Don't Blame Me! - Husband Makes Me Wrap My Own Gifts

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Meghan and Melisa give advice on: Keeping a Christmas gift from an ex Inconsiderate gift giving Mother who keeps trash Losing interest during sex Don't Blame Them: Winning Back an Ex 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

hey hi hello welcome to another episode of one of your absolute favorite podcasts don't blame me are you so happy to be here no honestly melissa us recording this we're recording virtually you know it's the holidays and if you thought the delay last week was you know hefty just know that now I'm in the middle of nowhere so our delay is a little intense so now I kind of feel like you know when people are listening to podcasts and there's that meme when they're in their car and or they're like laughing at a billboard and it's like ah like all of us together like they can't hear me but like I'm a part of it honestly low-key kind of how we're recording this podcast like I feel like I'm listening to you record a podcast and I'm recording a podcast

and I'm just like laughing along as an audience member yeah because like usually when we're recording I look at you I can't do that it's just weird I'm just kind of looking everywhere so apologies my eyes are going to be everywhere because it's just awkward to just stare at a screen I'm staring at myself I do stare at myself like I'm looking but like I'm looking at different parts of myself so my eyes are just all over the screen you know oh I do know as somebody who um occasionally will you know want to have a nice little self-loathing spiral and they'll watch the video versions on patreon and i will just be like megan sit still send this video to your psychiatrist like i i am constantly moving yeah but we're like not meant to look at ourselves

like this do you ever think about the first person that created a mirror do you think they screamed i mean i'm sure they saw their reflections on other things but it's different it's not as clear like if you look at like something metal it's not as clear as you would when you look at glass like mirror reflected glass yeah unless you're looking at your reflection in the water at a golf course in high school musical too bet on it then your reflection is superimposed essentially a photo some might say don't know what you're talking about but okay no i do agree with you and i do think that like i'm sure that like some fairy tale or um what are they called the ones that have like morals is that the fables i don't know whatever one there is i'm sure there's

one about like i bet they probably use it like toxic uh christian uh youth group things of like the first woman it was a woman who was the first person to find a mirror that the man was the one who made it and she just kept looking at it in like every few seconds she just couldn't stop looking into like one day like it was glued to her hand i could see there being like a something like that as a story to like warn children against being of vanity but um i do think that there is some truth to we're not supposed to have like a third person view of us and so much also like of our lives and i think people are also realizing that now with tiktok which was like a a realization i had because i did youtube or i do you do i think um i had the realization a couple years ago

that like i have the ability and the power to like manipulate my memories and then if i can make those memories for public consumption then i have other people who can vouch for said things even if I edited together a highlight reel or I made it to be something that like I enjoyed more or I made it to be something that like was better for me emotionally. And then I include other people in on it. And it's it's a very, very odd sort of thing that I think like, you know, serves a time and a place and a purpose. But I think there's a lot more people doing that right now and it's definitely uh alarming right well what a deep conversation to open this podcast where we sometimes have deep conversations we give you advice listeners call in they leave us

voicemails and we give wonderful amazing life-changing advice ranging from sex to incest i don't know if you're new here but i want to let you know we're we're anti-incest like to make that abundantly clear they could be in the same category though so it's not really a range a range from um blowjobs to blowjobs um to you're not giving to family members and to dogs licking peanut off of people's nether regions to brides peeing on bridesmaids specifically actually she was made of honor because i know that does make it worse there there is a ranking to you know college advice career advice friend advice we we give it all because we have it all i do want to say the peanut butter thing also still incest oh my god the same story is a circle no you're right

and i just want anyone who is new here to know that like one of our callers did not call us and say hey i'm fucking my brother and there's i'm making a dog lick peanut butter off of me like we were we were like the like the gossip session about oh my god guess what i just heard so you're not accidentally listening to a podcast where our entire audience is calling and telling us about like their incest escapades they're telling us about their you know partners and their incest things anyways i need to stop saying incest on this episode it's uh been a couple minutes and i've said it way too many times so i hope you're excited i hope that we gave you um some good insight to what you're going to hear on this show and you might be wondering how we're qualified to

give advice because megan and melissa if you are not if you haven't partaken in incest how are you going to give a critique first of all fuck off we're all we're all allowed to say that and that's final time i'm going to say incest um but what we lack in credentials we make up for in opinions i was kind of testing how bad our lag was and it was not that bad there but i also think you knew exact as soon as i started saying that you're like i know my cue i know where i need to come in tell me all about your trip to colorado oh my god so i'm in colorado if you are a part of the patreon you can see she's back also yeah join our patreon support the show you can watch live streams we'd hang out with you and you're gonna see the video version of this podcast where

it's gonna be hilarious to watch these because i our facial expressions are not going to match up and I think it's going to be so funny that whatever faces we're making the other person's not going to be reacting to and I can't wait to to see that part but yeah so the drive usually takes about a day and a half to go from LA to Bailey which is like mountains in Colorado and I think I mentioned this on an extra episode from like a week or so ago or maybe we just talked about it offline but initially we were driving because Mats was going to get his new car and he was going to exchange it at the dealership and then we were going to drive the old car here and then drive the new one back and about like three days before we were supposed to leave it was like

oh it's not gonna be ready and we looked at flights they were astronomical it just was not worth it and we were like you know it's gonna be fine we really timed it out with weather or so we thought because then the um cold bomb which we thought we avoided we dealt with you know what and I take it back when I said we should have called it a flash mob because a bomb implies that like there is shit that lasts so much longer um yeah we were caught up in the shrapnel of that we got on the freeway I don't know I drove the first day was pretty much fine we started up like a little bit later than we wanted to but it was fine like I did the first six hours listen to Taylor Swift the whole time was singing it was great as soon as the sun went down I was like

my vision is not good enough in the nighttime. My halos on my eyes are, they do not work well with those headlights, especially when you're kind of in the middle of nowhere. So then Mott's did the rest of it. We went to the hotel where we had planned to do like our halfway point. Where did we do the hotel? Grand Junction, I think Colorado. Yeah. So that's where we went. And that's usually where we'll stop or around that area. So then the next morning we wake up getting ready to go and we get a text message from his dad saying the freeway is closed like the freeway that we need to get there we were like oh okay and it's just for accidents it's not for weather like it hadn't been snowing like you know it was it was gonna be fine and we were like okay waited about an hour got

ready um and then it was fine we were like cool we get on we start driving we're there for i don't know like 20 minutes maybe an hour ish and then the freeway shuts down again as we're on it so we thankfully were able to get off mott skipped the first exit and melissa when i tell you i was about to fucking kill this man because he kept being like well i don't see the like it looks fine to me like i see like these cars are still like moving in front of us like i don't see like it's all empty like there are lots of cars up there and i was like babe that has literally nothing to do with the fact that the freeway is closed like just because you see other people maybe not paying like listening like that's not we're not doing that and so we got off on the next

