--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so glad that you're here with me today. It is always such an honor to get to spend some time with you. And I want to start by acknowledging you for choosing to listen or watch something that is going to help you create a better life. I think that's just super cool that you're taking time for yourself. And it's a real honor to spend that time with you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And if you're brand new to the Mel Robbins Podcast, welcome to the family. I'm Mel, and I'm on a mission to empower and inspire you with tools and the expert resources that you need to create a better life. And today, you and I are going to talk about romantic relationships.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I mean, let's face it, romantic relationships are not only a critically important part of creating a meaningful and profound life, but they can be so complicated. And just a couple months ago, I stumbled upon this concept. It's incredible. It's called the four levels of a relationship. And it literally blew my mind. And you need to learn this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The four levels are relevant, whether you're single, like so many of my friends or two of our adult children are single, or they're also relevant, whether you're in a relationship and you're not sure, is this the right person? Is this going to work out? The four levels are going to blow your mind.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And if you're married like me, you need to know these levels because you just assume that your relationship is going to go the distance. Well, just because you have a ring on your finger or the person sleeps next to you every single night in bed, that doesn't mean it's going to last. And if you don't know what level you're on, it's not going to last.
--:-- Mel Robbins: In fact, the most dangerous mistake that you can make in a relationship is not knowing what level your partner is on versus what level you're on. And being on different levels creates all the friction and problem in your relationship. So today you are learning this game-changing framework, and I cannot wait for you to hear this, for you to use this, and for you to share this with the people that you love.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and a couple months ago I stumbled upon this concept called the four levels of a romantic relationship. And it literally blew my mind. So I picked up the phone and I reached out to the guy who created it. His name is Matthew Hussey. He's a *New York Times* bestselling author, and he has been helping people for more than 17 years to feel more confident and in control of their relationships every day.
--:-- Mel Robbins: More than 3 million people turned to Matthew Hussey for relationship advice on his YouTube channel, which is dedicated to helping you create a better love life. And I cannot wait to jump into this conversation because I am certain that his four-level framework is the best relationship advice that nobody has ever told you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So without further ado, please help me welcome Matthew Hussey to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Oh my gosh, you're in the house. I can't believe it. This is exciting. I've been waiting for this one.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Oh, have you?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: I'm looking forward to talking with you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, I've been waiting for YouTube because you run the number one channel for advice on all of YouTube. And I cannot wait to learn from you. I can't wait for the person who's listening to learn. And here's where I want to start. You have this incredible framework that you use when you're coaching people on relationships using four levels. It's called the four levels of a relationship. Can you explain it?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yeah. Level one, admiration. Level two is mutual attraction. Level three is commitment. Level four is compatibility.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love this concept and this framework because if you don't know what level you're in, no wonder your relationship isn't working. Let's go through these levels one by one and really break them down. Let me start with this.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Level one is just admiration. That's when you see someone, you may even see them from afar. They may not know you exist, but there's something you admire about them. You think they're attractive, hot, impressive, whatever it may be, compelling. Now, on its own, not important. The person doesn't, they're not attracted to you. This is completely unrequited. There's nothing important about it. It's just you having decided that someone is an impressive, wonderful, or just attractive person.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Then there's level two. Level two is mutual attraction. Okay. Now this is when two people find chemistry, a connection, there's a shared attraction between them. Now this is perhaps the most dangerous level because when we get attracted to someone, which by the way, for many of us, we feel like doesn't happen nearly often enough and then we find that that person is attracted back we feel like we found the holy grail.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Like this is it. It feels like an explosion. It's like, oh my god, this is the most important thing in the world. I have to do everything for this thing.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: So this is level two and this is dangerous. Why is this dangerous? Because on its own, it's not that important. A connection is not the rarest thing in the world.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's true.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Sexual chemistry is not the rarest thing in the world. But it feels when you find it like it's so important. But we realize it's not important when we get to level three. Level three is commitment. Two people actually saying yes to each other.