Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 183: Is He Losing Interest Or Is He Just Comfortable?

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

How do you know if a guy has stopped trying, or if your anxious attachment-type fears are making you panic for no reason? In today's episode, Matt, Stephen, Jameson and Audrey talk about what to do when someone you're dating changes their level of affection and gives mixed signals, but says they want to be with you. If you tend to overthink and find yourself worrying your partner might have changed their view on the relationship, make sure to listen to this one! --- My 30-Day Confidence Challenge is back by popular demand! There's still time to claim your place on this FREE training taking place September 27th. Simply visit MHChallenge.com to sign up. --- 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

🎵 I got a haircut. He's got a haircut. It's a good podcast. Start with the visual. Audrey, can you describe his hair and the length just for the listeners? I wasn't asking everyone to look at my hair. I know that would be impossible, Jameson. I'm just, you know, Audrey knows.

I feel good after a haircut. I feel clean. I love that we're part of your stream of consciousness and the whole audience is just along for the ride. I really like things simple in my life. I like, if my hair is in any way difficult to do then i'm i feel like it's too much effort so the moment i've got my hair cut and it's just easy to dry it i put a little bit of wax in there and it's done that's that's my sweet spot i'm a bit i'm kind of the same way with

clothes right now to a fault i think i think i need to start thinking a little more about just adding you know like trying to put a bit more effort in but i just i really if i had it my way i'd be like a cartoon character who had the same outfit in every episode and uh it was just a row of 50 white t-shirts and 50 pairs of comfy trousers and that's that's me done for the day and 50 pairs of air force ones or nike airs audrey would you like more flair and matt style would that be interesting to you i'd like him to wear flair so i think that'd be fun you would you love all that 80s nonsense it's the 70s actually that i like a full leisure suit a flair's 70s 70s more than 80s, aren't they? Yeah. I love the 70s. I love the fashion sense. Do you love disco era?

I do. Yeah. You and I differ. We part ways there. Sorry, what do you mean by flare? You mean like bell-bottoms? What is flare? Do they call them something different here in America? Bell-bottoms. Do you know what bell-bottoms are? Yeah, like bell-bottoms, yeah. Bell-bottoms, like Saturday

Night Fever. Yeah, you know like You want me? Yeah, like bell bottoms, yeah. Bell bottoms, like Saturday Night Fever. Yeah, you know, like when it just- You want me to look more like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever? Is that what we're getting from this? Everything is about Danny Zuko and John Travolta with you two and Audrey's fantasies. Matt always thinks the ideal man is John Travolta. Not true, not true.

But I would put myself more as sort of Dannyy zucco in greece than saturday night fever i don't think you're either of these wow how hurtful jameson well coming up today in the least natural segue i've ever done coming today, we are going to be talking about what to do when someone stops trying. Not, and I want to, I want to differentiate this. This isn't what to do when someone goes cold on you and suddenly stops texting you back. I'm talking about someone who is very much with you. You are either in a relationship or on your way to a relationship or deep into a relationship, but they're not trying like they were before. And you don't know what to do about it because they still want to see you. There's no signs of the relationship stopping. And yet you do not feel loved.

You do not feel the affection. You do not feel their attention in the way that you did before. What can you do about this? And how do you get through something like this when your needs are no longer being met in the same way? So that's coming up today. We also have Audrey in the archives. We're going to be doing a listener question. We'll be playing a couple of your voice notes

that you have sent in, which I love. I've been so enjoying getting these voice notes from everybody. And we'll do an email or two as well. So without further ado, is that how you say it or is it oh it's no adieu is goodbye isn't it adieu adieu audrey speaks french i clearly don't speak french or english with that with that comment the other day you said laissez faire oh laissez faire that was really sweet no i said laissez faire. Oh. Laissez faire. Which I thought was really sweet.

No, I said laissez faire. Laissez faire. Yeah, but you went... I did not say laissez faire. That is not true. I've never in my life said laissez faire. Give us the correct enunciation, Audrey. Laissez faire.

Wow. As George Bush once said, the problem with the French is they don't have a word for entrepreneur. Very good. I just noticed we have all four of us here. Jameson, Audrey, Matthew and Stephen. Do you know what that means? I feel like there's a word that people have been using for that. Isn't there, Jameson? Isn't there something that people have been calling the four of us?

I do believe there's more than a word. I do believe there's a whole jam. Oh, that was good. Wow, that was very good. Although you guys say jelly. A jingle jam. So to lead us into our main topic, here it is. They are the jams, help where they can.

Inspiration in life and love and confidence. They'll make you laugh. Sometimes you'll cry. And that is why pickles, peaches, pears. We love the gems. Also, before we get into the show today, if you have not already, sign up to the 30 Day Confidence Challenge, the free event that we are doing that kicks off with a call live with me on the 27th but carries on for 30 days, where I'm going to be giving you five specific challenges that measurably increase your confidence over 30 days, or with a prize bonus at the end that's free for anybody who completes all five challenges. So the only thing you need to do to get this bonus is do good things for yourself. The entire challenge is free and you can sign up Sign up at mhchallenge.com. So, Audrey, we had this topic.

You were the one who sort of said, hey, I think this is a good topic for today. And once we started to actually get into it, we realized there was a lot to say on this. This was an email from Rain who says, hi Jams, big fan of your podcast. And I can honestly credit Matthew for helping me secure my first real healthy relationship. I'm hoping you can all help me once more as I can't tell if this stage of my relationship is normal or not. I just made it to nine months with my boyfriend and noticed some of the attention I'd received before has started to lessen. Up until nine months ago, I'd only ever dated F boys. I'm going to keep, I feel like I'm enjoying the cleanness of these podcasts. So I'm, I'm going to eliminate the, the swear. F of course stands for fun boys. Fun boys. That's great.

