We know, there is literally nothing worse than a broken heart. We laser our buttholes, birth children, and stomp through life in four-inch stilettos, but a breakup instantly trumps any other pain we will ever experience. Why can coconut oil heal our yeast infections, split ends, and sunburns, but it does nothing for our shattered hearts? That’s because there is nothing you can do but bide your time until a week, a year, or a decade later, the ghost of relationships past magically lifts its dark curtain of love. Time is the coconut oil of life, which is annoying because it works so fucking slow sometimes. Your ex will eventually feel so yesterbae, but until then, the only thing you can do is look back and be grateful for the lessons you will ultimately learn from your crumbled relationship. You are going to feel lonely and sad and mad and pathetic, and you’ll read poetry and cry at red lights when Adele comes on the radio, but that’s just the way life is. Learn how to be okay on your own. Embrace the silence. Find out who you really are when everything else fades away. That is the most important thing you can ever do for your heart.

To pass the time until your heart feels better, we think that you could benefit from a sexorcism. (Don’t tell your mom we gave you this advice!) Having physical intimacy with a stranger kind of slaps you in the face and rips the Band-Aid off. And make no mistake, you won’t feel any better. But in some weird, ass-backward kind of way, it’ll be an integral part of the healing process. And, at the very least, creating a new booty call keeps you from getting drunk and calling the ex. If you’re not up for sex with a new person, get on a dating app and swipe your little heart out. Just having attention from a potential mate is exciting, even if you don’t plan on acting on it. Sometimes you get so hyper-focused on the specific way your partner treats you in a relationship and you’ve normalized shitty behavior for so long that exposing yourself to someone new and different opens your eyes to new possibilities. Dating a new person, even if they’re a shithead, too, puts a Band-Aid on loneliness until time heals the little cracks in your heart.

Here’s a life tip: Make a list of the qualities that you want in your next partner. Let’s get woo-woo for a second and really garner the law of attraction. You get what you put out into the universe, so stop spending all of your energy wallowing in your breakup. It’s time to put some positive vibes out there and dream up your next guy. What is he gonna be like? How is he gonna treat you?

Jac did this after her last breakup and came to the harsh realization that her ex possessed zero of the caring qualities she was looking for in a partner. Use her actual manifest list as a guide, and add your own personality traits at the end!

Remember, your last relationship is only a failure if you didn’t grow as a person from the experience, so don’t continue to make the same mistakes over and over again as you move on to the next guy. Think of your breakup as a blank slate. You get to start over, be extremely picky, and finally find the right guy for you with nothing holding you back. How dope is that?! This manifest list is your bible now, so always refer back to it when you date new people. Keep your head in the game when you start your new vajourney, and don’t get distracted by sparkly things. Remember the qualities that matter: reliability, empathy, kindness, and stability. Qualities that don’t matter: looks, height, charisma, and net worth (But who are we kidding? A high one is a bonus.) We don’t care if a dude is the most charming guy in the world. You know who else was charming and handsome? Ted Bundy. Don’t let your breakup be in vain and just keep dating douchebags. Elevate!

Ah yes, the age-old question: Can you stay friends with an ex? Fuck no. You have enough friends. You don’t need any more. Especially not a friend who carelessly threw your heart in a blender. Post breakup, ask all your real friends to refrain from telling you any info about your ex. What they’re doing, who they’re dating, and what they’re posting is irrelevant to you now. Don’t post things hoping they’ll see them. It’s embarrassing, and everyone can see through it…especially them. In fact, it’s time to block them so you don’t obsess over them seeing your stuff. No matter how crushed you are, you just have to Joey Fatone your relationship and say “Bye, Bye, Bye.”

Speaking of friends: Try to remember that we’ve all been that girl going through a breakup. As much as you feel so alone wallowing in your sadness, we actually do know what you’re going through. And because of that, we will listen to you talk incessantly about your ex like a broken record. But there is an expiration date.