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: You know, the number of people that I speak to that start with, "I have this amazing person in my life. They're this, they're that, they're the other. Matt, this person that we can talk about anything. We have the most amazing time together." And I know, I already know there's a huge "but" coming. Otherwise, it wouldn't start with all of this amazing stuff. And the punchline often is some form of, "But they don't want a relationship. But they say they're not ready. But they're confused about me." And it's like, okay, so we're in level two. We're not in level three. And there's a world of difference between those two places.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Level two is a plot of land. It may look like a plot of land that's in a great part of town or it looks over a lake or is in an amazing part of the city. It's an amazing plot of land. Something amazing could go here. You meet a person and the connection, the attraction, the chemistry makes you feel like you've got an amazing plot of land. And all you can see is what could get built on that plot of land and how incredible that could be.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: But in order for that to become that, you need a builder. And the next question is, do you actually have a builder? Because when you have a builder and two people build together, they create something extraordinary on that land. They build their castle, whatever that castle is. And the more you build it, the more innate it becomes, the more beautiful it becomes. It is weathered in all sorts of ways that are distinct to your relationship. The secret rooms no one else knows about that only the two of you know about. It's your castle together. That's what's beautiful. That's what makes a relationship really, really special is all of the work that's gone into building something truly unique that only the two of you could have built.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Now imagine the scene of you sitting there building away at this castle and the other builder is AWOL. They're not even there. They are somewhere else because they're not trying to build with you. They're not trying to have a relationship. They just want an experience. It's a completely different thing. So level three is a relationship. It's commitment. Level two is just an experience.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is painful. Well, I shouldn't say it's painful. I'm thinking on behalf of so many of the listeners who are single in their 20s and 30s and 40s and online dating, because I would imagine that there's a tremendous amount of confusion between level two and level three. And my next question is, how the hell do you know if you're in level three? How do you know if somebody actually wants a commitment the way that you do?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: You have the conversation you're too afraid to have right now. The one that you've been putting off because it feels so good to keep enjoying this thing that you don't want to wreck it. You don't want to drive it away. You are afraid that if you have the question, you're going to be seen as difficult. So we don't say it. We're afraid of the effects.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: And what we think is, by the way, if I could just keep getting closer and closer and closer to this person, if I can make myself indispensable, if I can just get so close that I'm basically integrated with their every part of their life, then essentially they'll see my value and they'll start giving as much as I am because they'll realize my value. Unfortunately, the opposite happens. We give and we give and we give and someone learns that there's absolutely no price to pay for the giving. So everything we give gets completely taken for granted and assumed. And we come to find after months or sometimes years of being in limbo with someone, when we finally say, "What is this?" They're like, "I don't know." And you realize you've wasted all that time and energy all because you weren't prepared to have a hard conversation.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: And every great relationship is formed in the crucible of hard conversations. And a hard conversation, by the way, doesn't have to be an aggressive or a pushy conversation. It could be a very elegant conversation. A hard conversation is just the one you're afraid to have.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's true.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: You're going to find out very quickly where you stand. And you're also introducing an element of, "I'm not going to be here forever."
--:-- Mel Robbins: So let's role play. So I'm in, we're in a level two relationship. And I want a commitment. I'm scared to death to ask you. I don't know how many other people you're dating. We've kind of been in that zone where we're hooking up and we're going out on dates. And I feel like it's vibing. And I now, I don't even know what the language is anymore. That's how old I am. Do we say monogamous? Do we say exclusive? Do we say that we're like dating? Heaven forbid. Is that not a word we use? I don't know. Every time I would say something to my daughter, she's like, "That's everything." I'm like, okay, okay, okay. I don't know what the terminology is. Anywho, we're in a level two. How do I bring this up with you? Can you give me the sentence, Matt?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yeah. There are different ways to come at this, but I'll give you one way.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, let's do it.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: "But I realized I'm investing a lot of time and energy into this. And it's an amount of time and energy and intimacy that I wouldn't be giving if we were still giving it to other people. And I know that I'm not because it's just not me. And I wanted to know if you're in the same place. If you're not, that's totally okay. I get it. It's fine. There's no pressure. But if you're not in that place, I need to reevaluate how much I'm giving to this because I'm excited to meet someone that values the same things I do or has the same things in mind that I do. And I want to give my energy to someone who's in that place. And I realized we haven't even had that conversation."
