should we just find someone who kind of is the same as us in some way like their same level of confidence or lack of confidence

right as us by the way that doesn't that doesn't really save us all that means is we're both going to be complaining to each other about the same things all the time it doesn't save us yeah from having to deal with these issues it just means i'm going to be bringing you a lot of these issues and you're going to be bringing me a lot of these issues and that doesn't cancel each they don't cancel each other out where you go oh well we're both super insecure about this so neither of us suffer no what it means is we're in a situation where both of us you know if it's jealousy for example it just means we're now in a relationship where both of us get really jealous all the time or we're both scared that the other's gonna dump

us exactly so that doesn't that doesn't solve the problem what I believe is not that we have to find someone who is, you know, you have to find out someone who's chilled out in all the ways you're chilled out, you know, find someone with all the same confidence as you. Of course that helps helps being with someone who has lots and lots of issues about lots of different things is is more work than somebody who's figured out a lot already yeah in their own just more comfortable in themselves and exactly but there's always in a relationship going to be things that come up and i i but i'm a big believer in something coming up is important. When something comes up, it, the moment somebody expresses a vulnerability about something they're insecure about, something that's affected them, something that's worrying them, that can actually be a really

beautiful moment, especially early on in a relationship because it builds trust. Cause you, what you're saying is, Hey, I'm making, I'm, I'm sort of, I'm, I'm showing my neck first. You know what I mean? Like I'm showing you that I can, I trust you with these feelings. And when I do that that it's like laying my weapons down i'm inviting you to do the same yeah so that that not only breeds trust it it gives you a license yeah to show your vulnerability and by the way some people have been burnt doing that which is why some people will be listening to this going i've said it before and someone's shown they're really turned off by my insecurity well listen that's why it's called vulnerability it doesn't it's it's not vulnerability if you don't expose yourself in boxing every time you throw you can't throw a punch in boxing without opening yourself up to a

punch this is very important you cannot throw a punch without opening yourself up to because every if you stand there with your guard up all the time then you're protected but then you can't win if you can't win like you're not boxing yeah anytime you throw a punch you expose yourself you're making yourself vulnerable right the same is true in a relationship any time you show a vulnerability you are honest about your feelings you are honest about who you are you're exposing yourself but some people specifically even men might be like i'm not doing that shit because i know what happens if i if i go and expose like something i'm feeling and it gets rejected it that's a turnoff for them I've started a chain of events where they're going to get less attracted

I'm on the back foot why would I even bother exposing myself why would I even bother being honest I think this is a really important subject to talk about with men in general because it it is true men are told to be vulnerable and you know i'm a i'm a big fan of brene brown and her work um but i i think that it's it's it's a there's an extra hurdle for men to overcome in in that work that i am being told that being vulnerable is a good thing, but I also am, I live in a world where sometimes I feel like being vulnerable is, is actually the opposite of what a woman wants. That if I am vulnerable, she's going to find me less manly, less attractive, less in control, less bold, less confident. And, and she's going to suddenly i'm i've devalued myself in relation

to other men who seem infallible yeah and he might be this confident guy in loads of areas but he's like i show chink in the armor right i show a weakness here it's going to get pounced on now the truth is what that means is if someone pounces on your weakness in that way. Again, providing that weakness isn't your go-to every day. That's what we'll come on to. But if you show vulnerability, which is not the same as even, it doesn't necessarily mean showing weakness. It's just being honest about times where you don't feel, you know, as secure or when you're feeling something that has hurt you or when you're feeling sad you're struggling if you show that to someone and they pounce or they leverage that against you then you're not with an emotionally mature person in a relationship you're not with an emotionally mature woman in a

relationship if you do that so you kind of even as a man you have to say that's a that's a big red flag if the first time i show that i'm not you know this perfect superhero of a human being this person can't handle that then i'm with someone who's looking for a kind of man that doesn't exist and that's a reflection on their in their lack of maturity and their lack of evolution because they've not actually understood they they still don't understand men yeah so let that person go and continue to look for someone who doesn't exist this is not someone i want to be in a relationship with but for men and women alike repeating a vulnerability over and over and over again this is what i think is, I suppose, the crux of

what I want to get to with this episode. Repeating a vulnerability over time whilst not taking responsibility for improving it, that to me is what harms a relationship. Initial vulnerability improves the right relationship. Repeated vulnerability over time with no progress, no movement, can damage a good relationship. If you take the example, I don't know,

of someone who who does get jealous but they get jealous over irrational things it's not that you're expecting that that person's going to work that out and then one day they're never going to be jealous again that's unrealistic and in a way you know the right relationship we should be more compassionate and understanding towards our partner we shouldn't expect them to just whatever is the issue they've just worked out completely and it never returns that's not a realistic yeah thing to expect of someone but in a team and a relationship is a team of two people in a team

you want to see your partner trying you want to see movement that this thing that you know you keep getting jealous of this time oh but this time you wanted to get jealous and i saw that i saw that you actually decided to to try a different approach yeah you tried a different approach you didn't bring me that this time i can see you trying and trying might be i'm out with my friends and i know you're the you're you get jealous so i'm gonna shoot you a message in the middle of the night to tell you i'm thinking of you. Or I'm going to, you know, let you know how my night's going because I just know that that will put you at ease.

