Bonus throw back from 2022 - Choosing Single On Purpose

If you’ve ever felt the pull to start dating again just to stop the ache, this conversation is your pause button. We dig into why jumping into a new relationship too fast can turn into “borrowed anger” and misplaced punishment, where a good person ends up paying for someone else’s damage. We’re honest about what it looks like to admit, out loud, that you are not ready, and why that can be the most respectful choice you make for yourself and for anyone you might date.

We also talk about being single by choice and what that really means when you’ve spent most of your life in relationships. There’s a difference between wanting attention and wanting partnership, and we unpack how time alone can help you learn your standards, your triggers, and your real needs. That includes asking the uncomfortable question: what role did I play in the breakup, and what patterns do I keep repeating?

From there, things get real about heartbreak as trauma, the fear of being hurt again, and the slow work of emotional healing. We get into co-parenting done right, keeping kids out of adult conflict, and why bitterness can quietly damage a child’s sense of safety. We also challenge the idea that men can’t be vulnerable, and explore how to share pain without letting fear control the future.

If any of this hits close to home, listen through, share it with a friend who’s rebuilding, and leave a review. What helps you know you’re truly ready to love again?

Transcript

Why Rushing Into Dating Gets Toxic

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Oh, it doesn't really make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 0:01

It's all right.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

But that's one reason why I actually will not get well. Then when people ask me, well, why you don't want to be in a relationship? And I was like, first of all, I don't want to get into a relationship once I'm with somebody, and I know I need to work on myself. Because if you get into a relationship and you're on and you're fucked up yourself, that's a that's already you leaning into a relationship toxic as shit. And it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. If the man just got out of a relationship with a woman and they still holding on to some type of animosity against that woman, and then you you absolutely right. You need time to actually, first of all, get over the situation. You need time for yourself to think about what role did I play in this breakup because she, that person that broke up with you or y'all broke up together, it wasn't one side, it was both played a part in that breakup. So there's no reason for somebody, for people, they love to get out of one thing and jump into something else and then just bring that toxicity into that next relationship. I didn't have

Choosing Single And Owning It

SPEAKER_00 0:59

time for that. So I figure, you know what? But then honestly, I kind of I like being single right now. That's just me. And people be like, oh, you're not single by choice. No, I'm absolutely single by choice. I've had plenty of offers, but I don't want to be in a relationship. I like being single. Why? Because I've been literally, I had my son.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

You really think you're single by choice?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

No, I know I'm single by choice, and I'm gonna tell you why. I was in, when I met my kid's father, my older kid's father, I was a freshman in college, and we were together for seven years. So I've at that time I had never been without a boyfriend. I've had a boyfriend ever since I was 15 years old. And of course, you know, high school is just puppy love. You know what it means. Come on now. So when I got out of that relationship and I went to college, I got into another relationship with my older two kids' father. We were together for seven years. We broke up. Like, I would say maybe eight months after we broke up, I started dating my youngest daughter's dad. And we were together for seven years. I don't know if seven is an unlucky phenomenon for me, but I kind of think so. However, it's kind of like I never gave myself an opportunity to be by myself, if that makes no sense, as an adult. Until honestly, until my yeah, until me and my youngest daughter's dad actually broke up, I gave myself time to actually be single as an adult to find out what really, you know, what is it that I really want. Because one thing that I honestly, and people can may say that I'm wrong, I literally teach my my kids, you don't know who you really want to be with because you can't say somebody that you met in high school is your forever person because everybody's different, and I do want my kids to kind of have this experience of just see, you know, what do you really, really like in a person, and not just kind of like, oh, you know, you're my boyfriend or you're my man or whatever you want to call it, and that's what we are. So now I'm just I'm kind of like I'm enjoying myself.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Like, I if I want to be in a relationship, I could absolutely be in a relationship, but it's a big thing to commit yourself to just one person, and I just like when it ends, especially like I mean, obviously I've dealt with it just like you have. When it ends and you start reassessing like yourself, being single ain't so bad.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

It really isn't because at least it gives you enough time to actually know what you really want, and I think that's what I that's what I like about it. But I do think that I don't want to be single forever.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Well, no one wants to be single forever, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

But right now I'm content and that I as of right now I want to be single, like I don't want to commit to nobody right now.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

And at the same time, when do you know that you've grown to a place that you are ready to, you know, I feel like I'm at a place where I won't hurt some a lot of it too, like to be honest, like within myself, if I'm being real, like it's um there's a fear of being hurt

