Don't Blame Me! - Husband Didn't Finish w/ Mats

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Mats, the first member of our 5-Timers Club, joins for the annual Valentine's Day episode. They give advice on: Update: Serial monogamous now dating a friend Ex-friend/current roommate spreading lies Being co-dependent with your mom Boyfriend doesn't take initiative Postpartum Sex 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] International Listeners Send a Voice Memo To: [e-mail] … with as much detail as possible under 3 minutes! WeI'll do our best to share our wonderful words of wisdom. If you're under 18, please get your parent's permission. Advice is for entertainment purposes only, so you can't blame us if we screw up your life. I kid! Our advice IS AMAZING. Want to WATCH this episode as well? Become a patron! https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Join the Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dbmsecretgroup Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/join/dontblameme Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hello hello happy valentine's day and you know what that means guess who's here you have to talk what's going on it's not this is number oh i we tried to do this last time do you know how many you've been on five five okay yeah because the first one i did was in that office that's how i went through it too yeah okay i don't know time i mean i could have gone through and looked but that's a lot of effort it's really not when you take like three clicks but that's three too many it is three too many i like to do my internet deep dives on things that have no use to my life not actual facts and things like this like it's so funny like when it comes to like a fact about like my life or whatever i'm like i'm not gonna google it but if it's oh we're trying to remember

what we recognize this person from or what who is the who does shack from love island look like i will spend hours did you guys ever figure that out no but you're right though it's like it's a combination the guy from love island who he looks like yeah it's like mahershala ali with some somebody else in there yeah there's an animated character as well and then there's one that's like they have the same fucking face but i just can't figure out who it is i i'm not gonna lie don't see any of those elements if you we look here's the thing i don't even watch the show and then megan just showed me a picture and she goes oh he does look like someone it's hard it's difficult so i guess um to introduce who mots is for the singular person

who did discover this podcast from the reel that we posted of me shitting on golden retrievers this is months months this is i'm months did you just call me months that's me i was well i was i I was about to say, you should know too, when I was trying, when I was doing talk to text to you specifically, anytime I say Mott's or even anything that sounds like it, it auto corrects to his name. But I was texting you, but I was doing voice to text trying to say Mott's and then it auto corrected to your last name. And when I clicked it, it was like, see, Melissa Mott's.

I was like, oh, look at that. Now, this is my fiance. Mott's. Mott's. M-A-T-T-S. Or Mort as the guy this morning called me. wait shut up he was on the phone this morning he answers the phone i don't know who it was and i just hear on this like hey mort and mons goes mort and the guy goes sorry sorry mons i couldn't stop

laughing who was that yeah contractor on the build it was just an accident yeah it was but it was funny it was so in the moment in the moment and like he's on the phone for like 10 minutes the whole time i'm like quietly laughing at mort oh somebody's grandpa yeah truly i'm the listener's grandpa today because i'm gonna give great advice you don't want to you're skipping your phil dunphy dad era i don't think feel like phil dunphy actually gave good advice that's true and the last dad we had on the podcast giving advice yikes yikes are one and only anyways we are an advice podcast where we give wonderful amazing life-changing advice and every year for valentine's day we bring on this man mort mort to give his own input his own advice and if you have been like

you know i love megan and melissa but i need the input of a penis in this said no one ever i need that whole sentence so i should leave them no no you can stay you can stay so we're gonna give advice we're gonna hopefully not ruin your lives and if we do ruin your lives why did we name it the podcast the podcast so you can't blame us don't blame me if you want to call in for an upcoming episode you can leave a voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us a audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com keep it all under three minutes write it down practice time it out read it out loud rehearse it do your dress rehearsals do your do your don't don't cold read it we want you to practice you don't have to memorize it and then

when you have it under three minutes you have all the details make sure you have your age in there it's all anonymous relationship how long have you been dating if you're like oh this person and i have beef give us the beef give us the specific example of the beef angus wagyu meatball sirloin oh yeah she's a bison bitch give us those examples because why else do we start a podcast if not for the tea and we will do our very best to give you advice and we also do like if you let us know that you are sensitive because then you don't roast no it's not roasting it's more so of just we don't go with our natural cadence that's what i was gonna say like it doesn't change the advice that i give no it just changes my word choice like it it just i have to think

for a second yeah because like i there are some people who listen to the podcast who are sensitive which like again there's nothing wrong with but then they will be like this was super super harsh when you gave this and i'll like listen back to it i'm like i don't think that was harsh at all but if the person had like gave the precursor like hey i'm really sensitive i probably wouldn't have phrased it the way i i did but i have a hard time my i talk to everybody like i talk to all of my friends and like i talk to everyone like i've known them forever which is a blessing and a curse so you have to let me know if you're like hey i'm a little sensitive and i won't be like you dumb fucking bitch you know well i'm a boastful person and i'm a roastful person so today's gonna be

boast and roast imagine moths just getting on this podcast and like roasting our listeners like there's no shot i think i think it would be no you would do it in private but there's no way you do it on the fucking podcast i think it would be tit for tat because because megan knows this like my inspiration is obviously like local sports talk radio yeah him and his brother started a podcast for a minute. And I didn't know this. This was like eight years ago. It was not eight years ago. It was a long time ago. Okay. Anyways, I'm excited for you to fulfill your yearly your annual podcast sports radio dreams. So before we get into the calls, we have an update. So I originally called in on the episode titled My Friend is a Pathological Liar. And my call

was about transitioning a platonic friendship to a romantic friendship or a romantic relationship. And I had called in because I was like casually dating this guy. We had been on a few dates. I was also seeing other people. I called myself a serial monogamist, but we decided that I'm not really a serial monogamist. I just was in a long term relationship for several years before this and everything is brand new. The long story short of why I've called in for this now second update is I broke up with that guy and subsequently the rest of the roster as well. And actually, I like ended things with the more casual partners that I had first, because I did really want to try and make it work with my friend, with this person that I had like a deeper emotional

