Don't Blame Me! - Guilt Over a Mutual Break Up

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

This week Meghan and Melisa give advice on: Telling your parents you aren't religious anymore Found out your boyfriend physically and emotionally cheated Losing your best friend/ex Don't Blame Them: Standing up to a parent, communicating with your partner, postpartum depression Becoming a Sugar Baby Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Follow Us! @meghanrienks www.instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @by.meghan.and.melisa https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): www.tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf Need Advice? www.dontblameme.show Domestic Listeners Call: [phone] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

welcome hi uh this is um a podcast called wow like nervous giggle i did what is wrong with you i don't know no i do know i need caffeine welcome to don't blame me a podcast where we give you wonderful amazing life-changing advice because that is the gift that we have been bestowed and it would be selfish if we did not correct share that gift with the world or wherever you're listening because we're not thinking small and as our we're not earth is i mean you're definitely not you're you're so what is the universe planet hopping version of a passport route that's your goal you're like take me take me like take me on a trip i'd like to go someday pluto or saturn i'd like to

see milky way that was good thank you i used to write parody songs in high school did you really yeah my friend and i we made an entire christmas album we did a whole photo shoot with like a pamphlet that came out and we gave it to all of our friends all of my fucking friends from high school still have it and they will still send it like i get rid of all my cds like i've kept this like i'll be contacting sydney right after this it's so it's so good we had one where instead of gimme gimme from by abba but we used like the mamma mia like backing track version we changed it to gibby gibby and gibby was like this small secondary character on i carly we wrote one instead of hey there delilah we did hey there jackson carter who was a kid we grew up with and

we made it like pretending like we were stalking him and like years later i was like we were like sick 15 16 when we made this and like years later I like messaged him on Facebook and I was like by the way I'm so sorry that was like so creepy he goes no it's so funny he's like I tell people like all the time like it's one of my favorite things ever like do not apologize like take it back like do not apologize like I love it like it's my favorite thing and then I'll show people your Instagram and I'll be like she's she made a song we were in high school about pretending to stalk me and I was like well okay so sorry yeah small town things small town things can't say I participated in anything like that and take in mind that it was a christmas present for

friends and that's also finals week so everybody was studying and while everyone was studying i was like i'll make you a soundtrack to study it it's like megan don't you need to study yes why did you quit doing this well that girl and i stopped being friends so that was probably a part of it oh and then i then i started drinking alcohol and then i was like fuck these parody songs i'm gonna go party on the weekends but now that i don't drink alcohol maybe it's time for me to bring back the parody songs it's the inner theater kid in me like i was not a glee theater kid i was a dj earworm one a weird owl oh my god i say dj earworm the same time you say weird owl i don't know who dj earworm is so he used to do the mashups that was like a big thing at my high

school like he would do like a mashup of all the top songs of the year and make them into like like united states of pop was one they're really fucking good i can probably recite the entire mashup okay anyways i don't know how we got here i usually can track it back but i forgot so rewind okay there it is there it is so we're gonna give you advice and you're gonna take it or you're not but you can call in 310-694-0976 and leave us a voicemail and what can international listeners do they can send us a voice memo to meganpodcast at gmail.com please keep it to three minutes or less and send it as an mp3 y'all have been doing very good with that so thank you she's impressed teacher is pleased teacher is impressed and you might be wondering why are we qualified first of

all stop asking questions stay curious keep asking what is that tiktok sound stay curious like keep asking questions it's from brooke and connor make a pot no it's from brooke Lady Ephron. Again you're saying words don't know what they are. I don't need they are words they're not sentences you're right on that. So oh I guess we should introduce ourselves. My name is Megan. My name is Melissa. And together we make up the hot button topic on Fox News. Eminem. Shall they wear heels? Should they wear sneakers? Or boots? I I do want to say I think the go-go boots is very m&ms on brand like i think we should have stuck with we should just throw the go-go boots on flat boots heel when i was in high school i wanted a green car because uh in arkansas you

we do vanity like you can get vanity plates because you don't we don't have front license plates like they do in california and so i wanted to say there's something about the green ones because and then my initials are m&m and it would have been perfect but i didn't get a green car well it's just hard to say maybe that should be our next halloween costume is what we're m&ms but works too and we can pick whatever color what's the tall m&m is that the yellow yellow you're dressed already she already called me arthur before and she was like no pose like him like i'm a doll i i said make a face and i said put on your other glasses because they're closer i didn't do it because i'm a rebel you can't tell me what to do so we're gonna give advice

and it's going to be amazing it's going to be fantastic it's going to be wonderful and if you want to watch the video version of this podcast or you just want to support our show we also do live streams everything's on our patreon it starts at a dollar a month and you can contribute how much you want for if you go past seven dollars i think seven it's one to seven six one to six are we sure i'm positive are your are your glands swollen i like to feel my pulse sometimes just to make sure i'm still alive i've told you multiple times i can never feel my pulse mine's right there i can never feel it let me see and then i'm in like pe class well maybe i can feel it more now with the postcard oh yeah

you gotta really you gotta push into it though it's a little right it's right there oh i can feel it now if i remember in high school were you just like tap touching it before no you gotta push it oh as somebody who took first responder which every day i'm thankful for when i look at my earrings i'm like thankful no in pe class i remember we had to like do like a segment on you know first aid health or whatever and i went to my peter i'm like i can't have a pulse and he was like you have a fucking pulse okay support our patreon support the show live streams are very fun anything else or should we get into let's get into the calls hi i'm melissa um i'm 25 and