Yes, there is an acceptable frequency with which you can mumble on and on about the same shitty dude, and we took it upon ourselves to quantify that for you. For every month that you were dating, you get one convo to complain at brunch that lasts no more than twenty minutes. We really want to gossip about The Bachelor after you’re done, so please don’t ruin our bottomless mimosas by dragging it on any longer. If you were engaged, you get a bonus two months of endless heartspeak, and if you were married, you get an additional six months. If you have kids involved and there’s a custody battle, then once a month you’re allowed to ugly-cry on our shoulders for the rest of your life.

But here’s the thing: If we’re telling you the same advice over and over again and you’re not changing what you’re doing, you are officially an askhole, and it’s time to figure your shit out on your own. Or it’s time to seek the professional help of a therapist. If you’re not being proactive in your healing process and consciously making good decisions to better yourself, we have nothing to offer you anymore. There is literally nothing more annoying than trying to be a good, understanding friend to someone who throws our thoughtful advice into an endless abyss.

Bounce-House Breakup

I brag a lot on the podcast about how I’ve never been dumped. Well, confession: That is a dirty, filthy lie, and I’m here to come clean. Yes, I have, in fact, been dumped. His name is Sean McVay. Sean FUCKING McVay: the current head coach of the Los Angeles Rams football team, the youngest head coach in NFL history, and the man currently coaching MY local football team. But I’m fine, he’s fine, EVERYONE IS FIIINE! His face is literally everywhere in Los Angeles, mocking me and reminding me of all my shortcomings and failures. However, I’ve decided to take it as a cue from the universe that it’s time for me to stop running from my past and finally speak my truth.

Our steamy love affair started (and ended) in the fifth grade. He and I lived in the same suburban Atlanta subdivision, a relationship of convenience, if you will. Sean was a towhead with a perfectly round bowl cut, bright white arm hair, and tan calves. I was a calf girl back then. Isn’t every ten-year-old? He was one of the school’s best athletes and wore athletic shorts to school every day. PANTY. DROPPER. He was my perfect tweenage dream.

The way I bagged Sean isn’t dissimilar from how I’ve always nabbed my men. On a hot summer day, I would go for a casual jog through our neighborhood. Yes, I was a ten-year-old girl who still hadn’t gotten her period yet, and I was fucking jogging through the neighborhood like a thirty-seven-year-old suburban housewife determined to get her pre-baby body back. Anyway, I would go on these Lolita jaunts so I could run past Sean’s house six or seven times until he noticed me. I would wear only a sports bra and Soffe shorts, rolling the waistband at least six times to barely cover my birth canal. (Shit, this makes me think that I need to stop judging young girls for wearing janties—a cross between jeans and panties, for those of you adorably out of the loop).

Sean and I had a blissful first couple weeks as the power couple of Sope Creek Elementary School. I was loathed by most of the other girls in my grade, as I should’ve been, and it felt terrific. I’m pretty sure no physical contact was made during that time, and I doubt we even communicated on anything other than AOL Instant Messenger, but we were in love. Or so I thought…

One weekend, Sean invited some friends over to take advantage of the bounce house in his backyard that had been ordered for his younger brother’s birthday party earlier that day. Amazing, I thought, a bounce house is the absolute ideal location for my very first kiss. (You can take the girl out of Georgia…amiright?) So, with my confidence sky-high, I threw on my brand new pair of white, skin-tight bell-bottoms. Let me remind you that it was summertime in Georgia—temps in the high nineties and humidity off the charts. Most girls were running around in jean shorts from Old Navy, but not me. I’ve always been a fashionista willing to sacrifice comfort and crotch rot in the name of style. I also knew that my ass looked great, and I couldn’t wait to prance around in front of Sean in my sexy new Lycra/polyblend pants. It’s disturbing that at that age, I already knew what white pants did to a man. It’s also disturbing that, unlike other girls my age on the heels of puberty, no one had to tell me things like “Enjoy your body now, because it only gets worse.” I got the memo. I lived the memo. I was the memo.

