Don't Blame Me! - S7E15: She Wants Me To Move To Spain

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

This week we're sharing advice on:    Update: dating a daddy Wanting exclusivity as friends Mental health as an excuse Being friends with your brother's ex Don't Blame Them: pronouns   Call Transcriptions   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/     Listen to ad-free on Stitcher Premium! For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com and use promo code 'BLAME.”     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 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 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 this is the last episode of you are watching that you will be seeing this background we'll see i hope you don't get snowed in don't say that why would you say that why why would you do that you've been here so here's the thing if you make your expectations low then you can't be disappointed if something happens are you quoting me always surprised i say that all the time wow we really are the same that was like my thing in high school i'm like i always always surprised never disappointed that's what i would say in high school too when my friends be get like disappointed and things i was like they didn't disappoint me because my expectations for them were already

on the ground. Exactly. That's why people are like, how are you excited if you got a C on a math test? I go, because I expected to fail, but I didn't fail. I got a C. I'm pretty happy about it. This is Don't Play Me. This is an advice podcast. I'm Megan, and I'm joined by Melissa, my co-host, producer, and the only reason why this podcast exists and continues to come out. what is up everyone so happy to be here welcome to monday hope you're doing spectacular do you think by now what day does this episode come out do we know on the 8th of march i am back in los angeles by now wow snowed in don't say that it's not supposed to snow here's the thing we're in colorado i love it here the mountain house it's beautiful it's fantastic we've talked about like

if we're still going to be um in quarantine and like still really like this we might come back for like part of the summer or like spring or something like that to experience like the lake when it's not frozen and all that stuff but the issue is is um now that the holidays are over um i have more stuff to do i have like auditions and stuff and when i tell you pilot season baby i'm sorry megan's doing pilot season with three sweaters one of which is a red cable knit sweater and she has i have one like little black dress and i was like maybe i'll wear it on new year's no no i've worn it for the last i've worn for like three tapes that i've done and i have like nothing we have no shampoo we had to buy new shampoo to buy more shampoo i ran out of moisturizer

oh yeah i already had to buy moisturizer a while ago like luckily this episode is sponsored by a shampoo hell yeah listen to it in the ad break oh yeah don't miss out listen to the ads so I'm ready to have like my wardrobe and I'm ready to have good wi-fi turns out great wi-fi is my kink and I'm missing it it is really fucking hard it's pretty pretty pretty brutal but it's beautiful here but yeah so back in Los Angeles it's gonna be exciting so looking forward to I know and it's not like we were seeing each other except for like dropping off like food or something but it feels like distance it like i literally feel the distance and it's weird i don't know why like i can't figure out why but i was even talking about it's like oh i'm so excited you're back

in la like melissa will be there and he's like but it's the same thing and i'm like i don't know it just feels different just different it just does it really really fucking does and all the places i've been looking at are like on your street so oh my god it's on your same block but it's on your street and i'm like it's still closer and i'm just looking forward to it even you know i wanted you to move downstairs like i know but they never moved out so fucking assholes rude rude well i guess i should explain what the show is uh this is an advice show you call in you leave us voicemails and then we give you some fantastic advice and as we say what we lack in credentials we make up for in opinions we have lots of opinions i have an opinion on i don't

think there's one thing i don't have an opinion on actually probably some boring shit like finance but you still have an opinion on that because that's how you are able to calculate your money so that doesn't even yeah i guess i have an opinion on everything as long as i have google because sometimes i need to google to clarify to find out what my opinion but i will have one you know that's what a lot of people should be doing it's like looking up things from credible sources before talking off their ass so i did see a good tiktok trend of this person who just kept messaging uh or commenting on like conservatives uh tiktoks and like during their live streams being like what do you think of biden's taxidermy plan

and they're like i just think the taxes yeah they're like biden's tax plan like it's abhorrent like i saw an article about it and i like couldn't even finish reading it because like what he's doing financially like he's going to be like he hates middle america and i'm like oh my god there's not even like any sort of reading comprehension there tax that's a common word come on uh well oh so if you want to call in for an episode from his voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com uh we ask you to write down what you're going to say and that's how you get on melissa's good side and and there's only a few people there oh yeah that's like in life yeah you you you want to be there and especially if

you're uh watching the videos you know right off the bat because we know if they didn't write it down and immediately even for the updates exactly i mean it's great for the updates when they write it down it makes it it streamlines it all and um you also have to be over 18 or have your parents permission and make sure you keep it under three minutes which is also great to write it down and then practice and share with us your pronouns make sure you include all relevant information and pronouns of other people in the story if it is uh relevant yeah relevant to the story that's also very helpful at the beginning not at the end speaking of people writing things down in an update this update is from i think we said maybe season two yeah maybe it's episode 38 so i think that's

when we started like breaking things down by season so i think it is yeah so britney furlan was the guest um has she been on more than once or just once just once just once okay so britney's i think we released a bonus episode because we recorded for like three hours with her we did that is like probably the people who are like the most surprised britney and i talk about it all the time that like people are the most surprised like you guys know each other like oh we know each other well and we've known each other for fucking ever like for so so so long um so it was actually the title episode of that call which was he's a dad i want to date a daddy i'm dating a daddy this was wildly interesting and i think um again it offers a lot of perspective like it's cool to

