#11 Ex-Etiquette: How Mark Attempted (And Failed) To Be Friends With An Ex

In this engaging conversation, Mark Rosenfeld and Teal Elisabeth explore the intricacies of online dating, sharing personal experiences and insights from the Tinder project including how to move off to the phone quickly and effectively. They then discuss the main topic of maintaining friendships with exes. Mark in particular shares a personal story of how he tried to make it work... and ultimately failed. The conversation also delves into personal dating horror stories, highlighting lessons learned and the evolution of their dating perspectives from Teal, including an incident when she was young where she was treated poorly by her FIRST dates parents! 

Takeaways
The average number of exchanges leading to a phone call is 6.3.
It's crucial to avoid getting bogged down in unproductive conversations.
Women can hint at wanting a phone call by responding to questions with enthusiasm.
Mutual gratitude is essential for maintaining friendships with exes.
Navigating boundaries with exes can be challenging but necessary for relationship health.
The energy you bring to conversations can significantly impact outcomes.
It's important to recognize when to let go of conversations that aren't progressing.
Self-awareness in dating can lead to healthier relationships.
The universe often tests your commitment to personal growth.
Maturity in relationships involves considering your partner's feelings.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:49 A Brief Parenting & Fruit Update
3:30 Days 31-60 - What's Been Working Online
7:15 Moving Conversations To A Phone Call
13:48 Teal's Dating Horror Story
18:00 Teal's Energetic Transformation
19:34 How The Universe Pushes Back
22:36 Ex Etiquette: Navigating Past Relationships
26:38 How Mark Had... Then Lost, His Ex Etiquette
33:43 The Evolution Into Partnership

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:49 A Brief Parenting & Fruit Update!
• 3:30 Days 31-60 - What's Been Working Online
• 7:15 Moving Conversations To A Phone Call
• 13:48 Teal's Dating Horror Story
• 18:00 Teal's Energetic Transformation
• 19:34 How The Universe Will Push You Back
• 22:36 Ex Etiquette: Navigating Past Relationships
• 26:38 How Mark Had... Then Lost, His Ex Etiquette
• 33:43 The Evolution Into Partnership

Transcript

[Speaker 1]
The inside scoop of what has and hasn't been working online right now. Mine and Teal's dating horror stories and ex etiquette. What is and isn't okay when it comes to exes.

We'll see you right after this. G'day and welcome to The Tinder Project. The podcast where a straight Aussie man attempts to survive 365 days dating online as an American woman.

I'm your host, Mark Rosenfeld, Australia's dating coach for women. I'm here with my sidekick, self-love coach, Teal Elizabeth. And together we have one mission to make meeting good men fun and easy for you.

Let's give it a bell. Teal!

[Speaker 2]
Hi Mark, how are you this week?

[Speaker 1]
Are you more beautiful than ever, Teal?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, stop it. People are going to get some weird ideas about you and I if you keep complimenting me like this.

[Speaker 1]
People, we can throw weird rumors out there. I'm doing so well, Teal. I'm doing so well.

My beautiful little girl just turned four and a half months.

[Speaker 2]
Oh my gosh.

[Speaker 1]
Four and a half months. Yes, she is very alert. She knows everything that's going on.

She's looking everywhere. She's so, she can't sit still for more than 10 minutes. Rolling over and like chasing things.

And we got her this flashing lights thing that's become, I think, the four month old version of television. So we're like, yeah, maybe you shouldn't spend too much time on that. You're getting a little too obsessed with that little flashing light rolly thing.

But no, it's been pretty fun. How are you? Are you still glowing?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, yes. The pregnancy glow is still shining. I, uh, I'm almost 10 weeks pregnant.

So I'm almost out of the first trimester, which I'm looking forward to. I think my baby's the size of a green olive this week. So that's always so fun.

[Speaker 1]
Those apps are ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I had one and I was looking at Sam's and every week.

So for those that don't know or haven't been a mom, haven't had a friend that's pregnant, they have these apps. And Sam had this app. And as a guy, I was watching this app.

And every week it gives you the fruit that your baby is approximated to. And it was absurdly inaccurate in every perceivable way. Inaccurate?

Yes. You know, it went from broccoli to like a watermelon to a carrot to an orange. And then it became some very oddly shaped.