exit waited out for a little bit and then suddenly about i don't know 30 minutes later it was like oh freeway's back open we were like okay cool this doesn't i don't know what would have changed because at this point it's so windy that all of the snow that is like piled up on either side the snow plows have like they've cleared the roads but they basically have these I forget what they call like not snow banks but they have like little piles of snow kind of in between the lanes and you can't see the lanes really well and now that there's snow blowing you can't really see much of anything and you can't see where the lines are in the road you can't tell what's ice and what's not and then we were just in like a standstill traffic for like three hours and then we finally

started going we were holding our breath the whole time I felt so I know it wasn't my fault that we like drove at all but I I just you know I felt so bad he was so anxious obviously because we've had like the days from hell and we legitimately had like I think it was probably like six or eight hours of like driving 20 miles an hour with like almost no visibility and just hoping that we're staying in the lane and other people are staying in their lanes and we finally got about an hour out of the mountains which is also about like an hour out of Denver and we were like there's no way in hell we're gonna brave like driving up a mountain that doesn't even have like there's no street lights like we're not going to do that

so we ended up then just driving to Denver and crashing there for the night and then driving back up to the mountains the next day which also took a decent amount of time because the snow was like still melting but it literally took us almost three full days when it usually takes us a day and a half and i didn't even realize that the day we came up to the mountains was christmas day like i didn't know i mean no christmas eve christmas i didn't know it was christmas eve until like 5 p.m and i was like wait what no way so we have vowed that we are never doing this drive again yeah but if you would have flown most of those flights were canceled yeah so that is the the kicker yeah Denver had so many it's like the number one airport with

canceled flights and they already already have like so many issues with that even weather aside but yeah I we said that like if we the next time we do it we're going to just do we're we're either gonna like ship stuff here or we're gonna do just carry on because I have a friend Jenica who she lives in like around nashville and they went to new york for like before christmas they were supposed to come back to like nashville area for christmas christmas and they've been stuck in new york and her bags they their bags were checked to go back to nashville like almost a week ago and they have no tracking on them anymore so she has no idea if she's getting her shit yeah that really really sucks yeah so in the scheme of things like we're really lucky like

you know we skidded a couple times on ice and that was like awful um but it wasn't we didn't crash like we didn't like crash into anyone we didn't have any any sort of issues like that it was just the mental like the mental toll that it took but at the end of the day like i'm after seeing like all those fucking videos of seattle and just shit like i'm just and even the whole time i was thinking about like texas and like states with their power grids who aren't equipped for this and even just like the seasons like we were bitching about colorado's what do they call it they call it c.colorado department of transportation they're like pretty fucking shitty at plowing like they're not very good at it and they're not using salt they're using sand

and a lot of these things and they're primed for winter like this happens every year and so not only are they used to it and they're doing a shitty job but the people who live here are used to it and i can't imagine in a state that isn't prepared and equipped for it and like the civilians like it's just like so fucking scary yeah well i'm glad you made it safely i was very worried but hoorah who fucking rah thank fucking god and um not looking forward to doing the drive home we did joke mott's joked that he was like i'm leaving my car here and we're flying home and like i don't care how i get this car back like i just like i've never i'm not doing it again and that extreme attitude lasted about 24 hours i was all for it i was like yeah we'll leave your

car here like i'm i'm here to be like the hype man i'm like whatever you want to do what's cathartic and he was like well no i can't actually do it and i was like okay technically he could because you have to you're gonna have to bring it back anyway to exchange it or trade in i should say and like you don't barely drive your car you he could drive yours around that was my point and that's what i was like trying i was like even saying to him and his parents when they were like it's probably not going to work. I was like, you know what? I record the podcast once a week and you can like drop me off and then pick me up, which sometimes if it's really late at night or I'm just really tired, you already come and pick me up from the podcast and anything else that I

have is scheduled that so like we could work around it. So depending on what the weather is like, I think we might do that. Oh, and I didn't even tell you one of the best parts, not the best parts but he changed his windshield wiper fluid in la and so did i obviously um but my car's not here so you know what they don't have in california that's not like standard you have to ask for it all weather windshield wiper spray so it froze we had to stop at the gas stations like i don't know every couple hours and then just manually clean it off because it froze yeah i just get it when i go I just tell them to do it as standard because it's also just it cleans your car better. And then like sometimes there's a little frost in the morning and you can use it.

And then also I get it where it has the Rain-X in there, too. So when it does rain, it just beats on the side. Hold up. I'm writing this down to tell him. Yes. Okay. Good call. Thank you.

You're welcome. That's my weather saga. How are you handling this winter in Arkansas? It's cold as a witch's tit, as they say. Yeah, it's just very cold. We got part of that bomb thing that they were talking about. It wasn't, as far as snow, it was probably like an inch, inch and a half. But it's a lot of ice.

So it was very icy. Anyways, that is our catch-up. We hope you all had a great holiday. If you celebrated, Christmas is over. Hanukkah is over. And would winter solstice happen yet? yeah it's like the day before christmas eve i think oh yeah winter solstice happened kwanzaa's not doesn't end until new year's i didn't know that any other holidays that i'm

missing as an ignorant white lady who again when i immediately went to winter solstice you can tell where i grew up granola norcal so we hope you had a good holiday i really hope for people who weren't able to make it to where they were ended up where they needed to go that you were still able to like have a nice holiday and even if you weren't and the holidays sucked they're over now right that's like the good thing about it's a complicated like happy and sad emotional time and the good thing about them is they're gone as quickly as they came here it's true i feel like we're still like basking in that awkward time between Christmas and New Year's you know well considering I haven't taken my afternoon Adderall in well over a week I would have to agree with

you like I am in this weird limbo when like I take my morning Adderall and I have not been taking my afternoon one today is the first day that I have and that is also why the votes for last week's episode of but am i wrong went up so late because my brain has been so checked out and until new years i think that's how it's going to be but i think lots and i might even be driving back home on new year's something funny about the uh voting did i do it wrong no i put in parentheses for something for you to check the spelling and you uploaded that melissa i don't even know what you're referring to that's how out of it i was ma'am i did this today and i can't even think in my head what it is the one with troy and sharpay i put in parentheses check spelling i'm not sure

this is pronounced or spelled sharpay oh and you posted that god melissa i'm dying wait that's fucking hilarious i didn't even fucking notice so checks out checks out what's the show megan this is an advice podcast and if you want to call in for an upcoming episode you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send your audio message to megan at pop megan at podcast no megan podcast at gmail.com you have three minutes for both instances if you record a voice memo or a voicemail with the voicemail you'll legitimately be cut off by the google voice number and if it's a voice memo you memo you'll be cut off by us specifically aka we're not even gonna hear it or see it or anything it's just automatically