have the updates that are like recent but it's also really cool to have the ones from like a while ago to kind of see like how much people have like changed and grown and are just are different and how different their situations are and how you can go from being like I'm gonna have this man I'm we're gonna I'm gonna have his baby something else but yeah should we get into it let's do it so my original call is from episode 38 which I don't even know what season that was because it so long ago same two maybe for lan and it was called dating a daddy and that was me i he was 13 years older than me and had a baby when he was 16 so the daughter was just three years younger than me when i was dating him i'm not dating him anymore that's the spoiler

um so basically i was just calling because i didn't know what to do with that information He originally told me before we started dating that he had a daughter who was, I don't even know what age she is anymore, but she's three years younger than me, wanted me to be okay with it. And I told him I was, but he hadn't had communication with her since she was seven years old. The mother just had decided she didn't want the baby daddy in her life. She had moved on to another man who she ended up marrying and wanted that to be the kid's dad.

so basically the man i was dating we can call him rob because there's a man we'll have another name soon um so we'll call him rob rob was not around for the kids life and for me when i heard about that i was like sure that's fine um ended up snooping and finding her because that's what we do nowadays like yeah so i found her and she's she lives in the same area as us she's not far from us. She's also a dancer. So we are in like the same community. I was, I'm also a dancer. So it's kind of like a tight knit community and the area that we're in. So, um, she ended up following me back. We're following each other on social media. And I just wanted to have advice on how I could connect my boyfriend, Rob with his long lost daughter. You know, it sounds like a

and I thought oh if I could do this then maybe one day we'll be one big happy family which I never actually ended up doing that y'all's advice was basically it's not your battle to fight it's not your problem solved and that was kind of a lot of the advice y'all were having to give in the beginning it's like for a lot of us we just want to like solve our partner's problems because we love them and it was good advice and I'm glad I called because I was just so in it that all I wanted to do was fix it and it was not my problem solved so I did actually end up sending her an Instagram message I actually listened back to the episode and Brittany was like you should you could send her an Instagram message and I did but I'm so glad you can resend those did you take did you

unsend it yeah I unsent it because I didn't tell my boyfriend so I was like this is like an invasion of privacy I just like maybe I I shouldn't do this I think I was even a little wine drunk like I I resent it I was like this is not a good idea and she didn't read it because you have read receipts yeah she didn't read it I'll just delete it and I never got a message from her so um yeah I don't think she ever saw it I hope she didn't because I was just not in the right state of mind and I was just kind of honestly being selfish like just thinking about my own role in it and how I wanted to feel about the situation and a lot of what he told me about it was like hey this is a new situation for you I just told you about it but I've been dealing with it since

I was 16 and he was 40 at the time so he was like I've had a lot of years to really like come to terms with this I really do think one of these days it'll happen and he was very religious so he was like i know god will bring us together one day and that to me didn't make sense i was like i don't understand how like so what god's just gonna put y'all together like you're not gonna do any effort yeah without any like you're gonna have to use the devices god gave you like you can't just like show up at your doorstep because god put her there like so it was one of those things that was frustrating to me and so i called you guys like what do i do not your problem I was like okay okay it's not my problem I get it um but really what I noticed was

that the issue that I had was I was just very codependent in my relationship with him so all the issues that he had I felt like I needed to fix everything I even like looked up what codependency means it's like feeling responsible for partners thoughts feelings and actions and I felt his inaction with like not reaching out to his daughter was like my responsibility okay so I gotta like make sure they come together and reunite and like this will be a great thing and he'll be so happy and he's happy I'm happy like that was that's how I lived like in that relationship with him now that I'm not with him the partner I have now is actually an ex-boyfriend um I dated him before I dated Rob who was on you guys John he was like the

boyfriend I dated before Rob um we reconnected after after our call probably six months after I had my first call um and when now that I'm with him I realize my relationship with Rob was kind of it wasn't good because i had such an insecure attachment to him and everything depended on him and his feelings but he was also insecure so his you know happiness depended on my happiness so we were like constantly trying to make each other happy but neither of us were working towards yeah never gonna neither of us are gonna be happy if we're just constantly everybody the other person and John the person with now again it's a fake name they are very secure they don't need me to make them happy they're happy on their own and he just chooses

to be with me and to you know we're happy together so it's like I realize now years later that me trying to set him up with his daughter while that does sound like a really great thing to Marie and I are father and daughter after years and years of being apart. It really was not healthy. It wasn't a good task for me to try and take on. I'm so glad you're out of that. Me too. Okay.

Should we get into our first call? Okay. So this call is because I feel like my eight-year relationship with my friend is slowly going down the drain. Let's call her Sarah and let's call me Madison. Okay. So me and Sarah have been friends for about eight years. We started middle school together, and we are currently living together, and we go to the same college. Now, Sarah is a very hard and fast type of lover.

She will talk to someone for two weeks and then start dating them and tell them she loves them within a month of knowing them. She's 100% a U-Haul lesbian. And she's really shit at managing multiple relationships at once, so whenever she is in a relationship, I usually get put on the back burner. Another thing about Sarah is that she's very secretive about her relationships and thinking to me. So Sarah was in a really toxic, emotionally abusive relationship two years ago. And during that time, I was clueless about what was going on. And I still feel guilty about it. But she basically dropped off the earth and would never text me, would never make plans with me.

