Spicy Midlife Women: Real Talk, Raw Truth, and Bold Moves for Women Over 40

32. Rebuilding "You" After A Breakup

• Jules and Michele: Midlife Mentors

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We unpack how long relationships can blur identity and why midlife is a powerful time to reclaim your voice. We share tools for boundaries, routines, and standards so you heal well, date wiser, and protect your future self without hardening your heart.

• choosing yourself to prevent identity loss
• red flags from chronic silence and shutdown
• survival mode logistics and daily anchors
• standards versus expectations in dating
• discovering rather than rediscovering authenticity
• time, grace, and routines for reinvention
• owning your part to break old patterns
• playful acts of reclaiming joy
• using a one-word focus for the new year

If you uh haven't checked us out on the socials, please feel free to do that. We have a a lot of fun over on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. And if you haven't checked us out on YouTube, please go do that and subscribe. We would love to have you subscribe to us over there on YouTube.

We unpack how long relationships can blur identity and why midlife is a powerful time to reclaim your voice. We share tools for boundaries, routines, and standards so you heal well, date wiser, and protect your future self without hardening your heart.

• choosing yourself to prevent identity loss
• red flags from chronic silence and shutdown
• survival mode logistics and daily anchors
• standards versus expectations in dating
• discovering rather than rediscovering authenticity
• time, grace, and routines for reinvention
• owning your part to break old patterns
• playful acts of reclaiming joy
• using a one-word focus for the new year

If you uh haven't checked us out on the socials, please feel free to do that. We have a a lot of fun over on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. And if you haven't checked us out on YouTube, please go do that and subscribe. We would love to have you subscribe to us over there on YouTube.


Are you ready to take your "spiciness" to the next level?!

Connect with Julee & Michele on Instagram @spicy_midlife_women and send a DM about what resonated most during this episode so they can encourage you with steps forward in your own life.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, all you spicy women out there. It's Jules and Michelle here from Seattle, Washington, the Emerald City in the Pacific Northwest. And we're here to share our real life stories and have no BS conversations with all of you. Ain't that right, Michelle?

SPEAKER_00:

That's right, Jules. Here to help all you midlife women redefine your relationships, ditch those toxic cycles, and reclaim your power one episode at a time. Michelle's already told me that I'm very chatty today. She is chatty. I mean, not just today. She's she's chatty.

SPEAKER_02:

I am a little more chatty today. I had a glass of wine before we sat down.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So I think it makes me a little bit more chatty. So God knows what you guys are gonna get from me today, right? That's okay. All right. Well, Michelle, what are we uh gonna impart knowledge about today?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I thought this was a really good topic, and it's all about rebuilding identity after a breakup, right? Conversation about rebuilding identity after a breakup. I think many midlife women have gone through this, and I think it aligns with what what we go through in midlife. Those of us that have kids, anyways, you know, it's it's it's a whole identity thing. When your your children go up and are leaving home, if you've been in a long-term relationship and that ends, whether it's a marriage, a long-term partnership, whatever it is, you know, there's a lot that can be lost with identity in that loss.

SPEAKER_02:

So do you think that I mean, I I think it doesn't really matter whether you have kids or not. I mean, if you're in a partnership, a long-term partnership, you, you know, you identify with being with that particular person. So if you have children, maybe it's more complicated when you're trying to kind of get through things.

SPEAKER_00:

I just meant that loss of identity. I think women will feel that in the same type of way. I I didn't mean that you it yeah, whether you have children or not, but if you do have children is what I'm saying, I think it aligns with that same type of identity loss when they leave home as as it can be when I see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Like when you're if you uh get divorced or you know, you you have a a breakup with a long-term relationship that that you've been in. Because there's so many roles that go along with that. And when that's gone, who are you then, anyways?

