The One That Got Away
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We've also got a link in our show notes. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Um, how are you? Most people answer that question with fine or, but obviously it's not always fine. And it's usually not even that good.

This is a podcast that asks people to be honest about their pain. To just be honest about how they really feel about the hard parts of life. And guess what? It's complicated. I'm Nora McInerney, and this is Terrible. Thanks for asking. Breakup stories are like fingerprints or snowflakes.

Even if no two are exactly alike, they generally resemble one another from a distance. We know the size and shape. We understand what we're looking at. But put any broken heart under a microscope and you will see the hairline cracks that turned into fault lines. The conversations that ended in crying. The differences that could not be reconciled.

The ways the puzzle just couldn't fit together. It hurts to break up. It hurts to divorce. It hurts to lose a love, a relationship. To lose both the version of life that you had found and the potential versions that the two of you were going to discover or create together.

One of my personal favorite breakup songs is by Paul Simon. It's Graceland. And he wrote the beautiful lines, Losing love is like a window in your heart. Everybody sees you're blown apart. Everyone can see the wind blow. And I love that song for the melody and also for the imagery. Because who among us

who has loved, has not also found themselves with a window in their chest, the curtains parting with the pain that blows through. In this episode, you will hear from two people, Noah and Nancy. They're a former couple who were willing to look back and give their relationship a public autopsy. The cause of death was not betrayal. It wasn't a lack of love.

which is why we called this episode The One That Got Away. Because I think the only thing sadder than a breakup is this kind of breakup, where the love is still there, but the relationship can't be. When Nancy met Noah, she was a divorced, single mom living in Southern California. So I'd been kind of dipping my toe back into online dating and kind of like figuring out how to do that as a single parent.

And my really good friend I worked with, she was like, you know, her husband at the time, JD, has these friends that I want you to meet. She had a New Year's Eve party for 2018 heading into 2019. I ended up going to that party with a person I was very casually seeing at the time. And then Noah showed up like 45 minutes later than everyone, which is his MO, and

He's Hawaiian, so he's always like on island time. And so, you know, he comes in, we're playing, you know, games or whatever. And I was like, oh, he's very attractive. Now, this wasn't just a party. This was a setup. Nancy's coworker had a lot of single friends that she wanted Nancy to meet. And Noah was one of them.

They convinced me to come and they're like, you gotta meet. They've always been talking about, you gotta meet Nancy because they thought we were such a good match. And I show up and she's with a date. I think the only comment I made to the friends, because she was there with somebody else, was just like, oh yeah, ton of fun. And oh, she's got some kissable lips, something like that. So the person that I'd just been kind of like casually seeing that kind of, you know, fell apart. And then a couple months later, Noah reached out to me. So he...

called me. I think it was like, this was March of 2019. And we decided we were going to go on a date. So we went out on our first date. It was amazing, like just intellectually, emotionally, like very matched. And we ended up, I was texting my babysitter, like, I'm so sorry, I'm not going to be home when I said I was going to be. Feel free to take a nap on the couch. And we wound up going to this little

that was a few blocks away that had a really small man-made lake in it. And we sat on the bench by the lake and we were talking for a long time. And I just remember thinking like, oh boy, this is going to be a big one. We were on a bench and the light was catching me. It was kind of like this. And I was just like, look at this goddess here. I really was like, who is this? And so we started to...

Nancy felt ready for a relationship, but Noah wasn't looking for something serious. He had grown up Mormon. He got married young. His ex-wife was the first woman he slept with, and they were married for 13 years. So when Noah got divorced, it was his first time dating outside of that religion, and he had a lot to learn.

catch up on. I was still in like so my wild oats phase, but I wanted to be honest. So I was just like, yo, I really, really, really like you, but I just don't feel ready for commitment. She could see it and I could see it that like I was getting a lot of feelings and really not comfortable with that because I was in so wild oats mode. He was like,

I'm really sorry. I just feel like I cannot give you what you need and deserve. And so that was really devastating. I was barely able to get out of bed. I was so devastated. I was slogging to work and I don't know what to do with myself. And just really needed to be sad. So I was sad for a while. And then...