And any time I would text her, she wouldn't respond to me. And so I felt really lonely. And I started making new friends. And my friends and Sarah grew up together as well. We've all known each other since middle school. So she made me feel really shit about making other friends, and she always mentions that I dropped her during that time when it was really kind of the other way around.

But right after that emotionally abusive relationship ended, she started another one, and then they broke up, and then she started another one, and then they broke up, and then she started another one, and every time she's been in love. And every time she has a relationship, she's told me nothing about them except they're dating, and she just always puts me on the back burner because she knows I will always be there.

And my friends, the ones that I, quote, unquote, abandoned her to be with, all tell me that she's taken advantage of me, but we've been friends for forever, and we live together, and we're best friends, and she's practically my sister, so I don't really know what to do. So, basically, my dilemma is my best friend is very secretive and emotionally distanced when in a relationship, which is all the time because she never is single. so what should i do about that did i i don't know i mentioned it to her and she always gets really defensive so i don't know what the next step would be thanks bye it's hard to live with friends and like i it always boils down to this but like if you guys didn't live together you could just kind of like go about your lives and it would be fine um because i think this is really like I definitely have friends who were like this who have since grown out of this like completely um and that was something that was like meeting my friends who like are now in like very very

long-term relationships how I kind of knew that like that person was the person they were going to end up with is that like they didn't immediately become obsessed with them it wasn't like all of that stuff all at once like it wasn't like that at all like not that they were keeping secrets from me but they definitely were very hard and fast like first date like love them so great and definitely would become obsessed and spend all their time with them and I would be on the back burner but it wasn't hard because we didn't live together so like it was just kind of like I knew that that's how it went but then as they got older that's the relationships that like stuck and the ones that lasted weren't like that at all so the withholding information from you

I don't blame you at all but I'm assuming that's because you've said something negative or you haven't been like quote-unquote supportive or you've had yeah you've had feelings which are inevitable about these people which I again have also done but if you want your friend to come to you you can't you can't talk shit about the people that they're dating and that's a very hard thing to do but if you really want to like be in the loop and like know all of this kind of stuff then that's about apologizing for like the stuff you've like said previously and saying that you really want to like know stuff and like be involved like you want to like be able to like share in their joy and like happiness and like know all of that kind of stuff um but also if

they know they're dating people who are bad for them that's probably why they're not telling you um which has definitely i've been there too but i i think you feel obligated to be her friend i don't really think you want to be her friend right now and that's okay but i don't know i'm kind of a proponent and a believer of like do your like if you want to be obsessed with your boyfriend spend all your time with your boyfriend like go ahead like have fun like i have no i'm not gonna stop you like enjoy your life mom's not gonna tell you to not do that but like i'm going to act like i'm gonna spend time with other people like i'm gonna go do all of this kind of stuff like you can't have both and like can't have both yeah and like call her out on like the fact that she when she's like

how she said that uh you abandoned her basically like just call her out and be like you haven't been around so i made new friends get over it yeah like i i can't be responsible i can't just sit here like being the woman at home waiting while you're out with your girlfriend or whatever like leave like let me be let me live my life stop trying to hold me back and like you always have a place in my life but do you not see how you have left me it's okay to have separate lives like you don't have to always be just because you live with each other you don't always have to be like around each other also you feeling like you feeling really guilty that she was in a toxic relationship and like you had no idea and all of that stuff and her saying you abandoned me to me

that sounds like stuff that she has said to you it is not your responsibility to know that your friend is in if your friend is not sharing those things with you and you're not seeing it like you're not psychic there's no way you can know that and she should never put that blame on you right and make you feel like oh well you abandoned me and like when i needed you and all of that but you didn't know she needed you how are you supposed to fucking how are you supposed to know and she's looking to place the blame on someone and you're the easy target because she thinks that you're not going anywhere well and also i'm i would think to you i'm assuming she's making the same dating mistakes and so she doesn't want to think that her choices it's no one's fault to be

in a toxic relationship at all but i don't think she wants to think her picker is off and i think she wants to blame an outside party you not maybe oh I should stop take a break from dating because I'm dating these really toxic people I don't think she wants to do that reflecting and then that understanding because someone who's like not self-aware is someone who's going to place blame on place blame on a third party for their own experiences that like you couldn't have prevented and I think it's a natural thing like as a friend like if I had a friend who went through that and I had no idea like I would be like oh my god like I'm so sorry I can't believe I didn't know and they would be like no that has nothing to do with you like how would you have known I didn't tell

you like that has don't put that on yourself but the fact that she's like yeah put that on yourself like that's not cool and she just sounds I think your other friends are right like she knows that you're always going to be there and we do tend to treat people like who we know will always be around sometimes the worst because like we know they'll stick around but I think like you were saying like you just have to have like an honest conversation with her where it's like here's the thing date who you want to date have fun like I'm sorry if in the past I've said things that have been judgmental like I just really care about you and I like am worried for you and make and like I worry about you like after this toxic relationship that I didn't know about like I definitely like

have had I've been stressed about not wanting you to be in a situation like that and me not know again but at the end of the day like saying that I abandoned you when I had no idea what you're going through and like that I can't make my own friends like makes it to me feel like you want me to sit at home, have no other friends and just wait for you to come back from hanging out with your partner. And I like I need to be able to have my own stuff too. So I have no issue with how much you want to hang out with your partner or anything like that. But in turn, then I you can't have an issue with me hanging out with other people. Like, that's not fair for me not to have an issue with who you spend your time with, but you have an issue with who I spend my time with, like that

