If I Speak - 42: Why won’t they just break up?

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

[Updated file!] Moya has a theory for Ash about unhappy couples who will do anything except break up. Why are we sometimes so hesitant to pull the plug? Plus, advice for a special one dealing with guilt after the end of a relationship. Email your missed connections and dilemmas to [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

This is If I Speak with me, Moya Lothian-McLean, and you? Me, son in the ninth house. Sucker. Did you immediately look that up once I told you your son was in the ninth house? No, I didn't. I didn't. I just made a little note of it. A little, little note.

What have been your headlines from the past fortnight? I love work. I love work. I love work. I love to work. My headlines are mainly that work is actually going really well. And, but I've realized I have a terminal, maybe, an ability to celebrate the wins for myself. I'll celebrate them for everyone else.

My boss literally said, you can take some credit, you know. And I went, you've already given me some. I don't need any more. No more credit for me. Too much credit is a curse. Because if you credit yourself too much, suddenly it all gets pulled. The rug is pulled from under you. And you feel it.

I feel the same way. And I think as we've established, I've not got the healthiest attitude to work or praise. So the fact that we're alike in this way is probably not a great sign. Yeah, it's just two, as we like to say, two maladaptive bitches telling each other. Exactly. Exactly. Apart from that, my headlines are nil. I've got spots on my skin is bad. So maybe work isn't working out as I think. I was at the cinema this weekend and like as I was watching the film, which was a friend of mine's

film called Layla, which is about a Palestinian drag queen. I went in like genuinely and maybe this makes me a bad friend. But like obviously like I'd had my friend Amru talk about the process, making film, editing the film, but I still had kind of no real idea like what I was walking into. I was like, look man, this could be like a slasher movie that I wouldn't know. And so I think that was quite a good way to view it because you know, Amru's intentions were very much

to be like, okay, sometimes it's a comedy and sometimes it's a drama and sometimes it's this like, and so it was nice. It was nice to just like experience it, like a very pure way. But the one thing which really marred my experience with the film was like, as I was watching it, the most giant spot I've ever had just sort of bloomed,

like erupted like on my head, underneath all my hair, which like never happens to me. And it was so painful that I genuinely thought like, like maybe I'd like cricked a muscle or something like it really, really hurt. Um, and I just became really mad about it. Like I was just like constantly like going to my partner and I was like, look at it, look at it. Like what, what can you see? He was like, just a spot. And I was like, um, really spun me out. I don't know why. I think spots represent a real, there is literally fuck all you can do about it. And you know, it's going to be time and patience to get rid of this thing that five minutes ago wasn't there.

Like I was saying that a spot has literally emerged during recording. I watched it happen. I watched this red thing appear in my face that just wasn't there before. And knowing that it's going to take three to five days for that to disappear and I can't do anything except slather on La Roche-Posay for the next morning and night in a hope that it just dries up is really frustrating. I have no control over the spot. Meh, well, you know what you do have control over? This show. And while you don't have control over the questions

that I'm gonna ask you as part of our traditional icebreaker, you've got control over what you say in response to them. Are you ready? Let's go, what is it? This is 73 questions minus 70, which is three questions for all of you women in STEM out there. So question one, what is the greatest of all time pasta dish? Oh, ah, oh, ah, oh, this is so hard. Because it's like, I've eaten so many great pasta dishes.

But are you talking about one that's consistently amazing? Or just like specific? You can answer this in whatever way you feel comes most naturally to you. Chicken? No, not chicken. For me, my favourite ever pasta dish is absolute abomination, but it's delicious. Don't get me wrong. But the Italians are going to be like, what are you saying? And the... fuck, I forgot the name of the country. Albanians too. Albanians too. We all say it faster. I just had a flashback and was like, oh, this is what it's gonna be like

when the dementia really hits. Oh no. Like the frustration, like, what is that country? Okay, the pasta dish is, it is a white bechamel sauce with white pepper. So, you know, classic butter, flour-based milk thickened up. And then it's mushrooms, fried in garlic, chucked in and some sort of like cured meat, whether it's, what's it called? Does any sort of thin cured meat or sometimes you can do it as like pan

cheddar if you want. I just chuck in the thing. But my mum used to make it when I was younger all the time and it's so salty and so delicious. I just, I'm so, I'm satisfied on every level. I love mushroom. I love anything slightly like you could put a bit of wine in there if you want. Like I only think that salty and whiny and sharp for me is a winner. I've had, I've had pasta that's probably 10 times better than that, but as a consistent homely favourite that is emotionally, has emotions tied to it, that's my favourite. But if you ask me like a mission start thing, it would be, I don't know, probably some pasta that I had in like Albania or some shit. What about you?

I think it would have to be, I'm going to absolutely butcher the pronunciation of this, but here we go. Amatriciana, which is, amatriciana, which is like a tomato sauce with like a little bit of pepper running through it as in like chili pepper and guanciale. You will often find it cooked with pancetta or bacon, but really it must be guanciale, which is the crack cocaine of the pork world. I mean, just outrageous.

I want to try that burnt spaghetti, that fried spaghetti thing they have from Barry in Italy, where they just like fry up the spaghetti. Oh, I'm on that so bad. I think all pasta is good pasta. So pasta is good pasta. Okay. Next question. Question two, if you were a musical instrument, which one would you be?