gonna be a no-go so keep it under three minutes and the best way to do that is to write everything down that you're going to say first time yourself read it out loud see if you're under those three minutes make sure you include all relevant details how old you are how old other people are involved in the story or whatever you are telling us as well as like it's about relationships how long you've been together any relevant information if you're like oh this person like we have this whole history like but like it's so long to get into all the things that they've done no we need to know we need some more examples especially if it's like a long time period of a tumultuous kind of relationship, give us all the juicy details. And the more details we have and like the more

accurate description of exactly what happened, the better advice we can give you. So it benefits all of us. If you would like to include your pronouns, please do so. But if you do not want to also totally fine. And if you'd be 18 or over or have your parents permission, which I hate that we have to say that we really we petered off and then suddenly came back around it's in the ass that's how you like that's how i know that like despite the fact that i feel so young hearing like a 17 year old talk about sex and alcohol and like me clutching my pearls i'm like oh i am getting older i feel old this past week my cousin it's my like my first cousin's son so i guess this is my second cousin i don't know how things work he um came over to visit and

i have i have not seen him in 12 years he's in veterinary school and i was sitting talking to him so i haven't really had like a conversation with him as an adult and uh he's very nice he might be listening because he started following the podcast account and after i was done talking with him i was like no that's a very nice young man i said i am officially old i'm old that sounds like your mom would say it's a very nice young man yep that's honestly though like how else are you supposed to describe someone in veterinary school like that is like that's a very nice young man a man who's in veterinary school a nice young man right a man even if he's older in veterinary school a nice young man like it's just they're synonymous that's will now forever remind me of

yeah i would love that shall we get into the episode yes let's give some advice hi megan and melissa i am 26 she her my ex-boyfriend is 29 he him i recently broke up with my boyfriend on december 9th and i got everything out of his house i moved out everything is done. But I did go over to his house to get some more stuff that I left. And we did start buying each other Christmas gifts. So I have a little bit of a dilemma regarding that. So I started getting him stuff and I don't really care what happens to it, whether he keeps it or not. I just left it at his house. I asked about the gifts he got me and he said that he didn't know what he was going to do with it. He said I could keep it. I could leave it. He said it was too

painful to return and too painful to look at. And so he ended up basically throwing this duffel bag of stuff at my feet when I was at his house. And so I took the stuff. However, I'm just sort of struggling with the morality of it, I guess. I feel like I shouldn't have taken the stuff. and it just feels wrong of me to have it because it's like yes he got it for me but it was under the context of a relationship and so I just feel sort of dirty taking this these items from him that he got me for Christmas uh like I said the stuff that I got him he could keep it or he can try to return it it really doesn't matter to me and then he said the same thing with my stuff but what do you guys think i should do should i pay him for the items should i just use the items

you know it's definitely like a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff which is a lot of money to me but yeah let me know what you guys think also for a little bit of context i am the caller from the boyfriend feels entitled to my body call i was the last call on that on that episode so I'm definitely willing to give an update and talk about this live if you guys want to but yeah let me know what you think am I a piece of shit for keeping this stuff and should I pay him or return the gift thanks bye so we just did some deep diving in our archives trying to figure this out because Melissa remembered that we had an update to that original call that this caller mentioned at the end about the um boyfriend feels entitled to my body we did all of this back digging i think

that the conclusion we've come to now and this might change because we're still in the process figuring it out we think we might have mislabeled um an update about love bombing to be that update so i don't actually think we've gotten this update before i don't remember if we said it in the episode or if anybody else will have the same memory jogged but just know we went back and listen to that old update and it wasn't an update for this so we also did some more digging and if you would like to listen to the original call that um she was talking about it's the boyfriend feels entitled to my body that's literally the title of the episode from july 4th 2022 and with our knowledge based on the timelines um because in that call the caller said that they had been

dating for three years and living together for one year. And this is, you know, we've broken up and we're no longer living together. I have to assume, and I think we're both going to operate on the assumption that it is that ex-boyfriend that you called about before. Otherwise you moved in with somebody else really quickly, which no shade, just, I hope you didn't have to break so many leases um but honestly even all of that aside I would say that like you keep the gifts like I mean first of all you asked about the gifts for you which like no shame like fucking yeah go for it ask about that but I do feel like maybe you're thinking that was a little too bold and now you're kind of trying to backtrack

and your gut wasn't telling you that this was a piece of shit thing to do, which is why you did it and why you accepted those gifts. And I think now you're wondering if you should feel like a piece of shit, but you shouldn't. A, if this is the same boyfriend,

he fucking sucked. And even if he wasn't like, you know, if he doesn't want the gifts and doesn't want to look at them and like you bought me something like nice and I'd like to have it, like especially because you gave him the stuff that you got him yeah like if you hadn't given him the stuff i'd be like you know he gave it to you whatever gift is a gift but like

y'all have exchanged it wasn't like one person giving gifts y'all exchanged gifts so keep the gift if you have ill feelings towards the gift like you don't want to have it because it reminds you of him or something then sell it but get the money like or re-gift it to somebody that you owe to give to and they'll appreciate it so it's your gift do with it what you want he's got the gift that you bought for him he can do with it what you want I say just take it and move on yeah it applies both ways like the same way that you're saying you don't care what he does with it like that also applies to to you receiving this gift like it doesn't have to mean anything more. And this relationship was like so wildly toxic. I'm happy that you have finally

broken up. I'm sad for you that you called in the summer and this breakup happened in the winter. I'm sad that either that was not a financial option for you earlier. I'm sad that it was either not an option you felt you could emotionally do at an earlier date or that you couldn't like financially do it an earlier date and to me like you're again like specifically regarding because you've called about this guy before and we know how shitty he is like it does I wonder if you're kind of feeling still a little enmeshed and that's why you can look at the gift that you gave him as like oh it's a throwaway it doesn't matter but like you're still searching for like a deeper meaning in what he gave you and that it might like representing something or it makes you a bad person

like it really really doesn't even if you ended on totally amicable terms or whatever like if someone didn't want to give you if I didn't want to give someone a gift after our breakup I wouldn't do it like you so like he did it on his own volition there was nothing you could say that could convince him or force him to do that and like you didn't do it like so it's just like you wanted it that's why you asked you have it now don't feel guilty about it it's not under false pretenses he didn't have to give it to you right it's not that he wants to but he said he's like I don't I don't want to keep it and I don't not going to return it and so it's like okay yeah here you go enjoy I keep all the shit I even stuff that when I was dating like I have some

