Matthew Hussey: 5 Reasons Why There is No Such Thing As The Right Person At The Wrong Time & How to Stop Missing Your Ex

43:03And it's something you said earlier, which I'm kind of connecting to what you're saying now, this difference between an egoic standard, in your words, and then an emotive standard or an emotional standard. And maybe there's a better word for it that you've developed or come across. But I'm trying to separate it because I think an egoic standard is, well, yeah, that if they asked me out, they have to pay on the first date. So we start getting lost or like an egoic standard is they should message me first. Like I don't think those are the types of standards that Audrey said to you or the kind of standard that you're recommending.

43:40There's this great, my favorite TikTok page to follow in the world is called Guy With The List. Have you seen this guy? So what he does is he will take random videos of girls who share their icks and they are hilarious, right? They are the most ridiculous things. Like it's like, I don't like guys who work out with their mates all the way through to, I don't like guys with a big bum, right? Whatever it may be. And this guy, what he'll do is he'll take the clip of a girl saying that. And then he'll go to his notes page in Apple and add it to his list of things of not to be. It's the best page in the world.

44:18So it's just the longest list of ridiculous. He's on 794 the last time I saw. And it's like a guy with the list. It's brilliant. and the reason I bring it up is because I think that's what we think standards are now and I think to your point earlier I think you labeled it an egoic standard so walk us through how we transform our egoic standards into I'm calling them emotional standards whatever the right word is how do we transfer them over because I think we think we're setting standards but they're standards like he's got to pay on the first date she better text me first I won't reply for a week the example you gave and I think that's what's tripping us up yeah I think that it's almost like there's standards that arise from ego and their standards arise from what's going to make us happy and that the two are often completely different right because actually the the things that make us happy can be much more subtle and less prescriptive than the things that feed our ego in some way there's there's two points i want to make about this please the first one is in relation to the kind of inherent judgment that is in so many of those icks and so many of those things i would never want someone who's like this i would never want someone who does that i would the we write people off at lightning speed and not just entirely superficial things, but ways that people are not like us, right?

45:55So you've got people who are like, oh, if they're not into, especially like, you know, your audience is into self-development. My audience tends to be into self-development. It's very easy for someone who gets into self-development to suddenly be like, I want somebody else who's into self-development. Yeah. Right. And I get that question all the time. Like now that I'm doing all of this growth work, I want someone who can keep up. I want someone who's on my level. And - I want to remind people like you weren't doing this two years ago. Like this is in a way, this is like a complete contempt you have for you two years ago.

46:33Wow. Before like a certain mentor or influence or something came into your life and turned you onto something. There's also a slight arrogance about the standards, you know, these things we have because it's, you know, someone could have lived on a farm their whole life and they have no idea what self-development even is as a kind of idea, a concept, let alone that there's this entire industry around it. And they may have a wisdom that you never picked up on in the world that you grew up in. And that might be one of the greatest bits of synergy between the two of you is the wisdom you bring and the wisdom they bring that's different and has come from a very different place, a very different way of living.

47:20So, you know, I think there's a lack of humility sometimes in thinking that people have to be like us and then judging them for the ways that they're not like us. And a lot of the way we judge other people arises out of a lack of self-compassion because we haven't really accepted ourselves. We haven't really you know i know every time i got punched in the face by life every time like i took a big hit and i you know experienced a really bad heartbreak that was a big one for me like a very humbling experience for me i experienced years of chronic physical pain and when that happened in my life I like truly just hit a kind of bottom because I just didn't know how I would ever, I tried everything in the world and I couldn't make this pain go away.

48:17And I, it, it started to basically not just ruin my life because I felt like I couldn't experience joy anymore. I was just thinking about my pain all day, every day, but it also robbed me of my confidence because i started to feel like wow no one's going to be attracted to this version of me that is so frail and fragile and doesn't feel like i wasn't i really didn't identify as the heroic version of me anymore i was like this is gonna i'm gonna be perceived as pathetic by someone who wants like a strong person because i feel so on the edge of breaking the whole time because anyone with chronic physical pain knows that you it's so centralizing and even doing basic things can feel like it's too much um but my point is that that going through those things in life it allowed me to access a level of compassion for other people because i was like god how many people have i written off in my life because you know they're they're this way or they're that way or they're you know and look at me right now i'm i'm like on the floor yeah and i i found that as i came to accept more of myself and be honest about my own stuff and not just the things going wrong in my life but even just difficulties like if you have a jealous moment and it makes you a little crazy then you're not so quick to call other people crazy when they you know react to um insecurity they have and it makes them do something extreme in that moment you know like the well you she's crazy you can't believe what she did like she's so she's crazy it's like you don't you don't throw that around when you know you've done your share of like crazy because you were in pain and you didn't know how to how to cope with it yeah you know it so i've i've found that the more the more i've like been humbled in life and the more i've become accepting of myself and compassionate towards myself actually the more yeah absolutely it's made space for everyone else because now i wouldn't if i was single again i wouldn't be writing off people on all of those things that I might have written people off for eight years ago or 10 years ago, I actually think I would have more options, not less.

