Anyone Who Has Ever Been Through A Breakup Needs To Hear This With Dorothy Johnson

 

Going through a breakup can be one of the most painful experiences we experience, whether we are 14 or 40. Is the world ending? Will we ever have a day where the pain eases? Why did I allow him or her to treat me this way? There are so many questions to unpack. We learn many lessons as we grow older, but wherever you are on your journey, breakup coach Dorothy Johnson is here to help us out. Navigating the choppy waters of breaking up and losing love while turning your pain into power is Dorothy’s specialty. Stephanie spills some of her own tea and Dorothy reveals why she got into this area of psychotherapy in the first place.

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Anyone Who Has Ever Been Through A Breakup Needs To Hear This With Dorothy Johnson

Dorothy helps us navigate the choppy waters of breaking up and losing love while Stephanie spills some of her own tea.

We have a special guest. She is a Breakup Coach. Her name is Dorothy Johnson. She is based out of Boston. She was introduced to me by my friend, Rosie Abrams, who was on the show as well. We went into every single breakup topic that you could possibly imagine. I shared some super funny stories about my personal breakups, the lessons I’ve learned along the way, and some of the advice that I give to my followers on social media, the questions that I get asked.

 

I also asked you what questions do you wanted me to ask Dorothy and I delivered. You will also learn about Dorothy’s three months no-fail Get Over Your Ex method using three different steps. She goes into that here on the show. Grab a snack. Grab a drink. Grab your favorite stuffed animal. Grab a Kleenex box. If you’re going through it, I feel you. We’ve all been there and gentlemen also. That’s why I’m here. I’m bringing you the best of the best. I’m bringing you the experts to help you get back on track once again and get you feeling more like yourself. Without further ado, please welcome Dorothy Johnson to the show.

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I’ve got a special guest. I am looking forward to getting down to the nitty-gritty with my guest. Her name is Dorothy Johnson. She is a Breakup Coach and a mentor to many who are going through it. These days, it is hard to go through a breakup because of social media. Dorothy is out there doing the Lord’s work.

To get over your ex, you have to learn how to reduce the desire for that person. Click To Tweet

I love you. Thank you so much. It’s so fun.

We met through my friend, Rosie Abrams, who’s on the show as well. I did a poll or a questionnaire on my Instagram. I was like, “Does anyone have any questions?” It’s a huge list of questions. Some of them are mine as well but there are a lot and I have more on my phone that I didn’t get to even write down. There are some that are specific as well. They are important to talk about because a lot of people are scared to speak up. Specifically, I’m talking about one of my friends who is going through a gender transition. She is struggling with her breakup because her breakup was because she wanted to go through this transition. It’s stuff like that that’s particular but you never know who else is struggling.

I’m down to answer all the questions. I could talk about breakups all day so I’m here.

You might be covering stuff that you’ve already covered but maybe some of my audience will trickle over into yours. I’m hoping.

 

I talk about the same stuff over and over again because it’s always going to be new or you might hear it in a fresh new way.

I feel like you’re not going to hear it until you’re ready to hear it. You could tell your friend until you’re blue in the damn face not to be with this guy, but they’re not going to listen.

They have come to that conclusion themselves. We cannot force the conclusion on them.

I’ve learned that over the years. It’s funny because everyone’s like, “You give such amazing advice.” I’m like, “I know. I’m single. I get it.” I give the most legit fire relationship advice. I’m single but I feel like it’s because the bar is low for men that they still can’t climb over it and I had it. The second that they do anything out of line, I’m like, “No. Next.” Maybe it’s too much. Maybe I should ease back a little bit.

Saying that a relationship completed itself instead of ended is an easier way to find acceptance and create peace and relief in your mind. Click To Tweet

I don’t think so. If you know what you want and those are authentic wants for you, then that’s not a problem.

I made a whole manifestation list. I folded it up and I put it in my bedroom drawer. I’m like, “My husband has this,” in the present tense. If you don’t have those things, you don’t get to be my husband. We were talking about Instagram and you said you love my stories. I’m excited that you love my stories.

They’re fun to watch. I’m totally obsessed.

I got to start with an anecdote because you’re not my close friend yet. You will be. This happened to me where I had an ex-boyfriend who I had blocked on everything. There’s a meme floating around out there where it’s like, “When you blocked your ex everywhere except for eBay, that’s where they contact you.” It’s that. I have him blocked on everything. This is my ex from 2012. It’s a long time ago. He Venmo-ed me $0.10 to try to talk to me. It wasn’t the amount of money. It was so he could send me a message. Does that make sense?

Yes, but it’s funny. If you’re going to do that, go big or go home.

I had a lot of women be like, “$0.10?” I’m like, “Knowing him, it’s not the point of the money. It’s that he wanted to get to me somehow.” Everyone always says, “If he wants you, he would. They’ll find a damn way to get them to Venmo you.”

 

I recorded a podcast episode called When your ex comes back. It’s interesting because a lot of people are like, “What if he comes back?” It isn’t a question about, “What if he comes back?” It is always a question about when. They always circle back around. It is a fact over and over.

I’ve only had one guy in my entire dating career ever not come back. It’s because he’d already gone back to another ex, and then they got married shortly thereafter. That was the only one that didn’t come back.

Who’s to say he’s not going to?

I don’t know. I’m going to say he’s a wuss. I don’t want to say the P-word because that’s offensive. I don’t know if he has the balls to do it. I want to talk about social media first because this is a topic that’s raw and real for me, especially when I went through breakups in high school and in college, it was hard. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t refreshing my feed, seeing if he was with another girl or constantly checking to see if he’d messaged me. What role do you think this has played mentally on both men and women coming into the digital age with regards to breakups?

It’s huge. I remember going through my most traumatic breakup which is a few years ago. I remember having a conversation with my dad who is a psychologist. I remember him being dumbfounded to the point where he was like, “Honestly, Dorothy, I don’t know how to relate to you because when I would break up with a girl or a girl broke up with me, I never saw her. I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t know what she was doing. I didn’t know if she was dating someone new. You know everything.”

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He had moved on rather quickly. He posted this picture of him with the new girl. It was traumatic and jarring to me. I’m like, “Did everyone forget about me?” Everyone’s saying, “Congratulations.” Half the people who are saying, “You guys are so cute,” think it’s me. The other half are excited and happy for them. I’m like, “What? We were in a seven-year relationship. What has happened?”

Is this them getting engaged?

This was them starting to date. It was a month after the end of our seven-year relationship. It was like, “How does this happen? How is everyone else okay with this?” I remember it was jarring and fascinating for me. My dad could not understand it. It’s a whole new ballgame. The other heartbreak that I had was not as traumatic or jarring was in high school. We might have had Myspace at that time but we weren’t spending our time on it. We didn’t have smartphones so if you were away from the house and you weren’t next to your computer, it was so much easier. You then would hear through other people telling you, “He hung out with this person.” It was less traumatic and less accessible to look at and spend time on.

