“The Secret of a Happy Relationship…” the Best Advice That I Have Received

Mel Robbins (00:00:08):

How do you change it? What's the biggest mistake that you think people make in relationships?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:00:16):

I think we can start to think we know everything there is to know about our partner, that there is nothing new going on in that head of theirs. We know it all and we certainly don't know it all. We only know what they're telling us and usually what they're telling us is a reflection of the kinds of questions we're asking them, and we might have stopped asking them questions 10 years ago because we assume we know it all. You have to find ways to make life fresh to you so that you can stay fresh for your partner, read, engage in a new activity or a new hobby or something that inspires you. Because we stop growing in our lives and because we stop doing things that keep life fresh for us, we now bring a very stagnant state version of ourselves to the relationship. We have nothing new to bring to the conversation at dinner because when was the last time we got a brand new idea or we've read something or engaged with something that made us think differently?

 

Mel Robbins (00:01:09):

That's good. All right. I'm so glad you're here. It's Mel and today's episode is for you. Whether you're single, dating, married, divorced, you got some situationship thing going on that you don't even know how to describe it, you're trying to figure things out as you're hooking up with people you don't know where you stand, you're confused. You're feeling used, you're somewhere in between. Today, you and I are going to sort it all out. Now I've been married to Chris for over 28 years and we've got three adult kids who are all navigating the modern dating world and having never had to experience online dating when I thought, okay, I'm going to answer relationship questions, I thought I better call in a heavy hitter to be my copilot in answering your questions today so that I can handle the continuum on one end and I got somebody that can handle the crazy world that is modern dating.

 

(00:02:04):

And so let me tell you a little bit about my copilot today. Matthew Hussey Matthew's a buddy of mine. He's also a New York Times bestselling author and he's been helping people for more than 17 years to feel more confident and in control of their relationships. More than 3 million people turn to Matthew for relationship advice on his YouTube channel, which is completely dedicated to helping you create a better love life. And so Matthew and I are going to tag team your questions and my team has sourced your most asked questions from your fellow listeners around the world. They have come to our inbox, our website, social media, and trust me, whether you are in a loving relationship right now or you have sworn off relationships altogether, there is something here for you. You are going to relate to every single question and you're going to get something from every single answer and so will everybody that you love. So make sure you share this with everyone because they're going to love it too. Alrighty, are you ready? I know I am. Let's go down to the Boston Studios for this incredible conversation with me, you and Matthew Hussey. Let's do this. I think what I want to do, because you've been advising people on how they can get into successful long-term relationships for 17 years, I want to focus our conversation, I think on what you've learned

 

(00:03:28):

About successful long-term relationships, how to get in one, what are the attributes, and then I want to have a conversation about how you want people to think when they're single and navigating the dating world. So as you think about the just volume of people that you've helped, you have seen it all in relationships. 

Matthew Hussey (00:03:58):

One of them is thinking that the things that your partner is and does that are wonderful are normal by the time you have been experiencing them for a long time.

 

Mel Robbins (00:04:14):

Wait, what do you mean?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:04:16):

The things that your partner does that are actually wonderful, the things that they do that are their special qualities, the things that make your life better, more joyful, more magical, easier, the things that support you, all those little things that are magic, you start to think those are just normal things that are to be expected or that anyone would do in a relationship because you've had so much distance from any other relationship that your memory now has nothing to compare it to. People have a rude awakening very often when they go and date someone else and they realize all the things that were wonderful about their partner were not normal, they were wonderful things about their partner. We do that in all of life. Human beings in some ways. One of our greatest traits that we're able to normalize things we can go as an entire world during a pandemic. We can normalize radically new conditions in ways that are truly inspirational, but it actually gets mutated into a very bad effect sometimes in relationships and in other areas of life where that normalization of what is wonderful can make us think that it is normal.

 

Mel Robbins (00:05:34):

I freaking love that you went here because I think what we do when we seek relationship advice is we're so focused on what's wrong with this person? Why did it go cold? How come we've grown distant? And what you're saying is one of the big mistakes that we actually make is we lose sight of the fact that there's so many things that are going right and you take it for granted. Is that what you're saying?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:05:57):

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Look at anyone who flies in a fancy seat on the plane. If they do it for long enough, they don't even think it's a fancy seat anymore, they'll find a new complaint with that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:11):

I keep thinking about the fact that yeah, if you've ever been upgraded and you sit up front, it is like going to Disney World.

