Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 217: Responding To YOUR Biggest Dating Mistakes...

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

Have you noticed a recurring pattern in your dating life? Or have you maybe repeated certain mistakes in relationships that you can't seem to stop doing? In this episode, Matthew, Stephen, Jameson and Audrey respond to YOUR replies on your repeated dating struggles and talk about how you can break these patterns and stop being caught in the same cycles. --- Come and join me on my LIVE Retreat for 6 magical days from October 9th-15th working on your deep inner confidence, life goals, relationships, and overcoming your biggest negative beliefs. Go to MHRetreat.com to claim your spot and join us in Florida!

So when we are choosing our flawed person, we better make sure that the things we're choosing are things that create long-term happiness, not things that just create short-term thrills. Welcome everybody to the Love Life Podcast with me, Matthew Hussey. We've got the whole gang here today, Stephen, Jameson and Audrey. Hi! Hey! Wow. Why did we go so cheesy then? I don't know, I quite liked it.

It wasn't even harmonious. We are so excited about today's episode. We've got a question that we put out on Instagram. What was that question, Audrey? It was, do you have a pattern or a reoccurring mistake in your love life that you want to work on? And we had a lot of response. So we're going to be reading some of those responses. We have some great content coming up in today's episode, a lot of response. So we're going to be reading some of those responses. We have some great content coming up in today's episode, a bit of housekeeping before we get started this October from the 9th to the 15th. Our live retreat is happening again in Florida, Fort Lauderdale. The dates have been released. We have over 200 tickets already sold. We actually don't

have that many left. This time before a retreat, we normally have a lot more than this available. And this year we have had an enormous amount of early signups. So not too many left now. If you do want to come and join us in person, in the flesh for six days in October in Florida by the beach, we're going to be spending six days working on your confidence, your ability to navigate the difficult times in your life, your emotions, your love life, and just the person that you're becoming in the upcoming years. Because if we don't grow consciously, then the things that frustrate us, plague us, make us unhappy today, make us anxious, make us stressed, they simply continue. They are ingrained patterns. So this is a program that helps you heal become the most confident version of yourself and work on the patterns that stop us from being happy

many of which have been there for years and years we would love you to join us and if you want to apply go to mhretreat.com to find out all about this wonderful program. And maybe we will see you in October in Florida. All right, let's get going. Audrey, why don't you give us a couple of the responses to the question we put out on Instagram? Yeah, for sure. So obviously this was asking people whether they had patterns that kept happening in their love lives that were kind of getting in the way and sabotaging their results. And it was honestly quite overwhelming to choose which ones to read out because there were so many unbelievably relatable and interesting ones. Some of them were actually kind of sad and it was quite hard to read them but i'll kick

things off with one which was from somebody called miss ruby and she said that her pattern was choosing unavailable partners and then not being able to leave them yeah yeah choosing unavailable partners why do we choose unavailable partners it It's worth exploring some of the cocktail of reasons that we actually do that. Because of course, the being unable to leave thing, there are things that make it harder for us to leave when we have a certain attachment style or we don't think we're worth more but also just when you allow yourself to get closer to someone naturally it's hard to leave so it's worth exploring why we even get close to people like this in the first place and make it hard for ourselves to leave so one of the reasons is scarcity We have a scarcity mindset in our love lives. We are in a place where maybe we've been single for a long time, where nothing's worked out so far,

where we are scared that we're not going to meet someone we like. And so when we meet someone who has certain qualities that make them like a ball, that especially when those qualities include chemistry, you know, we have chemistry with this person, we find ourselves very quickly attaching a lot of value to someone, regardless of the things that make them a bad candidate for a long-term relationship, which might include, they openly say they don candidate for a long-term relationship, which might include they openly say they don't want a long-term relationship, might include them being someone who from the beginning seems there's something off about them, or you catch them in a lie.

