“I’m always the person they date right before they find the person they marry . . .”

Sound familiar? It can be shocking to find out that someone who always held out on commitment suddenly decides they want marriage and children . . . but only after you break up. 

At that point, you might be thinking: “Oh, so they were able to change . . . they just didn’t want to change with me.” So how can you recover from this feeling of not being chosen? In today’s video, I share 3 things you MUST know when you find yourself in this situation and can’t move on.

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MATTHEW HUSSEY

This is one of the most painful experiences you can go through in your love life. So, leave me a comment if this has happened to you.

You and another person ended up parting ways because of changes that they couldn’t make. And then once you were broken up, they ended up making those changes for someone else. The pain of this is profound and exquisite. When we were with that person, we consoled ourselves on the idea that, “Well, we just wanted different things,” or “This person is incapable of being what I need.” But then that one comfort that we have, the one thing that allowed us to sleep at night once we had left that person or been left by that person disintegrates in the light of this new information that they were capable of that change and that they did make that change. They just did it for someone else. And this cuts to the core of our self-worth because suddenly, the attention gets turned on us. What’s wrong with me?

I am Matthew Hussey. Welcome back to the channel or welcome to the channel for everyone who is new. I’m the author of the New York Times bestselling new book, Love Life. And for the last 17 years, I’ve been doing what it says on this book—helping people to raise their standards, find their person, and live happily no matter what.

So, let’s talk about this phenomenon—they changed. They just didn’t change for us. And I want to talk about it using a question that came to me from one of my Love Life members in one of our live sessions. So, I’ll read this question and then we will get into the answer in three parts.

By the way, if you’re enjoying me answering these Love Life member questions in these videos, but you want to go a step further and get coached by me yourself, the Love Life Club is where I do that. As part of Love Life, you essentially make me your coach in your love life for the next year. We have masterclasses, live Q&As, meet-ups, an entire suite of incredible resources that are designed to holistically help you make the progress you’re seeking this year in your love life. So, go to LoveLifeClub.com if you’d like to learn more, and I hope you become a part of the community with us.

Okay. So, this question. This is from Susan who says, “What do I do when I have always told myself that this man won’t change and that I have to accept that he doesn’t want to commit? But after he ended contact with me, he did change. He got into a relationship even though he always said he didn’t want one anymore. And on top of that, he had a baby with his new girlfriend just a few months ago. I find it very hard not to think that he could change, just not with me. I would be very happy to get some ideas on how to deal with this.”

So, this is the hard part, isn’t it? Those horrible thoughts of, “I could have said something different, it turns out. Maybe I could have done something different. What did they say and do that I failed to say and do?” Or, “What do they have that I don’t?”

These issues cut to the core of our self-worth. They make us doubt our fundamental value and they can erode our self-esteem going into the next relationship we find.

So, there are three things I want to say about this today. The first is we have to be very careful of not assuming that the change is real. 

It’s very easy from a distance to watch someone in what seems like them flourishing in a new relationship. Often, the only information we have from that is what friends tell us or mutual contacts, or what we see them posting online. And we get that snapshot and it triggers us in all of the worst ways. But that snapshot, that little piece of gossip that we heard, or that picture that we just saw of them with their new partner on Instagram is not a true reflection of their relationship. Remind yourself. You know no more about their relationship than anyone else did about yours the week before you broke up. No one knows what’s going on behind the curtain of a relationship.

So, don’t assume that change just came easily to this person. What we may be seeing is a superficial form of progress. We might be seeing someone racing ahead. But it’s likely that their fundamental nature hasn’t changed. The things that bothered us haven’t necessarily changed. It’s likely that they carry those into the next relationship. And that whatever deeper work they need to do is still very much a work in progress.

The way I think about this is don’t measure too quickly. And in a sense, we shouldn’t be measuring at all because it’s not our life anymore. You have to look at it like this. Their story is no more relevant to yours now than the story of a random barista in a coffee shop in a town that you’ll never visit.

But what if what they’ve now found is great? What if they do stand the test of time? Let’s be very clear. We don’t want to sit around wasting our lives, hoping that someone else’s relationship fails because they hurt us. That would be a tremendous waste of our life. And it would be a really internally toxic mindset to have toward somebody else. So, what if they succeed? What if that relationship they found actually turns out to be a lifelong relationship that works? That’s what brings me on to point number two.

If the change they’ve made was real and if the relationship does last, then don’t sweat it because they weren’t your audience. This person wasn’t for you. They were for someone else. Your audience is still out there. Instead of getting caught up in, “But that must mean someone is better than me,” recognize it’s not about who’s better. It’s about who your voice lands with.

I think about that all the time when I make YouTube videos. Someone might pass by my video, they might watch it for five minutes, and go, “Not for me.” And they might find another coach, another speaker, who they really resonate with. Does that make that person better than me? Not necessarily. It might just be that there’s something about that other person’s voice that really lands with that person. For reasons I may never know and probably won’t. And that’s okay.

My job is to refine my voice, to lean into my strengths, and make what I do as good as it can possibly be, and as true to me as it can possibly be. Because if I do that, what people will experience when they watch my videos is an essence that can’t just be replaced by someone else.

So, when they go and experience a different video, that video might be more right for them, it might land better on their ear, they might resonate more with that person, that personality, or the things they’re saying, but the audience that remains, the audience that does stick on my content, they’re the ones who get it, they’re the ones who resonate with me, and that’s my audience. Those are my people. That’s the thing to focus on. Be the you-est you. Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing or thinking that they’re better than you. Realize that your job is to find your audience. And the best way to do that is to lean into all of your own strengths.