 

Matthew Hussey (00:06:16):

You won't go to sleep like I have to enjoy all of this. I have to try the little hand cream and I have to brush my teeth with the airplane toothbrush. You can't sleep. It's so exciting.

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:30):

Yes,

(00:07:49):

But when you can start to see your partner with newness, you're seeing them with new eyes. If you can bring newness, you're giving them a chance to see you with new eyes, the question becomes what are some of the ways you can do that? And the beautiful part is there's not one answer to that. It can be your organic to you and the ways you can create newness for yourself and your relationship.

 

Mel Robbins (00:08:09):

How do you change it?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:08:10):

I think you have to keep growing. I really believe that you have to find ways to make life fresh to you so that you can stay fresh for your partner. The more you read, the more you engage in a new activity or a new hobby or something that inspires you. I could at this point, after I've been coaching people in their love lives for 17 years, I could say I know enough to just now do this for the rest of my life without learning another thing, and that might be true, but it would become stale for me and then I would become stale for my audience. The thing that keeps me fresh for other people is that I stay fresh for myself. I do the reading and I look at what's going on and I have conversations with people, and so then I come back with an idea that feels new.

 

(00:09:06):

It may be something I've said a thousand times, but the way I just thought about it because of the thing that I just read, it feels new to me. And if it feels new to me, I'm going to convey that in a way that's fresh to you. And I think in our relationships, because we stop growing in our lives and because we stop doing things that keep life fresh for us, we now bring a very stagnant state version of ourselves to the relationship. We have nothing new to bring to the conversation at dinner because when was the last time we got a brand new idea or we've read something or engaged with something that made us think differently?

 

Mel Robbins (00:09:39):

One of my big takeaways already, and maybe it's age because I'm 55 years old and you're younger than me, and you asked this question about what have you done lately to grow? And I certainly grew up in a generation where it was all about finding somebody and so much of it was about the search out there and what do I need to do to attract that person to find that person? The presumption being that that person out there is somehow going to come back over here and make my life more interesting, my life more amazing. And I think I've already just had this aha for every one of you listening and for all of the people that you love that you're going to send this to that the single most important thing, whether you're single and you're listening to this or you are in a relationship and you want to make it better, is that it begins with you understanding what you're bringing to the table and you looking at your own growth and what you're bringing either to your life as a single person or to the relationship as a person in a committed relationship.

 

(00:10:46):

Is that a fair takeaway?

(00:12:05):

Are they going to look good on Instagram? You don't care about that. You care. Do they make me happy? You start focusing on how they make you feel, not how they make you look. And that's a huge distinction because so many people go out into their love lives worrying about how someone's going to make them look. And that's all driven by ego because we don't feel like we are enough. It's no different to the playground at school if you didn't think you were cool, the last person you wanted to be seen with was another person who was unca.

 

Mel Robbins (00:12:36):

That's true.

 

Matthew Hussey (00:12:37):

You were like, if I hang around you, I'm going to get found out. Yes, we're both screwed. So I need to hang around with people that I can disguise myself and other people by association think I'm called to. So again, at school we looked for all these silly superficial markers of popularity status looks, they were captain of this or whatever it may be so that we could feel by association like we were somebody. Now, if you just carry that forward as many people do into their love lives, you keep looking for all of those superficial markers that are going to by association make you look like the person you've always wanted to look like when you work on yourself, it's a very freeing thing because I'm not looking for you to be a certain kind of good looking or a certain kind of height or figure or this or that or money or status or lifestyle, whatever. I don't care about you being any of those things. I've got me. I already feel good enough. So I don't need you for those things. What I want is someone I have an extraordinary time with what I want, someone who is someone who sees me, what I want someone is someone I feel at home with. Those are the things that we start looking for. It's a very different thing we look for when we feel like we're already taken care of.

 

Mel Robbins (00:13:56):

Well, what I love that you said, and I want to take a giant highlighter and make sure that as you're listening to this that you got this, which is too many of us are obsessed with what does the person make me look like? And so if I'm with this person, what does it look like versus how does this person make me feel? And so that's another takeaway in terms of the mistakes that we're making.