It might be someone who doesn't text you for days or weeks on end. And then all of a sudden wants your time in a very kind of extreme and intense way. When we see these things, we ignore them when we feel something and we just, we're glad to be feeling something. Now, how often does that happen? We're just happy to be feeling something. We're just happy to have something. Now, how often does that happen? We're just happy to be feeling something. We're just happy to have something. And the thing is, I think that sounds, it's a beautiful thing to want companionship, but in a weird way, this comes back to a thing Audrey says a lot about chasing the wrong things, but you can sometimes just chase a singular thing too much, like companionship. And you've put in the furniture of the room of what's

important to you you've put companionship as the centerpiece but you forgot all these other things or you shrunk them like my integrity my feeling of feeling nourished and loved my feeling of being able to have the kind of team and partnership that I've dreamed of and that all shrinks because you go companionship though I'm with someone it gives me validation it looks good on the outside because someone goes oh you're with that person that's good and I think it's like you've you've misallocated you've got one thing that's taking up too much space, which is just, oh, I'm with someone. I don't feel lonely anymore, which is why we do so much work on making you feel amazing and nourish being single, because that is the key to being able to let go

of those things. I think it's Guy Winch who says when you're trying to get over a breakup, you've got to emphasize all the things you're gaining by not being with that person and all the things you were losing by staying with them. Well, this person, I think both of these things come from just fear to me where, you know, choosing someone, an unavailable partner,

it's like, that's a way to just never really fully feel like you need to put yourself out there. It's like, well, they're not really available anyways. So it's like, that's a way to just never really fully feel like you need to put yourself out there. It's like, well, they're not really available anyways. So it's not, it's not me if they're, if I get rejected. And the same thing with leaving was like, well, it's not really of it. It's just sort of like in limbo, you're putting yourself in limbo there and you're, it's coming from a place of just, I'm not going to need to really do anything. I'm kind of going to stay in the middle here where someone's kind of unavailable. I'm going to kind of stay, I'm not going to need to really do anything. I'm kind of going to stay in the middle here where someone's kind of unavailable. I'm going to kind of stay. I'm going to kind of

not go. And I'm just not going to be truly vulnerable with this person in front of me. Or I'm not going to be truly vulnerable, not with the person, but just with love life in general. I've got a question. When people say emotionally unavailable, do they just mean someone who won't commit or is there something else people are referring to? I think they mean someone who won't commit. I think it's not being ready and not able which is self-esteem and the sort of economics of someone not wanting to be with you and what that makes you feel in terms of your worth versus their worth. I think that that's a huge part of why we kind of end up chasing people who don't want

us because by default of them not wanting us, their stock rises, their value rises, and we just end up kind of, it reaffirms the fact that if we don't, if we're not able to get that person, then we're not worthy. And people who kind of turn around to meet us and actually want to be with us, we almost go, well, if you want to be with me,

there must be sort of like, your value must not be as high as I think it is because I don't think that I'm worthy of love. It's a very deep reason, but I think it's actually probably one of the main reasons why we, because healthy people with healthy sense of self and healthy kind of, what's the word? Healthy self-worth, I suppose,

find people who don't want them to be kind of like oh well that's the dead end and that's not very attractive I want to be with someone who actually wants to be with me and I think when people really chase after people who don't want them that tends to be that you know they're probably trying to close a loop that is you know predates that person and is very very deep and very old it's like a mistaken perception of the value of love being in acquiring a prize instead of the value of it is what you both are going to build together and maybe that's actually to do with also movies and stuff like that where all of love stories are always about kind of overcoming this major obstacle or you know taming the beast or making sure that

somebody like making somebody love you rather than like what happens after people get together and you're just in a relationship in a normal regular relationship and that part's never really glamorized in the same way so the peaks are the things that we almost chase after because we think that's love and we recognize that as passion um And maybe then emotionally unavailable people as a result feel like the epitome of that and they'd be epitome of acquiring love Yeah No, that's right

there's an intensity to Chasing someone that feels unavailable and then the feeling you get when they give you a little bit of attention, it feels like a rush. You know, it's exciting. It's euphoric. It's this huge release. It's not a normal feeling that you have in a stable relationship. So if you live your life chasing that feeling,

