Don't Blame Me! - My Husband Calls Me His Ex's Name

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Meghan and Melisa give advice on: Update: Getting over a terrible break Incompetent co-worker Unprepared for dating in the real world Husband and his mother saying the wrong name Not swallowing Don’t Blame Them: Age gap relationships Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Subscribe to our new show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/but-am-i-wrong/id1591757891 Follow Us! @meghanrienks www.instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @dontblamemepod https://www.instagram.com/dontblamemepod/ 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 everybody and welcome back to another episode of don't blame me your favorite podcast the best podcast in the entire world tied with the best tied with the best that is but am i wrong that is the other one and we have such good names for our podcasts but am i wrong don't blame me i love a good name i love a good name i'm on reddit now you've got me into like being on reddit so like i have the app on my phone and it's like such a great time i do think i need to get off the gilmore girls subreddit because i disagree so wholeheartedly wholeheartedly with some of their opinions that i'm like it's just infuriating me and i'm not even responding like i'm just like angry scrolling so i need to sign off and i am assuming that's probably how you feel

for some of the um soaps yes especially general hospital i argue with people all the time on there like i know people hate me and i don't care because i will lay out exactly what happened in the scene and be like did you not did you not like the information's there and then there was somebody that was always complaining about the commercials i was like every episode is 36 minutes long if you're watching live you have to sit through commercials that's what pays for the show like i just get in arguments with people every day about things and i'm just like are you not watching the same show one thing about the general hospital subreddit is that it's very liberal oh that's good and then when others come in they don't get booted but everyone else kind of gangs

up on them and they go away and go back to the facebook group where that's where those people are but i was telling someone because you know as someone that lives in los angeles and knows insider information someone was mad because there it was something that had to do with the mandate and i was just and i had said i have a friend that works on another disney because disney is the only one that has like everyone has to be vaccinated yeah i was just talking about how another friend worked on a show and they were all gonna have this dinner that but then when disney found out about it they're like no you're not doing this and they're like that's so ridiculous because even if everyone's vaccinated i was like even if you're vaccinated you still can get covid and

you know that shuts down the whole production like they have to still follow the same same mandates if they're gonna have dinner and they're like well that's just ridiculous and then everyone ganged up on the most oh god yeah i love that that's like i'm on one the name nerds one which is all about like baby names and also like people who are changing their names or like naming fictional characters pets and all of that the vocalist most vocal group is ready to hop on in anytime anytime someone wants to like be like so we are not japanese but we would love we love anime we would love to name our child this after this and like we know that no one can spell it so we decide we're gonna spell it uh phonetically and like and you just like within like i just like

scroll down i'm like oh it's been taken care of and i love it name nerds is like my favorite that and the sims mobile subreddit are like my two number one things right now like i am debating getting involved in the sims community but this old the one that is like so fun about the name one is that people will do there are so many different like ongoing trends so people will do like oh found this like went vintage shopping found this yearbook here are all the names that i saw in this yearbook and people like preschool teacher here like obviously not including identifying information it's a burner account but like here are the first names of like the kids in my class um or some of them not all of them because again they make it so you can't figure

out who they are and they do ends up like everybody writes out like what was your grandmother's name and like what year were they born it's like very interesting and cool i love names i love names i have the longest name list on my phone i used to have one a long time ago and then i lost it and i haven't kept up since then oh i add names like it's my favorite pastime it's just like going on pinterest and going on and just like searching up baby names i like that for you thanks it's a good time so yes this is don't blame me where we give you life-changing amazing wonderful advice and we give you the best advice ever and uh if it's not the best advice you see in the title you cannot blame us we are professional cunts bitches and we will absolutely come for you if

you are wrong but if you tell us that you are a pisces or you are a sensitive little soul we will take that into consideration but uh we're here we don't sugarcoat anything we give the advice that we wish to see in the world we come at this from a place of i hate using the word tough love because i feel like it was completely co-opted by um kate from john and kate plus eight when she would just like punch her husband in the shoulder like way too hard and i was like i don't think it's been co-opted because i never equated the two together so did you watch johnny k plus eight i watched some of it in the very very early days when they seemed um you know they weren't consumed by the fame yeah i was obsessed with that joe and i just want everyone to know that i am mutuals

with maddie on tiktok and i lost my mind i was like it was great texted sydney and everything I was like, Maddie from Johnny K Plus 8 followed me back. This is the greatest day of my life. I just love her. Yeah. If you want to call in for an upcoming episode, you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976. And international listeners, you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com. So we are working on an episode with a guest, which we have not done in so long.

