Today we're going to talk about how I got over a broken heart. If you've had a romantic relationship degenerate, I'm going to give you my experience and how I think about it, and I hope this is massively helpful for you. So let me tell you my experience with having a broken heart.
My first really bad broken heart
The first real bad broken heart I had was so long ago now. I dated a girl in college. She was my first serious girlfriend, and we were just both a bit lonely. But we loved each other. We liked each other, and it was the first time I'd say I'd really fallen in love with somebody and they'd fallen in love with me, and I'd had a serious relationship. So we dated for about a year and a half, and we had fun.
However, the relationship was pretty dysfunctional pretty early on. Sure, I was 21 and she was 18, so that's understandable. What we did is we went about, you know, let's get married and plan a wedding. We were dating, which was unnecessary, but this is what a lot of us do. As soon as we date somebody, we've got to think, well, we're going to be together forever.
By a year and a half, the relationship was pretty dysfunctional. For example, she was sick and wanted me to come over and take care of her, and I'm like, nah, I don't have time for that, because I'm in the police academy and you can't be getting me sick or I might not be able to finish. So you're on your own. And the truth was, yeah, that's exactly what the truth was. I was stuck in myself, and what I was doing was much more important than what she was doing.
On one of our last dates, we went to the movies. It was actually the movie Superbad. We were sitting in the movie theater and she said, I want to watch the credits. I'm like, no, I want to go. I don't want to watch the credits. She's like, can we please watch the credits? I'm like, no, let's go. She's like, well, I'm staying to watch the credits. I'm like, fine, I'm leaving. So I got up and walked all the way out to the parking lot and got in the car. And then she comes out, and she was really upset and crying and talking about how mean I am. And she tried to break up that night and take all her stuff out of my apartment.
Of course, I got really whiny. I'm like, please, no, don't go. I don't know what I'd do without you, and all this. Where do we get the idea that this is how we should act in a relationship? I could have just been like, sure, go ahead. I'll find somebody else to date. You can find somebody else to date. It's cool. Let's move on. But no, I cried and moaned and whined.
So we went on being dysfunctional for a few more weeks, until she got drunk at a party and had sex with some guy there who I guess was bigger than me but didn't know how to use it as well. But she was kind enough to tell me. And then she comes over the next night, after she hadn't been answering my calls or anything. I had drank the whole night before and played Rise of Nations. It was a Friday night. I'd just got out of the police academy, she wasn't answering her phone, and I'd actually had a dream about her with some other guy before this happened. Our dreams are often very, very accurate.
I remember, too, that there was an Alabama football game on, and I had a miserable hangover on this Saturday afternoon and evening. And she comes over. And this time she's committed to breaking up. She will not — doesn't matter how much I whine and plead and sob and say I can't live without her. She gets all her stuff and leaves. And I'm just utterly devastated.
For about a week my mind is just racing and miserable, with every kind of crazy self-harm and rage and homicidal thought going through my mind. And thank God I was at the police academy, because they kept me busy for the week. Then I made an appointment to see her on the weekend, and I was hoping she'd get back together with me. But by this time she was committed to dating this other dude that she cheated with.
My mind raced so bad. It raced pretty much straight for a week, unless I was fully immersed in what I was doing at the police academy. I cried and moaned to everybody about it. And when I went over to see her, she didn't want to get back together. But I had this moment on the drive over there where it was total. My mind wore itself out for about five minutes. It literally just ran out of thoughts and didn't think hardly anything for five minutes. And it was like time slowed down. There was so much peace. I looked around while I was driving. I'm like, what the heck is happening right now? What is this? It was the present moment — which I had not usually been participating in.
The night a friend saved my life
And then I got to a place where I felt so bad that I just couldn't see what else to do except end it all. And thankfully, I didn't do that. This is where every little thing we do in each other's lives can make a big difference. I had a friend on this night — I'm listening to, like, what is love, and I've got a gun, I'm going to end it all — and my friend calls and asks to go to the movies together. And I'm like, sure. So me and him go to the movies.