Fear Of Getting Hurt Again

SPEAKER_01 3:50

again. You can't really grow into that okay unless you just go, I don't give a fuck.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I don't look at it like that because I will say this I've never been hurt the way that I've been hurt. My youngest daughter, that literally, that was like my first time ever being super hurt. Like that was so tragic to me. And I hate to use the word tragic, but for me in terms tragic in terms of relationships.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

It's traumatizing.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

It was very traumatizing. Like, I was to the point of I'm not gonna lie, I literally I felt I was a little sick because I lost a lot of weight because it was really

Co-Parenting Without Bitterness

SPEAKER_00 4:27

bad. It was a bad breakup. Um, but I'm the type of person that I don't hold grudges, and because we have a child together, it took so much out of me to literally just let it go. And like now we're super cool because we still our daughter is my daughter, my youngest daughter is 20 years old, she'll be 21 in November, and we are really super cool with one another, and like he's married. I absolutely love his wife because she treats my child just like as if she was hers, and that's all that matters. So I'm a firm believer in co-parenting, regardless of if the relationship worked or not. Super, I'm a super believer in that. So it took um, it did, I guess for me, it didn't really take like a super long time for me to just kind of say, you know what, it's not about me. I'm one that always put my kids first anyway. And I thought I literally thought about my daughter, and I was like, you know what? I don't really care at this time. I just want to make sure that my daughter is happy and her dad has always been in her life and always been present. I just wanted to, I just wanted to keep that momentum going because I'm not that bitter person that would try to like just because we didn't work out and try to, you know, make it seem like and say bad things about her dad to him. And I hate that people do that because if you don't work out in a relationship and you got a child with somebody, the worst thing that you can do is put that parent in a channel. Fuck up that child, yes, because people don't realize you're mentally hurting that child that way. And I I'm not gonna put my kids through that. I never put my kids to that.

Knowing When You Are Ready

SPEAKER_00 5:58

So I think you know, at a point like now, yeah, I'm ready to be in a relationship, but I don't want to be why I said I'm ready to be in a relationship because I don't have any regrets or worse about what happened. I had to get over all the hurt and all of it. That's when a person really should know when they're ready to go. When they actually get into a relationship, a heartbreak like that, pretty much y'all don't just roll themselves and oxid environment. That makes no sense. Because you're basically hurting and penalizing the new person that you're with. So why even put that person through it when they've done nothing to you? But it's like the fear and the trauma, you know, you're traumatized from the previous relationship, but you're making the new person suffer, which could be an a really good person to you. Have you ever thought about it that way?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

I don't know if I thought about that way.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Um especially if that person is really trying to understand you and be by your side or whatever like that. Okay, it's just O C D on me and I knock over myself.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

I was trying to, I was trying to get my fucking driver's license to pick that up.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Uh I was gonna do it because I'm super O C D.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, I don't know if I thought about that way. Uh all I know is um I got really hurt when yeah, from a previous relationship. Um all I know is I'd never want to feel that again.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Trust me. I know how you feel.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

It's been long enough where I'm over it, but the thought of past talk n not even that, like just talking to someone and like how we're talking, like that that like that's how I would like to talk to like a woman. It's like just just bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

And uh I don't care about fucking, I don't care about none of that shit. Uh I'm just at a place where I just want to be understood.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

I get it. I get it.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

I don't it it's a to be in a relationship is such a big responsibility, and I feel like I'm so irresponsible.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Like, um well, I'll say this until you feel a little more comfortable in that, don't get into something that you know you might feel super uncomfortable because it's just going to honestly be like talking to the mic. Okay, it's gonna be like you're getting in something and you're gonna like disappoint disappoint the person that you're getting into the relationship, especially if that person is actually wanting something more. That doesn't does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Yeah, it does, and that's why I don't even want to like even create like a spark, like for what?

Can Men Be Vulnerable Safely

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I know it's not going anywhere, so why even like why even pretend?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

I don't know if it's going anywhere or not, because who say who's to know who's to say that the person that you actually meet, you're not, you know, they don't think um if you tell them no you've been hurt really bad. A lot of people as crazy as it sounds, a lot of women are a little bit sympathetic to things that happened in the past because you just don't know if they've actually experienced that same thing. Nobody wants to keep being hurt over something.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

But you can't do that as a dude.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

But I realize it's like you can't tell another woman how you really feel.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

No, you you can't be that vulnerable.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Why do men do it?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Y'all think that Because women will see you as weak.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

All women don't see men like it's weak because you be as weak.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

You see, even you just said all women don't see all women. There are some, but you can't see there are some, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

But you can't put every woman into this.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Who the f how how do I know?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

You don't know, just like women don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

And that's why I can't risk doing that. Can't be that vulnerable.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Be mad at me.