August 2026

TRANSCRIPT

Hey everyone, got some really great questions here. Some of them are a little long, so I'm gonna shorten them a little bit, but I think these are gonna help a lot of you.

First Question (0:10)

So the first question reads:

“About a year after my ex-partner and I broke up. We decided to slowly reconnect and explore whether there might be a way back to each other. We had been together for five years and lived together for four, so this was not a short relationship. We both expressed that we'd like to see if we could build something new together, but without pressure and without rushing into anything.

I've spent the past year doing a lot of inner work, so I'm trying to approach this differently than I would have before. I'm learning not to react from anxiety or constantly seek reassurance, but at the same time, I don't wanna ignore my own needs for emotional connection, consistency, and clarity.

Over the past few months, he has spent extended periods traveling, so most of our communication has been through text.”

Okay, so I'm just gonna interrupt here for a moment. Text is not communication. You're not really communicating unless it's just like, “Hi, how are you?” You can't talk about your relationship via text. Okay, I'm gonna continue with the question.

“We had a couple of phone calls, but I was the one initiating them. Before his current trip, we talked about him visiting me afterwards, but we never actually set a date. Sometimes I wonder if I'm expecting too much too soon or whether I'm ignoring important information.

My question is, what does a healthy reconnection after a one-year breakup actually look like?”

Jillian’s Answer

So, and there's more to this, but I think this is what I've read out loud is what's most important. So there's a couple of things. When you break up and you wanna get back together, the most important thing is that each person takes 100% responsibility for their participation in whatever did not work. And you have to talk about that really openly and honestly with each other and talk about what the insight that you have gained as a result of not being back together and what you wanna do differently this time.

The thing that concerns me the most about your question is, you said, we both expressed that we'd like to see, if we could build something new together, but without pressure and without rushing into anything. To me, that's a very big red flag. If you were together for five years and you lived together for four, so this is a significant relationship and you're talking about coming back together: there should be a lot of pressure. You both should be feeling the pressure of both feet in fully committing to giving this a go.

I think it's a very bad idea if you leave this in a nebulous gray area where you're both trying to see what's gonna happen. That's gonna leave you feeling like your needs are not being met.

So rule number one, if you wanna give your relationship another go, both people have to be 100% accountable and 100% committed, that's it. And so there is pressure when you are 100% committed. And I'm not saying to rush, but it really is about putting both feet in because otherwise, what are you doing? Wasting your time. It's just a big waste of energy and time if you're just sort of seeing where this goes and just texting about it and like going with the flow. Why would you wanna do that for months or even a year if this isn't even gonna turn into something that is a relationship? I'd rather see you take that time to move on and find someone else. So I think this has to be both feet in and you both have to be both feet in.

What I recommend often to couples is if they're trying to kind of build a better relationship than the one that they currently have, or if they are rekindling their relationship after a break or separation or a breakup, is that you write a relationship manifesto together. And maybe what you could do is separately write a relationship manifesto and then talk about it with each other, share each other's manifestos. It's almost like a mission statement of what the relationship is, what it's going to represent, how you're going to feel in it. You really paint a detailed picture of it and then you share each other's mission statements or manifestos with each other. And then you combine it to create one clear mission statement slash manifesto. And you can even print it out. You could even get it framed. I've had many couples frame it and have it hang up in a place where you see it every single day. So it reminds you of the relationship that you are both committed to building with each other.

It's not a guarantee that things are gonna work out again. But the reality is this: that people do break up all the time and get back together again, only to break up again because they keep repeating the same patterns. And so you have to be committed to breaking the patterns that contributed to the demise of your relationship. But in order to do that, you have to know what those patterns are and you have to talk about it. You have to talk about it, you have to work on it and you have to commit to something differently.

And so therefore, that is the pressure that the two of you both need in order for this to not be a complete waste of your time. And in order for you to give it a fair shot. And that's what I have to say about that.

