The First Steps to Find Love with Matthew Hussey

0:00A lot of the work I do is not about saying go find a boring relationship devoid of chemistry. it's saying let's take some of these high standards that you have around certain things that aren't always predictors of great relationships and turn them towards areas that make for very good relationships i regret having you on because you were causing me stress i saw a little bit of it on your face okay let's unpack this looking for love well get ready to throw out everything you think you knew about finding the right partner matthew hussey is a leading love expert and best-selling author who has spent nearly two decades helping people find the kind of relationships that build their confidence and bring them joy if you're looking for a relationship in a relationship or enjoy being single, I found the things Matthew said to be universally valuable.

1:00In fact, he really challenged me on some of the decisions I've made in my own love life. Oof. This is a bit of optimism. Here's the reason why I think everyone should pay more attention to the work that you put out there versus so many other influencers, quote unquote, with various relationship advice. You have a humility about you and an honesty about you where you don't want from anything other than to see that other people can find some of the same joy and happiness that you have found but also to learn some of the lessons that you've learned and i appreciate that you don't claim to be an expert but rather you are just somebody on a journey who's got a curiosity and a fascination and in some respect you've made yourself the guinea pig?

1:55That means a great deal. I've admired your work for a very long time. So to hear that from you, I don't take that lightly at all. It means a lot. I've learned a couple of things about myself over the last few years. One is that I'm willing to sacrifice money to speak about things I really, really care about because there's certain books that I know I could write that would create more opportunities. Five ways to meet a better partner. But I have a deep, deep, deep love and connection for the heart of what I'm doing. Nothing brings me more joy than being able to help. I had a woman that came to me.

2:47She was in her 60s. This was her first question to me. How do I kill the desire to find love? When she said it, it like I got a ball in my throat because she had arrived at the point where she had decided that her wanting to find love had become the most painful thing in her life. She said, I haven't found what I'm looking for. I have, I feel invisible. I don't get many opportunities at all. Every night I go to bed haunted by the space next to me, wanting to find love and not finding it. And I'm worried that if I have this desire for the rest of my life, I'm going to be sad for the rest of my life.

3:31And I don't want to be sad for the rest of my life. That's a kind of chronic pain, the chronic pain of loneliness, the chronic pain of I wanted to have a family and I didn't have a family in time and now biologically I can't. The grief of life not going the way that I wanted it to go or hoped it would go or thought it would be by this stage, that is my life's work is having those hard conversations. What happened with the woman? I helped her to see that there was the very physical component to her pain, which was that pang in her stomach, in her chest at night, and that initial feeling of, God, I wish someone was there next to me.

4:17There was a relationship with that pain that was compounding that pain to an unmanageable degree. And I suffered from, for many years, a kind of chronic physical pain that I had in my head that at times got too much for me. At times I thought, I don't know. I do not know how I'm going to do this. It made me utterly miserable. And someone really helped me to understand that I had a relationship with my pain. You're in a monogamous relationship with pain. There was a whole bunch of ways that I was reacting to that pain that was making it way worse. I was measuring my life by the worst moments of that pain, even though it fluctuated.

5:05And in her case, there was a story that went along with her pain that once she started telling herself that story, my life doesn't mean anything because I never got married or I never found what I was looking for in this area. I can never be happy because I haven't found someone. I never will find someone, which was another story. All of these were things that turned her pain into overwhelm. We worry about fear, anxiety, anger. Overwhelm is 100 % the most dangerous emotion because overwhelm is the crescendo of any and all of those emotions. And it's in overwhelm where we do things we regret. It's in overwhelm where we think we can't manage.

5:51And so a huge part of what I try to do with people is lower the temperature so that it's below overwhelm. Because then you're in power again, and then you can create magic again. And we are not in those moments where the whole story of our life is being reduced to, I didn't meet someone, or I haven't met someone, or I still don't have someone. A kind of singular vision about our lives that is one story. Our life is many different stories. There are many different stories that can be started from where we are now. This is not the only story of our lives. So how is it that you started, you know, sort of, I would expect guys to give guys advice and those sort of men's groups exist and women to give women advice.

