Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 285: When They Tell You They Can’t Be in a Relationship...

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Are you struggling with heartbreak after falling for someone who says they can’t be with you? In this episode, Matthew unpacks what it really means when someone claims they “can’t” be in a relationship. Through the of a woman who gave everything to a man who wouldn’t commit, Matthew breaks down key insights that will help you regain clarity, self-worth, and the courage to move forward. Topics covered: The Difference Between "Right" and "Ready" – Why the perfect person for you isn't just about compatibility but about commitment. Unwilling Compromises vs. Real Obstacles – Understanding when someone is genuinely unable to be with you versus when they’re just unwilling to make sacrifices. Why Love is a Verb, Not Just Words – Actions define relationships, not promises or poetry. The Power of Perspective – If you were in their shoes, what would you be willing to do to make it work? How to Move Forward – Letting go of someone who won’t show up for you and reclaiming your time and emotional energy. For a deeper dive, check out the free "How To Heal From Heartbreak" Masterclass before it disappears!

What's up everybody welcome back to the Love Life podcast. Today is going to be very relevant to you if you have fallen for someone who is now telling you that they cannot have a relationship for any reason whatsoever. If that's you, you're probably in a very heartbroken state right now. You're probably really struggling with the confusion of the situation and knowing what to do next or today is going to help. Before I go any further with this podcast by the way I just did an entire live hour on how to heal from heartbreak get closure and move on once and for all if you weren't there thousands of people from across the world attended this live session. It really was a remarkable session in helping people to move on

from the worst heartbreaks of their life. So if that describes you, whether the heartbreak was yesterday or years ago, but you're still going through it, I want you to check this out before the replay disappears. We are airing it until Friday night so on the 28th at midnight this replay will disappear so please go check it out now mark it in your diary don't be one of

those people who gets to Saturday needing this and you didn't actually watch it while it was available the link to go and watch it is lovelifereplay.com. Go check that out either now or as soon as you finished listening to this podcast. This episode today is part of a mini series that I'm doing on the podcast where I am taking pieces of writing that I reserved exclusively for people who are on my mailing list in a Friday letter called The Three Relationships. And I spent a lot of time crafting these pieces that helped a lot of people who are on my newsletter. If you're not part of my newsletter, go to thethreerelationships.com and jump on that now. But for everyone who wasn't on the newsletter at the time,

they really did miss something special. And I wanna bring forward a few of these pieces and essentially turn them into the spoken word so that they can help people who watch the YouTube videos or who listen to the Love Life podcast. This one is all about situations where someone tells you they can't have a relationship with you at the point where you've already decided that you like or love them. It's a really important piece. I think you're really going to enjoy

this story and it's going to help be a pressure valve for you if you find yourself in that situation. And by the way, you can listen to this story on the move. If you enjoy listening to me in the car or when you're tidying the house or whatever you're doing at the same time, you can listen to it as a sleep story if you like. I know some people enjoy doing that with the podcast or I know some of you will just enjoy watching it on YouTube.

But I intended this to be something that you could enjoy in many different ways. It started when my friend Anna called me in a heartbroken state. For the past year, she had been in a relationship with a man that she felt was her soulmate. She was ready to spend the rest of her life with this man, except that two months ago, he decided to end it, which is a move that usually disrupts any plans to spend the rest of your life with a person. Anna listened with incredulous sorrow as he explained to her the reasons why he couldn't continue with the relationship, most of which had to do with

his separation the year before from his wife and how it was still messy. None of this was news to her. She had known all along. In fact, she had even felt excited to be able to be a great teammate to him as he worked his way through all of it. This, it seems, was not part of his plan. He said that having a fully committed relationship where he was open with his ex about it

was completely off the table for the foreseeable future. At first, my friend Anna was very understanding and accommodating about all of this. But for the last few months, it had started to really bother her. It pained her to feel like an island he visited rather than the treasure that was part of his everyday life. She had tried to make compromises, offering to take things slowly as long as there was a genuine feeling of progress. She told me all of this through tears as she recounted the many ways in which she had given everything to this man that she'd fallen for and shown up for him whenever he needed her. She said, I cooked for him whenever he came over. I checked in whenever he'd had a hard day just to listen.

