Friendship Breakups, Dating After Divorce & Outgrowing Relationships in Midlife with Dr. Darcy Sterling

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:00:00

You cannot break relationship patterns by picking better. You break relationship patterns and relationship dynamics by recognizing what your relationship dynamics are.

Roxy Manning: 00:00:11

You have to, like, look inward first.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:00:13

Choosing a different partner is not going to fix your internal relationship patterns. You are going to recreate them in everyone.

And unless you understand those patterns well enough to interrupt them in real life, you can have all the insight in the world and you will still keep recreating the problems with different people.

Roxy Manning: 00:00:33

How do we change?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:00:34

The reason why we spin things is because we have the strength of eq. Every strength can become a weakness when it's dialed up too high.

We are much more discerning when it comes to our friends than when it comes to ourselves.

Roxy Manning: 00:00:50

You're right. Like, I feel like I'm always looking out for my girlfriends. Why don't we do that for ourselves?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:00:55

I don't think it's about the partner as much as it is about us.

Roxy Manning: 00:01:06

If you've ever looked at a friendship or a relationship and quietly thought, this doesn't feel the way it used to, you're not alone. Midlife has a way of changing everything. What we want, what we tolerate, who we connect with, and sometimes who we outgrow.

Today's guest is someone who sees those shifts up close every single day. Dr. Darcy Sterling is a licensed therapist, relationship expert, and host of we need to talk with Dr. Darcy Sterling.

She spent decades helping people navigate love, dating, breakups, and the complicated emotional terrain in between, from long term partnerships to starting over again. In this conversation, we're getting into the parts people don't usually say out loud.

Why friendships fall apart in midlife, what actually happens after a divorce, and how to approach dating again when you're not the same person you were the first time around.

And just a quick reminder, if you're into conversations that are unfiltered, honest, and actually make you think, make sure you're following the iconic Midlife right now on your favorite podcast platform. And if this episode resonates, share it with a friend who needs to hear. Hear it. Let's get into it. Welcome to the iconic midlife. Darcy.

How are you today?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:02:25

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Roxy Manning: 00:02:27

Oh, I'm so excited for you to be here. I've been following your Instagram for a while.

We have a common friend who put us in touch and she's like, you have to watch, you know, Darcy's videos. She's like, you're gonna learn so much. And truly, truly I have. So I wanted to know from you, like, what really got you interested in.

In this field, like, what really was sparked it for you?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:02:51

You know, we all start off as generalists, and very early into my career, it seemed to me like the common theme, no matter what anybody was coming to me for, was relationship skills, advice, insight and change, no matter what area of their life was giving them friction.

So becoming someone skilled at guiding people through relationships and, and being comfortable with very matter of fact feedback back, do this, don't do that. Here's why this is problematic, here's why that's going to turn out badly for you. Just felt very organic to me. It came very naturally to me.

I'm not a quiet therapist.

Roxy Manning: 00:03:36

We like that you like to give your input. I think that's one of the things that can kind of sometimes for some of us be a little frustrating when we sit with a therapist.

Because you do want that advice, you know, you do want the input of the person who you're talking to.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:03:52

If I had to condense my therapeutic experiences with me as the client down to one sentence, it was that people did not speak to me and challenge me. So I became the therapist that I've always needed.

Roxy Manning: 00:04:08

So what are some of the most common things that you hear and see when you're sitting with people? As a relationship therapist, we are all.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:04:17

So socialized to only put forward the parts of our lives that look shiny, to only display the curated version of what is shiny and glowy and looks attractive, that everybody feels so alone in their struggles.

lem with today, the timestamp: 2026

So by the time people come to me, not only do they have the primary issue, they have a layer of shame on top of it because they think they're the only ones struggling with it.

Roxy Manning: 00:05:14

Thank you. Social media, right? I mean, we open up our phones and all we see are these really polished, pretty videos and pictures most of the time.

I mean, some people really do kind of show their vulnerabilities, but I think in general, you know, you kind of open social media and you see like these, you know, images where they're so aspirational, right? It's like you want to step into the life of this person or, you know, kind of see all of these things.

And so I think, you know, it's been really hard to kind of put yourself out there, like you're saying, in the way that you want to, you know, because you feel pressure to sort of look perfect all the time, right?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:05:53

I mean, yes, yes, yes. And the question to you is, do you want to see a video of me crying on the floor of my kitchen after a fight with my wife?

Do you want to see that, Roxy? Is that what you want to scroll through?

Roxy Manning: 00:06:08

It's funny because it's like, I really resonate, like, I've been following. There's one lady that I actually just came upon recently, and she is brutally honest.

She is a caregiver to her mother who has dementia, but she's also raising her own children, you know, and has her own, like, immediate family. And so she will sit in the car and just the tears are flowing, right? It's not pretty, it's not perfect. But she's being very authentic and real.

And I think as I've gotten older now, I gravitate more towards that than I did, you know, 20s and 30s and, you know, wanting to see, like, I mean, and I still love all the fashion and all that good stuff. Stuff. I mean, don't get me wrong, but like, there is a part of me now that is more.

I. I'm gravitating so much more to these, like, very authentic stories, you know, And I don't know if that's maybe just a sign of, you know, maturing and hitting this midlife point, this, you know, fantastic time in our lives, or if it's just, you know, changing personality wise, like, who I am, you know,.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:07:11

Or is it just that you are so flattened and. And one dimensionalized by the world that we get to see that the plastic effect of social media is almost deadening, is it not? I mean, you're.

I hear you. I hear you. I too, crave that. I don't know if I'm bold enough to be that. Right.

Roxy Manning: 00:07:38

I want to get. I kind of want to get there, though, right? Like, I want to be like, right.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:07:42

I do. I still give too many fucks. I really just do. I do.

