Don't Blame Me! - S8E21: Not Getting Off Anymore

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

This week we're sharing advice on:  Having a relationship with your sister after boyfriend lost his sister Dating and Skin Picking Dealing With a Sudden Breakup Not Getting Off Anymore Don't Blame Them - Football Player Not Wearing Mask Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me    Follow Us! @meghanrienks  www.instagram.com/meghanrienks  https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa  www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @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 to another episode of don't blame me starring me megan and my co-host producer and the glue to my glitter but you're also glitter glue so like i just am you're multi-faceted i am solely just the kind of glitter that gets stuck in your lungs and never leaves melissa hello hi how are you i'm splendid how are you you're splendid i mean i've only been awake for an hour and 20 minutes so there hasn't been anything to ruin my day yet well that's fair i mean hey not a bad not a bad time to wake up yeah let me give a quick intro to our podcast anyone who's new here we're an advice show where we give you guessed it advice wow changing it's Wonderful. Fantastic. Amazing. Never been done before. You call in, you leave us voicemails,

and then we give you wonderful advice. And what we lack foreign credentials, we make up for in opinions. Opinions. Unlike assholes, we have many of them. I was trying to think I was like, I wonder if anyone has multiple assholes. I mean, it's not considered an ass because it's not in your ass. But if you have to get like one of those little bags, they make a little hole in your side. yeah but it's not in your ass but it still does the same thing that an asshole would do i also wonder if you have hemorrhoids for too long if it like rips a whole additional hole because yeah no you do because you have to get sewn up it just rips the asshole that you currently have kind of like if you like have a baby and you rip yes so as opposed to the phrase like tear me

a new asshole it's tear my current asshole to shreds expand my current asshole i do know a friend of a friend who had to get their asshole sewn up. Oof, painful. Actually, probably I know more people. I know a doctor who specializes in asshole repair because he works in a gay community where fisting is a big thing. And so that's his. This is the same circumstance of the person that I know who had to get their. Because I was thinking, I was like, oh, but then people who, you know, give birth. I was like, that is definitely one. But I was like, no, I was thinking of too many poppers too big of a fist yeah i've sat through a whole thing of no pun intended about how to properly fist that makes my butthole hurt just thinking about it it was for a

podcast i will never use it but you know if the time comes i know how to you're prepared maybe we'll get a phone call about it and then you can be like excuse me this is my time to shine well if any of you want to call in for an upcoming episode and get some wonderful fantastic advice from us leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 and international listeners send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com make sure you are 18 or over have your parents permission give us as many details as possible but you got to keep it under three minutes so we recommend that you write everything down pull out the timer on your phone or any other timing apparatus and read what you wrote make sure all the details are in there and you get it in under three minutes and

if you do a fantastic job of that while also including your pronouns ages and all the like relevant details that help us give the best advice possible you might receive a diamond from the diamond herself pretend that i'm on real housewives of beverly hills it's immediately when my head when my mind went to when you stuck your hand up i was like i've seen those so yes we are looking forward to hearing from all of you and please call in we've had a lot of like similar kind of repeat calls recently and we don't love to regurgitate information or regurgitate advice that's been done before yeah yeah quite quite similar so if you are seeking advice and maybe we haven't used your call go check through the back catalog of the episode see if there's something

very similar and then you know if you've got some weird things going on in your life or something that you're like, is this too wild to call in about? Try us. We want to see. Throw us some curveballs. Right. I'm a switch hitter. I'm not. I thought I was just saying because, you know, curveballs. You're far more athletic than me. I can't switch it. We're yes anding here. Yes and. Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I'm questioning this. I did a lot of improv. I've done theater. Yes and. Yes and. Well, what's new with you? How are you? Nothing's really new with me. Last week was just kind of up in the air because I was on hold for jury duty.

So it was like every day I was like, OK, I can confirm this meeting at 7 p.m. I made it through the week without getting called in. So it was a weird week. So are you done so? Like, that's it? Yeah. I know it's like not how the law works. But again, I repeat, I would wish we could do jury duty together.

