Love Life with Matthew Hussey - Answering Your Vulnerable Love Life Questions

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

In the first Love Life podcast of 2026, Matthew and Audrey are back for an honest conversation about simplifying your life and being more intentional about what—and who—you let in. They also talk about reducing chronic stress, protecting your mental health, and why the relationships you choose have an outsized impact on how happy and grounded you feel.They also answer questions about things you may be carrying into the new year: the people you can’t quite release, the stories your mind keeps replaying, and the moments you feel put on the spot about your love life. This episode will help you start 2026 lighter and far more intentional.---►► Make finding love in 2026 inevitable—without making dating your whole life. Join Matthew’s free live Year of Love event on January 20 or 22 at MHYearOfLove.com►► Give the gift of comfort that lasts beyond the holidays and into a truly cozy New Year. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code LOVELIFE for up to 20% off. ►► Have a question for the podcast? Email us at [e-mail] and you may just see it featured in the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, we're back. First podcast of 26. Yeah, and my first podcast since we had our baby. I know. So it feels good to be back? It feels really good to be back. But, you know, I miss him. When I'm not with him, I miss him. It's crazy.

I miss him. I know. We have a really exciting episode today. I've actually pulled some questions. We went out to your Instagram audience and had them sending questions that they wanted answers for 2026. So I'm really, really excited about this episode. But before we get started, I had a question for you. Because I think it's always really valuable hearing other people's intentions.

2026, big year. What are your intentions and kind of what are the things you want to happen in 2026? And what are the things you want to leave behind in 2025? To me, the words that really resonate are simplicity, spaciousness. doing less better. I want to be very, very intentional about the things that I'm doing. I'm getting, I'm way better at saying no than I used to be. I'm getting better at that all the time. I want to be brave in saying no, you know, even when it kind of hurts to say no. But, you know, I want to create space this year. I think that's, that's a big thing for me. You know,

I think that in the course of my life, what the, I'm not a grumpy person, but when I'm overwhelmed or when there's too much on my plate, when I've taken too much on, I get grumpy. And that isn't a me that I like, because that's a very disconnected me. My own mindset, my own mental health is like top of the list for me. You know, I want to reduce chronic stress. There's a difference between chronic and acute stress. Acute stress is like things you choose, you know, like running a race or whatever. They're stressful, but they're good stressful. We're going on an adventure, but there's bad stress, which is just chronic stress. And I'm really ruthlessly attacking the sources of my chronic stress this year and looking to free up mind space and in doing so, you know,

be a better version, a more positive version of myself. So I'm really evaluating what to let go of and what, you know, what doesn't make the cut this year, even temporarily so that I free up that space. I love that. Thanks for sharing. Of course. And on that note, I think we should dive into some questions and hear what you guys are going into 2026 thinking and feeling and the questions that they have for you. Let's do it. So the first question is from Miss Leo sculpt lioness. She says, how do I finally let someone go this year? I have done all the steps to try and it's been six years.

So what she means by letting someone go for clarity here is she basically hasn't been able to get over someone for the last six years. There are patterns of thinking that emerge out of a story we have about someone. about what they represented, you know, it could be they were the great love of my life. It could be I have never felt that way before or since. It could be we had the greatest connection that I've ever experienced. But there's a story there that we keep getting taken back to. And in a sense, every time we're replaying that thought over and over, we're deepening that groove.

And it becomes easier to go back to. And it becomes a kind of addiction of its own. The thought, people feel like, you know, people could be an addiction. You know, when you break up, you feel the crashing chemicals when you no longer have them around and there's a withdrawal that takes place there. But beyond that, the thought, the thinking of them can become an addiction. and that's a that's a danger of its own because we're we're getting addicted to not just a story but a pattern of thinking anytime i'm alone and i feel lonely it's like my in the same way that we're

these days we're trained when we're a bit bored or doing something uncomfortable like a piece of work that requires cognitive strain we're programmed to reach for our phone and check our messages or check Instagram. It is now a groove that's there neurologically that we get taken to. And the same happens with certain people that any time I find myself unhappy or anytime I find myself lonely, my brain goes to that place. It's been trained over time to go to that person. Now, we wouldn't say that because my brain is trained to go to Instagram when I'm a bit fidgety or bored or uncomfortable, that Instagram must be really important.