We mentioned this in a previous episode, but we wanted, again, to solicit calls for if you're needing advice pertaining to open relationships, non-monogamy, and polyamory. we're gonna have someone who's an expert in that and can actually speak to it versus us speaking in hypotheticals so this is the time we like to obviously include a variation of calls on our show when it's just us but specifically when we're gonna have somebody who has experience in that we want to get as many calls for this as possible yeah and she's pretty cool pretty good when we say who it is you're gonna be like whoa I told Mott's Mott's was like whoa I know I sounded like Monica there anyways so yeah when you call in for the podcast for I mean for that but for any time make

sure that it is under three minutes because you will get cut off we ask that you write down everything you're gonna say pull out a timer a timeout how long it takes you and make sure that you include the ages of everybody involved it's about relationships how long have you been together all of those are really important details because the more details more important details we have better advice that we can give you so practice it a couple times and then read it when you record it and be 18 or over and have your parents permission let us know your pronouns and if you are crushing it and you do so well you might receive the most amazing alkali a diamond sparkly diamond a sparkly diamond figuratively but you could receive that and just know that they're hard

to come by before we get into the rest of it make sure if you want to you don't make sure but like you can we also do video versions of this podcast on patreon as well as live streams twice a month so support the show so we can keep making it yeah and if you support on patreon maybe one day i could buy a home not for what we make on patreon nope not at all so if you work for an ad agency and you sell podcast ads, please reach out. At this point, I'm like, ethically, maybe I'd take a sponsorship from Redfin. Could I get a house? All right. Okay. Let's get into the update. Let's get into the update. My advice request was because I had just gone through the absolute worst breakup of my entire life. My whole life essentially just did a 180 and dumped me on my

butt. And I had just started to put the pieces back together and I needed advice on how to get my stuff back because I couldn't at the time afford a moving truck. I didn't want to go see the house that I had purchased with my ex and our dog and everything. So updating now, I am in a new place. I have restarted my entire life, new job, new city, new everything. I have some wonderful and amazing friends who helped me get all my stuff that he had very kindly just tossed in the garage for me. I hate this man. Oh, me too. Me too. You know, it's a bad relationship when your therapist says, Oh, good, it's over. So yeah, that was, that was a bit of a wake up call for me. But I have 90% of my stuff. And he was gave me a little bit of decency and did pay

me for the stuff that he kept. So that was at least good. And his mother was incredible in the financial aspect of it and got me every penny back. So Oh, good. I am good for that. wow so her mom his mom knows that he's a piece of shit absolutely but uh she messaged me afterwards and she said when um when he told her that he was considering ending it with me she asked him who he was sleeping with yeah whoa yeah yeah imagine if that's your son and you're like piece of shit motherfucker well she wasn't far off i did find blue hair in our shower once and i very clearly don't have blue hair you can't see me but i'm a brunette so yeah she does not have brown hair blue hair no what the yep so dude that's like a that's like comical of like the what are you

gonna say that you had a smurf in here like what's your excuse i know yeah smurfs don't even have blue hair do they not they have white and blonde they don't have blue hair though oh they're blue okay sorry she was figuring it out damn well i'm so happy you got your shit back but like and i'm really happy his mom stepped up that that's that's great there's nothing worse than like when someone treats you like really horribly and then like other people kind of condone that action like yeah that's hard yeah she was uh pretty incredible through the situation she and i had our you know differences while we were dating because it is her only son and she was very um involved uh in our lives um but in the end she she did very much come through for me and i

very much appreciate her for that so that's like low-key surprising like you don't usually hear about that especially like i mean like boy mom but like boy mom of one's like that's wow well i guess that's what happens when you talk to his mom more than he ever did so she's on your side holy shit well congratulations on like the new job a new apartment everything like that and like you are glowing you like not like not not saying that you're pregnant i think but like oh gosh i hope not no no when you got on the call i felt your energy it was great oh yeah and we could hear your energy on the phone call the original call and like that night and day difference like I'm sure it's obviously still really hard now but like this it feels like the

sun is coming up yeah honestly I was incredibly lucky in my situation that I was able to run home to my family and I went to a lot of therapy after that and so frankly I can very fairly say the only thing I miss about that is the dog that's it yeah that's all I miss I wish we were like legally allowed to like steal dogs back like I know right but he's a good dog dad okay one thing about our relationship is he did value the dog more than me so I guess I know the dog's safe and in good hands well shit yeah it's not what you want for your partner actively but yeah for an ex i'm like okay that's the one good trait i'll let you have now you've pivoted wow oh well i'm happy that you're starting fresh and doing all of that stuff and and you got your money yes i did yes i

did bitch had your money yes bitch had your money the sequel to rihanna's hit song well thank you so much for giving us an update you are so pretty by the way like you have the greatest smile ever thanks my mom paid a lot of money for it oh lucky it is wonderful and great eyebrows like you yeah yeah you look like you'd be like in a fan you look like a fanfic character like you look like you know i mean like you would be you'd be in like a harry styles fanfic so i see great things for your dating future harry styles maybe you'll have to help tell me how he is in bed because i i have this thing of like i think he would be great in bed but then i also think he might cry after sex and i just can't decide you know you know i can see that i can

really see that yeah i just need someone to sleep with him and let me know he seems like he'd be really great at going down that's what i think too but then i think he would like maybe cry i think he would like savor it a little bit too much yeah i don't know i think about this way too much I know I'm unhinged well thank you thank you she is pure sunshine she's great I'm so glad everything worked out for her I wish I had someone to set her up with like I do what I mean like she just like she is sunshine like oh it's so nice to hear like we obviously don't love when people are like going through like really hard sad stuff and you can hear it in their voices and I hopefully we could obviously see in her face because we're video chatting her but I hope that you all as

listeners could probably hear in her voice too just that drastic change yeah i'm happy for me fucking too and wow a mother-in-law like essentially like come a boy mom excelling we love to see her recognizing her son is trash it never before again like it's one and done uh okay so now we're gonna get into the calls hi megan and melissa i am a 22 year old my pronouns are she, her, and the co-worker I'm mentioning in this call is a 34-year-old, pronouns she, her. I'm having a situation at my job. I work at a non-profit where we do emergency crisis respite and child care for average families. I love my job. I make great money, and they are really flexible with my school schedule, as well as it being great experience after I graduate with my

