Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] By far one of the most difficult parts of relationships is the breaking up process. And whether or not you should break up or you should even have the conversation with your partner about it, not talking about it and keeping it all to yourself will likely be one of the most devastating things you can do to yourself and even more so to your partner.
[00:00:22] Hi, my name is Tari from closeness.com. i'm a relationship expert, a sex and intimacy coach, and, and generally I'm known for helping people get together, stay together, and have more meaningful and impactful sex, closeness and intimacy in their relationships. But it turns out that that same warm and empathetic tone that helps bring people together is also extremely helpful. And what people often need when they're debating or needing help with whether or not to break up.
[00:00:50] Usually this involves some type of mediation, getting it all out on the table, figuring out what's what, figuring out what's true. And so a lot of people come to see me on the verge of a breakup or when they're trying to figure out whether they should or shouldn't, or someone's been holding on to a secret and they don't quite know how to articulate it and they want help getting out of the relationship.
[00:01:14] So this podcast is dedicated to breaking up and how to address it. If you're thinking about it, breaking up isn't fun for anyone, and it could be an extremely emotional process, even for me. But there's something so necessary about getting to the truth of your situation that it cannot be avoided.
[00:01:35] And I think that knowing is better than not knowing, that bringing truth to light is what matters. And that when you get clear on what's actually happening, know not worried about it, not paranoid about it, or anxious, freaking out when you're clear, oh, my partner doesn't love me anymore. Oh, my partner's not feeling it. Oh, they've been wanting to get out of this for quite some time. Well, the first reason why someone might break up is because someone cheated. And here only a handful of things happen. Someone stays or they leave because cheating is absolutely unacceptable, or cheating means many things to many people. So some people stay in it while one person continues to cheat in many different ways and the other person can continues to deal with it. And that is its own can of worms to untangle as to why people do that. The second reason people tend to break up is because of some form of abuse. And here too, you can do an entire episode on this because you have emotional abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and sometimes both people are feeling like they're being abused. This also will not be covered in this episode. Number three. You might be in a codependent relationship, addicted to one another, but you both are like hot oil and water. You don't see eye to eye. You argue about everything. Everything's always a problem. Someone's always in fight or flight, or both of you are. Someone's always angry or upset or hurt or disappointed. And these relationships by far can be the most seedy and shady because people stay in them, because there's love. I love the person. I care about the person. We have so much history. We've gone through all this together.
[00:03:10] And that also will not be what this episode is about.
[00:03:14] But then we get to number four, and this is where couples grow apart, where they've become different people.
[00:03:21] Sometimes they've been married for religious reasons. Maybe you're high school sweethearts. Maybe you got together when you were 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and now you're still together in your 30s, 40s, or 50s. Maybe you haven't been with anyone else except this one partner. Or the worst situation of that is where the male partner has only been with one woman and that's his wife and she's been with other men and knows what else is out there and knows what it's like. But what winds up happening and what the core of this episode is about is somebody wants something different.
[00:03:58] Someone has grown out of the relationship and usually it's the female partner who wants more.
[00:04:08] More experiences, more sex, intensity. This is coupled with the belief that she doesn't believe her current partner can give it to her. And we'll get to this later. But a sneak peek of what that translates to is that no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries to step up, she doesn't want it to be him.
[00:04:32] She loves him, she cares about him, and at the same time she feels done with him.
[00:04:40] So this is precisely what we're going to explore today are situations like this. I'm probably going to be speaking about it as though it's the woman breaking up with the man, but it certainly could be a man breaking up with the woman or a woman breaking up with another woman, a man breaking up with the man. But I'm going to start with a very interesting premise. What causes the most pain in these kinds of situations and what is the most devastating is very specifically the things that women tend to do naturally and often think that it's the right thing to do, such as not wanting to hurt their partner and not wanting to talk about it. With their partner, meaning cue them in to what they're feeling and what's going on.
[00:05:24] So they keep it a secret, they hold it in, and they don't tell him anything for weeks, months and years, sometimes decades. The truth of what's happening is that she's being secretive.