--:-- Mel Robbins: [As the other person] "You know, Matt, I am having a great time with you. I feel like I'm on *The Bachelor* right now. I am having a great time with you, but you know, I just got out of a long relationship and I don't want to hurt you. I'd like to still see you, but..."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: This is why these are hard conversations.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: But that's a very real response, right? So let's keep going, because that's a very realistic response by a lot of people.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: You say, "Look, that's totally cool. I can't keep giving my energy to someone who's not on the same page as me. It's not for me. I know my energy is really precious. I know how much I have to offer someone. And if you're not in that place, you don't need to worry about hurting me because I'm always going to just do what's right for me anyway. And as much as I like spending time with you, I value what I want more than that. So I'm going to do my own thing, but I wish you the best. You're a great guy and it's okay. I get it. You're a great person. I hope you find happiness in whatever you do, but I can't keep giving time and energy to someone who wants something different than I do."
--:-- Mel Robbins: There's a couple of things I want to pull out that I think are incredibly important that I noticed. And I wonder if it was on purpose. First of all, I loved that you didn't say that you liked me, you specifically said you liked the time that we had spent together. And that left you, like, playing the person that's not as interested in the level two, I'm not ready to go to level three. Hearing that you liked the time made you seem stronger and more confident because you weren't sounding like, "Hey, I really like you. Do you like me?" And fishing for an answer.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then when you said you use the word "energy," you didn't use the words "I'm looking for a commitment" or "I'm looking for monogamy." You didn't use those words that feel like you're locking someone down. The way that the coaching went that you just gave us in the script that you can now play, and you should repeat in your dating and your relationship life, was one where you said, "I value my energy and I know myself and I want to put my energy into things that are going somewhere. And so I want to have that conversation because this has been a lot of fun and I enjoy spending time with you, but I want to make sure that I want to check in with you because I don't want to date a lot of other people."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And you see what I'm saying? You remained powerful in that because you weren't actually looking for me to say, "I like you back." You were looking for clarification on whether or not this was worth your time. And so that was super important for you listening to understand the nuance of that. Massively different.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yes. Because you're not having a conversation about the allocation of an incredibly valuable thing. And you're showing through the conversation how much you value it. "I know what I have to give is incredible." Like that's the subtext. "I know what I have to offer someone is incredible. So I'm very careful about who I give that to." This isn't a "How dare you hook up with me or how dare we spend any time together if you weren't in the same place." No, it's not.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So quickly, I think a lot of people can lose their power that way because they don't take ownership of the time they've invested.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yes. Or the ways they've spent time with someone or even the intimacy. Like you're an adult. If you want to do something with someone, do it. Own it. Enjoy it. But if it's no longer working for you, then don't go to resentment about the time you've spent. Instead, just take ownership of "I know what I've been giving you and what I will continue to give is incredible. I know it's really valuable. I'm deciding whether this continues to be a good investment of all of that time and energy. And if it's not any longer, that's okay. I'm not turning you into the villain. You're also not turning yourself into the loser."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like I think here's the thing that's really helpful about level one, which is, "Oh, I see that person over there is super attractive, but there's nothing mutual." Level two, which is this mutual connection and attraction and chemistry. And then if you want to try to go to level three, which is where you have a mutual commitment, that's where you have to have the conversation and starting to understand for yourself, not where is the other person, but where am I?