doesn't feel fair and like it kind of leaves me in a place where you get to have friends and a partner and I have nobody like that's not that's not fair and if she can't like accept that then I think that's just when like you become roommates yep which is sucky but I would also urge you to not necessarily talk unless you're like done with this friendship I wouldn't talk to your other friends about it because I think when you mend that friendship again the same way how she exactly okay the same way that she's kind of treating you like oh this is a friend that I'm always going to have uh I don't blah blah blah blah she'll always be there you probably feel the same way about her but your other friends don't so when you talk shit about her even if it's like for you just

venting that's something that sticks with them and then like let's say things get perfectly fine between you guys again then there's some like weird animosity there and some feelings there i think it's best like if you need to shit talk your friends just talk to your talk to a therapist like write it down i just i'm not a fan of talking to like friends about other friends you know stuff you wouldn't say to their face it's just it's not it it's not it just makes it awkward but you can talk shit about people you aren't friends with switch it up switch it up all right next call yep hi melissa hi megan um i am 22 years old and i am a cancer and i have an issue with a friend who's an aries also 22 years old we had a falling out a couple of months ago because

i was seeing a guy that she knew i was seeing it wasn't serious but she knew it and we had talked about him a couple of times and uh she matched him on tinder and then uh talked to him on tinder and i didn't find out about this conversation through her but i found out through him because he told me and when i found out i decided i would uh not address it straight away but instead go to bed and then address it the next morning to kind of sleep my anger off but that didn't happen because she texted me that she needed to talk to me because she was sad and she had issues and I was just very angry at that moment in that moment so I said I don't really see how why I should be here for you when you would go behind my back like that then we had a conversation um a phone

conversation and I was really really upset with her and I told her that and I said I can't be here for you right now because I feel betrayed by what you did I just don't think that that's okay and then uh we didn't talk after that for months and now yesterday she wrote me a she responded to an instagram story that i did uh in the most petty way and i told her listen um i'm not here for petty drama that's not the way to get to me if you want to discuss something you can call me or text me and then what she said was you don't have any interest in uh talking to me because you have never reached out over all these months and I was feeling I'm feeling so bad because of what you did that night and I am still struggling with it and I'm still hurting over it and I didn't quite get

that because I was the one who was being wronged I was not the one who did any harm to her except not be there for her in that moment where I was where when I was terribly upset and I think rightfully so and I told her that and now she said well that night I was having a bad um I was in a bad mental state and I just really needed you and you weren't there for me and I don't want the want your empathy or anything but I just want you to also see my point and now my question is she's a friend who always very often uses the excuse of bad mental health to kind of justify her shitty actions or to justify um yeah to just justify shitty actions truly and to justify being mean to me and and being being rude and I don't know am I the asshole for not respecting mental

health as an excuse in that sense in that context you can yell at me I'm a cancer but still you can yell at me is this the pilot for our new show in today's episode of am I the asshole it's become the new segment yeah i do love it me too oh i mean no no not at all no controversial yet brave statement i'm going to make as somebody with um i don't even know if i have mental health um anyone who uses mental health as an excuse i don't believe i i don't that's manipulation that's not mental health like it's not it's like it's so genuinely not like I can't I don't know anybody who struggles with their mental health who would blame anything they've done on that and like how they've treated other people like or like recognizing that their mental health isn't

the strongest and then not taking responsibility for what they did and they're not working towards a solution she's just blaming it and wanting to move past it which is insane like it would be like oh wow that thing that i did a couple months ago or like the thing that i did like i like was in a really shitty place and i like i'm i'm out of it now and i'm able to see that and i'm so sorry and i'm really going to be working on better coping mechanisms because i should never be taking that out on you but like being like i my mental health was not doing well so like i need you to apologize and also here's the thing it happened the same night so you know what happened she anticipated this and so she came to you needing something so then she could be upset with

you before you could be upset with her that's what this was this is like classic manipulation and this is just fuck off bitch like fuck off you don't fuck all the way off like why would she talk to this dude like just taking the mental health aspect out of it why would she talk to this dude that she knew you were talking to did he know that you guys were friends like but he was the one that told you so so yeah maybe but maybe he was like maybe he was like um because she said they weren't serious so maybe he was telling her about this other girl that he was talking to oh my god and it happened to be her friend i hope you i hope he knew that she was your friend but it her doing that yeah her doing that is so messed up knowingly doing that is so messed up

And now she is trying to use her mental health as an excuse for her bad behavior. And not even just as an excuse. It's like my mental health trumps what I did to you. So give me an apology. Like. No, you're not the asshole here. She is. She clearly is.

