She thought she was the strong one. The one holding the relationship together. The one who had it all under control.And then a relationship counsellor looked her in the eye & said- you're the codependent one 🤯This week Kelly is getting personal again. She shares the moment she was introduced to the word codependency & the journey from confusion and offence to complete understanding of how it had quietly shaped her entire marriage.You'll hear:✨ The relationship counsellor session that changed everything & Kelly's very relatable reaction to being told she was the codependent one✨ What codependency actually is & why it can be so easy to mistake it for love, devotion or just being a good partner✨ The difference between anxious attachment & codependency and why one is usually the root of the other✨ Why doing everything, managing everything & holding everything together is not strength, it's a sign✨ What it actually feels like to be the one always giving & never having your own needs fully met✨ The practical steps to start breaking codependent patterns, even if right now you can only notice them & not change them yet✨ How Kelly knows she did the work & what her life looks like now compared to a few years ago (Grey's Anatomy, pyjamas, face mask, no men changing the channel to golf 😂)✨ Why the relationship she has now is so much better because both people have their own identityWhether you're in a relationship, coming out of one, or just trying to understand your own patterns a little better, this episode is for you 💚Links & Resources📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

If you've been doing the healing work & you're starting to think about what comes next, this episode is your sign!This week Kelly sits down with Mairéad Loughman, Ireland's leading professional matchmaker & founder of Love HQ, who has helped close to 12,000 people find love since 2016. Mairéad brings the warmth, the wisdom, the straight talk — and the occasional absolutely hilarious reality check that you didn't know you needed ❤️‍🔥Whether you're freshly out of a breakup, have been single for longer than you'd like, or are just dipping your toe back into the dating world- this conversation is for you.You'll hear:✨ How matchmaking actually works in Ireland & why Mairéad thinks it's the country's best kept secret✨ Cuffing season is real & Mairéad's insider tip on exactly when to ramp up your dating game✨ Why so many women find themselves barely dating in their late thirties & the one pattern Mairéad sees almost every single time✨ How to know when you're actually ready to start dating again after a breakup✨ Masculine & feminine energy in dating, what it actually means, why it matters, & Kelly's very relatable story about a first date that went badly wrong✨ Why you should get your photos taken now while the sun is still out 😂✨ The ick- when to listen to it & when to absolutely ignore it✨ Why you need to stop talking to your friends about your relationship & who to talk to instead✨ Your standards aren't too high. His behaviour is too low ❤️‍🔥✨ How to communicate your standards early without being a "nag" & the two types of men you'll meet when you do✨ Why the most important decision you will ever make is who you choose to have children with✨ Some of the best days of your life are yet to happen ❤️‍🔥Find Mairéad:🌐 lovehq.ie📲 Instagram & TikTok: @lovehq.ie🎙️ Podcasts: Would Like to Meet & Tough Love with Stephanie ReganLinks & Resources📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

You've done some healing. Time has passed. And now you're starting to think about the future, about maybe meeting someone again, opening up, falling in love.

& then that thought arrives. What if it doesn't work out either?

What if you go through all of that again, the trust, the vulnerability, the plans, the investment & you end up right back here, heartbroken all over again?

This week Kelly is talking about that fear. The one that doesn't get spoken about enough. The one she cried about in a women's circle a few months after her own breakup. & the one she knows thousands of people are carrying too.

You'll hear:

✨ The memory that prompted this episode, Kelly opening up in a women's circle about her fear of putting herself out there again & the girl across the circle who said she felt it too

✨ Why this fear makes complete, primitive, neurological sense & the iron plate analogy that explains it perfectly

✨ The difference between staying single because you genuinely want to and staying single because you're scared- & why only one of those is okay

✨ Why the goal is not to stop the fear, it's to feel it & do it anyway

✨ The one thing that will actually help you overcome it & it has nothing to do with finding the right person

✨ Why Kelly's second breakup was worse than her divorce, but why she recovered from it faster

✨ The foundation concept- what it is, how to build it & why it means that if things go wrong again, you won't be starting from zero

✨ The role of vulnerability in new relationships & how Kelly had to consciously push herself to be open again after her marriage ended

✨ Why love is still worth it- even knowing the risk

Some things are worth the fear. Love is one of them 💚

Links & Resources

📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]

📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching

🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

Why did I stay so long? Why did I let it go that far? I should have seen it sooner. I should have left sooner.

If you've ever said any of those things to yourself, this episode is for you.

This week, prompted by a listener question, Kelly is tackling one of the most common things that comes up with her clients, the shame of staying. Why we do it, why it makes complete sense, & why you need to stop kicking yourself for it right now.