We recognize that there is an addiction or a pattern that's formed there and it's now become habitual. And part of the uncoupling is recognizing that there is a pattern that's been formed here that doesn't actually, it doesn't follow that because this person is where your mind goes, that that person is important or that that relationship truly was irreplaceable or that it must mean you'll never find anything like that again or, you know, it doesn't actually mean any of those things, it becomes like a neurological kind of malfunction that gives too much importance to this person. People can have thoughts like this all the time. You know, if someone lost a ton of money, anytime they're unhappy, their brain can get trained

to go to, oh, you know, I lost all that money. You know, like they can go to this financial grievance or resentment that they have. But when it's a person and that person is still walking the earth, then it can feel particularly difficult. This requires conscious effort. It's like retraining our brain. And one thing that helps is actually recognizing on a rational level. Actually, this has nothing to do with the importance of this person.

This has taken on a life of its own through this, like, programming that's happened in my brain. It's unconsciously gotten linked up. So if I recognize it's not that important, even though I keep going there, that actually takes some of the sting out of this and it allows us to step back from it and observe the thought. Ah, that thing is happening that happens when I get a bit lonely or when I have too much time on my hand or when I'm laying in bed at night. That thing happens, is happening that always happens. I'm getting taken back to that person. But it doesn't mean it's important.

We can also introduce a new cognitive framing. What's happening is you're going back to that person and getting sad, you know, or maybe getting catastrophic. Oh, I'm never going to find that again. I'm never going to meet a person like that again. Oh, I'm, I, this must, this heartbreak is something I'm never going to get over. I just had another thought about them. we can introduce a new cognitive framing that says I my my the most precious thing I have is my time

and the rest of my life I don't know how many years this person has left I don't know how many years I have left but you know I know they're precious and I know then they're not as many as we'd like and are you going to take those precious precious years and spend them in this looping thought about a ghost? Or are you going to spend them proactively forging new, you know, new realities, starting a new story, seeing what's possible. Because by definition, everything is possible. By definition, you've only experienced a very small part of life.

What you haven't experienced, who you haven't experienced is infinitely greater than what you have experienced. And when you realize that and you really connect with how precious time is, you actually should start to become incredibly intolerant of that thought. You can actually start to develop a kind of a righteous anger towards it, an intolerance for it. How dare this thought take me backwards to this person and this irrelevant situation when there's so much life to live and there's so much to experience. I think as well, just to piggy, I love, love, love what you just said.

And I think, you know, when you're in that situation, the danger is that you romanticize the idea of that person, right? And you kind of live in the fantasy of like maybe one day we will reunite and reconnect. Maybe they were my person. And you allow yourself because it feels good. You allow yourself to go there and all of these stories and fantasies in your head. And I think you have to also be very strict with the, kind of like fairy tale fantasy that you allow yourself to play out because I really love the idea

of replacing that romance that you feel for that person with a kind of righteous impatience for how much time it's taking from you. I think that's really, really powerful. And to your point earlier about Instagram, I think that it's almost the same thing, right? It allows you to feel dopamine or some kind of good feeling by reminiscing on that person. But then as soon as you've done that and felt that good feeling, you're just left feeling terrible because you haven't got them anymore. And then you're like, oh my God, I'll never get over them because I'm doing this for six years. I also want to say, you know, to this person who wrote in,

I don't want you to feel any shame around this because I think oftentimes when it takes us a long time to get over someone, we feel a lot of shame. societally we're told that we should get over people in this kind of specific time frame but sometimes you know the makeup of who you are and what that person represented to you like it can just take a really really long time and um i just want if you are feeling any kind of shame or any kind of you know impatience with yourself for the fact that it's taking you this long and it's taking you this long i just want to extend um yeah just extend that message to not feel it really because I think it's it can really make us just feel terrible living in that shame.

