Love Life with Matthew Hussey - (Rewind): Two Questions You Can Ask To Test The Health Of Your Relationship

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

What are some of the ways to know if you're in the right relationship? Are there ways you can stress test to see if it has long-term potential? In this clip, Matt, Stephen, Audrey, and Jameson talk about 2 of the most important questions you can ask to better understand the health of your relationship and see if you and your partner have a positive dynamic. --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- ►►Transform Your Relationship with Life in 6 Magical Days Find Out More At. . . → http://www.MHRetreat.com

Even if it's just an evening, it could be something small, but what's the thing we're looking forward to right now? Because we work very hard and it's so Hussey with the Love Life podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I think you're going to enjoy this clip. It's a classic from the archives. Check it out. And don't forget, if you can leave us a review on iTunes, it would mean the world. It helps us spread the word about this podcast. All right, let's get into the episode. So Matt, I was looking at this article because I thought it was really, really interesting. The idea, something people don't really talk about, an idea of having a checkup, really good questions you can ask your partner that actually diagnose the health, the status of your relationship. I think

there's an idea that relationships just work and if everything's right, if everything's aligned between you, it should just naturally work on autopilot. But the case made in this article is that couples can get stuck and because of the last two years, a lot of couples have been stuck in isolated survival mode where their relationships are just about managing household tasks they've forgotten how to have fun they've forgotten about spontaneous interactions these sorts of things so this is a way to check in with your partner and see if you've got stuck in old routines and where there's like troubleshooting or where everything's going

great. Maybe you'll ask these questions and go, oh, this is awesome. Look at all the things we appreciate about each other. Very good. All right. I'm excited about this. They're either going to be a wake up call or very validating about how great my love life is. Okay. So what do you think of this one, Matt? question one is what do we like to do together for fun so hang on is this are you asking me to answer this is this like a it might be a bit put through a test here or is it are you asking me to say whether this is a good question to ask people this this question talks about how it encourages couples to take out a calendar, look at the past week or month and ask, how many minutes did we spend actually doing something fun or pleasurable together? going from, you know, business meetings to obligations to chores. And it's so easy not to, you know, we've spoken about this, haven't we? We're like, what's coming up that we're looking

forward to? Like, what have we got planned that we're excited about or looking forward to? It doesn't have to be, I'm not talking about like a week long vacation somewhere, but just even if it's just an evening or something, it can be something small, but just what's the thing we're looking forward to right now? Because we work very hard and it's so easy to just ignore that. And so I, I really believe in, in this question, how much quality time are you actually getting doing something fun together that's good I know we've spoken a lot because we're both big fans of Esther Perel's work and all the things that

we always say with long-term relationships especially it's important to get that kind of time apart from your partner because desire can grow in those moments that you're apart but yeah I mean it's so easy to just forget that like you still have to have fun together because so much of life can just happen. And it's like, you find yourself just, well, we share meals together and we watch TV together, but then you just lose,

like there's everything you can do in the world still out there. Yeah, and one of the things Esther talks about that I really love is just that we, we take our most charming, charismatic, energetic selves, and we give all of that to everything else in our day and then leave the scraps for this person that we're with. And it's, that's, you know, that's, that's normal in a life where we do have to go and work hard and there are going to be days where that's true. But if it's true for too many days in a row, then it becomes disrespectful to your partner that everyone and everything else gets your best energy and not them. So I like that.

And I think people shouldn't overthink what that means. We went on a hike, didn't we? We were like, we need to do some exercise. And we just went on a hike in one of these hikes in LA. And it was, you know, we both kind of were on our way down from the hike. And we were like, that was quality time. We were doing something active. It wasn't even like we just sat there talking to each other. Like we were still doing something time. We were doing something active. It wasn't even like we just sat there talking to each other. Like we were still doing something else. We were getting exercise. We were out in nature. It ticked a lot of boxes, but we actually talked and we weren't looking at our phones on the hike. And that made it quality time. It made it fun. Not not like I think the idea of fun has to be that we're like

zipping around doing something exciting no we would we were just doing a hike but it was its own form of fun and quality time and to piggyback off that point what I like about it is that it forces you to look at areas where you can turn the mundane into the fun so you can say what do we like to do together that's fun well we always used to really enjoy having dinner together and watching a series and now it's become something that we do on autopilot and we don't feel connected to when we do it so I think this question forces you to reconnect to the areas where you can inject the fun and actually change the intention when you're doing very, as you say, you know, ordinary things.

