How To Leave A Narcissist

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Audrey's a vegetarian, so.

No, she's particularly upset. You know that there's a bunch of people that still haven't been over to yourdatingsolution.com? no. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I can't believe it.

More than a few.

Haven't they heard?

Do you know how many downloads we get a month? Do you, Jameson?

How many downloads?

Over a million.

Oh God, and you're saying some of those have yet to go?

I'm saying that I have not seen a million people go to that page from our data.

It's a good point.

If our iTunes review is anything to go by, I'm pretty sure you can convince them to do anything, babe.

Right, well let me give it a go. Has anyone out there got a dating challenge right now that they need help with? Maybe you're single and looking and struggling with where to meet people, how to meet people. Maybe you're struggling to turn date one into date two. Maybe you're in an endless texting exchange that's not moving forward. Or maybe you've been seeing someone for a long time and you're not getting the commitment that you want and deserve. If you go over to YourDatingSolution.com, you can put in your name, then you get to put in your specific dating challenge right now. It will then recommend you the best solution from our years of doing this for your particular challenge and the stage of your love life that you're in. So you don't have to go trawling through hundreds of our YouTube videos to find the answer you want. This tool will recommend you the best program for you. Check it out at YourDatingSolution.com How do you think I did?

That was good.

Do you think a million people will go there?

I'm gonna go there right now.

I'm gonna go there faster than Audrey. I'm gonna get it before she does.

No, I'm already on the page right now, so I beat all of you to it.

All right, hurry up.

I'm gonna go on it 999,000 times and then hope that a thousand other people make up the rest.

I don't think you understand how this works. Okay, now that we've got that ugliness out of the way and we've cleared the air with our audience, I wanted to read a little email from Ruth. But before we do, given that we've got all of the jams together, it seems only appropriate to lead in with this. They are the gems, help where they can, inspiration in life and love and confidence, they'll make you laugh.

Sometimes you'll cry and that is why.

Pickles, beeches, and spares, we love the gems. That of course, the jingle by Andrea Gal, one of our devoted listeners, thank you Andrea.

It's so good.

It's really good. It never gets old.

It's so good. No, it's brilliant.

Now we had an email from Ruth, one of our listeners. She emailed into podcast@matthewhussie.com in response to an episode we did recently on age gaps between men and women. She said, hi all, thanks for this interesting podcast. Visuals aside, some men are just turned on by older women, so the aging part does not matter. There is another factor you did not broach in this episode. An older man can have a baby with a much younger partner, but an older woman cannot or will not have a baby with her much younger partner. I had a beautiful relationship with a younger man who actually lied about his age, adding 10 years to his age so that I would agree to go out with him. A year into our relationship, I found out that he was not 12 years younger, but 22 years younger. I immediately broke up with him, but he wrote me the most beautiful love letter and won me back over. We had the best relationship for six years, but I knew there was a window. It worked when I was in my 40s and he was in his 20s, but would it work when I would be in my 70s and he would be in his 50s? and his friends were divorced and dating 30-somethings. He eventually wanted a baby and I did not, having already had four grown children. We both suffered immensely from the breakup, but today he is a happy father of two and I am with a wonderful man my own age. So an older man can be with a younger woman because it is, quote, natural, i.e. he can father a child and they can form a family. But an older woman often cannot have a baby because she is in menopause already or too tired to adopt, and thus they cannot form a family. So it is not, quote, natural. Hope this adds to your knowledge on the subject. Ruth.

I have one... For me, one thing doesn't make sense in that email.

Go on.

Well, she says, but an older woman often cannot have a baby because she is in menopause already or too tired to adopt. Why would that be any difference for a man in terms of being too tired to adopt? If you're older and you feel like you're past the age of wanting to take care of children, why is that different for men and women? And also, isn't that kind of implying that If you can't have children naturally, there's something not natural about the relationship.

Well, I suppose, yeah, I might not use the word natural in this situation. I suppose in saying that a man might be, or a woman, I should say, might be too tired to adopt at a certain age, maybe she's going with the kind of stereotype of the woman's going to end up doing more of the child rearing than the man. And therefore it makes, it matters more if she's older and too tired than if he's older and too tired.

Maybe. I just think it's a really lovely email and it's great that she sent it in. And I'm really glad actually, when I read it, I really loved the fact that she's found someone her own age and he's also, you know, got everything he wanted. I just think it's a very personal take on the subject rather than a universal one. I see what she's trying to get at, but I don't think I agree with the points she's making.

I understand that. I think the universal part of this message that we can all ask regardless of gender is will my age gap with this person age well? And that to me is at the crux of long-term relationships that have a significant age gap. you have to ask that question. If you're just enjoying it for the moment and you're not lying to yourself that you're saying you're enjoying it for the moment, but really you're thinking about it forever, then fine, just have fun. But if you are looking for this to be the relationship that you're going to have for years to come well into your future or for the rest of your life, then it's worth asking the question, how will this age gap age? Because you can kind of find some synergy in where you are at certain chapters, especially if you can meet someone at a chapter where sort of you're both in the same place, even though you're at very different ages, you're both maybe have a similar level of freedom or energy or your plans kind of merge well together. But ask yourself in five years or 10 years or 20 years, Is that still going to be the case? Or is this gonna get more and more difficult? Is this age gap gonna feel bigger and bigger as the years go on?

And I suppose if the fear is to, I mean, a lot of people's fears is ending up alone, right? That's kind of a universal concern that we all have. And so if that's your fear, I think taking a gamble on someone who's 20 years younger than you is quite a risky move because as she's saying, how is he gonna feel when she's in her 70s and he's in his 50s, is a legitimate concern.

Yeah, you always have to ask, are the stakes higher for me than they are for them when there's a big age gap? Because a lot of the time they are. I mean, if you're a 35 year old woman who wants children and you're dating a 25 year old man, the stakes are higher for you. There's a window. If you want to have children, your own children biologically, There is a window that is much shorter than his window. So he has time to screw this up and do it again and do it another five times with other people. But the years that you have to have children are precious. So you just have to go in with your eyes wide open. If this person now, if he's saying he wants kids now, then that's different. That's great. But if he's saying, I'm not sure if I want kids, I'll see in a couple of years, I'm not sure, I'm just playing it by ear. Just know that the stakes are not the same and be real with yourself about that.

And be real with him about it. 'Cause maybe if you're going in with that natural asymmetry, he's gonna have to make up for that with just being pretty, he's gonna have to be super mature and he's gonna have to just say like, I'm ready to have kids. But I don't think you have to fool yourself that there's not an asymmetry. I think that there probably is, depending on what part of your life you're in.

Yeah, you're almost relying on him not being a regular 25 year old. if he's a regular 25 year old, then, then that's going to probably present problems.

And if he's not a regular 25 year old, fantastic. But he's going to have to kind of prove that.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm quite intrigued. We didn't mention the fact that he was telling quite a big lie of being 10 years different in age than he said. And that makes me also think that's quite an impressive range he can play, you know, like an actor. I think, I'm thinking about myself. Could I, I'm 33. Could I play 23? I don't think I could at this. I don't think I could, but.

Well, hang on, no, it's not.

I think I could play about 26.

No, but he's playing older.

No, he's not.

Yeah, Steve, you would need to be able to play 43.

So I'd need to be able to play 43.

No, he's younger.

He's younger. Sorry, yes. So he is, he's saying he's older.

Correct. Yeah, but you'd have to. No, but you wouldn't have to just be 23. Be able to show yourself as 23 if you were 33.

