Matthew Hussey

There was probably a combination of insecurities or fears that caused me to

be afraid of having difficult conversations and just saying what I really wanted to say.

And then I remember having throat clenching and heart palpitations over years of being in these different relationships where I never felt like I was able to speak up.

And I can't blame the other person.

We can never blame the other person for our decision to not communicate, not set standards, not say the things we need to say.

We can't blame the other person.

But it always felt like, oh, this person isn't willing to accept me for who I am if I say the full truth or if I talk about the things that I'm uncomfortable with.

If I don't like this situation, they will not accept me.

And they didn't, they didn't accept me for my authentic conversations or my truth.

But I was afraid of losing them for them not accepting me for who I was.

And therefore, it was never going to work out.

And it wasn't until I started to really understand that and become aware of and start to heal that process.

A lot of things changed with Martha because I was like, wow, this is an incredible human being in front of me that I'm starting to date and connect with and meet.

Wow, she's pretty special.

But I got to the point where I was like, but I can't be willing to lose myself in order to try to have someone want to stay with me.

I cannot go down this path again, which I'd done five or six times in 20 years in different relationships where I lost myself to try to please someone else so that they'd want to like and love me.

and therefore hating myself in return, resenting myself, resenting the person, resenting the relationship, feeling guilty of why I wasted all this time and energy being in this relationship, fighting for it, while all the while I was losing myself and losing my self-respect in that process.

And it wasn't until Martha, I was like, oh man, I'm gonna have the uncomfortable conversations pretty early on, right, in the first few months.

I'm gonna talk about

These are my standards.