"How to Get Over "The One" Who Got Away"

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Love Life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey. I come to you solo today without my brother, Stephen Hussey, to do an episode that is me responding to a question sent in by one of our listeners. that I think is really going to help a lot of people. And I, I suppose I want to make a general note about the podcast for all of you who listen, and thank you to all of the regulars who listen in every time. If it's your first time here, welcome. This podcast may appear at first sight to deal with specific issues relating to people's love lives, but the truth is, every episode is about something bigger. And I challenge you in each episode, whether or not you immediately feel that the content of the episode or the title of the episode is about something that you relate to right now, I challenge you to look for the ways that it does relate to your situation, because I just don't believe that you can talk about any of the things we talk about without talking about life itself and really transferable lessons for other parts of life. I want to start by reading an email that was sent in from one of our listeners, Chimmy, who says, Hey Matt, your videos have helped me so much. I can't explain how strong I have become over the past year. I appreciate how direct you are in giving advice and there's no beating around the bush when you talk. you're so wise and have a great understanding of modern day relationship issues. And it's an eye-opener for everyone listening and struggling with the same issues. I truly admire you. Keep making podcasts because you help empower women like me and you make us more self-confident and less needy for a partner. Thank you so much, Chimmy. It means a lot. And all of your reviews mean a lot, whether they're written into us at podcast@matthewhussie.com or whether you leave them on iTunes. So, I got a question from a listener who wishes to remain anonymous, who says, hi Matthew and Stephen, you have effectively helped me before. I was with someone and we both really like each other. but she got a heavy concussion right after we met. Now she struggles through the days and lacks the required energy for maintaining a relationship. The prospect for recovery remains uncertain, and it may take another six months or more to recover, and we have only known each other less than four months. Given the circumstances, she has convinced me that breaking up is necessary. So, how do I let go of someone I absolutely adore who assures me she wants to be with me but simply cannot? How does one accept and cope with meeting what seems to be the right person at the wrong time? Keep up your amazing work. Best regards, a hurting heart. So, I wanted to answer this question specifically because I believe it speaks to a very universal issue, which is someone doesn't want to or chooses not to be with us because of an obstacle that they cite. And we are left feeling like this person that we are supposed to be with is not with us. And it sends us into this vortex of analysis and confusion, especially if someone has convinced us that it's the right thing. We can be in a relationship or in a conversation, rather, thinking, I. I guess that makes sense that we can't be together. You sort of. You don't know if you really think it makes sense or if you've just been convinced, but you leave the conversation, and then each minute that passes, you start to think, well, I don't. I don't want to break up. I. Maybe it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to me, but they. It seems to make sense to them, so. and you feel like you've been sold, you've been sold an idea that isn't really your own. And maybe you feel like the obstacle is surmountable. In this case, it's a concussion. In other cases, it's distance. Two people are in a long-distance relationship, and one of them is saying that, I can't, you know, we can't do this. The distance is too great. Or there are any number of reasons. Some reasons come down to religion, some come down to difference in life circumstances or different chapters of life. And it's really difficult in these situations because we find ourselves not agreeing, especially when we want to be with someone. and so how do you deal with a situation like that? How do you deal with a situation where you don't think it's the right thing and they do? And this is especially difficult in this situation because this gentleman who's written in says she even says that she wants to be with me, but simply can't. And that really messes us up internally. Because now we go away with the impression that they really do want to be with us, but there's just this obstacle that's too big. It has us focusing on the obstacle and not what the person has just said to us. The real problem with this, and the saddest thing about this, is that there are so many people in the world right now who are going through life like zombies who are not present in their lives, are not present in whatever situation they could encounter today or tomorrow if they met someone. They're not present in the joy in their life. It's hard to be grateful. It's hard to connect with life itself because you have this terrible heartbreak and this complete lack of closure that the person I'm supposed to be with is out there right now and I'm not with them. They become the one who got away. And this robs us of the joy of our life. It robs us of what could be a really beautiful existence. And the clock doesn't care, by the way. The clock doesn't care that we are stuck. in thinking about somebody who's no longer with us, the clock keeps