The Viall Files - E699 Ask Nick - Caught Cheating in 4k

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Welcome back to another episode of The Viall Files: Ask Nick Edition! We’re back to answer your burning questions about the world of dating and relationships. Before getting to our callers, we start our new intro segment: Who’s Home. Leah from the household shares her thoughts on cheating. Our first caller caught her ex cheating on her through her security cameras and is having a hard time moving on. She’s been cheated on before but liked this guy for his charming nature.  Our second caller is having wedding troubles, as her fiance doesn't want her brother at their wedding. Her brother is a pastor and does not agree with her fiance's proposal before he was a Christian. Our final caller was seeing a guy who wouldn’t text her back, but constantly posting on Snapchat. She's wondering if he merely lost interest, or if she did something wrong.   “When you do meet someone worth your time, you're gonna run the risk of pushing the good ones away, because you're so used to dealing with the bad ones” Start your 7 Day Free Trial of Viall Files + here: https://viallfiles.supportingcast.fm/  Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to [e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.  To Order Nick’s Book Go To: https://www.viallfiles.com  If you would like to get some texting advice, send an email to [e-mail] with “Texting Office Hours” in the subject line!  To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://www.advertisecast.com/TheViallFiles  THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Squeezed.com -  Visit https://www.squeezed.com and get same day local delivery or free fast delivery nationwide with code VIALL. Seed - Listen to your gut with Seed’s DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. Go to https://www.Seed.com/viall and use code 25VIALL to get 25% off your first month.  BetterHelp - Become your own soulmate and visit https://www.BetterHelp.com/VIALL to get 10% off your first month. Peloton - Get started with Peloton’s limited time offers, head to https://www.onepeloton.com/deals  Episode Socials: @viallfiles @nickviall @alison.vandam  @dereklanerussell @leahgsilberstein  

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What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Vow Files Ask Nick Edition, episode 699. Wow, that's a lot of episodes. We have been doing this for a long time. We just want to thank you guys all for listening. Pretty exciting. Episode 699. We got a good one for you, which means episode 700

is tomorrow. And as I've been mentioning to you guys, it's the Toms. The Toms are episode 700. In my wildest dreams, would not have imagined. You know, who should we have for episode 700? Why do you think it's fitting, Leah? Just because it's so, I mean, you just have to watch it, but it's so, it's wild. It is wild. Yeah. It's fitting for the 700th episode. It's just different. It's different.

Yeah. It is memorable. It will be memorable. Yeah. That's what it will be. That's Leah, our member of the household who's joining us for this show. We also have Allie with us as well. Hi, Allie.

How are you? Good. Just thriving. What do we got on our show today? We have so much. We have some great callers coming up and a little tease. We have someone catching someone cheating through a security camera. We have a fiancee disagreement over not wanting to invite someone to a wedding. Someone's too busy to respond to her texts, but he's always on Snapchat.

And to help us kick things off, we're going to try a little something new. I know you guys have been excited about maybe meeting some of the new members of the household. We've figured out a new, fun, and interesting way of doing it. This will be certainly interesting, even though this is going. This is the brainchild of one Leah and Allie. We're going to call it Who's Home?

And it's really going to be any member from the household who maybe has a story to share that maybe relates to one of our upcoming calls and our ethnic episodes. So it'll be a fast and intimate way of getting to know our household members. It might be something they've experienced personally.

It might be something that they know of someone who knew someone. Just a fun anecdotal story that relates to our callers first up leah yep you got a story to tell i do i do well yeah i mean the story this is which call does it relate to this relates to uh the person who caught her boyfriend cheating on her oh my god from a security camera right yeah so i mean not not from a security camera this happened a long time ago but i was cheated on by um my current husband actually so well yeah i mean listen uh people it we are not a show of judgment we are a

show of lessons learned and uh, you know, that's quite honestly, this little preview for tomorrow, our whole goal for the episodes with the Tom is to check in with one Tom Sandoval and one Tom Schwartz to see where they're at. They've talked about regret. They've talked about learning from their mistakes. And we wanted to see how that process was going. Check in with them, if you will, to see if in fact there has been real growth and development. Because it is possible. People can make mistakes, learn from their mistakes. We all are human. We have moments of weakness. But that being said, Leah, what is your story? No, I mean, I agree with what you said. I think that the main thing is just taking accountability, learning from your mistakes and growing from it. And I don't know how long this person had been dating her boyfriend, but when you get to a certain point and you have

feelings there, it's really hard to just let go. Yeah. And so you're now husband in high school. Yes. So we kind of started dating and he had this relationship prior with this girl in camp and she was going to be coming in to visit and she was going to be coming for him essentially. And so he was in this situation where he didn't know what to do because he had me and he had her and he didn't know kind of how to navigate the situation the problem was that he didn't tell me so she comes in they hook up everything kind of just goes on as if normal yes um and yeah so she leaves and then everything just goes back to normal. We continue.

Did you know about this at this point? No. Okay. No. I knew she was coming into town and I knew that they had a history, but I trusted him and I knew that it was like, if you do this, it's over. So you're not going to do it. Why would you mess with this?

So then weeks go by and his best friend, who was also a close friend of mine, comes to me. He's like, Leia, you want to go for a walk? And so we go for a walk in the school parking lot. I had this happen to me. Really? Yeah. The whole like, can we, you know, the friend. Mine was in a car, you know.

But my question to you, Leia, is you said school parking lot. How many laps did we have to do? Many laps. Many, many laps. He told me what happened. And I was, of course, I had a lot of questions. And he answered all of them. He knew everything.

And I was like, I was very grateful that he had told me because I can't even imagine what would have happened if more time had passed and I just didn't find out for months. I don't know if we could have recovered if that had happened, honestly. So I confronted my boyfriend about it. And yeah, I mean, he admitted to it. He didn't lie. He immediately said, yeah, I did it. Of course, all of my friends are like, well, you're not dating him now. Like, it's over. It's you guys are breaking up. Like, we hate him. He's on, you know, he's canceled. He's done. So how did you work through it? Well, I really liked him. And of course, I was pissed off and I was upset. But I had already like, I know I was only 17, but I already was like, this is the man I'm going to marry. I don't know how to explain it. I was just like, I was already so deep in and I was like,

I just, I'm not gonna, I knew in myself that I was going to forgive him. I just wanted to make him work for it. Well, how, yeah, but that's, it's interesting because how were you able to make sure that he actually, and granted you were were younger, but nevertheless, how are you able to make sure that he was actually regretful? Or how are you able to, granted, he was young, so it's not quite the same as maybe like, hey, jumping into therapy or whatever. You could unfortunately chalk it up to plain old young and stupid. A hundred percent. How are you able to, because I get that. I get that desire to want to forgive someone. I think that's very relatable for the people listening. It's just like, how do I forgive them? And that's

a challenge because you know you want to, so you set yourself up to maybe make excuses for them that maybe they don't deserve. How were you able to reconcile that? Honestly, looking back, the hardest part was actually convincing my friends to forgive him because I knew I wanted to make him kind of grovel a little bit and feel like he had lost me, even though in my head I knew that we were going to get back together. How were you able to trust him afterward? I don't know. I really don't because, you know, there was still so much time to go. We ended up staying together through college. And so that was another huge,

you know, moment of needing to trust each other because we went to school in different states. So I really don't know how I was able to trust him again. I, it took me a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months. I don't really remember, but it took a while for me to, to take him back. Like I did I did make him work for it in a way where I wanted to see if he was going to stay committed and dedicated to working for it and experiencing the loss of having me. And so I didn't talk to him for a while. And then I started talking to him again, but I was like, we're not getting back together. We're just friends. Knowing the whole time that i still liked him and was

going to give him another chance but i wanted to see how long he would stick it out but i really don't know i mean now i just i mean i i married him so i trust him but i've been married for for two years two and a half years was there ever a moment between now and then where you got paranoid or worried or like your abandonment issues? Did you get triggered and thought, oh no, is it happening again? Or did you feel like that moment, even though you were younger, really scared him straight, so to speak? I honestly haven't had any moments of worrying. I mean, he has a lot of really close female friends and he's a musician. So he like goes on tour and hangs out with women one-on-one all the time. We went to separate schools. So we were long distance for actually five years because I lived in Atlanta for a year. So there was a lot of time apart and a lot of instances where we could have,

I mean, going to college is a huge thing to kind of do when you're in a committed relationship long distance so i don't i really don't know how i didn't i just trusted him yeah and i i think too like just going back to what we were talking about before i've had the conversation with him before where i was like honestly if you cheated on me and i know kylie like you know in the Kylie episode, this came up a little bit, but the hardest part is how you're going to look to everyone else. Because I'm like, if you cheated on me now, like, obviously I'd have to, it depends on what the story would be, but it would be so hard for me to leave you. Like, I don't know how I would do it. Like, the feelings don't go away even when some, yeah, you're, you're really upset. But like, I don't know.

I can't imagine being cheated on now yeah but it is tough i mean like the whole infidelity obviously we talk about it so much on this show uh and there's no perfect answer there really is no perfect answer to what people should do you know i know society says you immediately break up and you know i think society has different opinions when the women cheats versus when the man cheats. I think there's definitely a double standard there. Men get a lot more grace than women. It's always fascinating to see how women are exiled by their friend groups and usually are judged by other women more. Well, they're really judged by everyone. Women always get the short end of the stick for whatever reason when it comes to infidelity. But

some people, some couples rather, can work through it. And it really just comes down to how that other person handles it, like your husband. Maybe it's a gut feeling. I don't know. Like maybe it's just you sense the real remorse, you know, not to make excuses for those people, but like, you know, sometimes those people are responding to past triggers or traumas. You know, in your case, maybe it was just young and dumb and foolish. But it is tricky.

It is tricky. There's no perfect answer. And again, the more, you know, as a show that we discover and learn about it, I've mentioned that TED Talk by Esther Perel, who talks a lot about infidelity, the double standards, the misconceptions, the ability for couples to overcome it. You know, it's a surprising and educational TED talk, but it just requires a lot of work and trust. And but it is it is tough. You mentioned that this may have happened to you as well.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm pretty open that I've been cheated on before. So it's a it's a challenge. It's a it's a bugaboo. But yeah, it's just something I'm glad you shared your story just because I think for the people who do get cheated on, there is an expectation from friends. Oh, this is what you need to do. You need to do this. You need to exile them. And it's tough because your friends have your back. They want what's best for you. Sometimes you have to figure things out for yourself. There's no perfect answer. All you can do is try to be honest with yourself along the way and check in with yourself and your partner to see if you guys are still actually

making positive changes in your life. But anyways, thanks for sharing that. Nice to get to know you a little bit more. Well, before we get to our callers, we have a writer-inner. Yes. So this is from our writer-inner, Sally, who's wondering, how can I turn down second dates from Hinge in an empathetic but direct manner without being too nice or too harsh? Sally writes, lately I've been trying to be more intentional about dating and going on more first dates with guys I've met off of Hinge. I've gone on seven dates since September, which is a lot for me, and in general it's been fine. Nothing terrible, no creepy guys, but nearly every date was lackluster.