[00:05:39] What she thinks she's doing is figuring it out in her head. And I understand.
[00:05:45] Why would you want to blow up your marriage, your relationship, your engagement, your family, if you don't know yet if you're doing the right thing?
[00:05:55] I'm not feeling it anymore. I don't know what this is. I don't know what we're doing. We may need to break up and just vomit out emotion and think that they were being honest and truthful and their partner should just deal with it. Because that's obviously going to cause a major problem in the relationship. If a woman specifically communicated to me that she doesn't know if we should be together anymore and then the next day forgot about it like it was nothing, I wouldn't forget about it. That would sit with me for the rest of the relationship, and I'd be wondering, should I be walking on eggshells? There's merit to not wanting to destroy your engagement, blow up your marriage, and so on and so forth. So it's both unhealthy to just say immediately what you're feeling and thinking, but you're also being secretive and keeping your partner in the dark while you are figuring it out, while you're processing it. So a woman often leaves a man completely in the dark. And this is the thing that has to be understood by both parties. If you're a man listening, that means it's very likely, if you're in a situation like this, that your woman has been thinking about breaking up with you for weeks, months, maybe even years. It's been rattling around in her mind, but she hasn't spoken it. And maybe you're afraid to bring it to light.
[00:07:09] So what this will wind up feeling like is that you have the rug pulled out from underneath you.
[00:07:15] It's going to be completely news to you. While for her, it's going to be something that she's thinking and thinking and thinking about. And, boy, do women like to take their time when processing emotion and working on things like this. Her entire friend group may know, or just her best friend may know, or her family may know, or maybe she keeps it all into herself. The second premise that everyone needs to understand, and I really think this needs to be said candidly, and it needs to Just be accepted as truth rather than having a reaction or judgment to it. And that is that women are very, very secretive, that most women hide everything.
[00:07:55] Let's talk about the things that they can't help but hide.
[00:07:59] Their sexual ornamentation is hidden. Whether they're aroused or not for most people is completely hidden unless you know what to look for. In many cases, women are, I'm going to say it, born to hide things. And some women, believe it or not, absolutely love and thrive on keeping things hidden. I'm not saying all women, I'm saying some.
[00:08:21] But almost all women hide things. Let's look at this further.
[00:08:25] When you see girls talking, do you see them boastfully speaking about the relationships or do you see them hush, hush, whisper, whisper. If you are a brother or a father or a cousin or an uncle and you have females in your house, do you ever see them close the door, go to the bathroom together, run off together, sit in groups and huddle and then look around and then be like whispering to one another.
[00:08:51] Everything is secret.
[00:08:52] Who they like, how they feel about. Even if they like you as a man, they don't want you to know specifically. They're asking all their girlfriends, what should I do? Oh my gosh, I don't know. He texted me this. What should I say?
[00:09:03] Everything happens in a secret. That's another subject we can make an entire episode about. But unfortunately it doesn't change or help the case much. For a breakup. A woman is doing it in secret and privately. Now, a reason for that might be feeling unsafe, which by the way, that phrase can be used as a catch all for anything. Why didn't you tell me the truth? Oh, I felt unsafe. Why weren't you honest about where you were? Oh, I felt unsafe. I felt like I couldn't tell my husband. Why did you do what you did? Oh, I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel safe. So it is a bit of a knee jerk response. And in today's society, what almost all women love to pretend will happen does not happen. That someone's going to be an axe murderer if they tell the truth. But more to the point, I think a lot of women are fearful and scared easily about being honest with themselves, honest with their partner, and they're fearful of the consequences. Now, just because consequences does not lead to physical violence, it doesn't mean it won't lead to her feeling scared, worried, concerned, upset, losing her relationship. If a man is taking financial care of her and she's not working and she has to be honest about not wanting to be in this anymore. There's a lot at stake. So again, it's understandable but secretive.