I'm all about being the best partner there is when I'm in love. But no matter what, she explained, she still felt like the woman on the outside, the secret his other life wasn't supposed to discover. As she made me party to her frustrations, it was clear that heartbreak wasn't her only emotion. There was anger.

Anger is a common response when the gap between what we've been prepared to do for someone else and what they've been so patently unprepared to do for us becomes painfully clear. One day, determined to change the dynamic, she gave him an ultimatum. Commit to a real relationship that he was happy to be public about and fully integrate their lives or she was done. He chose done. She was devastated, more than devastated, shocked. She told me I couldn't believe it. I really thought that when I gave him a choice, he would She was devastated, more than devastated, shocked. She told me, I couldn't believe it. I really thought that when I gave him a choice, he would finally realize that he was going to lose me.

He'd come around, invite me over and finally go all in. She waited several days to see if he would wake up one morning in a cold sweat after having had some harrowing nightmare about losing her for good, then come to his senses and call her. When he didn't do that, she panicked. And when we panic, we often resort to actions that dismantle the good we've done in our calmer moments. In Anna's case, this meant that despite the fact that nothing had changed, she ran back to him. She tearfully stressed to him that she never should have given him that dreadful ultimatum in the first place.

It wasn't something she would normally do. She told him that she was simply her and that she knew that the love they had was miraculous because she saw how special it could all be. Could all be. Could all be. Pay attention to any situation where could fails to graduate to will. Will is steeped in intention, whereas could, its limp and invertebrate cousin, lives in equivocation. So they began dating again. This lasted for a couple of months, at which point he found himself afflicted by a sudden relapse into a state of, we can't be together. She was the love of his life, he said, but it just wasn't possible to make it work.

He then proceeded to break up with her a second time. So let's talk about what I call unwilling compromises. Look, make no mistake, when two people find themselves still able to draw breath in this world, especially when the air they're breathing happens to be in the same zip code, there aren't many true impossibilities when it comes to being together. Just unwilling compromises. Think of it this way. Some couples work because of an absence of complications. They love each other, they're in similar stages of life and they find themselves wanting similar things. Other couples work, not because they have no complications, but because of their equal willingness to overcome them.

Now, I'm not saying that some compromises don't go too far. They obviously do. There's always going to be a point at which we can see to ourselves that a sacrifice is no longer justifiable. If someone lives on the other side of the world and we only get to see them once every two months, and this is unlikely to change for years,

then we may well decide that life is too short for this particular relationship. Maybe it would be worth it if we were to live with this person for 200 years once we could finally be together, but with 40 left to go, it's reasonable to say that you'd rather be sharing a bed with someone now than at some imaginary date in the future. But in Anna's case, he wasn't shouting, I love you but we can't be together

down the phone from a five-year special ops mission between intermittent shell blasts lighting up the streets around him. He was saying it from his four bedroom house ten minutes down the road. As you sit listening to this, assuming you're still sitting and aren't furiously pacing the floor as you start to critically assess your own situation, maybe you're getting some clarity. But a thought keeps returning. Matthew, this person is the right person for me. There are 10 in terms of what I'm looking for. My question is, are you sure? Can someone really be a 10 for you if they come with obstacles that are making you deeply unhappy? Perhaps you feel that the connection you have with them is a 10, fine. But as I

talk about at length in my book Love Life, connection doesn't simply supersede everything else. If a 10 is defined as someone who is truly right for you, then we should look at what right actually means. The right person is both right and ready and if they're not ready, they can't be right. And the right relationship has to actually work. If it doesn't work, it's not right. To tell you the truth, I don't believe in meant to be. In fact, I'm saying that the inverse of this statement is true. It's when two people are willing to work things out that it will come to be.