It’s one of the most common things that come up. One of the first podcast episodes that I launched was How do you stop stalking his or her social media. When I teach my clients about it, I talk about it and the word that I use is an urge. You have a strong, intense urge or desire to check his social media or to reach out to him or whatever that is. You’ve got to learn how to build a relationship with those “urges” of not making it mean something bad about yourself, not making it mean you shouldn’t have those urges. Of course, you do.

 

You have an addiction set in your brain where you want to reward yourself with this person. You’d get a dopamine hit, and then that whole cycle would startup. When you remove the reward, it’s like, “I don’t get the dopamine hit.” It builds up stronger as if you were to immediately cold turkey, stop eating any sugar or stop having any caffeine. You get those caffeine headaches or the sugar headaches. It’s the same type of thing but with love.

That makes sense because when I was with my ex, I remember he would be next to me sleeping and I would go through his Facebook pictures inquisitively. For a lot of years, I haven’t done the deep dive stalking that I probably should do. I remember it was maybe two months in and I was like, “He looks cute there.” You’re right, it was a dopamine hit but when I saw a picture of him at this mutual friend’s wedding, I wanted to vomit. It wasn’t because I missed him. It wasn’t that feeling in your stomach that you are upset. It was more like, “I don’t want to see that guy.”

It’s fascinating that you say that because the number one thing that I teach people is getting over your ex, which is learning how to reduce the desire for that person. When I talk about heartbreak, we can address all of the breakup symptoms by going no contact and doing all this fancy stuff that’s out on the internet or you can address the root cause, which is the desire that you have for your ex. Desire is created through your thinking.

The way that I describe this is I love ice cream analogies so we’re probably going to hear lots of them. I used to love ice cream. I’d have ice cream after my dinner almost every night. The way that I described ice cream was it’s my favorite food. It’s delicious. It’s gooey. It melts in my mouth, the caramel, the chocolate chunks. That’s beautiful and amazing. When I describe it like that, it’s very desirable versus when I describe ice cream as it’s simply sugar and milk. That’s not as desirable.

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I’m also slightly lactose intolerant.

It becomes less desirable based on the way that you think about that specific thing. The same thing with your ex, you’ve got to learn how to reduce desire through changing your thoughts. You’ve done that already with your ex so much so that you feel like vomiting.

The reason being is because I did exactly as you said. I talked it out with someone who knew him mutually and it was an older adult. I laid out on the table everything that I did not like about him like he smoked a pack a day, he only drank full-sugar soda, he only ate fast food, he would belch, fart, burp and go to bed with a full belly. He was awful at making love, all these things that were repulsive to me. Even though I was still hurting because he did some fucked-up shit but that’s for another day, that list has helped me. When I saw him in that photo, he was sweaty, bloated, swollen and drunk. I was talking to my sister and I was like, “Can you imagine if I would have had to take care of him after this wedding drunk as hell? No, I don’t want to deal with it.”

See how not desirable that is? Even the way that you described your ex in that way was not desirable. A lot of us probably wouldn’t desire that. Here’s the other thing because people will get hung up on like, “What if my ex was truly amazing and awesome and all these beautiful things?” That can be true. We don’t necessarily have to make this person to be a bad person or not amazing. Recognizing, “Just because that person had that one quality, doesn’t mean I’m not going to create it with someone else or find it in someone else.”

 

What was that thing that you posted and it was like it’s a relationship being completed? That resonated with me because that doesn’t mean it’s the end of your story. It means that part of your story is closed.

A lot of times we’ll say, “The relationship ended. That means I’ve failed,” versus, “The relationship completed itself.” Even that version of the relationship because you might have a relationship with that person down the road, and it doesn’t mean it has to be the same relationship that you had with them the first time around. Talking about relationships in a way where we’re saying, “That completed itself,” not necessarily ended, is such an easier way to not only find acceptance but create a lot of peace and relief in your own mind.

The peace and relief thing is you always tell your friends who are grieving, crying and inconsolable, “It’s going to be okay. It’s going to take time.” You wish you could pass the time for them. It’s almost like you have to be in the trenches, in that nitty-gritty, depressive state to get through to the other side sometimes. I’ve been like that but then I’ve had breakups where I haven’t sobbed myself to sleep for seven months. I was better in a month or a couple of weeks but it depends. There’s the trauma bonding type of relationships that are way harder to get over. Can you explain what trauma bonding is so I don’t flub it?

I’m not an expert in trauma bonding but I will give you my version of it. Trauma bonding is saying that two people have gone through experiences that were difficult, and then have bonded over those difficult experiences. An example of that is I have a client whose dad passed away, then her fiancé’s brother passed away. They bonded over how they both coped with those significant deaths in their life.

 

Technically, you could say that they were “trauma-bonded,” but it’s more about how you handle it moving forward. A lot of times when people say, “I’m trauma bonded to someone,” it makes them feel rather defeated as if that’s something outside of themselves and they can’t do anything about it, which is not necessarily true. It means, “I had a bond with someone over trauma just like I had a bond with someone over something that might not be trauma.” It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be harder to get over. It doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to get over. It means you’re going to do it a little bit differently than someone else.

That makes perfect sense to me. The way that I phrased it for myself, and correct me if I’m wrong, but from my trauma bonding, it was a traumatic relationship like an almost emotionally abusive relationship, and then we’d had those super high highs and the super low lows. We would bond together after we had the super low lows. We would have these lovey-lovey periods, this cycle of abuse that was going on. I feel like that was such a trauma to both him and me. I would say he’s at fault.

 

I’m trying to be diplomatic. It really was him. He would cheat or he would lie about something. I would leave, and then he would come chase after me. It was all these dramatics taking off, catching up to me with his car and laying on top of my car roof. I felt that trauma bonded us in a way and we couldn’t fucking let go of either of us. I would say, “I’m done with you.” I block him and then he would show up at my house and climb over the gate to try to get to me. I consider that a trauma bond.

It is fascinating because it’s cyclical. When you see cycles or a pattern like that, it’s interesting to look at it. Especially even retrospectively like you’ve been doing where it’s like, “Why did I stay in that cycle? What was I thinking? How was I feeling?” It has to do with the high highs and the low lows. The high highs are phenomenal high highs, but then the low lows are so dramatic, exhausting and tiresome.

When I talk about feelings, inside of my program, we do a lot of your feelings. When I talk about that, I talk about it as the roller coaster of emotions. I talk about it more so when you’re outside of the relationship, but it also applies when you’re inside of a relationship. If you’re tying your emotional well-being to somebody else, you’re going to experience a lot of high highs and low lows versus when you recognize that you create your own emotions based on what you’re thinking. It stays pretty steady and it stays in the middle.

