June 11, 2024 • 42 mins
Hello, Fellow Travelers. Our very first episode deals with a problem familiar to a lot of people: a breakup and a broken heart. Our guest Shrina struggles to understand why her boyfriend suddenly decided that he no longer loved her and she's questioning what changed and what she might have done wrong.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Lori Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic. And I'm Guy Wench.
I wrote Emotional First Aid, and I write a Dear
Guy column for Ted And this is Dear Therapists. This
week we'll talk through a problem familiar to a lot
of people, a breakup and a broken heart. It makes
(00:24):
me sad because I kind of keep thinking like, is
there something that I could have done differently or better?
And they don't have the answer the question. It is
just so I just don't love you, and that's what hurts.
Listen in and maybe learn something about yourself in the process.
Before we begin, just to note about today's episode. As
(00:47):
of this taping, we're still in the midst of COVID
nineteen and as a result, we are all taping from home,
and because homes can be full of background noises and
signs of life that you wouldn't get in a recording studio,
you may know is some of that in this episode
before we worked all the kinks out. Thanks for your understanding,
and here we go with Episode one of Dear therapists,
(01:10):
We hope you enjoy it. So guy, I saw this
letter in our box this week and I wanted to
bring it to you specifically because of the ted talk
that you did on how to fix a broken heart.
And this is a letter about heartbreak and here's how
it goes. Dear therapists. I'm going through a breakup and
(01:33):
having a hard time. My boyfriend and I had been
dating for nine months when I made the decision to
break up with him after a month of him telling
me he loved me but wasn't sure if it was
in the right way. It was so hurtful. He couldn't
explain why his feelings had changed her when he also
didn't want to work on it, but he wanted to
be friends. The relationship wasn't perfect. While we were dating.
(01:55):
He started using drugs recreationally and his drinking was becoming
a problem for me. I knew I had to end
it after trying my best to talk about how I
was feeling and having it fall on deaf ears. I
was confused because he said that I was perfect, yet
he wasn't feeling it, but didn't have the courage to
break up with me until I ended it. With him.
We tried to keep in touch for a week or
(02:16):
two after splitting up, but I couldn't maintain the facade,
and it was giving me false hope that he realized
what he'd lost and come back to me. He didn't
and hasn't. Now I'm haunted by questions like why wasn't
I enough for him? What happened to make him love
me differently or cause him to change? I worry that
he'll find someone else and treat her better and love her.
(02:36):
I'm worried I was the problem. We need to arrange
swapping our stuff once the lockdown has lifted, which is
making me anxious. I'm angry and sad and keep bursting
into tears sporadically. I'm just exhausted. I haven't been able
to sleep. Do you have any advice for me? Many? Thanks? Shrina?
Okay good? First of all, good for her, really good
(02:59):
for her for doing the breaking up. There many people
in that situation that just stay in this very painful
position of being with someone who they can tell doesn't
love them enough, and but they stay hoping something will change,
which it often doesn't usually doesn't. So her healthy response
of saying, look if you're not feeling it, then let's not.
(03:21):
I think it's a really healthy response and good for
her for putting the plug. Certainly she needed to. Yeah,
I mean, you know, it's one of those things where
she thinks that something changed. She says, he couldn't explain
why what he's feeling changed or when, But he also
didn't want to work on it, and he wanted to
be friends. And I think that that's what's so confusing
(03:43):
for people, is when you want when the person likes
you enough to want to be friends with you, but
they didn't want to be with you in the way
they didn't feel, you know, that they were in love
with you. People feel like, well, why I did something
to make this happen, as opposed to maybe it's just
not the right match. Well, what happens is that at first,
(04:04):
there's this level of infatuation. Typically that happens which is temporary.
That's infatuation is the the heavy stuff that people get
excited about at the beginning. It can last, you know,
a date and it can last for a while. But
once the infatuation starts to fade and then there's a
more realistic assessment of the relationship, then it either transitions
(04:25):
into something that's deeper, you know, in terms of love
and a deeper kind of romantic love, and and the
passion is still there, or it just doesn't make that leap.
But this is not about her doing something that changed
his feelings. It's about something between the chemistry of those
two didn't allow his feelings to make the leap. But
(04:46):
I think that it's important to not blame oneself, but
to explore and be curious about what didn't work. Has
this happened to her before? What might have been happening here?
Not not because there's some wrong with her at all,
just because maybe there was something. I think there are
two people, you know, in a relationship, and so he
(05:06):
had his role in it and she had her role
in it. And just to be aware of her own
role in whatever might have happened. And I think there's
this other part of it that has nothing to do
with him that's helpful for her to consider too, which
is when you get into a new relationship, there's always
so much hope that this is going to be it,
This is going to be the one I will not
(05:27):
be dating anymore. You know, this is my person. And
I think that when it doesn't work out. There's the
loss of the actual person, but there's also the loss
of the idea that you were done dating, and that
is its own loss that is unrelated to the person
that is no longer there. And then there's there's a
(05:49):
third loss, which is just the loss of what it's
like to be in a relationship, which is the dailiness
of it. The person that you tell what happened today,
the person you check in with every day, the person
you're cooking dinner with, so all of that. Then you
have to go back to square one again. Then the
more number of times that you do this, the harder
(06:11):
it is every time when you have to start over square.
I agree. I think I so agree with what you said,
because I think that that loss of the dream is
often bigger than the loss of the person. Yes, you're
listening to Dear Therapists from my Heart Radio. We'll be
back after a quick break. This is Dear Therapists. Thanks
(06:34):
for listening. Well, let's talk to her and get some
more information and then give her some suggestion to find
out some more Well. Striina, welcome and thank you so
much for sending us your letter. Um. I think it's
something that so many people are dealing with right now,
and we would love to give you some guidance on
(06:55):
this and also here a little bit more about what's
going on. That would be wonderful. Thank you for inviting me.
You are very very welcome. And let me just say
heartbreak is rough to begin with. It's really rough during
a shutdown, because that makes everything a little bit more difficult.
I think you said it was a nine month relationship.
I'm just curious about what what you might have noticed
(07:17):
or what what things that registered as may be problematic. Well,
we met at a party and he was um sort
of not sort of a mutual friend of ours, but
she was quite into him and he didn't really feel
the same way, and he did kind of lead her on,
and she was an old friend of mine. That was
(07:39):
my first sort of thing of like, oh, I don't
know if I want to get involved in this. So
I actually said in the first instance, like no, I'm
not interested. We left it for two weeks and then
he called me just to say, look, I just wanted
to make sure that you're okay, because that said friend
had started sending me really horrible messages and to him
as well, and he sort of apologized to her been
(07:59):
half and said me that what he did was wrong
and he shouldn't have done it, but he really wants
to take me out on a date and blah blah.
So then we ended up going on a date and
it kind of ignited very quickly, and I was a
bit anxious about that, but it was also nice because
I was engaged back in twenty sixteen, but that didn't
work out. The first red flag, I have to say,
(08:19):
I don't know if that would count as one, but
the first one was when he lives in London. I
live in outside of London, so the culture in London
is a lot like I'm guessing New York City, where
it's like going out and drinking and having fun. And
and I noticed that he was drinking a lot. He
was meant to come and meet me, and he didn't,
and I just said, I'm done, Dike. I'm not hanging
(08:39):
around waiting for you. I don't want to do this
anymore because obviously you're choosing to going out as opposed
to hanging out with me, which is what we planned
to do. But he was crying and hysterical, and he
was just like, oh, I've made a mistake. This is
a wake up call. You mean too much to me.
I don't want to lose you. So we tried again.
And that's why I feel like I'm so angry, because
if I had just duck to my guns the first time,
(09:02):
then I wouldn't be where I am now. So that
that happened pretty early on, when you knew that there
was something else that you weren't okay with. Yeah, tell
me what made you overlook that? What were the positive
things about the relationship that made you think, oh, but
it's okay. I want to see what happens here. I
(09:24):
think it was because I've never had a guy like
cry about how sorry they were. I've never had a
guy actually expressed that sort of emotion. I noticed that
my past relationships, the guys that I were I was
seeing or was dating, we're quite emotionally unavailable, so they
weren't ever very emotionally expressive. So this guy was like
(09:45):
really upset, and I was just thinking, wow, so maybe
he must be really sorry, and and I kind of
felt and I was just gonna sound awful, but I
felt guilty because I felt like I knew better, and
I felt like perhaps maybe he this was his first
major relationship. Last relationship he was in he was sixteen
and they finished when he was twenty one. He's now
twenty seven, so this was his first adult I would
(10:07):
say relationship. So I thought, you know, I know better
he didn't mean it. He wants to try. He's made
that sort of apology, then surely I should try to
and not just give up at the first hurdle. So
I think it was just sort of yeah, I don't
know if that was what clearly wasn't the right thing
to do. But well, you know, you said, this was
(10:27):
his twenty seven and this this, this was the first
relationship for him since a long time. How old are
you and what were your relationships like before this? So
I'm twenty nine. I'm going to be thirty on Sunday.
