Every week I try my best to interview a success story for my podcast. This week I had to opportunity to interview a wonderful young woman named Mary. As always, the purpose of these success story interviews isn’t to toot my own horn about how awesome I am but to actually see what I’m doing wrong.

I try to go into every interview with one directive.

I want to see what actually works to get an ex back.

Well, I walked away from this interview not necessarily learning something new but rather admiring Mary for her fortitude.

You see, she not only got her ex back in a really unique way but she actually broke up with him again after she learned he was falling back into the same old habits that cost them their relationship in the first place.

Here’s How Mary Got Her Ex Back

Chris Seiter:
Okay, it’s recording. All right. Today, we’re going to be talking to Mary, who is a success story who was in our private Facebook support group. And we’re going to be talking to her to basically figure out what she did that worked. How are you doing Mary?

Mary:
I’m good. How are you?

Chris Seiter:
I’m doing pretty good. Okay. So I know really nothing about your situation. So why don’t we do this? Why don’t you tell me a little bit about how this breakup occurred? What caused it?

Mary:
Okay, so leading up to the breakup, we got along really well. We meshed really well, but I think we were spending a lot of time together. We were constantly together and that led to lots of fights about stupid things. We never really had a giant fight until the very end, but just little things. Then we would not want to talk to each other for a little while, but be sitting next to each other sulking. So it was really just uncomfortable.

Chris Seiter:
So how old was he and how old were you?

Mary:
Okay, so this was a year ago. So I was 22.

Chris Seiter:
Okay.

Mary:
Yeah I was 22 and he was 26.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So he’s the older one.

Mary:
Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
You’re basically saying, because you spent so much time together, you just kind of got on each other’s nerves, eventually?

Mary:
[crosstalk 00:01:39] each other. Yeah. Because even I was thinking, “Why are we doing this? This isn’t working.”

Chris Seiter:
So can you give me an example of what … You said you would fight over kind of petty things.

Mary:
Just the movie we wanted to watch. We couldn’t agree. So we would just start arguing about, Oh, you can never pick anything, stupid things. I think it was about who was taking our dog to the groomer the next day. I don’t even know.

Chris Seiter:
So it’s almost like you guys were just starting fights for the sake of starting fights.

Mary:
Yeah. We were just frustrated with each other and I think it was definitely on both ends. Because we were both short with each other.

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Chris Seiter:
So were you guys living together?

Mary:
No.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So you weren’t living together-

Mary:
I was just always over at his place because I lived at home.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So you lived at home. He had his own place, but you have a dog together.

Mary:
Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
What an odd arrangement. It’s like sharing a kid.

Mary:
It was his dog that we got together, but it was his dog and we took care of him together and yeah, I was just always at his place. So I basically lived there.

Chris Seiter:
You were together for like a year you said?

Mary:
Not even a year. I want to say got together in August and then we broke up at the end of July.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So that’s only a few months you guys were together. So in those few months, it’s like you guys were just spending so much time together eventually you kind of got on each other’s nerves. So how does this break up go down exactly? Who breaks up with who? Was it him to you or you to him?

Mary:
See, he thought it was me to him at first and then I thought it was him to me because I remember it was that talking about the groomers and then I just left. I went home and then the next day he was at work, I came, took the dog to the groomers and then dropped him off and then left. Then we didn’t speak to each other for the weekend. Then finally I was texting him and he didn’t want to talk to me. He told me that he figured the relationship was done. He took me leaving as a breakup and he didn’t even want to try anymore.

Chris Seiter:
That is a unique breakup because it’s a breakup without words, essentially. It’s almost like he just is like, “Ah, I don’t want to fight for this anymore,” and that’s the [crosstalk 00:04:15]-

Mary:
There were words.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So there were words.

Mary:
There were words after the fact because I didn’t accept that.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So you were like, “No, hell no, we’re going to make this work.” He was like-

Mary:
I was like, “That’s so stupid. It was a fight.” So you know how you had that nice list of things not to do?

Chris Seiter:
Oh yes. Yes. I’m familiar with that. Yeah. So I’m assuming you checked off every one of those?

Mary:
Every one.

Chris Seiter:
Okay.

Mary:
Even the hoard letter. Oh, that was-

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Chris Seiter:
Oh the letter. So what was in the letter?