ticking. Our life keeps going, keeps relentlessly moving forward while we are stuck in the past of a situation that for whatever reason seems like it cannot be. So how do you let go of this person? How do you move on from the one who got away. We have to start by questioning where this idea of the one who got away came from in us. When did we decide that they were the one and based on what? You may have been with someone and had the most incredible feelings when you were with them. You may have had the best time with them. You may feel like the memories we have, the time we spent together, it was all so, so special. And because it was so special, it has led me to believe wholeheartedly that this is my person. This is the person I am supposed to be with. Now, of course, for that to be true, two people have to say the same thing. They have to say, this is the person I choose to be with. In a situation like this, the fact that they, quote, got away, especially in the case of this gentleman who emailed us, they got away not because he decided that this person's concussion was too much for him. He wasn't saying her emotional volatility during the day or her needs during the day as a result of this concussion or the fatigue that she feels or the way it's impacted her life and mine are really making it impossible for me to be in this relationship. He's not saying that. She is. She's the one who's citing that concussion as the reason why they can't be together. He is willing to do what it takes. So what you have in this situation is not two people saying, Let's make it work. You have one person saying in him, Let's make it work, and the other person saying, I can't make it work. It's interesting, I suppose, to think about.

When.

Something is genuinely a situation of can't and when it's a situation of choose. I choose not to make this work. And none of us are in a position to judge whether in this specific situation it's a instance of can't versus she's just choosing not to make it work. But so many situations simply fall into someone choosing not to make it work. I know you want to make it work, but I'm choosing not to. Now, if someone's choosing not to, we have to ask, why are they choosing not to? Because in so many instances, someone is choosing not to make it work because they do not feel the same way about this relationship that we do. They don't feel like this relationship is something that they're willing to do whatever it takes for. they don't feel that it's worth fighting for beyond the current circumstances. And this is a painful thing for anyone to hear when we're hearing that, well, the other person didn't want to make it work as much as we did. But it's actually very powerful to hear that when we hear they didn't want to make it work as much as us instead of there's this obstacle that has made it impossible for me and this person who was supposed to be together to be together. When we hear that, that is a kind of existential cosmic pain. What is supposed to be cannot be because of this obstacle. But instead, if we orient our focus to the fact that someone has chosen not to be with us because the feelings aren't the same. That can actually be an antidote to our heartbreak. There was a line that I came across recently from a book called My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which I think is by Ottessa Moshfegh. I'm not sure if I'm saying that name correctly, so forgive me if I'm not. The line was, Rejection I have found can be the only antidote to delusion. I find that line particularly relevant in this situation because walking around thinking about someone as the one that got away, but that person chose not to be with us, is a kind of delusion. And when we can process that this person didn't want to be with us or decided they couldn't be with us, not because circumstances were too difficult, but because they didn't feel the same way about the relationship as us, which doesn't mean they didn't have feelings, which doesn't mean that at times the relationship wasn't important to them. It doesn't mean that you didn't have amazing moments together. It means that your standard for sticking together is not one that they have themselves, that they are not willing to prize this relationship above the obstacle that is being experienced. So, there is a kind of delusion in thinking that this person is the one because the one would value the relationship on the same level you do. They would stick it out in the same way that you would choose to. When we can see what someone has done as a reflection of their feelings towards the relationship and us instead of some kind of victim like reaction to circumstances. It's actually easier to separate because although it remains painful, although it can be it can feel like a rejection. Wow. They didn't feel the same way I did. That hurts on its own. That rejection is actually easier to bear than going through life thinking that were it not for that obstacle, we would be together because we are meant to be together. Now, some of you may say, well, what about the situation where the obstacle is too big? What about the situation where we are really great together, but there genuinely is some giant obstacle that is just too big for this person to surmount? In that situation, and we could have extremes, like someone is so far away and so unable to see us physically because of the distance that they decide it is too difficult. that would be an example of the obstacle is legitimate and it's just too big. Well, even if we said that's true, it's just too big. In a sense, what that person is telling you is a happy relationship is not possible here.

That.

