How to Know If Someone Is Right for You
One of the most torturous debates we have in our love lives is whether the person we’ve started dating is right for us.
What if we already have too much friction? What if I’m more physically attracted to someone else? What if there isn’t enough of a spark—or there’s too much of a spark? They love to dance. They love mountain climbing. What if they judge me for my diet?
You know what? If we’re even thinking about this, we should just dump them and get it over with.
No, that’s enough.
Because in this video, I want to give you four useful tips that I’ve learned from 18 years of coaching people in their love lives that you can use to identify whether the person you’re seeing right now is right for you.
My hope is that this video will both provide comfort and be a necessary pressure valve for what you’re feeling right now.
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Here is a summary of the transcript from YouTube, slightly edited with AI.
1. They Close the Investment Gap
The investment gap is when the potential of a relationship is never realized because one person isn’t willing to try and the other person is too scared to.
You’re left wondering, “What the hell is this?” But you don’t really feel like you can bring that up and get clarity because they haven’t made you feel comfortable enough to have that conversation.
With the right person, you feel like you can communicate. You know where you stand. And if you don’t, you actually feel like it’s okay to broach the subject. It flows.
So ask yourself: Is the person I’m dating someone I actually feel I can communicate with?
The wrong person, directly or indirectly, gives you little cues that it’s not safe to bring things up.
How do they do that?
They might make an offhand comment like, “I just feel like everyone I ever date moves insanely fast. I’m always thinking, ‘Wow, slow down.’”
That puts the idea in your head that if you move too fast, it’s wrong. Now you’re preoccupied with not moving too fast.
They may never bring up where things are going or what this is. They may be inconsistent with their communication and leave you constantly unsure of yourself.
If someone disappears and then reappears, it keeps you distracted. When they come back, you’re not thinking, “I really need to communicate with them about where this is going.” You’re just thinking, “Oh my God, I’m so glad they’re back.”
It all becomes a way of occupying your mental bandwidth so that you can’t actually focus on progression.
With the right person, things progress organically. It’s not too fast. It doesn’t feel love-bomby. It’s not too slow. You become exclusive. You openly share how you feel about each other. You start becoming more a part of each other’s lives. You can make plans.
One of the great lessons we learn in our love lives is that we have to demand our value. We cannot expect people to show up and tell us what our value is and treat us well. We have to expect to be treated well and know how to communicate that we want that.
The reason most of us aren’t doing it is because there are deeper things going on within us—deeper confidence issues that we need to work on.
For anyone who wants to do this deeper work because you know it’s holding you back from the life you could have, I’m holding my annual retreat again this October in Miami, Florida, for two days of coaching immersion.
I always say this is like years of growth in the space of two days, and it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever created. You can find tickets at mhretreat.com.
We have a VIP ticket available right now, a whole VIP experience, and an early-bird discount. Take advantage of that, and let me know in the comments if you already have your ticket or are planning on getting one so I know who I’m going to be seeing in Miami this October.
2. You Feel More Like Yourself Around Them
The second sign someone is right for you is that you feel more yourself around them.
Feeling seen by somebody is ultimately about feeling safe. When you feel seen, you feel accepted. You feel safe to be who you actually are.
It’s from this place that you get to go out and conquer the world. One of the best things about the right relationship is that it becomes a springboard into the outer world where you can go and become more.
Interestingly, when my wife Audrey and I first started dating, I noticed something she was doing that I didn’t love.
She would sometimes be sarcastic in ways that cut through the authenticity or sincerity of a moment we were having.
I ended up calling it out—not in a mean way, but I’d point it out and say, “That was a little unnecessarily sarcastic.”
Over time, I realized Audrey’s sarcasm wasn’t innate to her. It had developed as a defense mechanism from people she had dated in the past who made her feel like she was too much, too sensitive, too emotional, and that her feelings got hurt too easily.
Her sensitivity started to take a back seat, and sarcasm became her protective weapon of choice.
When I first pointed it out, it caught her by surprise. But it also made her remember a part of herself.
She realized she was dating someone who was as sensitive as she was. Rather than looking at me and saying, “Why are you being so sensitive?” she saw herself reflected back.
She realized, “Oh, I can just be sincere with this person. I don’t need to do this.”
As a result, she started letting her guard down and becoming more of who she really was.
It was a defense mechanism that became a portal to a way we were deeply compatible once it was pointed out.
I’m not saying you have to be the same as the person you’re dating. You could be with someone who isn’t sensitive in the ways you are, and it can still work because they genuinely appreciate that difference.
What we can’t have is someone who doesn’t understand or see that part of us—or who sees it only as a point of contention, judgment, shame, or a reason to go cold on us.
Either we truly understand each other, or we see and treasure each other’s differences.
Either way, the relationship encourages you to become more of yourself, not less.
3. They Accept Where You Are in Life
The third sign someone is right for you is that they accept where you are in your life.
