Love Inside Out with Adele Testa

23. Moving for love without losing yourself

Ten years ago, I packed up the life I'd taken 25 years to build and moved to a different country for one person. That person was — and is — worth it. But moving for love is not the romantic plot point it gets sold as. It's a slow, structural decision that touches everything: your friendships, your identity, your money, your sense of home, even the way you spend a Sunday evening. Nobody explained that to me before I went. So in this episode of Love Inside Out, I give you the full map I wish someone had given me — for relocating, moving cities or countries for your partner without losing yourself on the way. Inside this episode: * 00:00 The loneliness of relocation01:12 Preparing for the move05:43 Date the place (find your bench)08:29 The three friends you need in year one11:35 Grieving the past14:37 The money conversation nobody wants to have19:12 Communicating needs in relationships21:40 The importance of ongoing conversations in relationships23:11 Navigating the challenges of moving for Love25:01 Understanding the emotional impact of relocation27:13 The bet of moving: trusting yourself28:27 Forget that you moved29:18 Final thoughts on moving for Love This episode is for anyone about to move for love, in the middle of it, or still recovering from it years later. The people who move well aren't the ones who love hardest — they're the ones who build most carefully. If this lands for you, or you know someone about to make the leap — share it. I wish someone had done that for me at the time. DM on instagram adele_thecoach [https://www.instagram.com/adele_thecoach/] Read about Love on substack [https://substack.com/@unromanticisedlove] Stay curious, curious listener. Ciao 🤎

22. The four wounds of dysfunctional love - and the secret of healing

Why do you push away the people who are genuinely good for you — and feel strangely at home with the ones who aren't? If steady, kind love feels boring, suspicious, even suffocating… if a caring partner has ever made you think "this is too good to be true"… if you keep choosing chaos and calling it passion — this episode will hit close to home. In this episode of Love Inside Out, we explore what happens when we grow up in a dysfunctional family — not an unloving one, just one that quietly handed us some difficult patterns. Using the story of the chained elephant, we will unpack why your nervous system still lives in a world you've long outgrown, and why that "chain" shows up in your romantic life every single day. Together we look at the four wounds a dysfunctional upbringing can leave behind and the crucial difference between what feels familiar and what actually is care. Because confusing the two is how good people walk away from good love. This episode is gentle, honest, and a little tender — but it ends on a turning point. The love you've been running from might be the love you were looking for all along. This week's Heart Work is a four-step reflection exercise to help you start spotting your own chains: name it, separate then and now, redefine home, and get a witness. 🤎 Three standalone newsletters going deeper on this topic are on the Substack — link below. https://substack.com/@unromanticisedlove Chapters: * 00:00 - Understanding Dysfunctional Family Dynamics * 03:42 - The Impact of Dysfunction on Relationships * 07:55 - Identifying Core Wounds from Dysfunction * 11:48 - Recognizing Familiarity vs. Genuine Care * 16:45 - Relearning Healthy Relationship Dynamics * 19:21 - Practical Steps for Healing and Growth Episodes mentioned in this episode: * 🔗 Episode 1 — Love Storytelling: The Lies We Tell Ourselves About Love (love = drama, love = sacrifice) → https://plinkhq.com/i/1877487346/e/1000749826870 * 🔗 Episode 9 - How to Recognise Your Person (Dating Framework) → https://plinkhq.com/i/1877487346/e/1000749826767 * 🔗 Episode 8. - The Power Couple Myth (3x Rule) → https://plinkhq.com/i/1877487346/e/1000749826924 * 🔗 Episode 4 - Self-Love and Romantic Love (7 Hs Framework) → https://plinkhq.com/i/1877487346/e/1000749826766

21. How to strengthen your relationship

We've all been sold that fixing our relationship takes a weekend retreat, a couples therapist, or a three-hour conversation at midnight that leaves both parties both wrung out and staring at the ceiling. It doesn't. In this episode, I'm giving you part one of my coaching framework — three small, ordinary acts, done together every day, in five minutes total. The kind of acts you used to do for each other when you were trying to win them over, and somewhere along the way quietly stopped. This episode is for you whether you're: * In a crisis, actually wondering if you're going to make it * In the apathy, years in, gone flat, no drama but no fire * In the post-butterflies lull, where the early spark has worn off and nobody warned you about what comes nex * In the post-move-in settle, where the giddy first-flat energy has cooled into something far more domestic than you thought it would Chapters: * 00:00 Rekindling relationships with amall acts * 02:14 Understanding relationship dynamics * 04:39 The power of appreciation * 07:05 Small gestures matter * 09:15 The challenge of non-escalation * 10:42 Building connection through consistency * 12:22 The importance of daily efforts * 14:28 Transforming relationship dynamics * 16:42 Practical steps for change * 19:01 Commitment to improvement If this episode lands for you, I'd love to hear about it. And if you're curious about parts two and three of the coaching framework — message me. I'll walk you through them. 🤎 Instagram — @adele_thecoach [https://www.instagram.com/adele_thecoach/]✍️ Substack — https://substack.com/@unromanticisedlove Ciao.

