Love Life with Matthew Hussey - (Rewind): If You’re Thinking About Other People In A Relationship, Listen To This…

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

Back in ye olden times, the fear that a partner might be cheating was enough to keep someone up at night. But in recent years, we’ve added a new layer of anxiety to the mix: “micro-cheating,” a.k.a. “back burner relationships.”   In fact, when Psychology Today recently polled people who are in a relationship, 56% revealed they had a back burner person: someone they’re in contact with who could be an option if their current relationship doesn’t go the distance.   That’s not to say that everyone realizes what they’re doing. Many feel it’s harmless—that they’re just being friendly and keeping in touch with a friend. Today’s clip will give you a simple test to figure out if you’re in a back burner relationship, and provide you with the mindset you need to give your current one its best shot. --- ►► FREE download: “9 Texts No Man Can Resist” → http://www.9texts.com ►► FREE download: “5 Compliments to Get Him Addicted to You” → http://www.SayThisToHim.com

There's no shame in a relationship not working out, but it's a shame if it doesn't work out because the whole time you spent your time in it you didn't actually go on. welcome to the love life podcast it's me matthew hussey enjoy this clip and thank you for being here so this was an article in psychology today uh that talked about how backburners are people with whom over half about like 56 percent of those in committed relationships have according to this survey let's always take these with a pinch of salt these are limited surveys etc but it is in psychology today um about 56 percent of those in committed relationships reported having a back burner person or relationship that does seem kind of high doesn't it like 52 or do you think that's that's fairly human that people would

have some kind of backup option in mind well it depends what you call a backup option i think that there's it's probably not high if you just define that back burner thing as someone who you just haven't explicitly said, no, there's nothing between us. And you're, they also don't know that you're with someone and you kind of even casually keep the thing alive by texting then i i if that's considered a back burner because you know that there is some underlying attraction there even if it's not spoken then it's probably not high that probably that probably is fairly realistic and do we count that as a form of i mean is that just another shade of infidelity is it just a kind of micro cheating as they might say if you're continuing to engage someone and you're in a relationship and you especially if it turns flirtatious you don't you you you avoid telling them you're in a relationship. And in truth, if you find yourself going out of your way to not tell those individuals that you're in a relationship,

I think that's where you have to suspect yourself is if you're, you're talking to someone who you claim is just a friend, but you're not actually making explicit that you are in a relationship that that to me then strays into that territory especially if it would be organic to do so if someone says what have you been up to and you happen to have been with your boyfriend or girlfriend for the last two weeks or you've just been on vacation with them and you fail to mention that then that to me starts to stray into that territory yeah i think that's right and but you also have these people where they would know you're in a relationship right but is there some kind of subtle way where you are both keeping in contact as a like, well, we do have something and maybe we'll see if we're both single again.

You know, maybe we'll give each other a call and you're kind of just keeping them there to know, hey, I'm here if you break up with that person. Well, yeah, I mean mean it is tricky if you've if you've hooked up before with that person then it's firstly your partner in my opinion deserves to know that oh this is i'm maintaining a relationship here but i have actually been with this person. That then should be something that your partner is, you're sensitive to with your partner. If it were the other way around, and our partner was friends with someone

that they had been with, and now they're staying friends with them, and it's an active friend, it's one thing to be cordial with someone. It's another thing to have an active friendship with someone that you're maintaining that you're regularly texting them you're regularly having conversations with them that's a that's a different thing and i think it becomes if you're not careful people can can turn it into a form of it's like not really committing to the person you're with yeah and it can almost be a subtle it can almost be a way of slow self-sabotage because you're inviting another

presence to create jealousy to create conflict and create problems that otherwise wouldn't exist if you weren't maintaining this exactly and then you have to say well how important is it how worth it is it what's the reason i'm doing this yeah i think for some people i think just the times we live in it becomes irresistible for people to i think they starts with keeping tabs on their ex and then it might be checking in occasionally and then it might be like saying commenting and saying hello and i think it can become this kind of like just keeping tabs like maybe if they're ever single again we'll i'll hit them up or something it's just there's so many shades of it and it's a thing because i don't want to create paranoia or anything and i think

that is a problem with our time where people have so many sources to talk to other people everyone becomes so paranoid of like is someone cheating on me is someone on social media flirting with other people but they just kind of think well i just want to keep a hand a hand in there yeah i i'm a big believer that when you're still when you're still leaving the door open to those different options you are you're actually denying the relationship you're in the chance to be all that it can be because you're not actually seeing who you are when you cut off your options and go all in you're not seeing how the relationship can evolve from a place of true security, true safety, real commitment. And there's no shame in a relationship not working out.

But it's a shame if it doesn't work out because the whole time you spent your time in it, you didn't actually go all in. That to me is, is time. That's kind of time wasted because you're not, you're not going and doing other things. You're not dating other people. You're not, it's not like you are actually going out with any of those people that you're quote keeping on the back burner

You're not but you're also not fully into invested in the situation You're in you're somewhere in that in no man's land now that I'm thinking about it when you just talk about the whole back burner thing That is an indication of our unwillingness to be present with the situation we're in. It's a way of not choosing. And, you know, on our retreat, we talk about how answers are a reward for doing things. We talk about this on day one of the retreat. If you want answers in life, you have to actually go and do something. If you want answers about what the right career is, you do actually have to taste some careers. You do actually have to go and try something. You do

actually have to immerse yourself in something. And that starts to give you answers. You can't get answers by just sitting there and intellectualizing everything. And I don't think you can get answers from a relationship by being halfway in. You get answers by, if you decide, you know what, I'm actually going to give this a shot. I'm not talking about on day three of meeting someone or on week three even. But if you've decided to have a committed relationship with someone, then that's the time to say right now, I don't know if this is going to be forever or not. But right now, this is what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it really well. And I'm going to see what it can be. I hope you enjoyed that episode. Before you go, feel free to join me for live coaching on your biggest dating questions by going to askmh.com. This is where you can sign up for a 14-day

free trial to my members club, the Love Life Club. If you want coaching from me, if you want to be in an exclusive group of people that works with me every month on their confidence and their love lives, this is the place where we do it. Go to askmh.com to become a part of it.