I ended up meeting somebody and we were kind of long distance dating, but I knew it was just kind of like I had Noah in the back of my mind all the time. And then, you know, time moves on and you kind of, the intensity of those feelings just fades. The intensity fades, but the feelings don't go away. About a year passes. It was a June or July and one of my mentors passed away and I was at his house.

funeral and they were talking about all these times when this family the mentor and his wife would host all of us as teens at their house and we'd have ice cream parties and they were the coolest couple ever and in the middle of that I just had this vision of like Nancy and I being that way

And then that couple who recommended us, who were our friends, Nancy's boy and their boys, like, playing football. And, like, me and the husband coaching the football. And this whole kind of, like, family scene. And I was like, it haunted me enough in the positive way that I was like, you know what? This time around, I am not going to cut off the feelings. I'm going to let it flow if she's willing to try. Yeah.

So he texted me one afternoon and I still remember this coming up on my phone when I saw his name and I was like, Oh, I wonder what he's up to. And it was just a Nancy. How are you? And I was like, it's very different from a lot of the other texts I've ever received from, you know? And so we kind of started chatting back and forth. He was like, you know, I, I,

I have to tell you about this experience that I had at my family friend's funeral. Can I come take you to dinner this week? And I was like, sure. Like, I guess we can do that. He comes down, picks me up, and we're waiting outside of this restaurant for our table. And he starts to tell me the story about how he was at the funeral for this family friend, and he...

And then just started to think about what does he want out of his life? What are the things that he's looking for? And he said, you know, I want that feeling of peace and contentment and, you know, more of the stability instead of like chasing the...

you know? And so he was like, and when I thought about that, I thought about you and how that really is what I feel with you. And I was like, okay, this is again, different conversation than we've ever had before. And very much in line with like what I was hoping I would ever hear from him. And so we have dinner that night. It's very clear, like the attraction is still there. The spark's still there. And so we kind of just like,

were together from that point on. If this was a rom-com, we'd be at the end of the movie. The specter of death illuminates the importance of life. The emotional and physical distance between two people closes. They kiss. The camera pans out wide. The credits roll. And the happy couple floats off into the future together. But almost immediately after they got back together...

Nancy tells Noah that while they were apart, she accepted a new job in Miami. So the two of them had a big decision to make. Do they start their relationship in a new city or do they end it again? He said, we're going to do it. We're in. So he is a high school math teacher. And so at the time, obviously 2020, 2021, they were still fully remote students.

And so he ended up coming to Miami. That was the best time of my entire life thus far. The emotional connections here, I feel like he's really opened up to me in terms of like the possibility of where this could go. It was just glorious. Gosh, we have date after date after date. We've been to karaoke bars plenty. She kills it in karaoke. I kill it in karaoke.

We did like a candlelight date out there. It's just like, it's not hard to list because we just always did so much cool stuff together. Then we would just post up in a hammock.

read a book and talk to each other about the books we're reading while like iguanas were belly flopping into the river next to us and stuff. It was just, it was amazing. Being in a place where we could go and spend so much time outside and just kind of be by the ocean and like have this great food and this fun vibe and like music. And it was just, it was really, um,

Kind of like permanent vacation. Of course, there was a little real life sprinkled in. Nancy's son Charlie was with them in Miami, and Nancy was also starting a new job, which is always stressful. Noah was flying back to California twice a month to see his kids. But mostly, Nancy and Noah were having a great time together.

And both of them say their time in Miami was special because they had the time and space to work on their relationship. We implemented these rules.

We called them companionship inventories every month where we would sit down and like go over these certain points of our relationship and, you know, talk about what's the numeric rating that we're giving this? What's the qualitative data that we want to add to it? Which is like so dorky. But it really helped, I think, kind of...

provide a space for us to talk about the things that came up that made us nervous or scared or whatever. We would start the meeting with our song and, you know, getting this kind of meditative mindset. And then we would talk about the highlights for the week. We do like a little survey for each other. I'm looking at our last one right now on my screen. And there was like a column for connectedness. How close did we feel connected? There was a column for like our sex. How good was our sex?