And I was like, there was no rival reason to the fruits that were chosen. And every week we'd laugh at it because we're like, okay, yeah, that's an entirely different shape fruit. That's a different size and barely bigger than last week's fruit.

Sometimes smaller. They just randomized the fruits and put them throughout 40 weeks to make people go, oh, yeah, okay.

[Speaker 2]
I disagree. I think it's fabulous. I think it's all about the length.

They're trying to do the length. So maybe one week it's a carrot and one week it's a watermelon.

[Speaker 1]
How long is a carrot? There's 18 different lengths of carrots. Is it a baby carrot?

Is it an average smaller carrot from a batch? Is it a bigger carrot? Is it an organic carrot?

[Speaker 2]
Anyways, my little baby is somewhat of a size of an olive from start to finish. We'll just go with that. It's just crazy that the size of an olive could cause so much uncomfortability in my belly already.

It's insane. Did you really say you're already getting a bump? Yeah, I know.

Second time around. I think, I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
I think that's common, isn't it?

[Speaker 2]
The body's just like, okay, here we go. Let's do it.

[Speaker 1]
I know what I'm doing here. I'm on it.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, but it's like that kind of uncomfortable part where it looks like I just ate a fatty burrito and I just gave up on myself and I hate that age.

[Speaker 1]
It's an actual food baby. Wait, no, this one's real, guys. I swear, this one's real.

[Speaker 2]
But I digress.

[Speaker 1]
We digress. Teal, I've got some interesting stuff from the last 30 days of the Tinder project. Dearest listeners, I've been excited to share this with you because I spent probably a couple of hours a few nights ago going over this and just kind of tabulating some stuff from the last 30 days.

And I've got a lot to share, but I'll save some of it for next week. There was kind of two big things that really came out of the last 30 days, and I've been doing things in sort of 30-day windows. So this is some stats I'm going to share from days 31 to 60, essentially, from the second month of the Tinder project.

Now, before I share this, in that time, I should say, we had 13 phone calls, as in 13 conversations transitioned to a phone call. I believe there may have been a 14th that kind of came in the first week of the next month, but I'm not really counting that one. There was 13, but there was one that was kind of improperly tracked.

So I took 12 of these conversations and basically had a look at them, and I compared them to the conversations that weren't working, as in the conversations that disappeared, the guys that flaked, the ones that didn't follow through. So I came up with two... I came up with lots of interesting statistics, actually, but I won't bomb you guys with all of them just yet.

You need to see some for next week. But I do want to show you two really interesting ones here. So I'm going to go ahead and share the screen, and for those listening, I'll describe what we're looking at here.

Now, Teal hasn't seen this before either, so it's new to her. If I share the screen here, I've collected two interesting... Teal, can you share my screen before I go on?

Can you see it? I can see it, yeah. You can.

Okay. So what we've got on the screen now, guys, is a table, and the title of the table is Total Exchanges. And in the left column, there's led to a phone call, and in the right column, there's did not lead to a phone call.

So basically, what I've done is I've counted the number of exchanges. Remember, an exchange is one back and forth between myself and the guy, or the client that I was operating as and the guy, in both the conversations that led to a phone call, basically, that led to a date and a connection, versus the conversations that didn't, or a potential connection, obviously, in this case. So we see something really interesting.

There's 12 different ones, and on the screen, again, for those listening, in the ones that led to a phone call, we're seeing numbers like 6.5, 5, 4.5, 5, 6.5, 8. There's a high 14 down the bottom, and there's a 3.5. But other than those two, every single number is between 5 and 8. 5 and 8 exchanges.

[Speaker 2]
Exchanges. Interesting.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So the average was 6.3. So it's not a ton of exchanges, and that's important, because we don't want to end up in text land. In the conversations that did not lead to a phone call, they flaked, the guy disappeared, the guy didn't invest, the average exchanges is only 2.7. There was one, the highest sort of anomaly was 7, and then there was one or two 5s, and basically, everything else was like 1.5, 2, 0.5, 1, in that kind of range. So I felt this was valuable to share, because it tells me, and remember, I'm only doing 20 minutes a day. I've got 13 dates out of doing 20 minutes a day. So it says to me that we are not getting too bogged down in the conversations that aren't working.

