Lately I’ve been doing this thing where I’m taking time out of my busy schedule to interview as many success stories as possible. You see, I’m a big believer in never being satisfied and always trying to get to the bottom of what the truth is.

I’m not silly enough to believe that “getting an ex back” can ever be an exact science but I will say that the more I learn the more I become convinced that there are ways that my program can improve.

Enter Bethany!

Bethany has been trying to get her ex back for over three years.

She’s had to weather some of the most difficult scenarios you could imagine.

• Her ex leaving her when she was pregnant
• Her ex moving in with another woman
• Her ex constantly arguing with her
• You get the picture

And yet despite all that hardship she persevered and now has her ex back.

Watch and listen to our in-depth interview and learn.

How She Got Her Ex Back When He Moved On To Someone Else

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So today we’re going to be talking to a success story. This is Bethany who has a real interesting story. Man, she’s been in the group for a long time. So Bethany is one of the very few people who kind of stuck with the entire program and it took a while to get her ex back. So anyways, what we’re going to be doing today is asking her all sorts of questions to figure out what she did that worked and what she did that didn’t work, so we can help people listening to this. But how are you doing Bethany?

Bethany:
I’m great. Thanks. I’m doing great, Chris.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So don’t you give us like an overview of your situation from start to finish. Floor is yours.

Bethany:
Okay. I had a year and a half relationship with my ex and we broke up. I was seven months pregnant so that was a very difficult situation. And I know you talk about, in the program, that that’s kind of a special situation. It was a committed relationship. We were living together. It was a planned pregnancy. It’s just, we were talking about engagement and then all of a sudden he said he wasn’t happy and we broke up. So since then, it’s been three years, just over three years, and because of the fact that we ended up having a child, we ended up having periods of time where we were able to be in close contact or almost had to be. And then there were times where I personally had to separate myself. I needed that space and I needed that distance.

Bethany:
So there were times when I wasn’t actively doing the program, but I was doing kind of like the moving on without moving on, or even an indefinite no contact. I had a period of time when I had to do that. So basically my story touches on all the bases because I had an OW, he left me to immediately go back to his ex who he had a child with, like previous to our relationship. So this was his previous exactly. And then-

Chris Seiter:
I’m laughing because, Bethany is always … So I would do these Facebook Lives in the group and she’d always show up to the Facebook Lives. So she’s got the purple hair and I’d be like, “Okay, there’s Bethany.” And I’d always know because of the purple hair “Okay, she’s got the other woman, she’s pregnant.” So, and it was just funny. Trip down memory lane.

Bethany:
And that’s the thing is that my situation, and I actually, last year I had a woopsie moment where I became intimate with my ex and I broke the value chain. So my situation literally touches on all the things. My ex didn’t contact me during the no contact period. I did a full 30 days. He didn’t contact me immediately. I did that no contact because I didn’t know about the program for almost a month. And when I found it, I had almost completed that no contact and I stuck with it. Because, for me, I have pride. I’m a very prideful person. When someone leaves me when I’m pregnant, yes, I [inaudible 00:02:57] him, I texted him, I begged, I did all those things, but I ended up coming around and sticking with that 30 days.

Bethany:
And he didn’t reach out. He didn’t reach out at all. And he said it was because he respected that he thought I wanted space. He knew I wanted to be alone and kind of deal with what I was dealing with. And we’ve spoken about all those things since. And he said like, “I struggled. Like I had a hard time. Like I missed you. I missed our life, our day to day.” But those are things that, when people in the group bring them up, I want to give them that reassurance that I’m standing here right now and that can be the case where those things happen and things go not the way you want them to. There’s an OW. And Chris, you immediately go, ” [inaudible 00:03:49]” That’s your knee jerk reaction. Like, “Oh, boy.”