There's a column for ways that we felt loved or something that I feel the other person could do to help me feel loved. We had a section for like how much do we feel we brought to the relationship and then we would just have notes. So many of my other past relationships, not all of them, when you would make a move for honesty, it would end up being to your detriment. Something you said in your honesty would be like in a list against you, even if it was just your feelings or thoughts.

But with Nan, we were able to create a place, not just comp inventory, in our discussion where all thoughts, all feelings were accepted. During the month, if I had a thought that I was afraid of telling her or I didn't want to really bring up, I was like, well, you can't wuss out, man. You got to put that in the comp inventory. And so I would like put a little, like I wouldn't, I didn't want to spin her mind about it. So I wouldn't be like real clear about what it was. But I would say in the Google doc, okay, we got to talk about this thing, right?

And I'm telling you, that was so important. That was such a big deal, I think, for our relationship, especially as things started to get hard. Don't you love both of these people? Don't you love them together? We do. They are so intentional about their love. They are putting in work for their relationship. We want so badly for it to work out for them. Then, early 2021 came.

I ended up leaving that job in Miami because it was a super toxic work environment. And he has three children who were in California. So we decided, well, probably makes sense for us to go back there because he'd been like doing the back and forth flying thing, which was just a lot. And so we get back to California and I feel like everything started to shift at that point.

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Nancy, Noah, and Nancy's son Charlie pack up their life in Miami and move back to Southern California, where it all began, where it all ended, and where it all began again. That's when we decided when we come back to California, we would be domestic partners. I remember when we made that decision, and I felt really strong about it. It felt perfect. It felt natural. Being in the part of Southern California that we were in,

We didn't want to necessarily be super close to where his job was. And because I was doing consulting, I felt like I could live pretty much anywhere. So we just had to be close enough for him to get to work. I found us an apartment up in the mountains. And I made that decision kind of unilaterally. Although he loved living up there. I really wish somebody had been like, this is a dumb move. Yeah.

It was too far. The house we were in was directly across the street from an auto body repair shop. And so during normal business hours, all you heard across the street was like, like nonstop. And so then a couple of months after we'd moved up there, the finances are starting to get really tight because my consulting work is just not super consistent. And

And I didn't have a huge savings to pull from. And then whenever his kids would come over, you know, we're in a two bedroom, one bathroom place. We now have three extra people in this house. This is a lot. And so then it's like, okay, logistics wise, living up the mountain was tough because you had one grocery store unless you wanted to drive all the way down the hill to get other stuff.

And then he starts working and having to go in every single day to work. And I'm trying to do as much consulting as I can, but not have to pay for the child care that it would take for my kid to be in full-time preschool. And like, okay, so we get through that fall. And then he's coming home from work and doing tutoring to make extra money.

It's a whole lot of life all at once. And then Nancy's dad dies, which there's never a great time for that to happen, but it's definitely not great when the rest of your life feels like a shaky teeter-totter. When Nancy does finally find a well-paying full-time job, it is 80 miles away from the apartment that she picked out in the mountains. It's just like all the things that

piling on top. May of 22 is when we decided to move down the mountain back kind of in between our jobs at that point. And that was when the U-Haul with all of our things got stolen. And so I remember very distinctly one day, like sitting in my car on the 91 freeway, if you've ever driven or been on that road, like the traffic on there is horrendous. And

And I'm in the fast track lane and I'm still just like parked on the freeway. And I just remember looking out the window and I'm like, if this is all there is, I don't know if I necessarily want to do this anymore.

Like, I don't want to live the entire rest of my life commuting and living in this shitty apartment with this shitty furniture that we had to, like, borrow from people that his mom knew from church because we didn't have any money to buy real furniture. We were very stressed. And here's a good thing. Even throughout all of this, she did things. She could tell when I was stressed that she would do things for me. She was a wonderful, like...

