Welcome to Just Breakup, the podcast about love, heartbreak, and all the relationship advice

you don't want to hear. My name is Sierra DeMolder. And I'm Sam Blackwell. And today, we're going to

answer a letter from somebody whose partner said that he settled for her. Jesus Christ.

Like that's, I mean, that's the letter. What a hell is one I'm describing? Dude, I know. I know.

I know. I read this one out loud to Willow and we were both like, oh, God. Yeah. Absolutely. But I feel conflicted about it. Yeah. You sent it to me and I read it and I was like, oh, oh, God. We're going to have to answer this, aren't we? I know. We have to. Yeah. But we're conflicted about it.

Whatever, we're going to do in intro. We'll get into it. All right, everyone. But before we begin, we just want to give you our Surgeon General's warning, which is that Sierra and I are not licensed mental health practitioners. No, we are not professionals. We're not trained in any of this. So please take our advice as you see fit.

We're only here to offer our humble musings to hopefully shed some understanding and maybe some laughs about the incredibly rewarding but mostly confusing experience that is love.

All right. Let's get into today's letter. So today's letter comes from unsettled. She's

pronouns are she, her, who is writing from The Void. Dear Sam and

Sierra, I'm in a pickle that my brain just can't wrap its head around. I've been with my boyfriend

for four years and thought I'd found my one true love. He always shows me how much he loves me

and has become my safe space, or I guess he had become my safe space before yesterday.

We're both in our 40s and have had some tough relationships before finding each other.

I had a lot of unhealed trauma when we started dating, but with the help of therapy and patients,

I was able to process and be in a healthier relationship than I ever thought possible.

The other day, he said something that triggered an abandonment wound I didn't realize I had.

When I talked to him about it the next day, things were going fine until he said he, quote, settled for me.

I was absolutely devastated and completely shut down.

Who wants the person they love more than they ever thought possible to say they just settled for them?

I've had toxic men in the past tell me how worthless I was and would never do better than them.

Lots of therapy helped me work through that until those words left his lips.

Now that abandonment wound is shouting even more and I can't drown it out. Like that word is on repeat, nonstop in my brain. Here I thought,

...