After a relationship ends, we often want to know when we will truly have moved on.

Is it when we no longer think of them, feel anger or resentment, or secretly follow their life? Or when memories no longer make us seek an answer from the relationship? A breakup's effects rarely end with the relationship. We may repeatedly ask why, compare ourselves with a later partner, or resume ordinary life while remaining unable to feel joy for a long time.

In this bonus episode, Genius Girlfriends Sneak Out to Ride Horses and Xuemin draw on The Psychology of Breakups and her own experience to discuss what follows a relationship's end:Why do we move from ‘this relationship failed’ to ‘perhaps I do not deserve love’? Where can anger, resentment, and self-doubt go after betrayal? Which relationships deserve another start, and which reconciliations only postpone separation? What does truly letting someone go mean?

When we pass through a breakup and look back, questions gradually turn from ‘Why did I lose them?’ toward our own lives:What place should romance and marriage occupy? What relationship do I truly need? When the life once thought to be the only possibility ends, where else can I go?

Some losses cannot be repaired, yet may clear space in a future once filled by one relationship and make room for new choices.

 

Cao Xuemin | PhD in Psychology, Fudan University; nationally certified Level II counselor; author of The Psychology of Breakups and Why We Stop Loving; host of Vistopia's No Longer in Love and Abnormal Relationships

Ming | Creator of Genius Girlfriends Sneak Out to Ride Horses

 

10:51Can ending a relationship well teach us how to love again?

12:12Does losing the desire to share or have sex mean love has ended?

15:33Which relationships may truly be beyond repair?

26:29After betrayal, why should we not rush to compare who is better?

33:16Can a relationship continue after infidelity?

39:37How does loss change a person?

47:40Why is it hard for some people to admit shortcomings and face relationship problems?

57:09How can anger and resentment after a breakup be resolved?

01:08:26What does truly moving on look like?

01:10:19What shows that you have truly let someone go?

01:17:09Which reconciliations are worth trying, and which relationships are best left behind?

01:21:28What psychological support system must ultimately be rebuilt after a breakup?

01:34:15How can a relationship's end reopen life's other possibilities?

01:35:51What can intimacy become when it no longer occupies life's center?

 

Out of Season (film)

Hidden Figures (film)

Sex and the City (film)

Closer (film)

See You Again (reality show)

The Psychology of Breakups (book)

 

Xiaohongshu:@MyBrilliantFriendRidesOut  @MingGetsFatOnNightGrass

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