Episode 81: When to Break-Up with Dr. Andrea Liner

Dr. Andrea Liner, The Break-up Doc

Autumn Carter: This is episode 81.

 Welcome to Wellness in Every Season, the podcast where we explore the rich tapestry of motherhood and wellness in all its forms. I'm your host, Autumn Carter, a certified life coach and parenting coach dedicated to empowering mothers to rediscover their identity beyond motherhood.

Find balance amidst chaos. Strengthen relationships and pursue their dreams. My goal is to help mothers thrive both as individuals and as parents.

Autumn Carter: I have with me Dr. Andrea liner. She is the breakup doc. And she is going to be talking with us about how to know if you should break up healing from breakups and how to start dating again. And it is very interesting.

I would love for you to introduce yourself further and then tell us about that journey.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Sure. Happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. So yes, I'm Dr. Andrea, the breakup doc. I am a licensed clinical psychologist. So most of what I do is therapy and I've had a therapy private practice for about eight years now. But several years ago I realized that I had a lot of experience with breakups and a lot of my clientele had experience with breakups.

That was a lot of what I was helping people with and working with. And the therapy world is fabulous, but has a lot of restrictions and parameters on it. Just being any kind of licensed professional, you have a state board you have to answer to.

There's lots of rules and regulations and the coaching world is so much more flexible

Cause anyone can call themselves a coach. They don't necessarily have training or credentials, but coaching also allows like so much more flexibility. You can work with people anywhere in the world. You can have between session contact. You can do more creative kind of classes and workshops and things like that.

So I decided what the hell I'll create a second business where I just focus on breakups and do it through the coaching lens. And that's been just super rewarding because. And also in the therapy world, you don't talk about your own experience much as a therapist. It's all about the client. Self disclosure is what we call it.

And it's a no in traditional therapy circles. So in coaching, I got to actually draw upon my personal experience, tell some stories and say how I would handle things and get a little more personal with it. So it's been super interesting and rewarding to get to do a different flavor of this work.

 It's interesting that you are a licensed therapist and a coach. I have had at least one other person on who has done the same. I think maybe two actually. Anyway, and I know that for me, I also see a therapist. And there are times where it's you're talking a little too much about yourself.

Autumn Carter: Can we focus on me here? Because I'm paying a large amount of money for this. With coaching, you can charge lower, but like when insurance is involved and everything else, it's a higher fee. And that is the nice thing about coaching is you don't have to worry about insurance. And you can meet people where they are, you can have it be sliding scale, there's so many more options.

So I like that you Definitely talked about how you can be licensed as a coach, but you don't have to be, and just, you had that buyer beware subtext in there. So I like that you had that.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yeah. Although I do want to clarify that in therapy, there can be sliding scale fees as well, and I actually charge more for my coaching work because they get so much more of me.

 In therapy it's just 50 minute session once maybe every week or every other week. But with the coaching, there's this between session messaging people have access to me basically 24 7. They can leave me a message at any time and I'll reply all through the business day to people.

So they're getting a lot more of my time that way. That's not allowed at all in the therapy world. That would be considered like breaking boundaries and having poor ethics. So that's the biggest plus for me.

Autumn Carter: And if you're going through a breakup, yes please. Exactly.

Where therapy, you're like, good luck and be tween. So I can definitely see where, yeah, I'd want you a lot more if I'm suffering through a earth shattering breakup. Yes. Something that just turns me upside down type of breakup.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yeah, especially, because I work with people through all different phases of the breakups like you said, when you introduced me deciding whether or not to break up, or actually healing from the breakup, or it's been a little while, and you're just noticing that you have some ghosts hanging around from relationships past that you want to work through.

But when I work with the people where the breakup is fresh, that is all that's on their mind. It's all they want to talk about. And so just having a 50 minute session with a therapist. Even if it's once a week does not feel like enough for how much it's on your mind. So that's, that was part of the excitement of getting to be creative with my offerings and having more

Autumn Carter: of

Dr. Andrea Liner: a, container for people.

Autumn Carter: Wow. That's amazing.