I have them go through an exercise where I have them outlined. When I’m experiencing my high highs, why am I experiencing them? They start listing all of these reasons, “It’s because everything’s amazing. My life’s phenomenal. I love him so much. He loves me so much. Everything’s working out perfectly.” That would be creating their high highs, and then I would say, “What are the low lows being tied to? What externally do you think are creating the low lows? What thoughts are creating the low lows?” They would be like, “When he leaves, when he says he no longer wants to be with me or I saw something on Instagram, I’m experiencing the low lows because I’m thinking I’m never going to have that again. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t worthy enough,” or whatever it might be. I’m noticing that all of those thoughts are what creates the high highs and the low lows regardless of what he’s doing.

 

A way that I can explain that that’s outside of a relationship context is I did this at the beginning of my business. When I started my business a few years ago, I used to do consultation calls. I would feel extremely high and excited when someone was like, “I want to do this program. Let’s do it,” because I was tying my emotional well-being to the person saying yes. When they would say no, I would experience low lows. I would make it mean something about me when in reality, it had more to do with them.

I feel that’s a good example of seeing it outside of your relationship. If you are going through high highs and low lows, and are having a hard time explaining that or seeing that, that example gives you a little bit of insight as to it doesn’t have anything to do with you. It has everything to do with them and what they’re doing.

It’s easy to get trapped in the ego bait area. For example, one of the guys that I spoke with for a long time. He lives in New York so we weren’t ever together. We had a lot of love bombing going on throughout the course of our relationship. I met him in New York, and then he came to visit me one time and he’s very stoic. He’s a police officer. He doesn’t show emotion or talk about emotion well. He cared about me but I don’t think he was ready or prepared to ever make a move to move here or have me move there. He wanted me but he didn’t know how.

 

I told him “I have to stop talking to you. I’m not going to block you but I can’t be talking to you because every time I do, I get caught up again. We build this bond, and then it falls flat and I get upset, so stop.” A few days ago, he texted me and he was like, “Steph, how’s it going?” I’m like, “No.” He Snapchatted me. It was a picture of him. He does warrants or something so he was chasing bad guys, which is super cool.

He was in the patrol car. I didn’t answer it and I kept thinking to myself, “What will I get from answering this text? Will I get high out of it? Yes, I will. I’ll get that high of my ego. It’s feeling good. We’re going to flirt. He’s going to love bomb me for a couple of days, and then what’s going to happen? The same thing that always happens.” I’ve learned a lot from ego-trapping myself but it’s a hard lesson to learn.

You have to go through it. It’s not something that someone can explain to you, and then you don’t do it.

Do you think that timing has a lot to do with whether a relationship is successful or not?

 

The first thing I want to say is that almost all relationships are successful. By saying that they’re not, innately makes it so that you fail. If you say a relationship is successful, it opens up the door to say that a relationship is a failure, which then most people make it mean like, “I’m a failure,” which is not necessarily true. The first thing I want to address with that question is looking at what does success looks like to me. Does it mean that the relationship lasts forever? Does that truly have to be the definition of successful, even relationships that end?

The one that you described where it was the high highs and low lows was successful because you realized that pattern. That was important. Timing is important. That’s a hard yes. What’s even more important are intentions. What’s your intention for a relationship and what’s the other person’s intention for the relationship? That’s where timing comes into play. If someone’s in their early twenties, maybe their intention might not be to get married and have children, whereas your intention might be to be married and have children. It’s a timing thing but it’s more about intention and whether or not you both have the same intentions for the relationship. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. What I’ve been seeing a lot of lately is finally people are calling out romantic movies, romantic comedies and things like that on this illusion of the perfect timing, serendipity, and romanticizing all that stuff. When we look at that, we get sad because we’re like, “Why isn’t this happening to me?” These are actors but they are acting so well that you’re feeling all these emotions and you cry. There are movies that still make me cry to this day. I’m a Pisces. I cry about everything.

 

I look at it and I’m like, “This has me fucked up because I’m thinking I’m going to get some happy ending.” It doesn’t look like that. The intention has to be there. It’s not because some guy sees a girl and there’s a meet-cute and then all of a sudden, she takes off her glasses and chased her hair down and has this kiss-me moment.

Sometimes that reminds me of do you ever wish that you had background music playing in your life all the time? I so do.

Yes. Do you have a theme song?

I should. What would my theme song be?

 

You should definitely have a theme song. I feel like mine would be something from the early 2000s. Something neat like a Mandy Moore song like Candy. I would be walking down the street like Mandy Moore.

Based on the stories that I’ve seen of you, I can see that.

Let’s say your ex “moves on” super quickly. Maybe you don’t stalk him on social media. Maybe you hear about it through the Grapevine or you see a picture or you see them out and you see him with a girl. You’re like, “Why is he or she so easy to move on? Why am I still stuck here in this gray zone?” What do you have to say about that?

 

People’s action is always going to be fueled by the way that they feel. The way that they feel will always be created by their thinking. The way that I look at it is an ex will move on quickly based on what they’re thinking about themselves in their life and how they’re feeling. The best way to handle that situation is to decide something like a story that serves you.

When my ex moved on quickly after the end of our relationship, I made it mean that he was struggling. If you think about it, someone who goes into a relationship almost immediately after, number one, they might have been seeing that person before the relationship ended. They might have done a lot of the healing while still in the relationship.

Number two, a lot of times you’re hurting and it’s hard. You’re going through a lot of emotions. You’re feeling sad and devastated. You’re feeling like, “What happened?” Maybe if you’re the person who did the breaking up, you’re feeling regretful, remorseful or something like that. That would fuel finding comfort in someone else, trying to find comfort outside of yourself, seeking comfort within someone else. That’s the story that served me. It was believing that my ex moved on rather quickly because it was hard to get over me. That was the story that served me. Do I know if that’s true or not? No, I’ve never had a conversation with him to be like, “Why did you move on so quickly?”

 

You have to create your own narratives, is that what you’re saying?

Yes. Create your own narrative around it so that you can find peace and comfort in that and think about how you feel with that narrative. I 100% believe that people move on quickly because they’re having a hard time coping, and then that’s their way of coping.

Speaking of that, with sex, I have a follower and he’s sweet. He’s 24. He’s like, “Stephanie, I don’t know how to get over my ex. I’m sad. I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried going on dates but all I do is think about her.” I’m like, “You’re not ready to date if you’re thinking about her the whole time while you’re with this other person. Take some time for self-reflection. Take some time to heal. Immerse yourself in whatever you’re doing, and then go back out and try again. I’m not saying wait six months. I’m saying wait until you’re not thinking about her the whole time because you want to enjoy yourself. That’s miserable.”