Yeah, let's go for fun boys. I've only dated fun boys. This is so PG-13. Well, I just, you know, I don't know. Maybe I'm getting older, but I'm feeling like, what if people are listening in the car with a young'un? Fair enough. F boys.

Fun boys. So I'm having trouble discerning a red flag from potentially normal behavior. For some context, we both just turned 30 and were each other's first serious relationships. He wasn't interested in being serious with anybody and spent most of his 20s casually dating, until he met me. During our early dating months, he was very consistent, respectful, sweet, and attentive. For instance, he always wished me a safe flight before trips, remembered important meetings or opportunities I had going on, and texted me before each appointment to wish me luck, followed up on things happening in my life, etc. We dated for three months before he asked me

to be his girlfriend and everything was perfect until we started entering month eight. During month seven, I went on a week-long trip to Europe to meet his family. I'm the first girlfriend he's ever introduced and everything went really well. At the end of the trip, he even asked me to move in with him when both our apartment leases are up next summer. However, the high we were on after the trip started to reduce, and over the last three weeks, he's felt a bit more distant. I'm not sure what's changed. We haven't had a fight or anything happen out of the ordinary. He's been quieter and more reserved lately and when I ask him about it he says he's fine. He's also stopped saying I love you and being physically affectionate though we're still having sex regularly. I recently had to travel for work and

he didn't text me before my flight as he would have done. I had a job interview last week and a follow-up interview yesterday and he didn't text me to wish me luck for either one. He also didn't ask me about them when I saw him in person. I brought them up myself and gave him the update. However, I'm confused because I'm spending the holidays with him and his family and today he asked if we should extend our time in Europe for Christmas. Also, as I was getting ready to leave his apartment late afternoon on Sunday, he asked me to stay over, even though we were sitting pretty far from each other in bed watching TV, not speaking. We've been seeing each other with the

same consistency as before and making plans week in advance too. So this kind of consistency is still intact. As I've only dated fun boys until now, I don't trust my judgment to know if these are red flags or if he's just getting comfortable and doesn't feel the need to put in the same effort to keep me. I don't want to be blind, but I'm also unsure if it's my anxious attachment rearing its head. As guys become more comfortable in relationships, how can we tell the difference between comfort versus them losing feelings? Thanks so much for the work you guys do. You are truly doing the Lord's work for women. And that is from Rain.

Great name, Rain. There's a lot to unpack there. But Rain, I think you've brought up a really interesting and well-lettered question, which gets to the heart of something, doesn't it? You know, when you know yourself that you can have some anxious attachment and some kind of natural a natural anxious hum and you then find that something shifts in someone's energy either because of things they're no longer saying or things they're no longer doing or just things you don't feel from them is it down to your anxiety and your anxiety is just making too much of it?

Or has something changed that is actually worth worrying about or considering? So I'm excited to get into this. Stephen, I'm curious, what are your initial thoughts? I heard a sort of interesting hmm as we were doing this question, what were you thinking in that moment? Oh, it's definitely one that's relatable for different moments in relationships where you get just a spidey sense that something feels off. I'm thinking about times if if i have had that some maybe there there have been times where it's clear that something's on the rocks and feelings have changed sometimes if my spidey sense goes off for something like that it's because i've done something that i haven't been

cognizant of and i've done something that's upset someone, or I didn't know something hurt their feelings. And then, you know, you feel a standoffish vibe for a few days or whatever. And you're like, oh, what's happened? What's going wrong? And then you realize, oh, I didn't realize they were upset about something. I forgot their birthday.

So that can happen. You forgot their birthday. So that can happen. And you birthday um so that can happen and and and you can get like work yourself into a you know internal frenzy thinking oh shit like has everything changed and you know something happened or you know what's going on and i've always hated that feeling of being in the dark about something like i feel i just need to okay let's just get out on the table whatever's going on if there's something conversation we need to have if something's going on if you're worried about something i i hate that feeling of just watching something simmer when your spidey sense

is tingling so i i've got a lot of empathy for what rain's going through that said i do know that we can just just overthinking is so bad for you and i have a weird belief a little bit more and more as i get older that just thinking is bad and thinking about situations over and over again is bad for you there's no nothing productive happens you just get more and more worked up. You read into everything. And so every moment like that should just be some incitement to a decision, a conversation, a communication of a feeling. And I think we get scared of saying, I feel this right now.

Like I'm feeling this energy. We are very, very scared to do that because we feel like we're going to set things on a spiral of getting even worse. Well, I think- And that's the situation I think she's in. When you're anxious, the instinct, if you're going to have a conversation,

is to be like, look, if you're going to break up with me, just say it. Right. If you're going to leave, just tell me now, just put me out of my misery. You know, there's a, there's a anxiety that at its extreme just makes you want to like get bad news over with, you know, that that's the extreme of that feeling. But of course that kind of conversation conversation that kind of communication is not necessarily productive for the relationship no you know audrey you you when we were talking about this earlier you brought up the kind of communication you think can be helpful in a situation like this can you speak to how you think you can communicate if you're feeling this way um that you know when we're afraid of having difficult conversations it's because obviously