6:40How did you become a man giving women advice on, on dating? Originally, I saw that. Like why not men? Well, I had worked with men. I grew up in this sort of nest of amazing women who I loved so I always had a really good relationship with women when I was helping men for a few years I had women coming to me and saying why aren't you doing the same thing for us and my first response was well I don't really understand I don't really know what you're going through I don't I didn't even know you were having these issues you know I was a naive you know 19 20 year old guy but then I started to pick up books that were designed for women, not designed for men.

7:23And I started to read them. And my first feeling was, I don't relate to this idea as a guy. There was a very famous book called The Rules, which was really designed for women more than men. There was a line in there that said something like, I hope I'm not misquoting it, but this is at the time I read it as, if a guy isn't already talking to you if he's not like coming over to you don't go over to him like save yourself the trouble he's not interested that's madness i had never related to that in my life in fact the opposite was true for me the the more attracted to you i am the more likely i'm gonna avoid you yeah yeah yeah so it just it didn't resonate and i went oh my god if if these are the kinds of ideas people are living by, they're going to miss out.

8:20They're going to miss out on so many people. And frankly, they're only ever going to meet the loudest guy in the room. And the loudest guy in the room, there's no, you know, not always the best guy. You know, there's, um, in the sort of advice giving world, there's a lot of published children. Divorce attorneys are always divorced. Child psychologists have screwed up kids, you know, but you are happily married. and so so it gives a lot more credence and credibility when you're dispensing relationship advice than you actually made it work well actually if i think about my earliest years in my love life the story of them was me not being that excited because i kind of felt like i was in situations where it wasn't like the person that i really wanted to speak to For me to be brave enough to go, even if it meant going and getting rejected, just the ability to do something instead of doing nothing, that stayed with me so much so that my wife, Audrey, we met because I went home one year for Christmas.

9:34I live in Los Angeles. I went back to London. my friend from high school invited me to his engagement party which I didn't want to go to I had other things I wanted to do like sitting at home in my mom's house and relaxing and just being cozy for Christmas but I said yes so I did something instead of nothing there and then I got there I actually can't even I don't think take credit for speaking to her first because there was a TV and there was a big fight on and I'm a boxing fan. So I was watching the fight, but she came over and stood next to me and asked me what was going on, on the TV. And that was how we started talking.

10:17Ironic, right? That you learned all the skills to go meet the people. And yet the person you married is the person that came over and met you. Yeah, it was more, that was more like, she didn't know much about me, but that was more like the advice I've been giving to women for so long, which is that actually there are ways that you can create more opportunity. You don't have to be in the passenger seat all the time. Do you think that skillset is diminishing the courage to go and talk to a stranger because we don't have to, the technology has eliminated the practice? I think, yes. I think it's been eroded as a skillset, you know, because that's all it is, is a skillset.

10:55Like anything. I mean, you know, being comfortable at a party is a skill set you know i who didn't come out of covid and feel more anxious going to a social event for the first time if i don't socialize for a month i start to like get a kind of low level feeling of oh god i've got to go here and talk to people i remember i really remember being in new york one evening and a guy i just met being like how would you ever meet someone not on an app he was like i was in my 20s at the time but he was like the idea of going to a bar and talking to someone are you kidding like and i remember thinking god what interesting statement as it from a 20 something man that like the idea of going out to a bar and saying something to someone was unthinkable to him so i do think that skill has been eroded and i think that it's a tremendous shame and a tremendous opportunity because if you are someone who even has a modicum of an ability to go and make an impact in person you're way ahead of the curve these days what are the most common ways that people get in their own way we don't gravitate often enough or at all to the kinds of people that actually make us happy or bring us peace it's a bold statement i agree with you yeah so who are we gravitating to people that on some level satisfy our ego people that we might like to be seen with people that we feel proud of because of what they represent people we have massive amounts of initial chemistry with?

12:53Those butterflies that you get when you have amazing chemistry with someone and you're like, oh my God, this person's amazing, right? What I've learned is that all those amazing feelings of attraction are actually dopamine, not oxytocin, because it's the feeling that you found the thing you're looking for. You haven't necessarily built any foundation of anything. So initial chemistry can be exciting and intoxicating, but means nothing as to the viability of a relationship. Really nothing. So then what am I supposed to listen to? if not the chemistry and the intuition and the excitement and the butterflies, and if not the familiarity, because don't I want to be with a friend who gives me comfort and peace and makes me feel safe?

