Ask your private questions and get access to exclusive bonuses and coaching through our private Facebook Group. Join now: https://www.facebook.com/groups/manupcommunity/#

For over a decade, David Tian, Ph.D. — a uniquely qualified therapist, life coach, and former university professor — has coached tens of thousands of people from over 87 countries to achieve happiness and success in their relationships, dating, psychology, and lifestyle.

Dr. Tian has been featured in international media, as well as co-hosting a radio show on national radio and a weekly dating advice column in a national newspaper in Singapore.

The show, “Man Up: Masculinity for the Intelligent Man” (https://www.davidtianphd.com/blog/), is David’s way of helping as many people as possible enjoy empowering and fulfilling lives, while contributing to the global understanding of masculinity in modern times. In the show, he takes your questions posed in the Man Up private Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/manupcommunity/) and answers based on his experience coaching tens of thousands of students around the world for over a decade.

Connect with David Tian here:

Website: https://www.davidtianphd.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidtianphd
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAuraUniversity
Man Up Show Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/manupcommunity/
DTPHD Podcast Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dtphdpodcast/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidtianphd/
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/masuline-psychology/id1570318182
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tYXN1bGluZXBzeWNob2xvZ3kubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4LAVM2zYO4xfGxVRATSQxN?si=URDTzPtwS–HK5boiYm33Q
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9kdHBoZHBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
DTPHD Podcast: https://www.davidtianphd.com/dtphdpodcast
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-podcast-factory/masuline-psychology
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-980450970
Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/bkcgh-1f9774/Masuline-Psychology-Podcast
Tune In: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Education-Podcasts/Masculine-Psychology-p1449411/
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/davidtian
LinkedIn: https://sg.linkedin.com/in/davidtianphd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidtianphd
Invincible Reviews: https://www.auratransformation.org/david-tian-invincible-review/

Do You Have To Forgive Your Ex?

• David Tian Ph.D. shares the best revenge you can do to your ex.

• David Tian Ph.D. tells us why we shouldn’t just focus on forgiveness.

• In this Man Up episode, David Tian Ph.D. explains why it’s alright to feel angry.

David Tian: Boom! Stop. I’m David Tian, PhD. And in this video I answer the question: Do you have to forgive your ex? Welcome to Man Up Episode 183.

Masculinity for the Intelligent Man. I’m David Tian, PhD., and this is Man Up!

I’m David Tian, PhD, and for over the past 10 years, I have been helping hundreds of thousands of people in over 87 countries attain success, happiness, and fulfillment in life and love. And here we are again in Bali. It’s morning, which I don’t usually like to shoot in, but we’ve got a busy schedule today. So, I’m going to have to do it in the morning – because of the shadows and stuff.

But here we are on the way to breakfast. Just thought I’d stop by the pool here on the way to breakfast, shoot this one. And this one is another ex. This is another ex question. So, this question and the next one are going to be ex questions. I get a lot of ex questions. I usually just say, “Hey, go check out my ‘How to Get Over Your Ex’ free course and ‘How to Get Your Ex Back’ free course, which we have available in the Man Up Facebook group.

So, if you join the group, it’s available inside there for free. They’re each over an hour and I just walk you through step-by-step how to do each of those things. But I’ve been getting so many ex questions, I thought maybe it’s a good time to revisit them. Here it is.

“I’m not sure how I can forgive my ex for breaking up with me. I’ve told my story here a few times over, so check my history. But as time moves on and I don’t hear from her, I honestly am not sure I ever can forgive her for what she’s put me through.”

You sent me multiple messages. I’m just reading the last one here and I honestly totally did not look up the previous questions. This one in itself was already a great question to answer. Most of the ex questions fall into a pattern, so this is the same. I don’t quite remember the details, but they’re irrelevant to this particular question.

“But as time moves on and I don’t hear from her, I honestly am not sure I ever can forgive her for what she’s put me through and the bad shape she has left me in. I can’t forgive her for being so selfish and oblivious. I can’t forgive her for what she’s taken away for me, for the false sense of security she instilled in me, for carrying on with her life happy when she should be regretful every day until she dies for what she has done so coldly and callously.”

I think we have some bitterness here.

“I allowed myself to be vulnerable for her and she took advantage of that. She has earned every bit of my vitriol and should be embarrassed when she looks in the mirror, and she doesn’t deserve to be happy ever again.”

I’m going to stop there. So, Neil, what I want to tell you here is – you don’t actually need to forgive her. All of the other stuff that I usually would say in this context, figure out why the relationship went south, why you were attracted to a girl like that who could do such things to you, and it’s not obviously just on her side —

And there are some guys who are just like, “Oh, I was manipulated and deceived! I was the victim!” There are no pure 100% victims. I know it’s not PC to say that, but one of the ways of getting back your dignity and learning how to move forward is understanding why you would fall for somebody like that. It wasn’t just a cognitive blindness. There was some emotional need that drew you to her so that sort of behavior and all of the red flags you didn’t see, also why her particular style of personality was attractive to you.