SPEAKER_02:

Right. I think a lot of that might have to do too with, you know, when you when you are with somebody for a long time, you kind of have a tendency to mold into whatever that relationship is. So you might have compromised a lot of things that were important to you. You may have made modifications into how you look at things. Like I remember, you know, in my long-term relationship, we didn't talk when politics came up, I just shut my mouth because what's the point in having a conversation? We just weren't gonna have a really productive conversation. So I just didn't say anything. You know, it's just easier. You start to start to do things to make the relationship work when you're having to compromise on things that you're not necessarily aligned with, which is a whole nother issue, really, when you think about it. Because if you're not aligned on some things, which you know, nobody's gonna be aligned a hundred percent of the time on everything, but there's definitely compromises that are gonna be taking place between either the one significant other or the other significant other.

SPEAKER_00:

I think just like everything you just said, that's why it's so important. You know, if if you listen to us, you've heard in many episodes the importance of choosing yourself.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Because what you were just talking about is that loss of identity in a relationship, which in a weird way almost becomes an identity. Yes. Do you know what I'm saying? And so then if you are not choosing yourself and continuing to remember those things about you and be yourself, your authentic self by doing that, when a breakup happens or when a divorce happens, you know, hopefully it doesn't. But if it does, you are okay with okay. But if you continue to choose yourself and don't lose your own identity in a relationship, when and if that does happen and the breakup or divorce comes to fruition, I think you're better prepared to move through it. It's never going to be easy, but you you'll be better prepared to move through that loss and regain your footsteps in moving forward with your identity in who you are.

SPEAKER_02:

So in those relationships, you would have to have lost your footing. So I guess when you get into something that is not going to last, you're, if you think about it like, you know, treading water or trying to keep your head above water, those are you know little idioms and sayings and things like that. But you're you're kind of morphing to do what you need to do in order to survive in a relationship. It might be where, you know, the relationship is there might be indifference that you have been kind of living with, or it might be verbal abuse, or it could be physical abuse, or it can just be like, you know, your partner doesn't give a shit anymore, or is uh disrespectful. There's just a million different myriad of reasons why you could be in that particular situation. But if you're a person who has gotten married or has been in this relationship long term and is committed to it, you don't just give up. You try to modify and do the things you need to do. And then you end up, like you're saying, to your point, losing a part of yourself. And so when that relationship ends, you know, there's all kinds of little factors that still will come into play, whether you have children or financial responsibilities together or whatever. You know, if you're married, it might be a little bit different than if you're not married, it's probably cleaner if you're not married. But depending upon where you're at in your life, you know, you have probably morphed yourself at some juncture. And that is where you go back to going, holy shit, who am I when you come out of this relationship? Because you're not seeing the person that you thought you were, you're seeing yourself from a very different perspective.

SPEAKER_00:

There's so many facets as I'm listening to you talk about those things. There, there's like the communication piece in a relationship, because you know, I'm sitting here thinking, if you can't be really who you are, and if you're not able to communicate when things come up in regard to situations and you do start shutting down to make things easier, those really are red flags. Wouldn't you say though those are red flags in a relationship? And, you know, it's then that you should really start stepping outside and looking at those things instead of, you know, if those red flags are being raised, don't push them down. Step outside and take a look at what that is because um, and and you know, we've been able to learn some of this as we've gone through, and we were both in long-term, very long-term relationships. They were marriages, and we ended up divorcing. And I guess I'll just speak for myself, but um, you know, we've been able to kind of understand a little bit more by that hindsight in in that identity loss.

SPEAKER_02:

You know what's the words on Michelle? When I was going through that, and I can uh again speak for myself, I had no idea that I didn't know who I was.

SPEAKER_00:

I know that's that's what I'm saying. That's the beauty of the hindsight. We can look back and see that now. So I I love being able to talk about this stuff for maybe women that are going through that now and maybe don't realize that it is a bit of identity, uh, a shift in your identity. And and don't get me wrong, we do those things. There's give and take. There, there is all of that stuff that you that you sacrifice in a relationship. It's not like, you know, fuck you, and it's my way or the highway, kind of a thing. That's not what I mean. But the community that's where the communication and all that was very rough what I just said. Sorry, but yeah. Um, but but I so I I don't mean it to to be like that, all selfish and everything. But there the through communication and ways of doing, there are ways of trying to bring things to the table to where you know you can express how you're feeling and the whys behind that. And if then that other person isn't coming to the table with you, then there might be start to be some shifting within that relationship for your own for your own good.

