The Break-Up Diet - He Came Back The SECOND I Started Moving On. ft Kelly Hunt

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

This week I’m joined by Kelly Hunt and GIRLS… this episode is painfully relatable if you’ve ever sat there convincing yourself you were “just overthinking” when deep down you already knew something was off!!We get into relationship anxiety, emotionally unavailable men, attachment styles, checking phones, cheating, women’s intuition, and why some men somehow ALWAYS come back the second you finally start moving on.Kelly opens up about being married to someone she thought was her forever person, getting the infamous “hey girly…” DM, finding out about a secret folder on his phone, and the moment she realised she physically couldn’t keep forcing herself to stay in a relationship that was making her anxious all the time.We also talk about toxic dating patterns, long distance relationships, avoidant men, trying to be the “cool chill girlfriend”, and how easy it is to lose yourself when you spend years trying to make the wrong relationship work.There’s conversations about feeling physically sick waiting for a text back, stalking followings, convincing yourself you’re being “crazy”, and the emotional confusion of loving someone who simultaneously makes you feel insecure, drained, and constantly on edge 😭Honestly this episode feels like one long girls bathroom conversation about modern dating, self-worth, gut feelings, heartbreak, healing, and finally realising that peace in a relationship should never feel this hard to find.Messy, honest, validating, slightly chaotic and VERY real 💌Press play if you’ve ever felt “crazy” in a relationship… and later realised you weren’t 😭 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone. Before we get into this episode, could you please stop and subscribe to the breakup diet? Or if you don't want to do that, could you please give us a like or a comment, engage with it? It really means the world and I would be forever grateful. And now without further ado, welcome to the breakup diet. Buckle up, bitches. It's going to get bumpy. This is the breakup diet. Today I'm joined by Kelly Hunt and I really wanted to reach out to you because you also have a podcast on breakups. I do. I have the breakup debrief. So we're both TBD. Yeah. How long have you been doing that?

I'm coming up to the year now. This was my baby last summer. I know it's coming up. I just don't know exactly when it is. I think it's in June is like the one year birthday. So very excited for that. Congratulations. Breakups are so complex and it's a massive emotional experience. experience and something that's like not spoken about enough. So it's really hard to kind of get some the things that you're talking about into like a 60 or 90 second reel for TikTok and Instagram. So I really wanted to kind of have that space for people to kind of give it the time that it deserves and be able to provide real value outside of my one-to-one coaching. How did you start being a coach? Tell us more about you. I want to hear it all.

So I am a breakup impairment coach firstly. And I suppose I kind of got into. to that through my own very difficult breakup experiences. So I was in a relationship for 10 years and I was also married for six months. And so we got married back in 2020 during the pandemic. And this was somebody that I'd been with, as I said, for 10 years. Got together when I was like 16 going 17. I thought he was going to be my forever. And like most relationships who kind of got together at a young age and grew up together,

we had our issues. but I was of the opinion that all relationships had their issues and had their things that they had to bear, which is true to a degree, but not to the degree that I thought it was at the time. And I was like, okay, so these issues, that they're just our issues, and we're working through them, and we've got this. And unfortunately, the issues that we had during our relationship got magnified when we were married.

My theory is that because I never left him before, he was like, okay, well, we're married now. She's definitely not going to leave. and I've always wanted like the marriage, the house and the kids. And I've always been really, really family-orientated. So like I did my best to make it work. And after the wedding, like we were saving for a house. And the plan was we'd get our house and then start having babies.

I always had this thing in my head that I'd start having kids when I was 25. I'm now 32 and I still have no kids. I remember there was a particular week that was really hard. And I was like quite literally sat in his lap, sob and crying, being like, I just feel like you don't want to be with me, like you never want to spend any time with me. We keep having to have these same conversations again and again. I just don't understand like why you wanted to marry me. Like I don't know what we're doing here. And he gave me like all the reassurances and that like, of course, he loves me and wants to be with me and you kind of enter

