Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / The One Who Got Away

Transcript

The One Who Got Away · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi, everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  Psych mom, show today. I'm going to talk about the idea
• 0:11
  of the one who got away or a fantasy partner, an ex that you
• 0:16
  still think about. And I got this idea from Dad
• 0:20
  starting overs podcast about the same thing.
• 0:22
  So, I'll link you to that in the description.
• 0:25
  And he only talked about like, a real specific situation where
• 0:29
  it's a woman who is at risk of infidelity, because she is Back
• 0:35
  in contact with an ex who didn't want to commit to her.
• 0:38
  And so that's the one who got away in her mind and that can
• 0:42
  happen. Sure.
• 0:44
  But that's like only a small subset of the times that I see
• 0:49
  this construct come up in individual and couples
• 0:52
  counseling. Of course, women.
• 0:55
  I shouldn't say, of course, I mean to it's all Research
• 0:59
  indicates. That women are less frequently
• 1:02
  Unfaithful than men. So what I see a lot of is Men
• 1:05
  who cheat with an X and I'll talk about why this happens more
• 1:10
  now, and I will do all of that. Right after I tell you guys to
• 1:15
  subscribe because of the most recent episode that I did was
• 1:18
  about the wife who wants more and her annoyingly satisfied
• 1:22
  husband, and I did mr. Perfect.
• 1:24
  And his crazy wife, and I'm going to do all of those
• 1:27
  different types of couples that I've written about and the
• 1:29
  Dynamics that I name. And also I have all my other
• 1:33
  great podcasts on sex and Some parenting and all of that.
• 1:37
  So anyway, diving into today's topic, what I frequently see, is
• 1:42
  that, because of the rise of social media people start, they
• 1:46
  get like friend requested from or they just see on social media
• 1:50
  their exes. And this is a lot of Temptation
• 1:54
  for both genders and particularly if you're not in a
• 1:58
  happy marriage and you're not in a marriage where you feel really
• 2:01
  known and understood and you remember this person as somebody
• 2:04
  who did Get you on a different level.
• 2:07
  So, on the dad, starting over podcast.
• 2:10
  He talks about it being like, women are really susceptible.
• 2:13
  If the man has not wanted to commit to them previously.
• 2:16
  And then they ended up with their current husband because
• 2:18
  this x didn't want to commit. I see a just as frequently
• 2:24
  actually more frequently in terms of what I see.
• 2:26
  I see when you yourself ended, the relationship that turns into
• 2:31
  more of a torment to think about because then you feel like you
• 2:35
  made The wrong decision, which is always harder for people when
• 2:38
  they feel like they made the wrong decision versus that like
• 2:42
  fate, you know, intervene like this person didn't want to be
• 2:45
  with you. So therefore you weren't with
• 2:47
  them anymore. Makes a lot more sense than
• 2:50
  thinking about. Why did I dump this guy?
• 2:53
  Or this woman that I ended up now, really wondering why I did
• 2:59
  it thinking that it was the wrong decision and comparing
• 3:02
  them frequently. Favorably to my current partner.
• 3:05
  And so as you might guess this manifest a little bit
• 3:08
  differently for men and women, so men tend to idealize a
• 3:11
  previous sexual relationship. That was very good.
• 3:16
  And so they remember their, let's say college.
• 3:19
  Girlfriend is somebody who is down to try whatever, and who
• 3:22
  was really into sex and into experimenting and adventurous
• 3:27
  and never shrunk away from his touch or anything.
• 3:30
  And these men, tend to idealize these women as women who Still
• 3:35
  be like this now and they think that if these ex-girlfriends
• 3:40
  somehow were their current wife, then these ex-girlfriends would
• 3:45
  still have that same ramped up sex drive.
• 3:47
  Now, when people talk about this in therapy, of course, I mean I
• 3:51
  call that out that's not real and that's that's on the likely,
• 3:56
  you know, like they may certainly that woman if she was
• 3:59
  your current wife, may have a higher Albedo than your current
• 4:02
  wife, but it's unlikely that she would still be like she was in
• 4:07
  college. Let's be real right and college.
• 4:09
  He didn't have any children. She was he didn't have any cares
• 4:13
  in the world. She basically hung out with.