50:53Like people will say, Oh, I'm growing so much. I've got so few options now because so many few people are on my level. I'm like, if you're really growing, I actually think it makes space for more people because you become more compassionate and more accepting. Um, and you see the soul of that person underneath those behaviors and the way they are, which kind of brings me on to my other point, which was when, you know, the person says they didn't pay on the date, they invited me and then, you know, they didn't pay for the whole check or whatever. I think we're, we're not always good at getting behind why someone is the way they are.

51:32Like what's really driving the way they are. Does this person have the same values as me? They might do something different on the surface, but underneath that might be the same value. We just have arrived at different points. Like my wife's a vegetarian. I eat meat. Like we both love animals. Sincerely, I love animals. She makes jokes about me. You know, how much, you know, how I am with animals is one of her favorite things in the world, but I eat them and she doesn't. like we have we've arrived at different places but underneath it all is like the same beating heart and i think that's the thing we're quick to write off when we make those really quick judgments about people and that's not to say like there are certain you know red flags that might come up with someone where you go you know what not worth finding out what's behind this because it's just too severe and I don't I really don't like this and it has been a major warning sign for me in the past but I think that's different than taking something like someone didn't pay half the bill or someone didn't pay the whole bill I know that I used to think to myself I really enjoy paying the bill but if someone didn't offer for me I would be like And it, and this is even my judgment, right?

53:02Because that for them, it might just be conditioning and it might be, I even, there were times where I even spoke up about it where I found myself paying constantly and I got brave enough to say, Hey, it makes me feel kind of taken for granted that you don't ever offer to pay. you know i've been in situations like that in the past and sometimes if you said that to someone they'd be like oh my god i feel off like they're so embarrassed and they're like they will then feel shame about it and be like god i you know they look at themselves and they're like oh i slipped into a pattern there that i don't like especially if i express that it's not that i hate it's not i don't like paying it's that i don't feel like we're a team yes you know that might make someone go well i value being part of a team as well and i actually don't like that you don't feel like I'm a great teammate.

53:50That's the last thing in the world I'd ever want to be. So now like you can actually come together because of a, a, a moment where you say something like that. But I know if I was on a date when I was single and someone didn't even offer, and by the way, I would still pay. I still wouldn't let them, but if someone didn't offer it, it would be, there would be a little piece of me that would be like, it doesn't that doesn't feel like teamwork yeah and maybe you know maybe fine if someone invites you on a date and and they let you pay half okay maybe you say i don't i didn't love that yeah but maybe you see like maybe that needs to play out once or twice more before you decide everything that means about the person yeah well i think you just hit the nail on the head it's like actually having and i know this isn't sexy and it's not popular but it is what you're trying to say that having the clarifying conversation around why someone behaves the way they do is far more useful as to whether this relationship has a future than what they do.

54:54So the fact that you're paying or someone's not paying actually doesn't show anything unless you had a conversation about why that's the case. And actually how they deal with that conversation and how they respond to it is going to give you all the notes you need as to whether this relationship has a future or not, because what ends up happening, that's with a very tangible thing with paying. There could be something that person does that annoys you and you let it go for the first month. You let it go for the first three months. Now you move in and it triggers you. And you're like, God, can you just stop doing that?

55:24You've been doing it for nine months now. And they're like, well, wait a minute. Why didn't you just tell me that? And it's like, well, if we actually talked about it on month one, I know Radhi and I have had so many conversations like that. And it is true that as you spend more time together, A, you discover more things you disagree on. and B, you discover more things you're grateful for. They're both happening at the same time. And the disagreement doesn't turn into a disconnect because you have the skills to say, I know how this person deals with challenging conversations because we've had them for so long.