you see her pronouns i'm calling to get advice on how to tell my extremely christian parents that i'm not religious here's the context um my parents are christian immigrants who've raised me and my two older siblings to be super religious and my siblings still are we live in the south and went to church every single sunday unless we were either sick or out of town in the past couple years, I've left Christianity for various reasons, including religious trauma that is largely due to my parents and how they raised me. I'm also bisexual, which makes things extra rough since my parents are definitely homophobic. My parents otherwise are good parents. We have a decent relationship, but the ways that they've traumatized me with religion have obviously made it super hard

for me to feel like I can be myself around them and talk openly about my friendships and relationships. I was in therapy for six months last year for my religious trauma, and since then, I've been much happier and actually able to date, which I didn't do for many religious trauma, purity culture, closeted, queer-related reasons. For a while, I decided that lying to my parents about being religious was completely fine since it's none of their business. And I live a couple of hours away from them, and I'm financially independent. In every other relationship I have, though, I'm super open and honest. Not being forthcoming about not being Christian anymore really fucking bothers me. my last romantic relationship was with someone who was Christian even though I wasn't and that

ended um ultimately because of being incompatible with faith and I definitely learned from that mistake so now in my new like current relationship I'm with someone who shares my beliefs used to be Christian and also is not um he's a much better fit for me than my ex and it's really great but I know whenever I tell my parents about him the first thing they're going to ask about is if he's Christian and I'm just tired of lying to them especially because I don't want to put him in a situation where he'd have to be dishonest. I know I'm thinking about this kind of early, but I'm calling in now because I think I'll literally need a long ass time to mentally prepare myself to have this kind of conversation with my parents. I want to be honest with them

for myself, first and foremost, like more so than my boyfriend, just because it's important to me. But now that I'm dating someone who isn't Christian, it's making me think about this a lot more. This is tough because being honest with them is basically me telling them about the one they want with some life which is for all their kids to be christian is something they can't have so please let me know any tips you have for how to approach this conversation or the situation in general thank you so much bye you got this one right oh i've got so much experience with this one i know all about god and the real and the christian and the easter and the and the and the black not black friday what's it called there you go i'm very well versed in it i am a gal from the

myself that went to church every Sunday as well. I have gone back and forth with what my faith is for a while, especially once I was no longer going to church. I kind of stopped going to church in college. I would go sometimes, but not all the time. And then after college, I was like, I don't know if I believe in God anymore. And now I've gotten to the point where it's more of just like it is I have a relationship like I believe in God I have a relationship with God and technically I'm a Christian but I don't go to church at all and I don't want to go to church I think if I had kids and I probably like put them in Sunday school but like once and then they got like a base understanding and they could choose for themselves what they wanted later my and also my mom is a

minister but they're my parents are more like i don't know they're gonna die for that i don't know what like how it's like they're they're not they're not very for like they would like us to have like be christians and all of us me and my sisters we all like identify as being christians but none of us go to church regularly and correct me if i'm wrong but like if you're i would say that your parents their number one like wish for their kids is for their kids to be happy and like have good morals and that kind of thing you get those morals you learn them through religion or not right you ended up at that state and your parents are like yeah they're progressive and like they're not homophobic yeah they're not homophobic they're not people that like are

hateful towards other groups but i can understand where you're coming from how you're afraid because like when you, when you do grow up in it, it is difficult when you realize, especially when I was like, do I actually believe in God anymore? That was hard. And I never told my parents that I was questioning that because that would have been a hard conversation. But yeah, when I was questioning, I was like scared to tell them. And then when I came, it was kind of like coming to my own and realizing what I wanted and what I had, then it was fine. But then I was like, I'm not going to church and I'm not participating in certain things and they after I had I kind of I really didn't like have like a like a sit down conversation with them but when things came up

I would share my thoughts my specific thoughts and they still like they're fine with what they're not like over overly excited about it like mom still like sometimes will be like come to church with mean i'm like no i'm not going um especially if it's an early service which it usually is around when i go for the holidays like very early in the morning like eight o'clock and definitely not oh my god yeah but like they're not completely like they're fine with it then they're not completely okay with it and i don't think they'll ever be but like if i i think like if you come from a place where this is my own relationship with the faith and you you yourself you don't have a relationship if you come from it like this is what I've decided to do with my life and I'm

happy I'm thriving also you said you weren't financially dependent on upon it like it's their choice to accept it or not you can't force anybody to accept it but I also don't think I don't think you need to make a grand announcement but if it does get to the point where your parents ask if your partner is religious or not just say they have the same type of belief that I have yeah and like you you can say as much as you want and you have you say you have time and you feel like you you might be jumping the gun a little bit but like you have you have you do have time to figure out what that is but like and also talking to you say you've been in therapy talking about your religious trauma ask your therapist their thoughts on it but like just

sharing what like bits and pieces of your life without going into too much detail can help in the beginning. And I think they'll eventually get it. They're not going to be happy. And I don't think that they're going to be like jumping for joy for it in the beginning, but they'll get used to it. Yeah. Parents have like a hard time. A lot of parents, I can't speak for all, I mean, I'm not even a parent, but like if you take the, just the trauma part of it, like knowing that they played any role in harming their child, like that's a really hard pill for a lot of parents to swallow and then when that's there's a religious aspect to that it's kind of like you have this whole thing backing you up and why and why you didn't cause any trauma and why it was fine like

you have a higher power or a faith that like implored you to do that and therefore you it can kind of make someone think they're even more right like it can really really like stick them in on that and so I would talk to your therapist about like what's your goal from like your parents in this situation because like this makes me really sad and like you saying like my parents are definitely like homophobic so if the goal is for like them to be accepting of it that's not a goal that like you can control and so like Melissa said like I think there's like a way to and I obviously don't have any experience in the religious aspect of it but anytime that there is an interaction you have with someone in a relationship that they have caused harm in

