DDeep Dive with Ali Abdaal
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Matthew Hussey18 April 2024

Why You've Not Met Your Person - Matthew Hussey

5Frameworks
11Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Mindset6 steps

Accountability Without Blame

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Communication7 steps

Enrolling Your Partner as a Teammate

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Communication7 steps

The Acquiescence Sustainability Test

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Mindset5 steps

The Ego vs Happiness Filter

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Self-Mastery6 steps

You Had One Job: Self-Love as Custody

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 2

Myth Buster28:30

Question your instincts — don't trust them

Hussey pushes back on the standard advice to trust your instincts, naming a chapter of his book after the opposite. He argues instincts frequently lead people toward partners who don't treat them well and lives that make them unhappy, and that much of Ali's own work is likewise training people out of bad instincts toward more fulfilling jobs, calmer lives and sustainable pace. He grants that nature and society steer us, but insists humans have intent and can train themselves to value new things — as he did when peace replaced the buzz.

“there's a chapter in in my new book called question your instincts”

Matthew Hussey · 28:30

“I think that they often lead us down bad paths towards people who don't treat us well”

Matthew Hussey · 29:00
Myth Buster33:00

One ultimate decision maker in a relationship is a mandate for abuse

Hussey recounts a Red Table Talk round table where an argument was put forward that a relationship needs one ultimate decision maker and leader, with the other partner deferring in her feminine. Drawing on 17 years of work, he says he knows exactly where that goes: relationships where at some point the man decided his way is the way and the other person doesn't get a say in decisions about the family. He calls it a mandate for abuse and for narcissism, and rejects reductive delineations of who is responsible for what.

“that is a mandate for abuse in a relationship that is a mandate for narcissism in a relationship”

Matthew Hussey · 34:00

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take10:00

The hypergamy argument is selective — he sees the counterexamples daily

Ali puts the evolutionary-psychology position to him: women are wired to date and marry upward and can no more choose attraction than a man can. Hussey answers that these commentators have a very selective focus — he doesn't doubt the data exists, but he isn't short of examples of women who out-earn and outrank their partners and are in genuinely happy relationships. The men in those relationships strike him as some of the most secure he knows, precisely because their significance never came from out-earning her in the first place.

“I'm not short of examples of uh women who have chosen men who are not in the same position as they are”

Matthew Hussey · 11:30

“they're saying I my significance didn't come from that in the first place”

Matthew Hussey · 13:00
Hot Take29:30

Why the fatalistic view of dating reads as misanthropic to him

Hussey explains his suspicion of the deterministic evolutionary-psychology framing beyond the data question: it consistently carries an edge that doesn't seem to come from liking people very much. He contrasts that with his own starting point of loving people and seeing the best in them, and says that when he gets under the surface with people he always finds them far more interesting than those conclusions allow. It's a stance about temperament and vantage point rather than a counter-study.

“I come from a place of really loving people and seeing the best in people”

Matthew Hussey · 30:00
Hot Take30:30

Polarity is real; fixed masculine and feminine roles are not

Asked about masculine and feminine energy, Hussey says that in the happiest relationship he's ever been in, they never talk about it. He grants polarity is real — people need to feel strong and be seen as strong — but rejects the idea that one person must always be feminine and the other always masculine. He describes reverse polarity across different days depending on who is leading or providing strength, notes he does stereotypically masculine hobbies like jiu-jitsu and boxing while also carrying plenty of feminine energy, and values the versatility of playing in both.

“we never talk about masculine feminine energy ever”

Matthew Hussey · 31:00

“I think you can have a lot of polarity going in both directions in the same relationship on different days”

Matthew Hussey · 36:00

Explainer· 3

Explainer02:00

Opportunities in love and happiness in love are not the same thing

Hussey explains why he wrote Love Life after 17 years of coaching: even once he had learned to create opportunities in his love life, he still couldn't find his person or feel at peace. He saw the same split everywhere — people chasing someone exciting who made them miserable, or settling for someone safe while constantly doubting the choice — and wanted a book that acknowledged those struggles as a co-pilot for anyone at any stage, including people exhausted and burned out by dating.

“opportunities and happiness are not the same thing”

Matthew Hussey · 02:30

“they either felt they were chasing someone who was exciting but made them miserable”

Matthew Hussey · 03:00
Explainer05:30

Men's old tools — status, money, power — have stopped working

Hussey describes what he empirically observes among men: they were raised to believe their tools for impressing someone were status, money and power, precisely because those feel controllable in a way height or bone structure isn't. Increasingly they meet women who already have those things or aren't impressed by them. The responses he sees are either seeking someone with less going on who needs them, or re-evaluating where confidence and worthiness actually come from. He notes the expectation on men used to be provision plus not being abusive, and has thankfully risen.

“because the old tools aren't working the way they used to”

Matthew Hussey · 06:30
Explainer1:07:30

Homeostatic pull: why breaking a family cycle gets you resistance, not thanks

Hussey describes friends whose mothers and grandmothers were never unshackled from automatic obligation, and one whose mother exercised freedom in her 70s and 80s — a profoundly healing thing for the daughter to witness. If you had no such reference point, he argues, you may be the pioneer. He names the family-therapy concept of homeostatic pull: the system's desire to stay the same, and its work to change you back rather than evolve around you. For a long time you get resistance, fear and resentment — and occasionally you change someone who came before you.

“breaking that is an incredibly Brave thing to do”

Matthew Hussey · 1:08:00

“in Family Therapy there is a a concept of homeostatic pull uh the desire for the system to remain the same”

Matthew Hussey · 1:08:30

Story· 1

Story44:30

He stopped being a jealous person — and it wasn't willpower

Hussey shares that things which would have made him jealous five years ago no longer register, and he can't remember the last time he felt jealous — despite not having a history of being jealousy-free. He attributes it entirely to being in a relationship that has been highly corrective, with feeling safe as the active ingredient. That leads him to a diagnostic question for couples: is the discomfort about this specific experience, or is it pointing to something much broader in the landscape of the relationship that isn't being discussed?

“there are things that 100% would have made me jealous even 5 years ago”

Matthew Hussey · 44:30

“maybe it's pointing to something much broader in the landscape of this relationship that we need to address”

Matthew Hussey · 45:30

Q&A· 1

Q&A1:00:30

Duty, obligation and parents in South Asian and other traditional families

Ali describes a cultural model where the parent is a parent rather than a friend and duty comes before personal relationship, drawing a parallel to duty and submission to God preceding a personal relationship with God. Hussey says his own East End London family came with all the same stuff. His move was to notice the inconsistency: his mother had herself broken with mindless obligation to her parents at points, doing what was right for the new family she was building. Seeing that hypocrisy was freeing.

“in Asian cultures it's more like the parent is the parent rather than a friend”

Ali Abdaal · 1:01:00

“clearly at some point you broke with Mindless obligation to to your family and did what was right for your relationship”

Matthew Hussey · 1:03:00

Takeaway· 1

Takeaway1:13:00

The Godlike arrogance of thinking your sacrifices make them happy

Answering Ali's worry about selfishness, Hussey attacks the premise underneath people-pleasing: the belief that what you do for people is what makes them happy. Nothing he ever did on that basis actually made any of those people happy — there is always a next week, and they are the same person they were before. He calls the assumption an almost Godlike arrogance, and points to the real drivers of their state: their wiring, unresolved trauma they aren't working on, their view of life, and making you the source of their positive emotions.

“nothing I have ever done on that basis has ever made Happy any of those people”

Matthew Hussey · 1:13:30

“there's almost a Godlike arrogance about this thing that I'm doing”

Matthew Hussey · 1:14:00