55:57We're not waiting for three years to have our first challenging conversation because we've already had them about less important things. And now that we're growing up together, I think a lot of people aren't having the early conversations So when it comes to that, how do we want to raise kids? Where do we want to live? What do you want to, all these are harder conversations if you haven't talked about who should pay for the bill, because these are much more bigger emotional condition decisions where people have far more stuff to pull from as to how they make it. There's so much to say about all of that.

56:29Go on, yeah, go. You're absolutely right. And Christopher Hitchens used to say, it's more important how someone thinks than what they think. and i think that we never when we're being too judgmental or assumptive we don't necessarily learn how someone thinks we learn what they think and then we discard them based on what they think or what they do you're absolutely right that by having the conversation you see how they deal with the conversation itself which should by the way for anyone wanting a serious relationship it should that should be like one of your baseline needs is that i need someone who is willing to have real conversations with me where we can acknowledge things because someone who can't acknowledge things can't grow right it's like one of the key features of narcissism is the inability to admit wrongdoing and that breeds incompetence by the way because if you can't admit wrongdoing and take ownership you can't get better at something so you know whether you're dealing with narcissism or just someone who can't see themselves clearly or can't acknowledge the way you feel or the way something they've done has made you feel.

57:40If you're in that situation, it's going to be a rough relationship. So how soon do you want to find out the way the two of you engage on that level? But it's also engaging on that level is a form. This is, I think, what we forget is that, well, let me make two points about this. I wrote an entire chapter in this book on hard conversations, not just because we tend to avoid them at all costs because we don't like them. Like it's like, you know, in Fight Club where, you know, he says like most men will do anything to avoid a fight. Like it's like most people will do anything to avoid a hard conversation because we just hate.

58:18It's awkward. It's embarrassing. You know, we probably, many of us grew up not being good at confrontation or not being taught how to have healthy confrontation. And so we avoid it. and we hold on to it we hold on to it and we're afraid what will happen if we speak up about our needs i know that one thing i i did a disservice to to people that i had in my love life uh in previous times of my life because the times where i might have really needed some time to myself i didn't express it and then by not expressing it because i was afraid i then became like resentful and avoidant and started to push that person away because i just decided my needs couldn't be met in this relationship without giving them a chance to even see that part of me and show up for me in that way so we do that all the way to the beginning of dating you know we do that when we see you know that i i joke in the book about red flags because i'm like if we listen to every single piece of advice on the internet about what's a red flag, not only would everyone be undateable, so would we, right?

59:28Like I'd be excluded from the dating pool because I for sure have some of those red flags or have had at some point in my life. So, you know, we, and that's, I don't want to be hypocritical. I've been a contributor to the advice on red flags, but like when you start adding them all up, you're like, oh my God, is there any room for mistakes is there any room for someone to do something that you know uh uh isn't them on their best day now robert green i've heard him say you know if someone does something pay attention to that because nobody ever does anything once if they did it once it's a pattern i think that's an amazing like if i was creating a survival guide for life that would go in it because it's great advice but i also know that there's things i've done in my life or my relationship that i did once especially after a hard conversation i felt bad about and and decided i don't want to be that person or i don't want to do that again so we do want to reserve some space in life for the fact that we can learn we can adapt we can progress what i know for sure is that people don't progress without the hard conversations what we ignore we tacitly approve and what we point out bravely albeit there are elegant ways to do it and i show people elegant ways to do it in the book yeah yeah that to me is then you you're looking for progress like is when i've mentioned it is does it bring us closer together because in the right situation communicating should actually bring you closer together it shouldn't then you shouldn't feel gaslit you shouldn't feel like you're called crazy or difficult or that should actually bring you together and then our standard has to be that by having that conversation i need to see progress in that area and if i don't see progress in that area i'm not going to ignore the fact that there's been no progress in that area but if there's no progress now it has become a kind of a delusional thing to expect that they are going to change.

1:01:39But I can't stress this enough. We, in our love lives today, everyone is really, really good at, and rightly so. I'm not, this is what they're talking about is real, but we're really good at complaining about what dating is like today and how hard it is. And it is like, it is hard. Finding love is hard. It is the wild west. there is so much bad behavior there's so many ways to just god there's just so many ways for it to be bad and unfortunately for us our love life is an area we can influence but we we can't control it to the level of precision that we can other areas of our lives if we want to lose weight we can eat better and we can work out and our body will change may not get to our perfect weight but it will change reliably reliably.