My first relationship was well, my engagement ended in sixteen,
but I was with that guy for like five years
(10:48):
and he said that he didn't love me anymore. One
day you just woke up to turned round up to
me in the house that we were living in and
just said, oh, I don't love you anymore. And actually
so I was like, oh, okay, how did you grieve
the last of that relationship. I didn't. Actually I actually
got straight into like a rebound relationship with someone who
(11:08):
was just as probably in as much of a mess
as I was, and that went on like a year,
and I think I just jumped into something else, and
I didn't have a very good family life, and I
was just kind of I didn't want to really deal
with the fact that I had lost someone that was
so important to me, so I didn't really grieve that
relationship at all. I think that when I managed to
(11:31):
finally escape the rebound, I think a lot of that
was grieving was done in between those sorts of things.
You know, guy, I want to say, I want to
say this sort of the guy and also to you
Srina that what I'm noticing, and I'll bet the guys
thinking the same thing, is that you're improving in terms
of the time that it takes you to realize that
(11:52):
a relationship is not actually working for you, and the
time that it ends, even if you didn't end it right.
You're not spending as much time with someone who isn't
right for you, or who isn't meeting your needs, or
who isn't really appropriate in terms of where they are
in their life. For what their readiness is for the
kind of relationship you want. M Well, I mean, I hope. So.
(12:16):
I think the thing is is that I guess it
makes me sad because I kind of keep thinking like,
is there something that I could have done differently or better?
Because it kind of just feels like the go to
sentence for both Joe, who is my recent ext and
Matt whose ex fiance was I just don't love you anymore.
(12:37):
And I just that's what makes me think, well, what, how,
why when? And they don't have the answer to the question.
It's just so I just don't love you, and that's
what hurts because it's kind of like, well, then what
did I do? And then and then it's just it's
just you can't answer that question. Yeah, you know, I
have a little bit of suspicion. I'm not sure about
(12:59):
this at all, mind you, but I have a little
suspicion that it's more about what you don't do than
what you do, and why I say it's might be
related more to what you don't do. It's possible that
when you have a background that's a little tumultuous, it
makes your tolerance for certain things higher than it should
be because you came from somewhere where things were not
about you as much as they probably should have been,
(13:21):
and you had to put up with a lot of
difficult behavior by other people. You just learn to tolerate that.
It doesn't, you know, disturb you as much as it
might disturb someone else who doesn't have that tolerance. And
so it's possible with some of these guys that you
are overlooking things because yes, it's slightly a problem, but
I can manage it. When the problem with managing it
(13:42):
is that it communicates to them that you're okay with it,
when in essence you're not. Yeah that sounds right, Yeah,
that is right. I even said if I take you back,
then I'm sort of enabling this behavior and saying that
it's okay. I can't do that. But I guess I'm
just a bit of us suck up because he was like,
oh no, no, I won't like this. You know, this
(14:03):
is a wake up wol have changed the change, and
he was just kind of like downhill from there. Here's
something I want you to remember for next time, and
that is that when he has this moment where he's
crying and he's promising and it's all going to be great.
It's okay to give the person a chance, but in
this condition, you give them a chance, and then you
have your eyes extraordinarily wide open for the first violation
(14:27):
of whatever that promise was, and then you have to
really call them on it and say it might be
half an hour later, a day, a week, a month,
but it's that first time when they're violating whatever the
promise is that you can't overlook it, because if you do,
then they just fall into the old behavior immediately and
there goes the promise. If you call them on it,
(14:48):
they have a decision point to make of either okay,
either they're back in or they're not. But at least
in that point, you know, you know, you had been
asking about, you know, what did I do to make
them fall out of love with me? And so guy
was talking about really paying attention to what is important
to you, as opposed to wondering how can I be
(15:10):
a chameleon and be the kind of person that they
want me to be so that they'll love me. Yeah,
I think that's quite my main problem, because I find
myself trying to mold myself into shapes for my partner
that they the way that they want me to be. Like.
For example, with like Joe, he wasn't happy with my
life choices. He was like, you shouldn't be doing this,
(15:31):
you shouldn't be doing that, and it kind of just
made me feel like, why can't you just accept me
as I am? Um? And he just said, oh, because
I'm trying to push you to be better because you're
so bright and you're so intelligent, and you can do this,
you can do that, but you're just you've just got
you've got comfortable. And it just made me feel really
bad about myself. And I think that's that's really a
good point that I have tried to like change who
(15:52):
I am, to try and make my partners, I guess,
like me more. Well, I think in this last relationship,
it sounds like we're trained to be the cool girl,
the lead back girl, the girl who's like, yeah, I'm
cool with that, it's okay. And the more that people
try to say I'm going to be someone who I am,
not to become the person that this other person wants,
(16:15):
the less chance that relationship is going to work. Yeah. Yeah,
I don't know. I just I feel like I don't
know what I don't know. I don't know. I kept
saying this to him. I was like, what did I do?
I don't understand, and he was like, I don't understand either,
Like I do love you, but I don't know if
it's in the right way. And I just felt like
I was buying my head against the wall. And it's
so hard to not feel like you're the one you like.
(16:38):
You lose all your self esteem. So you were handed
your self esteem to him to be the holder of
your self esteem. Yeah, that's a very dangerous way to
go about being in relationship with somebody. Yeah, you talk
a lot about what you thought he liked about you,
and then suddenly he wasn't as as us did. What
(17:01):
did you like about him? I'm not hearing anything positive
about him yet? Yeah, I mean he was. He made
me laugh. He was really funny, and we went out
and experienced a lot of things together. We always were
doing things that a sort of complete pilo opposite of
my relationship with my ex where we just sat and
did nothing in the house. So we were like always
doing something. It was always fun, there was always something happening,
(17:24):
there was always you know, we're always go, go go,
and I you know, I liked that, And I mean,
I hate to sound really superficial, but he was really
good looking at hisself. So yeah, I think those are
like the three things that I really liked about him.
You know what's interesting is that I think that sometimes you,
(17:46):
and by you, I mean most people try and make
a relationship work in the moment without thinking enough about
whether it's sustainable long term. And when you start thinking
long term, you have to ask yourself whether you want
to sign on for that forever with that person who
will always know better than you what's best for you
(18:06):
and always have an opinion about what you should and
shouldn't do. I mean, and this is what I said
to him. I said, I've always supported you, yet you
can't do the same thing for me. I don't understand
why that's the case. So you said, you're about to
turn thirty, You've gone through, you had a long engagement
that didn't work out, and now here you are, and
(18:27):
it sounds like you're you're worried about, you know, meeting somebody.
And then you had this idea of, oh, here it is,
here's my answer, here's my solution in the form of Joe.
And there he was, and he materialized and it all
sounded so exciting, and we're going to get married and
we're so this is so fun and he's so different
from my former fiancee and this is going to be great.
(18:50):
And that family where I had all that trouble being
loved and learning to love, that's all going to be
in the past, and I don't have to carry that
around with me anymore because now I'm gonna be saved
by this person. And so you're grieving the loss of Joe,
but I think he's the most insignificant part of the
loss that you're experiencing right now, and I think you're
(19:11):
so fixated on him and why he decided that this
was not the relationship that he wanted, that you're not
really grieving the parts that are going to be much
more helpful for you to grieve so that you can
find the relationship that you want when you're ready to
do that. And that's this idea that there's going to
be some kind of reciprocity in a romantic relationship for
(19:31):
you that I don't think you've really had, that you're
going to have something different from what you had in
your family that I don't think that you've really had
that someone is going to save you from having to
deal with the pain of your past, which no person,
no matter how great they are, even if they do
happen to be the right person, can save you from that.