13:31Well, familiarity may not make us feel safe, but maybe the familiarity for us is someone who makes us feel terribly unsafe. Many people find themselves in situations where someone doesn't text them back, and all of a sudden, they want to fight for this person, for someone who's made us feel unsure of ourselves, who's made us feel less confident, who's made us feel more insecure. And yet now my instinct is to fight harder. I'm always very, very suspicious of the phrase, trust your instincts. I had a boxing coach once who told me, your instincts will get you killed. He said, when a punch is being thrown at your head, your instinct is to blink.

14:15your instinct is not to slip or to parry or to get in a good position your instinct is to blink and squint you go blind in exactly the moment you need to see our instincts in our love lives can get us emotionally killed because we have all sorts of bad instincts someone makes me unsure of myself fight harder i've decided i like someone after one day clear the schedule i'm going to see them as much as I can in the next two weeks. Drop my friends or that class that I enjoy doing or whatever it is. I'm just, I am all in for this person who I don't even know, who essentially is a perfect stranger.

15:00All I know is the impact they have had on me. I don't know their character. The character can only be measured over time. It can't be measured on a date. Only impact can be measured on a date. And so we have certain instincts that really do lead us to make big mistakes like over-investing. We do that all the time in early dating. We make our mind up about someone we can't possibly have made our mind up about. We get obsessed with someone where the obsession cannot possibly be an indicator of how right for us they are. I think chemistry is important, but when people say I have high standards, they're usually talking about a very narrow group of things.

15:43They're often the same people who say I have really high standards. That's why I never meet anyone. You learn that for the last two years, there've been an on and off situationship with someone who's been treating them horribly. So what do you mean when you say you have high standards? Do you mean you have high standards for looks? Do you mean you have high standards for charisma? You can't have high standards for kindness. You can't have high standards for empathy because they wouldn't you wouldn't value this person who's treating you with zero empathy you can't have high standards for teamwork or for trust or for consistency so a lot of the work i do is not about saying go find a boring relationship devoid of chemistry it's saying let's take some of these high standards that you have around certain things that aren't always predictors of great relationships and turn them towards areas that make for very good relationships.

16:43I regret having you on because you were causing me stress. I saw a little bit of it on your face. Okay, let's unpack this. I get excited when I meet someone I want to spend all my time with them. Younger me, it was insecurity. Like I better spend a lot of time with this person. Otherwise they'll meet somebody else immediately And so I got to speed up the get to know me process. Older me, it's born out of genuine excitement. Absolutely. When I get a cold response, it makes me fight for it. And then sometimes get it and be like, huh? You know, like I fought for this. Oh, when you finally get the person.

17:30Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the hardest thing is not knowing what's right or who's right for me. Because different people bring different energies. Some are exciting. Some are calming. Some are adventurous. Some challenge me intellectually. Some challenge me the way I live my life in the world to go on more adventures. and they all have different kinds of appealing but who's right for me i don't want to date myself i don't want to date somebody who matches my energy because i'm smart enough to know that balance is good i want to give something that they don't give and i want to them to give something that i can't give i once heard bruce springsteen talking about what a great show was when he's touring what what does an audience want and he said the audience simultaneously wants to be surprised and wants to be made to feel at home and that's what makes a great show so i've never said this before but i think there's something really profound to learn about relationships from that statement because speaking from my own experience i've never felt more at home than in this relationship.

18:48I've never felt more accepted. I've never felt more like I could truly reveal the parts of me that I thought would always be shameful or that would make someone not want me anymore and felt like I can say any of those things and I'll still be met with love and I'll still be met with acceptance. And that's the home part for me. But I think the the surprised part is i suppose that kind of james hollis question of will this diminish me or enlarge me and i think you can apply that to a relationship will being with this person diminish me or will it enlarge me how much um should we listen to our friends and family if i let my parents choose everyone i dated i know the ones i know the ones they like they like the ones with the big personalities yeah well that every every girl that i ever brought home that my parents fell in love with had a big personality yep i think my mom has that too my mom she could be charmed and that's a dangerous instinct because now your mom's falling for the same thing you are yeah and the awkward shy ones my parents are like no we don't like that yeah yeah yeah we don't like her yeah i'm like because she's awkward and shy you know i think when you feel like you're really growing with someone and when you feel like you actually make a really great team.

