Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 267: "He Still Won't Commit After 2 Years"...What's The Best Move Now?

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Matt and Audrey answer a question from a listener in an exclusive "situationship" with someone she truly connects with, but who still doesn't want to fully commit and call it a relationship. We discuss how to interpret their behavior, what to do to protect yourself from future pain, and what your options are now that you've invested 2 years in someone who is still holding back. >>> Discover the Biggest Reason Why People Struggle to Get Commitment, and How You Can Avoid "Relationship Limbo". Register Now for my FREE Masterclass, From Casual to Committed at ... http://www.LoveLifeTraining.com >>> Order My New Book, "Love Life" at → http://www.LoveLifeBook.com >>> FREE Video Training: "Dating With Results" → http://www.DatingWithResults.com

Welcome back to the Love Life Podcast with me, Matthew Hussey. My wife, Audrey Hussey, is with me today. We're going to be answering a listener question that is all about commitment and this listener's situationship. She wants to be out of it. What can she do? By the way, so many of you email us about commitment every single day saying that in today's dating landscape, it is really hard to find people who want to commit. Well, I am answering that question once and for all on October the 22nd in a live global event that you can join absolutely free by going to lovelifetraining.com. You do not want to miss this. If you are someone who is sick and tired of situationships, casual hookups, and dead end, just relationships that

never actually materialize into the real thing, this event is for you. It's going to be super practical. You're going to love it. Go sign up for free at lovelifetraining.com and join the thousands of people that are going to be with us that day. Welcome everybody to the Love Life Podcast. I am here. My name is Matthew Hussey, if you are just finding out about that. The person that is me. And I'm here with Audrey Hussey. We're very, very excited about today's episode. We have a... Which is coming out on, which is October the 16th. Yeah, so we're recording this from the past. I was going to say it is October the 16th.

Well, we wouldn't. It's October the 16th. And the news is that. It's spooky season. There are spooky things happening everywhere. Including we have booked to go and see. We've booked with you, me, my mom and Stephen to go to a haunted house, haven't we? Yeah. Which we went to two years ago and we really loved it it was really quite like I didn't realize coming from England how um

involved Halloween is in LA like how much people just take it very seriously in America in general they do I mean Americanslloween very well i know it's really good and we're gonna we're gonna do a haunted house where last time a friend of ours got put in a closet oh my god he did i forgot yeah that would that would have freaked me out i think he got put in a closet and god god only knows what happened to him in there he seemed to enjoy it though. He's a pretty like good sport kind of person. Hey, do you know what else is spooky?

Go on. Is this going to be a segue to the episode theme? Oh, you just killed it. You ruined it. No, I want to know. You ruined it. I want to know how you're going to make a spooky segue. Some of these people's behaviors that are being, that are reported to us in our inbox.

You, you, I. i no this is good so so you're saying this the behaviors people have been reporting at podcast at matthewhussy.com which is where you can email us i've been spooky yeah like okay bad well tell us about some of these spooky behaviors that people have been reporting we do have a listener question today last week you had the pleasure of listening to matthew and esther do their thing it's really fun for me by the way to watch you as the heavyweight that you are in public speaking as you know i have a lot of admiration for the way you speak and esther who is esther sorry who is such a heavyweight herself. And just watching you guys come together and have the conversation that you had

was just like so much fun to watch live. Thank you. It was really fun to do. The last time I had a conversation with her was like four or five years ago. So we had a lot to catch up on. One of the things being you. Yeah.

I was, yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy, but no, no she was great I hope everyone enjoyed the episode yeah I'm sure they did let us know what you thought of the episode uh send us an email podcast at matthewhursey.com in case you did not catch it the first time but today we are diving into um somebody's question somebody called amanda wrote in and um this is her real name because she says she has uh no issues airing this publicly as she has no shame lol so i felt like it was okay to say it because she specifically caveated that Amanda says hi there I've been listening to your show for a while now and I love how applicable informative and entertaining it is over the last last nearly two years, I have been involved in a situationship and have been trying to use the pointers from your show as a means of

discovering if this is something that I really want, how to get more from this relationship, or if it's even good for me. Anyways, myself and this person go on regular trips together, hang out multiple times a week where sex isn't always involved. We discuss intimate details of each other's personal lives with one another, include each other in future plans. I have met all his friends. He has met all of mine. And we have both divulged that we do not want to see anyone else and that we like each other. Yet, this person is not ready for a relationship oh it's getting spooky i've noticed some people i know and heard some stories of other women going through similar

situations where they are with somebody who feels like a boyfriend or girlfriend but is not fully committing what are your thoughts on this i'm also not opposed to airing this publicly as i have no shame lol but yeah what are your thoughts on this trey spooky huh it is a bit spooky so hmm i think firstly i was interested there was a line right before she said he doesn't want a relationship where she said that the two of them have said they don't want to see other people. Is that what she said? Yeah, they're exclusive. Well, it's no, I don't know they're exclusive.

