5: Driving By His House: You Are Not Missing Them, You Are Abandoning Yourself

In 1997, I found my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend's phone number. I would block my number and call her. Not to say anything. Just to hear her voice. I did that for the better part of a year, and I was seventeen.

I promise you have your own version.

This episode is about why we keep looking when we know it's going to hurt. The midnight scroll. The drive past their street. The mutual friend you casually ask for information. I call all of it "driving by his house," and by the end you'll know exactly whose house you're really driving by, and why the person was never the wound.

I walk you through every man I did this with, Ross, Tom, Raffaello, Gabe, and Matt. Not because this is a memoir, but because every story is a mirror. The pattern is always older than the person you're pointing it at. And I'll show you where it ends, because it does end. Not managed, not white-knuckled. Gone.

Somewhere in the middle, we do a small practice together. Ten seconds. Bring yourself to it.

In this episode:

• Why we look when we know it will hurt
• The phrase that will follow you all week: "driving by his house"
• The proof that it was never about love
• Reading his email from inside the house
• Why healing is not a single moment
• The little girl standing in her father's office
• The one thing to try this week

A gentle note: This episode includes a brief, caring reference to self-harm used as an analogy for emotional avoidance. If that is something you have lived, please take care of yourself while listening.

Free practice mentioned in this episode:

Cultivating Safety: Guided Breathwork & Somatic Practice that teaches your body it is safe to feel what you have been driving past.

Want to name your own pattern?

Take the free three minuteThe Hidden Defense Patterns Quiz

If this episode cracked something open for you, share it with someone who has been doing their own version of this.