Probably piano because I'm loud and I make noise when you bang me. Noi, noi, noi. Probably piano. Like a guitar, I just don't think I have the vibe of a guitar, whereas I am a musical, a Victorian musical piano. That is my vibe. All right, phenomenal.

What are you? Phenomenal. I know what I would like to be and I know what I am. Okay. I would love to be a cello. I'm not a cello, I am a trumpet. You are a trumpet! I'm a trumpet. You are a trumpet! I'm a trumpet. You're so a trumpet, but that's great because the trumpet is all the fun bit.

The trumpet gave Beyonce her career. Oh! Ha ha ha ha ha! Think about the hits. Beyonce, I think, would not have the accent on her E levels of fame if she didn't have those horns behind her. If, if there were no horns, yeah.

She would just be Beyonce. She'd just be Beyonce, she'd just be Beyonce like, you know, oh it's Beyonce, but she's Beyonce. I also, because you know, the cello is so, you know, the cello is sensual, even the way you must hold it and the noise, like it's got this like deep sensuality to it, but like I think that that's, I don't enter the room like a cello,

I enter the room like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do whistle. Oh yeah sometimes you are, sometimes you are, but I also think piano is a good one. You've got range, you can't whistle. No don't, why are you taunting me? How can you not? I can't try. Try, try. No go try, try, try. Stop, she's already dead. That's the most pathetic shit I've seen in my life. I used to yawn and like breathe in so that's the closest I could get to whistling like that when I was yawning because that's the closest I could get to whistling noise. I can't whistle and I can't do the R thing with languages like Spanish and you can learn it and that teaches you to whistle but they're connected somehow.

I can't really, I can only like, I can't do it. And third question which is maybe, I don't know what came over me when I drafted this question. It's a big question. It could actually even be a middle section one of these days but you we could just give the simplest, the simplest yes or no to it. Do you think that you were socialized into your sexuality in an overall healthy way? Well, what do you what do you mean by I think? Yeah, 100%. I was so lucky with my way about socializing my sexuality. First of all, we had some great fucking picture books, really good show, like old 70s stuff. But also, and I've written about this elsewhere, the way that I predominantly learned about sex was through reading. So I got the talks and I got the biology, but my sexual education was through books. And that meant because it wasn't

just like, this is sex, I never felt any pressure to have sex. I was never drawn to sort of like the grubby feelings up of teenagers in the same way. I was like, I've got time and this is the different ways that sex looks good. This is the different way sex looks bad. Like these are the different feelings people will have. And I was, I got, I just slowly read my way

through the adult world of sex from, I don't know, straight sex, sex through adultery, sex that's bad, sex that's coerced, lesbian sex. We had Sarah Waters in our house. I've said this elsewhere, but my mum banned me from reading those until I was 18, so I read them the same day. I remember very clearly being 12, ripping open, tipping the velvet and having like a mad sexual awakening. That didn't quite come to fruition, but we're still opening. So yeah, by the time I actually got around to it, I don't know, like there was obviously, you know, I dealt with when I was hooking up with boys and working out my sexuality and whether I was into girls or not and all of that, it was, it was like slow and

paced. And obviously there was embarrassing moments where you're like asking questions like, Oh, teach me how to do this. Like I remember asking that someone to us kissing once and they were like, what are you talking about? Cause I was like, I need to know, tell me how to know this, even at that age, I was like, tell me how to know. Yes, I have a notebook. I have a notebook.

But I really didn't feel the same pressures to have sex. The thing that pushed me to have sex was a competitiveness with my sibling. And once I'd done it, I was like, great, done. Let's not have sex again for two years until I feel really ready. And I don't know, I've just, I feel very lucky with the sex education I sort of had. And even when I was having bad sex, I was kind of like, I know there's more than this. And I also, I'll shout about this in a second, but also because of the books and stuff, I was aware of, I guess, like, masturbation and psychological blocks that you can have. And I was like,

if it doesn't happen, just keep trying, just having a go. Like, I had the shower head from Young. I was on that fucking shower head. Yeah, I knew about that because it was in a meg cabo. And, like, just different, like, I knew that women could get so much pleasure from sex and self and like having a wank themselves. And I was like, well, I'm going to do that. So I was, I was very sexually active even when I wasn't sexually active with other people. And I think it really gave me a great sex education. I'm very thankful to all the, the, the Lempster library for the gifts it gave me. And then later on, the Pirate libraries online,

where you could just download any old young adult shit and read it all afternoon. So yeah, do you think yours was, do you think you were socialized, healthy, and sex? Short answer, no. I think that that's what happens when you're raised by social workers who are like, anything can and will kill you.

So I think there was a whole area which you might broadly call pleasure. Oh, yeah. This is the thing about pleasure. I was on the Jimmy Coopers. I was on I was on those books like pleasure was a massive part of sex for me from young, I think, and I was I was lucky. Get read, read kids. Learn to read. Get off the ticker. Healthy.

