Haidar is in a relationship. And he wants it to be long term but worries he might mess things up. Coach Varsha Mathur offers advice on how to go after what we want with intention.
Unlike a traditional coaching session, this conversation was not conducted in a confidential setting and all participants were made aware of this when recording this episode.
Varsha Mathur is a dating and relationship coach, and mediator based in Charlotte, NC. Learn more about her work with singles and couples here and set up a discovery call with her here. If you loved this episode, be sure to listen to Dating: She Wants to Date, but Not Make the First Move and Arranged Marriage? No Thanks Mom.
Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. Over the past few episodes, Coach Varsha, a dating and relationship expert has been having discovery conversations with first-gens, looking for help navigating their dating lives. Today, for the final discovery conversation in our series, Coach Varsha speaks to Haidar. Haidar is currently dating someone and it's one of the longest romantic relationships he's ever been in. But he's a little bit concerned about making this one last. Let's get into it.
Haidar: I'm Haidar. I'm a first-gen Cuban American. I was born in La Habana in Cuba and moved to the states when I was about two, three. And yeah, I work in San Francisco, I was a mechanical engineer for one of the science museums here.
Coach Varsha: Wonderful. Nice to meet you. I am so excited to jump right in.
Haidar: Yeah, for sure.
Coach Varsha: Yeah. So talk to me about what your relationship goals are long-term, what are you looking for? And what would a dream life really look like for you?
Haidar: Totally. I think I definitely would like a monogamous relationship long-term, serious type relationship. I'm in school, I have a lot of academic goals. Academia seems like something I really want to be involved in. My ideal life would definitely be have a long-term partner that's very supportive of my schooling, because I'm definitely going to be in school for a long time. That would definitely be the goal for me, for sure.
Coach Varsha: Okay. What are some of the obstacles that you've experienced so far that have kept you from being able to take things to the next level with someone and really click with someone in a way that'll lead to a long-term relationship?
Haidar: The era that we're in definitely makes things harder, social media and stuff doesn't make anything easier. Just always kind of seeing options. That's probably my biggest problem, is like always looking for the next thing. Or maybe, there's like something better out there, maybe looking for ‘the one’. And always being like, "Well, maybe the person I'm with isn't the one right now." And so I kind of don't fully invest until I feel like I find the one out there somewhere. So I think yeah, one of my biggest obstacles is me. Just me always being indecisive and always like maybe trying to see, "What else is out there? What else is out there?"
Coach Varsha: And how does that end up affecting your dating? Like, do you end up ghosting people? Do you end up not following through? Is it like something kind of short-term starts and then it ends or…? What does it actually look like?
Haidar: Yeah, I think I've done some ghosting in my time dating. Not all the way proud of that. But yeah, I think... Like right now, I'm in a relationship longer than I have been for a while. We're at like six months-ish right now, and I normally bail before that. Most of my friends have been in long-term relationships now, people are starting to get married and they're like... My friends are like, "We want you to be in love, Haidar! We want you to find somebody, too!" And I was like, "Me too. Trust me. I want to, too. But I'm also like not in a rush and I'm not going to force something that I don't think feels right." I think now, I'm trying... Maybe I used to like maybe... If something just wasn't perfect or something was just not... You're left ear lobe is bigger than your right ear lobe, I would just be like, "Hmm, got to go. Like, I got to go."
Coach Varsha: Yeah. The gist I'm getting so far is that there is either some sort of relationship to what it means to make a decision and maybe even a fear of settling. And then also just making it mean a lot. When you first meet somebody, making every little thing so much about you and about them, and it's all really heavy. It seems like a lot to take in just for some preliminary dating.
Haidar: Totally.
Coach Varsha: Yeah.
Haidar: And I think I feel that I have had relationships that sadly, didn't work out. But I felt like head over heels. I was like in love and I was like, "Oh my God, this is the person. This is the person." And it didn't work out. So then when I start dating again and start meeting new people, if I don't feel that like, oh my God, head over heels feeling, it makes me be like, "Well, if you're not invoking that feeling in me, then I guess you might not be the person."
Coach Varsha: Right off the top of my head, I just feel like there is a level of happiness that seems to have been stolen from you at some point in your life.
Haidar: Yeah, I think I could agree. Just like one of my partners in the past, she seemingly was like head over heels for me too. And I now have like a lightweight trust issue because it's dating head over heels, feeling, hanging out a bunch for like a month, a month and a half. And then like a literal light switch, it would just turn off. And then a year or two later, they would come back in and reach out to me again and be like, "Hey, I want to give it another shot with you." Like, it's pretty much the same cycle. It happened three times.
Coach Varsha: There's definitely some hurt and confusion with this woman and with the relationship and how it went, but I'm also noticing there's a pattern of really easily letting things go. This sort of like, "Let's see how it goes. Like, let's..." There's not a lot of intention going on here. And I'm curious how that might also have a lot to do with this idea of seeing what's next. It's like, "Okay, this didn't work. So let's see what's next." And it's kind of like a pattern of little mini quitting. "Okay, this was a little bit hard." Or, "This just doesn't seem to be working out." And so it's kind of like letting life live you, rather than you living the life. And so I'm kind of seeing that and there might be something in that when it comes to this pattern of it not really lasting very long in your relationships.
Haidar: I guess I'm just... Like in one of my earlier relationships, I was the opposite where I wouldn't let it go and I didn't necessarily think it was like, the most healthy thing. So then for this other one where seemingly, I'm easy to let go, I was like, "All right. Like, if you don't want to be with me, you don't want to be... I'm not going to force you to be me." Because I didn't want to be how I was before. Just like, "If you don't want to be with me, you don't want to be with me."