I mean, I told you to try to schedule it the week that we had it at the same time. and then we just pretend like we don't know each other until the thing is we pretend until someone asks so as long as if they don't ask then we don't have to say oh that's true but isn't that one of the things they ask when you're on a jury like do you know anybody else yeah but i don't know i'm just trying to think of ways she looks familiar there's not videos of us on the internet that tiktok noise that it's like she looks like every other bitch and i'm like i do i have a common face i was gonna give a covet update for people i am officially a month past my positive test for the millionth time please get vaccinated

mott's is feeling like pretty much totally back except his sense of smell and taste are definitely better than mine, but like, he's not a hundred percent. My smell and taste are rocking at a solid 30%. I can like taste some things enough that like, I don't really recognize that I'm not tasting it. Like, and then I made myself a cup of tea and I was like, oh, I forgot to put the tea bag in this. And then I look and I'm like, maybe I got a wrong flavor. And then I was like, oh no, this is just one of those very faint flavors that is totally gone. Still exhausted, still a ton of fatigue still a horrible amount of brain fog which you can testify to but anybody who works with me can testify in the oh did I do this did I not do this oh I didn't like I just

am forgetting everything but my cough is now steadily back not as bad as it was but it's back enough that it sucks and I just want to remind everybody to please get vaccinated because I think I was you know not to like play that game but like he is a straight man so I definitely think I was sicker than him but we were both complaining the same level but now that he's like better both of us vaccinated same vaccine same day and I don't have any pre-existing health conditions that put me at I'm not in any of the criteria or categories that like put me at getting like a vaccine earlier or high risk or anything like that I'm just someone who doesn't have the greatest immune system and like deals with like i mean most likely endometriosis which is chronic all of those

other things so just knowing that it could have been worse i just want to encourage everybody again to please get vaccinated because the risks of not getting vaccinated are so so so much higher when you have covid and even if you've already had it before the amount of antibodies like just get vaccinated at this point i hope we don't have any listeners who are still like staunchly against it but if there's anyone who's hesitant just want to encourage you all to get vaccinated and if you have covid in a breakthrough case it does get better like i am feeling slightly i'm feeling like a little bit better every day you look like yourself again well i'm not like gray like i like think back to like how I looked like I had no color in my face and I still get like winded and

tired and all of that stuff but before when I talked I feel like I could see what little color I had for my face drain and I always had a fine blood oxygen level do I mean like all those things like were numerically fine but it just takes a lot out of you yeah so that is my soapbox I will say i'm hopping off it but i'm not really i will continue to tell people to get vaccinated well anything else we should buy our merch if you get it please send us a picture we're going to put together a poster of everyone in their shirts i need to post on our podcast instagram yeah okay all right you want to get in the calls let's do it hi megan and melissa i'm a 25 year old female and i use she her pronouns i'm calling for advice my relationship and family it's two parts are

connected, so bear with me. I am dating a 32-year-old who uses he, him pronouns. We've been together for about two years and living together for a year. I love him very much and he is super supportive and does a lot of wonderful gestures like bringing home a foot bath out of the blue or making little care packages. For a little background, I am in therapy and have been for a few years. I also work for a mental health agency and I'm a year into my MSW program. I understand mental health pretty well and I'm great at giving advice, but not good when it comes to my own mental health. I have PTSD and told my partner this summer and he was supportive when he found out. My issue is I struggle with sharing specifics that would be helpful and being

more honest and getting both of our needs met. I would like to be able to share more with my partner. For example, I have an anniversary of a death coming up that I've wanted to discuss for months but haven't known how to share. This is something I struggle with in general but is also compounded by the fact my partner had a traumatic loss of a sister earlier this year. I've been stuck in this thought of just wanting to support him through that and haven't necessarily focused on my own needs for months. I don't want to discuss death with his loss, but also know it's not helpful to just experience it and not let him know. The other piece is I have an extremely strained relationship with my own sister. I cut her off earlier this year prior to my partner's

loss. He was supportive of it at the time as I think he related. I'm visiting my family with him for the holidays and my mom asked about having my sister come. We're both vaccinated a mask and only plan to travel if it is safe enough. I struggle discussing that relationship with him now and don't know if I should just reopen my relationship with my sister because of the loss. For background, my sister is two years older and struggled with extreme mental illness and physical issues starting from my middle school age all the way through college for me. She had frequent inpatient hospitalization and I never invited people over when I was younger because I didn't know how she would react if she would get verbally and physically violent.

Even though she's older, I took on more of a parental or older sister role as my mom was fully focused on supporting her needs. She frequently told me she wished I hadn't been born, and my entire childhood revolved around her needs. Into adulthood, she has wanted a relationship, but it's always remained about her and her issues or needs. She has a distorted view of the world, to the point where she makes comments as though we experience things at the same age.