One night, he was like, “I met this girl at the bar and she wants to hook up. She wants to have sex, so I think I’m going to hook up with her.” I was like, “Does that serve you?” He doesn’t seem the typical male that wants to sow his seed. He seems a little bit more introspective because he’s asking and seeking my advice. I told him, “Is that going to serve you? Once she leaves your bed, are you going to feel okay? Are you going to feel alone again or more alone?” Maybe that’s a little bit few and far between because most men in their early twenties are a little different than that. They’ll probably hop on to the next one. Let’s start with the early 20s versus the 30s. How do we deal with getting over someone, you get on top of someone. How do you feel about that whole thing?

 

I feel similar to the way that I feel about when people start dating. Is it time to start having sex? Is it time to start dating? My simple answer to that is looking at why. Why are you doing it? Are you doing it so that you can feel better? If that’s the case, I don’t recommend it. I recommend learning to generate your own emotions through your own thoughts. If you’re doing it because you genuinely want to go out, create connections, build relationships, and you have an intention behind it, go for it. Do it. Even if your intention is because you want to experience sex with multiple people, go for it. Do it but make sure you have an intention and not doing it in hopes to feel better.

In my twenties, I had this whole stage and I made a TikTok about it where I was my younger self and I was like, “I’ll have sex with him and then he’ll love me.” The reality is that’s nothing to do with it. I had girls as young as 13 and 16 comment on it and they were like, “I wish I had known this.” I’m like, “Thirteen?” I lost my virginity to my fiancé at the time when I was nineteen. I know now that they’re having sex younger but I’m like, “Can someone talk to these young women? This makes me sad. I don’t want them to think that.”

 

I’m going to talk about the block button because this is something that I am not great about because immediately when someone fucks up bad, I will block their ass quicker than Yosemite Sam. I am like, “Block on everything.” I want to know your thoughts on that because I feel like it’s a little bit of my wounded masculine coming through like, “I’m going to put this wall up and you can’t fuck with me ever again.” I don’t even give it the time to possibly heal. I just say, “Fuck you,” and I’m done and out. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.

There’s a time and a place for that. When a boundary violation has taken place, meaning they’ve done something that violates a boundary for you. It makes sense to block someone. If someone’s physically threatening you or something along those lines, I’m like, “Yes, block.” If you are having a terrible time trying to allow your urges like what we were talking about before, go ahead block it.

Where I like to help people get to is to a place where they are no longer at the effect of other people. Their emotional well-being isn’t at the effect of other people and when it comes to the urge to check social media, I want you to be able to have social media there. I want you to be able to not have to block that person and still not have the desire to check.

 

Another example of this is people who struggle with binge eating. I have a colleague who coaches people with binge eating. It’s the same type of thing where you can take all of the binge foods out of the house so that way, you don’t binge eat or you can learn how to reduce your desire for binge eating and have the foods there, and not be at the effect of the foods. It’s like that where there’s a time and a place to use the block button and it’s an amazing tool. How beautiful is that and I love that. There are other times where it’s like, “Am I doing this because I don’t want to take emotional responsibility?”

I’m talking more about not just social media blocking. I’m talking about text, email or any sort of thing because I almost want to build this fortress of, “If I can’t hear them or see them, then I won’t be as bad.” It’s like that to me but then after a while, I feel I can unblock them. Right at that point in time, I feel I need to take all of the control and I don’t know if that’s a control freak thing.

It depends on the situation because, at some point, I love that you love taking control of your life. That’s beautiful because some people are like, “I don’t have control over it.” You do have a block button, so you do have control over it, but where’s the line between that versus reacting to anger or reacting to a strong negative emotion?

For those that get that extreme sense of loss, that depression that you can’t get out of bed, you’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, and it’s affecting your work, especially at nighttime. At nighttime, those thoughts come rushing in. What do you recommend as some self-soothing techniques to get you through that initial period of extreme loss and depression?

 

There are so many things I could recommend. My number one tool that is amazing for this is the grief bubble. It’s recognizing there’s this big huge bubble of emotions. It’s not just one. It’s devastation, loss, betrayal, anger and resentment. You have so many overwhelming emotions that you physically feel paralyzed. What I recommend people to do in those situations is number one, recognize that it’s going to not last forever.

Number two, explore it all. Write down all of your feelings. For each feeling, do a little line that points over here, and then you write down, “What’s creating that emotion for me?” You have a list of feelings and a list of thoughts that are creating those feelings and recognizing that those are optional beliefs that you’re choosing to believe, and then releasing them through embracing those emotions. Recognizing they’re not there to harm you or to be there forever. They’re there to give you indicators that you cared about someone deeply and that is okay. It’s totally 100% normal for you to feel devastation, loss and all of that.

Another tool that I like is called release writing. It’s so good. You grab a journal and a pen, and you ask yourself, “If this emotion could speak or if this emotion could talk, what would it say?” You write and allow yourself to write until your energy shifts. You can write fast or you can write slow but you’re not going to reread it. You just need to write and write, and then once your energy shifts, you take it, rip it up, throw it away and wash your hands. It’s a complete emotional shift in such a short timeframe. I love it.

I prefer burning it but don’t do that at home. Do it outside. We’re not liable for any pyromaniacs that may be reading this. Thank you.

It’s funny that you say that because we do a funeral for your ex since you have to decide, whether or not you want to do cremation or bury it. Every time, I’m like, “Please be careful with your burnings.”

I did something similar. I wrote one letter about everything I was angry about, one letter for everything I was thankful for, and one letter of forgiveness. I burned the angry one. I didn’t keep the other ones and I didn’t send them anywhere. I just tossed them. I burned the anger because I was like, “This is symbolic. I need to let go of these feelings.”

 

With that particular one, I did hold on to anger a lot because I was in a car wreck. I don’t know if you knew that. The man who was driving was the guy that I was dating. I held anger for him even though we weren’t together. We weren’t going to get married, have a family or whatever. I was so fucking pissed because this mother fucker decided not to pay attention when we were in Mexico. We were driving down the road in a deathtrap. Airbags didn’t work. Any lock brakes weren’t working. The steering column, I could tell, was not secure.

He says there was an animal in the road. There was no animal on the road. He was looking at his phone and he swerved. He hit into the median and the car flipped 3 or 4 times. Ever since then, I’ve had excruciating hip and back pain on top of already injuries that I’ve had previously. Every time I feel pain in my back, I would get angry at him. It was hard for my grief period to let him go because I was over him but I was not over my anger.