I'm a big believer in you should speak up you should be like you should say what you want you should be clear with that but the only time I think that you should do that is when you're ready for all of the potential outcomes, not just financially, but also emotionally. And we also know that like, I'm a big fan of lying when you need to lie. Like, and I know you're like, you don't want to keep lying anymore,

but I would also impact like, why? Do you feel guilt? Like, do you feel like you should be honest and truthful? Or is it that you're getting frustrated with this life, this fake life that you've kind of created for them and you're resenting them for loving that version of you who's really not you but then knowing that if you tell them the real you you are really forthcoming about all of this they might still really love that fake you like not the one of you being

honest and truthful about like your life and your experiences with it so I agree in the baby steps kind of way and like really think through your actions because I again don't didn't grow up religious have like pretty much no understanding of it and that's also because I grew up with a parent with a massive amounts of religious trauma. So I don't know much about religion or, and I really didn't grow up with like any of it. Didn't go to, you know, my story of my church one time, which I was like, this is great. It was a black church, Martin Luther King day. And my dad was like, this is not your church. And when I see people talking about their experience with religious trauma as some, like an outsider perspective, which I don't know if it's helpful

at all but like I look at that and I'm like getting through trauma without the tie to like essentially what children have been taught from like moral right and wrong having that loom over you and basically have to reconstruct your entire belief system of like the decisions that you make for yourself not for somebody else and for like the gut indicator like the not being able to necessarily know what that feeling of like if you're feeling like guilt about something of like oh you did something bad not like societal expectations and standards and all of that I look at people who are going through that and I'm like it's so hard to process and deal with your trauma without having a belief system that's been a part of your life and your entire upbringing

that you've never been separated from like you grew up with that so like your moral compass your idea of right and wrong has been associated with religion the entire time and the decision making when you're going through trauma and trying to process all of that is a lot of like am I crazy am I right am I wrong am I all of this other kind of stuff and so that to me is really really really hard and that's kind of a similar but less intense relationship that people have with their parents like it's a relationship you've always known it's something you've grown up with it's like taught me right from wrong and all of this stuff so there are a lot of like layers within that and so I think the long the the time that you can take

with figuring exactly how you want this to go and then coming up with all of the options of the ways that it can go and knowing like are you okay with this do you have a plan in place with this like do you have even something as simple as do I have people I could spend the holidays with the next time like is this like if I decide to like tell them everything and it does not go well do I have a life plan for the events coming up in my life that I don't feel like alone in after this or you might end up going to holidays and then they're like oh she's just lost white right now and she'll eventually find her way back like is that something that you're okay with like dealing with because that could also happen yeah and I would also be curious what your boyfriend says about like what

if you're both in a similar place sometimes like it's a lot easier for people to kind of go along with a facade like when it's not their family but sometimes it's like no I've already done all of this like I'm not comfortable pretending to be someone I'm not or whatever that is so I think that should also be a conversation that shouldn't influence the choices that you make in your own life but anything that you would invite him into that they would be there that you're on the same page but I'm sorry this is really hard all right next call hi Megan and Melissa um I'm 27 years old and my boyfriend is 24 gonna be 25 soon we've been dating for like four and a half years now starting up to over 2018 and I recently found out that he actively physically cheated and

emotionally cheated with a girl that he told me had nothing to worry about physically cheated about eight months into our relationship emotionally cheated practically the whole time up until she had gotten a boyfriend and had a baby so that's when the communication did technically stop or at least chill out. I did call previously, but I was, it was when I was just found out and I was super emotional and my heart was breaking. And now I'm kind of in a dissociative state. So I feel like I have a little bit more clarity. I don't know what to do because this is a man that I've loved for four years. He's the one who wanted to be official and be exclusive and not talk to anybody else. But I know that when he went to California to see his friends, he was making

out with his friend's little sister little meaning his friend was like 30 his sister's like was like 24 at the time so not a minor but they made out they cuddled they apparently touched and tonight I went out with my friends and him and he lost his phone and I found it and I decided to snoop and I know you always say don't snoop if you don't want to find anything well I've always been uncomfortable about this. So I went back and I found it. And there are paragraphs and hundreds of messages of him saying about how much he wants to kiss her neck and take off her clothes and do bad things with her and so on and so forth. And my friend says the man, like my friend that I went out with tonight said that he loves me and that like he would never do anything to hurt me

and I'm his world. But this is a girl that I've asked about him several times. I met the girl and he told me I had nothing to worry about he made me look like a fool in front of his friends and this girl meanwhile he had this whole thing affair with her and now I just don't know what to do because yeah it was four years ago technically but I found out about it now he lied about it the whole time and I'm just so so fucking hurt that's all please give me some advice thank you also he's a tourist and i'm an aquarius if anything bye just to start we're not gonna we're not judging no no we just have questions and we're and we have questions for you and we're not going to like publicly say what like we're not going to speculate on any of it but if you