So tell us a little bit about your journey because you were wanting to be a dentist and then you switched. Tell us about that. That's really interesting.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yeah. I loved going to the dentist as a child. I think it's because I just had a really great pediatric dentist and there was always like a raffle for a little like stuffed animal.

It was very exciting to go and enter the raffle. And luckily I didn't have a whole lot of painful dental experiences as a kid. So I think just early on, I latched onto that. I think since I was about four, I just started saying, I'm going to be a dentist. And I didn't really question it as I grew up. It just felt oh, I've already answered that question.

And so when I got to college, I still was like, okay, I'm pre dental. I'm studying biology. It didn't really pay attention to what the other options were. And through my coursework, I realized I was really bored with a lot of the science classes

 I found myself struggling like organic chemistry But in my elective courses, I took several psychology courses, some like human brain and behavior courses. And that's where I found myself feeling really interested. So I ended up volunteering in an undergraduate research lab with a grad student and seeing what the research side of psychology was like.

And then I found out through a guidance counselor that you can go to programs that are actually, focused on psychology, but they're more focused on therapy and actually talking to people and working one on one with people, not doing experiments in a lab.

And that really got me excited. So I switched paths, became a psychology major and applied to doctoral programs that were focused on the practice of psychology. And that's where I've been ever since.

Autumn Carter: It's just so amazing. How many times have we fallen off the track that we feel like we're supposed to be on, or we feel like we're starting over again in life, not that you went there, but we feel like we failed in some way.

And if we give ourselves that grace, we can do it sooner. Like you did. And I was thinking back to my own college career. Cause it was a lot sooner than yours because I went back older and I took classes just because I wanted to. Yes, I was going down this degree path, but there were several that I took along the way because I'm like I've always wondered about that, or I struggle in this area and I want to get better in that, or I want to strengthen this just, or that just sounds really fun.

Yeah. Those types of things. And it was really fun to be able to do that along the way We should choose things like that in our lives, even after college. So anyway, all those thoughts were going on my mind while you were talking.

Dr. Andrea Liner: I don't want to derail us.

But as you were saying that it did draw parallel for me that.

That's also how I think about relationships and breakups, where we can make these decisions, especially a lot of the people I work with are people who got together with their partners in high school or college and decided this is my person and we're getting married, we're going to be together forever.

And then I ended up seeing them in their mid to late twenties, even early thirties, where they're like this, doesn't feel like it's for me anymore, but I've invested so much time and energy into it, and I've told everyone in the world that This is my person. is it too late for me to change my mind?

Is it too late to explore other avenues? So you brought that on

Autumn Carter: Updating our personal maps, like how we've changed and evolved, we need to be aware of that, and also be sharing that with the other person, like that leads to that big ol rift.

If we're not updating our own, like our own Google Maps or whatever, and sharing it with the other person, and they're not doing it as well, it makes it really hard. That, no, you're, you should be the same person you were when I met you at 15 years old. I'm sorry. No. Exactly. Thanks for speaking on that. Okay.

 What's the next part? Do you want to talk about partner choice or where do you want to go next?

Dr. Andrea Liner: Oh, sure. So one of the reasons I'm so passionate about relationships and breakups, and I know breakup seems so morbid in a way as a thing to focus on, but from my perspective and from my personal experiences, they really are a rebirth.

And a redirection. the worst breakup I ever went through was, gosh, it's, I think it's gonna be 10 years ago this summer. And I thought my world was completely ending. We were in a relationship from when I was 19 to 24, so over 5 years. We had decided that we were getting married. The ring was picked out.

 All these serious things going on. And I didn't realize how unhappy I was and how poorly matched we were at that point. It was great when we were 19 and 20, but we weren't those same people anymore. I think my lucky stars that he broke up with me.

 I don't know if I would have had the strength to do it myself because I'm someone who once I commit, I'm pretty committed. I don't think I even let myself realize how unhappy I was because this was the choice I've made. In my mind we were essentially already married. And what I've found from that experience and what I've found time and time again, with the probably close to hundreds of people I've worked with at this point, is that breakups allow you to be released and free to find someone who's a better match for you.

