DOUCHEBAG DIARIES | THE ONE WHO WOULD GHOST, BENCH AND BREADCRUMB ME, AND GIVE ME JUST ENOUGH TO KEEP ME COMING BACK (A LESSON IN RAISING THE BAR IN MY RELATIONSHIPS)

One of the areas in my life that was always a “hot mess” was my relationships. That’s why, in this episode of TheFemmeCast, we continue our journey into The Douchebag Diaries. The series is devoted to sharing the stories of the top 5 douchebags I had the privilege of dating and learning a “hot mess” pile of lessons from in my “hot mess” romantic lifetime. All the names, dates and locations have been changed to protect the “not so innocent.” Each of these said douchebags helped me to make a life changing mindset shift and more importantly, each taught me a very powerful lesson about radical self.

In today's episode I am going to share all about douchebag number 2: The One Who Would Ghost, Bench And Breadcrumb Me, And Give Me Just Enough To Keep Me Coming Back (A Lesson In Raising The Bar In My Relationships).

And it’s all happening right here on TheFemmeCast.

Let’s do this!

Are you ready to create a massive uplevel in your life and relationships? If so, use the link below to book your 90-minute Uplevel + Flow Intensive. This is a powerful 90-minute session where we go deep to energetically shift one relationship pattern you are ready to break free from, so you can magnetize more loving and supportive relationships without the chase...just flow!
https://thefemmecast.com/uplevel-and-flow-intensive

Are you ready to begin your heart healing journey today and manifest the love that you desire? If so, use the link below to register for my Uplevel + Flow Meditation Series . A 3 part series designed to help you heal from heartbreak and manifest love you've always wanted, but never thought you would find.
https://thefemmecast.ck.page/meditations

Are you ready to rewrite your love story + glow from the inside out as you become a magnet for the love you've always known you deserved? If so, use the link below to register for my 21 Day Radical Self-Love Challenge.
https://thefemmecast.ck.page/21daychallenge

Want more daily inspiration an tips on how you can uplevel your relationships and your life through the art of radical self-love? If so, use the link below to con...

Transcript

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 0:32

Hey you guys, what is up and welcome back to the show and welcome to the next episode of the douchebag diaries, the series devoted to sharing the stories of the top five douchebags I had the privilege of dating and learning a hot mess pile of lessons from and my hot mess romantic lifetime. All the names, dates and locations have been changed to protect the not so innocent, and each of these said douchebags helped me to make a life changing, mindset shift and, more importantly, taught me a very powerful lesson in radical self love. So today's episode I am going to be sharing all the bag. Douchebag number four Ooh, I still cringe with this one a little, I'm not gonna lie. The one who ghosted, benched and bread crumpled me again and again and again and gave me just enough to keep me coming back, a lesson in raising the bar and my zanders in my relationships. Okay, it's all happening right here on the fancast, so let's jump right in and do this. Okay, so just to set the stage a little bit. You know this is the douchebag that we talked about I think it was an episode two the one who always took way more love than he could ever give in return. Same said douchebag, but again.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 1:54

I did see this pattern in a lot of my relationships, but he was probably the most notorious for the benching and the ghosting and the bread crumming Like this was his MO, and he did it again and again and again and I kept taking him back every single fucking time. But so here's the thing. So for those of you who don't know which I doubt if you're listening to podcasts you wouldn't Ghosting is when you disappear from a relationship without any explanation. Benching is kind of like when you've got someone basically sitting on the bench while you're playing the game with someone else In case you might need them later, sort of like a backup. And bread crumming is when you literally just give someone just enough to keep them coming back and to keep them on the hook. He did all three repeatedly, again and again and again, and I kept tolerating it again and again and again.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 2:56

