Love Life with Matthew Hussey - (Matt Monday): The Subtle Signs They’ll Commit Forever

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Why does it feel so hard to find someone who will actually commit? These days, it’s easy to get caught up in someone’s curated image: their Instagram-perfect life, charm, and seemingly deep qualities. But having great qualities doesn’t automatically make someone a great partner. And that’s where we often get stuck.In this week’s episode, I break down why we idealize people based on what they project, and how it distracts us from seeing what really matters. I also share the subtle signs to look for in someone who’s truly capable of long-term commitment.(Also: This is your last chance to watch my final free event of the year and discover the one crucial step to reclaim the power in your love life—fast! Visit lovelifereset.com today.)--►► Ready to upgrade your sleep? Support your holistic health and save 40% on Cozy Earth sheets with code LOVELIFE at CozyEarth.com►► Join the 2-day Matthew Hussey Retreat Oct. 18-19 (in person in Miami or virtual): MHRetreat.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend. Hello, everyone. I'm historian David Boris, and I want to let you know that I'm hosting a brand new podcast coming out this fall of 2025. It's called The Conflict and Culture Podcast, and it explores everything and anything to do with military history beyond the battlefield. This season, we have episodes on. on American rock music during Vietnam, the myth of the Clean Vermacht, the Apache Way of War,

and so much more. First episode drops this September. Check it out. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. acast.com. been so many outwardly attractive people. One visit to Instagram will pull up an entire ocean of gorgeous strangers, people who don't just look chiseled and attractive, but also appear to be

kind, caring, generous and sensitive, emotionally attuned in all of the right ways. So then why does it feel so fucking hard to find someone who will actually commit to you? I want to talk about how someone having all of the right qualities on the surface, not just the superficial ones, but even the deep ones, can prove to be a major red flag and how it is leaving so many of us going from one painful situation to another, never finding the lasting happy relationship we really want. I also want to talk about the subtle signs that someone will actually be capable of committing forever. First, I want to point out that when everyone has to be able to has an online profile in the modern era, suddenly everyone finds themselves running their own

personal PR campaign, a campaign that benefits from all of the tools people never had before, easy to use photo editing, the ability to record multiple takes of a video before you get it just right to put it out to the world, and text captions that are curated by chat GPT, or dare I say, Matthew AI. The result of all of this is that we end up idolizing people. We put them on this incredible pedestal based on our idea that they represent everything we've ever wanted. And it's not just that we idolize people, we idealize them at the same time. Idolizing is admiring someone for what we perceive them to be. Idealizing happens when we perceive them to have qualities that we don't even know that they have. We fill in the gaps that we can't see based on

our projections of what we want them to be. It's a bit like watching a magician at a magic show. When we watch a magician, we if we have gone to enjoy the magic, if we want to be entertained, are a willing participant in the magic. In other words, we want to be fooled. The magician pulls out a deck of cards and we want to fall for the sleight of hand. We want to be entertained. So we're not looking for all of the ways that the magic is magic, that it's not real. We are looking for the ways that it is incredible and awe-inspiring. We fill in the gaps ourselves.

So we can easily get distracted by the magician saying, look over here, look over here. This is the interesting part, which is the guy who's saying, you know, look. at me, I'm sensitive and I'm kind and I love my dog and I love to travel and I have a degree in this and I'm so smart. Look at what I'm saying. I'm so, don't I sound so eloquent and smart with all of these things that I'm saying? And we miss the fact that it's kind of a distraction from the fact that this person hasn't actually demonstrated anything about how much of a great partner they would be. And this is a mistake we make all the time is thinking that someone will be a great partner simply because they have great qualities. That's not true.

Someone can have great qualities and consistently be a terrible partner to everyone they ever date. A major frustration for anybody who has ever dated someone who looks like the perfect person online, but they know better because they've actually been in a relationship with that person. What's up, guys? I had to shoot a last minute interruption to my own video. because so many of you last night emailed us to let us know that you had run out of time to watch the replay of the Love Life Reset. We are extending it by 48 hours. I rushed here to tell you this because by Monday at midnight, this is going away. And then it really is going away for good. But so many of you emailed and said you weren't finished with it or you hadn't gotten to it and you just needed

another 24 hours. So we're giving you 48. For anyone who doesn't know, this is a huge event I did this week for getting you back in control of your love life. It's important for your confidence. It's important if you over-obsess, over-invest, you struggle with self-doubt in dating or in relationships. You have to be there. Replay is available for 48 more hours. I just wanted to let you know as a courtesy. Lovelife reset.com is the link. Go watch it before it disappears Monday at midnight. That is tomorrow at midnight. All right, back to the video. I'm always someone and I, some people could see this as cynical, but I'm always looking for the story being told behind the story that they're trying to tell outwardly. So when I see a dad on social media who has a viral

clip of their day with their child and all of the things they do that are super cute and show them to be an amazing dad and, you know, capture all of these really sweet moments. And the comments are always just full of people who are just like, well, he's the greatest guy. And oh my God, I wish I had had a dad like this and so on. And they may be right. It may be the most awesome person on earth. But I can't help but notice that all of this is playing out in an extremely well-shot way on social media. So for me, the greatest value being, exercised is not being a great dad. It's the value of valuing attention and wanting to get attention by being seen as a great dad. What someone says they value or portrays themselves as valuing

is not the same as what they actually value. And when you want to know what someone actually values, instead of what their PR campaign says they value, you have to actually look at their life. You have to look at the way they operate. I think of it in terms of... ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend. On a new season of Heaven Bent,

son of a prophet. My name is Jedediah, Heart. Like, my name is very specific. Like, he named me based off of a prophetic dream that he had. Like, my very identity is, like, tied to my father, who my father is, who he was. He couldn't just be a liar. Listen to Season 8 of Heaven Bent, wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere.