Learn to read, get off the ticker. Healthy. Learn to read. Shall we move on? Because I believe you've got something you wish to share with the class. Yeah. I kept it short in our little doc, but I'm gonna talk a little bit. So there's two opposing trends that I've noticed. One is people who

feel they cannot date. The dating landscape is barren and bare and there's no one out there and no one can communicate and it's all going wrong. And then there's the polar opposite of this, which I think is connected to these feelings. And that is people who won't fucking break up. People who rather not they just they won't just not break up. They will enter open relationships in order not to break up. And I want to do one of those disclaimers. I'm like polyamory. It works for some people. It's really good. You know, like there is, I'm so glad we have alternative structures of relationships now. And on one level I am, but on another level- But on a deeper, more honest level.

No, no, I am, I am genuinely glad we have open relationship structures, because I'm sure at some point in my life, I'll probably enter into them because I am a mad, diseased avoidant. And it probably will be the best, most maladapted way for me to put that off, just like all the other people I'm about to complain about now. No, I know there are people out there who it really does work for, who you've got it down. But polyamory is about having multiple, like having concurrent committed relationships where you are fully in them, or you have deep, if you're an open relationship, you're having, you know, committed relationships where you are fully in them. If you're in an open relationship, you're having sex relationships outside of your primary relationship. They

usually in open relationships, just slightly different to polyamory, mean that you are not having the same emotional bonds with the people that you're having sex with. I think open relationships, polyamory is used interchangeably a lot. They're not the same fucking thing for a start. Anyway, but I have noticed this trend of people who increasingly have been in long-term relationships, often heterosexual that I'm coming across, but not always, who've been in long-term relationships, maybe since the early 20s, maybe even earlier, who, or even sometimes it's just like three years, who are clearly breaking up with their partner,

but refuse to admit it, and therefore in an open relationship. So it's not just the relationship itself, the prime relationship that is dying, and needs to be put down like a bedraggled dog, but the relationship- Like old Yeller. Old Yeller, but it's not rabid. That's the thing. If they'd gone rabid, maybe there was some life in it. There's no life. It's literally, it's pissing itself on your carpet in front

of the fire. It's time to go. But then not just like, it's not just them that are the two main protagonists of this relationship that are being harmed by this. It is everyone else that they encounter on their little adventure, their long meandering adventure down the Yellowbrick Road to discover that actually what they needed to do this whole time is break up. On their extra six months to a year to two years of this open relationship where they are just using it as methadone, I think is how I've described it previously, methadone to wean themselves off, they encounter other people on their way who, you know, maybe entering this fully being like, okay, cool, what's going on here? And may soon discover that actually they are merely there to act as therapists,

receptacles, these other weird little fantasy creatures for the person who is trying to leave their relationship but can't even fucking admit it to themselves. If you've ever come across anyone on a date who's just out of a breakup, like an actual breakup, you will know that they can't help themselves. They will talk about it to you and you will realise within five minutes that they're not ready to be on this date. I remember one time when me and another person had just been through big breakups and we spent the entire day talking about our exes. And I was like, obviously this is not a thing. Like we should not be on this date, it turns out. But it's worse when that person's still in the fucking relationship. I don't understand.

Sorry, your method of delivery is killing me and I don't know why. I think it's the way you took a breath, like new paragraph. Okay. There are people I've heard of in recent weeks who are in couples therapy after a year. That's another side to this. Couples therapy, this idea that every relationship should be fixed, every relationship should be held onto, that you should be in like, you know, open. That's actually a healthy good thing we're entering into at this point. No! You don't like each other, it's time to break up.

When did we lose the art of walking away? That's what I want to know. When did we lose the art of walking away? And how do you know when to walk away? Because I bet you there's some special ones listening who are probably like, this sign isn't for me because I can't read. Well, learn to read. Learn to read now. Is your, is your paramour in a different country and is planning not coming back and before you left, you realised that they was getting tepid. Is that happening? Have you, you know, are you, has your partner got another partner who they actually have sex with and see more than you and you feel like they're never home but you're still in the relationship? Break up. I'm sorry if I sound harsh. Break up. Anyway, Ash, come in. Obviously, I've got a B in my bonnet, but as my friend said to

me the other day, I am on the precipice of entering what we call long-term single, which she says is three years or more. She's on five. We get a key ring after three. And she was like, you can't see it from other people's perspectives at this point. Cause you're like, obviously why not just be single when you're on a happy relationship? Like, you know, you should know when to call it quits. And she's like, but you can't, you're in a different place. So I need to talk to someone who is in a committed long-term relationship and has been for a long time about whether I'm being unfair here. So I think that you're right and I think that you're wrong.

Right. Perfect. I think that you're right in identifying things like couples therapy and the decision to go open when ultimately the thing that you need to do is break up. I think that you're right that these are increasingly common features of the romantic landscape. Where I think you're wrong is that I actually think the difficulty in breaking up and the dragging something out has happened long before those things were more common. So I think that these are just new aspects of people's romantic worlds. These are new options which have become available to people because of changing social norms, like greater awareness of the existence of couples therapy. The idea that this isn't just something that people who are long-term married do after decades

of being together, I think all those things have resulted in those changes. And I just think that that is kind of naturally this thing which has I think happened and existed for a really long time, which is people not knowing how to break up or feeling like they deserve to break up or they have the right to break up with this person. You know, the feeling of sunk costs of like, well, I've given this person so much time, so much love, maybe you've got kids, maybe you live together,