we're afraid of what that might lead to we're afraid of the answers we're afraid that they're going to turn around and say well seeing now you brought it up actually i'm not happy but i think what can happen is we can almost become a little bit meek in the process and we end up sort of doubling down on trying to make a lot of effort to make them love us again and get that attention back and I think that can be counter to coming across as confident and you know there's something really inherently attractive about being able to confidently communicate the fact that your needs aren't being met and I think that you know not to get personal but in times with us for instance where

you're busy and you're not giving me as much sort of attention maybe as I think you normally would and if it extends to a period of time I'm always one for saying to you like recently I've just been feeling a little bit xyz and I think it's about communicating that in a way where you're not um you're not berating the person but you're just explaining that you know you're just feeling a little bit unloved or a little bit um you know I don't know what the word is but you know know what I'm saying, right? And I think sometimes just being able to get that emotion out on the table, what it shows to the other person is that you're not afraid to have that conversation and that you're always going to put your happiness and your needs

ahead of the fear of them leaving. I just think it's a really relatable situation that Rain's going through and it's a horrible feeling to feel when you don't know where you stand and you feel like you're kind of almost analyzing every single thing they do and don't do you know even when she said we were sat opposite ends of the bed not talking she must have been sitting on this bed going we're not talking we're not cuddling he doesn't love love me, this is awful. And then he says, stay over. And she goes, I'm so confused. Now he wants me to stay. Suddenly, she feels good about that. But she's not, she still doesn't feel good about the

situation. And I yeah, I think this, I just think it's a very relatable situation. And I just think you should always put yourself out of your misery and not be afraid to have those conversations i see anxiety as a a measuring tool that's really valuable but also the the reader on it is really really really sensitive and the sensitivity of that of that reader is it can be a liability because it can have you not only picking up on things that aren't necessarily there it which by the way it will also pick on everything pick up on everything that is there because the reader is so sensitive that it will you will be right one times out of four correct which is why it's hard which is why it's hard because when you get when you are right the one time out of four or out of three you it's very validating and you're like this is why it's hard. Which is why it's hard because when you get, when you are right the one time out of four or out of three,

you, it's very validating and you're like, this is why I need this reader. This is why I need this because this tells me when there's danger. But when we're high in anxiety, it also reads everything. You know, it reads,

oh, there's an earthquake and someone just closed a door downstairs and you felt the vibration of the door and it reads it as an earthquake. That to me is anxiety. And it's what makes it both something that protects us and something that we start to worry we can't trust. And that's why we have a question like this. Now, of course, when we have a very sensitive reader, when we feel something that we think represents danger, the reaction tends to be too strong. And the strength of our reaction then can actually be something that further throws the relationship off in some way it actually even if if if someone is feeling a little bit of something but then your reaction

is very very strong to that then it can actually end up amplifying that feeling that somebody has at the very time that we want to address the feeling so what's counterint we are all we almost have to do the counterintuitive thing in those situations which is to maintain a sense of calm which is to maintain really strong communication and sometimes to try to have a wider lens on the situation so that our demons don't just take the wheel. I almost want to set a bit of context for this, right? Because they've been going strong for seven months and then in month seven, they take a week long trip to see his family. Now, that's a significant step for some people. That moment where you go and take someone to see your family, if you haven't done it in seven months and now know, you're the first girlfriend he's ever introduced. Everything went really well. And then probably what's happened if at the end of the trip he asked you to to move in with him is probably because he took you home to his family and it was extremely validating.

Everyone thought you were awesome. He heard amazing reviews and they said, she's really great. I like her. And when you hear that from people that you love and trust, it's a big needle mover because you say, oh, I'm not, I'm not crazy. My radar isn't off. This person is great. And so when you get that approval for someone, it makes you want to double down on that person. So then he said, why don't we move in together? Now that's another big step. And you said that it's, you know, you're going to move in with him when both of our apartment leases are up next summer. So there's that high, there's that excitement of talking about moving in together. And then over the next, but that feels right on cue. The idea that he took you to meet his family, you got even closer.

He said, based on all the reviews, that he wants to move in together because he was on that high. And now all of a sudden, he's probably had a little bit of, oh my God, wow, this is getting, this is getting more serious. And what you may be feeling from him is distance. But what he's feeling inside is, this is, you know, all through my twenties, I didn't have serious relationships. I'm now in a serious relationship. And I know I'm in a serious relationship because my family have met her. And everyone knows now that I'm in a relationship. And we've talked about moving in together. And that's a really big step. So there's a good chance that he's in his head right now.

It's not that he likes you any less in any objective sense or loves you any less. It's that he's now got in his head about the big changes that are happening. And by the way, let's also remember, if this is his first serious relationship, then he also has not necessarily learned certain lessons yet about what it takes to sustain a relationship. That after that initial excitement, after that initial high, that it has to be cultivated and you have to continue to invest in the excitement of the relationship. And he may not have the tools right now to be able to do that. And you may not have the tools right now to be able to do that. That doesn't mean it won't last.

