Advice: Dating Again After a Bad Breakup - What Do I Need to Share About It?

Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever Advice. I'm your host, Erin Keating and in these short weekly episodes I give you my opinionated and not at all officially qualified feedback about the questions, problems, quandaries and dilemmas that you have posed to me about love, sex, dating, relationships, career, aging, ambition, divorce, and anything else is on your beautiful mind. Not like A Beautiful Mind, like the movie "A Beautiful Mind", like your mind. It's beautiful.

Okay, today's advice question is from "Dating After A Bad Breakup"

"I'm starting to date after a decade long relationship ended last year. How do I talk about why my ex and I broke up? There were some sensitive mental health issues involved, so I'm concerned about stigma and and judgment of others. I do want to speak respectfully of my ex, but at the same time be genuine about what I've been through and where I'm coming from. Signed Dating After A Bad Breakup."

Oh yeah. First of all, I'm so sorry you experienced a bad breakup. Is there a good breakup? I don't think so, breakups are so painful and after 10 years you are processing a lot of stuff and I'm really impressed that you're back out there dating again a year later. You deserve love, you deserve to be happy.

You deserve to be in a good relationship so good for you that you're hitting the streets, maybe hitting the apps, maybe asking people out, maybe you're getting asked out in real life. Wouldn't that be charming and old fashioned if that was the case? Anyway, I'm proud, proud of you. I think it's amazing that you're getting back on the metaphorical horse. You know, why does any relationship break up? It's because you tried to overcome the things that were not working about it and you couldn't make it work anymore. And you are free to share whatever details you're ready to share whenever you are ready to share them with the new people in your life or your perspective. New partners, boyfriends, lovers, whatever. You don't say if it was you who had the mental health issues or if it was your ex. It seems to me because you say you want to speak respectfully about your ex, that it was them, but if it was you, I'm so sorry and I hope you have good care and medication if you need it.

And if it was your ex, I really hope the same for them as well. In my experience, being in a relationship with someone who has mental health issues is so hard because even if you have compassion for them, which you sure that you did, and even if you understand that their behavior is caused by their mental illness. You're still just you and the things that are happening to you, even if they're a result of your partner's mental health issues, are still happening to you. They're not happening to you mitigated by the mental health problems. They are happening to you in real time, just regular style, and they are difficult to manage. So you're in this weird position of having to be compassionate and wanting to be compassionate for someone who's suffering from depression or anxiety or bipolar or any of the things that are so common these days, but you're affected by them in a straightforward way that is not mitigated by the fact that they have a mental health issue. Pain is pain.

Bad behavior is bad behavior. Your suffering is your suffering. And I hope that you've given yourself the freedom to really experience that, even while holding in parallel compassion for your ex for the things that they're going through. Just because they have mental health problems doesn't mean that what they're experiencing is more important, more profound, more meaningful than what you're experiencing. And it doesn't make what you're experiencing any less challenging. I'd like to give you permission, if you need it, to share information about your breakup with the new people in your life whenever it feels right. I'm going to give you permission to share whatever information feels right in any given moment and withhold any other information until you're ready to share it. Fuck the stigma and judgment of others.

You tried hard, you loved someone for a decade. You are still giving respect to this person even as you try to enter new relationships. It sounds to me like you are judging yourself, but there is nothing to judge. You did your best and it ultimately didn't work out okay. Now you're out there giving yourself another shot. You did your best. Fuck that stigma, fuck that judgment, and don't lay that judgment on yourself.

If the people you're dating pressure you or feel entitled to have you share sensitive information before you're ready to share that information, they can fuck off. Sorry. Anyone who's going to pressure you to reveal things about yourself before you're ready to reveal them about yourself is not the right person for you to be dating right now. And, you know, I relate to this because I pressured my ex to share things about his life when we were first dating because I felt like he was being withholding. I felt like he was intentionally not sharing things with me that I felt entitled to know. I wanted all the details right aways because I liked him so much. I wanted to be clear in my judgment of him that he was going to be a good candidate for me.

And eventually I came to understand that he needed to know that he could trust me. Before he told me a lot of the details about his past, he was scared of scaring me off, so he protected himself and only shared the things he was ready to share. Everything was revealed in time and that will be what happens with you. You will reveal what you want to reveal in time. You have actually already given yourself a script, but I can help you refine it. I think you can say when you're talking about why your relationship broke up, I think you can say, you know, it was a really meaningful relationship and I want to respect what it was. I mean, we were together for a decade, but there were some really challenging and sensitive things that led to our breakup that have to do with mental health and I'm not really ready to talk about that yet. Maybe we can talk about it more if we get to know each other better.

I hope that's helpful for you, Dating After A Bad Breakup. Don't let anyone pressure you in any way in the dating process. If they're pressuring you, they're not the right person. But it seems to me like some of the pressure is coming from you and I hope that you can release yourself from the pain of needing to protect your ex from other people's perceptions of their mental health issues. If indeed it was your ex that suffered, you don't have to protect them anymore. You need to take care of yourself.

Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever Advice. How can you ask a question? I'm so glad you asked. DM us @hotterthaneverpod on Instagram or leave me a voicemail or text the Hotter Than Ever Hottie hotline or at 323-844-2303. I would love to answer your question whether or not I am qualified to do so in a future episode.

Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard and Podkit Productions. Our Associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez.

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