like all these things. You know, I think that that has found a new expression through whether it's couples therapy or openness or whatever else it is. But I think that is a problem which has existed for a really long time. And I know that because I've felt it myself. And this is obviously like when I was quite a bit younger, I was in a relationship with someone who was just objectively a good person. Do you know what I mean? Just like a kind, very moral, very clever, very solid. I think that this person improved me immeasurably. I think this relationship made me a better person. But there was something which I couldn't... I still couldn't tell you now what wasn't right with it because

actually I don't think it was the fault of the relationship. I think it was I needed to be single and I needed to be an independent person and I needed to grow as an independent person. But I remember what it was like when I was so afraid of being alone with my own thoughts. I used to hate being by myself because it felt like,

you know, like in the Telltale Heart, right? So it's like this guilt which is pulsing within you. It's like, you know, the Edgar Allan Poe, can't remember if it's a poem or a short story, but like the heart's beating and it's like evidence of a murder that you'd committed. It felt like that, like when I was by myself, all I could hear was this horrible guilty thought of like,

you've got to break up with him. And the guilt came from, but what's wrong with him? Nothing. And I think that if maybe there were these other options, if they were more common, open relationship, couples therapy, whatever, that might have been something that we tried in the dying days of the relationship. Instead, what happened was I withdrew inside the relationship. I was still physically present. Emotionally, I wasn't. I think he could feel that there was something wrong. And I think I like, you know,

there was like a, it was a form of gaslighting. I was like, nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Look, I'm still here, aren't I? Like, you know, I'm still going through the motions. But like, you know, I sort of denied him an honest answer about what was going on because I was so afraid of my own thoughts. And then like the breakup was like quite sudden and quite like, because

I initiated it, I was like, no, like, get that over done, like, because actually, I've been breaking up with him for a really long time internally. So, you know, the point of that story is to say that, like, I just think that this is a part of relationships, which is it's so hard. And like, obviously, there are like, social aspects as well. Like Like there are, you know, kind of, you know, I don't know if you'd call this a push, you know, kind of like push factor of like pushing you together. Those things might be economic, they might be cultural, like whatever, all those things.

But I also think there's just like an emotional thing, which is it is hard to hurt somebody who you care deeply for. And I think that we still feel a need for there to be victims and villains. And I think that like, you know, you've called them TikTok morality plays, which I thought was such a good phrasing, but like, you know, the sort of TikTok morality plays around dating where it's like, you know, and then he did this, and I'm just like, I don't know, like, I don't know if he did that, if he did, it's like, you know, and then he did this and I'm just like, I don't know, like, I don't know if he did that, if he did it was bad, but you seem kind of unbearable yourself.

So like, right, like, but you know, this need for a victim in a villain. And I think that like, it gets to a certain point with relationships where you can't do that. You're too human to each other. You're too real to each other. So there's no clear victim in a villain. What options do you have? Right? Because you've kidded yourself into the idea that there has to be a victim in a villain to break up. And I think that breakups and the idea of breaking up and the reality of breaking up, I think that's actually so important for like, a committed relationship, because, you know, this was, you know, ages ago now, I guess it was like, maybe three years ago,

there was, you know, a point where it, you know, me and my partner, we're in such a point of conflict where like, you know, I remember sort of saying, like, I don't think I can do this anymore. And, and it was real, it wasn't a move. It wasn't a, you know, and I think that like, you know, it was an expression of lots of things. I was feeling really unheard, blah, blah, but we had to look the idea of not being together in the eye. We had to really look at it. And that's what gave us the ability to repair, to change together, to communicate better, to be better for one another. We had to really, really look at it in the face. And so I think that's one of the things that I say to friends of mine who are long-term committed and they're

sort of going through something which is difficult is that I do always say like you really have to consider breaking up Not because I think you should do that, right? Not because I'm saying go outside and shoot the dog But you have to really look at it to know Like what you really want number one and two like to give you the impetus to actually fix it and not just delay it. Like you have to look at it in the eye. So yeah, I agree with you, I disagree with you, but I think you've hit on something

which is just like so human, which is if you feel guilty for breaking up with someone a lot of the time. What about the person? Okay, so I also want to specify, I'm talking about people who don't have kids, like, I think, let's keep the kids out of it because that is a totally much more complex situation. I'm talking about people our age, but apart from that, like, I think what you're saying is so dead on and right. I've got thoughts and questions. And I feel like maybe it'd be useful for us to come up with a little guide of how do you know when you should break

up with someone? Which like, what are the signs? But also, I guess just in response to the point that you made about, obviously, like, we're talking as if we're the ones doing the breaking up. Sometimes you do get dumped. It's been known to happen. No, it happened to me technically. Can't wait. Has happened to me in the sense that the men have forced me into it with a gun to my head to dump them, so, but never technically happened. But what you said about the sort of like, you have to face up to it and really

consider this idea of breaking up. I do think that with my breakups, we'd had those points. That's why we were so sure when we did break up, those relationships. In my big proper relationships, one of them, we had a whole crisis at least six months before, and we'd been having many crises. We were on our way down and we'd repair and repair, and it was becoming obvious that whatever we were bringing to the table as our tools were not up to the job. And we had a crisis and we did a repair and we agreed we're going to try it for three more months. And when we actually did break up, it was dead on those three months. And I don't think either of us realised it, but it was obvious that we'd given ourselves that time to really recommit and try.