My therapist supported cutting her off, but my partner's loss has made it hard to maintain and discuss. I struggle with navigating this time with both my family and my partner. I know my partner would be supportive and I tend to overthink, but I have no idea how to navigate all of this and was hoping for some advice. I am also sensitive, so if I need tough love, kindly worded would be very much appreciated. I think it's great that you're in therapy. This is hard because I don't know if your partner is in therapy,

but I think that my instinct is to have a sit-down conversation with your partner to be like and I wouldn't bring up I've been putting my needs on the back burner because of you because you did that by your own accord he didn't ask you to do that like that was something that you chose to do and it's helpful for us to know but it's not that was a choice that you made and telling that to him can kind of push blame which I don't think you feel at all but I would say like I want to have a sit down conversation with you and just say I want to know where you are at like comfortability and boundary wise of like me talking to you about my relationship with my sister and cutting like her off and like the holidays. And I also wanted to let you know ahead

of time that this date that is coming up is a hard one for me personally. It involves like grieving and death. And I just want to gauge where you are personally at. I you are obviously my partner and I want you to be included in my life. And I don't want to withhold these things from you. I know you experienced a massive loss this year. And by no means do I want to potentially trigger you. So I want to let you know that this is what I'm going through. And I'm going to be seeking to have those conversations with friends. But I don't want you to feel like I'm withholding or hiding anything from you. Just because I think proposing to him, I want to talk about x y and z things i think if you give an alternative of i want to be able to talk about those things

to you and i don't want to hold anything from you but like i understand if your plate is full and i don't want it to be like well if you don't talk to me about it then i'm not going to talk to anyone about it that he might then end up taking on more than he can handle so i think like reaching out to a friend to talk about that but we all still while still giving him the opportunity to kind of discuss that with you and keeping him clued in so you don't feel like you are hiding things from him or not giving him the opportunity because people grieve very differently and some people nobody ever really wants to be treated really fragile or coddled at all but I think the best thing that we can always do is give someone the opportunity to engage in a conversation or to talk about

something and then let them tell you what their boundaries are so we don't anticipate other people's boundaries but i think i mean yeah i guess that's kind of where my mind automatically goes but it kind of sounds like and you tell me what you think but like it kind of sounds like to me that caller you're you wanting to potentially reconciling with your sister is you're anticipating that that is what your partner wants for you did you feel like that or that he would say something Like it feels insensitive to not have a relationship with a sibling when he's lost something. I feel like it's more like the caller sees it from his perspective that she said it quickly, but she said that he was supportive of her because when she first said that she was going to cut off ties with her sister because he was going through something similar. so I think it's because his sister passed away that she feels like she shouldn't waste the time

like it's insensitive for her not to even like try to reach out to her sister especially since her sister does want to have a relationship with her yeah what do you think first I think like you can't give from an empty well or empty tank and right now it's like you're being supportive of him and you're being sensitive to his emotions, but he isn't giving you any mental support or emotional support. And I'm wondering if it's because you think he can't handle it or because he said that he can't. And I think it's because you are kind of shielding him from it.

So I think you guys need to have, like you said, like have a sit down conversation and discuss, Hey, like, this is what I'm going through right now. Let me know if it's too much for you. There's other, I can talk to friends and my therapist. I just want to know, need to know. Cause right now you're doing a lot of assuming instead of asking him. Yeah. I agree with all that. Yeah. And then I just want to go back to the stuff with your sister about how like she's, your sister does want to make, have a relationship with you, but she is still making everything about her? And again, or have you told her that she's making things about her? Have you pointed it out and then she's still not changing? My biggest advice when it comes to the sister is

if you are willing to try having a relationship with her, that's like totally up to you. I think if you decide to do that, it should not be over the holidays and it shouldn't be at your parents house because from what you've shared you it sounds like you have a lot of trauma regarding your sister but also that your mom was all about her and it was your childhood was primarily focused on her from like the parental aspect too that I think that going into it in a holiday situation a your boyfriend is coming with you and that like can be a lot and also you're going back even if it's not the same home that you grew up in, you are kind of going back to potentially like a traumatic experience, same situation, same dynamic and relationships and all of that.

And when it's something that is triggering like that, it's really, really hard to not fall back into those roles that we automatically had back then and to go at it in a new way. Because of that, the holidays can be traumatizing to like a lot of people, even if those relationships that they have with those people are like successful and fine any other time during the year like kind of keeping that might be helpful but at the same time if you have cut your sister out I don't know how long I don't know if you mentioned how long it's been but like is if this is the first holiday I don't know that like do your parents pick which kid like comes you know what I mean like yeah I don't know how the holidays are going to work in that sense where your mom is checking with you if

it's okay if your sister comes but is your mom then having to pick between like her two kids in that sense and I think that like if I were wanting to work on a relationship I would have a conversation with her ahead of time before Christmas and do all that and if that's not something that you want to do I wouldn't anticipate that you want to you're going to want to do that then like I don't think you should be like making the decisions of like well I don't want to talk to her now but like I'll talk to her at Christmas like that'll be I just think it's putting a lot of pressure on a situation that if you're like staying there and like it's it just can be a lot especially regardless if your partner has recently gone through a like a significant loss inviting

