What You Lose With "Backburner Relationships"

There's no shame in a relationship not working out, but it's a shame if it doesn't work out, because the whole time you spent your time in it, you didn't actually go all in. Well, here we are again on the Love Life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey and Monfre, Stephen Hussey. How are you, Steve?

Hello, chums. I'm very well, sir. How you doing over there in sunny old La La Land?

Well, I'm very good, Steve. I. You were a bit stressed before the podcast. You were. Before we went live, you were a little salty, a little stressed.

I was a bit stressed. I was a bit flustered.

Yeah. We had tech issues, didn't we? You couldn't get your camera on. Me and Jameson were just sitting here waiting for you.

Producer. Producer problems. Yeah, let's call it that.

Well, I want to read a couple of reviews because we said, you know, we've been reading the reviews, people have been enjoying it and I just want to. I just want to give a shout out to some of the people who have left reviews recently. We had Janelle, Mr. Says. Well, she says, what song is that? I'm referring to the one at the beginning of the show, I suppose. She says, great show. I really enjoy Matthew's content and here. And I'm looking forward to the retreat. That's good. Retreats coming up, Steve. We've got like, how long this month?

Yeah.

Well, this is a great time for a word from our sponsors. Hi, I'm Matthew Hussey. You may remember me from such shows as the one you're listening to right now. We have a retreat coming up in some number of days, depending on what day this episode is released, but it's essentially coming up on the 24th of September, and it runs for three days until the 26th is going to be all about you, your emotions, your life, what you want the next chapter of your life to be about, what you're trying to do with your time and changing your confidence. It's going to be an amazing event. People sign up all the way through the year for this and a lot of people wait an entire year to come. And if you sign up now, you don't have to wait an entire year. It's going to be this month and you can go and sign up. Book your appointment to talk about it@mhvirtualretreat.com so back to the review, of course, she says, however, I really want to know what song it is that they're playing in the podcast. It's Great. And I want to hear the whole thing. Well, Jameson can tell a story on this. Where did we get the song for the podcast?

The song is called Team Single and the artist is named Riz. Straight out of Sacramento, where I'm from, Matt. And the producer is one of my best friends in the world, Chez Gonzales. An absolute, absolute classic. He must have made this song like eight years ago, could be ten years ago. And I've loved it ever since. And then we used it for almost all of the Love the Journey episodes because I loved it so much. And it's Team Single. I mean, that's. That's your wheelhouse right there.

Well, if you, if you're deep cuts and you watch the Love the Journey episodes, then you know that song from the Love the Journey episodes. And here is again, on the podcast, Love says, I don't ever miss an episode. I'm in the happiest, healthiest relationship with myself and an amazing man. So she is no longer Team Single. This podcast is so much more than how to get the guy. It has great insights on how to get the life. I couldn't agree more. More. If you want to leave a review, go to itunes on Apple. You'll have a chance to leave us a review. And we love reading them. Stephen, any emails come in?

Yes, we got a couple of lovely emails, Matt. So one is from faraway places. Diana, who says, dear team Matthew Hussey, longtime podcast listener, first time emailer. I absolutely had to write after the conversation about penis size. You guys need to set the record straight. The whole thing about size is so dumb and guys need to know about it. My boyfriends have been on both side of the spectrum and frankly, the smaller ones were so much better. I had one boyfriend who was so big he literally, like could not have sex with most people, including me. And another boyfriend I loved more than anything, who nonetheless was super well endowed and, and thought that his size made up for, let's say, a lack of finesse. I loved him, but I was also sort of exhausted by it. I think this is a super cultural thing because when I moved to France, everything changed. And while my boyfriends here have consistently been on the smaller side, they are so super enthusiastic and down for whatever that it's so much better. Enthusiasm trumps size every day of the week. And not to be super judgy, but I feel like women who don't think think that yet maybe just haven't had better. And there are real culture ideas here at play. Power, domination. My whatever is bigger than yours. And I just think it makes. It makes for better sex all around. I half cannot believe I'm writing this because I'm such a fan of your collective work and under any other circumstances would try to seem cool. But I think even more that guys, especially younger ones who might otherwise feel bummed out, need to know that size is irrelevant. Enthusiasm, openness, a loving attitude. They're so much more important and have nothing to do with how many inches are on offer from Diane.

