Don't Blame Me! - DBM: Feelings for Your Friend

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

This week Meghan and Melisa are giving advice on: Tell your best friend about your feelings before he gets engaged Mom's a horder Rooming with your best friend Don't Blame Them Friend that don't want you to get married yet (May 13, 2024) Boyfriend being jealous of guy friends (May 6, 2024) Follow Us! @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hello and welcome to another episode of don't blame me where we give you wonderful amazing life shooting advice i'm cold you get a blanket or a sweater no i'm holding your heart i'm just gonna live it out because I've been cold for the last two hours. Cold Breeds Comedy. We're making a sitcom here. Slapstick sitcom. If you want to watch the video

version where you can see all of the physical comedy that goes along. Wow! Oh my goodness! She does her own stunts, ladies and gentlemen! Check out our Patreon. Watch the video version. You can also hang out with us on our livestreams. We do twice a month. And by the time this is out, we will

have done the livestream where tbd melissa might have been making the masterpiece if you want to hear more about that what do we talk about without friday we talked about that we talked about it last friday okay so we're still thinking about it because it's only been mere minutes for us um but if you didn't hear that just know the call to action is if you make a pickle boat which is a pickle with not all the innards scooped out but some and you make that as a sandwich please send us not only a review but a photo right it is my wet dream it's it's gonna be life-changing i know it is i can't wait oh my gosh i'm so excited um but anyway this is a podcast of course hosted by

did you already say our names i don't know say it again hosted by me melissa diamond mott And her, her, her, her, her, she, she, she, it's Megan's stallion song. My namesake. I know. Megan, I was going to say your last name. The horse. Megan the calf. Megan the hobbit.

Megan the... The stallion did say the requirements for a stallion is just to be tall. I know, but I think her requirement is 5'10 over. and i only look like i'm 5'10 next to me well it is crazy because everyone thinks like i am tall i'm between probably like 5'8 5'9 ish but i look taller than i am and even people who are tall who will be like 10 like 5'10 they're like you're my height and i was like no i'm definitely like at least an inch shorter than you but i think it's just proportionately yeah i look i look i look stretched out very gumby megan rings hi so this is a podcast uh we're gonna give you advice

and you've got to catch up on hacks because there's a great gumby joke too i'll catch up yeah i've been watching some of the press they've been doing and it's reminded me that it's like i really like this show we should i should get back into it so good yeah just get over that one episode and then you're yeah that i know i don't i don't think we needed that episode it it went too far it was it was like i think like it was wonderfully acted and like i wasn't expecting it but like ew it was just too much for me personally and i was just like where did this come from and it's not changing the course of the show it's just like and we move on and i'm like okay yeah it's too much for me personally so um if you're gonna watch the show

hacks everyone just check out that website like does the dog tie before each episode because there's one that i would say there's just one episode you can almost just skip the first they just skip the first half and then you're fine or the first like 10 minutes yeah anyways um so yeah we're gonna give you some advice it's a call-in advice podcast but it's also a written advice podcast so if you want to leave us a voicemail you can leave us one at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast.gmail.com and you can also write in to that same email or do it in the DMs. So if you're going to do a audio version, keep it under three minutes. You can record that voice memo or again with the

voicemail. We do ask that you write everything down, practice a couple of times. So you make sure you're under the time limit and you're including all relevant information. And then the requirements for the written version is under 300 words, but for all of them, you have to be over, have your parents permission and let us know your age. Let us know your pronouns. If you would like we need as many details as possible that are relevant for us giving you the best possible advice because we want to give you the good advice uh but you have to give us the pieces of the puzzle so we can do that um so that's why we recommend writing it down and reading it to yourself and out loud a couple times so you can figure that out especially if there's like history

we need to have like a good rule of thumb is like if there's a long backstory of being like oh we have all this beef give us like the three bullet points of like what the three biggest bullet points of like what the beef was about like one time they did this then they did this and then they did this so you know paint the characters for us um and yeah anything else no that's good we have lots of other podcasts too if you are listening to this for the first time and you're like damn i like these broads well buckle up um we've got a lot of other shows for you we release podcasts um monday tuesday skip wednesday thursday and friday and they're all over the place personality wise vibe wise um i would say nothing falls into like the sad or scary