And it hadn't worked. Like it hadn't worked. And so when we broke up, it was like, yeah, we should break up. But we looked at it dead on. Whereas what I think is annoying to me about these fucking method-on-opening relationships is avoiding looking at it. You're literally leaving the house to go on dates with other people so you don't have to confront the real problem in the room. You're like, let's outsource this problem. Let's outsource this problem to other people to solve for us. Let's outsource the, you know, the needs for excitement or

emotional satisfaction, all of this stuff, or sex life, etc. Let's outsource this to other people and just hope it works. And that fucking pisses me off. Grow a pair and look at each other in the face. Anyway. Well, I mean- I'm paying gap bad cop today. I'm being bad cop. Yeah, you're being bad cop.

The world needs bad cops. I mean like, oh. No, don't say that. Ash. I'm an abolitionist. Okay, next. We need one. On this podcast.

Has to balance, has to balance. We have to balance it. You're the non, I'm the abolition. We're just doing it. We're gonna balance it. Okay? the non, I'm the abolition. We're just doing it. We're going to balance it. Yeah. All right. I just think that like, you know, that in, when it comes to emotional truths, the world

needs some bad cops. Like I would be Noah without some of the bad cops in my life. In the last episode, I talked about this, which is like when I was in my cypius era, which is that I felt like an escape hatch for these men. And I think that that's part of what's going on. It was like about these fantasies and like, really love Esther Perel and I think she's just so bang on. And there's one way of looking at those fantasies as something which is they are able to artificially keep alive a dying relationship because you're distracted by something else. And

then there's something else, which I think she says, which is, you know, there are some ways in which affairs and infidelities and secrets give someone the capacity to be a better partner, because there is this, you know, secret erotic worlds that they have, which is to the side of their lives in some way. And rather than seeing that as like a contradiction that you have to resolve, it's like, this is a paradox to be managed within relationships that commitments and stability, they also require mystery and danger.

And it's a dynamic, like it's always moving and it's never fixed. And I think that that was just a, you know, it was one of those things where I was like, ah, that is so well articulated and really annoying because there's no simple rule that you can like glean from it at all. And I think that the thing about like, yeah, like openness, like maybe in a way, one of the problems is that it's not secret enough. It is not enough of a secret. It's not enough of a mystery because when you're, when you're doing it and you're like, okay, this is a shared project, it becomes just that a shared project, right? Like, you know,

it's happening within the context of your relationship and your relationship is fraught. Like, you know, this thing which maybe should be a fantasy or a mystery or inaccessible to your partner becomes so accessible to your partner. And then they bring in all the problems that you had, you know, in the sort of main compartment of your life together. You know, when I think about openness, like I'm, you know, I'm quite skeptical, right?

I'm skeptical of, and I think this is because like, you know, we've talked about this before, like where are you in terms of what do you prioritize, freedom or security? Like, I am security. Like, I want everyone where I can see them in my reach at all times. Like, that's how I am. So I'd say I'm skeptical, but that doesn't mean I write them off. And I suppose the thing which I don't write off about it is the need for that frisson and that secrecy and that mystery to keep a relationship alive. And maybe rather than thinking about openness in opposition to monogamy, I think that there are lots of different types of openness, and I actually think there are lots of different types of monogamy.

There's a monogamy where you can flirt with other people, there's a monogamy where you can have sort of like romantic friendship of some kind. And obviously like there's capacity to hurt and to wound and to, it's like how much on the same page are you about this and how comfortable are you about this? But like, yeah, I guess what I'm saying is that the existence of a secret world doesn't always mean that a relationship is dying. It can be a part of keeping it alive.

I don't think that openness and monogamy are in direct opposition. I think they exist on a spectrum, like with one another, there's grades of monogamy. And then I think the third thing, which is like to come back to, you know, how do you know when it is time to break up? I think it is when the voice in your head will not be silenced. Like that's how you know. I don't think that it's necessarily a sign of behavior. There are different styles of relationship.

Some people are very conflict diverse. Some people need that explosion in order to like come back together and repair with one another. I can't make a rule with that. But I think that you know in your heart of hearts that it's time to break up. And I think that the telltale sign is when you cannot listen to that thought, when you cannot face that

thought, I think that means it's time to break up. I know people though, who are in such denial that they would never hear the thought in their head and they're, but when they talk about their partner, it's actually nuts how much they hate them. Like, it's actually insane. And you're listening and everyone's like, wow, they need to break up, but they can't hear what they're saying, which is like, you know, ah, I'm just fucking go do this,

fucking hate it. Like when the partner comes into the room, their face falls. It's like that kind of level of, wow, I hope no one ever lets it get to that point with me. I hope no one ever feels that way about me. And I think there's a period usually at the end of relationships where it is more like that. But that's usually when I'm, when that's happened to me, I'm like, if I'm feeling more dread more often than excitement about going round to my partners, or, you know,

talking to them or having to call them. If I notice, there's so many signs even before the voice in my head, it's like some key signifiers for me, some key signs that I am on the way to break up and I'm not, maybe it won't be six months off, but it's on its way. I start listening to my breakup playlist. What's on the breakup playlist? Oh, it's a mishmash. Oh, it's such a mishmash. It's always such a mishmash. It's literally the gauntlet of emotions from, you know, like, guttural, just happened, lost the love of my life to Demi Lovato, like, sorry, not sorry kind of shit. Like, I'm so