degree in social work. I have a really good relationship with my boss, who has been really helpful in this situation. We are a very small program. Previously, we had four employees total, but two of them were let go because they did not comply with COVID vaccine policies. Now it's just me, my boss, and my new co-worker who was hired about two months ago. I made it clear that when the other two employees were let go that I did not have a leadership mentality. I was there to work with the families and did not want to add on any more responsibilities as I already work full-time and go to school full-time. My new co-worker is genuinely just not great at this job. We work with kids with trauma, and although she has 10 plus years of

working with children in another setting, she just does not do well in this setting. I won't go into the details, but at times it just seems that she is incompetent and does not fit in this dynamic. I'm often left frustrated during the workday now because I'm picking up her slack and doing a lot more at work than I was before she was hired. This is already a mentally and physically exhausting job due to the population that we work with, but it is 10 times harder now because she just isn't effective in her work. I have talked with my therapist who has given me tips on how to handle this and I will no longer be picking up her slack. It is just really hard on me because this job was so consistent in my life where consistency has not always been prevalent

for me and now it feels like work is chaotic and more exhausting than it should be. I have communicated this with my boss and she is so helpful and has my back in these situations but she keeps saying how receptive my co-worker is if I'm able to have open communication with her. I tried to communicate in the moment when I noticed she's doing something but nothing really changes. I don't know if it's because I'm so much younger than her that she doesn't take me seriously or what, but I really do not like being in the place where I have to tell someone constantly what mistakes they are doing or how to do their job. I love my job so much, but it has gotten so exhausting being there. We have been hiring for months, but no one is applying because

of the workforce situation at the moment. I don't know what to do, and I don't want to find a new job, but I'm also tired of being in this situation and nothing changing. Any help would be so appreciated. Thank you both. Love the podcast. So if you're saying that you've been hiring people and no one's being receptive because of the workforce situation, then that means that you're not paying enough for the position. People want to work. I missed that part. Yeah. I thought it was that the two people who quit was for COVID. They quit for COVID. But then at the end, she said, because now they've hired one person so then now they're still doing the work of three people with two people so then at the end she said we were trying to hire but uh people haven't been receptive

because of the whole workforce situation oh yeah well yeah no that's not that's not an asshole that's like the fact like there's there's not a labor shortage there is a fair wage fair compensation and benefits. Yeah. And I think that like, this can be like, you've described this as like, there's like a really wonderful, great job for you as at 22, when you're doing this full time, along with school full time, this is going to help your other career, all that. But like, these are other people's career career is this and like, it does seem like if you're not able to find people that is a your team and your boss needs to reassess like what it is that you are offering for people i this is maybe this is also an unpopular thing i think when you work in any

realm any job title any position you are going to to have to have some sort of leadership there and like even if you are not a boss even if you are just a co-worker we all even as friends like people fuck up and we call them out on that and like that is something that i understand that it probably like is really hard but that is something that like you don't have to want to further a career on the leadership track of like your job but like leadership is an aspect of working in general whether and like it shows itself in different forms like that's always going to be there i think like it that sucks that like you it feels like you have communicated it to her and like she hasn't like necessarily been receptive or done a better job at it but that also at this

point as long as like what she's doing is not like directly harmful and if what she's doing is directly harmful to like the people involved then make sure that have your boss come and chat stay there for the day to watch that happen because like this shouldn't be your problem yeah and i feel like because you guys are having a harder time hiring people than your boss is being more protective of not losing this person too and so your boss isn't doing what a boss should do if they're not being receptive to what's going on, then that should be something where when your boss has a evaluation with this person, they should be evaluating their work. And if they're not doing what's right and not changing their behaviors, then that means that, you know,

adjustments need to be made and figuring out why they're not changing. So this falls on management. yeah I also would say like two months is depending on what they're doing two months is still a learning curve yes two months is definitely still a learning curve and I think like in an ideal world we would all love to say one thing to someone and then have their behavior like indefinitely change to reflect that but that isn't how it works like it does take a while and kind of consistency for that it also takes people seeing different results when they change their behavior to like that reinforces it so i think that like this like sucks to be in this situation but there are some things within your control which like communicating to her constantly

and also not working there anymore if this is like too much and too hard for you and then the things that aren't in your control are like the job descriptor like and like what they're offering and that's something your boss needs to do and your responsibility also isn't if you don't want to have to tell her this stuff all the time that is another thing that like we talk about a lot when it comes to like jobs and stuff that like you could find another job you might not necessarily you might come across like a the exact same kind of person like that's part of the workforce is like learning how to work with all different kinds of people but the difference would be if you went to another job at this time you would be the new person and i think most most jobs have

like a three month probation period anyway and she's not even in that three months so she's still learning you gotta be patient yeah and i think i think probably the lack of patience right now is because you're just like overwhelmed and that i think i would redirect instead of directing your attention on her i would redirect your attention to your boss to be like we need to hire more people like there isn't a labor shortage like we need to make this so it is a desirable job for people to come work at. And like, I don't want to say that, like maybe talk to anyone that you know,