you're mad. And I'm like, no, I'm not. She's like, you're mad. And I'm like, okay, what do you say? She's like, and she'd just be like, come here. And she just stroked my head, touched me, and she could calm me down, you know? For her, I knew she just needed a vent. She needed to process it. She needed like some time to herself. I might say, hey, let me take Charlie. You have some time. You go do that or whatever, you know? And we just took care of each other through that. But I could tell that it was

mounting in her head, just like, I can't keep living like this. I just remember I was like, okay, I don't want to live in California anymore. And I also know that when I make this decision, this is opening up a door I don't know what I'm ready to go through because I knew Noah wasn't going to be ready to leave. Our relationship, from my perception, was still strong. It was still strong. Like, I just felt like we were in a really tough place. I mean, I'm looking at

Some of our comp inventories, and I'm still seeing like 85s and 70s. Ooh, here's a 60. What was going on? October 2021, both of us had a 60. What was going on there? Highlight, we are alive and three-fourths kicking. Oh, man, the sex score was 40. I didn't think we ever got that low. What the heck was going on? Yeah, so I think this is really when it was...

It was hitting us around this time. Gee whiz. Still grateful for companionship and co-piloting, but there's a long list of other struggles. It wasn't just the life stressors that were weighing on Nancy. It was also the fact that if they were going to go through all of this, the shitty apartment, the shitty furniture, the commuting, the stress, she wanted more of a commitment than being two adults in a domestic partnership.

Nancy wanted to get married. There was always this underlying wall that he is not going to take down. And I remember reading somewhere like a long time ago, probably when I was in like middle school, this girl was saying, you know, my mom always told me you have to find someone, you want to find a man who's always a little bit more in love with you than you are with him. And like, I knew that that dynamic was not there with us.

And I think that he, you know, he did the best he could. He loved me as well as he could. And it just still wasn't enough. That's not how Noah remembers it. What I heard was, I want us to be more of a priority in your life. At the same time, I was starting to realize, I kind of feel like I need to bring them down in priority so that I can address these other things that need to be priority. So there was that tension going on there.

So what I was feeling was a need to balance my life. I wanted to get back in shape again. My health is really bad. I weigh 450 pounds, I found. I needed to work on my master's degree. There's just so much I needed to work on that I wasn't getting to. If you were to look at

The time I was spending, the resources I was doing, my attention and my focus, Nan and Charlie were number one. Because it's like, come home, make sure there's dinner for them. Like, do the dishes. Like, make sure on this night you're taking Charlie. Like, I was in that. I told him, like, I used to have, growing up and then even through a long time in my 20s, like, these dreams. I'm a very vivid dreamer and I would have these dreams of

this person that I'm with and this person that I love. And I don't have those dreams anymore because I'm living that reality with you. Like the connection we have, the laughing, the ability for you to like be there for me when I'm sad and vice versa, the support for each other, the like unconditional everything. And we still can't get to where we need to go because,

And so we had probably like four or five conversations about this. Like, do we think we can do it? Do we want to try? Like, what's it going to take for us to kind of get past here? And both Amanda and then my friend Katie, the one who'd originally introduced us, were like, no.

he's going to come around, like just, you know, give him some time. And so I gave him some time and we eventually, I remember I was just becoming really like brittle. Like we can't keep living in this space of not knowing what's going to happen with us. And our lease was going to be up in November of 2022. And so we sat down, I think it was early September. And I looked at him and I was like, I'm too scared to be the one to call it, but I think we have to.

And he said, then I will do it. I said, Nan, everything we've done up to this point, I've done full heartedly. I have done without hesitation. I wanted to be domestic partners. I wanted to date you again. I wanted all of these. And the thing I can't shake for this time that I've been trying to consider this, definitely not that I love you. There's no, both of us don't doubt that we love each other. We love each other. I don't doubt that.

Taking this step does not feel full-hearted to me. And there's a part of me that's saying like, bro, don't be a fool. Who cares if you're not feeling it? You grew up in a fake it, make it culture your whole life.

If you just start acting the part, you know, as you have been, but I mean, you know, you step into that, you'll be excited. There's a part of me that like wanted to make that happen. Like, don't be afraid. Don't be a coward. Step into this role as a man. Be a husband, essentially. Be a good stepdad. But it wasn't full-hearted. And I told her, I said, I don't think you want me pushing myself forward.