connection with. I think I'm just still going through a breakup and I really had to have an honest conversation and be like, it's not you, it's me. And I hated having that conversation, but it had to happen and he took it as well as as one can take that conversation I think was very respectful was very understanding I didn't tell him this part but I will share this with y'all because I know you like the juicy TMI details so just to to demonstrate how how it's so like not him it's me I like tried masturbating the other day which is something I do very regularly and I started crying and that is not something that happens very regularly. So again, just to like demonstrate it, I'm going through something and I just, I just am not

feeling like a romantic or sexual person at all right now. And so, yeah, he was very understanding of that. He said he hopes we can still be friends. I hope we can still be friends. I'm pretty confident that we will be, but yeah, that's kind of the big, the big update there. It was a nice four months while we had it. Yeah. Do you feel like I've had friends who are very much like serial monogamous, like relationship, relationship, relationship. And then when they finally had, whether it was like the biggest breakup or kind of like it all just kind of compiled and they were like, oh, I'm like mourning like every breakup I've ever had in one in this like one go that it like it's it can be a lot because like we seek like companionship and like community and

closeness like when you're going through something hard like a breakup and then for a lot of people that ends up being in like another relationship and so this I could totally see that being a much longer kind of grieving process than maybe you've been used to yeah for sure and like I I'd like to think I'm pretty self-aware and I think I mentioned before that I am in therapy so you know I'm working through these things but there were some some new developments and I don't want to get too specific about the X of it all. But something kind of dramatic happened over the holidays. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm not as over this as I thought I was. Yeah. Life always just throws you those fucking curveballs. And you're like, excuse me,

I was doing amazing. Like, why? Why are you doing this? I like this is fucked up and really selfish of you. Like, this is not the time. Read the room. I was cured. I was fine. yeah you can't do this to me after all that no no no no yeah that's it's it's true it's a big mind fuck yeah so can you give like a brief timeline of everything oh yeah yes so okay so when I called initially that was maybe uh like September I had been out in the dating scene for like four months at that point so i i felt like okay ready to try this with a friend with someone i already had a connection with and not just like a random person from bumble or whatever and then i think i called in the update we had been dating for about two months at that point

because i called in and like left a voicemail and then the episode aired with my voicemail about a month later. Sorry. Started dating my friend in September. It's now as we're recording this February and we had the let's just be friends conversation like two weeks ago. Okay. Wow. I was going to ask, I don't remember. How long were you dating your ex before this? We were together for eight years before they broke up with me. Yeah. So, cause I, I used to say this thing, which I don't even know if I still totally believe it, but I do think like, at least for me, it was like a good parameter that like I noticed in myself when like getting over relationships if it was like something I had

to get over some some of the sometimes in a relationship ends like friendship or whatever you're like I've been over it before like this actually officially ends I felt like for me it took half as long as the relationship or like twice as long in just the sense of like unpacking whether or not like I'm can be over it at a certain point but it's a lot of like oh am I getting triggered by seeing a car that this person drove that you mean like oh is this this is this them or am I like missing wanting to like send them things like oh they saw this funny meme or whatever it is like that when someone's been in your life for so long regardless of what that relationship is it's for I I like felt like I had to like kind of detox that and then like have

other people in my life who like that's who I want to send these memes to like and it's then it becomes second nature to it so like eight years is it's a very long long time that like I would need a lot of support getting through said breakup. But then it's like, oh, I think it's good on you to like draw that line of being like, this support was good as friendship. But like now that we're moving to something a little more intense, like I can't be the person I want to be. I can't receive and give that in the way that I would want. Yeah. And it was like a good little relationship. Like it just I don't necessarily feel like I started something before I was ready. Cause I felt ready at the time and it felt comfortable and supported and

still like new and kind of scary, which is why I called it advice podcast about it. Like it felt, it felt good and it felt right at the time. And then, yeah, it felt right until it didn't. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the most illuminating thing I ever felt in therapy. Like when my therapist was just like, you know, like it's all good until it's not. And then it's like, it's not good anymore and it doesn't serve you. And then like, that's fine. But like the idea that like you have to manipulate and mold things to like get back to where they were she was like it's just you don't have to and that doesn't mean that you did anything wrong yeah or it was a bad choice right it was bad or that like you weren't happy at the time like you were and things you

just change people change evolve yeah it's very clear you're in therapy like it's like the the best decision like if my therapist is here she'd be like yeah bitch do it yes yes it served you and now it doesn't and now we're moving on yeah that's kind of where i'm at so yeah i'm just being a single pringle right now and that's what needs to happen right now in a new different era of your life and it's it's cool to get to like know yourself like for again i don't i wouldn't consider myself like a serial monogamist by any means but like i had friends who were who experienced like being single after like a long-term relationship and you know highs and lows but it's really exciting for them to like you know figure out what they like and then also

just like have all this freedom and starting new hobbies and all of that stuff like it's it's a it's a new journey yeah so best luck out there being a single pringle yeah once you pop you can't stop yes well thank you for giving us another update i'm happy that you're happy with the decisions that you've made and are continuing to make and like melissa said once you pop you can't stop you truly cannot stop and i'm always saying that great love it so thanks y'all i appreciate it oh we are going to take a quick break and then we will get into the calls and now it is time to get into the calls let's do it i'm making a melissa i am a college sophomore

and i would like a pipe about a situation as far as my roommate who was also my friend i was doing badly this year and i decided that i ultimately wanted to transfer to a different college closer to where I live. And the response from my friend ultimately led to my ex-best friend at this point no longer being friends. And what I really want advice on is now she is constantly posting on her Snapchat story, her private Snapchat story. And I know this because I have a friend who's on there and will tell me things and it just really makes me upset because the things she's posting one aren't like necessarily true or are warped in a way that makes me seem bad and I can't really disclose exactly what happened and that led to the end of the friendship but

