Do you have a strategy for how you know if something's a deal-breaker? Because I do think a lot of people don't truly understand what is a deal-breaker and what's just something you need to be more flexible about. In the case of the partner who's let themselves go, or the partner who is struggling with drinking, or the partner who has anger issues, or the partner who... You know what I'm saying?

To your point, we could take them one by one, But let's say the partner who's let themselves go. I think that the default with someone you love is always compassion, not judgment, because that must be hard for them. If someone's let themselves go, I know when I've let myself go in life, it didn't feel good to me. My mind was in a certain state when I was letting myself go. And that is That has to be met with love and compassion. Now, one of the things I want to make sure we at some point touch on is the compassion we have to show ourselves and what that looks like. But outward compassion there is really, really important. But you have to ask yourself, if this was taken to its extreme, which either means it keeps getting worse or this person stays this way for the rest of their life, Is that compatible with me loving myself? Is it compatible with me taking care of myself? And part of taking care of myself is being in a relationship that supports my needs. You have to go into in what ways does that affect your needs? Well, we may say in the short term, it affects my needs sexually, let's say.

It's a hard place for us to go, but If most people are honest and they say, My partner has let themselves go to the point where they take no pride in their appearance, they take no pride in their body, they're not in that place, and I'm also not in that place. And this is something that's really, really important to me. It's no judgment on them. That's why I say we have to start with compassion.

It's interesting because if you start with compassion, even when you're breaking up, or you start with compassion and you're having a hard conversation about how somebody is mentally or physically, and you start knowing that this is hard for them and you still love them, but you also have to have the conversation for yourself because it's not fair to somebody to silently be mad at them or silently judge them. If you find yourself talking more to your friends about it?

No. It breaks my heart as I say this, because I genuinely think it's as hard hard for them to change that thing as it is for you to change your hardest thing right now. We have to start looking at these things that way, that this thing that affects you is as hard for them to change that as it is for you to change something you're finding nearly impossible to change. When you look at it through that lens, there is no judgment. It's just compassion. The most tragic and heartbreaking thing would be if that thing that they couldn't change over time, spelled the end of this beautiful relationship. That's the part that you have to, A, connect with yourself. That's truly heartbreaking. And that at a certain point, you have to connect them to that as well because it's the last thing you want. And then your needs are not just that. Your needs might be your need for this person who you love to still be around for as many years as possible. And that there is a delayed heartbreak that is coming for me because of the way that you're not taking care of yourself right now.

You are going to be responsible for the greatest heartbreak of my entire life. I come to you in that spirit that I want to be there for you. I want to I want to support you. I want to put whatever support I can around you to help. I want to understand how hard it is for you. Let's talk about that. Let's go to therapy for that. Whatever we have to do, let's do that. I'm not minimizing how hard it is, but I also don't want to minimize the impact that this is going to have on our life, is already having on our life, and will one day have in the most tremendous way if we're not careful, if we're not careful. At That language, I think, gets out of the mode of judging someone for what they're not able to do that maybe comes more naturally to you, which is your gift and their curse.

I think if the shoes on the other foot and you're the one struggling, that's how you want your partner to show up for you. I get a lot of questions about what to do when you're changing and someone else isn't. This one comes from Heather. What do you do when the person holding you back is the partner that you love? I struggle to not be angry with my partner for not matching my desire for personal growth, and I resent the fact that I feel like I have to pull them along. My frustration to them is perceived as believing that they are a piece of shit or that they will never be good enough for me. I feel like I'm holding myself back to keep the peace. The more I grow, the more they become insecure I'm secure. I don't want my kids to watch me sacrifice who I am because of my partner. What's your counsel to somebody that's in that position, where they're growing and their partner's not?

Well, so I want to set up that framework again that is my problem that they're not like me or that my needs aren't getting met. Now, if someone doesn't read the same books as you or doesn't fancy going to that weekend program, that weekend seminar, that has no bearing on the relationship on its own. It's like skiing. It's just a program. It's just a book. Someone could have grown up on a farm Having never even connected with the idea that there was a self-development world in existence. You might be the same age and meet each other and have learned just as much about life through completely different paths. And the fact that they don't know about this or they don't know this language that you've learned and they don't understand these therapies or this growth work or whatever is utterly irrelevant. But where the rubber meets the road is Is them not doing that work, denying you something fundamental in a relationship? For example, are they unable to apologize because they They have no self-awareness of the traits that they have that are truly destructive. They're not conscious of the things they're doing that are really destructive.