I felt like a big liar, that there was something I wouldn't share, that that's how I was feeling with him. Like, hey man, I about ended it all right before we went to the movies. So I did try and let him know — thanks a lot. I let him know I was really happy to be going to the movies. And thank God he was looking out for me. I might not be here if he hadn't been thinking of me. I think one of the best things we can do for each other is think of each other. You never know when somebody really needs you. Or maybe you do know, and you can follow that. So that was my first experience with a broken heart.
What actually made it better
I'll tell you what made it better. After I kind of hit that low point with it, and started to accept it and look at the positives, I said, okay, well, for the year and a half that I'd actually been with this girl, I had very, very good relationships with her. And I very often wished I could be with other girls. I fantasized about other girls. And I realized, well, now I can get what I want. Now I can be with other girls. And I thoroughly enjoyed that. I started adding random girls on Facebook, got back on all these dating websites, and pretty soon I had a new girl and was having sex with her, and I felt a lot better.
That's when I got to see this bigger picture of my life. Yes, it was painful to go through a breakup. And I know about getting to the point where the pain is so great you're just desperate for any solution to stop it. I even got sober for three months after she broke up with me, because I had almost ended it all sober, and I realized if I get drunk, that's a very real possibility it'll happen. At least sober I have a bit more good decision making. I wouldn't drink again until I felt safe to drink — like, okay, I'm probably over her, I can drink again. It took three months.
My life got drastically better during those three months. I lost like 20 pounds. I used to weigh 240 when she broke up with me, and I got down to about 220, which looked a lot better and made me feel better about myself. It was easier to attract somebody new into my life. If pulling your life back together after pain is the season you're in right now, that's exactly the kind of thing I keep talking through with people inside the Jerry Banfield Family.
The dispatcher who blew up my whole life
From there, I dated, and a couple of years later I ran into this girl I worked with who was, like, an absolute perfect 10 in looks. Oh my God, she was 20 years old. I remember the first time I saw her, she looked at me, and I'm like, oh my God. I was like, who is that? And they're like, oh, those are the new dispatchers. I'm like, I'm about to get fired over this. And that's exactly how it went down, too. One dude had his turn with her, and then I had my turn with her, and it was worth it.
I thought I'd hit bottom over the heartbreak with the girl from college. Oh my God. This dispatcher had me real messed up. And I guess I had her a little messed up too. I totally blew my entire life up. The thing with the dispatcher involved both of us being dishonest to the police department about things that had happened with us — lots of drinking, nasty things done to each other, apologies. And the police department brought this up. I said, well, why don't I just quit, and I'll move back home to Mississippi with my parents, and this will make everything better. And they're like, good, that'll make things simple for us too. Then I got a bit mouthy with them, so they encouraged her and helped her get a restraining order against me. And that made it really easy for me to not contact her ever again. So I moved home with my parents.
It was difficult for me to be single after that. I just had this supreme confidence. I'm like, man, if a girl that hot really wants to be with me, I know I've got it. I know hot girls want to be with me. Not all of them. Not most of them. But I know if I look, and if I keep my standards high, I'm going to find someone who's fantastic. If you want more of how I think about dating with your standards high, that's the heart of my Dating playlist, and it's a big part of why I now believe relationships are the greatest form of wealth.
More heartbreaks, and what they taught me
Then I met another girlfriend, after a bunch of dating fails — girls that didn't like me. We were both very immature, and we blew our relationship up. That was painful for a few days.
My mom introduced me to one of her friends who was, like, 20 years younger. I had this little relationship with her, and then I left her place really mad one morning and never saw her again. I remember just days of being in acute pain, playing video games desperately to try and distract myself, going in the gym and playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 all day, just trying to get through it. And I got through it.
All those things that happened with other girls — when I met my wife, it helped me to really appreciate how well we got along, how attractive she was and is, and what a wonderful personality she has. It also helped me appreciate how much pain is possible if you take certain actions. The thought of losing my wife left me realizing that, based on what I've already told you, I knew I wouldn't make it past losing my wife if it happened because of me just being completely selfish and inconsiderate and self-destructive. For me, that manifested especially in the form of alcoholism and drinking.