i have like a nice little tiffany's necklace my high school boyfriend gave me i still have that shit yeah i've got like basketball shorts and you know they have no meaning to them now jackets hoodies my biggest regret in life is giving back my i heart ae pie booty shorts in a moment of emotion i gave them back and now as a fully grown adult i would like those well there you go if you have regrets sell it yeah and um let's schedule an update because i'm happy you're out of that relationship shoot us an email too next call yeah hey megan and melissa big fan of the podcast i listen every week on the last episode that i listened to uh winning back an ex i heard uh Megan say that you wanted some Christmas related calls. And so I definitely have one, something

that's been bothering me more lately. It's something that's been happening for a couple of years now, but it's just the last couple of days has been bothering me as Christmas is a couple of days away. So I am 26 and my husband is 30 and we've been married for about six years now. and um i when we buy each other christmas gifts i take a lot of care on what i get them like months in advance i'll be thinking about what he wants i'll buy him things as i see them and like they'll immediately be hidden and then wrapped and put under the tree once we get our christmas decorations up and i just i don't know i like to have all those things taken care of weeks before Christmas comes but then he on the other hand procrastinates and just keeps saying

I don't know what to get you I don't know what to get you and what do you want and you know I'll drop hints all year long like oh I'd really like to have this or this would be nice and then I don't know is it weird that he doesn't make notes of things and like hmm maybe I should remember that. Is that a guy thing? I don't know. But anyways, the biggest thing is when he finally does get me a gift, he doesn't make any effort to hide what it is. He immediately tells me what he got me and like gives it to me as soon as he gets home. But then he asked me to wrap it for him, like to wrap my own gift and put it under the tree so that I can then unwrap it on Christmas this morning do you see my problem here is this a thing that all guys do is this a normal thing

that I just didn't know about because I gift giving is a really big thing for me it's kind of my love language it's how I how I show affection and to see someone just like not care at all like here I mean he buys me expensive gifts I'm not saying he doesn't but like he doesn't like bother to act like he cares about it so I guess it's just I need advice on how to deal with this is just something i can just talk to him about is it something that i need to just accept and get over it but yeah i'd really love to hear what you guys think about this like i said love the podcast you guys are amazing keep doing what you're doing so yeah bye oh my god oh my god wow you've been married for six years since you were 20 he was 24 yeah

this is so bad yeah it is i would be so frustrated i mean like my dad he gets he knows what he's getting my mom but he waits for he'll give money to one of us like he knows exactly what it is but he wants to make sure like the the size and fit are going to be right so he'll get one of us girls to go pick it up for him and he wants us to wrap it because he can't wrap presents but like he still knows what he's getting like it's not like he is sitting here asking my mom the day before Christmas what she wants I've never encountered a man like what the caller has described someone who doesn't I know that you say you drop hints maybe explicitly telling him how you feel like, hey, this really hurts my feelings. I want to be surprised with

what you get me for Christmas, but it still needs to be something that I want. I know you usually do a good job, but like you're still asking me days before Christmas when I've been telling you all year what I want, what I want. Make a list, please. Like put things, write things down. Does he do the same thing for you for your birthday and for, I don't know if y'all do valentine's day or valentine's day or your anniversary does he do the same things that annoy you because this would really annoy me and then the fact that he tells you and shows you exactly i mean uh when he gets home i don't know if he's testing to see if you will actually like it or not and then asking you to wrap it is just the icing on the cake for me like go to the it's

it really is cruel like go have if you can't wrap something then go ask someone else to do it or pay someone to do it at one of these kiosks that have gift wrappers like watch a fucking youtube tutorial on how to wrap a buy a gift bag forgot like what the fuck this is just awful this is this is truly awful and this is not all men i know we're not like all men type people but this is not i'm saying not all men like not all men like i'm about to switch fucking sides because of this call i think that this is like so representative of a much larger um pattern that will be appearing in your relationship like whose responsibility is it to get his family gifts whose responsibility is it to get your family gifts whose responsibility is it to put family dinners in in the calendar

who's grocery shopping who is organizing and cleaning the fridge who is keeping a tally of what things you're running out at at home like who is doing all of that because I'm gonna bet it's you I'm gonna bet that you're carrying the vast majority of the mental load in your household and like this is a negative uh not even this is like this is an asshole choice to make that is not acceptable for anyone and so like this isn't something that he needs to like oh i need to like unlearn to become like the 0.11 percent or 0.0001 percent who are doing it all right like if moths heard this he would be like that's awful like that's so bad like and that's it's not that every man is ingrained as this is the default like it's not and I do have experience with um men like

this and just not even getting gifts and deciding to not this not Mats at all he's like the best gift giver ever but like it is representative of how he like values your your joy which like sounds really cheesy but like it is it is that it's not just like your time and your energy but like when you like the positive like reinforcement like when you know like when when a kid says uh a word and you're like oh my gosh you say it back and you're so excited and they want to do that again they want it they want that positive reinforcement he is your husband you have been married for six years you've been together much longer he knows what your joy is like he knows what brings you joy he knows like what your smile looks like when you're like so excited about those

things and he is actively choosing to like deprive you of that in the ways that he can and like it's just such an overt act of like cruel passiveness and that is like never how you should be towards your partner and you like you dropping hints all year like yeah he should be writing those things down like he should he should even be like writing down like or even keeping note of like oh you liked this snack like I had to tell Mott's finally when I like had opened up a drawer in our pantry that I hadn't like looked in for a while that like I had mentioned that I had liked one of these like snacks and he had been buying like three of them every time we went grocery shopping and we had way too many and I was like oh my gosh like I didn't even know you

were doing this but like let's slow down with that like it doesn't even have to be about birthday gifts or holiday gifts like just someone paying attention to the things that you like and the things that you care about on a day-to-day basis and if you're not doing that for fucking christmas and your birthday you're not doing that for the rest of the year and then it literally feels like it feels like a cruel passive-aggressive thing to being like okay look i got you a gift now like now you wrap it like you're this is what i like it's weaponized incompetence to a like legitimately really cruel degree this is not behavior that like is even socially acceptable within men like this is probably behavior that's socially acceptable with like andrew tate and his bros but

like this is not this is like the person i know in my life who would do this did that because they hated the person like it was not it wasn't done not maliciously and if it was not done intentionally maliciously which I think like they still have a lot of those tendencies it is when you're so self-centered and so selfish that anyone else's like discomfort or displeasure or robbing someone of their joy is just water under the bridge for you like it's just not a big deal and that's the only really two options is that like you derive enjoyment from ripping joy away from the people that you love or seeing their disappointment and depriving them of that joy just isn't that big deal big of a deal to you like those are that's the scale of this and it's just like it's fucked