who is like older, who is like what they would be looking for. Because I think potentially what you are looking for and like things that you really value are things that are going to help you get ahead in your career, like later on. But so then talk to people who are actively in their careers

of what they want to be seeing on job descriptions and offer letters and that stuff, because it will be different. so you're what you view as good for you unless you're hiring other 22 year olds who are also in school and doing that like it needs to be very different and i hope hopefully your boss knows that that like what people need they she can't pay a 34 year old uh in i mean you're obviously getting paid you said it's good pay but it's but is it good pay that's what i i don't want to be an asshole but i'm like is it good pay and or like good pay for like a college student who's

you know but and if you take out the experience that it gives you take that out because that has a huge monetary value down the road if you take that out that is like you said the co-worker she has a lot of experience so like you're going in with a different set and also like she might like not be doing her greatest at the job because maybe she doesn't feel like she's being adequately compensated for it i don't know if you can find out how any of that works but yeah yeah you can see look up people that have similar i mean this is where you know linkedin comes into play you can see who's working in similar fields that you are trying to find like a woman that would be helpful and there are linkedin influencers so look around and find someone that is in a similar field that

seems like they might be helpful and just send out a bunch of just like messages hey i've been working in this position for a long time. This is what I'm doing. Is this pay fair? Yeah. Also, I've never in my life ever heard somebody say I work in a nonprofit, the pay is great. And you said that. And as somebody whose parent runs a nonprofit, I'm like, so yeah, nonprofits have like, they do such great work a lot of the time, but they have a really, sadly, because our government does not help out with this kind of stuff that it's like, we have they have a very bad reputation of requiring so much physical and emotional labor from their employees without accurate compensation for all of that they're doing and it's like

extremely overworked and it plays on your heartstrings and like your morality and all of that stuff that like you end up sacrificing a lot of like your needs because of the for the greater good when in reality like that's counterproductive so it's really hard and you also might be just coming into contact with a lot of people who are really burned out from nonprofits. It's hard. It's really fucking hard. Alright. Next call. Yep. Hi, Megan and

Melissa and maybe guests because you just announced your first podcast back since pandemic with a guest this week. But anyways, I'm 20. I use she, her pronouns and basically I'm graduating from college in June and I'm graduating a year early. I know it's

right for me because I feel like I've really been outgrowing a lot of what the college experience has offered me over the last few years, and especially with COVID, I'm kind of just ready to wrap it up and get out of here. I'm planning to go to law school after at least a year off, and I'm very excited about graduation. I'm not anxious about graduating early at all, but it has led to me thinking through a bit more about my social life. I've never been on a date, I've never had sex, and I've never been in a relationship. I'm not the kind of person who can fake feelings or interest in people I'm the most easily readable person ever you can

absolutely tell when I'm mad at people and so it's not like I wish that I'd push myself to date people just to say I was in a relationship or like have the experience and I'm glad I listened to my boundaries but I'm also really feeling like I missed out on the experience of having like a college hope is it like dating around and I feel extremely unprepared for dating in like the real world. Obviously, also being in college through COVID and because I took the pandemic seriously, it meant I couldn't really meet any people. And now suddenly I'm graduating in like four months and realizing that I will probably be graduating without dating or sexual experience. And I have a couple of dating apps, but I feel like I don't really just vibe with them at all. I feel like

everyone on there is kind of fake or performative, and I would really rather just meet people in person. So I haven't had a great experience with those. It doesn't help things that I am an oldest sister to a girl who's been dating since she was 14. So it's hard to not compare our experiences and feel like I'm falling behind. So overall, I'm just wondering, how do I move past feeling like I missed out on an important experience? And how can I get past the anxiety of people in the real world beyond college, just like judging my lack of experience? I have a little bit of time left. So thank you i've been listening since my senior year of high school you guys have gotten me through and i am a cancer son we are moon libra rising thank you that is a great birth charm okay

it is i like it okay i don't know what that means but well sydney's a cancer and kyle is a libra and i'm a leo that's how i dictate what is a good birth chart because i like people who have those side okay uh okay this might be like i don't know i think i'm gonna probably figure this out as i'm talking about this because i will say i dated in middle school high school had sex when i was in high school had sex in college but i was only in college for a year i very much feel like i missed out on that college ho phase i've like never really besides like high school and even then And, like, how much can you call it a ho phase when you've known people since you were a child? Like, I've never really had that.

And I definitely felt like I was unprepared. Like, I felt like I missed out on that. But at the same time, now that I have, like, been in a long-term adult relationship and I've, like, dated outside of college, college isn't real life. Right. And, like, isn't the real world. It is, like, it's a bubble. and not having experience in that bubble that doesn't prepare you to like be a good partner or or anything like you can become like a I think the more self-aware you are and the more you know

yourself and like the boundaries that you have and like if you've been to therapy like you understand your own like trauma anything like that like all of that like knowledge of yourself and like confidence is much more valuable in a relationship than like experience I would I personally think especially once you start like getting a little bit older the one thing I will say is that the sex thing like it depends on how you view this and like what you want but I think that I this this might be unpopular but at least for the people that I know if you didn't have sex in high school you were probably a little less likely to have sex in college and if you were less likely to have sex and these are like my friends and if you were less likely to have sex