I'm waiting for that midlife moment that people speak of where they're just like, you just don't have many more to give. And I do feel that there's diminishing fucks to give, but I still.

I think when you start with an extraordinary amount, even once it's halved, and maybe it is halved, it's still too much.

Roxy Manning: 00:08:08

Well, particularly too, because you and I both have worked in this whole entertainment world on top of everything else, and I wonder if that also puts a different spin on it for us a bit, right? Because, you know, you've done tv, you've been on camera. Same, you know, for me. And it's just like, I wonder if that even makes it more jaded.

Do you know what I mean? Like, having to do. Having to have this, like, idea of perfection and look good and, you know, all of that, like, that kind of swirls in altogether.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:08:36

I feel like I have literally spent the last six months, maybe a year, soft year, hard six months, undoing so much of the media training that I. That was like, pounded into me over the. Over the course of my media career, because, a. It feels quite sanitizing. It's not who I am.

It is who I am, but it's a version of who I am, and I want to be able to be all of who I am now. That is the essence of midlife, right? I'm tired of performing.

I'm tired of putting on a version of myself that I think is gonna be tolerable and palatable to you.

I'm not quite in a place where I'm prepared to, like, sit in my car and cry on video about my problems, but I am in a place in my life where, to the extent that I'm aware that I'm performing, I'm done with that.

Roxy Manning: 00:09:33

I hear you. There's like, a. It's changing. It's not 100% like the other side, but you're getting there, right?

I mean, I feel like, as we all are, particularly at this point, time of life, right? I mean, things are changing, you know, like, physically, emotionally, you know, mentally, some spiritually.

Like, there's a lot of change that happens at this time, you know, like, that I. Going into it was not prepared for.

You know, no one handed me any sort of roadmap, as I'm sure most everybody else who's listening and watching, you know, like, we're kind of just thrown into this to kind of fend. Fend our way, you know, fend off, like, whatever we need to do to get to where we want to go. And it just. It's so hard, right? It's just.

I mean, there's just a lot, you.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:10:21

Know, and speaking to what you had pointed out a moment ago, I think if previous generations had been more bold or transparent at all about what it is they were going through in midlife, what we should expect in midlife, perhaps it would have been an easier path for us. I don't know about you, but when I started perimenopause, I thought I was losing my mind. I didn't know what it happened at the end of the pandemic.

And so I wasn't sure what was happening. I wasn't sure if I was just losing it because of the pandemic or if it was perimenopause.

And when I determined what it was, I was just like, I am not keeping quiet about this. I'm going to scream this from the rooftop. I don't care who is uncomfortable by it. It affects more than half the population.

I'm not going to be quiet about this. This is crazy.

Roxy Manning: 00:11:18

You know, so many of us were probably in, like, a similar age bracket.

Like, I do think the pandemic was sort of the turning point, like, where people really got this awareness of, like, you know, perimenopause, and we were all living it, you know, simultaneously, which was w. Like, how crazy to be, like, you know, in isolation or, you know, whatever.

Like, whatever the level of, you know, the pandemic was for you, like, to go through that, but then also to be going through perimenopause is absolutely nuts.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:11:53

And in a way, even though we were isolated and in our own pods and in our own lockdown, we've never been more connected as a society. So we get to hear from each other in ways that we might not otherwise have been able to. Did get to hear from each other. We did get to see each other.

We got to communicate everyday. People had voices because of social media.

I know we all on it, but, like, you know, there is some democracy democratizing power through social media that I don't want. You know, I don't want to. I don't want to minimize that. Social media has a lot of shortcomings, but it also has some positive aspects to it.

And because of that, we experience something that one, hopefully that once in a lifetime experience of a pandemic in a way that no other generation has ever been able to. We were able to work. Some of us, if we were lucky enough, we're still able to work. We were able to socialize again.

If we had the resources to have Internet. We were able to stay connected.

And although there were enormous mental health consequences to the way we lived, and for those of us who lived in it too long, and I'm one of them, you know, with every additional month or year that you spent in lockdown, your. Your social skills diminished, they atrophied.

Roxy Manning: 00:13:20

And there was a lot of advancement that actually happened during that time. Right. Like with technology. I mean, I remember recording podcasts.

You know, it used to always just be in person, you know, and then the pandemic happened and we had to pivot, you know, and it's like, we gotta do this a different way to like, keep the, keep it going, you know. So I think there was a lot of, like, interesting advancement and like, development and just really like, people got creative, which was amazing.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:13:49

You know, think about my field. My entire profession pivoted to, to virtual. And those of us who couldn't retired early.

So a third of my profession, I think that's where the stat landed at, retired early because they refused to embrace the technology that was available. I was lucky. I had been using it for years, but most people had never used it before and that hurdle was too much for them to bear.

And that was part of the reason why there was such a lack of providers early on. And there still is a lack of providers, but it's much better now than it was.

Roxy Manning: 00:14:27

You're right, because now the platform, you know, it's, it's much more user friendly and more accepted widely, I think. But I wanted to talk to you about something that I've been hearing a lot of lately. So I've been talking to friends.

I've been getting a lot of messages about this notion, especially in midlife, about female friendships, because I feel like female friendships change a lot in midlife. You know, there's friendship breakups, there's. You know, it's. Sometimes it's really hard to make friends at this time, you know.

And so what is going on? Like, what is happening right now? Why is this such a, like, pivotal turning point for us, you know, especially as it relates to our friends?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:15:14

So interesting. I just had a conversation with a high school, not even a high school friend of mine. I've known this woman so long, I don't remember meeting her.

I've known her my whole life. We probably hadn't spoken in like, I don't know, a decade.

And yet she calls me out of nowhere and is heartbroken, gutted over what felt like a pivotal moment in a. In a friendship. Friendship breakups can be so brutal in midlife.

And I think the reason why there's so much devastating is because we don't expect our closest friendships to end. You know, we have shared years and history and chapters of our lives with our girlfriends and our guy friends.