And especially if you have goals of forming a family, right? Someday, and raising children with someone partner choice is.

So important. Partner choice is something that infiltrates all areas of your life, because at least in typical relationships, in the typical sense, we're living with that person. We are engaging with them on a day to day basis.

They have input and influence over every area of our life, our careers, our health, our mental health, our free time, our fun, our hobbies, all of that. And so if you're with someone who isn't, a good fit for you, who causes you anguish stress, upset, boredom anything like that. It's going to have a domino effect on those other areas of your life.

And it's going to be hard to reach your goals personally, if you're not building it on a solid foundation. So I almost get excited for people when they come to me going through a breakup because they don't see it yet because they're in that world of hurt and I've been there and I get it, but there's so much opportunity on the other side for them.

And that's one of the big things I work with people on is the mindset of breakups. I do have my tips and my concrete tools I use for helping people heal, of course, but the mindset work is a huge part of it starting to see this as a beginning rather than an ending.

Autumn Carter: Mindset always gets in the way of everything. It's always the thing you need to work on. It's always the key thing. And what I was thinking about is there are people who might have some pushback with this. And for them, what came to mind is look at people around you who we use the term ball and chain, right?

Sometimes it literally is, because you decided to be shackled, to the wrong person. Or, if you want to take it outside of a relationship, the wrong dream. And within that dream, you have the wrong person. I worked with a client. I've actually worked with two clients on this and I'm trying to figure out a way to package it as like an on demand deal so you don't need to work with me to make it more accessible to everybody.

But we really go through what is your dream life and through that, one of them rediscovered she was dating the wrong type of men, which I was already trying to show her that, but she needed to get to that herself. As humans, we're like, don't tell me what to do. But then when you discover it yourself, you're like, it's finally clicking.

She's now married to the right person. And then with somebody else, she realized she was holding herself back and she needed to open her heart up more to the person she was dating

What is your dream life? What are all the aspects of And usually it's like your job or where you want to live. That usually comes out of it. But for both of these that I coached around, it was relationship, which is interesting. So I can see it from that point of view, from the little bit that I've done relationship wise, that's how big of a role that plays and just thinking about people that I've dated before.

And now my husband and I have been married almost 15 years. So we were babies when we started out and how much. We have guided and evolved along the way like where we are now and we're continuing to look forward Okay What changes do we need to make within our family within ourselves to get there?

And if somebody's not willing to do that, it makes it Catastrophic sometimes. Yes And I have been around people where they have been on the verge of divorce for decades. I don't know how you can live in that. If my husband and I are at that point where we're not fighting, but we're not happy, we do something to shake it up quick.

Cause we can't live in that no man's land. I can't live like that and I can't imagine people who have survived decades like that within their relationship.

So I love that there are people who can come to you who are in that, I'm just super stuck. I don't know how to get forward. Or if, like you said, there's ghosts in their closet, like the Ghosts of Girlfriends past that movie was terrible, so don't watch it because of me. But just that, these past relationships are haunting me and I can't break free from it to then move forward.

I'm not sure if we should break up or I'm going through this breakup and I am absolutely devastated. What other types of people do you see?

Dr. Andrea Liner: A lot of, so one of my most popular services is what we call relationship diagnosis, which is that discernment phase of should I stay or should I go?

 And I also work a lot with just really highly sensitive people where breakups destroy them. It destroys their whole identity and ego. And then the other population I tend to work with, men in particular, in this category of people who just say I'm ready. To date again, but I know that there are just things that are unresolved or unprocessed from previous relationships

know I have trust issues from last relationships, and I don't want to bring that into a new relationship I know I have patterns. I have a type that I go for, and it's never worked out well for me. It always explodes. So I need help understanding why I do that, what that's all about and how to break free of that.

So it depends on where people are at in the present or in the future oriented mindset of what's going on right now or where we want to be. But they're all people who are curious. And that, I would say, is just the number one prerequisite I have for people to work with. They have to be curious about themselves.