no genre but it's all fun we're just we're fun uh sometimes the calls can be a little scary but we try to amp it up and when i say sometimes once every three months yeah and then just know that the ones that are really scary we protect from all of you no no no there's one that most and i will never forget about that none of you will ever hear and none of you have heard the only people who heard this was with law enforcement and we don't even like cops but i say that unfortunately this is who we have to tell yes because there was no one else to tell yeah well well i can't stop thinking about the pickle sandwich no most of me neither and we have to stop talking because it's all i can think about like at least you have it there don't you it's

already arrived no it hasn't i was ordering it after so i wouldn't be fiending for it too much well we already are fiending for it are but like if it was in the other room no the way that i'm going to make months take me to the grocery store and i'm going to just sit there or stand there with my hands behind my back wandering around the aisles going i'm gonna pick my perfect pickle to make my perfect little pickle boat sandwich i want it so bad a burger on it too anything you could give me i've been putting pickles in everything i've been making recently too and so it's like so i know it's starting to get summer my pots is like sodium okay okay okay we gotta move on gotta move on all right uh first write in

Well, we're staying on topic here. Pickles? Hey, Eminem. So I am in a pickle. Oh, my God. We can't get away from it. Oh, my God. All we want is a pickle in a pickle boat.

I am 24, she, her. I have had the same best friend since I was 11. Let's call him Patrick, he, him, 25. Patrick and I grew up in the same neighborhood just a few houses away. He has always been like a brother to me. we would get snide jokes about us dating as we got older and i always dismissed them instantly we have both been in relationships even double dating neither of us were ever serious well until recently patrick told me he intended to propose to his girlfriend after dating for six months i

asked if she was pregnant which deeply offended him and i felt bad that's so me that's something i would without a doubt do i have been absolutely livid at him for considering marrying her i even thought i even brought it up in therapy as when my therapist brought up the notion that maybe i was upset because i have feelings for him i have never explored i laughed at first but have been dwelling on it since she put it in my head and damn it i think she is right what do i do do i tell him I can't even imagine how that conversation would start or go especially since I'm 99% sure his feelings are not anywhere near the same I'm afraid I will ruin our friendship but I have never kept secrets from him I know after too long he will catch on to something being wrong and when

he does I don't know how to respond please help I seriously don't know what to do he is one of the most important people to me in the world and i know i have to play this right well well well there's so many movies dedicated to this i could have told you and so you started talking about i go oh i know where this is going also i'm pretty sure my first kiss is the guy with a guy named patrick yeah patrick so i say this as someone who like i had a very similar feeling the stakes were much lower it was a guy my high school best friend and he was asking someone to prom and i was like fucking pissed that he was asking this person and like why why did i fucking care until one of my friends was like bitch you're you you love that man and i was like what the fuck and

then i like went home and i was like what the what the fuck like it was like i had that moment realization um i love josh but this is the stakes are much higher and so i'm to be super straightforward the friend the thing that like my friend had told me she's like the friendship is already ruined you have feelings so the friendship is like the friendship is ruined what it is what it has been it has changed fundamentally and now you have the choice of being like do you want to ruin the friendship um how bad do you want to blow it up because i think that the only mature way to do this especially because he's proposing six months i will say it's pretty fucking fast but like pregnant yeah no i i think honestly i do think it's a valid question but unfortunately

i also have a hard time with inside and outside thoughts i would have said it out loud but like i mean the writer did say it out loud but like no i know but i'm saying i would have also i feel like if you're if this is your best friend that would be the first question if my friend got proposed to six months in i go are you pregnant like that's crazy like that's a lot um so my thing is is that like you can't just not say you can't just like be like this never happened because it will affect your friendship because you already feel this way so whether you tell or not um i think if you do like a big like grand reveal of like oh i have feelings for you um i think that is like so wildly inappropriate it's even more inappropriate if you are friends with

