If You’ve Never Been in a Relationship, Watch THIS

You know, it's like all of a sudden it's this big deal. And what that signals to someone else is it's a, you need to think about this as it being a big deal that people are taking their cue from you.

Matthew.

Stephen.

We've been very quiet this year. I would say so far haven't left the house much. We've been very much bunkered.

Not a word, bunkered.

Bunkered and hunkered.

Bunkered and hunkered.

Strange phrase, but go on.

We've been bunkered and hunkered at home because we've been our heads down, working, staying in la. I'm wondering if we have any fun trips coming up.

Matthew, could you be talking about a little trip we're doing in October?

Oh, is it October? Where's that?

Oh, it's in Miami. Stephen, have you forgotten?

I think you're talking about the Matthew Hussey retreat now. The two day version of the Matthew Hussey retreat.

First time ever, Stephen. Used to be 6 days, now it's 2. Much easier to come to than ever. More affordable travels easier, less time off work. You can come, you can change your life in two days and get the hell out.

Okay. And am I going to work on my core confidence that retreat you will.

Have a better relationship with yourself by the end of it? Yes.

Am I going to deal with my unhealthy patterns and habits?

There will be patterns that you've had your whole life, that you've struggled to overcome fatal flaws. Dare I say that you will be able to finally shift? Yes.

Okay. And I'm a man. Do you think I could pop along?

I. Yes, actually for the first time.

Well, because you used to only have women on the retreats.

Only women before. Now men can come in droves. Oh, well, any men have been watching our content for the first time, they are officially cordially invited.

Okay, where can I go and grab that?

MH retreat.com Stephen and is it true.

You have early bird tickets right now?

Absolutely. They are deeply discounted. Only for two more days, so you can go. Do you need me to repeat the website again?

Yeah, please, just let me write that down.

Mhretreat.com MH retreat.com okay, and that's www.the very same.

Right. Okay, well thanks very much.

Oh, you're very welcome. I don't know if that was helpful to anyone else out there, but if you did want to check it out, please do. We would love to have you.

Hi, my name is Mary, I'm 40 years old and I really have no dating experience. In my 20s and 30s, I was not really interested in relationships. I had things going on in my life. But now that I'm 40, I am looking for my person. But I struggle with my lack of experience and then seeing that as a deficit, which I know it's not. But how do I put myself out there with my lack of experience and not let that hinder me from finding my person and knowing my value?

Oh, my God, Mary, thank you so much for sending in that question. I have so many thoughts. I just want to say real quick this I hear the way Mary said, like, I can't help but see it as a deficit, which I know it isn't, but that's how I see it. It's like there is this story that you are telling yourself, Mary, which is, I don't have experience, and that lack of experience is going to get me rejected. People are not going to be attracted to me, or I'm not going to know what to do, or it's going to somehow get in the way of me finding love. And it's almost like the rational higher self part of you knows that actually that's not true and it isn't a deficit and you're okay, but the scared kind of little girl in you is like, hasn't caught up with that and is still afraid and does think it's a deficit. So you're battling between these two very, very conflicting stories and narratives inside of yourself. But there's so much story there. There's so much story there holding you back, and it's talk about rejecting yourself. Right?

