Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 175: How To Get Over Someone You Can't Get Over

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

If you truly feel like you had a once-in-a-lifetime connection, it can feel like you'll never get over a past relationship. Sometimes we can still idealize a relationship from years ago because we feel like we'll never replace that person. And then we get locked in a story: "I can never move on from this because that's the strongest chemistry I'll ever have". In this episode, Matt, Stephen, Audrey and Jameson talk about how to change the story you tell yourself, what it takes to finally move on (and the importance of being sober about the person's flaws), and how to rethink the past so you don't get trapped in it. --- Join our next Virtual Retreat! - Claim Your Limited Time Summer Self-Care Discount ($100 OFF the usual price!) for The Virtual Retreat at MHVirtualRetreat.com. Offer ends August 7th! --- Email us! You can get in touch with the show and give your feedback/thoughts at [e-mail] --- Follow Matt on Insta @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen on Insta @stephenhhussey --- ►► FREE guide to download: “Top 5 Reasons Why Men Disappear” → WhyHesGone.com

The absence of character will produce hell in a relationship, even if it's the greatest chemistry of your life. welcome to the love life podcast with me matthew hussey we've got jameson stephen and audrey the whole gang is here do you want to say it jams the jams the new acronym for james, Audrey, Matthew and Stephen. And I did listen back to some episodes and I don't think the origin actually got recorded. So I don't know who made up germs. Oh, goddamn, I've forgotten now. The legend continues.

So someone... It's probably me. People have been enjoying it though. The people have been addressing us as jams in the emails. Which, by the way, you can send us a podcast at MatthewHussey.com if you want to email us. We've got a couple of emails to read out today, of course. Can I just say jams is better than the previous acronym, which was shh.

Stephen and Matthew Hussey. is better than the previous acronym, which was SH. Stephen and Matthew Hussey. That's actually my initials are SH. You think that was an accident, Steve? Yeah. Speaking of sticky situations, we've had

a bloody heat wave here in London, Matt. And yesterday was the hottest temperature ever recorded in the uk that's mad that i was looking it up what what was it here in we hit 40 i don't do i don't do uh uh centigrade anymore you don't do celsius anymore i'm gonna hang on i'm gonna giggle it what's the steve centigrade celsius what's the celsius why do i get those what's Celsius anymore. I'm going to Google it. Hang on. I'm going to Google it. What's it, Steve? Centigrade, Celsius? What's the... Celsius.

Why do I get those? What's centigrade used for? Why did that come into my head? Centigrade, I think, is just another... Is that another way of saying Celsius? Or is that just a whole different thing that I'm getting mixed up in my head? Stephen's Googling it. I've just Googled it here.

Celsius, also called centigrade scale that's why you're not an idiot it's not an idiot i so i don't do celsius or centigrade anymore i do fahrenheit so what is 104 fahrenheit in england which is really that is weird yeah that is unheard of when we did that tour event in houston matt and it was like an oven outside that that's what it felt like and no one has air conditioning in the uk is pretty much unheard of in the average family. Everyone was just trying to find coffee shops that had air con, which is what I did. That's my idea of hell,

is trying to sleep at night in 104 degrees without air conditioning. Well, that's because you like to sleep in a fridge. You literally love the house being like 15 degrees centigrade if it's cold in the room you can get warm you can throw covers on you if it's hot what can you do about that scientifically they say you get better sleep when it's a like a bit cold 69 they say 65 i think i even heard is that right yeah in the room, and then obviously your body temperature. This is propaganda. Am I right?

Whoa. Good stuff. But you know that you can't get to sleep if your feet are cold? As in it's actually impossible to get to sleep if your feet are cold. I don't think that's true. It is true. Like impossible to get to sleep. Yeah. Like you're on an operating table and the drugs won't work because your feet are a little bit cold.

Okay, if you get drugged, you can probably get to sleep. But if you are trying to sleep in a natural way, it's not possible if your feet are cold. Also true for marriage. Sometimes it's nice having little cold feet. Little cold feet joke no one nothing and matt you were worried about the banter going into this one yeah oh you're welcome everybody this is a great stuff oh by the way i also learned this week uh because someone did an article about it they said please stop saying never say again that hot drinks cool you down apparently it's a total myth is that

is that true it's like an old wives tale and and apparently they said there's no science to support that support that what about hot what about spicy food because that's what they're eating in szechuan in china and you apparently that's because of the heat cools you down i don't think they eat szechuan spice as some special cooling agent. I think it just adds flavor to the food. Why would you eat something that makes you sweat profusely in one of the hottest parts of the world? Well, because as you and I know, Matt, who have enjoyed many a good Szechuan spice, it sort of makes you go a bit lightheaded and hallucinate.

