4 Crucial Steps to Know if That Person Is Right for You

–

Choosing the Right Partner Matters

I recently became a dad, and one of the many crucial things it taught me is how extraordinarily important it is to pick the right partner in life.

Choosing the partner you spend the rest of your life with might be the most important decision you make because it shapes everything that comes after it: your finances, the way you parent, how well you overcome or manage illness, and so much more.

This is not a decision we should take lightly, especially if you have a pretty good life right now as a single person. Why would you rock your peace and your routine and put your future on the line for just anybody?

And yet, modern dating and social media have made this decision more difficult than ever. There is conflicting advice online. There are too many clichés that fall apart under the complexities of real life. And there is a seemingly endless buffet of options that paralyzes us into indecision when it comes to picking who is right for us.

In this video, I want to give you a framework that I’ve developed to help you cut through the noise.

For everyone new here, I am Matthew Hussey. I have spent the last two decades coaching hundreds of thousands of people about love and relationships. My latest book, Love Life, was an international bestseller on this subject.

Subscribe and like this video, and let’s dive into today’s topic.

Here is a summary of the transcript from YouTube, slightly edited with AI.

Why We’re Often Bad Judges of Happiness

A lot of people are bad judges of what will make them happy long term. Myself included.

I struggled with this for a long time. That whole “when you know, you know” shtick didn’t sit right with me. As someone who struggled with anxiety for much of my life, I had a habit of overthinking and questioning my decisions when it came to love.

Ironically, anytime I did feel certain about someone, it had nothing to do with how right that person was for me and everything to do with how much that person triggered my insecurity.

I wasn’t certain they were right for me. I was just certain I had to have them, even if it cost me my voice.

What Grabs Our Attention Isn’t Always What Matters

The problem is partly to do with what initially grabs our attention and how little connection that thing actually has to our future happiness.

Maybe you’re attracted to the way a person commands a room when they walk into it, or how much charisma they have at parties, or what your friends think about this person’s job.

Now, these aren’t bad qualities when it comes to short-term excitement or if our priority is to find someone who’s great to show off on Instagram.

But are any of these characteristics the ones that will help you when you are sick and have a crying baby your partner needs to tend to? Or when you’ve lost your job and need to lean on your partner for support for a few months until you find your footing again? Or when you’re dealing with illness and need emotional support?

I have coached many people who claim their problem is that they have high standards, when what they really mean is:

I am super picky when it comes to superficial traits.

When it comes to how safe they want to feel emotionally, how they’re treated by someone, or whether that person actually shows up for them on their hardest days, they have no standards.

Which is why they keep trying to win someone over who makes them feel terrible.

Look, if you want to know who excites you in dating, you don’t need me for that. Just follow your feelings.

But if you want to know who’s right for you, I have a four-part model that can help you manage your feelings in early dating, know who you should invest in, and make sure your decision about who you spend your life with is not something you spend years recovering from.

Instead, it becomes something that ages like a fine meal… date? Your folds and wrinkles have only increased your allure with time.

[snorts]

The Four Levels of Importance

The model is called The Four Levels of Importance because it gives you a way of measuring how important what you have with someone really is.

If you have someone in your life right now, think about them as you listen to this model.

Level 1: Admiration

You may find someone attractive, intriguing, or impressive.

Maybe it’s someone on social media you have mutual friends with, or someone at a party you’ve been noticing all night. It could even be a celebrity you’ve never met and maybe never will meet.

At this stage, you are simply admiring the person. They may not even know you exist.

Hopefully, we can all agree this level isn’t very important.

Level 2: Mutual Attraction

This is when you’ve made a connection with someone.

It seems massively important because you’ve not only met someone you like, but they like you back—which in dating today can feel like a celestial event that won’t occur again for another decade.

So we can’t let it go.

This is where all of that glorious chemistry happens. It feels like the most important thing in the world. It feels like all we need to decide:

This is the person I’m supposed to be with. My soulmate.

But mutual attraction can’t tell you how great this person would be inside a relationship—or whether they’re even capable of having one.

The Danger of Chemistry

When someone we like likes us back, we stop being objective because the stakes feel impossibly high.

We know this stage has the possibility of becoming the meaningful relationship we’ve always dreamed about.

But it also has the possibility of ending up as just another dreaded situationship.

So we become frightened to mess it up. We stop thinking straight.

Level 3: Commitment

This is the stage where both people say yes.

Not “maybe.” Not “we’ll see.” Not “work is busy right now.” And definitely not:

“My heart belongs to the open ocean and the salt spray of Mother Nature’s deep blue…”

Because then they’d be a pirate.

And I don’t say this enough, but we shouldn’t date pirates.

This is the stage where both people show up and enthusiastically commit to each other.

Now I know what you’re thinking: surely commitment is enough?

It isn’t.

Level 4: Compatibility

Without the fourth and final part of our model, any relationship is doomed to fail.

Commitment can keep you together for a time. Compatibility tells you if it can actually work.

Chemistry tells us there’s a spark.

Compatibility asks:

Do our values align?
Do our lifestyles work together?
Do we want the same future?

While chemistry is lovely, what is truly valuable is whether the relationship actually works.

Anyone who has experienced commitment without compatibility knows the special kind of hell it can be.

It can cost you your health, your finances, your relationship with your kids, your career, your future—even your voice.

Can Chemistry Grow?

Here’s the problem: it’s not easy to judge life-partner compatibility from a profile picture and a few prompts online.

Chemistry feels immediate—and so does the absence of it.

Many of us, myself included, are sexual beings who care deeply about physical attraction. We can’t imagine dating someone we don’t feel chemistry with, and we don’t want to settle.

I would never advocate for that.

There needs to be some amount of desire or spark.

So if you’ve met someone with whom you feel compatible, can attraction and chemistry grow?

The answer is yes and no.

It’s unlikely to grow if you feel repelled, chronically bored, don’t respect the person, or physical attraction is entirely absent.

But there are things you can do to get out of your own way.

We can stop confusing anxiety with chemistry.

The highs, the lows, the waiting, the chasing, and the euphoria when we get just enough of someone to keep us hooked can all feel like passion.

But if someone suddenly becomes more exciting the moment they pull away, that’s not attraction.

That’s your nervous system getting hijacked.

Settling For Someone vs. Settling On Someone

Maybe chemistry can show up in surprising ways.

Maybe it’s a quiet confidence—not the person who owns the room, but the person who doesn’t need to.

Maybe it’s seeing someone in their element for the first time.

This kind of person might actually make you feel better than you’ve ever felt.

Not more excited.

Better.

And when that’s true, you won’t be settling for that person.

You’ll be settling on that person.

They may not be who your younger self wanted you to be with. But what the hell did they know?

A wiser version of you is making an intentional decision to invest in someone who is awesome.

Settling for someone means shortchanging yourself.

Settling on someone is powerful.

You acknowledge that you could stay in the dating pool endlessly exploring options, but instead you choose someone and commit to building something extraordinary.