She says, we have both divulged that we do not want to see anyone else and that we like each other. Does she say how long this has been going on for? She says over the last nearly two years so it's a long time that is a long time we're not talking like you're in month two with someone and you've slipped into this sort of boyfriend girlfriend pattern of behavior spending all this time together you know you've met each other's friends on a few nights out you know and you know you you've done a couple of trips or whatever you're you're talking about two years so let's can we just break down some potential scenarios of what could be going on here? Because I think this will be useful for Amanda listening because we don't know the situation

and seemingly on the surface, it does seem, you know, like a long time, but what could be going on here? There's certainly something going on with him. We've obviously dealt with versions of this thousands of times. And in some scenarios, it would be, we see each other a couple of times a month, but she says they see each other multiple times a week. If he's seeing other people, I don't know if he is, but if he was seeing seeing other people then he's done a very good job of hiding that so it sounds like at least he's seeing only her but I don't know that that's guaranteed

and I'd be interested Amanda you know if you're listening whether or not you specifically said you know we have decided we are not going to see other people or whether the way that you wrote it was we've divulged that we do not want to see anyone else and that we like each other. Right. Which is a, it's a pretty weak statement. I don't know when that was said, but even if it was said a year ago, after a year of seeing each other, it would still be a weak statement. And the fact that things haven't progressed since then is, it's not good. And that should be seen as an alarming lack of commitment from someone he's either seeing other people or he's just seeing her but he has a real block when it comes to the idea of

having a real relationship he's afraid of what it means to actually say yes we're in a relationship right for some guys saying yes we're in a relationship is the equivalent to saying i do yes that's for a lot of guys it's the equivalent to that isn't it right you got your own personal experience of that babe i don't know are you gonna share any of my personal experience with that no but i was looking at you i was looking at you as like where you where are you where is she going with this i'm going spooky yeah you've gone a bit spooky today tis the season so i you're okay yes no no elaborate on that point though because

well i think it's a valid point like for some guys they can't fathom the idea of saying i'm in a relationship because they have negative associations around what that means that i'm now going to be trapped that i'm now not going to be able to have my fun that i'm now going to be trapped, that I'm now not going to be able to have my fun, that I'm now going to be, there's no, this kind of the point of no return. Whereas for as long as I keep it kind of on the edge here, I don't have to fully say I'm in, but I can still enjoy it for what it is. But this is, this is someone who is not available. It's someone who looks like they're really available, who is not available. Amanda, that is so confusing for you to be with someone who is not available, but looks like they're really available. You're going on trips, you're

meeting each other's friends, you're hanging out, you're sleeping together, you're meeting each other's friends you're hanging out you're sleeping together you're seeing each other multiple times a week that person two years yeah that that's a long time and it's a real that's a real head trip for you to be in a situation where you're kind of constantly feeling like someone's partner and but again i would i would listen to what was said i like you i should fucking hope so after two years like what what are we doing here how long are you gonna live amanda a thousand years do you have time to crawl at this pace like this is this would be a fine timeline if you lived for a thousand years if we said i like you two years in and then 10 years in we said i love you and then 50 years in we said i do like but this is on a on the timeline that we live for someone saying i like you shouldn't be seen as like it in a two-year period that's not that's not that interesting and saying you know divulging

as she puts it that we don't want to see other people it i that by the way that's called a relationship but it sounds to me and i don't know if you feel this way it sounds to me you've kind of said this already but just that maybe this man is almost like keeping one foot firmly out in order to be able to at any point be like i'm done and not be like the bad guy yeah because he can say i never said this was a relationship yeah he can be like this you know i'm really honest i'm not a bad guy the whole time i gave you as much as i could and i was honest about the fact that i'm afraid of relationships or that I couldn't do a relationship. I told you that, and you decided to proceed anyway, which by the way is true. And I know that's going to make you a little mad, but that's also true that it would make it, it from his side, it would make him incredibly emotionally immature or you know ignorant or