back into that like little bubble up like post argument where things are really, really good for a little while and in that quote unquote really good phase I got the stereotypical DM on Instagram from a girl being like hi just thought you should know yeah the hey girlie that one yeah the hey girlie exactly oh no yes that I have about the hey girl and yeah so obviously awful but at the same time it was the wake-up call that I needed because of the issues that we had like there were kind of surrounding the time that he was spending with me his friends drugs his commitment to the relationship things like that we hadn't dealt with infidelity since like we were teenagers like when we were in our first few years together like there were times that i caught him

out messaging other girls or whatever he says that's as far as ever went i never believed it but i kind of always chalked that up to like we were very young then yeah i was going to say that i was going to say like it must be quite hard especially when i mean amazing if you're it does work out but when you grow up like you start so young in a relationship and then you're like all those first years especially as like a boy i feel like they're yeah like prefrontalob's not developed yeah it must be and also even as a girl you change so much i think yeah in those like from like 16 all the way into like 30 really or like 25 especially so much yeah that's it and like probably the biggest growth you ever have like in your 20s as well are like forgetting things wrong like you don't

really, I think, fully come into yourself until like your late 20s into your 30s. And so I always chalked it up to that like and I had long forgotten it. And I thought that was a thing of our past. Like I had no idea that he was capable at that at this stage. When she said, hey, girlie, was she just asking if you guys were together or was it more like, hey girlie, I know that you're his. Why? It was actually a funny thing because, so she messaged me and she was like, hey, my sister

sent me these screenshots this morning and I just thought that you should. know about it because I know that I would want to know. And the screenshots were of him messaging her sister, just like commenting on like her physical appearance stuff. Like she was a very good looking girl and she had like some really like sexy pictures on her Instagram and stuff. Like she liked to post pictures of her lingerie or whatever. And he was responding to those being like, you look insane, like giving her compliments. She ignored the first message and he then texts her again, cringe. When he sent the second message

a few days later, she responded being like, I know your wife. Because what he didn't know was she and I were actually childhood friends and our parents were very, very close when we were kids. Now, we had long since drifted apart, obviously because in the 10 years of our relationship,

he didn't realize that we had a connection, but we did. So I confronted him or whatever. Like when he came home, he'd obviously like deleted the message. messages but I'd gotten a tip that like Android phones have like a secret folder in them like a secret thing like you put in this different pin code to get in and I asked like like a deleted folder yeah it's like kind of similar vibes yeah but like it looks like a folder and then but when you try

to open it asks you for a pin and it's a different pin to like your phone pin and that's what you could yeah I know I've unlocked the anxiety and all the girls I know but I also had the anxiety how did you find out my brother uh we were living together at the time it was like two couples and um i after got this message it was just me and him at home because he was working from home and i went upstairs and i was like oh my god like freaking out like da-da-da-da and he was like when you confront him check this area on his phone because he has an android and da-da-da-da and i was like oh my god i never knew that so is it sorry i need to know is it like a specific area in the phone that has it And if he has this photo, like, it was on, you know, the way, like, when you open up your phone,

like, it comes up, like, all your icons and your apps, and sometimes you can scroll through, like, the different screens. Yeah. And so it was like, if you opened his phone and I swiped, like, left to this particular screen, it was there. Now, this was back in 2021. Like, I can't remember, like, what the app looked like. But it was, like, a secure app for, particularly for Android.

And I tried to get into it and asked me for a pin. And I was like, what's the pin? And he goes, same as my phone, which I think was something like our anniversary. for you or something and I put that in didn't work, shock horror and I asked me again he was like, no that's definitely the pin like it's like the man thinks I'm stupid

and but it came up I think it was asking for like face recognition so I just like grab the phone and shoved it in his face to try to unlock it and with that he whipped the phone out of my hand and stormed out of the house so to this day I don't know what was in that folder

but the fact that there was not good yeah not good the fact there was something in the folder was enough for me. Like my brother wanted to go like hack his phone and everything to figure what was in there. And I was like, no, I don't care. The fact that there is something that he's hiding from me is enough for me. I don't need to know how far this went. Yeah, even like snatching it out and having to leave with it, then it's like you literally, you know what I mean? It makes it so bad. Yeah, you're signing your divorce papers right there. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry that that happened. Oh, thank you, but genuinely the best thing that's ever happened to me