20:09It's one thing to observe someone in isolation and go, sexy person, charismatic person, successful person, like this person's great, look at them go. But I don't think that's the same thing as me and this person make a really great team together. Like we take care of each other. We've got each other's backs and we function really well together. I talk about in my book four levels of importance in any relationship or in any situation with a person the first is admiration and that's just where we admire someone we might not they may not even know we exist but we just think they're great the second is mutual attraction and that's the point of chemistry and connection yeah the third is commitment that's when we're actually saying yes to each other and the often overlooked part is compatibility is do we actually work together you know it's one thing to say yes and to commit to each other but does it work do we function well together and that's i've had a lot of failed relationships with really good people like really really amazing human beings who with a couple of exceptions i struggle to say anything bad about anybody i dated because they were good people that's why i dated them it just didn't work as a relationship but they're good people um and you know wrong time wrong place wrong maturity wrong circumstances whatever it is but so that's that's an interesting one i also think that there's a thing that happens to us as we get older it can be a bit dangerous which is that we feel the need now to justify all of the no's that we've handed out in the past.

22:00All of the times we said, not quite right. When we're looking for someone today, the stakes feel almost impossibly high because it's like, now I have to find someone who makes sense of the people that I have decided not to be with. And I think it could raise the stakes massively of the person we eventually choose. So much of what you say makes sense. And I think those four things are brilliant. But a lot of what you say, I'm struggling with, because there's paradoxes involved, that I can't trust my instinct. I can't worry about chemistry on the first few times i can't give too much too soon i can't chase someone and give a lot of energy up front i have to consider am i growing or am i diminishing which really you only discover in time so there's that rub which is i can how do i even know i have to feel safe I have to feel at home.

23:12And sometimes you have that feeling and that feeling goes away, or sometimes that feeling comes later. And what I've been guilty of is projecting safety because I want it so badly. I say a couple of things, I get a couple of good responses, and I project a level of safety that I don't have. I've done that. And so much of what you say is so insightful, but how does one start? For all of this, there's more nuance when you get into it because the paradoxes you're seeing are very, like that to me is what makes it so challenging. But it's what's forced me to make distinctions that I think if I only started doing what I was doing last year, I wouldn't have made certain distinctions.

23:57But I've had to make those distinctions because the very contradictions and paradoxes that you point out there are very real to me and I've come across them again and again. for example a phrase i used to say a lot i still believe in it today but it needs nuance a phrase i used to say a lot was don't invest in someone based on how much you like them invest in who invests in you and that's a very important idea i say that again because that is exceptionally good don't invest in someone based on how much you like them invest in who invests in you. Invest in someone based on how much they invest in you.

24:35That is a very, very important idea. And if we just did that, we would save ourselves from 80 % of the heartbreak that we're ever going to experience in our lives. Now, there's a problem with that idea. The problem is, if both parties go into the situation with that in mind, we're in a standoff. Who goes first? I don't know if you're going to invest in me yet, but I have to invest a little bit. Otherwise I'll never know. Or what if they both read your books and take the advice and both invest? And so you get a false sense of investment because they're following a strategy and it feels good. And so I'm investing somebody who's investing because they have following the same strategies as me.

25:21But well, I think for me, you know what I mean? There's like an intellectual investment. There's an emotional investment. Like I can intellectually do something because I think it's more likely to yield what I'm looking for. Or I can feel it and it feels natural. I'll give you a real life example. I met a couple at a, they were at a wedding. I was at a wedding. They were a wonderful couple. They're clearly in love. In fact, I think they've now engaged. They said to me, when we hug, we make sure to hug for at least whatever the number was, 20 seconds, because that's when the oxytocin releases. And I was like, I mean, okay, sure.

25:57You know? And I'm a cynical idiot and cynical bastard, even though I know a lot of the science, I'm still cynical. And I was talking to her and she says, can I give you a hug? I'm like, yeah, I'd love a hug. And we start hugging. And I said to her, you're counting in your head, aren't you? She goes, yeah. I'm like, stop. We're ending this hug right now. Right? Yeah. You've intellectualized an emotional connection. Right? Here's the great thing about human beings. human beings, they know, they can feel, right? We're social animals. Like this is all inbuilt. I said, we're going to do this hug again, right?