So I marched down the street with my supportive girlfriends/personal cheerleaders (who referred to Sean and me as Barbie and Ken), ready to receive my very first smooch.

I strutted over to the bounce house like a proud peacock, but before Sean could even catch a glimpse of my tight derriere, his friend Blake popped his head out of the bounce house and said, “Becca. Sean doesn’t want to go out with you anymore.” BOOM. Life-ruiner. It was over, and suddenly I hated Sean (and my stupid white bell-bottoms) more than life itself. With my tail between my (very sweaty) legs, I made the trek back to my house and spent the rest of the evening sobbing over the death of Barbie and Ken. The Dreamhouse/bounce house fantasy was officially crushed.

And you know what? The worst part is that Sean never even showed his fucking face. He just kept bouncing around that fucking trashy bounce house, letting his smug-ass henchman Blake do his dirty work. He was a goddamn coward. A ten-year-old coward. I mean, how is this same man a head coach in the National Football League?! He can scream at 250-pound linebackers all day, but he didn’t have the courage to tell a seventy-five-pound girl dressed like John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever that he didn’t want to go out with her anymore?

So, there you have it, the worst breakup of my life. And after the infamous breakup of 1996, I told myself that I would never let another man RAM my heart again. (See what I did there?) But no hard feelings, Coach! From the bottom of my cold, half-dead heart, thank you. You really did coach this girl to bounce back and never be dumped again.

Prince Charming Is a Fraud

It started like a goddamn fairy tale. This charming, gorgeous, successful man popped into my life out of nowhere and swept me off my wobbly little feet. He was hilarious, charismatic, outgoing—a man I had always dreamed of—and he always knew exactly what to say to make me feel like the most important person in the world. I had never really believed in soul mates until I met him, but I couldn’t deny the absolute euphoria this man made me feel. This was what it felt like when you met “the one.” How was I so lucky to find the most incredible man in the world? And how was I so lucky that he chose me? It took less than forty-eight hours for him to tell me he loved me. I believed him, I said it back, and I meant it. Within a week, he was gushing about how he couldn’t wait to marry me, how he couldn’t wait to start a family with me, and how he couldn’t believe his lucky stars that he finally met his twin flame. He wanted it all, and he wanted it all with me. I actually felt comfortable sharing the deepest parts of myself with someone for the first time in my adult life, and I was absolutely thrilled that we seemed to have the same morals, values, beliefs, goals, and dreams. I couldn’t believe that someone seemed to mirror me so perfectly. I sat in awe, with my jaw on the floor, listening to this gorgeous man feed me fairy-tale promises of an undying love and a forever life together. He was my real-life Prince Charming.

He came on strong, but he was also walking the walk while talking the talk. He sent me a dozen roses on a Thursday “just because.” He immediately plastered me all over his social media. He complimented me on the things I always wished someone would notice: my sensitive heart, my thoughtfulness, my attention to detail and “the little things.” He was attentive and a great listener. Our first date was so extravagant, it felt like I was the fucking Bachelorette. He lavished me with expensive meals and designer clothes, which I never asked for but greatly appreciated, and it just made me feel so special. Sure, it was fast; sure, it was over the top, but it just felt so right. Wasn’t this what “love at first sight” was supposed to feel like? He was like a drug to me, and I just wanted more and more and more.

