abusive relationships Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

I Don’t Know How To Help My Husband With His Mental Illness

March 8, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi DNL,
I am writing to you about my husband, who is dealing with some serious mental health challenges. I don’t really feel like I have anyone else to talk to about this, because everyone I know is going through equally stressful problems.

Some background, my husband and I have been married for 3 years. When I first met him, he was starting to get seriously ill, and his worsening health was a constant backdrop during our initial friendship and then our dating relationship. After months of terrifying and agonizing symptoms, he almost died and was hospitalized. While in the hospital, he was diagnosed with a lifelong debilitating disease. He started treatment, his health stabilized, and we later married.

During our first year of marriage, we lived with his mom. I was in school, and his disease is disabling enough that he cannot work, so this living situation was our only option. Unfortunately, he grew up in a severely dysfunctional and abusive home, and I experienced some of this during that year. It is what pressured me to get a higher paying job and insist that we move out. I also insisted that my husband start therapy, because he was showing symptoms of mental illness, even then.

While moving out of the dysfunctional home was great for me, it has been very hard for my husband. It has been a shock for him to live in a place where there isn’t daily yelling, fighting, child abuse, drug abuse, and hoarding… All that was normal in his daily existence. He was the person in the family who was expected to “fix” the results of everyone else’s dysfunction, and he surrendered all his aspirations and dreams to do so.

Now that he doesn’t have to be the fixer anymore, he feels worthless. He hates himself and tries to punish himself by refusing medicine and food. He says he knows this is illogical, but he feels like resources should not be “wasted” on a worthless person like him. His therapist says he has depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Sometimes, he is even afraid to leave our bedroom and be seen by our roommates (who love him and would never hurt him), because he spent most of his childhood locked in his room, and would be beaten if he came out. His self esteem problems are worsened because, on top of all this, his physical illness is a disability that keeps him from working. He calls himself a “bum” because I bring in the money, and he calls himself “lazy”, “weak”, and “worthless” when he can’t help around the house on days his illness flares up.

My husband is a smart, funny, enjoyable, and worthwhile person, but he cannot see it. He is an incredible spouse who treats me wonderfully, but whenever I tell him so he doesn’t believe me. I thought he would be happier, once we moved away from the dysfunction, but he has only gotten more unhappy. Without the constant distraction of his family’s drama, he is having to unpack years and years of suppressed trauma and abuse… and it’s causing him to fall apart.

He is still going to therapy, but it is clear this will be a years-long battle for him.

In the meantime, I’m struggling a lot. I am afraid and I don’t feel like I have many outlets for those fears. It is awful to watch my husband have panic attacks and say horrible things about himself. I hate not being able to have a quick solution to make him feel better. I suppose this letter is more of a vent session then a question but, if you have any advise, I would appreciate it.

Feeling Helpless and Worried

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This Is What Toxic Relationships Look Like (Or: The Love Con of Martin Shkreli)

December 23, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

There’s a joke on Twitter — in that “ha ha but no, seriously” sense — that goes “every day one person becomes the main character on the Internet. Your goal is to avoid being that person.” On December 20, 2020, when Elle published their long-form piece, “The Journalist and The Pharma Bro“, Christie Smythe became The Main Character of the Internet. The article detailed how Smythe, a respected and experienced reporter for Bloomberg News tossed aside her entire life — her husband, her career, her credibility — for notorious securities fraudster and Big Pharma price-gouger Martin Shkreli.

Dr. Harleen Quinzell flirting with the Joker in Arkham Asylum. — And, in the process, inspired an insufferable number of “Joker/Harley Quinn” comparisons.

It’s the sort of story designed to set segments of Twitter on fire; a professional woman throwing away her entire life for someone who stalked and harassed numerous other journalists, raised the price of life-saving anti-parasitic medicine by 5000% and famously disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan. People wanted to know how the hell someone who actually had a brain in her head would be willing to not just give up everything in her life, but freeze her eggs… all for a guy who she was never intimate with and who — plot twist — ghosted her from prison and dumped her via a statement to the press.

It seems almost comically absurd; how could anyone fall for this bullshit? It was hardly as though Shkreli’s trolling, stalking and harassment were going under the radar — especially considering how frequently he targeted other female journalists. And it was hardly as though Smythe were some naive thing, some babe lost in the woods who was just too pure, innocent or oblivious to recognize Shkreli for the posturing, entitled, faux-alpha-male-fronting, wannabe edgelord he is.