you're going to have to keep going and getting those highs in people like that where it's push pull all the time it's not there's no sense of just oh there's a there's a peace to this peace doesn't necessarily feel exciting and if exciting is what you're always driving towards if that's the thing you value the most, then you'll be attracted to situations that create those kinds of feelings. Absolutely. We have another comment from Akia who said, I feel anxious when I don't have constant attention and I have a hard time communicating my needs. I think that's incredibly common also it's a tough combo anxious and also trouble communicating that they're anxious so it probably manifests in like this really

anxious attachment or anxious avoidant attachment where it's like I'm pissed off and angry I'm now I'm gonna like run off and not explain why you. I think they go hand in hand a lot of the time, because if you're, if you're anxious, anytime someone leaves your side or isn't giving you attention, there's, you know, you're also, you're, you're not just anxiously trying to get attention. You're anxious that you're going to lose it. You're anxious that they're going to abandon you. And what you don't want to do is give they're going to abandon you. And what you don't want to do is give them more reasons to abandon you than you think they already have. And expressing your vulnerability and the things you're, you know, the needs you have is something that you

might think is going to make you seem high maintenance. It might make you seem weak. It might make you seem unattractive. And so you, the last thing you want to do is give them more reasons to find you unattractive or to not want you or to ask for things because you're worried that if you ask, again, that anxiety is, I'm not worthy, right? I don't want to, if I ask for something, then I might be too much for you. I'm only worthy when I'm doing everything you want not when I ask for things I want so that feeling of I'm anxious anytime they're not around or not texting me but I'm too afraid to say it is all part of the same thing do you think in a way you

can need less attention the more you get comfortable with just asking for what you want is the attention like a substitute for you just needing to feel with certainty but in a way if you can ask calmly for this is what i'd like or i'd like us to talk for half an hour each night or whatever maybe you need less in between that because you've been able to just communicate solidly. This is my expectation. This is what I want. And now I don't have to feel so kind of like, you know, if you know dinner's coming tonight,

you don't need to worry about like, where like constantly fretting about your hunger. Right. Always about food, isn't it? Always, always, you know,

actually the holistic psychologist said something to that. She said, what, uh, showing love to anxiously attached people looks like. And it was a message which was like, you know, hey, I'm really busy with work today. But just so you know, that's all it is. I'm not ignoring you. And I'll message you at four o'clock when I get out. And I think you're totally right.

It's that sort of like, if if you can exist if you have these parameters in which you know this person isn't because I think it's the story you build in your head when you're not getting the communication which essentially is I'm going to get left I'm not worthy they don't love me they were someone else whatever it might be whereas if you if you know that during this time it's nothing to do with you they're just living their life and their other obligations and their other um kind of commitments then yeah you worry less about it and I think there's a lot to that and being able to effectively communicate that is super important right yeah yeah now I have the other issue where I'm often worried about people intruding too much on my space and I know

I can let a lot of that that anxiety go away of i'm feeling trapped i don't if i am able to go hey i'd really love to have space to do this tonight or this then i'm not like so jittery and freaked out like someone's gonna come and monopolize all my time or someone's gonna come and like try and trap me and maybe do things i don't want to do if i'm able to be like i'd like this morning to do this and then we will go and do that this afternoon um i feel the guy that's like that sent that message a bunch that holistic psychology you just copy and paste that to everybody i think i think you sent me that this morning that's pretty rude it's kind of funny though isn't it because you

could be avoidant and still not having those conversations and if you say why does an avoidant not have those conversations like in the past when you were in a place in your life where you wouldn't have that conversation why do you it would be taken as a kind of act of um just coldness or unkindness but what would what's the thing you're afraid of in like what was the result that that that could happen because of those things that you were afraid i suppose it was thinking oh now they're gonna feel upset or angry all day and like it's gonna create a tension that we're gonna then have to address like it's gonna be taken it's gonna be taken the wrong way and there's gonna be an argument or tension