willfully ignorant or even somewhat you know manipulative to suggest that he hadn't played a part in that just really selfish yes of course and he's led her on and he's made it feel like they're in a relationship and he's done all those things that really mess up someone's mind that's true it's also true that she knows he's not offering a relationship yes it is and we have to take responsibility for that because otherwise you're empowering him but it's it i i agree with you but i do think it's difficult for amanda i imagine i suspect because when somebody is seemingly giving you everything just apart from a little bit of them what you don't go to is oh they are just keeping me as an option and they're mistreating me and they're doing that you go to they have a blockage

around relationships and I need to be understanding of that because ultimately like that is the way that I can have them and then over time especially after two years you know the sunk cost fallacy kicks in as you've talked about many times which is well I've invested this amount of time in this person like I can't walk away now it's two years of my life and i know that it'd be easy for anyone on the outside looking at this situation and saying you know that's a crazy amount of time how could you let this happen how could you not have a commitment from someone for that long but i can see how time progress like the longer it goes on the more the bond deepens because if they're seeing each other

multiple times a week they're bound to feel very close and the more it's just very difficult to walk away and i i don't know like i do i agree with you it is your responsibility but it's very hard especially when someone is giving you all of the right signals all the right lines all of the right things apart from this one thing that they're holding back yeah but you know it's not one thing that he's holding back it's not like the only thing he's holding back is the label of being in a relationship we know i don't i haven't met the guy and i know this is true. When a guy is seeing someone, as much as he's seeing her and they're going on trips and they've met each other's friends and blah, blah, blah,

no matter how much she thinks she's getting of him, he is holding an enormous amount back. She's not getting all of him. But then you tell yourself in that situation a bit of a story don't you i don't mean that in a bad way by the way she also doesn't know what she's not getting right and i think you you you just sort of hold on to what you have and you you kind of fluff around it and make it you know you like try and fill the spaces in the gap with just like fluff well that's like a weird analogy but you know what i mean you sort of like the fluff thing's quite good actually because she's getting a lot of fluff

but she's not necessarily getting like the real substance of like a relationship is so much of it is vulnerability it's really being who you are really being yourself it's having skin in the game when you're constantly keeping someone at arm's length in the way he is you don't see all of someone until they go all in yeah you just don't you're not getting a hundred percent of that person in fact you'd probably be shocked at how much of that person you're not really getting you'd probably be shocked at how much of that person you still don't know that's true but how do you not get addicted to the breadcrumbs like and i'm using this kind of you know popular term like

pop culture term to use but it it does feel even though there are all these like trips and hangouts and friend meets and stuff it's still breadcrumbs because they're not breadcrumbs they're like she's getting sandwiches sandwiches sound pretty good. Right. That's the problem. That's the problem. He is not giving her breadcrumbs. He's giving her whole sandwiches. He's giving her trips and you know, they're hanging out all the time. And that, like, that's, of course, that's compelling because that's not just uh you fantasizing about someone that you see once or twice a month this is someone who is very dangerous because you can actually build your life around them they've become a lifestyle you're excited about the next trip you're going to do you are hanging out multiple times a week

so you're kind of basing your week around them and when you're going to see them next you're making decisions based on where they're going to be at what times and you know sometimes life decision in many cases because she's probably amanda you are probably in love with this man right i would take a wild guess and say, you don't like him, you love him. And that means you're basing life decisions around this person that is, you know, giving you these sandwiches. Yeah. And that is understandable. I don't want to be like, I feel like I'm coming off a little salty today.

No, no, no today no no no no but but i know it's it i i say it because i i know that amanda could waste many more years in this situation because we've seen it a hundred And the chances of him becoming ready by you staying, Amanda, are really low, honestly. That you're almost making the assumption that if you stay, you're going to break the pattern. But what's far more likely is that by staying you cement the pattern wow yeah your staying is not a rejection of this pattern it's an approval of it so what is the lesson he's learning right now amanda think about this for a moment how do you learn lessons in life i bet you don't learn lessons when you're comfortable. I bet you learn lessons when things go wrong, when something hurts you, when, you know, someone changes their lifestyle very often, when they have a health crisis, when something goes wrong, right? It's far less common for someone to like when do or if think about it even on an

everyday level when do most of us decide i'm going to go on a diet was that a question to me i suppose like when when when do you look very pointedly at me no no i can tell you the time I don't go on a diet. The time I don't go on a diet is when I wake up and look in the mirror and think I looked, I look the same as yesterday. If I wake up and the scale says the same thing as it does when I'm eating well, I don't go on a diet. I keep eating bad food for as long as it doesn't affect my weight. I go on a diet because at a certain point, I think I don't like the way I look now. Or this is affecting my health.