And unlike romantic relationships, we don't expect our friendships to end. And so when one ends, you're not just losing a person, you're losing a piece of your history. You're losing years or decades of memories with someone.

It can be so unmooring. It can also impact your friendship group. Like if you're friends with a bunch of people together, that becomes a whole thing.

And you're right, it does not get easier to make friends with age. I tell my young adults this all the time.

I tell them, collect your members of your tribe, build your tribe now, because you will lose some of them over the years. And you know, because people will move.

And when you're younger, you have activities that are shared that cause proximity and the bonding that causes us to become BFFs with people.

And as we age, we don't have as many of those activities that require the amount of hours to be in each other's company that causes that real hardcore bond. So it takes longer as we get older to bond and we're just not immersed in those environments anymore the way we were when we were younger.

When we, when we have common denominators with people like parenting obligations or we are earlier in our careers or, you know, midway in our careers and we have to be doing the, the IRL time. I almost said facetime, but that same thing anymore, the real in person time that causes human beings to bond.

We don't have to do that as much as we get older and we earn the right to make more of our own decisions and children grow and, you know, people move away. So it's so important to hang on to those friendships and to build them when we're younger.

Roxy Manning: 00:18:08

It's an interesting, like, point of time right now in midlife, because it seems like this is the time specifically when friendships really change. You know, when, when these breakups happen or, you know, you kind of start thinning out the friend group.

Why do you think specifically midlife is that point?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:18:29

By midlife we have lived so much, we have lived so long, we have decades of adult experience that we didn't have under our belt. And with that comes perspective. And that strips away a lot of denial. I think that fuels us when we're younger, also known as hope.

Like, I don't want to totally shit on it. When we're younger, we don't have as much life experience, so we can't necessarily determine as quickly where things are headed.

But when we're in midlife, we have seen enough firsthand and through the people that we love that we can, we can kind of tell when something is unlikely to change, when a relationship just is what it is. And we can also see the horizon.

Like, we know at this point that we don't have endless time and that's actually a gift because I think it makes us less willing to waste time and invest in what we wish were true or could be instead of seeing what the thing actually is in front of us. So I think it makes us better at predicting outcomes.

We become like little prediction machines in midlife and we can shortcut a lot of mistakes that we would have to live through otherwise in earlier years.

Roxy Manning: 00:20:02

So it's like life experience really starts to build up, right?

It's like we've been through certain situations before, maybe with one friend and you know, we can see the writing on the wall that's coming with another friend or what have you. But how do we know when we should try to repair a friendship or when we should, you know, let a friendship go?

Because I think there's maybe a fine, you know, there is.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:20:30

And the general advice I'm going to offer is different from what I told my friend, my high school friend, because that relationship was clearly over.

Here's what I would say, generally speaking, since I have just laid out how difficult it is to build friendships after mid, in midlife and beyond because of proximity, because we're not spending as much time with each other that we normally would when we're younger, I would say that anything short of a bottom line boundary crossing, like the person did something that violates one of your most dearly held values and principles, provided both of you are willing to try and repair it. I'm a relationship therapist. I sell hope.

I believe in fighting for relationships, particularly long standing relationships that where there was a rupture. Look, there's always going to be a rupture in relationships. We can't be in each other's lives in a real way without hurting each other's feelings.

If it's a secure relationship, you can't not hurt each other because you're going to be unguarded and take risks periodically. You're going to accidentally hurt each other.

And the best we can hope for is that the person that we hurt tells us so that we have an opportunity to repair it.

I would say that if there's some willingness on both people's end to repair it and no bottom line boundary has been crossed, I say fight for the relationship. But I will say that, you know, in some situations, like with my friend from high school, her friend was not fighting at all.

She was fighting against it. She was showing no interest in repairing it. She identified herself as a one and done friend.

If there's you cross me once you're done, that's not someone I Ever want to be in a relationship with. I don't ever want to be that. Think of how unforgiving that is. The extent to which there's no margin for error there.

To be in a relationship with somebody like that, you have to be perfect. I am not playing that game anymore at my age.

Roxy Manning: 00:22:53

Yeah, no, I mean you can't be perfect.

And I think to your point, that's an interesting thing that you bring up about how it is also the person who is hurt, it's their responsibility to say they're hurt. I mean, you can't also be a mind reader, right? I mean, you can't. No, that's the thing.

You know, it's like the communication is almost lacking if it's not there. Right? Like if they're not saying that it's cruel.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:23:16

It's, it's bad enough that we do that when we date, that we ghost each other. But when you've had a long standing friendship, that is such a cruel way to behave.

You owe it to the people who love you to let them know when they hurt you so that they can fix it.

Roxy Manning: 00:23:36

That's interesting. You know, when you said ghosting when dating somebody, that really, that's so funny too because I'm thinking about, you know, dating games.

It's like, and a lot of midlife women are dating now.

Maybe they've gotten out of a relationship or they've gotten divorced, you know, or there's some sort of a change in their relationship status and they're out there doing that.

Like I feel like when I open my social media and I see these women talking about these dating stories like post 40 or post 50, they are just filled with these like nightmare stuff situations that they're talking about.

So like, what do you say to women like that who are, you know, trying to get out there, trying to put themselves out there and date, but they're running into these, like, these games and, and all of these things.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:24:22

When I think about the biggest mistake women in midlife make when they're reentering the dating arena after either a breakup or a long term relationship ends, it's that they approach dating through a lens of how do I find someone who doesn't have my ex's exact worst qualities in, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, like they're mostly trying to rule out the character traits that were in there that were in their exes.

So they're trying to land on a perfect partner essentially. Which makes sense because you've been hurt. You know, something has just not worked out. You've walked away from something.

