Does THIS Count As Cheating? + What It Means To Be Loyal In A Relationship

Hello there, friends. It's Stephen Hussey here, setting up today's episode, where I'm going to be talking with Matthew, of course, all about loyalty. Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty. It is a Cornerstone of relationships. It is a Cornerstone of trust. And without trust in a relationship, what do you have? But many of us have different standards for loyalty. We Especially in this day and age, there seem to be a myriad of new ways that loyalty can be compromised. And we might ask the question, is it okay for a guy you're dating to like someone's photo on Instagram? Does it make a difference if it's a photo of a sexy woman in a bikini or just a friend of his? Is it okay for someone you are dating to like their ex's photo? Is it okay for them to even follow their ex on social media? Are these forms of micro cheating. And what do you do when two people, they might both have the value of loyalty, but they have very different criteria and standards for what loyalty actually means. These are some of the questions we're going to be wrestling with today, especially the question of exes and whether you have to be fully over someone before you can move on and date and the standards of loyalty around that as well. So This is the stuff of relationships though, not just modern relationships, but any relationship. There's always these issues where we might both have the same values, but we express them in different ways and we think, well, that's not the standard I have for that value and it can be very, very difficult. So I think this is a really important one. I hope you enjoy it and please excuse Matthew's raspy voice, which we've been told has been quite Sexy, so I'm sure he's pleased with that, but he has been recovering from a bit of a bad cold and so his voice is still a little on the croaky side in this episode, so bear with us. He is on the mend and I'm sure it'll be back to normal soon. All right, that's all from me. You can drop us a line about this episode podcast@matthewhussie.com, podcast@matthewhussie.com, Or you can drop me a line on Instagram, follow me @stephenhussie and DM me if you want to tell me what you thought of this episode or comments on the podcast, questions you have, suggestions for future episodes, let me know. Alright, that's it. Over to me and Matt, I guess.

Well, we're back.

We're back in our London Studio. You are here in the UK and we're cozy and unspecified London location.

Another episode. Wherever it is, it's still the love life podcast. Of course, welcome.

Well, that goes without saying, but... Well.

It might be someone's first episode.

Hello newcomers and welcome. Matt, you wanted to follow on chatting about simping. It seems you hadn't had enough of the simp.

No, I don't want to follow on talking about simping. I want to talk about social media. But last episode we talked about the concept of simping. which is, you know, just to reiterate the idea of a guy who is doing falling over himself to please a woman. And we talked about it first in a relationship where he's just running roughshod over all his own boundaries and standards and self-respect in order to please the deity that he happens to be with. the online version, of course, it's simp is often used in the context of the hundreds or thousands of men in the comment section of these women who are either hot or dancing Tik toks or whatever. And there's all these guys that fall over themselves in the comments to tell them how wonderful they are, even though they'll never meet this woman or hear from her. It's the sort of modern day phenomenon, I suppose, but what we want to talk about in this episode is the phenomenon of men who are in relationships, or I suppose we can expand that to anyone who's dating or in a relationship who is still liking photos of attractive people who aren't their partner on social media. And we had a question, steve, that came into the inbox, which, by the way, for anyone who wants us to talk about a certain issue, wants to tell us a story, wants to ask us a question and have the possibility of having it answered. You can email us directly for the podcast at podcast@matthewhussy.com but as you've rightly said, Steve, please don't leave a three page essay because those definitely won't. I'll tell you now, if you leave us a giant essay, there's no way we'll read it. if you leave us 250 words of an idea, a question, a story, there's every chance that we'll read it and use it, and we are reading those. But send them into podcast@matthewhussie.com this was one listener question. This person who will remain anonymous, I think she requested to be anonymous, said, I have been in a relationship which is relatively new, we're only together four months with a guy and everything is going great apart from one thing. I keep obsessing over a girl he was seeing previous to me. He dated this girl for four or five months right before we met. First he said it was only casual, but then at a later date he said it was very toxic and he didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to know anything about the girl because I prefer not to know about exes. But then I saw on his Instagram he had a picture of the two of them with a heart. I found that strange because if it wasn't a relationship why would you post that on social media? Then one night on a night out we met a guy he knew and he said oh are you still in love? referencing his Instagram post. When I asked him about it he said I'm reading too much into it and deleted the picture. I said it seems you're not over this girl and I don't want to be second best. He reassured me that I'm not second best and that I make him very happy and that all his friends love me and that his friends and family hated the previous girl. I can't help obsessing over the girl because it's like I have these little snippets of information but not enough to give me a full picture, so I create the story in my head myself. A few weeks ago, I was feeling anxious and he was being off with me and ignoring my texts, so I searched her Instagram and lo and behold, he had liked her most recent pic the same day. This drove me over the edge and I had a massive fight with him over it. He claimed he liked it by accident, which is a complete lie, and that it didn't mean anything. We eventually resolve the issue and are back on track, but I can't help comparing myself to this girl and I can't stop wondering what went on between them. It's driving me insane. I don't know what to do. How can I get over this? I don't want my jealousy to ruin the relationship because other than that we have a great relationship. I want to move on and just forget about her, but I don't know how. Please help. Well, thank you for a very honest and vulnerable question. Stephen, what are your thoughts?