20. Retroactive jealousy: the ghost in your relationship

Your partner's ex. The one you've never met but can't stop thinking about. That's the ghost in your relationship — and in this episode, we're talking about why someone who is no longer part of the story has more power over your peace of mind than the person sleeping next to you. Today we focus on retroactive jealousy. In this episode, I break down what retroactive jealousy actually is, why it takes hold so deeply, who keeps the ghost alive without realising it, and what you can do — practically, honestly — to stop it from running your relationship. If you've ever stalked your partner's ex on social media, asked a question you didn't actually want the answer to, or felt your stomach drop at a name from their past — this episode was made for you. Press play. CHAPTERS * 00:00 Understanding retroactive jealousy — what it is, how it differs from reactive and possessive jealousy, and why we're only covering this type today. The others get their own episode. * 03:11 The emotional impact of retroactive jealousy — what it actually feels like from the inside, the obsessive cycle of digging and spiralling, and how friends, family, and even your partner can keep the ghost alive without meaning to. * 10:34 Identifying the root causes — low self-worth, anxious attachment, and the imagination problem that turns your partner's past into a film that's always worse than reality. * 18:23 Strategies for managing retroactive jealousy — six practical steps, from stopping the detective work to building the relationship instead of investigating it. * 19:33 Heart Work of the week — three questions to carry with you this week. The kind that change things if you sit with them honestly. * 21:10 Conclusion — the past is where stories go when they're finished. Yours is still being written. If this episode landed — or if you want to tell me which part hit hardest — send me a DM on Instagram @adelethecoach. I read every single one.🤎 I also write a weekly newsletter on Substack where I go deeper into the topics behind each episode — standalone articles you can read in two minutes with your morning coffee. https://substack.com/@unromanticisedlove Don't let a ghost run your love life. Ciao, Adele 🤎

19. Be careful who you talk to about your Love life

This episode is for anyone who's ever left a coffee, a dinner, or a group chat feeling quietly worse about their relationship — without being able to say exactly why. For anyone who's compared their love life to a friend's highlight reel and come up short. For anyone who vents to the same person every time and wonders why nothing ever shifts. But here's what happened. This Sunday I accidentally ran a mini group coaching session about love. With three strangers. On a park bench. Before brunch. I did not sign up for this. I watched one woman's sense of her own marriage swing from relief to shame in ninety seconds — based entirely on two sentences from two people she'd just met. And I couldn't stay quiet about it. Because what happened on that bench happens to all of us. We just don't notice it. Press play if you want: The comparison trap — To understand why casual conversations about other people's relationships quietly sabotage how you feel about your own. Standards, not comparisons — A three-column framework for deciding what is okay, what is negotiable, and what is a no-no in your relationship — so you stop outsourcing your compass to strangers on park benches. Choose your person on purpose — The difference between a sounding board that calibrates you and one that just cheers you on. Why co-rumination — the thing that feels like support — actually embeds the hurt deeper. And how to pick the right person before you need them. Heart Work of the week: three things to do this week to turn what you heard into what you practise. This episode is less theory, more story. I think you'll recognise yourself somewhere in it. Chapters: 1. Introduction: 0:00 - 0:49- 1:32 2. The Park Bench Story: 1:32 - 5:56 3. Comparison in Relationships: 5:56 - 9:20 4. The Concept of Standards: 9:20 - 15:23 5. Sounding Board and Support: 15:23 - 21:39 6. Heart Work and Conclusion: 21:39 - 27:57 Let's stay in touch. I'd love to hear which part landed most for you. 📩 DM me on Instagram: @adele_thecoach✍️ Read my weekly articles on Substack: https://substack.com/@unromanticisedlove [https://substack.com/@unromanticisedlove] Love Inside Out is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts — wherever you listen to podcasts.