 And I, as much support and kindness and soft place to land that I want to offer people, I wouldn't be doing people any good if I didn't also challenge them a little bit. If we didn't also look at what their contribution is to these dynamics. and I'd say 99 percent of the time that works very well.

I've only had one person in the whole history of doing this who had a very bad reaction to gentle nudging even. Didn't want to see their role in anything at all. But the thing is, relationships are co constructed. And aside from instances of abuse where we don't take any responsibility for someone abusing us, but in normal relationship circumstances, everything is co constructed and it might not be 50 50, but it's never a hundred zero.

And so we have to look at what is your picker looking like these days? How do you choose people to commit to and get to know? how do you communicate and what are your assumptions that you're bringing in? What were you taught about relationships, either explicitly or implicitly, from the models that were set for you?

we talk a lot about people's histories, and I know it sounds a little stereotypical, psychologist kind of thing tell me about your parents. But we do talk about that sometimes because there are so many interesting patterns that emerge and I actually just had a real go pretty viral about this concept of repetition compulsion, which is an old psychoanalytic term, but this idea that we will replicate experiences that we've had as children or throughout our lives over and over.

In the hopes that one day we finally win, we finally master it. And so that is a theory behind the idea of why someone who grew up with an alcoholic parent. Might then marry an alcoholic You would stay as far away from that as possible why are you attracted to it?

And we have to get into some of those dynamics and so my post was about How one thing I see all the time is people who are not sure whether or not to leave a relationship That's clearly not working for them But they're so torn on whether or not to leave because it would feel like they're quitting or giving up Even though from the outside, it's please get out of this.

And they tend to be people with parents who should have broken up probably, but stayed together for the kids and modeled a really unhappy yet committed partnership. And so they have no model set for them of how to leave something that's not working for them anymore. They feel like they have to continue it and try to beat it.

Autumn Carter: I wonder if it also is, if I break up with them, then how is that family member who's just like that, them going to feel? Is it going to feel like I'm also breaking up with that family member? If I'm sure that there's a lot there, can you make sure to send me that the link to the reel that went viral so that people are interested.

Okay. Thank you. I'm sure that it's a short one.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Okay. Yeah, I was surprised it went so viral. It's just a little clip with some words on the screen. It seemed to hit home for a lot of people, and then there are the people in the comments being like, absolutely not and I always think, I'm so curious what your personal situation is that you're protesting this much on a public forum.

 I don't reply to those.

It would be interesting to be I know.

Autumn Carter: well, did you stay in a

Dr. Andrea Liner: relationship for 40 years that wasn't serving you and now your kids are struggling as adults and you feel guilty about it? But yes, to your point, I think there can be this fear of breaking cycles in a family because if I leave, but my mom never did, will she feel like I'm judging her?

will that put a strain on our relationship? And that's usually a very unconscious process for people.

Autumn Carter: For me, I have been a huge cycle breaker in my family And being a coach my wellness matters for my business growth.

I can only take my clients as far as I'm willing to go, which means I need to be working on myself to better help and better show up, which I'm a mother too. So I had better be right. but there are certain places where I start to get in my journey. I'm like, Oh, I have another cycle to break.

I have another mindset. To change regarding the way that I was raised regarding generational trauma. So there are so many layers in there. So it's very interesting that you work in one that is pretty major.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yeah, absolutely. This stuff just touches all areas of our lives. I'm always very proud of people who are willing to step up and do this work.

Autumn Carter: And I was thinking that even if we have older women, I have some older women in the audience that are mothers listening. I could see them being like, Hey son, here's somebody for you or Hey nephew, or whatever. When you were talking about the men who are like, I'm ready to change. Some of these patterns, I'm ready to be able to fully let go.

And for me, I did it fumbling around in the dark and thankfully it turned out right. I just went, okay, I want someone totally opposite of who I dated before. Dated someone like my dad liked him. So that obviously was not a good thing. So I'm going to go polar opposite that way.

the one right after the one who's my dad is my husband. And he's amazing. But anyway, I just went from polar opposite to polar opposite and not in the same opposite, if that makes sense. like a star.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yes.

Autumn Carter: And that worked for me and just doing the, okay, what things did I like?