Coach Varsha: Yeah. Okay. So there's been two extremes of this for you, where you're either taking it too easy or maybe there was a little bit too much eagerness.
Haidar: Totally.
Coach Varsha: What would success in your relationships really look like for you?
Haidar: I guess a success would just be like, happily together, me not really pondering what else is out there. Yeah, I think like being together for longer than a year or so has been kind of my track record of relationships.
Coach Varsha: It's kind of my hunch that you might be the kind of person who's very hard on yourself.
Haidar: I think there could be some validity to that. For sure.
Coach Varsha: When I see this pattern with other people as well around just wanting to move on to the next thing, not sure if there's something better out there, it's sometimes because if we're really hard on ourselves, we're sometimes also very quick to judge others. And also, avoid our own judgements because we don't want to deal with them on our own. But then perhaps, also worrying that when the other person actually sees us for that real version of ourselves, that they're going to also add on more judgment, which is only going to be even more burdensome and heavy to bear.
Haidar: Right.
Coach Varsha: And it's much easier to close the door and potentially start fresh with someone else.
Haidar: Right. Yeah. I think I probably am kind of a harsh judge so then maybe I hold myself to a high standard, so then I hold somebody else to a high standard. So I guess in regards to maybe quitting and moving on to the next thing is like, I also don't want to like waste somebody's time if I don't feel like I'm like, "Oh, yeah, we're going to be together forever." I don't want to waste somebody's time and I don't want to hurt somebody either, I don't want to break somebody else's heart, or... I'm pretty empathetic so I don't want to hurt somebody. So I try and be really honest and I'm like, "Hey, I just don't think I see it being more than like a casual thing. And then that bums people out sometimes, but I try and be honest.
Coach Varsha: And so I'm guessing that that type of a conversation happens pretty early on, so that you don't hurt them moving forward because you don't know where it's going to go?
Haidar: Yeah, I would say it happens pretty quick. And I've learned to be honest more so than anything in dating and getting a little older and stuff.
Coach Varsha: I love that. I think that's such an important value. And to be honest, what the catch is here though, is that saying things like, "I don't see this going anywhere," because you're unsure about the person. Essentially just means, "I need more time to know if you're the one." Right?
Haidar: Right.
Coach Varsha: And that's kind of an understood thing. Like, worrying about how the other person might feel is considerate. But at the same time, what you're doing is your actions are not aligning with the thing that you say you want. So to actually start a relationship by saying like, "Hey, I don't know where this is going to go." That's fine. Nobody does. But to actually put a hard stop and say like, "I'm going to keep this casual” directly contradicts saying that you want a serious relationship overall. And so what you might want to consider, is for each choice that you make, each action that you take with anybody that you're dating, no matter how long you're dating them, is it actually aligning with the overall goal of wanting to be married or wanting to be in this like healthy, long-term relationship? However you want to define it.
Haidar: It's like more detrimental, maybe.
Coach Varsha: Yeah. And there is a risk of getting hurt, there's a risk that everybody gets hurt. But by putting that shield up upfront, you're also never going to be able to like actually dive in from a real place of connection, and love, and willingness to try.
Haidar: I guess I would say that in the relationship I'm in right now, I kind of haven't done every single thing that I've said. Because I'm like, "Something's got to change. Like, something's got to be a little bit more different to try and make this last." And I think you're absolutely right, because it's lasting longer than my previous ones have.
Coach Varsha: The other thing that I was going to add to this, is that it seems like you're measuring the success of a relationship by some sort of timeframe. You mentioned like having it go longer, I think you mentioned like a year or something like that. And what I'm going to offer to you, is to actually measure your success in a relationship with something other than time. Because time is just this thing that we make up. And yeah, sure. Maybe a lot of people like to say, "After six months to a year, we'll talk about getting more serious." But at the end of the day, that time seems to be something that is disempowering actually and it feels a little forced on you based on the way that you're saying it. So you might want to take a look at, "How else can I define it?" Maybe define the success of the relationship merely on what it feels like to be with the person. Like, "How long have we sustained happiness? How long have we sustained adventure and fun?" And does it matter that now the relationship is six months in? Like, that's merely just a fact instead of focusing on the experience of being with someone. Because you could be in a year relationship and have a terrible time.
Haidar: Yeah, for sure. That's a good point.
Coach Varsha: Yeah, thank you for sharing.
Haidar: Yeah, no. Thanks for hearing me out.
Lantigua: All right. Here's what we learned from Coach Varsha.
Align your actions with your goal. If the things you do in your dating life are contradicting what you say you want in the big picture, adjust your behavior accordingly.
Avoid preemptive quitting. Giving up on a relationship to prevent a partner from judging you is counterproductive. Ease up on the self-judgment and dare to give things a go.
And remember, ignore the calendar. Instead of using time to measure success, try looking at other indicators that things are going well. For example, how much fun, joy, or comfort someone brings into your life.
Thank you, Coach Varsha. You're amazing! Loved having you for this series, loved how much experience, wisdom, expertise, and insight you brought to the show. You'll definitely be back. We put a link to Varsha's website in the show notes, so head on over there so you can learn more about her work as a dating and relationship coach. As always, thank you for listening and for sharing us.
How To Talk To Mamí And Papí About Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer, Kojin Tashiro is our mixer, Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @TalkToMamiPapi.
Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “Dating: He’s Afraid to Self-Sabotage”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] About Anything,
LWC Studios., February 28, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.