basically there was like a lot of guilt being put on to me for my decision and um a lot a lot of it makes it of what she's posting makes me seem like a really bad person and it's something I have like control issues and and how I'm perceived obviously I can't like control that but what can I do to like fix this situation because it's kind of just driving me crazy knowing that she's posting and I want to hear what she's posting and I don't because I just would like to move on it's very difficult because we live together but and I don't feel like moving out it's just too much work I'll just get through it but it's just a high tension situation and I just hate knowing that there's constant posts that paint me in such a bad light and I also feel like I've kind of sit silent I

don't know i just want to be petty but i don't know if this is if you can help me it would be very much appreciated i just have to tell you that there's the phrase you are the main character in your own story but when you are the villain in someone else's story you are also a main character and that is corny as fuck for your friend like you're always going to be the villain to someone someone's always going to dislike you but for someone to put this much time and effort into being passive aggressive about this because it is passive aggressive if you want to be done with this friendship then you have to be just done with it and then recognize that this is a super petty and corny and like thing to do but if you i mean the plot twist when like maybe i missed early on

that like i just fucking assumed you had moved out yeah i didn't think that y'all were still roommates but you are and since you're in college are you like actually in the same room or like have you already transferred or are you transferring because you've already transferred to a new school then I would think it's an apartment maybe because how would you live at one college while attending another that's true I mean like you said like you can't control with like how you're perceived but I do think that like when you have a really hard time with how someone is viewing you in this instance, I think because,

and I don't want to mean to say this like in a cunty way, but like, I think there has to be enough truth there that you're feeling like you might have actually done something. Cause like when someone like makes claims that I'm like, they're literally so fucking baseless. Like I don't, I'm not hurt by that because like, that's like all bullshit.

Like none of that's true. Like it doesn't affect me, but I think because you're really wanting to correct this, I think it might feel close enough to the truth. But at the same time, like, everyone also has their own version of, like, how they interpreted it. And so she might be really hurt by it. But having and carrying the guilt, like, that's a choice that you make.

And I'm not saying that, like, you did something wrong. You could have maybe gone about this in a better way. But you also don't know that that would have changed her reaction. And at this point, like, if you don't want to be friends with her anymore... then I say you just don't be friends with her. But if what she's saying is kind of close to the truth or her own version of the truth that is not a lie and you think that she's going to get other people

to believe that and then it's going to like affect those relationships, then I think that like maybe it is time to do some like internal reflection because if someone came to me and told me like that Melissa did something like so fucking cunty and like really like I wouldn't believe it immediately. but if you think that she's going to like convince these other people and they're going to believe

that about you why is that like a is that like a self-esteem thing or do you have some regrets and how you have carried through ending this relationship this is one of the times that we talk about that i want specific examples yeah me too and i know you said that you didn't want to tell but there i can't i i feel like i can't give true advice unless i know exactly what's being said and then what your truth is of that. But if you want it to end, I would have like a conversation with her and just say, hey, like, I know that you're posting things on your Snapchat about me. Why are you posting it? Why are you still, why are you doing this? And can we sit down and have a discussion about this? Because it needs to stop. Yeah. I would also just say,

practically speaking, it sounds like you've already made your decision to transfer and that that's locked in same thing it would be nice to kind of know a little bit more about the situation but assuming it's like two different schools they're in the same city or same town or like same general location like if you know if you've made a decision that you feel is is best for you my advice is it it's probably better for like what remains of your college experience to maybe find a new place to live someplace that's like a little bit more ingrained with what's going on at your new school. And I don't know if it's like a commuter college or like a city college, but sometimes they're a little bit more like people just kind of show up to go to class

and do their thing and they leave at the end of the day or for the weekend. But if that's not the case, and there's kind of like a more traditional social aspect to your new school that revolves around like a student neighborhood or, you know, whatever, I would look to find someplace to live around there. Because if you do, you know, take Melissa's advice and sit down with your friend And people are ineffable. It may be a positive conversation. It may be the excuse this other person needs to have an unproductive or toxic moment that might make things worse. And if that does happen and you're still living there, it's just going to be really hard for you to focus on a new thing, a new kind of chapter in your life that you want to embark on. So just practically speaking, I think you might want to move or do something that that kind of gets you more ingrained with your new spot, your new school. Yeah, I don't even think like you could have ended a friendship amicably in the sense that like I'm going to transfer and it would be like, OK, cool, amazing. I still don't think you should live together like right I think that that automatically would

create a wedge and an issue there because she's not going to be pursuing friendships of like classmates and peers there and neither are you like it's just I I just don't think that like regardless of like how both of you are kind of carrying about it on like I don't think it's a reaction issue I think the situation is needs to be remedied like I don't think you can get through that. The other thing I would say is speaking from personal experience, you know, before this was in LA and before I lived with Megan, obviously, but I lived with someone that I had become really good friends with through work. And we moved in together and we were really excited because we were friends and we felt like it was, you know, it was going to be perfect. And we just like,

weren't good roommates like our personalities at home or like for an extended time together like it wasn't a good match and when we stopped living together like I would say our friendship wasn't really in a very positive place and it immediately improved after we moved to different places like we moved out and there was maybe like a period of like a month or two months where we we didn't really talk that much we kind of you know we would see each other at like uh events with like other people in our in our social circle and like we would text a little bit and then after that month or two months we we talked about it and it was really it was really nice we kind of just got like we got it all out of our system and some of the issues that we were having living together

kind of just became like funny inside jokes that we now tell like when we hang out and we're really good friends again and you know I'm not saying that will necessarily happen but I will will say that happened to me with someone in LA. It also happened to me when I lived with someone in college. And it also, those two experiences kind of really taught me some things that in retrospect, I now know made it a little bit harder to live with me. And I'm not like casting aspersions. We don't know all the details of your situation, but as Megan said, maybe if there is something or some things that you maybe wish you had done a little bit differently or apologize like getting out of the living situation for like these reasons can also help you like