Yeah, I agree. There's a romantic instinct that so many of us have that gets directed constantly back into the past. If nothing else, channel it towards, you know, a movie or a, you know, there's nothing wrong with reading a certain book or watching a certain movie and having these. really like deep giddy thoughts about the thing that's going on in that movie and to think, God, that story, isn't that the most perfect romantic story or whatever? You can still enjoy that in the dramatic sense, but you also have to make space for life as it is.

And I think one of the hardest things about life is it often is disappointing. It's not the movie. It's not that book that you read that was a perfect. story. I think that often those instincts, those dramatic instincts that we have are at odds, the perfect feelings we have inside about stories are at odds with the realities of life as it presents itself. But don't channel that towards a person who doesn't deserve it. By all means, have a piece of literature that you, you know, forever are just in love with that makes your heart ache. That can be a perfect piece of literature, but don't channel it towards an imperfect person

who doesn't actually deserve that dramatic impulse. Very good. Thank you. There's actually a lot of questions here around, you know, I suppose because it's a new year, letting go, moving on from people. So I'm really glad we spent the time we did on this one. Next question is from Brittany Caffiero. Brittany said,

I get so triggered by people asking me about my dating life. Please help. How do I respond better? That's a great question. When we get triggered in that way, there's something, you know, there's something,

an inner conflict we haven't quite resolved, that this keeps agitating. Because we're having those debates with ourselves. Why hasn't it happened yet? When is it going to happen for me? You know, we try to quiet those voices, but then when someone says it from the outside, they're just externalizing an inner voice that we have that we've tried to quiet. So it's, know that they're just saying, they're just highlighting something that's already

a conflict taking place within yourself. and that if you can focus maybe a little time and energy on resolving that conflict within yourself it those words that then bringing it up it just won't affect you the same way as it did it will be kind of white noise to you because you've already made sense of this and there are many different ways to make sense of it but you've already found a kind of a reasoning, a rationale, a sense making for this, you know, what is a difficult situation. Of course, to get to a point in life where we thought it would happen and it hasn't happened and there's the uncertainty and a more positive word would be possibility of what, you know,

when it will happen or what could happen. But that's a tough place for a lot of people to be. to sit in that uncertainty, especially when it feels like time is running out or it feels like I wanted to have a family and that hasn't happened. And that's something I really want to happen. But I don't even know how that's going to happen because I haven't even met someone yet. We could spend a lot more time here talking about the framings that can help someone in that situation because there there are many. But what I would invite this person to do is find a framing that works for them.

Let me just give an example. So it doesn't sound so abstract. It might be that you have experienced some really poor relationships in your life. Maybe the people that raised you, your parents or caregivers showed you the worst possible example of a relationship. Maybe you were brought up by someone who taught you all the wrong things, either indirectly or directly. They just spewed crap into your mind about what you were worth and about what you should accept. And you, for a long time, you have tried to kind of deprogram yourself from that way of thinking.

And it's really, really hard. And because of that, because of the way you grew up or how you grew up and the mentors you did, didn't have, it has taken you until now to start doing things differently. And you're still figuring that out. And so maybe it wasn't, maybe this has never been easy for you. Maybe you've always had a hard go of it in this area. And but maybe now you're willing to try some new things. And what a miracle that is at your age now.

You may say, yeah, but I'm faulty and I've already like, feel like I'm missing my window. And it, but there are some people who get to 80 and never arrive at that place of consciousness or self-awareness or wanting to change something. So, you know, it's easy to compare yourself with someone who got there 10 years ago or the you that this happened to 10 years ago. But very rarely do we compare ourselves with the person that we could have been who is 80 years old or, frankly, made a decision to get in the worst possible relationship. spent the next 30 years trying to get out of it.

So that's only one framing, but there are many. If you can find a framing that works for you for, you know, why, how this story actually is a beautiful one and how the beauty is continuing and how perhaps the uncertainty of not knowing when it's going to happen is part of that beauty. And the fact that you are staying, you know, positive. or remaining, you know, keeping the doors open for something to happen speaks to your incredible resilience in life and is something that should make you more and more proud.

