June 5, 2025 • 51 mins
Ever wondered why everyone seems to break up just before 28? Or why your friend who was just about to settle down with her boyfriend of 7 years is suddenly single and wanting to go out clubbing again? Or why you suddenly realised your long term relationship wasn't for you, and found yourself in Europe or on 4 dates in a row the next week? It's because of post long-term relationship puberty: a term that describes the rapid personality change that takes place in people who have been in a relationship for most of their 20s, but suddenly find themselves single in their late 20s, ready to make up for lost time. In today's episode we describe the end of long-term relationships in our 20s, including:
- The 7 year itch
- Why we suddenly realise someone isn't right for us
- The growth that happens after a breakup
- Why people settle in their 20s
- The pros and cons of single life vs. dating life
- How to not go back to your ex
- How to embrace your single era
Listen now!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, or welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. Welcome back to the podcast, New listeners, old listeners.
Wherever you are in the world, it is so great
to have you here. Back for another episode as we,
of course break down the psychology of our twenties. All right,
breakups in our twenties they suck. Okay, they are just awful,
(00:46):
know other words to describe it. They leave just a
huge gaping hole in our lives and a ton of
unanswered questions, especially when that relationship felt like endgame. You know,
you go from planning a future with this person to
it ending and walking away and them not being in
(01:10):
your life anymore. And even though you may know in
your deepest heart of hearts that it was the right decision,
it can still very much feel like you wasted the
last for six eight years of your life and you
have to start over. This big question comes up.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, how do I do that? How do I start over?
When this person was such a formative part of my twenties.
More specifically, how do I make up for lost time?
How do I still have all the experiences I didn't
get to have whilst still feeling like I'm on schedule
in my life. Well, there is a very unique phenomena
(01:46):
that happens after this kind of long term breakup that
I have been noticing more and more, and it's this
kind of second puberty that is triggered by the end
of a significant relationship that has spanned the majority of
your twenties. And I want to really discuss exactly what
takes place and this new term that I've come up
(02:07):
to describe this, called post long term relationship puberty. It
is this weird chapter in our lives after relationship ends,
in which people experience like insane character shifts and development
and rapid expansion and growth and exploration and all these
(02:31):
amazing things whilst they're also trying to navigate heartache and
it feels like they're almost like a teenager again. There's
this very similar pattern that these breakups tend to follow,
and I want to explain what that pattern is, but
also how we can best kind of confront the confusion
that is left in the wake of a long term relationship,
(02:52):
How do we know when we can date again, How
do you know if you made a mistake, How to
make the most out of being single after a big period,
a big chunk of your life of being monogamous. So
there is a lot going on, but it can all
be described by this term, and I want to tell
you what it means, explain it to you, answer all
(03:12):
those questions, and hopefully if you are going through this
right now, this episode serves as a little bit of
a guide to navigating this kind of heartache we know
is necessary but maybe didn't expect, and just how to
get the absolute most out of this next chapter of
your life despite you know, a lot of confusing feelings. So,
without further ado, let's discuss the psychology of post long
(03:37):
term relationship puberty. So let me begin by describing exactly
what this phrase means. So when people first hear me
talk about post long term relationship puberty, they are often
kind of like, huh, like they're a little bit confused.
(03:57):
But when I describe it to them, they will almost
always immediately say to me, I know someone who's like that,
or they will start describing someone in their own life
who fits the exact bill, because although no one really
has a name for this phenomena yet, it is still
so unbelievably common, I'm surprised no one has been able
(04:18):
to label it. So this term describes someone who was
in a serious relationship for most of their early and
mid twenties who suddenly finds themselves single at twenty seven,
twenty eight, twenty nine, on the cusp of thirty and
having realized that they've sunk all this time into a
person who wasn't the one. As a result, they feel
(04:39):
like they have to make up for those lost opportunities,
specifically the lost experiences of being single in their twenties,
and they kind of go through almost a second emotional
puberty of sorts. They suddenly start going out again after
years of wanting to stay in. They start dating like
they're seventeen. They feel giddy over first kiss, they feel
(05:01):
confused and exhilarated. They're taking big risks, they're traveling, they're
fighting with their parents, they're making major life changes. They're
having sex with new people, discovering a whole new group
of single friends. They're having this like insane mental and
physical glow up almost because they spent all this time
with someone else, they found themselves really defined by that relationship,
(05:23):
and now that they're finally experiencing being single and truly
independent in their twenties, it's like they're awake again. It's
like they're alive. They are going through a major psychological
growth spurt that they missed by partnering up with someone,
specifically with the wrong person too soon, and it is
wildly fun, but at the same time, it also creates
(05:46):
sym panic and confusion for them because they were on
track for hitting all these key milestones that society expects
of them, and now they won't be doing that. So
there's this equal feeling of like, wait, I feel free,
I feel great, but am I also falling behind? And
at the same time, they're seeing all their friends who
you know, are settling down now after waiting a little
(06:07):
bit longer, and it's kind of like the roles have reversed,
Like they went from being the one who was serious
and committed to being the single friend. But by the
time they're back in their single eraror or their friends
have moved on. So much like puberty, where every day
is very unique and there's a lot of a big
(06:28):
rollercoaster of emotions and highs and lows. You're really in
a period of rediscovering yourself. I also like to use
the term puberty, because you know you might not be
experiencing the same physical and biological changes, but there are
significant growing pains mentally as you're trying to just who
you were before with who you are now, and a
(06:49):
lot of that maturing is taking place through experimentation. Someone
kind of described this phenomena to me like you've missed
your exit on the highway by staying in this relationship
for too long. And once you've realized that you've missed
your exit and you leave the relationship, you find yourself
(07:11):
having to drive all the way back to where you
should have originally turned off. To get back on track.
You have to travel all the way back to the
time and the age that you were when you first
met that person and relived the way your life would
have gone if you hadn't been with them to feel
like you're really ready to enter the next chapter of
your life. And in the last two years, I have
(07:34):
seen countless friends and acquaintances go through this, go through
this exact thing, and it always follows the exact same pattern.
They met their person between seventeen and twenty arguably when
they were very very young. They met them during a
very formative period for establishing their own identity. The relationship
(07:55):
was a meaningful one, right, It was a good enough relationship.
This person was really nice, they were fine, and a
lot of their experiences became tied to this person and
therefore the partnership. So they traveled with their partner, they
moved in together. They felt safe, but they didn't feel challenged,
they didn't feel like their needs were fully met. And
(08:16):
around their late twenties, they suddenly realized, like, this person
isn't for me, and I cannot waste any more of
my youth on them. I need to release both of
us from this relationship, the good, not great, safe but
not evolving relationship. And they break up with them, and
it feels like a really really good decision. And then
the cycle begins, the cycle of just exploring and exploding
(08:39):
and doing wild stuff that you didn't feel like you
had the opportunity to do. So why does this happen?
Why is this such a pattern that you know, someone
like me or other people have been able to come
up with terms and words for it. So I have
this major theory that a large majority of couples who
have been together for a while and seemingly break up
(09:01):
in the few years before thirty. They do so because
as you're approaching such a big milestone, it causes us
to naturally sit back and reflect. Thirty is a new decade.
It definitely feels like the beginning of a bigger, larger,
more mature, more adult chapter. Even though you know nothing
(09:22):
really changes between twenty nine years and twelve months and
thirty years and one month, but naturally like it feels significant,
and so questions like is this relationship right for me?
Am I happy? Could I marry this person? Could I
coparent with this person? Is this what I imagine for myself?
All these questions start to come up. So in psychology,
(09:45):
this experience has a name. It's called a temporal landmark.
So temporal landmarks are moments in time like New year's, birthdays, anniversaries,
that really stand out from the flow of everyday life.
They act like mental chapter breaks. They make you really
pause and reflect because because of their significance, there's a
(10:08):
very big sense of before and after, and so things
like turning thirty, things like graduating, things like a five
year anniversary. They produce like a psychological fork in the
road where big questions and big decisions and doubts are
very much amplified by a sense of urgency and a
sense of importance. Perhaps you've you know, you've had these
(10:32):
feelings about your relationship for a while, but suddenly you're
about to turn thirty, or you're seeing friends get married,
and it feels very important to address them before the
new chapter starts. Kind of link to a quarter life
crisis as well. You know, this is when you see
a lot of couples break up. It's like, do I
(10:52):
want to go into the next chapter with this person? Yes?
Or no? And if the answer is no, will I
better get out quick? Another related concept that you may
or may not be familiar with is the seven year itch. Now,
this idea, it actually came from a movie with Marilyn
Monroe back in the fifties, which was called the seven
year Itch. It's not necessarily a scientific term, but coll
(11:14):
locally it kind of describes a feeling of restlessness and
unease that people note around the seven year mark of
their relationship. It's at seven years around that time that
people begin to realize, oh, like this is my future
where this is endgame. They also perhaps start to get
(11:36):
lazy in a relationship, They start to realize that the
problems they have are probably not going to change, and
they break up. If you've been with someone since your
late teens early twenties, that seven year itch is going
to hit in your late twenties, right as you're about
to enter thirty, and unlike people who met later, you
(11:58):
do have the existential real lifeation of like, wait, I
never really got to know myself, which compounds the I
guess the fear of staying in the relationship. Basically, you know,
people might experience the seven year itch in their thirties
or in their forties, but they can kind of say, oh, wait, no,
like I had time to search around, I had time today.
(12:19):
I know this person's right for me because I've seen
what else is out there. Whereas for you, who may
have not dated anyone else or anyone else seriously, the
seven year itch. Also it's kind of a reminder of like, wait,
but this is the only person I've really ever loved
or really ever known. This is my only serious relationship.