her or you know her it's like you've never met this girl like it's still inappropriate but it's less but like even if you met this girl one time that is like that's fucking crazy um so i think your only options are to like and this is also like self-preservation too because like it will be very uncomfortable for you i think you're supposed to be like hey can i talk to you this is like really awkward and weird um and i just wonder this the most like respectful way possible i need to take a step back from our friendship for a while um i have been unpacking since i found out that like you were proposing unpacking the fact that like i haven't really addressed that i have developed like feelings for you and i want to be able to be 100 totally happy for you and i

can't do that right now and like you don't you shouldn't be surrounded by people who aren't able to be like 100 happy for you in this moment i don't think that's fair to you or to her and so i need to take like a step back on our friendship until i am able to like like sort this stuff out and move past this so i can be like the friend that you've always had and we can go back to that so i can be so happy for you and all of that that's it and it's not like do you like me too like you like i think that's the most mature thing because like sure let's say he's like it is a movie and he's like stop stop the lights like i i've actually been like for you the whole time i never had a chance so yeah like she doesn't mean anything to me so like it gives you an

opportunity like it's not it doesn't rid him of doing that it doesn't rid him of saying you're not putting words in his mouth about his feelings so like on the chance that he wants to boom box it outside your window there's still an opportunity for him to do it but it is not giving it is not proposing a question which is an inappropriate question to ask because it doesn't validate his relationship if you're like oh do you have feelings for me like that's just super inappropriate and even if he did have feelings for you it is uh could even turn him off from that because it does it doesn't respect his current relationship um so i think that's the best thing to do for both of you but um if you can't do that then you can lie and you can say hey um i'm joining the peace corps

and then you actually have to follow through with it and you will have to join the peace corps for a while but like whatever it is you have to separate from this um but i think the best possible solution if you want to be friends with him at any like point in the future let alone being like cordial with her because he will they're going to marry he's going to pick her over you uh you have to respect their relationship yeah i agree with everything megan said i think this is the best way to go about this um i like how you phrased it too like i need to take a step back um also as you are looking inside about your feelings because maybe you're just jealous that you're losing your best friend and that could be part of it um but just make sure because

this can make or break your friendship just make sure that you're handling it with kid gloves like you're going in very like megan said being respectful to him and his relationship being honest with yourself and being honest with him but don't seem like that you're coming in to take him away like it just needs to be like a completely separate decision for him but i agree with everything megan said i mean i would i would i would be lying if i'm saying i'm not rooting for it do you know what i mean yeah i would be lying too but i just it's just a sticky sticky place to be yeah so just know that like we're not coming at this from a place of being like oh this is inappropriate or delusional or whatever like it happens like i don't fault you

whatsoever and if the roles are reversed and it was him and you were getting engaged i also wouldn't fault him like it's really hard to decipher those um feelings when it's not put into the context because like when you've been friends for so long the only real difference about a relationship if it is a relationship that involves uh sexual intimacy is that like you still have like when you're really close friends with someone like you love them as a person like you love spending time with them and like that is all aligned there and so it is why sometimes people realize they have feelings when they see that person in that light with somebody else and they're like oh shit i actually didn't realize that i had those feelings for you there too but

like they're in the context it didn't happen like it didn't happen until i'm seeing it right in front of me um but yeah you cannot just like ignore this and hope it um gets better because it will push it'll push him away and feelings aren't permanent you know so like you might have these feelings out and if he doesn't reciprocate you might look back on like similar how we all do with certain crushes and we're like oh my god i cannot believe i like this person it doesn't matter how long you've known them where it's like well if i like them at this point like this must mean they're my true love that's no no but i promise you i also want you to imagine yourself being intimate with him like does it gross you out if it grosses you out then you're just upset that he's getting

married and really think about it because it's someone who like has a problem with um having crushes on people and then like being like no i totally like them and then having a moment where like i'm having sex with them and i'm like i actually like i'm so disgusted by you and i gonna need to leave immediately it's that's a it's a pretty hard circumstance to be in when you realize that while someone is inside of you and you're like fuck uh-oh um so yeah really do the thinking put put put that thinking cap on before we're making any moves well we're gonna take a break and we get back we'll get into some of the other right end still low-key rooting for you though