And it's sort of this strange... And that distracts you from the heat. It's just sort of this and that distracts you from the heat it's just sort of strange delightful feeling of pain fair enough welcome everyone well we're going to be talking today uh about how to get over someone that you're really struggling to get over which i think is going to be really important for a lot of people whether it's someone that you just broke up with or it's someone that it's been years and you're really struggling still to move on from them mentally. We're also going to be talking about rejection and how to overcome our fear of rejection, which of course, if we have a really debilitating fear of rejection, can be a massive obstacle in our dating lives and can stop us creating opportunities. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. Before we go anywhere with this,

I want to make sure everyone goes over to moveonstrong.com where we have a video training that shows you practically how to get over someone, which is an incredible pairing with this episode. Listen to the episode, but go over to moveonstrong.com and download that free video training. Did I mention it's free, Audrey? Yeah, you did. You did. Every time you say move on strong, I always think jameson saying it in his american accent how do you say it james move on strong yeah exactly move on strong.com

move on strong.com see i don't actually even know what's funny about it. MoveOnStrong.com. I just think it's funny watching Audrey laugh about it. Oh, God. Why did that get you so much? I don't know why. Every time you say it, every time you say MoveOnStrong, and there's another one which is on the same topic, which is WhyHe'sGone.com.

I always just hear it in your voice. Whyhe'sgone.com. Because I try to rhyme it. I M&M it, you know, how you just take stuff that doesn't rhyme. It'll rhyme like orange and garbage. On and calm. There you go. Moveonstrong.com.

Finding all these links between you and M&em. Well, what was the guide again? I've forgotten it now. MoveOnStrong.com. Go over there for a free video training on how to move on from somebody. It's really good. And it's a great accompaniment to this episode. Now we have an email review from Rachel today who says, my name is Rachel. And remember, of course, Rachel did email into podcast at matthewhussey.com. So if you have questions, anecdotes, you just want to sort of say what you think of one of us, send it over to podcast at matthewhussey.com. But make it nice. No, it doesn't have to be nice. Well, I'm going to read one at the end from someone who disagreed with us on something. Make it compelling. Very good. Now, this one's from Rachel. She says, my name is Rachel and I'm a big fan of y'all's podcast.

I've been following the YouTube channel for years and get so much from the content and authenticity. Thanks for doing what y'all do. I had a question for the podcast and wanted to know your thoughts. I'm currently a college student in Texas and for the past few years I have found myself stuck on the idea of the one. I enjoy dating and meeting new people but even if I like them a lot, I always find myself wondering if there is someone out in the world perfect for me and waiting. I know that this soulmate-esque concept isn't very realistic or pragmatic, but it sticks with me anyway. And I feel that it sometimes keeps me from being vulnerable and forming connections with people I could be happy with. I don't want to have a mindset that prevents opportunities and chances in my life. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Well, this is interesting, isn't it? Because I, you know, I was thinking this earlier today. I

was thinking there is a difference between, to me at least, it feels like there's a linguistic difference between the one and soulmate because the one it says one there's just one person out there soulmate to me seems to be someone you have found with whom you have a deeper connection than anyone that you've experienced before and there isn't it doesn't have to have this feeling of there's only one soulmate but when you find your soulmate it's someone who you connect with on the most extraordinary level and you don't want to let go for that reason because it feels like it transcends mere connection and attraction it feels like you're with someone who truly gets you truly sees you and to an extent understands how to manage you you know they

say about soulmates as well that you can have multiple soulmates in your life and during your life because obviously you can have soulmates in the form of friendships as well as relationships and soulmates i read once are kind of more people that enter your life and you connect with on that deeper level you're talking about but they kind of shape your life and change the direction and the course of it through that connection sometimes that connection lasts a lifetime sometimes it lasts a short period but soulmates can be sort of just multiple people throughout your life i like that which i yeah. I think it lowers the stakes a bit, Rachel. I think the problem is when you're college age, there is this sort of feeling of,

well, I definitely don't want to cash in my chips now because I just don't know yet if there might be something better. And of course, you might be right at 20 years old or 21. You know, there will almost certainly be people of a kind you haven't experienced yet you will of course learn about your likes and dislikes over time in relationships and that will help to shape what you value and it might be that in order to have a true sense of what you want you have to shop around a little bit. I mean, Jameson, what is that? What's that house buying calculation? I think you said it to me at one point, when you're buying a house, there's an optimal level of houses that you should look at. Well, it wasn't just houses.

I think I was referencing this algorithm, which was trying to find the optimal stopping problem. The optimal stopping problem. I think it's called the optimal stopping problem. And it's actually quite difficult mathematically to prove it. And yet they did. And it was some, you know, the real simple answer is like about a third. You take about the full spectrum of time you're going to be willing willing to spend shopping after about a third just pick the next best one because after that

you're always going to have like sort of regrets or whatever big lesson is there is that you can shop too much you know but it's that i mean i'm sure this is incredibly naive interpretation of the optimal stopping problem or whatever it's called but the it's almost like you you gotta get your feet wet enough to know what's out there but then there is a point past which you get diminishing returns and ultimately just more confused. Yeah. So I, I, I sort of think your age, Rachel is the age where you're getting your feet wet and you're trying to sort of see what's out there and what kind of people are out there.