become more cognizant of those things and potentially improve your relationship with your friends so that you guys can remain friends like into the future yeah yep we've talked about this a lot yeah no I'm like Maz is about to go into his reason and of being on our team of don't live with friends yeah yep so shall we get on to the next let's do it I'm Megan and Melissa I've been listening to this podcast for many years and I'm a huge fan today I'm calling about an issue with my mother she her 60 years old and myself she her 22 years old for some background information I'm my mom's only child and for as long as I can remember from at least the age of five I have been her emotional support system which was very traumatizing for me growing up

and now live with my partner in a city about two hours away from her where I go to university and work full-time. I purposely only went a very short distance away since I'm very codependent with her and feel responsible for her emotional well-being even though I'm working on letting that go in therapy. The main problem that I'm calling about started about six months ago. I got a parking ticket on campus and forgot to pay it and since my mom owns my car they sent her to collections for the ticket. For context, the ticket was only about $80 and I had a lot of mental health stuff going on at the time, which my mom knew the severity of since I had asked her advice since she's a therapist. It just slipped my mind and once she got the letter, I immediately paid the ticket and

apologized profusely. She was really upset with me, but I took it because I knew that it was my fault I hadn't paid it. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, she keeps telling me she's getting scam calls asking her for money, so I told her to check if it was a collection agency and it was. my mom was freaking out, so I went to the parking office on campus, and they said they had made a mistake and didn't mark my payment correctly, and they would tell the collection agency to back off. They didn't do that, and my mom was still getting calls, and I couldn't call the collection agency because the bill wasn't in my name. So I told my mom she would have to call them herself, and I gave her the receipts and all the phone numbers she needed to call. She didn't like that

very much she thought I should handle it so she called me and screamed at me for about an hour before my partner got home and realized what was going on and hung up the phone. I proceeded to have panic attacks for the next couple hours and ever since I've kind of been in a depressive episode. It's now been a week and she's refusing to speak to me. What she knows is torture because I'm codependent with her. I cannot function and I'm trying to go to class and show up my job and pay my bills and I'm having a really hard time. I really want to cave and call and say everything was my fault, but I know that will just reaffirm that her behavior was okay. I have an appointment to talk to my therapist about this, but in the meantime, I really just wanted some advice on

how to handle this so I don't fall deeper into my spiral. Any advice you guys have would be very much appreciated. Thanks. This sucks so much. Yeah. I'm sorry. It seems like parents that are therapists I'm not saying this is the case for everyone but parents that are therapists are kind of bad at speaking to their children I've seen it a lot I've heard about it a lot I've it's actually it's on tv too I mean my like my therapist had like said before about like there are some people who are they they seek clarity in their own life to heal through therapy and then there are people like there are people who then like pursue that as a lifelong passion of like oh this helped me so much or I could be helping people in my life who I saw like who

needed this and they use it for that and then there are other people who don't really want to change but they want to know how to get what they want and like psychology can be like can be used for good or evil in that kind of sense and so there are sometimes like it's it's weaponizing that and like patients do it who have gone to therapy like psych students do that who've just taken some classes if you've read a book but then yeah people who are like therapists can also weaponize that and use it as like leverage so it's really hard to kind of argue with that or dispute that because it's like disputing a parent who is like a doctor on something about medicine Like it, it's no longer just the role of like child parent authority figure. It's pupil professional authority figure as well. So like you're, you're able to acknowledge that like what she's doing is like, she's essentially torturing. I mean, it's emotional abuse, but she's like torturing you in like the refusing to talk to you.

And you also acknowledge that like the relationship is codependent and like you've been her like emotional support person since she was five. You were five. And she knows that her emotional support person should be her therapist, not you. so i think that like this is this is hard because codependent relationships in order to repair them which i'm sure you know you're in therapy have to involve like they're so individual like someone who you're not just being in a code but being in a codependent relationship with one person most likely and usually means that the next person whether it's like you're dating them or whatever like that's kind of how you've established boundaries or lack thereof in all of your relationships and in order to repair codependent tendencies that's like a self-work thing but if you want to repair a codependent relationship both parties have to acknowledge that issue and

like work on that themselves and she's not doing that I and I don't mean to sound like harsh but like and I can I know that you're still really in in the thick of it but there's like nothing that you can say or do that will fix this like like you've even said like you you know if you call and you apologize and say it was all your fault that you're kind of just starting the cycle again and it doesn't sound like you want to do that it sounds like you really want to break out of this and the only way to do that is time and so like my advice is distraction my advice is like you know going to the movies or like doing all these other different things and like filling your life with things like that, because codependency in that sense, and even like toxic

relationships, emotionally abusive relationships, they can be kind of addicting. And seeing your life without that, even if it's not permanent, I just found for me personally, like adding on the amount of days that I could kind of prolong something and like continue a boundary or keep some silence or whatever, the more confident I was able to be in my decisions because I didn't have someone else in my ear who's was constantly doubting. That's awful. And it's like one degree more awful because the thing that instigated this whole thing for you is government or school bureaucracy. So it's like a really irritating thing that for you, I'm sure like, you know, was a catalyst for something that's probably been painful for a long time. I obviously like wouldn't

surprise them with this. I think I agree with Megan that maybe distance and distraction are probably the best methods right now. If your mother does start making an effort to get back in contact with you in a negative way or in a way that is designed to make you feel bad, but you need to talk to her whether it's like to rectify this particular issue or if like it's some other thing that unfortunately you both have to be involved in whether it's like both your names are on the lease or whatever it may be I would talk to your partner about whether they would be comfortable kind of like being your witness or your protection like on those phone calls I find that like sometimes you know like in the past and in in my life like if I have to

have like a particularly like delicate or fraught conversation that can you know like push me into like a really emotional state and I know it's going to be like that and and I have to kind of prepare for that having someone that I'm friends with or or I trust that can at least even if they're just like sitting there and listening to kind of you know and and telling you to like kind of stop or like disengage and kind of like remind you not to get like pulled back in to a an hour long conversation where you're being like berated can be really really helpful now like i said like you know don't don't like you know grab them right before you make the call or anything like that but I would I would talk to them and say hey like you know I have to talk to my mom are you okay if