in college then by the time that you're out of college it can feel like oh shit I haven't necessarily been like waiting or holding out for something it just like hasn't happened and then you have to decide now however that happened that you never had sex with anybody you have to decide what you want that experience to be like and you need to lay that out as like a this is what I want and it's not related to the person that you're actively pursuing or dating or talking to and establish those clear boundaries and communicate that right from the start

because you might meet somebody. You might say like, you know what? I don't feel like I need to be in love with someone to have sex for the first time. This was my thing. I was like, I didn't feel like I needed to be in love to have sex with someone the first time. I wanted to make sure that however I felt about them,

they felt about me. So I was like, either it's gonna be like what we're friends and we're like there's no miscommunication there we're both feel the same way i don't want that the person i have sex with the first time to like me more than i like them and i don't want me to like them more like all of that so figure out what you want in that sense because i think it's important right off the bat when you are communicating if you are looking for a relationship versus if you are looking for something casual you go about those two things differently the thing that I for friends I have that don't have a ton of experience with dating

the thing I wish I could teach them or like get through to them is it is completely fine and it is not a red flag and does not turn people off if you tell someone that you are looking for a relationship but if you tell someone you are looking for something casual it's not going to become a relationship like people when you start dating someone you know what you want for you doesn't mean that it's going to be with that person. But you have to know what you want for you going into it. Otherwise, you're giving the other person all the power and like, you're not in control of said situation. You know? Yeah, here's the thing. I don't think you know what you want right now. Because you mentioned you haven't, you know, gone through a whole phase.

You think that people are fake on dating apps, you'd rather meet people in person, blah, blah, the moon has a new face every 30 days you can have a moon uh whole face at any time in your life if you want to have a whole face right now have it i mean i was planning on and i've been out of college for numerous years i was planning on 2020 being a new whole face for me but guess what happened it's been on a hiatus for a couple years and then i was gonna you know after everybody was getting vaccines i was like here i can hoe face hot girl summer loading hoe face coming not enough people got vaccines so it pushed it back again uh so you can have if you want to have a hoe face timing doesn't matter you could be in a relationship for a year and then break up with

that person and then have another hoe face you can be in a non-monogamous relationship and hoe it out everywhere just as long as you're being you know ethical and responsible with your hoeing you can do that at any time and then as far as people being fake on dating apps you're going to meet fake people wherever you go like even if you meet them in person they're still going to be fake on dating apps you have to you know if you want to just hoe it out on the dating app you can do that and who cares if they're fake they're just somebody that's going to be in your life temporarily anyway if you're looking for something serious you have to have the intention of going on the dating app and looking for something serious. You've got to have the

right filters applied so that you're looking for someone that actually wants to be in a relationship. It's all about what intentions you have. I think right now you're kind of in a discovery phase and college is a time for discovery, but you can be discovering no matter where you are in your life. So I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself. So maybe just start with just dating and it doesn't have to be dating because you want to hook up with someone or dating because you want to be in a relationship. Just date to just see how you vibe with people. Yeah. Like make yourself like a dating bucket list. Like I'm going to go on one date. I'm going to go on a date to drinks. I'm going to go on a date to dinner. I'm going to go on a date with somebody who I meet off of

a dating app. I'm going to approach someone and ask them out, like do that kind of stuff to feel like you're getting a taste of it. I will say people knock dating apps so much, but statistically in my experience, the guys who have approached me out and come up to me out, there is a type who does that. And it really changed. I mean, not changed for me, but like, especially in a pandemic, where are you going where people are going to come up and approach you? People don't know if you're vaccinated they don't know if they want to come up and talk to someone you can't really read facial expressions as much because you're wearing masks and also men approaching women in public or if you're if you're specific if you're dating men if men let's say like is for me

personally a man approaching me in public at this point i don't want that like i i i don't want that and there's a certain again that's true that is true but there's like a certain kind of guy who would actively pursue me in a bar and it's not necessarily the ones who are pursuing you and coming up to you that you're interested in but when you are on a dating app you actually have more control there unless you want to go out somewhere and like you find you see someone that you think is cute and you want to take that initiative but when people talk about like they're ranticized the idea of meeting someone in public or meeting someone in person you have to make sure that you have the exact right circumstances set up in your life that that

can happen so you're going to constantly you're going to go do things alone but then again there's like a safety issue there and like you are attending things where you know other single people who have the same interest as you it's like that's a lot more work than like a dating app and you can find people who are fake they're totally for sure but like you said those people exist in real life as well you are just seeing a bigger pool of them and you might get a little desensitized to that but there are great people on dating apps you just have to filter through and see that and like make notes and list of things that you like to see on a profile and you don't like to see on a profile and it never it never hurts to talk to somebody to see what their personality is like

like i think if you can think they're cute from the photos and that's someone who you're like whatever but the most important thing to me is always like their responses to questions and how they talk and like even if i can tell like okay this person like they might be a little weird or like they might be you can i don't know i think you can have a probably a pretty good read on some people and then you can see again and just talk to them and see if how you vibe with them there but it doesn't have to be like melissa said i think you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself it doesn't have to be everything all at once in this like very serious kind of manner but you just have to set yourself up with intentions and then actually follow through

on this because they're not it doesn't fall in your lap and like that's something that like we've thought it's like oh it happens when you least expect it like that's not necessarily true and especially not during a pandemic all right right right all right okay now we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back we're back from the break for all the tapes hello megan and melissa i'm 26 and use she her pronouns and my husband is 28 and uses he him pronouns. The thing I'm calling about is something that I didn't think used to be a problem. It's happened since the beginning of our relationship and I figured it

