Howdy Doc!
So I’m hoping to get the male POV/advice on my ex. We got together during the start of the pandemic and were together for 1.5 years (plus 8 months talking long distance). For the last 7 months, we moved in together way too quickly, with me moving to his hometown. We fought a lot and the restrictions/isolation made it so difficult. I busted him with a fake tinder account (pretending to be food) and also flirting with girls on Instagram. Obviously I dumped him/moved home.
A couple of months later he reached out and over 2 weeks, we were talking about sitting down together/getting together. He was using apps to feel better about himself cause he didn’t feel wanted/secure in the relationship and self-sabotaged because he didn’t know if I wanted marriage/kids (despite me moving to his hometown/him never discussing it with moi). We had a really bad fight that messed with his head too, after a night of drinking prior to moving in, where we broke up for 8 hours. During the 2 weeks of us briefly talking after the (final) breakup, I caught him using dating apps.
When he first reached out he said he wasn’t using them but when I catfished him, he was messaging “hey, whats up….etc”. So he might have paused the accounts, but they were still there and I had to find out on my own (rather than him just telling me). He got confused between those 2 weeks cause I had told him to do his thing over the next 6 weeks (I was starting a new job and said I needed time) and he interpreted that as going about his single boy life. I found out and blocked him because it was all the same stuff again. He said he didn’t meet up with anyone/was killing time and was scared he wouldn’t hear from me.
It’s now been six months since the breakup and he reached out again. When I responded to his text, he said he deleted all the apps and just wants to talk. he said he’s willing to do whatever to get me back and show that I’m the one/he’s ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure I’m the priority in his life. Is it worth another shot? Do boys ever grow up?
My real hang up is that I had to find out the truth about tinder/insta and the dating apps (even tho we weren’t together he obviously should have told me) on my own despite telling him how important honesty is. I honestly loved him so much and I don’t understand how he was so careless. Why is it now clicking in his brain about partnership and wanting me? Or is he just realizing what he lost out on? Is it even worth sitting down and talking in person?
It was a really intense relationship from the start and we never figured out how to communicate/disagree and live balanced lives. We both were finishing school/starting new jobs/figuring out adulating on top of a super intense relationship.
Second Time Around
As a rule of thumb, I tend to be of the position that the answer to “should I get back with my ex” should default to “no”, STA, unless and until everyone involved can prove to be an exception, rather than the rule. Nine times out of ten, someone is your ex for a reason, and that reason simply hasn’t changed. And even when things have changed, many times people’s feelings haven’t. And that ends up being a problem.
Whenever someone asks if they should get back together with their ex, I always tell them that they need to answer five questions, first:
Question #1: Why did you break up in the first place?
Question #2: Has the reason why you broke up changed?
Question #3: Why Now?
Question #4: Do you miss THEM, or do you miss what they represent?
Question #5: Are they right for you, NOW?
So let’s go through this with your relationship.
Question one is obvious: you shouldn’t have moved in together in the first place. You did the thing that a lot of couples did at the start of the pandemic: you moved in together way too soon – in part because there was no way to know when you’d ever be able to see each other again in person. And, like many couples who made the same decision you did, you realized that putting the two of you together in a confined space with no real way to get space from one another was like putting two rats together in a tiny cage. It was a recipe for disaster. It seems pretty clear that this took its toll on the both of you and your ex decided that the way to deal with his frustration was to go seek validation from strangers on dating apps.
Now, to be fair to him: this is something a lot of folks do. One of the things that makes online dating frustrating is that there are a lot of collectors and lookie-loos, who only want to flirt, maybe get dirty pics from someone but who don’t actually want to meet up in person. But this was not something you were cool with – which is legit – and the two of you broke up.
Ok, so what about question two? It seems like the answer is… not really. When you two started talking about getting back together, you found him using dating apps again and decided to deep-six the whole thing. Now, this is the point where I think we can safely stop and say that no, you shouldn’t get back together. Not because he was on dating apps, but because you don’t trust him and you haven’t forgiven him. In fact, this is such a sore spot for you that you were upset to find out that he’d been using them while he was single, and that’s a problem.
While I don’t think that what he did while you were together was necessarily a relationship extinction level event, you did and that’s understandable. That was a line in the sand for you, he crossed it, you decided to end things. Policing his behavior after the two of you had broken up but before the two of you got back together, on the other hand, isn’t cool. You two had split up, you weren’t back together and, frankly, what he was doing with his private life – even when you were talking things through – was his business.
Even in relationships, people have rights to private lives and to have secrets; relationships aren’t depositions, and I don’t think any relationship could survive if we were expected to air every single private thought, impulse, action or feeling to our partners. But being mad at him for acting like a single man while he was single isn’t a sign that your wounds have healed enough to make another go of this. The fact that you decided the best thing to do was to go catfish him, rather than to talk with him about it, is… well, honestly it’s not a good look. And since it sounds like you made the first move when you found his profile, rather than him actively going and looking for people, you basically set him up for failure.