You'd have to show yourself as 13. No, if you're going to play younger, but he's pretending he's younger than her and he's saying he's 10 years younger.

Here's what I didn't understand about this maths. Sorry, Jameson. Math. He said he was 10 years older than he was. But then she says, A year into our relationship, I found that he was not 12 years younger, but he said 10, not 12.

12 years younger than her.

Ah, I see.

So she thought the age gap was 12 years, and it was actually 22 years. So instead of him being in his 30s, he was in his 20s.

Let's say that this is like an IQ test.

And this was Stephen, and Stephen was playing...

I'm playing 53.

But no, you were actually trying to play, what, 53?

How does it actually... No, you would have to be 33 playing 53. Right? No, he's playing 55.

No, he's playing 10 years older.

No, but he's playing 10 years older.

But what I'm saying is, if he's 22 years younger, then he's got to look 22 years older than the age he's given her. No. No!

Stephen, how are they not a couple?

I'm just trying to figure out what age she was, and then what age Stephen was.

It says it, she was in her 40s and he was in his 20s, but she thought he was in his 30s because he said he was in his 30s so he was actually in his 20s not in his 30s yeah while he was in her 40s he.

Was a 20 something playing a 30.

Something hang on hang on hang on he let's say she was 50. oh my God see this is what I.

Want to do I want to attach an exact age to I see the.

Email but he says let's say she's 50. he has said that he was 40. right for example yeah or 38. he said he was 38. right yes when in fact he was 18. 28.

28.

28. why am I getting so confused for this it's too late in the day so he's Yes, that's right.

Yeah, he was an 18 year old. He added some gray chest hairs.

So he was... Wait.

You know, it reminds me of, you know, in BoJack Horseman.

Yeah, yeah, the kid.

Lady Caroline. Lady Caroline, is that her name?

Princess Caroline.

Princess Caroline. That's it. She dates that young boy, those two young boys who were just sat on each other's shoulders with a trench coat.

Pretending to be a girl.

You know the one I mean?

Yeah, I do. I do. I'm still trying to work out this age thing.

Okay, well, I think we should move.

On and- so she's 50.

He's 28 and he was pretending to be 38.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, we were almost there.

All right. Oh, my God. Thank you so much, Ruth, for adding to the conversation. We really do appreciate your opinions on the things we talk about. If you have anything to add to any of our Podcasts, email in podcast@matthewhussie.com well, we have a review here on iTunes from Nance Mu who says, Just want to say I absolutely love this podcast and Matt's calming voice. Audrey's laughter also is very soothing. Very good. I think I really need some advice on dealing with a man who I think I feel that my soul is connected to, but we seem to repel each other. Or more so, he always withdraws when he gets too close to me. I don't know what to do in this situation except just walk away, but still feel that soul connection. I need help. Well, that caught me off guard because I thought that was just going to be a review telling us how great we were, but there's a, she's Trojan Horse to question into that.

That's funny.

She feels her soul is connected, but they seem to repel each other. And I like, you know, you've slipped in Nance Mu each other, but you're not repelled. He's the one who's repelled. So you've sort of, I feel like you've created a little love story out of this where there isn't one, because you feel this soul connection, but he's the one saying, he's the one withdrawing anytime that you get close. So, and this is a common thing we do, is we invent a Romeo and Juliet love story where there's only one person making life difficult, and you've turned it into like a little Romeo and Juliet thing where it's we repel each other. No, you don't. You try to get close and he withdraws. That's just you moving in and him moving backwards and you moving in. and him moving backwards. So you have to ask yourself, do I really want to spend my life romanticizing unrequited love when I have feelings for this person and this person has no interest in actually reciprocating with any kind of action or investment? It's the danger is creating a love story where there is no love story. At best, you have an attention story. So put this in its proper place. A soul connection, as you call it, is worth nothing without real life investment.

This is what movies always do, too. Like, although every single, I think every single bad romantic comedy, but even the good ones, it's just like they have a rule. The writers have a rule that the characters have to meet and they have to hate each other. And then they have to like fall in love and get over it together and it's fun and it's cute. But it's just, does it ever really work that way? Are you supposed to really hate the person? And then, oh boy, we do repel each other, but our souls are connected.

If.

Someone'S repellant to you, it's probably for a good reason.

Well, it sort of sets up the idea that it's romantic to have all these hurdles to overcome. between each other. Do you know what movie really bugs me for this? The movie Serendipity. Have you seen it?

I actually haven't seen it.

No. Serendipity is an old romantic comedy.

John Cusack, right?

Let me just see. Movie Serendipity. Is it John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale?

Sounds right.

Yeah. In Serendipity, I've just looked it up on Google right now. This is the plot. On a magical night when they're in their 20s, Jonathan meets Sarah. He finds it love at first sight, but Sarah believes in destiny. After 10 years, the two, with 3,000 miles between them, must decide if fate wants them to be together again. When love feels like magic, It's called destiny. When destiny has a sense of humor, it's serendipity. But basically, all you need to know is they meet and she believes in destiny. So she's just like, let's go our separate ways. Even though we've just met each other and found this amazing thing, it's clearly not it's not hard enough to meet someone great and have a connection. You have to make it more hard by saying, No, it's destiny. And if we're supposed to be together, destiny will bring us back together. So they part ways in that moment.

Sounds like a pretty avoidant move on her part.

Yeah. It's just, it shouldn't, we don't need more hurdles. Hard enough to find love.

We should do a review on just how bad some movies are at love and relationships.

Well, you know what I was thinking? Let us know what you think of this. We were thinking of doing a new segment on the podcast. where we take a movie, we say, All right, everyone watch the movie this week. And then we come back the next week and we comment on it from a love and life lesson point of view. Not like a review of how good or bad the movie is. Kind of a, you know, here's what we learned from that movie. Or here's how badly that movie got it wrong in terms of life lessons. Jameson, And Stephen, you remember back in the day where we used to do some YouTube videos based on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review site, but we called it Sexy Potatoes.

Sexy Potatoes.

And it was all about taking life lessons from movies. So if you think that we should do that, and there's a big podcast group here that listened to this podcast, we all watch a movie. each week, and then we come back and talk about it as a segment on the podcast. Let us know what you think. Let us know if you'd like that.

I'd like to point out that that was our New Year's resolution this year, to watch one movie a week and we never did it.

So.

Well, then we.

They have to be like movies we think are going to be good. I can't be doing with just watching a terrible movie each week.

I don't think we're ever planning to watch a terrible movie. I just think we never got around.

To watching a movie. No, but I mean, like, we can't. I don't want to. For this segment, just watch bad movies because that's just going to annoy them.

That would be a weird resolution to.

Watch a bad movie every week.

Yeah, exactly. No, but every week we watch like a movie we think is going to be good, and then we see what we think about it.

That was always going to be the resolution.

I'm not talking about our New Year's resolution. I'm talking about the podcast.

And there's a good lesson in here too. It's not too late in the year to go ahead and make good on your resolutions, you know? Okay. the last quarter of the year.

Last.

Is it the last quarter of the year almost?

Yeah. Terrifyingly.

Last third of the year.

We have a voice note here sent in to podcast@matthewhussie.com from Corey Smith.

Hi, Love Life Podcast. Hi, Steven. Hi, Audrey. Hi, Matthew. Hi, Jameson. My name is Corey and I'm from New York. I found your YouTube channel a few years ago, and I just want to say that I really appreciate the content that you guys put so much effort into. Your advice has helped me not only with relationships, but also with my confidence and social anxiety. I feel like today when you go on the internet, there's so much information that gets thrown at you, and it's so nice to be able to go to you guys and just get genuine and authentic and insightful and applicable advice. It's so helpful. I really appreciate it. I also love the group dynamic. I love that you guys have gotten Audrey and Jameson in on the action. All of you guys crack me up so much. Seriously, you all are the highlight of my week. Thank you, and I'm excited to see what you guys keep putting out.