They're not even interested in becoming more aware of those things. They don't have to become aware of it through therapy. They don't have to become aware of it by reading the same books, but they can just become aware of it through conversation with you.

What do you do if you're in the relationship, though? Because most people are not as transformed as you guys.

If you find that when you bring something up that affects you, it's met with disinterest, it's met with judgment, it's met with contempt, then you don't have the teammate that you're looking for. You don't have someone who values teamwork, and that becomes a deep compatibility issue. So you're sensing, to what extent do I genuinely have a teammate? And you only know the extent to which you genuinely have a teammate when you're able to have these kinds of conversations.

I don't want to have these conversations, Matt. I just want it to be perfect. What do you mean? I think we have to talk about it. I have a bunch of speed round questions around dating. Okay. So what advice do you have for people who have been single for a long time and are struggling to find love?

First, the story is almost certainly now going to become, if you're not careful, your biggest enemy, because there Now it's not just the pain of loneliness, that pang of, I wish I had someone and I don't. It's the story I've told myself about why that is, that I'm not enough, that I'm undesirable, that I'm always the person before the person they marry, that all the good ones are taken, that there's a story now that's no longer serving you. The greatest gift you can give yourself is don't try to fix your loneliness or the fact that you would really like to meet someone. That's a part of being human. There are going to be times where you feel lonely. There are going to be times where you ache because you'd really like to have someone in this life. But the thing that turns that pain into unbearable pain is the relationship you have with your loneliness, the relationship you have with being single. And so much of that relationship is defined by this story that gets created. Loneliness, the ache of wanting someone and not having found them is like a chronic pain. It is a chronic pain.

It's just a chronic emotional pain.

How do you change it? Because it sounds terrible.

Firstly, the deeper work is changing your relationship with it. The more Service level work is you do everything you can to make it inevitable that you can meet someone.

And what are those things?

Well, firstly, get comfortable with where you are, because if you can't get comfortable where you are, then anytime someone comes along, you will join whatever cult comes your way because you just want to get out of pain. So you have to get yourself to a place where you're happy enough without someone. You don't have to be blissfully happy, but happy enough that you can always say no to the wrong thing because you will find the right person faster if you can say no to the wrong people quicker. So you have to be happy enough that you can say no to the wrong people when they come along and not grip onto them. So Give yourself a portfolio of investments in your love life. There's nothing wrong with online dating. It's one investment, but it shouldn't be your only investment. How are you investing in your social circle? Are you still hanging out with the same three friends that you've been hanging out with for the last 10 years, two of which are married and one of whom you love, but she never stops talking shit about men. She feels so disillusioned that she's like, screw dating altogether.

Well, that's okay. Be that person's friend. But that can't be your peer group for trying to improve your love life. Start saying, Have I got the right Are they the people around me who are opportunity generating? Are they the kinds of people that say to me, Hey, let's go do something today. And let's not just go do something where the two of us do something on our own, but let's go be in a place where there's other people. Are you joining communities? If Why don't you run, why aren't you in a running club? If you really want to meet someone and you're running anyway, why are you not part of a running club where there's 50 people there that can become an entire new community for you, some of which may be right for you, one of them maybe, or even if no one there is right for you, there are now a community of people that are more likely to invite you to their individual birthday parties where their brother is single or their sister My sister is single, or there's someone there that could be the right person, all because you put yourself in a new community.

Now, if you say to me, My time is all spoken for, start looking for the things that you already do in your week. You keep going to the class at your gym. This is the thing people always say, Oh, Matt, you think there's anyone at my class in my gym? There's no one there. Are you going to the only gym in your city? You're telling me that's the only fitness class going on your city. Switch classes. There. Entire new group of people right there. You can't go to a different church this week, one weekend, so that you meet a whole different group of people. There's more than one place that does the things you enjoy. But if you're addicted to your existing community, the places where you do everything, the places, the friends you have, then you're never putting yourself in the new communities where you won't have one new option, but 10, 20, 30 new options. There's I have many pieces of advice like this, but that's just a couple. It gives people a sense that the limitations I'm giving myself are really a cover for the way my life has calcified and hardened into this thing that I've made immoveable when actually there's so much opportunity around me.

I'm not exploring it because there's an activation energy required to explore it, and it's more than the price I want to pay. Dating culture today for so many people sucks, and it is hard to find love. It's the one area where we feel like we're out of control.

How do you change it?