I ended up having to do something unconventional. I’m wondering your opinion on it. I went to this spiritual store and they have all different kinds of charms, spells, candles and ritualistic stuff. They suggested that I do a cord-cutting ceremony and it worked. It was a candle that was scissors and it had a twofold wick. They told me to carve his name, what happened, my pain, and everything that was bothering me into this candle. They gave me a special oil to put on top of the candle and then I burned it. I’ll get upset every once in a while but my extreme anger for this dude is gone.

Anger was the hardest thing for me to let go too. I spent a year googling how to forgive and let go, how to get over your ex and I did all of it. I meditated. I got in the best shape of my life. I traveled. Still, the hardest part for me at least is there’s so much anger and resentment. That was the last thing for me to release.

I know you’ve done all the work but how do you forgive when your ex has done you so wrong? It’s different for everybody but what is the first step to forgiving someone? That is a way to heal for yourself, not for him. You don’t need to forgive him for him or her. You need to forgive him for yourself.

I took an analytical approach to forgiveness. I was like, “What is forgiveness? What is the definition of forgiveness?” The definition of forgiveness was letting go of anger and resentment. When I realized that, I was like, “All that means is I have to let go of feeling angry and resentful, then that means I’ve forgiven.” When I realized and recognized that my feeling angry and resentful towards him didn’t create any negative emotion for him, I was mind-blown.

I thought that if I held on to the anger and the resentment, he would feel something. I felt I was doing something to him when I wasn’t letting go of the anger and resentment, but I was the only one feeling and experiencing that, which was only hindering me in my human experience. When I recognized that, it helped me forgive and let go because the only reason I’m forgiving is so that I can let go of anger and resentment so that I don’t have to experience anger and resentment, and then it’s done. It’s like, “Holy buckets. This is for me, not for him.”

What do you do when you have the same friend group? When you break up with someone and your friends are like, “I saw Greg posted this,” and you’re like, “Can you fucking not tell me about what Greg posted?” What do you do when you are in the same friend group? Do you set boundaries with your friends? Do you pull them aside one by one individually and be like, “Greg and I still want to be friends with all of you. I don’t want it to be awkward for you but these are my boundaries?” Is that what you would recommend doing?

Yes and no. I don’t normally do that or I advise my clients not to do that until it becomes a problem. Sometimes it’s not a problem. Friends handle it great, it’s not an issue, everything works out and it’s awesome. Other times, there are issues where people will bring up stuff like you were talking about and you have two options at that point. You can either have the conversation about it and being like, “Here are my boundaries.”

A boundary to me isn’t necessarily telling them what to do. It’s telling people what you will do if they do something. It would be more of a conversation of like, “If you bring this person up, I will remove myself from the situation.” Meaning, I will leave and not spend time with you. A lot of times when you explain yourself to your friends what you’re going through and why you would rather not hear about what was going on with that person, they’re usually understanding. If they aren’t, then they’re probably not the type of human being you want to spend a lot of your time with anyways.

That also brings me to the whole realm of, “Should I remain friends with my ex?” I am very neutral about this. I feel it can work. I’ve seen it work but do you have the same interests? You can even apply that to the friend group like, “Were you only friends with them because they were your ex-boyfriend’s friends or do you have similar interests and you truly genuinely enjoy doing what it is they do?” A lot of times if you ask yourself that question, you’ll be like, “That’s not what I loved to do.”

It reminds me of fantasy football. I was super into fantasy football with my ex and as soon as that was done, my colleagues were like, “Do you want to do fantasy football?” I was like, “Not really. I thought I did but I did that because my ex-boyfriend did it. Now that I’m not dating him, I don’t see myself sitting down on a Sunday and watching football.”

I like watching football but I don’t want to have to pay so much attention to it that it’s going to detract me for the rest of my day. I don’t care about it that much. I love sports and all. There have been situations where, with the friend group thing, when something jarring has happened like they cheated or whatever, I feel like that’s hard because you’re sick. You almost don’t even want to be around them. That happened to me.

It was this one guy who never came back that I was telling you about, all of his friends chose me. To this day, even his guy friends that were his fraternity brothers, I was in both of their weddings as a bridesmaid and he doesn’t talk to them anymore. None of them chose him. All the girls, all the guys, I still talk to them. This was in 2009 that we broke up.

Did they continually bring him up though or did they never talk about him?

Every once in a while, they’ll be like, “He’s this and that. He got a DUI,” but it’ll be stuff that wasn’t good, and then they’re like, “Did you know that he had a baby?” I’m like, “I heard that. I’m happy for him. Great.” I don’t care. I don’t know exactly the facts but he was definitely being sketchy. Whatever it was, I knew that I didn’t want to be around him or a spot where he was.

At first, I was desperate to get in touch with him because the way he broke up with me was that he left in the middle of the night and never broke up with me. Technically, we’re still together. He never answered one phone call after he left during the night. That’s a douchebag way to break up with someone. Just face the person and be like, “I don’t want to be with you.” I’d prefer that over you disappearing.

This is a great question. Is there a good way to break up?

No, I don’t think there’s a good way but there are better ways. I would say being upfront is the best way to be. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I don’t think breaking up in person is a good idea. It’s a terrible idea. I don’t think breaking up in public is a good idea. I don’t think breaking up in person is a good idea because, at the end of the day, you’re going to have to leave each other. You have to go your separate ways. I’m not sure about the text but a phone call is warranted because at least they deserve that.

If you’re in the same place physically, the other person is either going to walk off and you’re not going to get to finish what you’re going to say, and then it’s up in the air or it’s going to be dramatic. They’re going to cry, scream, do whatever. They’re going to accuse you of stuff. It’s going to be ugly or they’ll be like, “Don’t leave. No, please,” then it’s hard to leave one another. At least, when you’re on the phone, you can hang up the phone after the conversation and be in your own space, and have that downtime to absorb what happened.

I was so hung up on the idea that my ex broke up with me on the phone. “I was home last week. I’m going to be home in a week and you’re breaking up with me on the phone. This is insane.” When I did so much thought work on it, I was like, “It makes sense as to why he broke up with me on the phone because I was that crazy person who would be like, ‘We’re not breaking up. I can’t hear you. I’m not leaving.'” My rule of thumb is to treat someone the way you want to be treated. If you could curate the best possible breakup for you, how would you do that? Show up in a way that you can feel proud of and that you have respect for yourself and that’s the best you can do.

This whole concept of you need to meet them up in person and tell them in person is not right. I don’t know who came up with those rules.

I talk about breakup rules where it’s like, “There’s no rulebook.” There is no book of rules that says, “This is how a breakup is supposed to go.” I see this all the time where they’re like, “If it wouldn’t have been so messy, it would have been great.” I have other people who are like, “If it would have been messier, it would have been easier.” The grass is always greener on the other side.