Even if we have a lot in common and talk the whole night, I end up just wanting to be friends. The last three in a row especially made me feel tired of dating. I know within the first few seconds of meeting a guy if I have chemistry with them or not. Due to this, I don't want to give off super flirty vibes or lead dates on I'm not romantically interested in, but it's difficult because I'm energetic and outgoing, so we usually talk a lot. Because we chat and laugh, my dates reasonably think I'm into them. I just don't know what is the most respectful thing to do in the situation. Should I tell them right away or make an excuse to leave so I don't waste their time? That seems mean and deceitful. Or do I continue to follow the same plan where I focus on having fun in the moment, then try to

dodge any end-of-the-night moves? When asked for a second date, I then very nicely, but in an upfront manner, tell them I had a great time and thanks, but I just want them to know I was feeling more friend vibes. All have been nice about it. Like in person? In person she says this? I don't know if that's over text or at the end of the night or yeah. I really don't know what to do. Some guys can read my subtle signals and take the hint by the end of the date. Other times they can't, which is totally fine since I'm not saying anything during the date, such as, quote, we should leave because I already know I don't want to date you. However, I purposely never confirm a second date in person since I don't want to lie.

I just try to not give any openings or opportunities for an end of the night kiss. Although the last date, I wasn't sure how to get out of it without being rude. These guys are all very nice and have been totally respectful. I don't want to hurt their feelings or be mean in the moment for potential safety concerns too. I'm not typically afraid of direct communication. However, I find it easier to be straight up if the other person has done something actually wrong.

In these situations, nothing is going wrong. I honestly would be friends with some of them. I'm just not attracted to them. I really hate ghosting, so I try not to participate in that. Since I'm meeting these dates over an app, sometimes it's hard to know if we'll actually vibe in person. And it's not that I don't give some guys an opportunity. For instance, if we don't have crazy chemistry right away, but I still find them generally attractive, then I'll give it a few more times to see if we click. And sometimes the guy feels a lack of a spark too, or can tell I'm not into them, which honestly is much better. Nothing is wrong with either person, we just don't have a romantic attraction. And then we just mutually ghost each other. Basically, after our last date,

if they don't message me, I never reach out because I'm just sort of relieved. I honestly just hope they don't ask me out a second time to avoid all of this. So in the end, the question is mainly for the guys who don't get my hints and who I have to directly turn down. Given all that information, what do you think would be the best approach? I don't think there's really a problem here. I'm curious how much she's actually

dating. It sounds like she's dating a lot. Which, fine, that's great. Get out there. Well, seven dates over the course of three-ish months. It's a nice pace. Yeah, that's not too much. I think she's doing fine. I mean, listen, dating is...

I don't know. I have no notes. I don't know. I think it's great. She doesn't need to tell them on the date. Wait till, you know, you can give them the whole, like, yeah, I had fun. We should do this again sometime.

Yeah, whatever. Even if you don't mean it, it's fine. Like she mentioned, safety concerns are something women have to consider. Not that most of these men would do anything inappropriate by getting bad news, but it's always better to be safe and sorry. And honestly, it's a little awkward and unnecessary to be on the date like, yeah, sorry, no, I'm not feeling it. It's just almost unnaturally cruel. And to her point, you might just give them the opportunity to get get the hint that like they're not feeling the vibe which i think 90 of the people pick up on those signals early on but for the ones who don't yeah like listen hey i had a really good time but i just don't know if uh

this is a match or whatever you want to say you know listen as long as she has the intention of not being a dick and to nicely let him off hey Hey, I'm just not feeling it. Not me not feeling it. I'm not sure if a second date makes sense. We had a really good time, but you can give them like, I'm just not in a place right now. Maybe I'm not feeling dating. Maybe that's a bullshit excuse, whatever. These are strangers. Your whole goal of breaking up with someone, you're not even breaking up with them, I'm giving the news, is to give them a little bit of closure. That closure that, like, hey, we had a good date. They must think they had a better date than you think. They reach out again and ask you out. You're hoping they picked up on the signals they didn't. So you're

providing them a little bit of closure, which is, stop reaching out to me. This has ended. And you're saving that person a few days of wondering where things are at, of calling in into a podcast and asking if this person likes me based off of the one magical date you thought you had. And so you're just offering that person a little bit of closure. And so do that in the nicest possible way you can by just letting them know that another date's not in the cards. I also think there's a huge difference too. And I feel like over the years you hone in on what works best, but I was very bad at using the same excuse of like, oh, work's picking up or like, especially when I moved to LA, I was like, I'm just so busy right now. I just got a new project.

I can't date right now. So then that almost like leaves the door open partially because I was trying to be nice. The, I just got more more friend vibes i feel like i've since been using that in like the last couple years um and that's really helpful too because i'm like i got more friend vibes whatever and i've even had a guy be like i'm not really looking for more friends right now but like appreciate it and like then that's great because it's like this isn't like a oh if my schedule changes it's like it's us yeah i think that's fine. And is it, you know, might that hurt some people's feelings? Sure.

But it's not mean spirited. It's upfront. They need to take a hit. Men need to deal with rejection just like everybody else. And they'll live. If that hurts them too much, then they have some emotional maturing to do on their end. And that's not your problem. So just communicate and listen.

It's fine. You know, all you're doing is graciously letting them know by not just disappearing on them to give them a few days of clarity that they would otherwise have to wait for by realizing that you're not responding to their text. And also part of me is like, I know she's mentioned, what do I do? Because I can pretty quickly tell if we have chemistry or not. And like, obviously you don't want

to just up and leave. I'm wondering if some of that, maybe she already is, but if you're not, I would really recommend the FaceTime dates or the Zoom dates that Nick always talks about.

Because, you know, sometimes in person is a big factor, but I've gone on plenty of like FaceTime or Zoom dates where I'm like, this is just off and it's not, then you're like, great.

The 40 minute timer went off. Goodbye. We love a Zoom date because then you don't have to share your number. You get to share an email address that, uh, could only just be dedicated for the Zoom. There is that. Allie makes a great point.

You can learn a lot about someone and figure out whether you actually want to meet this person in person. Time to get to our callers. It's nice to get to know you a little bit, Leah. Yeah. Learn something new every day. And I met her husband. I really liked him.

He's a great guy. I'm not going to give him a dirty look. Don't worry. Seems like you guys have worked through your issues. We've worked through our issues. Couples need to do that. Sometimes you can be a stronger fort. Every relationship's different.

We don't judge. We just try to understand. this is all just an effort like this show is just really about us all being a little bit more honest with ourselves so that we can make informed decisions whether those decisions are risks or unrisky decisions you know because every day we make both anyway send those questions at asknickatthevilefiles.com. Again, we have an amazing week lined up for you. We got the Tom and Tom tomorrow for episode 700. Put your seatbelt on, strap in, hold on to your butts, whatever you want to say. It's going to be a wild and fun week here.

The Vile Files household. Let's get to our callers. Question time with Nick. Let's ask Nick your sexy questions. How's it going? Hi, my name is Amanda. I am 33. I caught my ex cheating through a security camera and I'm having trouble moving on. Okay. How long you guys been dating for? It was a total of three months.

Okay, so not very long. Why are you having such a hard time moving on with someone that within the first couple months of you guys dating cheated on you? I think maybe I just, I saw potential in the beginning. Sure. He was very charming, planned date, full nine yards, like opening up doors, brought me random flowers, like, and then obviously that changed over time. What do you mean that changed over time?

So even his, like before we even got to the cheating, did his behavior start to dwindle? It was kind of confusing because like in the beginning he was doing all those things. And then I think once he got comfortable, he just got more like laxed with it. So in the three months that you were dating, how long before he went from Prince Charming, sweeping you off your feet, saying and doing all the right things to all of a sudden you start feeling the sense that he got comfortable with knowing that you weren't going anywhere, that you were his girlfriend, and that his behavior started becoming less and less Mr. Prince Charming? Like how much time into this relationship? Like less than a month. Less than a month. Okay. And when you started noticing those changes in behavior, what did you, what, if anything, did you say or do? I don't think I said or did anything. I think I was just waiting to see if maybe, you know, he was figuring it out or maybe he just got comfortable. I'm not really sure.

Have you been cheated on before? I have. And what did you do then? For that one, I never told him that I knew about it and I stayed in the relationship. And then eventually it ate at me until we were almost engaged. And then we collectively ended it because the trust issues just wouldn't go away. Well, sure. But you never addressed it with him. I addressed it with him after the fact.

So like in the midst of a breakup, you're like, oh, by the way, I know you were cheating on me kind of thing. It was a couple months afterwards. He had reached out to me because I had gotten sick and I was close with his mom. And his mom, I guess, told him and he reached out to me. And then that was when I told him that I knew about the girl that he cheated on me with. And why are you having such a hard time being honest with yourself and the people you're dating about this infidelity you're experiencing? Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't know why that I accept it. Why do you think?

Continue to try. I think that I want to be loved how I love people. And I always try to see the good in people instead of seeing for what they truly are and what they're showing me. Yeah, but if you really want to love people how you give love, that partly is holding people accountable for how they treat you. That's a big part that you're missing. You're kind of living in this delusion of let's just pretend the obvious isn't happening and ignore it. obvious isn't happening and ignore it. And then that causes you to lie to yourself about your true feelings and you'll push down any type of, you know, gut check or voices in your head that say, Hey, you know, listen, like this isn't a good, healthy situation for you. And you just keep ignoring that and keep ignoring that. And you've gotten so good, my guess at ignoring your

gut, so to speak, you know, your body, you know, your body's telling you one thing and you're telling yourself another. And I'm not sure why, you know, maybe there's some sort of attachment style thing going on. But at the end of the day, you just have to ask yourself, you know, is this really getting me to the place where I want to be? You know, and what are your relationship goals? My relationship goals is i want to find somebody who has the same like values that i do okay and you don't want the same outcome like they you know they want to get married they want to have children they want to have a successful um job okay i think you do the thing that a lot of people do which is you say that you want one thing in a

relationship hey i want someone who loves the same way I love. I want someone who's willing to treat me the way I'm willing to treat them. But your actions say very much differently. And you're doing the thing that a lot of people do in relationships. I've done. People all do it where you find someone that elicits some sort of reaction. You find them attractive. You think their job is really admirable or cool or exciting. But you're looking for someone that excites you. And then after you find someone who excites you, you start trying to figure out

if they have the qualities that you say you want in a relationship. And then you start cherry picking their behavior to basically create a narrative in your head of the type of partner they want to be. So you meet this guy that you started dating and the first month he's knocking out of the park. He's saying and doing all the right things. And all right, so you met him. What was the first thing you thought about this guy when you met him? He was very charming.