And what this looked like was we would be dating, we would have one really great date, totally like sparks are off the charts. We're driving, we're laughing he's laughing at my jokes, I'm laughing at his jokes. We're planning a future together, we're planning trips together and all of a sudden, boom gone, nowhere in sight, not returning calls, not answering text messages, not on socials, not liking photos, like completely gone, mia. Like you start to wonder is this guy alive? Did something happen to him? Like I don't understand, that is ghosting. That was the way he would. What would happen when he was ghosting? And then something would happen. We would run into each other, lo and behold, we come back together. Everything's all bells and whistles again. Actually, if I'm being quite honest, every time we got back together it kind of lost its luster a little bit more. But anyway, we'd get back together and be all rainbows and roses for a hot five minutes and then, boom, I would get benched or ghosted again.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 4:01

Right, or I was being kept on the bench repeatedly while he was entertaining a relationship with somebody else, or he was benching somebody else while kind of testing the waters with me so that he had a backup to kind of scapegoat with. And he would always, always, always. You know, we'd have these like glimmers of, like moments where things would seemingly look like it was the ideal relationship coming into my world, just glimpses, and then the rest would just be breadcrumbs, and I would stay attached to this like fantasy of the ideal, like relationship that you know, I had a glimmer of for like maybe 30 seconds. That was just kind of like, you know. Again, going back to like, I think what I said in the second one was like, ooh, shiny object. It's like, oh my God, it caught my attention and now everything else that this guy is doing I'm not even paying attention to because the only thing I've got on my brain is fantasy of the ideal like relationship that, you know, for 30 seconds I had a glimmer of hope that it could actually become right, which is so far not the case, you know, and it was almost this air of like he absolutely could do this to me.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 5:25

And you know when I would try to call him out on this behavior typical narcissist move, by the way when I would call him out on this behavior, I was the bitch for calling him out, because I should tolerate this, because this is his boundaries. He put it. These are not boundaries, these are toxic relationship patterns, because he didn't know how to deal with what emotions were coming up from. It comes from a place of fear and a place of unworthiness and a place of, you know, fearing, confrontation and all those things you know. So it doesn't come from a bad, malicious place really, but it is still toxic, right.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:05

And so you know, you can kind of hold compassion for the wounding behind the behavior, but you don't have to tolerate the behavior. And this is something that I teach to people again and again and again. You can have compassion for the wounding, you can have compassion for where the ghosting, the gaslighting, the benching, the bread crumbing, the emotional abuse, the gaslighting you can have compassion for where all of that is coming from. That means you got to tolerate it, uh-uh. No, no, you can actually walk away and choose yourself, okay, which is really what I had to do in this situation.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:40

And so you know, this went on for months, years I think, where we would kind of come back and forth like this, and all of a while, you know, as we're kind of going back and forth and we're going through the motions and you know, more ghosting, more benching, more bread crumbing, it was again this same belief, right, that he would one day come around and one day he would come back and he would stay, and you know that ideal like relationship would be here to stay, and that's who he would be 24-7. Total lie, I told myself. But anywho, and you know I'll be honest if someone is in the pattern of ghosting, benching and bread crumbing you, you know it's one thing to say someone's not ready to be in a relationship, right, and maybe they're keeping a comfortable distance right and keeping the relationship at bay, maybe it'll come around, but the chances are slim. I'm not going to lie. If they're ghosting, benching and bread crumbing, they probably won't come around because, honestly, if they had any real respect or love for you, they wouldn't be treating you that way, right? So you almost don't want a relationship with this douchebag. If you're dating him, you know it's almost your cue to walk away. Like, not almost, it is your cue to walk away, because the chances of them learning to respect you and value you and treat you with the respect that you deserve is slim to none if they're doing this right. It really shows a level of being okay with letting you down repeatedly and that's just not okay in any relationship. You know it's one thing to safeguard your emotions and you know, keep a safe distance and set your boundaries and not wanting to get closer than you feel comfortable with in the moment, it's one thing, but to mislead you this way and constantly let you down repeatedly and come back into your life like it's nothing. That's just not okay. So you know behind what was going on here, behind the whole belief that he would want to come around, and whether or not there was any truth to that, which I can assure you at the moment. And even if it does, you don't want that dude. You know what I mean. You don't want that douchebag, even if he does come around, because there's a lack of respect there.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 11:29

