"18 Years Studying Heartbreak" How to Spot a Dangerous Man & STILL Stay Open to Love | Matt Hussey

Coercive control, manipulation, brainwashing, constantly making you doubt yourself, making you doubt your reality. This person has done more harm to me than anyone else in my life, and they were supposed to be the person who loved me the most. And yet, I feel like I'm betraying them. I still feel guilty that I'm talking about them, that I'm sharing things that I was never supposed to share. And the moment we break away from one of these relationships, it is a miracle. So it's never too late. It's never too late to experience for maybe the first time in decades a degree of peace that I never thought I'd find in my lifetime.

>> So how on earth do we stay guarded enough to be safe, but open enough to still be loved? Nearly half of all women will be manipulated or controlled by a partner they end up dating. And the worst part is up to 56% of us will end up right back in another dangerous relationship. So for every single woman watching right now, how on earth do we stay guarded enough to be safe but open enough to still be loved?

>> Go slower. I I think that so much is saved by going slower. We are biased judges in love. We want it. We want it really really badly. For most of us, it's like the ultimate goal in life is to find love. It's the goal that doesn't go away no matter how successful you become. So we want it to happen. And when we want something to happen, we lose our objectivity. And uh the problem is that the very people who present as solving the problem quickly are often the worst people. the people who show up saying all the right things, uh, giving us a seductive amount of attention, saying all the things that we've always wanted to hear from somebody that registers as this giant hope. So before we know it, we're, you know, we're seduced by it. We're into it. It feels really good. And I've learned to suspect myself in situations where I am seduced so quickly, where I find myself gushing so much, where I find myself eager, you know, in in an inorganic way because it it normally means someone has been incredibly charming up front. They know how to connect. They know how to make you feel heard. They know how to make you feel special. They know how to make you feel important. And by the way, those things on their own don't make that person a bad person. They might be a skilled connector, a skilled communicator. That doesn't automatically make them a bad person, but it does make it dangerous for us to decide based on all of that impact to now set an inorganic pace for the relationship. I love a boxing analogy, but like if you look at a boxer, they get in the ring and they're not constantly backing up.

>> Mhm.

>> I'm advancing on them, but I'm not advancing on them like this with my chin out. I'm advancing on them. I'm tight like I'm strong. I'm relaxed. I'm I'm protecting myself from the knockout punch. So we advance in that way. That's how I think about love. But you don't suddenly advance and drop your guard, drop your hands and just say, "I'll take whatever punches come my way." And I think one practical way that we do that is we say, "Let me give a little bit. Let me invest and then test. Let me see what happens when I am a little bit vulnerable with someone." I think that there are definitely people who are a problem, but I like to think that in some ways they're not the problem.

>> Oh, say more.

>> Like I get to dictate the pace with which I enter into things.

>> Okay. So, let's say you dictate the pace. Let's say you do everything that you've just said. Go slow. Love that. And you start to test. Love all that. The problem is you know so well because we're such good friends with Dr. Roman. He's done so much work on narcissism, manipulative people that even in those early days, they know how to respond to those slow moves. And the manipulation is the fact that they too may go slow. Is that they too may hide all their nefarious traits and only start to reveal them six months down the line.

>> Yes, that's true. There are some very, very talented liars and manipulators. That's true. They're looking for a quick like I want to get you really invested really quickly. I don't want to have to invest a lot in you. You know, I think that people's in congruencies do show up in little ways. Be romantic. Like get excited about the next date with a person, but just be label it what it actually is. You are on date two or three or four or five. you are out with a stranger. You're on date five and you're like, I just really like this person and oh my god, they're everything I want and so on. They're a stranger. You don't know them. It takes a long time to actually get to know someone. And so I think that some of this is a labeling problem that we think we know someone better than we actually do. But what is happening is an awful lot of of projection in those early stages. There's the famous idea about Homer writing Helen of Troy's character in the Odyssey. Helen of Troy is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. But famously, he doesn't actually describe what she looks like.

>> Oh, really? I actually don't know this story.

>> He describes her through other people's reactions to her.

>> Oh,

>> which are essentially they're, you know, their breath is taken away by how beautiful she is. And they're not surprised that wars have been waged for this woman based given how beautiful she is. But we don't hear what she looks like. And that allows her to be anyone you want her to be. Whatever beauty is to you, you can project my version of the most beautiful woman in the world onto Helen of Troy. That happens in dating, too. When we start to get to know someone, we fall for someone who has some kind of charisma. They're hot. They're beautiful. They look successful. They present as someone attractive. And on top of that, they then show us some kindness or they show us some charm. And it's that the idea that this is the kind of person I would like and they just showed some sweetness towards me or they just showed that they liked me in some way that fuses into a very very potent combination. And it feels at that point like we've I've found the person. I've found what I'm looking for. But that person right now is Helen of Troy.

>> You don't know who this person is. You just know enough to know that you that feeling of falling for someone is starting to be generated. But what you don't know about them is far more expansive, far more vast than what you do know about them. But we fill all of that in. We make them our perfect person. And I the reason I say going slow go slow is not to say like all the signs are always there in the beginning. They're not. That's that is the whole point is that you can't know. You don't know. It's easy to go on a date and perform. It's easy to get around your friends for a night and be charming. It's like there there are certain contexts that they can reliably stay consistent within, but you haven't seen who they are with their family.

>> That's what I was going to say. Give me maybe a few different contexts where you feel like they will start to really you will really start to see the real them. So, the one that came to mind is um like if they're in a disagreement or an argument, how do they actually handle the argument? Do they raise their voice? Do they become intimidating? Do they listen to the other person? So, give me a few other ones that you think may actually start.

>> They're stressed on a at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday. They're like uber stressed about something that's going on at work. Who do they become? Um, there's a busy time in their life. Okay, maybe they're less available, but how is that handled? When you see them around their family, do you see someone who's respectful of the people that they love [clears throat] or someone that just takes? Do they have friends?

>> Mhm.

>> Do they have them? If they don't, there's something to pay attention to. Because people who are either narcissistic or on that end somewhere on that spectrum, they struggle to maintain relationships over the long term.

>> That's telling you something. Where are the people that have been in their lives for a long time? What's the quality of those relationships? These are all contextual things that you you just don't see in a kind of love nest bubble that you create with someone over an intense period of time.

>> You know, one thing I actually just thought as you were talking is being sick.

>> Yeah.

>> So, there was going back to Dr. Romany, there was one thing that hit me so much. He's like, "Look, a lot of people don't leave narcissistic relationships because they're like, but I just don't want to be alone." She's like, "What do you think's going to happen when you're 80 years old, you're starting to get Alzheimer's? The narcissist doesn't want a freaking hand. He doesn't want to take care of you, so he ditches you anyway." So, even thinking about like when you're sick, what do they do? Do they just tell you to get over it? Do they bring you, you know, bone broth and medicine to your house when you're feeling like how do they handle them not being the center of the attention or the center of the relationship?

>> When you're with a person like that, you already are alone,

>> right? Exactly.

>> You're alone today. You may find it out in a stark way years from now, you were already alone. I have coached people out of narcissistic marriages that when they get to the other side of it, they were so afraid of being alone, so afraid of losing this person. And then they look back and they go, when we went on went on vacations, they didn't want anything to do with me. Really, the only thing we had in common is we were staying in the same hotel.

>> Mhm.

>> Everything else was more important than I was. I was basically taking a solo vacation and calling it a romantic vacation.

>> So many people will relate to what I'm saying right now that when you are in a relationship like this, if you really consider what aloneeness is, you're already feeling it. And and the danger of relationships like that is that that person doesn't just make you feel alone in their presence. They often isolate you from all of the things that would solve your loneliness.

>> Oh my god, you're so right. You're not connecting with your friends as much as you would like.

>> Often they get taken away from us. Our life gets smaller, but we console ourselves with the idea that at least in this little corner where I am, I have them. But you don't even really have them in that little corner. So, you really are just isolated from all of your safety nets and and in the lion's den with someone who's not paying you any attention.

>> It's a dark place to be.

>> It is, dude. And I've got this um stat that just blew my mind and I was like, no wonder it's so hard to leave heal and get past it. Um up to 63%, that's six out of 10 women who experience abuse will develop PTSD. Yeah. Yeah.

>> And then the another stat I have is researchers followed abused women for 3 years. The ones who were physically abused slowly recovered but the ones who were psychologically abused had not healed even after 3 years. So now taking what you said where you're starting to feel alone, you're being isolated, they're gaslighting you, all the things that being in a toxic relationship can have an impact on you, then you gain PTSD out of it. And because it's psychological, people are telling you to get over it and you just can't heal.