Oh, man, that's a hard situation because it's like the genie is out of the bottle now and she knows about this woman and she knows that obviously her boyfriend had some kind of fraught relationship or there was some residual feeling. So it is one of those things you can't un you can't you can't unsee that.

Well, before we okay, so maybe a nice place to start for this episode would be to zoom out a little bit and zoom well, let's zoom back in on this woman's specific situation. But just for everyone out there who is in this place of Is it okay for my partner to like pictures of other attractive people on social media while they're with me? What do we think about that? Because that's just a very generic, widespread issue of our time. You know, your partner that you're dating now was no doubt following other people before you were in a relationship as a single person. They would probably be following other attractive people liking various posts. Now you're in a relationship which comes with an assumed degree of loyalty, exclusivity and respect. Is it disrespectful? Is it disloyal to like other people's pictures? Is this a form of what people call micro cheating?

Yeah, it's like as a blanket rule, it would obviously everything would be easier if you just assumed as a rule, I won't do that. Like the gain is small from going and liking other people's pictures, other attractive people's pictures, and there's a lot of potential downside. So just on that basis, if you're being rational, you could just say, just don't do that. If you're in a relationship, make your life peaceful and easier. Why? Why create even the possibility of that kind of conflict. But it becomes like there's levels aren't there?

Because it could also you could get.

Into a relationship and you already followed some attractive women or men on Instagram and then you know your partner might be like I don't like that you follow these sexy people. Why do you follow them? You don't know them. It's some person whose every shot is in a bikini so it's only you know, a visual thing. And then it's like, you know, should you be loyal and unfollow them if that makes them uncomfortable? It's like, where do you decide your boundary is for loyalty?

Right. Because there are there are a lot of people and we get the question from people. I've had it on tour before where someone said, My partner follows a lot of, you know, bikini models and people Instagram influencers who are influencers mostly because of their looks.

Right.

You know, my guy follows a lot of these people. Am I supposed to be okay with that? It makes me insecure that my partner follows all of these different people.

Yeah.

So, I mean, what do you do? I can totally see a couple deciding like, we just don't do that thing. We just don't like other people's Instagram photos. And someone might equally decide, we For the sake of the relationship, we don't have independent opposite sex friends that we hang out with one on one because we just don't create a situation where someone might feel uncomfortable or jealous. I get that, but I don't think everyone has the same rules. And that's kind of where the problem is. Some people are just like, that's not a big deal. Like, I like people's, I like attractive people's pictures. What does it matter? So what do you do if people if people just don't see eye to eye at all on the same standard for loyalty.

Well, that's that kind of cuts to the crux of the issue, doesn't it? We all have different standards in relationships and it's one of the primary sources of conflict. It would be interesting, you know, you have values, and then you have standards, and they're not the same thing. They intersect, but they're not the same thing. A value would be loyalty.

Right?

We both value loyalty. A standard is what loyalty means to us. You're. I've. I've had. I have a female friend from way back. who I remember years ago said to me, and she's in a long-term relationship. She said, oh, going out and having a kiss with a stranger isn't cheating. Wow. Like, on a night out, her version of that was, oh, that's not cheating. If you go and have a snog right with someone on a night out, that's not cheating. That doesn't count.