You'll hear:

✨ Why staying in a relationship you know isn't right for you doesn't make you weak or stupid, it makes you human

✨ Why you can see your friend's situation clearly but can't see your own & the emotional investment that explains it

✨ The real reasons women stay; anxious attachment, low self-worth, sunk cost, biological clock, fear of being alone & the one that catches almost everyone: potential

✨ Why being a fixer & seeing potential in someone is one of the most common reasons women stay far longer than they should

✨ The difference between a hard relationship worth working on & one where you're the only one doing the work

✨ The compassion tool; how to treat yourself the way you'd treat your best friend if she came to you with this exact story

✨ What to do if you have a friend who you can see should leave & why telling her to leave is probably making things worse

✨ How to actually help her instead

You loved him. What else were you supposed to do? Stop carrying the shame of staying. You're out now & that's all that matters 💚

Links & Resources

📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]

📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching

🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

⚠️ Trigger warning: this episode discusses drug use, lies & betrayal in relationships. If this is a sensitive topic for you, please take care of yourself first.

A first for The Breakup Debrief & a deeply personal one.

This week Kelly is talking about something that shaped a huge part of her own relationships & marriage, and something that has come up recently with a client- drug use, lying & the very specific kind of betrayal that comes when a partner hides a habit they know you don't want in your relationship.

No judgment here for anyone who uses drugs. This episode is not about that. This is about the lying. The hiding. The gaslighting. And the way being made to feel like the controlling one can make you question your own completely reasonable boundaries.

You'll hear:

✨ Kelly's own experience with drug use & lying in her ten-year relationship &marriage- and how it became less about the weed & more about the betrayal

✨ How an entire friend group was recruited to keep a secret & how the situation was framed to make Kelly look controlling rather than lied to

✨ The moment that changed everything & led to couples counselling before the wedding

✨ Why "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to upset you" is not protection, it's manipulation

✨ How hiding something until feelings are involved & it's harder to leave is also a form of manipulation- even when it's not conscious

✨ Why your boundaries around drug use are completely valid & you don't have to justify them to anyone

✨ The difference between the drugs & the lying and why you're entitled to treat them as two completely separate issues

✨ The murder analogy that will make complete sense when you hear it 😂

✨ Why if your partner doesn't want to be in a relationship with someone who does drugs, that is their decision to make- full stop

Your values don't have to match exactly. But they do need to align. And you never have to change yours just because someone else thinks you should 💚

Links & Resources

📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]

📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching

🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

You might hate Kelly a little during this episode, she's prepared for that, but she needs you to hear her out.

This week Kelly is talking about the grudge. The anger you're still carrying. The flash of rage when someone mentions his name. The replaying, the revisiting, the weight of it all.

And the uncomfortable truth, he's not lying awake at night thinking about how angry you are. He's just living his life & the only person carrying all of that weight is you.

You'll hear:

✨ Why holding a grudge feels like you're doing something but is actually only draining you

✨ The real reason we hold onto anger after a breakup & why it makes sense

✨ Why the grudge can feel like justice, like significance, like not letting him away with it but why none of that is actually going where you think it is

✨ The big word that makes everyone uncomfortable- "forgiveness" and what Kelly actually means by it

✨ Why forgiving him does not mean what he did was okay, that he deserves it or that he gets access to you again

✨ His access to you and your forgiveness are two completely different things & they don't need to touch each other

✨ Kelly's own experience letting go of the anger towards her ex-husband & the person in her life who couldn't understand it

✨ Why forgiveness is one of the final stages of healing, not something to rush to or skip ahead to

✨ What to do if you're still neck-deep in the anger & why that's completely okay too

He's not losing sleep over your grudge but you might be & you deserve that energy back💚

Links & Resources

📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]

📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching

🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

If you're new here- welcome! Pull up a chair, grab your matcha & let Kelly tell you everything 🤭

& if you've been here since the beginning, you might still want to listen to this one. Because over a year in, with new listeners joining every week, Kelly is doing a reintroduction. Her story, her why & everything that led her to sitting behind this microphone every Monday.

This episode covers it all the ten-year relationship that started at sixteen, the six-month marriage, the wedding night she spent alone in the smoking area in her wedding dress, the relationship that came after & the work she had to do on herself before she finally found what she'd always been looking for.