 

Matthew Hussey (00:14:19):

And here's something I think a lot of people will relate to. I always think about, this is maybe a crude analogy, but I always think I am the house that I live in when I go to a hotel, if it's a fancy, lovely hotel, I love the room. Oh my God, I love the view. I never think of it as my status or my value or my anything. I'm like, I'm renting this room for a night,

 

Mel Robbins (00:14:52):

Right?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:14:53):

This doesn't belong to me. It's not my hotel.

 

Mel Robbins (00:14:55):

Are we about to talk about one night stands? Is that where we're going right now? No. Okay. Well you said renting for a night. I'm like, what's happening, Matthew?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:15:02):

But I think of it as this is like I'm just going to experience this and enjoy it for what it is. Got it. But I can't take it home with me. It's not mine. My home is my home where I go back to every night. That's my home. The picture that I hang on mine and my wife's wall, that is a beautiful picture that actually that affects my life every single day.

 

(00:15:28):

The hotel that I stay in is irrelevant. It's just a nice experience and I think we have to some extent start seeing when we're with someone that we think is really impressive or has amazing traits, is very charismatic, is sexy, is all of these things that we get drawn to that this is not our value. It's something we're enjoying. It's something we're experiencing, but we are the home that we go back to every night. The work we do on ourselves, the work we do to make ourselves a resilient person in this life, a wise person in this life, a person who's giving in this life, who has connections and love, that's our home. It's not the value that this person brings us. There are so many people in relationships that when they lose the person, they think they've lost their value because they started to think that my value is this value on the outside. And I don't think you can ever get the two confused.

 

Mel Robbins (00:16:25):

Well, I like that you have a visual because when you fall for somebody, obviously there is so much chemistry and attraction and lust and sex and all of the amazing stuff that goes down when there is a new relationship and the chase is on and it's super exciting and it can feel like a sexy, amazing hotel room. And so we can all put ourselves there. The sheets are fantastic and the coffee is so good and you can pull down the blinds and get an amazing night's sleep and oh my God. And you can start to imagine, what if my own bedroom felt like this? But when the date is over, you know how you feel when you're back at home and whether or not you've just been with somebody that makes you feel more of yourself or whether or not you then go back to where you are at your home when you're alone and you start to question, did I say the right thing? Did I not do that? Are they going to call me? And I also love the analogy because I've been asked a lot since Chris and I have been married for 28 years. You're like, well, how do you know? And I'm like, I dunno. You just feel like yourself.

 

(00:17:38):

And so it's almost as if that right person, even though it might kind of be fun for a minute to feel like it's like a fancy hotel room, it actually very quickly just starts to feel like home. And what you're saying is too many of us get swept up in the feeling of all that shiny shit and then when that's over, we think it means there's something wrong with us. And you're saying, no, no, no, no, you're fine. You were just in a hotel room

 

Matthew Hussey (00:18:09):

And we think we've lost our value. We think that hotel room was our value. And by the way, if you see this on Instagram, the person whose whole Instagram profile is just them in fancy hotel rooms in some other part of the world, and it's like everything is that you go, oh, this person has attached their value to these places that they stay in. And that's a very dangerous thing to do. It's always a dangerous thing to

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:37):

Anywhere. Well, you can see it everywhere, Matthew. I mean, literally, I think a lot about how extravagant people have become with their proposals and baby announcements and all of that kind of stuff. I don't know if you did that or not. I don't know.

 

Matthew Hussey (00:18:50):

We had a complete, I proposed to Audrey in our bedroom. We're very behind the scenes people in all of those ways

 

Mel Robbins (00:19:00):

But everybody needs to do what makes them feel amazing. But for me personally, I see a lot of emphasis on the show and not the substance.

Mel Robbins (00:19:25):

I dunno that you make it, I don't know what defines it as a love

 

Matthew Hussey (00:19:29):

Story. That's interesting, right? If you take half the movies we see, they definitely don't make it. It's true, but we call them love stories and it can get quite dangerous if you take Titanic, there's something a little odd about watching a woman who's nearly a hundred years old still dreaming about and thinking about a relationship that wasn't even a relationship with a guy that she met on a boat and was with for about five days. It's an interesting thing when you look at it that way. I experienced these stories in real life in my work all the time. I was on TV in the morning, a call called in a Woman in her seventies, and she said, I can't get over this guy that I was with or dated. Wasn't even a 10 year marriage. I dated on and off and I said, well, when did it end? She said, well, he stopped calling me 30 years ago.