My wife said, I can't stand to be around you when you drink anymore. And I realized she was about to leave me over my alcoholism, and that I was helpless to change, and that she ought to leave me — she shouldn't keep staying with an alcoholic. That got me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm so grateful now that everything happened in my life just the way it did.
Ask other people about their heartbreaks
If you really want to get over a broken heart, ask other people about the heartbreaks they've been through. Look for people who are in really happy relationships now. Most of the time, they'll have some painful heartbreaks that educated them to make a great relationship now. The things I've told you helped me to make a wonderfully supportive and loving relationship with my wife, because I realized the pain of potentially destroying that relationship would far exceed anything I've been through already. And that's very effective motivation to be thoughtful and considerate of each action I take today, to be respectful of her, and to give everything I can in the relationship. Because if I give everything I've got to give and she wants to go a different direction, that's fine. I don't even have to be all heartbroken about that.
Heartbreak comes from possession, not love
These ideas we have, that we should pick up on, possess, and own another person, are ridiculous. My wife and I are together because that's what both of us want to do. If either of us decides we want to go a different direction, that's fine. Now, there could be a little discomfort in making that adjustment. But where the real heartbreak comes from is this possessive attachment, like this other person is mine.
When really, we're all God. We're all part of the creation. We're all divine energy. We're all soul. We're not here to be possessed and owned by another person like a slave. A lot of people have relationships like there's a slave owner and a slave. And that's how you have heartbreak. When you see it's two divine souls coming together, fusing together like atoms to make something that's better — and then you can go through fission if you want to and go back to being small.
Get a vision of your future
What really helps heal heartbreak is to get a vision of your future and a bigger picture of your life. It can be easy, like in the situations I've described, to feel so much pain. But that pain is only there because you're choosing not to look at the bigger picture of your life. And people in your life can very much help you with that.
I've seen lots of people in my life now go through things like breakups and divorces. To me, the worst thing is to be in a relationship where you're settling. Because at least if you go through the divorce or the breakup, you can be available to have a wonderful relationship. But if you're settling, if you're not getting what you really want out of a relationship — and therefore the other person's not either — but you just don't want to be alone, that's the worst thing. That's the worst thing you can do.
So what I love today is that I have an infinite capacity to go through heartbreaks, because I have an infinite capacity to love. Every time you love someone, even as a friend, you're opening yourself up to a heartbreak. Especially in AA, I've watched so many people that I've loved and prayed for to stay sober and helped — watched them drink, watched them die, whether they died drinking or died suffering, watched them get sober, watched them move away, or just watched them go to different meetings. All the heartbreaks we have in our lives can help us see who we really are. And who we really are is an infinite capacity to love and to create.
Your heartbreak doesn't have to be so painful
So I say to you, your heartbreak doesn't have to be so painful. In fact, if it's really painful, it's because you're having an opportunity to grow and expand — to expand your mind. A lot of us get raised in this culture of, you know, you need to meet someone and date for a while and get engaged and get married and have a nice wedding, buy a house together, have some kids, raise the kids together, then retire together and die together. And what's often not said is that if you don't do it exactly like that, you're a failure.
You're a failure as a wife if your husband cheats on you and divorces you. You're a failure as a boyfriend if your girlfriend cheats on you and leaves you. You're a failure if you want to have two wives or two husbands. You're a failure if you want any of these other things that can happen, if you decide maybe you're bi or you're gay. A certain part of the culture at least gives you this cookie-cutter life. And a lot of heartbreak comes from feeling like you've, for some reason, failed that.
But let that go. That's crap. You are God. You are immortal. You are the creator. You can have whatever kind of life you want. I've been going through the same kind of process with my livestream. Getting out of these cultural expectations can be extremely liberating, and the pain of a broken heart is a good gateway out of that. I don't have to be a liar. I don't have to be a livestreamer and a YouTuber and a podcaster that just grows and grows and grows and gets money and is famous, and then anything but that is failure. No.