Second Question (5:16)

“Jillian, what advice can you give as I am planning to reconcile how the man who I was planning to marry by the end of the year ended our relationship without warning or discussion and in the two months that we have not been together has moved to another state, nine hours away from his daughters and has started a new relationship with a new woman?

It feels like a betrayal and a stake to the heart. The man I said yes to marriage with (he had not yet proposed)…”

Okay, well, that's a big clue. I mean, you're planning to marry someone, but he hadn't proposed?

“But we were making our plans for marriage and beyond…”

Okay, you know, you were talking about it, but there was no proposal.

“…Was not someone who would make such sudden changes and certainly wouldn't willingly move so far from his daughters. A little background: I'm two months post-breakup from a relationship where we were planning to marry at the end of the year in November.”

Okay, this is a longer story, but this is an important detail.

“The breakup came after two very stressful weeks on his end at work, a workplace that abuses his immigrant status.”

Okay, so he's not from your country. Now this is an important detail I'm about to read.

“I had noticed a change in him the week before, after we took a trip to visit friends he's known since childhood. We talked about how well that trip went, but I later found that was when he was starting to have doubts about us. Anyway, the breakup came via text. He said he wanted to make sure that what he wrote in English was conveyed correctly. And then we did have a video call I initiated and a week later, an in-person conversation that I pursued during which I did not recognize the man I had loved. The one whose hallmark was a kind and gentle face.

Even though I wanted to fight to save the relationship, his mind was made up. He did not budge and I had been trying to mend a broken heart these past two months. After I did Facebook snooping because I missed him, I saw his location change for where he lived and a picture of him and his best friend's girlfriend and her close friend, who's a female, both who I had met previously and picked up that she liked my boyfriend at the time. I held my doubts that he would have moved so far from his daughters, many states away, in nine hours driving, but then saw his WhatsApp status update and it was a picture of him and this woman snuggled closely with an emoji smiley face.”

Jillian’s Answer

Okay, so all of this is very, very intense. Okay, so the first thing that I want to say to the person who wrote this in and to anyone who might be experiencing something like this is just, I'm so sorry and I can only imagine how incredibly hurt you are and how incredibly scared you are and if I could give you a hug, I would.

And I know that, you know, you said it's really hard to process how the man I thought I knew would change so quickly. So the second thing that I'm going to say, which, you know, it's not going to be easy for you to digest now, but it's something that you can come to at a later time, which is that you definitely dodged a bullet because this is a very irresponsible person and he's a liar.

And I'm wondering, and this is not an accusation, I'm not talking to you, right? This is just something that's written in. So this is just based on my past experiences of working with people who've had similar experiences to you because I've seen this happen before and it's awful. But this is something to give you insight and anyone who's listening to this some insight.

Is it possible that your desire to be married and for this to be the “one”, that you perhaps were in denial about part of his personality and or is it possible that you believed that once you were married, that things would be better?

Was there a part of you that thought that something was not quite right or within your reach and you just wanted the certainty of marriage and felt that, and you were more, maybe slightly more or a lot more attached to the idea of marriage, more than anything else?

I know that you said, this is someone who is gentle and kind and loving. So I know this is very, very difficult, but I also, you know, the fact that he moved away from his friends and moved away from his children and somehow in that trip to his friends, something happened there. I don't know if it was his friend's influence, but he clearly was not as committed to you as you thought.

And I'm just wondering, all his behavior speaks to someone who has very weak characterand is a very irresponsible person. And so I know you can't see the silver lining right now, but thank God you did not marry him. I do not know how long you were with him. And so is it possible that you weren't with him that long and you just didn't know him well enough to even make plans of marriage? Because we don't know a person until we know them. And when we get married, the things that we think are going to get better, actually don't, they usually get heightened or worse.

And so this is just some things that I want you to think about. It's not going to take away the pain, but my goal is also to help people, all of you, not repeat patterns. And I'm just wondering if you perhaps just didn't know him that long and was there anything that kind of just seemed a little bit odd before this all happened? And I hope you can respond to this in Circle or come to the next session that I'm doing, because I'd love to follow up with you on this and get a better read on this.