okay we're back and it's time for another write-in hey melissa and megan long time listener i've called it a few times and i'm always happy with your advice so i'm hoping you can come through now i'm 31 and go by she her pronouns i am pretty sure my mother is a hoarder and i'm wondering what to do she has things dated back so far like the 70s it's not cute memories or anything like that it's all meaningless things i suggested a spring cleaning and she damn near bit my head off it's getting out of control not like the actual show hoarders where trash is piled up to the ceiling but there are certainly things she can give away and tidy up a bit please help me figure this all out boy they hoarding is hard do you live with her oh that's a good first question because

if you don't live with her then just let her be if there's not like dead animals in there if it's you said it's not like the tv show it's just like things can be tidy just let her be it's not bothering you really except for when you come visit yeah i don't disagree with that like i think there's a difference between um i'm annoyed by a surplus of stuff like that to me i don't particularly enjoy do i have too much stuff yes am i getting rid of stuff every day also yes um but i think there's a difference between someone who likes to be surrounded by things versus someone who is like hoarding is a mental is like that's like a it's like a mental illness um and so is it affecting her life if you don't live there like is it negatively affecting her quality

of life like is she not able to use certain rooms is just she not is she not having friends over or being social because of this or is it that like she's holding on to the past of things that feel like if it was you in that position it feels a little like wallowy um but i do think that it's about quality of her quality of life so i think like when it becomes unhygienic um and unhygienic can be like there's vermin there's like infestations of animals or it can be there's trash there's mold but it can also be uh that she's not able to shower or go use like the bathtub as often because it takes all the space to move x y and z and do all of that kind of stuff or that she can't cook in the kitchen because they're and she likes to cook and she can't cook there

and she only can eat dry food because there's no room so i think that like there's a scale of like how much it impacts her life there um but i don't disagree with melissa like i think like it sucks if like depending on getting up there in age and you're just thinking about like not to be morbid like oh my god when you die i'm gonna have to deal with all of this shit like that's so fucking annoying but i don't know how old she is and um i don't know i think that like i have a little bit more uh empathy as i've gotten older to people to hold on to things depending on the reason why because a lot of people i know who do that grew up in like very dire very very poor circumstances and um that has been passed down to me a bit

in the sense that like i'm gonna dilute my soap with like so much water or like i'm going to eat every single piece of food off my plate and like matz always has to tell me like it's we can buy another like the scarcity like mindset like i'll eat something even if i hate it because we have it and he's like you don't need to do that but we grew up in different circumstances so i think um if you can kind of like therapize in your head not to her but like maybe the origins of the reason why um but if it is like getting in the way of her life and her quality of life even if she's not acknowledging it but you know that it is because she's retreating from her friends and that stuff um i think you can go about stuff in a fun way of being like you know you have never

like shown me like you've got some so many of these old i don't know let's say if it's old clothes or like baby clothes or whatever and be like oh can i see all these like oh these are so cool like do you think i like could take um some of these for my friend's kid or whatever and like see if there's a way that you can make it so she's kind of like sharing that um my i won't get specific but i know people in my life who live in a town and there is uh a person who lives in their town who is a a hoarder and like goes to a lot of yard sales and goes a lot of things like gets a lot of this kind of stuff but then they started inviting this person to come and bring things to like community yard sales and would tell people like this whole story behind this thing that they

had or this collection of things that they had and then would get really excited to see someone else who got excited about this thing and then they were happy to give that thing to that person or sell that thing to that person and then they're like oh do you like like following it up like the next time that they see them um so i think like hoarding can really fall into like an isolating thing so i think if you make it a little less isolating uh and have a little more community forward she might want to like share those things otherwise you just don't go over there and you pretend like it doesn't exist yeah yeah invite her over you're like oh can't you fill out this space if you live there and don't pay bills you have no say but if you live there and

do pay bills throw it away then y'all need to have a serious conversation about what needs to stay and what needs to go yeah at that point i would have like an intervention like it doesn't have to be as bad as the show hoarders but yeah if this is a shared space where you both like you said have the say in it you you need you can pull out all those stops and then at that point it's like you have to move out and you can't unfortunately protect people or pull people out of that unless they want to all right uh next one hey ladies i am 18 years old and getting ready for college in the fall my pronouns are she her i have a question about the age old notion of not living with your best friend my best friend and i are currently planning on sharing a dorm at first we had other

plans due to our parents and siblings suggesting we do not room together or it will ruin our friendship well my supposed to be roommate just announced she's pregnant and my best friend's roommate got a scholarship to another school so we are both left without roommates everyone else is already paired so we are for sure rooming together my question is do you think it will really affect our friendship i would absolutely hate that any advice would be greatly appreciated this used to be a very popular question that we would get all the time um we both said no um but we have people that write right in wrote in with um saying that they had a good time my personal thing is I went to college with one of my good friends that I roomed with and we