Okay. And he took a lot of interest in me. Did you find him attractive? Yes, I did. Like on a scale of one to 10, like what would you, just as your physical attraction to him, what would you think it is? I would say like an eight. Eight.

That's pretty good. Yeah. So you thought he was pretty hot, right? Yeah. You thought he was really charming. Yeah. And that was exciting. It was exciting to pretty good. Yeah. So you thought he was pretty hot, right? He thought he was really charming. Yeah. And that was exciting. It was exciting to meet him. And you loved the chemistry that you felt with him and you love the way he looked at you. And those are important and nice things to have. But you are giving those things, those moments, those initial moments of meeting

someone, you're giving those moments way too much power and credit and meaning. What you're not doing is actually listening to yourself. You're not listening to your body. You're lying to yourself. I mean, the fact that you dated someone for a month, only a month, and in just one month time, they started changing their behavior

and you didn't say anything about it. You didn't do anything. You didn't address it. Imagine all the conversations you must have had with yourself that you were lying to yourself about what was really going on. Yeah, absolutely. Do you remember moments in month two where his behavior started changing, where you questioned his true intentions? Yes, I did. And what, what are the, what are those conversations with yourself look like?

Like, what is going on in your head that, you know, when you start thinking, I don't know, like, are you asking girlfriends or friends or are you just kind of ignoring it altogether? Are you just talking to yourself about this stuff? What's going on? I did like, obviously like talk to myself about it. I was like, you know, do I really want this? Is this something that I really want to try and continue? I did talk to friends about it. And my friends were telling me that there's a lot of red flags and that I needed to get

out of that immediately. And I think I was just scared of the pain that I knew that was coming if I ended things. What pain? I think just the hurt. You met a guy a couple months ago. I understand the disappointment that comes from realizing someone isn't exactly who they say they are. Yeah. But at the same time, unfortunately, that is a common occurrence when it comes to meeting people.

And we all, we all, and you as well, we all put our best foot forward when we meet people. Yeah. You know, we all can be a little bit more disingenuous than we even realize or are trying to come across because we want to make a good first impression. ingenuous than we even realize are trying to come across because we want to make a good first impression now that's not an excuse for people like him who you know borderline on love bombing and you know i'm not trying to like attach one of these names to it but like he clearly is a charmer and he clearly is someone who is a big you know he's a fuck boy it sounds like honestly right you know he's a fuck boy it sounds like honestly right and you've been a sucker for a charming good-looking fuck boy and like many people before you your ego starts taking over and it starts telling your subconscious brain that if you can trap this fuck boy if you can win him over if he

picks you then it will make all the other disappointment and frustrations that you've had around dating all worthwhile. And that is just a lie that, you know, quite honestly, society and rom-coms and dating culture has been telling us for years. But like you, you know, if you listen to the show, you know that already, right? And so you have to ask yourself, like, you you know are you willing to keep lying to yourself because you're actually you know this this the pain that you said that you were trying to avoid like what that pain quite honestly comes from your own delusion it's not coming from his actions and why the reason i say that is because you only knew this guy for a month, right? And to four months in, even if you've hung

out every fucking day for that first month to tell yourself and even say to them, listen, what I like about you so far is great. And that emphasis on the so far that you've only met someone for a month and in a month's time, you are only learning at how they're responding to the environment that they're in. And what I mean by that is, for example, like stream example, like my time on The Bachelor, I immersed myself in extreme environment. And how I handled myself in that environment certainly tells a lot about who I was, right? But at the same time, like, you only know, if you only knew me while filming The Bachelor, you would only know how I would respond in these extremely heightened and intense environments. And that is one data point about who

I am as a person and my personality, but that's just one data point, right? And dating someone for one month, regardless of how they act, even if they're just incredible, you've only known them for a month. Situations might change. Their life might change. Their personal situations, maybe they have a job they love right now, and that turns into a job they hate over time maybe they are flush with cash right now and maybe they run into some money problems or vice versa right and how people react to different situations and you collecting those data points over time helps you really learn about who someone really is and you are falling into this you know the typical like rom-com type of energy where you meet someone,

they make a great first impression. And just like it is when you go on The Bachelor, right? Like what I, people always ask me, what was it like, or how was it like? And it's a relationship that you build in your head because you spend more time not with that person than with that person. And so you have a couple of great intense moments while filming The Bachelor, and they pull you away from that person and they're dating other people and it's triggering your ego. And then you fantasize about what it's about your connection that you have with this person about what those moments were and that you shared and you build it up in your head and you fall in love with the idea of someone rather than that person.

And people do that in life all the time, not just on The Bachelor. And it sounds like what you're doing. Because to be totally candid with you, you have no business having a hard time getting over this guy. I agree. No, I agree. It makes no sense. Now, listen, we've all been there and no judgment. We've all got caught up in someone and got really excited about someone, even if it was for a couple of weeks or a month and been crushed when we realized they weren't who they said they were. We've all been there. But as a, you said you're 33? Yes. experience in the past of infidelity, you have to start addressing this track record that you're demonstrating. You're demonstrating a track record that is not being honest with yourself, not holding people accountable, not speaking up and setting expectations with people you're dating about what you want, what you think you deserve and communicating that. And when they don't

respect your expectations that you communicated with them, then you go and enforce those boundaries. You're not doing any of that. And you need to do that. And you need to stop letting the fear of disappointment get in the way from you being honest with yourself. Because, you know, listen, this won't be the last guy who, you know, like isn't as into you as you want him to be. That's not a big deal. That doesn't say anything about you.

And this guy probably is again, a fuckboy who's really good at being charming, who likes to validate people for their own ego and try to figure out how many women he can get to fall in love with him, you know, and things like that. And you're kind of a sucker for it because you want to feel special and you aren't actually willing to be patient for the right type of person. And you're not willing to actually look at someone's actions, especially when they start drastically changing

from the first period of time which you date them and hold them accountable because you're afraid of like this pain that you're going to feel. And this pain that you're feeling is a result of you falsely kind of,

you know, diluting yourself and building a relationship up in your head. Yeah, be disappointed that it ended up being the guy that you thought they were. But like, again, like there's no point in beating yourself up. Like, you know, it's like, oh, well, another person who didn't have the guts to be honest and genuine, you know? And yeah, again, that can be disappointing. A lot of people are like that,

but the better you get at setting expectations with people up front the better you get at enforcing boundaries when you recognize behaviors and people changing and and you think they are doing things like nefarious or being dishonest to hold them accountable and not be afraid of saying goodbye to someone who's who's treating you just with disrespect the better you get at that the more you like the fuck boys will find you very inconvenient. But right now the fuck boys find you, you're a target, you know, because you're so accommodating to the fuck boys. You're so willing to, you know, to, to lie to yourself about what their actions are actually saying, because your ego is like, Oh, just ignore it. Just ignore it. Like, you know what know what he it it'll all work itself

out and oh my god he's gonna love you and you'll feel like a queen you're special and these are all lies that you're telling to yourself and still you until you stop lying to yourself how can you expect other people to stop lying to you it's so easy to lie to you because you're so willing to be complicit in their lies because you're so afraid of just acknowledging a truth that like one piece of shit guy is just like full of you know charm and bullshit yeah and you are taking that personally and that's no reason you have no reason to take that personally yeah that a lot of that we really hit a lot of like spot on how did you even like find out like through a security cam that he was cheating i was away i was visiting family and my gut was telling me like something's going on

something's fishy so i put a security camera that pointed like outside my house there was one day i called him to see what he was doing and i could tell tell it in his voice, like something was kind of off. And I was like, are you okay? He was like, yeah, I'm good. I was like, okay. And then he came back home. And I heard on the audio, a woman's voice. And I was like, okay, that's not on the phone. And I can hear her like walking around my house and like talking to my dog. And I was like, my house is very feminine. Like you can't walk in there and not know that a woman lives there. So I was like, what is going on? And unfortunately it was dark. So I couldn't see her, but I called him and I was like, who do you have in my house? He's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, I have a security camera. Who's in my house?

He's like, oh, it's this girl that I work with. Like she needed help with an assignment, you know, try to lie his way out of it. And I was like, no, I was like, let me talk to her. And he was like, no. And I was like, what? And he was like, she doesn't need to be in this drama. And I was like, get out of my house and get her out of my house before I call the cops. And he obviously listened to that.

Well, that sucks. And I'm sorry. I mean, the fact that he brought another woman to your house, I mean, the nerve. Yep. But I guess what about all this is, like, why are you having such a hard time? I don't know. That's why, like, I don't understand why a part of me wants him to, like, reef out to me. Yeah.

I mean, I get, like, listen, when someone wrongs us that way, we want, you know, that closure. And that closure usually, we think, comes in the form of that person getting on bended knee and saying, I'm so sorry. I'm such a fool. I can't believe I did this to you. I'm a piece of shit. How could anyone ever treat you the way I treated you? I'm so sorry. And, you know, we think that's going to make us feel so much better. And then they'll give us a chance to give them a second chance because they're so sorry. then we will falsely think that that puts us in control and power because we give it an opportunity to either forgive them or not forgive them and you know us forgiving them will make us feel like you know compassionate understanding people i mean yeah and listen sometimes people are willing and able to work through infidelity, but that those are extreme cases. And that very much requires like the person who's doing the act of infidelity to truly reflect on the decisions and really feel that shame and disappointment and go out of their way on their own to really make some active changes. This guy, I mean, he's miles away from that. Like he's just, you know, that's not who this person is. Right. Yeah. You need to try to focus on feeling grateful that you found out this quickly.

Yes. You need to see him for who he is. He's not a potential eligible person to date. He is a deceitful, charming fuck boy. Yeah. Even if he was willing to do the thing that you think you want him to do, how could you even trust that? What about who he is or what he's demonstrated has given you any reason to think that even if he said the right things that you could trust those words? Yeah, no, absolutely not. And like, I know that him coming back into my life just wouldn't, it wouldn't do anybody any good.