That’s a really important thing for you to understand, and I walk you through that in the free courses.

But in this case, he was talking about, “I can’t forgive her. I can’t forgive her. I can’t forgive her.” And I’m here to tell you it’s okay not to forgive her, especially at this point in your recovery, where you are still in the bitterness stage, the angry stage. That is okay. It’s in fact the anger will fuel you to get your shit done.

So, let’s say you come to the end of this question here and he says, “She has earned every bit of vitriol and she should be embarrassed to even exist.” Okay, great. Let’s say that’s all true. Wonderful. Now, what? Now you’re going to get on with your life.

So, great. Don’t forgive her. Move on with your life. Get your shit together. Meanwhile, harboring your anger – but hopefully, if your life gets better as it should over time, you’ll forget her and that’s the best revenge. There’s some saying I remember hearing a lot, “Success is the best revenge.” That’s a lie. In fact, that’s not true. Success is not the best revenge. Forgetting is the best revenge.

Forgetting this person is the best revenge, forgetting why you need revenge is the best revenge. Literally, you just remove those memories out of your head, that would be the best revenge. She walks up to you like, “You don’t remember me?” And you honestly don’t remember her, that’s like eternal sunshine of the spotless mind kind of shit, man. That’s the best revenge. If you are so successful that you have forgotten this part of your life–

And if you’ve forgotten, then that means you don’t need to forgive, you just need to forget. Don’t focus on forgiving, because sometimes that means you open yourself up to more hurt and you’ll be too vulnerable when you’re not ready yet. It’s okay to be angry, but it is most important to let go. Letting go means you forget.

The way you let go is – there actually is a process that you let go, and we’ll walk you through that in our upcoming course, Masculine Mastery. But in addition to that, that’s the last step of letting go. To prepare you to let go, you need to have your life awesome. Your life is awesome and then there’s no point in holding on to this thing.

One last example: GSP, who is coming back to the UFC. Awesome guy, as far as I know him. He wrote a book The Way Of The Fight, awesome book. That was one of the few books where I read to the end. And even before the day had passed, I started again from page one. I read it two times in a row. It was that good.

Now, GSP talks about his defeat, his loss to Matt Serra, which was where he was a heavy favorite. Serra was a massive underdog, but Serra caught him and then GSP wanted to get back, and he just got knocked out in the first round. GSP said that was one of the most devastating losses to him. It really shook his life.

And so, his sports psychologist – interesting, right? GSP. One of the best, if not the best, fighter in history, had his own psychologist, a sports psychologist, who was instrumental in his success. Psychology is instrumental in all success. If you don’t have your own counselor, you’re just not up there with us.

So anyway, GSP had a brick. His psychologist said, “Take an actual brick.” Because he kept talking about Serra, Serra, Serra, like it’s his burden. He said, “Take an actual brick, write Matt Serra’s name on it, and carry it around on your gym bag and everywhere you go.” So, GSP started carrying around this brick in his gym bag.

And then he wasn’t allowed to challenge Serra immediately for a rematch. UFC started giving him other fights. And the next fight up was Josh Koscheck. And Koscheck was talking all of this dirt, all of this trash talk at GSP. And then GSP having to respond to the trash talk, having to deal with the trash talk, started focusing on Koscheck instead.

And then just over the months, he just remembered, “Hey, I haven’t thought about Matt Serra in weeks. Why am I carrying around this stupid brick?” And he has realized he has finally let go of his need to get revenge on Matt Serra. He’s so focused on Koscheck right now and Koscheck’s trash talking, and he’s like, “Finally, I’m actually relieved of this burden.”

So, he was like a ceremonial thing, he took that brick out to the lake and he threw it in the lake. It was this big weight that was released from him, this need to get revenge was gone. And when that happened, he was lighter and stronger, and that’s what needs to happen with you.

Right now, you’re really angry at this woman. That is fine. She did whatever and whatever, and probably she was, I’m going to go with you, man. Maybe she was culpable a lot more than you. It’s important for you to understand why you would be that particular type of victim, what in your childhood and your personality make up would attract you to somebody who puts out that kind of energy, and says those kinds of things, and does that kind of stuff.

That’s a really important thing for you to understand. But it’s okay for you to hold onto that anger right now because you can use that as fuel to focus on your life, getting ahead, moving on, using my free break up recovery course. And as you get further and further, you will hopefully just be able to forget. Just to the point where you forget.

Maybe next week, you only think about her x number of times, and then the week after that, you think about her x – 5 number of times, and then so on. And maybe you’ll only think about her once a month, and then so on, right? And then maybe you’ll only think about her when somebody actually asks you about her. That’s where you want to go, where you totally forget.

So, you don’t need to forgive, but you do need to forget. You do need to let go. So, there you go, that’s why I’d say for that. Join the private Facebook group to get your free courses on break-up recovery and how to get over your ex, or how to get your ex back and how to get over your ex. They are all free inside the Man Up Facebook group. I’ll see you inside the group. It’s David Tian, signing out. Man Up!