26:38This time do me the favor and just don't count. Just hug, just be in the hug, right? And we hugged and it was beautiful. I don't know, maybe it was 15 seconds, maybe it was 20 seconds, maybe it was 25 seconds when it started to feel like magic. And I stepped back and said, how'd that feel? Did that feel fantastic? She said, yeah, I'm like, I'm no counting required. I resonate so much with what you're saying. And I think this is part of the problem with the work that I do and the work that you do and the work that others like us do, which is we're explaining things to the point where people are following the advice intellectually, but they're forgetting that the relationship is emotional.

27:20My feeling about all of this is exactly the same as yours. I always hated my own work for that. Like I think of like sex therapists. There is an irony that we all know intuitively to be true that it's both helpful if you're in a relationship where you need therapy around sex and intimacy to get help but also by shining a light on it there's something immediately unsexy about that and that we're now going to have to get over that hurdle that we've talked about the fact that there's an issue and now that's in the room it it doesn't make things bad advice but it does mean that you can intellectualize things to the point of like you've pulverized them into nothing.

28:16But I think that's the world we live in. I think that's the world we live in of 30 second TikTok videos and reels and stories and all for terrible reasons, which is well-intentioned people are trying to help, but they're also counting the clicks, the views, the forwards and saves. And the incentive structure's all screwed up in the advice giving world. but i think you you find people that make sense to you and it's going to make mentors really important who you decide you vibe with and who you listen to because you're gonna connect with someone who you're gonna you're gonna hear the authenticity in what they're saying like to me the other side of the equation of the don't over intellectualize it is that i can't stop thinking like i over intellectualize everything i'm the same way i i over i'm hyper rational hypological i'm also very sensitive and emotional but i like breaking things down yeah for me as a single person i made choices that consistently led me to more anxiety and consistently led me in directions that weren't right for me either because i was i just wanted to be with someone instead of no one well i think that we we live in a world today where they're truly whether or not it's true for us or not truly feels like there's endless options we go shopping on dating apps we're shopping for people it's amazon and you're scrolling you're scrolling through the products yeah on on the shopping app and once you're done there you there's instagram and once you're done there there's hinge and once they're done there there's like you could just keep going to a new platform and being presented with what feel like constantly better options this person's got more of this that person's got more of that and we end up with this kind of composite in our mind of the person we want that is built on all of these different inflated standards it gets really dangerous because it starts to miss the point of what actually makes us happy like i sometimes think of people going from east to west in America and how like at some point every person had to say when enough was enough like one person would say it in Chicago and another person would say it in Montana and another person would say it in Seattle and it's like when do you decide this is home do you keep saying that well they have mountains over there or if we keep going we might find an amazing ocean or it it at a certain point what makes a home a home is that we actually put down roots you know fomo being something that is a kind of a bit of a joke because by definition anytime we're doing anything we are by definition missing out on practically everything so worrying about the party you missed tonight you why aren't we worrying about every event on earth we're missing tonight we're always missing out on basically everything and the same is true in our love lives there's plenty of people that would be awesome to marry there's a lot of them and i think that there is this feeling of if i don't make the choice everything is still possible And that's exciting.

31:38There is something exciting about that. Versus saying, actually, you're going to miss out on all of it anyway. You're going to miss out on everything. Whoever you settle down with, you're going to miss out on everyone else. Everyone. I promise you. And I promise you, whatever you wish your partner had, I guarantee you, somebody else has that. Somebody else has it. And at some point, I think we have to decide where our peace is going to lie. Okay. So gratitude is the thing we're talking about here, which is going into a relationship the same way we should be going into life, which is like, I don't believe in bucket lists.

32:12To me, a bucket list is a list of things I haven't done. Right. And so I'm forced to look at the things that are missing in my life. That's what a bucket list is. So I live my life with a reverse bucket list where I will write down something I've done or an experience I had or a place I visited that I never thought I'd ever have the opportunity to do. And it was magical. And then I write it down. That's great. I will look at the list of things that I've done and the people I've met and the experiences I've had. And every day I go, oh my God, my life's incredible. I keep adding to it. That's insane.

32:43It should be done. And so I think what you're talking about in a relationship is instead of looking for the things that are missing and knowing that somebody else has them, to also say, or to replace that with, look at the things that I'm getting and other people can't give me those things. Because just as you are missing out on everything, other people are missing out on this. And if you can't be grateful, then maybe this is the wrong person for you. My friend, Dr. Romany, who's an expert on narcissism, she says, the moment someone says, what is it about this person? What do you love about them?