When you start to look at things through that lens, when someone says, oh, you know, how come you haven't met someone yet, there's no shame there because you're not shaming yourself anymore. You're no longer feeling negatively about it. In fact, maybe it just makes you feel proud of yourself. So it's shift the framing within yourself and those comments from the outside won't mean the same thing to you anymore. I love that. And as a general rule, this applies to, you know, getting triggered about people asking you about your love life. It applies to if you get retroactively jealous in a relationship or any of those things.

Usually the cave you're too afraid to go into is the one you have to face. And to your point, there's things most probably within that subject matter that just feels so painful. That's why they trigger you. And so actually facing those head on and really getting to the bottom of why you're so afraid and why, you know, we're feeling a certain way is crucial. But I love that answer. My next question is from Donna Traveller. Donna said how to forgive ourselves for hurting people in the past when we were emotionally not evolved.

You and everyone else. I know. I really related to that. Yeah, I really think that this is one of those areas where we have to hold. We have to understand that we're not one thing, we're many things. You know, you've been really good at helping me learn this lesson because I know that it's been a tendency of mine to rake myself over the colds endlessly for mistakes in the past, especially when those mistakes are to do with you having treated someone poorly.

You know, it's one thing when we feel like a mistake cost us, but it's another thing when we feel like... It's impacted another person. Yeah, we hurt someone else with our selfishness or with our... ignorance or whatever it may be. And, you know, one of the things I know that you've really, really helped me with is understanding that we're not, we're not one thing. And this idea that I'm either an angel or a devil and I'm trying to figure out which one it is, it's just not true. I forget what the, where it comes from, it's why it might be Star Wars. It might be something

else but it's like we we all have we were watching something recently that said it but we all have the light and the dark inside of us the key is which one of those two we actually give more of a voice to which one we make stronger yeah and what defines us is what we choose to do when we work up in the morning every day yeah and are we trying to consistently make the best choices and you know donna with regards to people in the past, the fact that you're conscious that you hurt those people and that you want to do better

because you feel badly about it, by default is such a gift to everybody else that you encounter in the future. And speaks to your character. For sure. There are plenty of people who have done the exact same thing or worse than you did

but are not in any way. It's not plaguing their. conscience today. It's not on their mind. They've not given it a second thought since they did it. That speaks to who you are. It speaks to the, you know, you are the person who lays in bed at night and thinks about how they could have done better that day. There's a wonderful, you know, it can mutate and it can go too far. But it's a wonderful instinct to have to think about how we could have been better. The good news is it gets to actually make you better. And that, as Audrey says, that defines you. And as David White says, the British poet, you know, if you don't have any regrets,

where have you been? You know, regret is what informs us. If you regret something, you want to do something about it. If you didn't regret these things, you wouldn't become a better person. It also, I think, makes us more compassionate towards people who hurt us because it makes us realize we're not to your point you know we're not all devils or angels we're kind of a mixture of everything wait what no fuck those people who hurt us yeah fuck them

um okay next question is from anastasia padseeu anastasia says how do I attract a different type of man this year in capitals no avoidance well there's a big that's a really big question um we first have to start by asking why perhaps it is that those people show up more brightly for us on our radar. Because that's often the case.

The very people that we don't want to attract are the people that show up the most vividly in our lives. And other people don't quite register the same way. So maybe there's something that you find interesting about the avoidance. you know maybe there's something about them that that gets you you know there's something the way they make us chase for it yeah the way that it's like not just this it's not available it's like just always slightly out of reach i think anyway and the moment i speak from experience the moment you're in that the moment you find yourself trying to suss out that dynamic

and seeing if you can kind of change it you're in you're you're already in Like you're now you're now that the game starts. Maybe that is actually the advice, right? It's don't even play the game. Don't even like go into it and play the game. If you're very clear on the way that you want to be in a relationship and the kind of relationship you want to have, have that very clearly in your head and accept nothing else.