because my life was so different then. And you know this yourself from like, talking to different girls going through breakups like they end up being the making of you but yeah that was the straw that brought the camels back for me I left him that was our six month marriage ended we are now divorced I had to wait a few years because in Ireland you have to wait two three years to get divorced so at this stage I was kind of I'd done a lot of healing and a lot of self development and this was in COVID's like I couldn't go out or anything so like I had a lot of time to just focus on me what did that look like so I really wanted to get into like understanding relationships and breakups and like how these things worked and like why our relationship didn't work out and like relationship psychology

why people do what they do things like that and like how to actually heal because I recognize that like this was somebody that I was with for like a significant portion of my life who supported me through like my man passing away and things like that and I was like I don't know how like I move on from this so I started I started to learn about attachment styles and things like that and I think that was the first rabbit hall that I really went down things started to make so much sense for me I realised that I was very anxiously attached. I realised that he was avoidant, very stereotypical, I know.

But it's like, aren't we all? Yeah, I was thinking that was probably my ex-emite. Yeah. I always find, like, in that book, The Attached, as part of one of the studies in it, he says that around 50% of the population is secure. And I always take issue with that statistic. I'm like, there's no fucking way.

There's no way. 50%? 50%. No way. Now, I've since listened to him in podcast episodes and he does agree that that statistic is probably very different now. And there's a lot more people who are like anxious or unavoidant. Can you give me a little rundown of like what each one is? So the three main ones are anxious, avoidant and secure.

They're obviously the terms that we're all familiar with. But then those three categories, well, anxious and avoidant, can kind of be broken down into like dismissive avoidant or like anxious avoidant things like that. But to keep things simple, we'll kind of just stick with the three maines. So secure is kind of like what it says on the tin in terms of you feel more confident in relationships, having, like, looking for that like healthy connection, like, none of that, like push and pull, playing games. If someone doesn't want to be in a relationship with you, you're able to recognize that as you're both, like, incompatible rather than thinking, okay, well, I'm not good enough.

Then there's something wrong here. Attachment style traces back to when you were a baby and starts off with, like, your relationships with your primary caregivers. My background is actually in early childhood development. and I worked in that sector for 12 years. That was when I first learned about attachment theory. And even then, no one told me that it impacts your life as an adult because then maybe that could have helped me out a little bit when I came to my marriage.

So typically, your needs were maybe inconsistently met or not met as a child, which can lead to you having an anxious attachment. Now, that's not to say that your parents were bad parents. It's everybody's first time living. And sometimes as parents, like, you don't always get it right. or sometimes like advice is conflicting like when we were kids or babies like the going thing was to leave you and cry

like when you're going to bed and I don't pick them up yeah let themselves sooth yeah exactly but like now it's not that simple and things like that can't like if the baby is feeling like okay when I need somebody

there's nobody there for me that can then I'll feed into attach themselves it can also be quite simple but then that carries forward into your adult relationships and it also It's also present in family relationships and friendships as well, but it's just more noticeable in our romantic relationships

because obviously that's a very different type of connection. It usually shows up in being like the overgiver, the overcompensator, straight up anxiety, or like say if they're not texting you back and like a time that you think is supposed to be or if they're going out and night out and you're panicking that they're going to find someone better than you, things like that.

Having a lot of anxiety in your relationship, that's not always rational. and then the other is avoidant. Now, avoidance are often painted as like the villains in stories, but interestingly enough, people who have avoidant attachment styles and women can get it as well, they want the same thing

that the person who is an anxious attachment wants and that's that secure, healthy love and relationship. But the problem is there's kind of, can be more of like a fear around it and a fear of like losing that independence or being vulnerable or having to depend on someone, somebody or being dependent on and getting too deep. And that then can cause them to pull away in relationships or to be a bit hot and cold or just

be altogether cold or like not wanting commitment, things like that. So they're kind of the like a really brief explanation of the three attachment styles. And being able to learn about that and identify that, like those traits with my relationship helped me to really understand why it didn't work and how important it was for me to heal those parts of myself before I move forward into other relationships because I knew that I didn't want to repeat any of the patterns that I had over the last 10 years. Like I was very anxious. Like I was checking the phone. Now I will say I did also have reasons check the phone. I always found things. I mean, yeah, he had a secret folder. Obviously you had reasons. Like, you know, no judgment