It's like there are people who think stuff they do on their Bachelor night doesn't count.

Or on, you know, now, she would never. I know she would never have said, I don't value loyalty. She would have said loyalty is important. But the point is that she had a different standard for loyalty than I do.

Yeah.

So we're in a position when we look for a relationship or when we assess someone who we're dating, we're not just looking for synergistic. to values, but we're looking to align on what the manifestation of that value actually looks like. What's the standard we have for that value? Yeah, that's where so many people butt heads. Two people value loyalty, but they have a completely different idea of what it means. Now, that's why conversation's so early in a relationship. is important. It's why not avoiding things and stewing with things is important. Because the first few months of dating is where you talk about those things. It's where, you know, in the case of this person, he has liked a picture of his ex who she already has an issue with and Her ignoring that, which she hasn't obviously, she talks about having had a big blow up with him over it. But ignoring that isn't the right thing. Also, there's a way to bring it up that just causes destruction. But what we want is to be able to bring our partner that and say, Here's why I struggle with that. Here's the problem with that for me, and here's how it makes me feel. And it's not my version of what loyalty is. And I do think that to get into the weeds a little bit of whether liking somebody else's post is a version of disloyalty is it. I kind of think, okay, well, this. You may say we have a standard for our relationship where if we were in an airport and we walked past a magazine stand and you saw the person on the COVID of, you know, Maxim or fhm or whatever, and said, man, she's so hot. you might say, that's one degree of disrespect.

Yeah.

Is because why would you say that to me?

Yeah.

But at least in that situation, you could say you're interacting with a magazine. When you like someone's picture on social media, you're not interacting with a magazine, you're interacting with a person.

Yeah, and the communication is open for it to be two-way. Someone could see your like and respond to you. They could DM you. There's many more open possibilities.

You have, whether or not they ever see it, is a separate issue, but you have put yourself on their radar. When we walk past magazines, a magazine stand, we're not putting ourselves on someone's radar. But on social media, we are. It's maybe a one-way interaction, but it's an interaction. And of course, in the case of it not being a well-known influencer or celebrity, in the case of it being an ex, that now becomes something that can be reciprocated and maybe is even likely to be reciprocated and at the very least seen and acknowledged.

Yeah, it's a little different than liking a Billie Eilish. photo where she might have 30 million people following.

Right.

And but even that some people may just be like, I don't like you liking sexy Billie Eilish pictures or something. You know, everyone might have a level where they're like, I don't like that either.

She's not wearing a hoodie in that photo. I but you know that that's an that's also an interesting distinction because you could say you could say my standard is not that my partner never likes a picture of someone of my gender.

Yeah.

You could say my problem is if they like something that is quite obviously just a post that is about this person's attractiveness. You know, if Billy Eilish, I love that Billy Eilish has become the example. if Billie Eilish releases, you know, a solid new record.

Sure.

And someone likes it or, you know, Billie Eilish has just won an award. You like it?

I just love the James Bond song.

He's.

I'm just celebrating. It's just cool that she won that award. I'm like it also. I mean, even that, you know, I mean, I. I can't. The idea of liking something that's just not even in your world, even. It just seems like a pointless waste of energy, but. Even that, it's about the work.

Sure.

But if Billy just puts up a photo of Billy in a bikini on the beach that says, you know, hashtag hot girl summer, she wouldn't put that. She wouldn't. That Billy would never do that. But if she did and you like that one, then that's a different, you could argue, well, now you're just liking something that's, in that context. What are you liking except this person's looks at this point? You know, there's a context to that. So even within liking pictures, you can argue us about context. There are some people who are in a world where I'm sure they argue professionally it's important for them to be able to like other people's photos. You could get someone who's a personal trainer who's like, I'm building my client network. And the more people I engage with, the more people follow me and see me as a trainer and want my services. But that can be hard for the person who's dating that person who says, okay, you can always claim that this woman in a bikini could be a client one day or that she could give you a repost or whatever, but it still makes me uncomfortable. And then Further nuance may be required where you go, well, look, I understand that you want to make connections on social media, but can you maybe be a bit nuanced about what you choose to like?

