Sex & Dating After Divorce or the Traumatic End of a Relationship

What does healing and moving on look like after the traumatic end of a relationship? When do you date again? How do you know if you are ready for sex? In this very personal episode, I am joined by my good friend Andrea, a mental health therapist as we share the stories of healing after our breakups/divorce over this past year. Expect a raw and honest discussion about the societal pressures that urge us to move on quickly and the deep, lingering grief that extends beyond the loss of a partner to an envisioned future and shared community.

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Chapters

• 1:07 Healing and Recovery From Relationships
• 8:12 Navigating Grief After Relationships
• 21:07 Navigating Emotional Recovery After Relationships
• 27:17 Understanding the Healing Journey After Relationships
• 42:53 Navigating Grief and Celebrating Healing
• 49:22 Trusting Yourself and Dating After Divorce
• 1:05:17 Empowering Self-Trust and Boundaries
• 1:16:16 Exploring Libido and Intimacy After Breakup
• 1:28:32 Navigating Post-Divorce Healing and Growth
• 1:40:44 Navigating Trauma After Breakup
• 1:45:49 Navigating Love and Healing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:07

Do the sex Think fun, honest and feminist as fuck, and always with the goal of fighting the patriarchy. One female orgasm at a time. Welcome to the locker room. Today's locker room talk and shots topic is sex, love and life after the traumatic end of a significant relationship, and this is from the woman's point of view, I'm going to say vulva owners.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Afab folks out there, me and my guest decided that's what we would call this podcast episode because she has been going through the end of a divorce this year and the healing and recovering process of that, and I, as many of you already know, have been going through healing from the loss of a significant relationship in my life and I have put off this conversation, this topic, which I know is just so important, because there are so many people out there right now who are going through healing from a breakup, loss of a significant relationship, and I cannot express to anyone out there who's going through healing from a breakup, loss of a significant relationship and I cannot express to anyone out there who's going through that right now how valid and difficult I know this time is for people in their lives and I think it's so important to take time to address.

Speaker 1: 2:45

What do you do, how do you move on, how do you continue in life, in love, in intimacy and in sex after you lose someone you thought would be in your life forever? And I have not been ready to talk about it until just today. In fact, we had scheduled this conversation for. In fact, we had scheduled this conversation for I think, yeah, and I messaged and was like not yet. So my guest today is Andrea. You may recognize her. She's been on this podcast a couple of times.

Speaker 2: 3:19

This is the third one.

Speaker 1: 3:21

I think I've done the last one, you was about attachment styles. You was about attachment styles and we actually had recorded that right after both of the you know, our relationships completely collapsed.

Speaker 2: 3:41

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of what we're going to be talking about is the same partners today that we were talking then yes, absolutely. Yeah, in terms of trying to move on and recovering from that, you know, in a way that is feels healthy and good for you.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Right, it's not. It Spoiler alert Not easy, but Andrea, before we like jump in, can you tell my listeners just a little bit more about you, your background and what they should know for this podcast?

Speaker 2: 4:09

Okay, well, for this podcast. I think this time I'm going to start a little differently and maybe elaborate a little bit more. I was just talking to my mom yesterday about how fascinated I was with human relationships as childhood, and she said, at a very young age she said to my dad you know, she's going to grow up and she's going to be a counselor someday, because that's where her core strengths are and interests. It seems that that's the path she's going to take and she never told me that. But, sure enough, that is the path I did take.

Speaker 2: 4:42

First I studied, you know, sociology, because I found that to be an extreme influence on trying to understand why people were the way they were, and so that was my original college major. But eventually I, of course, after doing some social work, realized that what I my calling was to be a therapist, a mental health therapist. So I went back to school and that is what I do now, and I own my own business and I work as a mental health therapist. And relationship issues are, over and over again, the number one focus, I think, for people. It's the thing that gets them into therapy, it's the thing they're trying to figure out, make peace with it's not always romantic relationships, but it's always relationship oriented, it seems.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Right. So y'all are getting sort of a double bonus here. You've got a woman who is currently going through healing from a divorce and a traumatic ending of a relationship, and also someone who's a therapist. So you've got a lot of knowledge, but then you can also compare and contrast it against your experience. So for listeners who are just listeners right now and on just the audio podcast, I want to encourage you to head over to my YouTube channel at Talk Sucks with Annette, because you can see our beautiful faces. Also, we are going to be celebrating our divorce divorces because odd side note I did get officially divorced this year from someone who I've technically been married to, but not with forever. Anyways, that's a whole different story. But we have divorce cake here. We're going to be celebrating the end and the beginning of our new lives and, of course, we want you to join us as we have our divorce cake and coffee and talk about and I think we need to call out the breakup breakfast croissant.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Yeah, I'm lighting the candles right now. Folks, I'm lighting the candles right now, but we are going to be sharing this experience with you. Actually, instead of cheersing into this podcast episode, we are going to be blowing out the candles and they're tea light candles next to the cakes and croissants because, well, you'll see in a second, we're going to hold up our little this is our little divorce celebration plate it's beautiful pretty, pretty. Look at that cake yum we got two cakes.

Speaker 1: 7:15

Oh, can you get? Can you guys see this beautiful blue cake? That's our, that is our divorce cake. It's blue and it has little things that look like tears on it, which makes sense to me right now. It's called Levy and Rose.

Speaker 2: 7:29

That's what they call that at the patisserie where I got it.

Speaker 1: 7:33

She went to a patisserie folks. And then this other one is what kind of cake is that?

Speaker 2: 7:38

It's cookies and cream roll. That's what they called it. Yeah, it just looked yummy to me.

Speaker 1: 7:42

And then we've got two croissants. So this is our breakup breakfast. Our breakup breakfast. We're going to be having this with you while we talk about the last mother fuck of a year and all the wonderful healing we've been doing. So, hey, let's blow out our candles and then talk about it. Cheers this might be one of my favorite technical cheers into a podcast episode. So, your divorce, which was very traumatic, my breakup, which was incredibly traumatic. So we're going to be talking about, as a woman, what the experience has been like for us. Can you just lay down one of the top truths that you think we aren't honest about, that we go through when we experience the end of a relationship in a traumatic way? The top truth, yes, the big thing that you think everybody just needs to know.

Speaker 2: 8:43

I think that a lot of times, people want to quickly move on, push forward, and everyone I think across the board has some very misguided perspectives about just what it even means to be broken up or to have things officially end or be over, and it's it's odd to be encountering that. And it's odd to be encountering that and, in a way, when you do it, you're also pushing through, and so you want to be strong and have something close to a resemblance of a happy, normal, healthy life as you can possibly muster, but you're not okay, and I liken it to a car wreck. I think that when you go through a breakup, or if you were showing interest in someone who's been through a breakup or a divorce or anything like that, you need to ask yourself you know, what would you ask someone who just told you they were in a car wreck? What would you say to them? Like you know, you don't necessarily know what all your injuries are.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Yeah, and it's just so much trauma and I feel like as a society we downplay the trauma someone experiences when they lose somebody in their life who they thought would be there forever. I think the biggest truth from my perspective is that in a way it's very similar to a death and in our society one of the biggest problems I'd say there is the people around you want you to be better really quick and don't understand that you are going to be grieving for that person for what could be years to come.

Speaker 2: 10:41

And that doesn't mean you want them back or you're still hung up on them back, or you're still hung up on them or that you're anywhere near anything remotely close to pining away for them. I encountered that a lot People encountering my sadness and still trying to make sense of the past and I can still cry about it. I'm not over it. And people are like I was getting questions like are you going to go back? Are you going to try to get back with them? One person even said if you return to this partnership, I am going to kill you in a way that was loving.

Speaker 2: 11:16

And I'm like no, that is not even remotely on my mind.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Right. No, the grieving is, and for some people that could be on their mind. I will say this like one thing that happened to me is like right after I mean I was so angry when it ended. I was angry, I felt righteous on some level because I had stood up for myself and I had said no more and I thought I was fine and and I thought I was fine and I was thought I was done and I was like I got pushed to this point I demand to be respected on a certain level.

Speaker 1: 11:58

And time went by and then one day I woke up and I realized there was some part of me that thought that person was going to show up and make it all better and that I had totally been in denial, pain and loss, and the magnitude of the loss that hit I think something I want people to understand too, and this is that we do not pay enough respect to. When you lose, end or walk away from or get dumped from a significant relationship that's been in your life for a long time, especially one where you've been planning the future, like you have been your life moving forward, only had them in it, you don't just lose that person, person, you lose all of the people potentially so in my case, I lost what had become a family of mine.