• 4:15
  You got drunk and had sex. So, you know, I mean, she's it's
• 4:20
  really not the same situation and in her current marriage
• 4:23
  wherever she is. It's highly likely that that
• 4:26
  woman statistically is the lower libido partner as well?
• 4:29
  Because in a monogamous relationship and the man may
• 4:32
  say, but we were monogamous. Yeah, you were monogamous.
• 4:34
  It was College though, like y'all were probably both
• 4:37
  flirting with plenty of other people seeing people around.
• 4:40
  There was no stress and there wasn't the real commitment of
• 4:42
  marriage. I mean, they're still
• 4:44
  uncertainty as to what will happen with any non-married
• 4:47
  relationship. You know, there is still the
• 4:50
  idea that keeps limerence alive. The infatuation stage alive,
• 4:55
  that one or both of you, may decide not to be with one
• 4:57
  another and check it out. That's actually what happened.
• 5:00
  So whenever a relationship is still in, that's uncertain stage
• 5:04
  prior. To legal marriage, then the
• 5:07
  infatuation limerence stage can still be there and this x is
• 5:10
  going to be hotter. So if that woman were to have
• 5:13
  become your wife, it is unlikely.
• 5:16
  She would still be in. Oh, like blowing you at the
• 5:19
  party or whatever she did. So, I mean, and most men when
• 5:23
  they actually think about it for a second or for a couple minutes
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  will be like, yeah, like I cannot picture that she is
• 5:31
  currently in some alternate suburb living in her life with
• 5:34
  her minivan. And she's blowing her husband at
• 5:37
  parties, like it's on unreasonable.
• 5:39
  Right? I mean, everybody changes within
• 5:42
  monogamy, some more than others. So, with men, it's really that
• 5:50
  sexual thing. And then you got to think, why
• 5:52
  are they fantasizing so much about these x's?
• 5:55
  And is there a way to enhance the sexual relationship in their
• 6:00
  current marriage? Such that they do not find
• 6:03
  themselves and these reveries about X's because the sex that
• 6:06
  they're having is better, and it's very similar for women who
• 6:10
  don't usually think only about a sexual relationship.
• 6:13
  They do think about sexual relationships.
• 6:16
  So what they think about our relationships, where the sex was
• 6:18
  like, more intense and more based on emotion.
• 6:22
  Usually. And so where they felt like,
• 6:25
  much more experimental and open because the guy was just more
• 6:31
  intense and and more more emotional saying more Things
• 6:36
  more, obviously into them. So obviously everybody has a
• 6:39
  range of how they can act and so women go back and think about
• 6:45
  when they were at their sexual best, which is usually with a
• 6:48
  man who's, like, very intensely into them, which is a way that
• 6:52
  their husband may not be acting, and may not have acted like that
• 6:56
  maybe ever as much as this x but certainly didn't act like that
• 6:59
  for a long time. So this is the major thing that
• 7:02
  women want is to feel like the man is really, really Be in tune
• 7:05
  really desires you and that helps them to be as sexual as
• 7:10
  they can be. Now, of course all women very
• 7:12
  and how sexual they are just as men do.
• 7:14
  But what helps women reach their Apex is to be with a partner
• 7:17
  who's like super into them. And if the husband is like,
• 7:21
  basically not around emotionally, you know, then they
• 7:25
  are remembering different and better sex, and different and
• 7:28
  better. Emotional connection with any X.
• 7:32
  And again, from what I see this, Worse.
• 7:35
  When you were the one who ended the relationship and you wanted
• 7:39
  to settle down with somebody else, for whatever reason.
• 7:43
  Maybe you moved away. Maybe you didn't want to do long
• 7:46
  distance anymore. Maybe you had a fight with this
• 7:48
  person. So if you ended it, I actually
• 7:51
  see that being something people castigate themselves about and
• 7:54
  regret even more than if the inverse happened.
• 7:59
  So but no matter who ended at this is somebody who you're not
• 8:02
  with any more. If they pop back up on social
• 8:04
  media. Or you run into them somehow
• 8:07
  then it is certainly hard to stop thinking about that person
• 8:13
  on the dad. Starting over podcast.
• 8:14
  He talks about the risk of infidelity.
• 8:16
  Yeah, but I mean, they're so few.