That's so good. And I would just say, I would just remind it as you're talking about the hike, the consistency is like so crucial. One of the most heartening things I've seen recently is I just went back to Sacramento for a few days to see my family. And my parents have been so consistent with every single morning taking like a walk together and uh and their like wedding anniversaries I think it's their 45th wedding anniversaries coming up but they've never I've never actually seen them so close because they consistently do it and sometimes like ah we need the exercise your mom's on me because she's like looking after my health but uh the consistency is really, is really huge. I love that. We do that with coffee. Yeah. We have coffee together every morning. I'll say this, going on a hike, for those of you that are

dating and not in a serious relationship, I actually think is a great date. Because it, it is just one of those active things that allows you to kind of focus outwardly while also having quality time together. Although be careful the kind of hike, make sure it's not too tough and you're not kind of rolling. And you're unable to speak. Yeah, like skidding around everywhere

and the dust like choking on gravel. You choose the hike. You choose the hike that suits your level. Pick a sexy hike. All right, next question. question okay so question two who takes out the garbage now so some of these questions are in light of the pandemic and it talks about how the pandemic shook up um heterosexual couples and how they're dividing tours some data suggests there's more egalitarianism in the home after the pandemic. Some suggest that lockdown exacerbated

existing gender disparities. But Galena Rhodes, a psychologist, says, setting aside a time, a specific time, to talk about the subject of who does what and what roles you want to have going forward. Plan for it like you would for a business meeting know what you want to talk about and be as explicit as possible about who's going to do what what do you think of this hmm well i don't have any problem in theory with the idea of

two people coming together to decide who does what, you know, and you can divide it according to, well, I actually don't mind doing the dishes, so I'll do the dishes. I actually don't mind doing the washing, I'll do the washing. I actually don't mind taking the bins out, I'll do that. Or just, we both don't like this, okay, we'll take turns or whatever. I think that's a responsible thing to do, especially if you're living with someone, because the arguments and the resentment starts when it feels like there's an uneven distribution of responsibilities, or one person is doing all of the things and one person is just enjoying all of the things being done. I do think that what we have to be careful

of is planning for a sort of special meeting where we're going to air all of our grievances about the way things have been going because sometimes it's easy to kind of then just defer all of our grievances until that meeting and not be honest in the moment when something upsets us there's a lee cockerell who used to be the, he was a vice president of the parks at Disney. I think he was, but he was at that level. He was managing thousands upon thousands of people. And he said, I don't believe in employee reviews happening once a year, because then you're not actually telling people in the moment what you think. You're saving everything until halfway through the year when all of a sudden you're

going to have all of these honest conversations. The reviews should be kind of an ongoing thing. It should be, you did something I didn't like today. Let me reset an expectation. Let me be honest with you about that so that we're constantly adjusting course along the way. So I don't have a problem with delineating who does what, but I think if something's bothering us, saving it for some time when we're going to have a meeting like that is a very easy way to defer honesty. All right, everyone, that's it for today. But before you go, I have some important news. Our next live retreat dates are set from the 9th to the 15th of October this year. It's taking place in Fort Lauderdale on the beach. We're going to be spending six days together diving

deep on your biggest life challenges, whether they're to do with your confidence, your relationships, or just past trauma that you know is still getting in the way of you creating the life you want or experiencing the kind of happiness and peace you want to experience. If you want to join us, go to mhretreat.com to apply right now. This is going to be an incredible event and we hope to see you there. Thanks for listening as always. And I'll speak to you in the next episode of Love Life. Outro Music