girl boss to, you know, years later, like, thanks for the memories, Angel Olsen, all the good times. It was really good with parted ways. It's fine. It goes through every single emotion. That's the point of the breakup playlist so that I don't have to keep making loads of different ones. But something I've noticed in my relationship since I made that first one is if I listen to that, it's a sign. I might just be like, oh, I'm in the mood for some sad music. No. If I'm going specifically to the breakup playlist, something is very wrong. Another one, if it's like, I want to screen my partner's calls, or it's like, I just, I stop telling them my things as the first point of contact. If I have exciting news and it goes straight to my friends

first, that's like, they're usually, if I'm in a relationship I'm really in love, like the partner will get it first and then the friends get it second. Like milliseconds, but still second. I got points in my relationships why I just wasn't even telling them my good news. I think it's the thing which is like,

you should be alive with people who are not your partner. Like, and you should feel excited and you should feel thrill and da, da, da, da, da. But you cannot be alive with people who are not your partner, like, and you should feel excited and you should feel thrill and da da da da, but you cannot be most alive with people who are not your partner. Well, I hope I'm most alive always with my friends, but I think it should be at least the same level of fucking alive. You should feel and in different ways, they should feed different things about you. There'll be some crossover, but you know, but I do think that you should have the same level of like love and intensity that you feel for your friends with the partner when you're with them.

And when that starts to fade and when you don't want to see them as much, I would, I would start to dread when they were coming to social occasions because of the way that I, the things, the, how I knew things would play out and what would happen. And when you're having those feelings, I think it's, it's like, also when you feel like you're having those feelings, I think it's like, also when you feel like you're having to force yourself to perform things that you didn't use,

I'm not talking about silly little things like housework or like occasionally getting them a treat. I mean like the basic shit of just like listening to them, empathising with them. When you're having to force yourself to do that and like literally perform the pretend like you're as if you're in a play performing the role of the caring girlfriend who can empathize and cares about their problems and inside you're thinking shut the fuck up you should you should

cut the camera's dead ass it's time to go it's time to. And it just bemuses me seeing, obviously, like, I'm an avoidant. My alphabet is avoidant. But I'm someone who can come run, if I need to, my friends say. But it does bemuse me and maybe this is a failing on my part, that there are people who are willing to stay in a place where they feel so tepid. And so just like, well, I guess this is it forever. And that's just like, they'll let that tickle on, whether they open it up to the people or whether they stay in that.

And that upset, that actually upsets me. I'm like, you're not living, you're not living large. You're not living Kevin and Perry go large. I think this is the thing, which is like, you know, and this is the piece of advice that I'd give to special ones, which is like breaking up is not a crime. It is not a crime. It is not a crime.

And sure, someone might think worse of you in their story. And that's their right. You don't have ownership over what somebody thinks of you. That's fine. Like that's, you just have to eat it. Like you just have to eat it because staying present in body, but not in heart and not in mind is also something which is wrong. Right. And we don't think of that as the same sort of wrong as leaving and the rupture and you know, abandonment, da da da da da. But like you are robbing them of an opportunity to be really, really loved. So I think that if you are like on the fence and you're worried about hurting somebody, just think about the hurt that comes from staying

when your heart is not in it. And also the other flip side of that is people are scared to leave because they think, I'll never find anyone as good again. Okay, but you're not enjoying what you've got. So what's the fucking point? It's also like as good again. It's like clearly what you need is different.

Yeah. And maybe yourself is just as good. Have you thought about what? Like maybe yourself is actually just as good as a relationship that is not very good and maybe could even be better. Or maybe you're not ready for that relationship. Like, you know, maybe they, they have like, you know, maybe they've got like, they've cheat coded the personality. Everything is a 10. Like, you know, maybe there's nothing wrong with them at all. Maybe you are the one who is not ready. And that's fine because like, you know, I think you have to be ready for commitment. If any of this discussion has resonated with you, I have two words. Break up. I mean, like, you know, I don't want to like,

basically, like if we're going to like run through the list of things that people have done in instead of breaking up, like, here is a non exhaustive list of like, which includes myself. All right. Um, like one, like, uh, like a friend of mine, just like, they moved houses, like they just like, they both moved to different places, never talked about it. So that was one thing that happened. Like Claire needed to break up. And I remember like being on the phone with her being like, shoot the dog, like shoot the fucking dog. They just moved out of the apartment they shared into different houses. Yep. Yep. So like, uh, there was that, um, for me, it was like being most alive with other people.

And I mean, like it was so, it was like night and day. It was like, I lit up with other people and I think that he saw and I think it was painful, but like, that was what was going on. Friend left the country for a long time. They love doing that. And that's now melding with the open relationship. So people will leave and be in the open. They'll be open. They're like, it's fine. You know, they live half way across the world, but we're open. No, you're breaking up. That's what's happening. You are breaking up.