Bethany:
And then if it’s someone that they have a child with and a history with, it’s like, “Oh my God, what do you do with this?” And I think the only reason that I stuck with the program the entire time is that it wasn’t a bad thing. It was literally the best thing that happened to me. I was in shock when the breakup occurred. I was pregnant and going through something that I think a lot of people would, not pregnant, be overwhelmed with. And your program gave me hope. It gave me motivation that there was a path ahead of me. Working with Anna doing coaching, which I did in 2018. I wasn’t ready for it then. I was still basically getting out of shock of the relationship breaking up and my new life and what it meant to be a single mom.

Bethany:
But I’ve since gone back and looked at her materials and I use them constantly. Your Live in February, I think it was, of 2018, I have rewatched that over and over and over again. It is the one about how to get your ex back, what attracts them, how to make them fall in love again, that Live I have shared-

Chris Seiter:
Is that the one with the 11 fact-

Bethany:
Yeah. The 11. Yes.

Chris Seiter:
Right, yeah. Okay.

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Bethany:
Yes. And that is the number one thing I recommend to all my battle buddies, everybody in the group, all the new joining people. Like watching that Live, you can literally go, point by point, and go down the list and say, “This was lacking. This is still lacking. This is there, but it’s not a hundred percent there.” You can come up with the roadmap that Anna gave me, and that together gave me the blueprint. That was what I needed. I needed to literally use my social media, my sphere of influence that always worked in my favor, because his family loved me from day one-

Chris Seiter:
Plus you have a child together with him.

Bethany:
Yeah, exactly.

Chris Seiter:
That can kind of help as well, in that regard.

Bethany:
Oh, definitely. But you use those things to your favor and your advantage, and you use those 11. And basically like they’re putty in your hands and you know it. And your wife, Jen, she was instrumental in just giving me confidence and helping me realize that you can be a mom and you can be beautiful and you can be ambitious and you can be desirable and you can be so ungettable that you’re setting a standard for how everyone else will look at being a mom. And they almost like want to be a mom because they see how impressive you’re making it look. That’s what Jen models and teaches. Like she literally emulates that in everything that she does. Like being a mom can be cool. Being a mom can be awesome. Being a mom doesn’t limit you, it actually makes you amazing because you’re super, you’re literally super, no matter what you do.

Chris Seiter:
Okay, man, there’s a lot to unpack here. Bethanhy is like one of my favorites ever. I want to go back to where he breaks up with you. Did you ever, because it’s been a long time since, I mean it’s been almost like three years, right?

Bethany:
It feels like yesterday. It’s been over three years, yes. It was March 31st, 2017. And I remember the next day it was April Fool’s Day and I was like, “Why do I need an April Fool’s Day? My life is a joke.”

Chris Seiter:
Yeah, right. The breakup happened on the wrong day, you know?

Bethany:
Exactly.

Chris Seiter:
So was it just like an out of the blue type thing? How did he have the conversation? Did he just leave?

Bethany:
No, no. I wish I had had the program. I wish I had known, this is another component I can add to it, I have bipolar disorder. So there were mental health issues on my side. He had become depressed dealing with me and my pregnancy and the volatility of my moods. It was the middle of winter, the winter that never ended it felt like. And I think he gave me a heads up about six weeks ahead of time. He said to me, “I’m not happy.”

Chris Seiter:
So he pre-warned you and what did you do with that?

Bethany:
I said the worst possible things. Oh, I was ridiculous. I was hysterical. I was emotional. I came up with all kinds of crazy threats and I did exactly, like if I had had the program then, this wouldn’t have even happened. I came up with all kinds of crazy threats and ultimatums, and I said to him, “What are you going to do go back to your ex and be a fake ass family with her?”

Chris Seiter:
And he actually did it.

Bethany:
He did it. I gave him the blueprint and he just followed through with it.

Chris Seiter:
Yeah. But I bet you probably beat yourself up over that for-

Bethany:
Daily. Daily. Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So you think it’s because of the emotional issues that because of the bipolar disorder and the pregnancy on top of that, making the mood swings potentially more volatile, that sort of-

Bethany:
Yes.

Chris Seiter:
Do you think-

Bethany:
I had a lot of stress at work and I had taken on a new job because I was trying to kind of be ambitious, and it was just too much to take on. And I had morning sickness for about the seven months of my son’s pregnancy.