And I don't think you're wrong for saying, I don't want to settle for something that I don't feel certain about, or that I don't feel a sense of certainty about. And right now you don't feel a sense of certainty and that's okay. The problem, hopefully as we get older, it's not necessarily the case that we get so lucky in who we meet when we get older although of course i i i do think that as you get older the guys that you meet their maturity level the commitment they're capable of their level of evolution as human beings and their character will be much more desirable than you encounter amongst 20 year old guys. But fundamentally, I think what becomes the case as we start to get wiser is that we get more certain about what matters and about what's important.

And I think that right now, part of your uncertainty is a reflection of not having fully defined what's important to you yet. And that's perfectly natural at your stage of life that you wouldn't have figured that out. That is something that you learn through experience, through experiencing some of the wrong things, through being some of the wrong things, and ultimately getting a really clear sense of this is what matters. And when I find someone who has these things, plus I have chemistry with them, that's going to be worth giving a real shot. And that's a point I will add on that, Matt, is your criteria shouldn't be perfection at this stage.

It should just be excitement. It's like if you were trying to, you can't figure out in abstraction when you're 20 your ideal career. You actually have to commit to a something at some point and get your and actually try it and say oh I'm gonna actually commit to this job now and really get involved and see if it is right for me the criteria isn't I can only go for that job when it's perfect it's would this be exciting and I think getting relationships, even if you're 2021, the criteria should just be, is this something I'm, is this a person I'm excited about right now? And just one more thing to, to tie this off is to go back to the soulmate point you were making,

Matt, just that, just the words like soul and mate, to me, the mate part is really, it relieves all the pressure because it's not like you think of your best mate or whatever. I guess if I was English, that's what I would say. But you don't just find your best mate ready made. You kind of like build that a little bit, a lot of it. You have experiences together and they become your best mate. I think it's got to be the same for soulmate. I love that. I think that's so true. And I would add just as a caveat to Steve's point that excitement, yes, just make sure that what you're excited about doesn't come with a terrible set of behaviors. Um, so you can be excited about different kinds of people and give them a go and not be sure whether it's going to

lead anywhere. Um, but obviously excitement isn't an excuse to be with someone who treats you poorly or without respect. All right, very good. Well, you can email us podcast at matthewhussey.com. Make sure you do email us if you listen. We love reading your emails and we're getting more of them these days because the listenership is increasing, which is really exciting. More and more people are finding out about the podcast. Spread your jams. Did you say spread your jams? Spread your jams around. Kiss your mother with that mouth and don't forget by the way everybody that over at the website howtogettheguy.com there is a tool on the home page that takes your love life problem and provides you with the best solution to it all you need to do is tell it your biggest challenge so go to the home page howtogettheguy.com it'll

give you a little box to put your name and it'll say start here, click start here. And then all you need to do is select from a list of issues or challenges and pick the one that most suits what you're going through. And it will recommend you the best one of my solutions for what you're going through. It's a really neat little tool and a lot of people have been using it. So go over to howtogettheguide.com to enjoy that. Okay, so we got this email in, guys. We were discussing the other day, Audrey,

weren't we, that there really isn't a good equivalent for when there are females present when it comes to using the word guys. Rachel cracked it from the last email review. She said y'all like 15 times. You can't use y'all from London. I think we all have to embrace it.

If you're from Texas, though, that is perfect. You've solved the problem if you're from Texas. You can just use y'all. But anywhere else... Ironic that Texas is the most progressive language texas has solved the great linguistical gender problem no there's no there's no equivalent is there no it's kind of annoying i mean i actually don't find guys to be i don't mind so much when i'm being referred to as guys as part of a group, but I,

it's, yeah, I don't know. And ladies just sounds a bit sleazy. Like hello ladies. Yeah. You know, you're really good at that. You know, like the way, if you say guys to a group of men, that's fine. But ladies just sounds, I don't know. Yeah. It it's really tricky I take pleasure in watching you addressing a room full of women and still needing to use guys because you haven't found a better alternative that makes me feel better about the fact that in all these years I still haven't been able to find one tell me about topic one one. Hi Matthew and the gang. I recently listened to your podcast from April this year titled How to Get Over the One Who Got Away and it made me