As if it's like an obligation or like making myself do these things. I don't think you would want that. That's not fair to you. And ultimately that wouldn't hold out. And honestly, I think that's the story of my first marriage. I just found this woman I was so enamored with who's incredible. And I tried to be this person who I wasn't.

And that was it. And that was like, again, so much pain, but like such a relief to have an answer. And we just decided that we would, this would be our victory lap. I remember we were in Desert Palm Springs. I remember both of us taking turns holding each other and just bawling, just bawling. Like, what are we doing here? I needed that. I definitely needed that. I don't know if she needed it.

There was a time in that month where we'd get grumpy at each other and we just sat in that. We decided we would sit in that with each other, that we would celebrate what we built, that we loved each other. And so we would support each other through this situation. I was really mad when I first realized that like, this is where we're at and he's not going to meet me where I need him to meet me. I was really, really angry because,

Because I felt like we'd had the conversation that he was able to do that. And so I felt like I'd been duped. For example, like the night that we went on our second first date and he kind of was telling me about what was the reason for getting back in touch with me. And I remember saying to him, like, if you do not want to go all in here, like, I don't want to go down this road with you.

And so he said, yes, I want to do that. And then it comes out in our breakup conversation that what we were talking about were two different things. So he's talking about, yes, I want to go all in with you in terms of being exclusive and faithful to you and monogamous and like really giving this a shot. Whereas I'm talking about all in like...

Yeah, like I want to be with you forever. Like I want to love you through everything that comes our way. And apparently those are not the same idea. So yeah, I was really, really, really mad about that for a little while. And then I was very sad. And I like couldn't listen to the radio while I was in my car because every song would just make me cry.

At one point, I'm driving down the freeway and I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston came on and I was like, oh no, we can't do this. Because, you know, until you've been in that experience where you really fully realize what the song is about and then it like kills you on the inside. That was horrific. ♪

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After Nancy and Noah split up, Nancy found a new job in a new state, and she and Charlie left California. When we talk to Nancy and Noah, it's been over a year since their second and final breakup. The love that they have for each other is evident, and both of them have had time to reflect on what it means to lose a relationship, but not the love you have for that person.

When I moved back out here to Arizona, he and I didn't really talk for a few months. We kind of just gave each other a little bit of space. And in that time, I just kind of was thinking, oh my God, like I'm never going to find somebody that I have this kind of connection with again. I guess I'm just going to live alone with, I'm allergic to cats, so maybe I'll get a dog. Like that'll be my life eventually. And so over time, I've allowed myself to really, again,

understand that it really didn't have anything to do with me. Logistics wise, we could have made different choices, but in terms of the going all in and what that means, like that didn't have anything to do with me. And so now I have come back around to the place of gratitude and the place of kind of like understanding that, you know, relationships are so different and personal. I think for him,

I do kind of feel still like sad for him that he is not able to be to a place where he can experience the type of love that I think we could have had. I'm grateful for what we had, what we experienced, what I was allowed to see. I just wish it were different. I wish it were different. And like of all the people that I know, I feel like he and I are two of the ones who deserve to have love.

That person in your corner and that supportive love and it just, for whatever reason, is not in the cards for the two of us. And I think over the course now of this whole year being apart, it's sad and I've really allowed myself to acknowledge that I feel very unfair. It's very unfair that this is where things are. And I feel a little bit sorry for myself. A lot of people, bro, would...

move heaven and hell to have what you had. So what's your deal, man? What's your deal? This has been my question. This has been my own question. And I think for sure there's the traumas of my first marriage, although Nancy removed a lot of that for me. I'm starting to come around. I think marriage is important for our society. I think we don't emphasize the family enough. And I think families are really struggling right now

But I understand why. When both have to work so hard just to live, just to survive. Of course you're going to put your kids in front of an iPad. Of course you're going to have struggles in your relationship. And I'm sad about that. I'm sad about the own loss of my family. It's really the biggest loss of my life. It's the thing I love the most and it died. There is that part of me that's like, bro, you're just a marriage killer.

You're like that broken. You're just a marriage killer, bro. You know, like you, that's not a thing for you. There is that, there is that. But there's also like the move was to take like, there's things I need to take care of. I have to figure out what a companion is to me in this life. There's a big part of me that has always been about what I call ascending spirituality, which is the kind of spirituality where you lose yourself in serving a higher cause, right?