Mary:
Oh gosh. I don’t even remember. I remember being very emotional when sending it, so I don’t even know, but basically about how I was sorry for trying to do … So he doesn’t want to talk to me and then I asked for a conversation, so he gives me the conversation and he nicely tells me he doesn’t want to be together. Then I asked for another conversation and then he’s not so nice and tells me he doesn’t want to be together.

Chris Seiter:
Okay.

Mary:
Then I was [inaudible 00:05:20] and then I sent the letter pretty much apologizing for everything I did and that I was going to give him his space and I understood where he was coming from. Then that’s when I think after that was when I found your articles,

Chris Seiter:
I had done all of the bad behaviors. So I’m assuming after you go through all these bad behaviors, you’re like, “Okay, well I probably should like go to Google or YouTube and try to figure out what people are recommending to do.”

Mary:
Yeah. I think I looked up like how to get over a broken heart. It was very pathetic.

Chris Seiter:
No, no, no. Okay. Then somehow you come into my orbit and-

Mary:
Yeah. Then I found all of these articles and that was one of them. I was just like, “Oh no,” because I thought, oh, there is a chance we could get back together because I was reading some other ones first. I was like, “Okay, it’s not so bad.” Then I saw that one and I was like, “Okay, no chance. I just ruined everything.”

Chris Seiter:
So you saw all the mistakes and you’re like, “What have I done?” So eventually you get into the private Facebook support group. So did you buy the program first?

Mary:
Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
So you bought the program, you get into the private Facebook group and what happens then? Do you follow the rule? I don’t really care if you follow the rules, I’m just trying to figure out what you did that worked versus what people are doing that isn’t working. But what was your approach when you get the program?

Mary:
Okay. So I got the program and I really tried hard to follow it because the first couple of weeks I remember it was really hard, but I kept a journal and I just wrote my feelings every day and how some days were better than the others. So I knew the down days I could get over, but it was really hard to be motivated to try and change myself because I never felt that way. I was in such a dark place.

Chris Seiter:
It’s kind of depressing. Isn’t it? When you go through this loss because it’s like a grieving process if you really think about it and it can be depressing. Especially, you probably have those days where you just don’t want to get out of bed. We were talking before. I was like, “Yeah, for whatever reason today, I just didn’t want to get out of bed.” But I’m assuming with a breakup though, those emotions are heightened.

Mary:
Yeah. It was horrible. I didn’t want to go to work. I was just about to start my semester. I would go-

Chris Seiter:
You’re like, “I don’t want to go to school anymore.” Did you ever consider dropping out? Was it ever that bad? It was just more of just knowing you eventually will have to go, but you don’t really want to go.

Mary:
Yeah. I was just like, “How am I supposed to do anything?” My family was thinking I was crazy because they felt so bad for me. But then I was reading how to get over it, how to make yourself stronger. So I really focused on those. I focused on the relationships of other people, especially I got a lot closer with my family, which was really nice and some friends. I had a lot of support from friends.

Chris Seiter:
So that’s unique because most of the time when people hear about that holy trinity concept, health, wealth, relationships the last thing they focus on is the relationships. They always kind of hone in on you’ll see some women and men go like, “Well, I’m going to go get in the best shape of my life.” Then you’ll see some women and men are like, “Oh, I’m going to focus on my career.” Rarely do you see people who focus on the relationships aspect.

Mary:
Well, the relationships helps me with that because my one friend was going to the gym all the time. So I went along with him and we worked out and I was getting in the better shape and I was feeling better about myself.

Chris Seiter:
So you basically used friendships on the relationship spectrum to help with health, because he was like a workout person and you’re like, “Well, can I come?” It’s almost like the motivation of having a partner there throughout this really hard time.

Mary:
Yeah. Because he knew what he was doing. I had no idea. So now even when I go alone, I have at least an idea of what to do and how to actually improve. Then I worked on once I started school, I just kind of focused myself into it and it worked out. I ended up getting the best grades out of my entire career.

Chris Seiter:
Wow. So, you turn a really negative situation into a positive one and I’m assuming, so we didn’t really talk about this, but did you obviously you learned about no contact? How were you in that? How long was your no contact? Did you end up doing one? Did you fail it consistently? What was your experience with that?

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Mary:
So I want to say the first few weeks of us breaking up, I didn’t even know about the no contact, so I didn’t do it. Then my first attempt lasted a day.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So lasted a day. So how’d you break it? Was it like, “I just need to find out,” or-

Mary:
It was that letter.

Chris Seiter:
Oh the letter. Okay. So you’re just like, “I need the closure of the letter.” Okay.