And call out any behavior that is deviates from that path. Yeah. Don't play the game. I really like that. Sorry, I completely hijacked your point. I think that's a really powerful. And ask yourself, what game are you playing? You know, if you're not playing that game, then it's, okay, well, then I'm just going to,

I'm going to show up far more literally. Because in the past, when someone makes me chase, I kind of pull back a bit and then see if I can get them to chase and then they've come forward and then I come in and then they run away again. And instead, it's like, oh, they've pulled away a bit. I'm going to do the most unnatural thing in the world and just check in and see how they're doing. I haven't heard from you. How are you? You know, I'd love to see you again.

And you see what happens. Do you, when you are a literal person, do you find that that's rewarded with someone else being quite literal? Or do you find that you experience like even more game playing or it doesn't feel good? You showed your hand a bit or you reached out authentically and what you got was more evasion. And if you feel that, then you go, okay, enough. Or if you don't feel, I think that's really amazing advice. I know some people might go, yeah, but I don't want to come across too desperate.

If you don't feel comfortable saying that, wait for them to reach back out and then call out the fact that you haven't heard from them. You know, don't step back in and be like, cool girls. or cool guy like, oh, I'm just going to pretend like I haven't noticed that I haven't heard from you for the past five days. Instead be like, hey, I'm good. I haven't heard from you. Where have you been? What's going on or whatever? Like something that just basically shines a light on the fact that they're, you know, maybe disappearing in that context. Yeah. No, I like both. I think all I'm getting at is this idea that sometimes you you actually have to be the thing that you want and it you'll find very quickly that when someone's not on that frequency it will just clash your sincerity will be met

with confusion and evasion and you know someone who can't just be and then you'll know know like, oh, these frequencies just don't work together. And you have to kind of be okay with the fact that you're, you're going to find yourself in some situations where it just clangs, where it just clangs, you know, like, I don't know, I think of DJing from, you know, my days of doing that where the skill you learned was beat matching. And that was, you know, when you're mixing two tracks together,

you're trying to get the beats at the exact same time of, two different songs. And when they're at different speeds, it just sounds like horses galloping. It sounds really ugly. And you can often hear it without knowing that's what you're hearing when a DJ mixes two tracks badly and the beats don't match. You're hearing this like clanging effect that doesn't, it just really feels weird. It like doesn't sound right in your ear. That's what it's like when you're dating someone and you're bringing one frequency and they're bringing another. What you can't do is let someone else pull. you to their frequency, which is what avoidance do is they pull you into that dynamic.

And if you're used to it and you keep trying to resolve it, most of us don't try to resolve it by bringing in our frequency. We try to resolve it by getting on their frequency. By matching theirs. Okay. Final question. Cinnamon roll. That's the username.

Good name. And it made me hungry. I too. I love cinnamon rolls cinnamon roll said please share rituals for closure and leaving what needs to be left in 2025 in brackets people exes limiting beliefs etc so do you have any quick

kind of rituals and mindsets that you know you can share with cinnamon roll and everybody else listening for how to do that well I think you can't you know it's fine to do a kind of ritual I'm going to write these things down on a piece of paper and I'm going to screw it up and then I'm going to light it on fire and watch it disappear. But then five minutes later, you're thinking of them again. Or you've got that limiting belief reasserts itself.

No, but you know what I mean? Everyone has like, it's not, sometimes those symbolic things of like, I'm finally getting rid of this thought, this person, this whatever, those symbolic things can matter. But we also have to understand, firstly, what Oliver Berkman talks about all the time, I think, is important here that it, it's, nothing is perfect. It's you have to embrace imperfectionism.

And that means that just because the calendar year has clocked over to 2026, it, you're not now going to find that just because you've decided certain thoughts belonged in 2025, that they're not going to have come visit you in 2026. You are going to have, you're going to have the messy process of the war of attrition on those old thoughts and one of the things that helps you win that war is to move towards something not just move away from something so you know what what excites you about this year where what what positive thoughts are you going to engage with um and by the way they they should also be positive thoughts that you can believe in you know i was having a conversation with guy winch recently where he he said

you know, the problem with certain internal reassurances is we don't buy them. We have to be able to connect to the positive thoughts that are, you know, we're going forward with this year. It might be, you know, instead of I'm amazing and everyone's attracted to me, it's, I know that I'm going to be proud of myself every time this year I step out of my comfort. its own and try to connect with somebody. So affirmations? You can call them affirmations. I think that they're like cognitive replacements.