here. Like if there's, if you feel like you have to check and there's like, you actually are finding things and like all that. Like, yeah. Damn right. You should be checking. You know? Like, 100%. Like, if he's not going to tell me, how else am I supposed to find out? Yeah, he's definitely not going to tell you. He's going to say it's absolutely nothing. And you're going to be like, oh, yeah, I don't believe that, you know? Yeah, and then just like crawl back into my hole because I'm like, no, I want to be chill and I don't want to be too much. And I don't want him to think I'm crazy or clingies.

But I always find it so interesting, like, because so many people maybe have never checked their partner's phone before and, like, never felt the need to. If you imagine this for yourself, then, like, if you're in a relationship and one day, like, out of the blue, you feel just this weird. urge that there's something going wrong and you need to check his phone and then you check it and you find something a lot of people's intuition is that strong yeah i had it i didn't have it with checking his phone but i had it with i just checked his following for some reason and i don't know why i was like i just was like i was seeing him that weekend and we were long distance i was seeing him that weekend and i was like i don't know why i'm just going to check his following checked his following and then like obviously had recently followed two new girls and then like i saw that he'd like the

photo of a seductive like photo and I was like isn't that weird and obviously it was like spot on because he did like the photo and stuff women's intuition like is unbelievable sometimes and then the more that you connect to it and more that you trust it the more kind of spot on or like the stronger that urge or that direction can be but yeah these were patterns that I obviously wanted to break going forward so I was trying to learn what being secure meant for me and learning how to kind of like break those patterns but I was also entering into the day in world for the first time as an adult. Yeah, also you guys were together 10 years and you said, you said that's a long time.

I find it even hard after being with somebody for two years. I'm like, oh God, like everyone's weird. Yeah, I can't. It's so, like, it don't get me wrong. Like, I feel like I really enjoyed it and I kind of like, because I was kind of taking the whole experience at a Pintasol. Like, I knew, like, I wasn't looking to get into a relationship again anytime, soon after just come up from a 10-year one.

I just wanted to try dating and just to be a single girl in her 20s and just have that experience. But as a lot of us know, that usually ends up being when you find somebody. And this is then what brought me into my next relationship. Spoiler alert, breakup. So a guy a bit closer to home for you, because we did long distance. He's from the UK. So we met travel. I was on holiday. I was doing like my little solo girl, two weeks stint around Europe, having a great time, met this guy from the UK, thought it was going to be like a holiday fling and then never see each other again but became a long-distance relationship

that then turned into going to Australia together for a year and everything and I thought he was going to be the one I thought that I was just going to be that lucky girl who came from a really shit relationship found this amazing guy and we're going to live like happily ever after now bearing in mind at the time

that this relationship was blooming and going to Australia and whatever I was starting to build my coaching business I was still building upon myself. Kind of next challenge then for me was to be able to maintain the work that I had done on myself in this new relationship and not lose that connection with myself

because I'd completely lost myself in that first relationship. Like when I came out, I had no idea who I was. Like my whole identity had been taken away is what it felt like. So the work that I had done while single, it was really important for me to maintain that in this new relationship. When we got together, he was very much like, oh yeah like I want the same things as you

like I want the house and the kids and I just want to do this little bit of travelling first turns out he was Peter Pan basically just didn't want to come out with that travelling stage I've been told since a lot of UK guys are like that you can probably answer that better than me I feel like they don't want to commit for a long time this guy was older than me

yeah I don't think it matters don't think it matters no I'm like hello but yeah like he sold me like the sun moon and stars when we got together and I do generally when he think that he meant it like there is like intentional love bombing and then in a way it's like kind of unintentional love bombing like I think he wanted it and he wanted to get me and he meant what he said at the time because the whole idea was so far away in the future and so you do think that they mean it when they say that for this specific person I don't think that he was doing it intentionally to manipulate me

or with malice I think he wanted he has got a lot of trauma himself like that man needs therapy and I tried to tell him that he needs therapy but he didn't listen to me So I think he meant it at the time and he wanted to mean it. But then when it came to like actually having it, all his then traumas and triggers were starting to come up and he was like, I can't do this. Do you think that will just bang happen again even if he meets somebody great as well? I would like you. Say in a year's time they're having the same discussion.

