Upcoming Podcast “How to Break Up by Text” Combines Comedy and Catharsis

The Short Version: All breakups are tough, but breakups over text messages can be some of the worst. Fortunately, comedian Allison Goldberg has enough good humor to turn those bad vibes around. She created “How to Break Up by Text” to help listeners heal from heartbreak through comedy. The podcast incorporates readings and commentary on real text message breakups in a hilarious show for dumpers and dumpees alike.

Breakups can cause some very painful emotions. Losing at love can be so devastating, it will shake your sense of self and stability. While going through a breakup, you may feel alone, directionless, and joyless. It can feel as though the pain will never end.

While any breakup can be tough to endure, how you break up — or are broken up with — significantly impacts the level of pain inflicted. With the rise of smartphones, breaking up over text has become relatively common. But text breakups can be an added punch in the gut to the person getting dumped. They can make you feel like your relationship was meaningless to your partner and leave you without the closure you need to move on from the relationship. They also memorialize your relationship for the time to come, leaving you with a written copy of your breakup.

Text message breakups are undoubtedly unpleasant to receive, but they can sometimes hold a silver lining. You no longer need to talk to the person face to face or let them see the hurt they have caused you. You know precisely how the final conversation went down, without any room to question your memory of what you and your ex said to each other. And if you like, you can show your friends the text messages for analysis. Or, you can have dating experts read them on a podcast.

Actor, producer, writer, and comedian Allison Goldberg created the new podcast, “How to Break Up by Text,” to provide a space for individuals to get over their old relationships with comedy. On the show, celebrities will read and offer their perspectives on breakup texts submitted by callers. Her listeners can laugh at the crazy stories they hear while potentially finding some support to heal from their own breakups.

“What good is life if we can’t turn chaos into comedy?” Allison asked. As a prolific text-message-screenshot-sender, I’m inclined to agree.

One of the worst parts of going through a breakup via text is the lack of closure. Speaking from the heart in writing is harder than in an in-person conversation. The lack of eye contact and body language can also make it difficult for the breakup to truly sink in. Without talking through the breakup, you may feel that nothing tangible happened to solidify the end of the relationship. One day, your partner was a part of your life; the next, they were not. Without a concrete event, the breakup may not immediately sink in. 

By sharing their stories on “How to Break Up by Text,” individuals will get the chance to talk through the end of their relationship as they might talk through a breakup with their friends. It’s a cathartic experience that can help you cope with losing a relationship, especially when the breakup itself didn’t offer much closure.

“This project started as a live show where people would toss me their phones, and I’d hand them a shot in exchange,” Allison said. “It was wild how ready people were to share their screenshots with a room of strangers, and I realized that it was because we don’t get closure with a text breakup the way we (sometimes) can with an actual conversation.”

My first serious boyfriend dumped me through a text message. In that moment, I was devastated. I called a friend crying so hard that she thought I had been in a car accident. But I ended up getting over that relationship through the support of friends – primarily as we over-analyzed and criticized that final text conversation. 

That impulse to talk through the ended relationship with friends is what makes “How to Break Up by Text” so compelling. “Everyone is looking for someone else to decipher the texts for them,” Allison told us. “It’s the same reason we all immediately screenshot and share texts with our group chats for interpretation.”

Breakups will always be uncomfortable, but they don’t need to be traumatic. There are tactful ways to break up with someone, just as there are excruciating ways to do so. “My personal feeling is that breaking up can be a beautiful thing!” Allison said. “You can’t meet the right person if you’re with the wrong person.” 

Ideally, both exes will come out of a breakup knowing that, after some time healing, they’ll be able to enter a better relationship. 

In addition to providing readings of painful (and perhaps, darkly funny) breakup texts, Allison, the celebrities on her show, and the guests providing text messages will talk through the texts they read. They’ll give comedic commentary, judgments of the texts, and of course, advice about what went wrong in each text. They’ll get into what made some of the texts so heartbreaking, hilarious, or strange. Listeners can gain some insights into how best to frame their own breakups or find validation that their breakup text experiences really were as bad as they thought.

The overarching consensus is that if you’re considering dumping someone via text, you probably shouldn’t. Not only will it temporarily hurt your soon-to-be-former partner, but it will also leave them with a permanent relic of the breakup. And after that, you have no control over what your ex does with your breakup texts. “The fact that we now have these bizarre screenshots immortalizing our trauma means we have to do something with them,” Allison said. 

If you have your own painful breakup text gathering cobwebs on your phone, you can submit it to the podcast and perhaps turn it into some money in your pocket.

“How to Break Up by Text” is a podcast for people who have experienced painful breakups, created by people who have experienced painful breakups. It can only work with the help and participation of people who are willing to send screenshots of their relationship-ending text messages.

Allison encourages anyone who has experienced a breakup via text to consider submitting their screenshots to “How to Break Up by Text.” 

“I’m hoping it’s win-win-win for submitters,” Allison said. “If selected, there is pay, celebs will perform the breakup texts, and they get to call in to share their side of the story.”

Similar to talking through a breakup with your friends, sharing your breakup texts and story on “How to Break Up by Text” can be an incredibly cathartic experience as you heal from a recent breakup. Even if the relationship ended years ago, sharing and laughing at your breakup texts can be a hilarious trip down memory lane. 

When you share your breakup story on “How to Break Up by Text,” you can guarantee that you literally get the last laugh in your relationship. Critiquing breakup texts on a podcast with celebrities and comedians is clearly the ultimate power move. 

Getting dumped over text is becoming increasingly common, but that doesn’t make it any less painful. Allison and a host of other incredible comedians and celebrities are there to help you laugh through the pain.

And if you’re thinking about dumping your partner, just do it in person. Otherwise, your message might end up on a podcast.