Mary:
No, it wasn’t the letter. I don’t remember what I did. I think I just sent out a text. I can’t remember at this point. I know I broke it. I just cant-

Chris Seiter:
So I’m assuming you broke it multiple times then. You had a few false starts.

Mary:
Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
Okay.

Mary:
Then once I got through the first week was when I got through it.

Chris Seiter:
So how long of a period of no contact did you decide to do?

Mary:
I did 30 days.

Chris Seiter:
Okay.

Mary:
So then I started no contact, did all that. Then I tried to text him and my opening text, it was something about … I lied. I said I saw a dog that looked like his dog up [crosstalk 00:11:38] and I said, “I hope you guys are both doing well.” He said, “Yeah, we’re both doing really well. I hope you’re doing well too.” I didn’t say anything back after that. It was nice compared to the messages from before.

Chris Seiter:
Okay so [crosstalk 00:11:54] a juxtaposition between what it was like before versus now. But I’m kind of curious. It seems like that 30 days of no contact that you did, do you feel like by the time you got out of it, you were in a much better place emotionally, like you had sort of more emotional control? Do you feel like that?

Mary:
Completely. Completely. Because I was thinking about going longer and then I was deciding, because I was thinking okay, if it doesn’t turn out well, am I going to be okay? If I get a negative reaction or no response, am I going to be okay? I figured, “Yeah, I will be because I’m pretty happy with myself right now. I’m happy with the state I’m in. I know I don’t need somebody, so it’ll be okay.”

Chris Seiter:
So would you say that this period of no contact where you’re thinking of extending it, was there ever a point where your mind shifted towards I need to get him back, I need to get him back to, I don’t care if I get him back?

Mary:
Yes.

Chris Seiter:
Okay.

Mary:
But it was like a bungee cord. There was one day where I would think like that and then the next day I would be like, “No, I think it could work out better. I know what the problem is now. I think it could be better.”

Chris Seiter:
So obviously you will get him back, but what I’m noticing when I’m doing these interviews is this exact thing where people will kind of get to this emotional place where they’re like, “I’m not sure I want him back anymore,” and then of course they’ll have the bungee cord experience, which is a great analogy by the way. Would you say that mindset of getting to a place emotionally where you don’t care about getting them back helped before getting in touch with him?

Mary:
Well, I kind of got to that point after I first got in contact with him because his messages … So the first few times I tried to text them, they were obviously short and he would always respond, but it didn’t seem like he was that into the conversation.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So it’s like he’s just responding to be nice. Not intrigued.

Mary:
Yeah. So that’s when I was saying I didn’t want to do all the work. I didn’t want to put all the effort.

Chris Seiter:
You wanted him to be half. You wanted you to be half. You wanted it to equal.

Mary:
Exactly. So I thought, “Okay, if he’s not even going to try at all, I’m just going to be done.” So I deleted his number. I was like, “I’m going to be done.” I’m going to move on. That was my mindset. I’m over it. Move on time. Because I knew if I wasn’t trying to get back together with them, there was no point in talking to him, which ended up being a mistake.

Chris Seiter:
Oh okay. So it was a mistake in what way?

Mary:
Okay. So I stopped talking to him and he didn’t text me back. A week later I found out something that I had to tell him and it wasn’t something that I just wanted to tell him. It was something that I needed to tell him. I had no way of contacting him.

Chris Seiter:
I don’t know his number. What’s his number? Okay. So did you have to go to a mutual friend and say like, “Hey, do you have so and so’s number?”

Mary:
I didn’t even do that. I was just like, “You know what? I said I was just going to show up, tell him what I wanted to tell him.”

Chris Seiter:
Oh, wow. This is good. Okay.

Mary:
Then I was just going to leave. That was the plan. So I go to his house and his mom answers and she’s really excited to see me. Then his dog was really excited. I remember him walking out of the kitchen because I knew he had just gotten off work. I planned this very well. Came out of the kitchen and he saw me and he looked like he just saw a ghost. He was-

Chris Seiter:
So he’s immediately it’s almost like he doesn’t panic. It’s like he shuts down. He doesn’t know what to do.

Mary:
Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
Okay.

Mary:
Yeah. I was just like, “I’m so sorry. Do you mind if I talk to you outside real fast?” So I got him outside, told him exactly what I needed to tell him and then … Sorry.

Chris Seiter:
No worries. We need the beeps every once in a while to keep the audience engaged.