because like i'm fine with christmas get like with christmas lists like mons and i will like i mean we especially we do it for like his family like we'll like all tell each other what we want or even like leading up to the holidays or our birthdays we will be like oh is there anything like anything specific you want for your birthday like and but we always both have like a stockpile of ideas and those conversations happen months and months before and then I'll still check in like Maz's birthday is in January and I usually check in in December and I'm like anything like because he'll sometimes he'll get things that he wanted for his birthday for Christmas or there'll be something new that like comes up and i'll be like let me know but if he doesn't tell me what

he wants i've already gotten a gift like i already know what it is it's like oh should i shift it should i change it should is there anything i am not thinking of or whatever but like like it's just so not all men oh my god a fly just flew out my cheek it's so not all men that's because you said it's not all men oh that fly was like it's a sign bitch like shut up i don't want to rub it in but like one of the gifts Maz got me for my birthday he went to Reformation and like was there for hours at deciding which dresses he wanted to get me and he got me like one of the gifts he got me he got me like two two or three like really cute dresses from Reformation like and he checked the sizes that I had at the house and he knew that I would like I was talking about

taking one to a tailor to get it taken in so he knew to get a smaller size than that one and like he like did inventory of what patterns and colors I was lacking in my closet and then he literally went to Reformation on Melrose and shopped around there for hours and like he had a great time and was so excited to give it to me and like I have I'm learning to like not be so like shocked and in awe when he does like considerate gifts like that because he's like well obviously and then I watch the gifts his dad gives his mom and it's like the same thing and it's just like right now if I had mirrored a relationship that I was surrounded by growing up I would probably have this same kind of call where it's just like riddled with like I kind of feel like giving up

and disappointment this is like a way bigger fucking issue of like how your partner cares about you like I would feel so disrespected it's like Mats lets me get zits on his back he doesn't enjoy that like it's like you do things for people because you want to make other people happy and it's not painful for him to like think ahead and get you a gift like it's just really fucked i'm sorry you have to go through this i know you made this you actually made this call before christmas so i hope this year might have been a little bit better but if not i'm so sorry yeah all right so we're gonna take a break now okay and we're back hey on to the rest hi megan and melissa i'm 21 years old pronounced she her

and my dilemma if you will is that my mother goes through the trash often not for recycling purposes as our apartment complex does not have that option but more to as she puts it collect the trash because we use grocery bags instead of big trash bags because they're expensive. There are excuses that she's just condensing it down. The trash gets collected in the kitchen to be tossed into our communal bin. I don't know why. It's just something we've always done. So she regularly has access to all the trash in the house and she's always doing this. This is something she's done for years. And so I know the real reason is to find something on you. She's like, I've looked before and stuff like that to the point where I have to be careful that they're away. Since

attending college and being at home less I hadn't had to deal with this as much most recently I cleaned down my closet and got rid of some old lotion bottles that expired and she made a point the next morning to tell me how ungrateful I was and how God would be ashamed of me because I threw lotion bottles away when I tried to tell her they were expired she said it didn't matter and that she was going to use it herself she also dug up an expired pack of Polaroid film even though she doesn't even know where Polaroid is the other day she took out an empty bottle flavored water drops in an empty box of makeup, like an empty package of makeup, and left it out in the open. The problem is not only that it's annoying and violating, it's also the fact that she

leaves it out of the open and tries to use it against you in some way to shame you. She is a narcissistic parent, which may be helpful, and I don't know her zodiac sign because she was born in America, so parents can't keep record of her birthday, which is common for immigrant parents where I live, but I'm a Cancer, so I guess I'm seeking advice on how to deal with it and not let it get to me moving out is not an option because culturally you don't leave until you're married and it's something completely okay thank you let me know if I left out anything I'm sorry uh if this doesn't make a lot of sense love the podcast and I'm sorry I'm slightly nervous thank you oof this is a tough one I think that like your mom

I obviously can't diagnose at all this seems like you know a combination of maybe some hoarding dependencies or scarcity mentality and I have some experience with scarcity mentality not like personally not to this extent but I do need sometimes like a push up to like get rid of something and if I need it again I mean Melissa you've been helpful for me with this where it's just like just it's like you don't if you haven't used it in years you might like if you need it again you'll buy it again and you'll be fine and like I that's not how my brain has operated and that is not even to the level that this is at but at that point it's kind of one of those things where it's like either the person in your life who's dealing with these issues gets therapy

it doesn't really seem like that's gonna be a possibility and so then the only response to that is like you know the people who are affected by that get therapy because like this is really hard and the fact that like it's stuff is being used against you to like kind of make a point and I think it's also hard to to you you don't want to end up having similar tendencies because you're trying to like appease her tendencies where then like oh in a couple years am I gonna be doing the same thing because now I'm no longer listening to my own desires my own impulse which is like oh this is expired I'm going to throw this out so I think like if therapy is an option I think that could help with like when you asked about like how to not let it get to you

I think that could help yes in practical senses that I'm sure a therapist could come up with some things but also just on an emotional level of maybe it might help you recognize that that shame is not directed at you it's usually just her holding up a mirror and it doesn't come from scarcity mentality and like hoarding tendencies don't come from a really stable and positive happy non-traumatic place like they usually stem from something um of a coping mechanism to like some sort of chaos and sometimes it doesn't mean that like you have to take what she says when she is like telling you that like shitty god stuff or whatever but sometimes it can be easier to have a have that like talk yourself down in your head when you can know that it's not really

directed towards you and it's coming from like a pretty negative personal place and then I guess for like the practicality of it is like i think that i would probably just have a i don't know if you go to school or if you go to work um but having like a fanny pack or um because i don't want to say like you know put put the things you want to throw away in your purse because i think i i don't know if she would look through your purse but i'm saying like if that is a possibility yes if not have like a fanny pack or a big hoodie or something and put a couple things stuffed like in the front there put your hoodie on over and be able to throw those some of those things away even if it's not everything but something that you can feel like you do have a

little bit of agency in your home even if that means you can't throw things away in your home but you can throw them away somewhere else if that might help but this is hard yeah i was actually gonna say the exact same thing is like maybe when you leave home if you can take a few things that you for sure need to and want to throw away take them with you and throw them away in like public trash or even if you can go out to the um bin maybe when your mom isn't around the bin at um at the apartment dump it in there when she can't see it you didn't mention it but like if she hasn't told you maybe ask her about her background when she was growing up I mean I know Megan mentioned a few things but just specifically just asking her like what kind of things that she had

or didn't have when she was growing up because she may be scared of losing things not having them running out being without period because you know sometimes having something expired still means that you have it without going without and i just want to co-sign everything megan said because she really hit on all the points i was going to make too yeah i i want to reiterate again this the the last point that we just made of like this is a control thing for your mom and this is an example of like of generational trauma and control issues are really really where i think we need the most like education and help with because you're in a situation where your mom feels or has felt at some point out of control and she does this for control and in doing that that takes away your control