SPEAKER_02:

And well, and that's when people start way earlier than they actually, and I can speak from women's perspective, my own. It's like they start way earlier thinking about an exit plan without even realizing that that's what they're thinking. And it's like they're not feeling good, they're not feeling right, they're not feeling heard, represented, loved. Whatever, whatever it is they're not feeling is there. And I think, you know, we're speaking to women right now. I mean, men go through things too, sure, you know, and they handle them very, very differently than women do in most cases. But as women, we are really feeling beings. We are very emotional beings, and I don't mean emotional like we are like crazy with our emotions. I mean we feel for the most part very deeply. I think it's an innate quality that women have. It's very nurturing. And so when you're not getting that met, when you're not getting that that conversation or that communication like you're talking about, it sounds so I it sounds so ideal, you know, like oh it'll be so perfect, this wonderful communication. There's why do you think there's so damn mances? Because people don't communicate, right? They don't know how to do it for God's sake. Nobody teaches them. Total side note. But you be shut down. It's like I shut down, women shut down emotionally, and when they shut down emotionally, all of that stuff kind of just kind of becomes outside noise. And so then you start thinking about who am I? Who am I going to be when I am not in this relationship? Who am who do I identify myself as? What do I bring to the table? How am I uh a person who can support another person? There's so much stuff that happens where we start questioning ourselves, we start questioning our abilities to be to be loved, even, to be in a position where we can have a healthy relationship and really can be very down on ourselves when we're trying to figure these things out.

SPEAKER_00:

And some I I didn't even think about any of that stuff until after I was out of the relationship. I didn't think about any of that stuff. Because you kind of are in the survival mode where you're trying to figure out what to do to continue and move on appropriately, especially.

SPEAKER_02:

This isn't gonna be that bad. I was scared, you know, but it it wasn't gonna be that bad because I was already doing things on my own anyways. That's how I felt about it. I was more worried about how am I gonna handle this? What am I gonna do? It was like the the mechanics of life, right? Yeah. And on a funnier side note, the one thing that my ex-husband said to me, like when we talked about the divorce, was who how are you gonna pay for medical?

SPEAKER_01:

That was like the one thing that he said to me. I'm like, I don't know. I'm not even worried about that right now, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

But um, I mean, this is a marriage, obviously, long-term. But I mean, people go through this stuff, whether they're in a long-term relationship or whether they are in a shorter term relationship.

SPEAKER_00:

You're bringing lives together. You're bringing lives together and you're making life happen and you're making life work, and there is sacrifice involved, and you do find yourself giving up things, which is why once that happens, the rebuilding of your identity and really I think it's gonna come from the inside out. And you really have to dig deep for that confidence, and you know, because there's been a lot of emotional bruising, I'm sure, that as a result, right, you know, from a breakup, what whatever that looks like. And then you have to look at rewriting your your personal story or your narrative, or what what really does that look like and and how do you define yourself? There's so many things really, once you're out of that, that you're kind of looking in the mirror and trying to figure out all of those things. I know I was, anyways.

SPEAKER_02:

