Why Your Path To Relationship Will Look Different To Everyone Else’s | Rewind

Every day, our world gets a little more connected, but a little further apart. But then there are moments that remind us to be more human.

Thank you for calling Amica Insurance. Hey, I was just in an accident. Don't worry, we'll get you taken care of.

At Amica, we understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking.

It's human.

Amica, empathy is our best policy.

This is an ad by Regain Couples Therapy and features real testimonials. This was our first time trying therapy, and honestly, it was long overdue. Looking back, we just wish we had started sooner. Regain's qualified therapists help couples when they can't get there on their own. We thought it was intimacy issues, but Andrea helped us uncover a deeper root cause we hadn't even realized was there. Visit regain.com/couplespod to get 10% off your first month. Regain, powered by BetterHelp.

You may have an ideal path in your mind. That doesn't mean it's going to be your path. And you can't screw up your path because it's your path. Welcome everybody to the Love Life Podcast. I am Matthew Hussey and this is a clip from the archives that I think is really gonna help you today. Check it out and I'll speak to you at the end of the episode.

I think as a woman, personally, I think that being single, when you want to be in a relationship and you're looking for love, being single at a certain point in your life is really hard. Like it's unbelievably isolating and difficult and makes you feel like there is something wrong with you. And it's scary as well. So I think everybody, nobody is impervious to that feeling. Some people get lucky where they meet.

People.

When they're a little bit younger, when they're maybe in their late 20s and they just hit that kind of sweet spot of just meeting somebody they want to settle down with at a time that makes sense for you to settle down. But I think that let it just be said that nobody is impervious to how hard that is and how difficult it would be. And I think if you find yourself in that situation, whoever you are, you will have, as in the situation being you are single, you are looking for love, you want to be in a relationship, and it's not going anywhere. You're not finding that connection. I think that is an unbelievable, an unbelievably difficult situation to be in. And I don't think you can necessarily, you can do things to quieten it, but I think it is just an ongoing struggle because until you do meet someone, you will have that fear that you're not going to. And if that's something you really want, you're essentially scared of not getting the thing that you really want, which is terrifying, whatever area of your life. But I think also realizing that everybody is kind of one breakup away or one situation away from being single. And no one is safe in terms of, no one is safe in their relationship, in their jobs, in their lives, in their looks, in anything. Nothing is for certain. And so we're not completely alone when we're in that situation. You know, it's not a case of like, you're the freak over here who hasn't got what they want and everybody else does. Because no one is safe.

And that's what levels the playing field, really. I mean, we think that it's so uneven between people who are in relationships and people who are not. But anything can change at any moment for anybody. And does often.

So.

There is a sense in which people are always entering and leaving the relationship room. of life. But I do think that people would benefit from separating the... Because when we talk about single shaming, shaming is an interesting word, right? There's fear mongering that is its own thing. That's like someone taking your fear of being alone and amplifying it. Shaming suggests there's something inherently wrong in what you're doing and that you should feel ashamed of the fact that you haven't found anyone. That's the really, that's the kind of insidious part of what people do. And I think that it's a step in the right direction simply to remove the shame. from being single, even if you can't eradicate all of the fear of being single. Because the fear of being single is a human thing. That's not, I would argue, a societal thing. That's a human thing.

What is lots of people fear being alone in many ways? Like, what if I. I lose all my friends or, you know, people don't. You know, whatever. People fear being isolated in certain ways, right? Even if it's not being single.

And even if you remove the word fear from it, you can just have sadness. I may not be afraid necessarily, but I am sad. I am sad because I know there is this really wonderful experience of life to be had, and I am not experiencing it. Or I could be sad that Time is moving on and I'm, my friend who has been in a relationship for 10 years, no matter what, I'll never get those 10 years that she's just had with someone. That I can't, by definition, if I'm 35 and I haven't met someone, I can't experience years 25 to 35 with that person. So there can be a sadness at having missed out or feeling like we're missing out on one of the great experiences of life. But I do think it's a step in the right direction to just start by removing... We have to remove the nonsense from the argument. The shame that people make us feel that we're somehow deficient, we're somehow lower status or have not got it together if we haven't met somebody or if we haven't, if it hasn't worked out for us so far, that's the part that we have to be able to let go of. So that at the very least, if people could finish this episode of the podcast with only their fear, I would be happy. With just that feeling of, well, I'd really like to meet someone and I'm sad and I'm a bit afraid that it's never gonna happen for me, but I don't feel like there's anything wrong with where I am right now. I feel like that would be a positive thing, especially for women who, you know, there's someone we all know that mentioned being at a certain age and being told on dates, At literally being told on dates by guys that there must be something wrong with her that they don't know about. Because she's still single.

And she said the stigma is, oh, you must be crazy, or there must be something we don't know about you.

Yeah.