Mary:
So I told him what I needed to tell him.

Chris Seiter:
Yep. See there’s the second one guys. Just making sure you’re listening. Okay. So you told them what you needed to tell them.

Mary:
Yeah. It wasn’t good news either. I’ll just say-

Chris Seiter:
Oh. Okay. So, it was bad news.

Mary:
Yeah. So I was just like, “All right, well I got to go. Hope you’re doing all right.”

Chris Seiter:
You basically say, “Hey, we haven’t seen each other in two months, but here’s this really crappy news. Bye.”

Mary:
Yeah. I know when I get nervous, I smile a lot. So I’m telling them this bad news with this smile on my face.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So you tell him the bad news, you smiles. What’s next?

Mary:
Then I just left and he didn’t really say much and he let me leave. Well, wait, I did say sorry that I just stopped by, but I told him I got a new phone, so I didn’t have his number because I didn’t want to say that I erased it. He said, “Oh, well, do you want my number now?” I said, “No, that’s all right. If you want to talk to me, you can,” and I just left.

Chris Seiter:
It’s almost like you did kind of a hot and cold thing without really … You just confused the heck out of him. So you show up unannounced, which is usually not what we tell people to do at all. So this is the way I would picture it. The immediate thinking he would have is like, “Oh, she’s here to try to win me back.” But instead of doing that, you drop this horrible news on him or bad news on him. So he’s like, “What the heck?”

Chris Seiter:
Then to make it worse, you’re like, “Oh yeah, by the way, I got a new phone. So I don’t have your number.” He’s like, “Oh, do you want it?” You’re like, “No thanks.” Then you just leave.

Mary:
Yeah. That’s exactly what happened.

Chris Seiter:
Wow. Oh, that’s interesting though. It’s almost like … I’ve never seen that approach before and obviously it had some effect.

Mary:
Yeah. Because I wasn’t even home yet and I started getting text messages from him.

Chris Seiter:
Well, obviously he still has your number.

Mary:
Yep and he just started saying how no, he’s not okay to answer my question of hope you’re doing all right. He just said that he was full of regrets and he hates his own stubbornness because he’s made this situation into what it is. I could tell it was about the relationship, but it was worded very generically. So I tried not to respond in a way where I took it in the relationship sense, I was just like, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll get, you’ll get through it. Whatever it is. It’s not too bad. It’ll be all right.”

Mary:
Then he got into the specifics and then he didn’t talk to me again for a couple days. Then he asked me to have a talk with him. So I want to go over and we had a long talk. I kind of just let him talk. He was just telling me everything, I guess. What he was thinking when we broke up and what he was thinking during our time apart and what he thought when I just showed up.

Chris Seiter:
So what did he say he was thinking during the breakup?

Mary:
That it would just be easier to end it because we weren’t getting along.

Chris Seiter:
So you’re fighting so much. Then what was he thinking after the breakup when this no contact rule was going on?

Mary:
Well, he felt that relief, like being free.

Chris Seiter:
It’s like, Oh, thank God. We don’t have to fight anymore.

Mary:
But he told me he hated just hanging out with his friends because he would be wondering what I was doing and that there were times where he would go to text me and then just erase the message. He doesn’t have any social media at all. So it’s not like he was creeping on there or anything.

Chris Seiter:
What did he think when you showed up?

Mary:
I remember him telling me I looked really good.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So he’s just more thinking sexual thoughts then. So the bad news didn’t even phase him. He was just like, “Wow, look how good she looks.” Okay.

Mary:
Just that he was happy to see me, but yeah, he wasn’t happy about the news, but that he was happy that the news caused me to come because he didn’t think he had it in him to try and talk to me without it, even though I had texted him.

Chris Seiter:
Stubborn. Interesting. Okay.

Mary:
Yeah and it’s interesting because it took me being there. Not even just like me reaching out to him because he was very unresponsive to those. I asked him about that and he said that was because he felt so bad about how he treated me and how he didn’t think he deserved to text me or something like that.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So it’s almost like guilt and just seeing you in person, just maybe enough to spur you on. There’s this concept called the 7 38 55 rule, which posits that human interaction, a lot of it is due to three concepts. Which is words, body language, and tone of voice. When you’re texting, you’re only engaging 7% of the possible meaning of messages. So tone of voice and body language are not included in text messages.