>> Yeah. Well, I've I have enormous um empathy and I feel an enormous connection to those people. The reason that these kinds of conversations are important, the reason that our mutual friend Dr. Ramy is so important. The reason that I love what I do with a passion is because um it actually gives a name to these things. people realize what has happened and the effect that it has had on their on their brain, on their nervous system. And um and we won't necessarily feel validated by the people around us when we leave those relationships because okay, there may have been some people around us who sensed or saw something they didn't like and are like, "I'm so glad you're not with that person anymore. I never said to you how I really felt." But to hear that, you know, the people around you had really serious concerns about the person you were with or didn't like certain things but didn't say anything.

>> Um, can be really tough at the end of it all.

>> Can I ask you a hard question though? Is that them putting on the blinders? Cuz wouldn't the truth probably be if your friend actually did speak up, you'd probably reject them and then dismiss them as your friend.

>> Yeah. No, I I think that's the impossible situation a friend or a family member is in is if I if I'm really honest, I might lose my sister, I might lose my friend because proximity is power and you know it becomes trauma by a thousand cuts, right? Oh yes.

>> And it it accumulates over time.

>> Coercive control really. coercive control, manipulation, brainwashing, you know, constantly someone uh making you doubt yourself, making you doubt your reality. That's where gaslighting comes in. So, it's there's all of these things that people do that slowly rob us of our confidence, of our sense of reality, of our sense of self. Like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I'm depressed. I don't know why I'm constantly anxious. I don't know why I'm constantly afraid. I don't know why I'm so confused where I still love this person and I feel like I'm betraying them by talking about them. This person has wrecked my life. This person has done more harm to me than anyone else in my life and they were supposed to be the person who loved me the most. And yet I feel like I'm betraying them. I still feel guilty that I'm even that I left them. That I'm talking about them. That I'm speaking poorly of them. That I'm sharing things that I was never supposed to share that were supposed to be kept inside the walls of the house cuz we don't share those things. It's it, you know, there's a huge amount of conditioning that has happened. And if we're I it's why I write in my book that these kinds of relationships are a cult. They're just a cult of two. And when you leave that cult, it you leave with extremely complex emotions, extremely complex reactions to things in the world. And uh and we're acting purely from a place of fear and defensiveness in every other part of our life because that's what we've been conditioned for vigilance.

After you've had that type of manipulation, a lot of women now are actually opting out of dating altogether. And there was a study by the Kinsey Institute where 21.8% of single women, that's one in five, describe themselves as vul, which means voluntarily celibate. And that's where women are intentionally abstaining from dating, sexual activity to prioritize personal well-being, creative pursuits, and selfdiscovery. And so a lot of women even to their early 30s m are like, I'm just done with men.

>> I understand why. I understand the protective mechanism of why that would be powerful in that moment when you feel so damn broken and you feel empowered to be like screw men, I don't need them. I get it. The problem is I feel like they're closing themselves off to the to something that could potentially be beautiful in their lives down the road.

>> Only they don't believe is even possible. That's the part that I think we have to have tremendous empathy for is that for some, not for everyone, but for some, it feels that opportunities are so scarce that they're so [snorts] rare and even when they do show up, it's never the real thing, right?

>> That I I can't I can't keep doing this. I can't keep getting my hopes up. I can't keep letting my guard down. I can't keep living in anticipation of something that is not happening and every time it does happen it just disappoints me or breaks my heart or both. I can't do it. I cannot keep doing it. And there's underneath that defiance which by the way is there's a power to that. You know if you take a slightly different example than the one you're talking about the person in their early 30s. If you take someone in their late 60s who's who's finally been able to break free of a 40-year toxic narcissistic marriage that threatened to destroy them and that they could have gone to their grave still in which by the way it used to be the case that everyone stayed in those relationships more or less.

>> Yes.

>> Right. So most people went to their grave in previous years with the in previous generations with those relationships because they didn't didn't even feel like an option.

>> Women you can have a bank account, you couldn't buy a house. So now imagine your you'd be destitute. You'd leave and you would be destitute.

>> Not to mention socially outcast, not to like you disappointed your parents. You looked crazy for doing it. You like ostracized from your religion.

>> Ostracized from your religion in certain parts of the world. You'd have to now fear for your life. Yes.

>> So it's this is a luxury that has been afforded to women for about 5 minutes [laughter] and and now some hopefully more and more are waking up and I think they are thanks to the information we now have to this idea that it's never too late. It's never too late to find the escape velocity to get out of a situation like this and to experience for maybe the first [ __ ] time in decades a degree of peace that I'd never thought I'd find in my lifetime. And to that person who then says, "I I never want to meet another romantic partner again in my life. I'm I I've found peace where I am today. I've friends and that are reciprocal relationships who are who they say they are, who do what they say they're going to do, who are there for me. I have family remaining that I love who love me and don't gaslight me at every turn. I've found my sense of purpose again or meaning or joy.

>> Yeah, I'm good. I do not want to invite that back into my life again. I am done. And yes, of course, so much of that comes from trauma. We can say that there's a limitation there because maybe they could be happy having met someone else. Maybe they could surprise themselves. Jazelle Pelico.

>> Oh gosh.

>> You know this story of, you know, this was the story that gripped the world about the woman in France who suffered abuse at the hands of her husband for many, many years and had no idea it was going on.

>> They were married for 50 years. Dude,

>> this is a woman who has every right.

>> Can you explain just in case people don't exactly know what happened?

>> So, yeah, I want to be sensitive to the way that I talk about it. Um, but it's essentially her husband was allowing other men to abuse her, to rape her while she slept.

>> He would drug her.

>> He would drug her and and um she would be unconscious. And this went on for years. And it it was so shocking to people because it for most people it went beyond the worst case scenario they could even imagine. Uh-huh.

>> When we talk about big T trauma and I just read an article in the BBC a few weeks ago that was Jazelle Pelico was at a conference um and she said I think she's in her 70s now. She said I never thought I'd find it again and I found love.

>> Oh my god. No way.

>> And you go this woman is this woman is Yeah. So, so she says, "I found I found this." And I I look at that and I go, "This this woman is true." I the hairs stand up on my head talking about it because I she's remarkable. She's remarkable. to uh to go through that in life and to have every reason to not trust anyone ever again, especially men, and to and to then campaign aggressively against that kind of behavior to get a new law enacted in France on the back of what has happened to you and then to have somehow against all odds remained open. I don't know how she I'd love to have a conversation with her and find out how did you do it? What did you do? Where how did that openness manifest itself? Was it conscious? Was it unconscious? Did someone come along and just surprise you? What? But but somewhere in there, she found a crack in the doorway of her trauma to to experience that again. And so I don't say any of this from a place of uh what people should do or that anyone is wrong for opting out.

>> For some people it might be the right decision and it might be at a certain point in their life where the tradeoff is like not worth it for me. But we shouldn't conflate that with the idea that finding a healthy loving relationship that defies the the experiences we've had so far is impossible.

>> Or even if you've not like some people have just been through so much disappointment, not betrayals, just disappointment that I don't know if I can ever get optimistic again. But I think that we we have to reserve a little space in ourselves at the very least for the unknown. I I don't think Jazelle Pelico could have predicted that she would go on to find somebody and feel that way.

>> How how like to your point like how like that's so incredibly impressive.

>> I think she's remarkable.

>> Remarkable. And what I love is not for everybody to judge themselves against her, but to your point, see what's possible. And the fact that she hasn't given up on love is incredible. I interviewed a woman at the time she was 103. She told me of a story in her mid60s. Her husband, she had married him for 40 years at that point. They had built a career together. They were doctors. They had a private practice together. And one day when she's in her mid60s, he hands her a letter. She opens up the letter. She reads it and he basically says, "I want a divorce. Of course, I fall in love with the nurse.

>> Mhm.

>> When I asked her what she did, she was like, "It was the best thing that ever happened to me." She goes, "Because I've just spent the last 40 years of my life loving myself."

>> Oh my god.

>> And I interviewed her.

>> That's But by the way, what that's a lot of life. That's a lot of life to get back at a time when many people tell themselves, "The game's over. It's too late for me." It's absolutely extraordinary. But there are people who especially at the end of truly narcissistic relationships. There are people who cannot believe what that person was doing had done the heinous things that they crimes they had committed or betrayals they had had uh enacted.

>> Yeah.