right and and yeah and a kind of fear of this person's gonna leave me if i communicate this like that eventually they're just gonna decide i'm not enough or i can't give enough i'm just curious i'm not such there's not intended i think there's definitely times where i felt nervous about in the past about talking about certain boundaries or things i would like for fear that they're gonna think this is like yeah this is too much demand. Or this is like, well, who are you to ask that? What? You don't want to like spend time with me? Well, screw you. Like, you know, that it's like, Oh no, if I say that it is going to rock the boat. And

it's just kind of interesting, isn't it? Because whether, whether you're on the anxious side or the avoidance side, you can still be afraid of who I am is going to sabotage things. It's going to be not enough for someone. And that prevents you from asking for what you actually need. And it's, it's a sad thing because you, you can actually have a shot at getting what you need by communicating what would help you. And what would, it's not about someone, I think, you know, we have to be careful in the conversations about attachment styles that it doesn't sound like communicating means that they have to meet all of your desires because your desires are different from your needs, right? What you may want is different from what you need. You may want thinking anxiously to be texted every

hour of the day, but what you need is structure. What you need is to know that someone, you know, that you're safe and And someone saying to you, hey, I'm really busy with meetings today, so I won't be very available, but I can't wait to speak to you after work is a kind of structure. It's a kind of safety. I know where I stand with that.

But when, you know, I actually think it's almost incumbent on us, whatever our attachment style is, to figure out what template can I give someone for how to alleviate certain things with me so that they don't have to guess at it and read my mind. What template can I give them that isn't me asking them to, you know, respond to all of the worst permutations of my attachment style, but gives them a way of handling my attachment style

that's healthy and gives me what I need to feel like I'm in a good place. I love that. I actually want to add an extra layer, which is when you go out and approach that, having the conversation in the realm of you know when you do this I feel like this therefore it would be amazing if you could do this in order for me to not be triggered in those ways but I appreciate you too have needs

so I want to hear as well what it is that you would like and where you feel that might be too much so that we can come to a compromise because sometimes as well I think when we have quite um kind of all-consuming attachment style we forget that we're also dealing with somebody else who also might have stuff who also might have needs and so if we're not taking the time if we're only putting on them what we want from them we're not necessarily taking the time to see what they want back from us and the more they can communicate and you can communicate I think it just creates this very it brings you out in the open right yeah and I think the more you communicate to someone I'm looking out for your needs the more that person can see you as

a long-term partner you relax because you go oh this person's got my they've got my needs so i don't have to constantly be defending my needs because they've got them they're taking them in their hands it's uh that's a that's a powerful thing i love that i see why people don't send that message though like is Steve you might not send that message even though it's beautifully said especially the way you said it Matt where it's just like hey I'm just getting out my meetings and I'm thinking about you but just know I'm busy there's a way to send that message and have it be really nice and compassionate and sweet but even sending it there you are putting yourself out there and you're like almost putting a line in the sand and saying like, here's the needs that I can meet. And maybe it's not going to work.

Like if, if, if you're still anxious after that message, that's kind of like, that's tough. Maybe we aren't, aren't actually compatible. So I think that's why people don't actually communicate it. Sometimes they're a little bit afraid to just put it out there. Like if it's a question mark, who knows, maybe we can make it work. But if I just communicate thoroughly, then we're going to find out right away whether it's just going to actually work or not. Sure. Yeah.

