How To Look At "Deal Breakers" In The Relationship You Have With People | Mel Robbins Clips

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 so 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 like to those to those to your point we could take them one by one but let's say the partner who's let themselves go

mhm I think that the default with someone you love is always compassion not judgment because that that must be hard for them you know if someone's let themselves go I know when I've let myself go in life it didn't feel good to me and you know there was my my mind was in a certain State when I was letting myself go and that is you know that has to be met with love and compassion now one of the things I I want to 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 comp outward compassion there is really really important but you have to ask yourself if 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 and you have to go into What What In what ways does that affect your

needs well we may say in the short term it affects my needs sexually let's say you know it's it's a hard place for us to go but if most people are honest and they say my partners 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 a 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 kind of have the conversation for yourself because it's not fair to somebody to silently be mad at them or silently judge them and if you find yourself talking more to your friends about it no and and and it I it breaks my heart as I say this because I

genuinely think it's it's as hard for them to change that thing as it is for you to change your hardest thing right now like it's we have to start looking at these things that way that this thing that affects you it is as hard for them to change that as it is for you to change something you're finding nearly impossible to change and when you look at it through that lens there is no judgment it's just it's just compassion and and 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 that's the part that you have to a connect with yourself that 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 not and then you know your needs are not just that your needs might be your need for you know this person who you love to still be around for as many years as possible and that there is a there is a delayed heartbreak that is coming for me because of

the way that you're not taking care of yourself right now and it is going to you are going to be responsible for the greatest heartbreak of my entire life and and I come to you in that spirit that I want to be there for you I want I want to support you I want to put you know whatever support I can around you to help I want to understand how hard it is for you and and let's talk about that let's go to therapy for that let's like whatever we have to do let's do that

it 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 we'll one day have in the most tremendous way if we're not careful if we're not careful you know and that kind of 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 a your gift and their curse yeah I think if the shoe's 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 and so this one comes from Heather what do you do when the person holding you back is yeah 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 [ __ ] 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 don't want my kids to watch me sacrifice who I am because of my partner H what's your counsel to somebody that's in that position where they're growing and their partn 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 week seminar like that sh that has no bearing on the relationship on its own you know it's it's like skiing it's it's just a program it's just a book it's just a someone 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 the rubber meets the road is is it 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 and they they're not conscious of the things they're doing that are really destructive and they're not even interested in becoming more aware of those things they 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 like in the relationship though cuz 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 kind of teammate that you're looking for you don't have someone who values teamwork and that

becomes a deep compatibility issue so it's 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 I mean what do you mean we have to talk about it I have a bunch of speed round kind of questions around dating okay so um 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 cuz there is now a 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 you there's a story now that's no longer serving you the 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 um 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 the deeper work is changing your relationship with it the more surface level work is you do everything you can to make it inevitable that you can meet someone and what are those things um well firstly get comfortable with where you are because if you can't can't get comfortable where you are then anytime someone comes along you will 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 cuz you will find the right person faster if you can say no to the wrong people quicker great so you have to be happy enough that you can say no to the wrong people when they come along and not grip on to them um give yourself a kind of portfolio of investments in your love life so

there's nothing wrong with online dating it's one investment but it shouldn't be your only investment um 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 [ __ ] about men and she's feels so disillusioned that she's like screw dating all together well that's okay and be that person's friend but that's not that can't be your peer group for trying to improve

your love life so start saying have I got the right 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 community if 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 may be 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 is single or there 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's all spoken for start looking for the things that you

already do in your week you you know 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 like you're telling me that's the only that's the only Fitness class going on in 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 so it's it's there's many I have many pieces of advice like this but that's just a couple and it gives people a sense that the limitations I'm giving myself are really a kind of there are there me they're a cover for the way my life has kind

of calcified and and hardened into this thing that I've made immovable 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