Did you have to like 500 pictures of women in yoga pants? Was that absolutely necessary for your career?

Yeah, and by the way, for the record, Dan, your career is training people who want to get their bodies in shape. Why are all the photos you're liking people who clearly already have a trainer? these people clearly are not trying to get in shape. They're, they are already there. So, yeah, I think that it's, and that's, but that's where it, intention matters. And over time, we, if we truly get to know someone beneath the surface, we talk to them, we get to know their behavior, we start to understand more and more about their intentionality. Is this just some way of, you know, justifying, constantly liking attractive people's photos so that I can continue to sort of flirt from a distance and have this cheap thrill whilst justifying it through my work or connections or whatever else we can try to justify it through these days? Or is it genuinely, no, this is, you know me and you know that this is just, you know, I'm trying to build something and there are certain things that help me build that, but you can see the context. And when someone is very open in general, and when someone, you get the impression that someone's not hiding things from you, that starts to become, you can grow more comfortable over time. I think one of the hard things about the beginning of a relationship is that we don't know someone's intent. So trust is something that's built slowly. It's not built quickly. You don't just go into a relationship trusting everything. Trust is built and accumulated slowly. Now, later on, there may actually be things we'd be less cool with. in the first three months, then we're cool within year three. Because in year three, we're like, no, I know this person. I know who they are. I know where this comes from. So now they go to dinner with that friend, that in month one, I would have been like, you can't go to dinner with that person. Now in year one or year two, you're like, it doesn't feel like such a big deal, but that's because I know you. What we class as a trespassing on our boundaries or over our boundaries is relative. It changes over time as our trust for someone changes. What you have in this question is a woman who's saying, I was already inflamed. What I had was a guy who already I felt a little bit insecure about this person he dated. Why? Well, because he said it meant nothing, but then he also described it as really toxic. So now I'm worried that it did mean something because maybe you still have some emotion around this.

Yeah, and especially if it sounds like it was a dramatic end, it feels like, oh, well, he must have felt strongly about her because he's, you know, saying how toxic and difficult it was.

Exactly. So now you have a situation where you go, oh, all the emotion from this hasn't been released. Now, some people won't agree with me on this, but my personal view on this is this idea that you have to be over the last person in order to be with someone else. I think is kind of, we're way, way, way too black and white about that.

Well, the problem is, like you said, with this guy, she doesn't know yet if this is just the very tail end, last burning out of that relationship, you know?

Yeah.

What happened? Or is it to her, she's like, is this a pattern? Is he the kind of guy who clings on to exes and is gonna always be one foot, you know, potentially liking an old flames pictures. It's hard for her to tell at this stage.

And she doesn't know if this is coming from a place of desire to be with this person or just residual anger over having been mistreated or, you know, we can carry feelings with us. You know, we can we can become parents in life whilst still being angry at our own parents. We can get into a relationship while still having some residual resentment or anger about how someone treated us in a previous relationship. Just because we haven't worked through everything about our past relationship, it doesn't mean we can't have another one. If that were true, my God, the amount of new relationships that would happen would diminish very, very quickly.

Right.

But intention is a different thing. If my intention is deep down, I would love to be back with this person. Now, now you have a bigger problem because now it can become a real insecurity for the person that you're with. Well, what if this ex of yours turned around and said that they wanted you again? Where would that leave me? Now I don't feel safe. So I think that we have to be careful about making these blanket statements about, well, you're not over your ex. It's okay for there to be residual emotion. I do think good advice for someone who has residual emotion. within a new relationship. A good advice is not to spotlight that, not to focus on that. Because what can it do for your current relationship? Really?

Yeah.

It's okay to have a conversation about it and to be like, yeah, you know, it hurt me then or I struggle with that then or, you know, yeah, you know, for a long time, maybe even still, it makes me a little angry from time to time, but it has nothing to do with wanting to be with that person. I just feel something. you know, it's okay to be honest about that. But my advice for anyone in this, that situation is don't go and live in. Don't, like, go live into that emotion. Don't go adopt it. And now get frustrated and get angry. And because now it's like, well, now you're just living there. It's not that it's there and it's just something that you're processing. You're. You're living there, and that's not productive. to your new relationship. It takes the focus away from your new relationship. But there is a difference between feelings and intentions. Now, the problem is that this guy that she's dating, if she said, well, he said it was casual, but then he said it was toxic. So I'm sensing feelings around this. that's one thing. That's kind of like a moment where she goes, okay, that's a marker. That's made me a bit, feel a bit funny. And of course that it seems like it wasn't far behind them meeting and she's still early on with him. So she's understandably not feeling particularly secure right now. So that because the roots of the relationship aren't deep.