Chris Seiter:
That sounds like Jen.

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Bethany:
The first two months I was okay, but the rest of it I was violently ill every single day. If I sat up, I was sick. If I laid down, I was okay, but that’s no life so it was rough.

Chris Seiter:
No. And you’re going through it for such a long period of time, nine months. But for you, it was seven months. But at a certain point it probably feels like it won’t ever end.

Bethany:
The day that I gave birth to my son, because it didn’t happen for two months. The day I gave birth to my son was the last morning I woke up, and it was every morning for the last seven months of this pregnancy, and I woke up and I had him that night, and I remember I woke up the next morning and I was like, “why am I not sick?” It was the first time in seven months.

Chris Seiter:
You’d gotten so used to it.

Bethany:
I just got used to just being violently ill every single morning and just dealing with it.

Chris Seiter:
So he ends up going back. He ends up getting another woman. Was that like an instant type thing or did that-

Bethany:
Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
So it was like instant, like next day you notice he’s with the other girl. Did he move in with the other girl?

Bethany:
Again, like I said, I disappeared. Like I didn’t reach out to him afterwards. Like I begged at first and then I just disappeared because I have pride. So he disappeared and so did I. Like I didn’t reach out, I didn’t try to entertain where he was going, I was just over it. And I pretty much was like, “You do you, I’ll do me.” And I did those 30 days. And then I started to reach out about information about the baby. And the only way I found out about the OW, definitively, was at the hospital giving birth to my son, when I was being induced. I invited him and I said to him, “You can come and be as involved as you want. And for the rest of his life, you can be as involved as you want. But I need you to be honest with me right now and tell me where you are and what you’re doing, because I’m not going to stand next to a stranger while I’m giving birth to my son.” And he did, he told me the situation and I said, “Okay.” I respected that. I already knew that, like I figured that was what was going on. So at that point we just moved forward as co-parents.

Chris Seiter:
So before the breakup actually occurred, I’m just wondering his mentality of what … because I feel like maybe the mood swings and everything kind of set them off. Do you think there was ever like a crushing of like, “Oh man, this is getting too serious. We’re moved in together, she’s about to give birth to this baby.” Because I know when Jen was pregnant, it kind of freaked me out a little bit and I was married to her and that was a planned thing too.

Bethany:
Yeah. And that’s the thing is that like he has a previous child with the OW but that was not a planned situation. That was more a they were broken up and she wanted to-

Chris Seiter:
So he can maybe even associate that with like stress. Because I remember, like we plan to have my daughter, but I remember like the first month where you’re not getting any sleep and you’re like, our daughter had some sort of like lip tie issue where she would spit up all the time and it was just like-

Bethany:
My son did too, yeah.

Chris Seiter:
It was just like, “Oh my God, what did I do?”

Bethany:
It’s rough.

Chris Seiter:
But you love them so much. So I’m wondering if he equates that to the stress of maybe that incoming thing and he’s maybe looking for like an excuse to get out. Do you think there was that?

Bethany:
It’s very possible? I’m a very pushy person, he’s used the word, I think nicely, intimidating. I’m a bully. I’m basically a bully. And he was along for the ride. Like he was willing to accommodate me and do what I needed and wanted the entire relationship. Right after I met him, I broke my foot and I was on bed rest basically for like a month because I couldn’t walk for three months because I had surgery. So basically he took care of me for the first half of our relationship. And that dynamic never really changed. Like he just did everything for me. And I think it just got to be too much for him. And towards the end of our relationship, he told me that he just didn’t feel like comfortable around me. He felt like every time I like made a comment about things, like a rude, nasty comment, that he was scared of how I was reacting. And I said to him one day, “I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around you.” Because I tried to be better, I tried to not say things. And later on he would tell me that that was the reason he left, is because he didn’t want me to feel like I had to walk on eggshells. He didn’t want me to feel I couldn’t be myself around him because that’s how he felt. So he was just like, “We’re both breaking it. It’s done”

Chris Seiter:
It’s interesting. Your breakup’s really kind of complex if you think about it. I mean, sure there’s the pregnancy, there’s the mood swings, there’s obviously the bipolar disorder, but I think there’s an element of crushing and also the walking on eggshells thing. So I mean, let’s get to the interesting stuff, is what worked to get him back. So before I let you go, I want to ask you a question, because this is the point I’m making to ask every single success story that I’m interviewing. What I’ve noticed, and this is just purely me looking for patterns, is what seems to work for women when they get their exes back is they always seem to hit like rock bottom and they just stop caring about getting their Exes back. Did you experience that?