Would you feel like uh long-term relationship changes your has did change your identity? Or do you think it blurs people's identity of themselves? It's kind of what we're talking about, especially since you know, if you're a young person, let's say you're in your 30s and you're into a long-term relationship. Do you feel like it kind of blurs your identity in some ways? I think it depends on your partner and how well they let you be you.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. It depends, yes, that's that is a dependent factor, but I think a lot of times people define themselves define themselves on that relationship status. Right. You know what I'm saying? And so, yeah, it it is gonna be blurred. If if you are living your life and defining yourself based on that relationship status, what yeah, I mean, and and then there's a breakup and that is no more. Who who are you then? Who are you? Yeah, exactly. Who are you then without that relationship? And and midlife, I think the reinvention in midlife is actually an advantage. Then it's like a clean slate. It is, and because we've moved through so much and have fallen forward in a lot of different areas, it can be a line in the sand, and you have the wherewithal, typically at this point in life, to feel things differently. There's a lot of things we don't give a shit about anymore. And we handle and deal with things differently. We've learned a lot about boundaries, you know, and what that looks like. And those are going to be safeguards for you to protect that identity that you do have when you come out of it and you do rebuild. If you're going into a new, if you, you know, when and if you head into another relationship, you know, I would I would think that, you know, give yourself time to rebuild and boost and you know, heal and come to know all of those things. So that when you do step into another relationship in midlife, if you do step into another relationship in midlife, you will have learned so much about yourself and how to handle things within a couple type situation.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's providing that the person that you're considering becoming, you know, exclusive with has figured some of those things out too, because you could end up with another individual who has the similar issues and you dealt with before, but you've done the work and maybe they haven't. So I mean, that's the thing that I probably that probably worries me the most out of anything, you know, when it comes to relationships.

SPEAKER_00:

I think though if you've I don't know, but I would think if you have done the work and the other person hasn't, you're not gonna have the patience for the bullshit. I know I I I mean, I I would like to think that I would recognize that now, right?

SPEAKER_02:

After I just give people the benefit of the doubt and then go, yeah, something's not right with this picture. You know? Yeah. But the other thing we talked we were talking before about when you go through a breakup, well, I was saying clean sleigh, you know, we have different ways of articulating what that looks like. But reconnecting with your authentic voice means that you have had to identify what your authentic voice was before. And I don't necessarily know that we all understand what that looks like. So that's part of the, that's part of the kind of deep like inner stuff you gotta pull out and determine and and really give yourself a a good score, A or F, you know. And now you have to pull yourself out of that and identify whether you had an authentic voice before, because you may have been with someone for a very long time when you had not even identified who you are, and now you've, you know, kind of morphed into this relationship, and now there's no relationship, and now you're kind of like, who the hell was I to begin with?

SPEAKER_00:

That was me. Yeah, I did not have an authentic voice before, and then I was in for 26 years, married, you know, so for me it was a divorce. But then it it was like probably a good five years. I I did not have a serious relationship for a good five years, and really even longer than that after I was divorced, and it was during that time that I found my authentic self. Right. A lot of who my authenticity is. I was able to, and I can't say rediscover, I was honestly able able to discover what a lot of that looked like for me and was able to live much more freely uh than ever before. So that that is very true.

SPEAKER_02:

If it's not a rediscover, I thought I had it all figured out and I had no clue. I thought I was like, I totally know who I am, I totally know what I've got going on. I had no freaking clue at all. And I didn't realize that until I got into another long-term relationship where I I was so it was like I was 24 again, you know, not really having the experience of dealing with different people and what exactly that looked like and the trust level and all of the things that go along with that. I just had no flipping clue. So that was a different type of breakup than being in a marriage and having broken up. This one was very different. This one was more like a betrayal and just a horrible feeling of betrayal and getting through that and trying to figure out how someone could do that to me. You know, that was like that was more of my like, I was I was a crazy person. I was just so beyond myself that someone would actually do that to me. And it's not sounding, I'm not saying that from a narcissistic perspective. It's more kind of like, how could somebody who says they love you be so awful? You know, that was my learning. I had no idea. But at the same time, I'm like, I can't let that govern everything that I do in the future from that because it's either going to teach me something really, really good or it's gonna teach me or put me in a position where something's really, really bad. Like I won't ever trust anybody again. And if you allow that to happen, then you know you're kind of screwing yourself, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, absolutely. Don't not let somebody else's behavior, behavior, govern the decision, your future. Yes, like that is so, so important. I'm really glad you brought that up. Yeah. So important.