--:-- Mel Robbins: The second that you start to feel in a relationship where you're giving more than you're comfortable, where you're unsure of where somebody stands, where you're starting to get sketchy about stalking people in terms of legally on their, you know, where they are, are they on their Hinge? When you're doing that, it's time to have the conversation you're avoiding, which is, "This is to a point where I got to be clear about whether or not it's worth me investing energy in."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because I think we all know that point for ourselves where we tip into either super clingy, insecure, or sort of like resentful, like anger mode. And you don't want to be there. Because it's not the other person's fault that they don't want to give you a commitment. It's your fault if you continue to show up to something that isn't actually good for you.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: And the standard itself can actually be the thing that creates attraction. We ask a lot of questions about how can we create attraction with someone? Well, one of the most amazing ways to create attraction is to have standards and to live by those standards.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Matthew, I want to take a quick break right now and let everything you've already taught us and shared sink in. And while you're listening to the sponsors, just kind of think about what you're already learning about this four level framework and reflect on yourself. And when we come back, we're going to talk about why it's so hard to realize that you're not level three, even you're stuck in level two. And this is why it's dangerous. So don't you dare go anywhere because it would be dangerous for you to not get this information. Stay with us.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I'm here with Matthew Hussey. He has been coaching people for 17 years on relationships and has the most successful number one ranked YouTube channel on the topic of love and relationships. So Matthew, I really want to dig deeper into hard conversations because they're hard to have. Let me tell you a story because you're going to love this and your audience is going to love this.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Okay, great.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is a story from something my own wife sent to me at a time when I was not the heroic, ultra giving one in the situation. I was the one who was like all over the place.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: By all over the place, you mean like you were like a player, so you're dating a bunch of people at the same time or what?
--:-- Mel Robbins: We had met in London.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Okay.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'd literally come back for a couple of weeks to see family.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Okay.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That was where we met. Then I went back to Los Angeles where I live. We just had a great time together. Level two. Very much level two.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Got it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Deep level two.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Got.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Lots and lots of attraction, absolutely no commitment.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Can I just say something?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: There is no such thing as deep level two. Let me tell you why. There's only level two. You know what I'm saying? You're letting it be something it's not. It's just level freaking two, Matt.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Correct. That's exactly right.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Okay.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So I go back to Los Angeles and we're texting back and forth. We're having some calls. It's still fun. It's still engaging. We're excited to speak to each other. Gradually, I start to fall off.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: What does "fall off" mean?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like I am not texting.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: [Laughs] Look at the smile. It's like, you dog.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, I just, day by day, my texts got less frequent. I stopped. So I probably at some point I stopped calling and started only texting. Then the texts are less and less frequent. And then I think, I don't know what it was, a couple of weeks, something went by where we'd already been not texting for a while. Maybe a few days went by or a couple of weeks. I can't remember. Audrey probably remembers. But at a certain point, I sent a message that said, "I miss you."
--:-- Mel Robbins: She sent me a message I'll never forget. And for every woman out there, take this message and run with it because it is so powerful. It's so amazing. And it's word for word, perfect.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Now, bear in mind, I just want to stop for a moment. What's the instinct to do in that moment? If you like someone.