• 8:19
  I mean it's a very small subset of people that cheat, you know,
• 8:23
  I think for women it's like on average 11 or 13 percent or
• 8:28
  something have ever treated within marriage.
• 8:30
  And for men it's like in the 20s, but so infidelity is in
• 8:35
  Literally what I deal with all the time in couples counseling,
• 8:38
  it's much more frequent that the addition of thinking about this
• 8:42
  x, you don't even have to see them on social media.
• 8:44
  By the way, like this can just be somebody that you fantasize
• 8:47
  about it. Think about more than you should
• 8:49
  and wonder how they're doing and wonder how your life would have
• 8:52
  been like if you were with them. So there doesn't actually have
• 8:54
  to be any contact with this person at all and frequently,
• 8:57
  there's not when people talk about their exes.
• 9:00
  They have no idea where this person is in the world, but that
• 9:02
  doesn't stop them from thinking about them.
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  And Using them possibly more than they would if they were
• 9:07
  actually in contact with this person and then seeing that they
• 9:10
  were not as great necessarily didn't look the same.
• 9:12
  Did not the same etcetera. But in the mind when you can't
• 9:16
  juxtapose this person against what they currently look and act
• 9:19
  like then they, you know, have this mythical quality, this one
• 9:24
  who got away quality and this can become a fantasy object that
• 9:29
  prevents you from holy deeply, engaging with your partner
• 9:33
  because you're always comparing your Partner to this X in ways
• 9:36
  that probably aren't Fair given the constraints of monogamy.
• 9:40
  And the fact that you don't act like you used to when you were
• 9:42
  with this previous partner, either, you know, and I write a
• 9:44
  lot about that, like, I could link you to my posts on, you
• 9:48
  know, husband's versus boyfriends and girlfriends
• 9:50
  versus wives, which are pretty funny.
• 9:52
  But their true. Also, you know, you are not
• 9:55
  acting as you did in college when you were with this person.
• 9:59
  And so, therefore, you're probably not like this, you
• 10:02
  know, would not be like this, even if you were with them now,
• 10:05
  Now, you know, you would probably be kind of a version of
• 10:07
  what you are in your current relationship.
• 10:08
  Now, there are, of course, reasons to listen, to your
• 10:14
  fantasy about this and to use it as helpful information.
• 10:17
  If you find yourself in a deep fantasy about an exits, really
• 10:21
  good information about what's missing in your current
• 10:23
  relationship. And you can use this to work on
• 10:27
  the relationship itself. And in sometimes, I mean, it
• 10:31
  really does when people go through life, like if they're an
• 10:34
  American, If they've been unhappy for 10 years or so, or
• 10:37
  more in the marriage and they keep thinking about whether it's
• 10:40
  an X or any other personality type that like isn't there
• 10:45
  partner, then they have to do some deep work to figure out why
• 10:49
  some of it maybe fantasy and they're wishing that.
• 10:52
  There was some magic bullet sort of person that would make them
• 10:56
  feel different and better about everything but sometimes it's
• 10:59
  just pointing to a profound lack of compatibility with in the
• 11:02
  relationship. And I've seen this happen.
• 11:05
  You know where people do fantasize about exes, a lot and
• 11:09
  then eventually they realize that they're doing that, not
• 11:11
  because of anything about the ex at all.
• 11:14
  And they probably wouldn't want to be with the ex, but they
• 11:16
  don't want to be with a partner. The current partner.
• 11:19
  They realize that they really don't and that this Fantasy Life
• 11:22
  that they were having was like, they are brain trying to say
• 11:24
  you're with the wrong person. Not in like, a romance novel
• 11:28
  way. Like you have a soul mate, and
• 11:29
  it's your ex, but in a way, like, you never really felt At
• 11:35
  peace with this partner that you're with.
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  You've been working on things, many people that see me.
• 11:40
  I've already been through couples counseling and what have
• 11:42
  you, and it just doesn't work. And it's interesting.
• 11:45
  Because then when those people do leave their Partners
• 11:48
  eventually, they go for somebody like the X.
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  I've rarely seen anybody get back with the actual X, you
• 11:54
  know, for a long term, second marriage, but some people do
• 11:57
  that, but usually they use it as like instructive.