Did I make the right decision? So if you're wondering
(12:39):
if there's any science behind this. The answer would be yes,
there actually is. There have been a number of studies
and statistical analyses that have attempted to confirm or deny
this seven year itch myth, including one recently that looked
at divorce rate data. In twenty twelve, they looked at
divorce rate data because breakup data is not as available,
(13:02):
and what they found is that the average marriage lasts
around seven years the seven year itch. Another study in
Finland in twenty eighteen, they also included people who cohabitate
as well as being married. They found something a little
bit different, but it still kind of confirms what the
(13:23):
previous research has had to say. They have found that
most marriages end around the two year mark. That's when
the risk of divorce is highest. But they considered how
long the average couple dates before they get married, and
they found that to be around four point nine years.
So four point nine plus two puts us at six
(13:45):
point nine, almost on the dot seven years. It's why
like this whole idea and this whole theory, and there's
definitely more proof that needs to be provided, and it
needs to be done in other areas, But this vague idea,
this idea of the seven year wich is why some sociologists,
and maybe we'd call them, I don't know, social activists.
(14:07):
They have suggested that if you choose to get married,
you should have to renew your vows every seven years,
like renewing your license right, and if you don't, well,
the state will just consider you separated. And it stops
people from having to go through messy divorces. It allows
people to consciously commit to each other over and over again. Basically,
(14:28):
the argument is that marriage shouldn't be a passive legal obligation.
And you know, I, as someone who's quite romantic, I
really love this idea. I think it's brilliant. I think
that given some of the research and the evidence coming through,
perhaps this would make society a little bit healthier and
stop people from going through these terrible divorces or feeling
(14:48):
like they can't leave their relationship or feeling like they're stuck.
It would give us more of a sense of like,
sometimes relationships aren't meant to last forever, and a critical
points where you have to either grow or separate. It's
something that you should really have to consider rather than
just going with the status quo. So I would say
(15:09):
this research kind of explains why a lot of people
break up at this pivotal time in their twenties. But
why do they also suddenly experience a change in personality afterwards?
What's with the upheaval, What's with the dramatic shift in
lifestyle that accompanies the end of the relationship. Basically, why
does this puberty aspect take place? I think the kind
(15:34):
of sudden shifts in identity and personality that occur and
show off in people after they end a long term
relationship is because I think they're trying to attempt to
make up for lost time by doing all the things
that their relationship status previously prevented them from doing, and
doing all the things that they see is stereotypically single
(15:56):
behaviors that they didn't get to do before. It may
also be like a rebellion, I guess, against who this
relationship made them into. So there's this concept in psychology
called reactants, which basically explains how when we feel our
freedom has been restricted, in this case by our past relationship,
we sometimes swing really hard in the opposite direction to
(16:19):
reclaim that freedom. And it's why someone who felt romantically
stifled might suddenly become wildly romantically adventurous, or why someone
who felt neglected might suddenly chase really intense attraction and
love bumbing and the highs of a situationship. They are
reacting against an external pressure that they felt restricted them,
(16:41):
and because they haven't really had this kind of freedom
for a while, maybe they just go a little bit overbought.
I don't see the harm in it. I think you know, what,
have your fun if you feel like you missed out,
if you feel like that's something that's weighing heavy on you,
like you should be able to have those fun experiences.
But also beyond reactance, you know, the end of a significant,
long term relationship, duds leave you with a major identity void.
(17:05):
You've probably forgotten who you are without this person. If
your twenties were built around the idea of a future
with someone, if your interests were shaped by this, if
every core memory they're in it, all your friends, they're
the same, they know everything about you. Stepping back into
the world without them can feel very lonely and very empty,
(17:27):
not just because you miss them, but because this part
of you is disrupted. And so sometimes these behaviors, these
wild adventures, they are in response to that void. They're
us trying to stack up experiences that could provide us
with meaning, with purpose, show us who we are and
are psychologically revealing so that we can figure out who
(17:49):
am I? Who am I? Who am I? Without this person,
I have to do some major experimentation, some major risk
taking to speed up this process. These kind of behaviors
may also be a little bit of a distraction in
the beginning, a comfort in a very lonely period, but
also a way to say like, hey, look I can
do this on my own, I can have fun, I
(18:10):
am independent, I'm new, I'm different. Now you this relationship
didn't define me. But eventually there will come a time
where you have to confront the fact that a big
part of your life is over and make sense of
what's left over in the emotional rubble, and that can
bring some really complicated emotions. As much as you're having
(18:31):
heaps of fun, you're solo traveling, you're dyeing your hair,
you're sleeping around, you're going on dates, and you never
thought this was going to be part of your life.
As much as that is so fun, I do think
that there are these moments of paupes where we kind
of think, wait, I can't get that time back. Am
I actually going to find someone better? Like? Wait, did
(18:52):
I make a mistake? And I think those thoughts and
those fears deserve the very own sections. So we're going
to devote the next part of this ep SO to
these internal conflicts, but also how to embrace this new
chapter ahead of you, how to find peace with the
relationship ending, how to just have more fun with being
single even when it feels kind of terrible at times.
(19:13):
So stay with us after this your break as humans.
I've definitely noticed this strange tendency to only see growth
as the addition of things, not so much the subtraction,
you know, gaining more money, gaining more friends, gaining more followers,
(19:35):
gaining skills, gaining more accomplishments. There is just as much
expansion in subtraction, particularly the subtraction of the wrong relationship.
And my use of that word subtraction is deliberate because
it's a subtraction. It's not a failure, it's not a loss.
It is a beginning as much as it is an end.
(19:55):
I read a paper recently that essentially confirmed this idea
that leaving the wrong relationship, even if it was a
good relationship will significantly improve your life, but you have
to get through this kind of tough period first, this
period of heartache, but also a secondary existential layer for starters.
(20:17):
You know, the end of a long term relationship in
your twenties and especially in your late twenties is going
to bring about some milestone anxiety and milestone anxiety. If
you haven't listened to our episode on this is this
very intense pressure to reach traditional life milestones at specific times,
and those specific times are subconsciously impressed on us by
(20:38):
society without us even realizing. Some of the ones that
we typically think of and buy into without even realizing
is to graduate by the time you're twenty two, to
be married and have a house by thirty, to have
kids by thirty five. And if you're not doing that,
if you're not hitting those targets at that exact time,
people will think, oh wow, well you had kids too late,
or you had kids too young. Oh well, you graduated
(21:01):
too early, or you graduated too late, like something's wrong
with you. You haven't found your partner yet, but you've
like if you find your partner at twenty one, you
know you wasted You wasted the opportunity to meet other people.
But if you find them at thirty one or well,
what was wrong with you? It took you some extra time. Like,
it's so frustrating and it makes us so uneasy, and
it's so restrictive, and it gives us a real sense
(21:22):
of being left behind. I think, as well as people
seemingly move forward in their serious relationships, you've just taken
the biggest step back possible. You know, you left your relationship,
and so the comparison is deeply destructive and is deeply
I guess contrasting right, like, this person and people that
(21:44):
you look at are gonna seem so different to you
because you did make such a giant leap and you
did take such a leap of faith. But I want
you to remember this. You have no idea how many
people are staying with someone out of fear of not
finding anyone better. No idea how many of these people
that you're comparing yourself to are staying with someone they
(22:05):
don't actually really enjoy that much because they're scared of
being lonely. And it is always better to turn back
down the wrong road, even if you are miles ahead.
It is always better to turn around rather than to
keep going. You know, you did not let the fear
of not finding someone better allow you to stay with
(22:26):
someone who wasn't right, regardless of what others are doing.
And I want you to remember. You know you're the
only one who has to live fully with your decisions,
and so choosing what was best for you will always
be the right call, even if it isn't what other
people expect, even if it seemingly puts you behind or
disappoints people, even if it's scary for now. You have
saved yourself a lot of disappointment and pain in the
(22:49):
future by making a hard decision when you know, making
a hard decision when it would have been very easy
to make the wrong one. I think the second existential
thing that feels paralyzing in the wake of a long
term relationship breakup is this idea that you wasted your time.
You spent three, five, seven years, maybe even longer with
(23:09):
someone who didn't end up being the one, and you
could have used that time finding the one. You could
have used that time exploring, and now you have to
do it now. Now you have to do it as
someone who is old, which I think is you're not old.
You're really not old, you're still a child. But there's
this weird sense that the time before was more valuable
(23:31):
than the time you have ahead, Like the time you
spent in that relationship when you were young is more
valuable than the time you're going to spend single now
that you're older. I think because we have a real
anti aging philosophy and belief system in this society, and
so your younger years, their scen is seen as very
(23:53):
very important and impressive and full of all these experiences
and where all the fun is. And so if you
wasted that on a relationship, well then you've got the
short straw. Like you don't have to be single in
a less fun period, a less fun time, And that
is just total crap. Like it's just total, total crap.
You still have so much time ahead of you. In fact,
(24:16):
you have so much more time than if you'd stayed
and been miserable, and you have so many more good
memories to make, and you have so many more opportunities.
This is not a loss, This is not a deficit.
This is an incredible gift. And people meet their soulmates
at thirty seven, they meet them at forty. They're married
and have kids by forty two. People meet their soulmates
(24:37):
at sixty. You know, true love doesn't just find you
when you're young. It's not just something to tick off
the bucket list before you turn thirty. And I'm glad
that you, hopefully, somewhere in your heart know that, and
that you didn't follow a timeline and didn't feel like
you had to stay on a timeline more than you
had to value your own happiness. But I totally get it.
(25:00):
But I feel like the sense of loss and the
sense of disruption is very, very strong. But it's this
kind of thinking, this thinking of, oh my god, I'm
never going to find anyone better. I'm never gonna find love.
I've already put all this time into this person that
gets us stuck in a sunk costs mentality, and that
gets us staying in places we ultimately don't want to be.