And your instinct, of course, is to protect yourself. I understand that. But picking a different partner, it's not the thing that is going to give you the result that you're hoping for.

You have to understand your own relationship patterns and focus on how your relationship patterns are showing up. No matter who you date, people often go out hoping to just pick the ideal partner.

And you can't fix an internal problem by picking someone better because you're just going to recreate that relationship dynamic in the next person, whether they embody the same traits as your ex or not. I can promise you research confirms this over and over again.

So what I would like people to do is to go out and date with a different lens, to approach it. Stop treating dating as a search for the right candidate and start treating it as an opportunity to observe yourself in the wild.

You haven't dated for a while if you're in midlife. And so before you start judging the person who's sitting right in front of you, ask yourself, who excites you? And pause when you get that answer.

Like, really lock into that question. What kind of people excite you? And then what happens in your body when you're around those people? What do you notice in your body?

Does your heart flutter? Do you get tingly? Do you get jittery?

What do you rationalize about their behaviors or dismiss about their behaviors when you're with someone who really lights you up?

Because the best way to create a different outcome is to recognize your patterns well enough so that you can interrupt them in real time so that you can run interference on them. It's not about picking a different partner. It's about. It's about changing your own relationship patterns.

Roxy Manning: 00:27:22

That's a good point. I think you have to, like, look inward first, right? And kind of do the work. Right? Do the work on yourself. Tricky, right? That's really tricky.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:27:32

That's it. That's a whole other topic.

Roxy Manning: 00:27:35

I know you have to, like, kind of look inwards. And then, because I think you're right, I think it's like the.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:27:40

The.

Roxy Manning: 00:27:40

The tendency maybe would be to go out and try to find, you know, that partner that is literally the opposite of your ex, and you hope that's.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:27:49

All the work you have to do. And I get it. I get it. Listen, I switched genders, hoping that that was going to break relationship patterns. It did not. Okay.

The same thing that happened with men happened with women. Who's the common denominator? It's me. It's me. You cannot break relationship patterns by picking better.

You break relationship patterns and relationship dynamics by recognizing what your relationship dynamics are.

And the reason why I made that comment when you said it's about doing the work is because I get so many clients who come to me and they're like, I've been in years of my own therapy and I can see what's happening in real time and I still can't stop it from happening. They've got all the insight in the world and they're still recreating the problems in their relationships.

And that's because most inner work really focuses on the wrong thing. It focuses on who the person is attracted to. Again, because the.

Because most therapists think that that's how you're going to break relationship patterns, pick a different partner. But choosing a different partner is not going to fix your internal relationship patterns. You're going to recreate them in everyone.

So what actually drives repeated relationship dynamics is, is understanding how you behave in the wild, how you behave irl, how certain traits in other people trigger response styles in yourself.

And unless you understand those patterns well enough to interrupt them in real life, you can have all the insight in the world and you will still keep recreating the problems with different people. The people, people make this mistake. They think insight is the answer. Insight is the first step. It's not the end of the story.

Insight gives you information. Change is what happens when you can catch your patterns as they're happening and do something different.

Roxy Manning: 00:29:56

So what does that look like? Like, if we're trying to break these patterns, like, I guess that's kind of the million dollar question, right? How?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:30:04

Well, give me a pattern that you want to change.

Roxy Manning: 00:30:07

Oh, this is actually interesting. I was looking again. Here we go. Social media. Oh, good.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:30:12

Don't apologize for that when you're a normal human.

Roxy Manning: 00:30:16

I know the doom scroll is real. So, you know, it's interesting. This woman came on and she was talking about, you know, being out in the dating world.

She was over 50, I believe, and she was talking about, well, first of all, please tell us about this, because she said she was dating a narcissist. Now, I know the word narcissist is very overused.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:30:39

It drives me crazy. Like, honestly, can we all stop using clinical diagnoses like we're qualified to make them?

I mean, no disrespect, but I have a hundred grand in student loan debt that I will probably die with because of all the training that I underwent to be able to identify when somebody is a Narcissist people can be assholes and not be a narcissist. They can also be selfish and not be a narcissist. Being a narcissists make up less than 1% of the population.

Most of you have never even met one, let alone dated one. Come on.

Roxy Manning: 00:31:14

Really? So it's that small of the population?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:31:17

That small of the population.

Roxy Manning: 00:31:19

What is a narcissist? Just for people out there that may want to, you know, that think that they know one, but maybe they don't.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:31:25

I want. Because if I answer it, it's going to oversimplify it.

It's going to condense it into something that people think that they can then label people with. What is a narcissist? That is somebody with a personality disorder for whom a licensed therapist labels that with. That is a narcissist.

Roxy Manning: 00:31:45

Okay. And that is less than 1% of the population.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:31:48

It is.

Roxy Manning: 00:31:49

Okay. So that's interesting, because I feel like that's all I hear when I, you know, people are like, he's a narcissist. She is a narcissist.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:31:57

You know, like, I just can't with it. But tell me your story. You were going to ask me to. You were. Give me a pattern to fix.

Roxy Manning: 00:32:05

So I think that that was. Maybe she mislabeled this guy then because she said that he was a narcissist.

He was sending her, you know, pictures of him in the gym and, like, he wanted to do everything on his, you know, in his way, like, have her meet, you know, where he wanted to meet and do the things that he wanted to do. So it kind of seemed like, I don't know, she labeled a narcissist, but I don't know if he's truly a narcissist, then.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:32:29

Well, let me ask you this. Does it even matter what he is? He sounds like a dick who wants a date. I mean, I don't. I. I don't think it, like, honestly, like, regardless of what.

What label he lands underneath, that sounds profoundly unattractive to me, and I think that's all the information you need.

I think we should stop with the labels and start just assessing the behaviors and not spin the behaviors, because that's another thing that people tend to do. Well, he's busy. He's got a very full life. He still has to see his children. We become spin. Women become spin doctors.