• 12:02
  So for example, if you're a man who Who is always, you know, had
• 12:08
  some experiences with very physically affectionate X is now
• 12:11
  you're always fantasizing about them in the context of your
• 12:13
  current marriage, which your wife doesn't really like to
• 12:16
  touch you at all. Then you met after therapy and
• 12:20
  profound thought nobody leaves a family quickly, you know, you
• 12:26
  may decide that you really want to be with somebody like those
• 12:30
  other women and you were too stupid at the time and too young
• 12:33
  and naive to So that was like what you really wanted in a
• 12:37
  partner that was like super important to you.
• 12:39
  And similarly. I've seen women that say, you
• 12:42
  know, I didn't want to stay with that like kind of overly
• 12:45
  emotional guy that I was with in college.
• 12:47
  I felt like he wasn't gonna be a good long-term partner.
• 12:52
  He wasn't I didn't even have a job.
• 12:54
  He wasn't stable. But now I realized that I
• 12:57
  literally like don't care. You know, if I'm with somebody
• 13:01
  who has a stable job. I just need somebody who's
• 13:03
  emotionally present. And so then the next partner
• 13:06
  when people do separate will probably be somebody that has
• 13:10
  this extolled, you know quality that the person has realized
• 13:15
  through all of these fantasizing about the ex things.
• 13:19
  They this is the thing that they really want.
• 13:21
  So you usually have one thing that you really want in unhappy
• 13:26
  marriages and it usually goes along with this pursuer
• 13:29
  distance, sir attachment sort of thing.
• 13:32
  So you should go back and listen to my attachment.
• 13:35
  As I tell you all the times is pretty good and helpful, but
• 13:39
  wait, the pursuer, the preoccupied attachment partner
• 13:42
  usually want. Somebody who is emotionally and
• 13:45
  physically present. That's like the main thing they
• 13:48
  want forever and a more avoidant partner wants, somebody who will
• 13:53
  let them do their own thing. And not be constantly up there
• 13:57
  as and like like, you know, kind of begging them to hangout and
• 14:01
  begging them to stay home and whatever.
• 14:03
  And so when people We'll get into second marriages.
• 14:07
  Avoiding people. Sometimes.
• 14:08
  Don't get it to second marriages because they like, you know not
• 14:11
  having anybody up their ass really.
• 14:13
  Or they get into these Arrangements where you know,
• 14:17
  they're a person with kids and they have another person with
• 14:20
  kids. They're dating another person
• 14:21
  with kids. They don't see each other all
• 14:22
  the time, you know, so it's kind of a very convenient Arrangement
• 14:25
  and it does not have any of that smothering quality.
• 14:28
  That living together full-time would have and preoccupied
• 14:32
  attachment people. When they do, Horse and they
• 14:35
  move on and they look for this quality.
• 14:37
  They usually go for people who want to be closed all the time,
• 14:40
  you know, so there are more in an interdependent relationship
• 14:44
  which an avoidant person would classify probably is a
• 14:46
  codependent relationship, but they feel good and the other
• 14:49
  person feels good too. So the way to really kind of
• 14:52
  deeply heal. Your attachment issues is to be
• 14:56
  with somebody who doesn't make them worse, you know, I mean,
• 15:00
  it's like the Hippocratic Oath like first Do no harm, so when
• 15:04
  you're young people, Who are preoccupied and avoid and find
• 15:06
  each other and make their each of their respective attachment
• 15:10
  Styles worse and to the worst version of what they could be.
• 15:13
  Whereas if a preoccupied person kind of gets later life with
• 15:17
  another person who tends a little preoccupied, then they'll
• 15:20
  just be real close, you know, together and they're too old to
• 15:23
  make that much drama and they got other shit on their plate
• 15:27
  like kids and stuff, so it can be very healing for too
• 15:30
  preoccupied. More preoccupied people to find
• 15:32
  one another especially when they're not.
• 15:35
  Super preoccupied as they were before, they matured and grew.
• 15:40
  So, basically what I'm saying is this one who got away fantasy
• 15:44
  can really be helpful on a deep level in facilitating, a greater
• 15:51
  awareness of what your issues are with your current
• 15:55
  relationship and why you are currently unhappy.