>> A terrible person. You see them in the most generous lens. you you have a very you know you your heart is expansive and you find ways to justify but it's often when the people around us say at the end based on everything they did how are you surprised that they just like left you to drown at the end of the relationship when it all came to a head are you surprised that they took all of the money and ran how are you surprised that they this other thing came out that's worse than anything like how are you surprised they've been this person all along And the truth is, you're both not surprised and you are all at the same time because no matter how many things they did, none of them seemed as bad as the next piece of information. And that doesn't seem as bad as the next piece of it. And it just you you know at a certain point the term I use is with relationships like this and it's a very freeing place actually though it sounds depressing but you have had your trust your heart your reality your story about what who this person was and what you had with them and how they felt about you. You've had all these things broken so many times that there is now nothing left to break. And that actually becomes quite a freeing place to arrive cuz you're no longer holding on to anything. You find out another thing and you go, "Okay,

>> this is hitting home a lot. I'd like to share something with you. I'm very comfortable around you. So, I want to talk about this. Um, as you were describing it, my very first relationship before Tom, I was 15, met a guy, my first love, first sexual experience, everything was with him for almost four years. The story I would tell was he was very narcissistic. He would yell, he would push me. That was kind of the end of the story somewhat. I go and interview a criminal analyst last year and we're talking about sexual abuse and she starts going through and she's like, "When a guy forces himself on you while you're sleeping, that's sexual abuse." And I just [ __ ] burst into tears.

>> This was last year, dude, after I'd met you. I've interviewed Romney so many times. And I was like, "I'm sorry, what?" She's like, "Yeah, that's basically rape." And I was

>> I broke down in the episode because I was like, "I never thought of it like that." And that's what my ex used to do to me constantly. Constantly. But I'm 17. I'm thinking this is what relationships are. I should give over. And I never [ __ ] said no until one point where I'm just crying and shouting at him. Leave me alone. It was really hard pill to swallow because I had to almost change my identity of how I saw myself.

>> Mhm.

>> the story I told myself where I just minimized it because then he did some other shitty move where he pushed me, grabbed me by the throat. But of course, he didn't hit me though, Matt. So, that wasn't bad. And it just kept stacking and I would make the freaking excuse even to the point of last year where I was not realizing I was making these excuses. Now, I'm the type of person where I want to address these things. I want to see it for what it really is so that I don't hold on to it so I can grow and learn from it. But damn, even freaking last year, I'm 46. I done all the work on myself and it [ __ ] gutted me, dude.

>> Yeah, I firstly thank you for sharing that because that is a you know, I know that's a profoundly sacred place you go to to to share that. And I think even you talking about that will have resonated with so many people and shed light on it. It makes us all ask that question. What have I just normalized that should never have been normalized? This is what happens is this is how it happens is we we normalize certain things and it it can take someone around us whether it's a friend, a therapist, a coach, someone to say you understand that that's not normal. And if you don't understand that, I'm here to tell you that's not normal. That's not that's not what a relationship is. That's not what character is. That's not what decency is. That's not like that's not normal. And we This is where we can feel a little crazy. Going back to what we were saying earlier is that you you almost then feel crazy for not being able to connect to the fact that it's not normal. Like

>> Right. Uhhuh.

>> because I've spent so long existing in that place where that just felt so familiar that it became normalized to me. And the alternative it it becomes almost too big, you know, especially if it's a parent, especially if it's someone that was, you know, our hero or someone we trusted or someone it the it can be too big. Judith Herman um wrote a book called Trauma and Recovery and she talks about the different stages that you have to go through. And when you first come out of a situation, safety is everything. It's just safety. You're not trying to make meaning from something. You're not trying to like find the good in it. You're not you're just trying to get to a place of safety. And that's why you know people who are in these kinds of relationships whether it's with a parent whether it's with a best friend whether it's with um marital partner it's extremely hard to truly heal within the context of that particular relationship because you're still the the damage is constant. You're still in danger whether it's physically or psychologically. you're still in that danger zone. So rem It's why removing yourself from that relationship becomes so essential. It's why I have such a deep deep deep problem with the rhetoric out there that I've seen more and more recently about shaming people who become estranged from family members and parents. there's been like this kind of backlash of everyone's we're all sensitive snowflakes now who can't have an argument with family members who can't disagree and now people are just going no contact with their parents and I I want to say like do you realize the percentage of people who become estranged from their parents just because they were a little over sensitive compared to the percentage of people who do it after years and years and years of torture, suffering, questioning themselves, trying everything they could to make the relationship work, you know, eroding their own confidence in the process, their own identity, constantly putting themselves at risk. The percentage of those people who eventually after exhausting every other option, finally get to a point of saying, "I can't do this anymore." That's the story. And

>> yes,

>> we have to start to realize this about these kinds of relationships. The moment we break away from one of these relationships, it is a miracle. It is not something to be shamed. It is a miracle because it's only then that to to reference Judith Herman's work, it's only then that you can actually get to a place of psychological safety very often. And this is on some level what Victor Frankl found in his own mind in the concentration camps. But the first port of call is safety. That was you leaving that relationship.

>> Later comes remembrance and mourning. Wow.

>> And remembrance and mourning is where you actually do the work of of processing and telling the story of what happened, what actually happened and mourning what has been lost, grieving what has been lost. So we process that and then later comes reconnection, which is where we reconnect with the world, whatever that means for us.

>> And that's the part that I worry about people are not doing now. They're not reconnecting with the world, whether it's in another relationship. They are closing themselves off. Now, look, I'm not here to judge people or tell anyone what life they should have. I truly like the reason, Matt, I started this bloody show in the first place is as a woman, what life do you want to have and how the hell do you get it? Like, that's my premise and I'm here to help women get it. So, if someone's watching this and they're like, I actually don't want love. Like, I've gone through it and they genuinely prefer. [ __ ] yeah. Like have the life you want. The thing that I worry about, whether you're early 20s or whatever age where you're just switching yourself off completely from love. And I have a quote and I want you to tell me whether you agree with it or not. I read it. I can't remember where I read it and it would hit me so hard. Men want a woman who doesn't exist anymore. Women want a man who doesn't exist yet.

>> Men woman want a woman who doesn't exist anymore. So what's that? the idea of the 50s woman and and women want a man who doesn't exist yet, which is what what's the example there? I'm curious.

>> Yeah, it didn't actually give an example, but I was like, is it like they want the masculinity and the femininity combined in I imagine I imagine that's what it means. Um I remember the subject was all masculine feminine and it was like going on and on and on and about like masculine this feminine that men should do this. Women should do that. One one of the points that was being made was the idea that men should be the decision maker. Men should be like the CEO of the relationship and ultimately like the women defer to his decision. I I heard that and I was like this is a mandate for abuse. Like I I anyone who spent any time actually studying relationships knows that that that is the mandate on which so many men control, dominate, subjugate their partners and their partners live under that tyranny. Me and my wife Audrey spend almost zero time thinking about it. Like it doesn't come up. It's not a thing.

>> Coming up.

>> When we finally decide enough is enough. I [snorts] can't do this anymore cuz it's too painful. So, we reach a pain threshold. That sometimes is why a person leaves.

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>> All right. So, you two guys just had a kid.

>> Yeah.

>> Baby. I'm Auntie Lisa. Um, did you guys have a discussion in having the baby of who would get up in the middle of the night? Who would change their diaper? Like, cuz at least to me, and people may hate this, like that to me feels like masculine feminine, like who's taking care, who's going to be the nurturer, who's going to be the person that's going to earn the money? Like I would have that conversation with my husband. Did you guys?

>> It's interesting. Your your mind goes to that's the feminine side of things. Now I get the idea of the the mother the nurturer and the guy the provider and whatever, but I just don't I don't I don't view it through that lens. Like I want to be involved in every part of this process. I don't want there to be something I don't know how to do. I want to and I know enough about relationships to know that you value what you invest in and the investment shows up in all of the little ways.

>> But don't you think you're a bit I don't want to say an anomaly. There are a lot of amazing guys out there and I've seen you with your son and it's just so beautiful to see. But there are a like abundance of men that won't do that. There's an abundance of men that will see the woman have a child and not be like, "Oh my god, I want to be part of that child's life." And why won't they do that?

>> They're like, "My needs aren't being met. Let me go have an affair. Let me go cheat." Like the rate of infidelity goes up.

>> So while you're her needs aren't being [ __ ] met, she's exhausted. Like this is what's the difference? She Audrey's need like I've had needs that ar needs that aren't met during this time. So has Audrey like we are both in that place together. So, it's this again, it almost steps back into this antagonistic relationship with the person who's supposed to be,

>> yes,

>> your partner in crime. They're your teammate.

>> Well, I think the problem is, and the reason why I brought it up is it seems silly. It seems a bit petty, but yet so many couples are divorcing over the fact that he's not doing the dishes and women finally [ __ ] break.

>> Oh, no. I don't think the I don't think the conversation is petty at all. I think these I think you should be talking all the time about these things, especially where there's like resentment building is you're a team. Like when we go on a date night and we post about it, Audrey gets messages saying, "Where's your baby?" She will get DMs from people saying, "Where's your baby?"