Thank you so much, Corey. How lovely. I love that we get to just be a part of people's weeks. I feel like that's my favorite thing about the podcast, is we just get to, it's different from a YouTube video, isn't it? I feel like we accompany people as they're on a car ride or sort of cleaning the house or, you know, on a train somewhere.

It's quality time.

Yeah.

I also just, I'm loving these voice notes. I love that you can, I mean, the written emails are amazing as well, but I just love being able to hear people's actual voices and actually hearing what people feel and how how, you know, good or badly we're doing. It's really nice.

There's something to that, just the difference and the subtle difference between YouTube and a podcast. I think you're onto something with, like, because there's the, there's like the famous, it was like some kind of media philosopher who coined the term, like, the medium is the message. But it's like a lot of truth to that. We talked recently about how, like, oh, TV, you know, just kind of It's there to entertain you and to make you kind of like things. And social media is there to just kind of like grab your attention for good or for bad. Podcasts, there's something kind of special. You are kind of like just carried with somebody in their day. I don't know. I'm sure someone's like written probably a.

Good paper on that. And that theorist for all of you listening is Marshall McLuhan, who said the medium is the message.

So that's your fact for the day. And for anyone curious, Stephen did get a PhD from Oxford University. Yeah, political philosophy.

I also have Google.

Stevian is the message.

Well, I think we should go on to our main topic. What do you guys think?

Which is how to leave a narcissist?

Yep.

Big topic. We, I had a conversation recently with someone that just reminded me how important it is that we do this topic at some point. And I don't want you to get kind of derailed by the term narcissist, because the truth is, what we're about to talk about can relate to anybody that you're with who has consistently treated you poorly, who has ignored your needs, who has disregarded your happiness, who has been gaslighting you for a long time, lying to you, breaking promises, someone who consistently lets you down, disappoints you. I think that, you know, I, we, our dear friend, Dr. Ramani, who we absolutely love and Her work is so tremendously valuable to so many people. We've had lots of conversations with her, both in public and in private at this point about this subject. And of course, she is the expert when it comes to diagnosing narcissists. We're not the experts when it comes to diagnosing narcissists, but I sometimes think that we can get a little lost in worrying about whether we can diagnose someone or not. Because the truth is, if someone is making our life miserable, they don't need to be a narcissist for us to decide that enough is enough. What I would like to do today is talk about anybody in your life, whether you are able to attach the label to them of narcissist or whether you just feel like they're somewhere on the spectrum of narcissistic tendencies. I want to talk about how we come to trap ourselves in these situations and what it really requires for us to break free of them. Because the nature of what Dr. Ramani and other psychologists called the trauma bond is that we can become imprisoned by that bond. And it can be extraordinarily difficult to break free from it and to finally release ourselves from a relationship like that. And we should say that a relationship like that is tremendously detrimental to our mental health. our well-being, our self-esteem, our quality of life. It is a situation that is maddening. It slowly erodes your confidence in yourself, especially if your needs are ignored, if you are gaslit over things that you would like to happen and told that it's crazy for you to want those things or your high maintenance for wanting those things or that When someone tries to convince you that your version of reality is completely false, it can have the effect of you not knowing which way is up anymore. You stop trusting yourself. And of course, when you're with someone who constantly breaks their promises to you, constantly lies to you, and then if you catch them in the lie, makes it your fault. Somehow, it makes us unable to see what the truth is anymore. It divorces us from ourselves. We start becoming somebody else. We live a life of trying to manage this person. We live a life of trying to read between the lines of what things this person is saying are true or and which things are false. And the anxiety, the stress, the sadness, the depression that all of this can produce is one that can massively affect our health in the long term. I really believe that it's responsible for so many so many, so much of our pain in our body, the chronic pain, the, you know, I've spoken to so many people whose pain shows up in rashes or in muscle pain or in head pain. The way that our body stores all of this stuff is profound and affects people through the course of their lives. So we pay a price for staying with someone like this. I want to start by just talking about how we find ourselves in these situations and how one of the qualities that we like most about ourselves in other contexts can become our biggest enemy in the context of a relationship like this. And that is our Empathy. We show a level of understanding about this person that allows them to get away with the same thing over and over again. Let's talk about that for a moment. When does empathy go too far?

Empathy extended outwards is a beautiful thing, but I think it becomes dangerous when you can't extend it back to yourself.

Explain what you mean by that for a moment, just so that everyone, I really want people to get that message. Like, what do you mean by that?

Well, I was gonna say, if you're with someone who, if you're taking care of them and making sure they're okay, and they're taking care of themselves and making sure they're okay, who's taking care of you? You know, it's quite a common thing that you hear, but in order to be there for other people, your own cup has to be full and your priority in life should always be to make sure that you're okay. Now that doesn't mean that you have to put yourself first in every single situation and in fact you shouldn't. It's really important to put other people first sometimes and to put those you love before you when they need you more than you need them in that moment. But ultimately your empathy towards other people cannot come at the detriment of actually making sure you're okay. that's when you're, you have to suspect yourself, I think, as to whether or not is it really empathy or are you just caught in a toxic cycle where it's serving some kind of need for you? You know, whether it be that you, you like the identity of coming to the rescue of other people or you feel safe in that position because then you never have to look at yourself and you never have to look at the ways in which you're not really taking care of yourself. And it's much easier to put, for some people, it's much easier to put other people's needs before their own because there's a lot of Shame and guilt around having needs. And sometimes people who feel that way can gravitate or can be a magnet for people who are narcissistically inclined, because ultimately they're just people who have a hell of a lot of love to give.

Right.

And that's not, I'm by no means blaming, you know, in the instance of an actual true relationship with a true narcissist, I'm by no means blaming.

You.

Know, the person who finds themselves in that situation, a victim in that situation. But I do think that in general, sometimes we, if we are wildly empathetic, we can sort of We can almost wear that as a badge of honor and use that as our identity and it can get us into trouble because we end up having no boundaries with how far we let someone exploit that.

Well, I think that that's exactly right. And we, what happens is because we're so close to this person, we've heard all of their stories. And people who are really good at mobilizing your empathy get very good at telling stories that make them sympathetic. Yes, I have this awful trait. Yes, I am not good at this. Yes, I struggle in this way. But this is what happened to me growing up. This is what my mum was like. this is what my father was like. This is the stuff that I've been through in my life. And by the way, we all have things that we've been through in our lives that could have made us worse people or better people. Right? Everyone has things, but there are certain people who are really good. at taking their past and constructing a narrative that creates excuses for really bad behavior in the present. Now, there's a difference between contextualizing who you are in the present by talking about the past, but also saying, you know, that has been part of why I've struggled. However, I own it and I'm going to fix it. And then showing that you're doing that, there's a difference between that and repeating the same damage to a person over and over and over again, always citing your past as an excuse, a way to abdicate responsibility for that. And if your somebody who is truly empathetic, and you're prone to feeling sad for people or seeing people as sympathetic, then it can be quite easy for someone who's manipulative to use their past as a way to mobilize your empathy. And it could also happen in reverse, by the way. If they know that you pride yourself on being generous, being kind, being empathetic, and then you start calling them out on their behavior and having more boundaries. Yeah. They can then attack you for that and say, oh, and you're supposed to be. You see yourself as this empathetic person. Well, right now you've got absolutely no care for what I've been through and what I. The ways that I'm struggling. And you're always playing this empathetic character, and yet right now you're just abandoning me, you know that. Now they can weaponize it in the other direction and get you feeling guilty that you haven't been empathetic enough.