I recently did a group coaching session where a woman talked about going through a divorce. She took time to heal and eventually went back out into the dating world.
In the first few months of dating someone new, she had a couple of moments where she became triggered, her anxiety flared up, and she reacted poorly.
She talked about two moments in particular that created friction, and the guy ultimately said, “This isn’t for me. I’m out.”
She was beating herself up. Part of her wondered if she had dated too soon. Another part wondered if she wasn’t enough or if she would always scare people away.
She had also been transparent with him that she was in therapy and actively working through these issues.
It’s tempting in that situation to think, “He was the right person. I just screwed it up.”
But the reality is that the right person for us is the person who signs up for the stage of the journey we’re actually in.
None of us are coming into relationships perfect. None of us are coming without baggage. None of us are fully healed.
The idea that you should heal yourself completely and then go have a relationship is too simplistic. Life isn’t that binary.
We are all works in progress.
We’re always asking the person we meet to accept the stage of life we’re currently in. We’re asking them to make space for it and sign up for it. And we’re doing the same for them.
The right person isn’t the person who would be right for us if only we’d never been through a divorce, never experienced trauma, or never developed insecurities.
The right person is the one who understands where we are, seeks to understand where we are, or loves us enough to stay with us through that chapter.
I’m not saying someone else is responsible for all the problems we bring into a relationship. We absolutely have to take responsibility for working on ourselves.
But two people who are right for each other see where the other person is in life and say, “Yes.”
4. The Relationship Can Handle Difficult Moments
Speaking of moments of friction that instantly end a relationship…
The fourth sign that someone is right for us is that the relationship can actually handle difficult moments.
The right relationship isn’t brittle.
In my most anxious dating moments, I tortured myself over a text I sent that didn’t get a response, or an argument I caused during a moment of jealousy or frustration.
I’d walk away thinking, “I’ve ruined the whole thing.”
Many of you can relate to that feeling of having your first argument with someone and immediately thinking, “Well, it was nice knowing you. I’m going to go get my toothbrush.”
Our hope is that the other person responds by saying, “What are you talking about? It’s fine. Stop it. Go get your pajamas on—it’s movie night.”
That’s the relationship we want.
It’s the relationship where we can butt heads, but the way we resolve things is beautiful. It’s forgiving. We make space for mistakes.
Sometimes my anxiety after a fight was unwarranted. But other times it reflected the fact that I genuinely wasn’t safe in that relationship.
I instinctively knew that person was quick to judge, unwilling to accept me, or viewing me through a highly scrutinizing lens.
The right relationship has great suspension. You may still feel the speed bump when you drive over it, but the car continues on its journey.
The Difference Between Who We Want and Who Is Right for Us
I want to finish by talking about the difference between who we think is right for us and who is actually right for us. Often, those are two very different things.
I once read a story by the British writer David Whyte. He described visiting another writer’s house in Ireland and seeing a beautiful writing room with a desk overlooking rolling hills and mountains.
He was overcome with jealousy. He thought, “This is the dream writing space.”
But after he left, it dawned on him that the writing space that actually worked for him was far more austere. What he truly needed was intense focus, which quickly made the beautiful scenery irrelevant.
There is a huge difference between what we desire and what will make us happy.
We often want what seems unavailable. We want the person we can’t quite hold onto.
But that fixation can cause real opportunities to pass us by.
Sometimes we see real life as a consolation prize. The person actually available to us feels like settling.
But when we think that way, we can miss someone who is far more appropriate for us—someone whose rightness can only be revealed if we lean into what we have with them.
I’ve come to believe that it’s the love and attention we give something that allows it to blossom.
I’m not saying you can make things blossom with anyone.
I’m saying there are people who are far more right for us than the people we’re fixated on, but we never see that potential because we never give them our attention.
We’re so busy looking for flowers that we forget our responsibility as gardeners.
The problem with fixating on someone who isn’t choosing us—or who is only offering a situationship—is that much of what has us obsessed is an imagined rightness.
It didn’t grow organically out of two people weaving their lives together over years.
It’s an imagined rightness born from desire, ego, and often insecurity—the feeling that we won’t be enough unless we can prove we can get them.
The compatibility we imagine is not based on who we actually are together, but who we imagine we could be together if given the chance.
The reality of what makes us calm and content in a relationship may be completely different from what we lust after in early dating.
A great relationship is one in which we continuously find ourselves giving—not from a desperate desire to make someone love us, but because we genuinely love them.
Not because they are impressive, but because we appreciate their deeper nature and become grateful for their generous interpretation of us.
In other words, it is not a rightness that has been earned. It is a rightness we attribute to a situation simply because we want it.
Let me know in the comments what you thought about this video. Reading your comments has been one of my favorite things in 2026.
And be sure to check out the retreat so that you can come and spend a weekend growing with me.
I’ll see you next week.
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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