I think it became clear that we just did not mesh together as roommates it was just awkward to the point where it'd be like if she's in there I don't want to go in there or like we would talk and we just like we didn't we no longer had the same friend groups we had different views on the world and not like she's very liberal so it wasn't even that it was just like i would get sick and she'd be like that's in your head and i was like ma'am i'm sick i'm like over here coughing you're also like running a fever and that's in my head but also your major at the time also she's her major too no way i believe she's a physicist now or something like that i was about to say she probably stuck with it because that actually is that's aligned with the career yeah

um so she was i just like i i've said it before i prayed for her to get out of my room I prayed for some way for us no longer to be roommates. I mean, God listens. God shone down on me. God is good. And she became the first freshman RA. And somehow in the middle of the school year, she was gone. And they were like, it wasn't even the middle of school year.

It was before the first semester was over. So she got to move out, became an RA. um i had the whole room to myself and they kept saying when we come back in the spring then you'll have you'll probably get a new roommate no one ever came so so caller i had you believe in god right do you believe in divine intervention do you have faith let me tell you about my friend jesus christ um but i i would say room with a stranger before you room with your friend yeah i think the issue is is like there it doesn't seem like there's any other option right now and so here's what i would

say yes melissa's right we have we've said over and over again do not live with your friends we both have had downfalls of ending of friendships in that way um but i think like if you know that there is a risk that this will ruin your friendship if you you both need to have a discussion ahead of time and that needs to be at the forefront so i think that like it really fucks up when people are like cocky being like everyone says you can't read friends but like we're not like that like we're not like everybody else like we're gonna be fine and so it becomes like oh it's a moral failing when other people do that it's not like a circumstance thing so like those people don't put precautions in place or really talk about it or

think it through or do whatever i think the fact that you've both tried to do every other option and if it really is your only option to live together then i think it needs to be like a okay this is just a one-year thing because i love you you're my best friend i don't want this to be like lost or ruined like let's come up with not only a chore chart but like you know how much alone time do you need like if you like are you someone who me because like for me i need alone time that's alone time and someone else is around but i also need alone time when no one else is around so like i don't even want you in my room we could be silent together and but i will still feel like i have to perform and so be super transparent honest with each other and it's like okay what

if something i did what would really hurt your feelings and like really go through all of those things and like put up all of those precautions all of those roadblocks everything like that and then commit to the fact that you will only do this for a year and i think like if you have it on like the forefront of being like if you're thinking about like this is going to ruin our friendship i think it's the opposite of manifesting and i think it will make you more cognizant of it um that it's like a dire need but i think if there's any other option living with a stranger is better like it yeah it is and it and it's like it's not even like i can tell you the shirt like the way that your friendship will end because it's not all the same it's just a matter of

you become it's kind of like and i'm not a twin but it's kind of like how i would say if identical twins roomed together and went to like you become attached you become an entity you become associated with somebody else and to feel like you bear the responsibility of how someone else behaves and kind of acts it that's kind of like get your girl like what does she do like it just becomes like pressure about how you perform at school and then how someone else does and then running things by someone else and if you meet new friends and someone else doesn't get along with it it just becomes like it's not just you don't get to choose everything yourself you don't get to have an independence you have to run it through someone else who you

also care about so if you don't agree with them that becomes difficult because you're supposed to side with them because like that's the friend you've had for so long the dynamics are just awkward and the part that makes it the most awkward is the fact that you are friends and so you don't want it to ruin the friendship and so the biggest mistake is people just you don't say anything so you just like squash it down because you don't want it but eventually it can so i just think there's totally a chance that you could be like the unicorn of this but i think if you don't want to run the risk of it try living with strangers and then i'll say after that if you want to live with your friend sophomore year that's a much better success rate move off campus