Speaker 1: 13:20

My partner had a daughter I loved deeply. She had a child who was my first grandchild experience and there was just there was so much loss. There's so much loss. It's not just that one person, it's the life that you had planned together. It's the people you had as a community together, and even if those people stay in your life, it's just changed forever. Everything is, and the magnitude of grief that comes from that. I feel like you're ashamed. If you like, act like it's something you miss or that was meaningful because you're supposed to be like I'm single, I'm fine, it's all fucking good, you're free now.

Speaker 2: 14:04

And it's like right.

Speaker 1: 14:06

And it's like you're not free because as long as you're grieving, you're still there, and not necessarily with that person, but you can't be free when you're just. You have so much grief and it's okay to have that grief learned also in this process. Not only did I lose that relationship, that little family and my future, as it was planned. When you are feeling that much grief and you lean into it and you decide, what I decided is I'm like, if I'm going to be in this much grief, I mean, when I finally woke up that day and I was like I'm like fuck, like fuck. I'm like this is excruciating.

Speaker 1: 14:54

And I had sort of two choices Like I could do what I have done all along, which is sort of, um, put the bandaid on it, distract myself, find someone new, um, convince myself, I'm over it. I'm like, or I can take this opportunity to like really heal, like really fucking heal, and what that meant was like raw dogging the pain and the emotions and doing the work. And what I learned from making that choice is all of the people I had surrounded myself with who really didn't give a shit about me. I mean also I learned the people who really really did give a shit about me, but it was the people who showed up that were like, are you still? You're not over it yet? Come on, you need to start dating again. Or or like, really you're still down about it Because, like people would show up and want to like hang out with me and I couldn't. I was not going to mask my pain for anyone else's comfort.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Yeah, I got a lot of get over it too, from people who mostly wanted to be with me, from people who mostly wanted to be with me romantically. And you know, in a way I'm grateful because it's like you know, and I'm following a lot of recovering from divorce stuff you know there's and taking responsibility for what attracted you to something that didn't work out. You know, doing that deep work and realizing, you know, if there is a recurring attraction to people who don't care about where you're at, it doesn't. I mean, you don't have to justify where you're at. If you're still in grief, you're still in grief, you know. And when the responses aren't, you over it, that's. I don't want to deal with your hard feelings. I'm feeling burdened by where you're at and it's like and you don't even have to feel it, you know you are all about yourself, so you can leave.

Speaker 1: 17:59

There's the door right and the other thing that struck me, what I realized and it took me a little while because I had a couple of people in my life who I had considered good friends, who did this aren't you over it thing to me. And it made things so much worse because then suddenly I was like something's wrong with me that I'm still grieving, something's wrong with me that I'm still in pain, something's wrong with me that I'm not out there pulling dick or pussy like left and right. And the minute I cut those people out of my life and what I really did was just distance. It's not like I put up a big notice. I was like I'm going to let this go. And I had those voices out of my head and I gave myself permission and I have given myself permission. I was like you know what? You've got a full year to just like go about healing and then if you're still in a really because at the time that I made this choice, I'm like if you're still still like finding yourself literally like head to the floor sobbing, you know, on a regular basis, then we got to like next level shit. But I just gave myself, I gave myself permission. I'm like you get to, you get to be a wreck and grieve and and and miss this you know for me and I'm curious about for you.

Speaker 1: 19:21

But another like really aha moment all my listeners know I'm sure by now Dominatrix Lucy, who is seriously one of the biggest loves in my life, biggest friends in my life. She stood loyally by my side. She has shown up to really help me through this, has shown up to really help me through this. And she came to me one day because I was talking to her about what my ex was to me and I said, you know, I mean, he was the person I thought was the love of my romantic interest, my sexual partner and adventure, my best friend, my sexual partner and adventure, my best friend, my travel partner, like all of these things. And she came to me one day and she said, you know, and I'd have been thinking about why you're suffering so much and she's like this, you know this person really, what had all of these important positions in your life and you lost them all at once. You lost your best friend, you lost your lover, you lost your, you know, adventure partner. I had really made him also kind of the person like I bounced my, my future ideas off of my business ideas off of. He was my workout partner when we were together, you know, and she said, you know, you, you have a right to be feeling just this much grief because you've lost so much, and that was so validating. And anyone who cares about you should be able to look at you and see, like that level of loss and like how could you possibly get over that in a couple of weeks or a month? Like truly, like truly. I think there are a lot of weeks or a month Like truly, like truly.

Speaker 1: 21:08

I think there are a lot of people who look like they've gotten over some something like this and have moved on because they're with somebody new or they're, you know, fucking somebody new. But all they're doing is taking even more trauma to whatever they brought to your relationship and jumping into something else and eventually, whoever they're with now will suffer from them, bringing the trauma from what you just went to to their relationship. And so for me, in the aftermath of this relationship, the thing that I landed on was A I don't want to get hurt anymore Right now. I can't handle more pain. Also, I don't want to get hurt anymore Right now. I can't handle more pain. Also, I don't want to hurt somebody else. So I am not going to date or try to be in like a true romantic relationship with anybody until I feel confident, as confident as I can, that I'm not going to like bring my trauma and wreck their lives and mine in the process again.

Speaker 2: 22:11

Yeah, and you don't have to bring your trauma in to be hurtful to somebody. I mean, it's a real dangerous world out there. I mean I really love the car wreck analogy, I mean because it's like. I mean I actually was in a car wreck this year too, and that's why I guess I living through both at the same time and seeing the amazing similarities it's like you get into a car wreck, you head out on the road and suddenly you're, you are, you're driving differently, someone could jump out, so what looks like a merely pulling up to a corner you don't trust they're going to stop, like they're supposed to.

Speaker 2: 22:49

Just because it's a red light or there's a stop sign, you know people start speeding and it scares you because when you're in a car accident if you've ever been one in a split second you know you are completely out of control and your life is on the line. It is traumatic, and so apply that to dating. And if you're too defensive you could still hurt someone. If you slam on your brakes unnecessarily, you can hurt someone, but you still have to keep going, you still have to get out on the roads, you have to do what you need to do, but you are not necessarily in the best space to be out on the open roads, and so you know, yeah, you have to be careful with people, and it's like you have this new realization even of just how much harm can be done.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Because you're feeling the harm that comes from a relationship spiraling into like a devastating wreck right, and you're like I never want to go through. I am definitely. I can't tell you guys how many times this year I've been like, oh my god, I can't, I don't ever want to feel this way again, like Like this is so hard and I had to really just like say out loud this will pass, because if I thought I was going to stay in that place, I could not handle it. I couldn't, I just couldn't handle it. But I also knew that part of healing was like really letting myself feel it and I have a funny story about what it looks like, what I think. And tell me if you've had I don't know if this resonates with you I've been very lucky that my daughter has stepped up to be my 22 year old daughter, stepped up to really be my best friend through this and for the first several I mean to be fair, she also literally went through a devastating breakup at the same time. So we were kind of in it together but would be at my house here with me. We'd be working on the couch just right over here behind me and we were sitting there one day just fine, working, working, working, everything's fine. I'm kind of happy.

Speaker 1: 25:03

And then all of a sudden I was like I think I'm going to have an anxiety attack. What the fuck's going on? And she looks at me, she's like you're OK, what's what's happening? And then I'm like oh, oh, no, oh, I think I'm going to be sad. And I just started fucking sobbing. I mean, I went I'm not talking about a little, I'm not talking about a little weepy here, I'm talking about just overtaken with sobbing and I don't know, maybe it lasted five minutes. And then it like calmed and it literally just passed. It was like this wave that hit me, rolled over me, I was caught in it and then it passed. And I popped back up and I looked at her and I'm like all right, I feel better, and she's kind of in the corner looking.

Speaker 2: 25:49

She's like I think that's the healthiest thing I've ever seen in my life and we just went back to working that makes me wonder how many times you felt a panic attack.

Speaker 1: 26:01

That might've been sadness, grief, yeah, and grief that you weren't ready to process that that lesson happened kind of early on and I use it all the time now, like oftentimes, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 26:14

For me, mornings can be hard because that was what we had sort of a morning routine and every once in a while I'm now at the point where, like you know, I've created new routines and stuff like that, but I'll be getting my coffee and I will just be like bent over the counter by the coffee pot, you know, because that was usually when we do the facetime or whatever um, and I just like let it happen, like and and I have a gentle conversation with myself, that's out loud, out loud where I'm just like this is hard and it's okay to feel sad right now. It's okay and go ahead and feel it, because this was a hard loss, this is a hard moment, and I don't move, I just let it kind of like do its thing and then, once it subsides, then I'm like all right, you know, yeah, so how often are you still experiencing those?