They can't. But instead of focusing so much on Joe
(19:54):
and and trying to get into his head for an
answer that you will honestly never have, the better use
of your time is to say, why is it so
painful for me to be in relationship with people? Why
do I allow people to do things in relationship that
are not okay with me? Those are going to be
(20:15):
really important questions for you to get curious about as
you're grieving this loss, and it will also help you
to not have so much sharpness around the pain of
the future that just went away because they think it
will help you to get clarity around that it is
not the future that you wanted. Yeah, I think you're
right there. I mean, what's also quite interesting is that
(20:38):
when you pointed out about the stuff with the family,
and my tolerance for things that are unacceptable is quite high,
and I obviously I don't know why that is um
and that is really interesting that you put it that
way that I would like to like look at that
as opposed to why I'm trying to get into Joe's
head and figure out why this thing didn't work. I
(20:59):
think that the any problem is that when I think
about it, I don't know and the answer and the
thing that just keeps coming back to me is just
this massive feeling of pain and I don't even know
if I want to open that. And I don't know
whether that's just that I'm scared of being on my
own because that everyone sort of has a family, and
I've never really had one, like you've said, and we've
(21:20):
been quite fractured. I don't speak to my brother and
personal reasons. I don't speak to any of my cousins. Really,
I am quite isolated, and I think that's probably why
I cling onto romantic partners because I keep thinking, at
least I won't be on my own then, right, But
you want a partner and future in the future of
family that do accept you for who you are, that
(21:42):
do recognize all that you have to offer, that do
value having you, And so it's super important that that
is what you look for in another person, not just
their presence or acceptance, but they're valuing you for who
(22:03):
you are. When I hear about Joe who's a partia,
and you describe yourself as I like to go to
lectures and read books. To me, you know, to me,
it sounds like he does the math, looks forward and
goes like, um, yeah, maybe that's not what I want
to do in life. So when you're looking for reasons,
one of them is that you just don't sound like
the best match to be honest with you, just in
(22:26):
terms of what you want out of life, how you
live your life. Yeah, I mean, he went, or we
don't have many interests, and I said, well, with all
due respect, I've taken so much of an interest in
the things that you like, and you have actually said
to my plates that you find the stuff that I
like boring. That right there is So it's almost like
a lot of times when people say I don't know
(22:48):
why this person broke up with me, it's not even
that you have to intuite. It is that they've actually
told you why. They may not told you in the
breakup conversation, which would be more ideal, but along the
way in the relationship they've they've kind of sprinkled in reasons,
and sometimes people choose not to hear those reasons. I
(23:08):
think what happens with you, Shrina, is that any guy
that you're with, whether they want to be with you,
becomes a referendum on how lovable you are. Yes, yeah,
that sounds about right. And that's why you go to
such great lengths to try to convince them that the
relationship is viable. And so I imagine that when he
(23:31):
did say, you know, I don't think we're right for
each other, you heard it as um, something is wrong
with you, something is not something is not lovable about you,
and you're trying to say, I'll do anything I can
to be to become lovable. And the thing is, Shrina,
you are lovable, and you're also choosing people who are
(23:52):
not right for you because it feels familiar to you,
because that kind of love of not having that feeling
of ease, not having that feeling of I don't have
to walk on eggshells, and and I trust this person's
love and I truly love them too, by the way,
because I don't hear that you really loved either of
these guys, your ex fiance or Joe. So I think
(24:14):
what you do is you replicate the kind of loving
relationships that you had in your family, which were very problematic,
and you when you first meet these guys, you think, oh,
this will be different. This time, it's going to be different.
But really you have radar for people who will provide
the same kind of environment for you that you had
growing up. And then again you feel like, oh, here
(24:39):
it is again. See I'm not lovable. Yeah, that's that
sounds pretty much spun to be honest. Yeah, I think
you're right about the like it feels familiar. I feel
like I need to work for it and I need
to prove that I'm worthy of being in a relationship.
I mean, he's constantly on his spine and like we'd
be talking and I'd be like you're or even present,
(25:00):
like you're not listening to me, And it was just
like sort of fighting for his sort of attention. And
then when you do something so like he said to me,
I found a book that reminded me of use and
he bought it for me, and I just burst into
tears because I was like, oh my god, this is
so lovely, is so amazing, Thank you so much, Thank
you so much over a book because I felt like
(25:21):
he knew that that's what would make me happy. It's
just he thought he saw something thought of me and
it was a book and I love to read because
it was that unusual for him to do something so
thoughtful apparently that it touched you so deeply. It's almost
it's almost like Suna that, um, you were so hungry
for this kind of love growing up, and so as
an adult you'll take the crumb, and the crumb means everything.
(25:44):
The crumb. You try to get the crumb to fill
you up there giving you the book, that was a
crumb that he gave you, and for you it became
an entire meal. Yeah, yeah, that's what. So, Laurie, do
(26:04):
we have some advice. Yeah. What I'm thinking about is
that endings matter a lot, and they kind of set
the tone for how we move on. They help us
sometimes move on in a different way if we can
have a better ending. And so I'm thinking about how
(26:25):
volatile your ending was, and it was there was a
lot of anger, nobody really talked about anything, and I
feel like, here's an opportunity for you to have a
different ending with him where you give him some information
about you that is not angry. That's very composed, but
(26:47):
it's also very much your truth, and I'm just thinking
about what that might sound like. You know, I think
the easiest thing for him to hear, and the most
truthful thing is you will not the right match for
one another. But you might say to him that, you know,
when you're reflecting on the relationship, you realize that you
(27:08):
had a lot of fun together in some points, but
in terms of the long term, you weren't well suited
because you have different interests and probably different expectations about
how you want to live your life, and that it
was you know, it was a good run for a while,
and just something very simple in that way that emphasizes
(27:29):
that you're okay with the ending, but have this nicely composed, calm,
kind of reflective notion of fun. For a while, I
appreciated this about you, but ultimately we weren't well matched.
And what that does is it it gives you back
your voice. It gives you back your sense of self.
(27:51):
You had you had given, you had handed him your
self esteem and it never should have been gifted to
him or lent to him in the first place. That's
something that you always need to hold for yourself. You
don't share your self esteem with somebody else that's yours
and yours alone. And yes, there there's more to it
than uh, you know, in terms of your feelings, there's
(28:11):
a lot of pain. But I don't know that that's
really what you need to share with him. You certainly
did share it with him in your anger, but just
by being able to say, I wish you the best
and and there's so much power and I wish you
the best and not in you know, your tone is
really important. There's there's no edge to it, and so
I hope you're able to say your truth in that
(28:33):
way about the mismatch and from a from a deep
place of adulthood, which is where you need to move
your It's almost like you're wearing clothing that doesn't fit anymore.
You're wearing all that childhood clothing as you go into
each of these relationships. And so if you can wish
him from the adult place in yourself and I really
wish you well and leave it at that, and you
will move on in a much stronger way than the
(28:56):
way things have been left already. Yeah, that's that's exactly
what I want to do. And I think that you're
by right there and I'm and I'm glad that it
in a way that it did happen this way, because obviously,
like you said, I've learnt more about myself and what
I will will and won't stand for in a relationship.
It's it's just obviously, well, it's always tough when things
(29:19):
like this happen. And I think that like trying to
do it in the way that you said, hopefully will
will bring it to a more sort of calm ending right.
And in wishing him well, you give yourself permission to
wish yourself well, okay, that it gives you that kind
of freedom and that kind of permission that I don't
know that you let yourself have most of the time.
(29:42):
I think you're so concerned about what people are thinking
about you, and I don't think that you are thinking
enough about you. And then I think, I, do you
have some other sort of longer term advice? I do.
Here's what I'd like you to do longer term. I'd
like you to have it packed with yourself, and I'd
(30:02):
like you to really right out. I want you to
think back on the relationships that you've had, and I
want you to make a list of two kinds of items.
Number one, limits and things that you really are not
okay with in a relationship. I want you to enumerate
(30:24):
the ways you know, the limits that you have. What
are the things that you will not tolerate in a relationship.
And I want you to not just go with the
big ticket items of you know, cheating or betrayal or
you know, any kind of aggression. I want you to
think of the small things like somebody putting you down.
