Episode 584: Matthew Hussey: Relationship Psychology: Why Strong Chemistry Can Keep You Stuck

**Matthew Hussey** (0:01)
Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

**Jen Cohen** (0:06)
Welcome to Habits and Hustle, where I sit down with the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs and experts to uncover the habits, strategies and mindset shifts that actually move the needle in your health, happiness and success. And today, I'm sitting down with Matthew Hussey, a relationship coach, bestselling author, speaker and host of the Love Life podcast. He has spent nearly two decades helping people navigate dating, heartbreak, commitment and what it actually takes to build a healthy relationship. In this episode, we get into why we consistently overvalue connection, how chemistry can feel more important than it actually is, and the four levels of a relationship. We also talk about why someone cannot be your person while actively choosing not to be with you and how we can end up grieving an imagined future more than the relationship itself. I love this episode. Matthew also explains how holding on to what could have been can become a form of avoidance and why moving on requires deliberate action instead of simply waiting for your feelings to disappear. This conversation will make you rethink chemistry, compatibility, commitment, heartbreak and the stories you create around relationships that never became what you hope they would. What Matthew shares in this episode will help you separate connection from compatibility and recognize when you are attached to a potential instead of reality. Like I said, this episode has it all. So let's dive in.
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Like there's certain qualities that people are typically drawn to, right? Charm, right? Like being funny, charming. Like all those things. But those are like usually very surface, topical things that don't really serve us, right? Like as a girl, right? I'm attracted to guys or who are like that, right? Confident, funny, charismatic. A lot of times those guys don't make the greatest partners though. They've learned how to be a great sales representatives. That's what happens a lot of times. And now I am speaking for like, because me, like women talk about this all the time. And I bet you similar to how you probably were, right? When you were saying you were bad, like you probably weren't like an asshole, but you know, you were probably very nice.

**Matthew Hussey** (3:54)
Not intentionally anyway.

**Jen Cohen** (3:55)
Not intentionally. You probably were, like I think even in your paragraph, when you first opened the book, you were charismatic, you were nice, you were chivalrous, you know, you did all the nice things to make someone want to like you, even though you knew that you're probably not the greatest partner. I think that's what people get drawn to, right? Is this like superficial level, and it's very hard for people to separate that from something more. And then you also write about the fact, so this is a couple of two prong question, which I love when you said this, that connection isn't what you should be striving for, it's compatibility. Because I think we always say to each other, oh, you know, well, we have such a great connection, or the connection, the connection, like you always hear the word connection. It's like the big hashtag in relationships. But like the truth of the matter, just because you do have a connection, and like this is the part of the book I was like reading like ferociously. It's really doesn't matter. It's like, it's about, are you guys compatible? And people again, mistake those two.
Can you talk about why and just expand upon those things? Cause I think that a lot of people, like that would resonate with on both sides.

**Matthew Hussey** (5:09)
Firstly, to your point about all those attractive qualities, we have to go a little deeper in terms of what it is we're looking for. It's fine to like someone who's charming. It's fine to like someone who's funny or sexy or any of those things, but that can't be all you need.