someone into like potential chaos is can be a lot but at the end of the day if someone someone else is like mental health struggles and all of that kind of stuff regardless of the reason if they are being like verbally mentally or like physically abusive towards you the reason can explain but it doesn't justify or make your feelings invalid like just because how she treated you and how she is as a result of like her mental health doesn't mean that like you have to take it in stride so if it's hard for you and it is traumatizing and hurtful to you you can have like very clear boundaries be like this is not something I'm comfortable with and comfortable doing and that might change later down the road but I don't feel like you need to mend this relationship immediately if that's not

something that's feasible to you yeah I think you're right if you want to mend things you've got to do it before the holidays and also be cognizant of how your strained relationship could also strain your mom's relationship with her sister with your sister yeah yeah well wishing you the best of luck i hope that was gentle i feel like we were gentle that was very gentle okay should we get on to the next shirt hello maggie and melissa i fucking love you guys so here's the deal okay i'm 27 i'm bi my pronouns are she her i recently got back into therapy and i'm working really hard on my fearful avoided attachment style and difficulty letting myself be vulnerable, and intimate. For context, I was deep in the fundamentalist, evangelical world until I

was 24 years old. I feel like a cult survivor, but that's you for another day. I was in an abusive relationship from age 15 to 21 with the same man. I'm an FAA survivor. I didn't start exploring my queerness at all until I was 23 after moving to New York City. The good news is I've done a lot of healing work these past few years and have never felt more proud of who I am. And I love myself more and take care of myself better every day. The bad news is I have an incredibly difficult time letting myself be free physically without being like fucking cross-stated or something. I'm bubbly and confident and outgoing at my most natural, but I freeze super easy these days, unfortunately. I'm working on this actively in therapy and I'm excited about that. But a final

barrier I run into on my most confident days is that I have dermatillomania. My legs have always had scars as a result. But this summer, I also had a change in my medication that resulted in severe skin picking episodes on my arm. I'm fair, so they scar purple, and it just really hurts my confidence. I barely socialized or left my house this summer. And between that and the pandemic, a girl is rusty. But my meds are better. I'm in therapy again. I'm better. And I have a crush. And I think he might be into it. I really want this to be an opportunity for me to put what I'm working on to the test. Be free, have fun, live like I'm allowed to take up space and like I'm allowed to have my body feel good and make my body feel good and all that good stuff,

right? However, I'm terrified of him seeing my wounds or my scars and I have no idea how to respond if he asks about them, especially, you know, like if they're fresh. I don't want to overshare or accidentally overjump either, which I can do when I'm put on the spot. So the TLDR of at all is I would love to hear any advice you have on how to communicate about the scars of ass, how to get over the shame with the scars, and would also love any advice about letting yourself release overall, like generally. And before I go, Megan, I have to thank you for your transparency about your own struggles with skin picking. It's just, it's, I mean, you'll like, you'll never know how much you mean. So thank you. All right. Love you guys. Bye.

You sound great. I want to be your friend. I like this energy and this vibe. Surprise, surprise to nobody. The skin picking part, if anyone has followed for a while, I'm sure they do. Yes. Very relatable to me. The thing I will say about it is like, it obviously differs from person to person. Me personally, I would so much rather tell someone ahead of time versus being in a situation where I have like just picked I completely completely hate myself like I am so fragile and then have somebody ask and kind of the same way about skin picking like scars and like the look of it or anything there are definitely like in some circumstances with people that I'm like nobody's gonna ask about this with the group of people that I'm with and if they do I really

won't care. And I shouldn't care. We shouldn't care if anyone asks, but there are at least for me, people who, if they said something, I would feel far more embarrassed. And also I can't control when someone asks or when someone notices or when someone says something. And there is a high likelihood that they say something when I'm like, again, like fresh picking or really vulnerable about it and so i can't control that conversation in that situation if i wait for it to happen so for me the way i would probably bring it up is ahead of time and just being like oh and if you notice anything like on my legs or whatever like i've got dermatillomania i would either like make a joke about it if it came up or i would just be like hey i just want to like give a little

precursor i've been wearing long sleeves a ton and or like long pants and i really want to wear this cute skirt i have dermatillomania i've got these like spots on my legs or my arms and it's not a fun thing to like talk about or to really like see and it's something but i just want to give you like a heads up and i find that people are very especially someone who likes you i think like it would be wonderful if someone could then like him do his own research and like look about it and like see all that kind of stuff but i think that you want to communicate but you don't want to overshare. I think that sharing something like this, I don't think is an oversharing situation at all, especially because the shamed thing that comes with dermatillomania

