Love Life with Matthew Hussey - Love is Not a Transaction

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

When your partner is acting selfish, it’s only natural to feel resentful. Why should you be giving, giving, giving when all they’re doing is taking? So you withdraw and focus on your own needs to protect yourself. But this is the beginning of a dangerous pattern, as we explore in today’s episode of LOVE Life. Listen closely because I’m going to share a totally counter-intuitive, yet completely simple approach you can use when your relationship starts to feel like a transaction. Do this and you’ll immediately break the negative pattern and discover whether your partner is truly capable of meeting your needs.

Welcome to Love Life. I'm your host, Matthew Hussey. Now, here's a secret about men that most women don't realize. Men really want to feel manly around you. If you know how to make him feel like a man, he'll want to be around you day and night. So how do you do this? I'm going to give you my five most powerful phrases for making him feel manly around you right after we get into today's topic. Welcome, everybody. This is Love Life. I am Matthew Hussey, and we have a caller whose

name is Dana. Hi, Dana. Hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Splendid. Did you have a question for us today? I would so love to hear it. I do. I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost eight years. And recently he has taken up a hobby. And I feel like it's kind of taking over. How recently?

Recently within the past, I would say two years. Okay. What's the hobby? The hobby is fishing. Okay. And what's the problem in the relationship? What do you feel like it's creating? I would say, you know, when he's not at work, all he wants to do is fish. So, you know, I get him to try to do some of the stuff that I'm interested in. But I feel like it just ends up in arguments. And what are some of those things that you're interested in that you try and get him involved in? Well, I mean, we have a dog that I like to take on hikes and walks and that sort of thing and we also have a three year old daughter who you know i like to take to the park and who you're interested in yeah

absolutely so um yeah he just seems really uninterested in all of that stuff, but, you know, can't get his mind off fishing. Does he ever offer to take you with him? He has. And? And that is something that I'm not interested in. Ah. So you said no? I say no, thank you, yes.

So as a starting point, you're both in a sort of standoff, aren't you? I would say yes, absolutely. He's not quite interested in hiking with the dog and you're not quite interested in fishing. Correct. I'm guessing there's some built up resentment there that he's not taking the time to do those things. Yes. So now, it's even harder for you to just say yes and go and have a good time fishing because you feel like it's not a two-way street. The problem is this gets very quickly into the territory of feeling like a transaction either way. Now, right now, you expect a different standard from him. The standard that you expect from him is for him to spend time with you,

take time away from things that he wants to do in order to come and do things that you want to do. You want that standard of love from him. But unfortunately, you're not giving that standard of love right now. So he's the one who's going to be standing there going, well, she's not doing it. And you're saying, well, he's not doing it it so now you're both in transaction mode again yeah the only way to overcome an argument in a relationship to overcome a recurring pattern in a relationship is to break the cycle now if you said to him the next time he went fishing you said you know what i really want to come i really want to come i i i don't know if I like fishing or not, but you know,

I'm open to being sold on it. I want you to show me what you love about it. And you went along and you went fishing with him and you tried it out. Uh, now going fishing with your, with your guy once isn't going to fix a relationship, but consistently showing someone that you're prepared to love them and you're prepared to give to them regardless of what you get back is something that can change a relationship. Or, by the way,

it can show you that the relationship isn't right. But right now, I would argue, you can't actually see if the relationship isn't right because you're holding back as much as he is. Okay. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. The thing that allows you to determine

whether a relationship is right or wrong is to give more to it. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but when people get scared, when people feel like they're about to get hurt, they withdraw. Uh-huh. And withdrawing only hurts the relationship further.

Instead, when you feel like, I'm not sure if this person is right for me, or I'm not sure if I can really get what I need out of this person. If you give more, you don't hurt yourself. You can't hurt yourself because it doesn't hurt to give, right? If you just decide to give more love to him and make him a happier man and do more to show him that you love him, you've hurt no one, you've only helped someone. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you might find that he still doesn't reciprocate based on the love that you're giving him.

By the way, what have you lost? He's not doing that already. Yeah, exactly. So there's nothing for you to lose in this situation. You only have to gain. If I would say if after a three month period, this guy still doesn't give to you. If you find that he still doesn't give you enough, at that point, you can start thinking about whether this guy will give you enough. You know, is this someone who can give me what I need? Because right now I'm giving this man everything and he's not reciprocating. And by the way, that's also the time when you can sit him down and have an honest conversation and say, listen, I am I am trying to give you the world because I love you.

Yeah. And I want to and I want to be there for you in the things that you love and I don't want to take away from them. And I certainly don't want to stop you from doing the things you love because that that wouldn't be loving. That would be me trying to stop you doing something that makes you happy. Right. I don't want to do that, but I, but I, I want to give you everything that I can possibly give you, but I need the same from you. You know, just as, just as I respect what you love doing and want to be involved, I need you on some level to do that with me. That's what being a team is, but you can't right now here's the here's the issue for you dana right now you can't have that conversation because all he's going to do is look at you and say well what are you doing yep i totally agree so next few months give that's the focus give okay don't keep a score chart of who's doing what and whether you're putting in more than

him that's not what a relationship is give and if after a couple of months you find that this man can't match that standard even after expressing what you need which of course you need to do not from a place of emotion but from a place of um just being an intelligent communicator if after all that he still can't give, then you have a real decision to make. But I don't think it's fair to either of you for you to do that right now without having done what we've just talked about.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Is it helpful? Absolutely. You know, it's just going to be about actions. The hardest part. Yep, no kidding no kidding well i'm behind you we're a team just as you and your man are a team we're a team uh and uh and you got my love and support all the way i'll be thinking of you all right so go make it happen i'm proud of you for even being

the type of person that calls in and and and and you know raises awareness for this type of issue not just for yourself but for other women so everyone owes you a thank you for that all right and that calls in and raises awareness for this type of issue, not just for yourself but for other women. So everyone owes you a thank you for that. All right. Thank you so much. All right, Dana. Take care of yourself. I'll speak to you soon. Yep, you too. Bye. So we started off today talking about the power of making a man feel manly around you.

But how do you do this? It can be challenging to strike the balance so that you don't sound patronizing when you do this. Which is why I've carefully crafted five perfect phrases that you can say to any man that will make him feel like his best self around you. To download these five phrases, just go to lovelifepodcast.com forward slash compliments.