What else? I mean, like, obviously, you know, lots of people who, like, you know, said, let's be open. And then that went it in ways which were like, well, it was so unexpected. So one person was like, oh, well, I need openness. That's the amount of freedom that I need. Then the other person who I think was detecting

like a lack of love, then meet someone else and falls in love where they're getting all the affirmation and the sort of like, you know, commitment and affection that they want. So it's like, another way of exploding it. There's like, people make big decisions but don't tell you the real reason why. So it's like, you know, I'm gonna move back home

or I'm gonna whatever. Like so much of it is like just a lack of honesty about the real reason why they're doing things. Like that is like the one commonality across like all of these different mad things which include things that I've done. Like it's a lack of honesty. Shall we move on though?

Because we've got dilemmas to address. Let's do some problems. Maybe we can tell people to break up. Okay, you're reading the first one. I am. This is our regular dilemmas segment. It is called, I'm in big trouble. And if you're in big trouble

and you would like to hear your problems on this podcast while two toddlers armed with hammers and chisels try to try to repair it in some way email us at if i speak at navarra media.com that's if i speak at navarra media.com if I speak at NavarraMedia.com. So here is the dilemma. Dear Moya and Ash, a few months ago I cheated on my boyfriend with my ex and I don't know whether to tell him I am a 23 year old female in my fourth year of uni.

I was with my ex for about three years at school and we broke up at the start of uni. We share a lot of the same friends and still see each other regularly when visiting home. For a long time after we split up, we'd still sleep together when we saw each other in the holidays. We kept saying we should stop as it created some complicated and painful feelings, but it kept happening and it didn't seem that urgent as neither of us were in a new relationship. Meanwhile, I started a casual sexual relationship with a friend who later went on to become said boyfriend.

We were and still are in the same friendship group. Initially, it was just drunk sex after a night out. We both agreed we wanted to become said boyfriend. We were and still are in the same friendship group. Initially it was just drunk sex after a night out, we both agreed we wanted to keep it casual, but gradually it became more relationship-y until we were spending nearly every day and night together. So after around a year of me being hesitant to commit, he told me he either wanted a relationship or to end it. See, someone's taking your advice, Moira. I had some doubts about our compatibility in the long run and something didn't feel right romantically, but I was already in deep.

I loved him a lot as a friend. He was kind and generous and spending time with him was comfortable and easy. At that time, the choice to carry on or lose such a big part of my life and rip apart our friendship group felt like an obvious one, so I chose to give it a go. Skip forward six months and I go to a festival

with my ex and school friends. One night, I somehow ended up back at the tent with just my ex and we ended up having sex. I don't remember the thought process, but I know somewhere subconsciously I let it happen because it would force me to end my relationship. I mean, there's something we didn't talk about, which was self-sabotage, really, really important component. It would force me to end my relationship. I mean, there's something we didn't talk about, which was self-sabotage, really, really important component. It would force me to end my relationship, which I should have

done long before, but wasn't brave enough to. It's the worst thing I've ever done to someone. I carry a lot of guilt and shame about it. And overall, a profound feeling of weakness was too weak to leave a relationship I knew wasn't right. I was too weak to enforce clear boundaries with my ex for years. In fact, I still feel weak in pretty much all areas of my life, from my inability to quit vaping to my people-pleasing tendencies. After the festival, nobody apart from me and my ex knew what happened. When I got back to uni, I confided in a close friend and she thought, since I had decided to break up with him anyway, I shouldn't tell him about what happened. As in, tell him about what happened. I agreed and at the time genuinely thought it was unnecessary and best to avoid hurting him, if I'm honest

it was also the easier option for me. So I broke up with him straight after and just said things weren't feeling right, he was upset by understanding and said that his priority after having some space was to maintain a friendship with me in the long run, which he was happy about. We've recently been hanging out more again as friends and it's been nice, but with that all the feelings of guilt have resurfaced and I have an overwhelming feeling that I need to tell him what happened. I feel like this new friendship is built on a lie and he can't fully consent to it without knowing what I did. Of course he will feel betrayed and hurt and by telling him I risk him not wanting to be friends at all and losing him entirely. I also risk creating a permanent rift in our friendship group just as

things are getting back to normal. But I can't help but feel it might be better for him to know the truth after all. With love and thanks from a sad and sorry special one." never tell him, leave the boy alone, do not tell him. Like, sweetie, first of all, stop beating yourself up. Yes, you fucked your ex. You're very young. These things will happen, and it's better to get them over with when you're young and realise how bad they feel when doing it, and then honestly, I promise you,

from someone who's been there, you won't do it when you're older. Like, you just won't once you've been through this, you're like, oh, it's not worth it. Okay, some people will, but I feel like you won't. You have an opportunity in front of you to not do it again. You broke up with him immediately afterwards. Yes, it's taken you too long. You're learning these things for the first time. You're literally learning these lessons. Like, again, I must repeat, you are a baby.

You are a baby coming into this world, and you are learning adult lessons. And sometimes we only learn through doing, we can't fucking know how to be perfect all the time. We can't act with total infallibility. We learn lessons the hard way. A lot of us learn lessons the hard way. I've learned lessons the hard way. But your ex does not need to know that you did this. That's my opinion. I don't think it's any of your business to try and gain redemption that you won't get from him, by the way. You won't get it from him by breaking, by basically fucking up his trust for the next

X amount of years. You've already broken up with him. It's done. I would say there's stuff to discuss about the friendship, which I'm sure Ash will. But I must say fundamentally, do not tell this man anything. It will mess up his ability to trust people when the relationship is over. I just think after the fact, there is no point. I think Moira's right. Do not tell him. We feel so strongly about this. It can only be conveyed through song.