realize I could use your help. Two years ago I met someone. He came into my life out of nowhere and it was easy. It wasn't obsessive. It wasn't addictive. It was just easy and good. Our connection and chemistry was everything I ever wanted. A few weeks later, he ghosted me. We eventually had a conversation. He wasn't ready for a relationship. We stayed friends. A few months later, we tried again after being friends for six months. It obviously didn't work again. I didn't trust him enough and it was hard. We stayed in touch and continued to see each other, often taking things very, very slow. And suddenly I discovered he had a girlfriend. It's been a year now. I have traveled

a lot and went on a solo trip to Bali. I have dated, but nothing compares. He once told me he saw himself marrying me, but he wasn't ready for anything like that. He wasn't ready to be the man I needed. We see each other around, around but we never speak and it feels as if the connection and chemistry is still there and others point it out how do I get over him how do I make myself see that he is not the person for me please help I don't want to waste another year. I think this is such a relatable email. Tell us why. You know, it wasn't the great love story of, you know, a five-year-long relationship where you got a dog together and had a house.

I just mean that it was, a lot of the time, they're very short-lived. And a lot of the time, you don't know why it just felt so good and so right that it just ends up getting being the thing that sticks under your skin. I also think when someone says it was easy, you know, there's that feeling of I never normally click like this with somebody. It just felt so natural is another word people use felt really natural. It just was it just felt right when we were together you know this is the kind of thing people describe a kind of fluidity an organic nature to how it feels to be with this person it doesn't feel forced it doesn't feel strange it doesn't feel awkward it feels so natural when we have that special chemistry it's really easy to build a story

and it becomes it becomes extremely hard to let that go even like people have that years after where they go but with them the way it felt when we were together when we were intimate when we went on trips like the way it felt with them it was just so much more than anyone since it becomes a memory played over and over and over again and it's so it becomes a bit of a time warp you you get you get lodged in a certain moment in your life, in a certain moment in time. And, you know, by definition, it can never be that again. Like it was that thing, that moment in time and we should qualify it obviously to begin with by saying that connection or no connection chemistry or no chemistry if someone didn't commit to us then they couldn't make good on the promise of being everything we ever wanted. It wasn't.

The connection and chemistry, she says, is everything she ever wanted. But then goes on to say a few weeks later, he ghosted me. Which, by the way, isn't everything you ever wanted. Nor is this person not committing, nor is this person finding a girlfriend. I don't know how long that was going on for in the time you were speaking, but none of these things are things that are everything you ever wanted, nor is you going away to Bali and doing all of these things and giving it space and giving it time and him not coming back to you and saying, I've made a giant mistake, which he's not doing. That's not everything you ever wanted either. So I think the starting point is realizing that

this actually is a far, far cry from everything you ever wanted. It stopped well short of that. Now, that doesn't stop that. What's the Spanish? Is it no Portuguese word? Saudade? Steve knows it. We talked about that word in another podcast.

Saudade, yeah. Can you explain Saldade to us, Steve? You brought it up, Matt. I think it's some kind of feeling of wistful nostalgia, isn't it, for the past? Yeah, it's described as a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament. But it's a word that, to my knowledge, doesn't exist in quite the same way in other languages. But it's a very descriptive word in that sense.

It captures something. And I don't think that what I't think that the what i'm saying is somewhat logical right that you they didn't commit to you they didn't give you what you wanted so they by definition aren't everything you ever wanted but the logic of that doesn't eliminate the saudade that we may feel that wistful melancholy of what once was that didn't turn into something more and and that can linger but the danger of course is thinking that that is an indication of how important something is. Instead of just seeing it as one of many, many experiences in our lives that may bring up that kind of a feeling, you may have that feeling about a time in your life where you were more physically able

than you are now you know i you may have a moment of melancholy for a time where you were healthier than you are now or when you had a certain fun moment in your life with friends and life doesn't feel quite as carefree anymore or you don't get to see those friends in that way anymore. We're capable of that kind of melancholy about many things in our life. So I think that part of it is putting it on a level with lots of other things in your life that you may have a sense of melancholy for, that isn't really a wish for your life to go back there, but more just a moment, a moment of nostalgia for something, rather than this nostalgia that I'm feeling means that I've really lost something important. That to me is the non sequitur,

the idea that this relationship must be important because I still have feelings for it. And if you lose the sense that the relationship is important, which it wasn't because he didn't commit. So it was only important for the experience it gave you at the time. It was not important in the context of your life as a, your future. It certainly wasn't that. It wasn't that because it didn't become that. So it was only important in what it gave you in the present. It was not important to your future. Once you lose lose that so much of the sting of that melancholy is removed it just you're allowed to just feel it as a sense of melancholy instead of a tremendous sense of loss for a future that that was supposed to happen but didn't I love that yeah and I think it's even okay to have those old memories that are