1:02:31In your love life, you can go on a date every day for the next year and still not find love. or you can find love and six months later that person cheats on you and leaves you and you're back to square one. It's a maddening area in many ways because we deeply want to find love. It is one of the most human of desires is to find love and it panics us. At first it frustrates us and it makes us angry and but at some point for many people it panics them because they're worried I'm never going to meet anyone we can't just decide i'm going to find love in the next three months and make it happen but what we have to start taking ownership of and where we have to start taking our power back is that you can go into your dating life from a place of leadership and so many people i think go in with a state of following like what's the level right now of people's effort what's the level of men's chivalry what's the level of whether people pick up the phone or not instead of relentlessly texting what's the level of communication between dates or the um what i can expect from someone in terms of assurances that we're just seeing each other like there's all this rhetoric about where things are and people don't try anymore no one wants to commit and so on but if you're not careful you can get into a really passive state about all yeah mitch album said if you don't like the culture you have to be brave enough to create your own i love that and by the way that's what we do in business right that's what you've done in your business is that you've created a culture that you love that is right for you and that's what you you know in the most positive way infect your team with is that beautiful culture and that amazing way that you see the world and the way that you do things.

1:04:28And it makes your organization unlike any other in the world. It's got your thumbprint on it. That's the beauty in a way of starting a business is that you get to do it your way. And our love life can be the same. We can decide what's the culture that I want to have instead of commenting on culture. what's the culture I want to create in my love life if someone you know if I'm sick of this whole constant texting thing well why don't I be the one to leave someone a voice note today like why if someone's just sent me the 50th text why don't I send them back when they ask me how am I doing today why don't I like just say it maybe it's too scary to call them but maybe I just leave a voice note and say hey how you doing I thought I'd uh you know I thought I'd leave you a voice note i'm out with my sister right now we're in ikea we're trying to find furniture for this thing i'll send you a picture because i am dreading getting home and having to actually make this tell me about your day like how you doing blah blah like you know you can inject a different level of energy and and enthusiasm or sexiness or flirtatiousness or whatever it may be a little laugh here that's endearing you can do all of that in a voice note in a way that when someone listens to it now it's not just another text on their phone you're like attacking a different sense yeah and that will increase the level of intimacy even just by one percent two percent and that might just make you like that's leadership because you're not just we we spend so much time mirroring people like i'm going to mirror how someone else is what someone else is giving me and this person I'm seeing.

1:06:10But we have to start modeling more. Like, don't get me wrong. If you model behavior that you want to see by being the one who picks up the phone first or leaves the voice note, and then they don't meet you there, then you can say, okay, I'm going to start to mirror their lack of investment. I'm going to start to back off. But you can't just be in a state of mirroring all the time. Such a good point, man. It works on every level, man. I was at my coffee shop this morning and there's a guy there that really like, we always have like a really nice, like three minute conversation. And this morning, like it never goes further than that.

1:06:48But this morning, as he was going to the coffee bar, he said, can I get you a coffee? now like i remember in that moment i thought that was like a little moment of like vulnerability and leadership that was like had the potential to upgrade the relationship you know what i mean like this is just another guy in a coffee shop but it was like oh we might hear you offered me a coffee i say yes and now like our relationship is one where you got me a coffee yeah and now we might sit for 10 minutes on that's how things move but they can't move if you're in this like fearful protectionist i don't want to get hurt i don't want to give more than the other person i don't want to that's not a good standard to have a great standard to have is lead and model the kind of culture you want to see and if someone doesn't meet you there that's where the standard comes in yes that's where you of course the standard is modeling but the the counter standard if they don't meet you there is to say, this isn't someone I'm going to continue modeling that kind of investment for because they're not meeting me there.

1:07:55Yeah, that is, oh man, that is so well put. And I'm so glad that you made that so clear because I couldn't agree with you more. I feel like we're limiting ourselves so much and we're actually creating what you just ended on there. It's a really powerful point. we're actually creating a culture that even if this relationship lasts it will be set at the wrong level so the culture of that relationship now is we sometimes text we rarely call and now even if the relationship lasts and we do like each other a little bit it's never going to change from that so you're way better off setting the standard and the culture from day one and seeing if it develops and grows and i find what most people do and i think we've all experienced this is for three to six months, we try and not disrupt the culture.