Speaker 1: 27:12

So I'm two months out of about a year from the official split date. To be fair, what I decided to do when I decided to heal the right way, I recognized that I wasn't just healing that relationship. What I had to do was heal. What kept bringing me back into and not just romantic relationships, but into connection with people who were really toxic for me. And toxic for me is people who make me feel like I need to work for their approval and their connection and their friendship or love, like non-secure attachments, like I chase non-secure attachments. And what I realized is that was rooted in my youth.

Speaker 1: 28:03

I grew up in a household where I always felt like I had earned love and just couldn't quite earn it. I could feel this underlying disapproval and pulling back of love. So for me, the healing process has been like healing all of that and the way that I've done that is, I've surrounded myself with people who I have secure attachment with and I've only allowed those people in my life and I've learned to equate that to love. And so now that I've done that, that was such a big piece which really fell into place after May of last year. May of last year was, or this last year was probably when I really like my knees on the ground. I was like god, when is this going to like fucking end? Um, and then it's been a slow recovery since then. So I'd say at this point, like I probably have, you know, I definitely have times throughout the week where I'll get hit with a little something, but as as far as like actual, like gut wrenching moments they're, they've trickled.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Yeah, they don't have to be gut wrenching. I guess I asked because I think timelines are interesting. I mean, we talk about how long does it take, you know, and people do get impatient and there is no acceptable timeline for grief, you know, and you know, I know that I mean just even being here today and having this conversation, I'm like, okay, well, I'm definitely still in grief. Yeah, absolutely, you know, and it's not like I'm not in despair.

Speaker 1: 29:42

Well, healing isn't linear. And when they say that, it's no fucking bullshit.

Speaker 2: 29:46

And bereavement leaves in general tend to be ridiculously short. Um, you know, but even a breakup, like sometimes you have a breakup and it's like this is the date we broke up and we never saw, spoke to one another again, but you know, that's the other thing. A complicated, traumatic breakup usually doesn't go that way. Usually there are a few. You know, um, you know breakups that might happen with marriage. There's a separation and then there's a filing, and then there's the solidification of the divorce and and the working of all of that out it takes time, and so you've got more than even one day. So when do you start counting that timeline? For it's like, okay, this is, this is where I am on my healing journey. Where does the?

Speaker 1: 30:30

the healing can't start, really, I think, until it's fully over you know, it's over but I would, I would, I would say maybe that's not true.

Speaker 1: 30:40

I would say that all of those things that bring you a step closer to knowing it's ending is still like there's little parts of you like kind of running behind you, like trying to sweep up the mess and like prepare you, and you can only be so prepared, and then there's the ending. And even the ending isn't the ending, because there is some part of you and for most of us that thinks somehow it's all going to come back together, or that I mean, think about it, your friends are still well, maybe not still, but we're asking for a long time. Are you going to go back to him? Because there are so many of us that you know that that does happen and for some people it works out. For some people the healing happens, the things that need to happen happen and people are able to come back together. But you know, in a relationship that really like breaks down and in your case, I think you there were so many things that shattered your relationship and it went through this really ugly, vile ending.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Um, but, but I see, yeah, I don't know. I think you know everyone is different, so I guess that's something to really take apart. Like you know, what we're really focusing on is okay, the truth, we're normalizing. Traumatic breakups are hard and everyone who's expecting to just be okay and be over it needs to be nicer to themselves, love themselves through that, and so you know there is no rule for this. It's going to take time and even that looks so many different ways.

Speaker 2: 32:15

And I guess you know you can start healing. But I think, even for for me I mean, we only know our own experience For me you reach, you get to this point where there is no return, Even if you're still in love and you are constantly thinking it could have been different, it didn't have to go down this way, it didn't have to be this way. You just, even if suddenly they started saying and doing everything right, it's too late. It's too late. They can't undo what's been done, so there is no turning back, and I think that for me, the healing couldn't start even in the midst of that, because there was too much to try to make sense of, too much to try to make peace with before the true healing journey can begin, and I guess that's what it was like for me, yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:13

I don't think I could start healing until I realized I wasn't healing.

Speaker 1: 33:19

I mean, to be honest with you, the thing that fucked me up is, while I was going through the initial, you know, the breakup was, it happened and life went forward simultaneously as that was like coming to an end.

Speaker 1: 33:37

My professional life was started booming, like I started having all these great achievements and it was really weird because I didn't have my person to share that with or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 33:49

But I think so much was happening and changing in my life at the time and then I so I was I was like thinking I'm a badass, like I'm finally hitting all of these goals and having all of these wins in my personal life. And then, you know, I was distracting myself with people and going out and all of this stuff, and so that whole time I was not healing and in fact, the ways in which I was avoiding healing and avoiding facing the reality of my loss, I was creating more and more self-destructive behaviors. I mean, I will not get into it, but I definitely had gone to a really self-destructive place when I woke up one day and was smacked in the face with oh my god, like I'm in so much pain, I've experienced loss and I'm I'm like a wreck and I have not healed. In fact, I think I woke up and I remember the thing I said is like holy shit, I I've been in denial.

Speaker 2: 34:52

Okay, well, there's a similarity, but I felt in denial about my whole marriage. Like I got to that point of like, oh my god, I was just that's part of the trauma, I think, is you get to that's like so. What I think is you get to this, like so what was that? And sometimes that is 10 years of your life, you know, and it's like what was all that then, what was happening, and how can you not know what's going on and just get to the end and just feel like shocked by what's going down because not only was it not the plan, but I mean you really just are completely caught off guard and you're like was I just in a delusion this entire time so you know what has helped me with that?

Speaker 1: 35:43

because I felt that way, because, like again I said when I was talking about Lucy, lucy, was you lost all of these people in your life? And I was hit with like was I making this up? Because if this person I was with was all of those things, we wouldn't be here. And so you know you struggle with that, especially because I think as you get further away from the relationship, you start to see it with the blinders drop. So what has helped me is I can't remember the quote and I wish I could remember it exactly, but it's the sentiment is this that what the potential you saw in someone else, the beauty you saw in that person, but mostly the potential you saw is really you just reflecting, like what you would have done if you were them, who you would have been if you were them. It's you projecting, like how you love on them and that's not who they were, right. And so when you start to really look at it and you're like, oh well, if this person was this way, they wouldn't have like said these things to me or those things you realize, well, that was just. That was the reflection of myself. And there's two ways I look at that a how fucking awesome that I can love like that. How fucking amazing it does not. It's not degrading to me that I was putting that on the relationship. It's a reflection of, like what I have to offer.

Speaker 1: 37:19

And then b it starts to answer those questions and then, if I can drop the blinders and the projection of myself and I really look at the actions that took place in the relationship, I think what I struggle with the most is like oh my God, did he even like me? I have moments where I'm like did he even like me? And I hear women say this a lot post-breakup. They say things, things like that man hated me. When I look back now I realize he hated me and I I I identify with that feeling and that it's a lot to grapple with.

Speaker 1: 39:03

This is why healing takes time, because at some point you have to decide like I'm not going to, I'm never going to know, I have to set it aside and move on, or I have to decide. The answers to this or that don't matter. I know what I need to know, which is that person didn't love me, they weren't my best friend, I was making them those things, and now I have to heal and rebuild. And the other quotes maybe move me in a direction, but the quote that really set into my mind, and I think it's from a song when you have nothing left to lose, you have to set yourself on fire.

Speaker 2: 39:44

Oh yeah, yeah, I've heard that one.

Speaker 1: 39:46

And I feel like that's kind of what I did. I felt myself it's like definitely the Phoenix from the flames sort of like imagery is. I felt like I just like set it all on fire and I've been in the ashes for a long time. But I decided when I built it back, when I built myself back, it was only going to be every brick I used to build myself back was going to be made of love, and there was not not even one. Every brick I used to build myself back was going to be made of love, and there was not even one. There's no room for anything but love for myself and my rebuilding of myself. And you've heard the quote grief is just love with nowhere to go. And I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to give this love somewhere to go and it's all going right back into myself.

Speaker 2: 40:34

Yeah, period, and that is what I recommend to anyone who went through a traumatic breakup Commit to, you know, falling in love with yourself, dating yourself. I really am only dating myself right now. I'm perfectly honest, can we talk about that.

Speaker 1: 40:52

I love it. Can we talk about dating and sex and intimacy after all of this We've? You know we've spent a lot of time now talking about grief, but that's because I grief is not given its due time. So I'm happy to give the conversation about grief and healing from relationships and breakups all the time in the world, because we need to talk about it. We need to allow people to fucking grieve and heal and and come you know, fully heal so we can start having healthy relationships, because this our society is fucking riddled with unhappy people in toxic relationships. That's why you stay in business, because no one's fucking healing.