>> And you do you know how many DMs [laughter] Do you know how many DMs I'm going to get from being on this show from people saying, "Where's your son?" So, do you think then the masculine feminine conversation is actually hurting both sides?

>> Yeah, I think it hurts everybody. I don't want to be in a relationship where I can never have a feeling. I don't want to be in a relationship where I can never be vulnerable. I don't want to be in a relationship where I can't go to my wife and go, "Can you help me decide this cuz I'm struggling with it. Can you make the call on this one?" like you're going to be with a flawed, imperfect human being and and find one that makes life better. Find one that makes you feel more yourself. Right. So, now I want to move on. You've met this person that you realize maybe you're young. You don't even realize that they're toxic until it happens and you don't know which way is up, which way is down. You finally potentially get the courage to leave. If you build your self-esteem, you have the person that swears off love completely because they never want to get their heart broken again. You got the other person that was like, "Okay, let me learn from that experience and try again." And you've got the other person that just jumps straight into a relationship because they want to numb the feeling of heartbreak with um whether it's emotional intoxication, love, etc. So, you got those three types of people. Talk to me about heartbreak. I just made a YouTube video on my channel that was focused on there being four different kinds of heartbreak. Whether you've dated someone for 3 months or 30 years, you can feel it. Uh, you can even feel it for someone you never dated. So it heartbreak is an equal opportunity visitor [laughter] wherever you are in your love life. I think a lot of people are heartbroken whether they are heartbroken on an individual level because of something that's gone wrong or someone left them. But also there's a lot of existential heartbreak right now where people's love lives haven't gone the way that they thought they would by this point in life.

>> A lot of people are like I'm emotionally in the darkest place of my life. I'm barely surviving right now. I like I made it my commitment that I was going to focus on those people this month.

>> Can we go through all four? Let's do it. I'd love to. So, you actually said number one, the one that the the heartbreak that never actually happened where it's like you envision that you're with this person, you dream about being with them and it doesn't actually happen. So, talk to me about what that is doing that actually is heartbreak actually. In fact, can you explain how that's heartbreak?

>> Yeah. And I I I think of this in two ways. is one the person who you genuinely never dated. So that would be like the person you met at work who you really like and eventually you realize doesn't like you back in that way even though you had a great connection.

>> But there's also the person you did go on some dates with and it never turned into a relationship. You know I you you went on a few dates. I almost think of the guy from 500 Days of Summer, Joseph Gordon Le, you know, like he he had in his mind like this is my person and she never took him seriously. She was always she was never on that level with him.

>> So he got his heart broken. But I count both as kind of like getting our heart broken by the person we never really dated. And it's tough because of what we mentioned earlier. You have built up an idea in your mind of who this person is and how right you are together. The problem is a lack of information. You don't know who they'd be in a relationship. You don't know what intimacy would look like with them over the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. Like, you really just don't know. They the problem with the person you never dated is they get sort of um they get frozen in this perfect posture.

>> Oh yes. An ideal version of who they are that never has to be realized. life never gets to prove you wrong. You you get to this peak of the way you think about them and then the fact that you never had them, you never truly had them means that they life life uh freezes them at [clears throat] that peak and now everyone I date after that gets compared

>> oh okay

>> to to this to this peak that they're on and it's a completely unfair comparison. They never had to be someone great.

>> So, I don't want to be naive, but that seems like yes, you you fell for someone, they don't really like you back. You've envisioned a life, but is have you noticed that's actual real heartbreak? Like that really can destroy a woman really massive heartbreak.

>> Please explain that to me then. And do they start doubting themselves? What's that knock-on effect that makes it so bad?

>> I think that on a deeper level, we're all searching. We we want love.

>> And if love has been hard to come by, if someone special has been hard to come by and then someone comes along and represents hope in that, oh,

>> then it's not that they're a person we met three weeks ago. It's that someone arrived that felt like the answer to a life question that we have had for as long as we can remember, which is, "Will I ever find love? Will I ever find my person? Will I ever be able to share my life with someone?" And this person felt like hope.

>> It made me let my guard down again enough to say, "Oh my god, maybe it is real. Maybe it does exist." And and so it's not we're not losing a person that we met a month ago. We're losing Helen of Troy.

>> That's the point.

>> That's so well explained. Hope is such a powerful word. Such a powerful word. And taking away hope.

>> Yeah. And that and that that feeds into that existential heartbreak that I here we go again. I'm I found hope. I finally thought I found someone. I like and they like me back and I am now doomed to go back to where I started. A place that it feels hopeless and uh a place of anxiety about my future, loneliness in the present, and I and I can't bear it. We displace all of those feelings onto this person, but it's bigger than this person.

>> Thank you for explaining that because I don't want to dismiss a woman's emotions. I'm just trying to understand. And so I think that's really helpful for any woman that's listening to not feel like almost judge herself. Well, hang on a minute. Should I feel this bad? So I love that.

>> And just so that I know I know you specifically said let's talk to women with this part, but I I want to say because I think it will make women feel better. I get so many messages from men who have done exactly the same thing.

>> Oh, interesting. I just had a call. I have a a coaching program where a

A guy was on a live call with me, and he, uh, was basically describing someone that he had fallen for at work. He thought she was exceptional, thought she was wonderful, and loved her character and who she was and the way she'd overcome certain things in her life. Like, she just genuinely had bowled him over with who she was as a human being. And then came to find out that she didn't want more with him. His entire demeanor was that of a heartbroken person. He, he, he had never dated this person, but there was hope there, and there was a whole story there about what this could have been. You know, that perhaps it's rare that you find someone you feel that way about. You've built up a lot of idea in your mind about what it could be. You feel amazing with them. You, you're grieving now for a future that never was and never will be.

"Very well explained, dude. All right. So then the next one you say, type of heartbreak is the on-and-off relationship."

So the on-and-off relationship is like Audrey's favorite example of this is Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big from Sex in the City. I re—I, I, I wasn't a Sex in the City guy, but these will-they-won't-they stories in our own life, which in TV shows and movies often get rewarded somehow.

Yes. Because you want to see them get together. It's the Ross and Rachel effect. So in Friends, apparently, viewership plummeted when Ross and Rachel got together.

Interesting. That's interesting. I talk about it as the one-day wager. The one-day wager is the idea that I'm going to wager my life, my time, my energy, my heart on the idea of what this could be one day, even though it's not showing signs of being that today.

Right? And the one-day wager is a really bad bet, right? But because you can't get that time back. I, listen, I've coached people. This isn't just like, you do it for a couple of months. Sometimes some people do. It's like they, you know, they'll be on and off with someone for a year or two. I work with people who are now, you know, in their 50s, 60s, who have been in these will-they-won't-they stories with people for the last 20 years.

You know, oh, and they're still married, but they're not really with their partner. You know, they're not—their relationship doesn't have anything anymore. There's no romance. There's nothing. "Him and I have this amazing love story, and one day, you know," like they, there's this idea, but it's been going on.

Even with infidelity. Yeah, even with infidelity, it's like, "I, one day, it's all going to work out." But the problem is, we get into these stories, and we get deeper and deeper and deeper. The sunk cost fallacy becomes a part of it. We now feel like it's—we're so deep, and we've, we've entertained and nurtured this story for so long that if I, if I admitted now that this is not—this is a waste of my time, then I'm having to admit that there may have been 20 years of wasted time, and that feels too big for a lot of people.

And of course, in the reason people get so heartbroken in these situations, partly is because of this intermittent reinforcement where that person goes away and comes back and goes away and you, but you always find a way back together. That's the, that's the story you take from it. No matter what happens, me and this woman, me and this man, we always find a way back to each other.

You, that's the story. So now the inconsistency feels like destiny. You know, "We're just supposed to be because somehow we always come back together." Instead of looking at it like, "This is a relationship that should have ended a long time ago. This is, this isn't a relationship that hasn't had a chance. This is a relationship that's had every possible chance and hasn't worked out."

When we finally decide, "Enough is enough. I can't do this anymore because it's too painful." So we reach a pain threshold that sometimes is why a person leaves. Or we didn't reach that pain threshold, but they suddenly came to us one day and said they would never get married, and that's why they can't be with us. Has to come—you find out they got married.

Yes. And you realize you spent 10 years of your life indulging this love story and telling yourself, "If only we could be together, but they just can't seem to get themselves to to be married, and that's really important to me." And then they did it anyway. Either way, the heartbreak is profound because you're now experiencing a grief that you haven't truly let yourself feel at any other time. Because if I'm always telling myself, "You've gone for now, but we will come back together."