And it's so interesting, right? Because it has no limit in terms of if you want to extend a sympathetic or a compassionate or kind of understanding lens towards a person, you can do that with a serial killer. You can say it's not their fault. They're born this way. They went through these different things in their childhood. That's why they ended up being aggressive and killing people. or even just they're a psychopath. They don't feel empathy. It's not their fault. They're not born with that. You can actually have compassion towards anyone for anything. And the kind of... what's really interesting is the duality between this over compassion you might extend towards somebody who treats you badly, but this total lack of compassion you extend towards yourself as you put yourself repeatedly in harm's way of that person. And for some reason, your well-being and the way that you feel isn't being prioritized by you in the same way that you're prioritizing being understanding towards them.

Yeah, I think Jack cornfield said something along the lines of your. Your compassion for people is incomplete if it doesn't extend to yourself.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think. I think it's so easy to get stuck in roles that you. play over and over again in relationships, and especially with people you know well. I think you can adopt a role really easily where you've got used to being a bit like you, you have a masochistic relationship with that where you, you give in to their needs or their difficulty or their drama or their, like, selfishness, and then you, like, Chastise yourself and oh, I've got to do this now and now I've got to do this because of their problem or they screwed up and now I've got to fix it. And I think it takes a lot of stepping back to get out of that and to actually take control again and say, like, what? I do think there's a big difference between giving love to someone and having love for them. and sacrificing yourself, sacrificing your needs. And I think a lot of people just conflate them together. Like, if I love this person, I will sacrifice my happiness to just fulfill whatever their thing is or help them because they're whatever, a narcissist, an addict, a different whatever. But I do, I think there's a real difference between loving them and sacr, completely sacrificing yourself, your happiness, your well-being and, and I think some people get addicted to that, that role a bit.

Absolutely. You, the thing that scares me about empathy in the context of a relationship like this is it can really, if that empathy becomes a proactive kind of forgiveness for that person and a forgiveness that leads to you constantly letting them back into your life, not a distant forgiveness where you say, I forgive you, but I can't have you near me. There really is no limit to how far you can fall in that relationship. As you say, Audrey, if you excuse them on every level, they're, well, it's their past. Well, even if it's not their past, it's their genes. It's. They can't help it. It's just the way they're built. You can always find a justification. And by the way, it's. those things are true. They're actually true. But the danger of saying that's true, therefore I should forgive this person and be involved with them romantically, that's the. That's the non-sequitur and the danger of that is that if you continue to use your empathy as a. As an excuse for forgiving someone and letting them back in, there is no limit to the level of destruction that someone can. can impose on your life. You're letting them into the house where they can wreak havoc. And you have to, at a certain point, say, I cannot trust you. I cannot trust you with my heart. I cannot trust you with my time. I cannot trust you with my energy. I cannot trust you with my future. And therefore, I can't let you in the house. Because if I let you in my house, so to speak, you will predictably wreak havoc. So I can have a distant compassion for you, but I cannot have a kind of proactive close degree empathy where I constantly let you back in because you will destroy my life. And I think part of what people struggle with is this. This hope that this person will change that. Yes, they've been terrible. Yes, they are still wreaking Havoc in my life. Yes, they are still making me unhappy. But if this one thing could change, then we could actually be so happy.

I also think it's the duality between the good and the bad times. Because I think if you've ever been with someone who is either a narcissist or narcissistically inclined or, you know, selfish or toxic or whatever you want to call it, they're not like that all the time at all.

But even in that, I think there is embedded in that idea is a kind of hope. The hope for the good times to be more, the hope that the bad times will start to be less.

Of course. I suppose what I mean is that people who are like that are very good at being really, really charming. So the good times feel better both because of the bad times being so bad that in contrast they feel better, but also because they are so good at making life even better than a healthy person can because they're not playing a role. So people get addicted to the highs for sure because of that. And that's, that's then in turn, very difficult because you're almost turning your back on. When you think about it rationally, you end up feeling that you're turning your back on the happiest moments of your life. It's just that they happen to come in conjunction with the most terrible moments of your life. which we all know when we leave someone or break up with someone, all we do is think about the good times. We don't think about the bad times. So I think that's another thing that makes it incredibly difficult for people to walk away.

I mean, when someone makes your life so miserable, the good times don't even have to be that good to feel like they're incredible. If you're in the middle of the desert starving and someone puts, like, a Wendy's cheeseburger in front of you, Oh.

That'S ruining our chances of sponsorship for Wendy's.

Oh, I thought Jamerson was gonna say, Now you're talking, because I feel like that's the kind of Jamerson meal.

This is okay, well this is hurtful.

No, you love Taco Bell.

But I think Matt's point is it could be Del Taco in the desert. It could be something atrocious out there, and it still feels like it's better than Taco Bell.

I was gonna say McDonald's, but you know I love McDonald's.

I mean, call it trash.

It is trash, but I. I love a McDonald's cheeseburger.

We actually ordered McDonald's the other day at, like, midnight, didn't we?

And then we ate it in bed. Yeah, we did. And that was a weeknight. That wasn't even, like, a drunken weekend night or something.

Not that we. Because we have so many of those.

I know. I was gonna say. But, you know. You know what I mean? Like, it feels like a sort of end of the night thing, and that was a weeknight. Yeah, but all this, all of this is very much besides the point. If you're in the desert and starving and you see a Wendy's, that's gonna be the greatest meal you've ever eaten in your life. A one-day-old Wendy's.

So maybe people have really, I just don't want to confuse the point. You can have a one-day-old soggy Wendy's with a melted Frosty. Yeah, yeah, trash can Wendy's.

Yep, trash can Wendy's.

Is Wendy's not very nice? I've never had it. I don't know much about it.

Again, I don't want to hurt our chances at sponsorship.

Right, right, right.

Is it because you love it so much?

I'm just thinking about the podcast. Yeah, he's trying to keep this train going and we need money for that.

I mean, we need Wendy's money.

It's not easy doing or putting all this production together. Yeah. Man's trying to keep the ship afloat.

Let's at least criticize a lesser brand.

Like White Castle or something, something smaller.

Oh, there goes White Castle.

My God.

We're not gonna end up promoting White Castle.

Dropping like flies.

Well... No wait, I think there's something really important in what you're saying, Matt, which is actually like you can have just a normal day finally after just a week-long fight with this person that's been making your life miserable. And you have one nice day where it's like, oh yeah, we went and we had dinner together and no one fought. and the waiter wasn't rude. And suddenly, I'm in love again.

You're grateful for civility.

Grateful for civility. What a nice way to put it.

Which is should be the absolute, like, flaw of your relationship. But suddenly it becomes a treat. And this is. This is how warped our perception of value becomes in a situation like this. Basic things that should just be the foundations of a relationship of respect and dignity become things that we long for. If you have not already sign up to the 30-Day Confidence Challenge, the free event that we are doing that kicks off with a call live with me on the 27th, but carries on for 30 days, where I'm going to be giving you five specific challenges that measurably increase your confidence over 30 days, all with a prize bonus at the end that's free for anybody who completes all five challenges. So the only thing you need to do to get this bonus is do good things for yourself. The entire challenge is free and you can sign up at mh. www.challenge.com if you want to finish the next 30 days with a sense of momentum and pride and you want to measurably improve your confidence, sign up to the 30 day confidence challenge. We've got thousands, literally thousands of people from all over the world who are joining us on this. And don't forget to send the link to anybody that you care about that you want to do it with. It's a mhchallenge.com .com.

