Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 94: The Obvious Red Flag You Should NEVER Ignore When Dating

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

People always ask how to spot red flags in relationships. But often the red flags are right in front of our eyes - we just choose to ignore them.  Here we explain why it happens and how you SHOULD respond when the warnings signs appear... --- Join us on our virtual retreat on March 19-21! Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com and spend a magical 3 days with us transforming your confidence and relationships... -- Also, we love to hear from you! You can email the show at [e-mail]!  --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey

Steve, there is a quite well-known Maya Angelou quote that struck me as being extraordinarily important when it comes to relationships. She was once famously speaking to Oprah, and she said, when people show you who they are, believe them. They know themselves much better than you do and she was referring to those moments where people say i'm a selfish person i'm not a kind person i don't think of other people a lot you know when people i'm a mean person when people say those things and we shrug them off i've had that on first dates i've had people go like i i'm just really mean i can be just so i can just be so nasty yeah and that's a moment where you should believe someone it's not when your brother or your sister or your son or your daughter says that to you, your job's to see the best in them. Your job is to see what they can be. Your job is to encourage

them to be their best. That's what you do for family or for people you love. You see the generous thing you can do for someone you love is to see the best in them, even when they don't see it in themselves, so that they can be better through your love. But when it comes to relationships, which I sometimes think, sometimes with family, it's not always an equal exchange. With family, we do things for family because we love them and we're not trying to get anything. We just want to love them. That's the job, right? And if a family member is toxic or is truly detrimental or dangerous for your life, that's a different story and you have to decide how close you can keep that person. But that aside, you can love

a family member without expectation, without wanting something in return. The same is not true of romantic love. If you love someone without expectation, that's unrequited. That's a recipe for unrequited love where you can just love someone who's not good for your life or is ignoring you or is not investing back. That'm unkind. I don't think of other people. I'm not looking for something. When we ignore that, it's at our own peril. Because they're telling us something about themselves. And we have to assume they have no reason to lie to me right now yeah right so someone says they're jealous they don't surprise you by never being jealous you know oh you said you were jealous

but you're never you're never jealous right they know themselves much better than you do. And this to me begs the question, why when we know these things about someone, do we continue? Why do we keep going? Now it could be because we're romantic, but you can be romantic and still appreciate the fact that I'm going to get hurt here. This person is likely to hurt me. This person is likely to cause me here. This person is likely to hurt me. This person is likely to cause me pain. This person is likely to be a bad influence on my life. We have two jobs when it comes to relationships. And in some ways you could say we have two jobs in life. Go and love, whether it's family, friends, people, partners, go and love someone and protect yourself.

Two jobs. Go and love and protect yourself. In a boxing ring, what does the ref say? At the beginning of every fight? There's the same line that gets said from every boxing referee in every fight that ever happens. Looks at both boxers and says, protect yourself for all times. when at a certain point in a fight, a referee determines that one of the fighters is no longer capable of protecting themselves because they're punch drunk. They're not putting their arms up anymore. They're not guarding punches. They are just taking a beating that's putting them in genuine peril, genuine danger,

and could be causing serious long-term harm, that referee stops the fight. Protect yourself at all times. And when the fighter can no longer protect themselves, they stop the fight. The problem in love is that there is no referee that comes along and stops the fight if you're no longer protecting yourself. Your job is to be that referee. Your job is to be both the fighter and the referee in that fight. And if you get to a point where you can no longer protect yourself, if you get to a point where you realize I'm just taking a beating emotionally, spiritually, my soul is taking a beating in this relationship. Your job is to stop the fight and remove yourself from the ring.

But too many people ignore what they know about someone, ignore how someone makes them feel, and keep in the ring with that person taking that punishment. They forget that they have two jobs, not just one. One job is to go out and love in the world. The other one is to protect yourself for all times. Why? Because that's a form of self-love. That's a form of self-care. That's a form of self-preservation. Because if you don't protect yourself from someone who means you harm, whether it's directly means you harm or just causes you harm because of what they do unconsciously, they're an unconscious person who's being driven by selfish desires, egoic desires.

If you don't protect yourself from that person, no one else can protect you and you'll be harming yourself. And when you harm yourself like that, you diminish your ability to give love to other people and to make an impact in the world. You have a terrible relationship and that affects your ability to go and love someone who could actually be right for you because now you don't love anymore. You have a terrible relationship

and now your friends and your family get the worst of you. And so now you can't even love your friends and family the same way. And it sounds good right it sounds noble like i stay in the ring i i'm passionate i'm love i'm a lover i go for it it it sounds on paper like it's a romantic noble aspiration right uh but you can get but you're not doing half the job that's what you say so i'm this this is these are the two things i want everyone to write down from this episode today these are the two things i want everyone to write down yes your job is to go out and love in the world. But imagine that there's a referee at the start of that fight that says protect yourself for all times.

Now, protect yourself in love doesn't mean keep your guard up and make sure that no one can get close to you. Protect yourself means when you know that you're in a situation that is causing pain to you unnecessarily from someone who does not mean you well or whose unconscious actions do you harm on a consistent basis your job is not to mindlessly take punishment it's to protect yourself because protecting yourself means more love for everyone else and everything else in your life. It means your soul, your love,

what you have to give is not diminished by the person in front of you. That's all I have to say today, Steve. We've been doing this now for 14 years and I have watched so many people who love with abandon and fail to protect themselves. And like I said, in life, there is no referee who stops the fight. Not outside of you anyway. Your friends, your family, the people around you

can be weeping at night knowing you're not happy and they don't have the power to stop the fight. Only you have the power to play referee and stop the fight. And your job is to know when to stop fighting, when to be able to stop the fight, when to be strong enough, when to be brave enough, when to be wise enough to stop the fight. And for anyone, by the way, who is ready right now to start taking better care of themselves, who's ready to start loving themselves on a different level and building a different level of confidence with themselves, have a different relationship with themselves. Our virtual retreat is coming up. It's on March 19th to the 21st. And it's going to be three days of coaching immersion

that is going to change the way you relate to yourself forever. And when you change the way you relate to yourself, you change your results in life. You change how happy you are. You change how at peace you are. And you change how much you rely on You change how at peace you are and you change how much you rely on any person to make you feel good enough. And when your strength comes from within, you make all sorts of wonderful choices that a previous you would not have made. And

that's when your life begins to change because you start making different choices. So if you want to sign up to that, if you want to find out more, it is upon us. If you, this is the last chance to be a part of this, it is at mhvirtualretreat.com. We'll see you there. Thank you, Steve, for another great episode. I appreciate you. Thank you, bro. And, uh, I'll stay in the ring with you a little longer. Good, sir. Maybe eventually I'll throw in the towel. Who knows? You'll never throw in the towel. For now, I'm sticking with you, buddy. All right. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you soon. Cheers.