Welcome to Just Break Up, the podcast about love, heartbreak, and all the relationship advice you don't want to hear.

My name is Sierra de Mulder.

And I'm Sam Blackwell.

And today we're going to answer a letter from somebody whose ex popped back into her life and tried the exact same shit.

But before we begin, we just want to give you our surgeon general General's warning that Sierra and I are not licensed mental health practitioners.

No, we're not professionals.

We're not trained or licensed 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.

But before we dive in today's letter, it's Monday.

So we're going to do a quick check-in topic.

And this week's check-in topic is inspired by an idea that my wife heard from her friend.

I texted that friend to be like, hey, I want to talk about this idea on the podcast. You know where you heard it from? And she was like, no, it was a

long time ago, maybe like the 10% happier podcast. And I Googled it. Couldn't really find like

an ideological, like I couldn't find a source, essentially.

So shout up to our friend Kelly for this concept that I really love and I'm excited to talk about.

Essentially, it's the idea that people in our lives, you know, anybody, but particularly family, but it could be anybody, they hold on to, in their minds.

They hold on to the version of us that they had the most power over or the most control of.

And they have a hard time accepting us or seeing us as changed because they have that version of us in their minds.

And I don't know about you, like, on a surface level, I don't know how you feel about that.

And I would love to get your initial reactions, but I'll just first say that I love that idea and really relate to it.

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