that I think anything that you can do to kind of let someone else in your life know that because nobody's you already beat yourself up enough about this, having someone else question it, but in those vulnerable states can just be really, really hard. And I don't think there's anything innate about oversharing that. Do you know what I mean? I think that like one of the things that I'm like, decent, like, because I don't have my glasses on all of the time, and I can't see everything. And I'm pretty forgetful, I will eventually forget that, like, I'm showing my legs or something like that. But there are times like where I just won't. But I am far more comfortable having like, people see like, the marks and the scars and all that if it's people

who know and there is this I don't want to call it paranoia but even like think of it like if when you have like a zit or anything like that that you think that like everybody's like looking everybody's looking everybody can see this or whatever it is that is there when like you've picked your skin but it's also you feel blame and like shame in all of that and so I think that when all of my friends know and it's not like a weird kind of thing but I would also say if you want to be more passive about it post about it on your like Instagram story and like he can kind of see it or whatever but I also think anyone who comments on your body especially if you're like getting intimate regardless of like what it is to me I really don't like that like I had a guy that

I like used to sleep with who like the first time we like slept together pointed out like a couple of like not self-harm scars just like random scars on my body and like immediately asked me if this was like a self-harm scar and I was like no but if it was whoa like I'm naked right now like there's like a funny story that goes along with this but like that is like a very you're in a vulnerable kind of state and to then just kind of like ask questions about that yeah yeah during my senior year of college, I went through the same thing. Um, my skin's darker, so you couldn't tell that much, but to me, you could tell, like I could see it and I knew it wasn't how my legs usually looked. And so I would just like, if I wanted to wear shorts or it was just hot, I was

just like, make a joke about it around people. And then they were, they would say like, I didn't even notice it. Like you were saying, like with zits and stuff, like you're more cognizant about it than other people and they usually don't notice it unless you call attention to it yeah and also in general unless because like my sometimes with my legs and that stuff like sometimes it can look like an allergic reaction it can look like hives or it also like looks like just like irritation from shaving yeah which it could be it could be yeah and that's also part of what i pick is like shaving irritation and i'll pick anything but in general like i just think like unless somebody's face is swelling up in front of your face and it looks like their throat

is closing up or they're having a visible allergic reaction don't comment on that if someone's like the back of their neck is something's bleeding that they can't see like that they're not seeing but like the in general commentary on people's bodies as like a oh i'm concerned kind of a thing is like we know we know what our we we know what I know what's happening on my body better than you and like unless my nose has started bleeding and I can't see it like and I can't feel it and I haven't noticed like yes let me know but there is just like no need to comment on that kind of stuff but I will also say like you're 27 I don't know how old the person that you are seeing is but I definitely like have been met with far less like questions and comments about like anything

physical like that when I got older and responding myself with people who were my age and all of that kind of stuff like some people there's we get to across a road a road in our lives and we get older that we start minding our business or we stop minding our business even more it's intentionally spending time with the people who like like Mott's doesn't comment on it at all and like we've had conversations where I'm like this is helpful for me in the moment this is not helpful for me in the moment like this is what you can do this is what not to do and I think anyone that you're like sleeping with or being intimate with or anything the best thing that you can do is to arm them with the tools that you need so they don't accidentally hurt you and that's not their

intention and their goal at all and we can kind of go out of our way to prevent that and like let people know that what we're looking for and what we need and I don't know anybody who's been like wow that's so like I mean except people on Instagram but like nobody in my personal life has ever tried to pry or ask quite even my therapist so like it's very much like whatever you want to share like share you know but I understand it's rough big ups on like going out and dating yeah you already sound like the person that you're describing you want to be you already really sound like that person. So give yourself that, that credit in that sense. And I think we become who we really want to be. And you're taking those actions to become that person.

And I think you're there. Okay. Okay. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. we are back from the break so let's get into the calls hi Megan and Melissa I'm calling about a recent very recent breakup that I am going through I am 26 pronouns she her my ex is also 26 pronouns he him we have been together for three years and living together for about two and a half. There have been no like recent issues in our relationship. Like we've talked pretty regularly about how great everything was going between us and how we're just so happy that like we have this apartment that we love and our cats love each other and we love each other. Then come to find out Saturday morning, this past Saturday, he came to me and said that he wanted to talk and

And immediately started crying. And he told me, like, he asked if he could hug me first because he loved me so much. And he needed me to hold him while he did what she was about to do. So he told me that he thought we needed to break up. And I asked him why, because it caught me by complete surprise. There were no signs of this coming. And his answer was that when he's with me, he feels perfect and happy. And when he's alone, he feels like he doesn't know who he is and he needs to be alone.