Okay. I'm keeping that. What things did I not like? Okay. Changing all of that and really taking that time during the breakup. Before the breakup, as I'm pondering it of, okay, what am I doing wrong? What do I need to change? And then because my husband was so right for me. My trauma started coming to the surface and thankfully he's very empathetic and he's okay, I'm gonna give you your space when you need it, but I'm right here type of thing.

And yeah, so I can definitely see why there is a need to, okay, I need to work through my own stuff. Instead of going from rebound to rebound. We all have family members and friends who have done that. And we've all wanted to bang our heads against the wall. So how amazing is it to give that space to, okay, now I'm going to work on myself.

Dr. Andrea Liner: I think it's one of the biggest gifts you can give to future partners and ideally the future partner. Because I think so many of us have been collateral damage in someone else's healing journey. And we see it all the time. There's so many pop culture references. I wish any of them were coming to mind right now, but this idea of that calm, any sitcom, any romcom, like anything where someone is going through it, not over someone has stuff they need to process and deal with, and they date someone else who's ready and earnestly interested in them.

And they ended up getting hurt because the first person has all this unhealed stuff going on this person's just left there like what the heck like now you've traumatized me So I always say don't let someone become collateral damage in your own healing take responsibility Figure out what you've been through and how it's impacted you and what you need to learn from it So that you're not out there hurting people Even unintentionally, because we know that impact can be more important than intention.

So it's a really empowering thing to do. It's a kind thing to do.

Autumn Carter: Yeah. And my thought is even the other way, if you're not willing to think about other people yet, because when you're just in the thick of it, it's hard to look outside of your own bubble of pain. Think about how you want to heal so that you're not continuing that cycle of pain.

Yes. Because I've seen that with my mom where she dated the same type of people, my parents divorced when I was young. So she would date the same type of people And her childhood trauma would come up during that. you need to separate between your childhood trauma and the person you're dating and the drama within there.

But there can definitely be cycles. So I think it's great that you have this for people so that they could have this space to really heal. And we're talking about something that can be so painful, but you're smiling the whole time because you can see the other side of it, which is just amazing that there can be this other side.

And it's really hard. I've been in the middle of it where I could not sleep. I could not eat. I felt like I couldn't breathe. did I make the right decision? Did I not? All of that. And just seeing where I am now, and the peace that I feel from it. And this was a long time ago, obviously, because I've been married 15 years.

But, and seeing that he had a harder time healing from it than I did. I was able to fully move on actually pretty quickly, amazingly, and he was stuck for a couple of years, and that's hard, being like, I wish I could give you some of the healing that I had, because I was able to work through all of that devastating pain and come to the other side not everybody can coach themselves.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yes, and there's always lessons to be learned, It's obvious that people forget when they're in the pain. So I have to remind people what have you learned from this situation? And I actually go through a process with my clients where we basically turn the breakup into a blueprint for the future.

 What did you learn that you liked and didn't like? And it's really empowering when you look at it that way, when people are like, Oh, I can actually take this experience and concretely map out where I want to go from here.

And that's something that I was able to do for myself that's fabulous.

Autumn Carter: Congratulations. It's amazing looking back and like, how was I able to get so far removed from the cycles that my family was stuck in? And I think that was one of the major ones was that right there. So if you're stuck in relationship cycles, there you go. Talk to Dr. Andrea. Even just knowing that it's possible, period.

Just that hope is worth it. So you said that you work with mostly women in 30s. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yeah. I mostly work with people who have not yet made the commitment of marriage and kids, but sometimes that does come up.

it's usually people who in long term relationships through their young adulthood who are ready. They're at that fork in the road moment of do I commit to this person or I thought I was committing to this person and now they've broken up with me and they feel completely unmoored and Unstable and like their future was ripped out from underneath them.

And so there's such a pivotal time I mean If you remember that time of life is so fraught with figuring out who you are and what you're doing with your life and the lack of stability and the excitement being independent for the first time and all of that. So there's so much opportunity for stabilizing and for learning in that phase.