Well, look at this relationship, Amanda. What are the chances that he changes as long as he is comfortable? As long as he keeps getting what he's always had? What he has learned over this time, and he may have learned it a long time ago by the way he may not have learned it with you he may have learned it with someone five people before you but at some point he learned that it was possible to be able to keep seeing someone have most of the things you get in a relationship he's missing one of the greatest things you get in a relationship by the way because you can't ever have that

unless you really go all in what is the greatest thing being a being a genuine team like genuinely being on a journey together because you're not he's not on a journey he's he's just in an experience he's having an experience but he's not on a journey he doesn't he's not on a path with you and being on a path with someone is so fun like feeling like you're building something together and feeling like you're building something together and feeling like you're going somewhere together and that you're really learning each other and feeling like you're investing in each other and every time you make those deposits you're making the relationship

better and you're making the world that you're creating together better that's the that's the best and he's depriving her of that feeling too because she's not having it by default that's exactly right but there was but so he's missing something really massive about what relationships can offer he's not experiencing that but he's having an experience and what he learned at a certain point is that he can have that experience with certain people who won't demand any more of him. And he either learned this with you, Amanda, or he learned it before you.

And ever since then, he's looked for people who will tolerate that. And he finds them. And there's a very good chance this story doesn't have the ending you want there's a very good chance that you decide that you want more and that you want that team that i was talking about you want to create a world with someone and grow together and invest in each other and be on a path together and that when you say that to him and you say look either this happens or i gotta i gotta go and find someone who on that level and here's what he'll do he'll go out

and find another person who will tolerate that all over again and he'll hop from one to the other so this is the thing that we have to like connect with. And I really hope people listening to this connect with this. He never has to learn this lesson. There's no rule in life that says he has to learn the lesson that relationships are awesome. And that all the really exceptional things, the exquisite things you get from a relationship, you can only get by going all in on a relationship. There is no, nowhere is it written that he has to learn that in this lifetime. And so he can actually go through his whole life living on the frequency he's living on now and spend the rest of his life finding people who will do that with him. And every time someone

decides enough is enough, I don't want to do this anymore. It doesn't necessarily mean he goes away and says, oh my God, this is it. This is the time I learn. He just goes out. It's far easier, by the way, for him to just go and find someone who fits his comfort zone, which is doing what he's doing with you right now. So that's the reality. And your decision, Amanda, is whether to continue to be a part of that reality or to go and take your reality back. Because right now you're not living your reality, you're living his. But I have a question because I'm Amanda, I'm listening to this and I'm like, yeah, Matthew, love it. Agreed. I don't love it. And you know, that's not what I want to hear,

but also I agree. It all makes sense. But you know, I don't know how old Amanda is. I don't know what her situation is. I don't know how old Amanda is I don't know what her situation is I don't know what her history is like but she may be in a situation where she goes okay but the idea of going from what feels like connection companionship feels like something and I'm used to it and I love this person going from that to the abyss the unknown like that's really scary and sometimes i think people struggle to let go of people and situationships that aren't serving them and aren't good for them because the alternative feels like potentially it's just loneliness and nothingness you're already unhappy what are you worried about that you're going to be unhappy you're unhappy no but she may say i'm not unhappy she's unhappy unsatisfied she's unhappy situation

she's not unsatisfied she's unhappy but she she probably feels i would be more unhappy because i would be alone and that would hurt more it only you only weren't you're only scared that it will hurt more if the pain will be more acute in the short term right that that's true the pain of leaving this person you are you by leaving this person you your heart will break and that will be acute pain and you will have to grieve this person that right now you're not grieving they're there you're connected to them you're never really having to deal with the loss by the way the the loss the loss has already happened. You just haven't accepted it yet. What is true is that this pain that she's got right now,

because it is pain, we have to call it what it is what she is experiencing is not the the euphemistic way we refer to this is confusion i'm confused i don't know what he wants i don't get this guy is it that's that's the euphemism the truth is i'm in pain i'm in pain because i really love this person i'm giving them so much time and energy i'm believe in the future with this person i desperately want a future with this person and they aren't choosing me. That is pain. So you're in, Amanda, we have to call it what it is. You are in pain. And by removing yourself from this situation,

you will be out of that pain. And you'll be in a new kind of pain, whether it's loneliness or heartbreak or grieving but that pain can be transformative the pain you're feeling now can't be transformative because it's chronic and it will be there for as long as you keep choosing someone who's not choosing you but the pain of leaving can be transformative because it can make you strong it can give birth to a whole chapter of your life where you start learning how to find joy and peace within yourself and happiness within yourself. And it actually makes space for the kind of relationship you're really, really wanting.