Bethany:
Yeah. That’s exactly what I experienced. I experienced it twice actually.

Chris Seiter:
Can you explain that essence to me? Because I’m trying to determine whether or not it’s … So I interviewed another success story and she was telling me about this concept as well, because I brought it up and I asked her, “Do you think you can fake it?” And she basically said, “Well, no, but maybe you could fake it at first to get the momentum going, but you still need to feel the essence of it.” So I’m trying to dive into this because the more and more I interview people, the more I think this is the key, this is the unknown key.

Bethany:
It’s like that all is lost moment. And you go for broke, kind of. Yeah. That’s exactly what happened about a year ago. I thought we were kind of touching on a reconciliation. It seemed like that was going to happen. And we literally had a catastrophic thing happened that like I don’t go into too much detail about it, but he wasn’t able to see our son for about six to eight months. And I, as a mother, had to step in and be mama bear and say, “You’re not in a place to be his father right now.” And that was the hardest thing I had to do because then I had to say to myself, “Do I still love this person?” And when the courts decided that he deserved to be a dad again, I maybe wasn’t necessarily in agreement. And I dated someone else, I had had a year long relationship actually during this process, and I’ve had rebounds and I’ve had friends with benefits. So again, I touch on all the bases in these three years, and basically I got both of those back too.

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Bethany:
And basically what I came to realize is that, my therapist even said to me, “What would it take, Bethany, for you to stop loving him? Like what would it actually take for you to stop loving him?” And at that point I didn’t think I did. I thought I was completely done. I thought I was ready to just be a single mom and explore my other options out there and be done with the program and kind of do my own thing. And that was my indefinite no contact period that I had. And basically that was my gut check moment. And that was around the holidays this year when I said, “Oh my God, I still love this person. I still want to try to be a family.”

Chris Seiter:
So after dating all of these people and having lots of time away from him and sort of like feeling like, “I’m done with this.”

Bethany:
Maybe he’s not worth it, yeah. Maybe this isn’t worth it, he’s not worth it.

Chris Seiter:
Eventually you have that come to Jesus moment where you’re kind of like, “Okay, maybe he means a little something more to me than I was-

Bethany:
Yeah. And I said to myself, like a love like this, this is an epic love. Like this is not the kind of love … This is like, if you’ve seen Frozen 2 when Christoph says, “My love is not fragile.”

Chris Seiter:
I have seen Frozen 2 way more times … So my favorite part of that movie is the Olaf song.

Bethany:
This will all make sense when you’re older?

Chris Seiter:
Yeah, it’s like [crosstalk 00:17:01]

Bethany:
It doesn’t, it doesn’t Chris. But yeah, when Christoph says, “My love is not fragile,” that really hit me because it made me realize my love for him wasn’t fragile. I’ve gotten through three years of this and I still love this person, without it being cultivated always. So I want to explore this. So that’s why we really got our fresh start this year. 2020 wasn’t all bad.

Chris Seiter:
Yeah right. Screw the pandemic.

Bethany:
Exactly. And right after the holidays, like in the beginning of January, I reached out to him and I said like, “Okay, let’s try to see how we can …” Because we had gotten to the point of discussing reconciliation the previous summer, and I said to him-

Chris Seiter:
So it had advanced to that point, like a year prior to this point, where you’re basically talking about getting back together and then something goes wrong?