Let's take the concussion. Let's say that the pain this person is in is so profound every day that she has no interest in being in a relationship. She does not have the bandwidth for it. She doesn't have the inclination towards a relationship. She genuinely has nothing to give to a relationship. what she is saying in that case is that a happy relationship is not possible. And it doesn't matter if we think a happy relationship is possible, even if he said, no, you can be in ultimate pain every day, all day, every day, and I will happily give up my job to be your carer, to be there for you, to do whatever it takes, and I will be happy with that job. This is, well, firstly, I would question whether that's even true, because I don't believe that that is true. I believe that that's just kind of a thing we tell ourselves. No, no matter how bad it gets, I'll still be happy. I don't believe it. But secondly, the kind of happiness being described there, which is you'll ultimately be miserable, but I will be happy because I still am with you. That's not love. That's just trying to access a feeling. That's just trying to feel something. I just want to feel good by knowing that I still have you, but that's not a relationship. That's not love. That is just the craving of a feeling. And when I think of the one who got away and what that implies, what it implies is a true relationship of love, a true relationship of people who come together to be there for each other, to care about each other's happiness. well, in the thought experiment where she's in pain, ultimate pain all day, every day, and doesn't want to be in this relationship, has nothing to give to it, is only her life is only made worse by having one more thing to worry about in having a relationship and thinking about someone that she wants to make happy but can't in that scenario. Being with him won't make her happy, even if it makes him happy. But if we genuinely claim to want a relationship, not a feeling, then expecting someone to be unhappy with us so that we can feel something is not that. It's just a selfish act. So we have to ask ourselves, what is it I actually am looking for? If I'm looking for genuine love, if I'm looking for a real relationship, a real relationship, a beautiful relationship has to be defined as a relationship where two people can be happy together. And if someone is saying to you and they're telling the truth, which they often aren't, by the way. Often someone is saying that there is an obstacle that means you can't be together. And that's not the real reason. The obstacle is just a scapegoat. It's the easy thing to go to so that I don't have to say, I don't wanna be with you enough. So I can use this obstacle. And you might find that if it wasn't that obstacle, it would have been a different obstacle. Because the real story is, I don't want to be in this relationship enough to do difficult things to be in it. And that's useful to know. Once you know that, you know that they don't feel the same way as you. And why would you want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't feel the same way as you? But if someone is telling you the obstacle is just so big, that a happy relationship is not possible, then we can't tell ourselves that what we've lost is a happy relationship. What we've lost is actually a relationship that will make us deeply unhappy. This is the sad part. A lot of people who are in situations where someone has decided they do not want to be with them, go through life not only feeling heartbroken, but feeling like what they were supposed to have in their future, who they were supposed to be with, walks this earth living a different life. And that feels like a tragedy. That feels like the stuff of you know, heartbreaking romance novels with sad endings. The person I'm supposed to be with is out there, and then we can't let go. And it consumes us. We're no longer living in reality. We're living in this construct. We're living in this. This fantasy of what should have been. But it wasn't. It wasn't. But it consumes our life. And I wanted to make this episode because your life is happening right now while you're holding on. This gentleman who wrote in the final line of his email is, how does one accept and cope with meeting what seems to be the right person at the wrong time. Implied in that question is how do I live with this knowledge that the right person is not with me anymore?

And.