yeah also like another thing going in like moving in with your friend sophomore year freshman year a lot of people don't stay friends with their high school friends even if they've been friends like their whole life they don't stay with their they don't stay friends and so if y'all make it through freshman year then you're good yeah and like people lose their friends that even if you didn't room together like it's just it becomes like a lot of people want to be a different like they want to if it's a new them and it's and that's not a bad thing at all but it can feel like you're being attached to something that you maybe don't want to be and it's not like personal against them but yeah i think like freshman year is the worst time possible and

we say the same thing about like a relationship it's like living with a high school boyfriend it's it is the same thing living with a high school friend it's like living with your high school boyfriend while you're at college yeah um it just it limits you and i think you if you're both aware of that and you go out of your way to make sure it doesn't um i think your friendship will probably still change a bit but if you have to you have to but i think like the much better choice always is going to be room with a random and even if you hate that random person that makes your friendship with your friend closer because you're like oh my god i have to fucking get away yep and doing that and then you can live together the next year and statistically it's just like

think about it's like dating for six months versus dating for a year before getting married my sister melanie she roomed with one of her very good friends but not her best friend best best friend who she also had known since they were like her best friend best friend live they've known each other since they were like in first grade or something and so um like it worked out like her and her roommate freshman year like all they all a lot of them still remain i'd say three of them all remain friends um but then um after the freshman year she got an apartment with her best best friend and some other friends too so that helped yeah living proof that it can happen it also like it makes you feel like you've earned it in a way that like you've you've gone through

the roommates if you didn't like you're like oh my god i'm so happy to kind of have gotten here but like it's like moving in with a partner too early like it's just it's statistically it's not like this friendship will inevitably end it can make a friendship end that doesn't have to end yeah and that's the hardest part but congrats on getting into college all right we're gonna take a break real canadian superstore has everything you need this back to school season save on lunchbox savers like ziggy sliced deli meat products for always 375 and get life brand pure vita shampoo or conditioner for eight dollars each at real canadian superstore

when you're ready we're ready with a whole world and more we are back and it's time for don't blame them right don't blame them is where y'all write in and share your thoughts and feelings on things that you heard on this podcast that could have been personal experience or you just heard it in the streets you're walking down the streets and you said first of all j-lo running them second of all heard some whispers gotta call into the podcast this is don't blame them for the girl asking about getting married at 19 my boyfriend and i started dating at 18 and we're 23 now i know i want to marry him and i but i know it's not going to happen right now or anytime soon marrying him at 19 would have been such a horrible idea

we have grown so much together over time we live together and have a cat together and pay all of our bills together but i know we don't need to get married right now because we aren't as established in our adult lives as we want to be i just graduated and will probably move when i get a job in my field which my boyfriend is down for i'm still on my parents insurance and i was on their financial aid until graduation it's okay to know that you want to marry someone this young but there's no need to actually get married right now you have so much growing and learning to do doing that together is fine but through the growing there's always a chance your lives end up in completely different places beautifully said that was so well said thank you for sharing and i think

it's so great to hear it from someone who's not uh a lot of people like listen to like quote unquote horror stories of being like well that would never be us and people like oh we did this and it blew up in our faces and like it was horrible and a mistake but then from someone who's like oh i we're choosing not to do this and we're still together and we're still happy i think like because i for a lot of time i feel like people hear the alternative is not that it just feels like we get married or we're not together anymore so thank you for sharing that and i also can see your picture and the way that he's looking at you so adoringly obsessed he's obsessed with you i love that for you all right um here's the next one hey writing in for don't blame them for the

caller whose boyfriend won't let her talk to guys slash extreme jealousy issues trigger warning trigger warning abuse i 100 agree with eminem as someone who left an emotionally abusive relationship recently. This was the first warning sign. I stayed, tried to help him heal his wounds of his insecurity. It made sense to me based on his past. All my best friends are guys and I felt so isolated. I completely lost who I was and I felt so anxious all the time. Any new co-workers people I met were guys that I wanted to tell my partner about but felt like I was walking on a minefield it's not worth it the amount of work i have to do on my mental health after a year of this sucks you deserve someone who supports your outgoing personality and will actually talk