beautiful and painful at the same time it's it's not allowing them to become this this thing that like smothers everything else now that's the danger and also matt the interesting thing about this is that i find so fascinating is the thing that she talked about about him loads of things sounded really wrong from the get-go there in terms of his behavior his ghosting not really being involved in it not saying he wanted marriage all these things she wanted why is it that we somehow put chemistry on such a huge emotional pedestal but behavior we just sweep under the rug what do you think that is about i think that our tendency is to um overvalue chemistry and undervalue character in a relationship chemistry is i believe necessary for a romantic relationship

but character is going to be the foundation of a long-term relationship. What is someone's code of ethics? Their code for living? What do they, what rules do they live by in their lives? And it's very easy to overrate chemistry because chemistry produces spikes of emotion. It produces, you know, it has a drug-inducing effect on us. And so it feels, it's the, you know, it's like the orgasm of courtship is chemistry. But that you can't live in that state and expect that that's going to nourish you

because it won't nourish you any more than heroin nourishes a drug addict. It's a heightened state. The reason I say we overvalue it is because we look back on situations and we go, that situation with that person produced this unbelievably intense feeling, and that must mean it's important. But if you applied that to heroin, it would be a disaster if you said uh you know ecstasy or heroin produced such an exquisite feeling when i did it it must mean that this is a really important thing in my life

that i should do every day we would look at that and say, that's obviously a terrible conclusion to come to. And yet in relationships, we give them a special pass. We say, no, that makes sense that if it felt that, if the high was that high, it makes sense that this should be a constant in your life. And it is a non sequitur. Chemistry may be important for a relationship. I wouldn't advise a relationship that has an absence of, a total absence of chemistry. How much chemistry we need, whether it needs to be the greatest chemistry we've ever had or not is a different question. But the absence of chemistry is obviously a bad thing for a relationship. But the absence of character will produce hell in a relationship, but a massive glossing over of the importance of character. I mean, none of the things that reveal weakness in character, whether it's his

indecisiveness, whether it's his inability to stop seeing her, even though he's aware that he's not giving her what she wants, it takes a certain kind of selfishness. Once you realize you're not giving someone what they've clearly said they want, you still keep leading them on. That's selfish. That's a weakness in character. The having a girlfriend part, they're still seeing her and staying in touch and doing that

once she's tried to go away and move on and not doing the right thing, which is to break contact. All of these things suggest weaknesses of character, but she's not listed any of them as though they were weaknesses in character. She's added no detail, no emotion to those things, but massive emotion to all of the things that are right. And what you begin to see in that, the way she's written the email is indicative of the way she's writing the story in her brain. And if you write a story like that with that level of spin, then it's going to produce a certain conclusion. And the conclusion is that this person was something very, very special and that I'm going to always struggle to get over them because of how special they were. One of the great ways

to burst that bubble is to just get real about the ways that they're not perfect. I mean, he has been put on a pedestal above way too many other people and understanding how imperfect someone is, it's not a way to denigrate them. It's a way to level the playing field between them and everybody else. The other thing I feel when I read this is, you know, the real fear here is that she won't find it again.

But I do, I feel like if someone said to her oh in two years time you meet the love of your life and you're happier than you'll ever be none of this anxiety would be present she would probably get over him within that that moment just in that instant but it's the unknown of what if i never do meet someone i feel that way about that's the thing that keeps us trapped here's here's what I want you to do Louise as a just a small exercise firstly actually recall what wasn't good about this person and connect to it the same way you connect to the good in what ways has this situation made you miserable in what ways has this person acted selfishly in either not letting you go or reaching out even though they know that you're hurting or not being caring or thoughtful, the ghosting. In what ways did this person actually make you sad, mad, or miserable?

And I want you to notice in other people that you meet, qualities they have that he didn't. I'm not saying, I don't, what I don't want you to do is the moment you meet somebody else or go on a date or whatever, and you don't feel chemistry, I don't want you to be comparing the chemistry. But what I do want you to do is notice when someone shows a character trait that makes you go, oh, wow, there's an empathy or a kindness or a generosity or a conscientiousness or a selflessness about this person that he didn't have. And I want you to really tune into that. That doesn't mean that the person in front of you is the right person and you should go for them even though you don't feel chemistry.

What it means is you're starting to see that there are other people in the world that actually have extremely important qualities, qualities that, forget the two years that you've known this guy, over 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, are going to be the cornerstone of the relationship. They're going to be the thing that makes it last. And then say to yourself, what I need is someone with these wonderful qualities and someone with whom I feel chemistry. Someone with whom I feel that connection.