And so that's why he broke up with me. He is starting therapy. I also started therapy because it's such a drastic change like that. It completely blindsided me with our lives so intertwined, living together and everything. I guess I just really need some guidance on how to move on without having clarity and not knowing when or if I will get any. He told me that once he has answers as to why this had to happen this way,

and why he couldn't bring himself to talk to me beforehand, he would tell me, but I don't at this point know when that will be. So I'm just really hurting and I need some advice. Thank you. Oof, this is rough. I'm sorry. Yeah, I think this is kind of like the classic,

it's not you, it's me. and we don't know and I don't think you know how long he's been feeling this way but it maybe seems like that like he said like when he's with you he gets lost in who you guys are together but doesn't know who he is outside of the relationship and so he is taking time to figure that out without you and it hurts I know it hurts you and it hurts him too but like this is about him and not necessarily about you yeah no I agree it so you guys moved in together six months into dating and the last almost two years have been a pandemic where we've all been stuck inside and to me what this seems like is someone who recognizes that they are displaying

like not even necessarily codependent tendencies like there were two like recognizing that like you in this relationship kind of became like his everything and his identity and I think that has happened to a lot of couples during this time and as people have been able to kind of venture out and do things safely and all of that like recognizing that oh wow I don't know like who I am anymore and some people never go through that process of like questioning and like identity crisis and it can be hard if you've never been through that to understand why someone would need to end a perfectly happy relationship to get to know themselves. But when I like went through like what am I doing with my life, like a complete like identity crisis and reevaluating like just

everything and trying to understand myself so I could make better decisions for myself more. Like I even pulled away and wasn't the most communicative like friend at all times. Like in order to really figure that stuff out, like you do kind of need to be selfish. And I think you're right. I don't think that he even necessarily knows if there was like, if it's a slow burn, like it's different for every single person, whether it like, I don't know, it happens little by little, like sand in an hourglass, or if it happens, like you're hit by a freight train one day. And I'm the latter. Like I am someone who doesn't, I realized something like all at once anvil dropped on my head style. And some people are just like that. And what I would tell you

is that just because this is where this relationship has ended up doesn't mean that it was a waste of time. It doesn't mean that it wasn't a great relationship and it didn't like serve a purpose and like serve you really well it just got to a crossroads and the only way like through that and the way that he chose he was able to choose something that was going to be the healthiest thing for him and in turn is actually the healthiest thing for you I think it can be really hard to be like well I wish this this and this he does too like he wishes I think something so incredibly strong when someone recognizes like I'm not doing well that's not just hurting me that's going to hurt this person this person deserves so much more

I'm not comfortable giving 20 or I'm also not comfortable with them sacrificing their happiness for me because that won't make me happy because I really care about this person so I think therapy he's like great for both of you but it's such a fresh fresh wound and this was like the time that you called it it was the way you made it sound was that was like literally like the past week or weekend that it happened like it just happened yeah yeah and like i understand wanting to kind of get some clarity but maybe your therapist will say something similar or completely different but to me it sounds like you want to know what went wrong and what did you do and like how could this have been like prevented and that is something that is you did nothing wrong he did nothing wrong

nothing went wrong this was the course of the relationship and there was no avoiding it and any avoiding it would have ended up in the same outcome and probably in a much worse state much like it would have been six months of like screaming and all of this stuff like blowing up ahead of time and it's it's hard and it really it really sucks when you feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you there's no signs that you missed there is no like analyzing like breaking down like the course of this like sometimes relationship they just happen and it's nobody's fault and I think if you can do your best to see how great of a relationship this was at the time and I always tried to do is like if this relationship could be this good and this

wasn't like it for me think of how like oh my gosh I'm gonna have such a great relationship when it's like the one who I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with if I could have this amazing of a relationship and be so in love this isn't even all there is this wasn't even my ultimately my person like great like the opportunity to know that you can fall in love that much and know that you can feel that way about someone it takes a while to get there but using that as like an exciting thing that like I felt this way once that means I can feel this way again yeah and so I'd say use this opportunity since you said that you're in therapy as well use this opportunity to explore who you are as well without a relationship and being honest with yourself. Like, did you also feel