And, listen, I have always had a very naïve heart. I grew up with two parents who love each other unconditionally and who have showered me with nothing but unselfish love, and I didn’t realize until I got older how rare this type of relationship is. I always just assumed that everyone had good intentions when it came to love, and that everyone meant what they said. I’m sensitive, empathetic, and I have always yearned for that big romantic love story and for someone to adore me back, so I tend to enter relationships with wide eyes and an eager heart. My vulnerability has always been one of my biggest strengths and one of my most destructive weaknesses. No matter how tough the exterior of my heart gets, it’ll always be a big squishy mess inside. No matter how many times I’d get knocked down by love, I’d get right back up again (yup, I’m like the Chumbawamba song). When someone promises me something, I believe it. So I believed everything he said. He made me feel important, beautiful, valued, and admired. He understood and soothed my insecurities, and he sympathized with my sensitivities. He promised me the world. In return, I effortlessly gave him my trust, loyalty, and investment. I felt safe with someone for the first time in my adult life, so I let my guard down immediately and entirely. I was drowning in the type of love I always wished for, and I didn’t want to come up for air. I pinched myself every morning, hoping it wasn’t all a dream. It all felt too good to be true. And that’s because it was.

It took a few months for things to start unraveling and for me to see the cracks that were forming, and it took a while longer for me to fully understand the depth of all the inconsistencies that were quickly becoming the norm. It crept in so slowly and quietly that I never even realized anything was really changing, until everything changed. It started small and insignificant. The texts slowed down, which I just chalked up to being normal for any relationship. Then the compliments dwindled and eventually stopped altogether. Then there were a few hurtful comments here and there. Then subtle little insults that turned into pretty obvious insults. First in private, then in public. Then a few negative comments about my body. Then some criticism about how I loaded the dishwasher, and then about how I made the bed or chewed my food, and finally about literally everything I did. Then the morals and values that seemed to mirror mine so perfectly started to shift. I began to notice how all of his relationships were being orchestrated and everyone in his life was being used as a pawn against one another. One by one, he started to take back every single promise he had made to me. And before I knew it, I was dating a complete stranger.

A man I thought was genuinely kind and happy-go-lucky started having outbursts that were heartless, spiteful, and straight-up cruel. The compliments and adoration soon turned to disrespect and belittlement, and my insecurities and vulnerabilities were used as a weapon against me. He knew exactly what buttons to push to hurt my heart the most, and he knew precisely how to tear me down in the most destructive and complete ways. All of the extremely intimate and incredibly important things I shared with him were now being used as tools to emotionally harm me.

At a strangely casual pace, I went from feeling like the most special person in the world to less than average and entirely replaceable. Nothing in my life had any significance anymore. He made condescending, misogynistic, and narcissistic comments at the drop of a hat. The focus was entirely on him, his work, his friends, and his life—and I was the bad partner if I didn’t blindly support and agree with everything he did. He belittled my career, rarely acknowledged my accomplishments, and seemed to get some type of pleasure from destroying my happiness. I felt myself constantly trying to explain fundamental concepts of human emotion to him like empathy and compassion and loyalty and kindness, only to be met with dead eyes and a blank stare. He was dismissive anytime I tried to tell him how I felt, so I eventually just crawled into myself and kept silent for fear of being chastised for just being myself.

I constantly felt like I was on edge and walking on eggshells around him, worried to death that I might say or do something to make him leave me. Even though he was the one emotionally bulldozing me, somehow everything was always my fault. The problem wasn’t his malicious actions, but my overly sensitive reactions. I was too delicate, too needy, too reactive. The lies and hypocrisy were constant. And because of this, I was anxious. All. The. Fucking. Time. I couldn’t sleep or eat because the fear of losing him consumed my every waking moment. I felt myself constantly apologizing for literally everything, terrified that any argument could be our last. And this all deeply confused me, because I have always been a very level-headed person. I’ve never been emotionally erratic or volatile in my adult life, but during that relationship I was absolutely unhinged, and I was constantly questioning my own sanity and reality.

And while he was crushing me over and over again to my very core, the only thing I could think about was how I could win back the man I had instantly fallen in love with. I was addicted and desperate for anything to bring us back to where we started and give me that dreamy high again. I thought if I just agreed with everything he said and was the “easy cool girl,” we could get back on track. I turned into a meek, insecure, submissive shell of who I used to be. But the more I folded for him, the worse it got.

He chased me, he caught me, he devalued me, and he discarded me.