could send us an email if you don't feel comfortable talking like if you can send us an email or you can send us another voicemail about your first call you called us in january we're not going to say what that was about or whatever like it's we're gonna give you advice on the call that you've given us today but the quality sound quality of that one in january is not great but it does get it makes this really confusing timeline yes yes so very confusing yeah and the sound quality is not that great so like we might have misheard but we might that seems like we've misheard a lot like yeah a lot of things and but again we're going to give you advice on the call you gave today but i don't know how if we can have some clarity on that we would be able to give you

i think more better advice because it does feel like we're kind of going against what has already been said yeah in case y'all don't know if people have called in before sometimes we listen back yeah just to make like get the like sense of what's happened see if things have changed from the other relationships especially when it's relationships and the other call just doesn't quite fit into this timeline please let us know please do so i guess my first thing is like if this happened four years ago so it happened eight months into the relationship was the physical thing the emotional thing was the whole time and and did we know when exactly when it ended because my question is you if you are still snooping if you decided to snoop

after i don't know presumably there's a whole baby so this is at least a year maybe two years that that's still on your mind so to me that is his behavior hasn't changed because sure you can have a feeling about someone that like, oh, this feels like this might be like a sketch kind of relationship. But the reason why you have that feeling is because of the person that you're dating and you know how they react to that person. It's not like bread out of thin air. It's because like I'm dating you. I know how you are when you like someone and this is like this. I'm getting bad vibes. And that's why it's like it's never about the other person. It's about how you're relating to this other person so my question is or my assumption is from that if this had happened

let's say like two years ago then then i don't think his behavior has changed in a way that like is significant for you that this is still top of mind and that this is that the second that you have his phone the first thing you want to do is is snoop right which is not like i'm not again we're very not against snooping but I you snoop because you have a reason to snoop you just wouldn't look out of the blue no and especially if like they stopped their friendship she got a boyfriend like they had a baby and your relationship with him like he made a complete pivot in all of that like you you wouldn't you wouldn't look and so to me I think any relationship can get through like honestly probably any like you can get through anything in a relationship if both parties

want to and put that work into it to me like I like the fact that he didn't tell you any of it and you had to find this out yes that's the worst that really fucking sucks but but also he didn't make you forget about it it's not like the fact that it still weighed so heavy on your mind and it was still this like big unanswered question was because like there were cracks like I don't think that he has redeemed himself in like the, wow, I really fucked up. I'm going to cover my ass and I'm not going to tell her. And then she's never going to have any doubts because you still had doubts. You had doubts.

And even if you said that it ended, you know, if we just cut off the baby part, like at least a year ago, he still had these messages in his phone. Yeah. And then you knew if he hasn't messaged her in over a year, you knew to go to that text message. yeah and like does he have a trip coming up to california again and you were worried about that and you had an inkling yeah why was it top of mind for you because to me that just that just speaks volumes of like the relationship and she's not the problem he's the problem and this i think is proof of that because she's eliminated from the situation but there's been a lot of time there and you still rightfully have these feelings about it because he's the

common denominator and it doesn't seem like you know he's put the the work in to make you even not want to snoop like because that's the thing like for anyone who hasn't snooped there's a huge difference between like there's this like line of like you can be a really curious person but then there's like blissful ignorance that you're like if it's there i don't even want to know because like i'm happy like i don't want it like whatever that so there isn't just a person who like oh i'm curious i need to know everything all of that like that that's not like a a passive kind of feeling that you do when you're really secure in your relation it's just not and so to me that this is like a symptom of like a much bigger issue which is his part in the relationship and not

just his part in the relationship and straying from the relationship with her but his relationship with you and that's where it seems like sure in theory can you get over something from four years ago but it's not like this was a same like you've been stewing on this thing for four years this wasn't like oh this was a one-time indiscretion like the fact that you then snooped and this event happened the physical event happened four years ago you've been living with that feeling of this person and all of this for four years and he knew that and watched you go through this for four years of that and there's been no redemption arc from him like you're not shocked this isn't like oh like our relationship took a massive turn for the better after all of this

like he started going to therapy like he just became so much more present and was such a better partner like he wasn't it's just that now that you found out that this was a part of the journey and you've kind of been like okay wow so i was right and then what do you know what i mean yeah like what do you want to do with this information because you've told your friends and i don't like how your friends it seemed like it was a mutual friend right yeah i don't like how they like he loves you yeah never hurt well he did hurt me yeah like and there's proof that he did it so i don't i don't like how that whole thing went down so it's like now you have the information what do you want to do how do you want to proceed is this something that you can move past have you

at this point because now it's been like a when this comes out it'll be like a week since you called in have you talked to him about it what did he say did he admit to it or did he continue you lying how do you want to move on yeah and you don't have to decide now like it's still new take some time and figure out what you want and also you can try something and then be like okay this is not what I want like there is no set in stone game plan for you like you can go based on how you feel but I think beyond figuring out what you want you need to figure out what he wants and what he's capable of because the idea of like i want to work through this i want to be better that's all then it's like okay so what are you doing so be better right and then like the lying

part like what's going to be different is he going to continue lying or is he not and what happens if you catch him in another lie and what happens about the friends like i wouldn't feel comfortable with my part like i wouldn't feel comfortable with that kind of friendship because it's like you're justifying this by being like i'm blowing this out of proportion when it's clearly not so like did you know about this part and then how much was this kept from me like how many enablers have you been surrounded by and like this isn't something that you both need to work on in your relationship like it's something that he needs your playlist might get you through the work day but have you ever wondered how your ancestors spent theirs what work helped them build a life