(25:23):
Here's what I have to say to this. If you
feel like you've wasted your time, if you feel like
you're not going to get your youth back, if you
feel like you wish you had known better and left earlier,
how do you know that it would have been better
if this relationship hadn't happened. How do you know you
wouldn't have been in a worse relationship or wouldn't be
feeling just as lost. How do you even know that
(25:44):
you would have met someone. Maybe you could have spent
that whole time single, and yeah, it would have been fine,
and it would have been great, But you wouldn't have
learned some of the lessons that you did learn. You
wouldn't know now what kind of person is better for you.
You wouldn't know now how to trust your gut, you
wouldn't know how to move through pain and uncertainty. You've
learned love, You've learned valuable relationship skills, You've learned more
(26:08):
about yourself regardless of it not working out, And you
would be so surprised of how thankful I am actually
of the times that I've previously had my heart broken,
because in hindsight, I can see that that is exactly
what needed to happen, and I can see that despite
all the pain, and gosh it was painful, it was
the best thing possible for me. I have friends who
(26:31):
have married their versions of my ex I have friends
who have married the person that they doubted all along
was right for them. And you know, what. Some of
them are happy, and some of them are okay, but
some of them are also like I really, I'm in
it now and I care about this person and we're
(26:52):
going to build the family together. But I wish I'd
waited a little bit longer. I wish that I'd learnt
more about myself. So it's not a failure. It's not
a waste to walk away from the wrong person. It
is a gift. This is something that you will end
up valuing so much. This is something that you will
end up being so immensely grateful to yourself for. So
(27:16):
how do we actually embrace this new phase for ourselves?
I think the first thing is lean into the puberty part.
Lean into being a little bit wild, Lean into going
a little bit crazy. Lean into doing just things that
you wanted to do that you couldn't do in your relationship,
even if they feel scary or risky or embarrassing. You know,
(27:36):
healing will come, sadness will come, like it's gonna happen,
So just ride the highs whilst you can and whilst
you want to. And then when the loaves come, like
lean into them as well. You know, I always say,
if you embrace the pain fully for six months. You
save yourself from two years of lingering, suffering. It's better
(27:57):
to kind of lean into it and get it out
of the way, but just let it take control for
a little while, rather than trying to fight it off
for as long as possible and realize that a losing game.
I also want you to keep contact to a minimum.
I know that if you have been with this person
for a long time, if you live with them, if
you have a pet with them, if you have all
(28:17):
the same friends, that is very, very hard. Which is
why I don't say don't talk to them at all,
but really use your judgment here. You know that the
more you talk to them, the harder it is for
your brain to unlearn their presence in your life. There
is the saying neurons that fire together, wire together, and
(28:38):
there is all these pathways in your brain right now
associated with this person that are very entrenched. And the
more you continue to stay in contact with them and
be around them and remember all the funny, quirky things
they did, the harder it is for those pathways to
be paved over, the harder it is for new pathways
(28:59):
to loss them in their place. So please keep contact
to a minimum, don't check up on them through friends,
get off social media for a while, do a big
closure chat right at the beginning, give back all their stuff,
and then focus on you. This is you, This is
your new chapter, Like this is your time, your period,
(29:20):
This is like the year for you. They don't need
to be part of it, even though they might feel
and might feed into this real deep nostalgia and love,
and even though it's hard to disentangle yourself, like you
need to make smart decisions for what you want in
the future, and it's going to be harder for you
to move on fully and not feel like this was
(29:41):
a bad decision if you keep letting them back in
for a few seconds, a few minutes at a time.
I also want you to go into all your doctor's appointments.
I want you to go to the dentist. I want
you to get your haircut. I want you to go
and get like a physical go get your bluzz done,
do everything in terms of physical maintenance. To really start
(30:04):
this new chapter with a clean bill of health, to
feel like okay, cool, I've bookmarked the end of this
of this relationship, and this is the new beginning, Like
I feel healthy I feel well, I'm doing everything that
I need to do to make sure I'm in the
best place I can be. And get like a fresh
notebook and just start writing down everything that you're feeling
(30:25):
about this next chapter, Like lean into how sacred this is,
lean into how much you're gonna learn. Make it like
a diary of a breakup, a diary of heartache, a
diary of this relationship. Ending that in sixty years time
or forty years time you'll find in a box somewhere
and get to reminisce on and get to feel proud
(30:45):
of yourself that you walked away when you knew it
was the right time, or just allow yourself to see
that you can endure pain and you can endure hard things.
If you're suddenly sad about being single, I want you
to remember that just because you're sad doesn't mean it
was the right relationship. You know, feelings aren't a total
reflection of reality. They can't predict things. They are not
(31:08):
always an indication that you made the wrong choice. They
had just a response to a choice. And remember both
options here were going to be hard. Staying in that
relationship would have been hard, Leaving is hard, and so
it's okay to be conflicted, but know that randomly thinking
of them, randomly having them pop up in your mind,
(31:28):
randomly missing them and feeling devastated, that is not an
indication that you need to get back with them. This
is just your body's natural response to grief and it's
just adjusting to something new. Please don't read anything more
into that than it is a really great trick that
I personally used after my last relationship ended, when I
(31:51):
was like feeling very sad about being single and was
feeling very doomsday about it. It was called the two
column technique, and it's a CBT trick, so a cognitive
behavioral therapy trick where you write down your negative thoughts
or your negative beliefs about the relationship ending or being
single in one column, and then on the right column
the other column you counter it with a positive true statement.
(32:14):
So in the left column you might write, I'm never
going to find someone like them, and in the right
column you write, I won't find someone like them, but
I'll find someone better suited. In the left column, you
might write, this pain will never end. In the right
column you write, I know the pain won't last forever.
I know that that's not how human emotion works, and
that one day I'll be thankful for this hard part
(32:36):
of the journey because it's leading me somewhere better. There's
going to be a lot of beliefs and fears that
come up because this is new and this is raw,
and this is hard. Don't let them be the sole
source of knowledge and reality for you. Don't let them
lead you back to something that you know in your
heart of hearts wasn't fulfilling. So that trick is incredibly useful. Also,
(32:59):
remember the first six months will always be the toughest,
even if you are having fun with it. There will
be dark days. Slowly but surely, you will feel better.
And there is a time coming up in the future
where you're gonna wake up and not immediately think about them,
and you're gonna be able to go on a date
and not immediately compare them. And time has this funny
(33:22):
way of of healing you and sneaking up on you.
It's gonna happen slowly, slowly, slowly, and then all at
once you will feel a whole lot better, and you'll
feel ready to find someone new and serious. And that
kind of brings me to the next question people ask me,
when do I know I'm ready to seriously date again? Listen,
(33:45):
I can't give you a specific number of weeks. I
can't give you a specific number of months or days.
It's very objective, But I can give you a feeling
that works as a sign. So when you think about
them and you don't want to cry, you don't want
to call them, you don't want to get back at them,
you don't want them to know that you're dating, that's
(34:06):
when you are allowed to start dating again. When you
feel a deeper sense of peace and clarity over the
relationship ending rather than pain and fury, that's when you
can date again. Two other questions to ask yourself. Do
you feel strong enough to handle rejection or things not
working out? And do you feel over your breakup enough
(34:27):
that you could be all in with someone if something
knew that had potential landed in your lap, if a
new person came along, would you be ready? You know,
working on yourself is a never ending process, and as
long as you have taken some time to really know yourself,
as long as you are being honest about what you want,
(34:49):
as long as you know what you previously compromised on,
and you know what mistakes you won't make again. You're
ready to date, go and have some fun with it.
You know you've done the long term relationship thing. You
have no committed love. Just see what other versions of
love might be out there. You know, hypothetically, I always
think this when I'm freshly single or feeling terrible about
(35:13):
being single. I always used to think, you know, if
I knew I was going to meet my soulmate in
six months time, what would I want to experience before them?
And that is a really great way and a really
great hypothetical that will help you live your life in
accordance with how you imagined this era being. And it's
this six month period, this hypothetical six month window that
(35:37):
makes you see what an opportunity being single is. And
it makes you really pose the question, like what do
I want to get out of this? How can I
get the most out of this? Okay, we are going
to take a short break, but in just a minute
we're going to return with some juicy listener questions and
dilemmas about the end of long term relationships, about breakups,
about this second puberty that we go through our the
(36:00):
significant end of something significant. So stay with us. We'll
be right back after this short break. So I think
that this topic got the most amount of listener questions
that I've ever gotten for an episode. Maybe that is
(36:20):
comforting for you if you're currently going through a breakup
in your twenties. There are a lot of people who
are going through something quite similar and who have a
lot of questions around identity, around loneliness, around being single
and how much it sucks, but also how to embrace it.
So I've actually ended up choosing I think seven listener
(36:41):
questions when we normally do four, just because there were
so many good ones. We're going to start out with
this first question, why do we continue these relationships for
longer when we knew it was going nowhere? Why do
we continue and stay in long term relationships in our
twenties even when we know they're not the right person.
(37:03):
I think that it's really driven by fear, And it
might not feel like fear in the moment, it might
not feel intense, but it is fear. It's a fear
of loneliness, it's a fear of regret. The fear of
regret is really the big one. I think that a
lot of us don't know whether it's intuition or anxiety
(37:24):
that is driving the car. And so when we have
someone who is good, not great, we think, well, if
I walk away and I realize he was actually amazing
and it was actually my anxiety all along, what if
I can't get that relationship back and I regret leaving them,
What if I can't find someone better. It's this idea
(37:49):
of like, is this it? And if this is it,
I don't want to walk away from this person. I
don't want to be single. I don't want to realize
that I made a huge mistake. I also think that
it's us delaying the pain breaking up. But someone is
like standing at the start of the marathon and being like, Okay,
(38:12):
I've got to do this, and knowing it's gonna hurt,
and knowing that it's gonna suck, and knowing that you
have to do it anyways. It's this huge feeling of like,
oh my god, I'm signing up for something significant, and
I'm signing up for like I'm subjecting myself to a
painful reality for the next however many months. And you know,
(38:33):
as humans we want to avoid that sometimes, but I
always say this, you know, avoiding pain now is just
delaying pain and dissatisfaction into the future. And if this
person is meant to be with you, when you do
break up, you will find your way back together. I
promise you. I promise you will. You will find your
(38:54):
way back together. Because if you break up with them
and you're like, wow, like I really miss them, and
they're like I really miss you too, you know, maybe
that's the confirmation you need. And if you break up
with them and then neither of you really miss each other,
or neither of you really feel like you're meant to
be back together, then it's not meant to be. Also,
(39:16):
I just think that it shouldn't take breaking up with
someone to realize that you want them in your life.