I won’t get into the specifics of the relationship or what ultimately led to the breakup, but everything eventually exploded. I was left hollow, shell-shocked, and broken to my core. I’m almost embarrassed to admit how fucked up I was, because the relationship wasn’t that long in the grand scheme of life. But the moment it ended, a switch flipped, and I finally realized that I was being emotionally manipulated and gaslighted the entire time. I was allowing myself to be treated as lesser than because I was brainwashed to believe I was nothing without him. But once I was out, there wasn’t a single cell in my body that wanted to get back together with him. All I knew was I wanted to get the hell out of that nightmare. The inevitable heartbreak I could handle. I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I knew the world would keep on spinning and I could gather my pride, which I had carelessly spilled all over the floor, and move on with my life. I never thought I’d lost the love of my life, and he will never be the one I wistfully think about as the one who got away. The thing that really crushed me was that I couldn’t trust my own instincts anymore. I felt totally conned, and I’d always thought I was too smart to ever be “that girl.” I’d always thought I was a perceptive, rational, intelligent person with a healthy level of self-worth. But there I was, a tangled mess of confusion and shame because I’d gotten someone so fucking wrong.

I had pretty regular panic attacks for about a year after the breakup. Sometimes they would be triggered by a song or a guy putting his hand on my leg during a date. And sometimes they would happen out of nowhere. Everything would come and go in waves, and it truly was the most unstable I’ve ever felt (aside from being in my actual relationship). I took up hot yoga, I meditated, I went to therapy, I confided in my friends and family, I journaled a lot, I went on dates, I kept busy, I went to a million happy hours, I got under someone else, and I never ever once looked at his social media. I did all of the things you were supposed to do to try to heal a broken heart, and I was extremely proactive about feeling better. Yet while I kept it together on the outside, the anxiety of being completely deceived kept creeping into the recesses of my mind. I felt so alone. I felt so stupid. I felt like such a fool. I kept beating myself up because I wasn’t getting better. I wasn’t healing as fast as I thought I should be, and I was so mad at myself for being such an idiot.

It took me a good year to actually be okay again, and I mean really okay. And it took even longer for me to relearn how to properly love someone. I held it together on the outside, but looking back, I was such a damn mess for longer than I’d like to admit. It took time to rebuild my heart, to be able to trust myself and my instincts, and to be in a place where I could genuinely care for someone again without being so unstable. I have a new barrier around my heart that no one will be able to penetrate, and that’s because nothing in this life is for certain. And at the end of the day, regardless of what happens, I have to be okay by myself. I’m in a healthier and stronger place than I ever have been in my entire life. I know what I deserve, and I will never settle for anyone less than someone who treats me like a goddamn queen.

I realize that my situation could be so much worse, and I feel fortunate that I got out when I did. But the more I talked about my disaster of a relationship, the more I realized that this type of toxic behavior is so textbook and these types of relationships are all the same. And sometimes you don’t realize what’s happening until someone hits you over the head with the truth. So if you’re reading this and it sounds all too familiar to you, this is your sign.

Since my shitshow of a relationship, I have learned a lot of lessons along the way. I’ve learned that love should be earned, not given. It takes time to know someone, and even more time to love someone. I’ve learned that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t feel so damn lonely in a relationship. I’ve learned that it wasn’t my fault, and there is not anything wrong with me. I’ve learned to protect my heart and be hyper-aware of red flags. I’ve learned that relationships shouldn’t be so fucking hard all the time. I’ve learned that I don’t believe in soul mates, but I do believe that you can choose to love someone with everything you’ve got. I’ve learned that a relationship should be balanced, with both people giving their all. I’ve learned that vulnerability is a strength, and that the right person will value and empower such a wonderful quality. I’ve learned what it feels like to thrive on my own. I’ve learned that time does heal all wounds. I’ve learned to trust my gut and my instincts again. And, most important, I’ve learned to love myself, and I wouldn’t take that back for anything.