Before we get into this interview, we have a little public service announcement: if you like reading interviews with exes, then you’ll probably really enjoy I Broke Up Like This, a new ‘zine from Everyone is Gay and Autostraddle. It’ll help you or your friend get through heartbreak and subsequent madness and will be quite entertaining in the process, we promise! If you’ve already got your copy, then you’ve probably already read pieces of this interview and you’re probably pretty damn excited to read more of it!

Welcome to Interviews With My Ex-Girlfriend, in which Autostraddle writers get back in touch with their ex-girlfriends to ask them Five Simple Questions:

1. How long did we date?
2. Why did we break up?
3. What did you learn from our relationship?
4. What do you miss most about me?
5. Would you invite me to your wedding (why/why not)?

Kristin: How long did we date?

Jen: Five years.

K: Why did we break up?

J: Oh god. Because you had an affair with…

K: That is not true!

J: We broke up because we hated each other.

K: No! We didn’t hate each other.

J: Because we fizzled, I guess?

K: Yeah, that’s probably a good way to put it. We stayed together a little too long.

J: Yeah I think so. I think you tried to run a couple of times, and then I sucked you back in.

K: Sucked me back in and then spit me out.

J: Yeah, it wasn’t anything bad, right?

K: It’s funny. Nobody did anything wrong to anybody else, and it was almost worse. Right?

J: I think so, too. It may be easier if somebody cheats, or maybe it isn’t because then maybe you’re like fucked up?

K: But at least you can hate the person or be mad at the person. I feel like it was just devastating because we were like fuck, and then we had to separate our things and be like “whose sweatshirt is this?”

K: What did you learn from our relationship?

J: I learned that I liked cats a lot. And definitely intimacy. And being honest. And sharing close quarters and time with people. I think definitely honesty. Honesty has been important during, after, before, and in staying friends.

K: Yeah, I feel like for both of us it was Communication Practice 101 because really I had been in a relationship once before, but that was my first relationship, and I was 18.

J: Yeah, ours was my first long-term relationship.

K: I feel like I learned how to communicate, and I also learned a lot about myself. I don’t think that I was at all aware of the way that I handled my emotions and just started exploring why…. we were kids. It always surprises me when people get together in their early 20s and stay together just because…we got together, I was 23, and you were what, 28? I just feel like I’m completely a different person, completely different!

J: You definitely learn a lot about yourself… these are my fucking problems, and I was definitely like this is weird about me.

K: Yeah, and when you’re young, you don’t know how your actions affect other people, and you don’t really realize that it’s OK for you to accept somebody else for who they are and work together to work together. Instead, you’re just like, “This is the way I do things, and that’s the right way.”….Okay, question number four — what do you miss most about me?

J: I miss how we used to be able to stay in and hang out and have so much fun, and there was not much need for anything else, you know what I mean? We could just hang out. I feel like we had a lot of fun, and also I think you really enjoyed my family, and that was missing in my other relationships — somebody that was really part of my life in every way.

K: Yeah, totally. We also had so much fun going out. We’d go to dinner and have some wine and then be like, “Do you want to stay out longer?” We would always just have a lot of fun. Okay, the last question is pretty short and straightforward. Would you invite me to your wedding? Why or why not?

J: Yes, absolutely, because we’re friends, and I went to your wedding, and you two fucking assholes are going to have to come to mine.

[Kristin’s wife] Jenny Owen Youngs: I’d like to think that… I’m sorry.

K: No, no. Please, what do you have to say during the interview?

JOY: Nothing.

K: You’d like to think that what?

JOY: I’d like to think that Jen would invite you to her wedding so that I would be there.

J: Yeah exactly — it has nothing to do with you, Kristin. It’s just because I like Jenny.

K: Yeah, for the record, when I got married, dear listener, I mean reader, whatever you are, I had Jen at my wedding, and Randi, my first girlfriend, officiated my wedding. So that’s about as gay as it gets. I’m really glad to hear that I’ll be invited to your wedding.

So, Do you have anything else you want to say in this interview?

J: No, that’s it. Trey [ed.note: Trey is a cat], do you have anything else?

K: Trey was the worst thing that you lost in the breakup.

J: Oh my god. He was. I came home, and the whole apartment was so empty.

K: That break-up was the worst thing that ever happened to me.

J: It sucked.

K: God, it was so sad. I have a very vivid memory of this one particular time. I don’t know if you were home or not home. You must have been home, because why would I cry if nobody could watch me, you know?

JOY: HA! My wife.

K: But I remember going to the gym and coming back to our apartment, and it was like when everything was horrible, and we were splitting up shit and whatever, and I don’t know if I picked something up from the floor or why I wound up going towards the floor, and I just remember looking at the floorboards and being like, “My home, my whole home is gone,” and just collapsing in sobs. It was the fucking saddest thing.

J: It was so sad. I remember coming home one night. You were sleeping on the couch with Trey, and I was sleeping in the bed, and I just lost it. It was just so depressing. The whole process and then after.

K: Yeah, it was the worst. There was a very long time where I remember just crying on the subway with other people on the train, and I couldn’t. I had no control.

J: Yeah, I was the same way. It was a challenge to fucking function. A hundred fucking percent.

K: But we made it through! And now we’re playing Super Mario 3 with my wife, so…

J: Totally. It was totally worth it, as bad as it sucked in trying to be friends. But now I feel like I know. Even with my ex right now, it’s like I don’t care how bad this sucks, I’ve been through this before, and it’s totally worth it.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!