I'm gonna be doing it this year.

We're all gonna be doing it. Very excited.

I've not done it before, so I'm excited.

Yeah. I love. We've done it before, and literally, we've had tens of thousands of people come through this, and we very rarely run it. I think the last time we did it was in January this year, and. And people love it. Every time we do it, people absolutely love it. We have a Facebook group where everyone kind of keeps each other accountable. and it's just a really fun thing that no one is excluded from. Everyone can be a part of. So come join us. It's at mhchallenge.com now. I wanna just loop back to this hope because what keeps people there, whether it's a hope for the next good time, or whether it's a hope for things to just fundamentally change. That hope is the most misguided thing we have. Because, and again, Dr. Ramani would say if he or she is a true narcissist, they will never change and don't expect them to. But even if, let's say you're not sure whether the person you're with is a diagnosable narcissist, what I want you to think in terms of is empiricism. Empiricism is basing what I do or what I believe on what my actual experience of this person is. have they ever truly changed in this area to any degree that's really meaningful, that's made your life better? And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're resonating with all of it, the answer is no. You may have experienced spikes of change after you had an argument or after you threatened to leave, but if ultimately it just always returned to the same Baseline. then you know that those changes weren't real. They were just a tactic, more of a manipulation. Empirically, you have to ask yourself, has this person ever changed? Or has this been a repeatable pattern throughout my relationship with this person? And if I'm still talking about it now with my friends, with a therapist, if I'm still ruminating about it constantly, then it's still happening. And the answer is, no, it has not changed. And if it hasn't changed, then on what basis are you thinking it's going to change in the future? And the truth is, if you really relate to this episode right now, you've probably been through every kind of emotion with this person there is. You've cried, you've been angry, you've been depressed, you've been guilty, you've been frantic, you've despaired. You've been through everything you can go through with this person. You've begged for change. What emotion have you kept up your sleeve that you're going to bring out next year? that's suddenly going to change this person. I have to know. If you're telling yourself that they're going to change, what's the reaction that. That all this time you've been storing to suddenly get a different result? Because the chances are you've already cycled through all of them many times. You have to assume that this person is never. going to change because the stakes are way too high. What are the stakes? You don't get your time back again. So staking your life and your happiness on the idea that this person who has never changed will one day change is just about the worst bet that you can make.

It makes me really emotional just hearing you talk about it because I just think of the amount of people who are currently stuck. And I think the word really is just stuck in the quicksand of that kind of relationship and how much it just destroys people because it destroys their confidence, it destroys their self-worth, it destroys It warps reality, as you said, in a way where they just feel like they don't even know which way is up anymore. And you end up having no kind of bearing on what a proper relationship should feel like and a proper connection and being treated with respect and having your needs met. You forget, you lose sight of what that even feels like. And I just, I don't know. I really love this episode just hearing you talk about it. And I think it's such an important thing for people to hear But it makes me sad to think there are people in that situation, and I just have so much compassion for that.

Just look how much empathy Audrey has. See how dangerous it is.

It's interesting you say that, Jay, because do you remember there was that book, I think it was Paul Bloom who wrote that book Against Empathy, or the case for- I was just about to reference that.

Yeah, I was just about to reference Paul Bloom. He literally wrote a book called Against Empathy. Because it is, he's trying to call out the fact that it is actually a baser emotion. The same way, like anger is just a baser emotional reaction. And it can, if we indulge empathy too much, it's just because it can feel good. And he makes some really interesting points where it's like, yeah, I mean, lots of Nazis had empathy. You know, they had empathy with each other, and that makes you go to war and fight whoever. because you have so much empathy for that person next to you, even if that person next to you is atrocious. And so he argues for a rational compassion, which is very similar to what you're saying with this distant compassion, which is you realize, you understand intellectually what happened in that person's past to explain it, but you don't take that extra step of like, well, just because it explains it doesn't excuse it and doesn't mean that I have to emotionally invest in this situation or of their past, you can take a step back and understand without needing to go that extra emotional journey. Just intellectually understand it, rationally have compassion for their situation. You don't have to make it your situation.

Yeah, as you were saying that, I was thinking just because it explains it, it doesn't mean you have to choose it.

Oh, yeah. Or justify it.

And just because you feel for them, you can feel someone's plight. You can be like, this person is going to be bad for themselves and others, and it's going to cause them pain. And you can feel a lot of, you know, you can feel a lot for that person because they're also going to be a victim of their own behavior in the long term.

Yeah.

But I do think there, there's a remove as well of, like, if you can really deep, really deeply love yourself more. in that moment. And I don't mean that in a selfish way, but if you can deeply, deeply care about yourself and what, you know, how are you going to be useful to the world? How are you going to be at your best? How are you going to also thrive and give love to others? It's. It's going to be by having a more expansive, like, my world can't be narrowed down to this person and trying to fix their problems or trying to fix their issue.

I think a good, a good thing for people to do listening is to try to catch yourself in certain phrases and certain things that you say. If you, if you catch yourself a lot saying, no, no, no, you look, I know it's gonna sound bad when I say this, but, and then you explain their behavior. I know that, that I'm making excuses for them. I know that I'm making excuses.

Oh, it sounds like I'm making excuses.

Yeah, that's a good one. I know that it sounds like I'm making excuses for them, but. And then you go to talk about their childhood or the things they went through in their last marriage or the way they were cheated on 10 years ago. You're. There's a kind of. Firstly, it allows you to be in this special role of unique understanding that no one else has. You don't know them like I do. You don't understand. There is a side of them you don't see. You don't know what they've been through. And that becomes the justification for all of the unnatural level of giving. the mutated kindness that you show in this situation. You become the, and this is what happens for a lot of people in these kinds of relationships, is you become the expert historian on this person. And that uniquely places you to forgive them to justify their behavior, to continue to go back to them, even when everyone on the outside says, that's crazy. Now, Audrey, you touched upon something earlier that I want to revisit because there's a kind of elephant in the room when it comes to this kind of empathy. And it's that empathy itself can become a really convenient mask for our own fears. Empathy says, I just really, really care about this person and they've been through so much in their life and they really struggle and they don't mean to do bad and it would just be so wrong of me to abandon them. Our fear deep down may say, I'm terrified of being alone. If I leave this person, I might be alone. I might never find anyone again because I'm unworthy, because I'm not good enough, because I'm unattractive. So if I go back out there into the dating world, I may never find anyone again. Now, All of that sounds kind of sad and it sounds almost like cowardice, right? I don't want to leave because I'm afraid of being alone, so I'm going to stay here and be treated awfully. That sounds like cowardice. This person has been through so much and I don't want to abandon them. Sounds heroic. So, one path sounds righteous. Our empathy allows us to play a righteous role. and it means we don't have to admit our deepest fears, which are that while I care about this person, while I empathize for this person, while I, of course, don't want to abandon this person because I love them, my staying is also coming from a place of deep, deep fear about myself and what's going to happen to me. if I leave.

And I think that can come in the form of, as you say, I'm scared of being alone, but it's just the consequences. You just have to see as the consequences in general of making a difficult decision and a big shift in your life.

Yeah. You're terrified of the pain it would bring on.