1:08:41And then six months later, we're like, no, no, no, but I always wanted this. And I thought we were going to get there. And the person's like, no, no, no, but this is what we are. And I remember that Radhi, who's the only person I've ever been with since I left the monastery, like it was like, she was the person that I was fully clear with about who I was, what are my expectations, where we were. And thankfully, she was that back too. And we had some really hard conversations early on about some big things that were important to her, not important to me, important to me, not important to her. And what I loved was how we talked about those things and how we kind of navigated those things.

1:09:17And it's not that we're perfect and we don't have issues. We have so many challenges. You know, we've been together for 11 years now. There's so many things that have come up over the years that have given us different challenges. But the difference is we set a culture of how to deal with difficult things early on. And I think what I hear time and time again, and I know you hear this probably 10x the amount I hear this, it all comes down to the fact that we want people to like us so bad that we're willing to act unlike ourselves in order for them to like us. Because if they can like a version of us, then that's good enough for us.

1:09:58And so if the version is, I never bother you, I never text, I never call you, we will be that person for you because that makes you like me we all love to be referred to as that person who's like oh yeah they're low maintenance and we love that label we're like yeah yeah i'm low maintenance and inside we're like yeah i mean i've got way more needs than this but guess what i've set the culture of being low maintenance now a year later they're like wait a minute you were low maintenance a year ago why are you high maintenance parking shouldn't slow you down ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut.

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1:11:16We've been made to believe that saying yes is a good thing, but I've realized there's a big difference between doing it intentionally and doing it unintentionally. IsoPure protein helps you focus on more of what matters, like feeling your best every day. With great tasting nutrition that's high protein and also low carb, if you need that, IsoPure fits seamlessly into your lifestyle and that's why I've added it to my daily routine. I use IsoPure unflavored protein in recipes like pasta sauce and guacamole during the week. With 25 grams of ultra filtered protein and zero carbs, plus 20 vitamins and minerals, you can boost nearly any recipe without changing the taste of your favorite foods.

1:11:57I've already restocked four times because I add the IsoPure Unflavored to everything. You can try the IsoPure Vanilla to blend 25 grams of protein into your smoothies or your oatmeal, or check out IsoPure Clear Protein Water with 15 grams of protein, which supports hydration with electrolytes and a light berry flavor. Enjoy more of what matters today at isopureprotein.com and get 20 % off your order when you use code MINES20 at checkout. Yeah, and there's two problems with that. One is that it can actually make it so that someone can't even really read us or our intentions. It's a bit like when someone is like wants to be cool and indifferent.

1:12:37Well, if there's a story I tell in the book of a friend of mine who was dating someone and then went on a trip and he didn't really reach out to her on that trip. and by the time he got home after a few days she said to him it on the phone it the fact that you were away and you didn't really speak to me made me feel funny like it made me feel like you may have been sharing your bed with someone else and they hadn't been on like this isn't two people who had been dating for six months they'd been on a couple of dates but that was the moment when he said to me i think i like this person because there was an intentionality to it she didn't go i'm being high maintenance by saying this she just communicated what she was feeling and by doing that instead of being cool indifferent girl like like chill i'm chill like i don't care that you didn't text me while you're away she went no no no it made me feel funny yeah because it would The subtext is it would hurt me to know, like maybe we haven't known each other that long, but it would still make me feel something to know that you'd shared your bed with someone else while you were away.

1:13:49That's a very powerful thing to do. Because if he's seeing multiple people in that moment, all of them playing cool in different whatever, he now sees someone who is actually telegraphing the kind of person she is, that she's a three-dimensional person with real feelings and that she wants something more she is not the kind of person yeah to date if you don't want something more and by the way even the first time someone gets like just a little bit jealous of something can be a moment of intentionality in a relationship because you the moment you see someone's a little bit like they convey a little bit of even if it's playful jealousy oh i don't like that made me feel funny you're not allowed to text that but whatever you can go you almost can make you like that person more because you can go oh that's like it's almost like you've telegraphed that we've gone to a new level where jealousy is even possible yeah because at the beginning jealousy wasn't even possible now it is you must like me i think i like you too you know it's like there's a we're so afraid of of saying these things that actually telegraph intentionality, which is a really, really powerful thing.