Like it would, there would be no trust. There would be like, it just. So you got to get this narrative out of your head that he, this is a guy who made a mistake. He didn't make a mistake. This is just who he is. It should scare you how close you let this type of person into your orbit yeah and instead of wishing he didn't do it so you didn't feel this certain type of pain i would if i were you feel gratitude and a little bit of like you know a little bit of ickiness

you're like oh my god thank god i found out thank you know, a little bit of ickiness. They're like, oh, my God, thank God I found out. You know, thank God I finally trusted my gut. And I finally took the security camera and I had the guts to, like, figure this out. And pat yourself on the back and give yourself some credit for doing that. But you kind of backtracking and having this regret or sadness over losing this fake relationship that never really was anything meaningful. Yep. You are second guessing yourself and you are letting your ego in your subconscious brain, you know, like have regret. And like, it's a part of you that's just like, well,

what if I didn't find out? Or, I mean, I don't even know what you're thinking, you know, but all you should try to think about is being grateful for finding out. Absolutely. And then implement steps to better protect yourself in the future. Yes. Because until you start listening to your body and listening to your gut and actually follow through with that, you know? And before you even get to the stage of like needing to hear your friends say,

there's a lot of red flags here, like, you know, fine. At least start listening to them, but you're not even doing that. Yeah, I know. And you don't always need proof like you got to know that someone isn't right for you. Quite honestly, the fact that it got to this stage is way too far gone. Like this guy only for a few weeks treated you a certain way and then drastically changed his behavior.

Yeah. And that right there should have told you enough. Absolutely. So how do we ensure that you, you know, are you in any type of therapy? I am. You are. And what do you talk about with your therapist when it comes to these types of matters?

Um, we, so I had just scheduled an appointment with her. I'm supposed to see her next week to talk about everything that happened. When was the last time you saw her? The last time I saw her was in August. Okay. So it's been a while. So you're not like actively in therapy, but you, you have, you have gone to see a therapist from time to time. Personally, I think therapy is only as good like anything else is how you approach it. Right. You know, I'm happy to talk with you and I'm sure your therapist is happy to meet with you from time to time, but you're going in under these extreme circumstances and dealing with like these extreme situations. And then you're hoping, you know, a couple sessions with

the therapist is going to help you make feel better about this situation, but you are being reactive to your choices and you need to start being proactive with your choices. And what I mean by that is like, I, if I were you, you know, I, who you meet your therapist, I would go in there and be like, yeah, this happened. And I'd like to talk about with you. But what, what I really want to get into is why do I have this pattern of ignoring, you know, the red flags, you know, it's not that you're attracting fuck boys, you know, what you are, you're not rejecting them, you know, because fuckboys, they'll come into your orbit. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're not doing anything, you know, like, oh my God, why am I attracting all these terrible men? No, what you're not doing is when these terrible

men enter into your life, because terrible people are always going to try to take advantage of the weak until they find out who the weak are, they're kind of like sampling. But when they meet you, they get a sense of weakness, to be totally candid, because you're not someone who's willing to communicate those expectations and enforce those boundaries. So again, you're not attracting them. It's just that when you meet them, you're not doing anything to remove them from your life. So if I were you, I would, you know, go and meet with your therapist and try to figure out why you're having such a hard time setting these expectations and enforcing

these boundaries. And you can maybe get into your past, you know, childhood traumas or attachment styles or whatever with your therapist, right? But you need to start learning these tools and these tools, you know, it's going to be something that's going to be ongoing. It's not going to be something you're going to learn overnight and it's be something that's going to be ongoing. It's not going to be something you're going to learn overnight. And it's not something that's going to be super easy. It might be something that you struggle with for a really long time. But what you need, you need to get in that practice of at least identifying, all right, here we go again.

I'm feeling this. I met this person. He's triggered me. And you go in your therapist next week. Hey, I met someone. This is what's going on. This is what he's saying. This is what he's doing.

My body is telling me one thing. I have a tendency, I want to make excuses for him, and then you have to like get tools from your therapist to how to check in with yourself and listen to yourself and maybe get tools on how to communicate your questions or to work through red flags. Not every red flag turns out to be something that's detrimental to the relationship. It might be you, you know, it might be you maybe being a little paranoid or, you know, overthinking about something, but like you're not, you're not ever addressing it. You're not ever like talking about it. So you're just letting it playing out. If I were you, I would, you know, maybe approach therapy a little bit differently. And I think this is more of an ongoing thing. Yeah. You can go to a therapist

and you can talk about, you know, only central appointment when you have a really bad day, but it's just kind of going in and checking in with yourself and having someone hold you accountable and actively learning those tools so that you have someone on a regular basis by your side helping you work through these issues. Yeah, absolutely. How's that all sound? That sounds a lot better. Okay. like hearing it from somebody else because you're absolutely right in that sense where like i only go to therapy when there's you know these big issues going on where it's something that yeah you could be more proactive exactly you're just being very reactive and you're never really dealing with the issue and the issue is is with you it's not with these men because the world

is full of fuckboys and people who are going to take you for granted or take advantage of you if you let them and right now you are just letting them yeah and i want you to learn those tools how to prevent that from happening in the future and that takes time and it takes work and it takes effort and sometimes we backtrack a little bit and it's just, it's being consistent with having, with holding yourself accountable so that you can hold other people accountable. Yes. All right. Have you blocked them? Yes. So yeah, anything else that you haven't done to remove access that he has to you, like cut him off completely. And then, you know, from now, you know, start changing that narrative.

Don't let yourself go down those mental rabbit holes of, you know, telling yourself you miss him or, or, you know, things like that. Like you have to keep telling yourself, finally, I got rid of a toxic guy out of my life. I wish I would have listened to myself sooner, but thank God I trusted my gut because you did. And pat yourself on the back for that. That whole charade of like setting up the security camera and things like that. You could have not done that.

So good for you for doing that. But I just want you to try to get there a lot sooner. Okay. All right. Well, awesome. Keep us posted. We'd love to know how you're doing in a few weeks.

If you know, if you've gotten back into therapy, if you change your approach and what worked and what hasn't worked, but this really starts with you. And this is about how you are interacting with potential daters and just people in general and getting better at setting up for an expectations and enforcing those boundaries. Okay? Okay. Awesome. All right.

Thank you so much. Well, good luck. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Well, good luck. Thank you. All right, bye-bye. It's time to get your cleanse on with Squeezed.com. That's right. It's that new year, and everyone's thinking about two ways of resetting 2024.

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Good, what's your name? I'm Rosanna, I'm 22, and my fiance doesn't want my brother at my wedding. Okay, why? Basically, we are engaged, and we got engaged about seven months ago, and when he proposed to me, he wasn't a Christian, and I am, and a lot of my family,

they don't think it's right to be getting married to somebody who you don't share faith with. And a lot of them were skeptical when we got engaged, but they liked him as a person. And so they all agreed to come to my wedding, except my oldest brother, because he is a pastor and he doesn't think that it's right. And so he told me, I can't come to your wedding because I don't support you getting married to somebody who's not a Christian. Flash forward a couple of months, my fiance randomly jumped to me and he's like, actually, I have become a Christian, but I don't want to tell any of your family because I don't want anybody to be coming just because I'm a Christian. And so he told me to keep a secret and I couldn't keep his secret. And he was like, okay, we'll tell everybody, but let's just not invite him anymore because he wasn't going to

come anyways. We told him, we sent him a whole message about it saying like, I don't think that it's great if you would come because you know, it's just not the kind of energy we wanted at our wedding. And now I have like, all my family is pressuring me to change my mind and for my fiance to change his mind. Okay. So to recap, you and your fiance has been dating, engaged. He wasn't a practicing Christian. Was he like just a total, like, like an atheist, non-believer type of thing? No. So we actually met at a Christian school.

He didn't grow up in a Christian family, but he, you know, attended church with me. We have a lot of very similar, like morals and beliefs and values. And that's like why I found it like, okay, to be with him because it was like, we had so many similar aligning goals and values in life. And it just kind of like was, he was like standing right at the door and he just kind of like walked over the threshold. You know what I mean? Okay.

So what is him being a Christian now mean? You are already, like you you said had shared beliefs and shared values and and you met him at a christian event he believes in god it means that like he actually believes like i'm in the christian faith before he just had similar like values about how to live your life and what's important in life and that kind of thing what does it mean to you to be a christian to, it means like to believe that Jesus died on the cross for you and safety from your sins. Sure. But what else? Like what does it mean in terms of how you should treat or approach other people? For me, what it means to

be a Christian is to model yourself after Christ, to, you know, be kind and compassionate and forgiving and to actually actually believe in Christianity is a different thing because it's like, you actually believe that Jesus existed and died for your sins and that kind of stuff. And I'm assuming like as a Christian, you think it's important to try to model your behavior in a way that you think Jesus would.

Yes. Okay, do you think Jesus would disinvite his brother-in-law out of spite? No, no, no, no, no. I don't think that Jesus would do that. Okay. What do you, do you think Jesus would disinvite his brother-in-law out of spite? No, no, no, no, no. I don't think that Jesus would do that. Okay. But I also don't think that if Jesus was my brother, that he would refuse to go to somebody's wedding because he didn't agree with every single moral that they believed in.

Do you know what I mean? I do, but that's not, but that's not how it, that's not how it works. You know, the whole like, well, what would Jesus do? Like, right? That's like a common thing that a lot of Christians will ask themselves or ask each other, right? Bracelets, everything, right? And you don't get to say, well, what would Jesus do in both situations? It's about what if you, again, what would Jesus do if that was a situation you were in?

So right now you can only focus on your choices and your, your fiance can only focus on his choices. And so this whole, what would Jesus do is about what you would do or what Jesus would do if he was in your situation. Sure. And Jesus, I don't think again, you know, um, but I don't think again you know um but i don't think he would be like well sure i wouldn't do that but also if i were them i wouldn't do what they're doing and because they're doing something i wouldn't do that justifies me doing something i wouldn't normally do like it you're kind of you're contradicting yourself i do get it but like the thing is it's not about unforgiveness.