Bethany:
Yeah, yeah. And we had like just a really bad situation happened where I had to kind of intervene and basically say, “You don’t deserve me or my son right now.” And then basically I hit a reset button when it got to the point where we were going to be back in each other’s lives again. And I said, “Okay, let’s be real. Let’s be real with each other.” And I said, “Do you want to do this for the rest of our lives, because we have our son? Do you want to be negative around each other?” And I’m like, “I still like love you as a person and I want what’s best for you. But being this type of person isn’t what’s best for you.” And we had those just soul searching conversations via text, and we just decided to give it a real fresh start. Like an actual one.

Chris Seiter:
So this conversation you had during the text messaging, you’re text messaging this like intense conversation back and forth. How long did this conversation last? Was it like a quick thing or?

Bethany:
No, it was like hours.

Chris Seiter:
Hours. Back and forth, back and forth.

Bethany:
Yeah, yeah.

Chris Seiter:
And what was the next step after that?

Bethany:
We did exactly what the program would have you do. We started talking on the phone, we started doing FaceTimes. We started having meetups. And again, I touch on another base here, we never used to do anything but text. And then all of a sudden I decided let’s start doing FaceTime.

Chris Seiter:
I remember, you said something, you’d like added a new element to your relationship with the FaceTimes and the phone calls.

Bethany:
Yeah. And it was actually it was really nice. Like I wouldn’t discredit it. It gives you another facet and element to your communication. And I think it’s important to explore it. Just because you haven’t before, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a good enough excuse. So we basically followed, I followed the program and I basically did step by step by step.

Chris Seiter:
So you followed it again. It’s just to me it looks like it took so much to get to a point where you and both him are kind of on the same wavelength. I mean like years worth, which is rare because I think most people just give up.

Bethany:
I think you will if it’s not something that’s sustainable or that you have a cause to do it. And having a child with someone definitely gives you an advantage and it gives you an impetus to continue. But it also has to be some sort of like a really intense chemistry and love, and we’ve always had that.

Chris Seiter:
So you’re talking on the phone, FaceTiming, phone conversations, everything like that. How long did it take to see each other in person and what did that interaction feel like or look like to you?

Bethany:
Well, keep in mind we would see each other on the weekends to exchange our son and stuff like that.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So everything, it was kind of like painted in, like mostly you’re communicating most of the time through texting, maybe phone calls here and there, but you did, every once in a while, because you share the son, he would come and visit. So you’d see each other in person. It’s just I’m assuming you notice the difference in those interactions between the two of you as well.

Bethany:
Yes. And I tried to schedule time during the week where we would get together once every other week or like once a week, because our schedules are difficult. Like I work nights on the weekends and take care of our son all week, and he works on weekdays like a normal person does. So we had to kind of find a time to schedule it. So it wasn’t super spontaneous and exciting, but we tried to make it interesting for us.

Chris Seiter:
Your story is so fascinating on so many different levels.

Bethany:
Thank you. Well, I touched on all the bases, Chris.

Chris Seiter:
That’s why it’s fascinating.

Bethany:
Love in the time of corona, like all of this stuff. I basically touch on all of them.

Chris Seiter:
So this is something that a lot of women struggle with who just start the program. For someone who has been basically through hell and back, because that’s what it feels like, that three year period, basically to where he just moved in. Like he literally just moved in yesterday. We had to cancel our interview because he was moving in. What would you say to people, now that you’ve been through all of this, are some of the most important things to keep in mind throughout this process? Because I feel like you, especially with your bipolar disorder, it’s probably even worse for you, some of the mood swings that you go through throughout this process in general, it’s even heightened for you. What would you say is something for people who are just starting out to keep in mind?

Bethany:
I would say to take it seriously. To literally use those no contact periods for self development and growth. My coaching that I got from Anna was instrumental in who I am today, but I literally had to take it in pieces. I wasn’t prepared for all the personal growth and work that I was going to have to do. Her work, she gave me like homework.

Chris Seiter:
Homework, that’s what she calls it.