Write down the relationship you want
If you want an opportunity to really grow from things like a broken heart, write down what kind of relationship you would love to have. One of the best ways to move forward in life is to focus on what you want. I know one person who's had a broken heart, and every time I talk to them it's like, how do I get over this breakup? I'm like, well, step one would be to start talking about what kind of relationship you'd like to have in your life, and stop talking about this breakup all the time.
I know it might sound callous, but get over it. Move on. Be with somebody else. This person that you think is so great is not that great. They're just a regular human being like everybody else is. I mean, I love my wife and she's fantastic and we're extremely compatible. At the same time, I know there are a lot of women in this world that are just like her, that I could be very compatible with and have a great life with. Now, there's nobody that I could have the last eleven and a half years with, which is why my relationship is so special. At the same time, life is full of infinite opportunities and abundance. Learning to lean into that instead of fearing it is a lot of what I mean when I talk about how to make dating fun again.
Never tell anyone you can't live without them
I only want to be with my wife if she wants to keep being with me. I'm not holding anyone hostage today. Never tell anyone you can't live without them. That's crap. And if you've done that, forgive yourself and commit to not doing it again. I could certainly live without my wife. I'd prefer not to. But I told her — she was having a bad night and was in a bit of a dark place, and she's like, sometimes I think about divorcing you. I'm like, you can leave whenever you want to. My wife's an attorney, and I told her, if you ever want to divorce me, you can have all my stuff, you can decide all the custody for the kids, I won't fight you.
Somebody else told me, well, your wife's fair, so you could do that with her, but I can't with mine. I'm like, look, the way you treat people is often what you get back. I know I would never want to fight my wife. That is for sure. She is a ferocious fighter. Better to just surrender. If she doesn't want to be with me, just surrender. What I would never want to do is violate the terms of our relationship — monogamy, consistent sex, transparency and honesty, accountability — and that makes it easy for me. There was a girl who was afraid that I was going to cheat with her, and I'm like, look, I don't care what you did to tempt me, what you offered me — my answer would be no thanks. I appreciate the offer, but no thanks. I know the pain of a heartbreak.
The real pain of a heartbreak
If you can love and accept the choices you've made, that makes things infinitely easier. The real pain of a heartbreak is loving and accepting your own choices. And that's what, when I had my other heartbreaks, I wasn't looking at. When my ex-girlfriend cheated on me and dumped me, by all means, that was the exact right thing for her to do. That's exactly what our relationship deserved. Today I'm so glad she did whatever it took to get out of it, because neither of us was benefiting from the relationship continuing.
At the time I was so butthurt, because she cheated on me and dumped me, but I was not considering all that I was not offering to the relationship. I didn't look at how I treated her. That's where the bad feelings came from. Deep down, I was really feeling bad about how I treated her, but I put it all on her — she shouldn't have, she ruined this, she did this, she, she, she. But really, if you want to feel better, it's me, me, me. And that's where love and compassion come from.
If you want to feel better, listen to what everybody else has done. Ask other people what they've been through in their relationships, and they'll tell you what they've done — well, some of them will, others won't. Look and see what other people have been through, and that'll help you feel better too. This is also why I think it helps so much to stop chasing the many and learn to find the one and ignore the many.
My heart gets stronger every time
So if you have a broken heart, I hope this is helpful for you. I'm grateful that no matter how many times my heart is broken, it's actually gotten stronger and less easy to break every time I've put it back together. When I was a kid, a teenager, and in my 20s, my heart was very easy to break, and it is extremely delicate. My heart is much more difficult to break today, and I know I can put it back together no matter what happens.
I like to say, if every single person I've ever met and known got wiped out in one way or another — let's say there was a solar flash coming and the mothership just took me and wouldn't take anybody else and dropped me off on another planet — I have a massive capacity to love. I might always love and miss all of you, but I could find another wife and another set of kids to love, and another parent and grandparent figures, and brother and sister figures. I could find a whole new family to love. After all, one day I'll leave this body behind and I'll find a whole other reality to love. So I think we've really got this one.