And. I think you did the right thing by ignoring her and her being a she's a petty bitch. that is not your friend no not at all mental health is never like an excuse at all and that it pisses me off when people do or say like say shit like that or do shit like that because it's just a it's just a load of bullshit like and the same thing with trauma or whatever it's like trauma doesn't make you a bad person like going through something rough and like rough childhood bad parenting anything that does not make you a bad person like your situation can set you up can make it really really really hard for you to become a good to to seek out help and seek out therapy

and all that stuff but this idea that that's the default is just insulting to people who've also been through shit and like pulled themselves out of it as if that like that wasn't an active choice and like work that they put into it and just being like i'm gonna ask like i'm just gonna like be okay with being a bitch and i need everyone else to kind of fall in line around me and i'm going to blame it on something while i'm also not working on anything like i'm not working on my mental health but i'm gonna blame my mental health for this like that's no it's like actual actual bullshit and like again the whole thing of her even just reaching like her talking to that is that seems to me like a child acting out like give me attention like pay attention to me mom

like that's like because what do you think is gonna fucking happen she's lucky you didn't fucking bitch slap her across the face through the computer fuck this bitch you are not the asshole block her on everything hide your story make her so she can't see you let her be petty in herself and then she'll self-implode and also this dude please tell me he's no longer in the picture okay we're gonna take a break and we will be right back and we're back from our break and we're getting into the rest of our calls hi megan and melissa i am calling because i just found out that my little brother um I broke up with his girlfriend who they've been dating for a year,

and she has actually become one of my closest friends during that time. We have a friendship that's totally outside, like, their relationship. We just have so many of the same interests and the personality traits, and we clicked immediately. And, yeah, we text all the time. We send each other YouTube videos and TikToks and podcasts to listen to. We're just constantly in communication. And there was a long chunk of time during the pandemic where she was living with us.

I mean, we're still in the pandemic, but at the beginning of it, she was living with us for quite a few months. And I am still wanting to be friends with her I've already reached out to her and told her that no matter what I'm still here for her And I know she was super relieved to hear that She was worried that I maybe might not want to be her friend anymore But that's definitely not the case I definitely still want to keep up our friendship

But I'm wondering if you have any advice on how to continue this friendship Well, also, I guess being mindful of the fact that she did date my brother. Like I said, our friendship exists outside of that. So I don't know if it needs to be something that I'm at all concerned about or if it is something that I should always, like, keep in mind, or at least for a little while. Like I said, they dated a year. As of right now, I'm not sure if it looks like they would be getting back together or anything. They seem to be on pretty good terms, and he said that he just broke up because he wasn't happy in the relationship, which was honestly shocking to me because, if anything, I thought she would have broken up with him. To give you a little bit more information, I am a Sagittarius.

My brother is an Aries, and his girlfriend is a Taurus. So, yeah, I'm just interested to hear what you think. and if you have any like words of advice um and all honesty like he's my brother and we get along but the friendship is very important to me i'm very loyal when it comes to my friendship so yeah love the podcast um stay safe you guys bye psa only give us your zodiac signs you also give us our ages your ages i don't care what your zodiac sign is but i don't know how old everyone in the story is yeah um you didn't tell us how your brother feels about this which i think is the most important part um like did you reached out to her but did you reach out to him and to ask

him like how he felt about you continuing your friendship with the girl like come on you gotta uh i think that's who you should unless you and your brother aren't super close and you're just like fuck that relationship i don't care about my brother like i don't i think that's the main person that you should have been talking to and not her and it sounds like you live with your brother yeah so go upstairs knock on his door ask but the whole thing with this conversation needs to be like hey because again I'm it sounds like you live together um hey I know you guys broke up you know like her and I always really got along and we're have been like we're friends I would how would you feel if like we maintained a friendship feel free to tell me like that's

not something to be comfortable with and if he says he's comfortable with it then you would also let him know and if at any point you're no longer comfortable like let me know and that's it but at the same time after that then I would find out like how she was doing post-relationship because I think your whole like I'm gonna stay out of the relationship aspect of it like sure I get that if they were never in a relationship to begin with but like what if she really wants to get back together what if she's using your friendship to get back together with him or something like that like that's not the kind of friendship that you want so like you need to know that like for her maybe it's really hard for her to like see you and like talk to you because she just always thinks of

your brother and like all of that kind of stuff like as much as you want to separate your relationship with her from their relationship you can't and so like it's just about making both parties are comfortable and that it's not hindering both parties from like moving on and living their lives and that might take like a break or some time but like it does you I say this like kindly you're making this about yourself and like you really like this person as a friend and you really want to be their friend like you really like like hanging out with them and all that stuff and that's great but it's not about you and you guys might be able to be like great friends later on but like she might need to get over him right right right right so um and and also she

but like the the ex-girlfriend now said that she was relieved when you reached out and said that you still wanted to be friends with her like that's where her mind is yeah can you guys date like that would be even more drama than i don't know maybe it's romantic but maybe he sensed it he was like they have better chemistry for you yes so um i'm gonna remove myself from the situation that actually sounds like a great premise for a movie i'm just going to say that i was literally just gonna say that what were you saying before that the fact that she was relieved that you still wanted to be friends with her um and like is she heartbroken like and maybe even making like a boundary that we don't discuss my brother at all but like i i just want to know where he is in this

this and i need to know how old you are because if he's like 18 and you're like 20 and she's 18 and they dated for a year and it's like their senior year of high school that to me is pretty different than like oh we were 25 and like she's 22 and like doing like something that's like the age wise and like the like the like the level of the relationship the seriousness because the length of the relationship doesn't necessarily indicate how serious relationship or what it's like unless we know the ages like at all so yeah I'm just very and then you also have to think about again you just can't separate that that that's your brother and they used to date because what happens when he gets a new girlfriend right right right right you what I mean like then that