would go away eventually. But my husband will flip up every once in a while and call me by his ex's name. Now I understand that that's very easy to call someone by the wrong name. Even I do it all the time with my brothers and sisters and that's why I used to be able to dismiss it as unimportant to complete accident. Only within the last year has it started bothering me a little bit and every time he does it again it bothers me more and it's gotten to the point where I start getting a little angry I mean come on we've been together for seven years and been married for five of those I mean that seems like a while to still be flipping up just to side note my mother-in-law whose mom does the exact same thing but I won't even get started on the toxic relationship with

her that's maybe a story for another time but anyways I've mentioned it to him before and he and said that it started bothering me. He apologized and said it was simply accent and slip of the tongue and that he totally didn't mean to. He seems very sincere when he says it, and he looks like he feels really bad. When he's in the middle of saying the wrong name, I can see his eyes kind of widen like, oh, crap. So I generally don't think it has anything to do with him

selecting his ex or anything. In his defense, everything about our relationship is amazing besides that. And to be fair, both my name and his ex's name both start with the letter S, so I can understand how it might be a little easier to mix them up and you're not paying attention. And also, this is a man who can't even remember the year I was born sometimes and has to ask me to make sure he gets it right. I'm just really looking for your advice on this and how we should move forward.

Like I said, it hasn't bothered me for recently, and it doesn't even happen that often, maybe like once a month. But I know myself and my own mental health, and when something like this happens, the more I get upset about it, the more it starts bugging me and it blows up into a huge mess. i'm trying to catch that before that happens because i don't want this to turn into a huge deal that fucks up our marriage so what do you think is this something that can even be worked on since it's not something he's doing on purpose i literally don't know what to do about it maybe

if i tell him he just has to start calling me baby all the time and he won't use my name maybe i don't know but anyways i look forward to hearing what you guys think thank you so much and i love your podcast i don't think you're looking forward to what we're thinking i'm just like seven years is a long ass time to be with someone and they're still calling you their ex's name on accident i am pessimistic i the only way i can fathom this still happening at least once a month for the last seven years is because he says that other name a lot so does his mom so whether that means that they talk about her he talks about her with other people a lot or they are still in contact this is weird like this is i so one of my friends her partner now has a name that is

one letter off from like her other long-term partner and i made a such a like clear point when talking with moths when like i'm like we cannot say the wrong name and like we just can't like and like we actively think that and and work on that and that was like the first beginning and we weren't dating this person like it was just friend of and that we i don't have to think about it anymore it's just immediate quick easy this is so this is like this is a very large red flag to me and also like if if your name start with an s like what sarah savannah like i'm not seeing like i think melissa marissa that is something that i'm like okay similar like how but like what would an s name be sarah syra when it's the same name but like

different origins yeah origins but either way i couldn't even tell you half the people i did seven years ago like how long were they together were they like childhood friends is this someone that's still in his life is his mom still talking to this person it has to be i just don't understand how how this is still happening because you you have been dating him since he was 21 years old so that means that it was either a college girlfriend or a high school and like if their relationship was not longer than your relationship and they didn't like grow up together like that to me is the only only realm and then like it's also his sister's name or it's also like a co-worker's name like it's a name that is popped up in his life every single day from a different

person and and in conjunction with that they also have dated from the time that they were like five years old until they were like 19 or 20 because that's the only way i could see this happening yeah in a way that's not sad yeah what's the advice here the advice here is i have two very different things did he play football does he is he have memory issues in general if so i would go to a doctor and i would talk to a doctor about that for him because if if this is if it's progressively getting worse if this feels like because what you're saying is it feels like it's so unintentional and the second he hears it when he says it it's like did not what he means like he's like oh shit and that if his cognitive if it's a brain thing they go to the

doctor and yeah and or snoop like i'm like brain or snoop and like figure out what that is and like break it down and maybe i'll just ask like why like why do you think this is like do you do you have a co-worker with this name like when's the last time you talked to her like this just feels like we've been dating for so long how how is my name not the first one you automatically say yeah so yeah just get down to the root of it i don't think him calling baby is gonna be any improvement no i think that's putting a band-aid on date ah look at us hey look at us but yeah no i agree i think that like there is an issue here and you need to get to the root of the issue it's like this is not i say wrong things all the time my brain is all jumbled but i also

know that do i mean like i don't do this but i'm also like aware that like i'm neurodivergent like i have brain stuff i stumble over words all the time as you hear in this podcast i mess things up but yeah in my brain it it seems right until i hear myself talking but yeah because it's either that he can't change his behavior and like he's trying and it's not working that's something that like doctor like that is get a doctor involved or he's not trying because they're she's still in his life or is being talked about a lot and or he has multiple other people in his life with that name but this would piss me off to no end yeah and like mott has an ex who has a name that starts the same letter as mine i would lose my mind i would be like i'm sorry what did you say like i