With all of my breakups, the extreme ghosting to where you were living with me, and then the next morning, you and your stuff were gone, that’s probably not the best option because then I’m blowing you the fuck up. I’m like, “Where are you? Do you want to go have brunch?” I had no idea. I thought he just had to leave. He didn’t have that much stuff. He wasn’t living with me. He had a couple of things. I was like, “He took his laundry. I wonder what he’s doing for brunch,” and then I never heard from him again.

It’s because he couldn’t face me and he didn’t have to face me. He could have texted even at that point and he could have been, “I’m over it.” I would’ve been like, “Okay.” Maybe I would have had a breakdown, but at least I would have heard from him. How do you know if you are fighting for someone you love and who loves you versus fighting for someone to love you?

My question for that person would be, do I feel loved no matter what my partner feels and experiences? Am I feeling loving feelings in the relationship regardless of what he or she is doing or not doing and how that other person is showing up?

Maybe if we can bring up a hypothetical, let’s say they’re going through a hard time. They had a death in the family. Their parent passed away and they are retreating into themselves. You know they need support but they don’t know how to express it. You have had a great relationship up until then, but you’re not feeling the love from him currently because all of his emotion is in this grief. What do you do at that point?

At that moment, you could still choose to feel loved no matter what he’s doing. Even if he’s going through a hard time, you’re going to feel love if you’re having loving thoughts. You could be having loving thoughts about him and how he’s going through a hard time. “I know he still loves me. I know he still cares about me. He’s struggling. He’s going through this. That’s totally fine.” You’re feeling and experiencing love because those are the thoughts that you choose. I’m assuming you would stop feeling love if you sound like you’re questioning whether or not the other person loves them.

A lot of the time, people have the love languages like quality time and words of affirmation. If they’re not getting that, then they’re going to question whether they’re loved if that’s their language.

I have a hard time because I feel medium about love languages.

I believe in the basic concept because I know that there are people that I have loved in my way that don’t receive that love in that same way and we didn’t translate. When I learned that, I feel my relationships even with friends were not successful.

It’s a good tool in your toolbox but not something that you should rely on. People don’t need to show up in that way for you to experience love. I love this question about fighting for love and fighting for something because it comes up all the time. When I think about a relationship, I love the hypothetical you brought up because it’s one that I haven’t explored too much.

I explore it from a place of like, “Why do we need to fight for relationships?” It’s something that we were told and taught growing up. It’s like, “Relationships are hard. You have to compromise and you have to fight for them.” I question that. Is that true that we have to fight for relationships? Do we want to be fighting for relationships? I want a relationship that’s natural and organic, and that we don’t have to fight for something. It just happens. It doesn’t mean that it’s always easy or that we never argue or have disagreements, but it’s not something that we have to fight to keep alive.

The example that you gave was eye-opening because it’s like, “What happens in an extreme example of where someone dies and they’re going through a hard time?” If I was in that situation, I would show up knowing and feeling that I love this person and they’re just going through a hard time. Maybe that hard time is going to last 3 months, 6 months, 1 year. How long am I down to be in a relationship like this is up to me. In the meantime, I’m going to show up as a loving, beautiful, amazing and supportive partner, knowing that my partner loves me dearly regardless of what he’s going through.

What if they’re shutting down on you? What if they’re like, “I can’t right now.” That happens because they’re in grief or reclusive. Do you respect that boundary and like, “Let me know whatever you need?”

It depends on what you want to do. For me personally, I would want to show up in a way that aligns with the partner that I would want in that situation. Even if I was shutting down, I would want my partner to still check in with me. At least for me, when I’m shutting down or I’m upset if someone else retreats from me, it only makes it worse.

It’s the same for me but men are so different.

You have to show up as the best version of yourself and know that you did everything that you believe you should have and feel proud of.

It’s a fine line. I feel you have to question what the other person’s motives are. Would they do the same for you in the same situation?

Would you want them to do the same for you?

Something that we haven’t covered that is important for a lot of our readers is people with kids because kids result from these relationships. What are you doing if you have this toxic ex-relationship that you constantly are bickering and fighting? It’s terrible for the kid. You don’t get along. Sometimes you do have to talk business. You have to talk about the house. You’re talking about the kids’ schedule. Whatever it is, you do have to talk. How do you set the boundary for them to freaking listen to you? I went through this with my ex. She would not stop. Between you and me and all my readers, he was a little bit still allowing her to step over the boundary. Let’s not talk about him. Let’s talk about it in general. How do you set that boundary for an ex that you have children with to make it as healthy as possible?

When we’re talking about boundaries, we have to revisit the fact that we can’t control humans. We can’t control other people. I wish we could. I tried all the things. I promise you. If I knew how to do it, I would sell it for a lot of money. When we think about that, we have to come to a conclusion of, how do I want to show up regardless of what my ex does or doesn’t do, even when it comes to kids? What do I think is most important for my child here? How do I want to show up regardless of what my ex does or doesn’t do, and getting clear about that? What do I need to think and believe about myself to feel the way I need to feel, to show up in a way that I’m proud of and can feel confident about?

I talked about redefining your relationship with your ex, specifically when it comes to you having children and you’re redefining it into a co-parenting relationship. What kind of co-parent do you want to be? We can’t control him or her. We can’t control your ex but we can control what kind of co-parent I want to be. That includes interacting with someone who might be irrational or doing things you don’t want them to do or not listening to you, or whatever that might be.

How does that co-parent that I want to become show up in situations like that? Is it so extreme that I need to get a third party involved? Do I set a certain boundary that if you show up this way in front of the children, I take the children? What is that and what does that look like? You have to define what kind of co-parent you want to be. Recognize that you have no control over how that other person is or receives your information, or whether or not they listen to you.

Dorothy says, “You can’t control your ex.” There are no puppet strings. You control yourself. That’s it. It’s all you can do. You have to decide what is best for your kid. I feel like a lot of the time people get caught up with trying to control their ex or manipulate their ex using their kid. That is where the saddest part of it is. It’s easy to be petty in a situation like that. You’re like, “I’m not going to bring Lisa for dinner.” Don’t do that shit. Be the bigger person is the advice. Let me get you a couple more questions. How to deal when she breaks up with you to date girls? How do you feel about that?

I feel completely fine about that. My first question is, why is that a problem? What are you making it mean about you? What’s the issue here in recognizing that that is an optional story you’re telling yourself? Are you making it mean something negative about you like, “I wasn’t man enough for her?” I have no idea what you might be making them back mean.

I have no context. I don’t know this person. You’re right. To me, it’s like saying, “What if she dates up with me to date another man?” It’s the same thing to me. This one’s interesting. How often should we re-evaluate our relationships to determine whether or not we should break up?