It just means that you guys are still learning those tools. So what you're reading from him is potentially not some, some terminal loss of excitement, but instead a kind of a feeling from him that, wow, this is serious. That's made me a bit scared. You're reading my fear as I don't like you anymore or I don't love you anymore. But it's just fear and I don't know how to process it because I haven't been in a long-term relationship before. And also there may be a little bit of, I don't know how to continue to cultivate the excitement in a relationship after that initial dazzling honeymoon period of the first eight months so those to me become interesting things i agree you know jameson i'm interested in your take on this because when audrey earlier was

saying to me like you know it's about the good communication and expressing that you need to feel something from him that you're not feeling right now. I agree with all of that. I think it's important. And I think that kind of, you don't want a relationship where you don't have that kind of clear communication. But what I mentioned to Audrey is that if you take Esther Perel's dichotomy between love and desire, and of course, in her famous book, Mating in Captivity, she refers to the paradox of love and desire within a relationship that love, if you think about it, when you first meet someone, what's

driving you? Desire. Desire says there's a stranger over there. I think there's something attractive about them. I want to get to know them better and I want them to like me. So desire starts to make the two of you magnets if there's mutual attraction. Now, the more you start to close down the mystery elements and the more you get to know each other, you start to develop feelings of love. Feelings of love start to bring you even closer together. So it's like love pulls you together and then, sorry, desire pulls you together and then love magnifies that. But love can keep magnifying that to the point where all of a sudden there is no space between the two of you. And when there's no space between the two of you anymore, desire gets suffocated. When desire gets suffocated,

what's left is just love. And when it's only love that's left, I think this is a very good paraphrasing of Esther Perel's work. When it's only love that is left, all of a sudden you are losing that mechanism that creates excitement, that creates that kind of visceral attraction. When I listen to this, I just sense that she's actually being too distant here. Like Audrey's saying, she's measuring a bit. She's just sitting there with her little instrument of measuring the distance.

They're sitting apart on the bed. And I just, I don't, I'm not even interested in her communicating so much. I'm interested in her doing. Like I'm interested in her, like, go try sitting next to him a little bit. Go ahead and try to create the culture of your relationship. You can't like, hey, I have this big meeting. Just wanted to call and say, I love you. Hopefully you'll wish me luck. You know, just go ahead and set that state. And then when you're in these moments of togetherness and love, don't stop treating him like a fun boy.

Go ahead and just like, all right, we'll get a little bit spicy. Go ahead and after you have sex, don't just go back to like, okay, cool, we're close now and be comfortable go ahead and like you always say post framing right you need to like do the thing that you want to happen in your relationship whether it's sex or intimacy or cuddling and then just explain like oh my god i loved that like i love when you hold me like this i love when you do that so it is like esther's

saying two sides right the love side and the desire side but it is like Esther's saying, two sides, right? The love side and the desire side. But I just think she's kind of frozen. So maybe she's hyper anxious and sensitive to these things. And she's keeping a lot of track of it. But I think it's really, she's not doing anything. She's just, she's letting, she's following his lead. And they're both just out of their depth right now and they're not sure what to do when we first meet someone and we are in those desire stages we are firing on

all cylinders in terms of to coin the sort of work of who wrote the five love languages oh gary chapman gary chapman so to talk about the five love languages you know one of the things he mentioned in his book is that in the beginning of relationships you are just doing all of them all the time you're buying gifts you're being thoughtful you're touching each other all the time you're complimenting each other you're literally just firing on all cylinders which is how create attraction and love is created is that you make each other feel so unbelievably special because you're literally trying to just fan the flame of the relationship as much as possible and when you get comfortable or you start entering the more sort of um

you know loving and kind of the later stages of the relationship, I think people do just naturally kind of revert back to what their sort of baseline is when it comes to those things. And, you know, him being really thoughtful and messaging all the time before interviews and before flights, to me that actually speaks more to that point, which is that in the beginning he was probably being overly thoughtful because of where you were at and just by default of you guys being kind of in a nine month long relationship where he feels comfortable and he knows that you guys love each other he doesn't feel the need to

do it in the same way i think a lot of those early stages of of sort of like outpouring a lot like um a lot of energy into each other comes from a place of making sure that person stays and making sure that person likes us and loves us and falls for us so once we've got that the kind of um you know the the drive to do it becomes actually has to just come from a place of character and i think there's a there's something to that which is it can feel really different from the beginning to a little bit in yeah i see i think that brings up one of the really interesting one of the interesting dualities in relationships which is some of our desire to keep treating our partner with the same level of love and attention and verbal acknowledgement has to be intrinsic right it has to be a standard we have for ourselves.

And I think that one of the things that this situation has is two people who are young and in their first serious relationship who are learning that lesson for the first time, which is amazing. But it has to come from a place of, as you say, character. There has to be some intrinsic desire to say, I'm going to keep the standard high in this relationship

by giving to my partner, by acknowledging them, by telling them I love them, by reminding them how beautiful I find them. But the other side of that is that we, that is much easier if our partner takes responsibility for stoking continue to give to your partner on that level meets an ownership by them to continue to keep you desiring them that's a really really good combination so what i'm saying with that is rain it's not your job to give him an intrinsic character that keeps his standards high that's his job to do that in a relationship it's your job to set the standard for him that you want to be with someone who has high standards for that but you can take ownership for saying, I also want to be the kind of person that

keeps his desire high by doing whatever I can. And this is what's interesting to me in terms of that love desire model is we can take a step back and go, is there anything that I could be doing to create more desire in my relationship? A conversation that you have with someone where you tell them that you've noticed they don't do these things as much recently and you would like them to, that will improve the communication in the relationship

and that will be a vulnerable act and it will improve the kind of sense of knowing each other deeply but it won't necessarily improve desire in fact for a lot of people it might read as one more thing that they have to do and one more kind of stress that they have that oh i've i've now got to do this and I'm doing it because I'm being asked to do it, which doesn't make me feel like I'm desiring it. It makes me feel like I'm fulfilling an obligation. That doesn't make it wrong to have those conversations. It just means that we have to take responsibility for doing the things that create desire without them ever knowing