That's my trying. Your trying is that you don't make me feel like I'm doing something wrong simply for spending time with friends or spending time away from you. Yeah. It doesn't mean you'll never get jealous again but it means i can see you trying that to me builds relationships yeah and what we have to ask ourselves if you're in a relationship with someone who keeps bringing they they're dumping they're no longer being vulnerable they're dumping they keep bringing you the same thing over and over and over again with no progress, you have to start having a different standard for the progress you accept. You have to remind someone that this isn't about them being perfect. Imperfect progress is still progress. But if there's no progress, then we have an issue

because now you're not being a good teammate to me. And if you're the person who's dumping, and if when you're honest with yourself, you say, you know what? I'm no longer being vulnerable. I'm dumping. I keep bringing them the same thing over and over and over again. And with no different approach,

with no evolution, we, it doesn't mean we'll never argue about it, but are the arguments getting a little more sophisticated? Are they an argument where it has the echoes of the old issue, but there's movement? Yeah. If I'm not having a different kind of argument about this, if it's always the same one, then I'm not taking responsibility for that movement. And I am going to eventually harm the relationship.

It is going to, over time, hurt the relationship if I don't improve this. I am, and this is a very important point, ladies and gentlemen out there. When you feel something as a reflex response, our feelings, Steve, I'm a big believer. We don't choose our feelings. When you feel something, if you you if i say something right now and you feel something you didn't choose that feeling did you no you just felt it yeah it was an immediate feeling you had as a result of something i said we don't choose our feelings but we are responsible for what we do with them yeah it's almost like that daniel kahneman thing

of system one brain system two brain system one is the animal reactive thing and in system two is the longer thinking yes and if you say you can none of us are responsible for our reflex feelings but if you abdicate responsibility for them by dumping them on somebody else the whole time, instead of improving your response to those feelings, you're not being a good team player. You're not being a good partner because you're choosing no progress over imperfect progress. And sooner or later, our partner is going to look at the kind of teammate they have and say, I don't know if look at the kind of teammate they have. Yeah. And say, I don't know if this is the kind of teammate that I want in my life.

And good partners are not dumb. They, you know, if it's a good partner you have who is mature, people do tend to judge on the averages of things. That's right. They don't always judge on single isolated incidents. They notice the averages of your behavior which is why you know anne lamott a writer i love she she wrote all truth is paradox in other words for every truth there's a counter truth is it true that being vulnerable should improve the right relationship yes is it also true that if you're just vulnerable in a relationship but without improvement ever

that can harm your relationship yes both things can be true but what we're looking for is to say i want a relationship where i can be vulnerable without thinking that me being vulnerable the wrong way once is going to make them dump me but i also want to make sure that the average of my actions over time paints a picture of someone who's good to be in a relationship with yeah i want to draw a line under that for today because I feel like we, that's an important subject. And I, please, please, please write in. Tell us what you thought of it. Tell us what it meant to you.

Tell us what you learned from it. You can either tell us by audio, you know, by a voice note and put it in an email to podcast at Matthew Hussey dot com. Or you can write it and keep it short 200 words around that mark and let us know what you thought of this episode what it meant to you please leave us a review on itunes it means a lot to us when you leave us a review in fact i'd love to read one of those right now we have a review from lp who says i first found matt through tiktok embarrassing is it embarrassing to find me through tiktok that was their words what was i sandwiched in between a couple of dancers i like how it's an app with like two billion people and people are embarrassed still yeah it's still a bit of a

guilty pleasure tiktok isn't it uh then saw him again on a tv show with divorced women looking for love i think steve she's referring to Wives, which can be watched on Netflix. I was immediately drawn to his insight with the woman that was trying to get men to like her or approval without actually showing her real self. Oh, interestingly relevant to right now. I have this problem and learned a great deal of advice on being vulnerable and proud of me, even if flawed. I searched all avenues of Matt's advice and now going through all podcasts, all I can say is yes. I have needed every piece of this podcast. I'm a happy person and never thought I needed therapy. I'm discovering you can be happy, but enriched by being curious and

learning more and more thank you matt and brother steve i have told all of my friends shared certain episodes with people it's my new love language i absolutely adore what you said there lp that's beautiful thank you and i i like being called brother steve as well like a sort of monastic order brother steven i i love what you said you can be happy and still curious you can be sad and curious you never need an excuse to be curious in life and want to learn more and that's exactly what steven and i are like i have been i have stepped up on my retreat or on podcasts or on videos in moments in my life where i am going through a terrible time and I have stepped up and done what I do in moments where I'm extraordinarily happy. It doesn't make any

difference to me. I'm all about learning in the best moments in my life and in the worst moments and I'm glad that you feel the same way LP. Thank you so much to everyone out there who is listening. Like I said, we'd love a review on iTunes if you get the chance. We do read every single one of them. Don't forget to go and check out that early bird offer for the virtual retreat. The link there is mhvirtualretreat.com. Go check that out. It is only available for this month get in and spend an entire weekend

with myself steven my family and my team virtually from wherever you are in the world i think we had 54 or so countries represented last time so wherever you're coming to uh us from in the world we've probably had someone from your location before and if we haven't well we'd love to add yours to the list we'll see you in the next episode thank you so much steven thank you brother thank you everyone till next time thanks all i see the blog sites got a new wife shorty got a new boo yeah love beautiful