Yeah, well, it's. Firstly, Mary, I. I don't want you to put yourself in some special category because actually, what you're talking about, we hear all the time. I mean, it's so common to. To all different ages and older than you. We've had people say the exact same thing. I don't have any experience. I've never had a real partner. I've never had sex. You know, where does that leave me? And the reality is doesn't leave you anywhere near as far behind everyone else as you. Your insecurity is telling you it does. We all have growth spurts at different ages. And there are plenty of people who have no more relationship experience at 40 than they did at 25, even though they've been in relationships that whole time. Because what they're doing is repeating the same pattern over and over again every year with a new person. So you have people who, you know are in a series of I remember, you know, having a series of relationships where I basically played out the same. The, you know, kind of the same lessons, the same relationships over and over again over, like, 18 months. If you'd have asked me, like, how much. How many new things am I learning every time? I don't know that I was. Because I was just repeating something. And so a lot of people get to 40 years old and go, wow, I need to change something. And when they change something, they are really. The next relationship feels like having a relationship for the first time because all of a sudden they're embracing a relationship where, let's say, there's kindness and true companionship and there's not a toxic dynamic. That person, I promise you, feels as out of their element in that new relationship as you will feel in your first relationship. So it's. And, you know, the. There's, you know, when sometimes people. When people say this, they're talking about sexual experience, and sexual experience is like something you can catch up on surprisingly quickly. It's not something you don't need to be like, oh, I'm gonna be years behind everyone else. No, you're like a month away from being where other people are. You're a month away and a kind and loving, like, teammate in the bedroom away from being where other people are. Because. And so what I think you need, Mary, right now is a You. You want to find people who are kind, find people who are compassionate, find people who don't judge you for where you're at, but see that there's something interesting in where you're at. Which, by the way, does start also with you, because you have to. The way you frame and tell this story is going to affect the way that people receive it. If you say to yourself, you know, there is real value in what I've done. I have focused on other areas of my life. Where have I focused that has been meaningful, and that has given me some real advantages that I wouldn't have done in the same way had I been just jumping from one relationship to another. Where, you know, what have I been able to avoid so far in my life that has meant that I haven't got a lot that I'm having to work through because I went through that. What do I have in my life right now as excitement because I find myself at 40, ready to fully engage in my love life? That's a hugely exciting thing.

You kind of have this beautiful, clean slate. And it's obviously not easy to immediately relate when you are just thinking of what haven't I done though. But yeah, I think the more you can connect with like, you, someone, someone who, if you're gonna be ready to love someone, you know what you want, you know you're a kind person, you're gonna be giving and loving. Like people will happily grow and learn with you. Like, people will happily give you, get, give, give you allowance for the fact, like, this is new for you. But that also kind of makes it this beautiful thing of like, you're going to get to experience all of that for the first time. And that's like a special that most people go, oh, I wish I could still have that first feeling of falling in love, being in a relationship, you know, that first time people have is like very memorable. Right. And, and so, yeah, I think it can be something if you can connect to it, it can be like a really special thing you're going to experience.

And maybe Mary is worried about how to bring it up.

Yeah.

And if that's the case, do you have any advice for her?

Well, I. Mary, this. There's absolutely no need for you to go on a date and talk about this like, as, like the headline.

Yes.

We'Re very quick to make our biggest insecurity the headline.

That's so true.

I tell the story. I've told the story before when I've been on tour about how many years ago we were doing a weekend in London and there were two women. There actually may have been New York, but there were two women there. And this just happened completely coincidentally. But one woman put her hand up and she talked about how, you know, her question was like, how do I talk about the fact that I'm a single mom with kids at home? And it was a very heavy thing for her. Another woman got up and started talking about having been with us the day before, how she went out the last night with all this confidence and talk to people and she'd started telling the story of this one guy that she was talking to and having a great time with. And she. I said, how did you start talking to him? And she said, oh, I just walked up to him and I said, you have a really cute chin dimple. She said, it's not as cute, quite as cute as my daughter's cheek dimples, but it's your. Your chin dimple is pretty adorable. And they ended up swapping numbers, having this amazing conversation. Now, little did she know that casually she had done in the first sentence what another woman was asking me, how do I bring this up? Like, she was told, the joke I made is like, she was talking as if she had Darth Vader waiting at home for when the guy came home the first time. And the other woman managed to talk about her daughter in a way that actually was kind of fun and flirty and playful. It was her daughter wasn't even the headline there. It was just, my daughter's a part of my life. So you have two people in the same situation who's. Who have a very different approach to the way they share their story. In fact, with one of them, it wasn't even sharing a story. It was just part of her life. So you can imagine how this could play out in so many different ways on a date. It could be. He says, when, you know, so when was your last relationship? And she says, I, you know, my relationships have not been a focus in my life so far. You know, I've done this, I've done that, and I have been, you know, I have been someone who is just not. I have not done a great job of prioritizing my love life. And, and that's. And she can laugh about it and be like, you know, so, you know, now I'm actually putting myself out there. And it's really fun. It's really fun to be making it a focus again. That is a very different story than when was your last relationship and her going? Well, to tell you the truth, I haven't had a relationship in my life. You know, it's like all of a sudden it's this big deal. And what that signals to someone else is it's a. You need to think about this as it being a big deal, that people are taking their cue from you. You tell people what to think about whatever your stuff is, by the way that you share it. If you share it like it's baggage, they will pick it up and feel their weight of that baggage. If you play with it and, and talk about it differently or it's just part of the. Is part of 100 details about you that you're going to share over the next five days. Then it's. It's so light.