1:15:08Yeah. But we, but it all comes down back to the root of we're so scared because we're scared that that person will leave. And often they will because their friends saying to them, oh yeah, man, they're psycho. Oh, they're obsessive. Leave. Right. And so we don't want these extreme labels. And I think often, so we're scared of looking unattractive. We're scared of being unwanted. We're scared of being rejected, right? That's the reason we don't say any of this because we're like, if I say that, they're going to think I'm psycho, crazy, obsessed. And I don't want to come across that way. And so I won't say anything until one year on, which by the way, they're going to think the same exact thing when it's a full surprise.

1:15:48So I want to talk to you about that. And then the other idea that I see a lot of that people get stuck on is when they say something they say it as a demand or a command where it's like well I expect you to do this and that's where I think it's unhealthy because I like someone being honest with me but I also don't want that to be my progress report because I may have a really good thing to say back and so if I'm going to say back if someone was like if someone said that to me like you didn't contact me I'll be like yeah you know what when I travel I actually really struggle to stay in touch with anyone because I'm really trying to be present.

1:16:24I'm really trying to immerse. But now that I know that's a value for you, next time I go away, let's talk about how often we can both keep in touch realistically because I'm also not going to promise I'm going to call you every single day, even if I'm really excited about you because I'm also going to set my standard back. And I think often people don't want to hear that either. They want to hear someone say, oh, of course, I understand everything you're saying and I'm going to call you every day when I go away again. And so one side is you're scared of getting fully rejected and the other side is you're scared of not getting exactly what you want and i don't think both those expectations are useful because you might get rejected and you're never going to get exactly what you want in an authentic way no and i i think that's why we if we're the one who wants something we have to zoom out enough to look at whether this person and what they bring to our life and what this relationship is like holistically is enough for us because we may say i want this person to call me every day but that may genuinely not be their style right it's they're not someone who enjoys sitting on the phone as much as you do yeah um they might pick up the phone and call you every couple of days but in the meantime they will text you or you have to it's like you have to zoom out and go how much of this relationship not these moments whether they call or not how much of this relationship correct meets my needs you know what what are the fundamental things well i need to feel safe with someone like i need to feel like they actually want me and that i'm not kind of investing under a misapprehension about what this is i need to know at a certain point that regardless of our differences, we're giving this a go and we're exclusive, right?

1:18:15So that might be one thing. Another thing is I need to feel like whether it's on the exact platform I might have hoped, I need to feel like I get enough communication, you know, holistically in this relationship to feel like I'm actually connected to this person. You know, if someone very rarely travels and then they go away and you don't hear from them a lot when they travel, that may not be a big deal. If they're on the road half the year and then they're not really connecting with you while they're traveling, that's going to have a much bigger impact on your life. It doesn't make them wrong, but it might not be enough for you.

1:18:52And that's where we have to start getting really honest with ourselves. We get so caught up in who's right and wrong and we don't spend enough time just asking, is it right for me? is it is this does this person work well with me are we compatible and and compatibility is is everything you know you can't i talk about four levels of importance in any relationship or any person any dynamic you have with a person the first one is admiration that's just you admiring someone it doesn't mean very much they may not even know you exist the second one is mutual attraction. That's when you actually know you like each other.

1:19:33The third one is commitment. That's when you don't just like each other, but you're actually saying yes to the relationship. And the fourth one is compatibility because actually love isn't all you need. You need two people who actually work well together. You know, is it's not, is this person, you know, am I good at handling them? And are they good at handling me? Like that's a pretty, I think that's a pretty good barometer of a relationship. I came to this. That's a great one. Yeah, because you're going to come with your stuff. This nonsense of like, we have to come to a relationship fully healed.

1:20:09Who does? No one. Who? Like it's this idea that gets talked about that no one actually does. No one comes to ever, I'm going to make myself whole and healed and everything before a relationship. Good luck. And by the way, half the people who say that stuff, who have been married 10 years, they weren't that way when they met their partner. So we find imperfect people, you know, we are damaged vessels that somehow still work. And that's beautiful. And we're trying to find another damaged vessel that we go, oh, I understand the fabric of their challenges and what they struggle with. Or at least it makes sense to me when I hear it.

1:20:57and you know I have compassion for it and I have empathy for it and I have affection for it even and vice versa and so now when we go through our inevitable things we're just good at handling each other so it's when we when we have a standard we may not end up exactly where we want to be but the ultimate standard of holistically are you getting what you need from this relationship that's a really important question that not enough people ask and as a result they suffer in unhappy relationships yeah it's so interesting to get into that kind of you know to go beyond that superficial conversation of make a list of what you want and like you know try and find it out and you know that that kind of egocentric list that we get let's let's talk a bit about breakups because I think the challenge is that everyone in their life goes through at least one or two, maybe more, really painful breakups, whether it's infidelity, whether it's out, it feels out of the blue, someone just goes, yep, not working out for me anymore, whether it's different goals and different plans and priorities that emerge over time.