I evaluate my relationships every six months. This all formed when I left my relationship to be single for a little bit and started finding a new relationship because I realized we didn’t have the same wants. I loved this man. He was cool and an amazing guy. We had a lot of the same interests and everything was going well. I very much liked him and he was amazing.

What I started to recognize is that we didn’t have the same desires in life. We didn’t have the same wants, which is what we call a want match. Meaning, we didn’t want the same things. When you start doing that, it feels hard and you start trying to compromise. I didn’t want him to compromise himself and I didn’t want to compromise myself just so that we could be in a relationship together. To me, that didn’t sit well.

I didn’t want him to change himself and I didn’t want to change myself, but I didn’t want to live in a relationship where we were separate and independent that it felt like we weren’t in a relationship. I felt like I was single but I wasn’t getting the benefits of being single. It was such a weird dynamic. I was like, “If that’s the case, what do I want?”

I made a list of my wants, a.k.a a list of qualities that you would like in a partner. I formulated questions that correlated with each of those wants to ask that on dates 2 or 3 to start asking those questions to see if they genuinely wanted those same things that I wanted, which is super fun and hilarious to experience.

Once I did that, I ended up finding a partner who wanted all of the same wants and we started dating. We hit about the six-month mark. I went through that same list again seeing the behavior that he has elicited in the last six months, does it still match this? Is this still true for him? Does it seem he truly still wants the same wants as me? I went through that list and it was all still exactly what I thought. I’m like, “I’m going to do this every six months. I’m going to re-evaluate. Do we still want the same wants? If not, that’s totally fine. That doesn’t have to be a problem. Do I want to be with someone who doesn’t want the same wants, yes or no?” That will help evaluate every milestone of the relationship.

Does he know that you do this?

Yes, he does. In the beginning, I loved questions. I love asking people questions, getting to know them. It’s fun for me. He thought I just like asking questions. I would pull some questions from the internet but then I also pulled questions that were specific to my list and sprinkle them in to make it not as obvious. As we got to know each other, I was like, “I had a list of wants because I want this relationship to be easeful, organic and natural. I don’t want you to change your wants because of what I want. I don’t want to change my wants because of what you want.” I shared it with him. We were out for dinner and I was like, “I went through the list again and we still want the same things.”

He probably knows that you are analytical from your profession. He’s got to know that.

He knows the whole thoughts create feeling stuff. We have conversations about these things.

I don’t have a physical list but when I pull out my mental list of boundaries and set them forth to a potential suitor, they’re like, “What the fuck is this?” I’m like, “These are my boundaries. Mother fucker, if you don’t like them, there’s the door.” I’m dead serious. I’m like, “You will not step over these boundaries. I will not have it.” I’m done with people walking all over me. I keep having hope that he’s going to change his mind. I assume that this means that he’s going to change his mind about the breakup. Is this bad? It’s bad for her mental health. What do you think?

I don’t feel it’s a bad thing unless you’re using it against yourself. Assume he’s going to change his mind because you’re going to up-level, be amazing, gorgeous, and live a life that’s bigger and better than the one that you had with your ex. At some point, he’s going to change his mind. If you’re going to play with that, if you’re going to dabble in it, go all in and dive in that he’s absolutely going to change his mind. What are you going to do in the meantime? It’s time to get to work and become the best version of yourself so if he does come back, you are a different person and you don’t have the same relationship that you had with him before.

Does that inhibit you though from potentially moving on to find another person?

 

Not if you’re doing it the right way. Not if you’re getting over your ex and reducing the desire for your ex because then you won’t be so attached to that one person. Speaking of manifestation, you won’t be attached to trying to manifest your ex back. You’re trying to manifest your committed partnership of a healthy relationship. If you’re truly doing that, you can still have the belief that my ex has always changed their mind and they always come back, but that doesn’t mean that I want them back.

This particular woman is saying, “I keep having hope he’s going to come back.” She’s waiting for him. That’s the gist that I’m getting here. I would say to her, “Don’t sit and wait for him. Prepare yourself for his arrival as if the aliens were coming. What would you do when the aliens arrive? How would you look? When the aliens arrive, don’t you want to look your best?”

That’s what I’m saying. If you go all-in on believing that he’s absolutely going to come back, then you would be doing your work to become the best version of yourself. If you truly love someone, that’s what you want. You want them to have the best version of the person they’re dating.

Why after a breakup does the other person try to keep the relationship or keep trying to call you, keep in touch, have sex with you or things like that? Why do they do that?

I have such a hard time with one-faced questions because I have questions that I want to ask the other person.

I know it’s hard. I’m trying to give the people what they need here. For me, it’s the typical. They still want to feel loved without any pressure of being in a relationship.

I would think, “Why would you do this?” If I broke up with someone and stayed in contact with them and still tried to have sex with them, why would I be doing that? I would be doing that because I’m afraid to let them go. They’re afraid to feel the feelings that come along with heartbreak that you’re still going to have to go through even if you’re the person breaking up. I’m assuming that’s why they would be doing that. They’re having a hard time letting go too. Set the boundary.

This is dealing with a breakup due to gender transition and I asked her to go into it. She said, “Dealing with a breakup that was caused by my gender transition for a long time made me feel that being trans was negative because it’s hard not to equate it with the loss of a six-year relationship with the person that you love so much. My last breakup still feels like I haven’t been able to get back into dating because of it.” It’s all over the place a little bit but she was upset when she was texting. Poor thing.

Tell me if I’m wrong because you’re the expert. That information is a lot. You’re in a relationship for six years, even if you love that person, as a person who is in the wrong gender and you identify as a woman when you were born a male, you have an understanding. You’ve lived with it probably for years. You get it that that person that you’re with for six years that is blindsided by that information might have trouble processing it. Am I right?

That makes a lot of sense. On the other side of that is making sure that you don’t take that person’s reaction to that information personally. That’s more about them and figuring themselves out. It has nothing to do with you, your worth, your enoughness or even your lovability. When someone says that they can’t love you, it has nothing to do with your lovability and everything to do with their capacity to love. Making sure that you’re not taking how they’re reacting to the information that you’re relaying personally about yourself is important.

That’s a tough one. I can’t even imagine going through something like that. It feels like people’s love for you would either be stronger or it goes away completely. That must be disheartening to go through as a trans woman or man. I love that girl. She’s awesome. We’ve been following each other. She shares her highs and her lows. I’m proud of her for being out and being herself. Dorothy, this has been one of the most insightful episodes I’ve ever had. I feel like we’ve had a therapy session. Thank you so much. I want to ask you, was the breakup from a few years ago caused you to get into this realm?

Yes.

I thought so because you were like, “I want to help other people deal with all this shit.”