Bethany:
I literally have still not finished it. I work on it constantly. I don’t think you ever do finish it per se, but I know that there are parts of it that I utilize on a daily basis. The Horsemen, the article that she gave me on the horsemen, those are things that are a constant issue. The love languages. Those are literally something you should be thinking about when you approach even your loved ones. There’s so much to unbox from all of that. And it’s a gift and that’s why I’m saying unboxing.

Bethany:
Because when I coached with Anna, it gave me such support. And between that, the support you gave and she gave during the Lives and my battle buddies and the group itself, it’s been instrumental. But I think the most important thing to remember is to be serious about this, because to do it for a second and give up or to not take your own personal work seriously, you’re not going to get anywhere. Until I got my head right and I got myself in a place where I was ready to make the decisions I needed to make and to take the hard work and dig in, you’re not going to get anywhere. It’s not like taking a brand new selfie and being like super cool. It’s literally digging into yourself.

Chris Seiter:
I think that’s a big misconception a lot of people have on the group.

Bethany:
Yeah, it is.

Chris Seiter:
You see it. They’re like, “Should I post this?” And a lot of it’s like, “Well-

Bethany:
Like I’m not being a jerk, but yeah, like that’s not what this is about. I would literally say that this program helped me so much just as a person, but learning to take care of myself better, learning to love myself more. If you don’t love yourself enough or at all, doing this won’t get you back an ex. Like you aren’t lovable at that point, you need to make yourself into the person that you would want to be with. And I wasn’t that person. I was lost, I was absolutely lost. So this was really amazing.

Chris Seiter:
To me the million dollar question, and I think it really goes down to that internal confidence level you have where you feel like, okay, no matter what goes wrong, I can be in pain, but I’ll be okay. Let me ask you a question. Do you feel like you’re at that point where, let’s say he broke up with you tomorrow, would you be okay? I mean, it would hurt but-

Bethany:
I think you need to get to that point before the real-

Chris Seiter:
You get back together?

Bethany:
Yeah. I think for me, I was more prepared for it because of having my son and knowing what it feels like to be at rock bottom.

Chris Seiter:
Also, do feel like having your son was an advantage? Because it feels like, to me, your mother instincts kick in so your priorities are maybe a little bit different. Because most women, when they’re coming through the program, they’re so focused on their ex. Whereas you have to be so focused on your son and your ex is maybe in the peripheral a little bit.

Bethany:
My son is my greatest asset. He is my greatest strength. He’s my greatest inspiration. Like I said, I was lost. I was’ lost. And if I didn’t have him and the direction of this program, I don’t know where I would be right now. He makes it so much easier to be better, to want to be better. But he also is gorgeous. And he literally, I don’t know how to describe it, he’s probably my biggest selling point. Like the way I love him shows me that I’m capable of loving, and being a mom is absolutely amazing. I know I’m going to sound ridiculous when I say this, but I loved giving birth to my son because it made me learn that I was capable of anything. Literally, after having my son, I realized I was like super human. And I was like, “Wow, anything else is nothing on me. Like I can do anything.”

Chris Seiter:
Wow. That’s such a great attitude to have, isn’t it?

Bethany:
Yeah. All moms are amazing. Adopted or through birth. Like they’re all amazing. Because to love someone else so much that you sacrifice this much, you’re powerful. So powerful.

Chris Seiter:
So my take on it has always been maybe a little unique because the line of work I do, I deal with thousands every single day. And I say that … like breakups. So I’m seeing two self-interested individuals. One person wants their ex back so badly. They only want their ex back because it makes them feel better. And the ex wants to get away because they think self-interestly they’re going to find someone else that can meet their needs better. But what has always struck me is I always used to have this real jaded view of human beings, because I’d see it. I’d be like, “Okay, everyone just seems to be self interested. They’re going to do what’s best for them in the end.”

Chris Seiter:
Until my wife had birth to my daughter. And I finally saw someone be selfless. And I was thinking, “Man, that’s such a powerful, powerful thing.” Fun story, my wife got an epidural and it was like super late at night when this happened, but they said, “Sir, you’re going to have to sit down.” And I was like, “Why?” Like, “We’ve had some husbands like faint.”