But anyone — men, women and non-binary folks alike — who’ve experienced toxic or abusive relationships can tell you exactly how easy it can be to get sucked in by people like this.

That’s why it’s important to recognize what a toxic relationship looks like… and how smart people get caught up in them.

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Is My Partner Just Settling For Me?

December 4, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

So, first things first: my partner (38NB, they/them) and I (28F) both have histories of abusive relationships. Their most recent partner before they met me was physically, sexually, and emotionally violent towards them; I had gotten out of a sexually predatory and abusive relationship with a much older man. We both understand that the trauma we’ve undergone shapes us, but does not define us. We’re working through it.

My problem is that I’m scared that I was simply the first partner in a long time to show them kindness and compassion, and that because of that they’ve spent the last five and a half years in a relationship in which, on some fundamental level, they do not want to be. This is in large part because I have a lot of flaws as a partner.

We live together and have done for nearly five years, but it was a case of me moving into their flat straight from my parents’ house rather than us picking a place together. I am long-term unemployed and contribute to household expenses as much as I am able but they’re still the primary breadwinner and I feel like I am leeching off them. I have triggers relating to showers (which I would rather not go into) that make personal hygiene difficult for me. I clean and help out and cook and the like, but I’ve had to learn how over the time we’ve lived together. I have serious depression and anxiety, for which I am receiving treatment and medication, but they had to poke and prod me into getting any treatment at all. I constantly feel like I have nothing to offer but being a considerate and caring partner – something that should be the default for any relationship, though the both of us are keenly aware that it is very much not.

Both of us drink heavily, something which lockdown has made worse, but they’re getting through a litre of gin every couple of days. They’re much more outgoing than I am and not being able to see their friends has hit them very hard indeed. When they’ve been drunk on the sofa, they’ve talked about how they didn’t see themselves ending up like this. Illness took their dreams of being a dancer in the West End, and now they’re pushing forty in a provincial fishing village that makes Toshi Station look like the height of urbane cosmopolitanism. And they look so sad when they say it. And then the next day, it’s like a switch has been flipped and it’s all smiles, and when I try to bring it up they brush it aside as me being paranoid. Which, to be entirely fair, is one of the symptoms of my anxiety disorder.

I love my partner, I really have to stress that. I love them with all my heart. I’m just terrified that I’m not worth loving back as much, and I can’t help but wonder whether or not I’m making my partner as happy as they make me. I struggle to tell what’s my paranoia and what’s a genuine issue that I should talk about with them. They’re a really awesome person and I just… worry that I’m nothing more than the first person to be a good partner, and that having had such an unbelievably fucking shitty partner for five years makes me look way better than I actually am.

We’ve been together, like I said, for five and a half years. I’ve been really happy. The happiest I can ever remember being. And I wonder if I’m the only one in the relationship who feels like that.

Or if it’s all in my head.

Thank you for reading,

Relevant Black Sabbath Song

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My Friend Is In An Abusive Relationship. How Can I Help Her?

November 13, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Doctor’s Note: today’s letter includes discussions and descriptions of emotional and verbal abuse.

Hi Doctor!

I’m not sure if this is the kind of question to take on, because it’s not about me specifically, but about my brother (30) and his girlfriend (29). They’ve been in a relationship for about five years and to be blunt about it, my brother is a horrible person. I really like his GF, she’s cute and funny and a great cook. But my brother’s relationship with her is terrible, he clearly has no feelings for her, and instead only wants somebody to bully / cook and clean for him / have sex with.

One of the most concerning things that has happened recently was a short (2-3 day) breakup due to the fact she is putting on weight. I think it is important to state up front that my brother is a weightlifter / bodybuilder and he works hard and is very vain about his own looks. He boasts about how easy it is for him to up or down his weight at will. The girlfriend is not incredibly overweight, maybe a little chubby and she dresses well and always looks cute. Not long after his break-up, get-back-together routine, we spent a weekend together soon after at my mother’s house and I couldn’t stand watching the way he was controlling her life in relation to her weight. We all went out for a coffee and it was brought out with a cookie on the saucer. He took it away from her and gave it to somebody else. Whenever we went out to eat, he dictates what she orders, and throughout the trip he forced her to go on walks. A few years ago a mutual friend of ours had bariatric surgery and for dinner they’d only eat a can of tuna. He once told her to start eating a single can of tuna for dinner too, stating “If they can do it, why can’t you?”