The person you may be on a date with that you don't feel chemistry with, who has these wonderful qualities, isn't right for you. But nor is he right for you by having the chemistry but not those qualities your person is still out there but any time you meet someone who has the stuff he lacked remind yourself, he lacked really important things. The person I'm supposed to be with is going to have those things. And I actually think when you're stuck on the loop, you forget how insignificant somebody like that will be later on. When you do meet someone who you actually connect with, who treats you right, who makes you feel good and seen seen and accepted the people who made you feel anything less than that just slip away in terms

of relevance because you suddenly go how could I even waste my energy caring about someone who made me feel so shit I want you to email us when that time comes when this person no longer seems significant in the way they do now, I want you to email us again and let us know. I also want to say that when you say you see him out, it's time wherever humanly possible to stop doing that, to stop going to the places that he goes to, to stop hanging around with mutual friends of the two of you or however it is you're bumping into him or seeing him on social media anything that ignites yeah block him on social media remove him there's no need for you to have this person in your life in any way

and it will absolutely categorically be easier if you do that. Because by the way, he's getting, he knows what he's doing. I suspect this guy knows kind of what he's doing and how easy it is for him to just remain a character. To help you build that story a little bit. You see him. He's able to have like a moment of flirtation. He's able to get that validation really quickly. He knows that he's living in the

story of your mind rent free right now so i mean or or not but either way i would just take matt's advice and cut it off as much as possible i love that truth bomb from jameson doesn't that make you resent him as well is that that just me? I don't want to make him like a terrible guy. Maybe he's not, but even might feel innocuous on his part. Maybe he's just looking for just a little moment. Maybe he really has a genuine connection with her. But I do think that it's a tendency of people to do that. Now, Audrey, early on in our relationship,

you got a bit annoyed with the kind of texting I was doing towards you. The kind of messages you were receiving from me that weren't showing a lot of promise. Would you say that's accurate? I would say that's accurate. Yeah, just texting for attention. Right. You felt that I was texting you for attention and with no intention. Yeah, correct.

Correct. Where are you, what are you getting at? Well, you at the time made it known that it was not okay. And that at the time was annoying to me. That it wasn't just, my life wasn't just being made easy by you. And somehow I ended up engaged. She's a master.

She's done you there. I don't know what happened in between, but somewhere between being called out and me feeling like, who the hell is this woman? And today I proposed. A lot of people out there are tired of casual texting from someone who gives them attention, tries to get even more attention, but doesn't actually have any intentions of taking it anywhere. And the key question is, can you turn it around when you're in a situation like that?

Well, Jameson, as you know, we have a really great text that people can use to make a casual situation go somewhere. And people can go and get this text for free. It's not in one of our programs. It's a fun little freebie that people can go and download at whattotextnext.com. So if you go over to whattotextnext.com, you will find out what Audrey texted me. I was going to say, you'll probably find copy and pasted messages that I sent. She's not entirely joking because there are actually text messages

that I have used for other you know to teach that you sent me at one stage or another that I just thought I remember being both annoyed and also thinking that's brilliant violation of her privacy I didn't put or I didn't sign off Audrey when I gave the texts to people. Claimed them as his own. Exactly. I straight plagiarized them. Well, it's not like Audrey was, it's not like that's what she was doing for a job.

Do you know what I mean? He's got an answer for everything, isn't he? That's just writing. That's just good writing, isn't it, Jameson? You write what you see, you write what you know. For legal purposes, I'm not going to comment. I wish you could all see the video right now. Jameson's looking very skeptically at Matthew.

Matthew's getting all hot and bothered. Well, okay, well, I've given you the credit here. So go over to whattotextnext.com and see what that message is. All right, now before we wrap it up here, we said that we would do a little bit on rejection. And I thought I would read a quick question here and then give people just a quick hack on overcoming their fear of rejection. This one is from Hina. She says, how do I get over the need for men to like me? The ones I like, I mean. I went on a few dates with a guy and now I'm obsessing over whether

he actually likes me. Any hint of dislike makes me anxious. There's also a question from R who says, how do you deal with meh rejection? It's not that people dislike you, but they're not that enthusiastic about you either. You're meh. I have a really quick answer here. I remember when I was dating, if this would ever happen, maybe it's just delusion, but I'd always, instead of framing it like, oh, they just didn't like me, I'd just I just frame it as like oh they just didn't see me like they they didn't really fully see me at that point and that is a confident man right there as a confident and secure person this is why you

have a secure attachment style Jameson us us anxious and avoidant types we can't handle it well I'm glad you said that Jameson because it because it leads perfectly onto what I was going to say, which is that our goal should not be in love, to be liked by everyone. And by the way, if you are liked by everybody, you're doing something wrong or even more insidious. You're chameleonizing yourself intentionally to whoever you're around in order to create a performance that that person will like, which is obviously something narcissists do very well. You know, they're very good at their opening act. And we may find ourselves all in unison thinking this person is incredible uh because we don't know more we haven't seen