But like I'm not going to, I'm instead of engaging with, oh, another rejection. And that must be because I'm this and because I'm that. It's it might be, I don't actually need 99.99.999% of the world to think I'm attractive. I just need one. one person who finds me attractive. And the only way that person's going to find me attractive is if I'm resilient enough to continue to put myself out there in a way that's authentically me and engage from a place of my like true beauty, not telling myself I'm worthless.

So I'm going to be proud of myself when I put myself out there. But even that, like that, that, you know, last year I focused on rejection. This year I'm going to focus on the fact that I am. only need one. And all the rejection in the world doesn't matter when I've met that one. So let me stop worrying about the 99% of people that don't want me and start focusing on the fact that someone out there will want me. And that person just needs to find me. I need to keep going long enough for that person to find me. So that's a nice replacement. But I would say in all of this, it's just it realized that sometimes those old thoughts will come.

back, it's about continuously reminding yourself of who is it I want to be this year? Where do I want my focus to be? What are my cognitive reframes of these situations? And also, you know, so by the way, for those you can write them down, when you have good cognitive reframes, you can write them down and store them. I call them emotional buttons. There are things that you can literally store on your phone and open them up and connect to the every morning or whenever you need to.

But also recognize that there will be, there's certain people, situations, activities, environments that produce more positive states for you. And there are certain ones that reliably produce negative states. And the cognitive replacements I'm talking about are much easier to do in those environments. that produce more positive states. So it might be right after you've done a workout, or it might be while you're on the treadmill or on a run, your brain starts in minute 17, starts having more positive thoughts or more empowered thoughts. It might be that there are certain people in your life that when you get around them, you can't help but feel inspired. You can't

help but feel a sense of like everything's going to be okay or, oh my God, I feel connected to what really matters. But recognize what those environments are and recognize the environments that take you back and start really, really focusing on how to create more of the, how to connect or be in the environments that make you feel better and be very wary of the environments that regularly take you backwards. Very good. Well, I think that's it for the questions. What's next? Well, we're going to read some comments that people have sent in on previous episodes. Thank you guys so much, by the way, for leaving us comments and sending us as many emails as you do. We love to read them.

If you have any questions, any comments, anything you want to say to us, podcast at Matthewhousy.com is the email. Subject line, 26. I like it. And please don't know complaints about our missing Steve's sleeves today. It just wasn't possible. Steve's all the way back in the UK. Steve and his sleeves are across the Atlantic. But we'll be back soon.

The episode we did called the Hidden Dangers of Long Distance Love. There was a comment here from Sunflower Girl 824. She says, I am 30 and last year I experienced the most all-encompassing, alive, deep, resonant and fulfilling on every level connection. We also met in person first before he went back to his country. It took us both by surprise, so we kept going at it until he decided to, to three months in that he can't do this. The long distance is too much. It's so difficult because it feels like this right person, wrong time situation. I did end up moving to his city after a year or

so, not for him though, but he had already moved on and is in what it seems like a content relationship. I'm heartbroken still because in my mind, I lost an irreplaceable connection. We just connected so deeply on so many levels, it felt truly fated. Dangerous word, fated. And I mind you, and mind you, I didn't plunge into this without thought. I was careful and I just took a calculated risk. And now I'm left with an unfinished story of a love that never truly happened, but could have been so amazing.

He said as he ended things that we both clicked and connected deeply on every level. And he was in awe at how it all happened so naturally and genuinely. Okay. Hold on Sunflower Girl. There's so many issues here. with the language. And this, we have to be so careful of language. You know, you said it felt truly fated. No, if it was truly fated, then he comes back. And I'm not, I don't even believe in fated, but even if I did, right, by definition, this isn't fated. If it was fated, it would happen.