Thank you, Diane.

I think that's a really insightful, interesting take, though. And I don't think we were saying. I don't think we were saying size was everything. I think we were saying we. You boys grow up with insecurities about it. And that show we talked about sex life made many men feel rather short, lacking.

Coming up short, I sent Jameson a picture of the view count on that video. And because it was obviously higher than some of our other recent videos, and I just said all of. We spend all this time trying to sound intelligent and all it took was talking about dicks. Jameson's reply was, when are we not talking about dicks? Which I thought was actually a fair comment.

There he goes.

Well, fair enough. Now let's never speak of the show again because we have dedicated. We've talked about it way too much for a show that's not even that popular.

Yeah, we may have driven a few, a few people to Netflix on that one. So, Matthew, I want to talk to you today about, you know, a modern phenomenon in relationships and kind of get your thoughts on it. I mean, maybe your thoughts will be fairly clear cut, but I think this is interesting if this is something new or not. And it is the idea of partners, people having what they call back burner relationships. So this was a. An article in Psychology Today that talked about how backburners are people with whom one maintains contact in the hope of someday pursuing a romantic or sexual encounter. The most favored method for keeping in touch with backburners is texting, followed by various social media channels. And what it basically said is that roughly like 70 something percent of singles have backburners. But more troubling, basically over half, about like 56% of those in committed relationships have, according to this survey. Let's always take these with a pinch of salt. These are Limited surveys, etc. But it is in psychology today, about 56% of those in committed relationships reported having a back burner person or relationship where that might be someone they, you know, have a bit of, not, not necessarily even amorous contact with. But they have some interactions. They share things, maybe share secrets. They kind of, maybe even give assurances that they're sort of interested in that person or just like some keeping them around in orbit, perhaps with the idea that maybe they in future would be interested in that person. I found this in the modern world. It's not surprising that this is very possible. People I don't know about you, but like, I could still find most of, if not all my exes on social media now. It would be possible to have contact with them. Definitely the possibility is there. But that does seem kind of high, doesn't it? Like 52%. Or do you think that's. That's fairly human, that people would have some kind of backup option in mind?

Well, it depends what you call a backup option. I think that there's. It's probably not high if you just define that backburner thing as someone who you just haven't explicitly said, no, there's nothing between us, and you're. They also don't know that you're with someone and you kind of even casually keep the thing alive by texting, then I. If that's considered a back burner because you know that there is some underlying attraction there, even if it's not spoken, then it's probably not high. That probably, that probably is fairly realistic.

And do we count that as a form of. I mean, is that just another shade of infidelity? Is it just a kind of micro cheating, as they might say?

If you're continuing to engage someone and you're in a relationship and you, especially if it turns flirtatious, you don't, you, you, you avoid telling them you're in a relationship. And in truth, if you find yourself going out of your way to not tell those individuals that you're in a relationship, I think that's where you have to suspect yourself, is if you're talking to someone who you claim is just a friend, but you're not actually making explicit that you are in a relationship, that. That to me then strays into that territory, especially if it would be organic to do so. If someone says, what have you been up to? And you happen to have been with your boyfriend or girlfriend for the last two weeks, or you've just been on vacation with them, and you fail to mention that, then that to me starts to stray into that territory.

Yeah, I think that's right. And. But you also have these people where they would know you're in a relationship. Right. But is there some kind of subtle way where you are both keeping in Contact as a like, well, we do have something and maybe we'll see if we're both single again, you know, maybe we'll give each other a call and you're kind of just keeping them there to know, hey, I'm here. If you break up with that person.