And you'll be surprised that if that is very clear,
(30:47):
if it's that a line that you will not have
crust and the first time you're like, okay, let's be
very clear, that can't happen again, they might need one
more reminder. But if it's very clear, you know so,
I want you to make a list of those kinds
of things, the things you will not tolerate. And with Joe,
they might have been things like talking on the phone
while you're trying to have a conversation with him, not
(31:09):
being reliable in terms of showing up when you when
you made plans with him, um saying things like I
have no interest in being curious about your interests. But
the second part of the list is the dues. You
know that that first part is the dance, and then
they're the dues. How do you want to feel when
(31:30):
you're with someone? And I want you to think of
what Laurie said about the crumbs, the crumbs that are
so meaningful. Make a list of those crumbs and ask
for them. Expect them to be much more of a meal.
In other words, this idea that somebody is thoughtful is Yes,
it's touching and it's moving. It just shouldn't be that
rare because I'm sure those are the kinds of things
(31:52):
that you're able to offer someone. It's absolutely fair to
want them in some kind of way for yourself. So
I want you to make a list of, you know,
the things you would like in a relationship, the ways
you would want to feel when you're with someone. And
then the idea here is that you keep that list
with you and the next time you start dating someone.
(32:15):
I this is gonna sound like a lot, but I
truly mean it. I want you to read the list
before every date, let's say at least for a while,
because it will remind you to be truer to yourself.
And so literally, before every date you read that list,
you remind yourself Yep, this is what I'm looking for
(32:35):
and if it's not there, you can decide much earlier.
You know, Laurie said, you're getting better at at at
leaving sooner good. Maybe a want only one day, two
dates a month. Maybe you give somebody a chance and
they snap two and you will be surprised. You You
know that when you do express these expectations and you
do it nicely, you'll be surprised that when you're very
(32:56):
clear that this is the standard, you'll be surprised how
many men will raise to that standard. In my head,
I guess, the fact is I've had this sort of
narrative of no one's going to want to put up
with the expectations that you think you deserve, where maybe
it's I'm I'm expecting too much, and that's where I've
kind of now sort of gone the other way and
(33:17):
been like, oh, I'm chill about everything. So it's good
to hear that you have to have expectations, I guess,
and the people who don't want to do those kinds
of things, um, that's good. That's good information to have.
So instead of being devastated by the fact that they
don't want to do that, and then you take it
personally and think that you're unlovable. That just means that
(33:40):
I don't have to be in so much pain because
I can eliminate that person. Mm hmm. Yeah. Lastly, every
time you have the thought, either when you're making the list,
working on the list, or when you're reading it, or
when you're dating someone, every time you have the thought
this might be too much to expect. I want you
to ask yourself if those things are things you are
(34:02):
willing to offer, and if they are, it's not too
much to expect, and if they're not, they probably shouldn't
be on the list. Perfect, got it? Yeah, that makes sense.
That would help me a lot, I think, because I
think that I'm super hard on myself and I let
everyone else around me in my in my relationship to
get away with mother, So that would help me make
it a bit more balanced. Definitely great. So how do
(34:25):
you feel about trying all this space? Um? Good, I
feel really good. I'm going to definitely do the list.
I'm feeling really emotional, so I think that I might
have a bit of a cry, and it would be
a cathartic cry, I think. And then yeah, but it's
just been I'm glad I kind of did this and
I'm definitely going to put the advice to good use. Um. Yes,
(34:45):
So thank you guys. Honestly, this is this has been
this has been great for me and I can't thank
you guys enough that I'm really really really grateful to you,
to you both, and we're grateful to you. Thank you.
If you can try that this week to have that
conversation with him, we would love to hear back from you.
If you can leave us a voice memo and let
us know how that went. Yeah, yeah, I will do that.
(35:08):
And ill said that I between wonderful take care by.
So Shrina was really lovely and I'm glad we got
to help her see some things that maybe she wasn't
able to see before. What do you think is going
to happen when she tries our advice? I think she
(35:31):
really had two people in her corner, and I I
don't think she's used to having people in her corner,
And I think that she's going to feel impound enough
to be able to do it in the right way
and really get some closure out of it. Yeah, I
think she's gonna maybe procrastinate on calling him, and that's
going to be her biggest hurdle is getting over her
(35:52):
anxiety about making the call and not doubting herself and
not going back into that place of I don't know
if I can say this, but I also feel like
she's very motivated, and I think she's hearing that this
isn't so much about Joe but about something larger in
her life and in her relational patterns. And I am
really excited to hear how that conversation goes. This is
(36:18):
Dear Therapists, and we'll be back after a short break.
I'm Guy Wench and I'm Laurie Gartlieb, and this is
dear Therapist. Well, let's listen to the voicemail. Hi, Guy
and Lorie, It's Trina. After we spoke, I did feel better.
(36:43):
It made me realize that I have a lot of
unresolved childhood trauma that I need to work through, and
to that end, I am and seeing a therapist weekly
to kind of really work through those sort of feelings
that I've had and why I act the way that
I do and seem to be drawn to emotionally unavailable men.
(37:07):
So I think that that is definitely a positive something
I could definitely take away from our chat. I've also
realized that sometimes what you want to do isn't healthy
for you, so you need to make sure that you
follow through with the healthy thing to do. So, for example,
(37:28):
I go backwards and forwards about wanting to I have done.
I'm at a place now where actually I don't feel
But before I was in a place where I wanted
to get back together with Joe. But I realized now
that my need was to stay mentally healthy, to stay
emotionally healthy, and in order to do that, I need
to distance myself from him and realize, Okay, what is
(37:54):
the underlying issue here? Why do I feel the need
to to put myself in that situation? And that is
another thing that I've learned. I find it really hard
to sit with difficult emotions, and that's something that I
want to work on. So I'm trying to use this
as a learning tool. So I'm hopeful for the future
(38:16):
and hopefully on the other side, I will have a
relationship that I deserve, and that is something that I've
always wanted and have yet to receive. So yeah, thank
you so much. In totally indebted to you both, and
I really appreciate everything you did in that time we
(38:39):
we shared together. So that was interesting on quite a
few different levels for me, unexpected and really good in
some ways. She seemed to have learned so much about
the work that she needs to do that she wasn't
(39:00):
aware of before, and really separating out what is historical
for her, what is something that went on in the
past that is driving her behavior now, and how much
is really about Joe, who clearly was not compatible with her,
And you know, I found it interesting that she didn't
actually follow the suggestion that we asked her to do,
(39:26):
which was that conversation with Joe about their you know,
really owning the fact that she sees that they were
not compatible. So she doesn't feel like the victim because
I think she came to realize in our conversation that
really this was not the right person for her as well,
and to wish him well. Right, That was part of
the advice. But what was interesting was I think as therapist,
we see that sometimes we will suggest something to someone
(39:49):
and they do something different that is equally useful. For
that she got the message that was much much more important.
Take a look at yourself, do some works of it.
You don't find yourself in this kind of situation again,
and realize that you are very much deserving of better
because she's investing in herself now and that's what's coming
(40:10):
across clearly, and that's what was so thrilling to hear. Yeah.
I love the way she put it where she said
there's a difference between what I want in the moment
and what I need for myself, And even this small
little tip bit she threw in there, which I think
is so so valuable of like, yes, and I know
I need to be able to sit with difficult emotions. Yes,
you do, and good for you for remembering that. So
(40:30):
I'm really hopeful that she's going to be able to
go forward in a much more positive way and make
these changes. Yeah. I was smiling when I was listening
to her voicemail because I think heartbreak is so universal
and what we talked to her about applies to so
many people. And what I loved about Shrina was that
she immediately said, you know what, this is really hard
(40:53):
my instinct and what would feel better in the moment
is to do this thing that's not healthy for me
and to just continue my old patterns. But I know
need to do something different in order to have a
different outcome. And I think we can all learn something
from that example. That brings us to the end of
(41:13):
our show for this week. Thank you so much for listening.
You can follow us both online. I'm at Lori Gottlieb
dot com and you can follow me on Twitter at
Lori Gottlieb one or on Instagram at Lori Gottlieb Underscore Author,
and I'm at guy Winch dot com and on Instagram
at guy Winch. If you have a dilemma you'd like
to discuss with us, big or small, email us at
(41:37):
Lorian guy at I heart media dot com. Our executive
producers Christopher hasci Otis, were produced and edited by Mike
John's Special thanks to Samuel Bennefield and to our podcast
Fairy Godmother Katie Couric. Next week we'll talk about the
challenges of blending families together when young children are involved
(41:57):
and say, oh, everything is going fine, maybe say he's
going to be a good day, and I certainly don't
know what to say when she's like, I hate you,
get away from me. Dear Therapist is a production of
I Heart Radio
Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Lori Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic. And I'm Guy Wench.