Precisely. It might not be to be alone. It might be. And I think it's almost too simplified because sometimes people are scared of being alone because their self-worth has been shot because of that person or because that person has made them feel like if they are, if they go out into the world without them, they'll be nothing or they'll be in trouble or they can't do it. And that happens a lot with people who have personality disorders. They, they belittle you and infant, infantize you.

Infantilize. Yeah.

Infantilize you and just generally make you feel like you you are nothing without them.

Right.

To a degree. But I think it's recognizing that.

That.

Fear can come in many shapes and sizes, and it tends to just be the fear of the unknown if you step away from the devil, you know.

The hardest part about all of this is that no one is coming to save us. and we have this situation that's making us miserable, anxious, depressed. But leaving can only happen if we're willing to light the fuse that blows up our own life. And it's hard to light the fuse to blow up your own life. It's a really, really deep. Most people go through their whole lives avoiding this. Something has to blow it up for them. Usually life has to do it somehow because it's really hard to do it yourself. And what happens is every time we think, every time things get so bad that we think this is I'm burning. We gotta. We gotta go. Like this can't. I can't stay here. The Terror of blowing up your own life suddenly rushes in. I'm gonna be alone. I'm gonna have to go through all of this pain. I'm gonna have to grieve this person. I'm gonna have to have night after night for a period of time of that dark night of the soul. I'm gonna have to continue to be strong even while this person is contacting me. I'm gonna have to reevaluate where I am in my life. All of these fears rush in and it's so overwhelming that our mind starts doing a trick. It turns on the sprinklers. and starts telling us it's not so bad. It's not as bad as we think. And sometimes it's good. And do we really want to do all of this? Maybe we're being dramatic. Maybe we're expecting too much. On all relationships a little like this, your brain will tell you whatever it needs to tell you in order to lure you back to the status quo. I really believe that in order to move forward and start making real progress, because staying where we are doesn't represent progress. If this person isn't going to change, then there's no progress in staying where we are. There's just guaranteed misery. In order to start making real progress, we have to actually start by accepting where we are. And I actually think that's the hardest part. The hardest part is firstly anticipating all the pain that's coming and secondly letting go of the life we thought we had. Actually leaning into accepting where we are. I am 50 years old and starting again in my love life. that's where I am. I've been telling myself I'm in a marriage that's gonna last and is a functional relationship, and it's not. I'm 50 and starting again. Acceptance is I've just invested 15 years of my life into a relationship that's not going to continue. Instead of thinking that you've invested 15 years in service of making the relationship better.

I also think you're closer to finding love the moment you leave. You are the furthest away from finding a happy relationship and happiness when you are in that situation, even though psychologically, I think we play a real trick on ourselves or we think we're closer and we think we're further away when we walk away. But we actually become, you know, exponentially closer to finding happiness the moment we leave that situation because happiness does not lie. It does not reside with that relationship that's been perpetually making us feel miserable.

But in order to do that, you have to accept where you really are and you also have to be willing to lose the image you have with other people about where you are. Because it involves people in your circle or in your community learning that you're single, that you are no longer in this relationship. If you've been putting out an image of a successful relationship or a functional relationship or of happiness or of something that's working, committed, then you're gonna have to let go of that image with your peers, with the people around you. You have to be willing to accept where you are and also have other people know where you are. And that's the beginning of real progress because I'm a huge believer in, you know, I've heard Tony Robbins say before, happiness comes from progress. It doesn't come from achieving everything we want. It comes from making progress. And I really believe that. But if you've been kind of lying to yourself and to people you know about what your current level is or where you are in life, Even if you make some progress, you don't feel it. It's kind of like, Steve, the way I said it earlier today was if you tell everyone you have 100 grand in the bank, but really you have 20 grand of debt, then even if you clear all your debts, which would be an enormous achievement, you don't feel like you've made any progress. Because you've been telling everyone you've got 100 grand. So even though you've done something massively significant, it doesn't actually feel like you've moved forward at all. In fact, by the image that you've created, you're still so far behind. Whereas if you were honest about where you were with yourself and with other people, you're like, I'm 20 grand in debt, but you know what? I'm working on it. I'm actually, I'm working on it. I'm improving my situation. And then you halved that debt. and you only had 10 grand of debt, that would be an amazing day. That would be a huge achievement. You would feel that progress. It would make you more confident. It would make you feel like you've got momentum. It would spur you on. But there's no progress if you've been lying about where you are in the first place. You don't feel it even when you make progress.

Well, that's the thing. Society superficially applauds things that look like security. and doesn't applaud the things that represent actual difficult progress. You know, the society will clap when it looks like you have your comfortable little nest and all the right things in the right place. The house, the car, the spouse, the something, the job. But if you like quit the job you hated for 10 years and went to go like start a business that might be exciting to you or something, They're not going to applaud that because they're going to like, oh no, that's like you've rocked the boat. You've done something out of the ordinary. You've disrupted your like nice job or whatever. Even if that might represent for you a massive step of progress or you got out of your relationship that was, you know, toxic on many levels or difficult or unhappy, they're going, oh no, your life's falling apart.

Do you want to know the most attention I've ever gotten in my whole life?

Go on.

It was the day we got engaged.

Best day of your life?

Really crapping on your point already, but go for it.

Wasn't it?

I'm not denying how special the day was, but it's very telling. To your point, Stephen, and I'm not saying it was beautiful that people were so happy for me, don't get me wrong, it was an overwhelming amount of love.

But.

On the days that I was silently overcoming my demons over the last seven years, those weren't days filled with attention. those weren't days where I got, you know, I mean, we released our engagement photo, and it was, you know, we got, like, 200, 000 likes on Instagram. That is wild. Like, that's beyond anything I've ever posted, ever, in terms of the amount of likes and engagement and comments.

It's a lot of people tapping, but.

That'S because to your point, people reward those external moments, those socially designated moments of importance over the profound work that people do on themselves to make themselves feel more peaceful or more happy. I mean, me getting engaged was literally just a representation of years of work that led me to meeting the right person and being. Being in a place where I was able to receive that love and being able to take a step like that. It, you know, that all that inner work that had happened, no one was celebrating me for that. That's the silent stuff. That's the stuff that was happening when I was making videos and going through really difficult times. And people would comment on the videos and be like, Matthew, you look sad. you know, and they keep. I remember, like, I used to get tons of DMS from people at a certain stage in my life, from people saying, you look really sad. Is everything okay? And it was, you know, I used to get a lot of them because I was working through stuff. And even though I wasn't saying it publicly, I was. People could feel a kind. A lot of people could feel a kind of energy from me. And, you know, people weren't always right about that. Some days I was happy, and people said I was sad, so you can't.

Really win, but some days they just say, what's wrong with your eyes?

And some days they just say, what's wrong with your eyes? Because I have dark circles under my eyes. Yeah, exactly. But my point is, people reward us for those things. People don't, you know, the work you do to be happy on your own, people don't reward you for. There's no big clapping celebration for I finally found happiness.

Well, also, you know, not to get too deep into the philosophy of it all, but I think I think mental health is really sort of young in terms of the way that society accepts it. And I think- I'm more Freud, but sure. But it's really young, you know? And I think, like, talking about love is easy. It's easy to package your life up in a way that people want to celebrate love. They want to celebrate happiness. I think celebrating the way in which you've overcome anxiety, adversity, heartbreak, you're not necessarily going to publicize it in the same pretty package that people can celebrate you on. And I would actually argue that that's something that's changing. I'm just trying to be positive towards society.