The truth of how you get over that is you have to let go of this idea that they were the right person. you have to let go of this perfection that you're holding in your mind around this person. You have to come back to reality. There's a moment in the movie Inception where Michael Caine says to DiCaprio's character, who, by the way, continues to dream. of his partner who's no longer around and he dreams about her all the time. And she invades all of his unconscious thoughts. And Michael Cain says to him, Come back to reality, Dom. We have all in some way in our past held on to something for too long. and held on to this idea of it. And it's the idea of the thing that makes us so unhappy. I would argue that it's not the reality that is hurting this person's heart who emailed in. It's not the reality of the situation. It's the idea of the situation that is hurting you so much. The reality is that even though you were willing to be a teammate and show up and make it work, the reality is that she did not want to do that. That's the reality of the situation. And by the way, let's just step back for a moment and look at the beginning of this email. I was with someone and we both really like each other, but she got a heavy concussion right after we met. He goes on to say, we have only known each other less than four months. So think about that for a moment. This is someone deciding that the right person, the one who got away, is this person that he has known for four months. Now, what's more likely? The reality is making him heartbroken, or the idea of everything this person would have represented in his life had it not been for the concussion. And it's so easy to think that, isn't it? It's so easy to walk around with a golden idea, with a golden picture of what someone would have been in our life over a 30 or 40 or 50 years. year period or whatever a lifetime represents for our lifespan. It's so easy to walk around with an idea of what it would have been. It's far harder to live that reality. It's far harder to live in a relationship with someone for 50 years and to have it actually play out. Some relationships make it that long. Many that make it that long aren't very happy. And even the ones that are contain their share of difficulties. But most relationships don't last 50 years. But when we meet someone and we think that there is an amazing connection and what we have with them is incredibly special and significant, and we attach all this meaning to it. And then something happens, some obstacle, some circumstance occurs that means that now we can't, quote, be together. It's so easy to immediately hold on to a 50-year relationship fantasy in our mind of what would have been. The thought is cheap. The fantasy is cheap. Reality is expensive. But we hold on. We hold on. And holding on costs us because there are around us all the time right now more stories waiting to be told. And we aren't opening the book on any of those stories for as long as we hold on to the idea. The idea that's breaking our heart every day. We're not starting any of those new stories. But let me remind you, the idea that you have in your head of who someone was and who someone would have been in your life had the stars aligned began as a story. You only got to feel that in life because you started a new story. There are many other stories with, by the way, more potential waiting for you to open the book on them. But these are the ones we miss. when we get stuck in the tunnel vision of those fantasies. And by the way, this is, I'll finish today's episode on this because we can continue this conversation in other ways. But at a certain point in life, once we've gone through what would be a kind of grieving period for the fantasy that's been shattered, the idea, the projection, the story that's been shattered. There is a moment where we may have to pause and ask ourselves, am I still holding onto this? idea because it truly makes sense. And I have so much evidence for it. Or does holding on to this idea serve me in some other way? Does holding on to it mean that I don't have to take other risks, that doing the difficult thing of going back out there and meeting other people and beginning new stories is work I don't have to do because I get to hold on to this golden future that never was, never came to pass. I get to hold on to this instead of going out there and taking risks, putting myself out there again. Does this allow me to now sit on the sidelines of life? Does maintaining this idea, this romantic idea, because there is a romance to it. We have to admit that there's a romance to it. I'm holding on to a romance. I'm holding on to this idea. It could have been something. It was something. The one that got away is a romantic story. We get to lament. We get to sit in those feelings. We get sympathy for it. It's so sad. The person you were with got away from you. The person you wanted got away from you, especially if life puts in the way an obstacle. Then you're really set. If life means that you don't get to be with somebody and it wasn't, it doesn't even feel, it can feel justifiable that it was life. No, no, no. It wasn't that they didn't want to be with me. It was that life got in the way. Then we're really set with our story. Because no one's going to question why we're not getting out there and doing something. Because, you know, I get it. I get it. That's so hard. You lost your person. But at a certain point, it becomes an excuse not to live life. And like I said, a real relationship is harder than the one that exists in your head. A real connection is harder to maintain than the one that you can maintain in your head that remains. preserved in perfect condition. Going out there and meeting someone and living a real relationship with all of the difficulties and grievances and arguments you have to overcome and ways you have to figure out how to see eye to eye and ways that you have to work at the relationship for it to last. What you do when the wild, giddy feelings subside and give way to something more meaningful, that