Yeah.

And that's something we all, we have to be kind to ourselves. Sometimes when we see something early on and it inflames us, part of it is that the roots of this relationship we're in now aren't deep. So this isn't a tree that's been growing for a while and is really plugged into the soil and whatever storm comes along, this tree is sturdy. It's got a thick trunk. No, I am inherently trying to nurse and water and grow this very young plant.

So I guess then she, the question she would probably want to say to you is like, well, she said he's a great guy in other respects, right? They, she said they, they seem to have something, you know, special, but it, that for her, it's like, do I take the risk, though, on this patch of soil? Is this patch of soil gonna turn out to be soil, you know, poisoned? And I shouldn't. risk everything on this. Like, how much risk should I take at this stage?

That's exactly right. And what's now made it worse is that it's not just him saying, well, it was toxic and maybe I hadn't been fully transparent about how much that affected me at the time. But she now goes out and she, they spump into his friend and his friend says, I mean, what kind of idiot friend says this? But his friend says in front of her, oh, are you still in love? Which is a weird thing for a friend to say in the context of you being out with a new person. Yeah, but let's say the friend has made a clumsy comment, but that clumsy comment has further inflamed what she's already worried about. Now, in a sense, that's not his fault, right? Not in a sense. I mean, it kind of, it really isn't his fault. His friend has said something. We've all been in a situation where we're with someone we really like and we're around their friends and their friend says something clumsy.

Yeah.

That hurts our feelings.

Yeah.

Maybe it alludes to an ex of our boyfriend or girlfriend. It alludes to who they were before. It alludes, you know, there's some detail that you're like, oh, that's stung.

Yeah.

We've all been in that situation. It's not our current partner's fault that someone said a clumsy thing that was about a time before you. But where it becomes problematic is when she realizes Oh, he's liked her picture. So now it wasn't just something his friend said that stung. It's something he actually did. Not the hugest deal in the world. He didn't go and sleep with anyone, but he did like a picture of someone that he said he's completely done with. And what makes it worse is it's during a time where she wasn't feeling good communication from him. So, of course, that salt to the wound. Not only were you not texting me back, but you somehow found the energy and the space in your mind to like a picture of someone you said means nothing to you at this stage, then. she confronts him about it and he lies. He says, I hit it by mistake. We don't know that's a lie, but it seems pretty close to a lie. It would be quite the coincidence.

Yeah.

Now, in a sense, this is what I think is very important. Are either of those things a complete dead end for a future relationship. I would argue no. He lied. Saying something that we say because it's kind of convenient to say it, especially in the first few months, isn't uncommon amongst people. If they're in the first couple of months and they're thinking, oh, I just don't want the aggravation. of being completely honest about this at this stage. I'm gonna say something that's easier, or we say something as a reflex defensive response. And later on, we kind of have that pang of, oh, that was a lie. And I kind of don't like lying, but I did lie. And, you know, many people, if they're honest, have been in a situation where they, they didn't tell the truth.

Yeah.

And they, or they, they obscure the truth. They're like, oh, that was ages ago. Well, that, you know, that was correct.

You know, and so can he be better? Likely. Well, not likely. He. It's possible. There is the Robert Green thing. I heard Robert Green say, no one does something once. So if anyone, if. If you ever see someone do something, never assume that's the only time they've done it.

Right.

This is something they do. This is not a one-off this is a pattern for them. If you're seeing it. It's a pattern.

And.