and then you cope with putting control and gaining control in your life in some other avenue and it's it's there's really there's really so few options and so few choices that you can make to make you personally feel like you've gained a sense of control and that is an addicting thing like that's you know uh controlling your food it's substances it's sex it's all of these different things self-harm like there are all of these different things and i wish so desperately that like when i was like dealing with control issues which is like still a thing that i have I wish that I had just been like, it's not all or nothing. Like I can do this thing where I don't have control in this instance here, but I can find little ways I do have control. I don't need to

completely pivot to another avenue there because somebody else needs so much control that it makes me feel like I'm being stripped of all of mine and I'm left with so few options. There are more options and you can only see those options and know you have those options with like practice and trying and doing that and it's and it comes from like a self-love place versus a like need and and yeah having a conversation with her I think is a really good idea because I I don't have as much of a scarcity mindset that I mean I got it from my dad and he grew up like really really really poor in Pittsburgh and like I we could I couldn't throw away like Tang from Y2K like I could not throw away expired food and like I have expired vitamins at my house that like

I'm like okay well if it's in a couple months like I will if I don't take them in like the next couple months like then I'll throw them away and I still haven't done that yet but like there are some times where I'm throwing something away and I'm so I'm like oh my gosh this is like it's um what if I need it what if I need what if I need it I'm like you know what if I need it again I will cross that bridge when I come to it but like I didn't always have that mentality I wasn't born with that mindset or that mentality I didn't grow up like with a ton of money but like I wasn't born into a circumstance where I needed to use expired things I that was a learned behavior and you're at a stage right now where you can see that that behavior is not rational in your mom

and you don't have to appease her so much that you end up losing your own agency so like exert whatever agency you can have even if that feels like you're jumping through hoops and you're not like making a huge difference in how much you're throwing away but it's just like the act of being able to still do that but this is really fucking hard and I feel for for you and maybe even just like your mom said that like big trash bags are like too expensive and I am was also raised in a family where you go through with your grocery bags and like I still do that a lot here like you know maybe for you if you save up for her birthday or a holiday or something that you get her a a trash can that can like hold a couple of those bags and kind of keeps it a little bit

tidier and nicer and giving that to her in a way that it's like oh I thought this would be great for like you know you can put these things in here and then you're able to collect them and then when you're ready to take them out we can carry the whole thing out together and it comes from a way of like oh look how functional this is for the thing that you are doing as opposed to like shaming the thing that she's doing and in doing that you might it can take those things maybe out of uh mind's eye and a little bit more neatly put away but i'm sorry yeah all right next school i'm megan and melissa um i've been listening to the podcast forever but this is my first time calling in. I have a little bit of background. I'm almost 24. Just to make this call make a

little bit more sense, I grew up in a very high-demand religion, and I'm currently living within an area that has a lot of people from this region, aka Utah. I am married. I got married really young, and I'm no longer part of that religion, but I felt like this was kind of an important part to know. I also have the works of comorbidities. So I have chronic depression, chronic anxiety, ADD, PTSD, OCD, the works, right? So basically, since I did grow up in this religion, and I'm still in an area with a lot of people from the strong religion, talking about like sex with my friends or anything just isn't a thing. I'm very comfortable talking about sex and my sex life and you know having those kind of conversations I just don't really have anyone

to talk to about it and so basically I just need help like is what I'm going through normal is it not what should I do basically um this doesn't happen all the time but I will be like having sex with my partner or starting to have sex and there'll be times where I just get completely turned off for no reason or we're just like starting fourth play and all of a sudden it's almost like I get the ick and I'm like what am I doing I don't even want to be tipping and it just feels like I've almost disassociated from that situation I do think that therapy could be good for this but I have some other really big things that I'm working on in therapy and I just don't have that mental capacity to add that to the list and also maybe it's normal I'm not sure just like

And I might even be excited for it or looking forward to have sex. But then there's just moments where I turn off mentally and I have a really hard time verbalizing that. I am good at verbalizing what I need and want through sex when it's not happening. But in the moment, I have a hard time communicating what I'm feeling. I also do feel guilt for, I guess, maybe stopping halfway through, even though I know that my partner would have absolutely no issue with that. That's just kind of like that internal people pleasing worry, I guess. So yeah, my question is, does anyone else go through this? If not, is it disassociation? If you know, like, what is this? Why is this happening? How can I talk to my partner about it? Anyways, any advice would be really great. Thank you guys. well if you need somebody to talk to maybe dm those swingers they could probably help out oh my god i think they're making a reality show that was a joke no i'm not kidding i think there's a reality show that they're making on like mtv i wouldn't be surprised i wouldn't be surprised i don't know

if i mean neither of us can really say if that's disassociation i think that like because you said you have ADD like there's like you can space out and have that not be um disassociating and I think that your your knowledge and feeling of an ick I and again I could be very wrong here I would think that that kind of would negate the disassociation because disassociation tends to be like you are disassociating from like your thoughts your feelings your surroundings like like all pretty much like your senses like you kind of are just like you're gone and there isn't a really like a train of thought even if it's like oh I suddenly got the ick I don't know why at least in my personal experience it hasn't it hasn't been not not so many thoughts happening

in the moment but with like ADD sometimes you can zone out even without having it like I've got ADHD, even without having that, like you can suddenly start thinking about something else or your room could smell funny or like anything. Like we've talked about this so much about how the orgasm when you have a vagina is so multifaceted and like on like what can turn you on and you know, all of that. And sometimes you just have like out of body sort of like mind and body not connecting feelings and I wouldn't say that this is normal in the sense that like oh don't worry about it this happens to everyone like power through but I would also say that like it's it's there's really there's really so few options and so few choices that you can make

to make you personally feel like you've gained a sense of control and that is an addicting thing Like that's, you know, controlling your food, it's substances, it's sex, it's all of these different things, self-harm, like there are all of these different things. And I wish so desperately that like when I was like dealing with control issues, which is like still a thing that I have, I wish that I had just been like, it's not all or nothing. Like I can do this thing where I don't have control in this instance here, but I can find little ways I do have control. I don't need to like completely pivot to another avenue there

because somebody else needs so much control that it makes me feel like I'm being stripped of all of mine and I'm left with so few options. There are more options and you can only see those options and know you have those options with like practice and trying and doing that. And it's, and it comes from like a self-love place versus a like need and and yeah having a conversation with her I think is a really good idea because I I don't have as much of a scarcity mindset that I mean I got it from my dad and he grew up like really really really poor in Pittsburgh and like I we could I couldn't throw away like Tang from Y2K like I could not throw away expired food and like I have expired vitamins at my house that like I'm like okay well if it's in a couple months like I will