SPEAKER_02:

I was telling you the story. Um I was um in this particular group, which I can't really mention on here, but a group that I was in, and it's a bunch of women, and they're talking about different things. And this one woman had posted, I don't know her, she had posted something about she'd been recently divorced. I mean, kind of the same timeline and everything that we had had, and had been married for several years and had decided to date again. And she was dating some man, and everything seemed like it was going great, and that they were, quote, communicating really well, and you know, all this stuff, and she she sleeps with him and he freaking ghosts her. And she was devastated. And what made me I was reading this stuff and I'm like, oh girl. It's like she just she has she's so innocent. She's been she's been in a relationship for so long, she had no idea what the real world is like out there. And and it's unfortunate because that's uh the bulk of what you see a lot of that with with dating right now is people just are really disrespectful about other people and what their needs are. They're very selfish about things. I mean, just I've run into just I've run into very nice people, but I've also run into people where you're just like, holy shit, I dodged the major bullet too, you know. And she had walked into this thinking it was going to be all sunshine and roses and was absolutely devastated and was like, What have I done? I don't, I don't even know who I am. How could I even allow this to happen? This is what she's saying, you know. How could I have trusted someone, you know, and and they betrayed me so horribly? And she's not exposed to those disappointments or hadn't been exposed to those disappointments. I don't know. I think a lot of women, especially that have been in long-term relationships that are in midlife now, whether it's they're in their 40s or whatever, 50s, it's like they they maybe haven't experienced a lot of that stuff. So they think that the grass is going to be greener on the other side, and maybe the grass will be mowed, but it's not gonna necessarily be greener, you know. You have to kind of make I'm using my little metaphor here, you have to kind of make that for yourself. But a lot of that comes with setting your own, like you were saying, glow up on some of our notes we're talking about, glow up, setting your own standards. And we've talked about standards versus expectations, and I think it's really important to bring that up because as you are trying to figure out who you are, you have to really be able to speak of and articulate what your standards are, what's okay with you, what are you good with versus what you expect from people, because when you when you have standards, it's what you expect for yourself, and when you have expectations, it's what you expect from someone else. And you can't always expect things from someone else when you're when you're learning how to meet people and get into relationships and and things because you're gonna be disappointed more often than not.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And doing that, being able to articulate and do that will be part of this rebuilding process of your identity because and part of that protection that we were talking about before. Yeah, that's why it's gonna be so important. You will learn that it is fragile and it's super important to protect. And I think it takes time.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's the one thing that we never really allow ourselves is the time to be able to kind of sit with something and the grace, understand it and be good with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Giving yourself grace through the process, right? Um, and being able to, you know, you're gonna have to create routines during this rebuilding process and being able to regain your identity and root routines that align with who you're learning you are now, or coming back to who you used to be, trying new things and not being afraid, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

And there's no and there's no judgment. There's nobody around telling you, oh, you can't do that. There's nobody around saying, Oh, I can't believe you'd want to do that. You have to really kind of empower yourself and be feeling more independent about the things you know that you're doing. And you know, I'm also thinking about how women might define themselves has to do if it has to do with your relationship status, then you need to reevaluate that, I would say. Yes. Because you are not uh a significant person because you have a significant other. You're not more significant because you're single. You know, you're not more yeah. And so there are there are a lot of uh women that maybe feel that way, that they are they are um in a better position if they are in a relationship. You know, I heard I heard this one girl say she was a serial monogamous, she could not be alone, she had to be in a relationship. It's like she felt like she was a big loser if she wasn't in a relationship. That was really more that was very telling to me. I remember when this woman was telling me that. Um, and she was relatively young, you know, she was maybe at the time 28, 30, something like that. And I'm just like, oh honey, you know, it's like she clearly was using relationships to identify who she was as opposed to identifying who she was and then determining if the relationship was the right fit. Yeah. It was very uncomfortable sitting, sitting with it, sitting alone with it.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, there's there's so much of it that is messy, that can be messy, you know, through a breakup. And especially in midlife, because there's typically gonna be so many surrounding circumstances that go along with midlife and two people in in midlife coming together, long-term relationship, you know, so shit can be messy, but uh, you know, you're a hundred percent capable of of moving forward and uh, you know, uh going through it and and coming out better if that's where you're at, you know, reinvention, rebuilding, but whatever it is, uh I promise you is is especially in midlife, you'll be a much happier person if you recognize those things and you know, try to gain the importance of what that looks like for you is crucial.