And you really only get one shot at life, and
do you really want to spend it with someone who
you were not entirely excited about and who was not
entirely excited by you. I'm not saying you have to
listen to every single doubt that comes through your head
(39:37):
about a relationship, because I know sometimes they're definitely fueled
by anxiety and worry and fear and all these other
things that might be misplaced. But if you look at
them and you don't feel excited and proud to be
with them, I don't think you should be with them,
(39:58):
all right. The second question, would I reach out to
check on them after not talking for a year or not? No, No,
you should not. That's gonna be my blanket answer. I
will provide some more nuance, though. I really need you
to question your intentions. What are you really trying to
get out of this conversation. What do you really need
to know from them that's going to help you in
(40:20):
the future. If this person is no longer in your life,
and if you believe they don't have a place in
your future, I think that going and talking to them
is you just relapsing. It's you just opening old wounds.
I think that it is a challenge that I'm gonna
sound a it spiritual, but I really do think that
the urge is a challenge that the universe or something
(40:42):
has given you to say, or your own mind has
given you to say. Okay, are you really over this person?
Here's the last hurdle, Like, don't do the check in.
Don't do the check in. It's just I think the
final battle, the final frontier of you getting over them,
and you've done so much work. It is going to
bring you back. It is going to make you remember
(41:03):
them and feel nostalgic and miss them. So please don't
do it. You have done too much work up to
this point to let this undo it all. I understand
that you are probably very sad about the idea that
this person is never going to be in your life
again and has gone from your life. And that's really
(41:24):
really devastating at times. But they're not gone. Like they
taught you a lot of lessons. You still have all
the memories. Maybe one day you'll run run into each
other in the street and it will be beautiful and
that will be your closure. But for now, don't message
to them, don't check in all right. Question number three,
I feel pressured by my biological clock to stay with
(41:47):
my current partner. Is there a way to get over this?
I definitely understand this. I have this huge fear of
getting to the point where I want to have kids
and something happens and I'm not able to I think
it's a unique fear for women. Right If a family
is something that you see in your future, you kind
of you need a guy for that. You need and
(42:08):
hopefully you want someone who you love and who you
want a co parent with and who would be a
good parent and a good partner. And so sometimes it
can be like, oh my god, like I need this
final puzzle piece, I need this final key. And so
if I want a family and this guy he was
here is the only way to get one, even if
he's not the perfect guy, like, I'll just settle for that.
(42:29):
What has brought me a lot of peace, though, is
understanding how much technology is out there now, how many
women are having children later and later, how many women
are having really successful and healthy pregnancies when they're older.
You know, it's no longer the normal that people have
kids at twenty two and twenty five, Like, there is
so much more room for new timelines. You know, my
(42:51):
mom had my sister when she was forty two. For me,
that is seventeen years away. That's a whole lifetime, seventeen years.
Like I could have a child now and that child
almost be an adult, and then have another child when
that child is about to graduate high school. I think
we need to talk more about I think we need
(43:12):
a better conversation around pregnancy and childbirth not just being
something that is for young women. It's something that is
for women in general, even if they are older, like
they can still have successful pregnancies and still have very
healthy children. And I sometimes think that this idea of
like your biological clock running out is somewhat a way
(43:33):
to control women and somewhat way to make them settle.
Just remember that, Like, if you're single right now and
you're worried about, oh my god, A'm I going to
find someone? Am I going to find someone? Like? You
have so much time and your relationship status could change
at any moment. At any minute, the right person could
walk through the door, and you want to make sure
that the door is open for them, and you haven't
(43:55):
closed it because you grabbed the first person who came knocking.
You know what I mean. I think it's better to
wait for the right person who you really want to
start a beautiful family with, then to just take what's
out there. Just enjoy the chapter in right now. There
are so many ways to be a mother, having biological
children as one of them. But even if that doesn't
happen for you, you know, there are just so many
(44:18):
other ways. You can mother friends, You can mother your
children's friends, you can mother foster animals, you can be
a foster parent, like in Australia right now, there's such
a need for foster parents. You can adopt children, like
there are so many other ways to be a mother
and to have a family these days. Don't let biological
clock be the reason that you settle the relationship that
(44:41):
you have, Like, there's so much science that says who
you end up with, who you marry, who you have
children with, is such a predictor of your well being
and your life satisfaction and your life expectancy. So take
it seriously. It's very, very important, even if you have
other priorities. All right, Fourth question, why did I feel
(45:02):
completely over my five year relationship within a week after
ending things? So I don't know whether this person has
just broken up with their partner or has been broken
up for a while. I think if you've just broken
up with them and you're like, I feel great, it's
probably just shock. I remember breaking up with my first
serious boyfriend and I was like I'm over it, I'm
(45:23):
fine for the first three months, and then it was
like weoll delayed reaction set in. So I think it's
just shock if you've just broken up with them. But
if not, and if you're a little bit down the line.
It may have been that you had already checked out.
You may not have known it. You probably do know
this though you had already checked out of the relationship.
(45:43):
You'd already tried to make it work and it wasn't working.
You had already found the closure while you were still
with the person. You were already imagining what you were
going to do after you'd broken up. You were already
processing what it would mean to lose them. You were
already imagining your life with them. You were already, yeah,
essentially getting through it before you were going through it.
(46:05):
I think that's probably the explanation. It's not a weird
thing at all. People handle grief and loss and heartache
so differently. But I think what is most likely happened
is either you are in shock or you have already
done Yeah. You basically already found closure, and you've already
checked out whilst you were in the relationship without even
(46:26):
realizing it. All right, Question number five, I'm worried it
will always hurt this bad and I'll never find someone
who loves me as well as they did. What do
I do? I want you to remember that humans are
really tough creatures. They adapt and they survive terrible things,
and you will survive this. The wound right now is
(46:47):
so raw and it's so painful, and you are you
are at the beginning of a very long journey, but
you have no choice but to make this journey. At
the beginning, you are going to be angry. You're going
to be resentful and annoyed and frustrated by the fact
you have to make this journey. You're gonna maybe sit
and cry for a few days on the side of
the mountain. But then slowly you'll get in a groove
(47:08):
and you'll start noticing things that are nice about the journey,
and you'll realize it's actually really teaching you things and
strengthening you. And pretty soon you'll just be on the
journey for you. Like the beginning is frustrating and it's hard,
but you will find someone new. I promise you that
right now. Maybe not right away, maybe not in the
next few years, but you will and you'll realize how
special this time of knowing yourself really was. Remember again,
(47:32):
there are people who marry their version of the person
that you just broke up with, and they avoid short
term pain for a dissatisfaction that catches up what the
years later. So you have done your future self a huge,
huge favor. You have endured the pain for them now
and I do believe a big lover is coming for you.
And love also comes in so many forms. Maybe right
(47:54):
now this is not the period in your life for
romantic love. It's the period for platonic love, or familiar love,
or love from a pet, or love from strangers. Romantic
love in other people's lives looks really great from the outside,
and often we idealize what they have. But it is hard,
it is challenging, and it takes work. And so there
(48:16):
will come a time when you will have to prioritize that,
when you will have to make sacrifices for someone else,
when you will have the joy of being in romantic
love again. But until then, this is a beautiful period
where you can love yourself, you can love others. Take
it for what it is. This chapter is just as
important as any other chapter. Final question, what do you
(48:38):
do when your ex has moved on? This is super tough,
and I know it's tough because this has happened to
me in every single relationship I've been in. Within three months,
the person I have dated is with someone you, and
I have never been with someone you when that has
happened and has been always been painful. I now consider
it an absolute blessing. I consider I consider it just
(49:02):
I'm so grateful for it because it is the universe
closing the door for me by putting someone else in
my way. And I just think that lucky them. Congrats
to them. They found someone else. Maybe it's a rebound,
maybe it's not. It's indicative that you are taking time
to heal and to do the work, and they're probably
not doing that. If someone has rebounded almost immediately after you,
(49:27):
guys have broken up, they're not over it. They're not fine,
they are not okay. This is a distraction, and you
could be in a relationship if you wanted, like very easily.
You could easily be in a relationship if you settled
and lowered your standards enough. But you're not doing that.
You're doing the hard work, and that is that is
(49:47):
an investment that pays off in dividends. I have an
episode on this titled your ex Moved On Now What?
I would really recommend that you listen to that episode
in general. I also have another episode titled how to
get a for someone you can't stop thinking about. That
I think is really good for these situations. But all
in all, if you have just ended a long term
(50:07):
relationship in your twenties, I feel you, I see you.
I know it is so difficult. I know that it
is probably so disorientating. Right now you're holding these two
versions of yourself in either hand and trying to figure
out who you were before, who you are now, who
you want to be. But you will get there, and
this is a beautiful chapter in your life. And one
(50:30):
day you were going to be sleeping next to someone
that you love and they're going to be snoring, and
the bed's going to be too small, and your kids
are going to be screaming, and you'll just want one
more night alone, exactly how you are right now. So
appreciate it, be grateful for it. Know that love is
going to come for you. It's going to find you,
(50:50):
and in the meantime, love yourself enough for that to
be enough, love yourself enough for that to fill the
void and to feel what was perhaps left by this
previous person. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I
hope that it brought you some peace, some clarity, some answers,
some cool facts. If nothing else, share it with a
(51:10):
friend who you think may be able to resonate. Or
share it to Instagram story. I love seeing where everyone
is listening from. Make sure that you are following along
on Instagram at that Psychology podcast if you want to
be able to send in your own listener questions. You
guys had some fantastic questions today. They were so good,
so fun to answer. But until next time, stay safe,
(51:33):
be kind, be gentle with yourself, and love you. Good luck,
and we will talk very very soon
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, or welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. Welcome back to the podcast, New listeners, old listeners.
