Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about navigating the difficult relationship.
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From simple disagreements to emotionally abusive behaviors, you deserve respect and kindness.
All the information on this show is meant for educational purposes only.
Always seek a professional for your mental health and well-being, and always pick your battles wisely. I'm your host, Paul Kolianyi. Hello. Welcome to the show.
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I'm going to read you a message I received.
The person wrote, my ex-boyfriend and I were together for 10 years.
We started doing personal training with a studio and he met a girl and he said nothing ever happened with her, but eventually
their relationship ended and he moved out and moved in with her or moved on with her.
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And this person who wrote said she was devastated and felt completely discarded.
Long story short, he stayed with her and married her and they had a child.
I moved on with my life and I didn't meet anyone new, but you never know.
But my question is, why after all these years, over a decade, would my ex-boyfriend, or why does he, still randomly message me?
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Like the time I was out on a walk with my family and he sent me a message and said, hey, did I just see you and your dad and your sister?
Anyway, I did not reply to that message and over the years I have received completely random message out of the blue as he
did certain things in his life and just kept me updated.
Can you please try to help me gain some understanding on this behavior?
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And yes, it was a very unhealthy dynamic of a relationship. Thank you, Paul. Thanks for sharing that.
And I am glad that you are not in that relationship anymore.
I normally talk about emotionally abusive behaviors and breadcrumbing isn't necessarily abusive.
It's dysfunctional and it can be abusive, but in this sense, you know, he said nothing happened with that woman, but then
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he left you and maybe he cheated, I don't know.
That's not what you're asking and I wouldn't know anyway, but why do people stay in touch after they've left?
Why is this person continuing to contact you so many years later and throughout the years, so many years throughout the years,
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keeping up to date with your life, mentioning things about your life?
What's interesting is this happens a lot. Typically men will do this.
Mostly men will breadcrumb the person they were with. Why? Why do they do it?
I'm going to give you probably the main reason why there are probably several reasons, but one of the main reasons is to keep you connected as a backup plan.
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I know it's a very cold thing I just blurted out here, but it can happen.
They keep you connected to them as a backup plan.
I've seen this happen with two or three women in my life who their exes have continued to breadcrumb them in order to keep them connected.
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And I've seen this happen where the person who breadcrumbs is driving through town and says, Hey, I'm in town.
You want to get a bite to eat?
Sounds like a friendship, but if every time they got a bite to eat in the past, it led to sex or something like that, that
tells me that their intentions to breadcrumb are to keep someone as a possible hookup. So there's that.
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And then there's the ego thing where they need to feed their ego to make sure that they're still in good standings with you
because they do not like to be seen as the bad guy.
If they are seen as the bad guy, it will be a crushing blow to their ego and their self-esteem.
They do not like that idea that somebody might not like them.
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And so there are people out there that want to feel needed, even though they discard you. They still want to feel needed.
They still want to keep that connection for multiple reasons, two that I've already named.
And they want to make sure that you're still on the radar.
And so if you're on the radar, then no matter what happens, they're there for you.
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They always looked like the good guy.
And if there's a possible chance for a connection, whether they cheat on their partner to be with you, or they get a divorce
or break up, and now they want to connect with you, at least you're always in their black book.
So breadcrumbing keeps you connected in some way.
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And you can tell when it's not because they love you so much, or they're attached to you so much, or you're their soulmate or whatever.
You can tell when it's not that from the way they breadcrumb.
A person will breadcrumb like this in the sense that keeping you available, keeping you connected to them in some way, over
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the years even, as a just-in-case, as a backup.
And I'm sorry if that is very insensitive of them.
That is not a pleasant place to be, unless that's what you want.
But I'm not talking about the people who want that, I'm talking about the people who don't necessarily want this, or can't
figure out why this person continues to contact them or text them or whatever.
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The other reason is what I talked about earlier, their dependency on you to feed their ego and to make them feel like they're
not the bad guy, to make you think they're still a good person, even though we're not in a relationship.
Now of course there are other reasons, maybe you were good friends and they want to stay in touch.