Deal with it. I'm never really—I mean, I can get heartbroken, but not to the point of like, it's over, over grief. And for [snorts] a lot of people, at that point, they're grieving their time. They're grieving the loss of a story that they have cherished for so long. They're grieving a person that they thought was, you know, that they had always convinced themselves would come running if they finally said, "Enough is enough." And this person either doesn't come running, or they come running and offer the same thing they've always offered.

Right. So, it's, it becomes real grief at that point. Firstly, I don't believe in that concept of wasted time in the way that our brain—

Right.

—tells us. I, I think that we, we're, we're living. Even when we are like, "I shouldn't have been in that relationship so long," you were still living. You know, you were having a human experience. And we can't write off every experience where, in hindsight, we might have made a different decision as wasted time. What time isn't just well-spent every time we make a good decision. Like, time is, time is like experience is experience. You had a human experience. Even a, you know, a horrible relationship, you get to take something with you. You get to take, uh, wisdom for other people to help them avoid it in the future. You become a richer person for understanding that you can relate to more people. You can empathize with more people. So, you know, there's, there's a beauty to these things, not to what happens to us, but I would also say to those people that, um, we, we can get very, very angry, which, by the way, is a productive thing. I think in the beginning, getting angry is a good thing. Like, get mad. Instead of being romantic about this person, get mad.

Get mad that you spent that time. Get mad that you, you know, that that person kept leading you on and never actually gave you anything. Get mad. It's a, it can be quite productive.

We somewhat though, sometimes do the opposite. To your point, we romanticize. So like when I broke up with my ex, the guy that I said before, Tom, I was with him for four years. It was on and off the whole four years. We must have broken up 50 times. I mean, just ridiculous, childish relationship type thing. And every time he would break my heart, I would romanticize all the good times. And in romanticizing, over time, because what happened was the distance between me breaking up with him and getting back together with him, it was this very obvious cycle. It was the anger. "I hate him. He did this. I deserve better." Then it was calming down from the anger. Then it was missing him. Then it was yearning for him. Then it was completely romanticizing that relationship, forgiving him, and going back.

What you just described is the extremely dangerous cycle. Not to—I don't ever want anyone to think I'm throwing this word around lightly, cuz I'm not. But that is the extremely dangerous cycle people find themselves in in narcissistic relationships, unless they did the leaving. When we leave, it's because we hit a pain threshold.

Yes. And in that place, we said, "I can't. It doesn't matter how much I want to keep this person. Doesn't matter how much I want to make this work. I can't. I can't do this anymore. This is untenable." And when we're the kind of person that did everything we could to hold on to that person, it's worth asking the question, "If I wanted more than anything to hold on to that relationship and I still left, how bad was it?"

Because I'm not a person who needed convincing to stay. I'm a person who needed a mountain of convincing to leave. Wow. So, how bad? How much pain was I in? How bad had it gotten when I, a person who would have done anything to hold on to this, still decided to leave? I want love. I want a relationship. I want this person. I want, I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. And yet, I can't stay. How bad does it have to be for that to be the case? Now, the problem is that the further away we get, the more that kind of amnesia—

Mhm.

—sets in because we're now—this is, this is the really dangerous cycle. Proximity to that person equals tremendous pain. You now drift away from that person. You break up with them. You leave, and you get further and further and further away. And all of a sudden, you get outside of this, the gravitational pull of all of this ugliness and toxicity and brainwashing and gaslighting and confidence-destroying behavior, and you start to find some peace. The greatest problem of it all is that you connect the peace with the idea that time has moved on and something has shifted, instead of connecting the peace with the distance.

Oh. Uh-huh. So why a lot of people go back is because they go, "I'm feeling better. I'm feeling more at peace now. I'm feeling like I'm stronger, and I'm not connected to the pain in the same way I was when I left." And my memory gets drawn back to all of the positive experiences. So we equate us feeling better with them having changed, a complete non sequitur. And we all, we do is gravitate back towards the, the flame that burnt us because we feel better. We feel better because we got away. Yes. Not because anything has actually shifted.

So that's the cycle. We forget the pain. And I actually encourage people, don't forget. Don't forget. Stay connected. Write it down. Write down the things that they did. Keep reminding yourself. Imagine your best friend. Imagine someone you love. And and ask yourself, "Would I, in a million years, imagine the worst thing they did? Could I imagine doing that to my friend right now? What, what on earth would they say? How long would I feel awful about that? How long, how many years of feeling guilty would it take for me to like—connect with that?"

So that in that second kind of heartbreak, the on-and-off relationship, I, I just want to encourage people to recognize that the reason you stayed for so long, it's not 'cause you're stupid. It's not, you're not an idiot. You're not like, you know, "How could I be such a [ __ ] and waste so much time and let someone get away with all of that for so long and not value myself?" There was something deeper going on with you. Whether it's not believing you were worthy of more, whether it's conditioning from childhood from your parents or one parent or an early relationship that taught you a really bad set of rules for relationships and what was familiar. You convinced yourself, or were convinced by that person, that you couldn't live without them, that you needed them, that you wouldn't survive without them, that you weren't capable. Um, there was something deeper going on, and that's true for all of us.

But his, and his, when you're with someone that is genuinely like truly toxic, they're going to be there to, um, reinforce that belief. So for me, my belief was, "I'm not good enough. No boys ever fancied me. I was teased. I was bullied. I have frizzy hair. I had braces." Like, I had the whole shebang. And so here I was, 15 years old. This boy finally liked me, and he was my first boyfriend. And so when I look back at every insecurity I had, he just helped confirm it, which is exactly what kept me there. And he would say to me, as every time I would go to leave, "I love you. No one's going to love you as much as I do." And when you're 17, you don't [ __ ] know any better. And I truly believed it. But the point being is that a lot of women, when you're in those types of relationships and you doubt yourself and you have all these things, and you're with someone that is nefarious, they are going to use that as ammo. Always.

It's like the— It's like 101, right? If I can learn enough about you to know—

What triggers—

—what triggers, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push those every opportunity I get, and I, I can control you through those.

Yeah. Um. All right. Now, let's move on to the third one, which is long-term love.

So, long-term love, you know, this could be a, a long-term relationship or a marriage that ends. And, you know, this is tough for reasons that are will be obvious to everybody, which is that you're saying goodbye to a life. You're saying goodbye to history. And the problem is, when you've been with someone that long, everything is connected to them. Everything reminds you of them. Like, what in your world would not be associated with Tom at this point?

Like—

Everything. I mean, I was 21 when I met him. My entire life.

So there would, there would, it would feel, at least in the beginning, like there was no part of the world that a memory or an association with him didn't touch.

Yes. Therefore, it feels like we're in prison. Like we're in heartbreak jail. 'Cause I can't, I can't seem to get out of this land of this territory where I'm heartbroken. Um, and it, firstly, we have to have a different kind of relationship with our emotions. We have to, we have to actually surrender to our emotions on this one. Make peace with the fact that it's going to take, this is going to take time. This is not an overnight thing.

What's the difference between someone that does that though, and then someone who never heals?

Actually surrendering to our emotions means not escaping into thought all the time. Not escap— So we're not like, some people want to escape with the crutches of whether it's drinking, whether it's, you know, food, whether it's drugs, whether it's sex. "This is too much for me to feel." So someone might run straight into another relationship, or they might hook up a bunch, and they just delay the point at which you're going to feel better. Am I going to accept that I'm okay? Okay, I'm in for a difficult set of emotions here, and, and I don't know for how long, but it probably doesn't go away next week, and I am getting constantly triggered, and I probably don't stop getting triggered a month from now.

Mhm. Because something else will happen. I'll see a picture of them that triggers me online. A friend will bring them up in conversation. I'll drive past our favorite restaurant. And what I'm saying is the anticipation that this is going to happen. I am going to continue to get triggered, and that's okay. It's not something to be avoided. It's something for me to sit in. Like, strap in, feel that, allow myself to grieve. I lost the future that I thought I was going to have. And maybe some of the ways it ended makes you re-evaluate certain parts of your history. Some of the painfully, sometimes based on what we learn, we do end up losing some of our history, or what we thought was our history with someone.

But we're, we're grieving. It is grief. It is grief. And treating it like it's grief is, is actually really part of the answer. Mhm.

What would be, let's say, some actions, differences that would be towards healing from that, or just holding on to it? And what I mean is, so my mother-in-law, love her to death, but Tom's dad left her.

Mhm.

And that was 25 years ago. She's still [ __ ] bitter as hell.

Yeah.

Like, it pours out of every ounce of everything she says, everything she does. You, you see it everywhere. My mom was divorced from my dad. They were married slightly less than Tom's parents. But my mom goes then to healing, finding love, and actually falling in love with a woman, marrying her, being open, and just now having the best life. When I look at those two women, they're roughly the same age. So, thinking about generations and when they grew up, one was able to get over it, find love, and feel happy. The other one is just still spiraling. What are a couple of actions for anyone listening at home that's that would make the difference of what path they take?