SPEAKER_02:

I think too, learning from you have to I I think we have to all take a look in order to see where when we are in a relationship that's failed, what is the reason for the failure. And you can't blame it on the other person. Oh yeah. You know, you have to take ownership. No, I mean it's like it's easy to blame it on the other person, right? But it's like you have to take ownership of what your part is. And by doing that, you learn not to repeat the same pattern.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Or get yourself into a situation where you're attracted to the same type of personality that's gonna do it's like Groundhog's Day, you know, you know, you're you're gonna end up doing the same thing all over again. So it takes a while, I think. Again, if you've if you've been in relationships for a while, it doesn't really matter how old you are. It's like it's time it is helpful, and I think it's pretty healthy to step out of something and give yourself some time to really process what's taken place, what your role was, and then only when you're ready, making a determination that you want to start meeting people again or dating again or whatever. There's nothing that's there's no timeline on it really, you know, that says, oh, I have to do this during a certain period of time or it's gonna be too late, I'm not gonna be able to. I mean, I hear that from people quite often, and I kind of chuckle about it because I'm like, okay, well, if that's the case, oh, I'm in big trouble, you know, because it's like, but that's not how it works. It's like you don't you don't go out there and say, I have to do something by a certain time frame or it's not gonna happen. It just doesn't work that way. I'm fine.

SPEAKER_00:

Just enjoy the moments, man. And enjoy the moments, enjoy the messiness, enjoy the midlife stuff, enjoy the reinvention, enjoy the rebuilding. It's all a process. Give yourself grace. Um, and if I could be petty and suggest that for those of you that do have an ex, maybe what you do this week is something that your ex would have hated. Just for fun. Do something that your ex maybe uh would have hated and then just love every second of it while you're doing it, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Whatever it is. This episode too is dropping at the very tail end of the year. And so this is kind of a perfect opportunity to really talk about yourself being a new version of yourself, or you could call it an upgrade. You know, you could say, I am going to glow up, I am gonna look at things differently. And it's not like you're setting uh what do you call them? Um New Year's resolutions. It's not like you're setting goals, new New Year's resolutions that way, but you're giving yourself that mindset where you are thinking that way, you know, where you're thinking, okay, I'm gonna look at it differently. And there's nothing like the beginning of a year, fresh start. It's kind of like Mondays, you know, fresh start.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Start on Monday, you know, kind of a thing. One of the things that we've talked about before is having a word that helps define where you want to go. And it's like I write it in my phone, I've got it up on my mirror, you know, those are the things that I've done with it just so it reminds me of what it is that I wanted to focus on. It's not like I do it all the time. But if you're looking to evolve and you're looking to start fresh, you're looking at looking at things differently, maybe getting yourself a new haircut or a new outfit or going on a road trip or whatever, something that brings you joy and gets you thinking about yourself and putting yourself in a good place, then that's absolutely a wonderful time to do it. So love it. Love it. And do it spicily.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's Michelle's new word, spicily. So if you uh haven't checked us out on the socials, please feel free to do that. We have a a lot of fun over on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. We are there. And if you haven't checked us out on YouTube, please go do that and subscribe. We would love to have you subscribe to us over there on YouTube. That's where you can watch the video, the podcast. Not just listen to it, but you can watch us all. You can actually see how cute Michelle is. How how cute Julie is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Happy New Year, everybody. Yeah. We look forward to bringing you more spicy fun next year along with our community and everything else. We're pretty jazzed about it. So more to come. Right. Until then, stay spicy. Stay spicy, everybody. Bye. Bye.