that we're creating desire. Like I joked with you, Audrey, I was like, you, you're wearing a lovely outfit today. And I, I joked. Cause I was like, you having the conversation with me to let me know that you've not been feeling something from me recently. And you'd love it. If I could work on that will help because I have an intrinsic desire to want to make you happy and to want to have a great relationship. But it will probably work just as well for you to put on that outfit today. That's so true. That's kind of what I was trying to get at where it's like, yeah, just, just just men the best way to actually increase desire for like the easiest thing a woman can do to make a man desire her more is to show him that he's desired by you as well so it's like yeah dress look good all that but but men really

want to feel desired and that'll awaken so much desire in him. Now, I agree with that. The only caveat I would add is that I think that a lot of guys can get into a situation in a relationship where they just feel, I hate using this term. I want to be really careful using this term, but they, they develop a level of safety that, that makes them start to take the situation for granted absolutely absolutely and desiring him more doesn't necessarily that will help if what you've got between you has become a little too what's the word platonic not platonic but just cozy pajamery i think is the word? Not platonic, but just cozy. Pajamery, I think is the word I'm looking for. And getting sexy and showing you desire him is a way to escape that trap. But it doesn't necessarily escape the trap

of him feeling just so safe and so adored and so loved. And no matter what he does, it's just everything is awesome and he's amazing and you're not going anywhere. And when someone feels that to the extreme, especially if they haven't learned yet to have an intrinsic standard

around how much to give to a relationship. And by the way, in his case, that intrinsic standard would be communicating to you, hey, I don't want you to just sit with me all day every day and do this and do that. I want you to do some things for you because that would help me. That's important. Having a standard can also mean communicating to the other person what you need from them in order to feel a certain thing. But loving him more or desiring him more won't

stoke the desire if he feels just so safe. Now, I want to be careful because I'm not suggesting we play games in our relationship and I'm not suggesting that any of us want to be in a relationship where it's a game of cat and mouse. But I do think we have to start to look at, are there things that I have either stopped doing or things that I've just never done in this relationship that would create a natural desire that isn't based on game playing, but just based on a healthy sense of this person realizing my worth, my real recognizing me or re recognizing me as a separate entity from them with my own wants and desires and wishes and fantasies and and life

so that this person can begin to to kind of observe me again as something that, look, the truth is none of us, none of us can own another person, right? We can't, but sometimes you can get to a point in a relationship where you feel so safe that you feel like you do own that love, that you are just entitled to it and you take it for granted. And when you begin to realize that someone is their own person and you realize the reality that you don't know what they're thinking all the time, that you don't know every single one of their desires, that you can't control them, then that, that starts to increase the mystery once again and when he feels like right now i here's my here's my guess my guess is that he feels this has been going at a certain pace that he's he's actually been the one who's precipitating that yeah but then he scared

himself that's what it feels like to me because he's doing a lot of the fundamentals right because he's still doing the fundamental thing of they're planning things ahead he still is talking about moving in so he hasn't backed off on actual future commitments exactly exactly this is to me this is like him having like a little bit of an inner inner freak out of some kind and what helps someone with an inner freak out is a you continuing to do things yourself. And I'm not just saying work trips. I know that you do work trips, but like what are things you want to do just for enjoyment?

What are things you want to do out of a sense of fun? What are skills you want to learn that you could go and learn? And, and also, you know, surprising him, surprising him with a sexy outfit, surprising him with, um, uh, something different you'd like to try with him, surprising him with feel is still a sense of you being your own person that is doing your thing and not suddenly everything has become heavy because you've

talked about moving in together because you've met his family it's the i i honestly think that so much of our fears as we progress in life, and I can relate to this, I can relate to this in the sense of, you know, the future of having a family and so on. I want to have a family, but the idea of having a family and the changes that it would make to our lives is still scary to me. And part of, I know know for me part of my personal formula is not being catastrophic about how much is going to change i realize that things will change it's naive to think things won't change but the the fear of the fear that makes me go i don't want to do it is the catastrophizing about how everything's going to change and nothing's ever going to be

the same and you're never going to get to do this again and you're never going to be able to get to do that again and that can send me into a place of like oh no it's all too much what allows us to move through each phase is when we realize that the parts we loved about the previous phase don't change you can still have so much of that change you can still have so much of that excitement you can still have so much of that independence you can still have so many of those things that you enjoy and i think that probably he's there's a little bit of that in him right now even on a more minor level there's a he's feeling a bit of that. Never underestimate the power of a nice dress. And that's what we tie it all the episode this week.

Because you can do, yeah, I actually think you can do so much with just that little note. You said, Audrey's wearing a nice dress today. And that kind of just like makes Matt forget about whatever else might scare him. Also, I think that when you go out and you know,

someone's wearing a nice, it's like, I think that when you go out and, you know, someone's wearing a nice, it's like, I really believe in the power of just going, going out, leaving the house, go out together, you know, let him witness you being witnessed by other people. Even if it's just, even if it's just a walk, you could go out and walk around the neighborhood. Like this is an interesting one last Esther point, which is you can go on a walk and just talk together and that's very much love right that's the coming together but if you decide to wear those yoga pants on the walk that look a little bit spicy and you just walk by some other people and like you realize like oh she just got attention from that other person like those yoga pants just created all kinds of desire.

And then suddenly you have the best of both worlds. You're getting close and connected on the walk. And also, she got some spicy yoga pants. Yeah, because the lion comes out again. He's like, hey, what is... Someone just looked at her. Oh, she's attractive. Oh, she's like this person that's desired out there in the world as a stranger.