Well, yeah, I mean it, it's tricky. If you've, if you've hooked up before with that person, then it's firstly, your partner, in my opinion, deserves to know that, oh, this is. I'm maintaining a relationship here, but I have actually been with this person and that's. That then should be something that's. That your partner is, you're sensitive to with your partner. It has to be something that you actually, you know, those, those things. If it were the other way round and our partner was friends with someone that they had been with and now they're staying friends with them and it's an active friend. It's one thing to be cordial with someone, it's another thing to have an active friendship with someone that you're maintaining that you're regularly texting them, you're regularly having conversations with them. That's a, that's a different thing. And that deserves for your partner to feel comfortable with it or for you to take the time to explain to your partner what the relationship is today and, and why it's, you know, I'm a big believer in choose. Like, if you want to stay in touch with someone, you have to be honest with yourself. How important is it for me to stay in touch with this person? Do I really need this person as an ongoing friend in my life? I'm not saying you have. There has to. You and that person have to be. There has to be any bad energy. But what if you're really convincing yourself you must continue to be talking to this person? Ask yourself why. What is it that that friendship is bringing to you that your closer friends aren't bringing to you? You've probably got closer friends. You've probably got friends that you're, that you're, you know, that mean a lot to you that you actually spend time with. So what. What is the need to continue connecting with this person? And, and I think it becomes, if you're not careful, people can, can turn it into a form of. It's like not really committing to the person you're with.

Yeah. And it can almost be a subtle. It can almost be a way of slow self sabotage because you're inviting another presence to create jealousy, to create conflict and create problems that otherwise wouldn't exist if you weren't maintaining this.

Exactly. And then you have to say, well, how important is it? How worth it is it? What's the reason I'm doing this?

Yeah, I think for some people, I think just the times we live in, it becomes irresistible for people to. I think they start with keeping tabs on their ex, and then it might be checking in occasionally, and then it might be like saying. Commenting and saying hello. And I think it can become this kind of like just keeping tabs. Like, maybe if they're ever single again, we'll. I'll hit them up or something. It's just there's so many shades away, and, and it's a thing. Because I don't want to create paranoia or anything. And I think that is a problem with our time where people have so many sources to talk to other people. Everyone becomes so paranoid of, like, is someone cheating on me? Is someone on social media flirting with other people? But they just kind of think, well, I just want to keep a hand. A hand in there.

Yeah, I. I'm a big believer that when you're still. When you're still leaving the door open to those different options you are. You're actually denying the relationship you're in, the chance to be all that it can be, because you're not actually seeing who you are. When you cut off your options and go all in, you're not seeing how the relationship can evolve from a place of true security, true safety, real, real commitment. There's no shame in a relationship not working out. But it's a shame if it doesn't work out, because the whole time you spent your time in it, you didn't actually go all in. That, to me, is. Is time that's kind of time wasted because you're not. You're not going and doing other things. You're not dating other people. You're not. It's not like you are actually going out with any of those people that you're, quote, keeping on the back burner. You're not. But you're also not fully into. Invested in the situation you're in. You're somewhere in the. In no man's land. And, And I. And I do think that's a shame to know what a relationship is. You do actually have to let go of those other options. Right now that I'm thinking about it, when you just talk about the whole back burner thing, that is an indication of our unwillingness to be present with the situation we're in. It's an. It's A way of not choosing. And, you know, on our retreat, we talk about how, you know, the, the it's, you know, answers are a reward for doing things. We talk about this on day one of the retreat. If you want answers in life, you have to actually go, go and do something. If you want answers about what the right career is, you do actually have to taste some careers. You do actually have to go and try something. You do actually have to immerse yourself in something and that starts to give you answers. You can't get answ just sitting there and intellectualizing everything. And I don't think you can get answers from a relationship by being halfway in. You get answers by, if you decide, you know what, I'm actually going to give this a shot. I'm not talking about on day three of meeting someone or in week three even. But if you've decided to have a committed relationship with someone, then that's the time to say right now, I don't know if this is going to be forever or not, but right now, this is what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it really well and I'm going to see what it can be for everyone listening right now. If you have not booked your retreat appointment for the virtual retreat, it is coming up on the 24th to the 26th of September. Registration closes on the 19th. That means there is so little time now to go and book your appointment that this could be one of the last opportunities to do it. So go to mhvirtualretreat.com book your appointment, get in before the 19th because after that, doors close and we are not taking new attendees. If you don't get in on this round, it's going to be all the way till next year, well into next year. Before we do another one of these, join it now. Get the progress for the end of the year and start the next year right, because you have this blueprint for how to live your life going forward. Once again, the link is mhvirtualretreat.com to go and book your appointment to speak to one of our specialists about the program and get your place. Stephen, thank you.

Thank you, Pickles. Thank you, brother.