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needs to work on and moving past it is doesn't at this point doesn't require anything from you other than participation in him leading that there but if you're having to like tell him what to do or how to make it better or like what he like that's not someone who is committed to the growth because this isn't as much as he did this to you it wasn't about you like it's about him so he needs to grow and do better as an individual and in a person and that means that he will be treating everyone better and everyone with respect like his romantic relationships his friendships his co-workers his family like but that driving force has to be him wanting it like it's not a relationship issue it's a him issue the relationship is a casualty of him like not respecting him not

respecting the people that he supposedly cares about and so i also think if you don't see him doing that and if you don't that you you do not owe him to stick around and watch him go through the motions and pretend to try to get better like it's just like trust your gut in the sense of like can you get past this but can you see him growing and being not being this person anymore and doing all this like can you see him put in that work and why can you see that is it a fantasy or have you seen how when he's approached with a task that he needs to do like is he good at bettering himself like does he focus on self-improvement is he open to like mental health and therapy like has he worked on his boundaries and relationships with other people in his life like how does he

how does he deal with like shame and guilt and struggle like how does he overcome obstacles in his life does he ignore them does he abandon like what does he do because how he operates in rest of his life is how he will operate in, you know, growing from this. But you also don't have to stick around for that. Right. I think there's also nothing wrong with reaching out to this woman and being like, she might not respond to you. She might completely ignore you, but she might respond and being like, hey, I just found this out and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to move forward in this relationship or not. And I am not going to be able to do that if he's not 100% honest with me. Can you tell me exactly what happened? And I can line it up.

She might lie. She might whatever. But at a certain point, what do you have to lose in that situation? And a lot of people have kids and they have a lot of clarity about the mistakes that they've made and the things that they wouldn't want to repeat. And for her, it might be a healing thing of like i really fucked up and couldn't apologize because i don't know what you know and i didn't want to do anything like that so she's not um the number one enemy here and i don't think there's any harm in theory maybe not good for you personally and that's a choice you have to make but in theory of asking her for honesty and being able to cross-reference that with him but at this year many years into a relationship you should know when he's lying

it doesn't have to be either or like i'm breaking up and we're mad and like fuck him or well i was right in the satisfaction it can be both like you can have that satisfaction of like i'm glad that i i'm not glad that this is what happened but i'm glad that my gut was i can trust my gut like i'm glad that like that feeling there i can solidify that especially if you choose maybe not move forward in the relationship but at least try and get more honesty out of him now knowing that like you can really really really trust your god and you can really know when he's not being truthful with you right but caller please because we've got questions we've got questions let's take a break and we are back let's play the call sorry the words were hard to get out of my mouth

I am 20 and use she her pronouns my ex-girlfriend who is 21 and uses she her pronouns and I broke up two and a half months ago after dating for over two years for a little background on our relationship we went to the same high school and started dating right after we graduated in 2020 I went to college about 30 minutes from my hometown, and she stayed there to work, so it wasn't too much distance. Our relationship was amazing, and we loved each other so much. Flash forward a year, her family moved back to the state they were originally from to be closer to family, and she had to make the choice of whether to stay or go. She tried staying for a few months, but ultimately decided to move back to them because she just wasn't ready to live on her own yet. I supported that decision 100%.

She's had a lot of hardships with her family her entire life and struggles with her mental health, so I just wanted her to be happy and healthy. We did long distance, about a five-hour drive for a year, and it was hard, but we both fought to make it work. Unfortunately, through the distance, our relationship didn't grow and lost passion when we were apart. I'm very busy at school, and she had been struggling with a lot of family issues. It was hard for me to understand everything she was going through and support her through it from far away while juggling my busy life. She needed more support from me as a partner, but I just couldn't meet her at that level no matter how hard I tried, and I got very down on myself. So we mutually decided to break up. I wish things

were different, but our situation just got in the way, and I wasn't good with the distance. After two and a half months, I'm still struggling with the breakup, and these past few weeks have been especially hard. I've been tapping into my emotions and reflecting on the past and honestly I've just been feeling a lot of guilt that I couldn't be there for someone that I cared for with my whole heart and I let my busy life at school get in the way. How do I heal from a breakup that was mutual when I'm now feeling a lot of guilt and shame for why it ended? Another thing is after we broke up we stayed in contact. She had a really hard family thing happen right after we broke up and I just wanted her to know that I was still there but we went no contact a few

weeks ago so that I can really work on myself and healing because I'm really struggling and she's a lot farther in her healing journey from me and doesn't really want to talk about it anymore do you guys think it's worth rekindling the friendship one day because even though the relationship didn't work out I still really miss her as my best friend and I just really don't want to lose her in my life I started going to therapy this week to work through these things but any advice that you guys have would mean a lot to me so thank you so much for taking my call obsessed with your voice i love like that just like it felt like sunshine and rainbows and obviously your situation is not you're not feeling like sunshine and rainbows but