would not be as chill as you've been with this for like literally seven years sorry this would drive me wild next time let's do it hi guys i just came in i have kind of i guess it's a silly situation it's not like super serious but it's really been bothering me because recently i was looking for a picture in my boyfriend's phone like he was literally sitting next to me when this happen and I was looking for something he told me to look for when I was driving and it was like saved in his snapchat memories with one of his like female friends like girl I don't I don't like the word female but saying girlfriends is kind of confusing but like girl space friends that he used to be friends with but he had saved a picture in their snapchat and he knew that's

where it was and when I was scrolling I saw a message from her and I already got really bad vibes from this girl that said your girlfriend looks like the kind of girl that won't swallow and he he didn't say anything really back he kind of just changed the subject and was like ew like why would you even talk about that and then like moved on but here's the thing like I don't swallow I hate swallowing and like I never have we've been dating for three years and these messages happened like a long time ago because I was deep looking for that picture but like it just really bothered me because I don't swallow and I didn't say anything to him at the time but now like every time we have sex it's just in the back of my head that like I don't swallow and

like apparently I look like I'm the kind of girl that doesn't swallow and for some reason even though they're not even friends anymore this is really bothering me and I don't want to bring it up with him because it happened like three years ago but like at the same time I'm like is this something he wants like he's never told me but like it's just my insecurities getting the best of me and I've had guys make fun of me for not swallowing before and there's such like a stigma around it so like how do I like accept that and then also how do I get over this like I guess insecurity that this has caused it's really affecting me even though it's kind of a little thing so yeah that is my little situation I hope you guys can help thank you so much you're the

best i'm so sorry for laughing i'm not laughing at you i'm just laughing i just don't think you caller understand like this is the situation like it's not silly like i totally understand this but like this is like it was written on an episode of modern family if modern family was nc-17 like to be like even just the way you said it was like the message said that like you don't swallow and and i fell into i don't know she's a good storyteller you're a great storyteller you can have a diamond for that it's just like maybe your boyfriend felt uncomfortable and it was a long time ago like he felt uncomfortable and so he changed the subject because it was uncomfortable so that's why he didn't say anything um the fact that she said it and said it but I could see like at the

beginning of the relationship when my guy friend's dating someone I could see saying that like as in a joking way yeah it's not necessarily as an insult it usually just means it usually just means that like you look like really like good like clean cut and or like good and like it's a stereotype that it's like i don't necessarily know if i look like someone who swallows but like when you think of the air like the look of being like oh my god she like it's someone who is like the like think of like mr rogers like you can't picture mr rogers having sex like it's so wholesome and like there is something about that but like it is kind of the male alternative is like what is that like a picture a guy who like doesn't go down on you but like it equates like swallowing

as being not swallowing being like a bad thing which yeah it's not swallow because i don't i don't like the consistency of jello like i don't like that feeling in my throat even like the liquid jello before you put it in the refrigerator i don't like that consistency so i don't like i thought this was funny but i i also don't take offense to it see this is the thing though that i feel about like i also don't like but you don't like the mess though i don't yeah and i don't want to keep it in my mouth so like it's in my mouth i don't want to swallow it fast as possible like that's it's not like that oh my god we're like oh i'm going to throw this up if i swallow oh yeah mine is like if i have to keep this in my mouth any longer i'm gonna be really sicked out and so

like just swallow it but yeah they're first of all like it is such a like like stupid it's just another thing that like men can do to like talk shitty about women who are giving them blowjobs and pleasuring them like it's just a way that they can do that and that's where the whole like spit or swallow thing has come from and then women identifying is like oh my god she definitely spits she swallows like that's just us conforming to like the patriarchy and like standards of like women and being like even when women are giving us blowjobs they are not doing enough and like but if they'd swallow then they're a whore like it's just like there is no winning in this and there's no winning in the patriarchy at all and so i think that like don't i know it's easier said

than done but like really truly don't worry about it like that is like not i don't know anybody who is like first of all it's definitely not a deal breaker because you're together but i don't know anybody who's a deal breaker someone who spits like you have to swallow swallow my seed swallow on my seed like i don't know anybody who is like that and if it is helpful for you to reframe that like you don't have to like this girl at all but that is the patriarchy speaking and like that is internalized misogyny like from her end and just hoping that she has learned much more from that because that's also definitely something i you know i could see myself also saying it's not a good thing of course it's not someone could be offended by that and it could feel not nice but i

don't think i highly doubt there's anything malicious behind it it tends to just be more stereotypes about what you look i mean yeah yeah don't don't take offense to it don't have it like in the back of your stop i was gonna stop don't have it in the back of your mind yeah like some people spit some people swallow it's your own personal preference he obviously doesn't care like you don't care who cares i think his response like the fact that he like just like moved on and ignored that and like didn't respond like that's great like i was worried you were gonna say and then he was like yeah i just like like when girls like guzzle like buckets of my calm like at least you didn't find like you know i mean so like that is the appropriate response is no response that

and just like moving on so yeah also probably part of the reason why they're not friends anymore yeah your spidey senses were correct but now i can only think about semen and now i'm thinking of like the spidey web semen do you think spider-man semen is like webby no because that would also mean like other excretions would be webby like his spit and like the juices in his eyes that oh my god imagine if you had like oh that would be so annoying for your eye boogers yeah i don't think it's definitely not the new iteration of spider-man because he's only has those when he's in his suit yeah right yeah i think so yeah so it is what it is i wouldn't take too much offense to it just to remind me i'm sure you've seen this tiktok of