you're just like there for me like in that moment like during that conversation and it kind of sounds like your partner already is but that would be my my advice you know in the short term is yeah distance and distraction and if you do need to talk to your mom taking care to like rely on that uh source of moral support and love that you live with right now in the form of your partner you have done that a lot for me yeah he's been emotional and physical shield the last thing i want to touch on that for my thing was that like the the witness part is also there's a lot of shame in when you don't have a healthy relationship with someone or like a healthy nuclear family doesn't have that whole picture perfect thing and it's an instinct to kind of hide that and

shield that from people because like as soon as you see like your partner's face or your friend's face to like a reaction of something that you didn't realize was that bad you're like oh shit this is this is bad and abusive people emotionally abusive people even in codependent relationships that you might not be like you might not want to deem this as abusive right now for your your journey through this that they thrive in like secret they like thrive in silence and there's like this bonding thing of like well no one else could understand what we go through and that's supposed to be like oh it's just like it's just you and me but the reason why it's that it's because like if you tell other people you're gonna find out that this isn't healthy and if you get

this close with somebody else you're gonna realize that this closeness does not automatically come with like this emotional torture like it's not there's a reason why it's supposed to be like it's just you and me, because if you get a greater sense of the world, you'll acknowledge it like this is a me problem. This is like your mom's behavior in this sense. And so I've done this too with like whether it's having a friend be there when I'm having a phone call, because I'm like, I will be able to rationalize and justify it in my head and it won't seem that bad. But I can look at my friend's face and be like, this is really bad. And I don't have a great barometer of that when you grow up with that. And that's kind of been all you've known. So mine is more as a

solution for paying this bill, I would go to the school and have them put in writing that they made a mistake and make sure that you get that and send it to the bill collectors. And then also, I know that you said you can't handle things because it's under your mom's name, but pretend to be her. I was going to say that. So just get all her information, call and handle it, like get her information, pretend to be like you're her and then tell them the information, tell them that you're sending in the letter from the school that shows that you paid they made a mistake just if that doesn't work I would go and sit at the school and make them call and fix it and sit there until they fix it because it's their fault that's the thing is that at the end of the day

it's their fault they send it to collections when they should have yeah I agree with that I wholeheartedly agree with that you can also even like call because I'm sure they gave your mom a callback number and you call and they're like oh this isn't the number we have on file it's like oh, I'm calling from my daughter's phone because my phone's dead. Like you can, yeah, like you can say whatever you need to fucking say. But bill collectors, they do this type of things to harass people because they think like they want to get the money. So they're going to harass you until you pay or you give proof.

And so you have to have proof. And I don't think you're in the United States. I think you're just north of us. And I don't know what the laws are there. but here if you have everything in writing and tell them to stop then they have to stop so I'm sorry this is a headache and a half like to put it lightly I would be stressed out just from an overdue bill and collections and trying to pay that without the other layer on there so I'm really sorry I can tell you that it will get it will get better like there's always anytime there's

like a really shitty relationship with someone like whether you relate to them or not like it can and it will get better like there is no relationship where it it doesn't like it it it will and that sometimes just means that it can't be this relationship can't continue on but that's a good thing and i promise that so yeah best of luck all right let's take a break and we're back from our break hi melissa megan impossible guest first of all i love you guys i'm a 22 year old brazilian last semester psychology student who uses she her pronouns and i'm dating a 25 year old lawyer who uses he him pronouns my call is about a situation that's bothering me in my relationship

we've been together for one year and three months and he's a really good guy he's truly a kind good person at heart and that's one of the things that made me fall in love with him he issues that sometimes i feel that he's too passive in our relationship and in life in general and hasn't giving me the active attention I believe I deserve. For example, due to our routines and both of us still living with our parents, most of the time we only see each other on the weekends, but speak daily via video. In these calls, I'm almost always the one making conversation and he won't even ask me how my day was and I just end up telling him without him showing interest in knowing about it. This sometimes happens when we hang out in person as well and I've communicated it to

him before he got better for some time and now it's back to where it used to be. he also doesn't compliment me without me asking what he thinks of my new dress for example and that actually happened in the last new year's eve party we went to and I was feeling really hot at night and he heard me that he didn't notice he's more of an acts of acts of service kind of guy but I've told him that it's important to me that he shows me more affection he also will be on his phone when we're hanging out with other people even with his friends and we'll just stay quiet all the time I know he's an anxious person I even convinced him to start therapy and I know he's in a difficult career moment but that doesn't justify everything. I'm too an anxious person so I try to

be understanding. I'm also the one always asking about weekend plans and at this moment I'm actually waiting to see if he will take initiative and ask me about our plans for this week. I'm literally going silent about the subject. I wasn't valid enough and had a two and a half year relationship and because he didn't want to make any effort to make us work which crushed me but I feel a lot of this in terms. He's also studying full-time to become an attorney which can take two to three years from now to happen, but sometimes a few doesn't have the focus he needs to actually make it through, not prioritizing his studies enough to make a living for himself. I'm scared that when I graduate next July and start making a life for myself that our relationship would change. For

information, we're both financially dependent on our parents, but I work part-time as a researcher and as an English teacher. I knew what his career path took when we started dating, but I thought he was more proactive about it. As for our sex life, the sex is amazing and we have good communication bad. When I tried to talk to him about other issues in the past, he has been very receptive to that and tried to make changes. I really want to make things work with him because I love this man and I could see myself marrying him someday, but I don't want to be somewhere where I feel I need to beg for attention. With his career path, there's also a chance of him needing to move to work and I would have to move with him, so being in a new city only with my partner and not receiving

what I deserve is not an option for me. So how do you think I should go about these issues? i'm a cancer and insensitive but i appreciate self-love so please be hard on me if you think i need it yikes yeah i've dated someone like this who on paper everything seemed to be right but like they just on paper everything seemed to be right but it just they just were not good at communicating or just asking me simply like you said like how my day was i was doing all the talking and that's exhausting I can talk to myself in a mirror she can vlog yeah yeah this is like this isn't a you thing and this I wouldn't even say this is like a you're not compatible thing like he's just not ready to be in a relationship like this is kind of like bare minimum of being