Wherever you are in the world, it is so great
to have you here. Back for another episode as we,
of course break down the psychology of our twenties. All right,
breakups in our twenties they suck. Okay, they are just awful,
(00:46):
know other words to describe it. They leave just a
huge gaping hole in our lives and a ton of
unanswered questions, especially when that relationship felt like endgame. You know,
you go from planning a future with this person to
it ending and walking away and them not being in
(01:10):
your life anymore. And even though you may know in
your deepest heart of hearts that it was the right decision,
it can still very much feel like you wasted the
last for six eight years of your life and you
have to start over. This big question comes up.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, how do I do that? How do I start over?
When this person was such a formative part of my twenties.
More specifically, how do I make up for lost time?
How do I still have all the experiences I didn't
get to have whilst still feeling like I'm on schedule
in my life. Well, there is a very unique phenomena
(01:46):
that happens after this kind of long term breakup that
I have been noticing more and more, and it's this
kind of second puberty that is triggered by the end
of a significant relationship that has spanned the majority of
your twenties. And I want to really discuss exactly what
takes place and this new term that I've come up
(02:07):
to describe this, called post long term relationship puberty. It
is this weird chapter in our lives after relationship ends,
in which people experience like insane character shifts and development
and rapid expansion and growth and exploration and all these
(02:31):
amazing things whilst they're also trying to navigate heartache and
it feels like they're almost like a teenager again. There's
this very similar pattern that these breakups tend to follow,
and I want to explain what that pattern is, but
also how we can best kind of confront the confusion
that is left in the wake of a long term relationship,
(02:52):
How do we know when we can date again, How
do you know if you made a mistake, How to
make the most out of being single after a big period,
a big chunk of your life of being monogamous. So
there is a lot going on, but it can all
be described by this term, and I want to tell
you what it means, explain it to you, answer all
(03:12):
those questions, and hopefully if you are going through this
right now, this episode serves as a little bit of
a guide to navigating this kind of heartache we know
is necessary but maybe didn't expect, and just how to
get the absolute most out of this next chapter of
your life despite you know, a lot of confusing feelings. So,
without further ado, let's discuss the psychology of post long
(03:37):
term relationship puberty. So let me begin by describing exactly
what this phrase means. So when people first hear me
talk about post long term relationship puberty, they are often
kind of like, huh, like they're a little bit confused.
(03:57):
But when I describe it to them, they will almost
always immediately say to me, I know someone who's like that,
or they will start describing someone in their own life
who fits the exact bill, because although no one really
has a name for this phenomena yet, it is still
so unbelievably common, I'm surprised no one has been able
(04:18):
to label it. So this term describes someone who was
in a serious relationship for most of their early and
mid twenties who suddenly finds themselves single at twenty seven,
twenty eight, twenty nine, on the cusp of thirty and
having realized that they've sunk all this time into a
person who wasn't the one. As a result, they feel
(04:39):
like they have to make up for those lost opportunities,
specifically the lost experiences of being single in their twenties,
and they kind of go through almost a second emotional
puberty of sorts. They suddenly start going out again after
years of wanting to stay in. They start dating like
they're seventeen. They feel giddy over first kiss, they feel
(05:01):
confused and exhilarated. They're taking big risks, they're traveling, they're
fighting with their parents, they're making major life changes. They're
having sex with new people, discovering a whole new group
of single friends. They're having this like insane mental and
physical glow up almost because they spent all this time
with someone else, they found themselves really defined by that relationship,
(05:23):
and now that they're finally experiencing being single and truly
independent in their twenties, it's like they're awake again. It's
like they're alive. They are going through a major psychological
growth spurt that they missed by partnering up with someone,
specifically with the wrong person too soon, and it is
wildly fun, but at the same time, it also creates
(05:46):
sym panic and confusion for them because they were on
track for hitting all these key milestones that society expects
of them, and now they won't be doing that. So
there's this equal feeling of like, wait, I feel free,
I feel great, but am I also falling behind? And
at the same time, they're seeing all their friends who
you know, are settling down now after waiting a little
(06:07):
bit longer, and it's kind of like the roles have reversed,
Like they went from being the one who was serious
and committed to being the single friend. But by the
time they're back in their single eraror or their friends
have moved on. So much like puberty, where every day
is very unique and there's a lot of a big
(06:28):
rollercoaster of emotions and highs and lows. You're really in
a period of rediscovering yourself. I also like to use
the term puberty, because you know you might not be
experiencing the same physical and biological changes, but there are
significant growing pains mentally as you're trying to just who
you were before with who you are now, and a
(06:49):
lot of that maturing is taking place through experimentation. Someone
kind of described this phenomena to me like you've missed
your exit on the highway by staying in this relationship
for too long. And once you've realized that you've missed
your exit and you leave the relationship, you find yourself
(07:11):
having to drive all the way back to where you
should have originally turned off. To get back on track.
You have to travel all the way back to the
time and the age that you were when you first
met that person and relived the way your life would
have gone if you hadn't been with them to feel
like you're really ready to enter the next chapter of
your life. And in the last two years, I have
(07:34):
seen countless friends and acquaintances go through this, go through
this exact thing, and it always follows the exact same pattern.
They met their person between seventeen and twenty arguably when
they were very very young. They met them during a
very formative period for establishing their own identity. The relationship
(07:55):
was a meaningful one, right, It was a good enough relationship.
This person was really nice, they were fine, and a
lot of their experiences became tied to this person and
therefore the partnership. So they traveled with their partner, they
moved in together. They felt safe, but they didn't feel challenged,
they didn't feel like their needs were fully met. And
(08:16):
around their late twenties, they suddenly realized, like, this person
isn't for me, and I cannot waste any more of
my youth on them. I need to release both of
us from this relationship, the good, not great, safe but
not evolving relationship. And they break up with them, and
it feels like a really really good decision. And then
the cycle begins, the cycle of just exploring and exploding
(08:39):
and doing wild stuff that you didn't feel like you
had the opportunity to do. So why does this happen?
Why is this such a pattern that you know, someone
like me or other people have been able to come
up with terms and words for it. So I have
this major theory that a large majority of couples who
have been together for a while and seemingly break up
(09:01):
in the few years before thirty. They do so because
as you're approaching such a big milestone, it causes us
to naturally sit back and reflect. Thirty is a new decade.
It definitely feels like the beginning of a bigger, larger,
more mature, more adult chapter. Even though you know nothing
(09:22):
really changes between twenty nine years and twelve months and
thirty years and one month, but naturally like it feels significant,
and so questions like is this relationship right for me?
Am I happy? Could I marry this person? Could I
coparent with this person? Is this what I imagine for myself?
All these questions start to come up. So in psychology,
(09:45):
this experience has a name. It's called a temporal landmark.
So temporal landmarks are moments in time like New year's, birthdays, anniversaries,
that really stand out from the flow of everyday life.
They act like mental chapter breaks. They make you really
pause and reflect because because of their significance, there's a
(10:08):
very big sense of before and after, and so things
like turning thirty, things like graduating, things like a five
year anniversary. They produce like a psychological fork in the
road where big questions and big decisions and doubts are
very much amplified by a sense of urgency and a
sense of importance. Perhaps you've you know, you've had these
(10:32):
feelings about your relationship for a while, but suddenly you're
about to turn thirty, or you're seeing friends get married,
and it feels very important to address them before the
new chapter starts. Kind of link to a quarter life
crisis as well. You know, this is when you see
a lot of couples break up. It's like, do I
(10:52):
want to go into the next chapter with this person? Yes?
Or no? And if the answer is no, will I
better get out quick? Another related concept that you may
or may not be familiar with is the seven year itch. Now,
this idea, it actually came from a movie with Marilyn
Monroe back in the fifties, which was called the seven
year Itch. It's not necessarily a scientific term, but coll
(11:14):
locally it kind of describes a feeling of restlessness and
unease that people note around the seven year mark of
their relationship. It's at seven years around that time that
people begin to realize, oh, like this is my future
where this is endgame. They also perhaps start to get
(11:36):
lazy in a relationship, They start to realize that the
problems they have are probably not going to change, and
they break up. If you've been with someone since your
late teens early twenties, that seven year itch is going
to hit in your late twenties, right as you're about
to enter thirty, and unlike people who met later, you
(11:58):
do have the existential real lifeation of like, wait, I
never really got to know myself, which compounds the I
guess the fear of staying in the relationship. Basically, you know,
people might experience the seven year itch in their thirties
or in their forties, but they can kind of say, oh, wait, no,
like I had time to search around, I had time today.
(12:19):
I know this person's right for me because I've seen
what else is out there. Whereas for you, who may
have not dated anyone else or anyone else seriously, the
seven year itch. Also it's kind of a reminder of like, wait,
but this is the only person I've really ever loved
or really ever known. This is my only serious relationship.
Did I make the right decision? So if you're wondering
(12:39):
if there's any science behind this. The answer would be yes,
there actually is. There have been a number of studies
and statistical analyses that have attempted to confirm or deny
this seven year itch myth, including one recently that looked
at divorce rate data. In twenty twelve, they looked at
divorce rate data because breakup data is not as available,
(13:02):
and what they found is that the average marriage lasts
around seven years the seven year itch. Another study in
Finland in twenty eighteen, they also included people who cohabitate
as well as being married. They found something a little
bit different, but it still kind of confirms what the
(13:23):
previous research has had to say. They have found that
most marriages end around the two year mark. That's when
the risk of divorce is highest. But they considered how
long the average couple dates before they get married, and
they found that to be around four point nine years.