--:-- Mel Robbins: "I miss you too."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yeah. You just rush of blood to the head, nervous system activated. "I'm just happy this person reached out and that they're saying something affectionate."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. Oh my God. And this is for every human being. I don't care how old you are. I don't care like gender, whatever. This is every one of us has that where somebody's gone silent and all of a sudden you get that little boop. You're like, "There it is."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: And that what you just said is why level two is the most dangerous stage, because the instinct in that moment is to text someone back. To fly to see them, to do whatever we can to be with them. But that instinct might be the most dangerous instinct you have in that moment. So she didn't do that. She sent this message back. She said, "Hey, I hope you're well. To be honest, when I get a message like this from you, I don't really know what to say."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: So again, that first line is like confusion. She's pointing out that there's something at odds with my words and my behavior. "Hey, I hope you're well. To be honest, when you send a message like that, I don't really know what to say. Or I'm not really sure what to say. We haven't really felt that close for a while now." And then she put in parentheses, "Rightly or wrongly, this message comes across like a bid for attention."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: So if you break down that message, let's do it. It communicates so much. And this is why I'm not someone who says, "Here's a thousand scripts, use them word for word." But you have to understand why language matters because language matters deeply. And if you know why it works, you could say it your way. But why does it work?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: "I hope you're well." So there's still a warmth to that. It's not like "How dare you." "I hope you're well. Don't wish you any harm. But when you send something like this, I'm not really sure what to say." Why? "Because we haven't really felt that close for a while." So it's a little strange. The fact that we've kind of stopped talking very much. The interactions we have are very superficial, very noncommittal. There's not a lot of energy behind them. There's not much thought or intention behind them. They're more and more sparse. And then at the end of all of that, you send, "I miss you." That is completely out of sync with everything you have done over the last month or not done.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: "We haven't felt that close for a while now." Now that again is exposing the elephant in the room because what most people are hoping for in a situation like that, consciously or unconsciously, is that you will not point out the discrepancy between their actions and their words, but you will mirror them. That I'll say "I miss you" and you'll come back and you'll mirror that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's true, we do.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: So she's saying, "I'm not going to mirror that because that's not where we're at in reality." So I'm shining a giant spotlight on this elephant in the room. So you've got nowhere to hide.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: And then she said, "Rightly or wrongly." Now "rightly or wrongly" is very powerful language there because it also shows humility. She's not bringing ego into it and she's not flaring up my ego. She's like, "I might be wrong. Maybe I've misread this whole situation, but it looks an awful lot like you're not really trying. You don't want any more. And you want attention right now." Yes. "It comes across, rightly or wrongly, like a bid for attention."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Now, in that moment, I'm called out. So what do you do with that information? Well, it depends on the kind of person you're dealing with. Some people in response to that will love bomb you. Especially an unhealthy person. They're going to go, "Now I'm going to get you." So, "Oh my god, let me call you right now, blah blah blah. Charm, charm, charm. Let me fly out to see you this weekend. Can you come out to see me?" Full charm mode.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm not going to do that. But there was a time in my life where I absolutely would have done that.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: And just to be clear, that's still in level two because you haven't had the conversation about the commitment.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. Yes. They're keeping you in level two. I love how simple this is that you're either attracted to somebody who is admiration that is not interested in you, or there's this level two dangerous mode where it is all about the attraction and the game there is to keep you in that lane.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Oh, 100%.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so you have to know for yourself, which it's very clear that your wife, Audrey, did in that moment, that "I'm done with level two." And the fact that you probably were pulling away made her realize she wanted to have something that was more certain with you if it was going to continue. And she did the thing that most of us don't do, which is she acted consistently with somebody who no longer wanted to be in level two. She wanted to be with somebody who was willing to go to level three and have the commitment. And she is also smart.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I need every one of you listening to hear me. You will stay in level two for the rest of your damn life if you're unwilling to have the conversation about level three. Because no one, no one cares about your time and your life as much as you. And expecting them to is a recipe for wasting your life.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Mel, so many of my audience are not in their early twenties where it's like, "Well, I could throw away five years on a person in level two and have plenty of time to go." I deal with people in their 30s, late 30s, early 40s, and many of them, their life's greatest dream is to have their own biological family. And they are in level two right now at risk of sacrificing, for many of them, their biggest goal, their biggest dream in the entire world, for someone who I guarantee is either not going to regret having wasted all that time of yours, or even if they do, which many do, when I look back on my life, I regret wasting people's time. I don't have the power to give it back to them.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I really want to dig deeper into hard conversations. So don't you go anywhere. And by the way, please share this episode with people that you love who need this framework. Stay with us.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I'm here with Matthew Hussey, and I want to thank you. Thank you for sending this episode to people in your life, because I know that this information will help absolutely anybody who learns it to improve their relationships and also improve their relationship with themselves.