in a relationship is putting in the effort and like kind of like wanting it and like prioritizing that whether that's like recognizing that it's like oh like having a compliment here like you know enjoying these kinds of things that like you need to feel like self-assured and it's not time consuming nor is it like mentally taxing what you're asking for and and I don't mean this to sound harsh but like it's just not a priority to him and it's not because it's you I just don't think that being in a relationship like what the actual practical day-to-day aspects of being in a relationship that's something that like he wants to put the time and effort into he wants a sex buddy yeah and like that's like that's sucky but you've done this and like you've this has been

like a year and three months of like trying to like say this and change this and that this is still bothering you which means it's constant it doesn't just mean it's a couple times whether like you know like we can be distracted when we're like hanging out and like not notice something but it's not like I at least for me and I would think it's the same for you it's like it's not it's not like a constant in a relationship nor does it change how you think the other person feels about you but it seems like you're internalizing this of like you know I was feeling really cute and then he didn't say anything and that made me like that like you know ruined my night and I think it's because you're not receiving that and feeling that love

in other ways and so I just don't think this is working you know I'm not disagreeing out of hand with you guys I would say that normally a quiet king myself shut the fuck up

I can't a quiet king I guess the reason that I still kind of lean towards agreeing with Melissa and Megan is it sounds like you've brought this up pretty consistently I definitely did this like there are moments in our relationship

and I think like when you date someone for eight years or you're with someone for eight years for eight years yeah damn it's uh it's like inevitable it's it's inevitable that like you're gonna have you know not necessarily like really really like down moments but like moments where it's just you're too comfortable or or you're in a trying to think like a better phrase than in a rut because it's like so cliche to say that but I can't think of one yeah not in sync and having been there and and been the person that was overly distracted by like maybe something else of my life I think like for me I really struggle with being a workaholic and his entire birth chart is just an orgy in Capricorn it's a lot and I think like the first time like this really came up

for us I'm not saying this like Megan like like got like three inches away from my face and was like listen motherfucker you gotta listen a little bit more yeah but she got like she got like very like very direct about about what was going on with me and how it was making me feel and I didn't feel I didn't feel defensive because it wasn't overly confrontational but it was like it was imparted to me in a way that like I felt I felt like it was serious enough like in that moment that i really needed to be more cognizant of yeah literally the things that you're describing like making you know making effort to make plans more than like every you know every four or five months or being more of a listener or being more of an active listener just to interject that what

i had said and this was so fucking long ago but i was like how you make plans with your friends like we have to do too like the same way that you will like text your friends and be like oh let's do something or you see something like that and there is like something great about being comfortable in a relationship with that but when you are so comfortable your quality time you can kind of just like be on your phone or be like watching tv and like not really be engaging and you wouldn't do that with your friends because you're like oh I'm spending time with my friends who I don't see all the time so like I want to make the most of that and like how relationships need that same kind of like planning I think yeah and sometimes like more so because there's not I would also say this is

like a little bit of a point against your your partner is that it should be like more of an occasion when you see each other because it sounds like you're not seeing each other at all like Monday through Friday but like Megan makes a good point like when you're in a relationship you do see that person every day so it's almost inversely like you have to be more you have to be more considered about like making plans with that person because especially like as you grow older and like you want to be a psychologist he wants to be a lawyer he's a lawyer but he is a lawyer but he wants to be an attorney sorry he has a degree okay okay you will just kind of start seeing your friends like less and less frequently so there is like more of a sense of occasion

so it's yeah it's it's hard and it's but it is like the responsibility of like each person in the couple to like to make sure that like even though you are seeing each other every every day or or frequently that you are like creating like occasions or like a sense of anticipation around certain like points in your week or he has to want to change because that's the thing that's like you can bring something up and I think like for me I'm okay bringing something up twice even three times because I'm not perfect I might not have explained it that well like and so I'm okay with being like oh this might this to me falls in this same category but I didn't use as an example last time so I could see how this maybe didn't register for you that like this feels the same and so I'm

reacting to this the same and I there's a learning curve and like I'm on the same end of that too like where he'll say something and I won't recognize that this is similar to this thing and then it's like oh it's reminding we all do that like I don't know anybody who's just like no I'm a one and done kind of conversation sort of person but at a certain point when you have no more examples and it's just kind of like we've covered all of the bases here like no stone has been left unturned I've explained this in every way you've received this information in every single way then it's not ignorance of oh I didn't know that I was doing that again it was like oh that didn't register as that important to me to constantly make like keep it at the forefront of

my mind and so like there honestly isn't any way that you can make that behavior change or ensure that he like understands it better because when you do want to understand what someone is saying you don't also put all that responsibility on them you're like let me ask questions let me like figure out how to do all of that stuff and like yes it can change when you're younger as you get older like our communication is so much better the older that like we get and the more we spend time together but if there isn't that desire to change from the get-go that doesn't really grow and i'm also curious how is he around like friends and family does he sounded like he could be disconnected like she mentions like when they're out even with his

friends like he can frequently kind of retreat just yeah go into his phone and kind of like be in the periphery or in the background yeah so it sounds like it might just be that's just he's just not a communicator and yeah or he's depressed or yeah yeah but if it's the former then it unfortunately yeah it might not be what you need for yourself like long term there's nothing wrong with that yeah you know you just need to cut off and stop making any plans and stop doing all of that and then in those moments see like he might also be just as happy not really talking as much and just you know reaching out and just being like checking in and having it not really be of anything of substance and that just means you're not compatible and like and he just he might be