Really, peeling back the layers and going beneath the surface of what was going on, I had a really low bar from what I thought I could expect from my relationships. This is just what life had taught me. Life had taught me that what I was able to expect and extract from my relationships was far less than what I could witness or see happening in people's relationships around me. I don't know where that belief actually came from. Still, I'm actually still trying to dismantle that. I wouldn't be surprised if it's kind of like a generational thing and patterning in my ancestry, because it seems like there was this differentiation with what I thought was available to me and what I could see happening in relationships around me, and thank God, that bridge is starting to bridge itself now. There's still a little bit of a gap there, but still some work to do. But hey, you know what the gap is being bridged, so celebration for that.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 12:50

There was this real variance with what I thought I could extract from my relationships to what I saw happening in other relationships. This showed up in so many areas of my life. Again, it doesn't just affect your love relationships. This showed up in my work relationships where I was doing more work for less pay or higher responsibilities for less pay or being overlooked for promotions and having other people who were doing less than me get promoted before me and friends who felt more like actual enemies than friends. Really. This was one of those patterns that was kind of repeating again and again and even being in all those different situations and seeing the variance with what I was settling for to what other people were experiencing.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 13:43

There was this mindset that it was okay. I should be thankful that I got even that. You feel me. Just be thankful you at least got this. If you're dating a guy who's not a drug dealer, who's not a gambler and all these other horrific things, just be thankful you have that. Talk about a low bar. That took a lot of work because in many cases. These are extreme examples that I'm showing you here.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 14:21

In many cases he could seem like a really great guy on paper, but there are some standards there that you need in your relationship that just aren't being met. It's okay to walk away when those critical standards aren't met for you. Now, not all standards are critical, there's just critical ones. And then there's the ones where it's nice to haps. Let's be realistic. For me, my critical standards are more on an emotional level, I think, than anything else. He's got to be loving. He's got to be willing to be in a relationship with me. He's got to be open and forthcoming with his emotions. He's got to be able to hold space for mine. My ideals are of a healthy, loving relationship.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 15:13

You need to be real with what those core minimums are. You need to be really aware of what you will and won't tolerate in your relationships anymore and you really have to draw the line. This is what I needed to do. I needed to draw a hard line of you know I need to raise a standard in my relationships, right, and what I would and would not tolerate. And then I needed to, you know, draw the line and uphold those standards by number one refusing to settle for anything less than okay, even when it looked tempting, even when he was really cute, even when he had a really sexy crooked smile and he just wanted to, like, dive in and you had to uphold. You have to uphold those boundaries, right. You have to refuse to settle, and you also have to refuse to or not refuse to. You also have to be willing to walk away where those standards aren't being met right. Again, you know some and you may love them, right, but there's just some critical component that's missing in the relationship, and you need that in a relationship in order for the relationship to feel healthy. And so, in that case, you may have to walk away and it might be painful to do so, but because you're choosing to love yourself more. You know that's the important thing.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 16:50

And I also needed to believe and I think this was probably the hardest part for me I needed to believe that what I wanted was truly out there, right, so that it existed, number one, and that it was available to me that I could have it Because, again, you know, going back to the standards, right, going back to what I thought I could expect from my relationships, versus what everyone else was attracting in their relationships. I didn't think we were at par, I didn't think we were playing the same game. Okay, so I really needed to do the work to make sure that I could believe that I was worthy of those qualities that I was looking for. I needed to believe that I was worthy of the love, the commitment, the understanding, the support, the kindness, the affection that I wanted in my relationships, and I had to really be willing to put a like, really put my money where my mouth is, and not settle for anything less than even when there was no glimpse of him anywhere in the world.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 18:05