So four point nine plus two puts us at six
(13:45):
point nine, almost on the dot seven years. It's why
like this whole idea and this whole theory, and there's
definitely more proof that needs to be provided, and it
needs to be done in other areas, But this vague idea,
this idea of the seven year wich is why some sociologists,
and maybe we'd call them, I don't know, social activists.
(14:07):
They have suggested that if you choose to get married,
you should have to renew your vows every seven years,
like renewing your license right, and if you don't, well,
the state will just consider you separated. And it stops
people from having to go through messy divorces. It allows
people to consciously commit to each other over and over again. Basically,
(14:28):
the argument is that marriage shouldn't be a passive legal obligation.
And you know, I, as someone who's quite romantic, I
really love this idea. I think it's brilliant. I think
that given some of the research and the evidence coming through,
perhaps this would make society a little bit healthier and
stop people from going through these terrible divorces or feeling
(14:48):
like they can't leave their relationship or feeling like they're stuck.
It would give us more of a sense of like,
sometimes relationships aren't meant to last forever, and a critical
points where you have to either grow or separate. It's
something that you should really have to consider rather than
just going with the status quo. So I would say
(15:09):
this research kind of explains why a lot of people
break up at this pivotal time in their twenties. But
why do they also suddenly experience a change in personality afterwards?
What's with the upheaval, What's with the dramatic shift in
lifestyle that accompanies the end of the relationship. Basically, why
does this puberty aspect take place? I think the kind
(15:34):
of sudden shifts in identity and personality that occur and
show off in people after they end a long term
relationship is because I think they're trying to attempt to
make up for lost time by doing all the things
that their relationship status previously prevented them from doing, and
doing all the things that they see is stereotypically single
(15:56):
behaviors that they didn't get to do before. It may
also be like a rebellion, I guess, against who this
relationship made them into. So there's this concept in psychology
called reactants, which basically explains how when we feel our
freedom has been restricted, in this case by our past relationship,
we sometimes swing really hard in the opposite direction to
(16:19):
reclaim that freedom. And it's why someone who felt romantically
stifled might suddenly become wildly romantically adventurous, or why someone
who felt neglected might suddenly chase really intense attraction and
love bumbing and the highs of a situationship. They are
reacting against an external pressure that they felt restricted them,
(16:41):
and because they haven't really had this kind of freedom
for a while, maybe they just go a little bit overbought.
I don't see the harm in it. I think you know, what,
have your fun if you feel like you missed out,
if you feel like that's something that's weighing heavy on you,
like you should be able to have those fun experiences.
But also beyond reactance, you know, the end of a significant,
long term relationship, duds leave you with a major identity void.
(17:05):
You've probably forgotten who you are without this person. If
your twenties were built around the idea of a future
with someone, if your interests were shaped by this, if
every core memory they're in it, all your friends, they're
the same, they know everything about you. Stepping back into
the world without them can feel very lonely and very empty,
(17:27):
not just because you miss them, but because this part
of you is disrupted. And so sometimes these behaviors, these
wild adventures, they are in response to that void. They're
us trying to stack up experiences that could provide us
with meaning, with purpose, show us who we are and
are psychologically revealing so that we can figure out who
(17:49):
am I? Who am I? Who am I? Without this person,
I have to do some major experimentation, some major risk
taking to speed up this process. These kind of behaviors
may also be a little bit of a distraction in
the beginning, a comfort in a very lonely period, but
also a way to say like, hey, look I can
do this on my own, I can have fun, I
(18:10):
am independent, I'm new, I'm different. Now you this relationship
didn't define me. But eventually there will come a time
where you have to confront the fact that a big
part of your life is over and make sense of
what's left over in the emotional rubble, and that can
bring some really complicated emotions. As much as you're having
(18:31):
heaps of fun, you're solo traveling, you're dyeing your hair,
you're sleeping around, you're going on dates, and you never
thought this was going to be part of your life.
As much as that is so fun, I do think
that there are these moments of paupes where we kind
of think, wait, I can't get that time back. Am
I actually going to find someone better? Like? Wait, did
(18:52):
I make a mistake? And I think those thoughts and
those fears deserve the very own sections. So we're going
to devote the next part of this ep SO to
these internal conflicts, but also how to embrace this new
chapter ahead of you, how to find peace with the
relationship ending, how to just have more fun with being
single even when it feels kind of terrible at times.
(19:13):
So stay with us after this your break as humans.
I've definitely noticed this strange tendency to only see growth
as the addition of things, not so much the subtraction,
you know, gaining more money, gaining more friends, gaining more followers,
(19:35):
gaining skills, gaining more accomplishments. There is just as much
expansion in subtraction, particularly the subtraction of the wrong relationship.
And my use of that word subtraction is deliberate because
it's a subtraction. It's not a failure, it's not a loss.
It is a beginning as much as it is an end.
(19:55):
I read a paper recently that essentially confirmed this idea
that leaving the wrong relationship, even if it was a
good relationship will significantly improve your life, but you have
to get through this kind of tough period first, this
period of heartache, but also a secondary existential layer for starters.
(20:17):
You know, the end of a long term relationship in
your twenties and especially in your late twenties is going
to bring about some milestone anxiety and milestone anxiety. If
you haven't listened to our episode on this is this
very intense pressure to reach traditional life milestones at specific times,
and those specific times are subconsciously impressed on us by
(20:38):
society without us even realizing. Some of the ones that
we typically think of and buy into without even realizing
is to graduate by the time you're twenty two, to
be married and have a house by thirty, to have
kids by thirty five. And if you're not doing that,
if you're not hitting those targets at that exact time,
people will think, oh wow, well you had kids too late,
or you had kids too young. Oh well, you graduated
(21:01):
too early, or you graduated too late, like something's wrong
with you. You haven't found your partner yet, but you've
like if you find your partner at twenty one, you
know you wasted You wasted the opportunity to meet other people.
But if you find them at thirty one or well,
what was wrong with you? It took you some extra time. Like,
it's so frustrating and it makes us so uneasy, and
it's so restrictive, and it gives us a real sense
(21:22):
of being left behind. I think, as well as people
seemingly move forward in their serious relationships, you've just taken
the biggest step back possible. You know, you left your relationship,
and so the comparison is deeply destructive and is deeply
I guess contrasting right, like, this person and people that
(21:44):
you look at are gonna seem so different to you
because you did make such a giant leap and you
did take such a leap of faith. But I want
you to remember this. You have no idea how many
people are staying with someone out of fear of not
finding anyone better. No idea how many of these people
that you're comparing yourself to are staying with someone they
(22:05):
don't actually really enjoy that much because they're scared of
being lonely. And it is always better to turn back
down the wrong road, even if you are miles ahead.
It is always better to turn around rather than to
keep going. You know, you did not let the fear
of not finding someone better allow you to stay with
(22:26):
someone who wasn't right, regardless of what others are doing.
And I want you to remember. You know you're the
only one who has to live fully with your decisions,
and so choosing what was best for you will always
be the right call, even if it isn't what other
people expect, even if it seemingly puts you behind or
disappoints people, even if it's scary for now. You have
saved yourself a lot of disappointment and pain in the
(22:49):
future by making a hard decision when you know, making
a hard decision when it would have been very easy
to make the wrong one. I think the second existential
thing that feels paralyzing in the wake of a long
term relationship breakup is this idea that you wasted your time.
You spent three, five, seven years, maybe even longer with
(23:09):
someone who didn't end up being the one, and you
could have used that time finding the one. You could
have used that time exploring, and now you have to
do it now. Now you have to do it as
someone who is old, which I think is you're not old.
You're really not old, you're still a child. But there's
this weird sense that the time before was more valuable
(23:31):
than the time you have ahead, Like the time you
spent in that relationship when you were young is more
valuable than the time you're going to spend single now
that you're older. I think because we have a real
anti aging philosophy and belief system in this society, and
so your younger years, their scen is seen as very
(23:53):
very important and impressive and full of all these experiences
and where all the fun is. And so if you
wasted that on a relationship, well then you've got the
short straw. Like you don't have to be single in
a less fun period, a less fun time, And that
is just total crap. Like it's just total, total crap.
You still have so much time ahead of you. In fact,
(24:16):
you have so much more time than if you'd stayed
and been miserable, and you have so many more good
memories to make, and you have so many more opportunities.
This is not a loss, This is not a deficit.
This is an incredible gift. And people meet their soulmates
at thirty seven, they meet them at forty. They're married
and have kids by forty two. People meet their soulmates
(24:37):
at sixty. You know, true love doesn't just find you
when you're young. It's not just something to tick off
the bucket list before you turn thirty. And I'm glad
that you, hopefully, somewhere in your heart know that, and
that you didn't follow a timeline and didn't feel like
you had to stay on a timeline more than you
had to value your own happiness. But I totally get it.
(25:00):
But I feel like the sense of loss and the
sense of disruption is very, very strong. But it's this
kind of thinking, this thinking of, oh my god, I'm
never going to find anyone better. I'm never gonna find love.
I've already put all this time into this person that
gets us stuck in a sunk costs mentality, and that
gets us staying in places we ultimately don't want to be.
(25:23):
Here's what I have to say to this. If you
feel like you've wasted your time, if you feel like
you're not going to get your youth back, if you
feel like you wish you had known better and left earlier,
how do you know that it would have been better
if this relationship hadn't happened. How do you know you
wouldn't have been in a worse relationship or wouldn't be
feeling just as lost. How do you even know that
(25:44):
you would have met someone. Maybe you could have spent
that whole time single, and yeah, it would have been fine,
and it would have been great, But you wouldn't have
learned some of the lessons that you did learn. You
wouldn't know now what kind of person is better for you.