And I think this can be one of the most frustrating and demotivating and just irritating parts of being online, is when you're going 10 or 11 or 12 exchanges, and it just fizzles to nothing. We really want to avoid that, because it's going to take a lot of your time, and it's going to kind of rupture your online experience for the guys who are quality and do want to meet you. You'll take that bad attitude, and it's so easy to bring it to other conversations.

So 6.3 exchanges was the average when it led to a phone call. Only 2.7 when it didn't. Only 2.7. So we're allowing these conversations to die a reasonably quick death in most cases, and not getting too bogged down in text land. Teal, any questions about that?

[Speaker 2]
My biggest question that I'm sure the listeners are really wondering, too, is how did you get it to the phone call stage? Do you have a script for that, too? Is there something that you're saying after these 6 or 7 exchanges that's naturally leading it to that place?

Or are the men fully just like, wow, you're so awesome, I love talking to you on text, let me get you on a phone call? Because in my experience, we as women kind of have to initiate a little bit of that, you know, it would feel so great to hear your voice, or I'd love a phone call. Are you asking for that, or are they naturally leading with that?

[Speaker 1]
About two-thirds of the time we're hinting at it, one-third of the time the guys are naturally leading with it. The ideal is the guy leads with it. That's nice if we don't have to go there.

[Speaker 2]
And when you are hinting with it, what kind of things are you saying? What verbiage could women be using to hint naturally that would be inviting?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you alluded to something similar before. So you generally want to do it, guys, when there's a question. Because when you're asked a question, that means the guy wants something from you.

He's giving you an invitation to shine. He's curious about you. You know, if you line up ten women and say, Mark, you're single, which one do you want to date?

Well, immediately I'm going to go, okay, who do I find most attractive? Probably spend a tiny little bit of time talking to each of them. And then my three or four favorites, what am I going to do?

I'm going to move towards them. I'm going to ask them more questions. I'm going to invest more in them.

So if a guy is asking you questions and investing in you that way, that's your chance to leverage that energy moving towards you to where you want it to go. This is why it's better if men are putting too much energy into you than too little. It's a bit like jujitsu.

If you've got too much energy coming towards you, you can use it and move it using your feminine energy to where you want it. If you've got too little, you usually need to increase that feminine energy or increase some other element of attraction to get that energy coming towards you first. Because if you don't have that energy coming towards you, there's not a lot you can do with it.

So once you have it, and you'll usually see it in the form of a couple of good questions from the guys, you pick that point. And there's a kind of a peak energetic point there. It could be in the third exchange.

It could be in the sixth. It's rarely after the eighth unless you've gone back and forth with some banter. There's an energetic point where the guy is going to be most invested.

And that's the point to say, Hey, I'm loving this conversation. Why don't I answer that over the phone call or over a call? Would you be open to asking for my number so we can continue this in person?

Those types of scripts that hint but still let him do the leading are what you really want to use here. I like the, would you be open to asking for my number? Because then he also has to ask for the number.

We also want to make sure once the number has been exchanged or around that time that we set out a time to call. This isn't just a, let's continue this conversation over text. This is a, we are moving to an actual scheduled date phone call here.

We're not just repeating the same six exchanges on a different medium.

[Speaker 2]
Absolutely. The phrase I really love to use and guide clients with is it would feel so good to hear your voice. And to me, that's a nice, it's a feminine approach in terms of using feeling messages.

And it also is very true. You know, I really like knowing what someone's voice sounds like. It brings a lot more personality and personal connection and intimacy to that interaction.

And hopefully that's not too intimidating. I know it can feel intimidating as a woman to use that, but I think it's a nice invitation that feels very naturally alluring and magnetic. How do you feel as a man?

If you were hearing that?

[Speaker 1]
I like it. I like it. It would feel so good.

It would feel so nice. You can put different feeling words in there. It would feel so enlivening.

It would feel so rich. It would feel so connecting, warm, exciting. So fill in whatever feeling word you like there.

But generally the best time, as I say, is going to be when you've got that bit of leverage from a question. So let's say a guy asks you, how's your day? Maybe you answer the first question.

Second question, what do you do for work? Hey, I'd be super. I'd feel super excited to share that with you.