is real life. That's a real relationship. And it's much, much more complex, much harder. than the one that we get to preserve in mint condition in our mind. The future that we never actually have to break the seal on. We never have to open because it remains preserved. That one's easy. If you've been living there for a long time, ask yourself, is this serving me in some way? Is this allowing me to avoid something? and if it is, what am I avoiding? Because that thing is the, that's the answer to moving on. Moving toward that thing that you're avoiding is the answer to moving on. Just don't lie to yourself and say that doing that thing is scary because you lost something. No, doing that thing is scary. always doing that thing, going out there and creating new opportunity and meeting new people and risking yourself in new relationships. That's always been hard. That's never been easy. It didn't get hard now because now you're, you know, I I I I I was in a marriage, and now I'm back out there, and I'm having to, you know, do all of this, and it's just so hard. no, that's always hard. It's always, it was hard when you were in high school and you were insecure and wanted people to like you and didn't know if anyone would like you or find you attractive. It's hard in your 20s when you're trying to get out there and do your thing and meet someone. He's hard in your 30s or your 40s or your 50s. There's no time in life where going out there and creating a new story is just easy. Doing the hard thing is always doing the hard thing. Like saying going to the gym today is hard because I just haven't been to the gym in a while. Going to the gym is always hard. It's always something that's easy to talk yourself out of. And our love life is no different. Our love life, there's still just going to the gym. They're still just going out there, creating opportunities and opening ourselves up to a new story. We will. For the one that got away. If it was based on some obstacle, we will never know what that relationship would have been without that obstacle. But if you want my honest answer, I think that we get way, way, way too romantic about the what would it have been? Because there's no one story there. There's a story where it stayed together without a concussion. And a year later, you broke up because of something else. There's a story where you were together for 30 years and then someone cheated. There's a story where the two of you stayed together, but then you decided you didn't feel like it anymore. And these are three of an infinite number of different stories that that relationship could have taken the form of. When you think of it that way, you realize how absurd it is to think of the one story in our mind that's making us so unhappy that we would have lived happily ever after. You start to how absurd it is to think that that is the guaranteed story or was or would have been the guaranteed story. So look, if I were to simplify this whole podcast, I would say that so many people are out there wasting good time, good energy, on thoughts that are not reality, on stories that are just that stories. And that if someone has chosen not to be with you, they either don't feel the same way as you do about overcoming difficult things, or something was so difficult that the relationship wouldn't have been a happy one even if it continued. In which case, you didn't lose a happy relationship, which is the thing we're all searching for, isn't it? That's the thing we want. A happy relationship, not a relationship, a happy relationship. Either they didn't want you in the way that you wanted them. or the obstacle was so big that a happy relationship wasn't possible, in which case you didn't lose a happy relationship. That is still to come for you. I want to leave you with an iTunes review that came in from Hunt Meg 25, who says, currently going through fixing a long-term relationship to make it work. and for us to both be healthy together. I love listening to your podcast. It's so inspirational and helps with a lot of thoughts that I have, as well as questions I need answers to. Thank you guys so much. Thank you so much, Hunt Meg 25. And thanks for leaving a review on iTunes as well. Those reviews really do help us because it helps other people decide whether to listen to this podcast or not. So if you did get something unique or valuable out of this podcast that makes you happy that you listen to this podcast, I would love it. I would very much appreciate it if you would go to iTunes and leave a review. And I also want to let everyone know that on the 19th of April, I have a free live event that you can come to. It's virtual. So wherever you are in the world, you can attend it. It's called Dating with Results. And the entire purpose of this event is to help people use their energy more effectively in their love lives. so that they can get a relationship that they want without burning out along the way. So many of us waste time in game playing and toxicity and dates that don't go anywhere or messages that never even lead to dates. What I want to do is give you a roadmap for finding love this year that uses your energy effectively. It creates the right opportunities with the right people and has those opportunities actually going somewhere. So join us on the 19th of April. You can reserve your spot on that free event that's going to be live with me at datingwithresults.com so go over to datingwithresults.com and reserve your spot now while you're thinking about it because if you leave it an hour We both know you're gonna forget, and then you'll miss it, and then you'll be mad at me, and you'll say, When are you running it again? And I'll say, I don't know, because that was hard, and it took a lot of energy, and I can't do it all the time. I have to take breaks sometimes, and I'll probably be another six months or a year before I do it. And that's how long your love life will have to wait. Can it wait that long? I don't think so. So go to datingwithresults.com and sign up right now. I'll see you in the next episode.