There is a point at which we almost have to indulge our anger after a heartbreak. Even if someone didn't betray us, we were in love with them, and we gave ourselves to that relationship. And I, you know, I think that I just want to say this because I think it's really, really important. Heartbreak. True heartbreak is more than losing a person.

It feels like life has betrayed us.

Like, I think that we, a lot of us, ex—have this unspoken contract that we feel exists with life, that love is coming. Oh, we hope. We, we dream. And that if we show up, and we let our guard down, and we are the most generous version of ourselves, and we sacrifice, and we are brave, and we dare to love someone. It's a very, very scary thing to love someone, especially for people who have trust issues from the past. But even people with all the reasons in the world to struggle with trust will often at some point in their life meet someone who they decide to be brave with, and they let their guard down. I'm going to see them so generously, and I'm going to love so innocently. When we do all of that, and then that person leaves, that person decides, "I don't want you. I'm gonna—I want this person instead. I don't want this relationship anymore." It's like a contract with life has been broken. "This isn't how it's supposed to go. If I really love like that, that's supposed to be enough." And it wasn't enough. So, so I guess I'm not enough, and [ __ ] life, and [ __ ] relationships. This whole thing. [ __ ] these romantic stories. Like, I, I'm out. I'm out. You can keep it. And it wasn't because you, you've always been this cold soul. But you would, you trusted that contract. You trusted life, and life let you down. It feels like life betrayed you. Lisa, it's like the wor—like, there is a handful of, like, worst feelings on earth. Heartbreak's one of them.

True heartbreak is one of them. We minimize it. We, ah, "It's just a relationship." "Oh, you'll get over it." "Ah, there's plenty more fish in the sea." "There's another one." We, we have all these aphorisms for for dealing with heartbreak. We spend, you know, a few phone calls with a friend who's heartbroken trying to help them feel better. And then life gets in the way, and we move on, and we imagine two months later that they're in a better place. Meanwhile, they've still in that darkness, and nothing's changed. They've just got better at wearing a mask. They've got better at going to work and, you know, sitting at dinner and going through the motions of their life as a fractured person who is one person in public and living another tortured life in private. And that becomes its own form of overwhelm because you become exhausted. You become exhausted with living that fractured life. In the example of your mother-in-law.

Yeah. These states which are entirely understandable—

—can become addictions of their own.

The feeling of the, the feeling becomes an addiction.

The, the story.

The feeling.

You're right.

The posture. The, you know, it.

We can get addicted to our unhappiness. We can. And it, I, I really understand that. I, I say it not as a, a judgmental thing. I, I know that feeling. I know that feeling in my bones. I know that feeling of, you never feel safe, or you never feel like, you always feel like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. You're always waiting for like something to go wrong. You never feel like you can really relax. And I've had to wrestle with those feelings in my own life. We can find ourselves in this groove where this is just, it becomes what I know. It becomes a, the terrain I know how to navigate in life. And I think that that has become, I would imagine, the terrain that she knows how to navigate. She has a story about the love that was lost, about her victimhood in that. And it's very seductive to hold on to that. Um, can be quite nice. It can be quite nice. You kind of nurture it, and you love it, and you—enjoy it. It energizes you to talk about, and it feels like almost a vehicle for your energy and your like passion and your feelings about things. And so it's quite, something quite compelling about that. You love it. You hate it, but you kind of love it. It's very hard. It's very, very hard. But is, is this really how I want to see the rest of my life play out? For me, the answer is no. Because look, Lisa, I've, I've had my own reasons for developing a pretty significant hypervigilance that has plagued me my entire life. Really. I've had to do a lot of work. The reason I do a retreat every year in Florida is because it's like I'm doing the deepest work with other people that I'm doing for myself too. I've not arrived. I'm taking this stuff really seriously for my own life, 'cause I've got, listen, I got a seven-month-old son now. I don't want to pass that on to him. I don't want him to grow up like that because he sees that anxious. So, like, I'm working on that for myself. I, I relate to the woman you're talking about. I get it. But I, I have made a conscious decision that this is, this is a kind of pattern that I, is familiar. I know it intricately. But it, you do choose whether to say, "I'm going to just essentially succumb to this addiction," or "I'm going to see if I can break that addiction." Like, do they deserve to be the headline of the next 20 years? Like, do I really? I think about that with parents, people who have had narcissistic parents. When you have someone like that in your life, you, you're prone to telling stories about it because you've been through so much. But at a, a certain point, if you see yourself diverting every conversation to that person and what they did and who they are, it's, you have to be careful because you're, you can actually end up making someone the headline like that doesn't deserve to be the headline anymore.

I love how much you're emphasizing like it's not easy. And I'm not saying it's easy. Like it must have [ __ ] broken her. She's got two kids. Kids go to college, and then within a week of Tom going to college, his dad leaves. So now you can imagine all the heartbreak that she's gone through of like, "How long has he been wanting to leave, right?" They don't just leave that day, and the decision wasn't just made that day. How far back has this gone? So like the heartbreak, I just couldn't even possibly imagine.

And I have [ __ ] tremendous empathy. But now what? You know, like when I see a woman unhappy. If a woman left, or a woman had that and was like, "I've changed my life. I am no longer going to let a man run me, rule me." Like, "I've built my confidence." That's amazing. But she's not that. And so seeing a shell of a woman in essence when it comes to romance and love, it [ __ ] breaks my heart. And so I wish for every woman that has to have to unfortunately go through the heartbreak that we're talking about, is able to come out the other end, whether you go to another relationship or not is up to you. But to be able to come out the other end confident and happy, like that's my goal. And so seeing that there's these different paths, but it, it, it's serving a purpose. It keeps her safe. You don't have to take any risks when you continue to be heartbroken by the person from many years ago. You can, you can pretty much stand on the sidelines of life so long as you're still heartbroken. It doesn't just keep you stuck. It keeps you safe.

And for her, that story is that story she's telling herself. It is meeting a need. It is not doing nothing. It is meeting a need. And it's for sure it's sad. It's, there's a tragedy to the fact that she hasn't found a better way to meet her need for safety.

I'd love to move to the last one now, if you're all right with it. The last half—heartbreak, which somewhat, um, I just mentioned, is actually being blindsided. So the one that you really didn't see coming.

Yeah. This, this, so this, by the way, can be in conjunction with any of the other three.

Right. Yes. Exactly. But the, the idea of not seeing something coming, it, there's, there's heartbreak, but there's also that disorientation.

There's the shock. There's the immense anxiety that can come with it because you're, you're thrust into a realization that you're not even ready to realize. You, this person, you thought you were occupying the same world together, and then you realize, "We were on different planets."

Oh, yeah.

Like, this person did nothing to share with you how they were feeling, which, by the way, can offer us a degree of comfort if we can see it.

Oh.

Is that this person has shown something about who they are. This person has shown something about their ineligibility for a healthy relationship. Because in any healthy relationship, you don't find out the day someone breaks up with you that something is wrong, that they've been unhappy for the last year or two or three. Like, that is avoidance, pure and simple. And you cannot sustain a relationship with someone whose mind you have no awareness of because they never speak it. So just that realization can actually be, there can be a kind of salve in that.

But you're still processing the fact that a bomb just hit your life that you didn't even know was dropping. You've had no time to process this, no time to build up to it, no time to question whether this relationship is going to work out based on the arguments you've been having over the last year. So now instead, you are just left to figure out, "What? So, wait, what? What now? What do you mean you're not—you've not been happy?" What are we? And then they leave, or, you know, and you're like, "But are they coming back? Are they going to change their mind?" 'Cause in your mind, it's like it happened all of a sudden. I think they could.

So, you might find yourself talking to them about like, "Well, can't we do therapy together? Or can't we do this? Can't we talk about, can't we—" like you're in, like, "Maybe we can work this out" mode. And they are like, "Overnight, can be, you can experience them as just having had a personality transplant."

Right.

Where you're like, "The person who was my lover, my confidant, my best friend, the person I lean on, the person, like, you were that person yesterday, and today you're like a stranger." So it leaves us spinning. And that spinning can lead to extreme anxiety. It can lead to depression. Um, in some cases, it leads people to really question themselves and their worth.

That's what I was going to say, because don't you then kind of go backwards? And I'm just projecting. This is, I think how I would feel, which is why I'm saying it. Let's say Tom did this to me. Make it nice and easy. I would be so [ __ ] like, blindsided. I didn't see this coming. And then I would start to think back at all the little moments.