It would feel even nicer and more, I'd feel even more enthusiastic to share it with you over a phone call. Would you be open to asking for my number? That would feel so lovely with a nice, you know, a couple of nice emojis in there.

Eight times out of 10, if a guy, especially a guy who's invested in asking you questions, he's going to go, oh, great. I love her energy. Yep.

Cool. I'll move that through.

[Speaker 2]
I think this is so good to highlight. And these exchange ratios that you've really highlighted here is really good. We're not encouraging long, long text land conversations.

This is really important that if you're not seeing it naturally moving there, that you as a woman are naturally inviting it to go there. And if they're not, this is a big thing I always like highlighting too, if they don't pick up the bait and want to take that phone call, do not continue to engage with them. Because I have been in that place, and I've seen ladies get in that place where you're just stuck in the texting land, and you don't know how many other women they could be texting for months at a time, heck, using the same response to every single woman.

And we do not want that. We want to set ourselves apart. We want to be looked at as a diamond in the rough and treated so as well.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, exactly. There is certainly such a thing as too many exchanges. And as much as we want to be in feminine energy and receiving all the time and have the guys take all the lead, well, there will be lots of men online, or at least a decent chunk, who just don't want to do that.

They want to stay in text land. So unfortunately, what happens is they'll continue to initiate text, but they won't initiate anything further, and then you get dragged along. So this is where you can still be in the feminine energy and still have the guy take the lead.

But it's a little bit like if a guy says he's going to take you on a date on Saturday, you don't wait until Saturday morning to get confirmation. He needs to confirm before that so that you've got some idea what's going on. We can't just kind of wait for the default setting of the guy all the time because too much of anything is a problem.

So too much feminine energy in this case, you'll end up with one of those 50%, 60% of guys who just want to text, and then you're getting your time wasted in 12, 15-plus exchanges that go nowhere.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Thank you for sharing this. Thanks for taking the time to highlight this data.

[Speaker 1]
You're welcome. And just on what Teal said here, if you look at this right-hand column, and I know those of you who are listening can't quite see it, but that 2.7 average, it really shows we're getting out of those conversations. When you've given that green light and the guy doesn't take it, it's just so clear.

And the cool part is you can really walk away from that conversation, that interaction, hell, even that dating or relationship, with such clarity because you can truly say, I opened my heart, you know, I trusted, I let myself get rejected for the, for the, for the full me. And there was nothing more I could have done other than being the masculine energy and driving it, but you don't want to do that because you can never trust that. So you can kind of walk away with that beautiful, like, yes, I did everything I could for, from my end.

And I, it was, it was never meant to be.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. And there's nothing wrong with you.

[Speaker 1]
Nothing wrong with you. Damn straight, Teal. Now I want to hear with all that said, I want to hear you have a dating horror story moving on.

[Speaker 2]
We thought this would be fun for you ladies to listen in on. I've actually got one too, which is kind of embarrassing. It's not been all peaches and roses for us.

I will give you that.

[Speaker 1]
Mine is bad. I'm pretty sure it's worse than yours.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know. I think, I mean, mine's pretty bad too. We might have to have the listeners vote.

[Speaker 1]
Is yours embarrassing or is yours like scary?

[Speaker 2]
Uh, mine's embarrassing. Like I'm like almost, I haven't told anyone this story. And here I am going to be announcing it to all of my podcast.

You get to hear it first. And you get to hear it first. I know.

It just, it makes me look horrible. It looks like, I'm just like, it's just an idiot, an idiot. This is early, early on.

Okay. This was like long, long time ago. Just out of college.

Didn't know a shit of anything. Anyways. And I was very much in my masculine energy, very much in people pleasing, very much just wanting attention from men and I'll do anything to get it kind of thing.

Right? So I met this guy. I don't know why all the people, so I went to UC Santa Barbara, which is a known party school.

And all the guys in college are just jokes, right? Nobody's wanting to settle down. And so I would kind of date around.

I think I was alluding to this in the past. So one of the guys, I think I moved out to San Francisco and I found a guy in Napa, which was like, again, a two hour drive from San Francisco. And we started chatting on the apps and connecting.

And next thing I know, he's inviting me to Napa, to his beautiful house in Napa. And he wants to take me wine tasting. And I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing.