you have a lovely lovely voice to listen to this is hard because my instincts kind of switched as she kept talking yeah the thing with relationships are that like when it's a really good relationship that person that you're with is your best friend yeah and when you break up you're not just breaking up like in a romantic way it's also a friendship and i know that you don't want to lose your best friend but it sounds like that she doesn't want that friendship or if she does she doesn't want that best friendship and like there needs to be a bigger divide because there is my high school boyfriend and I were like, he was like one of my best, he was like, yeah, my best guy friend, one of my best, best, best friends. And when we broke up,

it was really hard. It was losing a friend and a relationship. And we didn't ever move forward. But if we were to move forward as friends, we would never be able to be best friends again, because our best friendship was rooted in love that was also romantic. And that's really the only difference between in a relationship where you're not a romantic or asexual the intimacy of the romantic emotional intimacy and the physical intimacy is what differentiates between a friendship and a romantic relationship so that best friendship is rooted in that like she became your best friend I don't know if she was your best friend before but again like if you were romantically involved, that's always going to be woven into that friendship. So it can't be

that again, because it being that again, is it being a romantic relationship? They're not separate. Initially, I was going to say, like, you know, tell her how you feel and just like really apologize. Like, I think there's something great about the fact that especially at your age and being in your early 20s is you learn really quickly. Like you make mistakes or you do things and actions and we start to recognize a pattern in our own behavior or something that we're not proud of a lot quicker than we do when we're younger.

Like that's something that's really great about growing up. But if she doesn't want to talk about it anymore and she's a lot farther along in that, then I don't think you should reach out because she doesn't need it. Right. And this definitely sucks. and i can only speak out from like an outside perspective and so anyone who is in same sex

relationships specifically women who date other women like feel free to be like no you're fully wrong but like because you know we've before people have been like y'all straight show yeah my bad like we are sometimes our straight shows but like from talking to my other like my queer friends they're like mostly still in like friendships with their exes totally and the thing is is that like from my cis hetero perspective the idea of like dating a woman and knowing how deep female friendships are my breakups with female friendships have been harder than romantic relationships there is a closeness that like you have with other women like there is just something like there's something hormonal about it there's like something just like really the understanding

of that like so the a breakup is of that to me i'm like holy fuck that would be so fucking hard because of how just how close you get as women without the romance like i don't get romantically close to women but like how close I get with women I get so much closer with my female friends and my male friend like in the pacing of it so I think that like this makes sense to me why this like has really shaken you up and like you don't want to lose that friendship there because it is I do think female friendships are very different and like there is a much deeper thing there that's harder to kind of let go of but I think that like until you can recognize that you're both at the same place I don't think that there's it's worth it to pursue a relationship

because it's going to be the expense of one of you or both of you like your emotions and your feelings and she's not going to be always ahead of you in the moving on process like there gets to a point where she you've moved past it and it's kind of like once you reach that finish line you've reached it. You don't keep going on farther past the other person. Like it's never, it's not going to be this constant game of catch up. But I do think that you lost two things at once. And you're recognizing now that like, you're not proud of the actions and how you handled it at the time. And guilt and shame are not productive. And like some of the cruelest emotions that we can put ourselves through.

And you've remained in contact with her. It seems like you saying that the no contact thing was a few weeks so you can work on yourself and move along. That seems like it was either something that you brought up or she brought up out of love and without needing to get further validation from her, but recognizing that she allowed you to remain in her life to support her through a friendship

that wasn't as deep as a relationship that you're not a horrible person and people who are horrible people don't look back on their past actions with this much remorse this much like guilt and wanting to make it better and to make it right and you've already taken a step to start going to therapy the good thing about those emotions is they can't stay forever you know like I think of some emotions, like I think of like rage, like some emotions are like a fire, like they come fast and they burn hard, but like you're, you get tired. Like your body has to wear out of them. Eventually it's like lust. There are these certain things that like, they're the most intense emotions ever, but they can't last years. They're like the highest of the highs and they can come

up and they can come down. They can like ebb and flow in that way, but you're not going to feel worse than you do right now right it's gonna keep feeling better and the real thing is is that like I've done so many things I'm not proud of like I've been an absolute cunt like I've been a fucking bitch like I've said awful things about people like I've done shitty things and the only way that we're all not eaten up by guilt all the time is because like we learn from them and we don't do them anymore and then it becomes like a person that is a part of your past but it's it's not someone you recognize and it's someone that you can acknowledge like okay you know that was you then but I'm really glad I'm not doing that anymore and so it's not about proving it

to her I think you really need to prove it to yourself and that truly is is the time and not trying to rewrite this relationship in a way that eases you of guilt but that going into your other relationships with this knowledge of like I didn't like how I carried myself through this and I'm not going to do that again right so it's hard and I can yeah I think back even just to friends that I feel like I'm like I wonder if I just feel like I wasn't there for them enough during this or I maybe I was maybe I wasn't but knowing that like I don't want to burden the other person with that but I also do acknowledge that like you know if this person has like maintained a relationship with me in their life they've met me where I'm at at certain points and I've met them

where they're at there's an ebb and flow there and like the best thing I can do is just be a better version of myself for them and other people that I meet so best of luck I think you'll find that therapy can be really helpful and insightful for this stuff I do want to say because I have mentioned before that I'm friends with exes and I just want to make sure that y'all don't think that like I've I've changed you know like I'm lying or anything no but one of them's gay so that's not an issue one of them was never I wasn't in love with him so like you know we never said we we're in love with you we're just together that makes a lot of sense to me and like and so and like we're still friends and then one of them still very strong sexual uh emotions towards the