Third Question (10:56)

So someone wrote in saying that she's feeling very exhausted and anxious a lot of the time. And she's feeling very, very jealous. And she's hating the fact that she's feeling jealous, of course, because it's feeling like it's out of control for her. And no one wants to feel jealous. And so she's really trying to get some help with this.

And she writes, “I was married for 25 years. I'm now divorced and I have a partner of over a year. But if I'm not careful, I will sabotage a good thing. My partner has a young son with a woman he separated from nine years ago. His son is 13, a lovely boy that he adores and sees often. I don't understand and have any idea why I have this issue. Sometimes I am jealous of her and other times I am not. For example, if she phones, I can get frustrated. Or if I see him messaging her, generally it is to do with logistics of his son. I know this, but I feel so anxious.

I blew up yesterday as he was traveling for work. He told me he was traveling with a male colleague. When I asked who he was going with, he didn't tell me another female colleague was going. When I heard this on the phone call, unfortunately, I lost it. I feel I let myself down continually. I want to control this as it's making me so unhappy. He tells me I am jealous and possessive. Neither are qualities I want to be known for. Should I go see a therapist? I'm desperate to improve.”

Jillian’s Answer

No, you don't necessarily have to see a therapist because I think this advice might help you at least be a starting point. So there's a few things that I want you to consider that are going to be not what you think that I'm going to say.

So yes, the jealousy and the possessiveness will definitely sabotage a good thing. My guess is that he didn't tell you about the female colleague because he was afraid of your reaction. And that's the last thing that you want. You never want to make a liar out of your partner, right? Because if our partner is afraid that we are going to blow up at them, they are going to start to conceal certain details, right? That's what happens when we are very, very jealous. We can actually make our partner lie to us because they're afraid of our reaction.

But I want to give you some insight. I'm wondering that, because this is something that I've seen many times throughout my practice, which is that a lot of single dads struggle with balancing life with their child and life with a partner because they want to be a great dad and they put a lot of focus on their kid and they don't know how to, again, balance having a career, balance being a great dad, and balance being a great partner.

The ex, he hasn't been with her for nine years. If he hasn't been with her for nine years, you don't have to worry about her. She's old news. She's old news. But I wonder if the jealousy that you're feeling is not really about her, but rather that you can sense that you are not as significant to him as you would like because his attention is being pulled to his son and to his work and to his life because of his struggle with trying to find the balance.

So I'm wondering if the story that you're telling yourself about his ex is really about the fact that you don't feel significant enough to him. And I wonder if your partner, if he feels insecure about being a good father, has he ever shared that with you? Because part of loving someone is caring about our partner's needs. It's having empathy for them. And unfortunately, when we're anxious and jealous, we become very selfish because all we're thinking about is ourselves. So I'm presuming this is someone you love. So therefore, I'm presuming you want to have some empathy for him. Has he ever discussed or have you ever picked up on that he is insecure about being a good father and also balancing life with that?

Is it possible that his mind, it's gotten that, you know, even though you're jealous of other women, what's really happening is that you're sensing is that his mind is elsewhere, but it's not on other women. It's on his child. And that what you're feeling is just that he's just not paying enough attention to you, perhaps. But the empathy and the understanding and the insight comes in when you can recognize that maybe what's really going on, it has nothing to do with ex-wife or ex-partner or any other woman, but has to do with something deeper going on.

Because I'm assuming you don't have a kid. And so that's another thing. You know, when you don't have a child—I'm just assuming this because you didn't mention it, but I could be wrong—but when we don't have a child and we date someone with a child, sometimes it's difficult for us to put ourselves in our partner's shoes and understand how difficult it can be for people to balance that all.

Anyway, I can't wait to hear this insight that I'm sharing with you, how it lands with you. I want to hear if it kind of woke you up into something that you hadn't considered before and if it's resonating.