In this episode of Love Life, Matthew Hussey examines a common early‑relationship scenario that can sabotage a new romance: the partner’s territorial reaction when a past friend or ex‑partner is mentioned. He explains why men (and women) often become insecure and develop double standards, linking the behavior to unhealthy attachment, perceived unfairness, and the “catch‑22” of wanting a partner who is both inexperienced and highly experienced. Hussey then offers practical strategies for women to defuse the situation: avoid using the partner’s language, reframe the past relationship in neutral terms, adopt a bored, non‑emotional tone, and emphasize present commitment. He also stresses the importance of kindness, mutual sensitivity, and recognizing that everyone’s past is inevitable. The talk concludes with a call to stop slut‑shaming and to accept that attractive, adventurous partners will have histories.
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Matthew Hussey here with Love Life. So there's a situation that I think ruins a lot of early new romantic relationships. I'm gonna give you this scenario, and I know you've probably been there before. You can play it out in the worst possible way. It starts like, this one person brings up that they have this friend. If it's a woman, a early on in the relationship, she'll be like, oh, yeah, one of my. One of my guy friends, blah, blah, blah. And one of the immediate things that goes through his head is, well, who is this guy friend? And have you hooked up? Now this happens the other way too. Of course. He'll get a message, it's from Jane, and you go, did you. So is that. Who is Jane? Is she someone that you've slept with before? Or what's. What's going on? Is she just a friend? Have you always just been friends? We have this sort of initial insecurity and territorial nature that immediately makes us question the opposite sex. Now, this would be ridiculous if we weren't right a lot of the time. Because of course, a lot of the time we are right. We question someone, we go, well, have you ever been with that person? And we'll find out, oh, maybe there was a little bit of history there. Now, ladies, I'm going to be speaking to you in this episode because it's a guy problem, I think, even more than a woman's problem, that guys get overtly taken territorial in this sense. You can have, for example, a woman who says, and I, this actually came up recently with a friend of mine. She said to me, this, this guy that I'm dating and I really like, he got really frustrated because I, I ended up telling a story and indirectly it referenced a guy that I knew a few months ago. And I said, you know, it's this friend of mine. And he said, well, have you hooked up with him? And she said, yes. Now she, she said, I was just being honest and I don't like lying. So I just said yes. But ever since then, he's had this massive problem with it. So much so that, by the way, this guy is from Chicago. He now has an issue with Chicago. Like, you know when that happens? And you can, like, you could be sitting here listening to this episode and thinking, that's absurd. But I know you've done this. I know that you've had someone that you're jealous of that your partner has slept with or done something with, and they're in another city and you develop this irrational hatred for that City or that place. It could even be a restaurant. It could be a part of town. It could be, in some cases, it's a country. Like you've dated someone from a country and then you just completely fell out of bed with that country afterwards. You said, that's it, I'm never going there again. Screw Argentina. Now, how do you get around this situation? Because it's tricky. You don't want to get into the territory of always lying to your partner and saying, no, nothing happened there. I have a few tips for this. Firstly, I want to, I want to help you understand the male psychology here because it's easy to berate the opposite sex for the things that they do. Their bad habits. This is one of man's, and I mean literally man's bad habits is that we get overly territorial and we develop this kind of double standard towards women. You know, oh, it would be okay for me to have hooked up in the past, but you hooking up, no, I don't like that. Right. Men develop this double standard towards women. That's not okay. However, understanding where it comes from is very important. Before you deal with it, one of the problems for this is men's unhealthy attachment to women, seeming pure and innocent and never having been with anybody at the same time, by the way, as wanting her to be wildly experienced and amazing in the bedroom. Catch 22 there. But guys do go through this all of the time. The second problem guys have is, and this, by the way, ladies, you contribute towards this one a little bit. This is an interesting one. If he's been courting you for the last three weeks because he likes you and you like him, and he's been taking you on dates and great dinners and these romantic scenarios and he's just now getting to the point of sleeping with you and then he hears that you hooked up with some guy 6 months ago on a one night stand or someone you'd barely seen and he was just sleeping with you willy nilly, so, so to speak, without having to do anything. None of the fine dining. A guy thinks, screw this. So hang on, I, you, you, you're with me right now and it took me three weeks to get to this point with you. And then some guy you don't even care about was able to get this from you in one week without even trying. How is that okay? He imagines him bragging to his friends about how he slept with you and you're just this person he sleeps with whenever he wants. And here he is spending money on dinners, taking you out trying to turn you into his girlfriend and having a harder time than the dick who didn't have to do anything. So that annoys a guy, it frustrates a guy. Now, women, I know where you're coming from. This is the backwards logic. Why? No, the reason I made you wait is because I like you, right? How mental is that? But it's the truth. If you don't care about a guy, you're far more likely to jump into bed with him than a guy you really like. And you go, oh, well, no, I just, I didn't want to ruin it with you, so I made you wait. That, by the way, although I understand it is not logic that a guy can understand, he just thinks he's insignificant, that he's not as special as the last guy. So when this issue comes up, understand that it both comes from a pig headed place and a wildly insecure place at the same time. And you have to deal with that with a certain level of sensitivity. Now the first thing is do not use his language. The mistake my friend made is when he said, did you hook up with him? She said, yes. In other words, all he now hears is, I hooked up with him. Use your own language instead. For example, you say, look, it wasn't hooking up. We saw each other for a little while, we saw each other for a couple of months, okay? Now they may be the same thing, but you're using your language instead of his. A guy will always use the most self harming language he can because he's trying to be. Especially when he's trying to paint a picture about you. He uses coarse language to describe it. But if you reiterate that language or you just affirm it, it's like you're the one saying it. Guys will lead you into that trap. So instead, soften the language in your own way. Put it in your terms. Second, when you talk about it, be bored of it. Don't say, oh, this, you know, this guy. Don't look, he was an idiot. I can't stand him. Don't. Do not start dissing the guy from the past or talking badly about him. All it shows is how much you care how much that guy was able to hurt you and still is in your head right now. Be bored about it. Be like, look, yeah, you know, we saw each other for a little bit. It's so done, so done. I'm so over it. And truthfully, I don't even want to be talking about it. It bores me. Be bored. That's the Best reaction you can have to guys from your past is not to be angry, not to be overly sentimental, just to be bored of it. Because for a guy in your present, that's something that isn't intimidating to him is your boredom, but your anger. As soon as he hears your anger, he thinks, oh, God, she really liked this guy. So be bored of it. Use your own language and be a little sensitive. In other words, you can say to him, look, truthfully, I'm with you now, and I care a ton about you, and you're my only interest, and I don't care about anyone I've been with in the past. That's not my interest right now. That's boring to me. You're interesting to me because you're who's in my life right now, and I want to put all of my attention on you. So be sensitive with it. Guide it in the direction you want to go. And don't feel like you don't. It doesn't have to get your backup just because he deals with it badly. And always remember, you know, kindness goes a long way. Always remember when. When the. The situation is reversed. You want his sensitivity as well. If you're insecure, if you're jealous, if you're going through something. You also want his kindness as well. So be kind. Men. By the way, quick note. If you're listening, stop slut shaming. You know who you are. We do it all the time. We date women. We get annoyed with stuff that they do that we do the exact same thing, and it's because we're territorial and we're insecure and we have a hard time imagining it. I get it. I've been through the exact same thing. But we got to get over it. Because if we want someone who's the type of person we actually want, someone who's lived, someone who's, you know, up for adventure as someone who's exciting and interesting and has lived a little. Guess what? Those people come with a past. They're not a clean slate. Okay, thank you, my friends. I will speak to you soon. Appreciate you listening to Love Life.