their edge yet we haven't seen what's under the surface we're just seeing the performance so if someone if everyone is liking you then you're not being anything. You're certainly not being you. That doesn't mean that a bunch of people have to hate you. But it means that you cannot be everyone's cup of tea. And so whether someone thinks you're just meh, or whether someone decides that you're not for them altogether. What we want to do is tell ourselves, my intention is not to get everyone to like me. Because that is, I think, the most romantic thing you can find. You find someone who truly understands you and sees you and accepts you. Why is it that in Avatar, there's something that sticks with us about that idea the thing they say to each other i see you there's there's that feeling of what could be what could be better than

being seen than truly being seen that's when we don't feel alone in the world anymore is when we feel seen well anyone who doesn't want you has has either not fully seen you or they've not seen and accepted you and decided that that's for them. And by definition, the person we want is the person who sees us for who we are and says, yes, I am in. And we get to give them that same gift. So one of the antidotes, and there are many, there are many different hacks for overcoming rejection. We could spend a much longer podcast on this, but for now, I just want everyone to take away from this particular episode that one of the great ways to overcome fear of rejection is to tap into your intentions. My intentions are not to get everyone to like me. And I should say it's more than tapping into our

intentions. It's making sure that our intentions are oriented in the right direction. My intention is not to get everyone to like me. My intention is to find someone who thinks I am awesome, who sees me, truly sees me, and who wants what they see. That means following your highest intentions for finding love, not your ego. Because your ego will be the thing that flares up if someone doesn't want you, if someone doesn't like you you if someone thinks you're meh that's ego don't follow your ego follow your intentions about the kind of love that you want to create in your life everything else is irrelevant and i promise you when you meet the right person everyone who ever felt you were meh will be a distant memory.

They won't matter to you one iota. They only feel important in the present. They will not be important to your future. I say get on board the boat or i'm sailing away baby the thing is matt in some ways my ego also protects me because part of me does have this thing you have this dichotomy in you at least a lot of us do and one part is like oh god like um loser what what was that about why did they say no why did they get rejected but this other half says i'm the shit like i am special and i am amazing and i deserve all this

stuff because i'm great. And I don't, some other people might not relate to that, but I have that inner voice to me that's like, I'm the shit. Like, I'm awesome. And that is, there is a kind of like outsized ego inside of me that does kind of protect me, that is my friend. Well, the danger, it could be argued with that steven is that the the side of you that fears rejection and the side of you that thinks you're the shit hold hands and if too many people reject you

and that threatens your idea that you're the shit, then we start to really fear rejection and stop taking risks because we don't want to lose the identity we've created for ourselves. And you see this a lot in people that have decided that they're really attractive. There's a lot of people who, a lot of the time, when you imagine someone who's kind of a bit, you know, they're very, they have a bit of abandon. They have a carefree nature in running over and talking to people.

They're not necessarily the people that identify with being the most attractive person in the room. Usually, the person who is identified with being the most attractive person in the room is not taking risks. Because they cannot threaten the identity they've created for themselves in other words i would more easily run around and talk to people and risk rejection if i don't have that identity for myself because what am i losing right if i've decided i am so hot that everyone wants me i cannot risk that identity by approaching someone and risking rejection. And that is why so many people who think of themselves as uber attractive hang back and look indifferent and look uninterested.

It's because they cannot dare risk the identity they've built up for themselves. Right. Or they're the ones who'll get scared of telling a friend that they got rejected by someone on tinder or something because it will hurt their identity they won't even be the one to reach out first on tinder because they can't they can't it's all about denying people who come to them it's not about going out there and taking risks because you can't afford to if your identity is a glass house that is about my how attractive i am to everybody that is not an identity that can uh withstand attacks uh from rejection so that so i get what you're saying steve and i have the same thing and there's a little bit of pride that's

healthy where it's like i don't have to tolerate this i'm great that that there's a level of that that's healthy but it's we have to be really careful because if we root our confidence in that then it's it if when if we get rejected too many times it starts to rock our identity and then we don't know who we are anymore. And because we don't want to risk that, we stop taking risks because of that pride. We have an email here from Madeline whose subject line is sleeping in separate beds on vacay analogy. Now, this was in reference to the dilemma posed on a previous episode. If you rock up to a hotel and they say, we can either give you a bed together or we can give you two separate beds, but with an amazing view, which do you take? And we sort of unanimously fell on the side of,

take the one where you can stay in the same bed or take the view, but just can stay in the same bed or take the view, but just sleep together in the same bed. Madeline had a couple of things to say about that. She said, I thought this was very interesting that most of the team was inferring it was negative to choose the hotel room with the amazing room and separate beds because it converted to a lack of intimacy. Number one, you can still be intimate on one bed, then move over to the other bed later and enjoy a spectacular view over some sexy champers. That's champagne. I don't know if they say champers in America. Do they, Jameson? We're going to now because it's fantastic.