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So, Matthew, I love that we're talking about this. Because I have seen too many of my friends literally waste a decade with somebody. And this doesn't have to look like one night stands and dating. This could be somebody that you're living with that doesn't want to get married.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: That's right.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Or who you keep thinking is going to change their mind on having children with you. And you won't have the conversation. The moving from level two to level three is really about the type of commitment you're looking for.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Level two doesn't just refer to someone who's keeping you in limbo in month three where they don't want a relationship and you do. It's anyone who can't give you the level of commitment that you're looking for. There are couples that have been together for three years and one of them deeply wants marriage, deeply wants to have a family, and the other one just cannot make up their mind or says, "I really don't want this." That represents a level of commitment you need in order to be happy that someone else isn't giving you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Whoa. That's a really important point because we've been focusing on dating, but you're basically saying that you could be trapped in level two for years because you are in a relationship justifying staying because of the attraction or whatever else, but you don't have the commitment that you deeply in your heart want.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Holy cow. Let's keep digging into level two.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the hardest conversation that you have to have is the one you have with yourself, where you come to terms with the fact that this conversation that you have out loud with them might be the one that ends the relationship. And so we're afraid to have a conversation with them because we haven't had a conversation with ourselves first, about what we're prepared to make peace with, about what is most important to us.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: In our love lives, and this is a model you can use for any part of your life, but in our love lives, in order to change, in order to get a different result, we have to rewire our brain. I put an entire chapter in this new book called *How to Rewire Your Brain*. Now, how do you do that when you've been doing things a certain way for so long? How do you get to the point where you're actually prepared to do something different? The first thing you have to do is you have to make change absolutely necessary for yourself.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: One of the things I do is get people to have the conversations with themselves that they've been putting off year after year after year. That conversation might be with a 35-year-old or a 37-year-old who finally has the conversation with themselves about how important it is to them to have children. Because it all starts with getting really, really, really honest about that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: How do you make somebody who's in their 30s or even late 20s who is starting to panic about this? How do you coach somebody to have that conversation with themselves?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because we will come in and rationalize. "Oh, they might change. Oh, I have time. Oh, I could just do this. Oh, I could just do that." And there is a biological reality if you are somebody who's one of your biggest life goals is to have a family of your own.
--:-- Mel Robbins: After coaching people for 17 years, you've seen this window close on people. I've seen it close. I've seen the protracted grief that takes place for many years afterwards that many of them still haven't been able to process. I've watched the pain. I've had a front row seat to the most terrible pain that people go through.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I had a woman at my retreat who just balled up on the floor and was inconsolable because she had spent 10 years married to a man who always said that he wasn't sure about having children. Year after year after year, she delayed the conversation, not only with him, but with herself, and missed her window biologically. Then he ended up leaving the relationship anyway. The grief that she felt was profound.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The conversation starts by truly assessing how important is this to me? What is it about this that makes it something that I feel is a non-negotiable for me? At least a non-negotiable that I'm going to try for, because even for those for whom it's a non-negotiable, we all know not everyone has it as simple as they think it's going to be. A lot of people find it's impossible.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Well, and I also want to broaden this out, because what you're actually talking about is the level of honesty you have to have with yourself to go from level two to level three. If it's not happening, whether that's dating to moving in, or living together to engaged, or engaged to married, or trying harder in a relationship, there is this movement that has to be intentional to get you to the commitment phase.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: I can see how if you don't even know what you want and you're not being honest with yourself, you wouldn't be able to have the conversation in a casual sex situation of saying, "Hey, I just know myself and I don't want to put my energy into something that isn't actually heading somewhere. So I just need to check in with you. I'm having a lot of fun, but I know myself and I prioritize my well-being and my time. I just need to do the gut check now."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Even to have the conversation lightly and playfully, you need to have a very strong sense of what matters to you, of the path that you're on in life. You have to. Otherwise, you'll never back it up. Anything you do will be a tactic. It won't be a standard.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think the mistake that a lot of us make is that we look at a person across from us and we think, even if this isn't up to my standards, I can fix this person. I can twist this person. We're not thinking this consciously, but if I can get close enough, I can change this. That is a tactic that will backfire on you.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Yes. You've seen it happen over and over again. The idea that if I get close enough and try hard enough that they're going to change is a non sequitur.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What does that mean? That's a big word.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: It's a really dangerous assumption to make. I call it the "one day wager." I stake my life, my energy, my time, my most precious resources in the world, the ones I can't get back, on the idea that this person is one day going to suddenly change into all of the things I need them to become for me to be happy.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: The irony is people can change, but they change through hard conversations. And you also find out they can't change through hard conversations, because you'll learn even if they say they're going to do something, you'll learn whether there's progress or not. If there's no progress, there's your answer.