I honestly don't personally hold it against my brother. I grew up with the same values. I understand where he's coming from. Do you think as a Christian, you're responsible for your choices and that as a Christian that you sometimes might have to enforce a boundary that you believe to be righteous and that you believe to be right, even if other people might disagree with you, according to your brother. And I'm not saying I agree with him at all. I'm just saying that your brother, do you believe that your brother's reasonings are, he's being honest with his reasoning? Yes. You do. Okay. So you believe that your brother is actively trying to be a Christian and that he believes that your fiancés and your choices were not something that he thought a Christian should

be doing, whether you agree with him or not. Yes, to some extent. I do agree with the fact that he is perfectly allowed to not support my getting married. But I don't think that he had to take it as far as to not attend. I think that that part was more of a pride thing where he just didn't want to give off that image since he's a pastor now to support or attend the wedding. Sure. That might be something that your brother needs to address. You know, pride being one of the seven deadly sins you must know as a Christian. And pride is a behavior that your fiance is also demonstrating. His reasoning for disinviting your brother-in-law is out of pride, out of spite. Well, if he's going to do this, I'm going to do that. Perhaps partially, but it also is our wedding.

And there's nothing like in the Bible that says you have to invite everybody to your wedding. It's something that we want to be celebrating our love and our union. And somebody who just who really just made it like a stressful, frustrating time. I think that that's fair that you don't want somebody there. I don't think you should invite anyone you don't want at your wedding. I'm trying to help you work through your question and you called in, you know, struggling with the decision. So there is something about not inviting your brother that's bothering you. Yes. Right. And I don't, I don't think it's just from the guilt of your family. I probably would have never disinvited my brother. But since my fiance doesn't want him to come, I don't feel like I should force my fiance

to have this person at the wedding who he has a valid reason to not want him there. He doesn't even need a valid reason. You know, it's also his wedding. This is not about right or wrong. It's about you two working through tough decisions as a couple. And I get wanting to support your partner i think

you're you're well intentioned in your decision because ultimately hey it's my partner it's how he feels i want to support him this all started with my brother kind of being judgmental and righteous i get all that but as i always say if you've listened to this show do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? You know, and this, this ordeal is causing a lot of stress for you. And, you know, it sounds like at least a little bit, your, your fiance. And at the end of the day, like it's your wedding and you know, I'm about to get married. Right. And there's going to be a bunch of people there. And Natalie and I are going to focus on our connection that day. And yeah, we're happy to be celebrating with a bunch of people that want to celebrate us and have family members, but we're not going to be sitting

there pulling everyone's opinion about what they think about a relationship or things like that. We're simply going to be focused on each other. And right now, you guys aren't focused on each other. You're focused on your brother. And there is nothing stopping you guys from being the bigger person and demonstrating behaviors that you believe that ultimately Jesus would demonstrate, you know, which is to say, Hey, listen, obviously it hurt our feelings. Um, and we felt obviously judged by you, but you know,, you're my brother and I love you. And I want my entire family to be there at our wedding. And if you want to come, great. Amazing. We'd love to have you. If not, because for whatever reason, then we support that as well. You are allowing your brother to, and you're not the only one. People do this all the time when it comes to their wedding and planning their wedding. And clearly, for whatever reason, when it comes to weddings, it sparks up family drama and you get opinions. And especially in your case, you're 22, you're still relatively

young. You're only a few years removed from not being an adult. And I'm guessing your family members and brothers and sisters and parents still feel like they can share their opinions of your behaviors. And there's an expectation that you still might listen, right? Because like they forget that sometimes you're an adult, right? Yeah. And I get all that when it comes to weddings, but we often use, well, it's our wedding as an excuse to make choices that are essentially just mimicking their behavior. And again, if you want to focus on your rights, you can, again, it's your wedding. You don't even

need a reason to invite or uninvite people. So this is not about you calling up and me saying, you're right. I'm going to play judge Nick here and your brother's wrong and you're right and go forth with your wedding and disinvite your brother-in-law without any guilt. I don't care that you invite him or not. And you absolutely have every right to not invite him. But if you don't invite him, I can assure you that at your wedding, there will be drama going on at your wedding that doesn't have to do with you and your husband's love and their connection. And you will have no control over that because you won't have control over what people are gossiping and talking about. And you won't have control over what the focus is at your wedding if you're going to allow other dramatic

topics to be discussed. And your brother, the pastor, will be a noticeable absence from your wedding. Why isn't he here? Why didn't he come? Oh, he didn't want him there. Oh, really? Are they not getting along? Those will be the discussions the day of your wedding. It won't be, wow, look at the beautiful couple. Oh my God, what a beautiful story. He met her. She opened up his eyes to what it meant to be a Christian. He's converted.

What a blessed union, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It won't be that. It will be about your brother. I feel like if I go to my fiance and I say, oh, I really just want him to come. Can we just put this behind us? You know, be the bigger person. I just feel like it's going to be begrudging. It's not going to be because he wants to.

He's going to do it. He would. I know he would. I know he would change his mind and just let him come for me. But it's not going to be because he wants to. And it just it makes me sad to think that that would be the only reason, you know? I mean, listen, I love all of Natalie's family members, but there are people she is inviting that I guess if I wouldn't invite, not that I would uninvite them, but like, you know,

she's got cousins. I mean, I haven't met, I haven't even met every person she's inviting that's coming to her wedding. That's pretty typical at a wedding. Yeah. And they've, they've spoken like three times now they've tried to like work it out. No, I know.

But, but you, you get my saying you're, you're like, Oh, well I could invite him and he would be okay with it, but he wouldn't invite him if, if I did it was your reasoning.

Yes. And I guess what I'm saying is who cares? I know your brother, he's your, he's not your fiance's favorite person. You join the club with people who like your immediate family isn't best friends with everyone on your side of the family You know what i'm saying? Like you're not

He's not marrying your brother. He's marrying you And yeah, your brother's part of your family and as far as you as long as you're close with your family He's going to have to deal with your brother from time to time, but he never has to be his best friend He doesn't have to love him. He doesn't have to hang out with him on the side. But uninviting him to your wedding because your fiance didn't like the idea of feeling judged, when again, whether you agree with your brother or not, your brother's reasoning had to do with his belief system. And as a Christian, I would think if nothing else, you at least would respect your brother from trying to lead a righteous life. It doesn't mean your brother's right. That's a difficult part

about being a Christian. That's often why I have an issue with some Christians because they will use their faith and religion to justify their own actions and chalk it up to being a Christian when at the end of the day, it has to do with them being prideful or stubborn or jealous or all these other things that have nothing to do with being Christians. And I get it. I get why your fiance is frustrated at your brother. I understand. But, and again, I'm not saying you should go to your fiance is frustrated at your brother. I understand. And again, I'm not saying you should go to your fiance and say, I really want him here. Can we have him here? I want you to go to your husband and say, hey, listen, babe, first of all, I want you to know that you are my priority and

you make me feel like I'm your priority and that's something I cherish and that's really meaningful to me. So I want to have your back. But let's look at this situation together and consider the pros and cons. We can invite or disinvite anyone we want to our wedding. It is our fucking wedding. Excuse my language. But we get to do that. All right. And I want our wedding to be about us. All right. And I want our wedding to be about us. I want the focus and I want us to be able to control as much of like what people are focused on, what the conversations are about, you know, where it will be a focus of our wedding. It will upset a lot of people. And I think we have every right to be frustrated with him because I do think he was unfairly judgmental towards you. But as Christians, you know, let's try to do what Jesus would do. Let's not try to make excuses or justify our actions and feelings again like jesus wouldn't never say well they did this to me so i'm doing this to them i'm pretty sure jesus would never say that yeah and that is what

your husband is saying and we're not god you know so we are it is okay for us to be petty and spiteful sometimes and it's okay for us to be like you know what fuck this i don't want to fucking deal with we're We're human beings. Right? So you guys get to do whatever you want. But I'm just telling you that, and something you might want to communicate to your fiance, that if you choose to uninvite your brother out of spite, out of, you know, kind of being petty, out of, you know, kind of being petty and kind of tit for tat, that that will be at least not the focus, but certainly a big focus of your wedding. That instead of just focusing on you

two and your connection and your union, people will be focused on why your brother isn't there. They will want to hear the gossip. They'll want to hear the tea. And even Christians love to gossip. No. So the choice, I guess, is yours. Do you know what I'm saying? And so what I'm suggesting is that you sit down with your fiance and together as a couple, make a decision that is the best for the relationship, for the wedding. If you guys are truly focused on having your day be about you, then you two should sit down and figure out what choices you should make to make that possible. And if you want to not invite your brother, do you.

But at least be honest with each other and yourselves of what that decision is going to create. And that decision will create more drama and be a bigger distraction away from what you two are trying to do on your wedding day. Those are just the facts. Good point, really. It's hard because if he could only just even apologize,

I feel like we both are just so sad to think of him not there. And it's like the fact that he can't even just put down his pride for a second and say, I'm sorry that like, you know. Sure, he thinks he's right. But you want him to put down his pride before you're, you're expecting your fiance to put down his. And again, that Jesus wouldn't do that. So like walk the walk instead of just talking the talk, show your big brother, the pastor, the Christian, what it's like to actually be a Christian through your actions.

That's really good advice. I appreciate it. So, yeah, I mean, I'm just a big believer in like, again, do you want to be- It's not funny advice though. No, it's not. I'm glad you said that because drama is fun. It's fun to be right. It's fun to be like, you know what?

It's my wedding. You did this to me. You don't get to come. And you can weaponize your wedding to start like telling people how you really feel about how they treated you because that's essentially what you're doing. You are weaponizing your wedding. You're using your wedding as a weapon to fight battles in your family. And people do it all the time. And do you want your wedding to be a weapon,

or do you want it to be about you two? He started the battle, though. That's fine. And again, would Jesus say that he started the battle? No. I'm not even a practicing Christian. I'm a Catholic. I know. But i grew up very you know like again it's it is not about to me being a christian is again more about actions and words and people talk a big fucking game about being you know a follower of jesus but when it comes down to it they let their human nature take over. They let their egos, their pride, and they start saying things like, well, he did it first. And it's his fault. And he started it.

And, you know, again, I don't care. That's a very human and understandable reaction to this situation. But this whole conversation is about being Christian and how meaningful that is to you and your fiance. And I'm just here to say from an outsider looking in, all of you Christians in this situation are not being very Christian-like. So someone needs to step up and start showing what it's like to actually be a Christian. And being a Christian, my understanding is having patience and kindness and understanding and turning the other cheek and through your own examples, you know, demonstrating love and connection and not spite or pettiness or stubbornness or pridefulness. Yeah.