So it didn't happen. So it's not fated. You said, I, am now left with an unfinished story. You are not left with an unfinished story. You have a finished story. This is not, this is a guy who told you. It's not like, you know, you lost him. Like you were, you were together on a train and all of a sudden he got, you know, he fell off the train and, you know, you now don't know where to find him again.

Like, he knows exactly where to find you. He knew where to find you. He was in contact with you. and he decided that long distance was too hard. Like, you were willing to do it. He wasn't willing to do it. So this wasn't a unfinished story. This is very much a finished story.

You say it could have been amazing. Well, guess what? I'm sorry to say it. And I'm sorry, I sound salty on this one. But I'm salty on your behalf, I promise. This, you say it could have been so amazing. amazing. You were together two to three months. You don't know what it would have been. You don't know what it would have been in a year, how that person is in year one or year two or year three or year five.

You don't know. He had to be good from a distance for two to three months. So you have no idea about whether it could have been amazing or not. What you know is you had a connection in the beginning. You know how many people meet on vacation and have an amazing connection? and then, you know, they try things after the vacation and doesn't really work out. Like, it's so possible to have a beautiful connection for a moment with someone who's totally wrong for you. So there's so many, there's so much thinking here that is like designed to make you feel terrible. That you've got to look at this and go, he had a chance to make. make it work. He didn't make it work. He chose to end it and then chose to move on. This is not fated.

This is this lasted exactly as long as it could have lasted. And if you say, yeah, but if we were in the same place, it would have all worked out. Well, then you're asking to have been born to different parents, grown up in a different place. You know, like it doesn't, life doesn't work like that. You know, You could be 30 and meet someone who's 70 and go, oh, if we'd have been born at the same time, we would have been perfect for each other because we have all the same values and we're so connected. And the problem is this 40 year age gap. But what are you even asking for there?

To have been a different sperm, born at a different time, then you wouldn't have been you. And they wouldn't. So it's just, it doesn't make sense. The right person, I've said it so many times. I can't, I'll never get tired of saying this. The right person is not simply someone that you have a connection with. The right person is someone it can actually work with. And that means that you were compatible, compatible, not just in connection and values,

but compatible in geography, compatible in time of your life, compatible in where you were at your development, compatible in where you want to live, compatible in the goals that you have. All of these things are required. for a long-term relationship, which is why when I talk about the four levels of importance in a relationship, the last two, the third one is commitment. The fourth one is compatibility, because you can even have commitment from someone and still be incompatible and it not work out. I also want to add, I think it's, I love everything you said, but just a cautionary tale to so many people who have written

into us and say, how do I let go of this person? It's been five years since I've been in a situation, or since I've been thinking about this person, I can't let them go. I really encourage you to see this story that happened as a stepping stone to meet the actual person that you end up with and not to put them in this romantic bubble that lives on a pedestal that no one else can compare to. And you have to be really, really careful about that because you get to decide how much this person gets to occupy your mind rent-free for how long and how much they just get to be a building block in what is going to be.

going to be an otherwise amazing future that has nothing to do with them. They're just a chapter in a very, very long story that is not about them. We have one more comment from our episode titled We just had our first fight and now they've changed. Love Cat Purrs says absolutely, Hang on. Love Cat Purrs. Love Cat Purrs. I love this. It's a good one. Yeah, it's good. It says absolute yes to what Audrey said. Basically, we want to re-exam. anchor our inner definition of what is right. During an argument, we all want to be right. We really can't bypass that. The trick is to redefine what we believe it is to be right from getting the other side to understand and validate our truth, the default feeling we're born with, the default feeling

right we're born with, to being able to catch ourselves in the heat of a moment with someone else and steer ourselves to listen to the other, validate them to the things we can and remain vulnerable. If we can anchor being right to the latter instead of the former, it'll be much easier to stay responsive instead of reactive. It will be self-rewarding because it feels better when we become more internally anchored. Well, love cat pads. You've put it better than I did. So thank you very much. Beautiful. I love it. Well, thank you everybody for listening to this new year's episode. Happy New Year, everybody. Happy New Year, everybody. Welcome back to the Love Life

Podcast. We'll see you next time. Bye.