the type of person that just like feels like just when you actually hang out like that's enough for a relationship and you know there's people that feel like that kind of thing is enough and maybe he finds someone that that's fine with but and they have the same type of communication style but yeah if this is just who he is and you know and that you say that he's in therapy now if it doesn't change after therapy that just might be who he is yeah you're sexually compatible you said the sex was great you're sexually compatible but and if he can communicate that well in bed i'm like you're capable of communication outside the sheets so yeah this sucks like you can also love someone and see a future with them and not be compatible in like practicality next up hello

megan melissa and mom my name is monica 25 she her my husband's name is chandler 35 he him we have been together six years total we have dated about five years and have been married almost a year. I'm calling for advice regarding Chandler and I's sex life. I recently gave birth to our first child. I was advised to avoid sex for six weeks postpartum as this is routine. I had my checkup with my OB and was cleared to have sex. We tried having sex last night, but Chandler did not finish because our newborn daughter started to cry from our bedroom while we were in the spare bedroom. I'm feeling very insecure and doubting my husband since this incident. I'm feeling insecure because we did not have sex for about three to four weeks before I had her daughter

as my sex drive was slow. My husband was at his busy season during work and also did not want to hurt me towards the end of the pregnancy as things could get uncomfortable for me physically. So it had been a little over 10 weeks since we have had sex at this point. This makes me feel shitty as I thought having sex for the first time in that long would make things go by quickly and he would finish. Now I'm doubting him and feeling like confronting him. This is making me think he has either been having sex with someone else masturbating without me knowing or is gay this may seem dramatic but for context our sex life has always been somewhat rocky we waited about eight months into a relationship to have sex which to me was extremely odd this was not

my choice but it respected his reservations he insisted it was because he was insecure about pleasuring me due to my past partners as he knew them once we started to have sex things were uncomfortable awkward at first but eventually we were able to have good wet sex with foreplay and lots of lube he's the first man to ever make me orgasm slash cum and squirt we have had amazing sex but it isn't very often uh there have been times where we have sex and it's more work and tiring than it is enjoyable as he does suffer from occasional ed and takes a drug like viagra to help with that sorry for all the details but i guess i am asking what i should do should i confront him and talk to him about my suspicions. I have no reason to think he's having an affair

other than me making it up in my head. And the only reason that I jumped to thinking he could be gay is because what man doesn't fuss when it's into having sex when it's been 10 plus weeks of no sex. I'm a little energy and my husband is a tourist. Let me know if there are any other detailed questions you have and thank you. Wait, hold on. Let's do a quick little disclaimer. You are very recently postpartum. Congratulations on your baby. I don't want this to come across condescending at all but I research so much about postpartum all the fucking time because I deal with mental health struggles and but any mental health things that I deal with now will be very different than whatever I deal with or anyone deals with postpartum because like your body

like legitimately changes yeah it's a full chemical change you can like look at scans of brains of like pre and postpartum you can look at them like people with depression people without depression, like there is like a very huge difference between any sort of regular mental health issues and what happens postpartum. Like there's nothing that changes your body like more legitimately, like there's nothing you will go through in your life that will change your body more. And I don't want it to say some come across again as condescending, but I don't know if you're in therapy, but like, I would really encourage that because with so much love this is like it's very irrational like yes it's just you're jumping

to a lot of conclusions that yeah and you're hurt and like you're really hurt and you're really insecure and that's I I don't think you should feel insecure but like it's okay that you do like it is really normal but in this moment instead of just being with that uncomfortability and acknowledging that you're jumping to these conclusions which are far more hurtful to you than being like oh I'm I'm postpartum I'm my emotions are heightened there's all of these new chemicals running through my brain and I'm not sleeping as much as I normally am and like all these things are new but instead of looking at this like a temporary thing in a moment in time that you will get to the other side of your brain is jumping to these things that are an end

of a relationship that are like these catastrophic huge things these like these multi-year lies like these things that will destroy your life and it's not that it's just it's just so not and I can't even stress to you that like I he you already said he already like deals with the occasional erectile dysfunction which will then also result in not always being able to come and sex is very mental like the idea of like if there was a baby crying I wouldn't be able to come right a baby crying and y'all weren't in your room either yeah so the the environment was different and hormones are different and just because like your body changed but like mentally he's going through changes too and again a baby is not sexy no i'm just saying it seems like everybody

everybody's a sexy baby and i'm a monster on the hill taylor swift jerks i want to hear months thoughts you know Megan's right and like obviously like I would not be able to understand completely like what a new mother is going through mentally because it won't happen to me and the reason I'm saying that is because like one thing you said in there is like you're like what man doesn't come like immediately after 10 weeks of like without having sex and I feel like you probably know this and like it's just it's just a hard time for you right now but like it's obvious like melissa and megan just said like sex is usually like yet you're right it's more simple for men but it's still something that like environments affect us like mental strain

affects us fatigue affects us like you're more complex well no i mean if you think of like alcohol like even alcohol effect like there are things that affect like completion in sex and like I don't think that we should hold men to like the they can jack off at anything and then they're good yeah and I think there's there is some like truth in that generalization but it's not like you said it it's not like you know a guy is like four days without sleep at the second like you put on like a piece of sexy lingerie like he's ready to go like it's not that simple so and you know and it sounds like without knowing all the details is like just personally like sex might be like something that's a little bit more complicated specifically for your partner you know men have

performance anxiety like a big part of like I mean it sounds like it's it could have been like particularly acute in your situation because he may have known you as the partner for like someone he was friends with which can 100% like put like a little difficult context to get through like if if you guys get into a relationship but you know the other thing that might have happened is like you said it had been 10 weeks medically you weren't cleared for sex or no for six weeks And then you were. I got to feel like your partner probably like building up to that moment in time, particularly if like naturally it's something that like because there is like a very clear schedule tied to it because of your recovery. like it's something that's like on the calendar right it's like okay Thursday night Thursday night you know Wednesday's the doctor's appointment Wednesday night is like that is the night and