There's a thing that Seth Godin says about, like, fear where he says, can you dance with the fear? And I think of a similar thing here. It's not, you know, that thing can be a presence in your life, but can you kind of dance with it instead of it being an enemy that you have to, like, I don't open the closet because it's in there. Like, can you kind of dance with it and incorporate it into a part of you and like reframe it. Like, it might be like, yeah, I have, like. The cool thing is you have no baggage. Loads of people have baggage from their past relationships. You're like, I have no baggage. Or exes or hang ups from previous relationships. So you can reframe any of these things as its own advantage.

Yeah. And it's about accepting those parts of yourself fully as well. Mary. Because going into a date not feeling insecure about it starts with you. Because if you go, this isn't anything to be ashamed of. I am one of millions of people in that situation where I haven't had a serious relationship by the time I'm 40 or 50 or 60. Like, it's not that uncommon. It is just, I am, that's just my story. And I'm, I'm not ashamed of it. That's really, really important. It's an important part of the process. Because then you can go into a date not carrying any shame and shame on someone who makes you feel shame about it. If you're not ashamed of it, then they can go f themselves.

Yeah, I love that idea of like, yeah, not having shame. Like, once you just realize there's loads of people who struggle with this. It's like shyness. Like, okay, I'm shy. There's millions of people who are shy.

Right. My shyness doesn't make me special. It doesn't make me special.

Yeah. I don't have a special issue that no one else has. Like, yeah, millions of people are shy.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And again, it's the same, it's the same in the bedroom. You, you can have all this fear around. What does that look like? When I get to the bedroom and they have loads of experience and I don't. But you know, be, be prepared to play with it.

And people can have lots of experience and still be terrible in bed.

So that's absolutely true.

Experience does not mean good. They won't even know that you have no experience because it really doesn't correlate necessarily.

And just, and, and know that you're like this. The next partner doesn't have to be your partner for life. So if you get some experience and that teaches you some things and you feel like you get a bit more comfortable in yourself. This is why, by the way, I think it's really important, Mary, that you index for kindness in your next partner. Because you don't. Your next experience does not have to be a perfect experience. It doesn't have to be this, like, blow you away romance that where you feel like, oh my God, that was, you know, the sex was amazing and that was just. I've never felt like that. It doesn't have to be that. It can be completely imperfect. It can be awkward, it can be fumbling, it can be you just figuring it out. But what you do want is someone who is kind of Steven and Audrey. Is there a question you think people should ask Matthew AI at the end of this episode?

I think you should ask him for a reframe.

Yeah, he's really good at that, actually.

Ask Matthew. Have you asked Matthew AI to help you reframe a situation that right now you're thinking is holding you back or getting in the way of you finding love? Something that you think is specific to you makes life hard for you? Ask Matthew AI. How could I start to see this as a positive? What would it look like to reframe this? Help me to get out of my own way with this? I think that would be great.

AskMH.com is the link.

Yeah, go to AskMH.com and you can ask Matthew AI that question right now. Once again, the link for tickets for the MH Retreat Early Bird seats, which are only available for two more days, is is@mhretreat.com thank you so much for listening to Love Life. Email US podcast matthew hussey.com if there's anything you want to feedback about the episode or for future episodes. We love hearing from you and we will see you next time.