becomes like oh your sister is like really good friends with your ex what about like your birthday party post pandemic like is your brother and then is she gonna come is she like the ex gonna come when bring her like new partner her new boyfriend like it you can't it is going to be messy and so you just either have to like you have to embrace the mess and have open communication about the mess and be like hey i am like an unaffiliated party in all of this if either of you are uncomfortable or not liking anything at any point like tell me because you're the only thing tethering them essentially to have to like stay in like the same orbit but you can't just ignore the mess like you have to have open communication about it constantly and know that like one day it

just might not work anymore yeah because like someone else's partner might not feel comfortable true which is also valid well call us back we'd love to know you know some of those more details maybe bring your brother on the line yeah patching his ex-girlfriend we'll we'll we'll fucking dr philip or mori it if you want us to escalate we can escalate all right last call don't blame them so i'm from california and i've been dating my girlfriend for about five and a half years now she is 25 and i'm 24 and we've been living together for a while for about two years now my girlfriend is from spain and is in the u.s for work when we first started dating she had told me that she would eventually like to go back home to Spain and while I took that into consideration

I felt like it was so far away at the time that I didn't focus on that that much. Over the years we would imagine ourselves having a home in California together but all of a sudden now that her work visa is ending and is not up for renewal due to COVID she said she wants to go back home to Spain and she wants me to try living there with her. She wants us to go move there when our lease ends this summer which feels so soon. I asked her what would happen if I end up not like living there and she said we'll stay together but she won't give me a full concrete answer which scares me. I think she's banking on the fact that I'll like it there but I'm scared that she won't be there for me if I don't like it and she also hopes to continue to live there in the future as it seems it's a

permanent thing for her. The thing is I love Spain. I'm fluent in Spanish and I've been to Spain many times before for months at a time. Although I've never lived there long term, I'm ultimately scared that there will be no turning back for my partner and that I won't like living there. But I also love being near my family and friends in California since they are very important to me. I'm also so comfortable where I already live

and it's hard to imagine being so far from everyone and everything I've ever known. I know my partner is the one for me and she and I have plans to get married in a few years. She wants me to move into her parents' home. They are very attached to her and they renovated their house to include a wing just for us.

It's on the same floor as their bedroom, but we have an entire living space, such as the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room, just to ourselves. Although that is nice, they never asked us if that's what we wanted. They just made the renovations. I feel pressured to live there, even though I would actually be fine and happy living there because I'd save money. At the same time, her dad has said many things about me behind my back. He can be controlling and manipulative, and I sometimes feel like I can't escape the toxicity. My partner has a hard time standing up to her parents, but I know I need to handle being around her parents since my partner is the one I want to

be with forever I address these concerns with my partner and she has set boundaries with her parents and has been seeing a therapist though I'm afraid she won't be able to keep up the boundaries in person anytime the subject of the future comes up it becomes very tense between us we both feel torn and I know if she wasn't as attached to her parents she'd want to stay in the U.S. she promised them at a young age that she would take care of them as they get older and she doesn't think they'd be willing to move to the U.S. My parents are also making me feel bad at the thought of me moving away

by saying many things that I also feel like is indirect for manipulation. So in the end, I feel torn in every way by everyone. So since this situation is incredibly stressful, I like to hear your thoughts on it. And so thank you to you both. Bye. This is a tough, sticky situation.

Yeah, there's no right answer. Mm-mm. there's no one that avoids like conflict or unhappiness potential unhappiness i think you need to weigh like is your girlfriend somebody that you see you spending that you want to spend the rest of your life with her because like she's asking you to upheave your whole livelihood to go move to a foreign country that you um other than her don't have any ties to and so that's a decision that you have to make for yourself like do I do I want to change my whole life to be with this person or do I want to stay where I am continuing to live my life and lose her exactly

those are the options and that's the thing that i think you need to reconcile is that like there isn't an option of you guys just staying in america and it wouldn't be fair for you to like and even you saying like well i think if she wasn't so close to her parents she'd want to all of that stuff like honor her feelings she wants to move back there like regardless if she feels obligated to versus like it doesn't matter she wants to move back like she's always taught you've been said she's always talked about it there's no convincing her to stay that's not fair and the same way that she shouldn't be convincing you to go no one should be convincing you to stay or go your parents her her family anything like that um i think that you say you say you want to

marry this girl you say that like this is like who you like want to be with but you do have to decide like do I want to be with her and move to Spain or do I not want to be with her because that's that's really what the options are and I think if you guys if you want to try it out here's what like to be super honest I would try it out I think there's no harm in trying it out I don't think that like I think that like if you really do really if you really really love her and really want to be with her you're never going to know like if it'll work out or it doesn't and it either doesn't work out in a couple in a year or a couple months or it doesn't work out now there's nothing that you could do to prevent what's going to happen to happen um and if you're i'm the kind

of a no stone left unturned person and so i would probably just i would probably go but i would be like okay we're gonna go um i'm gonna and like let her know i and here's the other thing too when you said that like she can't tell me what's gonna happen if i don't like it there you can't predict it no and like you can't tell me what's gonna happen either like it's not her call if you don't like it there that's like okay then that needs to be a conversation of what are you do you want to do long distance because to me what it sounds like is you want her your ultimate goal is to get her back to california and stay in california because you were talking about like you guys have been looking at places to live and stuff so yeah so you need to know that like