And Nancy and Charlie, like, call me in that direction in such a strong way. But I'm also learning that it needs to be balanced with descending spirituality and, like, taking care of myself, which is something I just really don't know how to do. It's something I just really don't know how to do. I've only ever sacrificed myself and found my worth only from giving up myself. And, oh, my gosh, that voice was so loud at this time.

You know, not that it would be hard. Like, I love my life with Nancy. Absolutely. But it did feel like I was starting to step into that realm, you know, of ascending spirituality, which I want. But I also feel like I need to explore more of this, like, the self-care kind of stuff. Ending this relationship broke each of their hearts.

But the relationship ended because Nancy and Noah were both in tune with their own needs, and neither was willing to abandon themselves for the other. So it's a heartbreak, but it's also a necessary kind of heartbreak. And the thing about a good love, even if it doesn't mean that you're together forever, is that it does prepare you to spot good love again. If you're struck by lightning once, you're actually more likely to be struck again, which is insane.

good in the case of love and bad in the case of one of my ex-boyfriend's uncles in Kentucky. Well, first it helped me understand that what I want is possible. You know, the thing that I, when I was married to my ex-husband, I would tell myself like, it's fine. The things that you imagined you would have in a relationship are probably not ever true for people. Everyone's just lying about how happy they are and all this stuff. And then I

experiencing it firsthand, I was like, no, that's a real possibility. So it changed my fundamental perception of that and thinking about moving forward. Because I used to have a very long and detailed checklist of the things I was looking for with someone. And Noah met a lot of those checkboxes, but it still didn't work, right? So I think the main thing that I've realized is that

For me, moving forward, when I do start dating again and trying to seriously find another partner, like that list is significantly shorter. The items are bigger, but there are fewer of them. So like, for example, on my old list, one of the things I had was, this is so dumb. One of the things I had was like, is not a huge consumer of energy drinks. Like that really bugs me. Okay. I was like really judgy about that for some reason. Yeah.

And now I'm like, whatever, like drink your energy drink. So you do you. So now it's like, okay, is this person kind? Are they emotionally aware? And are they in a place of commitment? Right. It's like this compatibility on a very base scale. I wouldn't call him the one that got away. Right. Because I had him. And I think it's more kind of like the imperfect puzzle piece of

Where it's like there's just one extra part that sticks out and all the rest fits in. Because there is so much that I take from this experience. There's so much that I gleaned from it. There was so much goodness in it that I wouldn't necessarily consider him to be that one that got away. If you had asked me that question six months ago, that might have been a different answer for me.

It was a slightly different answer than the one that she sent us in an email six months ago. And if we talked with her again in a year, it might be a different answer again. Because heartbreak, the feeling, the healing, the lessons, it changes with time. I don't know if I'm going to find something exactly like this again. And I guess that's potentially a good thing if I really want to be...

In a committed, serious, long-term relationship with someone. But yeah, if we had talked about this, I think right when I originally reached out, I did really more feel like that. And I felt like, God, like that opportunity for this type of sweeping experience, like that ship has sailed. And I think over the last several months, especially because we've seen each other a couple times over the last several months, that's kind of made me realize like, okay, I'm

since we have split up, like now we really are on two very different paths. And had we stayed together, obviously that would look very different. But now it's like, okay, the person that he is now and the things that he's focusing on are not necessarily the things that I'm looking for in a person. And so that's okay that we left it where it was. I'm so proud of that relationship. I will always be. I will never not love Nancy again.

you know I will never not want the best for her and her child the big takeaway is like I can have a relationship like that I don't need to settle for somebody who won't share with me what they're feeling it's not that I think people are like on purpose dishonest I think it really is hard to be honest

I think it's hard to be honest with your partner and I think it's hard to be honest with yourself. It feels as though I will never settle for less than that. She taught me how to be in touch with all this stuff. She taught me how to do self-care. Early on in the relationship, I'm like, this girl actually journals. She actually journals. Look at her go over there. She's actually reading books on how to be better. Yeah, she taught me that. She really did teach me that.