like you didn't know who you were outside of the relationship? Yeah, it hurts, but it's going to take time. This isn't something that's going to be just like overnight aha moment for you or for him. And I think the clarity, like we've said before, the clarity that you're looking for is closure. So just allow yourself time to hear yourself and when he's ready, hear him and allow yourself to heal as well. And it's going to be a while. I'll also say too, if it comes down to it, if you don't want to hear him, that's also okay. Like you don't have to closure clarity, quote unquote, that is all such a personal thing that he's actually truly not really involved in. And if he is heavily involved in it, then I don't think

you've reached that point of what we call closure is, you know? Yeah. Well, I'm so sorry. That's so hard. But yeah, I think like what you said, work on finding yourself too. Yeah. Should we go on to the next? Let's do it. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I'm 20 and my boyfriend is 23. I go by she, her pronouns, and he goes by he, him pronouns. A little backstory. My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost three years and have lived together for almost all of our relations. We've been dating for about four months when, due to urgent living situations, he had asked me to move in with him. I kind of said, fuck it. If it works out, it works out, and I moved in with him at 18. Since then, we have moved to multiple different parts of our state due to work and school,

and we're stronger than ever. We even have a dog. Now, here's the issue. We have never had any problems in bed up to about a month ago. We have had sex regularly and he eats me out every time, which I love. Up to about a month ago, I used to finish every time we had sex and he ate me out every time, except now I just can't seem to finish at all. I still want to have sex and my goal isn't always to finish. However, I get frustrated when I can't seem to anymore. I would also like to side note my boyfriend loves to eat me out and he's really good at it um i haven't talked to him about my frustration because i don't really want to make him feel bad he's always open to trying new things with me and always wants me to finish first although that doesn't always go as

planned um i would also like to talk to him about doing more new things in bed that we haven't done before i love him so much and i love having sex with him and pleasuring him he finishes every time, of course. However, I need advice on what I or my boyfriend and I can do together to help me finish as well. I feel like I might focus too hard on the end result that I can't seem to focus in the moment. And I get kind of anxiety and overwhelmed. And I think I kind of don't focus on what's going on. Although I recognize this, I can't seem to change it. Please help. Thank you. I love you guys. I love the podcast. Have a good day. Bye. back to that calls of people living with their partners like months in yeah but hers seems like

it's going well for the most part it's also pretty unrelated yeah um we do love a man who like loves to go down and is great at it or any we love anybody but you know especially like cis like heterosexual men like no dj khaled's up in here anytime i think about it it makes me so mad but so happy that he's good at it he likes doing that great I think that like if you automatically are kind of being like I want to try some new stuff I think that there's something that you think you're thinking of and you're not saying yep there's stuff that you're holding back from you're used to what he's doing he might be in the rhythm of doing the same things over and over again and you want something different yeah like you just suggesting like there is something there's

something that you're not telling us you have an example in your head and yes go for it great i think specifically if it feels like something that you're like oh my god this is like way too crazy or like this feels like a lot there are two ways i think that you can either bringing it up like dirty talk because like half the stuff you say in dirty talk you're like i'm not actually actually do like we're just like you know getting creative here and to kind of like saying something like that in like a more hypothetical sense or if it feels way too uncomfortable to like bring something up while you're having sex and that's like not the way you want to do it then being like hey what's just thinking like is there anything that new that you

would want to try i saw this thing and then you can like say like i saw this thing that that seemed kind of interesting what are your thoughts on it but i think you're right in the sense that like you were getting in your head and it is like you said like he's been doing the same thing and it's worked and it's not working and so i think you're like well i'm i'm broken like what am i doing this has worked all the other times before if you've seen something or heard of something or just had the idea in your head of something that you think is like kind of sexy and hot that's there in your brain and regardless of like how much you're consciously thinking about that kind of thing like you are thinking about other things that aren't the exact sex moment that you are having

I think that like that the best thing you do is like bring that up yeah and also your body can get used to something if he knows like he's done this so many times he knows how you always come this way he's probably not switching up what he's doing because he's like this is what gets her off i know how to make her come so your body also gets used to that if he's not switching it up and then it remembers things so it doesn't react in the same way as if something new was tried like even like with sex toys something can get me off real fast you know like every time and then it'll get to a point where no i have to switch this up i've got it's not the same it's not get me the same way that it is but also in that being said since he usually always gets you off

and he knows that he does are you faking now I feel like no but if he doesn't know that he's not getting her off and he's used to always getting her off does he if he doesn't know then why isn't he if he knows that she's not getting off why isn't he changing it yeah that is true I I see that i really hope you're not faking it because she said she hasn't told it oh i interpreted that like she hasn't told him that she's like frustrated like that because i think sometimes it happens like you're like oh it's just like not happening for me tonight or whatever like but if it's been happening for a month month yeah sometimes sex and relationships can kind of get like masturbating where you're like means to i'm just like doing this to do it like when you're masturbating like