• 15:58
  And some people honestly, reflect about the one who got
• 16:01
  away and start to realize that it's something about them.
• 16:05
  I'm that they miss, they miss being young.
• 16:07
  They miss being free. They miss being at whatever
• 16:10
  stage in their life. They were when they met this
• 16:12
  person, you know, if they were doing study abroad and they met
• 16:15
  this girl, you know, who is English, and they're studying in
• 16:19
  London, and I was like, the best year of their life, but then
• 16:21
  they, you know, broke up because he came back to the states.
• 16:24
  Will, I mean, a great portion of why he may be idealizing?
• 16:28
  This one who got away is because like he misses his youth.
• 16:31
  That was like the best year of his life.
• 16:32
  He felt awesome about himself. Who's Here energy.
• 16:35
  The whole is whole career and everything was in front of him.
• 16:39
  He didn't have to make any sacrifices yet.
• 16:42
  I mean, you really got to think about the time of life.
• 16:46
  When you met this X and how you felt in general.
• 16:50
  You may honestly be wishing you could reclaim that portion of
• 16:54
  yourself and through deep interest effective work.
• 16:58
  You may be able to reclaim some of that part of yourself.
• 17:01
  So not hypothetical guy, you know, he may be like, like
• 17:05
  everything sucks. I feel totally trapped in every
• 17:07
  way. So it's not just my marriage in
• 17:09
  which my spouse doesn't necessarily measure up to this
• 17:12
  idealized version of my X and London, but my job sucks, like I
• 17:17
  feel like shit about that. So, you know what, I'm going to
• 17:20
  figure out a different career path, you know, or I am going to
• 17:25
  be a different kind of dad, that's more involved because I
• 17:29
  feel like my life is kind of like Solace and meaningless
• 17:31
  right now in contrast to How Deeply Intensely, I felt you
• 17:36
  know, when I was doing study abroad and I felt that I might
• 17:39
  even do something good for the world in my career and that I
• 17:42
  was going to have this deeply meaningful life, and that was a
• 17:45
  time of all possibility and all meaning.
• 17:47
  And now in midlife. I feel like a lot of that is
• 17:50
  behind me and I've made a lot of choices that end up with my
• 17:53
  feeling stuck. So you can see, obviously, from
• 17:55
  this example, how this man with deeper work can understand that,
• 18:01
  the London ex-girlfriend is not the thing that he's pining for.
• 18:05
  Or overly it. Is some part of himself, some
• 18:08
  aspect of who he was at that time, that perhaps he can,
• 18:13
  reclaim his current life, to make him feel more deeply
• 18:16
  fulfilled. This, of course, relates to a
• 18:18
  lot of my podcasts on fulfillment and life paths.
• 18:22
  Would you could also listen to? So when you are thinking about
• 18:26
  the one who got away can make, it can be something about
• 18:27
  yourself that you're wishing to change and to go back to, it can
• 18:31
  be something about your relationship.
• 18:33
  That's just never been Right, it could be something about the
• 18:36
  current state of your relationship that could be
• 18:38
  transformed with couples work more intensive.
• 18:43
  Focus on how you guys can really be there for one another.
• 18:47
  So, you know a man who remembers his ex is very sexy.
• 18:51
  If he were, perhaps focusing more on the relationship with
• 18:55
  his wife. They were in couples counseling,
• 18:57
  they were actively working on both the emotional and the
• 18:59
  sexual parts of the relationship.
• 19:01
  He could see his wife Blossom back into Morse of a sexy.
• 19:04
  See and touchy version of who she could be, which may still
• 19:11
  not be like with a 25 year old X was, but it could be pretty good
• 19:15
  and would make him stop thinking about the ex all the time.
• 19:18
  So, I hope that this podcast episode was interesting to you.
• 19:22
  Many more people have these sorts of fantasies and even
• 19:24
  dreams. I got a lot of questions about
• 19:26
  why do I still dream about my ex when I'm happily married?
• 19:29
  I have one of those on my website, maybe I could link to
• 19:32
  that as well. So, I hope that everybody got a
• 19:37
  lot out of this. Please do subscribe.
• 19:39
  So that you can get all the episodes that I create and I'll
• 19:43
  talk to everybody soon. Bye.
• 19:45
  Bye.