I think that there's, that's an incredibly profound and useful bit of life advice. And you could easily say, you could be, you're within your rights to say, if he's lying now, then he's likely a liar. He's someone that will lie to make things easier for him, and that doesn't bode well for you later on. But we're a little philosophical here. But what's tough to me is that just because you lied once, it doesn't mean you'll always lie. If that's true, then none of us will ever be better people because we've all lied. So I think in a way that both are true, much like one of my favorite phrases is why can't both be true? Anne Lamott says all truth is paradox. You know, it's both true that if someone does something, probably that's not the only time they've done it. It's a pattern. It's also true that people grow. Now, is it a big enough lie to completely end everything on? Maybe not. Is liking a picture of his ex in month four of seeing you a relationship ending situation. Maybe not. Maybe if you want to just cut and run, maybe. But the problem is in general that. And I. By the way, I want to make something very clear. If she decided, based on all the things she's intuitively feeling, I'm gonna really back away. I would understand.

Yeah, and that's the thing. Sometimes it's like the evidence stacks.

Exactly.

And sometimes you're like, well, this is one thing, but everything else has been great and trustworthy.

And so I kind of want to separate this into two categories of advice. For her, I would completely understand if she said, I'm going to cut and run.

Yeah.

The evidence of what I'm seeing doesn't look pretty, and I feel like there's pain on the horizon because this person is not over this person. I'd understand. The more generic advice I'd give for people in situations where they see something that they don't like is, you know, human beings, that idea that we were programmed to, we associate, right? So, and we associate for survival. If I hear a rustling in the bush, my brain says, get away because it might be a lion and it might just be the wind. But I still run because I'm like, it means lion. Now, I haven't seen a lion. I just hear a rustling in the bush. But it's enough to create that association. It's enough to trigger danger warning.

The downside is big if it is a lion.

The downside is big in, in, in that case. Yes. Now, in a relationship where we've experienced something before, maybe, you know, if she's experienced in, if in her previous relationship, she was with someone who kept saying about somebody else, oh, they're a friend. Don't worry about them. They're a friend. They're a friend. They're a friend. And then all of a sudden.

He.

Left her for that friend. The next time she's in a relationship and she has a little bit of a funny feeling, it's that rustling in the bush. Oh, that means lion. So now, before she even knows, she cuts and runs. And. And we've all had that, or most people have had that experience of, I should just cut and run. because I heard a rustle in the bush. The problem is you can hear the.

Spidey sense goes off.

Right. But the tough part is you can hear so many rustling bushes at any time in any early relationship that you're always running. And now it turns into avoidant behavior.

Yeah.

On our part. So we sometimes have a tough time figuring out what the midpoint is between True intuition and this false danger that is triggered by our trauma. The rustling in the bush where there was no lion. But we ran anyway, because now even rustling bush is terrifying. Starting to sound euphemistic, I realize. Rustling Bush.

Now you are. Now you keep saying rustling Bush.

The last time I'll be able to say rustling Bush now. But that's the interesting part of this to me. Now, someone might say, well, what's the answer to that? Whilst I say she would be well within her rights to say, on the basis of everything I've seen, I don't want to take this risk. She might also take a different approach and say, I am going to.

Use.

This as a cue to recalibrate.

How.

I feel about this situation and what I believe to be the trajectory of this situation. so I'm now not gonna see my goal here. My intention here is no longer to fall in love as quickly as possible because this feels so awesome and this person's awesome and I can feel it all going in the right direction. No, she's now been presented with something that requires either that you run away or that you stay and ignore. or the third option that you recalibrate. Because what you can't do if you stay there, I think there's an interesting conundrum. We, she needs, we could argue more data, right? He said, no, it wasn't intentional and it doesn't mean anything. And I'm really happy with you.

She.

Now needs more data to see whether his future actions align with that truth or whether they show him to be exactly what she was worried about. The question is, though, even if she does that, that's a very logical answer. We're emotional people. So she's now going to be in this situation saying, I need more data. But in the meantime, her anxiety is going to be flaring up like crazy and that's going to be in have an impact on the relationship itself because her anxiety now is going to be a presence in the room.

Yeah.

So how do you manage your anxiety while you're waiting for more information? You won't have such anxiety if you lower the stakes of the quote relationship in the first place. If you make a switch, for example, from saying, you know, what if this person I want to be with turns out to be someone who's still in love with their ex and hurts me? If you make a switch from that to I'm assessing whether I want to be with this person. I'm information gathering right now and watching and seeing if I want to be with this person. that takes a lot of the anxiety out of it. Because I'm not making a decision that I want this person and now I'm terrified I'm gonna get hurt and lose them. I'm deciding whether I want the person in the first place.