Chris Seiter:
So sometimes words alone won’t reach someone. I’m wondering if seeing you in person it just spurs him to take action as opposed to the texting. But I’m curious because you still haven’t gotten him back yet. He’s just texting you now after you’ve shown up.

Mary:
Yeah. So he asked me if I would be willing to try again.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So did he do that over the phone in person or-

Mary:
During our talk. Our initial talk. I said the possibility wasn’t completely gone, but I wouldn’t want to just rush into it. Then he asked me if he could start texting me good morning again. Be he said he missed-

Chris Seiter:
That’s kind of sweet.

Mary:
Yeah. So then that started. The good morning text started. Then we talked on the phone a couple times when he was just driving home from work. Then he asked me to watch Harry Potter with him, which was interesting because I tried to get him to watch that for our entire relationship.

Chris Seiter:
So, first off, this says a lot about which Harry Potter exactly?

Mary:
All of them.

Chris Seiter:
All of them? From start to finish?

Mary:
Yeah. Yeah. That was our hangout thing.

Chris Seiter:
A Harry Potter marathon.

Mary:
Not all at once. He would ask me, “Oh, do you want to come watch the first one?”

Chris Seiter:
Let’s watch The Chamber Of Secrets now. Oh, Prisoner of [inaudible 00:23:44]. Okay.

Mary:
I think he was just trying to find a way to get me up there because I was trying to get them to watch it so often. He was not having it.

Chris Seiter:
It just took a breakup, Mary. It just took a breakup.

Mary:
Yeah. Then we were just hanging out more and then we never really said we were back together. We just kind of-

Chris Seiter:
It just kind of happened. Just the interactions you were having in the Harry Potter marathons.

Mary:
Exactly.

Chris Seiter:
That’s what works. Harry Potter is going to have a strong place in your relationship from now on. Did you make it through all of them? That’s the number one question I’m wondering.

Mary:
We watched all of them. Not all at once. Like I said, it was over a couple of weeks.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. Okay. So there’s a lot interesting here because you followed half of it and then you just kind of audibled and did your own thing, which in this odd way worked, but I’m kind of curious when you look back on the experience of what worked to win him back, what do you feel was the most impactful for you personally?

Mary:
Oh, I feel like I got more out of it from me than just the relationship. I really enjoyed the holy trinity. I still follow that. I thought that was great. Anytime I feel like I’m getting low on one, I’ll focus on another. So I’ve been able to keep myself pretty happy. Because me and him aren’t together now. We actually broke up again.

Chris Seiter:
You broke up again?

Mary:
We did.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So this is interesting too, because I’m finding that half of the people that get back together will break up again. So what caused the second breakup?

Mary:
It was more mutual. Because I feel like-

Chris Seiter:
It’s like you almost outgrew him or something.

Mary:
Yeah. I really think that’s what happened.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So you go through the program. You basically use part of it. I mean, you kind of use your own thing, so I’m not going to take total credit, but you use part of it, you get him back. But then truly, so what I’ve been finding is women who tend to let go, tend to get their exes back. I think literally you let him go. You’re just like, “I’m better than him,” maybe in this odd way.

Mary:
We didn’t break up right away. We were together for a while and at first it seemed great. We had both gotten better and then I could see him going back into old patterns. Instead of trying to talk through things he would resort to arguing or if I would try and talk, he would just say like, “No, it’s going to be an argument. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Chris Seiter:
So that’s a pretty common thing that I talk about a lot. Most of the time I talk about it on other interviews outside of the group. But what I tell people is what I see is there is an immediate change when you get back together. But eventually there’s a regression to the mean where it gets back to what caused the issues in the first place. You’re saying that’s kind of what happened to you with him. So you were just like, “You know what? I’m not going to do this.” So you break up with him.

Mary:
I didn’t want to go back to that relationship.

Chris Seiter:
So you’re just like, “I’m too cool for you now.”

Mary:
I didn’t do it mean. I was trying to tell him-

Chris Seiter:
You did it nicely.

Mary:
Well, I told him that I explained why I didn’t want to be together and that if we could work on it, then we should try to make it work. So I kind of did my own thing for a while. Gave us space, like got my own apartment with a friend and was doing my own thing. I feel like that kind of made him resentful instead of-

Chris Seiter:
So he’s resentful of your independence.

Mary:
[crosstalk 00:27:42] yeah.

Chris Seiter:
Maybe not resentful, but maybe intimidated in this odd way, because if you’re intimidated, you can kind of lash out by it. So do you feel that’s what happened?