These people that don't know her, they feel immense desire because she's a stranger to them. You know, what may have changed is simply this person's not a stranger to me. But that doesn't change how desirable this person is. But put a lion in a cage for too long, and it stops acting like a lion. And that's what it is sometimes to sit at home all the time with someone. And like I said, you may go on work trips, but that's not the same thing. If you go on work trips and then you're at home together and you're sitting around, you're still not bringing out the lion. And that lion is what got him to this point, by the way. That lion that desired

something, that wanted something, that was like, my family like you. That must mean that you're as wonderful as I think you are. I better move to the next stage of this let's move in together that's that's the lion talking um and it's about bringing that continuing to bring that out and of course i don't want to take responsibility away from him it's also about the communication that makes him realize that there's a standard you want for the relationship which is that the two of you keep trying for each other where would you where could people go to learn more about this particular if you've enjoyed this topic i'm trying to think the best place for people to go i think it's attraction to commitment yeah it is definitely attraction to commitment if if you're in a place where you

you're this is important to you and you want to make an investment in learning more about this area all the way from the beginning of dating to well into a serious relationship because that's the thing you can't you don't want to just get a piece of advice for like week three or month seven the truth is you want a 360 degree holistic way of thinking and set of tools that allow you when you find someone and something great to nurture that into being something that stands the test of time. And Attraction to Commitment was always designed to be that program. It was designed to show you how to go all the way from initial attraction to real commitment and back to attraction again, once you have commitment so that that commitment

sticks around you know attraction to commitment is my favorite one of your programs well if you want to go and check it out it's at getlastinglove.com there's a video there you can watch that explains to you all about it but it's at getlastinglove.com. Let's hear from one of our wonderful listeners. Well, we have an amazing voice note. And thank you so much to everybody who's been sending in voice notes. Matt loves them. Literally every time I turn my back,

he's just on his phone listening to people's voice notes and reading everyone's emails. That's true. You hear voices all over the house from me playing these voice notes on my laptop, on my phone. Anytime a new one comes in, I play it. I actually get, it's like opening a little present

every time. So if you do have a voice note, send it to podcast at matthewhussey.com and do try and keep it under 60 seconds because we've had a couple of seven minute long ones and I love you guys, but I can't, I literally do not have the hours in the day. If you send me something from 30 seconds to 60 seconds, there's every chance that I will not only listen to it, but also play it, uh, on one of the episodes. So that's

podcast at Matthew Hussey.com. And I should say thank you to everyone who has sent a longer one. God, do I know how hard it is to be brief? You will know how hard I find it to be brief. But for the purposes of pragmatism, please keep them brief. This voice note is from lovely Maria from Brazil. Hey, guys, it's Maria from Brazil. Am I the first one representing the Saudade in Jiu-Jitsu land? As Isaiah, I'm also a college student who's been gifted with the huge amount of value you guys provide. And let me tell you, I'm actually now super excited to take the bus

and the subway and walk home because that's when I listen to you. I even have to put on a mask along the way because I'm always smiling or laughing and people look at me like, what? You totally bring light to my days. I absolutely love the Dangers of Dating Someone famous episode. I feel like you've reached the sweet spot for a long podcast episode. Audio in the archives, the reviews, questions from listeners, and your conversation on the main topic is the kind of movement and surprise that keeps us totally addicted.

The kind of movement and surprise that Matt says is essential for keeping and building attraction relationships, right? Well, you guys are definitely building attraction with us listeners. P.S., when I find the one, if they don't like and learn from GEMS, the page will be turned. I'm honored that I found you. You guys are golden. Thank you so much.

That's so lovely. That is all I've ever wanted. All I've ever wanted is the level of devotion and loyalty that means if you ever meet someone who doesn't like us, you break up with them. He doesn't mean that. That's all I've ever wanted and a recognition that this show is structured around the principles of attraction that we teach which by the way it is steven i don't want you to think steven is joking there i every youtube video every podcast we've ever done has always been done with that in mind. I'm a huge believer in the attraction psychology

that we coach is applicable to everything else in life. It's applicable to entertainment. It's applicable to sales. It's applicable to conversation in general. These are just universal principles. And when we talk about unique pairings as being something that really creates attraction and for those of you that don't know unique pairings are when you find two things that are both attractive qualities in the same person that you don't normally find in the same

person that makes someone addictive and so if in this show we're able to achieve making people laugh and cry, that would be a unique pairing. Because there's a lot of very serious shows out there, Jameson, aren't there? There's a lot of deep, serious shows that are great, but they're not very funny. And this is NPO.

Speaking of laughing and crying. Oh, yeah. I would like to read an email we received from Andrea, who, of course, wrote our lovely jingle, which we should play again. They are the gems. Help where they can. Inspiration.