"He said he loved me two weeks ago. [ __ ] that was a lie. We just went on a vacation together or we just—"

"He asked me to do something and I said, 'No.' [ __ ] Should I have done it?" Like, "I haven't dressed up in two weeks. I've worn my pajamas. I've had my hair tie back. Whatever. Oh my god, should I have like put on a dress?" Like, you start to think back to all the things. And now you somewhat make it about you. "What did I do wrong? How did I not see this?"

Yes, that's exactly right. We start attaching to what are already extreme painful emotions. We start then attaching story to them, and that story compounds our pain. This is what I mean by feeling our pain instead of being in our thought. Because our thought process is going to start to come up with all sorts of conclusions that may or may not be real, and are much more likely to not be real right now. Okay. So Tom, maybe he felt a little bit like, "Oh, she doesn't get dressed up as much as she used to." Okay. So maybe he felt that, but that to say, and that's why the relationship ended, and that's why he hasn't told me he's happy and just disappeared overnight and didn't communicate a single moment with me. And this is the soul re—if I'd have just got dressed in the last couple of weeks, this could have been avoided. That's the story.

Yes. So how do you make sure that you don't become irrational and think in that way to then, uh, make it about yourself like that you're not enough?

Well, firstly, notice where your brain went. Your brain could have gone to many places. You, you could have said that this person, um, is so avoidant that they've been unhappy for this long, and I haven't known anything about it. Wow. I, I'm heartbroken right now because I have a partner who doesn't know how to have a real relationship, and I'm just finding out now. You could say, um, "My partner is having a midlife crisis and suddenly is thinking about the fact that they've never been with anyone else." Like, you, that might be happening. That's not about you. Um, but you didn't go there. You went to the fact that you were in your pajamas the last few weeks.

Right. So, it's recognizing that you could say a thousand different things. Why is this one—

—that you've zeroed in on any, any more true?

Why do you think any of these? Why do you think we zero?

Because we zero in on our fears. Like, our fears take us to those places. If my fear is that I'm not enough, that's where my brain goes. Listen, I know people who are highly secure, who this happened to. When it happened, their brain did not go to, "It happened because I'm not enough." Their brain went to, "I've discovered how avoidant my partner is." And they were, don't get me wrong, heartbroken, devastated, devastated, uh, uh, went through all the emotions of depression, anxiety, you know, like all of it. But it didn't get directed towards their own worth. The feelings were just the feelings of loss. And that's what I mean by the separation of the emotion and the story that gets attached to the emotion. And the story we will gravitate to is the one we fear. It's the, you know, it's—same. You could say a hundred things about me right now that could be perceived as mildly insulting. Let's say, which one am I going to take home with me? It's the one I, the one I was worried, not even the one that's true. The one I'm scared is true.

Oh. Oh.

It's not the one that's true. Like, the amount of times I've been like, scared about, you know, like I've read a comment on one of my videos and I like, it hurts me because some part of me is worried that that's true, but actually it's not true. It's not true, but I'm scared it's true.

So, in a breakup, your brain is not going to be drawn to the truth. Your brain is going to be drawn in the direction of your emotional muscle memory. Um, and that's the, the stories you've been telling yourself for some time. The thing I loved about the, the movie Inside Out, I don't know if you ever saw it.

Love it.

Yeah. The, the, I actually really loved the second one because—

She's wrestling with the different sides of herself.

Yes.

She's wrestling with the her that can feel confident and can feel like a winner, and the her that feels like she's not good enough. She's wrestling with the her that is, uh, generous, and the her that can be selfish.

'Cause it's all, it's all true. We all can be selfish. We all can be generous. Which one are we leaning into? I can be a, a scared, anxious person who's desperately looking for approval and validation and wants you to tell me I'm good, and wants you to tell me I did a good job, and I didn't speak too much today in this podcast, and that is already worried that the comments are going to say, "He really didn't let her talk. He should have let Lisa talk."

If anything, I get the comments like, "Shut up, host. Let the guest talk."

I think I bested you today on that one.

Thank you. But, you know, there's that, there's that voice in me, but there's also the voice that says, "You're insightful, and you, you've earned your right to be here, and you know what you're talking about, and you've been doing this for 18 years, and you've helped millions of people." And like, they're all, they, they're there. And so my fear is going to try and tell me, "I'm just that thing. I'm just unattractive, or I'm just, uh, not good enough. I'm, or I'm just someone who gets anxious or scared or sometimes feels insecure or overshares or whatever. I'm just that thing." That's cognitive distortion. That's the bias, and that's fear talking. That's not reality talking.

But knowing that you've been able to work through it and it not define you, I think is so beautiful. And as we talk about heartbreak and having that insecurity, anxiety, and getting past it, it is very possible. Um, you actually have like a live event thing for five days because if anyone's listening to this heartbreak section and they want to kind of go deeper, where can they actually go to do that?

So, I, I wanted to do something really beautiful that I've never done before. And I said, "I'm going to allocate one week where I just am there for everyone in my audience who's heartbroken." So, I'm calling it Five Days to Mend. Uh, you can go and sign up at mendweek.com. Whole thing is free. But I felt it would be very beautiful to just sit with people for five days for an hour a day. Um, and there's some fun extras and bells and whistles that I'm going to surprise people with along the way. But it's like, uh, a place that anyone going through any kind of heartbreak right now, anyone who's this episode has resonated with, can come and be a part of, or invite friends or family or anyone else who you know who is struggling right now. And I'm going to give you the tools that I've learned over 18 years of doing this with people. By the way, the tools that I'm giving you over those five days are also the things that I myself used in the worst heartbreak of my life, 'cause I had a really bad heartbreak. Uh, and this was at a time when if you Googled heartbreak, it was me who came up.

Oh my god, no. [laughter] No. So, I was like, "Oh my god, I can't even find. I'm, I'm the most viral video on [laughter] heartbreak. I'm the top 10 results when it comes to heartbreak."

The expert talking about—

And I was like, "I'm going through the pits of despair right now." But it, I had to marshal every, every tool I had learned.

Which heartbreak was that out of?

The one I didn't see coming.

Oh.

Didn't see coming. And it was excruciating. I, you know, I know of what I speak because I lived it. And, um, I'm very familiar with that dark place that I know a lot of people will be in watching this right now. Uh, and everything I've learned over the years saved me. And I know that when you're in that place of heartbreak, it feels like nothing's going to change. And you have no idea like when it's going to go away. And that in itself is a daunting prospect 'cause you're just like, "I just want to move on from this per—I just want to get over them. I just want to feel better. I just want to feel like myself again." Um, so I'm going to be doing this on Five Days to Mend, um, at mendweek.com.

Dude, that's amazing. So you've taken us through, um, you've ended up in this really bad relationship. Maybe you've then got into another bad relationship. You then say, "Maybe I don't want to date." But now, thanks to you, we've now believe in love. You mend your heart, and now finally, it's like, "How do we pick a good man?" Like, I've done so many episodes on the nefarious man. How do you spot the red flags? And you're the perfect person to help us find and figure out the person that's going to be kind to you. The person that you really do spend the rest of your life with after having such a tragic, you know, heartbreaking backstory. So you actually talk about four ways to spot when someone's actually right for you. And number one, if they close the investment gap. What do you mean by that?

The investment gap is the, the thing that so many people are experiencing right now in dating where you're willing to put in more effort than the other person, and the other person is giving you just enough that you feel like they're in your life, or they're texting you. They're still keeping you, they're still keeping themselves top of mind for you, and you maybe have a really good time when you're with them. You feel a connection. It feels really good. You want more, but in subtle ways, they make you feel like it's not safe to ask for more. They make you feel like you can't bring up the idea of where it's going. Maybe they dropped in some early comments about how, you know, "People in early dating are in such a rush these days." [laughter] And you're like, "Uhoh, I better not like be in a rush." So now you feel like, "Oh, I better slow it down. I don't want to bring—when's the right time for me to bring something up?" Or they talk about how they're not sure about monogamy, or they, uh, uh, or you brought something up, and it didn't go very well, and they made you, they kind of shamed you for it. And so in these little ways, you now feel like you're treading on eggshells, and you don't want to lose them. So you just stay quiet and you hope that the investment will end up being mutual, even though right now it's not. That's the investment gap.

So the person that actually wants to close that gap is the person that is a sign that they're a good person.

Yeah. They, they, there's a consistency to the way that they show up. They're not like fits and starts. It's not like, "All of a sudden, I'm all over you this weekend, and then I disappear for two weeks, and then all of a sudden, I'm all over you again." There's a consistency to it. You know, they, they text you once a day, or a couple of times a day. You make a plan once a week. It doesn't feel like this riddle to be solved. Consistency and progression are two of the most important things to look for. You don't have to, it doesn't have to go as fast as you would like, but six weeks from now, or two months from now, has there been any progression, or are you still exactly where you started?