Speaker 2: 41:38

We don't let ourselves grief, we don't hold each other and give space for grief well, and it gets complex because part of the reason we do that is because, I mean, like, when you talk about your friends, it's like aren't you over it? Yet? They're really telling you about themselves there. They're telling you that they can't deal with their own grief, let alone yours. They're still avoiding and you're just a reminder of that. They're avoiding right there, then and there, Like I can sit with another person in pain indefinitely and not take on their pain. You know it's about having the healthy boundaries. It's about you know, and when you truly love somebody, you know you actually want to be there with them wherever they are at. You actually want to be there with them wherever they are at. And people just don't even know how to look at the world that way or to get into that space, and so there's a lot of resistance.

Speaker 1: 42:43

Yeah, yeah, and a lot of resistance and things that are said that just wound a wounded person more. And I think you have to somehow, in the midst of grief, also be your biggest like advocate. And if someone isn't willing to give you the time and space or says things like, are you still like? My biggest advice to anyone out there who is in heartache right now, in grieving, if you are surrounded by people who can't sit with you or are trying to get you to get over it fast, it's like move them out of your life. Like have and yes, there is definitely a line. If you are in bed and you're losing your job and you're not getting up and moving and doing the things you need to do to take care of yourself. Every day, different story. You got to have friends who aren't saying get over it, but who are saying I'm going to take you into therapy, I'm going to help you get the help you need.

Speaker 1: 43:44

There's definitely there are boundaries around grieving and like you need to be taking care of yourself. You can be in grief and this is what I did and this has been the best thing I've done for myself. I was grieving but I kept moving forward and I kept. I focused in on like I'm going to be grieving on the couch, give myself the space to cry when I need to cry, but I'm going to start making new professional goals. I'm going to make financial goals, I'm going to make health goals right and I'm going to do the things even if it's like so hard and takes so much work.

Speaker 1: 44:27

I'm going to get up and I'm going to do those things every day so that when you finally start coming out of grief and your head kind of starts to come out of the clouds or come out of the fog like mine is now you look around and you're like, holy shit, my bank account's full. I've lost 30 pounds. I have a new intimacy coaching business that's starting. I have this amazing group of core friends that I have, like purposefully and intentionally, put all you know, all the energy I would have put into a new boyfriend or girlfriend or, you know, couple or whatever I would have done dating.

Speaker 1: 45:06

I'm like, instead I'm going to focus on these people who I know I have a secure attachment with. I'm like, instead I'm going to focus on these people who I know I have a secure attachment with and, as my head's coming out of the fog. I'm like damn, like I'm ahead of the game out here, even though my heart feels like I'm like behind the game. You know what my heart still feels like? The rest of my life is here to support me and it's in a better place than it was when I started grieving here to support me and it's in a better place than it was when I started grieving.

Speaker 1: 45:32

I'm definitely the rest of my life is in so much of a better place than it was when I I'm divorced. I mean, think about all the things I have accomplished this year. Yeah, you're doing great, you're doing great, but I haven't been able to celebrate it because I've been grieving. I'm just now getting to the point where I'm like I've got cake.

Speaker 1: 45:57

I can celebrate it now but you know, today is obviously a good day for me. I don't always have good days, though. I have days where I miss the little I miss the family I lost.

Speaker 2: 46:13

I miss, you know, the idea of the best friend and the lover that I had, and well, and celebration I, I don't know that that's the right word can I take a bite of our yes, please do like even I was like I don't feel like I will ever celebrate my divorce.

Speaker 2: 46:27

I think that divorce celebrations are great, but I think that sometimes, when we have loss you know one of the reasons like we eat the pint of ice cream and we do the things it's soothing, we're soothing ourselves, we're comforting ourselves. We're like this is bullshit. I deserve something good. I deserve cake because I survived. You know, that's how it feels to me. It's like, and so I don't really feel like I'm celebrating. But I do think that there is a reward that you get to claim when you go through something like this.

Speaker 1: 47:11

And you come out of it. Yes, it's like I've survived. Yeah, have you had sex since your separation and divorce, and what does that look like for you?

Speaker 2: 47:21

Okay, this is just my story. After separation, yes, I had sex again with some people and it, for me, was good, like I don't regret it. I think that you know it's not sowing your oats. It's different because that's something you do before you commit. There's this I can do whatever the fuck I want. Testing of the waters. That happens when you are feeling like you've been in a long term relationship. That was stifling and confining for you, and so I did. I've got a lot of freedom issues, so I did decide, you know, hey, yeah, I can do whatever I want right now. And and really stepped into tasting that and experiencing it.

Speaker 2: 48:23

And the opportunities were limited because I have a very full life, and they pretty much stopped the day not the opportunities, but my desire to do that stopped the day I signed my divorce papers and that was the day I had one last sexual fling and there was a connection for me. It's like you know what, and there was a connection for me. It's like you know what. I'm signing the papers, I'm doing it on his birthday Happy fucking birthday and I'm going to go fuck some young guy that I feel it's safe to that I know is not more in love with me than I am them, and it's going to be great, and it was. And then that was it, that was all I needed and within two weeks of that I was officially divorced and that was a turning point for me. And now sex partnership and dating looks and feels different for me and and my standards have gotten much higher and I know I can do what I want and I don't need to keep testing that and and I am only wanting to meld with someone on that level that I really feel matches me and is worthy, and so that's hard to find. So I've had sex, but it not a lot, and for the most part I've even turned down opportunities for it Because I'm kind of happier. I'm like I'm currently committed to just dating myself right now and just being me and family and friends who were there for me, things like that.

Speaker 2: 50:20

So I know when you first, you know when we first were talking about this. It's like dating and divorce and it's like what do you? How do you date after divorce? And I mean there is this long healing journey that you have to go on first and there are going to be opportunities to maybe go on a date or to have sex or whatever, and you may not even be in your best frame of mind to know should I, should I not? You know what am I doing here? What the hell I think is kind of the space I was in, yeah, you know, yeah, and you know, but then I did commit at one point. You know, I just, I really just want to be me right now and you know it's hard to it's hard for me to give anything to a relationship expectation. Yeah, to a relationship expectation.

Speaker 1: 51:12

Yeah, yeah. I have only recently started playing with the idea of jumping back in the dating game and I like dipped my toe in the water, mostly by just kind of speaking that, and then I had people reach out to me who were interested in you know, interested. It was so quick. I was like never mind, it was like the I know, I think it's that I think when I start dating again, when I really open myself up like really I know it's gonna be very intentional. I do know, uh, what I want from a relationship and that is something that I'm super excited about for the first time maybe ever, is that that's such a good cake isn't it like?

Speaker 1: 52:06

fudge. It is so good it like melts in your mouth. I do know what I want when I date again and so I've never had that like where I've really in my life where I'm like oh, like. Everything is very crystal clear and I do know that I'm not interested in any dumb fuckery. I am, there's not going to be any, you know, no wishy-washiness in my relationships. Like I know the kind of person I want, I know where they need to be and I'm not going to settle for less because I'm so content and happy with where I am right now. I'm like I'm content also once I really jump back into dating to you know, date, get to know people. But I know what I want when I choose a partner and I do ultimately want a partner.

Speaker 1: 53:02

It's interesting, like when I really decided to heal, I knew that part of that was like I wanted to quit my dopamine addiction, which I think is what got me into bad situations in the first place. So I quit the booze for a good period of time. I quit sugar, I quit anything that converted to sugar. I quit the dating app. Well, and I wasn't really I didn't. I decided not to do the dating apps because there is a like a dopamine hit that comes from, like, matching with people and receiving the messages and stuff like that. So I quit all of that and sat in that uncomfortableness and you know what it did is? It gave me a lot of time. It gave me a lot of time and um energy I had to use doing other things. I am horny as fuck though oh my god, my sex drive.

Speaker 1: 54:06

But right after, right after, um, the breakup, I did not have the biggest sex drive. I don't even know what I was feeling. I was so detached from my body and my emotions. I was so living outside of my body. There are some big things that have happened to me on my path of healing. That has finally gotten me to a place where I'm like thinking maybe I'm interested in being open to meeting people and dating A.

Speaker 1: 55:24

I was in therapy when the breakup happened. That was great and helpful. That led me in a direction that I discovered I also have ADHD. I'm late diagnosis, very typical for women. That gave me more information about some of the problems I have in relationship with people. So part of my healing process has been not only processing the grief but learning how ADHD affects me, strategies to cope with it. I've learned that a lot of my anxiety is attached to my and caused by my ADHD, so I've learned coping strategies that I think, when I'm in my next relationship, will help me not feel as anxious. Not feel as anxious. But here's my question how the fuck do you trust yourself to date again and not backslide into who you were before you?