Well, speaking of avoidance, we have somebody else who wrote in and her pattern was that she finds something wrong with everyone. And I think that is so common. We hear it all the time um tends to go hand in hand with you know chasing unavailable people and being repulsed by people who actually want to be with us yeah yeah i i think that there's this really interesting dichotomy i know we spoke to someone recently in one of our programs who said anytime i you know when someone's making

me chase them i have this certainty and when someone is into me i find myself constantly doubting whether they're right for me and that what that can do is it can make the same person look like they're anxiously attached when they're chasing someone, but avoidant when someone wants them. And to me, there's a really interesting thing going on there, whereby when someone is making us chase them, we don't really have any bandwidth to evaluate their flaws. We're just so busy trying to get them. The, the, you know, you can think of that with anything in life. You know, when a goal seems hard to achieve or whatever, you don't have to worry about whether it's the right thing. You're just like, but let me just achieve it. Cause I don't know if I can. And then I think that's why a lot of us, when we achieve our goals,

we find ourselves going, oh, like this was the thing. This was what I was doing all this time. There's a certainty about chasing something because it's all consuming. And it's the same with people. There's a certainty about chasing people. You don't have to ask if they're right for you. You just want to make sure they want you. And when someone wants you, you've suddenly got all this energy freed up because you're no longer consumed by trying to get them. They want you. So all of a sudden you've got all this bandwidth to assess them and to look at what's wrong with them, to look at their flaws, to inspect

them up close. And all of a sudden all this doubt comes in because you're actually looking at all of those things. And now you're forced to actually make a decision decision there's agency to that which we don't want kind of we think we want agency but a lot of the time we don't you know we think oh i just want to be able to choose what i want for dinner tonight but sometimes there's nothing more rewarding than a friend coming along and saying i really fancy indian tonight and you're like phew i don't have to decide between the 20 different cuisines on my app right now. You're not like that. You like to scroll the app for hours, sometimes days, before finding, before landing on one of the three things you always order. Matt, I'm going to come by and order for you tonight, just like old times.

Yeah, because you don't seem to like that. Yeah, you do? I do like when someone expresses a strong opinion like, oh, I really fancy this. And then it takes the weight off of me having to decide. Because in relationships, when this happens, it takes the weight off of us having to figure out whether someone is right for us.

And that is a heavy weight. When you're thinking, who do I want to spend my life with? We're not talking about what to order for dinner tonight. We're talking about my life. Who am I going to spend it with? stakes you don't think about those stakes when you're chasing someone you just think about whether whether you can get them and that's why for anyone out there listening right now if you find that you're anxiously attached with people that make you chase them and you feel avoidant with people that want you. I believe that that is, this goes to the heart of why that is for so many people. You don't have to decide with someone who's not sure about you, but you do have to decide with someone who wants you. And when you don't trust yourself, when someone wants you,

you can't get out of your doubt. Because really, it's a doubt about your own choices. It goes beyond the doubt about them. And that's ultimately a real relationship is choosing. Chasing someone all the time who doesn't want you, isn't sure about you, who doesn't want to commit, that's a fake relationship a real relationship is choosing you actually have to choose you have to choose a real human being not a mystery human being not an exciting you know human being that you can't quite see their flaws because they're too far in the distance they're too distant to remove from you a real relationship is you actually have to choose a human being and every human being is flawed. Every single one of them has something, whether it's something physical,

whether it's something psychological, whether it's something in their history, a problem in the present that they have to deal with, a challenge in their future. Every single human being is flawed and has a flawed life. And I feel like that's truly the moment where you realize you're ready for a relationship is when you're ready to choose flaws. You mentioned the other day that Christopher Hitchens quote, you have to choose your regrets in life. And you've never used it in this context before, but it's kind of interesting here. Like you have to choose your regrets in a person in life. You're going to choose a person

and the person is going to come with flaws. The choice is going to come with regrets. I don't know if that's the right word, but it's some lack of perfection. And growing up, I think is realizing like, life ain't going to be perfect. People are not perfect. And your choices aren't even really perfect. Everything's super gray and fuzzy.