[Speaker 1]
It sounds like college Teal's dream come true.

[Speaker 2]
So of course I drive myself two hours to meet him at of course his house in Napa, because why wouldn't I? Red flag right there. I should not have done that.

You make them come to you in the beginning. But I drive him all the way out there. We ended up having a really nice date at the park.

We didn't go wine tasting. He bought a bottle of wine at a drugstore down the street, went to a park, ended up getting me really drunk at the park. Again, this is going to just, it's embarrassing.

But got really drunk at the park, had a little picnic dinner, ended up going back to his Napa house, slept with him, first date, never really met him before. I find out afterwards that it's his parents' house and his dad walks in and is like, what are you doing? I'm mortified.

I'm like, you didn't tell me this is your parents' house. He's like, oh yeah, sorry. You better leave.

And it's like 11 o'clock at night. I'm coming off of being drunk. I'm not feeling good, but I'm able to drive, but I'm obviously feeling very shitty.

And yeah, I drive two hours home at midnight after a really shitty one night stand.

[Speaker 1]
Were you drinking?

[Speaker 2]
I had been drinking earlier in the day.

[Speaker 1]
Were you still drunk?

[Speaker 2]
No, I wasn't drunk at that point. It had worn off by that point. But of course, I still feel shitty.

And he made me drive all the way home.

[Speaker 1]
Did you ever talk to him again?

[Speaker 2]
No, absolutely not. So it was horrific in so many ways.

[Speaker 1]
Mistakes were made.

[Speaker 2]
Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Earlier version of myself, obviously I've learned a lot.

And there's a lot of boundaries and a lot of red flags and a lot of just moments of going, well, that was shit.

[Speaker 1]
Jeez. What was that moment like?

[Speaker 2]
Do not try this at home.

[Speaker 1]
Did his dad walk in on you in the bedroom? Yeah, yeah. Like in the act?

[Speaker 2]
It was afterwards, but still.

[Speaker 1]
After the act? Yeah, it was so embarrassing. Were you in the parents' bedroom?

[Speaker 2]
No, I was in his dead bedroom. God damn it.

[Speaker 1]
I wonder why they made you... Because you would think that even the parents would be like, I know. Don't send her home at midnight.

[Speaker 2]
I know.

[Speaker 1]
You're in shit, but we're not going to punish her for it.

[Speaker 2]
I know, I know. Jeez. Yeah, but that was...

I mean, talk about such a... I wouldn't say it was low self-esteem, but there was just... I had no understanding of my own standards or values or boundaries that I was willing to kind of do whatever and get swept up in the moment and just kind of...

Obviously, I kind of got lied to and manipulated for sure, but the me now and the woman that coaches women now would never even allow that interaction to even happen, right? Because there's a level of men coming to you and proving themselves to you first before you would even put yourself in some kind of situation like that.

[Speaker 1]
It wouldn't get off the ground, you're saying? It's just kind of... Everything from B to Z wouldn't have happened because A would have just been...

And the interesting part is, you now... You probably wouldn't even have noticed that guy. Like, he'd be a blip on the radar that you don't even remember.

That's the funny part, as opposed to this huge, big, big story, disaster story thing. So I think it's a good example of as you evolve, it's like the stuff that used to really trip you up and make you fall on your face, it's not even that you notice it and move past it. You even start to just not register it.

[Speaker 2]
It's so true. And it's so true. And I say this to my ladies all the time.

You know, it's like we attract the energy that we are currently vibrating at. And I was definitely vibrating at a very different energy. Now, yeah, the interactions I have with men are a very much higher standard in quality.

And even if I do have men come into my life of that other lower vibration, like you said, they don't even think they have a chance with me. There wouldn't even be a conversation.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it doesn't really blip the radar too much.

[Speaker 2]
Exactly.

[Speaker 1]
And I think there's like... You know, it's interesting just that you say that. We do coaching, so we tend to accelerate clients' growth into much shorter periods of time than what they would have in their free life without us.

And there's that kind of... It's like the universal challenge, I think of it. It's a client comes and they start to change their energy.

And I don't know if you notice this, but between the phase of, oh, I'm getting stuck in the mud with these guys and I don't even notice these bad guys. Like what bad guys? Between those two phases, there's like a phase there where it's almost like I notice them, but I'm getting rid of them.