i'll fucking like use a toy i have like a face mask on like it's not sexy or anything like that and sometimes when you're in a long-term relationship it can kind of you can kind of get used to that and so even just like switching up for like oh I want to put on like really sexy lingerie I want to send like a dirty pic during the day or like send like like a racy text I want to like have if you normally have sex with like some lights on have the lights off normally have off like light a candle like or like go to a different room or try a different if you're usually like lying on your back sit on his face like gotta spice it up and it seems like you want to maybe you're just having trouble vocalizing that you want to try something new yeah I mean

again like the actual act of like I find that like the best sex I'll have it's the lead up to it and like yeah sure you could just some go down on me immediately and like eventually I will get there but like if I'm already like feeling sex and having all of this kind of lead up to that that like the payoff the reward is like so much greater there and it doesn't even have to be like crazy like kinky stuff or whatever like it can literally just be like putting on music like wearing something really sexy and just like making it on the couch for like an hour anything like that and so it feels a little bit less routine and feels a little bit more kind of like i mean me even sydney and i were talking about how we're both in like long-term relationships and she we

were both saying i was like oh my god like we started like like we started like making out again she goes oh my god like me and my fiance she's like it was the greatest thing ever i felt like i was a teenager again like this was like so hot we're just like making out like you don't do that daddy like we don't do that as much anymore it's a very easy thing to kind of like change and bring up but he just wants you to get off and like there is no there is no judgment in these kinds of things and like you have a healthy relationship so if there's something that you bring up that you want to do that he doesn't want to like as long as he knows he can say no And if there's something that you want to do or he wants to do and you don't want to do, you can say no, too.

But he can't read your mind. So if you're not communicating with him in all parts of your relationship, then it can leave you frustrated. Yeah, I think the solution is the lead up. And I don't think there's no tips and tricks for like the actual moment of because I think me telling you to like, oh, put music on. So you get out of your head. I think there's some other stuff there that you want to try and do and all of that kind of stuff. And three years into a relationship, yeah, that checks out. I foresee some sexy sex in your future.

Some good, wet sex. Good, wet sex. Well, is it time for Don't Blame Them? It is. So Don't Blame Them is where a listener will call in with their own advice pertaining to a call from a previous episode. So maybe they have personal experience. Maybe they missed something that we didn't say. They heard something, saw something, felt something.

or they just want to tell us how they feel about it. Here we go. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I'm calling for a Don't Find Them for Season 8, Episode 20 regarding a football player who doesn't wear his mask. I use she, her pronouns, and I have also been in a similar situation. Instead of a football player, it was actually a pretty famous YouTuber who went to my school.

She wasn't racist or anything, to my knowledge, But she did violate our campus, pretty much our county stay-at-home order, by flying to Alabama to visit her sister during the height of COVID, probably like this was last year. And I did have an in with the dean of students because I was part of student government and was on the dean's board to help make decisions and whatnot. So I did inform them person to person. and the dean told me that they actually have a COVID resource page where you can kind of like paddle some people and give all identifiable information. So definitely look to see if your institution has anything similar.

But I actually do disagree with Megan Lewis and I think you should be using your personal school email just on the basis that if you do email your dean, the football coach, the school newspaper, there's a high likelihood that that could be filtered through their junk or spam mail. And obviously, if we don't want that to happen, I will say to prepare for them to do absolutely nothing. When I reported that one YouTuber, I don't think anything came out of it.

And I also had connections to an upper administration. So them doing something, a newspaper, being all that stuff is based on the presumption that they also care about COVID as much as you. and I hope they do because COVID, you know, is a virus that is like freaking killing people. But I would just prepare for nothing to happen. And if nothing does happen, keep a paper trail with your school email and then bring it to your student government and say, I've had student concerns about COVID on campus and administration isn't listening to me. Then the student government can take care of it.

And then if they don't take care of it, feel free to reach out to your local news station because they are probably more than willing to look and to see if they have a story to write about the local university not caring about COVID and putting people in danger. And if the coach is protecting them. Okay, thanks. Bye. Great advice. Wonderful advice. I wholly agree with this person and I would love to know which YouTuber this is. Slide into Megan's DMs. Please.

or in the don't blame me because I think you'll see it in the don't blame me DMs before. I probably will. Well, that is it for our episode. Hope you all enjoyed. Thank you so much for listening and are watching.

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Executive produced by Melissa DeMonts and Diamond and Print Productions. Edited by Coco Lawrence. Post-production sound by Chris Henry. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. Music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.