Dude, that's so good. Consistency and progression. So simple. That feels so right. Um, okay. Number two, you feel more yourself around them.

Yeah. Relationships that are organic generally make us feel like we can actually be ourselves. We don't need to be perfect. There's a feeling of home in the positive sense, because there can be negative familiarity, but it's a positive feeling of home. It's a feeling of exhalation. "I can just, I really feel I can just be me here. I can be myself. I feel accepted. I don't feel constantly judged. This person is trying to turn me into something that I'm actually not." That was, I think, one of the signs for me in recognizing that Tom was such a good human, because my ex, everything, like I love drawing and things like that. He would just mock it. Um, I speak Greek. Like, there's things about me that I just hid 'cause it never got received well. And when I would meet Tom on our first few dates, he was like, "Whoa, you draw. Show me some of your art." He's like, "You speak Greek? Say something to me." And I was like, "Oh my god, all these things I was weirdly shamed about, or like, I'm really [ __ ] goofy. Like, I'll play music and sing. I can't sing a bloody note, but Tom [ __ ] loves it." And so I was like, the fact that someone can greet you in all your silliness and weirdness, and they love that about you, I was like, this. So that's why that one hit me really well, because it's so somewhat simple, but it's such a sign of someone appreciating your genuineness.

Yes. Um, okay. We've got number three. They accept where you are in life.

Yeah. This is an interesting one because the, the right person for you is the person who is able to meet you where you're at. Uh, I think that a lot of unnecessary heartbreak gets experienced when we meet someone that we have a connection with. We really like them, but we, for whatever reason, it's like the timing didn't work out. You know, they were too old for us, too young for us. Uh, their job was too busy, they just started a business, they were just moving to another state, but oh my god, we're so in love. Like, it, those moments. And another version of it, by the way, is I maybe I'm coming off of an illness, and I'm not in my, I don't feel I'm in my optimal state. I'm, uh, weaker than I would normally be, or I'm more, I feel more fragile than I would normally be. I don't feel like I'm firing on all cylinders. Had I been at my best, they would have wanted me, but it was because I got this damn illness, and then it was too much for them. And so on. And look, then there may be some truth to that, but if there is truth to that, then not your person. The right person for you is someone who can meet you where you are at in your life right now. It wasn't your person. Your person is more than an amazing connection. That's the whole point. The whole point of a relationship that goes the distance is that you have connection, you have commitment, you have compatibility, and it, and those things remain. That's the point. That's why it works. So it, you can't, by definition, you can't say, "That was my person, except the timing of our lives or where I was in my life is incompatible." It just doesn't, it doesn't work like that.

They're either your person or they're not.

They're your person or they're not. And they're your person if the timing works.

I love that red flag. All right. And the relationship can handle difficult moments.

Yeah. I mean, I think we're prone, especially the anxious among us. We're prone to thinking that we've blown it all the moment we do something wrong, or have an, you know, cause an argument we shouldn't have caused, or get insecure about something, or whatever it may be. But the right relationship.

is not brittle. It it can survive these moments. Now, the question I get from people, and I made a video on this recently on my channel, is what about when the mistake is in early dating?

>> Oh.

And they don't really know you, so they don't have a way of looking at you holistically. Yes, that's true. And you know, they can't contextualize what you've done by saying, "Yeah, but I know them and they're great and this is just a..." They can't do that. They just, you know, relationships or dating is inherently fragile, and when we see something we don't like, it can turn us off, and it can make us decide to go with someone else.

Um, sure. But I I would argue that if someone is at the point of not knowing you, you're also at the point of not knowing them. So, how important can they possibly be? This idea that I've lost the love of my life. We're back again to this, you know, Helen of Troy.

>> We've [laughter] never thought we should be brought up so much.

Three times in a single podcast. Um, we're we're back to that idea of I've created the perfect person out of someone I don't even know. So, with the right person, I can make mistakes. And we can come out the other side of it. And if it's so early on that making a mistake ended it, don't worry. You don't even know enough to know they were your right person. So, you can keep moving and know that it's not nearly as important as your brain has made it out to be.

That's so true. When I first met Tom, I I get sick a lot. I've got a lot of gut issues. I had a lot of like infection issues when I was in my early 20s. And when Tom proposed to me afterwards, you know, we talk a lot. We're very high communicators. He turned around and he was like, one of the things that I had to ask myself is, do I want to spend the rest of my life with someone that gets sick a lot? And he was like, the answer was yes. Like, if I'm going to take care of anyone, babe, I want to take care of you. He could have absolutely have just been like, well, screw this. Like, this chick gets sick a lot. I don't want to deal with it. And so that became a beautiful thing for us, not the negative thing, which I think it can be.

Um, thank you so much. Those green flags were bloody amazing. I'm going to do rapid fire. You're going to freaking hate this, especially after what you said about masculinity, [laughter] femininity, but we love games here at Women of Impact. Matthew Hussy. So, very speedy. You can't explain. You just have to say him or her. Are you ready?

All right. Who keeps score more in a relationship?

I can't even.

>> I need I need a ticker.

>> Wait, so I have to say if these are a man or a woman.

>> Yes. Typically, this is going to be very general. A lot of people are going to hate your answers, but generalize and I'm putting the pressure.

>> Set me up to to basically argue with everything I've just said about men and women not being nearly as different as we try and make out they are. [laughter]

>> You can say both. I'll give you a both when.

>> Him or both.

>> This is a very rapid. [laughter] Okay. Both.

>> All right. Both. I knew you were going to do that one. Who's better at hiding that they're already emotionally checked out?

>> Ooh, I'm going to say her.

>> All right. Number three. After the breakup, who usually breaks the no contact rule first?

>> O, her.

I think I probably would have guessed her as well. Number four. Who usually heals faster after a breakup and who just replaces the person and calls it healing?

>> Let's do first.

>> Who heals faster?

>> Yeah.

>> Her.

>> Oh, wow. I did not expect you to say that.

>> Yeah, that one I feel quite confident.

>> Wow. Really? Men are wounded for longer. Well, men men because a lot of men struggle with their feelings and often don't have the support systems to process their actual feelings. They get buried and they do a lot of avoidance behavior after a breakup. Whereas a woman, I think, is much more likely to process and then come out the other side of it. Meanwhile, he's got a ticking time bomb that's going to detonate six months from now when he realized he never grieved the relationship.

>> Oh. So, he's the second part who just replaces the person and calls it healing.

>> Him.

>> Yeah.

>> But sometimes her.

All right. Ding ding ding ding ding. Thank you [laughter] for playing Matthew Hussy. Dude, this has been amazing. I freaking adore you. Where can people go and find you and all the amazing things you're doing?

I'm everywhere on Instagram. I'm on YouTube. Um, that's where I make a video every like one to two weeks that I put a like my heart and soul into.

I love them so much.

>> I put a lot of energy into them. So, it would really mean a lot to me for people to watch them.

>> Good. And funny. Yes. You crack me up, man. I have a weekly newsletter that people can can go and get at three relationships.com. It comes out every Friday. And honestly, I would say anyone who's resonated with this episode, um, mendweek.com because that's like I'm I'm going to be working with people for free for 5 days. I I can't repeat it again in 6 months. I like have moved heaven and earth to create the time amidst being a new dad and all the other things I'm doing. I'm doing a retreat in October in Miami. And so like this is the week that I'm doing this and I can't repeat. It's not a scalable repeatable thing. So if you are struggling right now, if you are heartbroken, uh mendweek.com, come and join us.

All right, guys. Guys, this man came on the show about six or seven years ago, and I was like, "Oh, he's really cool. I actually really like him. I like that he's British. Let's stay in touch." Who freaking knew that seven years later you were single at the time you met this beautiful woman called Audrey and guys she's become one of my best friends in the world and like I said earlier like I consider myself auntie to your son and.

>> Some would argue that she stole you from me. [laughter]

>> Yes.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Um, and so I just want to say like honestly this episode I was so excited about because you become such a true freaking friend and you're so damn authentic in everything that you do and you say. And so guys, sincerely, sincerely, if today's episode helped in any way. Go and check out his retreat. Go and check out his lives. You are really pouring so much time and energy and I just know from behind the scenes how much you really care about helping women. So guys, please, please do go follow him and everything he's doing. If you're not subscribed, smash that subscribe button down there. And until next time, be the hero of your own life. Peace.

Thanks everyone. [laughter]

That was great.

If you want to learn more about the difference between men and women so you can have a beautiful relationship and actually understand your partner, then you must watch this episode right here with the goat herself, Julie Gotman. The primary [music] reason to have an affair is not physical attraction. It's not about sex.