English for champagne. Champers at night or romantic room service in the morning. I actually think that's a fair point. I'm on board with that. She's not denying the intimacy. She's just saying, have it and then, you know, toddle off to your own beds. I'm not sure how unanimous we were. I think we were trying to make it work. We were quite room. But she says, number two, not everyone sleeps comfortably next to each other all night long. For example, temperature issues, snoring issues, restless leg syndrome. I have probably all three of those at different times. You don't have restless leg syndrome. I do get restless leg syndrome.

Really? Yeah. I just suffer in silence. Just don't tell you about it um not sleeping in the same bed does not equal a lack of intimacy not showing affection and intimacy during the waking hours is far more important as is not having sleep deprivation just to suit the current domestic domestic fashions signed great sleep lover um well i i i think you i think it's been a slightly ungenerous interpretation of what we were saying madeline but i also don't really disagree for a little bit more context this was about attachment styles we were talking about and i

think what we were coming to terms with was if one partner was particularly anxious, how do you navigate that situation? Because what would be inferred is that the anxious person would arrive to that hotel and they would not want to get the nice room. They would want to make sure we're going to sleep in the same bed, right? So I think really what this comes to is just communicating with that partner like what can we do to make sure you know that this doesn't mean there's a lack of intimacy but i want to enjoy the nice room like can you navigate that i actually think the idea of sleeping in separate beds just for one night is fine yeah i agree with that that's

why i sort of read madeline's email and I went, yeah, fine. Yeah, it's fine. Like, you know, not every night, but it's... What a resounding review of Madeline's email. No, I agree. Madeline, great email. Thank you. We appreciate you.

Please write in. Let us know what you're thinking. Podcast at MatthewHussey.com. And for the love of God, will someone give us an iTunes review? No, I'm saying this, Audrey, because our listenership's going up significantly every week. Stephen, am I right? Yes, Matthew.

It's going up every week. The numbers support it. The numbers are in. Right. But we haven't had a review on itunes since the 10th of july what's the date today well we won't say that because it might not come out on that exact day so you know that's you know breaking the is that breaking the fourth wall jameson late in july it's doing something doing something the suspension of disbelief right but we the point is

it's coming up to the end of july and and what it's been at least 10 days it's been at least 10 days i won't say what date it is but it's been at least 10 days since we got a review guys everyone y'all help us she's getting really really upset well i enjoy reading them audrey i know i know you do i know you do so please could you nice sometimes i get up in the morning and i just check i just check to see if if people are listening the numbers the data says they are but where are they come to itunes leave us a review please please do it because matthew's anxiously attached to these reviews i'm angrily attached jameson that's a new one i think i've never seen you have an angry attachment style about anything uh it would clearly mean a lot to Matthew if you left a review. So yeah, do it for,

do it for all of us right now. And now, um, before everyone goes, Hey, I just want to let you know, coming up in the love life club, if you're not a member, well, let me tell you, you're about to miss out on an extraordinary month in the love life membership. Jamison, do you know what we've got coming up? I think I do, but I'll let you announce it. Well, on the 3rd of August, we have a masterclass screening of attraction CPR that is going to help people go from a situation where someone has gone a bit cold to a situation where that person is in again. How to revive attraction. That's on August the 3rd. On August the 10th, we have Stephen doing a Love Life Q&A.

Hello. Answering member questions. On August the 18th, we've got me and Judge Faith Jenkins. If you don't know Judge Faith Jenkins, she's great. And I'm going to be talking to her for a whole hour probably an hour and a half maybe even two that's on august the 17th and then on august the 31st we have another love life q a with me this is a place where you can actually get your questions answered where you can join us where you can be coached by me where you're part of our inner tribe the podcast is our tribe right still still a tribe of if you could see me right now i'm doing a sort of tribe hugging motion imagining the sort of scooping up all my little ducklings

right but but the love life club is like in a in a tribe that's like the nest and now he's making now i'm making a sort of nest a gesture with my hands come join join us there because it gets much more intimate. We're coaching people. We're putting people on a path to finding love, becoming the most confident version of themselves and just loving their life because that's what we're here to do. Show you how to find the love you want and love the life you have. All you need to do to become a member for a free two-week trial is go to askmh.com. A-S-K-M-H.com. That's my initials, Matthew Hussey, askmh.com. You can go there. You can join for a free trial for two whole weeks. Do a whole bunch of learning in the membership and then decide if you want it. That's a good deal life

would be better in life if everything was like that wasn't it wouldn't it just try it for two weeks see how you feel and then decide join us askmh.com and we will see you in the next episode of love life thank you so much for listening we love you all and i can't wait to read your itune review oh god there's gonna i can't wait. I'll tell you this, there's going to be an avalanche. I can't wait to read them. I'm going to spend all night reading them after this episode. I cannot wait. Bye, everyone.

Bye. Bye. you