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However, I'm going to give you what I just started to say earlier, how to identify if a breadcrumb is someone who wants to
be your friend, or if you are their backup, hookup, or feed to their ego.
And the main identifier of a breadcrumbing text or email or call is if they just start talking to you, as if nothing ever changed or happened. That's usually a good identifier.
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If somebody is breadcrumbing you for the reasons I mentioned, a good way to tell that those are the reasons, is if they just
reach out and act as if nothing ever happened, or nothing bad ever happened, or nothing ever changed, or there were no hurt feelings.
They just say something like, hey I just wrote a book, or you know something sort of non-sequitur that really isn't connected to anything before it.
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So if you had a breakup a year ago and they send you a text that says, hey I just saw somebody that looked like you, they
just send that out of the blue, there's nothing connected to it.
There's no association to what you've been talking about recently because you haven't been talking to them.
And when that happens, I like to categorize that as the type of breadcrumbing that is not necessarily healthy or even honest.
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They're just keeping that connection, putting that breadcrumb out so that you will follow the trail.
They want you to continue following the trail so that they have some connection with you.
Some of them are playing the long game.
The long game is it may take years before you, quote, accidentally run into them again, or they reach out and you are available
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and you do want to see them, they play the long game to keep you connected that way as well.
It's not exactly honest behavior and it's not necessarily healthy behavior. Is it unhealthy?
It can be toxic, especially if you did not want to keep contact with them.
That means they don't care about your boundaries and they're going to contact you anyway.
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That's an important indicator that there's something toxic going on because if you say, I don't really want to talk to you
anymore and they try to talk to you, well then they're not honoring what you want and that is a toxic behavior and they could
also be doing a manipulation where they're trying to eventually coerce you doing that long game thing back into a situation
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with them that probably wouldn't go anywhere anyway because they have some dysfunctions and insecurities that they're not choosing to heal in themselves.
Why would somebody text you out of the blue with some seemingly insignificant but possibly related information to you that
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you already moved on with the relationship, you're moving on with your life, and then they throw this thought into your head to remind you of them?
And if you can't get rid of those thoughts because they keep planting them, then that's the long game I'm talking about, that
is them trying to keep you at the lowest level, maybe an unconscious level, thinking about them just in case.
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And it's not honest, it's not healthy, and it will drive you crazy unless you block it or unless you tell them, please don't text me anymore.
And if they don't, great, and if they do, block.
Because people who care about you care about how you want to honor yourself and will honor you honoring yourself.
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That's how it works with healthy people.
They back off and they say, oh, I'm sorry, you're right, I shouldn't reach out to you because you told me not to, and I won't. That's healthy.
What's not healthy is the drip feeding manipulation, and emotional abuse is all about drip feeding, and that's why this can
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sometimes be abusive, especially if that person is not honoring your boundaries. That is the key here.
If someone is breadcrumbing you like this and just leaving that trail for you to follow, they want you to keep them in mind
continually, throughout your life, throughout the years sometimes. And that is not healthy.
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That is very toxic if you wanted to move on and not think about them, because what they do is make their comments, their texts or whatever, very benign, very neutral.
And like I said, you can tell when it's not so healthy when they are just texting you out of the blue, for example, when there's
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no association to anything that you've been talking about before.
And especially if there was typically a breakup or hard feelings, and then they don't mention those hard feelings, and they
don't mention any apologies, that's something you want to watch out for, be aware of, and beware of, because you don't want to have somebody continually influencing you.
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It's really what it comes down to, manipulation, influence, just to keep them in your mind so that as you move forward, there's
always a part of them in you.
And essentially that kind of keeps you dependent on them, again, at a very low level.
If you're thinking about them, if it's very neutral, if it seems even friendly, if it's friendly, then it's also another way
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to kind of erase the history that they had with you.
And that history can be sordid and hurtful and all kinds of things.
And if they don't want you to remember them like that, they may do something like that as well.
It's fascinating, and it's terrible, because you should not be under anyone's influence.
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It kind of takes away your power, because imagine you're having a great day, and then suddenly an ex sends you a text out
of the blue and said, hey, I bought new doors at Home Depot.