Or you must be crazy, or you must be wildly unhappy, or there must be something really significant wrong with you that is gonna come out.

And the article was saying, Men do, as they get older, get a certain stigma, but Bachelor doesn't have the same connotations as, say, the word like spinster, which kind of has all these, you know, pejorative terms. Bachelor, the worst for a man is he can be seen as a child. He's not serious or he's like incapable of committing to one person. Like he just wants sex or things like that. But whereas a woman's one is more like, oh, it must be really sad.

You know, well, it's funny, actually, no.

It'S sad or something's wrong.

It's almost like a guy has the with a guy, you imagine someone who can't commit. with a woman, people's mind goes to not worth committing to. Right.

Yeah.

Or has tried really hard to have someone commit to her.

Correct.

Couldn't quite get.

She couldn't get commitment.

Yeah.

Whereas he didn't want commitment.

But I will argue that it is changing. I do think women more and more are having the same probably unfair judgment of men who are single in certain stages of their lives. And I think that's because the world is changing. You know, it's no longer such a man's world created by men for men, which is, you know, heavily biased towards making men feel good and women not so much. And I think that hopefully, as the tables start to kind of turn a little bit and things start to even out, perhaps the judgment will also just get a little bit better on both sides because men won't want that label themselves. You know, I think people are just being more and more open-minded in general to that and to people being single later in life because they're realizing that there are so many different inputs that lead you to being in a relationship or not being in a relationship. And, yeah, it's just, there's so many different ways that that can go nowadays.

I remember Martin Snow, the boxing coach that you just saw in New York, Steven, our mutual friend, who coached me for a number of years in boxing, who's this old kind of rough around the edges New Jersey guy, really fun character. And I remember I was, when I was boxing, and at a certain point, I was getting obsessed with how I threw a punch. One of the things he said to me was, it's yours. It's yours. Like, it's your punch. You know, it's like your life. You can't do it wrong. It's yours.

And.

You can get so lost in obsessing whether you're doing it right or wrong, where you forget, like, it's your thumbprint. Your thumbprint is your own. your love life is your own. You can't.

You.

In a sense, you can't screw it up. It's yours.

Yeah.

And I. I remember sitting with someone who was my agent years ago, having come out of a relationship where I just wasn't happy. I didn't feel like this was the right person for me. And I remember leaving this relationship and being demoralized because I wanted to meet someone that I felt the right way about, and I didn't feel what I wanted to feel. And I remember he said to me at the time, he said, Matt, I just, I don't think it gets to be that easy for you. I just moved to LA at the time. I met someone, and he was, at the time, he was like, Matt, I don't think you get to just move to LA and meet someone and be, done. I don't think it gets to be that easy for you. And there's something interesting about that because we do compare ourselves to other people. We compare ourselves to that friend of ours who effortlessly met someone when they were 23 and has been with them ever since. Or, you know, our cousin Sam and Jamie, our cousin Sam, who married Jamie, who she met when she was, what, 15? and they're still together now with two beautiful kids. And that, you know, I, I could compare my life with that, or you could compare your life with that, but that's not our path. And, and for some people, the path is you meet someone who's amazing at 50 or 60. For some people, your path is you meet the perfect person at 21, and then you lose them to a car accident at 28. And then here you are again looking for somebody else or being single for the next 20 years. There is no right path. And that's the part that we have to let go of. We have to forget whether there's an ideal path. That's a different thing. Whether there's an ideal path, because let's say you're a woman and you want your own biological children, and therefore there is a time frame on which it makes sense for things to happen. You may have an ideal path in your mind. That doesn't mean it's going to be your path. And you can't screw up your path because it's your path.

Yeah.

You talked in the retreat about Plan A and Plan B. And you know, making peace with the fact that Plan B or Plan C might have to be Plan A. And I think there's something to that in this point, which is if your love life isn't going where how you want it to be going right now, making peace with the fact, with all of the beauty that is in your life, all the ways in which your life is awesome, and making peace, so to speak, with that life and making that the life that you want to lead is actually the best way to then become the most attractive version of yourself and end up attracting the best partner for you, right? Because I know that I was single for a few years and in the beginning I found it really, really hard being single because I really wanted to meet someone and it wasn't until I got really kind of okay with my life as it was. I still, don't get me wrong, I still really wanted love. I really, really wanted to meet someone. But it was, I was good. I was in a happy, good place. And I think that's only then was I actually able to welcome the kind of love that made sense for me into my life. And I think there's something to that, right? It's making the life that you have right now, the situation that you're in right now, making that your new Plan A.

I hope you enjoyed the episode and a quick note before you go, the virtual retreat is coming up from the 2nd to the 4th of June. If you want to do three days of coaching with me, go to mhvirtualretreat.com I promise you it will be here before we know it. If you know you want to join us, now is the time to get on board. That's mhvirtualretreat.com.