And during that transformation, the universe... Because it's kind of like you've got momentum in one direction and then you're trying to take a right angle turn and have momentum in a different direction. And it's almost like as you're doing that, the universe throws a few extra of them at you.

It throws a few more and it's like, are you sure? Your comfort zone is really good. Here's a bunch more.

It tests you with what you used to have more before it breaks and gives up. It's almost like the universe pushes back and it's like someone's going to bend first. Either the universe will bend and stop giving you those guys or you'll bend and go back to accepting them.

But I think it's an awkward position because especially in the early, say month or two, working with a client, usually that momentum from previous energy is still kind of there somewhat. And so there's still a few of those old people coming in testing to see, do you really want to evolve? Or maybe we just go back to where we were.

[Speaker 2]
And that's why it is important. Oh my God. You articulated it so perfectly.

It's constantly happening. I also noticed, I call it the ghosts from boyfriend's past come back. It's like as the energy starts to shift, all the old men that never maybe fully got closure just start reaching out.

Have you noticed this too? They just become the ghosts from boyfriend's past. And it gives you that opportunity to get the healing and the closure so that you can really plug up those holes and move forward.

[Speaker 1]
It really is like the universe just throwing tests and saying, are you sure you want this? Like, are you sure? Because we can, we're really good where we were.

The universe pushes back for a little while until you break through it.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. And it is important in those moments sometimes to have a coach in your corner to be holding you there and going, this isn't you falling into old patterns. This isn't you attracting it because you're still that person.

It's the test. Stay strong. Stay on the right path.

Because sometimes we can get in our own heads and second guess it and go, Oh God, I'm just still broken. I still attract these men. But it's not.

[Speaker 1]
It's a sign of your growth. It's a sign of your growth. It's just that old momentum kind of testing you one last time before you go on.

[Speaker 2]
So stay aware of that ladies. And no, just keep sticking to your guns because it will change. I promise.

So Mark, tell me your story because I'm really curious if mine wins or if yours wins.

[Speaker 1]
Mine's a shocker. I'm like, should we save it for next week and do Ex Etiquette here too? Or should we save it?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, we're already almost at 30 minutes. We might have to save it. Do you think we save it?

All right. Cliffhanger.

[Speaker 1]
I'm going to save that one for next week because I really want to go into that story. You guys can be the judge. Ex Etiquette.

I want to talk about this. What's okay? What's not okay?

And I'm really curious to get your opinion on this because I've not done this perfectly myself. And I used to think I was really good at it actually and had a very good balance to it. But in recent years, it's something I've struggled with and not been able to maintain to be honest.

So I basically have kind of two broad rules that I speak to clients if you want to be friends with an ex. There's two things that need to occur that need to be present. But the issue is both people need to have those things.

The first is gratitude for the previous relationship. So often when we break up, there's resentment, there's a reason, there's anger, there's a lot of negative emotions tied up. It's hard to be grateful and to sort of look at your ex as a growth vessel.

I have kind of always seen it that way, but I noticed that that doesn't compute for a lot of people or it doesn't. I was even talking to my wife about this and I can go into this. She doesn't quite see it the same way.

But there needs to be that mutual gratitude and there needs to be a core deep belief, an absolute centralized bone deep belief that you don't work as a couple. It's just you're not meant to be together as a couple and it has to kind of go so deep. And it's tricky because often that belief only comes when you've hated each other so much for so long that all the resentment and negative emotions have built up.

So you fail rule number one. So in the rare instance where you both are grateful and appreciative for the previous relationship and where you both have a absolute bone deep belief that you don't work as a couple, I do think ex-friends can work in those scenarios, but they're rare as I've sort of had a couple for a couple of years and I can talk about those. But yeah, I'm curious, how do you see ex-etiquette?

Because are you friends with your ex-teal? Have you kept it up? And if so, what's the etiquette around it?

[Speaker 2]
I really like how you just broke that down. I don't think I could have articulated it as clearly as what you just said because yeah, you're right. Without those two things, there's always going to be a sliver of, well, what if, or maybe there's still something there or one person still wanting it and the other person not wanting it.