Bethany:
Pass out? Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
Right. And so I was like, “All right.”

Bethany:
My ex almost did.

Chris Seiter:
So I sat down, they pull out this needle and I get white and I’m like thinking, “I’m going to pass out.” Because it’s like super freaky. Moms are amazing. Women are amazing in general.

Bethany:
I was so excited for my epidural. And then they told me I couldn’t have one because my platelets were too low. And I was like, “That’s not what we talked about. Is that a maybe?”

Chris Seiter:
I remember, she got the epidural and she said, “We need to write them a thank you note.” Like the entire time. And I was like, “Okay, okay.”

Bethany:
I’ve heard it’s great. That’s awesome.

Chris Seiter:
But yeah, anyways. Your breakup. We probably should get back on topic here. Yes. Would you say … Now you came in toward at like, I want to say like phase three of the program, when it wasn’t the Ex-Boyfriend Recovery Program, it was just like Ex-Boyfriend Recovery Pro. When you look at all the materials that you had, would you say that the group was the most valuable asset that you sort of took from everything? From the coaching to the …

Bethany:
The group is probably way up there. Coaching was very helpful, but yeah I guess I would say the group. Because for the actual like written materials, I do use them and I reference them actually all the time. But for me personally, my situation was so specifically out of there, kind of. You know what I mean?

Chris Seiter:
Yeah. Pregnancy and the [crosstalk 00:29:34].

Bethany:
Like there was so many nuances and like multiple layers. Yeah. So I read the program and I use the elements of it, for sure. And I love a lot of them. But yeah, I think the group was probably the most helpful for me because your involvement, Anna.

Chris Seiter:
Because of this community, battle buddy, Facebook Lives.

Bethany:
It’s just the encouragement, the focus, the kind of constant accountability. I love that. I love that. And there’s a lot of amazing people in the group. I can’t say enough great things about Anna and MP and my battle buddies. I had Corey and Yvonne and I have Gabby now, and like we’re all super supportive of each other. It’s just amazing.

Chris Seiter:
I tend to notice the people who are real successful also they aren’t afraid to integrate themselves and like make friends, you know what I’m saying? Because there’s some people, and one of the biggest complaints I get from the group is, a lot of people come in and they’re I’m like, “There’s a lot of people going through heartbreak and it’s just negative.” But when I talk to people like you, who’ve actually succeeded, all I hear is great things about the community and the support and everything like that.

Bethany:
Oh my God, it was amazing.

Chris Seiter:
What is the disconnect there do you think?

Bethany:
I think some people don’t like always to have a mirror put up to them and have that accountability, where I love it. Like, if someone says to me, “You’re being stupid right now,” or if someone says, “You broke no contact.” I like that stuff, like, I’m a stickler for rules and I believe in the rules. But, you know, with my situation, everything had to kind of be like tailored a little bit and adjusted because having a child together-

Chris Seiter:
You were a great candidate for coaching.

Bethany:
Yeah. Exactly.

Chris Seiter:
You’re like one of those candidates that is so, if there’s that many layers to it, like there’s nothing written in human existence that can help you other than just having personalized help. I guess that’s the point.

Bethany:
Yeah. And basically even just, I had coaching with Anna and that basically gave me like the direction that I needed. And she basically, it was like I was that kid being put in the pool and then she was just kind of like pointing me in that direction, was like, “You got to kick or not. Do you want to kick?” And I had to decide when I want to just start kicking, and it wasn’t right away. I didn’t want to start paddling and kicking.

Chris Seiter:
That’s a great analogy.

Bethany:
She had me, she had taught me what to do. She had shown me. She had given me the tools. You had helped me. And along the way, I had the wives to constantly give me support and assistance with those little nuancey things like they’re not responding after a week, what do I do now? That kind of stuff. But I mean, I had it, I had it, but I had to decide if I wanted to go get it. And it got there eventually.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So is there any other things that you feel we need to touch on to help others who are struggling through this program that I haven’t sort of touched on yet?