Mary:
Yeah, exactly. He was lashing out on me and then we just stopped talking completely. That’s been, I want to say two months now.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So this is kind of the interesting question. You went through the program, you got him back. Yay. Then you date for a little while, and then you kind of determine this isn’t making me happy and another breakup occurs. Are you at a point where you’re just like, I want to move on for someone else? Or do you still have lingering I want to try again?

Mary:
No, neither. I didn’t want to find someone else. My thought was like, “All right, let’s get through school now.”

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So you’re focusing more on the wealth sort of career type aspect, which is school for you.

Mary:
Yeah I was just like [crosstalk 00:28:46].

Chris Seiter:
Then of course the pandemic happens, which adds another layer to this all.

Mary:
Yeah and I was surprised cause I kind of expected myself to go back to that dark place, but I feel like the system made me strong enough where even now I’m fine. I’m okay.

Chris Seiter:
So you got that internal confidence knowing that you’re allowed to feel the pain, but you’ll be okay. That’s interesting. I mean, I think you’re the first success story I ever had that’s done that. That’s gone through it, gotten back and then basically said, “This isn’t making me happy. I think I deserve better,” and then kind of focus more on this is what I think is going to make me happy right now. You have an interesting perspective because you’re not on the high of the honeymoon period. So you can really look and say, “This is what I think worked and this is how I was feeling.”

Chris Seiter:
So most of the people listening to this are trying to get their exes back or maybe they’re even trying to get over their exes. What we’re finding consistently is that the key to kind of getting your ex back is kind of moving on or letting go in this odd way. That bungee cord thing you were talking about.

Mary:
Yeah.

Chris Seiter:
Do you feel like that was an important part of the process for you?

Mary:
Getting over it?

Chris Seiter:
Yeah getting over it.

Mary:
Yeah. Yeah. Because once I got over it and started working on myself, I was happier with myself then even when we were together, before we were together, literally the happiest I had been with myself was during that time.

Chris Seiter:
Obviously the results were pretty positive. He came back, but it seems like the interesting aspect is you almost outgrew that relationship with him because you got to that strong place.

Mary:
Yeah. I think that he has his own insecurities and …

Chris Seiter:
So when you say insecurities is a lot of jealousy, like he’d be worried about you hanging out with this guy or he’d be worried about you doing something like that or was it some other thing?

Mary:
Sometimes. Not a lot, but sometimes that would happen and he would just always talk about how he expected me to hurt him because he had been hurt in the past. He was just waiting-

Chris Seiter:
So he has the victim mentality because he’s the one that technically initiated the breakup or you have a kind of an odd breakup.

Mary:
He fully initiated the last breakup. So yeah. I would bring that up. I was like, “That’s not fair for you to hold me against something I haven’t even done whenever you’ve done it to me and I’m trying not to hold that against you.”

Chris Seiter:
So there’s 100% insecurity there with him, which is like, he’s afraid. Which it’s really fear based if you think about. He’s so afraid of getting hurt, he’s willing to push that away.

Mary:
Yeah. I know he had been hurt in the past, pretty harshly so I could understand it and I was trying to work through it with him, but he didn’t want to work through it. So I mean, there’s only so much you can do at that point if they don’t want to try and get better.

Chris Seiter:
So what would you say to someone who’s maybe going through a breakup right now and is looking for maybe just like one thing to do? What would you say the most important thing for you to do was?

Mary:
Oh gosh. That’s hard. I mean, it depends on the person.

Chris Seiter:
It does. So just for you personally, when you look back at your experience, if you had to choose one thing that you did, what would you feel was the most impactful?

Mary:
Oh, getting closer to my family. Me and my sister are six years apart. So we weren’t very close growing up because she was so much younger than me, but after that breakup, she was there for me. We bonded and we are best friends now.

Chris Seiter:
Oh that’s great. So it’s almost like you try to turn this really negative experience of a breakup into a positive in whatever way you can. By doing that, you reestablish this really strong relationship with your family, your sister, and now you feel like some good came out of it at the very least.

Mary:
For sure.

Chris Seiter:
Well, thank you so much for doing this. It was actually a really unique one because I don’t think we’ve ever had someone come on, say, “Yeah, I got my ex back, but I realized they weren’t kind of good enough for me.” Mic drop. Which is kind of cool

Mary:
I probably should have warned you beforehand.