[00:10:18] For the next section, let's talk about why a person, and more specifically a woman, might blow up her engagement, her relationship, or her marriage because she wants something different or other than what her current relationship has. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that nine times out of 10. And in almost every situation, a woman has an idea of what hot, passionate sex and intimacy and closeness and feeling desired looks like. So not just penetration, not just how many orgasms she has or doesn't have, but she has an idea and it hits her like a ton of bricks. Because we live in the age of the Internet, women have read books, watched movies, watched porn, seen the look on other women's faces, understood from other women and men what an exciting or passionate relationship can look like.
[00:11:16] And I believe that women hunger for that more than almost anything once safety and security has been established. Sometimes that doesn't even matter.
[00:11:30] Sometimes that pull for hot, passionate sex, chemistry, lovemaking, banging, whatever you want to call it, is so overwhelming that a woman can hardly think about anything else. And so she's at odds. Do I cheat? Do I explore this? Do I put my foot on the gas pedal and allow my energy to open up and be flirted with by other men?
[00:11:57] Be engaged with, Be intimate in some little way that maybe is an indiscretion.
[00:12:05] Like, is it really bad if she just hangs out or talks or texts and then it turns into sex and then it turns into more? I mean, because men are always going to want more. A man is always, always, always, always, always going to push for more until he gets more.
[00:12:21] And here again, a whole other discussion episode. And then sometimes he pulls back immediately if all he wanted was sex.
[00:12:28] So a woman's quandary in breaking up with a good man and a partner who she's been with, where maybe the sex isn't even bad, maybe it's not horrible, maybe it's not terrible, or maybe she can't stand being touched by him. But the quandary, the difficulty is, do I lose my best friend? Do I lose my life partner?
[00:12:47] Do I devastate him? Is my partner going to die?
[00:12:52] Some clients have actually come in and been worried that if they leave that their partner may commit an atrocious act. Is my partner going to be okay? Am I going to be okay?
[00:13:02] You'll always hear me say in this podcast and in our private sessions together that two things can be true at the Same time.
[00:13:09] This is a little bit where women compromise their soul. And also, you have to really, really, really, really think, do I want to lose all of this?
[00:13:19] For the possibility of a hot, passionate, what?
[00:13:24] Fling? Encounter Relationship lovers.
[00:13:28] Next guy you meet. There's absolutely no guarantees that the next guy you meet is going to be the one who bangs you out the right way, who blows your back out, who makes you come just by being close to him, who excites you and teases you and brings out that side of you. There's no guarantee. And if he does, by some stretch do any of those things, there's no guarantee that that man is not doing it with 1, 5, 10 other people, or that he's a very poor choice for you in a relationship, or he's not the person you'd want to marry or have kids with or live with, or he cannot be one that you can settle down with. This is what a woman constantly has to juggle. But still, that pull. And for those of you listening just the podcast, I'm, like, tugging my shirt in one direction. It's like a hook around your neck, and someone's just pulling and pulling it. You can't ignore it.
[00:14:18] If a woman has already decided in her head and in her heart that she wants something else. Yes, it's true that women are very adaptable, and they could be roped back in or convinced to stay, or the guy can try harder. But most women know that there's, like, a threshold that. By the way, I think the threshold for a woman is way less than what a man will endure before he breaks up with a partner. I think men tend to stay in relationships. Oh, it's not that bad. Or, gosh, she said happy birthday on my birthday. But women, especially in today's culture, of what they deserve and what's expected and what they think they are. And most women think they're much more special than men. There's sort of an ode feeling. I'm not saying all of you have that, but it is prevalent in our culture. I look at, look at me, look at how I look. I deserve to be ravished. I deserve to have this, that, and the other. But once a woman finally puts that line in the sand and says, I'm going to break up with him, or I can't do this anymore, or I need to get out of this, let's just say, guys, many, many months have gone by, many months where she's been thinking, thinking, thinking about it. The sex hasn't been good. The communication hasn't been Good. You both are feeling something's up, but no one's doing anything about it.
[00:15:37] She draws a line in the sand. She lets you know she needs to get out. Or she sugarcoats a little bit. I don't think I can do this anymore.
[00:15:44] I want to be on the other side of this. I want to get out of this. I don't know how to articulate this, but she's done.