I wrote Emotional First Aid, and I write a Dear
Guy column for Ted And this is Dear Therapists. This
week we'll talk through a problem familiar to a lot
of people, a breakup and a broken heart. It makes
(00:24):
me sad because I kind of keep thinking like, is
there something that I could have done differently or better?
And they don't have the answer the question. It is
just so I just don't love you, and that's what hurts.
Listen in and maybe learn something about yourself in the process.
Before we begin, just to note about today's episode. As
(00:47):
of this taping, we're still in the midst of COVID
nineteen and as a result, we are all taping from home,
and because homes can be full of background noises and
signs of life that you wouldn't get in a recording studio,
you may know is some of that in this episode
before we worked all the kinks out. Thanks for your understanding,
and here we go with Episode one of Dear therapists,
(01:10):
We hope you enjoy it. So guy, I saw this
letter in our box this week and I wanted to
bring it to you specifically because of the ted talk
that you did on how to fix a broken heart.
And this is a letter about heartbreak and here's how
it goes. Dear therapists. I'm going through a breakup and
(01:33):
having a hard time. My boyfriend and I had been
dating for nine months when I made the decision to
break up with him after a month of him telling
me he loved me but wasn't sure if it was
in the right way. It was so hurtful. He couldn't
explain why his feelings had changed her when he also
didn't want to work on it, but he wanted to
be friends. The relationship wasn't perfect. While we were dating.
(01:55):
He started using drugs recreationally and his drinking was becoming
a problem for me. I knew I had to end
it after trying my best to talk about how I
was feeling and having it fall on deaf ears. I
was confused because he said that I was perfect, yet
he wasn't feeling it, but didn't have the courage to
break up with me until I ended it. With him.
We tried to keep in touch for a week or
(02:16):
two after splitting up, but I couldn't maintain the facade,
and it was giving me false hope that he realized
what he'd lost and come back to me. He didn't
and hasn't. Now I'm haunted by questions like why wasn't
I enough for him? What happened to make him love
me differently or cause him to change? I worry that
he'll find someone else and treat her better and love her.
(02:36):
I'm worried I was the problem. We need to arrange
swapping our stuff once the lockdown has lifted, which is
making me anxious. I'm angry and sad and keep bursting
into tears sporadically. I'm just exhausted. I haven't been able
to sleep. Do you have any advice for me? Many? Thanks? Shrina?
Okay good? First of all, good for her, really good
(02:59):
for her for doing the breaking up. There many people
in that situation that just stay in this very painful
position of being with someone who they can tell doesn't
love them enough, and but they stay hoping something will change,
which it often doesn't usually doesn't. So her healthy response
of saying, look if you're not feeling it, then let's not.
(03:21):
I think it's a really healthy response and good for
her for putting the plug. Certainly she needed to. Yeah,
I mean, you know, it's one of those things where
she thinks that something changed. She says, he couldn't explain
why what he's feeling changed or when, But he also
didn't want to work on it, and he wanted to
be friends. And I think that that's what's so confusing
(03:43):
for people, is when you want when the person likes
you enough to want to be friends with you, but
they didn't want to be with you in the way
they didn't feel, you know, that they were in love
with you. People feel like, well, why I did something
to make this happen, as opposed to maybe it's just
not the right match. Well, what happens is that at first,
(04:04):
there's this level of infatuation. Typically that happens which is temporary.
That's infatuation is the the heavy stuff that people get
excited about at the beginning. It can last, you know,
a date and it can last for a while. But
once the infatuation starts to fade and then there's a
more realistic assessment of the relationship, then it either transitions
(04:25):
into something that's deeper, you know, in terms of love
and a deeper kind of romantic love, and and the
passion is still there, or it just doesn't make that leap.
But this is not about her doing something that changed
his feelings. It's about something between the chemistry of those
two didn't allow his feelings to make the leap. But
(04:46):
I think that it's important to not blame oneself, but
to explore and be curious about what didn't work. Has
this happened to her before? What might have been happening here?
Not not because there's some wrong with her at all,
just because maybe there was something. I think there are
two people, you know, in a relationship, and so he
(05:06):
had his role in it and she had her role
in it. And just to be aware of her own
role in whatever might have happened. And I think there's
this other part of it that has nothing to do
with him that's helpful for her to consider too, which
is when you get into a new relationship, there's always
so much hope that this is going to be it,
This is going to be the one I will not
(05:27):
be dating anymore. You know, this is my person. And
I think that when it doesn't work out. There's the
loss of the actual person, but there's also the loss
of the idea that you were done dating, and that
is its own loss that is unrelated to the person
that is no longer there. And then there's there's a
(05:49):
third loss, which is just the loss of what it's
like to be in a relationship, which is the dailiness
of it. The person that you tell what happened today,
the person you check in with every day, the person
you're cooking dinner with, so all of that. Then you
have to go back to square one again. Then the
more number of times that you do this, the harder
(06:11):
it is every time when you have to start over square.
I agree. I think I so agree with what you said,
because I think that that loss of the dream is
often bigger than the loss of the person. Yes, you're
listening to Dear Therapists from my Heart Radio. We'll be
back after a quick break. This is Dear Therapists. Thanks
(06:34):
for listening. Well, let's talk to her and get some
more information and then give her some suggestion to find
out some more Well. Striina, welcome and thank you so
much for sending us your letter. Um. I think it's
something that so many people are dealing with right now,
and we would love to give you some guidance on
(06:55):
this and also here a little bit more about what's
going on. That would be wonderful. Thank you for inviting me.
You are very very welcome. And let me just say
heartbreak is rough to begin with. It's really rough during
a shutdown, because that makes everything a little bit more difficult.
I think you said it was a nine month relationship.
I'm just curious about what what you might have noticed
(07:17):
or what what things that registered as may be problematic. Well,
we met at a party and he was um sort
of not sort of a mutual friend of ours, but
she was quite into him and he didn't really feel
the same way, and he did kind of lead her on,
and she was an old friend of mine. That was
(07:39):
my first sort of thing of like, oh, I don't
know if I want to get involved in this. So
I actually said in the first instance, like no, I'm
not interested. We left it for two weeks and then
he called me just to say, look, I just wanted
to make sure that you're okay, because that said friend
had started sending me really horrible messages and to him
as well, and he sort of apologized to her been
(07:59):
half and said me that what he did was wrong
and he shouldn't have done it, but he really wants
to take me out on a date and blah blah.
So then we ended up going on a date and
it kind of ignited very quickly, and I was a
bit anxious about that, but it was also nice because
I was engaged back in twenty sixteen, but that didn't
work out. The first red flag, I have to say,
(08:19):
I don't know if that would count as one, but
the first one was when he lives in London. I
live in outside of London, so the culture in London
is a lot like I'm guessing New York City, where
it's like going out and drinking and having fun. And
and I noticed that he was drinking a lot. He
was meant to come and meet me, and he didn't,
and I just said, I'm done, Dike. I'm not hanging
(08:39):
around waiting for you. I don't want to do this
anymore because obviously you're choosing to going out as opposed
to hanging out with me, which is what we planned
to do. But he was crying and hysterical, and he
was just like, oh, I've made a mistake. This is
a wake up call. You mean too much to me.
I don't want to lose you. So we tried again.
And that's why I feel like I'm so angry, because
if I had just duck to my guns the first time,
(09:02):
then I wouldn't be where I am now. So that
that happened pretty early on, when you knew that there
was something else that you weren't okay with. Yeah, tell
me what made you overlook that? What were the positive
things about the relationship that made you think, oh, but
it's okay. I want to see what happens here. I
(09:24):
think it was because I've never had a guy like
cry about how sorry they were. I've never had a
guy actually expressed that sort of emotion. I noticed that
my past relationships, the guys that I were I was
seeing or was dating, we're quite emotionally unavailable, so they
weren't ever very emotionally expressive. So this guy was like
(09:45):
really upset, and I was just thinking, wow, so maybe
he must be really sorry, and and I kind of
felt and I was just gonna sound awful, but I
felt guilty because I felt like I knew better, and
I felt like perhaps maybe he this was his first
major relationship. Last relationship he was in he was sixteen
and they finished when he was twenty one. He's now
twenty seven, so this was his first adult I would
(10:07):
say relationship. So I thought, you know, I know better
he didn't mean it. He wants to try. He's made
that sort of apology, then surely I should try to
and not just give up at the first hurdle. So
I think it was just sort of yeah, I don't
know if that was what clearly wasn't the right thing
to do. But well, you know, you said, this was
(10:27):
his twenty seven and this this, this was the first
relationship for him since a long time. How old are
you and what were your relationships like before this? So
I'm twenty nine. I'm going to be thirty on Sunday.