And yeah, but choosing is pretty powerful. And once you actually choose, you can kind of use that as more energy to put into the choice. Well, and nothing imbues something with more meaning than choosing it. Right. When you, when you actually, when something didn't choose you, when you choose it, you know, I was,

I was speaking to someone who was considering having a child on her own. And she actually had a person in her life who was smitten with her and wanted a child with her. And she felt like it was this very, very difficult choice between, like, she felt it made the choice harder that there's this person that wants to do it with her, wants to marry her and have a family that she didn't feel was right for her. And that she was giving up a, a family with this guy in order to have a child on her own. And what I said is, you know, in an interesting way, this actually gives it more meaning. You having a child on your own, because you're not saying there's not another option, so I'm going to do this. You're saying there is another option, but I'm still going to do this.

That gives it even more meaning. Because your story is deciding to do this because this wasn't right for you over here this person even though it represented a traditional family unit wasn't right for you so you having a child on your own was right for you and anytime you don't have to be in that kind of a position to just be choosing a person and saying if i could choose lots of different people, and all of them are flawed, then the flaws that I do choose have real meaning. Because what they represent is, oh, they're attached to someone who has things that are extremely important to me. What they have is that important to me and that's why I'm choosing this. The mistake people make

when they choose people who make their lives truly miserable is that the qualities they're choosing are actually, you know, the qualities they're choosing are not qualities that create long-term peace and happiness. They are the qualities, they're ignoring someone's flaws because someone has a lot of charisma. They're ignoring someone's flaws because they have a lot of success or because they're really attractive. Those aren't things that create long-term happiness or peace. So when we are choosing our flawed person, we better make

sure that the things we're choosing are things that create long-term happiness, not things that just create short-term thrills. That's amazing'm i feel overwhelmed because there's so many incredible comments so i think we're gonna have to make this a two-part episode very good if you guys are happy with that a double-decker yeah because there's just too many to choose from and these answers are amazing and beautiful you know taco bell stopped making double-deckers i and i know because you wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks i just wanted to know if in case taco bell's listening i just didn't know if there's something they could do about that we can talk no you're right we'll talk about that on the next episode yeah we can read i love the idea that we're we're not it's not like we're getting paid to mention taco bell it's that you're

lobbying taco bell to bring menu items back what if they canceled Family Guy after that third season and we didn't raise hell about it and get it brought back to the air? We would have 20 seasons of Family Guy. Right. So what are we going to do? Just sit back? And watch the double-decker fade into obscurity?

Absolutely not, Jameson. If it's a fight you care about, it's a fight I care about. Thank you. Well, here's another fight you care about, it's a fight I care about. Thank you. Well, here's another fight we care about helping people find the love that they seek in healthy ways that don't leave them burnt out, but actually leave them feeling alive and happy and peaceful and also help them avoid so much of the mistakes that are made in dating that leave people feeling those things. And if you're in a place right now where your love life is a

priority, we have a place that you can learn where to find love, how to avoid casual situations, and finally get the safety, the loyalty, and the commitment from someone that you deserve. It is a training that I put together for free called Dating with Results. And right now you can go and watch this training, which is a one hour training, and you have a two day pass to watch it. Once you've signed up, go to datingwithresults.com, sign up, you'll get a free pass for the next 48 hours. And as long as you watch it within those 48 hours, you're good. So go check that out. Now it's at datingwithresults.com. Get out of the chaos, the wild west of dating these days and into a real relationship. We will show you how practically in this free training. And don't just click on it and say you're going to watch it and then

miss the window, which is something I always do and then always regret. Actually watch it. Schedule the time. Watch it on day one of the 48 hours so you absolutely don't miss it. Why would you wait? It's one hour long. Start now. It's just, it'll change your life. Datingwithresults.com. Thank you so much everyone for listening to this episode of Love Life. We really appreciate you guys. We love the medium of podcasting to be able to reach you. It's different, isn't it? It's a conversation. You don't get to know us

like this on YouTube. It's its own thing. We appreciate you listening to the episodes and bearing with us on the weeks that we haven't got the time to put out one of these kinds of episodes.

Thanks for being on the journey with us and we'll see you next time. Bye, everybody. Bye, Pickles. episodes. Thanks for being on the journey with us and we'll see you next time. Bye everybody. Bye pickles.