You'll hear:

✨ Why Kelly started The Breakup Debrief & where the name actually came from

✨ The ten-year relationship that started at sixteen, growing up together & breaking up

✨ The wedding that almost didn't happen because of COVID & the wedding night that told her everything she needed to know

✨ The moment she knew the marriage was over & how she found the courage to leave

✨ The relationship that came after- what she thought was healing & what it actually was

✨ The work she did on herself in between- therapy, coaching & getting to know who she actually was outside of a relationship

✨ Her current relationship; how it feels different, what it has that the others didn't & why she finally believes she deserves it

✨ The message she wants every listener to hear who is currently in the thick of it- whether you're heartbroken, healing, single, or somewhere in between

✨ Your Alan is coming. She met hers on Tinder. There is hope! 💚

Whether you're showing up today feeling great or feeling a bit sh*t, this is a safe space for all of it & Kelly is so glad you're here

Links & Resources

📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]

📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching

🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

Sometimes you're in a relationship & you know there are a lot of lies- you're wading through them, trying to make sense of them, trying to recover from them.

And sometimes you go through a breakup & you didn't even realise how many lies there were until time passes, things unravel & you find yourself looking back at a relationship wondering what was actually real.

Both scenarios add a very specific, very painful layer to a breakup. And this week, Kelly is talking about it.

You'll hear:

✨ Why being lied to in a relationship is a whole different kind of grief because you're also grieving the reality you thought you had

✨ The self-blame spiral that comes with being lied to & why the finger needs to be pointed firmly at the liar, not at you

✨ The difference between big lies & the small, consistent, purposeless lies and why both do damage

✨ Gaslighting- how it goes hand in hand with lying & why it's so hard to recover from

✨ Why "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to hurt you" is actually just someone avoiding the consequences of their own actions

✨ Why lying is a form of control &why the person being lied to is never the one in the wrong

✨ The shame & embarrassment of being lied to and why that shame belongs to the liar, not to you

✨ How to rebuild trust in yourself before worrying about trusting anyone else

✨ Why going into new relationships with your eyes open is not the same as going in with your walls up

✨ Trust is built through trustworthy actions & what that actually looks like in practice

The shame is not yours to carry. The embarrassment is not yours to carry. If you saw the best in him & chose to trust him- that says everything good about you and everything bad about him 💚

Links & Resources

📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]

📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching

🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

He's back & this time he brought ChatGPT 😂Part 2 of the one year special with baby bro Ian is here & it does not disappoint. We pick up right where we left off, with Ian sharing how he coped in the early stages of his own breakup (terribly, at the start, terribly) & dive straight into the chaos from there.You'll hear:✨ Ian's honest account of how he actually coped & what ended up helping him most✨ The embarrassment of walking away from an engagement & why it absolutely should not have felt that way✨ How Kelly was Ian's inspiration when leaving his relationship & became his proof that things get better✨ Whether men are actually getting better at talking about their feelings (Ian has thoughts & a very specific breakdown of the different types of men 😂)✨ ChatGPT as emotional support- Ian's confession & Kelly's reaction✨ The red flag green flag rapid fire round ✨ Breakup songs- which ones got them through it & why crying in the car is genuinely great therapy✨ Ian's final words of wisdom for anyone going through a breakup right now✨ Ian's Instagram handle for any single, attractive gay men in their late twenties to early thirties 👀Thank you for an incredible year. We love you for being here ❤️‍🔥Links & Resources📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree

One year, 52 episodes & to celebrate Kelly's brought in her favourite guest- baby bro Ian 🎉

This is the episode you didn't know you needed. Equal parts chaotic, hilarious, emotional & genuinely insightful because who better to give you the real story on Kelly's breakup journey than the person who had front row seats to all of it?

In Part 1 of this special one year episode, Kelly & Ian get into Kelly's breakup history from Ian's perspective, what it was really like supporting her from the inside & Ian's own breakup & healing journey earlier this year.

You'll hear:

✨ Ian's honest take on Kelly's exes- including which one he liked least
✨ The "I told you so" moment Ian had been sitting on & the story that goes with it
✨ What supporting Kelly through her breakups was actually like from the inside
✨ What Ian would tell anyone who is supporting a loved one through a breakup right now
✨ What it was like going through a breakup with a sister who is a Breakup Empowerment Coach & whether it actually helped
✨ How Ian handled telling people about his breakup when he wanted to keep it private
✨ The moment Ian sat Kelly down & kept saying "it gets worse"- and it kept getting worse
✨ How Ian coped in the early stages of his own breakup- spoiler: not well 😂

Part 2 coming next week & trust us, you'll want to tune in for that one too 💚

Links & Resources
📧 Share your story for the "Where Is She Now?" segment: [email protected]
📲 Follow Kelly on Instagram & TikTok: @kellyskoaching
🔗 Explore all links & resources: Linktree