So do you think it boils up again until they fix it or do you think it's just like an age thing and then they're like, okay, no, I'm 40, I should? I think it's definitely something that's going to reoccur on. until he does the work that he needs to do. And I also have like a little bit of evidence to this because when we split up, it was way worse than my breakup with my husband. And which probably makes no sense

because we were together like a fifth at the time. So like I had been single for eight months and then he and I were together for two years. The second year of that, we were in Australia. So like living together and everything, working together most of the time. So when we broke up, like it really like shattered me to the point that even my friends and family

like as time was passed and they were like she's not okay like she's not bouncing back the way she did last time she's not looking at this the way she did last time like we need to like intervene here so when we broke up he told me that he was going to go travelling in South America later in the air and I was like right off you go see you later

in that time I still happened to come across a picture of him with a new girl on his stories and yeah that was tough because if you can imagine like we broke up because he didn't want the commitments that came with their relationship and he was going travelling again for six months later in the year.

So even through all of my grief, it never occurred to me that he would move on so quickly because I would have thought the last thing he would want is another relationship. On a random Friday, I get a voice note from him and this is six months later. And it's this spiel about how ever since the day that we broke up, it was always his plan that he was going to reach out to me

before he goes travelling because he'd like to come over to Dublin and see me. have a talk and I'm listening to this vice known I thought I was never going to see this man again and one to my knowledge she was in a relationship and two it really irked me that he was like I want to see if you're okay so I ultimately decided that like if he wanted to pay rhinair 70 pound to come over and see me for a few hours to see him doing that's on him um so I agreed that he could come over interestingly I had actually started to like dip my toe into the dating world again at that stage six months on. Why is it always like, hey, as soon as you start to like, or you even

find, I had that too, like whenever you find somebody a little bit remotely interesting and then bang, your ex pops up. He came over and only in the weeks leading up to him coming over had that relationship actually ended after he had told me he was coming over. So he was still with her, asked me about coming over later, broke up with her before he came over. And it was, because I think we were kind of saying there about like his, like, do we think that's something he's going to repeat. All the issues that he had, not only did he still have them, they were multiplied. The way he was like talking about me and how he thinks that's probably going to be something that he's going to regret for the rest of his life and that like he would have married me

eventually and stuff and how like all the girls that he had gone on dates with in the time that we'd been apart, like he was telling them, oh my plan is that I'm going to be going over to see Kelly before I go travelling and like just so you know and da-da-da-da. It's something that avoidance tend to do is put an X on a pedestal. where like going forward into Dayton, they're able to remove themselves from future connections because they'll compare to an X that for whatever reason didn't work out at the time.

So he didn't want it when he had it, didn't want it enough. And now gone into future dating, has somebody on that pedestal. And like he was telling, like he was literally telling me how different things were happening with that girl and he was comparing her to me

and being like Kelly wouldn't have done that or Kelly would have done this and yada yada. And I was like, you can't do that going forward. So I recommend. to therapy again. Whether he took my advice or not, I don't know. Yeah. And also like, not nice for you to hear either. I think he was trying to like lean into how much he valued our connection as a way to make himself feel like he was a better person, if that makes sense. And the way he was like,

I would have married you. So like he doesn't want to be the bad guy in our scenario. Did he come back and say he wanted to be with you then? Like, or no, it was just more like the idea of of it that he's selling? I don't, I to this day don't know what his goal was. As I said, he reached out to me around the time that I'd start dipping my toe into dating again. I went on a date with the guy from Tinder and he's now my boyfriend two years on and we're buying a house together. So the timeline there was a bit of an interesting one. But the reason why I bring that up is because when my ex came, I always said his name there, when my ex came over, it was one of the first things I said to him was I've actually been on three dates with this guy

and it's still like really, really early days, obviously, but I'm just letting you know that I am going on a fourth date with him and I intend to continue seeing him and seeing where it goes. Even because I let him know that this new guy, my new boyfriend, knew that he was coming over and that we were going to have the conversation and that I gave him the option that if that made him uncomfortable,

I would tell him not to come to Dublin. That surprised him. And I think it upset him a little bit that I would have prioritised this new guy over him when he had blatantly prioritised me over the new girl that he was seeing. From that, I want to ask you, do you think you can be friends of the next? In my opinion, unless you were like 16 and together for two weeks, I've never seen a friendship post-relationship work out.