You wouldn't know now how to trust your gut, you
wouldn't know how to move through pain and uncertainty. You've
learned love, You've learned valuable relationship skills, You've learned more
(26:08):
about yourself regardless of it not working out, And you
would be so surprised of how thankful I am actually
of the times that I've previously had my heart broken,
because in hindsight, I can see that that is exactly
what needed to happen, and I can see that despite
all the pain, and gosh it was painful, it was
the best thing possible for me. I have friends who
(26:31):
have married their versions of my ex I have friends
who have married the person that they doubted all along
was right for them. And you know, what. Some of
them are happy, and some of them are okay, but
some of them are also like I really, I'm in
it now and I care about this person and we're
(26:52):
going to build the family together. But I wish I'd
waited a little bit longer. I wish that I'd learnt
more about myself. So it's not a failure. It's not
a waste to walk away from the wrong person. It
is a gift. This is something that you will end
up valuing so much. This is something that you will
end up being so immensely grateful to yourself for. So
(27:16):
how do we actually embrace this new phase for ourselves?
I think the first thing is lean into the puberty part.
Lean into being a little bit wild, Lean into going
a little bit crazy. Lean into doing just things that
you wanted to do that you couldn't do in your relationship,
even if they feel scary or risky or embarrassing. You know,
(27:36):
healing will come, sadness will come, like it's gonna happen,
So just ride the highs whilst you can and whilst
you want to. And then when the loaves come, like
lean into them as well. You know, I always say,
if you embrace the pain fully for six months. You
save yourself from two years of lingering, suffering. It's better
(27:57):
to kind of lean into it and get it out
of the way, but just let it take control for
a little while, rather than trying to fight it off
for as long as possible and realize that a losing game.
I also want you to keep contact to a minimum.
I know that if you have been with this person
for a long time, if you live with them, if
you have a pet with them, if you have all
(28:17):
the same friends, that is very, very hard. Which is
why I don't say don't talk to them at all,
but really use your judgment here. You know that the
more you talk to them, the harder it is for
your brain to unlearn their presence in your life. There
is the saying neurons that fire together, wire together, and
(28:38):
there is all these pathways in your brain right now
associated with this person that are very entrenched. And the
more you continue to stay in contact with them and
be around them and remember all the funny, quirky things
they did, the harder it is for those pathways to
be paved over, the harder it is for new pathways
(28:59):
to loss them in their place. So please keep contact
to a minimum, don't check up on them through friends,
get off social media for a while, do a big
closure chat right at the beginning, give back all their stuff,
and then focus on you. This is you, This is
your new chapter, Like this is your time, your period,
(29:20):
This is like the year for you. They don't need
to be part of it, even though they might feel
and might feed into this real deep nostalgia and love,
and even though it's hard to disentangle yourself, like you
need to make smart decisions for what you want in
the future, and it's going to be harder for you
to move on fully and not feel like this was
(29:41):
a bad decision if you keep letting them back in
for a few seconds, a few minutes at a time.
I also want you to go into all your doctor's appointments.
I want you to go to the dentist. I want
you to get your haircut. I want you to go
and get like a physical go get your bluzz done,
do everything in terms of physical maintenance. To really start
(30:04):
this new chapter with a clean bill of health, to
feel like okay, cool, I've bookmarked the end of this
of this relationship, and this is the new beginning, Like
I feel healthy I feel well, I'm doing everything that
I need to do to make sure I'm in the
best place I can be. And get like a fresh
notebook and just start writing down everything that you're feeling
(30:25):
about this next chapter, Like lean into how sacred this is,
lean into how much you're gonna learn. Make it like
a diary of a breakup, a diary of heartache, a
diary of this relationship. Ending that in sixty years time
or forty years time you'll find in a box somewhere
and get to reminisce on and get to feel proud
(30:45):
of yourself that you walked away when you knew it
was the right time, or just allow yourself to see
that you can endure pain and you can endure hard things.
If you're suddenly sad about being single, I want you
to remember that just because you're sad doesn't mean it
was the right relationship. You know, feelings aren't a total
reflection of reality. They can't predict things. They are not
(31:08):
always an indication that you made the wrong choice. They
had just a response to a choice. And remember both
options here were going to be hard. Staying in that
relationship would have been hard, Leaving is hard, and so
it's okay to be conflicted, but know that randomly thinking
of them, randomly having them pop up in your mind,
(31:28):
randomly missing them and feeling devastated, that is not an
indication that you need to get back with them. This
is just your body's natural response to grief and it's
just adjusting to something new. Please don't read anything more
into that than it is a really great trick that
I personally used after my last relationship ended, when I
(31:51):
was like feeling very sad about being single and was
feeling very doomsday about it. It was called the two
column technique, and it's a CBT trick, so a cognitive
behavioral therapy trick where you write down your negative thoughts
or your negative beliefs about the relationship ending or being
single in one column, and then on the right column
the other column you counter it with a positive true statement.
(32:14):
So in the left column you might write, I'm never
going to find someone like them, and in the right
column you write, I won't find someone like them, but
I'll find someone better suited. In the left column, you
might write, this pain will never end. In the right
column you write, I know the pain won't last forever.
I know that that's not how human emotion works, and
that one day I'll be thankful for this hard part
(32:36):
of the journey because it's leading me somewhere better. There's
going to be a lot of beliefs and fears that
come up because this is new and this is raw,
and this is hard. Don't let them be the sole
source of knowledge and reality for you. Don't let them
lead you back to something that you know in your
heart of hearts wasn't fulfilling. So that trick is incredibly useful. Also,
(32:59):
remember the first six months will always be the toughest,
even if you are having fun with it. There will
be dark days. Slowly but surely, you will feel better.
And there is a time coming up in the future
where you're gonna wake up and not immediately think about them,
and you're gonna be able to go on a date
and not immediately compare them. And time has this funny
(33:22):
way of of healing you and sneaking up on you.
It's gonna happen slowly, slowly, slowly, and then all at
once you will feel a whole lot better, and you'll
feel ready to find someone new and serious. And that
kind of brings me to the next question people ask me,
when do I know I'm ready to seriously date again? Listen,
(33:45):
I can't give you a specific number of weeks. I
can't give you a specific number of months or days.
It's very objective, But I can give you a feeling
that works as a sign. So when you think about
them and you don't want to cry, you don't want
to call them, you don't want to get back at them,
you don't want them to know that you're dating, that's
(34:06):
when you are allowed to start dating again. When you
feel a deeper sense of peace and clarity over the
relationship ending rather than pain and fury, that's when you
can date again. Two other questions to ask yourself. Do
you feel strong enough to handle rejection or things not
working out? And do you feel over your breakup enough
(34:27):
that you could be all in with someone if something
knew that had potential landed in your lap, if a
new person came along, would you be ready? You know,
working on yourself is a never ending process, and as
long as you have taken some time to really know yourself,
as long as you are being honest about what you want,
(34:49):
as long as you know what you previously compromised on,
and you know what mistakes you won't make again. You're
ready to date, go and have some fun with it.
You know you've done the long term relationship thing. You
have no committed love. Just see what other versions of
love might be out there. You know, hypothetically, I always
think this when I'm freshly single or feeling terrible about
(35:13):
being single. I always used to think, you know, if
I knew I was going to meet my soulmate in
six months time, what would I want to experience before them?
And that is a really great way and a really
great hypothetical that will help you live your life in
accordance with how you imagined this era being. And it's
this six month period, this hypothetical six month window that
(35:37):
makes you see what an opportunity being single is. And
it makes you really pose the question, like what do
I want to get out of this? How can I
get the most out of this? Okay, we are going
to take a short break, but in just a minute
we're going to return with some juicy listener questions and
dilemmas about the end of long term relationships, about breakups,
about this second puberty that we go through our the
(36:00):
significant end of something significant. So stay with us. We'll
be right back after this short break. So I think
that this topic got the most amount of listener questions
that I've ever gotten for an episode. Maybe that is
(36:20):
comforting for you if you're currently going through a breakup
in your twenties. There are a lot of people who
are going through something quite similar and who have a
lot of questions around identity, around loneliness, around being single
and how much it sucks, but also how to embrace it.
So I've actually ended up choosing I think seven listener
(36:41):
questions when we normally do four, just because there were
so many good ones. We're going to start out with
this first question, why do we continue these relationships for
longer when we knew it was going nowhere? Why do
we continue and stay in long term relationships in our
twenties even when we know they're not the right person.
(37:03):
I think that it's really driven by fear, And it
might not feel like fear in the moment, it might
not feel intense, but it is fear. It's a fear
of loneliness, it's a fear of regret. The fear of
regret is really the big one. I think that a
lot of us don't know whether it's intuition or anxiety
(37:24):
that is driving the car. And so when we have
someone who is good, not great, we think, well, if
I walk away and I realize he was actually amazing
and it was actually my anxiety all along, what if
I can't get that relationship back and I regret leaving them,
What if I can't find someone better. It's this idea
(37:49):
of like, is this it? And if this is it,
I don't want to walk away from this person. I
don't want to be single. I don't want to realize
that I made a huge mistake. I also think that
it's us delaying the pain breaking up. But someone is
like standing at the start of the marathon and being like, Okay,
(38:12):
I've got to do this, and knowing it's gonna hurt,
and knowing that it's gonna suck, and knowing that you
have to do it anyways. It's this huge feeling of like,
oh my god, I'm signing up for something significant, and
I'm signing up for like I'm subjecting myself to a
painful reality for the next however many months. And you know,
(38:33):
as humans we want to avoid that sometimes, but I
always say this, you know, avoiding pain now is just
delaying pain and dissatisfaction into the future. And if this
person is meant to be with you, when you do
break up, you will find your way back together. I
promise you. I promise you will. You will find your
(38:54):
way back together. Because if you break up with them
and you're like, wow, like I really miss them, and
they're like I really miss you too, you know, maybe
that's the confirmation you need. And if you break up
with them and then neither of you really miss each other,
or neither of you really feel like you're meant to
be back together, then it's not meant to be. Also,
(39:16):
I just think that it shouldn't take breaking up with
someone to realize that you want them in your life.