[00:15:51] And as a man, you are spiraling, trying to play catch up to. I'm sorry, what?
[00:16:00] I thought we'd been married for 10 years.
[00:16:03] I thought we were going to be together forever. We have children together. We were going to have children. I thought we were getting married.
[00:16:10] I thought we were everything.
[00:16:13] Everyone admires us. Everyone thinks we're the cutest couple.
[00:16:18] Everything changes. The man spirals out of control in one way or another. Mentally, physically, emotionally. It hurts. He gets angry. He doesn't understand.
[00:16:30] And here's the cincher, because now he wants to try to make it right. And that's what I'm here for, right? My company is called closeness. I help people come together and share closeness and be close and stay close. But if a woman has decided and a man starts moving towards her, she's moving away. If he starts chasing and she's pulling back, there's just no hope.
[00:16:53] If he tries to become the man that she wanted him to be for months, weeks and years, it almost never works. It looks like placating, trying too hard. And also there's this huge power discrepancy where she's now got the keys. She's like, I'll give you one more chance. But if it doesn't work, I'm done.
[00:17:14] How can a man feel empowered, masculine, confident, dominant, decisive, if he already feels like he's losing power in the relationship? He has a sense that she wants to go have sex with other people. Maybe she has someone else. Maybe she's been with someone else. Everyone's mind goes crazy racing with these thoughts. And he somehow supposed to step up and be the man that she wants to be. Almost impossible. And I teach men how to do that. When couples come to see me, I show men how to be more assertive, more confident, have eye contact, how to be more enticing and seductive, how to bring out their erotic creature, how to make them want to be sexual. But in this unique situation, sometimes that woman doesn't even want him to touch her anymore. Doesn't want to be sexual or close or cozy or intimate. Sometimes she just wants out. But she's being Another very dangerous thing. She's being nice.
[00:18:15] I submit to you all that nobody wants a nice guy, nobody wants a nice girl. I don't want to ever interact with a woman who wants nothing to do with me. But she's being nice.
[00:18:28] So, you know, she went ahead and did it. She went ahead and stayed an extra 10 minutes or talked to me anyway. I don't want any part of that. And I don't think you should either.
[00:18:37] No matter how much you love your partner, no matter how much you think she loves you. I don't think there's a world where you should be dealing with or putting up with. Nice kind is different. Loving, supportive, sweet, nurturing.
[00:18:53] All those things are great.
[00:18:55] Now this entire relationship is between a rock and a hard place. Some information was just dropped on you. You're a solver, you're a go getter, you're working hard. You want to fix it, you can't fix it, or it feels like you can't. Any neediness now that a man demonstrates towards a woman is also sexually unattractive. What happened? What did I do wrong? How can I be better? What. What can I do to fix this? I want to stay in this. How can I? What if I.
[00:19:20] And this has the shocking effect of making a woman withdraw and pull back further.
[00:19:28] Sometimes a woman seeing a man's pain about this makes her pull back further for a couple of reasons.
[00:19:35] She might be disgusted with herself or self hatred or really put off that what she's saying and doing is causing him this much pain and she can't handle might trigger previous trauma or previous emotions or and this one's really insidious.
[00:19:53] She might be completely turned off and repulsed at seeing that weakness. And I'm not saying you should never cry in front of your woman. And certainly during a breakup might be the appropriate time, but her seeing that weakness might be very unappealing as well. It might be the first time she's seen him cry or break down or hurt. I don't teach that. Men need to always be dominant and always be aggressive and always be showing their masculinity and never be soft. There's room for softness.
[00:20:21] But when that sexuality is missing and that sexual aspect is gone, it's harder for a woman to see you as masculine. When the power dynamic shifts like that and you are beneath her in terms of your sadness or hurting or she doesn't even want that much power, but she's having that effect on you anyway. I'm sure you can tell from hearing all this stuff it Gets very convoluted and confusing. But one thing is certain. And man to man, if you're listening to this, you were to come ask me, what would you do in this situation if you knew this was true? I would say that if we've ascertained and I've heard from her mouth and seen in her eyes that she is done or she really wants to be done and doesn't want to hurt you or is already off thinking about other things, organizing other things, that the absolute best thing you can do as a man is move away.