You know, so, and I think this is an opportunity for you and your fiance to work through some of these things together. And I want you two to both feel good about this choice. I don't want your fiance to feel like he has to make this big sacrifice for you or vice versa. I want you two to sit down together as a couple and work through this issue together and come to a mutual agreement of what's best for the both of you and what's going to help you guys meet the goal of your wedding day. Yeah, for sure. Knowing that you have every right to do whatever the hell you want. I mean, honestly, I'm still not sure what I'm going to decide to do because, I mean, we do need to set boundaries with my family because I feel like sometimes they need to be told like this isn't acceptable and that's not going to be something that we tolerate in our new family that we're making and so like i do think that there's like part of it where

i do kind of just want to make it known that like we're not going to just let them be rude and disrespectful to us you know i mean i i couldn't agree more but i think there's more productive ways of doing that not just simply not responding to their judgment and shame. That's the best way to counteract judgment and shame is to not allow the people who are casting judgment and shame upon you to let them know that it's affecting you. You know, that's why I parent, you know, shame is a powerful parenting tool. It's like, hey, if you do this, you're going to burn in hell. Like, oh shit, I don't want to burn in hell. I'm six.

You know, it's like, holy shit, that sounds scary. You know, and it works, you know, but as we become adults, that whole kind of parent child relationship is evolving. You're right in the middle of it being 22 years old. And the best way to let your parents or your brother or any other family member in your life know that they are new rules and new boundaries is to not respond to their criticisms and their judgments and their shame and while still demonstrating love. And that's, again, it goes something like, listen, I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't agree with you.

I also don't like the way you're speaking to me, but I still love you. And I will always love you. And I'll always be a part of your family. I'm not going to acknowledge this. I'm not going to react to this. And I'm saying no to what you're saying. And I'm not, you know, not going to show up or I'm not going to acknowledge this. I'm not going to react to this. And I'm saying no to what you're saying. And I'm not going to show up or I'm not going to do this, but I love you. And if you ever want to change your words or behavior, I'm here with open arms because I'm confident with who I am. I am confident in my choices. And I, quite frankly,

don't need your approval to be confident with who I am. As a Christian, I'm making choices for myself as an adult woman, and my fiance is making choices for himself, and someday we'll meet Jesus or God, and he'll let us know if we got it right or wrong. But we don't need it from you. But I love you, and I want to be with you. I want to have a relationship with you as my brother, as my mom, as my dad, whoever you're talking to. But the goal is to not get the reaction. Your fiance reacting this way is giving your brother power because your fiance's reaction is letting your brother know that his judgment is affecting you and your fiance.

And that's why people judge and shame is to get the reaction, to make someone feel a certain way. So by not responding and not letting them get to you and saying, hey, listen, how you feel is how you feel, but this is our wedding and we welcome you. And if you don't want to go, that's also fine. No big deal. And one last thing I want to leave you with. While I completely disagree with your brother, you have to at least recognize that he is trying to do what he thinks is the right thing. And maybe I know you're using it kind of an excuse, but give your brother at least the benefit of the doubt. I know that it's not all pride. I do know a lot of it is just like him trying to do the right

thing and that's why it's so hard because i'm like i don't want to make him feel punished when he genuinely wants to do the right thing but at the same time you know your actions have consequences that's kind of what i was thinking in my head yeah but you're also not his parent you're not you know you're not responsible for him. You know what I'm saying? Like, why is it your job to teach your brother? I'm like trying to be like, this is you hurt me or you hurt him. This is what happens when you do this.

And I literally told him when he first said that to me, like, I would invite you no matter what. But other people aren't going to react like this. I know that this is going to happen. I literally knew it was going to happen. But again, I don't know if Jesus would be like actions have consequences. Jesus would always lead with love. He would not allow someone's way.

They treat them to affect how he treats them. You can love someone, but still not let them do it. Like walk all over. You're confusing setting boundaries with punishment and revenge. I mean, to me, it is kind of setting boundaries. Setting a boundary would be like,

listen, I don't agree with you. And you can say to your brother, listen, if you want to be in our lives, then you don't get to come to our house or our wedding and talk shit about our relationship. I don't want to hear your judgments. I don't want to hear your criticisms. I don't want to hear your criticisms.

I respect your choices. I want you to respect mine. But like saying spitefully, well, you thought this and now you don't get to come. That's revenge. That's trying to teach someone a lesson. And that is you trying to mother your brother. Siblings do that all the time.

You think you're right. You think he's wrong and you think he should pay for it. I suppose. And you're using your wedding as a tool to have that power. And you think because it's your wedding that you're in the driver's seat and you're right. It is your wedding and you have that power. But I think it would be even more powerful to demonstrate your power by simply not giving the brother the reaction that subconsciously he's probably looking for. Yeah. Because think about it. You know, think about all this energy.

You've been focused on this situation. Yeah, you're right. Okay. Well, I guess I'll talk to my fiance, see how it goes. All right. Well, I'm happy to talk with him, too, if he wants to call in together. He might. All right. Well, I would love to. but listen, I just want you to be happy. I want your wedding to be the day that you want it to be. And I want your guys' focus to be on each other.

You know? Yeah. And I strongly feel that that's the way to do it. You have every right to disinvite your brother if you want to, but you have to ask yourself, what is it really going to give us? And that's the thing. Is your focus teaching your brother a lesson or is your focus having the best possible harmonious wedding that you can have? And we don't always get to have our cake and eat it too. So teaching your brother a lesson will come at a cost. And most likely that cost will be your wedding. Yeah. Well, we'd love an update. Well, thank you so much.

Yeah, happy to talk with you. We'd love to hear about what you decide, whatever you decide. And we wish you all the best. Thanks so much. I'll let you know. All right. Take care. Bye.

Bye-bye. Better Help. This episode is brought to you by Better Help. Better Help has been helping people jump into therapy like never before. Look no further than our trusty household member, Allison Martin. For the longest time, she talked about therapy. I was like, hey, maybe, Allie, maybe, I don't know, therapy? You seem stressed, you know? And she's like, ah, I don't know. It's a tale as old as time. I've been there. But finally, thanks to our good friends at BetterHelp, Allie decided to jump right into therapy.

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but was always on Snapchat. Okay. Are you seeing him still? No, I'm blocked now. You're blocked now. So what can we help with? What are we trying to figure out? Well, I don't want to resume talking to him. I don't want to talk to him ever again. But I've just been doubting myself. And I'm like, did I mess this up? Was I freaking out for no reason? Or was this really just not for me? So just to be clear, you are second guessing yourself and wondering if the guy that you were seeing who refused to text with you. Well, the thing is he was texting with me. It was just like starting to become inconsistent. And were you also Snapchatting with him? So what do you mean he was always on Snapchat? He would text me like in the morning, like he would say like, good morning or whatever. We would have a little bit of back and forth, but then he would kind of leave me on delivered

when I knew he had read receipts on, he would leave me on delivered. He would be Snapchatting me, but it would be like pictures of him at work, just like picture of his face with no contacts. And then I would kind of not reply to the Snapchat because I'm like, I don't want to have these back and forth Snapchat pictures. I'd rather be texting you. And then I would like watch his Snapchat score, like climb up incredibly. What does that mean? Does that mean he's also sending that selfie to multiple people? That's what I thought. The thing is, it was like a Wednesday. He came over to my house.

He fixed my dishwasher because it was leaking. How old is this person? He's 24 and I'm 29. Okay. So he fixed my dishwasher. The next day, he's like, hey, how about I come over and make you and your cousin dinner? Because my cousin was in town. Like, sure. So he comes over, makes us dinner, and like we're kind of drinking. And he's like telling us this story about how he called his best friend's wife fat on her wedding day. And me and my cousin just look at each other like, jaw drop. And he sounds like he's proud of this. And we're like, well, why would you say that? And then he eventually said, like, she said something to me rude. I forget what it was. Whatever, whatever.

whatever. Next day, he leaves, he texts me a little bit, and then leaves me undelivered from like 1pm to the next day or till the night, like 9pm. Then my cousin texts me and she's like, hey, he added me on Snapchat. Like, that's weird. So then she had like posted a picture of the two of us. And he replied to the picture of us to her and said, not the sexy girl from last night, which I thought was funny. I thought, why would he say that to her? You mean like funny, haha, or funny, weird, weird. Okay. And he had left me on delivered on text since like one, then he Snapchat messages me, Hey, what are you doing? Beautiful. And I said, uh, why did you have my cousin on snapchat and he said I thought it was funny I don't know and I said and you just replied to her story and called her sexy and he said no it wasn't about her it was about you I'm sorry if she misconstrued it but then he like turned it

around on me and was like well don't be mad at me I was like I'm not mad it's it's whatever and he was like well don't get butth hurt because I'm calling you out. And I just never replied. And then the next day he texted me as if nothing happened and was like, hey, good morning. How's it going? And where did we get to the point where we got blocked? So Christmas Eve comes and I texted him in the morning. I was like, hey, I got you a little present.

Do you want me to swing by the firehouse and give it to you? How long have you been hanging out at this point? Five and a half weeks. And I only got him a Christmas present because he fixed my dishwasher. And he also has like a poor family situation, like is not close to his parents. And I just felt bad. So I was like, I got you a little present. Do you want me to swing by the firehouse and give it to you? And he's like, hey, thanks. You don don't have to i have to run out and fix some people's fire alarms but we can find a time later or tomorrow and i was just kind of like oh that kind of made me feel weird that he's like not it didn't seem like he was very excited about it

probably wasn't yeah but yeah well you're you're not being honest like why you got him a christmas present you had an expectation your expectation was that he would feel a certain sort of excitement Yeah. But yeah, you're not being honest like why you got him a Christmas present. You had an expectation and your expectation was that he would feel a certain sort of excitement around receiving a gift from you. Yeah. You didn't give him

a Christmas present just because he fixed your dishwasher. You were hoping that he would be excited about a gift from you, a woman he's been dating for five weeks

and that it would be meaningful and he'd be excited and hopefully give you something small in return. And even hopefully give you something small in return. And even if that's something small in return was the appreciation that you thought of him. Yeah. And he didn't care.

And it wasn't meaningful. Yeah. And that kind of bummed me out. Understandably so. Okay. And then? Then I call him and I'm like, hey, are you mad at me?

Because I asked you about my cousin and I was like, I don't really think anything happened. Like, I don't think it was weird. He's like, no, I thought you were mad at me. I didn't do anything wrong. And I was like, whatever. Like, if you want to stop by, he had already met my mom like once at this point. And I said, if you want to stop by later, like we'll be drinking. He's like, okay. And I said, let me know. And that was at like three, don't hear anything. And this is where it gets bad. And this is where I'm thinking, was I overreacting? 8pm comes by and I don't hear anything and this is where it gets bad and this is where I'm thinking was I overreacting

8 p.m comes by and I don't hear anything from him the snapchat score is increasing I shouldn't have been creeping on it but I did and it's like increasing by like 100 points an hour like who the heck's he snapchatting so I text him and I said hey kind of upsetting me that you're not texting me and you're on snapchat I didn't say I'm looking at your score. I said, it's Christmas Eve. I said, maybe you're a little bit too busy for whatever like this is. And he doesn't reply. Snapchat score is still going up. An hour later, I sent another text. And I said, I think this has been very inconsistent. Like, I think I have to move on. Like, good luck with whatever. And he replied in like 10 minutes. And he says, I haven't been on my phone much today. Sorry, it means you feel that way.