Men see behaviors, and they're just like, I'm out. Women see behaviors, and in part, this is our eq. We're emotionally intelligent human beings. We're.

It's unfortunate because we train emotional intelligence out of men and out of boys. So I think as society, we have to take some responsibility for the fact that we are, as a.

As a gender, generally speaking, more emotionally intelligent than men. But that's because we untrained them and we shame them for being emotionally intelligent, and they learn to repress all of that intelligence.

But the reason why. Why we spin things is because we have the strength of eq. Every strength can become a weakness when it's dialed up too high.

And when it comes to dating, early on, you're not meant to interpret your partner's behaviors or label them. You're just meant to see them and put them in a category of yes or no and not. Not spin on them.

Roxy Manning: 00:34:15

Right. Not create some story around the whole, this is why he does this or this is why she does it. Right.

And I feel like I see that a lot, especially with friends who have recently been divorced. And maybe you're in the dating world. Maybe they were married a long time.

I mean, I do, you know, give them forgiveness for that, because this is like a first go, right? So they're kind of back in the dating world, and they're like, in their 50s and.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:34:41

Right.

Roxy Manning: 00:34:42

He's spinning away, and I'm like.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:34:44

I'm like, girl, no, no.

Roxy Manning: 00:34:47

This is not like, from the outset, like, somebody else looking at this story would see something totally different, you know? So, like, I think that that can also be destructive, right? This whole telling ourselves this narrative that really is not there, you know?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:35:02

Yes. And.

And so when we're dating, a really good barometer is, if I were watching my friend have a date like this, what would I be thinking about this person that they're dating? Because we are much more discerning when it comes to our friends than when it comes to ourselves.

Roxy Manning: 00:35:23

You're right. Like, I feel like I'm always looking out for my girlfriends. You know, it's like, don't be with that guy. Like, he's an asshole and this.

And, you know, but you're right.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:35:31

We.

Roxy Manning: 00:35:31

We. Why don't we do that for ourselves?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:35:33

And when they bring a new partner around you, how slower you. To warm, you do the interrogation.

Roxy Manning: 00:35:41

They have to, like, jump through hoops. I'm like, no, no, no, you're not in the.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:35:45

You're.

Roxy Manning: 00:35:46

We're not. You're not part of this yet. Like, you have to prove yourself, you know?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:35:50

Right. And we don't do that for ourselves. No, no.

Roxy Manning: 00:35:55

It's like, we take scraps a Lot of the time, you know, we take, like, the bare minimum. So how do we change that? How do we make our. Make it. Make it. Because we are worthy for, you know, the better treatment.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:36:08

Obviously, I don't think most people are going to spend the time to fix the whole internal mechanism that provokes that. So I think the best hack or shortcut is to just ask yourself, how would I feel if this was my friend dating this person?

If you find yourself, like, preoccupied with whether or not they're texting you, if you find that you're not getting, you know, they're not making plans with you early enough in the week, if you find yourself, like, on pins and needles wondering whether or not you're going to have plans, you're actually postponing plans with your friends and family because you're hoping the person's going to reach out to you. You have to ask yourself, how would I feel if this were happening to my best friend?

And then you have to put in place your protective mechanisms for yourself that you would apply to your friends. And it will feel artificial. And that's okay because we're trying to break a pattern here.

And the pattern that most of us have is that the minute we catch feelings, we will dismiss red flags that we would never dismiss in someone else.

Roxy Manning: 00:37:25

Yes. Oh, my God, that's such a good point. It's like, oh, I don't see that. You know, this. This isn't there.

You know, like, he's great, you know, and you're right. It's like dismissing those flags. I was watching Bethany Frankel. She was saying that an act.

To her, a green flag is a man who's never been married and never had children in his 50s. Because to her, you know, we're always, you know, we're like, gosh, what's wrong with that guy? You know, he hasn't been married. He hasn't been in a.

A serious, committed relationship. He's not got kids in his 50s. But she said that's a green flag. What do you think about that?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:37:59

I mean, one person's green flag is another person's cautionary tale. I think that that's fine for her for that to be a green flag. I'm not as well versed in Bethany's dating history, relationship history, to weigh in.

And I also don't think it's necessarily fair to look at somebody's history and be like, well, how successful have they been to determine whether or not their criteria is effective moving forward? Again, I don't think it's about the partner as much as it is about us.

I think if we can be different, we wind up repelling the wrong people and keeping the right people. And then if we understand ourselves well enough to do two things, to guide our partner in how to work around us.

Because we're all a little crazy, right? Like, we all have unique triggers, unique idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes that make us very unique.

And I have to be able to tell you about mine, because if you're brand new in my life, even as a friend, you know, if I'm going to act a little weird in a certain scenario, it would be great for you to have a heads up so that you're not made to feel a certain way or left to fill in the blank about that. But if I haven't learned enough about myself to be able to fill you in, then the two of us are confused. It's like the blind leading the blind.

You don't know me because you're brand new in my life. I don't know me because I haven't done any work on myself and I don't know where my nose is. And it all becomes very problematic.

So I think that in a new relationship, we both need to be able to guide our partners around the parts of us that are. That are weird, that are awkward, that are wounded, the soft spots inside of us.

xy, this is who I am in April: 2026

I'm working on changing it. So that's not an excuse for me to be like, hey, this is how I am. You just have to deal with it.

That's part of the equation, is telling you that buys me some time and a little bit of compassion and a little bit of grace from you, maybe. But I'm still beholden to run interference on these patterns. I'm still beholden to recognize them, at least in hindsight, if not in the moment.

And even if I can only run interference, even if I can only recognize them in hindsight, at least I can come back to my partner or my friend and be like, you know what? I didn't like the tone I used with you. I know you were okay with it. Or maybe you gave me grace and I just. I heard it. I want you to know I Heard it.