[00:21:08] It is not to chase as she moves. Chase, chase, chase. And you're just chasing, trying to be better. Will it last for a day, a week, a month? Is it real?
[00:21:20] Why now, after all these years, are you suddenly doing the things that she wishes you would do or wanted you to do or wanted to feel?
[00:21:26] So even though it's like, God, we were going down a path, we were married, we were going to get married, we have kids together, we were going to have kids. And now you're telling me she's done and I should go like this.
[00:21:38] Yeah, it'll save you both a lot of heartache because if you go like this, it will wake something up in her. If she really doesn't want to go, it will say, whoa, whoa, that's a little fast. Wait, maybe we can work.
[00:21:53] Okay, do you now want to look at that? If she's on the fence of staying. There's a caveat here. It's a very tiny percentage of women who actually are testing you and want you to fight for them. They say they're done or they don't want this anymore. They're done with you, but they want. And I don't think this is healthy. I don't think this is the way to do it. They're pulling away and they want you to, like, go get them all the time. They pull away. Stay. They pull away. Stay. This looks to me a little controlling, does it not? This looks to me a little like, abusive. No, you're not going anywhere.
[00:22:26] But some women want to be owned and, or claimed and. Or told they're not going anywhere. And this shows them that you really love them. Because if you don't.
[00:22:41] This is such a side tangent, but it's an important one. If you don't, you just let her walk away. So then you hear this type of manipulation. I guess you never cared. I guess you really don't love me. It's just so easy for you to say goodbye. You're just walking away or not doing anything.
[00:22:56] It's just so easy. You just go on about your day, I just broke up with you, and you're at work, or you're taking a class or you're exercising. You must really have never loved me. No, wait. Yes, I do. I really do.
[00:23:09] No, don't touch me. Don't come near me.
[00:23:12] But she wants this.
[00:23:15] It's rare, but you'll probably know if you're with a woman like that in most cases. My sincere advice is, if both of you feel like this is spiraling out of control, have it mediated with someone who understands both sides and what's going on.
[00:23:30] Talk to someone professionally instead of just spiraling out all on your own.
[00:23:35] These sessions are hard, but it does make it significantly easier to get everything out on the table and to understand what's what, because, again, calling back to women's secretive nature and not wanting to hurt you, when you mix those two things together, it's very difficult to have a conversation about what's really going on, just the two of you.
[00:23:58] Chapter four, the finale.
[00:24:01] If you feel like this is happening to you, I would strongly recommend have a talk about it. See where it goes. Talk about it together, Bring up the hard stuff, say the things that should be unspoken.
[00:24:17] And if you can't do it, that's where I come in and I put it all on the table. I mean, you would be shocked. It might make your head spin. How quickly we can unearth things. If you can handle them. Within the course of 1 hour, 2 hours, 3, 4, 5 hours. It happens so fast that your own heart and brain probably need time to catch up with. But we figure out what's true, what's what, what do you do now? Where do we go from here?
[00:24:44] And it is my sincere belief that both of you knowing and having a direction of like what now? Will keep you out of freaking out and survival mode. And in a direction, especially men. Men need to have, like, a direction.
[00:24:59] What now? Where do I go now? What do I do now? And women need to know that it's okay to speak up and speak your truth and how to do it and do it in a delicate way.
[00:25:10] So I hope that you found this episode extremely helpful. Maybe you want to watch this episode with your partner. Maybe you want to show it to someone who you think needs it. In any case, as always, I'll look forward to meeting you in my office, in person, on a video chat, in the closeness, telegram, group, or for those of you who are extremely private, which is most of you, you could just come in and tell me everything in person. Just visit closeness.com and get in touch. Please let me know down below if this has helped you in some ways or reminds you of a situation you've been in before. I hope this truly helps bring some much needed truth and relief to your relationship, and I'll look forward to seeing you in the next one.
