#248: How to Cope With My Ex Being Happy in a New Relationship (Ask Steph)
On Attachment
Stephanie Rigg
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today’s Ask Steph episode, we’re talking about how to cope when your ex seems to have moved on soon after your break-up — and is now in a new relationship that appears to be working.
This can be an incredibly painful experience, especially if you’re still grieving the relationship. It often brings up comparison, self-doubt, and questions like “Was I the problem?”
In this episode, I unpack why this situation feels so triggering, what’s actually going on beneath the surface, and how to shift out of rumination and back into your own power.
We cover:
- Why seeing your ex move on can feel like “salt in the wound”
- The different ways anxious and avoidant people process breakups
- Why your ex’s behaviour isn’t a reflection of your worth
- The illusion of their new relationship “working”
- How new relationship energy can mask underlying patterns
- The impact of comparison, rumination, and self-doubt
- Why focusing on your ex keeps you stuck
- How to set boundaries and reclaim your energy
Resources
- For free resources on break-ups and anxious attachment, click here.
- Check out my break-up course Higher Love here
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. |
| 0:04.0 | In today's Ask Steff episode, I am answering the listener question of, |
| 0:08.6 | how do I cope with the fact that my avoidant ex seems to have moved on and be making it |
| 0:14.9 | work with someone else only a few months after our breakup? |
| 0:19.7 | So this is such a tricky, painful situation to be in |
| 0:25.0 | not only when you're navigating a breakup and maybe a breakup that you didn't want, when you're |
| 0:31.1 | really in the thick of it, when you're struggling to process the grief and all of the layers |
| 0:36.1 | of confusion, when you still feel really attached |
| 0:39.3 | to your ex and you're missing them to see that they have not only moved on but from your |
| 0:46.1 | observation that they seem to be thriving and happy and making it work with someone else |
| 0:51.6 | can really feel like salt in the wound. And naturally when our self-worth |
| 0:57.8 | is already feeling a bit bruised after a breakup, it can feed all of these questions like, |
| 1:02.7 | am I the problem? Is there just something wrong with me? Because I thought that there were all |
| 1:07.6 | of these things that were wrong with them and that's why our relationship didn't work but the fact that they seemed to now be making it work with someone else might |
| 1:13.8 | point to the fact that actually I was the problem. So these are very common kind of branches off |
| 1:19.6 | that tree and rumination loops that we can get stuck in alongside the jealousy and comparison |
| 1:25.8 | and hurt that this kind of situation can bring up for us. |
| 1:29.7 | So I'm going to be sharing some thoughts around that in today's episode, how you can reframe this, |
| 1:35.6 | how you can maybe step back from being so obsessively focused on that and ways that you can |
| 1:41.5 | essentially reclaim your power and agency in a difficult time so that |
| 1:47.0 | you're not still, you know, orbiting your ex as the center of the universe, because obviously |
| 1:53.2 | that keeps you stuck in a place where ultimately you don't want to be. Before we get into that |
... |
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