But thanks for the shot. And I'm like, thanks for the shot. That's all you got to say. And my mom's like, well, what's he supposed to say? Supposed to grovel for you? I'm like, well, yeah. So then I called him. I called him and we talked for 20 minutes.

And on the phone, he's like, Hey, Lauren, I'm just really busy. I am sitting here at the firehouse. I'm on Snapchat because I have group chat. I fixed your dishwasher. I made you and your cousin dinner. I told you I like you. I text you good morning. He's like, I don't want this to be a habit that every two weeks you get mad at me. And I like found myself asking like, well, can you just reply to me within four hours? And I was like, why am I asking this? This is like bare minimum. So at the end of the conversation, we decided it's still going to be a thing. He said, Merry Christmas. I said, Merry Christmas back. He said, how's your Christmas going? And I never responded to him because at this point,

I'm like, I felt weird about him. I just felt like the way he was in the beginning, like the first two and a half weeks, like he would have never left me undelivered. Like if I didn't reply to him in three hours, he'd be like, how's your day going, gorgeous? How's your day? Like, you call me and like, it just all felt it. So I never replied. Then next night, I went out, posted a couple Snapchat stories, and there was a guy in it.

And he texted me and he said, I tried, never mind, I'm blocking you. He blocked me on Snapchat. Why did you put a guy in your Snapchat stories? To make him jealous. So petty. Okay. Yeah. so petty okay yeah and then he replied to my snapchat was like uh all these stories and can't reply to me i haven't heard from you in two days you called me and yelled at me for being busy

working but now you're busy drinking so i'm done and he blocked me on snapchat well listen i i don't think you need to regret uh your behavior as it relates to this guy. I mean, I definitely don't think you acted in a way that you should necessarily want to replicate in the future. Yeah. Do you listen to this show? Yeah. What do you think I'm going to say?

I really don't know. Well, like, just my question is, like, should I have just left him alone on Christmas Eve and, like, not texted him, not called him, just let it be? If I'm dating someone, like I would like to not be left on delivered for seven hours and beat up their Snapchat scores going up insane. Well, so what you did is you just kind of ignored certain behaviors that he was demonstrating. And instead of communicating effectively, and I know he was hard to get a hold of, you ignored certain red flags, you know, his comment about the woman. And, you know, that was a red flag. His text to your cousin was a major red flag.

You had only been hanging out. You had been only, well, yeah, but duh. flag you had only been hanging out you had been only well yeah but duh well i have friends and i have i i probably seek too much opinions and my cousins always tell me that i get too many opinions from too many different people maybe but some of my friends are like you're crazy he wasn't hitting on your cousin he just wants to you know you guys are going to be dating and i'm like well why does he need to have her on snapchat it's weird. But he called her. And she's also close. But he referred to her as like, he referred to her as some sexy or something. Yeah.

And he, he, it was, but I was in the picture. So I'm like, was it about me or was it about her? But it said not the sexy cousin that I remember. No, it said not the sexy girl from last night. Why would he be talking about you? I know that's what I thought. And I had a couple of friends tell me like I was just overreacting. You're not overreacting.

And listen, I'm not going to sit there and criticize you for dating someone younger than you, you know. But if you're going to date someone younger than you, you need to observe their behavior. And when someone younger than you acts their age, so to speak, or even more immature, you shouldn't take notice of that. Like, why is a 29-year-old woman, are you monitoring someone's Snapchat score? I know. I literally deleted it like New Year's Day. I deleted all my social media apps. Well, that's an overreaction.

I didn't say as a 29-year-old woman, why are you on social media? I said, why as a 29-year-old woman are you monitoring a Snapchat score of a 24-year-old man who you've only known for a couple months and in those couple months has shown you a lot of uh inconsistencies and a lot of behaviors that would suggest that he's every bit the 24 year old man that he is and that his he is not the exception to the rule he is not a more mature and well-rounded 24 year old than his peers he is arguably more immature uh or certainly very much his age. And you got caught up in the chase of it all and you didn't have healthy communication. And when you meet someone, you should have, as a 29-year-old woman, you've been around, I mean, you've had a few boyfriends, right? I'm guessing you've dated a few guys.

You have some experience in dating. I do. Right? had a few boyfriends, right? I'm guessing you've dated a few guys, you know, you have some experience in dating and right. And so at 29 years old, you should have a certain, you know, list in your head, maybe even written down of behaviors that you want, behaviors you don't want in a relationship. You know, you should have some instincts that you've developed over these years of dating of when people are being upfront with with you or dishonest or you know being shady and i'm sure you know what it's like to feel you know i know you're single but have you had a relationship that you would look back and reflect that even though it didn't work out that had a lot of like good moments like what's your longest relationship i dated a guy for about three years when we lived together okay and so we still are like cordial okay so like yeah the first year or two of that relationship especially like say the first six months like

did how did he act compared to this guy that you were dating i don't think he would have ever left me feeling like confused okay so it's just i feel like in this situation like i feel like i maybe was like love bombed like at the beginning, like the very two and a half weeks, like he's a 20 future. He wanted me to meet all his friends. It's not love bombing. You dated a 24 year old man who in the short time that you got to know him very much demonstrated that he was very much either the 24 year old man that he said he was or even a more immature 24-year-old man. He didn't act the way that in your boyfriend of three years, how old were you when you met him? I was 19.

You were 19. And how old was he? He was 20. He was 20. So your ex, who was 20 years years old acted more mature than your now 24 year old, you know, fuck boy that you've been hanging out with. Oh yeah. Yeah. And instead of seeing that and comparing notes and even a guy,

you know, yeah, it didn't work out, but like he pursued me, he was upfront, he was communicative. I didn't question how he felt about me all this, all this time. He said one thing and followed up with his actions. He was communicative. I didn't question how he felt about me all this time.

He said one thing and followed up with his actions. He wasn't hitting on my cousins or friends. He wasn't racking up Snapchat scores. He wasn't being shady with his communication. Yeah. And that turned into a pretty good, solid three-year relationship. And yeah, it didn't work out. We met when we were 19, 20 years old. I changed as a person and evolved and you know we didn't involve together so yeah it didn't work out but like there was still a lot of good of that relationship that you can still try to bring into your next one and instead of doing doing that you are i don't know what i don't know what your intentions or goals are when you're dating

yeah but your actions do not say that it say that you're looking for a healthy, communicative, open relationship with someone who's actually ready to be in a relationship. And they say that and they show that through their actions. Love bombing. I mean, when did this guy ever show you that he was actually willing and able to be in a committed relationship? Well, in the beginning, there was like a lot of talk of a relationship. Okay.

And like, I wanted to be in a committed relationship by Christmas. Okay. Well, what does that even mean? Like, isn't that weird that someone's like, I want to be in a relationship by Christmas? Like, I want to be in a relationship when I meet the right person that I feel connected with and we feel like we have a lot in common and yada, yada, yada. So that was an immature thing to say. That's a weird thing to say you know i know i i just feel like i've like since that serious relationship

i've like gotten a lot of like bare minimum and like the place that i live you've it you how how long you date this guy for this guy guy only like six weeks. Six weeks. Well, for six weeks, you have been accepting the bare minimum. I know, but I keep telling myself he fixed my dishwasher. Okay. Well, that's on you. That's not on them. I mean, there's a lot of people who aren't going to prioritize you.

You know, the world's full of people who like, well, you know, give you a little bit of what they have to offer and not all of it. And that's actually most people you're interact with. And you're the only people who are going to give you what you deserve or the people that you're willing to hold accountable. Yeah. And the more inconvenient you are to the fuck boys, the less time they will spend wasting their energy on you. And that's a good thing.

Not a bad thing. Your ego doesn't like to hear that your ego wants the fuck boys to waste their energy on you because it's an opportunity to make you feel special. And if you've ever listened to the show, you've probably heard me say this a million times. I just, I don't know. I messaged him on New Year's Eve on Facebook and I unsent it like within 10 minutes because I was like, I don't even think I want to talk to you. Why did you message him? And he saw that I had sent it. Okay. And he replied and said like, oh, I'm sending messages, I see. Yeah. Of course he said that.

It's a game to him. It's fun. Knowing that you cared, that you reached out. He didn't give a shit that you messaged him. He didn't give a shit that you got him a Christmas present. He didn't give a shit that you really reached out. Because you are not listening to yourself and you are not holding yourself accountable to how people treat you,

and you're not learning from past interactions with your romantic partners, you are just being reactive. And you are acting like a 24-year-old and dating. you are changing your behaviors you're not holding people accountable and then you like make yourself out to be the victim and says well i'm only getting the bare minimum from these guys you're accepting the bare minimum yeah true you are playing these games as a 29 year old woman who's you know had a handful of relationships and some you know some of which have been good and some of which have been bad, you are acting like you've, you've just started dating for the very first time. Yeah. And you're acting like you're so confused by these people's behaviors. Like what's confusing about it? He wasn't that interested in you. You weren't a priority for

him. He was almost certainly talking to other girls and yeah, he was good at making you feel bad for questioning yourself and yeah i was a little gaslighty but he gave you so many examples of why this guy wasn't worth your time and instead of listening to your gut and your body and your intuition yeah or just like or paying attention to things you learned in the past you just ignored that all and kept trying with the guy that gave you no reason to try. He gave you the bare minimum and you said, okay, I can work with this. Yeah. That's what you did.

And you keep telling yourself through your actions that you are willing to work with the bare minimum in hopes that you could take this bare minimum and mold it into something else. Well, I mean, I did try to end it and then like then kind of was what do you mean try to end it but i got blocked well you're you're you're playing games you were being just as incommunicative as he was you were being just as petty as he was you decided to like post a picture picture on Snapchat with another dude just to make him jealous. Is that how you want to be as a partner? No, definitely not.