My first relationship was well, my engagement ended in sixteen,
but I was with that guy for like five years
(10:48):
and he said that he didn't love me anymore. One
day you just woke up to turned round up to
me in the house that we were living in and
just said, oh, I don't love you anymore. And actually
so I was like, oh, okay, how did you grieve
the last of that relationship. I didn't. Actually I actually
got straight into like a rebound relationship with someone who
(11:08):
was just as probably in as much of a mess
as I was, and that went on like a year,
and I think I just jumped into something else, and
I didn't have a very good family life, and I
was just kind of I didn't want to really deal
with the fact that I had lost someone that was
so important to me, so I didn't really grieve that
relationship at all. I think that when I managed to
(11:31):
finally escape the rebound, I think a lot of that
was grieving was done in between those sorts of things.
You know, guy, I want to say, I want to
say this sort of the guy and also to you
Srina that what I'm noticing, and I'll bet the guys
thinking the same thing, is that you're improving in terms
of the time that it takes you to realize that
(11:52):
a relationship is not actually working for you, and the
time that it ends, even if you didn't end it right.
You're not spending as much time with someone who isn't
right for you, or who isn't meeting your needs, or
who isn't really appropriate in terms of where they are
in their life. For what their readiness is for the
kind of relationship you want. M Well, I mean, I hope. So.
(12:16):
I think the thing is is that I guess it
makes me sad because I kind of keep thinking like,
is there something that I could have done differently or better?
Because it kind of just feels like the go to
sentence for both Joe, who is my recent ext and
Matt whose ex fiance was I just don't love you anymore.
(12:37):
And I just that's what makes me think, well, what, how,
why when? And they don't have the answer to the question.
It's just so I just don't love you, and that's
what hurts because it's kind of like, well, then what
did I do? And then and then it's just it's
just you can't answer that question. Yeah, you know, I
have a little bit of suspicion. I'm not sure about
(12:59):
this at all, mind you, but I have a little
suspicion that it's more about what you don't do than
what you do, and why I say it's might be
related more to what you don't do. It's possible that
when you have a background that's a little tumultuous, it
makes your tolerance for certain things higher than it should
be because you came from somewhere where things were not
about you as much as they probably should have been,
(13:21):
and you had to put up with a lot of
difficult behavior by other people. You just learn to tolerate that.
It doesn't, you know, disturb you as much as it
might disturb someone else who doesn't have that tolerance. And
so it's possible with some of these guys that you
are overlooking things because yes, it's slightly a problem, but
I can manage it. When the problem with managing it
(13:42):
is that it communicates to them that you're okay with it,
when in essence you're not. Yeah that sounds right, Yeah,
that is right. I even said if I take you back,
then I'm sort of enabling this behavior and saying that
it's okay. I can't do that. But I guess I'm
just a bit of us suck up because he was like,
oh no, no, I won't like this. You know, this
(14:03):
is a wake up wol have changed the change, and
he was just kind of like downhill from there. Here's
something I want you to remember for next time, and
that is that when he has this moment where he's
crying and he's promising and it's all going to be great.
It's okay to give the person a chance, but in
this condition, you give them a chance, and then you
have your eyes extraordinarily wide open for the first violation
(14:27):
of whatever that promise was, and then you have to
really call them on it and say it might be
half an hour later, a day, a week, a month,
but it's that first time when they're violating whatever the
promise is that you can't overlook it, because if you do,
then they just fall into the old behavior immediately and
there goes the promise. If you call them on it,
(14:48):
they have a decision point to make of either okay,
either they're back in or they're not. But at least
in that point, you know, you know, you had been
asking about, you know, what did I do to make
them fall out of love with me? And so guy
was talking about really paying attention to what is important
to you, as opposed to wondering how can I be
(15:10):
a chameleon and be the kind of person that they
want me to be so that they'll love me. Yeah,
I think that's quite my main problem, because I find
myself trying to mold myself into shapes for my partner
that they the way that they want me to be. Like.
For example, with like Joe, he wasn't happy with my
life choices. He was like, you shouldn't be doing this,
(15:31):
you shouldn't be doing that, and it kind of just
made me feel like, why can't you just accept me
as I am? Um? And he just said, oh, because
I'm trying to push you to be better because you're
so bright and you're so intelligent, and you can do this,
you can do that, but you're just you've just got
you've got comfortable. And it just made me feel really
bad about myself. And I think that's that's really a
good point that I have tried to like change who
(15:52):
I am, to try and make my partners, I guess,
like me more. Well, I think in this last relationship,
it sounds like we're trained to be the cool girl,
the lead back girl, the girl who's like, yeah, I'm
cool with that, it's okay. And the more that people
try to say I'm going to be someone who I am,
not to become the person that this other person wants,
(16:15):
the less chance that relationship is going to work. Yeah. Yeah,
I don't know. I just I feel like I don't
know what I don't know. I don't know. I kept
saying this to him. I was like, what did I do?
I don't understand, and he was like, I don't understand either,
Like I do love you, but I don't know if
it's in the right way. And I just felt like
I was buying my head against the wall. And it's
so hard to not feel like you're the one you like.
(16:38):
You lose all your self esteem. So you were handed
your self esteem to him to be the holder of
your self esteem. Yeah, that's a very dangerous way to
go about being in relationship with somebody. Yeah, you talk
a lot about what you thought he liked about you,
and then suddenly he wasn't as as us did. What
(17:01):
did you like about him? I'm not hearing anything positive
about him yet? Yeah, I mean he was. He made
me laugh. He was really funny, and we went out
and experienced a lot of things together. We always were
doing things that a sort of complete pilo opposite of
my relationship with my ex where we just sat and
did nothing in the house. So we were like always
doing something. It was always fun, there was always something happening,
(17:24):
there was always you know, we're always go, go go,
and I you know, I liked that, And I mean,
I hate to sound really superficial, but he was really
good looking at hisself. So yeah, I think those are
like the three things that I really liked about him.
You know what's interesting is that I think that sometimes you,
(17:46):
and by you, I mean most people try and make
a relationship work in the moment without thinking enough about
whether it's sustainable long term. And when you start thinking
long term, you have to ask yourself whether you want
to sign on for that forever with that person who
will always know better than you what's best for you
(18:06):
and always have an opinion about what you should and
shouldn't do. I mean, and this is what I said
to him. I said, I've always supported you, yet you
can't do the same thing for me. I don't understand
why that's the case. So you said, you're about to
turn thirty, You've gone through, you had a long engagement
that didn't work out, and now here you are, and
(18:27):
it sounds like you're you're worried about, you know, meeting somebody.
And then you had this idea of, oh, here it is,
here's my answer, here's my solution in the form of Joe.
And there he was, and he materialized and it all
sounded so exciting, and we're going to get married and
we're so this is so fun and he's so different
from my former fiancee and this is going to be great.
(18:50):
And that family where I had all that trouble being
loved and learning to love, that's all going to be
in the past, and I don't have to carry that
around with me anymore because now I'm gonna be saved
by this person. And so you're grieving the loss of Joe,
but I think he's the most insignificant part of the
loss that you're experiencing right now, and I think you're
(19:11):
so fixated on him and why he decided that this
was not the relationship that he wanted, that you're not
really grieving the parts that are going to be much
more helpful for you to grieve so that you can
find the relationship that you want when you're ready to
do that. And that's this idea that there's going to
be some kind of reciprocity in a romantic relationship for
(19:31):
you that I don't think you've really had, that you're
going to have something different from what you had in
your family that I don't think that you've really had
that someone is going to save you from having to
deal with the pain of your past, which no person,
no matter how great they are, even if they do
happen to be the right person, can save you from that.