if I don't take them in like the next couple months like then I'll throw them away and I still haven't done that yet but like there are some times where I'm throwing something away and I'm so I'm like oh my gosh this is like it's I'm what if I need it what if I need what if I need it I'm like you know what if I need it again I will cross that bridge when I come to it but like I didn't always have that mentality I wasn't born with that mindset or that mentality I didn't grow up like with a ton of money but like I wasn't born into a circumstance where I needed to use expired things I that was a learned behavior and you're at a stage right now where you can see that that behavior is not rational in your mom and you don't have to appease her so much that

you end up losing your own agency so like exert whatever agency you can have even if that feels Like you're jumping through hoops and you're not like making a huge difference in how much you're throwing away. But it's just like the act of being able to still do that. But this is really fucking hard. And I feel for you and maybe even just like your mom said that like big trash bags

are like too expensive. And I was also raised in a family where you go through with your grocery bags. And like, I still do that a lot here. Like, you know, maybe for you, if you save up, for her birthday or a holiday or something that you get her a a trash can that can like hold a couple of those bags and kind of keeps it a little bit tidier and nicer and giving that to her in a way that it's like oh I thought this would be great for like you know you can put these things

in here and then you're able to collect them and then when you're ready to take them out we can carry the whole thing out together and it comes from a way of like oh look how functional this is for the thing that you are doing as opposed to like shaming the thing that she's doing and And in doing that, you might, it can take those things maybe out of mind's eye and a little bit more neatly put away. All right, next call. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I've been listening to the podcast forever, but this is my first time calling in. I have a little bit of background.

I'm almost 24. Just to make this call make a little bit more sense, I grew up in a very high-demand religion. and I'm currently living within an area that has a lot of people from this region, aka Utah. I am married. I got married really young and I'm no longer part of that religion, but I felt like this was kind of an important part to know. I also have the works of comorbidities. So I have chronic depression, chronic anxiety, ADD, PTSD, OCD, the works, right? So basically, um since I did grow up in this religion and I'm still in an area with a lot of people from uh the strong religion talking about like sex with my friends or anything just isn't a thing

I'm very comfortable talking about sex and my sex life and you know having those kind of conversations I just don't really have anyone to talk to about it and so basically I just need help like is what I'm going through normal is it not what should I do basically um this doesn't happen all the time but I will be like having sex with my partner or starting to have sex and there'll be times where I just get completely turned off for no reason or we're just like starting foreplay and all of a sudden it's almost like I get the ick and I'm like what am I doing I don't even want to be kissing and it just feels like I've almost disassociated from that situation I do think that therapy could be good for this but I have some other really big things that I'm

work on a therapy and I just don't have that mental capacity to add that to the list and I also maybe it's normal I'm not sure just like I might even be excited for it or looking forward to have sex but then there's just moments where I turn off mentally and I have a really hard time verbalizing that I am good at verbalizing um what I need and want through sex when it's not happening but in the moment I have a hard time communicating what I'm feeling I also do feel guilt for I guess maybe stopping halfway through even though I know that my partner would have absolutely no issue with that that's just kind of like that internal people pleasing worry I guess so yeah my question is does anyone else go through this if not is it disassociation if you know like

what is this what is this happening um how can I talk to my partner about it anyways any advice would be really great thank you guys well if you need somebody to talk to maybe dm those swingers they could probably help out oh my god i think they're making a reality show that was a joke no i'm not kidding i think there's a reality show that they're making on like mtv or i wouldn't be surprised i wouldn't be surprised i don't know if i mean neither of us can really say if that's disassociation i think that like because you said you have add like there's like you can space out and have that not be um disassociating and i think that your your knowledge and feeling of an ick i and again i could be very wrong here i would think that that kind of would negate the

disassociation because disassociation tends to be like you are disassociating from like your thoughts your feelings your surroundings like like all pretty much like your senses like you kind of are just like you're gone and there isn't a really like a train of thought even if it's like oh I suddenly got the ick I don't know why at least in my personal experience it hasn't it hasn't been not not so many thoughts happening in the moment but with like ADD sometimes you can zone out even without having it like I've got ADHD without having that like you can suddenly start thinking about something else or your room could smell funny or like anything like we've talked about this so much about how the orgasm when you have a vagina is so multifaceted and

like on like what can turn you on and you know all of that and sometimes you just have like out of body sort of like mind and body not connecting feelings and I wouldn't say that this is normal in the sense that like oh don't worry about it this happens to everyone like power through but I would also say that like it's not unheard of it's not like the the weirdest thing I've ever heard of and also it could be a cause of a lot of things and it also like if it's like happening like it could happen two days in a row for completely different reasons like it could be oh there was like that pillow scratching or like my hair just got like stuck under my armpit or whatever it is or it's like I just got a rush of feelings of like religious guilt or like I'm not

wet enough and this was like kind of uncomfortable and I think like the more in tune you can be in the moments of communicating that's like a practice and you might be able to find what it's stemming from and addressing those things there but like the biggest thing as someone who's not even religious but like when you bring up that you're feeling guilt to me that just that's the toxic religion winning in that moment and I think that of all the feelings that we should run away from it's shame and guilt and if an action that you are doing or how you're responding to something is leaving you with guilt that's not a emotion that serves you and it's like okay I in my mind this is what I think is the better option but I'm feeling guilty and that's

like that's a red flag for me and so now let's divert this and I think for women a lot specifically but also women who more specifically women who grew up in religion guilt is it's kind of like that first turn on a drive like it's like it's automatic going there it's really easy to get there and to be more comfortable there because it's can be a lot of what you are taught or something you're really familiar with and as opposed to being like how can I solve this it's like how can I eliminate more guilt from my life and the guilt you're feeling here is something that you've even said that like my partner would my husband would be like no like don't worry about it there and I think you need to get that out in in practice and not just you saying that and in

your head because you know those little voices can lie to us and sometimes when we say like well I know this is how it would go. At least for me, sometimes they're still a part of me like, but maybe not. And now I'm afraid to like vocalize it in case. And I just think like the more you can avoid the guilt that I think it will be easier for you to unpack if there is like a constant through line for why this is happening. Yeah. Also, I know you said that you're not ready to talk to your therapist about this, but it could also be something physical like hormones or something, something with your libido or sex drive. And I would just like, if you're not ready to talk to your therapist about it, talk about your mental health. Also talking to a physician

about your physical health, just to check the boxes off. I tried to Google and see if there was any like information about this. And I couldn't really find anything in these last few minutes. I'm not sure if I'm, I'm probably not using the right combination of words, but I don't know your means. If you're able to maybe having a separate therapist where you could dive into this. I do know some people that have separate therapists for separate needs. And so that you don't have to worry about talking to them about this one thing because you're working on something else. This can be a therapist specifically for this issue. And maybe I know that you said like during sex, you do feel guilty. Are you being truthful with your partner about