And what do you mean you tried to break up with someone? He doesn't have a power or control over you. You either break up with him or you don't. You don't try. You just do it. Yeah. And you've only been dating this guy for six weeks. I did it over text and then and then what like i and then when we talked afterwards like

after the phone call i didn't feel much better like i felt worse sure you got rejected and you didn't feel like you had the power and so you gave in to your ego and like yeah listen breakups are sad you have every right to be disappointed and sad. You met a guy that you thought was someone else and he didn't live up to those expectations and you have the right to be upset about that and disappointed. And instead of just like acknowledging that to yourself and be like, I'm bummed, I'm bummed. And then maybe after being bummed saying, okay, well, I'm bummed, but like, what could have I done differently to not get myself in this situation?

Because clearly there are a ton of red flags that I ignored. And then you start by being bummed, maybe then getting a little upset about yourself and then move on. Instead, you're like, well, I'm upset. And without taking any accountability for the choices you've made or reflecting on how he's been treating you, you were just like, I'm going to be upset and I'm going to try to get back at him. I want revenge. I want to make him jealous or upset. And you tried to leverage power and play the games and it didn't work on him. And he said, you know what? He showed you that he didn't care about you, that you weren't a priority, and you thought that he was going to care now because you posted another guy? He had nothing invested. Well, it was not just, it was like a group of us. There was a guy. You knew what you were doing. It wasn't like me, it's just a guy.

You knew what you were doing, and you got the reaction you wanted. It just didn't work out the way you hoped. You wanted him to react. You wanted it to irritate him. You just miscalculated how he would respond to being irritated. Yeah, I mean, you're right. And you weren't paying attention to the signs that this guy wasn't, he didn't really give a shit about you. He wanted you to be in his orbit. He wanted you to be an option.

He wanted to come and go when he pleased. He was willing to like feed you lines and bullshit in hopes that you would believe it. And, you know, you haven't learned your lessons yet. Yeah. And you should be a little frustrated with yourself for giving in to this type of behavior. You should know better. I know. I know. When I met Natalie, if she was like, and I met her and all of a sudden she was acting, you know, out there clubbing and partying and being weird with her communication style and shady with her responses. Like we wouldn't be in this position now.

Yeah. Classic line. Someone shows you who they are. They believe in me. You refuse to believe when people show you who they are. believe in me you refuse to believe when people show you who they are yeah well i don't know i guess i just have to not ignore red flags but you you know better you gotta stop stop asking yourself to stop pretending i mean you kind of are pretend you're playing dumb with yourself

why is he acting like this why was he doing that like you know the answer and the answer is is like he doesn't give a shit about me and you would rather pretend to be you don't want to believe it you would rather be you'd rather pretend to be dumb than just be honest with yourself that this 24 year old fuck boy doesn't want to make you his everything i feel stupid saying it but like he did make me feel that way in the beginning like the first like couple weeks oh my god the first couple weeks like so i know it should be the first year you're not 19 anymore i know i know i i know well i don't know i mean i'm i'm over it now. I just have only thought that like, it, I just have had a friend tell me that I have like anxious attachment and like, I should have,

I don't know, maybe like he's busy, like he's working, he's busy, like just let him be. But I'm like, no, you might have something. Your, your behavior of stalking him on Snapchat, that's nuts. And you need to stop doing that. But you of stalking him on Snapchat, that's nuts. And you need to stop doing that. But, you know, even if like the fact that you were dating a guy that caused you to do that, that should have been a red flag to yourself. Like, clearly, I can't be my best self around this person. He is not helping me. He is triggering me.

Yeah. You might need to work on things. And maybe I don't know if you're in therapy or you're addressing some of your behaviors that you might have a pattern of when it comes to dating. or you're addressing some of your behaviors that you might have a pattern of when it comes to dating and you're like habit of like, instead of like open communication and trust and things like that, you're resorting to the game playing and pettiness and bad communication and ignoring red flags. Like that is a pattern that you need to address. Yeah. And I would address that, but that has nothing to do with you still putting up with this type of behavior. Yeah.

You want to make sure you do as you address this, your end of things, because when you do meet someone worth your time, you're going to run the risk of pushing the good ones away because you're so used to dealing with the bad ones. Yeah. And so when someone is being upfront and honest, or maybe just a little busy, you are going to, you know,

go down a rabbit hole and you're going to stalk them and you're going to start accusing them of shit they're not doing, but that's not what this is. And you're having a hard time distinguishing between the two because you're not willing to be honest with yourself and you're not willing to actually deal with your own issues. Well, I have started doing some therapy actually and self-reflection and talk to her about it.

Stick with it. Yeah. But like stick with it. This is going to be an ongoing thing. This is not something you're going to solve with a couple therapy sessions. You need to go into therapy and say, Hey, I want to start understanding why I'm making the choices I'm making. Why I, I'd love,'m making. People talk about attachment styles. I'd love to maybe explore that with you if you have any expertise in that as your therapist. But I want to learn some tools to set better boundaries and trust my gut and trust my intuition. I have a habit of putting up with these bad behaviors. I also have a habit of acting in a way that's not the type of person I want to be as a partner.

I get jealous. I get paranoid. Instead of communicating, I start stalking and things like that. And I really want to start stopping all of this because you have to admit, I tried communicating when I said I was unhappy that I wasn't hearing from him and he was on Snapchat. Sure. But then when he didn't give you an answer you wanted, you resorted to the toxic behavior instead of just accepting his answer at face value, which is, I don't trust his answers. I don't like his answers. This is not what I'm dealing with. I just need to shut it down. But you got caught up in his game playing and he made you feel bad. And like, that's the thing. It's like fuckboys know how to manipulate. They know how to make you feel bad. They are gaslighting by nature. They know how to make you feel bad.

They are gaslighting by nature. But you're still like... I mean, what I should have done is after the phone call, when I still felt terrible afterwards, I should have been like, look, this is not going to work and ended it there. Yes. That's what I should have done. And be confident in your decision. I shouldn't have. Yes.

Yeah, that's the thing. I'm not confident in my decisions. I'm always like, well, what if he really was the one? Or what if I am just being too. And so, and then ask yourself about, is the 24 year old guy, men mature historically slower than women. There's always exceptions to the rule, but he kept showing you that he very much wasn't the exception to the rule and you kept ignoring it.

Yeah. I mean, you're right. Totally right. I just, I think I liked the idea and like wanted to finally be in a relationship again. I hear you, but you gotta, you know, you gotta, you gotta be more patient and less, I guess, desperate, you know? Yeah. And you have to learn from these mistakes. I mean, that's the thing, I'm super picky and I pick the wrong ones.

You're not that picky and you have to reassess your picker, so to speak. You got to think about what you're actually responding to. You are responding to being triggered by their charm or their attraction, and you are not responding to how they treat you. And I'm not talking about the first two weeks or first month or first couple months. It takes time to get to know someone. And you always, in the first few months of dating someone, need to be open to the possibility that their behavior might change. And if their behavior changes in the first couple months of dating, then it's most likely the new behavior is the more honest one. Because everyone tries to put their best foot forward. Everyone tries to make a good first impression, but very

few people are good at maintaining that if it's not authentically who they are. Yeah. And instead of making excuses for this and why, Oh, it's actually who they pretended to be in the first couple of weeks. You need to start just accepting that, you know,

Hey, listen, I tried, it didn't work. I need to move on. And if you're going to go in and date younger men, fine. Again,

you're not going to get judgment from me, but at least be honest with yourself about the risks you're taking i mean i think that next time i download a dating app i need to bump it up above at least 27 sure but you can meet immature 35 year old men there are plenty of 50 year old fuck boys out there so it's not going to be as simple yeah but you again it's about their behaviors all. And not making excuses for them and being honest with yourself and being open to the idea that not everyone's going to be obsessed with you. And that some people might pretend to be who, you know, aren't who they are and that being rejected by someone isn't the end of the world. And rather than making excuses for their actions and their behaviors. So, you know, out of fear of facing

rejection, you just say, Hey, listen, they're not my person. They don't want to make me a priority. They don't appreciate me. That's fine. I'm going to move on and not let it, your ego saying, Oh no, no, no, no. That's not what they really mean. They really want to show you how special you are. You're worth it. Just keep trying, blah, blah, blah. Like you keep listening to that side of things and not holding yourself accountable. Yeah, you're right. Dang, mic drop. When this episode comes out, I want you to listen to it because I hope that you listen to yourself and be like, why do I sound this way?

You're an intelligent person. You've been around the block, but you started this call sounding like this naive, inexperienced 19-year-old girl. And that's not who you are, but that's what you're acting like. Yeah, you're right. Thanks. All right. Sorry, I'm just going to give you some tough love here. Well, honestly, like I'm very happy with like, I don't know.

It makes me feel better, honestly. All right, well, good. Dive in with your therapist. Reflect on why you start making these choices. And just like, listen, like I want to, I want to get better. So I want to, I want to better understand why I make some of these decisions. Uh, find a therapist that understands like early childhood trauma and maybe it's attachment style. But again, understanding why you do something is only half the battle because a lot of people will try to understand why they do something just so they can keep making an excuse for why they keep doing the same thing over and over. Oh, well, I'm a nervous attachment.

Oh, I can't help it. No, step one is understanding. Step two is in learning the tools to identify when you get triggered, why you get triggered, and instead of responding how you always responded, naming it and saying, all right, no, no, okay, I recognize this feeling. I have a habit of doing X, Y, or Z, but now that I recognize it, I'm going to do A, B, and C instead. And that won't be always easy, and you sometimes will backtrack,

but right now, you're not doing any of that. There's no self-awareness or you being present with being triggered. You get triggered, and you resort back to 19-year-old you over and over and over and over again. Yeah. I'm sure the drinking doesn't have anything to do with it. That's sarcasm. Well, it probably does.

Yeah. But yeah, you can do this sober. You can do this drunk. Being drunk doesn't help for sure. But either way, this guy wasn't for you. So the choice is yours. I think there's a lot of opportunity for you to change things around. Use this, use this situation as a wake up call.

Don't play the victim. No, definitely not. I don't, I don't want to play victim. I just, I just think I'm going to take a little break from dating and do some self reflection and then pop back in when I'm ready. All right. Sounds good. Sounds like a great plan. Well, thank you. Well, when you pop back in when I'm ready. Alright. Sounds like a great plan. Well, thank you.

When you pop back in, we'd love an update, okay? Okay, thank you. Alright, best of luck. Take care. You too. Bye. Alright, bye-bye. Thanks for listening. Don't forget Tom and Tom tomorrow for episode 700. It's going to be wild. Memorable. Also, we'll be recapping Bachelor,

Traitors. We'll be doing some Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and all that and more. Get some pop culture also on Going Deeper. It's going to be fun. Alright. Bye. you