Speaker 2: 56:23

did all this work. I did all this work. Right now, even though I am not fully healed, I am still in a grief state and I can feel that I'm forever changed. Part of the forever change that I'm loving about myself is I already trust myself so much in terms of reading people respond. I don't respond to people in the same way.

Speaker 2: 56:48

I almost feel kind of bad for people because I mean, I am sometimes, sometimes I'm worried, like I think the old me was very nice, very accommodating, you know very much, made allowances for people, especially my partner, and now I don't let anyone get away with anything. I mean you can't just say something that sounds weird and I'm going to be like, no, that is messed up, I don't like that. Even though you know they may have meant it in some other way, I still cannot like it. I still can receive it, however, I've received it, and if they can't hear about it and listen to how I am processing their words, you know, then they don't. They are not on that level that I need them to be, to be in my life, to be connecting with me, like they have to be able to have the hard conversations they have to be able to hear, you know, contradiction challenge. You know that maybe what they did or said was not okay and it not be a huge problem.

Speaker 1: 58:06

Yeah, can we say cheers to trusting yourself again? Yes, because actually that has been the biggest part of my healing process. One thing I've learned, not only through therapy finding out I had ADHD. All of those spidey senses I have, that pick up things that make me seem paranoid in a relationship, actually are, having ADHD is a superpower in a way. If we were living in a primitive society, people with ADHD would be put on the front lines to be reading the environment, reading anybody we were meeting with. We actually pick up on cues. We're far more sensitive to cues in our environment from other people than the neurotypical people. And what I've learned is my instincts are right.

Speaker 1: 59:06

I look back on my relationship and all the shit I was paranoid about, I'm like, ah, I was right and I have felt that throughout my life. This is how I know that I've done some healing. I have never felt more trust for myself in my life than I do right now and after. Again, one of the things I did is I set my new baseline. I now know what secure attachment feels like. Right Now that I've set that baseline, I can start anything, any interaction. Like you walked in the room, I was already at my baseline. I've stayed at my baseline this whole time with you. You haven't set me off in any way. And it's not that if I come in contact with someone and I start to dysregulate, that it's automatically like oh there, something's wrong with them. It's like I start asking myself the questions like what is going on with that? And then I ask myself, do I need to ask them the question? And then, if that gets weird, then I'm like maybe this is someone that I'm not gonna fuck with, right, right, um and so. But I have so much trust for myself and my sensors and my emotions and how I feel if I'm regulated around someone and I'm not regulated around someone.

Speaker 1: 1:00:24

I think a lot of times for people like me, who tend to towards anxious attachment and who are ADHD partners, tend to weaponize it and to be like you just are feeling and acting that way because you're anxious, like it's kind of like the you're crazy shit, no one can pull that shit on me now. Right, like anyone said something like that. Anyone responds to me in that kind of way. It's like a me like get the fuck out, right, fuck out. I already know, I already know like that you're going to be toxic in my life. I mean, if someone says to me I hear you're feeling anxious, you're feeling some level of distrust with me, like what can I do? What can we do together to like figure out why that is and how can I make you feel more secure?

Speaker 2: 1:01:11

or just accept that, acknowledge I'm like. If someone's like, I don't, I'm like, well, there's probably a reason why I don't know what it is. We can explore that together. You know, I don't know why that is. It may not even have anything to do with me, you know, but let's find out.

Speaker 1: 1:01:28

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:01:30

I mean that's a really good response when someone says they're having trouble trusting you.

Speaker 1: 1:01:36

Yeah, it's kind of interesting you bring that up, because in my last relationship I felt like he was constantly questioning his trust for me and what I feel like in retrospect I realized is he was questioning trust in me because he wasn't being trustworthy is, he was questioning trust in me because he wasn't being trustworthy.

Speaker 2: 1:01:57

Yes, the defensive dude is a sign that there's actually something to hide and that they're going to have it discovered I don't know.

Speaker 1: 1:02:03

I think that's part of the grieving process too is like um, you know you're going over things, picking them out and trying to figure out where you could have like, where you should have seen things and how you do it. Better than that is absolutely grieving.

Speaker 2: 1:02:18

It's it's it's going back, it's looking at everything that happened. It's remembering things you forgot about and making sense of them, and you can't really.

Speaker 2: 1:02:27

But you can't and that was another point I was going to make is like when you're dealing with someone that you don't know, because you can't get the straight answer, you can't get the clarity you're, you don't want to have any more conversations with them, you don't, you've shut them out of your life and even when they were in it, they couldn't answer questions with clarity and directness. And there's this, you know trusting your gut like something's up, but I don't know what. And even when we come up with that theory of, well, he was hiding this and who knows what could have been on there, you know that would have revealed something that was going on that he knows. I wouldn't have been okay with kind of an example. It's like making peace with maybe it was this. This theory makes sense, this is just a theory, we don't know. And you kind of just decide what makes the most sense and you say I'm gonna go with that's probably what was going on and let it go and even be open to being wrong and it's okay. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:03:33

Yeah, I mean that. That is, I think, understand, understanding post breakup and divorce. All you can do is make up stories and are those stories going to serve you Right? And they don't they. They cause more pain. They can.

Speaker 2: 1:03:49

And yet, at the same time, we, we can't stop ourselves. Those memories will come at you and you'll be like oh yeah, hey, I forgot about that. That really validates what I was thinking about, what was going on. And then you make peace with it and you put it away. And that is part of the grieving process.

Speaker 2: 1:04:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean your question earlier, though to bring it back to that, how do you know when you can trust yourself again? And I think for everyone, really, that's easy. Trusting yourself is easy, even when people say, well, I don't know if I can trust myself. I'm like, I think you do. I think you do, but you ignore it, because you've been trained to question what you know and to ignore your gut and to ignore your intuition and to not see the writing on the wall. And I get it. We're all trained to do that to a certain degree. But you did know, yes, you did know. Yes, you did know. And you know that when you start responding to situations different, that's when you know you're ready to go back out. You've learned a skill that is going to help you not create the same thing over and over again.

Speaker 1: 1:05:16

And I've started to see that in myself. And I think the other thing I say to myself is why would I believe or trust what someone outside of me is saying over my own experience as me and my body and knowing myself, I know the good and I know the bad? By no means do I think I am this perfect person. Sometimes I actually choose to do the wrong thing. Sometimes I'm like this is the right thing and I'm like I'm going to do the wrong thing today, like I. I, I know myself. I don't know what you are really like inside, what you do when you leave. I don't know what my partner I will never know my partner as well as I know myself and I choose to trust myself because I know myself right and the fact that I've self-abandoned in the past self-abandoned, self-abandoned. I've taken someone else's word about who I am and what I want, and I'm not just talking about partners, I'm talking about friends.

Speaker 1: 1:06:20

I had this toxic group of people I was around last year I mean, like last year became just a shit show Everyone telling me you're non-monogamous, you're this, you're anxious, you're that. You know, and I was listening, you know, and I was listening to them telling you who you are. Yeah, I was listening to them. I know who the fuck I am, but I I had self-abandoned so much like I couldn't get back to who I was and that's why this year it's been like all right, then let's burn it to the ground, let's build it back and really like, intentionally, take time to know truly who I am and then never, ever, question her again, right Cause no one's gonna, no one's pulling me away from myself again, no one.

Speaker 1: 1:07:04

If someone walks up to me today who maybe I haven't talked to you and like whatever, like from last year, and they were just like Annette, this is who you are, I would feel very confident in looking at them and like making it clear who I am and, if there was pushback against that, telling them to fuck off.

Speaker 1: 1:07:24

You know, and I have actually run into, bumped into people like that from my past this year, and I've had the opportunity to hold my own and I see that I can do that. So that's a builder of trust for me. So I think in the dating world and I have to be transparent I've had people reach out and want to date me and I've humored it for a short time and I've been really proud of how I have stood on business and drawn lines and when they have crossed those lines, I've you know I made it a learning opportunity for them. They are not in my DMS anymore, um, so I am getting to the point where I'm feeling like I'm feeling like I'm just about there. I told you I went to Nashville. I went to Nashville on my very first get her groove back trip.

Speaker 1: 1:08:22

It was a solo trip that ended in a sexual health and wellness convention that I attended. But I went there for a week in advance just on my own, to check out Nashville, to try and get my groove back, and I wish I met a young woman Alyssa I hope you're out there listening she is 30 that I ended up spending a lot of my days with and we'd go out dancing in the evening. And she said to me one night and I hadn't even noticed I mean, I noticed but I didn't. I thought it was typical and I was with a lot of younger women she said to me she's like, whatever you have, I want it. She's like you have like guys just coming up to you out of nowhere and, you know, approaching you. And I realized I think it's because I didn't care and I was just there and feeling like myself and having fun. But I had started attracting people the young men out there, by the way. God damn, like I have to seriously, I have to start checking IDs. It's fucking weird.