Overall, I don't think it works. I would say, I think that usually there's so much either pain or just deep, deep emotions or tied memories to that other person that when you see them, it's naturally going to drop you back into that place. And usually the brain holds onto either the really good memories or the really bad memories.

And it's not something that's going to actually be a benefit in our life. If we didn't work for a reason, then it's probably something that this person is not meant to be in our life anymore. Now, I will say I do have good relationships with my exes, but we don't talk.

So kind of like what you're saying, we ended on good terms and we were able to tie it in a nice bow and say, okay, I wish you the best on your way, but it's not something that I'm just going to be picking up the phone and calling them and saying, hey, how you been? Tell me about that new project you've been working on because not only is that opening up the door to the past memories of what it was like when you were relating in that way, it also can be very threatening to the next partner. And I think that that's the bigger thing.

Even if you were totally good and you guys totally were agreeing 100%, yes, we're fine. It's never going to go there. There's always going to be that compromise with the partner where, yes, you may have all the trust in the world, but if I still knew, if I trust my husband 110%, but if he was still chatting every week with his ex-girlfriend, it would make me start to question and go, why does he feel that he needs that when he has me?

Not to say that I have to give him everything, but there was a reason that he was with her in the first place. And so why does he still feel like he needs that in his life? And it's tricky and it's really, it's sad because this person did share a really beautiful moment in your life and we don't want to just necessarily cut that person out, but I think that the cons outweigh the pros and it's better to, for the health of your new relationship to forego the old and the past if you've made that decision.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, this is where I've struggled with this a bit personally. So to share one story from me today, my first sort of really long-term girlfriend, it seemed like she was a little more hurt by the breakup than me. And usually that's the case.

There's this one person or the other that's more hurt. And that's why that gratitude thing is hard to get on both sides. So after enough time had passed, I kind of reached out, I think it was about a year, checked in, kind of sort of, literally asked her, hey, did you want to catch up?

And she wasn't really up for it. And I think I did it once more about another 18 months later and she wasn't up for it the second time. She said hi, she was cordial, but nothing came of it.

My second ex was a little different. So I was in the sex industry at the time as well. I was stripping.

And so a lot of my relationships already involved a pretty high degree of trust, as you can imagine. So to me, you know, I also dated women in the sex industry. So to me, it wasn't that weird for a partner of mine at the time, you know, to be in very risque or risky situations and for trust to be extremely dependent on that.

So that was my model for a long time. And when me and my second ex broke up, it was interesting because I wanted to, I thought, oh, we probably could be friends, but I really want to make sure enough time passes. And she reached out after about six months and I still just felt it was too early.

I'm like, nah, that's like, let's really let the energy go to nothing first. And we've kind of reconnected after about a year. And at that point, for about, honestly, for about two or three years, I would consider us very, very solid, good friends.

I'm talking, we would catch up maybe once every three months. We would talk about each other's relationships. We would kind of ask how each other's family is going.

You know, we would maybe play table tennis together or do something with her friends. So, and either of us may or may not be in a relationship at the time. It didn't really have much of an effect.

And I have to say, I did enjoy that relationship. It kind of gave a sense of like, okay, well, I'm appreciating the growth and contribution this person made to my life. I don't see a reason to hate on the person.

I can see the value that's come, but also the learnings and the reasons we're not together. And that went really well for quite a time. And it kind of came unstuck.

Yeah, when I had a couple of partners and it hadn't been an issue, but also those partners didn't go as deep as obviously Sam and I are now married. But this is where it came a little bit unstuck. And to be fair, I brought this on myself a little bit.

And there was a few incidences where I think I got it wrong with the boundaries and I made Sam feel either unsafe or threatened, even though it wasn't my intention at the time. But it was just like a few little silly things that happened. The first, just to go into what a couple of them were, the first was we were all at a party together at my house in Australia.

And they just had different energies. I sort of, they met each other. They just kind of didn't like each other a lot.

They're just, you know, some people get along, some don't. It just wasn't kind of a click there. So that was the first little thing.

The second was, and looking back, I can kind of see how this made Sam feel unsafe at the time when I did it. We were in Australia and I got a call from my parents that basically their dog had passed. It was just kind of my dog growing up in my teenage years.

And so I talked about this with Sam and kind of mulled it over. And then I went and called my ex.