No, but I think it's just, it's what's easy to celebrate and reward. We celebrate people who say we just We just had our 20-year wedding anniversary without any knowledge of their relationship. That might be terrible news. We don't know. We don't know what kind of pain someone is enduring to stay in something that where someone is just constantly subjugating them, making them unhappy, making them not feel desired. Bullying them and we give out prizes because someone made it to year 10 or year 20 or year 30. But there should be just as many prizes for people who get out of relationships that they shouldn't be in. People who have the courage to leave.

To me, the through line here, the really, the big part of your point that's resonating with me is the theme of honesty. If you're honest with yourself and you get engaged and you get all that attention, and you know it's like a really beautiful relationship, then awesome, get all the attention you want. But because it comes from an honest place, loads of people get engaged to try to save the relationship or to just give it a shot or whatever. And that's fine, but they're not really being honest about it, right? And so this internal honesty, this moment that you switch on and you say like, all right, I'm going to accept this, that really just, that honesty really does set you free. to actually make progress. And I think that progress really can lead you towards real happiness.

If you're about to leave something and you know it's tremendously difficult for you to leave, you have to be honest with yourself about how hard the road ahead is going to be so that you don't expect it to be easy. I'm going to leave this person and I'm going to go through a really difficult time, and we prepare for that. You don't go and sign up for a marathon without training, right? You know, this is gonna be hard. I'm gonna make sure that I do the right things. And leaving a relationship is no different. You don't expect it to be easy. I'm gonna leave and all of a sudden I'm gonna be at peace. No, you're gonna have many moments of doubt and wondering whether you did the right thing. You're gonna have many lonely nights. You're going to have nights where you question yourself. You're going to have nights where you're terrified you'll never meet anyone else. You're going to have nights where you feel shame that you gave up so much of your life for this person. Where you're going to feel this fear that everything has changed since you've been in a relationship. Where you're going to feel this foolishness or this deep, deep hatred for yourself that you gave so much time to this person. You're going to cycle through so many difficult things. And those are exactly the things that if you're not careful, the fear of those things will keep you where you are. But what we have to remind ourselves is if we're in a relationship like that, I will never be happy. I will never have peace. I will never be free if I stay. Because anytime you start saying the status quo isn't that bad, And I have people say this to me. I'll be in a private session with them and people will say, you know, it's Matt, you know, the truth is it's like he's pretty great and I just, you know, it's not always bad. And I have to remind them, I didn't bring this to you. You brought this to me. I didn't go prying into your love life and ask you about a relationship and ask you to talk about this person and then tell me all of these things. And I went, Hmm, this doesn't sound seem okay. And you were like, Really? I'm having a great time. You signed up to work with me. And you, through tears, told me all of these ways that you're insecure, that you're anxious, that you're unhappy, that this person doesn't take care of you, that this person isn't there for you, that this person doesn't care about your needs. You told me all of this. So, you do not get to now tell me that it is not so bad because it is on your mind enough that you are talking to me about it right now. You could have been talking to me about anything in the world, and this is what you chose. So, remind yourself, this person is not going to change. and therefore I will never find peace or happiness or freedom by staying. Now, it's going to be hard either way. Staying is going to be misery and leaving for a time is going to be misery. But one of those directions is guaranteed misery in the future, and the other one is initial misery that will give way to All kinds of possibilities in terms of your happiness. Two difficult paths, one leads to treasure. Which one are you going to choose? One is guaranteed pain, the other one is the possibility of treasure. Which one do you choose? They're both hard.

You don't get to choose an easy one. I love that because it's not like it's guaranteed treasure. Exactly.

But it's an easy choice nonetheless, because it's just... It's still not a hard choice. yeah, because one of them is guaranteed pain. Look, I want to say this to everyone out there that you don't, you really, once we, once we get past our story that we're just super kind, super empathetic, you know, we're super loyal, and that's why we're still in it. And we see the, the deeper situation that's going on that we have not made ourselves worth more than this. Because, by the way, you can be kind to someone and just say, I'm gonna leave, but I'm gonna choose not to hate them. I'm gonna choose not to try to punish them. I'm gonna choose to leave with Grace. That's still kind. You don't get to com. You don't have to compromise your kindness. or your empathy by leaving. But the reason that you're not leaving is something deeper is because you don't feel worth more. You're terrified of what's next, the unknown. And it's easier to go back to your comfort zone, even if your comfort zone is suffering. because at least it's a kind of suffering you're used to. You know your way around that suffering. So the person you have to really face is yourself. You're the one keeping you there. You're the one deciding to stay. No one is coming to get you out of that jail. You have to save yourself. And that, by the way, requires real work. and real healing. We have a process in November for anyone who wants to come and do that work with us on the virtual Retreat. It's three days of the kind of healing I'm talking about. Go to mhvirtualretreat.com to learn more about that and book an appointment with one of our incredible kind Specialists. Well, there's only three of them. I mean, it's. We're not talk. We don't have a big team. There's three people. that every day are talking to people about what they're going through, what they want to emerge from and what new chapter they want to begin and help usher people towards the virtual retreat. If it's right for them, if it's not, they'll tell you. But if you go to mHVirtuAlretreat.com, you can book an appointment for that. But even if you do it yourself or with a therapist or with friends around you, I. I don't mind how you do it, but you have to work on the deepest fears that are keeping you there and overcome those. Or this will be a situation that you stay in your whole life. And I've seen it happen over and over again with people. and it's like from the outside, it's like the world's slowest car crash, watching people go through this and stay in these situations forever. If you stay, you'll be talking about it forever. If you leave and get over the initial pain, you'll be free forever. We would love to hear from you. If this has resonated with you, if you have feedback for us, let us know. How has this episode impacted you? Podcast@matthewhussy.com I think it'd be fun to have a little voice note right now. Is there someone else who's emailed in with a message for us?

Absolutely. There's a really lovely lady called Alison Cho who has sent in a voice note, which is my favorite, as I mentioned earlier. Send us a voice note. Here goes Alison's.

Hello, Jam's team. So I'd like to thank all of you for the incredible work that you do. This podcast is definitely one of my favorites, and I also think the name Love life is especially apt. It's not only helped me navigate my relationships but overall life as well. So in the last couple years, I've been dealing with a severe chronic health issue that has disrupted my life pretty significantly. And so just to hear Matthew's overall philosophy to life in terms of staying curious and open and I love what he said about creating magic from where I am and so that has really kind of helped me through this time. And so yeah, thank you all. I love the dynamics between all of you and especially Audrey's inputs. You are just such a bright light. So yeah, wishing all of you well and sending my love from Singapore as well.

Oh, Alison, I actually, it sounds like I picked it out because she's choosing these reviews. You've been choosing these reviews. No, it was in the agenda. But that's such a lovely voice note. Thank you so much, Alison.

Hang on. Who's responsible for the agendas?

Both of us.

Oh, yeah. It's like, to be honest with you, it's quite hard to find a review that doesn't mention you. oh, because you are a bright light.

It also continues our theme of having a very International sort of sources of our emails and reviews. And Singapore is in the top of my list of places I want to visit. Top five, I would say.

I want to visit Singapore Airport.

I want to do a speech in Singapore.

Okay, guys, guys.

What about you, Jameson?

I want to know why you want to visit Singapore.

For it.

Have you not seen it?

No.

Oh, man, we got. There's a waterfall at Singapore Airport that pours out of the ceiling.

Basically, it's.

Are you sure it's not just a leak?

No, dude, look at this. Look at that.

Yeah.

Tell me that's not magical.

The most beautiful aesthetic, in my opinion, is plants.