 

Mel Robbins (00:20:31):

Oh my gosh.

 

Matthew Hussey (00:20:33):

Now, is that a love story?

 

Mel Robbins (00:20:36):

Maybe. So is it qualified by the way? I think it probably does. So my brain, I can't wait to hear what you have to say immediately. Like, well, she's been telling herself the story for 30 years, and your brain doesn't know the difference between the reality and what you've been telling it.

 

Matthew Hussey (00:20:50):

That's right. And the amount you've told it to yourself and the way you've told it to yourself has given that story a level of importance that it probably in her case almost certainly should never have had. So then you say, okay, we need to start changing how we tell ourselves love stories.

 

Mel Robbins (00:21:08):

We have a ton of questions about compromise and how to weigh the proper compromises in a relationship. So we have this great question from Carmen who wrote in, can you talk about the difficulty of compromise and partnerships without giving up yourself? I've had a long time partner for 14 years. We've been together since we were 16, but I've been working in Europe for the last two years and the long distance relationship worked really well. They supported me. We saw each other regularly. I never felt happier during my time abroad. I felt like I had found myself over there. I didn't want to go back, but ultimately decided to go back because I felt like my partner wasn't doing well without me and they didn't want to move to Europe. Now I'm in a situation where I'm trying to find a compromise, looking for remote jobs to be able to work from anywhere and figuring out a way where we can both be happy. Any advice on how much compromise is good, bad without forgetting who you are as an individual?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:22:12):

So there you have a compatibility issue in the way that two people want to live their lives. Even if you share many of the same values, even if you have an incredible time when you're together, if you have a different vision for your future or a completely different vision for the present, then that's still a compatibility issue. I think we have to get out of this idea that someone can be the right person, even when the way they want to live their life or the way they see their future is completely different to the way we want to live ours or see our future that doesn't make them oh, right person, wrong time, right person, wrong circumstances. I think the right person has to be both right and ready. I think the right person has to be someone whose values we love and also wants the same life as us.

 

(00:23:02):

I don't believe in this idea that you have the right person who just, if it were only a parallel universe where they loved Europe and wanted to be there and lived there and weren't close to their family back home, and then it would be perfect. It's like science fiction. So I think we have to look at the reality of what we have instead of what we would like to be because anything else is science fiction. When I hear this question, I go, it's tough because it sounds like there's a lot that's right with the relationship, but right now your dreams are taking you to Europe and a job that you really enjoy and this person doesn't want to come to Europe. Now firstly, that deserves ultimate compassion for the person who doesn't want to come to Europe. Of course, it's not their dream, it's not their life. They didn't choose that. They didn't choose to have a partner who decided to move miles and miles away from home. So that requires a level of compassion and humility to say, I think this about entrepreneurs all the time, whenever entrepreneurs complain that their partner doesn't get it, I'm working all hours of the day and I just have this dream and my partner doesn't get it. I'm like, yeah, no shit. They didn't sign up for this. They didn't choose this. It's not their dream. There's something selfish about that dream. Own it.

 

(00:24:32):

It's okay. I've been there. I'm an entrepreneur. I get it. But don't turn it into something noble that your partner doesn't get. It's not their dream. If they suddenly had a dream that meant they were never around and they were stressed all the time and they didn't bring you good energy in the evenings and even on weekends, they were kind of not present. And what would you be saying? We lack humility in those situations. And I think this comes back down to another hard conversation is, look, I've got a person I really value. How much do I value this person? Do I value them enough to try and find a job that I'm passionate about back where we're from or when I'm honest with myself, if I'm really, really honest with myself, maybe it brings up a tremendous amount of guilt for me. Maybe it makes me feel selfish. Maybe it makes me feel shame, but maybe if I'm honest, if I don't get this out of my system, I'm never going to be ready for that and I might have to end up being ready for it with another person, but at least I will have done this thing and pursued this thing that's really important to me right now. And life is about choices. It just is. We wish it wasn't, but it just is.