And you really only get one shot at life, and
do you really want to spend it with someone who
you were not entirely excited about and who was not
entirely excited by you. I'm not saying you have to
listen to every single doubt that comes through your head
(39:37):
about a relationship, because I know sometimes they're definitely fueled
by anxiety and worry and fear and all these other
things that might be misplaced. But if you look at
them and you don't feel excited and proud to be
with them, I don't think you should be with them,
(39:58):
all right. The second question, would I reach out to
check on them after not talking for a year or not? No, No,
you should not. That's gonna be my blanket answer. I
will provide some more nuance, though. I really need you
to question your intentions. What are you really trying to
get out of this conversation. What do you really need
to know from them that's going to help you in
(40:20):
the future. If this person is no longer in your life,
and if you believe they don't have a place in
your future, I think that going and talking to them
is you just relapsing. It's you just opening old wounds.
I think that it is a challenge that I'm gonna
sound a it spiritual, but I really do think that
the urge is a challenge that the universe or something
(40:42):
has given you to say, or your own mind has
given you to say. Okay, are you really over this person?
Here's the last hurdle, Like, don't do the check in.
Don't do the check in. It's just I think the
final battle, the final frontier of you getting over them,
and you've done so much work. It is going to
bring you back. It is going to make you remember
(41:03):
them and feel nostalgic and miss them. So please don't
do it. You have done too much work up to
this point to let this undo it all. I understand
that you are probably very sad about the idea that
this person is never going to be in your life
again and has gone from your life. And that's really
(41:24):
really devastating at times. But they're not gone. Like they
taught you a lot of lessons. You still have all
the memories. Maybe one day you'll run run into each
other in the street and it will be beautiful and
that will be your closure. But for now, don't message
to them, don't check in all right. Question number three,
I feel pressured by my biological clock to stay with
(41:47):
my current partner. Is there a way to get over this?
I definitely understand this. I have this huge fear of
getting to the point where I want to have kids
and something happens and I'm not able to I think
it's a unique fear for women. Right If a family
is something that you see in your future, you kind
of you need a guy for that. You need and
(42:08):
hopefully you want someone who you love and who you
want a co parent with and who would be a
good parent and a good partner. And so sometimes it
can be like, oh my god, like I need this
final puzzle piece, I need this final key. And so
if I want a family and this guy he was
here is the only way to get one, even if
he's not the perfect guy, like, I'll just settle for that.
(42:29):
What has brought me a lot of peace, though, is
understanding how much technology is out there now, how many
women are having children later and later, how many women
are having really successful and healthy pregnancies when they're older.
You know, it's no longer the normal that people have
kids at twenty two and twenty five, Like, there is
so much more room for new timelines. You know, my
(42:51):
mom had my sister when she was forty two. For me,
that is seventeen years away. That's a whole lifetime, seventeen years.
Like I could have a child now and that child
almost be an adult, and then have another child when
that child is about to graduate high school. I think
we need to talk more about I think we need
(43:12):
a better conversation around pregnancy and childbirth not just being
something that is for young women. It's something that is
for women in general, even if they are older, like
they can still have successful pregnancies and still have very
healthy children. And I sometimes think that this idea of
like your biological clock running out is somewhat a way
(43:33):
to control women and somewhat way to make them settle.
Just remember that, Like, if you're single right now and
you're worried about, oh my god, A'm I going to
find someone? Am I going to find someone? Like? You
have so much time and your relationship status could change
at any moment. At any minute, the right person could
walk through the door, and you want to make sure
that the door is open for them, and you haven't
(43:55):
closed it because you grabbed the first person who came knocking.
You know what I mean. I think it's better to
wait for the right person who you really want to
start a beautiful family with, then to just take what's
out there. Just enjoy the chapter in right now. There
are so many ways to be a mother, having biological
children as one of them. But even if that doesn't
happen for you, you know, there are just so many
(44:18):
other ways. You can mother friends, You can mother your
children's friends, you can mother foster animals, you can be
a foster parent, like in Australia right now, there's such
a need for foster parents. You can adopt children, like
there are so many other ways to be a mother
and to have a family these days. Don't let biological
clock be the reason that you settle the relationship that
(44:41):
you have, Like, there's so much science that says who
you end up with, who you marry, who you have
children with, is such a predictor of your well being
and your life satisfaction and your life expectancy. So take
it seriously. It's very, very important, even if you have
other priorities. All right, Fourth question, why did I feel
(45:02):
completely over my five year relationship within a week after
ending things? So I don't know whether this person has
just broken up with their partner or has been broken
up for a while. I think if you've just broken
up with them and you're like, I feel great, it's
probably just shock. I remember breaking up with my first
serious boyfriend and I was like I'm over it, I'm
(45:23):
fine for the first three months, and then it was
like weoll delayed reaction set in. So I think it's
just shock if you've just broken up with them. But
if not, and if you're a little bit down the line.
It may have been that you had already checked out.
You may not have known it. You probably do know
this though you had already checked out of the relationship.
(45:43):
You'd already tried to make it work and it wasn't working.
You had already found the closure while you were still
with the person. You were already imagining what you were
going to do after you'd broken up. You were already
processing what it would mean to lose them. You were
already imagining your life with them. You were already, yeah,
essentially getting through it before you were going through it.
(46:05):
I think that's probably the explanation. It's not a weird
thing at all. People handle grief and loss and heartache
so differently. But I think what is most likely happened
is either you are in shock or you have already
done Yeah. You basically already found closure, and you've already
checked out whilst you were in the relationship without even
(46:26):
realizing it. All right, Question number five, I'm worried it
will always hurt this bad and I'll never find someone
who loves me as well as they did. What do
I do? I want you to remember that humans are
really tough creatures. They adapt and they survive terrible things,
and you will survive this. The wound right now is
(46:47):
so raw and it's so painful, and you are you
are at the beginning of a very long journey, but
you have no choice but to make this journey. At
the beginning, you are going to be angry. You're going
to be resentful and annoyed and frustrated by the fact
you have to make this journey. You're gonna maybe sit
and cry for a few days on the side of
the mountain. But then slowly you'll get in a groove
(47:08):
and you'll start noticing things that are nice about the journey,
and you'll realize it's actually really teaching you things and
strengthening you. And pretty soon you'll just be on the
journey for you. Like the beginning is frustrating and it's hard,
but you will find someone new. I promise you that
right now. Maybe not right away, maybe not in the
next few years, but you will and you'll realize how
special this time of knowing yourself really was. Remember again,
(47:32):
there are people who marry their version of the person
that you just broke up with, and they avoid short
term pain for a dissatisfaction that catches up what the
years later. So you have done your future self a huge,
huge favor. You have endured the pain for them now
and I do believe a big lover is coming for you.
And love also comes in so many forms. Maybe right
(47:54):
now this is not the period in your life for
romantic love. It's the period for platonic love, or familiar love,
or love from a pet, or love from strangers. Romantic
love in other people's lives looks really great from the outside,
and often we idealize what they have. But it is hard,
it is challenging, and it takes work. And so there
(48:16):
will come a time when you will have to prioritize that,
when you will have to make sacrifices for someone else,
when you will have the joy of being in romantic
love again. But until then, this is a beautiful period
where you can love yourself, you can love others. Take
it for what it is. This chapter is just as
important as any other chapter. Final question, what do you
(48:38):
do when your ex has moved on? This is super tough,
and I know it's tough because this has happened to
me in every single relationship I've been in. Within three months,
the person I have dated is with someone you, and
I have never been with someone you when that has
happened and has been always been painful. I now consider
it an absolute blessing. I consider I consider it just
(49:02):
I'm so grateful for it because it is the universe
closing the door for me by putting someone else in
my way. And I just think that lucky them. Congrats
to them. They found someone else. Maybe it's a rebound,
maybe it's not. It's indicative that you are taking time
to heal and to do the work, and they're probably
not doing that. If someone has rebounded almost immediately after you,
(49:27):
guys have broken up, they're not over it. They're not fine,
they are not okay. This is a distraction, and you
could be in a relationship if you wanted, like very easily.
You could easily be in a relationship if you settled
and lowered your standards enough. But you're not doing that.
You're doing the hard work, and that is that is
(49:47):
an investment that pays off in dividends. I have an
episode on this titled your ex Moved On Now What?
I would really recommend that you listen to that episode
in general. I also have another episode titled how to
get a for someone you can't stop thinking about. That
I think is really good for these situations. But all
in all, if you have just ended a long term
(50:07):
relationship in your twenties, I feel you, I see you.
I know it is so difficult. I know that it
is probably so disorientating. Right now you're holding these two
versions of yourself in either hand and trying to figure
out who you were before, who you are now, who
you want to be. But you will get there, and
this is a beautiful chapter in your life. And one
(50:30):
day you were going to be sleeping next to someone
that you love and they're going to be snoring, and
the bed's going to be too small, and your kids
are going to be screaming, and you'll just want one
more night alone, exactly how you are right now. So
appreciate it, be grateful for it. Know that love is
going to come for you. It's going to find you,
(50:50):
and in the meantime, love yourself enough for that to
be enough, love yourself enough for that to fill the
void and to feel what was perhaps left by this
previous person. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I
hope that it brought you some peace, some clarity, some answers,
some cool facts. If nothing else, share it with a
(51:10):
friend who you think may be able to resonate. Or
share it to Instagram story. I love seeing where everyone
is listening from. Make sure that you are following along
on Instagram at that Psychology podcast if you want to
be able to send in your own listener questions. You
guys had some fantastic questions today. They were so good,
so fun to answer. But until next time, stay safe,
(51:33):
be kind, be gentle with yourself, and love you. Good luck,
and we will talk very very soon
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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