Speaker 2: 1:09:33

What's wrong with young?

Speaker 1: 1:09:34

But how young.

Speaker 2: 1:09:35

I have to do a whole. It's fucking weird.

Speaker 1: 1:09:35

What's wrong with young? But how young. I have to do a whole podcast. I'm under 30?.

Speaker 2: 1:09:39

Yeah, in the 20s, that would make me a little uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 1:09:42

I can't.

Speaker 2: 1:09:43

I go. 12 years is kind of my cutoff mark, but I mean there might be some leeway there. 12 years I mean because basically I was 13 when I started my period and I'm like, if you're 12 years younger or less, I could not have given birth to you. So that is that is. That is where I'm like it is impossible that I could have given birth to you.

Speaker 1: 1:10:09

I'm fucking 50. And I cannot tell you how many young men and I am talking under 30, have approached me, like just approached me and very like, not in a sexually aggressive way but in a very much like hey, will you dance with me? Hey, can I get your number? But in a very much like hey, will you dance with me? Hey, can I get your number. And I've had to say to them at first I asked their age because I don't know like sometimes I'm like they look like they could be in there. Look, I'm mid, mid 30s and up. We're good to go um and mid is negotiable um those could be great, just sex experience not not under earth, or I cannot do 20s, I can't know.

Speaker 1: 1:10:57

And I, you know, I have a 22 year old daughter and we discussed it and she wouldn't like, does it not?

Speaker 2: 1:11:02

no, we try to stay out of each other's dating she's 20, but what if 22, 22, what if he's like 28?

Speaker 1: 1:11:08

no, trust me, I've been, I can't I believe you I'm just saying but isn't the?

Speaker 2: 1:11:13

isn't that the whole cougar thing is? To get a guy in his 20s when you're like in your 50s?

Speaker 1: 1:11:17

Yeah, but I'm not even approaching. I'm not even like the thing is. I'm not even looking for these younger guys.

Speaker 2: 1:11:22

They're looking for you though.

Speaker 1: 1:11:24

It is a new thing. I guess it's a trend. There are trends out there that this is happening. The 20 early 30 year old guys, men, who have approached me and I've had multiple experiences over the last several months have been so chivalrous and nice and when I have said you know, I've said I'm like, I'm 50. They are so cool, I mean it usually never ends there. They're like I don't care, I'm like, but I do, I like. I appreciate that, but like, sorry, I can't. And they're so cool about it and chivalrous. Usually we continue to talk in Nashville. We continue to talk in Nashville.

Speaker 1: 1:12:17

So I had multiple younger men approach me. One was amazing and thankfully walked me back to my hotel room that night, left me at the door, no problem. I was also approached by a man that was closer to my age I think he was in his forties one night, who also offered me to walk me back to my room. He got completely trashed. I had the hardest time getting him to accept a no. He did not treat me with the same respect at all. In fact, I would say, largely speaking, my experience with men in their 40s up to in their 50s this year who have approached me either via DMs or in person. I have not experienced the level of respect that these younger men have given me, which, thank God for my younger sisters. I'm just like. It's hard Sometimes. You're like God damn it, I'm missing out on this new hopefully, what is a new era of men. But I'm also super hopeful for younger women who are heterosexual and stuck with dating men. I'm also. I've got options. But the contrast of how the age groups have treated me since I've been working on getting my group back.

Speaker 1: 1:13:30

I didn't fuck anyone in Nashville guys, I didn't. I flirted a lot. I may have had a couple makeouts on the dance floor. I did, I definitely did that. The men were hot. There wasn't really an LGBTQ scene there, but I didn't. And that was another moment where I'm like wow, I have healed, like I was like no, I want to go home and go to bed by myself. I want to protect my peace. It was fun to flirt and touch and like little gropey gropey, but I'm like I'm just here to get my groove back. I'm not here to like you know, I don't know, I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for that.

Speaker 2: 1:14:19

This is making me think about this thing I saw. You know, sometimes you're scrolling and you just see things you know on the Internet. There was this guy talking about women you know older women in particular and the way they are, and it's interesting, here's a man talking about women's sexuality. So I wasn't necessarily expecting to have what he said resonate for me, but it did. And he said a woman who is pursuing the achievement of her highest self, that is, her number one goal, will not be able to connect physically with someone who is not matching her vibration. I think that's where I'm at. She will feel sick in her body when she entertains the idea of trying to connect with these people. And I'm like that's how I've been feeling, like I, you know, I look around, I look, I look at people, I check them out and you know, and people talk to me and people have shown interest and and I now I'm like, no, they're not a match, they can't match my vibration and that just sounds gross.

Speaker 2: 1:15:45

So in the past, I would have just kind of accepted the lowered vibration, right. The thing this person added is that a woman who follows this instinct will be happy celibate. She will not need someone who doesn't fulfill the standard. That's what I'm doing. I'm just doing my work and maybe I'll meet a person who can match my vibration, but I'm not holding my breath and I'm okay with that. It's. I don't need a partner.

Speaker 1: 1:16:17

For my listeners. You've probably heard of my sub stack. I created a sub stack where I'm sharing more intimate stories. Some of them are for free and some of them are behind a paywall because they're spicy and there's some spicy photos and if you scroll down you'll see the link below.

Speaker 1: 1:16:34

But I shared one last week because I had my first interaction with somebody who matched my vibrational level, matched me where I was at, in sort of our knowledge base around an interest in things, like someone that I knew and for many, many reasons, this is not somebody that I would ever be able to or will ever be able to be in relationship or connect with in person, but but it was really interesting because it lit something up in me and what it did was it gave me and, look, I only it's not like I interacted a lot with this person, so certainly I know that I've idealized that interaction, but it also gave me this cool marker of an experience and it and it helped me know there are people out there who are going to match sort of where I'm at and and I'm not just talking about, you know, we can say vibration, which is very sort of wooey, but like my pursuit for my self-growth, my inner world, my belief in the power of my sexuality the power of the pussy I call it, but really it's sexual power and where that can take me on just a spiritual, personal level, someone who matches that kind of pursuit, that understanding, enthusiasm, drive, sexuality. And I think I've often thought to myself myself. It's going to be really hard to find a partner because a the content I create and my and and my ultimate belief in, like pursuing the power of women's sexuality and spreading the word about it and being ultra open, how am I going to find someone who un really gets that and is okay with it and supports me and can be on board right and I just I now I know like there I'm. There are other people out there who are like me, who um will understand me, who will be on similar paths, maybe different topics or whatever, but at a similar place in life where we can connect and gel and support each other. And I need to not be impatient to find that. And if I don't find that, then I need to just stay on my mission and I do like I've. I love fucking myself.

Speaker 1: 1:19:11

Actually, if you look around my room you'll see little Easter eggs of toys I'm reviewing. There's one behind your shoulder that people could see. Anyways, in almost every photo I put up, I'm like God, I didn't move that sex toy. But I do know I definitely crave touch and sexual intimacy with somebody else. I've just got to figure out, until I find the partner of my dreams, how I'm going to choose to engage by introducing intimacy with someone else that's unhealthy or that that is confusing into my life, right? Um, and that's where I'm kind of stuck right now. Um, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready to date, mostly because I know that dating means that I'm probably going to be intimate with people who it's going to be trial and error. It's not like I'm going to go out and date and just meet the perfect person.

Speaker 2: 1:20:22

What constitutes dating to you? I like to sell this idea of being friends. If someone is your friend, even if there is a physical attraction, you can choose to act or not act on it. I'm just at a stage in my life you know where I don't. I'm not really available for a relationship. I'm available for friendships. Friendships are different. Friendships don't have the same expectations. They don't have the same standards and you know, are they friends that can touch your pussy.

Speaker 2: 1:20:58

I have one I'm really comfortable with, but it's been a while. It's been a while since I've allowed that and when I was thinking about, you know, doing that again, it's like fleeting, you know, it's like I think I need to schedule some time with this person, maybe even for that purpose, and then, by the time it started to come around, I'm like this isn't going to work and I'm getting like all these signs like it's, you know, like I shouldn't do this right now, like it's not the right time.

Speaker 1: 1:21:25

I've not, no one, no one has slept with me in my bed. I mean, I've had a lot of sleepovers with one of the things that I love that's happened since being single is so. My daughter spends the night with me several nights a week. We have sleepovers usually a couple nights a week. I have friends who come over and I'll do like girlfriend sleepovers. No, no, no. Pillow fights, no playing with each other, no sex, kind of old school fun sleepovers. But yeah, I've not.