--:-- Mel Robbins: There is a great Jacob M. Broad quote that goes, "Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand how foolish it is to think you can change someone else."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Ooh, I wish I said that. That's a good one.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's so true. I want to eat well right now, Matt. I'm not eating well.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Why not?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because we're on the road and there's so much good food in every city. We have been doing a lot of broadcasting and I haven't been getting to the gym. I'm not making excuses, but I kind of am. It's really been hard. When I don't train, I eat badly. When I eat badly, I don't feel good. Then I'm in a cycle, and that's the cycle I've been in for the last week.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: My relationship with food has been a really challenging one. Food's been an addiction for me for as long as I can remember. It has been an extraordinarily difficult thing to fix. Very, very, very difficult. I'm still working on it. It's an ongoing thing. I want to change that. I'm motivated to change that.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Anyone who goes to therapy knows this. If you decided to go to therapy, that's an amazing step. Now all of the work is ahead of you, because you're going to see things you might want to change and it's going to be really, really difficult to move the needle on those things. If it was easy, you would have done it already.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: So now take someone who may not even accept that there's something that needs to be changed. Even if they think there's something that they could change to make the relationship better, they now have to be motivated to do it. They have to have the stomach and the resilience and the continued sustained effort to actually go ahead and make that change. That is an extraordinary assumption to make of someone that we are with.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Now, can someone change? Yes. Have you had the conversation with them? Is there progress? Is the progress continuing? You're probably not even close to that level of understanding because right now you're having the conversation about what's bothering you with your friends and not even with the person.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's true. I'm in level two. I won't even have that conversation about level three. So I'm definitely not going to talk about them.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Wait, I actually need to make sure that I get to level four.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because when you have the hard conversation, is there a mistake that people make when it comes to level three, meaning the commitment piece? Thinking love is all you need. Love is not all you need.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: What do you need?
--:-- Mel Robbins: You need level four. What's level four?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Compatibility.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What is compatibility in your work? Do we work together? How do you know? Because a lot of people don't know. They want it to work together, but how do you know if it works together?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: I think the baseline is, can we get our fundamental needs met in this relationship? There are lots of luxury items in a relationship, but at the core, can I get my fundamental needs met? You have to ask yourself what those things are. What are the things I truly need?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: A friend of mine always dated dancers. I said to him, "You're married now. You always dated dancers. Does your wife dance?" He said, "Least coordinated person I've ever met." I said, "Does it bother you? Because that was always your preference." He said, "Matt, how much of my life do you think I spend dancing? I maybe dance once or twice a year. It literally has no bearing on the quality of my marriage. This person is an amazing partner, an amazing mother. We have the best time together. She's my best friend. Those are the things that affect my life every day."
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm so glad that we're talking about compatibility because I believe that this is one of those topics that you don't understand compatibility until you meet somebody that you're actually compatible with. And you go, "Oh, wait a minute. This is so much easier."
--:-- Mel Robbins: When I reflect back on prior relationships where I realize now I just wasn't compatible, there may have been a commitment there. We were in level three, but the level four piece, there was no compatibility, even though we wanted to be compatible. Here's how I know: there was always so much friction. Everything felt like an effort. There was underlying agitation, whether we're trying to pick a restaurant or making plans on what to do on a Saturday. Those relationships where you find yourself in where everything that the person does irritates you — that's a sign that you're not compatible.