Yeah, it literally has to be. Do not tell this man. Chorus at the start of Wicked. No rest for the wicked. Don't fucking tell people. Do not tell him. And the reason why I'm saying that is because you're not in a relationship with him anymore.

In a relationship, I'm of the mind that you have to give people the knowledge and you have to give them a meaningful choice about the things that they're doing. With this friendship, when you've broken up the romantic component of your relationship, what you're looking for is a way to deal with your guilt. And sometimes we feel guilt because we've done something bad. That doesn't mean you've done something criminal. It doesn't mean you've done something unforgivable. It doesn't mean that you've done something which makes you inherently a bad person. But you did do something bad and you feel guilt, which is a natural human response to it. And I think that this is not your

intention, but this is what's going on. The guilt is making you feel so alone that you need to almost offload it onto someone else, right? That's what this is really about. It's not about can he consent to the friendship because ultimately when he meets somebody new, he might not want to be friends with you in the same way. Right? I think because he doesn't fully understand why you've made the choice that you have,

that's why it's like, oh, we'll still be friends, we'll still be close. Actually, I think that that will change when one or both of you meet other people. The problem you have is actually not the problem you've outlined. Your problem is not weakness. Your problem is that you walk backwards into things. And it's a very specific thing. And I call it that because it's not the same as a lack of self-knowledge. It's not wanting to look at the knowledge that you have, right? You don't want to look at the difficult choices that are involved with being an adult and having adult

relationships, right, making decisions to either be in a relationship with someone or not to break up with them or not. So instead, you just walk backwards, pretending you can't see what's behind that, but you know what's there. The thing you've got to do is take ownership of your choices. You can't just be like, oh, somehow I found myself in a tent at a festival, or somehow I found myself in this relationship.

You keep somehow finding yourself in places, right? And what is missing from the way in which you've told all of these stories is a sense of your own desire, what you wanted at the time really. Because maybe if you looked at it, you'd see conflict and you'd see contradiction. You'd say, I want love and I want validation and I want safety, but I also want adventure. I want freedom. I want options. Maybe you'd see, I don't want to be in this relationship, but I don't want to be in this relationship, but I don't want to be a bad person. You know, you'd see all these things which are in tension

with one another. And the way to resolve that tension is not to walk backwards through your life. Like, like it's not, it's to really face up to it and to sort of make some decisions. Right? The reason why you can't be honest with other people is because you're not honest with yourself at this really fundamental level. Now that doesn't make you a bad person. What it makes you is a 23 year old, right? Like it is learning the hard way, it is mistakes. That is what will bring you some self-knowledge, but you have to, your problem is not weakness, your problem is a reluctance to act on self knowledge, I think. I don't think it's weakness. I agree. I also want to say like, do you actually

want to be friends with this guy? Like, do you? Or is that again, this, this, I think, I think people pleasing is totally the wrong word for these things. But it is the sort of like, this is the path of least resistance. And I don't think that's weakness. It's just like Ash said, this doesn't want to look at the conflict doesn't want to face up to the stuff that's actually in front of you or behind you, as you put it. The only other thing I would say is you have made a decision, and you have taken ownership of something and yes, it was pushed by the cheating, but you did break up with him and you need to hold on to that and the fact you could do it and the fact that no one has died after you've done it.

No one has died, you've all survived, you don't have to tell him, you can carry on. In fact, Chuck, I know you feel guilty because you're like, this is the easy option not telling him. No, it's the kinder option not telling him as well. Sometimes yes, it might feel easier for you even though you're riddled with guilt, but it is actually the kinder option for him because why should your mistake fuck up, fuck up his shit for X amount of years when he's not in a relationship with you? That's what I'll say. Take this knowledge and the fact you're able to end the relationship because you could have carried on, you could

have lied and you didn't and you came back and immediately told your other friend as well, you did end that relationship. Hold on to that. You're not weak, you just are growing up, and you have an opportunity here to make different choices. I guess I think it's like, make different choices, but also the advice that I really, really want to like, impress on you is that I think that a pattern here

is that you create circumstances when then, as a consequence, choices are made for you in a way, right? Where you narrow down your choices to one. You can't keep living like that. Like, you know, you can't just be like, oh, created the circumstances by doing this like crazy backward dance. It's like, no, like before that, take stock, take ownership, make the decision.

Like it's scary and it's difficult, but with practice, it becomes easier. Trust me. Yes, that's the main thing, practice. Do you have time for another problem? Should we say hola? I don't think we do. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir.

Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir.

Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. perfect skin and no spots and no eczema. And this is my prayer, Lord Jesus in heaven, do you hear me? I hope that the, um, cause I've been having a stress induced cold sore tingle. Um, and so I've been, uh, religiously using the little compied thingies. Um, so I hope that it doesn't at any point blossom into a pus filled monstrosity between now and the next time we record. Yeah. May the dermatological, hard word, gods smile upon us. I've been Moira Lovie-McClain, you've been...

Praying that I don't get a disgusting, pustule-filled growth on my face. Goodbye. Bye.