In life, in love, in confidence, they'll make you laugh. Sometimes you'll cry. I love it so much. I literally, Andrea, it's been in my head. No word of a lie. It's been stuck in my head for about four days. And I sing it around the house. And then Jameson comes over to the house to film. And then's been stuck in my head for about four days and i sing it around the house and then jameson comes over to the house to film and then i get it in his head and we've all just been humming it for about four days it's true isn't it it's very true um so thank you so much andrea wrote to us and said dear matthew and jams i got a message from your team member emma today

about the virtual retreat and how you decided to gift me with a ticket for writing the jingle. And I had to say, thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me. Then I was listening to your podcast for today and heard the song and I have been smiling ear to ear since. The way you all spoke about me and my jams jingle was such an honor. My heart is so warm and

glowy today because of you. Thank you. I've been having a bit of a difficult time in a few areas of my life recently and all of this has brought me so much joy and I cannot wait for the virtual retreat. You just let me know and i'll write slash sing anything you want anywhere anytime warmly andrea now that's dangerous to give to give matthew that uh that understanding that he can he can just point to anything he's gonna want a virtual retreat jingle he's gonna want a soundtrack to his life when he walks around the house essentially yes yeah yeah yeah like if Matthew was in Jurassic Park what was his character's jingle be like I don't know oh no that's very interesting I literally saw your face it lights up um thank you so much Andrea and we're so excited to see on the to see

you on the virtual retreat it's gonna be so much fun I am so happy you are coming, Andrea. We are going to have the greatest time. And we are just so, we're so happy that we were able to give you something that would mean a lot to you as a thank you for something you did for our show. That's quite the, that's quite the gift. Virtual retreat. It's quite jingle well it's that special time if you know then you know audrey in the archives has arrived the moment in our little show where audrey takes a trip into the archives of all our previous programs and comes back with something she loves and wants to bring to us. I see her now entering the elevator.

She's put on her little specs, she's got her head tied back in that librarian sort of ponytail. A little love satchel. The elevator begins its slow descent, level by level, through the archives of everything we've ever created. Level one, flirting tips. Level two, silky underwear. Oh, we're back in Stevens again. Level three, attraction.

Level four, confidence. Level five, enjoying just being single so that when you do meet someone, you feel in a good place and like you don't need them you're just having a great time oh it looks like she's found something here she comes now back to ground level with a scroll of wisdom that we can take into our day. Guys, I was just down in the archives.

You were? I was, yes. Squirreling around down there? Achoo! It's very dusty. I don't know if that's the right vibe of the archives. Once you get down to level seven, it gets pretty bloody dusty. It's very dusty, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But don't go to level eight. Never down to level seven, it gets pretty bloody dusty. It's very dusty down there. Don't go to level eight.

Never go to level eight. You don't want to know what's down there. What I found was really special. And it is a script, a secret scroll on how you can communicate that you only want to have sex if you're going to be in a committed relationship with someone. So this is obviously for the person who's been seeing someone for a little while and either they've already been intimate in that way or they haven't yet done it. But, you know, they're in a position where they're getting attached, they're getting

feelings and they just say, you know, they say to themselves, I can't continue like this unless I know that this person is no longer going to be giving other people attention in that way, which I think is something we can all relate to. And the script is, I'm super attracted to you and I love playing with you it's so much fun I really am having the best time being intimate with you but having sex is actually special for me and I don't want to just do that when I don't really know where this is going yet you know even what we're doing right now is something that has meaning to me so it's not something I would just do with anyone. But that is especially true when it comes to us having sex. I just wouldn't want to jump into that unless I felt like there was exclusivity between us.

Because it wouldn't make me feel good if I knew that you were seeing other people at the same time. Anyway, I just wanted to know what you thought about that. Because either way, it's probably a, I just wanted to know what you thought about that, because either way, it's probably a good time for me to know. So this is from my favorite program, Attraction to Commitment. Yeah. And the reason it's a little bit clunky in how I'm delivering it is that Attraction to Commitment is actually a video program. So this is a script that is typed up from something that you said. So this script is actually something you should probably deliver face to face. It's not something to text.

But the sentiment of it, I think, is really, really good, which is, you know, you're articulating to the person that sex has meaning for you, that it's not something you're just going to throw around. It's something that has value. You value yourself in that way and if they want to be able to have all of you including that part they have to respect that boundary and I think it's a it's a really beautiful thing to communicate and it's a really important thing to communicate because if we don't express that these things have meaning to us and we just assume that somebody else will know that that's that's very dangerous because sex doesn't mean the same thing to everyone so that is attraction to commitment and i think we talked about it earlier you can get the program at

what is it getlastinglove.com exactly so that's what i found in the archives today and i was really proud of it fantastic well there you go audrey in the archives today and I was really proud of it. Fantastic. Well, there you go. Audrey in the archives strikes again. Do we have a listener question? We have a question in from Amber who says, Hi Jams. Gotta say I absolutely adore the podcast. Listening to you all gives me hope, positivity and makes me excited about dating. My question for you today is something I've always struggled with and that is talking to, approaching and or flirting with attractive men. I am extremely outgoing, friendly person who talks to strangers all the time. However, when around an attractive single man, I tend to freeze up like a shy introvert. I would love the confidence of a woman who knows what they want and goes after it. However, in public, bars, concerts, parties concerts parties etc i never have the guts to

flirt or approach an attractive stranger i'm worried about coming off too strong too obvious that i'm interested and almost put too much pressure on the situation leaving me not doing anything how can i shake this fear and allow myself to be open to striking up conversation with a man who I find attractive. Thanks for all your work, Amber. So Amber, the quick piece of advice I'm going to give you on this is you're beginning too much with the end in mind. You're thinking that you're already overwhelming yourself by thinking that I have to go over to someone that I find really attractive, have a great conversation, flirt with them, make them want me, exchange details and have it go somewhere. And that would be enough to intimidate anybody. I want you to turn your hope or your expectation about what you'd like to happen into just a complete non-expectant curiosity.