In other words, it's a proactive thing, an empowered thing, a defiance of chaos rather than a reaction to the wishes of the universe, which in my humble opinion is more preoccupied with its limitless expansion, black holes and roughly 100 billion stars being born and dying every year, than it is concerned about whether you marry Jeff. A true relationship is two people consciously entwining to bravely braid a cord of unity and order in an open-ended and mercurial world. If the two of you aren't willing to make it work, it can't be right.

And if you are willing to make it work, but they're not, then your willingness alone can't make it right. You can't braid yourself. It takes two people weaving together. Right means both people are willing to do what it takes. You see, in Anna's case, she had a compromise that she was willing to make. This man is separated and going through a messy divorce and I am happy to be by his side as he works through all of that. I am happy to integrate my life with his while having

to deal with the dynamics of a situation that could be challenging because I want to make this relationship work. His compromise, risking making his divorce more difficult by being open and honest about the fact that he was pursuing a new relationship, was something he was unwilling to do. Now assuming that this guy's excuse is legitimate and taking it at face value, it's not for me or you or any of us to judge what is right or wrong for him in his life. But my job is to protect Anna's time by ensuring that she doesn't spend any more of it thinking about a man who happens to be the unwilling compromiser in this situation. I certainly want her to shed the idea that he is the love of her life because

continuing to believe that someone is the one for you even though you can't have them is a recipe for madness. Allow me to offer you an invaluable test for restoring your sanity. If someone is telling you how much they love you and would love to be with you, but the relationship isn't working because of actions they are unwilling to take or sacrifices they are unwilling make, ask yourself this simple question. If I were them and I loved me the way they say they love me, what would I be doing to make it work? Think about your answer for a second. Are the things that they are unwilling to do things that you would do in a heartbeat for someone you loved that much.

So if you have fallen for someone and they are telling you reasons that they can't be with you in spite of their deep feelings for you. Here are some key takeaways. Number one, when two people find themselves still able to draw breath in this world, there aren't many true impossibilities when it comes to being together. Just unwilling compromises. 2. The right person is both right and ready. If they're not ready, they can't be right. And the right relationship has to actually work. If it doesn't work, it's not right. Three, a true relationship is two people consciously entwining to bravely braid a

cord of unity and order in an open-ended and mercurial world. In other words, being together is proactive, it's not passive. Four, don't settle for being an island someone visits, be the treasure they are excited to bring home. Five, are the things they are unwilling to do to make it work things you would do in a heartbeat for someone you love as much as they say they love you. Pay attention to that. So what about you? Think of a current or past situation where you felt like you were doing most of the compromising and ask yourself if I were them and I loved me the way they say they loved me, what would I be doing to make it work? Does this make you realize the enormous

gulf between words and actions? Remind yourself now that great relationships are built on actions. Love is a verb. It requires someone to show up, not just recite poetry about how they feel about you. How will this realization impact the pedestal you've put this relationship on? How will it help you move on and find something far, far better? Now, of course, as I said at the beginning, a huge symptom of being in a situation like this is heartbreak. The feeling of having fallen for someone, having let your guard down, been vulnerable with someone, allowing your feelings to develop because you felt like you were in a mutual place with someone and that they felt the same, and then grieving

the loss of something special that you thought was on the cards and then grieving the loss of something special that you thought was on the cards. Grieving the loss of hope for the relationship, the future you thought you might have with that person. And if you're in that place, if you're in that place of heartbreak, what I did this week on how to heal from heartbreak is designed for you. Please take the time, one hour of your life, if you're heartbroken, it will be the most important hour you spend this year for your emotional well-being. Take that hour and come watch this live session I did before it expires on Friday night. It expires this Friday at midnight Pacific time. So go check it out. It's at lovelifereplay.com. I'll also leave a link in the description of the episode and

I wish you better and I look forward to working on this with you Thank you so much for being here on the Love Life podcast as always and I'll see you next time Thanks for watching!