1:22:14And I think everyone who goes through a breakup blames it on themselves often, thinks that this is the end, there'll never be another person and it feels like a really dark dark dark empty road and a lonely road and i think it's really interesting because there's so many you know pieces of advice and everything about like how to get over a breakup and i've talked about that as well myself but i just find that it seems to be a path that you have to walk and have to take and there's no real acceleration or there's not as you said there's not like i'm gonna get over this breakup in three months right there's no timeline or deadline that you can set on it but it's just uncomfortable and it's almost like sitting in discomfort what do we do when we're sitting in that discomfort well when you're in the depths of it because there's different phases right like there's a certainly a phase of any heartbreak when it's genuine deep heartbreak where you are just questioning your existence where you are like, I, this, you know, I remember having my own heart broken and sitting on this door, the doorstep of my house with a friend of mine and just with tears in my eyes saying to him, I just feel like I'm not good enough.

1:23:33Like that was my deep sense was that I am not good enough. And if I was good enough, I would have been able to make this work. And and that's a it's a horrible place to be and you you know we have to have compassion for ourselves in those times because it's brutally difficult it's a time where we just need love and we need to celebrate the fact that we got through another day and that we got I managed to get out of bed today and you know it was a act of it was a heroic act for me to just get out of bed we then have to you know I always think that all of these moments give us gears that we wouldn't have had otherwise and the worst pain of my life has given me access to gears that I didn't know I had.

1:24:34And as much as no one wants to hear it when they're in it, those gears turn out to be really valuable. They really do. I mean, we all choose suffering in our lives. Like we choose to go to the gym. That's choosing suffering. We choose like to write a book. That's choosing a form of suffering. We choose to make a podcast or we choose to climb a literal mountain or like we choose pain in our lives regularly because we know that it gives us there are benefits to be had i have to argue that the benefit i have gotten from the pain that i didn't choose has been no less valuable than the benefit i've gotten from the pain i did choose in fact actually i think the most valuable pain i've ever had is the pain i didn't choose and when you realize that you can kind of almost I think look at some of the worst moments of your life as like a menu of pain and beside the item on the menu is the very specific unique benefits that can only come from this kind of pain and you can kind of imagine yourself choosing like retroactively choosing that pain, which is a very valuable thing to do because there's, I was told by a psychologist about an experiment on rats where, uh, one rat was on a wheel and was just given, you know, like the free reign to just run whenever it wanted to run.

1:26:09There was another rat. This was rat A, rat B was connected to that wheel. He was on another wheel that was connected to rat A's wheel. and any time rat a chose to run rat b had to run right so both doing the same amount of exercising but at the end of the experiment rat a shows all the positive markers of exercise and rat b shows all the negative markers of stress oh wow same amount of exercise what's the difference well rat a chose to run rat b didn't and there there's something profound about that to me because if we can take a situation that we didn't choose who would choose to be heartbroken right it's the worst it's a terrible pain but but what if in that pain you did realize like there is something here that i'm gonna gain from this experience that i couldn't have any other way that if i look on that menu of pain this one has some really good benefits like this one has some really amazing stuff who i'm gonna have to become to get through this what i'm gonna have to learn the way i'm gonna have to get comfortable even just to get through a weekend right now on my own is it is gonna be this unbelievable feat and to get comfortable in my own company and to sit in this pain and it there are such profound benefits from that what if i did actually look at those benefits and say they're so powerful that i'm going to choose this pain so that i can experience those benefits and so you you turn yourself from rat b to rat a and all of a sudden you're not a victim of that pain anymore you're you're the beneficiary of these exquisite gifts that you could only get this way.

1:28:09And that, that's only, there's one tool I've used to get through some of the worst, worst pain of my life. And then on a practical, on a psychological level with heartbreak, what I always remind people is that if anyone who doesn't choose you cannot be for you. They, if they don't see you, like what is a relationship? It's someone sees you, they accept you and they want that. That's, that's the most beautiful part of a relationship. So if someone doesn't see you and accept you and want what they see, then this relationship is missing the most beautiful part of any relationship. It shouldn't even be, you know, it shouldn't be desirable at that stage because it's not, it has failed the fundamental test of what makes a relationship worth having.

