The Date with Confidence Podcast - Should I Really Delete Everything After a Breakup?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Should I delete everything after my breakup? This is a question that I really asked myself when I went through my second like traumatic breakup because back in the day, this was something that happened to me back in the day when I was 21, my friends took my phone on a night out and deleted everything. Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support and stories that'll either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that'll provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date, alongside light-hearted catch-ups where your host Rebecca, that's me by the way, shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life,

Starting point is 00:00:58 you are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your dating struggles, empowered to never settle again and confident that the best is yet to come and if it all falls to shit there's a special first season dedicated to breakups you are welcome my friend subscribe review and share with your single friends they deleted every message he'd sent they deleted our conversations, I think they deleted them on Facebook, like they deleted everything and I could not handle it, like I was not ready to stop rereading our conversations because in this relationship we hadn't been together that long, we'd been together for like three months but it had been a massive whirlwind, I was like head over heels in love with him,

Starting point is 00:01:44 thought he was going to be the one, blah and the intensity of our relationship made me the intensity of the relationship and then the speed of the breakup and the complete unexpectedness of it literally happened overnight I started to question whether what my experience was with him had actually been real. I started to doubt myself, I felt like there was, I must have made it up, was there something wrong with me, had any of this even happened and rereading the messages that we'd had between each other helped me to realise that it wasn't just all in my head. So when they took my phone and deleted everything, it really set back my healing process because I just spiralled from there. I was like, I felt like I'd lost everything when I lost him, which 10 years later,

Starting point is 00:02:42 I know that that is absolutely not the case. But at the time, I felt like I'd lost everything. And then to lose the messages and the communication and the proof that this relationship had existed, to lose that as well, was so hard for me to deal with. It made everything worse. And then when I went through my second catastrophic breakup I've had I've had like five relationships three of which the breakups weren't particularly anything to get too upset about and then I've had two like major catastrophic breakups catastrophic how many times am I going to say that in this um but the second the second huge breakup I went through I remember listening to a podcast on breakups and the advice being like get rid of everything that reminds you of them delete all the messages throw out all the photos

Starting point is 00:03:37 destroy any evidence of him and I was like it like gave me like anxiety hearing that advice because I was like well no because that's what happened before and it didn't allow me to process the breakup and to heal on my own terms so the second time when I was also much older as soon as we split up I took down all photos of us I removed him from my phone background I put everything that reminded me of him in a suitcase and stored it away and gradually over time as I went through each phase of the healing process I got rid of something else even up until recently I found some old photos that I didn't realize I had of him and I was like right tear those up get rid of those because I don't need them anymore and I think it's really down to you and how you feel about things like if throwing away his stuff or their stuff if deleting your conversations if deleting your photos of each other, if that is something that's gonna

Starting point is 00:04:49 empower you and make you feel stronger and be like right that's it I'm done with them, let me move on with my life, if doing that in that moment is gonna make you feel better about the breakup and light that fire inside of you to move on and get on with your life without them, then absolutely delete everything. But if you're in a really fragile state where perhaps the breakup was a shock, perhaps it was unexpected, you found out maybe there was cheating involved or it just happened overnight, like my two big breakups happened to me. In those instances, I would say it's okay to take your time, you don't have to delete everything immediately. Because sometimes you've already lost this person that you thought you were going to be with. Like none of us are in relationships

Starting point is 00:05:46 where we think, oh, this is just the relationship for now. I'll find someone better in the future. Or from my experience, I've never been in a relationship where at the time I haven't thought that this was, oh, maybe that's a bit of a lie. Maybe there are a couple of like more situationship type relationships. But when you're with someone, when you love someone, you expect to continue to build your life with them. And when you make plans for the future, and when you think about your dreams and what you want to achieve, they are in that life and that vision for the future somewhere. So you've already when you go through a breakup, you've already lost a person, you've already when you go through a breakup you've already lost a person you've already lost a certain type of future that you created in your mind to then delete everything as well straight away whilst yes it can be completely healing for some people it can also make the loss feel worse

Starting point is 00:06:39 because now you also don't have the memories the the happy times, the things that remind you of them. So when it comes to deleting stuff after a breakup, I do think it can be a process. I think it has to be your decision. And I don't think anyone can make that decision for you. Like it was really traumatic for me when my friends deleted every trace of my ex back then. And it was only like a couple of weeks after the breakup. I was in a really vulnerable state anyway. And I know that they did it from a good place.

Starting point is 00:07:15 I know they did it because they wanted to help me. They wanted to support me. They thought I deserved better and they wanted to help me move on. I know that, but it actually had the opposite effect and I think it meant that it took me a much longer time to process the breakup because then I couldn't have this proof of all this did actually exist and this was something that I can be upset about so if you're struggling to make that decision, just do it bit

Starting point is 00:07:46 by bit. Like maybe pack all this stuff away in a suitcase and put it out of your mind. Maybe store it away in a drawer. Maybe get rid of like three things or use your, like open your photo app on your phone and every day delete one photo and just do it gradually so that you're processing things on your own timeline because that's going to heal you more in the long run rather than trying to force yourself into processing, into healing, into being better and out the other side of the breakup when that might not necessarily be what's right for you. Let me know if this was helpful and I'll see you in the next one thanks so much for listening to the date with confidence podcast I hope you've enjoyed this episode subscribe

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The Date with Confidence Podcast - Should I Really Delete Everything After a Breakup?

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