other and when either of us are in a relationship we don't talk to each other so yeah so if the person from the second relationship if you're a significant other if you are the significant other listening know that you're not the third relationship yeah you're the second one clearly i just want to make sure they know i know i know i know i just i just want us all to be on the same page okay now it's time for don't blame them or don't blame thems who are doing two thems what is don't blame them don't blame them is when y'all call in to share your own advice it could be a situation that you have in common with the person or you just have a lot of thoughts yeah based on a call that's been on a previous episode it's a great little segment we'll have to hear

what you have to say sometimes it starts new conversations hi i'm calling for a triple whammy don't blame them because so much of the last episode most recent episode applied to me so my calls are about codependent with your mom boyfriend doesn't take initiative postpartum sex i will go quick so i make the three minutes i'm a 29 year old she her lawyer who just had a baby this year and i'm married to a 30 year old attorney uh being codependent with mom this can sometimes be a cultural norm as a South Asian woman. It was expected that I would just let my mom scream at me and that we would just be okay later. I tried standing up to her in the past and it led to me sometimes being slapped and having to go through a contract. That is not something you can really

do if you're financially dependent. So I recommend working on getting to being like not financially dependent. It also took my husband standing up for me, which was really scary, but also necessary after we had a baby. And I would just say that follow the advice that Melissa Moss Megan gave, and also maybe try doing a three-way call with the collection agency because three-way calls have been super helpful. I'm medically disabled, and with collection calls for my chronic illness, that has been really helpful is doing a three-way call. Lawyer boyfriend, it sounds like he's still in school and not fully an attorney yet, so these issues will probably only get worse, unfortunately, once the stress of the job come up. You might just not be a good

fit for one another, but if you wanted, you could try the love languages quiz to see how you he gives love and how you receive love and have a conversation about that you also might have an anxious attachment style and need more affirmation and he could be more secure so that might be something you might need to work on as well but it is possible that it's just maybe not the right fit and postpartum I will speak directly to the caller for this hi mama I know you're in the thick of it right now I know things are really hard your body's different your brain is different and your life is different your brain's making things a lot worse than it actually is and way more complicated my husband struggled performance anxiety catholic guilt and sex was really mental

for him and i think we need to reformat the way we see men and talk about them i know they're not always the greatest but you married your partner for a reason and he's probably fatigued he's going through a huge life change and newborns can make dads feel lost and insecure and just like they're not doing enough and they don't know what's going on and it's a development for them too so expecting him to finish during all of that is not a fair expectation and if we put that same expectation on ourselves or other women, we would say that's not reasonable. So men can enjoy the act of having sex, even if they don't finish. Sometimes my husband is so tired, he just doesn't have it in him. But he likes kissing and cuddling. So maybe try other forms of intimacy. If he doesn't have

the energy and then get a therapist. It's been super helpful for me. I had a really bad PPA. I just want you to know you're not alone. I'm here for you. The podcast is here for you. It's really fucking hard, but it gets better. I promise it gets better. Do not be afraid to get help. I'm sending you so much love. Okay, thanks. Bye. that was so sweet it was incredibly thought out you went to law school yeah we finished law school you're so impressive i think about that postpartum caller all the time i'm wondering how she's doing yeah anyone any anyone who's listening to podcast postpartum like i think that the fact that we're talking about postpartum a lot more uh in spaces with people who don't have kids yet who haven't

gone through that, I really hope it's going to be taking a lot of the stigma away and the preparation and hopeful advocacy, because it's incredibly hard to advocate for yourself when you're going through it. And it's a lot easier to kind of put up measures in place beforehand or know something that you could be anticipating, especially like informing your partner and your partner, not informing your partner, your partner being informed on their own accord about these different things so shout out to anyone who's currently going through that and uh that original caller as well and thank you to this caller for reaching out and you know sharing yeah the podcast is here for you guys all right next one hello megan and melissa so

this is for the episode becoming a sugar daddy for the girl who wants a sugar daddy um oh i go by they them pronouns i'm 25 so i do agree with megan and melissa starting off with this only fans first however you do need a following so what i did was i started a twitter like a spicy twitter and pretty much got a following from there and after i got like over a thousand followers uh that was when i started my only fans and that was how i was able to get traction and new followers um another thing is i do not know how reddit works but there are a lot of kinky people on reddit like trust me like i have seen like some like friends who also have only fans promoting theirs on reddit and we're able to get traction as well like there's people

there's people with like different fetishes on there another thing use this as a last resort um i used to do this not anymore because i got banned from tinder so what you do on tinder or bumble um you set up an age like maybe over 50 plus or and you would find some like lonely boomers and also set the distance for really far because um i i don't want to meet people like in real life and that's scary um so i would do this i would get like money from people via cash app via venmo um i would also have it in my bio but um since tinder is pretty strict with that they banned me bumble however it did not but i don't do that anymore so yeah i really hope all these things help love the podcast love you guys and uh yeah good luck i want to reiterate that's a lifetime