Okay, and that, I think, is where the hard work was for me is in the believing that, if I walked away from all these relationships that were, you know, where I knew I was settling right for less than what I truly wanted, and if I turned down opportunities for relationships that came along the way you know I, there was this big fear. Like again I think we talked about this another one, what if another one doesn't come? What if there's no other bus? What if the next bus doesn't come? What if the next bus takes a decade? Then what? Right? And if, even if he does come around who's to say he's going to want to be with me, like when I've set the bar so high. I've never, I've never experienced a relationship that feels like that. You know, it was really hard and you know, I think it's so funny because when I, when I reflect on the last seven years, there's so many temptations, you know, and where you know I was tested.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 19:20

You know, here's someone, he meets all these different check boxes, but there's this, and it's so easy to turn a blind eye, so easy, and just focus on all the other things and look at them and think, oh, wow, but he's just so full of potential. Oh, we'll figure that out when we get to it, right? Yeah, you know there's something to be said for unconditional love. Right, and unconditional love is really accepting the person for who and what they are when they present themselves to you and for what they want. And so you kind of have to make a call based on that, based on what you know today does this person meet your criteria, yes or no? Right? So you really have to get clear on what that criteria is for you.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 20:14

And, again, keeping it to like the bare, not the bare minimum, sorry, keeping it to like the vital core, the core, the core minimums that you need, right, maybe five things that are like core minimums for you that you refuse to settle on, right, that you absolutely need in order to be happy and fulfilled in a relationship. You know what are those five things? Right, and make them meaningful. Like, forgot to say it's not the dollar amount of zeros in his bank account. Okay, don't make it about that. All that stuff, can you know?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 20:49

I'm of the belief that all that stuff can kind of be figured out Like I mean, you know, don't put yourself into a horrible financial situation, right. But you know, when we're talking about relationships and we're talking about emotional fulfillment, you have to have an emotional criteria for what that relationship looks like. I mean that to me is crucial, right, like trust is so important, education is so important, you know, feeling supported and unconditionally loved. So, you know, so important, right, and it's not going to be 100% of the time, but knowing that there's a person that will be willing to try and do those things or generally operates that way for the most part, like that's who they are as a person, even though they may, you know, step out of like what's it called. They may slip up a couple of times. Here or there, you'll slip up, they'll slip up. That's you know. That's called being in a relationship. We're never perfect, but the intent is there, right, and it's genuine and it's really. It really is who they are, not a behavior you're trying to extract or create in them, right?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 21:57

I had an ex who would do this. I had an ex who, you know, checked a lot of the boxes, but there's so many crucial things missing and this is another douchebag. Now, this is actually leaning into douchebag. This is this, is this is this is this is this is this is this is this is this is the prefaceing douchebag number one. There was actually, you know, some things in that relationship that even before the real struggle started, there was some behavioral challenges in that relationship in terms of how we communicated and how we, how we got along on an energetic level, and I know that there was some issues like there was just some things that were missing for me that I truly needed, even though he checked so many boxes or at least I thought he did even though he checked so many boxes right, there was just so many things that were just missing that I truly needed to feel close and intimate with somebody in a relationship and they weren't there.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 22:45

And you know, I remember always, you know, having the conversation and asking for what I wanted. And you know putting it out there and saying you know, I really need you to do this for me, or I'm so hurt that you didn't do this. And why would you do this to me? And you know I would always try and communicate with him and try and explain to him what it was that I needed from him, and he would always apologize for the bad behavior. He was great at apologizing oh, he was a star at apologizing and he would promise he would change, but he never would. He never would, because the person has to want to change.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 23:20

So you, you know you've set these standards right. Let's just say you've set these five standards for what you will and will want to tolerate in your relationships and you're like, yeah, I'm going to live by these standards. I'm taking them, gonna apply them as a template to all my relationships. Everybody's got to hold these standards wrong. People have a choice. They can choose to uphold those standards and meet those standards, or they can choose not to. It's up to you to decide who stays and who doesn't.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 23:48