They can't. But instead of focusing so much on Joe
(19:54):
and and trying to get into his head for an
answer that you will honestly never have, the better use
of your time is to say, why is it so
painful for me to be in relationship with people? Why
do I allow people to do things in relationship that
are not okay with me? Those are going to be
(20:15):
really important questions for you to get curious about as
you're grieving this loss, and it will also help you
to not have so much sharpness around the pain of
the future that just went away because they think it
will help you to get clarity around that it is
not the future that you wanted. Yeah, I think you're
right there. I mean, what's also quite interesting is that
(20:38):
when you pointed out about the stuff with the family,
and my tolerance for things that are unacceptable is quite high,
and I obviously I don't know why that is um
and that is really interesting that you put it that
way that I would like to like look at that
as opposed to why I'm trying to get into Joe's
head and figure out why this thing didn't work. I
(20:59):
think that the any problem is that when I think
about it, I don't know and the answer and the
thing that just keeps coming back to me is just
this massive feeling of pain and I don't even know
if I want to open that. And I don't know
whether that's just that I'm scared of being on my
own because that everyone sort of has a family, and
I've never really had one, like you've said, and we've
(21:20):
been quite fractured. I don't speak to my brother and
personal reasons. I don't speak to any of my cousins. Really,
I am quite isolated, and I think that's probably why
I cling onto romantic partners because I keep thinking, at
least I won't be on my own then, right, But
you want a partner and future in the future of
family that do accept you for who you are, that
(21:42):
do recognize all that you have to offer, that do
value having you, And so it's super important that that
is what you look for in another person, not just
their presence or acceptance, but they're valuing you for who
(22:03):
you are. When I hear about Joe who's a partia,
and you describe yourself as I like to go to
lectures and read books. To me, you know, to me,
it sounds like he does the math, looks forward and
goes like, um, yeah, maybe that's not what I want
to do in life. So when you're looking for reasons,
one of them is that you just don't sound like
the best match to be honest with you, just in
(22:26):
terms of what you want out of life, how you
live your life. Yeah, I mean, he went, or we
don't have many interests, and I said, well, with all
due respect, I've taken so much of an interest in
the things that you like, and you have actually said
to my plates that you find the stuff that I
like boring. That right there is So it's almost like
a lot of times when people say I don't know
(22:48):
why this person broke up with me, it's not even
that you have to intuite. It is that they've actually
told you why. They may not told you in the
breakup conversation, which would be more ideal, but along the
way in the relationship they've they've kind of sprinkled in reasons,
and sometimes people choose not to hear those reasons. I
(23:08):
think what happens with you, Shrina, is that any guy
that you're with, whether they want to be with you,
becomes a referendum on how lovable you are. Yes, yeah,
that sounds about right. And that's why you go to
such great lengths to try to convince them that the
relationship is viable. And so I imagine that when he
(23:31):
did say, you know, I don't think we're right for
each other, you heard it as um, something is wrong
with you, something is not something is not lovable about you,
and you're trying to say, I'll do anything I can
to be to become lovable. And the thing is, Shrina,
you are lovable, and you're also choosing people who are
(23:52):
not right for you because it feels familiar to you,
because that kind of love of not having that feeling
of ease, not having that feeling of I don't have
to walk on eggshells, and and I trust this person's
love and I truly love them too, by the way,
because I don't hear that you really loved either of
these guys, your ex fiance or Joe. So I think
(24:14):
what you do is you replicate the kind of loving
relationships that you had in your family, which were very problematic,
and you when you first meet these guys, you think, oh,
this will be different. This time, it's going to be different.
But really you have radar for people who will provide
the same kind of environment for you that you had
growing up. And then again you feel like, oh, here
(24:39):
it is again. See I'm not lovable. Yeah, that's that
sounds pretty much spun to be honest. Yeah, I think
you're right about the like it feels familiar. I feel
like I need to work for it and I need
to prove that I'm worthy of being in a relationship.
I mean, he's constantly on his spine and like we'd
be talking and I'd be like you're or even present,
(25:00):
like you're not listening to me, And it was just
like sort of fighting for his sort of attention. And
then when you do something so like he said to me,
I found a book that reminded me of use and
he bought it for me, and I just burst into
tears because I was like, oh my god, this is
so lovely, is so amazing, Thank you so much, Thank
you so much over a book because I felt like
(25:21):
he knew that that's what would make me happy. It's
just he thought he saw something thought of me and
it was a book and I love to read because
it was that unusual for him to do something so
thoughtful apparently that it touched you so deeply. It's almost
it's almost like Suna that, um, you were so hungry
for this kind of love growing up, and so as
an adult you'll take the crumb, and the crumb means everything.
(25:44):
The crumb. You try to get the crumb to fill
you up there giving you the book, that was a
crumb that he gave you, and for you it became
an entire meal. Yeah, yeah, that's what. So, Laurie, do
(26:04):
we have some advice. Yeah. What I'm thinking about is
that endings matter a lot, and they kind of set
the tone for how we move on. They help us
sometimes move on in a different way if we can
have a better ending. And so I'm thinking about how
(26:25):
volatile your ending was, and it was there was a
lot of anger, nobody really talked about anything, and I
feel like, here's an opportunity for you to have a
different ending with him where you give him some information
about you that is not angry. That's very composed, but
(26:47):
it's also very much your truth, and I'm just thinking
about what that might sound like. You know, I think
the easiest thing for him to hear, and the most
truthful thing is you will not the right match for
one another. But you might say to him that, you know,
when you're reflecting on the relationship, you realize that you
(27:08):
had a lot of fun together in some points, but
in terms of the long term, you weren't well suited
because you have different interests and probably different expectations about
how you want to live your life, and that it
was you know, it was a good run for a while,
and just something very simple in that way that emphasizes
(27:29):
that you're okay with the ending, but have this nicely composed, calm,
kind of reflective notion of fun. For a while, I
appreciated this about you, but ultimately we weren't well matched.
And what that does is it it gives you back
your voice. It gives you back your sense of self.
(27:51):
You had you had given, you had handed him your
self esteem and it never should have been gifted to
him or lent to him in the first place. That's
something that you always need to hold for yourself. You
don't share your self esteem with somebody else that's yours
and yours alone. And yes, there there's more to it
than uh, you know, in terms of your feelings, there's
(28:11):
a lot of pain. But I don't know that that's
really what you need to share with him. You certainly
did share it with him in your anger, but just
by being able to say, I wish you the best
and and there's so much power and I wish you
the best and not in you know, your tone is
really important. There's there's no edge to it, and so
I hope you're able to say your truth in that
(28:33):
way about the mismatch and from a from a deep
place of adulthood, which is where you need to move
your It's almost like you're wearing clothing that doesn't fit anymore.
You're wearing all that childhood clothing as you go into
each of these relationships. And so if you can wish
him from the adult place in yourself and I really
wish you well and leave it at that, and you
will move on in a much stronger way than the
(28:56):
way things have been left already. Yeah, that's that's exactly
what I want to do. And I think that you're
by right there and I'm and I'm glad that it
in a way that it did happen this way, because obviously,
like you said, I've learnt more about myself and what
I will will and won't stand for in a relationship.
It's it's just obviously, well, it's always tough when things
(29:19):
like this happen. And I think that like trying to
do it in the way that you said, hopefully will
will bring it to a more sort of calm ending right.
And in wishing him well, you give yourself permission to
wish yourself well, okay, that it gives you that kind
of freedom and that kind of permission that I don't
know that you let yourself have most of the time.
(29:42):
I think you're so concerned about what people are thinking
about you, and I don't think that you are thinking
enough about you. And then I think, I, do you
have some other sort of longer term advice? I do.
Here's what I'd like you to do longer term. I'd
like you to have it packed with yourself, and I'd
(30:02):
like you to really right out. I want you to
think back on the relationships that you've had, and I
want you to make a list of two kinds of items.
Number one, limits and things that you really are not
okay with in a relationship. I want you to enumerate
(30:24):
the ways you know, the limits that you have. What
are the things that you will not tolerate in a relationship.
And I want you to not just go with the
big ticket items of you know, cheating or betrayal or
you know, any kind of aggression. I want you to
think of the small things like somebody putting you down.