Now, there's exception to every room, but like a lot of people post-break-up try to be friends because they're not ready to lose that person in their lives completely. When you're heartbroken, a friendship sounds better than nothing. but the problem comes when people start to move forward or start to move on, start dating people again and sometimes then that can be the bit of shock of reality of this isn't going to work. I'm personally not friends with either of my exes

and I don't, like that's never going to change. They were a chapter in my life that served its purpose at the time. I learned a lot. We had a lot of good memories, led me to where I am today, but I've no interest in maintaining a friendship with that person and I also don't think I could because of our history. Yeah, and also with your new partner It would be hard as well, I think Yeah, exactly

I think that being a bit awkward too Because you're like, oh, yeah I don't know if I'd like it like if it's the other way around Now, I wouldn't like it Yeah, I wouldn't like if it's a distant friendship And it's like we're on good terms, we follow each other on social media But like we never speak or we never like go for a coffee I'd like write whatever

But if they were like, oh yeah Like we regularly like meet up and we chat I'd like go back and get your wife Because this is that kind of work Yeah, yeah, I get that Do you think that you think that you should should delete them off social media straight away and all of that sort of stuff or do you think that's not like a thing you have to do if it's a breakup that has ended on like decentish terms like you don't

hate this man and you're like it feels bad to remove him or whatever i don't feel like i can do it my advice is at the very least mute them because in the immediate aftermath of your breakup when like no contact is like really really hard and you're adjusting to their absence in your life and it feels like they're dead. Like the last thing you need is to see what they're posting on social media. It never makes you feel any better. I deleted both of mine. If it was a nasty breakup, I would have blocked. Social media is not that deep. We make social media a lot deeper than it needs to be. Like, it's an app on, like in the air, like atoms on your phone. Like it's, does it need to be this big thing? Like, oh my God, I can't believe my ex deleted me. Like, it's social media. For not

speaking again, we don't need to see each other's lives, like play out and follow. Like, when my ex came over as well. That was another question that he had. He was like, I was thinking maybe like we can be friends again on social media and I was like no. And keeps you kind of trapped in the loop as well, doesn't it? It does. Like you don't need their constant reminders. You have enough of them. You don't need to add to that. Post breakup, you tend to read

so much into what they're posting or what they're not posting. And it's like, okay, he's posted a picture, he's out for a coffee with his friend, he must be talking about me. Oh my God, what are they saying about me? Are they saying that like we should get back together? What are his friends saying? What's their opinion? another break up like it just it feeds into all the breakup brain spirals that we have yeah the delulu it's it's a unnecessary the full delulu and my last question is for anybody going through a breakup right now what's your

very best piece of advice we're very like dismissive about breakups and that like oh well everybody goes through them and they're not that big of a deal they are that big of a deal like i always compare breakups to death like the grief in that short term period is the exact same your brain is going through chemical changes your body's going through hormone changes. Like you're having a full physical, emotional, spiritual, existential crisis when you're going through a breakup. And I feel like we don't give that the weight that it deserves. And we feel like we should be coping better or we should be doing better.

We should be following the top breakup tips and advice better. The thing that you need to really remember on top of all the other advice is just to have that compassion for yourself and do your best and allow yourself to cry and feel the fields. and the other steps can follow but on top of that start with your compassion what's meant for you will not pass you by

100%. Your biggest transformations happen after a breakup like if someone tells me they're going to a break up like I want to offer condolences because I know it's hard by my mouth to like congratulate your fuckulations you have unlocked this whole new chapter let's go Thank you.