So you know, if you're in a relationship or you're entertaining a relationship with somebody who doesn't meet those standards, thinking that you're going to coach them Into meeting those standards is a horrible way to begin a relationship horrible, so toxic. If they meet your standards the way they are right now, in this very moment, and you can accept them as they are, and if they were to never change, you be completely happy with this person. Not and not to say that there's nothing wrong with them Like please don't get me wrong like there could be quirks and things that annoy us and people that we love and that's totally normal but core, foundational things and values that you need in your relationship. If they're not there and you think you're gonna coach them into this person, nope, absolutely not. Who they are is who they are and they will always default to their natural state.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 24:38

You can try and change a behavior. Behaviors can be changed if the person wants to change them. If they don't want to change them, what you're gonna see is Similar to what we do every fucking New Year's, when we put New Year's resolution saying that we're gonna lose weight, we're gonna hit the gym five days a week. We do it for the first two weeks. And then what happens? I'm not gonna go today. I'm not gonna go today either. Gonna pass, it's really cold outside, oh, it's icy. I'm gonna. Might slip and fall and no, if you want to change a behavior, you will change it, and if you don't, you won't. Simple, and so Trying to coach someone to meet your standards is Another way we drain our energy, because now you're putting all your energy and focus into molding this person into who you want them to be.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 25:32

Similar to douche bag number what to what douche bag number three was doing to me? Same but different. Right, same but different, because we're still ignoring who the person is and we're still choosing to tell them to be. This is who I need you to be in order to fill a void for me. Maybe you need to walk away. Let that person find somebody who truly loves and accepts them for who they are and stop trying to mold them.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 26:00

We've gone off on a whole tangent now, but point of the story is stop settling for less than you deserve. He's not gonna change if he's ghosting, gaslighting bread, crumbing, benching you now. You don't want to have a relationship with him. Set the standards for what you do want in your relationships, okay, and Be willing to be unwavering in meeting that criteria and those standards. Raise the standards that you will and will not tolerate in your relationships and be unwavering in the fulfillment of those standards, both with your current relationships and with any relationships that you might entertain in the future. Make sure they meet that core criteria and if they don't, you have an important decision to make and the decision is not to mold them or coach them to become the person you want them to be.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 27:09

If we're talking about core values and characteristics here, it's about does this person have a place in my life or not? Am I able to be in a healthy relationship with this person or not? Sorry, I've got cards going by yet again and that's really. And draw like, draw that line. Draw that line of what you will and won't tolerate and uphold it to the best that you can and you're going to miss that. It's going to happen, right Again, these things don't happen over and I still missed up all the time, right, you just always just do your best to be mindful of you know, knowing where you're, where you're you're bound to trip up, knowing where you're bound to make mistakes and knowing you know how to kind of backtrack when you do Right, that that's, that's this, that's the journey right into you know, radical self love, but, more importantly, really being that conduit for a healthy relationship to come into your life, right.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:16

So on that note, I will say thank you to douche bag. What are we? Number two For finally helping me to raise my mother fucking standards. Thank you, boo. I appreciate you. Like, honest to God, like why didn't you come into my life sooner? Where have you been all my life, anywho? Okay. So tomorrow, stay tuned.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:42

Douche bag Number one. The big kahuna of douche bags is happening tomorrow, and this is the one who would consistently and continuously lie and cheat on me and gaslight me and then call me crazy for calling him out on it. Figure that one out, okay. If you've got a douche bag that you've dated in your life, I want to know all about it. If you've got a question that you want me to answer, if there's anything that you're struggling with, curious about or dying to know, email me at Maria at the fem coachcom. Who knows, you just might inspire the next episode of the fem cast. And if you love this episode, please leave a rating and a review on Apple podcast or Spotify or wherever you're seeing this, your reviews mean the world to me and it means that more people are going to see this podcast and hear this message. So thank you so much. That is all for now. Until next time, you guys, massive love.