When Love Stops Saving the Relationship: Presence, Self-Abandonment, and Starting Over

The Angry Therapist Podcast

John Kim

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if the thing you keep chasing isn’t actually better... just more familiar? In this solo Q&A episode, John Kim reflects on fantasy, gratitude, emotional presence, and the difference between intensity and real love. From surfing in Costa Rica to answering listener questions about confidence, breakups, infidelity, and self-abandonment in relationships, this episode explores what happens when you stop escaping yourself and start paying attention to what’s actually here. Key points covered: • Why we romanticize the past and overlook the present • The difference between intensity and consistency in love • How healthy relationships create clarity instead of confusion • What confidence actually comes from • Signs you may be abandoning yourself in a relationship • Whether couples can rebuild after infidelity If this episode helped you, send it to someone who may need to hear it. Follow, rate, and share the podcast to support the show. 🎙️ More about John: 📘 Pre order my new book, Love Hard On Purpose. Toss the blueprints. Build something honest. https://a.co/d/031PzkW4 John’s book publishing company: Soulprint https://www.soulprintmedia.co 📘 Read John’s book in progress Sh*t Your Therapist Would Never Tell You on John’s SubStack ⁠HERE⁠ If you’re ready for deeper work, the Secure Self course is available HERE Order John's new book, Break Up. On Purpose,⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow John on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find out more about John⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Another hard lesson was realizing that reinvention often requires loss, recently losing our house.
0:06.6	Sometimes your old life has to burn down, in my case literally, before your new one can emerge.
0:26.5	My name is John Kim. You're listening to the Angry Therapist podcast and on today's episode answering all your questions. By the way, if you want to leave me a question,
0:32.8	I usually capture the questions from my Instagram stories.
0:37.9	So I'll throw a question net up and you can type in any question you want.
0:43.6	And I try to get to as many as I can.
0:46.2	Now, I got to say, you can't like, you know, type three pages, right?
0:50.8	You can't really give me your backstory, unfortunately, unless you want to email me.
0:55.4	If you want to email me, I get those two, The Angry Therapist at Gmail, and I will do my best to
1:00.6	answer those questions as well. Before we start questions, can I just share something with you?
1:04.9	As I sip my favorite beverage here in Costa Rica, look at this coconut. Baby coconuts with a metal straw. Oh,
1:12.6	coconut water. Great for your digestion, hydrate you, and just tastes like sweet water. It's amazing.
1:21.0	So yet last night, I started to feel claustrophobic. It's one of the things I feel here in Costa Rica. I start to feel like,
1:29.3	I don't know, there's like, maybe it's the humidity, the heat, you know, small town. It just feels,
1:36.7	it feels like that scene in Star Wars where Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and I think Princess said,
1:43.7	they're on this like trash compactor and the walls
1:45.7	are coming in and it's just getting closer and closer and closer. I start to feel that sometimes.
1:50.5	And I think like the point of Costa Rica is it's also, it is supposed to be confronting, you know,
1:55.8	and I think things come up, right? And you're supposed to sit with it. But anyway, I started to think about the city,
2:03.3	almost like one would think about their ex. And of course, I'm not replaying traffic and how
2:09.5	expensive it is. And, you know, I'm not playing the documentary of the city. I'm playing the
2:13.1	highlight reel. So imagining in and out, I'm imagining donuts, imagining amazing sushi and the
	...

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