it the really her the relationship isn't on her terms it's like both of you so it's like okay i'm gonna come to spain i because i really want to see if this relationship can work but uh i'm if when we do that like i i would i want us to get our own place i don't want to like live with your family like that's like a boundary like for me it's just pretty isolating which is very very very valid and if that's something that like she's not okay with like and she's like well i want to live with my parents for a while then it's like okay then we'll do long distance for a while and then we'll decide if i want to do that but i think that like i mean maybe actually i'd kind of take this but maybe the thing i would advise is actually

do long distance first before you make that change like what's the end goal then because if they don't do long distance they're still inevitably there's not an end goal there okay yeah the girlfriend's gonna want to stay where she is and the caller wants to stay where she is maybe maybe that distance will make you realize i would move to spain for her or because like the logistics of yeah moving that far could be rough but no it's true i think like if you're not sold on like i will if you want to be in spain and this is where you want to end up i want to end up with you so like that's where we're gonna fucking move like okay like let's do it like if you're not a hundred percent there and for it then you're not

for it and i don't think it's good it's not going to change once you're there and it's not going to work and it doesn't matter how much you like love each other how great it is you guys it just might be you want different yeah like sometimes love isn't enough yeah and that sucks to hear but there's no yeah there's no like right answer that doesn't leave someone compromising something and she hasn't lived with her she's been away from her like where she like is like from and all that stuff for a long time that i completely get why she'd want to go back there and i think like if you want to do tit for tat then like maybe you go spend a couple years there but then from there it's pretty probably it's probably pretty likely that both of you are going to want to end

up staying where you're from yeah and that maybe just feel like a waste of of time or you do a long distance marriage where you can live you have places in them both uh and you just fly back and forth what if you picked a different place for you both to live i think that spain is the reason she wants to go there because her family's there yeah but i that's what i i that to me makes complete sense and it seems like home territory versus home territory like both of you want that kind of stuff and like you're still young like spend a couple years in spain and then like are you guys open to like moving somewhere that's like the halfway point i have no idea where the fuck that it's the ocean megan you guys need to talk about like take your feelings out of this

and it's just about the logistics of it and like you said sometimes love isn't enough like that doesn't that won't necessarily make it work i apologize that we don't have like the solution but i think it's just a lot of soul searching looking deep within your heart it's trial and error yeah trial and error and i hope that your heart doesn't get broken because they've been there a long time yeah and yeah you you gotta this sounds so fucking cheesy especially coming coming from me you have to follow like follow your heart not your head and you can always move back or you can always like that's what it or or you stay where you are like take away the logic and like the practicality and all of that stuff and like you just have to go based on your feelings

because that's what this is about like it's not about like a job or anything like that this is about like being in love with someone and trying to make it work just don't try and get her to move back yeah i mean i know her parents uh didn't ask you uh about the yeah but i still think it's a great gesture that's like you build a whole wing that's so sweet that's like really really sweet and i do wonder if you've had conversations with them since about like the shit that they've said behind your back because to me that seemed that seems like a high we're old people and we don't know how to apologize and this is a gesture to show that like we respect your you and your relationship and like we want to give you your own space which is really sweet but also like not

obligated at all and then who knows maybe you move there you guys get a cute apartment and like after a while you're like i would love to move in with your parents for a while no money i know okay this is don't blame them this is when a listener calls in with their own advice um from a call we've had on a previous episode maybe they have personal experience um they heard something or had some insight that we didn't say or they just want to be like yeah you guys fucking crush that agree sign off so what episode this is from season 7 episode 12 And the original caller was in a work situation where she wasn't sure what pronouns to use for her new co-worker. So here's someone calling to share their thoughts and feelings.

Fantastic. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I am doing a Don't Blame Them for the latest episode, Season 7, Episode 12, in regards to the person calling about asking their co-worker about their pronouns. My pronouns are she, they. and so I never really have too much trouble with that at work just because like people assume that my main pronouns are she and it doesn't super bother me but I did have a similar experience recently I do work at pretty liberal small business and so I imagine it's a little easier when it's like a tight-knit community compared to more of a corporate setting but I had a co-worker

come in and somebody else referred to them as they so I just kind of went up to them and was like hey you know I heard someone refer to you as they and I wanted to check like what are your pronouns because I don't want to misgender you. And I feel like the more casual you are about it, the easier it is. If you make it a big deal, if you make it uncomfortable, then it's going to be uncomfortable and it's going to make that person feel singled out. But if you're just casual like, hey, my pronouns are she, her, or he, him, or whatever, and then you just ask theirs and you just continue on with your conversation, it's not going to be a big deal. Furthermore, I think it's also important to just like implement starting to introduce yourself initially with your pronouns

saying like hi my name is this my pronouns are this like if we just start introducing ourselves with our pronouns immediately and normalizing that it's going to make everybody so much more comfortable just because like Megan said we can't assume someone's pronouns just because they present in certain way and um the more we get comfortable talking about it with cis people and non-binary people like more comfortable everybody is in general so that's that's all I got um thanks everybody have a good day it's a great call and it's also a great call on um it's something that I've definitely gotten better at and I mean ADHD I'm still pretty bad at listening but that's something that's like when I hear people talk about someone that I don't know that's something