I mean, I think that this relationship ultimately taught me, like, the importance of learning to let go, you know? And there's so much other stuff that I finally allowed myself to be with someone who really loved me in this relationship with him. I learned what it was like to be...

tenderly cared for, which sounds really cheesy and gross, but like that's really what it was, like allowing myself to be soft in that way. And I think too, like just knowing that the thing that I had pictured was not totally in my imagination. Like it was actually a real thing that's out there.

I'm Nora McInerney. This has been Terrible. Thanks for asking. We are counting down to the end of this season, our last episode.

Terrible Things for Asking is an independent podcast. We are a production of Feelings & Co. And our team is Marcel Malakibu, Claire McInerney, who led production on this episode, Good Job Claire, and we're also a production of Feelings & Co.

Michelle Planton, Grace Berry, and myself, Nora McInerney. Our theme music is by Joffrey Lamar Wilson. Big, big thanks to Noah and Nancy for having the bravery to re-examine their relationship publicly. That's a pretty cool thing to do.

Our team also makes a podcast called It's Going to Be Okay. It's a short daily podcast. It's the opposite of a doom scroll. It's meant to put a little bit of okay in your day. Monday through Friday, you'll find a five to eight minute episode in your feed. And they're about all kinds of things. Um,

So I picked out an episode of It's Going to Be Okay. You're going to hear it right now. And I thought it'd be a good pairing for what you just heard. It's episode 86. It's called Hope. And it's from a listener talking about a recent breakup. Today's episode is for people with a broken heart. People who have had a broken heart. People who are in that space where life and your relationship is

didn't quite work out the way you thought it would. Today's episode is from Hope. My name is Hope and I am 24 years old. I will be 25 in September this year and I'm a hopeless romantic. I always saw myself getting married young and I thought that's the direction that my life was heading in. I was in a relationship for seven years and

We started dating when I was 17 and he was 18. And he proposed to me in August of 2022. And then in April 2023, he decided that he was no longer happy in our relationship. And he left. And that was that. And I thought that I would be a devastated, sobbing, inconsolable mess. And I was devastated, but I did not react properly.

emotionally how I thought I would or how anyone else thought I would. And I think mainly because I feel like I have always struggled in relationships, romantic and non-romantic relationships. And I get these feelings sometimes that I'm alone in this world and that I don't have any friends that really care about me or that would pick me as their first choice. And when I

my ex-fiance left, I was just surrounded by love from my family and my friends and people that I don't even know really well, like my family's co-workers and friends of friends and my brother's friends. And in moments like this, when you feel especially alone, it's nice to know that you do have people in your circle that love and care about you.

My parents had me over for dinner every night for two weeks straight. My friends sent me cards and care baskets and little Venmos to go get myself a sweet treat if I wanted it. And I have one friend that calls me once or twice a week just to see how I'm doing. And those things mean so much to me. And even though at this point it feels like things aren't

Little actions like that remind me that it is going to be okay. What luck it is to be named Hope, right? To be named Hope and to find hope even in the face of a loss like this. And I know we tend to sort of downplay breakups. I know we tend to say, well, at least you weren't married. Oh,

well, it was just a fiance, not a husband. Just and at least are not helpful. If you're thinking about a helpful thing to say to a person going through something hard, don't say just, don't say at least, don't say but. How about that? Show up for them. Show up for them. Let them know that you care. Let them know that it counts. Let's help each other remember that it's going to be okay. ♪♪♪

That it and it's going to be okay is different all the time. It's different for everyone. Thank you, Hope, for sharing yours. If you're listening and you have an okay thing to share, you can email it to us, igtbo at feelingsand.co. You can call it in, 612-568-4441. You can record a voice memo on your phone, attach it to an email, and send it to us.

It's Going to Be Okay is a production of Feelings & Co. You can find all of our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. Our team is myself, Nora McInerney, Marcel Malikibu, Jordan Turgeon, Claire McInerney, and Megan Palmer. I recorded this episode in my closet and both of my legs are asleep because I'm still sitting cross-legged even though a TikTok told me that is not good for my hips. I'm very concerned about my hips right now.

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