Bethany:
Oh, okay. There’s one thing that’s going to be almost like an unpopular kind of thing to bring up. But I want to bring up the issue of cheating.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. Bring it up.

Bethany:
That was another element that I can add to this situation. And there wasn’t cheating on me, but like I said, I had like a little issue with, obviously he was talking to the OW when we were together, things like that. And last year I had jumped the value chain and we were intimate. And I actually was seeing someone at the time. So I cheated. And I have never done that before in my entire life. And I almost feel like that needed to happen because it made me realize that I’m human and that people make mistakes. Good people, good moms. Good, awesome, try to be your best everyday people who are doing the work and putting in the work, make mistakes. And when there’s a cheating situation, for me that was always a deal breaker. That was like you did that, we’re done.

Chris Seiter:
Your perspective changed.

Bethany:
My perspective changed like that. And it made me realize that it can be a gray area.

Chris Seiter:
So that was something you were holding against him then?

Bethany:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Seiter:
So he’s with the other woman, and I imagine a lot of women, and this is something I know a lot of women who are terrified of their ex finding someone new, all they can think about is them sleeping together and all of these crazy thoughts. You probably had all of that, right?

Bethany:
I did. I was like crazy about it. I was hysterical about just the idea of it and the thought of it made me sick. And then I came to realize that I found comfort with other people and that I have loved a couple of people at the same time. Like I felt loved towards two different people. You know, my ex and the person I was seeing. That’s possible. Like when men say, “They don’t know who they love,” people think, “Oh, that’s terrible.”

Chris Seiter:
You see that a lot on The Bachelor. You got like 30 girls-

Bethany:
Like nah, you can love multiple people. You can have feelings for them and you can feel, it’s just you’re not working towards being with them and you’re not committing to them. And your future with them, you don’t see that future with them. And I didn’t realize always that that was how I was too. Like I was capable of kind of splitting my focus like that. Being a mom, you learn how to multitask. So there you go.

Chris Seiter:
Well, it’s interesting that you bring that up, the cheating thing in particular. Do you think, like you’re going to look at him, you’re thinking all these really negative thoughts about the other woman, and then you basically cheat on the person that you’re with, with him. And all of a sudden, does that kind of like create this sort of like different narrative within yourself about like looking at his actions and sort of like-

Bethany:
Exactly. That’s exactly what it did. It gave me a different perspective. It made me realize that you can justify anything really, like there are certain things that you can justify to yourself and not really acknowledge that you’re doing something like terrible in those moments, you kind of lose yourself.

Chris Seiter:
I think it’s also a good lesson on forgiveness, as well.

Bethany:
I’ve heard people say that people don’t realize marriages and relationships take more forgiveness than they’d like to admit. And I think that’s really true. And that’s what I had to learn. Anna tried to get me to forgive him and myself and it took me years and I’m still working on it.

Chris Seiter:
You weren’t willing to though. Yeah, it’s like an everyday thing. So is there anything else that we can sort of mine for here? Because you’ve given so much already.

Bethany:
I took like little notes actually. But no, I think that’s basically it. Like the path of getting back with my ex, it took a long time because there was a lot of starting and stopping from my side and there was a lot of kind of discovery, self discovery, like learning is this what I want. And for me, I’m the type of person that, we’re very different in many ways, we have different attachment styles, and I need reassurance. I need that constant kind of feedback of how am I doing. Like how’s my driving? And you don’t get that. You don’t get that. So needing that feedback, it’s really hard. You have to give yourself that feedback, and if you’re not capable of doing it, you feel like you’re not making progress. So you kind of halt your progress. You stop your momentum. And that’s what I did numerous times, I kind of got in my own way and let myself get into my head.

Chris Seiter:
Well, thank you for coming on so much.

Bethany:
Of course. Thank you so much, Chris. Like I said, your program is amazing. I think pretty much anybody should do it, basically just to learn how to deal with making themselves better and being better, communicating better. I don’t even think it needs to be in the situation of a breakup really, because it helped out so many different elements of my life. So, thank you.

Chris Seiter:
No worries.