ban for people yeah so like if you're going to do as a last resort like it can't be a dating app that you ever want to use again and if they come out with like a new dating app it's highly likely that you will also be banned right from that i think that's like a great call i gotta say i see the tweets i follow people who have started doing you know only fans and things and i gotta say people the engagement i've seen on some of these on twitter and stuff i'm like oh wow or people will like post about like a photo and there's a lot of times like there's a lot of like resharing of photos of people that once you put it out on twitter you don't own it anymore it's not copyrighted so other people will post it and i just advertised people i was gonna say i saw

someone that like i had known who like you know was doing this and they were replying to a tweet that someone had done of being like oh my god like this like something about this man and people were tagging him and they were like oh he's got an only fans they're like oh my god whatever happened to the content he's making like oh no he's doing only fans now and like he responded and was like hey and they were like oh fuck yeah and like the engagement on those tweets were crazy and yes same thing for subreddits like i'll i usually see them from am i the asshole where you like will then look at who posted it and it'll be like the original posters history and they'll be like complaining like my wife won't cook dinner for me every night like what a fucking like a bitch like

i do everything for her and then people will just like drag the posters history where it's like literally all you do is interact with these only fans accounts and talking about like i want to give you money like i love you you're like all of this stuff people are like so that's also a huge thing and tiktok too i don't know as far as like women but i know men they are on tiktok and they'll do like pictures of them like working out or something but they'll show like their print they're working out and then their dig print oh okay they'll wear yeah they literally sit there and get themselves a little hard and then oh yeah you can't do that if you you can't do that well no i just mean like the i think that there's a little more leeway with the penis havers yeah

but i don't talk yes but i don't know there might be a woman equivalent but i'm just not on that side of tiktok so i'm sure there is but like people will then ask them what's your twitter and like people that are in words yeah there's code words and so when they give them their twitter then the twitter helps get to the only fans because you can't ask for only fans but you can't ask for the twitter yeah so i would just say that like if this for anyone who's like going to like fully pursue this pursue this I would this might sound silly but like I would think about it in a similar way that the same advice I would give to content creators where it's like diversify you can't rely on one singular platform for your money and especially for like making money like

OnlyFans has gotten better at like not they had like a bit for where it was like people were getting banned for like things or like a hiatus on paying payments and stuff but the best way would be to not have to rely on only one platform that's promoting it it's cross promoting it on every platform that you have and knowing that one's going to get banned every couple months you're going to have to start over on that one and knowing that that's just part of that's just part of it and i would also say like taking payments yes from only fans but then also like yeah a cash app kind of thing where you're going through it all on your own as well and yeah there's a there's a lot a lot of fitness people who will do that like you said similar of like women who

like will be working out i did see one on twitter which i have to say was truly the smartest advert i would have never fucking thought about it it's a girl dancing in front of her mirror and she put a ring light behind her dress her dress is on but she's not wearing underwear so you can just see the like it's like illuminating and it's a shadow of her vagina vagina and she's dancing and she's looking cute and someone was like oh my god are these her vagina lips and someone quote tweeted and was like this is so creative and such smart fucking advert like it truly found a way to get around it and there's a lot of people who post about OnlyFans and like creators and be how like you know how to do that kind of stuff not in like a oh pay $50 and here's

my seminar and i'll take a cut of all that but there's a lot of people like talk on code like really code that language and have built platforms on talking about that on tiktok and places like that yeah and i saw this gal the yesterday explaining how she's a topless house cleaner oh yeah which she only does yeah but she only she's like she did it for five hours the other day and made like two thousand dollars and then and she has like a bodyguard too and she gives her bodyguard 30 of it so i was like and it was all in cash and the sugaring subreddit as well that will show i don't know what the correlation is but i'm like i like frequent the i love reading the stories about the nanny subreddits like people talk about like some of because a lot of them are

very la and of like the people that they work for um and then the sugar maybe one will come up to but i think it's a lot of like employees helping each other to deal with all that that's really helpful from like the things that i've seen obviously i have not interact i'm not obviously but i haven't interacted in a from a personal sense so someone else could probably give a personal experience of it but it seems like a lot of people who are recognizing that that this career in this industry is highly stigmatized and is not necessarily socially acceptable or safe for people to talk about in public and or in the safe in the daily practices and so it's a lot of coming together and people who you don't even know who are just were able to get where they are safely

by helps of other people and everyone's paying it forward and making sure everyone's safe because it's self-regulated so i think that's a great resource too and just information too because the more information you can get before deciding to do it i think it's better so yeah that's it for our episode we hope you all enjoyed do you feel like we gave wonderful advice i know i did too uh if you enjoyed this episode you can leave us a review on the podcast app or wherever you listen to your podcasts we always appreciate it and like we said at the earlier part of the episode we are also on patreon so you can support the show if you like what we're doing you can join us for our live streams if you want it's a great way to socialize covid friendly distance make

friends with people all over the globe because we have people who are from america and then someone went to the uk and they were like i'm gonna go hang out like you can have you ever needed like a friend in a cool place that you want to go visit this is the way to do it this is like adult pen pals it's like it's a fun time and everybody's cool we vet we really vet for everyone um and if you want to call in for an upcoming episode again you can leave us a voicemail or send us a voice memo the voicemail 310-694-0976 and voice memos to meganpodcast at gmail.com i had on over to our socials like the content we make and tell us something good that happened in your week i like that anything else that's it okay bye

don't blame me is a production by me megan rinks and me melissa d montz 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.