Speaker 1: 1:21:57

I have not had sex in my bed and I was thinking about that the other day. It wasn't something I've done, you know. It's not like I've thought to myself. I'm not having my sex in my bed with anyone until I'm healed and I find the right person, or anything like that. But what I've been thinking about what a sacred space I've created for myself. So on the rewinding to the healing stuff is I rearranged my own place. When I was like talking about putting effort, you know, rerouting love into myself, I started refurnishing my place. I started like all all new, new art went up. If there was something that I'm like I need this for organization, I bought it. I've really created this space for myself that feels like safe and and it's a, it's a space for healing, and I'm like so protective, like I do not need to invite toxicity into my bed. Yeah, I love my bed and everyone who sleeps in bed with me is always like god, this is so comforting.

Speaker 2: 1:23:12

I'm like, yes, I can't let anyone new into my house. You haven't.

Speaker 2: 1:23:21

No no, and I mean when my marital separation did go down, I had I definitely had people who were very much there for me, people traveling from across the country or from another country to support me and be present with me, people that I've known for a very long time most of them female, by and large most of them female and one had a partner who was being toxic, in my opinion, who wanted to come with her, and I'd never met this person and I said no, I don't want a man I've never met walking through my front door. I just I can't even have them in my house.

Speaker 1: 1:24:11

So yeah, have you noticed fluctuations in your libido since breaking up?

Speaker 2: 1:24:19

yes, absolutely, and I think that, um, I do think it's an improvement because in the marriage in the last few years it was not a happy place, it was hard to be there and so that's a real dampener on a libido and so being free from that, even though it comes with a lot of grief and depression and menopause, for me those are all influencing factors. It did improve because now I feel like I'm more in a position of power. There is no obligation when I engage on a sexual level.

Speaker 1: 1:25:09

Right, so you're saying you have more of a libido now it's it's, or you're more comfortable with whatever your libido is now.

Speaker 2: 1:25:17

It's more something, it's more pure, it's more clear it's, and when I feel it it's more, I have more awareness of it. I'm not sure the quantity of it is changed much, but but I it's definitely better, I'd say it's better.

Speaker 1: 1:25:44

Post breakup. It's so funny If I look at that period Directly after the breakup, to my awakening to the depth of my grief and loss, I don't even know that I was listening to my body enough to know what my libido was saying. And then, when I woke up to the grief and loss, it was like my libido was on hold and I was doing maintenance masturbation. I was also using masturbation and orgasm. I like to use the word self-pleasure because the origins of the word masturbation is yucky, but I was using self-pleasure to process grief which is something I want to do a whole podcast on and what that looks like.

Speaker 1: 1:26:36

But it's like literally building an orgasm and then, as you orgasm, like allowing that orgasm to like pull the grief up and out of you with breath which is intense, it's like the most intense purging, but I was kind of forcing myself to have. Like it's been a couple days. You've got to masturbate, you've got to touch yourself, you've got to have an orgasm. Those you know, all of the good chemicals will help you with your mood, blah, blah and how. I think I know I'm in a and I'm not. I'm not going to say I'm healed right now and I don't know how long it will be until I'm fully healed, but I know that I'm in a much more healed place now because my libido is uncomfortably high. My orgasms are fucking amazing. I feel more sexual and sensual now than I have perhaps in my whole life. I am 50 and, oddly enough, I am wetter than I've been perhaps in my whole life. So that makes me wonder if because I do think that I've I think I've not only been healing this relationship.

Speaker 1: 1:27:51

As I've said before, I've been healing my core wounds, been healing my core wounds and I wonder how much of the challenges I've had with the getting wet and orgasm were really tied to those core wounds and as I'm like healing them, my body is like, all right, well, now I can let down, let go, we can get wet, we can get, we can get, you know. But sometimes it's annoying Cause I'll be like working in the middle of the day and I'll have to. I have to go masturbate Cause I'm just like my. It's annoying because I'll be like working in the middle of the day and I'll have to. I have to go masturbate because I'm just like my. It's not even like in my head that I'm sexier, I want someone. It's like my pussy will be like yelling for attention down there. So I'm taking that as almost a measurement of healing for me.

Speaker 2: 1:28:33

Yeah, well, you, yeah, it definitely is, and you've done so much work around nurturing a strong drive, it makes sense that it would absolutely be paying off now.

Speaker 1: 1:28:48

Now is the time. Yeah, dude, I I can have. I have never been able to access my G spot and my A spot and have blended orgasms and deep like earth shattering multi orgasms like I can. Now. You're way advanced from me that you need to be fully healed and done with grieving before you start to date meaningfully and have sex meaningfully I'm not talking junk food sex again or do you feel like you can start dating and seeking out that meaningful sex while sort of continuing Do?

Speaker 2: 1:29:38

I need to fully heal. No, like I don't even know what fully healed means or be done grieving. I think to a degree I could date, I could go on a date and have sex now, but that's it. Like I can't. And it's not that I'm not healed enough to be in a relationship although that might be true. That's not the number one and only thing holding me back. I just have a lot of other things I need to be focusing on, my healing being one of them.

Speaker 2: 1:30:22

Being one of them and my idea of a relationship that I would even want to be in has dramatically changed, and so I think that I do need some more things in place to really try. You know, because I do think that I would pursue relationships. I think I'm, I've been, a relationship oriented person, and I still am right now. You think you would, I, I, well, I think one of the reasons I'm staying away from connecting with people on a romantic or sexual level is because you, I, I know I can't control the outcome for them. I can control myself and my decisions. I can decide whether or not to engage, but things can go wonky really fast, you know, and I've already had to deal with, you know, someone's moving a lot faster than I'm comfortable. Someone you know I mean more than one person has already shown up and went. I'm in love with you. I want to be with you, I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

Speaker 2: 1:31:25

Oh you know, and it's like that I Wow, I mean I just don't even. I can't say yes or no. I'm just kind of like I mean it is a no, but it's like I'm not there. I am so not there.

Speaker 2: 1:31:42

And then you've got this imbalance and let's say, it's a really nice, good person that you'd still you'd like to have in your life. And now you've got this they're madly in love with you. You're not madly in love with them. And you know you can't, you can't hurt people, you can't keep people on a line, you can't, you don't want to take advantage of people, and so, and then that takes energy for me to have to deal with. And I just wanted to maybe have sex or wanted to go on a date, and it it quickly snowballs into something you have to deal with.

Speaker 2: 1:32:17

I mean, relationships are work. Respecting people, you know, and loving them takes an effort and time. That I I love to do when I have the time and energy to do it, and it's a disservicing them and it's kind it becomes a pain, pain for me when energies can't be matched. See, that's the thing is. Like I could meet 20 people tomorrow, you know, in a speed dating thing, and probably none of them will be able to match my energy. And then I just wasted a whole day trying to connect with someone who couldn't match my energy. Then I just wasted a whole day trying to connect with someone who couldn't match my energy. I'm like I'm going to stop looking for someone who can match my energy right now Because because my energy is low.

Speaker 1: 1:33:06

So you know, when you decide to date again, what methods will you use to meet people? I am only doing meeting people in the wild.

Speaker 2: 1:33:15

I have already thought about that. I am only doing meeting people in the wild. I have already thought about that. Yeah, and I do think and this is something I might experiment with not like asking people out or trying to date, but just trying to talk to strangers more. I'm a very introverted person but I'm not shy, so I can. I'm not afraid of people in terms of going up to them and saying hello or hi, how are you? You know, I like and I'm starting to run again. I really fell out of shape, but you know, sometimes I go out running and I'm like people wave at you with runners, you know, say hi, but they don't want to stop their workout. You know, sometimes I'm like I should just stop somebody once and say, hey, my, you know what's your name, and and like I should just stop somebody once and say hey, what's your name, and actually have a conversation.

Speaker 2: 1:34:02

Yeah, meeting people out in the wild, yeah, and having a conversation and getting into a space where you're ready to be connecting with people in person and practicing habits that will allow that.

Speaker 2: 1:34:15

I think most people online they're not ready, they're not ready, they're hiding and it's easy to falsify who you are, and it's those algorithms and all of those. Those websites are actually geared to keep you in the dating market. They're not really trying to help you find somebody. And so I like the idea, like in my wildest fantasies. I like the idea of like having, like being on a reality dating show, like where you actually are, like dating people in person that were picked for you for compatibility reasons. I mean, I would never get on one. There are matchmakers there are matchmakers.