It's not okay. I want to apologize for it. You just, just have to do that stuff in life.

Roxy Manning: 00:41:02

You see that person, you feel that person, which is. And unprompted too, which is, is. That's, that's big. That's huge.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:41:09

It's the opposite of a narcissist. Totally, totally.

Roxy Manning: 00:41:14

That old narcissist again.

Now what about if we're on the totally opposite spectrum and you know, in midlife, some people have been with their partner for 20 years, 30 years, you know, and it's, it's, it gets to be in a sort of a pattern where it's almost like a. It's great that it's a best friend, but then it's, you know, the spark isn't so much there as it was at the beginning.

What do you say to those people who want to kind of get things going again?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:41:42

Mating in captivity is a real problem, real legitimate problem. And every couple runs, runs into it. Every couple in a long term relationship runs into it.

The things that make us great in a long term relationship, which are we create safety for our partner, we create predictability for them. We are consistent, we are safe. Those things are the exact opposite.

Not the safe part, but the other stuff, the predictability, the consistency, the ability to imagine the choreography is antithetical to excitement. What makes anything exciting is not knowing what's going to happen next. That is what makes scary movies exciting.

That is what makes the roller coaster exciting. That is what makes the haunted house exciting. And that's what makes dating exciting. There are so many reasons why the spark quiets in a relationship.

And much of it is because being in a relationship is inherently antithetical to excitement. If it's a good relationship and the discipline that it takes to keep that going because nobody ever thinks it's going to happen to them.

That's the other thing. The hotter the sex in the beginning, the, the less you believe you're vulnerable to it.

It's reason why everybody has kids, because we all think our kid is going to be different. We all think our parenting journey is going to be different.

It's not going to be the way it was for our parents or where the way it is for everybody in our life. We all have this ability to hope for a different outcome. And I'm just saying that sometimes the stats really can tell us where we're headed.

And again, part of the problem is that nobody admits this. People don't.

They're not big to admit that, hey, I haven't been having sex or, hey, we're not having as much sex again, because of what we spoke about earlier, because we're all showing the best versions of our lives, and it's shaming. It's embarrassing. It can be humiliating because we don't realize that it's happening to everyone.

So to prevent that, one would be putting things in place very early on in the relationship to fight against that. And that looks like keeping surprise, keeping variety very prominent in the relationship.

Now, this is a conversation about people who are likely already in their relationship. You gotta shake things up. And when you shake things up, be very uncomfortable. You're gonna be very uncomfortable. You're gonna feel.

You may feel threatened, you may feel exposed, you may feel insecure because you have to be vulnerable if you want excitement in your relationship. So if you want something different, you have to to do something different. You can't just want something different.

You have to lean into your partner and be like, we need to do something we've never done before. Give me the first two ideas out of your mind, and I will give you mine unedited. Go. And just start with little things like that.

You have to start sexting each other. You have to start seducing each other. You have to try and surprise each other. You have to do all the things that you did in the beginning.

That's the stuff that made you fall in love. That's the stuff that made them fall in love with you. That's the stuff that made you sexy. That is literally. There's no mystery to this. Roxy.

Roxy Manning: 00:45:56

Yeah. I think you're 100% right.

And you have to, like, create those little magical moments, you know, because as time goes on, like, you're saying, you know, like, things become predictable, you know, schedules get crazy.

Maybe you have kids, you know, careers, like, the whole thing, and it's, like, creating even those, like, micro moments, I think makes such a difference. Maybe it's just like a little, you know, unexpected kiss during the day, like, or, you know, it's asking your partner, hey, do you want to try this?

Do you want to, like, do something different? Should we go to this place we've always wanted to go to on, like, Saturday night? Just mixing it up.

Like, you're saying, I think there's such value in that because it breaks the monotony.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:46:42

And then when you go on that date, you must have dating discipline. So I learned this by a pot from a podcast guest. A guest that was on we need to Talk. She was riveting.

She talked about the problem with date night is that most of us do it and we act like it's at our dinner table. We have the same conversations that we have at our dinner table, and so we have the same outcome. You cannot talk about housekeeping on date night.

Not one to do, not one gripe, not one. Nothing like that. Or it's not date night. It's not date night. And you have to go to date night with content in mind.

You cannot just accept, expect pros to pour out of your mouth organically. When you have been living a hustling life with your partner for a decade or more, you just can't expect that. That's an unrealistic expectation.

So you're collecting stories throughout the week, little ones to share with your partner. And not only that, you're collecting questions to ask your partner. Because everyone wants to feel like they can reinv.

First of all, our partners change over time, and we don't see their change.

That's part of what deadens our sex life is that our partners start feeling locked into a branding that they embodied 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 10 years ago, that. That is not reflective of who they are anymore.

If they were to meet someone new, they would meet a different version of them than the one that we think we're married to. So that's. That's part of it. That's why you have to ask your partner questions as if you don't know them.

I mean, and I'm not saying role playing, but role playing's hot. Do that. But I'm saying, like, just ask them, how did you feel about. Ask them about something. What surprised you about your week this week?

What was surprising to you about your week this week? Or what'd you learn this week? What was your favorite moment this week? What was a scary moment this week?

What was a moment where you felt insecure and then ask about it without filling in the blanks? That's what we do in long term relationships. They don't get half the thought out of their mouth.

Especially if you're heterosexual and you're a woman and it's a guy. Because they don't talk fast enough. Right? So we fill in the blanks. And we're socialized that that's reinforced in us.

We're socialized that when we know each other, we should be able to fill in the blanks for each. And there's a negative outcome from that. And that is that we don't really get to hear their full answers.

So they never really get to reinvent themselves with us over time. And so you have to ask the questions and shut the fuck up. You have to shut up. And I know it's hard. I'm dying to talk. Obviously.