with you through conflict i hope everything works out for you i'm so sorry that you went through that and still mentally going through it um thank you for sharing and i hope that the first person that submitted heard that too yeah i hope anybody who's in a relationship like that like i think everyone we all think that like we can handle something differently and like oh i'm built different like i i'll be fine or whatever or like regardless well the relationship will end but like people can do damage to you that like you then carry with you to the next relationship like that baggage and that trauma and then things that like still stick with you in your relationships with people so um that's really good advice and it's i hope people take it but it's very hard to

when you're in the thick of it yeah um speaking of i saw this tiktok of this girl who was i like wish it was a fucking joke she's like talking about like story time of the time that my trigger warning for abuse story time of the time that like my then husband uh tried to like tried to kill me and at the end of all of this she like makes like a follow-up video or whatever and like i'm looking at her page and like almost all of it is her talking about um just like all of his things of like you know like just like being in an abusive relationship all these things and a lot of it's like present tense and i was like okay and so he is like they're on a car ride and he's like just losing it and she's like i think it might be spiritual warfare and i went

oh god oh god this girl's gonna still be with this man her next follow-up video um the man he's he has threatened to kill her he has like told her that he will he how he was going to do it and that he's going to get away with it um and uh she is like i'm just i i'm praying for him and i'm praying for salvation and like you know i hope he can get that clarity and we can we can move on from this and we can be back together we can have we can reconcile and the she's so fucking young and the whole thing that's so traumatizing i'm like oh my god even if this man pretends to have done this you have made an entire tiktok account with his face showing him talking about him and how he has abused you you've embarrassed this man this man is going regardless of what he says how he feels

statistically we have so much fucking research on this of like when someone does x y and z what happens then and um the seeing it and then specifically seeing thankfully it's mostly comments of people who are like me being like get the fuck out of there and then i was like very appreciative to see people who are also christians because i'm pretty she's very christian who are saying things like that regardless of what our belief system is like that man and like they say things like that man has a devil in him and he's not getting that that is not your responsibility you need to get far away even if he says he's fine and so i was like thank you for speaking her language because that was like so horrible but even seeing a couple people being

like oh i'm in the same situation praying for both of us and she's like me too girly and it's like when you look for community in that sense and like you're still so in it that i'm like and i think she met him because he was like a not like a youth pastor but like something along the lines of like they met through church and she's still going to that church and i'm like oh my god i need you to cut ties with all of this and doesn't mean you should not be religious anymore but like when you like are seeking out community it usually we think of it's like oh people want to hear what everyone's going to say which is like what they can't accept or whatever but like when you see it's like oh my god you also want to look at people who are going through the same thing as you

and then find the positive solution that doesn't exist so you're kind of making it up and like searching for that and it's just like horrific and this man is like i hope to god they are not together they like she doesn't go back to him but like it's so hard and so i would also recommend people who are in a like toxic relationship emotionally abusive look at other people in that and it's so much easier to kind of see like you're not going to think that that man's going to change so then why do you think that yours is going to change like sometimes it's easier to kind of have a bird's eye view of what it's like to be someone on the outside and then be like oh shit this is how my friends and family feel about me in this circumstance situation horrible all

right um on a positive note yeah thank you for listening um i hope you um were able to take something away from the pod oh i did see a tiktok or not tiktok a post on reddit uh from the hoa reddit subreddit where the hoa has a geriatric street gang to inspect the lawns where they all sit in lawn chairs inside the bed of a pickup truck and they drive around and inspect people's lawns so just know everyone we've got if you're worried about your social life when you're older it's handled for you looks like i have something to look forward to yep yep yep okay Well, we will see you next time. Join us on Tuesday for See You Next Tuesday.

We've got a great episode about Lord of the Rings. Oh, my God. And then check us out on Thursday for But Am I Wrong? And then Friday for Fisting Friday. Also join our Facebook group. leave us comments on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and

also join our Patreon for a good ass time. It's a great time. Alright. Goodbye. Goodbye. Don't Blame Me is a production by me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, plus Diamond Imprint Productions. Post-production

sound and editing by Coco Lorenz. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. And music by Giacomo Picasso and Ryan Hunter.