Now folks can, and do, argue about the ethics of this and who was in the right and we can all relitigate what “we were on a break” means and what you are owed from your ex if you’re in the process of renegotiating your relationship. However, the fact that you felt like this was something you needed to do tells me that you don’t trust him and you haven’t been able to forgive him for the last time. That, more than anything else, tells me what I need to know: you aren’t in a place where you can get back together.
Just between you, me, and everyone who reads this column: if the two of you were to get back together, are you able to honestly tell me that you are going to be able to resist checking? Are you going to be able to resist the urge to snoop through his phone or his computer or to create another fake profile and go looking to see if you can find him? Or are you going to be eaten up with suspicion and mistrust and not be able to take him at his word? What, precisely, is it going to take for him to prove to you that things are different enough that you would be able to just take him at his word?
The fact that you still sound hurt, upset and betrayed suggests that the answer is no. And while your feeling hurt and betrayed is absolutely real and legitimate, if this is going to be something that is always going to be having over your relationship like the Sword of Damocles, then that’s not fair to him. Holding onto grudges and old hurts and not letting them go is a great way to destroy a relationship… or in this case, destroy the attempt to rebuild it. If you won’t or can’t forgive and let this be in the past, if he can’t get to a point where you will let yourself trust and believe him, then this relationship will never get off the ground. All that will happen is that you’ll have another round of the same fight… and then another and another until you two just quit trying to make this work.
So, no, I don’t think this is a good idea. Right now, you don’t sound like you’re in a place where you’re able to believe him. This is, incidentally, irrespective of whatever work he may or may not have done; all the self-awareness and work that he may have done doesn’t matter if you’re still going to hold the old wounds against him. If – and that’s a mighty big if – that changes for you, then it becomes a question of “how much has he changed”… and then after answering that, we can move to the next question in the sequence.
And, incidentally, why is he reaching out now? It could be for any number of reasons. Maybe he does sincerely realize what he missed out on and wants you back. Maybe it’s less that he wants you back so much as he wants the familiar, rather than face the potentially scary world of dating again. Maybe six months worth of absence is enough to paint over the rough bits during the lockdown and the hazy golden glow of nostalgia is like Vaseline on the lens of his memories. But it doesn’t matter because, hey, y’all aren’t ready yet.
So for now: no, you shouldn’t get back together. Maybe a year to two years out, you will be in a place where you could talk about it. But for now? I think it’s best that the two of you let this go and move on. No relationship can work when the pain and mistrust is still so present.
Good luck.
Hey Dr. NerdLove,
Do drunk texts count? As in, has the deep truth been revealed, or just late night nonsense?
Really Gotta Know
It’s funny, RGK, this is actually very close to one of the openers I was taught back in my pick-up days. In that version, the erstwhile PUA was supposed to go up to a group of people and ask “Hey, I need an outsider’s opinion on something: do drunk ‘I love yous’ count?” and then spin a yarn about how your buddy’s dating someone and got hammered and yada yada yakkity smackity
But hey let’s take it seriously for half a moment. The answer is… it depends. While the old saw is “in vino, veritas”, the truth is that alcohol isn’t truth serum, it’s a disinhibitor. That is, it tends to turn down the volume on the part of your brain that says “hey, maybe don’t do that?” So, if someone has been holding back some deep truth or some secret that they’ve been wanting to reveal but can’t, sometimes alcohol will make all the reasons why they aren’t saying it seem far less important. As a result, if the impulse happens to strike, someone who’s had a few too many won’t have the part that says “hang on, let’s not,” to slow them down.
However, that doesn’t mean that what they end up revealing is the truth… or even a truth. Because the other side of booze and intoxication is that it can turn the volume up on other areas… such as making your emotions a lot louder and more intense. So if someone is, say, harboring a grudge or some resentment about something, but doesn’t say anything because they know it’s unfair or irrational, getting drunk not only turns down the “maybe don’t” part but cranks the part that says “THE AUDACITY!!!!” up to 11. As a result, you get someone blowing up about something, and their drunk reaction may well be out of proportion to how they feel when they’re sober.
And then there’s the fact that booze can also change your perceptions – making it harder for you to accurately read the room or the moment, convincing you that people are responding more positively (or negatively) than they actually are or even to gauge your own feelings or desires, including the potential consequences. So it’s entirely possible that someone will decide to do something while hammered that they wouldn’t do sober, not because this was some secret desire or mask-off moment or whatever, but because they thought it was a good idea or more welcomed at the time and didn’t have the other parts of their brain to say “hey, hold up a second.”
So what you get from someone who’s drunk may not be true, or it may not be true to the extent that they’re proclaiming it in the moment. Or it could be that the force field was lowered just a bit and then the truth came out when it wasn’t supposed to.
But as a general rule of thumb? Take drunk texts as irrational noise that doesn’t mean anything. The later in the night the text is sent, the less seriously you should take it. If it is some deep truth or a revelation of heretofore unrevealed feelings… those feelings will still be there in the morning, when they’re sober. Just wait until they’re a little less hungover before having a conversation about it.
And if they claim they don’t remember… depending on what it is, sometimes it’s better to pretend that you believe them and let the incident just get stuffed down the memory hole.
Good luck.