And you'll be surprised that if that is very clear,
(30:47):
if it's that a line that you will not have
crust and the first time you're like, okay, let's be
very clear, that can't happen again, they might need one
more reminder. But if it's very clear, you know so,
I want you to make a list of those kinds
of things, the things you will not tolerate. And with Joe,
they might have been things like talking on the phone
while you're trying to have a conversation with him, not
(31:09):
being reliable in terms of showing up when you when
you made plans with him, um saying things like I
have no interest in being curious about your interests. But
the second part of the list is the dues. You
know that that first part is the dance, and then
they're the dues. How do you want to feel when
(31:30):
you're with someone? And I want you to think of
what Laurie said about the crumbs, the crumbs that are
so meaningful. Make a list of those crumbs and ask
for them. Expect them to be much more of a meal.
In other words, this idea that somebody is thoughtful is Yes,
it's touching and it's moving. It just shouldn't be that
rare because I'm sure those are the kinds of things
(31:52):
that you're able to offer someone. It's absolutely fair to
want them in some kind of way for yourself. So
I want you to make a list of, you know,
the things you would like in a relationship, the ways
you would want to feel when you're with someone. And
then the idea here is that you keep that list
with you and the next time you start dating someone.
(32:15):
I this is gonna sound like a lot, but I
truly mean it. I want you to read the list
before every date, let's say at least for a while,
because it will remind you to be truer to yourself.
And so literally, before every date you read that list,
you remind yourself Yep, this is what I'm looking for
(32:35):
and if it's not there, you can decide much earlier.
You know, Laurie said, you're getting better at at at
leaving sooner good. Maybe a want only one day, two
dates a month. Maybe you give somebody a chance and
they snap two and you will be surprised. You You
know that when you do express these expectations and you
do it nicely, you'll be surprised that when you're very
(32:56):
clear that this is the standard, you'll be surprised how
many men will raise to that standard. In my head,
I guess, the fact is I've had this sort of
narrative of no one's going to want to put up
with the expectations that you think you deserve, where maybe
it's I'm I'm expecting too much, and that's where I've
kind of now sort of gone the other way and
(33:17):
been like, oh, I'm chill about everything. So it's good
to hear that you have to have expectations, I guess,
and the people who don't want to do those kinds
of things, um, that's good. That's good information to have.
So instead of being devastated by the fact that they
don't want to do that, and then you take it
personally and think that you're unlovable. That just means that
(33:40):
I don't have to be in so much pain because
I can eliminate that person. Mm hmm. Yeah. Lastly, every
time you have the thought, either when you're making the list,
working on the list, or when you're reading it, or
when you're dating someone, every time you have the thought
this might be too much to expect. I want you
to ask yourself if those things are things you are
(34:02):
willing to offer, and if they are, it's not too
much to expect, and if they're not, they probably shouldn't
be on the list. Perfect, got it? Yeah, that makes sense.
That would help me a lot, I think, because I
think that I'm super hard on myself and I let
everyone else around me in my in my relationship to
get away with mother, So that would help me make
it a bit more balanced. Definitely great. So how do
(34:25):
you feel about trying all this space? Um? Good, I
feel really good. I'm going to definitely do the list.
I'm feeling really emotional, so I think that I might
have a bit of a cry, and it would be
a cathartic cry, I think. And then yeah, but it's
just been I'm glad I kind of did this and
I'm definitely going to put the advice to good use. Um. Yes,
(34:45):
So thank you guys. Honestly, this is this has been
this has been great for me and I can't thank
you guys enough that I'm really really really grateful to you,
to you both, and we're grateful to you. Thank you.
If you can try that this week to have that
conversation with him, we would love to hear back from you.
If you can leave us a voice memo and let
us know how that went. Yeah, yeah, I will do that.
(35:08):
And ill said that I between wonderful take care by.
So Shrina was really lovely and I'm glad we got
to help her see some things that maybe she wasn't
able to see before. What do you think is going
to happen when she tries our advice? I think she
(35:31):
really had two people in her corner, and I I
don't think she's used to having people in her corner,
And I think that she's going to feel impound enough
to be able to do it in the right way
and really get some closure out of it. Yeah, I
think she's gonna maybe procrastinate on calling him, and that's
going to be her biggest hurdle is getting over her
(35:52):
anxiety about making the call and not doubting herself and
not going back into that place of I don't know
if I can say this, but I also feel like
she's very motivated, and I think she's hearing that this
isn't so much about Joe but about something larger in
her life and in her relational patterns. And I am
really excited to hear how that conversation goes. This is
(36:18):
Dear Therapists, and we'll be back after a short break.
I'm Guy Wench and I'm Laurie Gartlieb, and this is
dear Therapist. Well, let's listen to the voicemail. Hi, Guy
and Lorie, It's Trina. After we spoke, I did feel better.
(36:43):
It made me realize that I have a lot of
unresolved childhood trauma that I need to work through, and
to that end, I am and seeing a therapist weekly
to kind of really work through those sort of feelings
that I've had and why I act the way that
I do and seem to be drawn to emotionally unavailable men.
(37:07):
So I think that that is definitely a positive something
I could definitely take away from our chat. I've also
realized that sometimes what you want to do isn't healthy
for you, so you need to make sure that you
follow through with the healthy thing to do. So, for example,
(37:28):
I go backwards and forwards about wanting to I have done.
I'm at a place now where actually I don't feel
But before I was in a place where I wanted
to get back together with Joe. But I realized now
that my need was to stay mentally healthy, to stay
emotionally healthy, and in order to do that, I need
to distance myself from him and realize, Okay, what is
(37:54):
the underlying issue here? Why do I feel the need
to to put myself in that situation? And that is
another thing that I've learned. I find it really hard
to sit with difficult emotions, and that's something that I
want to work on. So I'm trying to use this
as a learning tool. So I'm hopeful for the future
(38:16):
and hopefully on the other side, I will have a
relationship that I deserve, and that is something that I've
always wanted and have yet to receive. So yeah, thank
you so much. In totally indebted to you both, and
I really appreciate everything you did in that time we
(38:39):
we shared together. So that was interesting on quite a
few different levels for me, unexpected and really good in
some ways. She seemed to have learned so much about
the work that she needs to do that she wasn't
(39:00):
aware of before, and really separating out what is historical
for her, what is something that went on in the
past that is driving her behavior now, and how much
is really about Joe, who clearly was not compatible with her,
And you know, I found it interesting that she didn't
actually follow the suggestion that we asked her to do,
(39:26):
which was that conversation with Joe about their you know,
really owning the fact that she sees that they were
not compatible. So she doesn't feel like the victim because
I think she came to realize in our conversation that
really this was not the right person for her as well,
and to wish him well. Right, That was part of
the advice. But what was interesting was I think as therapist,
we see that sometimes we will suggest something to someone
(39:49):
and they do something different that is equally useful. For
that she got the message that was much much more important.
Take a look at yourself, do some works of it.
You don't find yourself in this kind of situation again,
and realize that you are very much deserving of better
because she's investing in herself now and that's what's coming
(40:10):
across clearly, and that's what was so thrilling to hear. Yeah.
I love the way she put it where she said
there's a difference between what I want in the moment
and what I need for myself, And even this small
little tip bit she threw in there, which I think
is so so valuable of like, yes, and I know
I need to be able to sit with difficult emotions. Yes,
you do, and good for you for remembering that. So
(40:30):
I'm really hopeful that she's going to be able to
go forward in a much more positive way and make
these changes. Yeah. I was smiling when I was listening
to her voicemail because I think heartbreak is so universal
and what we talked to her about applies to so
many people. And what I loved about Shrina was that
she immediately said, you know what, this is really hard
(40:53):
my instinct and what would feel better in the moment
is to do this thing that's not healthy for me
and to just continue my old patterns. But I know
need to do something different in order to have a
different outcome. And I think we can all learn something
from that example. That brings us to the end of
(41:13):
our show for this week. Thank you so much for listening.
You can follow us both online. I'm at Lori Gottlieb
dot com and you can follow me on Twitter at
Lori Gottlieb one or on Instagram at Lori Gottlieb Underscore Author,
and I'm at guy Winch dot com and on Instagram
at guy Winch. If you have a dilemma you'd like
to discuss with us, big or small, email us at
(41:37):
Lorian guy at I heart media dot com. Our executive
producers Christopher hasci Otis, were produced and edited by Mike
John's Special thanks to Samuel Bennefield and to our podcast
Fairy Godmother Katie Couric. Next week we'll talk about the
challenges of blending families together when young children are involved
(41:57):
and say, oh, everything is going fine, maybe say he's
going to be a good day, and I certainly don't
know what to say when she's like, I hate you,
get away from me. Dear Therapist is a production of
I Heart Radio
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