Isn't that crazy? I'm showing Jameson a picture of Singapore Airport right now.

It's really stunning.

Right. I'd hope you'd have more of a reaction when you got there.

Well, I am hyper aware that it's a podcast, so not the most visual.

I described what I was doing while people are listening. They, too, can go, 'Oh, if you.

Guys could only see this image right now, it's unbelievable.'.

It is a modern Marvel.

If anyone has a speech that they'd like to hire me for, in Singapore. We would love to come. Audrey would love to see the airport. Jamison would love to see Audrey's reaction to the airport. And I'd love to give a speech.

And I'd like to eat lots of the food.

Stephen wants to eat street food. So let us know. Let us know. We had a iTunes review here from first time listener, Mel, who says, I've been following Matthew for a while via TikTok and today decided to listen to an episode while I got my steps in. I valued the advice and appreciate the insight. Keep it coming. Well, I'm glad you've graduated from three second clips on TikTok to us here. That might officially make you the person with the longest attention span on TikTok. that you've come to this podcast and you've listened. So thank you for being here. Well, I think it's that time.

What time is that?

It's time for that part of that silly show where we do the pickles and here we go. Matt's good. Wait, what bit is it?

Well, I should say, Stephen, there was someone who posted on Instagram a story of just a basket of of peaches and pears that she had put out in her kitchen. And she said she could not fill this basket with peaches and pears without thinking of our podcast.

I saw that one.

So there you go. That's how. That's how much you've programmed us into people's brain.

I know how. I know how to come up with a hook, and I'll never let anyone tell me otherwise.

And I feel like you're withholding it from us, Steve. I haven't heard you work it in very often into the podcast in the last couple episodes, so just work on that for us.

Yeah, please. Okay.

Okay.

We, I did repost it. If anyone has any sort of any podcast related stories they want to put up on Instagram, we will repost them. Okay. Enough of this. Enough of this funny business. Let's get down to something serious. Jamerson, what is that I see?

Is that Indiana Jones?

I don't think so. It seems like it could be something else. Stephen, do you see it?

Some kind of explorer?

Some kind of mole-like figure. An enchanted mole-like figure.

No, it's not a mole. It's Audrey. Making her way over to the archives. She strapped on her little advice satchel, her little love specks, and she's entered the elevator. Taking it first down. Level one. Flirting tips. Level two. Attraction. level three, confidence. Level four, Taiwanese street food. Oh, she's got off on the wrong level. That's Stephen's level.

Get out of here.

Level five. Life. Life.

Don't look at me.

Oh, she's grabbed something. She's got something now. She's bringing it back up to the surface, dusting off her specs, unraveling the scroll. She opens it. Here she reads. From the archives.

Do you guys want to hear what I brought up from the archives?

Do we ever.

Yeah, go on then.

This of course is the part of the show where Audrey goes into our backlog of all of the programs we've ever created. and just grab something that caught her eye.

I have a really good one.

Where is it from?

It's from a program called How to Talk to Men, which is about how to talk to men. And it talks about lots of different- Seems aptly titled. Lots of different ways that you can talk to men. For this particular section, it talks about all of the different ways that you can approach someone when you're out and about, which I think people really struggle to do that, don't they? It's really difficult, especially nowadays with dating apps and things. I think there's a really kind of a general feeling that if you come up and talk to someone, they might just look at you like you're some kind of freak.

And we met because of my mighty courage.

Correct.

In approaching you.

That'S true.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Anyway, I feel like this is going to be a really nice little opener for people because it's a really difficult and nerve-wracking thing to do to go and approach someone. So in this particular part of the program, you talk about ways to approach someone so as to ensure that you don't get rejected. It's a really, really low risk approach. And you talk about what you can do when you're in a coffee shop. and you want to speak to the person who's sitting near you, you can lean over and say, could you make sure no one steals this table while I go to the restroom? The reason I really, really like this is because I feel like you can basically leave your jacket or something on the desk and then go and use the bathroom, even if you don't need the bathroom. It's a really good way of breaking the ice and speaking to someone without showing any real interest. But what that means is that when you can come back from the bathroom, you can actually start a conversation with that person because you've already spoken to them. And I think it's really, really clever. So I saw it and I thought, what an amazing way to approach someone.

And also what a way to turn having to go into the bathroom into an advantage. You know, like it is always that there used to be that awkward moment in the coffee shop where it's just like, oh, God, what do I do with my laptop and my jacket? my, maybe don't do this with a laptop. It's a little bit too high stakes. But what about my, my coffee is half finished. I don't want anyone to throw it away. Now you can, now you can turn, use that as a little excuse to be a little bit brave, rejection free.

And I think it also will make the other person brave because if, if they thought you were cute and they wanted to talk to you, they've, they've just sort of found a really great excuse to be chivalrous and be there for you and do you a favor and it's really brilliant. So that's from How to Talk to Men and I really liked it and there are actually many, many other scripts. It was quite hard to pick one but I thought this one was particularly good.

So that's from How to Talk to Men and good news Jameson, people can literally go there now and get a free chapter because we've got a link that is getthefreechapter.com where one of the chapters from How to Talk to Men which is on flirting Obviously the next step once you start talking to someone.

You're telling me this secret scroll that Audrey had to go seven floors down to the earth to take, people can get a chapter for free at getthefreechapter.com?

Yeah. But it's more fun when you send Audrey down to the archives to get it.

Well, I'm just saying it's a great deal for people who want to go to get the free chapter.

They may want to take the tour down to the archives.

I wouldn't get down that's nasty.

You wouldn't recommend it?

Not floor five where Steve was.

No. You just don't want people down in your archives.

Your little knicknacks. Your little knicknacks down there.

Yeah, you don't want people rummaging around your secret archives.

I just think that, you know, whatever you do, don't stop off at level five with Stephen's Taiwanese.

Level four. I'll have you know.

Okay, yeah, that was quite traumatizing what I saw down there.

Stay out of there.

Well, you can go and get that free chapter on flirting from how to talk to men at getthefreechapter.com. Well, it's that bittersweet time again where we must leave you, but we leave you, of course, with the wrap up. It's been a hell of an episode, guys. Went deep on this one. The jams came together. Of course, we first heard from Ruth on age gaps. And how lovely to hear that Ruth, despite the age Gap, ended up finding love and someone of an age for her that worked out. We have heard from Nancy Mu on soul connections that have been given far too much weight when of course what's really important in life is the investment people actually give us, not the connection we simply feel in our mind. We've talked about self-compassion, the all-important thing, self-compassion, the thing that can be lacking when we find ourselves in a relationship with either a narcissist or someone who just treats us poorly over time. That compassion that is incomplete if it does not turn inwards towards ourselves. We've heard from Alison on creating magic where she is and the bright light of Audrey that apparently shines all the way to Singapore. We've talked about choosing the path that is hard because there is a hard path either way, but there is one hard path that leads to an easy life, and that is the one we must choose. We of course all want Stephen to say pickles, peaches and pears more. That's something we're all craving right now. So Stephen, if you will do the honors.

Pickles, peaches, plums, puddings, pilchards and pears.

Thank you all. for listening to us and our ridiculous words. And of course, thank you to Mel, who's out there somewhere either watching TikTok or listening to us on the Stepper. We appreciate you. We will see you all next time on the next episode of Love Life. Remember, while you are searching for the love you want, love the life you you already have because there is magic in it where you stand right now. We'll see you next time. Well, see you later everyone. ti next time.

Paco, but Papaco, but Pa pco, pa Papeco I see that blog site. It's working. We're that blog site.