 

Mel Robbins (00:25:56):

That's interesting because the question's about compromise and yet you're bringing it back to the personal responsibility to make a choice that you're not going to resent somebody else for because I think that's the other thing we don't talk about, which is it's noble to compromise, but not if you are going to die on the sword and be silently resentful of somebody that you're with because they made you do something that they held you back when you didn't have the courage to seek the clarity about what you valued more and the timing of your

 

Matthew Hussey (00:26:34):

Life. It might be by the way, he says, Hey, two more years I could do this. Or he might say, one more year I can do this, but I can't do it after that. And she needs be really honest with herself about whether her year's going to be enough. There might be the compromise or the compromise is, you know what? I'm going to come home and I'm going to find something that I can do that I enjoy back home, but I'm going to lean in. If I do that, then I'm really going to lean into that and make, you've always got to be prepared in life to make the plan B, the new plan A turn, plan B into the new plan. What you can't do is continue to see it as plan B. That's where the resentment comes from.

Matthew Hussey (00:27:39):

Is it that you want them to be like you? Or is it that your needs aren't getting met?

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:45):

How do you know?

 

Matthew Hussey (00:27:47):

Well, ask yourself them playing video games. Is it costing me something crucial that I feel I'm not getting in the relationship as a result, or am I just mad that they're not like me? That's good because if it's costing you something crucial, one of your needs, then you absolutely better have the conversation. And the conversation is something akin to I respect and I love that you have something that you love doing with your time, but you're doing it so much that I'm not getting what I need in the relationship and I want to support you in this thing that you really enjoy doing. But I also want to feel supported and I want to feel like this relationship gives me what I need the same way I want to show up for you and give you what you need. So by the way, after this conversation, let's talk about what you need. But right now, the thing that I need the most is quality time, and I'm not getting that because of X, Y, Z. You can say that, but is it about you not getting your needs met or is it about the fact that you don't like that they're not like you? Which is a more interesting question because it gets into the territory of do we need our partner to be like us in certain ways? Where is that coming from? And I think we can talk about that, but I think that's interesting territory.

 

Mel Robbins (00:29:06):

Well, I definitely want to talk about that too, but I can give a couple examples and I think your distinction's very helpful

 

(00:29:12):

Because it made me realize why these two examples matter. So the first one is that Chris and I have been together for a long time, but he recently went away on a ski trip with our son, and I didn't go, it wasn't supposed to be a boys' trip, but I literally was like, you know what? I don't want to go skiing for a week. I don't really like skiing. I think I'd rather be home alone and do a staycation without anybody home. Thank you very much. And the reason why that was actually super cool is because Chris's needs and my needs are getting met in other ways. So I didn't need to take a trip with him to get the connection that you often will get when you take time and go away together.

 

(00:30:08):

And so it didn't feel like it was taking anything away. In fact, it was kind of additive versus, and here's the example where I did change. I have very bad A DHD and I have this habit when cardboard boxes come of stacking them up by the door because we live in the state where you got to flatten 'em and I hate flattening. I get all kinds of paper cuts and I don't know why I don't like to do it, but I don't like to do it. So Chris hates that I stack these things up and he would yell at me all the time, can't you just can't you? And then I, of course when he would yell at me about doing that, well, not really yell, but just like for crying out loud, can't you just do it? I would then defend myself. I'm so busy, I'm traveling. You just do this make for crying out went house. And so we'd get into this standoff and it wasn't until he sat me down and had the conversation, listen, I get that you have a DD, I get that you're tired. I get that you work long hours. I get that you do a ton of things, but let me tell you something. Every time I see that stack like a little kind of pyramid for me waiting like a gift from you, it makes me feel like you think I'm your maid.

 

(00:31:29):

What I realized at a very profound level is that when he explained how my behavior made him feel, it made me realize that his need to be seen and taken care of and acts of service were not being met over and over and over again, even though he asked. And that's what motivated me to change my behavior. I'm the best cardboard box flattener on the planet mat. But that's a really, that's beautiful important thing because I think in these small moments where we're either forcing someone to be like us, which I don't think you should be doing, or you have an opportunity to express that there's a deeper need behind why you want somebody to actually load the dishwasher or move the stuff from the washer to the dryer, that if you can express the deeper need now you're strengthening the connection versus fighting with somebody over something.

 

Matthew Hussey (00:32:28):

Yeah, that's exactly right. And you're giving someone in a relationship a real gift and an opportunity to give you something that may not be rational. And by the way, that's okay. How many things do we need in life that are not rational? It's true. It's a beautiful thing sometimes to just understand that this is important to my partner and it's worth showing up for them in this way even if it's doesn't make sense to me. But that only works in two people who are a genuine team where it feels like that kind of generosity of spirit goes both ways.