What the f- Okay, but now they're in your mind.
Maybe they think, well, I'll reply, and maybe they'll think, hey, I should call them.
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I haven't thought about them in a while. I think that's dishonest.
I know it's manipulative, and I don't think it's a very healthy way to communicate, because all they have to do is, if they
really want to talk to you again, just call you up and say, hey, I was thinking about you. Can we have a conversation?
That seems pretty healthy and normal to do, even if you say, hell no, I don't want to talk to you anymore.
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And then they can say, I understand, I understand, and whatever they say next, you'll know where they are and what's been
going on in their life, and if it's worth listening to them anymore.
You may think, this is stupid, I don't want to listen to this person.
I've had my time with them, it's time to move on.
But remember, you have the ability to block and move on when somebody does that, and if they are always putting thoughts of
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them in your mind, don't let it happen unless you absolutely want it to.
And if you do want it to, remember who they were, because who they were hasn't changed unless they were willing to talk about who they were.
That's a whole different scenario where somebody says, hey, you know, when I did this specific thing to you, that was a terrible
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thing to do, and this is what I've learned.
That's a great start to a conversation.
It doesn't mean you still want to have any type of relationship with them, but that would be a lot healthier than, hey, I
bought some paint, or I saw you on the freeway the other day. Why are you telling me this? There's a reason. There's my thoughts on breadcrumbing.
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I have another early episode on breadcrumbing as well.
You can go to loveandabuse.com if you want to check that out, but I hope this helps.
If you are in that position, receiving messages from somebody, I know of at least, like I said, two or three people that have gone through this.
My ex-wife, for example, she got this message out of the blue from her ex, and it was definitely somebody who wanted to keep
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her in mind on his list in his black book, even though, oh, it was just a neutral text and no big deal, and I thought, hmm, that's not right.
She's married, and now you're sending her this weird message out of context, which just seems to be a ploy to make her think
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of you for whatever outcome that you are trying to manipulate into being. I hope this helps.
Thanks for sharing that, and I wish you the best.
I'm glad you're out of that relationship.
It doesn't sound like it was going to work out anyway.
Now it's time to free yourself of the relationship fully, because you don't need that.
You don't need someone who's in a relationship reaching out to his exes, because if you have any thought of reconnecting with
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him, this is exactly what he's doing now, or at least it sounds like it.
I don't know if he still is with that other person, but if he is, this is his MO. This is what he does.
So if you are with somebody who does that or has done that to reconnect with you, you have to believe that that's what they're
going to do to their exes when they're with you. Maybe I'm wrong.
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Maybe they were really young, and maybe they're different, but this is my perspective. That's how I see things.
This is how I see people who do that.
I would rather have a real honest conversation than some arbitrary message that doesn't relate to anything and only seems
to plant the thought of them into your mind. And that's just sneaky to me.
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Thanks again for writing, and I hope you have a much better future with somebody who honors you and doesn't seem like they're
trying to trick you to get you to like them.
Thanks for listening and share this with others who might benefit.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The Mean Workbook, an assessment and healing guide for difficult relationships.
The workbook contains a 200-point assessment to tell you exactly what's causing you to leave so many interactions feeling bad. Gain clarity on your relationship today. Visit loveandabuse.com for more information.
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And if you've discovered that you are doing the hurtful behaviors and you've damaged a relationship with someone you care
about and you know you need to change, head over to healedbeing.com and that's where I help.
People that are doing emotionally abusive behaviors, even if they don't know it, I help them change and heal so that they
can save themselves and maybe even save the relationship.
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And of course, that depends on if the other person still has love in their heart.
If they do, then there's a chance, but it is definitely dependent on the person who has done the damage to learn about their
own behaviors and heal their coping mechanisms and work on changing sometimes lifetime patterns of behavior.
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And I teach you how to do that over at healedbeing.com.
And if you're looking for a safer way to listen to this show where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the
safe listening button at the podcast page over at loveandabuse.com.
This show exists to remind you that you are not alone and you're not going crazy.
You are worthy of respect, kindness, and love, and you deserve to be accepted exactly as you are. Stay strong. We'll talk again soon.