what's happening with your body? I know it can be a little bit embarrassing and you don't want your partner to feel like they're not desired, but being truthful also could open up some things mentally with you that could help with it if it's not a physical issue but it just so that your partner is aware of what's going on too so then that guilt is taken away from you as well yeah I I also like I don't know if you're in our Facebook group or are part of like our Patreon mostly just because I don't know I have I know one person in Utah but I think it would be really important for you to have friends that you can talk to about this and not keep this all like so internal and I think having two therapists if your means are able to do that like that would be a

great idea but even just being able to talk with other people about it and like you were saying like you're better at communicating with your partner not in the moment so like I would have a conversation big hey so this has been happening it has absolutely nothing to do with you it's me I'm trying to figure out where it's coming from, if it's a physical thing or if it's an emotional thing. So let's come up with something when that happens in the moment that I'm just going to like tap you twice on your shoulder or something like that. And I'm just going to like immediately reach into my bedside table and grab out like my journal. And I'm going to write down whether it's like the sensations that I'm feeling, the room, like just figuring out like, what did I do today?

is there like something that's playing in my head is there anything that's weighing on my mind in that moment and being able to kind of get that out there but I think right now you're this issue's feeling really insular so you're keeping it all in and I don't think that's I don't think you're going to be able to it's like sticky and like really webbed and entangled and it's like when you're untangling a necklace like sometimes I need to put it on a bright white surface that's well lit that's laying flat and I'm meticulously doing that but I'm not going to do that in the dark while sitting up like sometimes we need to verbalize to process things or whatever it is but your partner does like Melissa said your partner needs needs to know and if you're not

ready to tell him in the moment I think you need to come up with a way that he knows it's happening in the moment and how he can support you and I think inevitably you will be you'll feel more open and I think physiologically your body won't shut down because it's no longer and has never been a you problem like it's the emotional side is so tied to how our body responds to things and my therapist one time said this to me which not even in this context but it was one of the most helpful thing she said, where she was like, if you could have figured this out on your own, you would have by now. And that has just been a through line in my life that I found really helpful that like, I like to do everything myself, I think I can figure it out. And I try. And if it

was easy, and if I could have done it, oh my god, I would have done it by now. And that's how it is when you're like when you're determined to do something. Sometimes you just you just can't and I think you're recognizing that you don't have a space to be sex positive and to talk about those things and I think even that is internalizing it like when you watch movies and a couple's having sex and you're like is that normal is that like is that like how this goes is that not how I would feel or and even if it's not a really huge ordeal if it's just like socially talking about it casually I think if you can't talk about sex with your friends it's really hard to talk about sex with your partner it's really hard to talk about sex with the therapist like i think that you know

that that's an area in your life that you are really like lacking relationships in that way and that's fair yeah our facebook group talks about it all the time much to zuckerberg's dismay all right well we're gonna take another break and we're back and it is time for don't blame them don't blame them is where listeners call in with their own advice pertaining to a call that we played on previous episode so maybe they missed something in the original call that we didn't touch on or they have their own advice because they've been through it by proxy maybe they have their own personal experience with it or they just want to be like wow Megan Melissa like you give wonderful amazing advice and I

would just like to co-sign everything that you both gorgeous glamorous sexy ladies said and we don't get enough of people just like really going on and on about how hot and great we are when giving other people advice all right here we go hello to my favorite people I am listening to the podcast the episode about winning back an ex. And just wanted to call in with a don't blame them for that call specifically. I didn't even finish listening to y'all's advice because I was like, I need to call in right now. So first of all, call in. What Megan and Melissa were saying about we do not fight for people, like we do not fight to keep somebody in our life who does not want us. God, I wish someone

would have told me that. To get back on that 1000%, I recently went through a very similar a breakup to what you were talking about a couple months ago. And that was something that was really hard for me to sort of realize is that I need to want somebody who wants me back. Not like wants me back, like to get back together, but wants me the same way I want them. And then also the issue of not knowing why you two broke up. At the end of the day, it does not matter. And I'm months out from my breakup and have just kind of realized that it's called a breakup because it broke like you don't break up with somebody who is going to work out with that's just not how relationships work and one of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten with breakup is from

Megan's book uh subtle plug right there of make a list of everything in that partner that you want in your future partner and all the things that you refuse to put up with ever again that's always really helped me in realizing that not everything in that relationship was perfect and that I was most likely looking at it with rose-colored glasses. And then I know it's hard, but my last little piece of advice is to just keep your head on your shoulders. With mutual friends, it can be so tough to like not talk shit and like just be, I hate this term, but like be the bigger person at the end of it. But I chose the path of just keeping to myself, focusing on myself. I know you said you were in therapy. And that is something that helps me so much and working on myself. Meanwhile,

the past couple of months, my ex has been completely destroying his life. And that's the best karma there is. So I love you so much. I love all of you so much. And you got this. Someone out there is going to love you in such an incredible way. All right. Have a great day. Bye. Wonderful. Amazing. Wonderful. Amazing. Sometimes I forget that I wrote a book with the great fantastic advice in it and also some shitty advice but hey if that's not on brand well we hope you all enjoyed this episode if you did please leave a review on the apple podcast app or wherever you listen that has the ability to review and maybe you just want to leave an instagram comment being like five stars would write again and you know we would also appreciate

that if you want to call in for an upcoming episode leave us a voicemail at 310-6940-976 international listeners megapodcast.com i'm just saying it fast because you all know the shtick it's also in the show notes as well as what i said at the beginning and yeah we've got a whole slate of new episodes for you this week we've got our see you next tuesday which is comes tomorrow tuesday and don't blame me this week and our fisting friday so you only have to miss us on wednesdays we're so kind and thoughtful in that way you can always listen to an old episode on Wednesday if you don't want us to be out of your life for that long.

If you're getting like heart palpitations, being like, oh my gosh, how can I live without them for one day? To that I say, you should, there's a lot of people who've said the same thing. Like it's just, we're infectious. That word still has not come back after COVID. We're so enticing that like, you know,

it's like your morning coffee. How are you supposed to poop without listening to us every single day? that'd be a fun pavlovian like response where it's like you know obviously coffee makes you poop but it's also like the routine of having it that like someone listens to us in the morning before they poop and it's like well how much does it poop if i don't listen to megan and melissa give wonderful advice i like that anything else or shall we end it that's it let's end it let's land this bird okay sully sullenberg okay everyone goodbye

Bye-bye. Don't Blame Me is a production by me. Executive produced by Melissa DeMonts and Diamond and Print Productions. Edited by Coco Lawrence. Post-production sound by Chris Henry. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. Music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.