this girl who is like if i'm like babysitting a guy's kids in my throat and he's vaccinated does that mean i've been vaccinated too that's amazing that is truly truly amazing yeah i just do think it is funny that we have this whole stereotype of spit and swallow but in reality because it's like oh the girls who swallowed there they're fast and loose like this they just want to have they're just these whores who want to have sex all the time and people who don't swallow are complete prudes and you just have me going like i just don't want to keep it in my mouth that long and you're like i just don't want to swap like it's so tactical it is not these like tropes that men have created uh but

hey it's made me think about saying things like this in the future and how i probably probably shouldn't yeah all right time for don't blame them great so don't blame them this is where one of our listeners calls in with advice pertaining to a call we have previously aired on a different episode so maybe they have their own personal experience or they just love the sound of their own voice or they have something to add that we might have missed so let's do it hi megan and melissa i'm calling in for a don't blame them for season 9 episode 11 where the caller was asking for advice on how to talk to future children about age gap relationships as a side note if any listener has ever doubted the necessity of writing down your call ahead of

time this is the third time i've called for this and i finally wise up and write this down My advice to the caller is to listen to what Megan and Melissa said, but also to recognize that you can't control what your children choose to do. And as a parent, your number one priority should be them, and you should never have judgment for them. I was raised by wise and loving parents who warned me of the dangers of dating older men and them being interested in young women and girls. My sisters also talked to me about older men being interested in younger women before I entered high school. And yet, when I was 21 years old, I decided to get into a relationship with a 38-year-old man. I use she, her pronouns, and he uses he, him pronouns. One of the hardest things with coming out of that relationship is all the shame that I felt.

I knew how much my family and friends disapproved of these big age gap differences, and they didn't even know I was in the relationship. I got into the relationship because of past trauma and major insecurities, and coming out of it, I felt hurt and isolated. I wanted to talk to my family, but I worried that they would add to the shame I already felt. When I am a parent and caller, I advise you to do the same. I will warn and educate my children on these relationships, but I will also emphasize that my children are my number one priority, and I will be there for them from hell or high water. I wish I could have turned to my family in the aftermath of the relationship,

and because of that, I will make sure my children feel they can always turn to me without fear of judgment. I hope you all have a good day. Goodbye. Great advice. Very, very, very fair. I think it's also important that something that I didn't learn. This wasn't the reason why I was very, again, like anti age gap relationships. But I think something that we don't do enough that I think the new parenting techniques have been doing a lot more of is explaining why to kids and like explaining that. So it is true.

Like a lot of the time when age gap relationships happen, it's validation and trauma are the origins behind it. And it's not just when big statements like, you know, like older guys, they always want these younger girls or whatever, because when you say things like that, that also kind of puts like purity and like young women as like you are the most desired sexual being like you are so like and that attributes to so much other issues and like ageism and like these like fears of that and feeling like that's like your prime and all of that stuff. But when you explain that on both sides, why people get into age gap relationships and like the power dynamics of them and what those power dynamics are. And that can be like a teacher that can be like a friend's older sibling that can be someone who like you look up to. It could be a boss. It doesn't have to be like necessarily very large ages. It can be someone who's just more experienced than you and your field that you are in. It's someone who you've admired, you're a fan of and like all of this kind of stuff. and then also explains the other side of it which i think is a very lacking in that conversation

because like it's like okay so now i understand why these older people will go after younger people but why do those younger people end up in those relationships and especially when you're talking to like you know young women in these specific kinds ones you have to let that like that has to be the conversation you like some people like who can feel like they don't have this and they don't have this and i want you to know if you ever feel like this these feelings or stuff like you know you could always come to me and like if this ends up being a relationship that you end up in and like I always want to make sure that you are like the ultimate like safest that you can be but like I kind of view it in the same way as harm reduction versus like

abstinence and that stuff where like when you are informed to what things happen to get you to make those choices you know why you're saying no to those choices and if you're saying yes you know the reasoning why you're saying yes and you know like the risk factors and that kind of stuff but when you just tell people like no means no or because I said so because I'm older than you and all of that there leads a lot of like gray area of like discovery and questioning of that and if something you've been told over and over and over again is bad that's where I think that it can be really hard and people tend to rebel but what it's not being taught it's like learning and like understanding and recognizing that and that I can't imagine that was probably really difficult

to not have like family around for that part. And even if you know what you're doing, like your family should always be able to be there for you without you feeling like there's judgment involved. Yeah. Cool. Cool, cool. Great, great.

Well, that is it for our episode. We hope you all enjoyed. If you want to call for an upcoming one, again, you can send us a voice memo at meganpodcasts at gmail.com. And you can also give us a phone call at 310-694-0976. And you heard what the last caller said.

Make sure you write it down. Write it down. Also, if you do a voice memo, please change it to MP3 before sending it in. Yes, please. And if you are still listening this far into the episode, comment, spit or swallow on the latest Instagram post.

Just comment, spit or swallow. We want to know. We want to know. It doesn't have to necessarily be yours. no reference it could just be you know word yeah swallow or on my chest depending if i've recently showered or washed my hair because that is not happening well we will see you all next time go leave a review if you want to it makes our day stay tuned for other podcasts on thursday well don't stay tuned because you have to go subscribe to that podcast

but it'll be there on thursday it'll be there okay goodbye goodbye don't blame me is a production by me executive produced by melissa de monts 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