That I am going to be, I am just going to go into social situations with a sense of curiosity that anything can happen. And I'm not going to try to go in thinking I have to seduce this person. I'm going to go in thinking, I wonder where tonight will lead. I wonder who I might meet. And one of the ways to do that is just to go in and warm yourself up. When we think too much, we're in our heads and we're not actually warming up our muscles, our social muscles. Go in and just talk to people. Talk to everyone. Talk to anybody. Don't discriminate. If they work, they're great. If they don't work, they're great. Are they a man? Are they a woman? Doesn't matter. Just go and talk to people. Be a bit more of a kind of butterfly with that initial energy of just, you're open. You're a people lover. You just like people. And so you're just going to say

hi to people and you're just going to take little moments to connect. And if they go nowhere, they go nowhere. If you cheers someone and it goes nowhere, it goes nowhere. If you tell someone you like something they're wearing, then, and that's all it is. They say, thank you. And that's the end of that interaction. Great. That was the end of that interaction. So two big things. One, warm up. Don't go in there and sit there hanging around, occasionally staring at the person you find really attractive and building up the moment where you go over and talk to them. That's a recipe for doing nothing. Warm up by talking to lots of different people. And then when you are talking to people you find attractive, instead of having any kind of expectation around where it's going to go,

just imagine that even if I connect with this person for five seconds to tell them that I like something they're wearing, I'm going to let it be just that. And I'm going to have no expectation. There can be no rejection if all I'm doing is being a sociable human being. And let me just start there and see where it goes. Because what that means is there's the possibility that something will happen. What you're doing right now where you don't do anything means there's no possibility. By doing what I'm saying, the world opens up. Does it mean that something will happen tonight? No. Does it mean that that person's going to have an amazing positive reaction and you're going to end up talking? No. It doesn't mean any of that. But you've lowered the stakes and you've

at least opened the door to possibility. And the rejection that you're so worried about can't come to you when all you're doing is being a sociable human being, not someone who's going in with a very specific result in mind when you talk to someone you think is attractive. I think the problem is perfectly epitomized by this part of her question, where she says, I would love the confidence of a woman who knows what they want and goes after it. That is, I guess, what some people think of confidence as, but that's not really what confidence is, right? Like the people that are really confident, they don't have so much intent about this one thing. It's usually that no matter what happens, they're going to be fine.

So this massive amount of intent, Amber, that you're putting into this interaction, just remove that completely and do what Matt says and just have a mild curiosity and know that you're going to be fine, whatever. Like you just remove any of that true wanting that you think you're supposed to have here. Imagine them in their underwear. Don't do that. Like in public speaking. I think that doesn't work in attraction.

It does not work. It doesn't work with a sexy person who you're already nervous about. Okay, sorry. person who you're already nervous about okay sorry a big reminder to everybody if you haven't already go over to mhchallenge.com and sign up for the 30 day challenge don't miss it when it's this is live when it's over it's over so there's no way to go back and sign up for this afterwards do not miss the the boat on it. It starts on the 27th of this month. It is free and we're all going to be doing it together. All of us here, the jams are going to be doing it. Thousands of people across the world will be joining us

for 30 days of improving our confidence through five specific gamified missions with a special bonus at the end if you do all five. So go over to mhchallenge.com, sign up for free, and we will see you live on the 27th. Go there now while I'm speaking. You're not going there yet. Open up a browser.

Go there now. Jameson, do you think they're doing it? It will take like five seconds, 10 seconds. Should we time it? Some people driving right now are pulling over. They're just pulling over now. Jameson, do you think they're doing it? It will take like five seconds, ten seconds. Should we time it? Some people driving right now are pulling over. They're just pulling over now. Oh, that's good to hear, Jameson. I'm glad they're pulling over.

And they're not just trying to do it while they're at a stoplight or something. They've actually pulled over and they've opened up a new tab. If it's Safari, you have to push that little thing on the window. Yeah, yeah, yeah. New window and then just go to, what's the website again? The website is mhchallenge.com. If you're doing the dishes, you don't even need to dry your hands anymore.

iPhones are waterproof. That's right. Yeah, or just have Siri do it for you. Siri, sign Maria up to the mhchallenge.com. Alexa, open mhchallenge.com. Well, it is. You've done it. Yeah.

Very good, Audrey. Team player. It's been another incredible episode. Here we stand at the end of all things, or as some would say, the end of a podcast. Audrey has had to run to the bathroom because we've covered so much ground in this episode. She's been holding it for so long that literally as I speak, she is sprinting to the bathroom. We've heard about Fun Boys haircuts, my new haircut that no one can see.

We've talked about Stephen's silky drawers. We've heard from Maria in Brazil as she brightens all of our day by talking about the fact that we ourselves embody the attraction principles that we swear by. We've got Andrea Gow coming to the virtual retreat with us in November. We cannot wait to see you andrea gal we've heard we've heard audrey's scripts on what to do before you sleep with someone we haven't yet had a pickles peaches and pears my man can we have one right now let me hear it a pickles peaches plum plums puddles piggles and pears. There it is. You got what you wanted, people. We've talked about love and desire.

We've talked about our anxiety meter and how it can make us do too much instead of the counterintuitive thing, which is just to respond in a way that lowers the temperature, show our confidence, even in the moments that it feels the hardest and remember our worth because our anxiety convinces us that we're not the ones with the worth in the situation our anxiety makes us forget that we have so much to offer and that anybody would be lucky to be with us so go out there create that create that desire, show that confidence. Don't let your anxiety take over that voice in your head that tells you that you're an incredible person to be with. And if someone doesn't recognize that, there will be someone who will. Remember, love the life you already have, even while you're searching for the love you want.

And we will see you in the next episode of Love Life. Thank you, Jameson. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Audrey. And thank you to all of you out there for listening. We'll see you next time people.