When you see how someone spends their time, when you see who they're friends with, when you see who they're friends with, when you see what they spend most of their energy on or how they make decisions, what you're seeing is what their guiding light in life is. I think of it as their North Star. You see what is driving them all the time. People may like and value certain things. That doesn't mean that those things are what guide them in life. If you want to know, not just what someone likes or appreciates, but what actually drives them, look at how they spend their time, look at who they spend it with, and look at how they make decisions in their life. When I met my wife Audrey, what was really clear to me is that she valued relationships. they were and still are the most important thing in her life, her friends, her family, the people that she had invested in over many years, these were the most important things. And it was demonstrated by how much she spoke to those people.

It was demonstrated by how much she showed up for those people, the sacrifices she made with her own time to be there for people, how much she was constantly investing in, in her relationships. She was not someone who simply talked about how much she valued connection. She lived it. It was clear to me that that was her North Star. When she moved to L.A., the hardest thing about moving from London to L.A. for her was the people that she wasn't able to be as close to. So when I saw that, that gave me a real sense of this being someone who at her core is driven by relationships. There are many people who say they are, but if you look at their life, it is absolutely not driven by relationships. And if you want a great relationship with

somebody in life, it's a pretty good idea to choose someone whose North Star is their relationships in life. Now, there is a very subtle value system that we can look for in someone. If we want to someone who is capable of committing over the long term. And that is finding someone who actually values building and shared history. In other words, anyone can be attracted in the moment. And when we're attracted to someone in the moment, we'll do anything. We will tell them we want to be with them forever. We'll, you know, give up half of the things that we're doing in our life right now

in order to spend time with them. We will travel the world with them. We'll do anything to be with them because we miss them so much. But all of that in that moment is based on how attracted to someone we are and how much we feel like we can't be without them physically. That does not speak to someone's ability to commit, even though, confusingly, when someone is in that state, they are liable to say all sorts of things that make it sound like they intend to be around forever. but what actually gives us a much more authentic version of safety is noticing that someone values the building of something, that they are not just about what feels good in the moment. They really enjoy the idea that week by week, we are building something together. We are adding to it. We are investing in this thing.

I am not the kind of person who just wants to move house, every five minutes, or change city every five minutes, or change country every five minutes. I am someone who likes to invest where I am, and that is true of my relationships too. That's the kind of person that we have some safety with, because we know one of the things they really value in life is building on something, not changing things all the time. And they simultaneously value history. They value what has gone before, the story that has been built. I did not use to take sleep as seriously as I do today.

But in recent years, I have come to realize that sleep is the foundation of everything we do. If I am not getting good sleep, my energy, my focus, and my emotional resilience takes a massive hit. That is why Audrey and I are so passionate about creating the best possible sleep environment. We invest a lot of energy in this for ourselves. And let me tell you, one of the best things that we have done to support our sleep is using cozy earth's bed sheets, which are temperature regulating. So they not only help me get quality sleep, but also avoid arguments because Audrey gets angry when I use the AC to create a Baltic environment inside the house.

When we sleep well, we wake up better equipped to make decisions, handle life's challenges, and show up as the best version of ourselves in every area of life. Sleep is a reset button for your mind, your body and your emotions and it is intrinsically connected to a better quality of life. So this is my invitation to you to go and try Cozy Earth's incredible bed sheets, their blankets, their pillowcases, their PJs and more by heading over to cozy earth.com. And don't forget to use our code Love Life at checkout for 40% off, which is a massive discount. And if you happen to get a post-purchase survey, please let the know that you heard about cozy earth from us. The reason someone who values building something

in a relationship and values the history of what you've already had in a relationship makes a good bet for a partner is because that's the person who's not just going to leave you when your looks change, when you get older, when someone shinier comes along or someone younger comes along who feels different and fresh and its variety. I think we make the mistake of of wanting to be with someone who never finds anyone else attractive and only has eyes for us and, you know, feels none of them temptations that other people in life feel when they're that type of person who's, you know,

pulled in different directions. I think that we all have those forces inside of us in one way or another. But what we want is the person who values so much the relationship they have with us, so much the, the history that we have and where we're going, that that side of the battle, that side of the war always wins. And it kind of wins without a doubt, you know? It wins because it's like, yeah, I could leave and be with this person. But why on earth would I give up everything we've built and, and all of the things that we've been through

together. That's the person that we want. And people show us that they value those things all the time if we pay attention. What I believe so many of us have to get better at is not constantly being distracted by the attractive qualities that people portray. We should be looking for what someone values the most, what guides them in life, instead of simply obsessing, over the attractive qualities they have. Hello, everyone. I'm historian David Boris, and I want to let you know that I'm hosting a brand new podcast coming out this fall of 2025. It's called The Conflict and Culture Podcast, and it explores everything and anything to do with military history beyond the battlefield. This season, we have episodes on American rock music during Vietnam, the myth of the Clean Vermont, the Apache Way of War, and so much more.

First episode drops this September. Check it out. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. acast.com.