Now, what if you’re listening to this and you can’t shake the thought that all of this sounds nice but in reality, it’s not just that in this particular case someone didn’t change for you but they did change for somebody else because they found something that for whatever reason, it’s not personal to me, it was more right for them, and I am still going to go on to find my audience. What if, when you look back through your life, you feel like this is always true for you? What if you feel like every time you’re the person before the person that they changed for? And I hear that sometimes. “I’m always the person before the person they marry.” What do you do when you feel like the story of your life is that people don’t change for you, they change for other people?

Well, that’s when we come on to point number three.

Is there something we are doing in our love lives, a way that we’re showing up with other people, that is distracting them from our intrinsic value?

What do I mean by this? I believe that we all have this incredible value and that value wants to emerge. And one of our big jobs is to get out of the way so that other people can experience how amazing we are. They can feel that value. But we all, at some point or another, have had some kind of behavior that has distracted people from our true value. It’s made us frustrating to be around, it’s made us abrasive, it’s made us difficult to have a relationship with. It’s gotten the way of the kind of connection we create on our best day.

And I think it’s worth exploring for all of us what that thing is because that thing can consistently get in the way of us finding love, if we’re not careful, for our entire lives. And a lot of people walk around completely unconscious when it comes to whatever that fatal flaw is. They never explore it. And that’s understandable. It’s terrifying to explore it. “What could I be doing that is contributing to why consistently in my life, people are not choosing me?” It’s an extremely brave question to ask. And I commend anybody who is able to ask this question.

I just did a getaway with the smallest group of people that I work with, my Club 320 Program. And one of the people in the room asked me a question. She said, “Matthew, you’ve been working with me for the last eight months. What do you see as my biggest weakness?” And then I thought my God, is that a brave question, to ask that, and truly sit and be present with the answer? And I said to her at the time, I said, “Do you really want me to be honest?” And she said, “Yes.” And I was so bawled over by how she sat there, absorbing what I was saying, which by the way, doesn’t mean I’m right. I might not be totally right. I might be wrong. She might choose to disregard what I’m saying, but she listened. And that is so powerful.

And one of the things that I’d love to encourage all of us to do is to be inspired by that because I was, and to say, “Who do I trust that I could ask for some genuine feedback, so that I could learn what behavior, what thing I’m doing, what way that I’m showing up, is distracting people from my value?” Value that is already there, by the way. Who could you go to and ask that question? Who could you ask, “Hey, I know you care about me. The most caring thing you can do for me right now is answer this question honestly. Is there a way you see me showing up that you think could be hurting me in my love life or the way that people are with me or whether they choose me?” And say to them, “I want you to be really brave in the way that you answer me because I know you may want to sugarcoat it or you may just want to tell me what I want to hear. You may think I’m going to get mad at you if you’re really honest, but I actually want you to be really honest.”

And you don’t just have to ask this of one person. You could ask this of three people really close to you or people who really know you. They don’t have to be super close but they have to be close enough to know you, your habits, your behaviors, and certainly, the way you show up with people romantically. When they speak, listen to what they say. Really be brave in taking in what they say and look at whether there’s a pattern in the things they’re saying because that pattern might be the information that you need to address that fatal flaw. And when we discover it, rather than thinking, “Oh, my God. This is awful. I have something that is holding me back. I have something I’m doing that’s screwing everything up,” we can actually say, “You know what? This is really positive. I’m learning something that can actually make a difference. I’m being conscious now about the thing that’s getting in my way, that’s been distracting people from how great I really am.”

And by the way, you’re not alone in this because this is a question I, in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be asking of a small group of people that I trust in my life. What do you think is the biggest weakness that holds me back? And I’m not going to like the answers, I’m sure, but they’re going to be so valuable to me, and they are the key to me becoming an even better version of myself a year from now than I am today.

I guarantee. None of the things I hear will be easy for me to work on. They’ll probably be hard because when get these things pointed out, what you realize is, “Oh, this is deep stuff for me. This is not easy to change.” But that’s okay. We can start doing the work of giving focus to those areas.

And if you’ve got this far in the video, I commend you because this is not some frivolous video on, “They changed for someone else, not for you. Well, screw them. They were the wrong person for you. You deserve better.” This isn’t that video. If you’ve made it this far, then you really value real progress and the things that could really help you in your love life.

Remember, don’t assume that the changes they’ve made are real, that the relationship will last, or that it’s everything you think it is behind the scenes. If it does last and it is real, then you know for sure that the person wasn’t right for you because you weren’t their audience. But guess what? If you lean into your voice, you will find your audience and that will be the relationship that sticks for you.

And lastly, never be afraid to explore the things that could be holding you back. If you do that, you’ll become so powerful because it’s what 99% of people are never brave enough to do but we are.

What this video is about, at its essence, is being the hero of your own story. As long as we’re focused on an ex or on the person that our ex is now dating, we’re making someone else the hero of our story. To quote the old man in the movie, The Holiday, we are making somebody else the leading role in a movie that is about us. So, I want to put the focus back on us. No one can stop us from having an amazing life. No one can stop us from experiencing amazing love because it’s all up to us. We can be the ones who go out there and create more opportunities, who create so many opportunities and so many wonderful things in our lives that we never look back on that thing that we one day thought we could never lose. We’ll realize we could lose it because we are the authors of our own happiness.

And for those of you who are joining me in a couple of weeks in Florida on my Retreat, I can’t wait to walk you through six days of everything I know about how to do this. And for anyone who still wants to join, there is still time. But we are right there now at the finish line. So, if you want to get on board before it’s too late, go to MHRetreat.com. I hope to see you there. I really, really do. And well, I look forward to seeing you, all of you, in next week’s video. Be well and love life.