I really like I never even realized I listen out for how they refer to someone and so if you hear someone referring to someone as uh or you hear someone using certain pronouns for somebody just making being like aware and cognizant of that is also a great thing to do but i mean i would even say even since that that episode which was the last one we recorded um the amount of emails that i've gotten now that like i've noticed have people have their pronouns in the email which i hadn't even like no really noticed until we did that call and we talked about how like that might be a good way to do this implement and like email signatures um and i was like oh wow a lot of these places are already doing that and i like wasn't now that now that we talked about it now i'm like

looking out for it and so i think that's like a great thing to do and yeah keeping it casual and not making people feel um singled out because it's just we all that's the thing that always kills me like we all have pronouns everyone has pronouns and so this this idea and like it happens with like straight like conservative cis boys on like tiktok crew like i don't want to fucking hear your pronouns and everybody's like okay honey okay lady like bitch you have like we all have we all have pronouns and it's just now people are finally starting to um uh people they're non-binary people have always yeah they feel empowered to share what their pronouns are yeah and we're creating like a space and um a more inclusive like

hopefully uh creating like a more inclusive world where people are feeling safer and more comfortable to uh be their true selves and yeah it's not it's not a new thing and so it doesn't need to be yeah again a spectacle and if you see fucking anyone at work or anywhere else making anything like that a fucking spectacle oh call that shit out call that shit out so fucking hard especially if that person's not there if you hear people talk it's like saying stuff i've had it before where someone that i used to um like like kind of like distantly work with um introduced themselves and like said their their pronouns and like all that stuff and like someone else was like oh my god like how fucking weird and i was like shut the fuck up shut the fuck up what are your

pronouns right come on you have them too so making sure that in those spaces when people aren't there that um you know if people are saying shit nip that shit in the butt circumcise it snip snip bitch that's it for our episode hope you enjoyed if you did enjoy you know what we love we love when you leave reviews on the apple podcast app it makes our life it really does like it makes my day if i'm having a bad day sometimes i just go and read them um so it is nice when it does what i'm looking for it to do versus like i go to read them and it's like fuck these libtards and I'm like yeah it was not my goal someone also commented that we say like too much and I'm just like as I just said that's just part of language get over it

get here's the thing I know and I've tried and I'm doing the best I'm doing way better than I used to be and i'm the best i can be and there is nothing else i can do so kindly fuck off and if you ever do it to me i will because my therapist hyped me up once and she was like no your brain works too because she's like you have adhd your brain works faster than your mouth so you need filler words and she's like you don't really rely on uh or um you rely on like and she's like that's that's there there's not a circumstance which you don't rely on any it's just which one are you going to rely on go read the book called word slut a feminist guide to taking back the english language and then report back to us please thank you okay um leave us a review

and tell us how much you love that we say the word like a lot and if you want to listen ad free we're on stitcher premium if you want to support the show we're on patreon it means the world to us for a dollar a month you can watch all the video versions of the episodes that's literally between three and four videos for a dollar that's 20 to 25 cents i think it's worth it and it really helps us keep this show going like honestly it really does if we didn't have patreon there wouldn't be video yeah this is we've talked about it before but the pandemic really hit our podcast hard um and we we love doing this podcast we would love if this podcast for the amount of work that goes into it um it's like a very expensive hobby yeah and so the podcast

the patreon really helps us like cover the cost of producing the show and we also have a five dollar tier which if you want to just support you don't have to join our live streams we do do do do to zoom live stream a month where we just like hang out it's like zooming with your friends it's we like really all get along and it's really fun to like see the relationships that like listeners have with each other and we get to know people really well and it's really fun um and uh but if you just want to support the show five dollars a month it would be great and you can also if you are like loaded or you have a sugar daddy um and that's one of the things you request you can also fill in any amount you want to be your monthly donation so you can if you're

like hey and i am um the heir to heinz strudel oh gretchen wieners thank you so yeah check us out on patreon and check out our instagram we have a don't blame me don't blah meme pod account our own individuals i've got a book out and presets if you want to get either of those things and what would you like to promote i have so many other podcasts and just follow me and i put them in my story and check them out she has some i can't even i used to be able to name them all i don't think i can name them you can't put them all on one hand anymore so no you can't she can't even fit them all in her bio yeah that's fucking i was like starting to do um one of those little highlights on instagram but now i don't have enough space to put all the shows so i gotta

to delete it see this is what you need i think you're i you've officially made it you need a link tree i think it's link tree time i think so maybe or i just you know get a website which i'm working on that too in toronto every arrival is a statement and nothing says it better than this cadillac optic was the number one selling luxury ev in canada for 2025 find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision

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It's coming. If you want to call in for an upcoming episode, or if you have an update, if you've been a caller on a previous episode, leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 and international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcasts at gmail.com and for updates too if you want to you can leave us a voicemail tell us you have an update we'll coordinate schedule or if you want to send us an email if you want to send us like a dm on the podcast account there's so many ways to get in

contact with us for the update not for regular advice i prefer for the update either call or just send us an email and just say i haven't i was in this call i was in this episode this was my call i have an update just say that and then we'll schedule for the update don't update us with calls with calls that we didn't put on the air oh yeah that's a weird turn of events that has happened i'm confused yeah has it happened more than once now i'm so confused by it yeah it also just like all it does is really confuses Melissa and I because then we both are questioning our reality like did we do it I don't remember this yeah somebody it happened once like in a voicemail but then I've got a few dms from people saying it so weird well um that's it okay hope you

all have a wonderful day and um don't kill anybody wear a mask goodbye goodbye Don't Blame Me is a production by me, executive produced by Melissa DeMonts, edited by Katrina Henning, and music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.