I've been in a running monologue since you said hello. I will. I have a podcast because I have such a profound need to hear myself speak. I can't even tell you.

But you have to be quiet after you ask the question and just hold space for them and let them answer, right? And then like ask follow up questions like, based on that.

That'll get them deeper and deeper and deeper and that'll get you some of your emotional intimacy if you're a woman. Most men don't need that. Most men don't need that. I'm going to be honest with you. They don't really need that. They're visual, they're easier.

That might turn you on. And what will turn him on? Do it differently in the bedroom. Don't follow the choreography.

And if you're used to following his choreography or her choreography or their choreography, run interference, pull a power play, say, nope, it's going to go different tonight. And do it differently. Breach the choreography. Freestyle.

Roxy Manning: 00:50:46

Freestyle, I love it. You might even like do a little freestyle while you're doing it, you know? No. There's such value in that.

I love what you said about doing date night, but not talking about the mundane, boring shit that we all experience, you know, day in, day out, really changing it up and have good dating hygiene. Like did good dating conversation hygiene. You know, there's a difference, right?

If you're going on a date with some person you know, you've known for six months, your conversation is going to be a lot different than when you go on a date with somebody you've been with for 20 years.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:51:26

You don't get to vent. You don't get to vent. And when you don't get to vent, in the space comes positivity.

You don't have to express every complaint about your day or your week to your partner. You don't have to.

There are people you can hire, like me, who are happy to hold space for that, provided that it's getting you closer to a therapy goal. And it's not just you venting every week, you know, without a purpose. Venting without a purpose is a waste of money and time. Them.

I'm not a fan of that. But, you know, don't use your partner as a shrink. It's not an appropriate use of their skills.

You rob the romance from your relationship when you do that.

Roxy Manning: 00:52:13

And frankly, they didn't ask for that job.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:52:15

No, it's not sexy either.

Roxy Manning: 00:52:19

No, no. They're like, stop now. Don't want to hear it. And they shouldn't have to hear it, you know, all the time.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:52:27

And the minute they say stop now, we feel hurt, we feel ruptured, we feel shut down. We feel like they don't want to be a part of our life, but really we're asking them to step into a role that they don't have to occupy all the time.

Roxy Manning: 00:52:45

That's true. That's such a good point. You know, they didn't ask for this.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:52:48

No, that's true.

Roxy Manning: 00:52:50

And that's also what I feel like good girlfriends are for, you know, or good friends, you know? Right. Like you vent to your friends, you know, that's like a fun, you know, back and forth. You're getting a different perspective.

Sometimes your partner just. It's not. It's not. It's not.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:53:04

It. And the reason we can hold space for our girlfriends who vent is we don't have to then sleep with them.

We get off the phone with them or end the dinner or end the lunch or the drink, and we get away from them. Our partner doesn't get away from us. And that's why shrinks can hold space for you, because we definitely get away from you.

Roxy Manning: 00:53:25

Yes, it's true. It's that. That one hour of just solid conversation and listening like it is. I think everybody.

I mean, honestly, I do think everybody should have a therapist. It's. It's life changing.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:53:38

Including the therapists. Yeah, right.

Roxy Manning: 00:53:41

I bet for you, too, right?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:53:43

I mean, are you kidding me? You can tell the difference between a therapist who is in their own therapy and one who is not. You can tell the difference. They're not grow.

You should never. I don't want to say you should never be able to outgrow your therapist, but I don't. I would.

I always endeavor to not have my clients outgrow me because I'm trying to grow the whole time. I have definitely funded a Hamptons house for at least one shrink. Maybe not ocean front, but ocean view.

I mean, and I'm always going to be in therapy. I'm always going to be in therapy.

Roxy Manning: 00:54:23

Isn't that interesting? I do think it's. I mean, it's for everybody, including therapists. Like you're saying, when are you done learning?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:54:31

I don't know. I'll let you know.

Roxy Manning: 00:54:33

Exactly. Hopefully we never stop learning. Right.

So if someone at home is listening and they're trying to rebuild their life right now, Whether it be through friendships, dating, I mean, everything, career. What is one thing that they should not compromise on anymore?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:54:52

That's such a good question. Ask yourself, do I get to grow in this area of my life, or do I feel compelled to stay a certain shape, size, or version of myself?

If you're not feeling permission to continuously grow in whichever area of your life you're reevaluating on, that's a price of admission that I think is too high. And I don't think you should compromise on it.

Because if you don't get to grow, then that means that you're maintaining a shape, a size, a version of yourself to make somebody else comfortable. And that, over time, bleeds you of your life force. And that's not okay with me.

Roxy Manning: 00:55:44

But what do you say to a woman that feels stuck? What if she's like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to change. Like, I don't know what to go for, like, what to do?

Basically, what would you say to her?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:55:56

Is it too simplistic to say, go find a therapist who can help you explore what's getting in the way of your inability to change? Because the thing that is stopping one person is going to be different from what's stopping another person. And I hate canned responses.

I also love a good sound bite, and I'm not landing on one for you right now, if I'm going to be completely honest. I. I think that we all feel stuck in life at different moments and in different areas of our life. And being stuck is okay.

But if being stuck begins to feel like your status over time, then I don't know if that's being stuck anymore. I think that that just might be an excuse to stay safe.

And I think being stuck insulates you and protects you from the fear of what you imagine change will require. Change is scary. Change is scary. It is terrifying. It is hard enough to do when you are being held by great clinical hands or competent clinical hands.

And you have to be able to change over time. Because if you can't change over time, you begin to erase yourself. You slowly dial your light down.

And what that's going to look like over time is like you've abandoned yourself. You've abandoned yourself to stay comfortable. And again, I can't underscore enough. I empathize with not wanting to shake shit up. Get it.

I really, really get it. But I also can't abide by it, because shaking things up has a beginning, a middle and an end, and erasing yourself doesn't.