like sometimes that can be amazing because you're like building anticipation but like other times again based on like what you said you know your partner may have you know has some uh difficulties with this like if that's the case like my guess is he was probably like in his head like in the week or two weeks like leading up to that because you know like I know like if we're in a similar situation and like you know we want to have kids so there's there's a high chance like this particular thing could happen to us I know like I can't imagine you going like I want to rag into it 10 weeks you'd be like treating me like I'm I'm yeah like like me personally that would be definitely like building up in my mind and I would be excited but there would also be this voice in

my head that would that would say you really have like you know it's like a performance it's like I gotta repay for you giving birth and a hundred percent like I know on the other side of that like it and it was the same thing for you like you were looking forward to this night with anticipation and you know when you are yeah when you're looking forward to something and it doesn't it doesn't go perfectly it that can always make you feel less about yourself or just feel bad But what I would say is, you know, you need to focus on yourself and making sure like you're recovering from the most like intense physical change or one of the most intense physical changes that a human body can go through. And then obviously you both have to focus on the well-being of your child and learning to be good parents. And if you have the mental capacity to do so, I would just try and remember some of what we said and extend just a little bit of grace to your partner. And then the last thing I would say is, again, for me, if I was in this situation and it's really hard to do this, I acknowledge that because you are new parents. So like time feels like it doesn't exist at the moment or at least free time. But trying to introduce spontaneity in terms of like timing and being like kind of opportunistic about when you can have sex.

yeah yeah that exactly like a cheeky sex like making it feel like it's just more of like a relaxed conversation preamble to build to it would probably help a lot as opposed to like what it sounded like this night was and then that just to say the same thing if i had a kid and i heard them cry and i was in the middle of sex like like i would be immediately if we heard our nephew crying a little sex i'm like i'm out and like i don't think that like i think we need to stop holding men and women to different like sex expectations right and i just i don't think it's fair because i think if it was the opposite calling in and we even take out birth aspects of this but it's like oh i got distracted while having sex and i wasn't into it anymore and then

my like husband accused me of cheating like that's we we can't the idea that like we look at men of like the patriarchy and so much things of like the over sexualization and all of this shit of like how they treat women and their views on sex we can't we can dispute that and be like this is toxic and unhealthy but like we can't then be like oh well you're just a walking dick who's like ready to get hard at any like any single any moment like men are also complex creatures just like women are and especially when it comes to sex like i we can't hold them to do a different a different standard because we're just going to continue in the same toxic cycle of what men expect women to behave like in bed and what women expect men to behave like in bed like that is

upholding the patriarchy and like toxic masculinity so you have issues already you've had issues with sex so this is like a moment for I would focus on solo therapy postpartum and after this time period I would maybe try do couples therapy but like right now I don't I think you need to take care of like you and it's really easy when you're in mom mode to like try and fix everything because you're taking care of a baby like it's those instincts there but the only other person you should be taking care of right now is you right and I do want to hit on you have mentioned like has he been masturbating like okay like yeah i mean sometimes like masturbation is just like a stress reliever and it can and i it's a melatonin the answer to that is probably and

that's cool yeah and and i i encourage you as well as your body has changed to maybe rediscover yourself in that way too yeah there there's a lot of anti-masturbation rhetoric that comes directly from anti-porn and then it goes directly into anti-sex work and anti-sex so i would trace back like where what your thoughts and feelings are about it and where that came from yeah and the gay accusation is just not cool no and like that's the part that like i don't know if that's crossed your mind before if it hasn't crossed your mind it did because she said it took them eight months did she reference the gay thing then yeah she said i thought that it could have been because eight months it took him eight months for us to have sex and it's like yeah this is just like

you had a baby with someone who you might have different views on sex with and like that's like okay you don't have to be all aligned with like everything at the same time but like there can't be judgment and accusations there like it has to be like an acknowledgement of like oh we're a little bit different in this sense and this is how we make it work for us but sex shouldn't be like a test that you can fail right and I just would be really cautious about the conversations you have in the environment and mental state that you're in when you have when you talk about these things which is why I would focus on therapy first because you you need support and if you're not able to get that in the way that you think that you need and then I think it's like okay you might

not be and without doctor intervention or therapy intervention medication like you might not be getting your needs met because those needs need to be met chemically and then everybody else in your life you won't push them away and you'll be able to have that support system because like you will have a support system so congratulations on the baby best of luck and i'm sending you like good thoughts through postpartum and don't accuse the person that you're with that they're gay for not wanting to not wanting to for not finishing you know okay all right that's it for our episode We hope you enjoyed. Did you have a great time, dude?

Yeah. I always have a great time. It's because we're a great time. Say yes. Say yes, you are. Yeah, you're all right. Do you have any closing thoughts? Closing arguments.

Closing thoughts. First caller, maybe think about moving. How can he remember? Second caller, maybe voice your concerns one more time. But if nothing kind of comes out of that, you might not be compatible. and third third caller rely on your partner if you need to have an emotional confrontation with your mom again and fourth caller men are not able to get hard at the drop of a hat and take care of yourself congratulations on your new child but yeah maybe exercise a little grace that's it

wow i'm impressed i literally would need to flip through my pages of notes to be like what did we just talked about yeah that's very impressive well thank you babe for um joining us yet again thanks for having me oh you should get a little jacket like they do on snl after your fifth time what oh is that what you get yeah i think it's your fifth time i think so yeah that's right the five timers so we hope you all enjoyed if you did leave us a review on the podcast app head on over to our instagram and comment just how amazing and wonderful matzahs as the guest our in-person guest wow if you want to call in for an upcoming episode leave us a voicemail 310-694-0976 international listeners send your audio message to meganpodcast

gmail.com if you have an update you've been on a previous episode and want to let us know where your situation is at you can send us an email at meganpodcast.gmail.com we will schedule maybe you want to come on and we can actually talk about it in real time i feel like everyone today was right for an update or could be pretty much everyone is yeah it is an advice podcast so everyone we want to see how our advice is applicable yeah that's it right yep okay we will see you next time goodbye goodbye y'all don't blame me is a production by me executive produced by melissa de monts and Diamond Imprint Productions.

Edited by Coco Lawrence. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. Music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.