Speaker 1: 1:35:03

Yeah, so there's that. I think that app dating is for people who aren't healed and ready to actually be in relationships. I don't know, that's my experience I've just only had. I don't think I have any good good, I don't have any good experiences. I'm saying that right now and then I'll be done recording this and say, oh well, this was good, but I'm still single. So clearly not, I definitely am not doing apps. Again, I am pretty good at approaching people and or giving off the energy that makes me approachable. I think I'm just going to stick with that. Now to wrap this up, what I want to do is for each of us to take a turn, sharing for listeners. What would be your top advice to people women who are just out of a divorce right now and wanting to heal and like, have all of these questions about like where do I start and how do I move on?

Speaker 2: 1:36:04

Um, I think committing to yourself is the way I think Committing to, yeah, don't start dating again, don't? I mean I'm going to say, don't jump back into the dating pool, don't try to find someone right away. Minimally one year, I think, is a good standard, but it's way okay if it's a lot more. I know I mean, I'm a counselor, so I'm like I think counseling can help a lot of people, but I know it's not for everybody and it can be hard finding a counselor that's going to be a good fit for you, and so I know that oftentimes, right after a devastating end, energy is low and it's really hard to even arrange that. So start listening to your gut, start paying attention to who is doing right by you in your life, who is there for you, who's helping you to feel good about you and yourself. Stay away from romantic and sexual connections for a period of time. You decide and work on a self-love journey and, yeah, you'll get there. Little by little, step by step, you'll start to see the path you're supposed to go down.

Speaker 1: 1:37:22

Yeah, I. So I'm going to share my own thoughts on that, which are don't jump in to something else right away and don't measure how you're doing against what anyone else has done, especially if you are orbiting and checking out your ex's information and stuff like that to see what they're doing. A don't do that to yourself. B just because your ex moves on to someone else and is with someone else doesn't mean anything. Remember anything you're thinking about. That is a story you're making up and it doesn't mean anything. Remember anything you're thinking about. That is a story you're making up and it doesn't serve you. Take time to heal, Work on rebuilding your life. You can do that while you're grieving. Ask for help. I learned to ask for help this year. I learned to ask for help this year. I ask for help a lot. I have a group chat with all of my girlfriends when my shit falls apart on occasion these days. But before I would put an SOS out to my friends, I've reached out to my friends and I've said, dude, I'm in it right now. I just need, I need like I need to touch somebody. I just need, I need, like I need to touch somebody. I need, I just need. I need someone to just hold me up for you know an hour, two hours, and always have had someone show up. Learn to ask for help.

Speaker 1: 1:38:49

But, most important, I always am talking about self-love and self-trust. You have to become your own best friend. You have to become your own best friend. You have to become your own best advocate. You have to become your own best lover. You have to become your own best defender. And you have to learn to trust yourself.

Speaker 1: 1:39:08

And I know you're like where do I even start? And you start by asking for help. You start by getting honest with yourself. You start by raw dogging the fucking grief. Sit in it, feel it and be the person who stands, do it out loud, like I, literally and I do this to this day. Like I said, I sit and when I'm feeling the grief, I stop everything and I will do it.

Speaker 1: 1:39:37

When I'm out and about in public, If I have to go to the bathroom, if I have to find a private place, fine. But I just stop and I'm like, oh, this feels fucking hard right now. And I'm like this is hard and you have been through a lot and you have every right to be heartbroken in this moment, Like you lost love, you lost a person. That person is technically dead to you, and not just that person. A whole life just vanished and this is fucking hard. It's fucking hard and it's sad. It's also really, it's really sad. Be the person that comforts you, Be the person that loves on you and gives you permission and that says to anyone else who tries to take that permission to fuck off.

Speaker 2: 1:40:29

Being fuck off in general feels really good.

Speaker 1: 1:40:32

God Fuck off.

Speaker 2: 1:40:33

I just like to get those scam texts from people where they're like pretending they got the wrong number, just type fuck off.

Speaker 1: 1:40:41

Say fuck off.

Speaker 2: 1:40:42

It feels really good yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:40:45

Just be an advocate, yeah, and do the work and give yourself as much time as you want, and not dating and not fucking new people all the time. Not, it doesn't mean you're behind or that you're any less further along the path. In fact, it means that you're like, you're elevating your process a little bit. So, and remember you, you don't just have to heal from that relationship. You got to figure out what the core wound is that underlies it. So, um, grieve and know that it's okay to be grieving, and know that it may you may be grieving two years from now, but you're not gonna, it's not gonna hurt like it does in the beginning. I know that I will probably continue to feel pangs of grief off and on for some time now, but I am like I'm at this point now where I'm like it's less and less and I'm going to find joy and pleasure and excitement and romance at the same time. I think in the near future that those things are going to start entering my sphere of reality.

Speaker 2: 1:41:56

Yeah, I don't think they're in my near future, that's okay.

Speaker 1: 1:42:01

I don't know that the person is, but I know I'm going to be able to be open to it again. I know my little heart is starting to go and then it closes back up and then it opens, kind of like this little flower cake it opens.

Speaker 2: 1:42:16

I'm open but I'm skeptical, I think that's. I mean, I'm open now, but I'm like skeptical.

Speaker 1: 1:42:22

I kind of want to like, but I do. I kind of want to start having regular sex again. Sometimes I have to admit I'm going to be honest with you. This is about as honest as I'm going to get. I miss regular sex and my last relationship was long distance but still I knew I was regularly getting set. I I am hoping I really want a relationship where I'm getting sex like several times a week like good, like you know yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2: 1:42:54

I don't want that right now. I don't need that right now.

Speaker 1: 1:42:57

I want the dopamine rush and the oxytocin dump that comes when I feel someone's body pressed up against mine, what I want is someone.

Speaker 2: 1:43:08

I feel that there's this mutual excitement just to be in each other's company, just to be in each other's company, and I want someone that I can laugh and have fun with all of the time, and I think I'm going to want to fuck the shit out of that person. But that the sex isn't what's first, I want to find someone who wants Can they happen.

Speaker 2: 1:43:34

At the same time they can, but I feel like what I'm looking for is someone who I'm so in sync with, someone that I click with so hard, and that there's mutual love that is so strong that we would still want to be with each other more than anyone else if sex weren't an option. Like I, want a relationship that transcends the sexual needs, and that is what I'm looking for and I want to feel secure while it's all happening.

Speaker 1: 1:44:09

I don't want I. I want that, I. I don't. I'm not interested in yummy sex that feels insecure. I'm not interested in romance that feels insecure. I want it all and I want to feel the security I feel right now and I'm not dumb. I know that in life there's going to be like some insecurity, but I'm not. I am not right. I'm not engaging in something that the underlying feeling is constantly insecure Fuck that shit.

Speaker 2: 1:44:37

Fuck that noise man.

Speaker 1: 1:44:41

So we I think we've traversed the topics. So what is what? What is it like for women after the traumatic ending of a significant relationship? It's a fucking shit show.

Speaker 2: 1:44:55

It's, yeah, it's. It's a state of trauma. Trauma You're's a fucking shit show. It's, yeah, it's a state of trauma. Trauma You're in a state of trauma. I just think the metaphor of the car wreck is really good. You've just been in a car accident. You're assessing injuries.

Speaker 1: 1:45:09

Yeah, the depth and extent, the first thing you need to.

Speaker 2: 1:45:12

you keep people in your life who say you were just in an accident, you need to go to the doctor right now. Those are the people you keep in your life.

Speaker 1: 1:45:20

And I'm going to be here for you.

Speaker 2: 1:45:21

You were just in an accident. Let's go on a date. Those are the people you get rid of.

Speaker 1: 1:45:28

Or how long till you're healed so we can go out and party. Yeah, that's not good. That is do fuck those people. You want the people who are going to be like I'm going to bring you soup, I'm going to bring you cake. I'm going to come over and, like help you, ice your back or give you a little leg massage, if your legs are sore those are the people you keep in your life, and everybody else can go to hell.

Speaker 1: 1:45:50

And then you love on yourself, right, because you're lovable and you deserve love. But it's going to be messy and, just like this conversation, it's not going to be linear. In fact, I think this conversation perfectly mimics the healing process because it's such a all. It's all over the place yeah and um. But you can find love again when you're still summing up that grieving you don't. It doesn't have to be done to move on, it's just you have to figure out when you're healed enough to start opening up again. Two things can happen at the same time. Two things can be true at the same time. You can still be grieving and still ready to fall in love again or get laid, fuckeded, whatever it is you need. So that's it. That's it. Uh, are we going to cheers out? We ate some. I ate some cake Cheers. Uh, until next time, listeners, I'll see you in the locker room.

Speaker 2: 1:46:53

Ring loop.