You gotta get on the other side.

Roxy Manning: 00:58:08

I feel like all too often, like, at this time, change is, like, you're saying it's so scary for people, but this is the time, like, probably the best time to make a change, I would think, you know, to really that. I think it's because we're at this sort of midpoint in life that, you know, we've had, like, lived experience, let's say, for 40 plus years.

And now we're going into this next sort of, you know, chapter where hopefully we live for another, you know, 40, 50, 60, what, whatever, have you years.

But it's like, I feel like now is the time to really hone in on what we want and to really put into practice the things that we've maybe always thought about doing or, you know, the change that we've wanted to make. Because now it's like, you know what? Fuck it. Why not? If not now, then when? I mean, I don't think it's ever too late.

You know, I really feel like there is always an opportunity to do what you want to do and change in your life, no matter how old you are. But I think, why not? Why not take this time to do it right?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:59:15

And no matter what age you are, there is an example of a woman who's a decade older who did it.

And when you look for those examples, because what most of us do is we look around us and we see consistency, and we're like, ugh, if I shake shit up, I'm going to become that woman. I'm then going to become, like, the threat in my friendship group. Because divorced women can sometimes feel threatening to their married friends.

Roxy Manning: 00:59:44

Yes. Oh, my God. That's a thing.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:59:46

I know, I know. I mean, I've not experienced that either personally or professionally, but I. My mother's generation talked about it.

Roxy Manning: 00:59:55

Why is that? Do you think it's a fear of.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 00:59:58

I want to believe it's not true. I want to believe that it's really not true. But I. I mean, but I just espoused it as a truth, so I don't know how I feel about it.

Do you think it's true?

Roxy Manning: 01:00:09

I mean, I kind of. I can kind of get what you're saying about that, because I do think. And I don't know if it's.

If it's, like, threatening because it's a threat to that person's marriage that they think, oh, well, this.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:00:24

She's gonna steal my husband. Right?

Roxy Manning: 01:00:27

Like. Like, is that.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:00:28

I guess that's that easily Gottable that your girlfriend's gonna take them.

Roxy Manning: 01:00:35

That must indicate that you feel very low about both the husband and your friend. You know what I mean? Like, you're not giving either one of them enough credit. Now, I'm not saying that that couldn't happen.

I mean, that could happen, but I mean, I would think that most of the time it wouldn't probably.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:00:53

I would agree. I think that that's are probably against it happening.

Roxy Manning: 01:00:58

But what.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:00:58

What is also a common feeling is, well, then I'm going to be the one person out, like, how am I going to hang out with, like, our six best friends if the number five is now single? And that can, you know, that can start to feel very awkward.

And what I would say to that is, like, you now have five sets of friends who are going to be wanting to hook you up with people if they're good friends. Right?

Roxy Manning: 01:01:28

It's true.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:01:29

It's.

Roxy Manning: 01:01:29

It's flipping the script, right? It's thinking about things a different way than what you normally would. And that I think is like the basis of so much of this. Right?

Flip the script, think about things in a different way.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:01:41

Especially if you don't like the way you're feeling about your life right now, you have to start thinking about things differently. You cannot feel differently about your life without doing something different in your life.

And even if that's just starting with thinking differently, but thinking differently is not going to get you all the way there. That's step one. That's that insight thing again. You begin there. A lot of people land there and they think, I'm so enlightened.

Okay, nobody needed a theory on relationships course, right? Most people wanted a complete makeover in their relationship.

And if you haven't felt that after doing your own work, you've probably landed on insight and not change.

Roxy Manning: 01:02:27

It's very different, those two things. One is like a thought process and the other one is putting it into practice. Like a behavior. Like actual action, you know, Action.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:02:36

Yes.

Roxy Manning: 01:02:37

Amazing. Well. Oh, my gosh, Darcy, this episode has been so enlightening. I love the advice you've given. It's. It's just.

I have no doubt it's going to help so many women and people. Anyone who's listening out there, please tell everybody where they can find you.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:02:54

Wherever you listen to your podcasts, just look up. We need to talk with Dr. Darcy Sterling.

Roxy Manning: 01:02:58

And can they reach out to you via DM on Instagram and on social media?

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:03:03

Absolutely. It's Dr. Darcy Sterling. Spelled both ways. Doctor and doctor spelled out perfect.

Roxy Manning: 01:03:09

I know your advice is amazing. I've been watching your videos. I'm like, yes. I'm like, I needed this today. So thank you so very much everybody out there.

Please check out Darcy's page and her podcast. You will learn so much.

And don't forget to rate, subscribe and comment on the iconic midlife wherever you get your podcast so we can keep bringing amazing conversations like this. Thank you so much, Darcy. It's been a real pleasure.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:03:37

I love this. You have to come online now.

Roxy Manning: 01:03:39

Yes, I would love to. Just tell me when I'm there.

Dr. Darcy Sterling: 01:03:45

Coming.

Roxy Manning: 01:03:45

I love it so much. That would be super fun. There's something about midlife that forces clarity.

You start to see your relationships, all of them, for what they really are, what's aligned, what's not, what feels expensive, expansive, and what quietly drains you. And the truth is, not everything is meant to come with you into this next chapter.

Whether it's a friendship that no longer fits, a relationship you're questioning, or the experience of starting over again, you're not alone in it. And hopefully this conversation gave you a little more clarity around what that next step could look like for you.

If this episode episode resonated, send it to a friend, especially the one you've had one of those conversations with lately. And don't forget to follow the iconic midlife so you don't miss what's coming next.

We've got more bold, honest and thought provoking conversations ahead and if you haven't yet, take a second to rate and review the show. It makes a bigger difference than you think. Until next time. Whether you're outgrowing, rebuilding or redefining, you're not behind, you're evolving.

And that's iconic.