There was so much information online and none of it worked. I was caught off guard by how much information was online that wasn’t valid. There was a completely new way to do it, which was the way that I have found but it took me a year and a half to find it and figure it all out. I wanted to save people time because time has nothing to do with getting over your ex. It doesn’t take time to heal your heart. Time has nothing to do with it and that’s the number one thing I heard.

All these things that I was hearing on how to handle it weren’t true. I felt someone needed to come out and say all of these things. I also remember searching podcasts on how to get over your ex and I could not find anything. I remember promising myself that if I ever got through getting over my ex, I was going to be the person to start that podcast. That’s why I got the podcast and named it How To Get Over Your Ex. It was such a beautiful transition.

Your podcast should be called Don’t Slash His Tires. When I was engaged to my now ex-husband, he wouldn’t let me in the house. I gently tapped the garage with my car. To this day, his fraternity brothers will not let it go. They’re like, “Do you remember when you crashed your car into the house?” I was like, “It was a gentle tap.”

I love your mannerisms, that’s why I love your stories. Your mannerisms and the way you say it, I love it.

I was dramatic. I was twenty years old and I thought the world revolved around who I was with and a man defined me as a woman. I was like, “You better have me in the house or I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to blow up your house.” I didn’t even mean any of it. I was talking out my ass. You have the 3 Months or Less. This process is a three-step process. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

I share all my things. It’s Get Over Your Ex in 3 Months or Less. We spend the first four weeks learning how to feel feelings, which is important. You’ve got to feel the heartbreak, you’ve got to experience the grief, the loss, the devastation, the anger and the betrayal. You’ve got to get comfortable feeling those discomforts. Comfortable feeling uncomfortable and learning how to not react to your emotions. It was a huge reactor to my emotions even gently tapping a garage.

The second portion of that is creating closure. It’s learning to rebuild your confidence, your worthiness, your enoughness, all of that. Building that relationship with yourself, and then rewriting your breakup story in a way that’s empowering. It leaves you feeling fired, good and amazing. The last section is focused on getting excited about your future. It’s not just about getting over your ex. It’s about building a life that’s bigger and better than the one that you had with your ex. We go out and we do that. We create a life that your ex regrets leaving but you’re all the way to the point where it doesn’t even matter.

Have you had many clients where you get a phone call and they’re like, “He’s back.”

It happens all the time.

Are you like, “Don’t you dare? Don’t do it.”

Half of the time, I always let them make their decision because they know what’s best for them. A lot of times, they’ve naturally outgrown the place that they were at with that person. They’re like, “I have now created a life that’s much better that I want a partner that matches that.” Sometimes they’re like, “I want to give it a second try,” and they feel good about that.

That’s cool that you’ve given them the tools to make those decisions. I feel like I was left to my own devices and I had to learn all of these things on my own by listening to podcasts, listening to people like you. I had to vet people. You can’t just read whatever is on the internet. Some people will tell you to go slash tires. You’ve got to vet people and see that they know what they’re talking about. As you said, the internet is like, “The half-life of your relationship is how long, divided by 16, times 2 and that’s when you’ll get over him.”

I remember that rule and I was devastated. I was like, “Bitch, I don’t have fucking three and a half years to get over that.”

One more question for you. This is a question I ask everybody on the show. You were walking down the street and you saw your twenty-year-old self walking towards you. You give her a big hug and squeeze her. You embrace her and looked at her. If you could tell her one piece of advice, what would that be?

Keep falling madly in love.

That’s beautiful. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

I would tell her to keep falling madly in love because the deeper in love with that person that she was falling in love with. I had to be so deep in love with that man to be so heartbroken until I get to the place that I’m at now and I’m grateful. It’s created a relationship with myself that is untouchable. No one can fuck with the relationship that I have with me and I love it.

I love the energy. That’s how I feel too. It sucks though because I am truly a giver. I am such a lover and I give of myself so much. I’ve had to be careful of the love-bombing stuff. As a side note, I get that a lot. It’s not just “I love you,” specifically but it’ll be like, “Stephanie, I could see myself with you forever. I want to put a baby in you. I could spend forever looking into your eyes.” It’s that type of stuff. I get that a lot because I feel I elicit strong reactions from people, either they fucking hate me or they super love me. Guys tend to do that with me and I’m such a romantic that I get so caught up, and then I have to grieve over a breakup where I wasn’t even with the person. I wasn’t even together with him.

It’s like a situationship.

Even someone I hadn’t even met. It’s like someone that I met on Instagram. We had a situationship. For a year, we talked every day. We talked on the phone. We FaceTime, “I love you,” and whatever. It doesn’t work out, and then I’m grieving something that I wasn’t even in. I don’t know if I regret wanting to believe in that love.

You don’t need to regret it. Regret is optional and sometimes it’s not even necessary.

I know I need to take words at face value. Words are not a contract, they’re just words. You have to go by actions. I know these things innately but thank you for validating me. I feel like it’s okay for me to keep falling in love. I love what you said.

I love falling in love. Love is always an option. It’s always the best option.

I fell in love with you so there’s that. Thank you so much, Dorothy, for your time. This has been insightful. It’s going to help so many people. Even my sister who has been married for many years was like, “I can’t wait to listen to that one.” I’m like, “Great.”

Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. It’s such an honor. I love your work.

I wish you all the best. Tell me what I can do to support you, anytime you need anything. I always share your resources but if there’s anything that I or my audience do to support you, let me know.

Thank you. You are amazing. I appreciate you.

Big kisses and hugs. I will see you soon.

It sounds great. Bye.

Bye, Dorothy.

—

That’s a wrap for The Luxury Dropout. I hope you learned a lot from Dorothy. I know I did. There’s so much insight, thought-provoking subject matter. No matter where you are in your relationship, there’s always room for improvement. My big takeaway was to re-evaluate the relationship every six months and make sure it’s still serving you. That was neat. If you’re reading on a streaming platform, go ahead and leave me that five-star review. I would love to hear from you. I’m glad that you’re here. Remember, until next time, you are loved. Stay safe and I will see you in the next one.

Important Links:

• Dorothy Johnson
• Get Over Your Ex
• When your ex comes back – Past episode on How to Get Over Your Ex
• How do you stop stalking his social media – Past episode on How to Get Over Your Ex
• How To Get Over Your Ex
• Instagram – Stephanie Joplin
• https://TheLifeCoachSchool.com/certified-coach/breakup-coach-dorothy/

About Dorothy Johnson

Getting over your ex has nothing to do with “time” or “taking it day by day.” I teach my clients how to get over your ex and build a life BETTER than the one you had with your ex in 3 months or less by addressing the root cause instead of heartbreak symptoms. We use a simple 3 step process to heal your heart, create closure, and get excited about your future again.