1:29:02We're not talking about a person who, you know, in, in at least the case I feel we're talking about the person who was taken from us by life. We're talking about a person who's just walking around somewhere still existing on the planet, but choosing not to be with us. That should lose its romance to us. you know, and to say, well, if that's the other game we play is if it was a different time in life, if they were a bit older, they would have been ready to commit. If they had been in different phase where they weren't so busy with their work, they might've had the space to really give to this relationship, but they said their work isn't allowing them to.

1:29:42If it's like we go through all these scenarios where it forces us into this sad love song of right person, wrong time. And that's a really like pernicious story. That's a very dangerous story because it, it takes what belongs in the realm of science fiction and brings it into our reality. Like when we're thinking about an ex from like five years ago and we're like, I miss them. I I don't know why, you know, you don't even know who they are anymore. That was five years ago. They're a different person now in many ways. You're a different person now in any way. If you got together now, you'd be getting together as different people.

1:30:27You miss a ghost. Person doesn't exist anymore in the way that you think they do. You know, and when you're saying, oh, if only we met five years from now, it would have worked. In what parallel universe? It's a, this is science fiction. Like it's not, it didn't happen in this universe. So it's like it is wishing for a parallel universe where everything, all the dominoes unfolded in a different way. It's not this universe. So we just, we have to get out of this mindset because it gets us bought into a science fiction story that doesn't really exist. I don't believe in the right person at the wrong time.

1:31:11it's the right person is right in their personality they're ready and their life is compatible with yours if you're missing one of those three things then it's not the right person the right person has to be more than someone who you have a great time with and you like who they are and have great conversation and and and great intimacy that can't that's not the only criteria for someone who's right. So we have to stop telling ourself the story that someone who, you know, broke up with us or it was bad timing or whatever is the right person for us. That is just a story. It is not reality. The right person is the person it happens with.

1:31:56Matthew, I see books called Love Life. That was, that hit right there, man. That resonated so deeply. If you haven't already gone and ordered this while you're listening or watching, please please please go and grab this book as you can tell Matthew's just woven beautifully his own experiences his own challenges mixed with insights lessons research practical steps I mean it's all in the book and today we've just given you a little tip of the iceberg of and and this was genuinely just a real conversation of me and Matthew going back and forth which we need to do a lot more of uh but but just sitting here with you today Matthew I've I've gained so much so much honestly and as someone who's written a book about love too there is so much today that I feel like we uncovered and unpacked and so I can't wait for people to dive into love life how to raise your standards find your person and live happily no matter what grab your copy now Matthew thank you again everyone who's been listening and watching share and tag your greatest insights with me and Matthew on Instagram on TikTok I know you guys are cutting up all these amazing clips keep them coming let us know what resonated with you what you're trying out what you're practicing what you're implementing, what's working for you and something that you're struggling with as well.

1:33:05Let us know so that we can try to create more conversations and more content that can support you on your journey. Matthew, thank you. Any last words? Yeah, anything you want to share? No, I would just say, if people go to lovelifebook.com, not only can you get the book there from any retailer you want, but I'm doing an event on May 4th called Find Your Person. It's designed to be this, it's a virtual event. So you could do it from wherever you are in the world, wherever you buy the book from. Um, but we're all going to get together and I'm going to take everything that you learn from the book and apply it to a year plan with you.

1:33:38I love that. Anyone who is like finding my person is a real priority for me in my life is what I deeply want. I'm not ashamed of it. I want that for myself. Um, this is going to take all of the knowledge and the awareness and the ideas you have from the book and actually put you on a path in this live event to getting that over the course of the next year of your life. So that's lovelifebook.com. Yeah, if you go to lovelifebook.com, you can not only get the book, you can use your receipt from the book to get a free ticket to this event. It's not a, you know, it's not a paid for event. No one can come just by buying their way onto it.

1:34:11It's literally something that's just reserved for everyone who's getting a copy of the book. Oh, I love that. That's a beautiful idea, man. Well, yeah, lovelifebook.com, everyone. That's the place to go. If you love this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships. People should be compassionate to themselves, but extend that compassion to your future self because truly extending your compassion to your future self is doing something that gives him or her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life. This episode of On Purpose is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve.

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1:36:19Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This is an iHeart Podcast.