Chris Seiter:
Oh no, no, no. That’s okay. Actually I kind of like it. It’s like the twist at the end of a movie or something. So what I really liked is the fact that you got them back then you were like kind of grown enough from the experience to realize this relationship isn’t making me happy. It’s it shouldn’t take this much work. I feel like I deserve better than this. sometimes I think it’s important to show people realistically, what will happen. Because what I’ve found is about half of the people who will get back together will break up again because of the exact thing you’re going through, which is like it’s kind of-

Mary:
What do they call it? The pedestal effect.

Chris Seiter:
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s almost like I think that it’s more of the honeymoon phase aspect where you’re just living on the high of getting back together. But eventually those insecurities aren’t worked on on his side, they started dripping in and it seems … So before we go, I do have one question for you. So you mentioned you guys would fight a lot in the first relationship over like really trivial things. Was that an aspect of yourself that you worked on when you got back together? You were like, “I think I need to communicate better.”

Mary:
Yeah. Yeah. I was trying really hard.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So he wasn’t willing to play essentially.

Mary:
Sometimes he would. Sometimes we could have constructive conversations and I’m like, “All right. See, this is how we have to communicate. It’s a lot better,” and he would agree, but then next time and an argument would occur, we just couldn’t do it again. I don’t know what it was. We just couldn’t consistently have this conversation.

Chris Seiter:
To me it seems like you guys would enjoy communicating in an effective way, but then when the emotions got high over something else, you would just kind of throw the rule book out. Would you say you pretty much stayed the same with trying to be calm and communicative or was it eventually he would just wear you down so much to the point where you’re just like, “Oh, I can’t take it,” and you’d lash out at him?

Mary:
No. In the second relationship, which was very different from the first one, it was when he would drink was when the arguments would come out and they would-

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So there’s some sort of alcohol aspect to it.

Mary:
Yeah. That wasn’t the way it wasn’t the first relationship. That was just something that happened in the second one. I’m not really sure why. It wasn’t at the beginning either. It was more towards the end, but every time he would drink, he would want to argue with me and I would say, “Okay, you need to go to bed. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I don’t want to have these arguments.” Then it would lead to him kicking me out of the house and stuff.

Chris Seiter:
Okay. So it’s a really unhealthy second relationship it seems like.

Mary:
Yeah and those were things that didn’t happen in the first one. I don’t know why that happened.

Chris Seiter:
If I were to take a guess. I think there’s a lot of resentment about the fact that you guys had to break up in the first place. So he blames you. Also I’ve been reading, this is weird, but I’ve been reading a lot of [Niche 00:36:58] and it’s really interesting Niche, the philosopher did not believe in alcohol because he thought it’s a way of distracting yourself from the problems of real life. If you struggle through life, you’ll actually grow stronger.

Chris Seiter:
So I think whatever struggles he had or whatever demons he had, he would sort of drown them with the alcohol to kind of maybe not think about them so much. You were just wound up in the cyclone. So it seems like to me a great decision to get out of that relationship. I think it’s a great cautionary tale for people who sometimes look at their exes with rosy colored glasses.

Chris Seiter:
It’s not always easy if you get them back and sometimes that’s not the answer, but it seems like you were able to take that situation and know your worth and be like, “Look, I can’t do this anymore.” To me, I would have advised the same thing. It seems like a real unhealthy situation at that point of the second relationship, which you wouldn’t think, because you’d think he’d have a chance to work on his issues in the first one, but [crosstalk 00:38:04] worse.

Mary:
Yeah. It wasn’t even at the beginning, I don’t know if something happened that maybe I didn’t know about or I don’t know.

Chris Seiter:
I mean, the only thing I could maybe say is he feels a lot of resentment about the fact, he’s already played the victim mentality. So he feels a lot of resentment about the fact that there was a breakup that occurred the first time. He’s always got that sort of Damocles hanging over his head like, “Well, what if she hurts me again?” That creates this pressure and maybe he’s drinking, trying to forget about it or trying to numb whatever pain he’s feeling inside. It’s just not a healthy way to deal with the problem, number one. Number two is you shouldn’t be taking it out of the individual who loves you. That seems to be what was happening.

Mary:
Yep.

Chris Seiter:
So you’re just focused right now on school. You’re just focused on yourself.

Mary:
Yeah. That’s my last semester. I want to get through it.

Chris Seiter:
I’m telling you, this is, this is when you meet the guy of your dreams. Usually when you’re not looking is when you meet them.

Mary:
All right. Well hopefully it’ll take some time.