--:-- Mel Robbins: When you're compatible with somebody, it's not that hard. Sure, you fight. Sure, there are things that bother you, but it passes so quickly because there's this energetic match. I'm the kind of person that has massive ADHD and I'm very competitive and hard driving. The reason why I'm so compatible with my husband is probably because he is a very easygoing, very kind person. If I were with somebody that were more hard driving like me, we'd probably kill each other because there'd be a ton of friction around the energy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Compatibility for me, Matt, really is when it just works. It's easier to tell when you're not compatible because it's hard. You're always kind of upset with somebody or walking on eggshells, or you don't think you can be yourself. I knew when I met Chris, he was the one because I realized, "Oh my God, I can be exactly who I am and exactly who I'm not. I don't have to pretend. I don't have to work hard to be somebody different to make this work." That is what is at the heart of compatibility — that you can be you. When you find that, you'll know it because it'll be easier than any other relationship you've had in the past because the energy matches.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Matthew, what is your message to someone who is really struggling with valuing themselves inside a relationship?
--:-- Matthew Hussey: We have to love ourselves enough that we would not put anyone in our presence. No one would be the continued recipient of our investment, our energy, our attention, our love, our intimacy, if what we fundamentally want in life is something they cannot give us. That's the essence of self-love.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: How does it translate to the relationship with ourselves? There's 8 billion people on this earth. All you need to start treating yourself a little better is to realize that if you keep saying you love people or you care about people, that you are a person in the room. It's as simple as that. That's a starting point.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: But it's actually more important than that. Of the 8 billion people on this earth, you are the only one charged with the responsibility of taking care of this one human. You were born and someone said, "You have one job: take care of this human. That's it." Your only job in this world is to take care of, nurture, stand up for, help this person find happiness, be there for this human. That's it.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: When you look at it like that, comparison makes no sense anymore because you go, "I can't exchange this human. I only get one. My job isn't to judge this human. Judgment is irrelevant. My job is just to give the best possible life to this human." That turned self-love into something I knew exactly how to do because I realized, "Oh, I don't need to like myself in order to love myself. Liking myself can come later. Loving myself isn't a feeling. It's an approach. It's a job. It's a verb."
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Once we understand that, we go, "Why would I let someone who doesn't respect this human anywhere near them? Why would I let someone who is making this human feel unsafe or confused about their worth or keeps them in limbo or picks them up and puts them down, is completely inconsistent with them? Why would I let anyone like that near this human?"
--:-- Matthew Hussey: The way you stick to these standards is you connect with the fact that even when it's difficult, it's your job to take care of this human. This isn't a one-time epiphany. It's something that I go through once a month, once a week sometimes, if I feel disconnected from myself and why I should be loving myself. You want this structure laid out in a way you can go through anytime you want, which is why I put the entire thing inside my book in a section called Core Confidence.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: A lot of us are crazy critical of the way our parents raised us. Perhaps we should be more critical of how we're raising ourselves.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Matthew Hussey, the new book is *Love Life*. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for pouring so much love into us. I'll tell you that level four thing — one, two, three — really changed me. I'd never heard that before. I really, truly love that you shared that with us and everything else. Congratulations on everything that you're doing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Audrey, thank you for sending that badass text back and letting him know where he was and where he stood and standing for yourself. I think it's a really good blueprint for how you can raise your standards too.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For you listening, I just want to make sure in case nobody else tells you that I tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. A huge part of that is you creating higher standards for how you treat yourself and who you let into your life. Now that you have heard this conversation, you know exactly how to do that. So go do it. I'll talk to you in a few days.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: All right, great. Awesome.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Share this episode with your friends and stay with us because I'll be... Oh my God. Okay, hold on. [Sound effects] And just go boom, boom, boom, boom. There we go. All right. Here we go.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Great. Okay, let me say one more thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Good. Okay, great. Thank you for the coaching, guys.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: Really? Well, I would have been pissed if it was his worst.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Now in your standards, you would have been pissed if it was second best.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: You know how competitive I am.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, I'm just kidding. And if it wasn't your best, that's on me.
--:-- Matthew Hussey: No, I loved it. Okay, here we go. Everybody love you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, and one more thing. No, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language that the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