But at the same time, there are people who are further down the path. one of the more recent clients I worked with is a married mother. Of two kids who's been married for 11 years and she's, I think if I'm remembering correctly, she had made three separate consultations with divorce lawyers over the last four years and never pulled the trigger, never went through with it, but was just feeling so stuck.

 What do I do? And one of the things we talked about the most, and I know your audience tends to be on the motherhood track, and one of the biggest conversations we had through our work together was, what kind of example are you setting for your children? And one of the things that wasn't working in the relationship was her husband's anger and how he expressed that anger and the mood in the house and the walking on eggshells that was occurring.

and her youngest was starting to have behavioral issues at school, was sent home for throwing a chair at a classmate one day. To me was showing what is going to continue to happen unless you choose a new path to model for your children.

And this is the type of person who's adult children. I ended up seeing as a client 20 years from now where they say my parents they stayed together. It was stable. I had a two parent household. But there was so much anger and resentment, and here I am in a relationship that mirrors that, because that's what we tend to do.

We tend to seek out what's familiar to us, because that's comfortable. Not in a feel good, cozy way, but in a I'm familiar with this. And those are the adult children that I see in my practice. So we had a lot of hard conversations about what example is being set for her children and I'm trying to balance that with, and it's not her fault.

She didn't ask for this. She didn't purposely set out to set that example for her children, but she's at a crossroads now and now you have a choice and what are you going to do with that choice?

Autumn Carter: Really quick, why did you make sure that she was not judging herself?

Dr. Andrea Liner: I just don't think that any growth can happen when we're judging ourselves. That's the first layer you have to bust through in a lot of things, is let's take this judgment away. I always call it the adding insult to injury. You're already unhappy. There's all this stress going on in your life.

Being hard on yourself on top of it is not helping. It's not opening up any space. And self judgment is also at the core of a lot of reasons why we seek out partnerships and dynamics that aren't helpful for us.

So self judgment is just never helpful. I always ask people, how is this serving you? if it's something like, oh, I'm judging myself because I feel like I've done something wrong and I need to remedy it. Great. The judgment has already served its purpose because that's why you're here right now.

So now we can say thank you for your message. Goodbye. I love it. It's such a core part of all inner work, I think.

Autumn Carter: I get stuck when I'm in judgment. When I get curious and get in the repair mode, then I can actually move again. Thanks for speaking on that.

Alright, so we can follow you@drandrealiner.com.

And Instagram, Dr. Andrea, dr. Dot, Andrea, do liner. Is there anything else for getting into your world or anything that you want to end with?

Dr. Andrea Liner: Yeah, I think those are the best ways to find me. Both have links to an application to work with me. I just ask a few questions to get to know you and then we can set up a consultation to see if working together would be helpful for you or if there's another resource that would be a better fit.

 So please feel free to join my community, send me a message and I would love to see if I could be helpful.

Autumn Carter: Perfect. Thank you so much. And it was so interesting to look at this from not always a repair side, but maybe a breakup actually is needed. And for some of us, depending on what our beliefs are religiously or on marriage, it can be really hard to let go.

no, we need to think about what is it doing to our health overall and our long term and most of all what you spoke to because my audience is mothers. So thank you for spending the time talking to us about just all the aspects of a breakup, how it can be actually a good thing, because so much of the time we think of it as just this negative and painful, and we don't even want to get to thinking about if it is the right thing.

And yes, a failure where what if we take the long lens and look at the healing that can happen and the reset and the rebirth. Made me think of a Phoenix. So I thank you for all of this and for just the time and the attention that you gave to this.

Dr. Andrea Liner: Thank you so much for having me.

I hope it was helpful for at least one listener or gave someone a resource to pass on to someone who could use it.

Autumn Carter: Exactly. Thank you.

Thank you for joining me on Wellness in Every Season. Remember to take time to relax, heal, and be present. Next week, we will be talking about the power and leaving space within Daily life.

thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I am your host Autumn Carter, a certified life coach and parenting coach Dedicated to empowering mothers to rediscover their identity beyond motherhood, find balance amidst chaos, Strengthen relationships, and pursue their dreams.

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