Yeah.

And that means you can still bring your charismatic, fun self to the situation, but you are creating a little emotional space, a little distance. and if that person says, I'm having a great time with you, but I feel like you're not as into me, you can say, no, I'm perfectly into you, but I'm just taking things slow because, you know, to be perfectly honest with you, that concerned me a little bit when you did that. I understand that you said it was a mistake, but it concerned me a little bit, and I'm just. I'm just protecting myself in this situation and letting it unfold at an organic pace that feels good to me.

Yeah.

That's what recalibrating is. And for anyone out there who's like, Should I cut and run or should I stay? You can always make the decision to gather more information, but in the meantime, recalibrate your expectations of this relationship. Because if you go forward wanting to have the same view of it you did last week, but you've been given new information that concerns you, then what you'll have is anxiety that's produced by the, the, the Chasm. Yeah, the conflict between what you're seeing it as. and what you're seeing in the real world, what you're seeing in their behavior. That's what's going to create the anxiety. If you remove the image you have of what this could or should be and you just say, I'm going to assess it for what it is right now, that gives you freedom.

People get to this stage, don't they, where they decide I'm in love. And so is like, well, I just have to fit things around that instead of we are always even a few months into it. I think people don't always like this because they think it sounds like an unromantic notion, but it is still that reality is you are still learning things. You are still choosing even when you think, I really, really like this person, want to be with them. On some level, you know, you are always, you're still choosing. you're still assessing, you are learning. It's like if it's a few months in, there's still things you're gonna find out about this person. You're gonna have to decide, am I okay with that? Do I like that habit they have?

Does that drive me mental?

Or is that actually something I can let slide and I'm cool with it? 'Cause they're amazing in so many ways, but that's going on. And it does pay to at least acknowledge, I've got some new information, I've got a, like, I've got a sit with that a bit. Even while I still think he's a great guy, I am having a wonderful time, or we have great time together, chemistry, sex, whatever, but I gotta assess the, you know, that rustling in the bushes.

Exactly. Before we go, we're really enjoying the emails. that you guys are sending us at podcast@matthewhussy.com. tell us what you think of this idea for an episode, because also part of this is the comparison we make between us and somebody else. You know, we sometimes are afraid that if our partner likes something about somebody else, we don't have that thing and we can't compete, or we look at somebody's ex. and it freaks us out that we think their ex was something that was more handsome or more beautiful than us or had something we didn't and we make that comparison. If you'd like to hear us talk about that subject in the next episode, send us an email comparing yourself to other people when you're in a relationship and how that insecurity affects your relationship. Let us know if you want us to talk about that. and I also want to stress to everyone that whilst Stephen and I have a great chance to discuss ideas here on this podcast, the Love Life Podcast, in our Love Life Club, we actually coach people. So if you have very specific questions you want answers to, if you want to be part of a community of people every month, that are literally going to work on their confidence, their love lives, and their love for life. You're actually going through a coaching process. Then the Love Life Club is a place where you can do that. We have webinars every month. They're live. Stephen, you do webinars. I do webinars. We do joint webinars, and we literally sit with you on camera as a group and we coach. We get very practical, very specific about things you can do to improve your love life, whether it's improving your prospects or whether it's improving your relationship. And also very specific about things you can do to impact your confidence and your emotion management and how you feel about yourself. If you're not a member right now, you can join for a 14 day free trial. Go to askmh.com youm'll get a chance to ask a question that you'd like answered on a webinar that's upcoming and you'll get a chance to join for 14 days for free to try out the membership for yourself and see what it does for you. But just in the same way that we join a gym for our bodies, this is joining a club that is a workout for your confidence, your ability to handle difficult emotions and your ability to have an incredible love life. Even if you've been single for a long time or you're newly heartbroken or you're in a relationship and trying to make it as strong as it can be, come join us. Askmh.com I see the blog sites. Whoopie whoop. Got a new wife. Shorty got a new boo. Yeah, love beautiful.