33:19The moment you find yourself saying, I don't know, there's just something about them, you're in trouble. Because it shouldn't be hard. to talk about the incredible qualities yeah and the incredible character of the person that you've decided yeah to spend your life with someone who has the raw materials for a great relationship with you and vice versa i see it like it's a plot of land yeah and we often make the mistake of really overvaluing the land and a relationship isn't a plot of land it's like the it's the castle the two of you build on that land yeah and it's all of the ways that the stone gets weathered over time it's not the house it's the home yes what you invest in it is that the fact that the two of you have this incredible thing you've built together that becomes it actually does become one of a kind.

34:18Because the two of you, only this combination of these two people could have made this. So here are some of the things that I'm getting, right? Gratitude in the relationship and looking for the things to be grateful for rather than the things that are missing. Teamwork, which I love, that we will build this. We can break this. We have the opportunity to make it whatever we want and build however we want to build it, which I think is magical. one of the things that i'm that i need you to to wax philosophical on is confidence is it correct that we first have to find confidence and love for ourselves before we can find love for another or can the right partner help us find that thing that has been elusive even to ourselves both i i don't think you you don't get to show up with zero ability to connect to yourself or to love yourself and to just give someone else the responsibility but i'm not a big fan of like this thing that goes around where it's like you have to have done the work on yourself before you ever meet someone else you have to be happy first i'm like give me a break how many it's an impossible standard how many people do we know that are in happy relationships that absolutely were not enlightened people on the day they met their partner like it's kind of an insult to people who are actually out there and single that we keep telling everyone, you just haven't done enough work.

35:44Like all the rest of the world who's married, Kate, who met Brad at university at 21, they'd figured it out. Like, and they're still married. And that's because you just, you're not enlightened enough yet. I have a real problem with that idea. It's a tricky one because you could be insecure in a relationship and the relationship can be highly functional. Or can you not? I mean, we all have insecurities. Yeah, we all have insecurities. We can be insecure and the relationship can be functional, but it doesn't mean the relationship wouldn't be a lot stronger if we worked on those things. Can I answer my own question?

36:19And then you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. Yeah. And then I want to tell you something about confidence because this is like, you're onto a whole passion for me right now. It's okay to be insecure in your own relationship. You're always going to have insecurities in your relationship. The thing that makes the relationship, one of the things that makes the relationship work is that you're open and vulnerable with your partner about those insecurities. And if you attempt to hide those insecurities from your partner, that's when the problems will arise. but i think to have a successful partnership to be able to sit in that very uncomfortable space even with someone we love and say i need to tell you about me and what i'm insecure about and what i fear even if it's completely nonsense that's what you know most of them are irrational and it's very freeing to be if you have a safe partner if you have a safe partner and if you learn your partner's not safe that becomes a kind of filter for the right or the wrong relationship my relationship now i can be very very honest about these things and i'm met with love i've had relationships i had one relationship where i said something made me insecure that night and the response i got was i find that really unattractive simon it destroyed me it like really like it wrecked me yeah yeah of course it for me at the time i was like i'm never yeah ever doing that again yeah yeah exactly last time like i could have cursed brene brown's name i was like brene brown's all about vulnerability this doesn't work for us you can't use this as a man when you're in a relationship and of course you can and she's right but i was with the wrong person of course and that's not a lesson that you always learn at the time because you you turn it inwards and you say oh i'm the problem or i am gross i am tragic i have to stop doing this or yeah like what's wrong with me this insecurity is really unattractive yeah but i oh that's nice the the thing i think that's really important in relation to loving ourselves because that's a very very overused idea is the the loving ourselves thing it's a it's become very trite i've i was fixated on that for a very long time because i was not someone who was good at that i never really connected with that idea i got it i'm like i get it love yourself never any real emotional connection there for me and i needed a more robust model for that.

38:54Otherwise I was never going to be able to connect to it. And for me, loving myself, and this is what I tell people these days, is you can actually make it very, very simple, which is firstly, if I like people, if I care about people, then I'm a citizen of the world. There's no reason why I should treat myself worse than I would treat anyone else. Forget treating yourself better for a moment. There's no reason why I should treat myself worse if I care about people. The reason we treat ourselves worse, by the way, is because we apply a romantic model to loving ourselves. In the romantic model, we fall in love with someone because there's a sense of mystery and excitement and space between us and all the things Esther Perel talks about.