The one where you do get to build a world with someone. And by the way, if you wanna know if you can change, ask. You can find that out today. This reminds me, we have the webinar what what day is this is being recorded in the past so i just let me just think what are you talking about it's october the 16th oh october this isn't so next week oh my god next week we have a live event which is all about commitment and it's free it's on the 22nd of october on the 22nd of october very spooky very getting a bit spooky yeah well we have this it's a free event but we have thousands

of people signed up to come and be part of this with us and it's literally going to be all about getting commitment and by the time because we are recording this from the past, by the time the October 16th comes around, we'll have like tens of thousands of people signed up. Yeah. This has already been a very, very popular event for people registering because it is at the heart of so much of what is challenging about today's dating culture that, you know, many people are single and keep running into people who are not ready or aren't emotionally available won't commit string them along endlessly and there are other people who i know listen to the love life podcast who are

in a relationship with someone right now who doesn't want a relationship or who is on the fence and is proving to be challenging when talking about these things or never brings them up and you're like how long am i going to continue to just quote see this person and see where it goes we've all been stuck in a situationship before whether it's's Amanda for two years or you know a few months or whatever it is we've all been stuck in a situation ship and so this is why we decided to make this event happen it's such a big subject for people like how do we get people out of these horrible situation ships and into actual relationships or into a place where they can go and find an actual

relationship anyway you were making a different point where do people sign up well the whole we're going to do this as like one very high value very practical session for people and uh you can sign up at lovelifetraining.com and it's free so i mean just you know show up just do it that's all you need to do. Go to lovelifetraining.com. It'll take you seconds to register and we'll send you an email with the link for how you can join on the day. So you were saying about Amanda, you were saying that, you know, if you want to find out whether he can change, just ask. And there are ways to do that.

Yeah, you don't need to go into the future to find out you just need to find out today just you know you can talk to him about whether he's at this point in a position to have a fully committed relationship talk about spooky conversation oh his blood's gonna run cold sent me over the edge thinking about it but she could talk to him about that it is scary it's gonna and what you'll find is that he will say i'm almost certain of it he will say i just don't feel ready and amanda in that moment you have to ask yourself why you think it is that if he isn't ready in year two to have a relationship with you where he says yes to a relationship where are you getting this hunch that in year three he's going to be ready

yeah such a good point it makes no sense whatsoever all the evidence points to the opposite and if he's going to become ready it's far more likely that he becomes ready by you leaving than by you staying and amanda i know i get it i get it, I get it. I know how hard this is. I know how hard it is to walk away, but let me tell you what's harder, five more years of this. That's so true. That's so true. And you never get your time back.

No, you don't get, you can find another guy and it ain't gonna be that hard to find a better guy because a better guy is instantly just someone who says yes yeah so the bar is not that high right now right you can find another guy you can't you can't go to the shop and get more years there is nowhere can anyone offer you more years but there are plenty more guys out there so thank you everyone for listening thank you amanda for sending in a question brave and vulnerable it's you know i think it's always so lovely when people email us because it takes guts to put yourself on the line it takes guts to put yourself in a position where

you might hear something you don't want to hear i don't really think amanda thought that she was gonna get an answer that said that this guy is awesome and she should keep trying. I think some part of Amanda knew that we were gonna give her truth. And that means Amanda, that some part of you was ready for that. And that's a good thing because that means some part of you is ready to do what you haven't been able to do in these last two years.

There's a reason to be optimistic. And thank you to everyone who sends us in questions. We're gonna get around to more of them in the Love Life podcast. Thank you, Matthew, for your amazing wisdom, as usual. That's lovely. Well, you make an amazing partner in this. And we'll have more episodes with Stephen Hussey as well.

So look out for those. And thank you for listening, all of you. We really appreciate you. We'll see you in the next episode of Love Life. And remember, if you haven't signed up to our event on October the 22nd, it is gonna be a really, really special event. We're putting a ton of effort into this.

And we are literally spending many, many hours trying to make this as valuable as possible for you if you want to get out of the rat race of casual relationships and get the good stuff which is the relationship that you're looking for this session is going to help put you on the path to real commitment instead of an endless loop of emotionally unavailable people who can't give you what you're looking for no more sandwiches come join us on our session live on october the 22nd and you can join at lovelifetraining.com come check it out and thank you for listening as always be well friends of the podcast and love life