Another thing which was concerning during the trip was the constant negging. If me and my mother complemented her, he’d tell us (in front of her) not to, so we don’t give her an ego. If something ever went wrong (he didn’t pack a jacket for the trip) he’d blame her (even though he’s working at home and she’s working onsite). He’d constantly be ridiculing her and putting her down – it was an incredibly difficult thing to watch.

Not long ago, I looked after his cat and he said that his GF would cook me something to thank me. I told her that ‘despite what he says, that wasn’t necessary’. But she went and snitched on me, and I got a message from him that said something like “She’ll do what I tell her to do.”

I honestly don’t know what to do. I’m afraid that if I approach her again about it, I’ll get a similar result as last time, and I may end up burning my relationship with him. But they’re starting to talk about marriage and to be frank – she deserves better. How do you think I should approach this?

Third Wheel

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I Was Abused. How Do I Keep My Trauma Out of My Dating Life?

October 28, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’ve been thinking about an idea that appeals to me, and wondering if there are some deeper lessons that can be learned from it. I would appreciate a qualified second opinion on the matter, and so I would like to hear your advice, if that is alright.

Background details (to let you know what position I’m approaching this from)

I grew up under an abusive sister. I didn’t know it at the time, but my father sexually abused her as a child and she would take it out on me. Even now my sister has a very intense male-oriented madonna-whore complex, and she needed me to be a madonna in contrast to my father’s whore, as it were. If I failed in any way to live up to this image of perfection she had of me, my sister would scream and curse at me.

In recent years I’ve gone to therapy, I’ve had difficult conversations/confrontations with my sister and family, and I’m in a much healthier and safer place now than I was as a kid. I’ve started to put myself out there with online dating, and while I haven’t had much success yet, I’m learning from each failure, and I feel better putting myself out there and getting rejected than if I just stayed at home feeling sorry for myself.

My approach to dating has been to present my unvarnished self from the get-go; to be the best me that I can be, and to be so unashamedly. Maybe who I am isn’t what women want, and that’s fine, but I won’t box myself into some untrue image just to please someone else. I’d rather be alone because of who I am than be with someone while pretending to be something I’m not.

On the question of “What would I provide in a relationship?” (because I know that will come up), I am intelligent and I enjoy discussing and learning about new things and new people. All my friends and family say that I would make a good professor, and if it weren’t for all the student debt and low chance for employment, I’d honestly be pursuing a PhD now. I have no idea if that’s something women would find attractive, but my ideal goal for a relationship is that we get on well with each other and we are attracted to each other. There are extra things that I would like to have, like us sharing common interests or hobbies, but those are the two things I need and the two things I am aiming for.

So here’s my thought:

I really like cosplay models, and I’ve noticed myself sometimes thinking that it would be nice if I were to date one. I’m not sure if “fantasy” is the right term for this, because it’s not so much something I have an intense longing for as it is something where when it crosses my mind I sigh like a schoolboy and think “Yeah, that’d be nice.” I’ve thought about it for a while and the reasons I enjoy the idea are threefold:

Simple shared interests. I grew up thinking that my geeky hobbies were something I would have to hide from a girlfriend, or something she would only tolerate. The idea of “Wow, you like this nerdy piece of media too? That’s awesome!” really appeals to me then. I don’t often cosplay myself, but I do have some costumes in my closet, and whenever I’ve met cosplayers I’ve always enjoyed talking about it with them.
This is going to sound weird, but to bring it back to madonna-whore complexes, somehow the idea of dating someone with a public “madonna” persona and being able to see her human idiosyncrasies is really attractive to me. Like, everyone thinks she’s this always-perfect-and-hot goddess, but have they ever seen her when she’s just got out of bed, with her ruffled hair, morning breath, and grumbling for coffee while she farts? I know it’s weird, but I’m really attracted to that idea of “Everyone sees you as some perfect idol, but I know you’re just a human being and I love you for that.”
My sister doesn’t have a very high opinion of women who use their bodies for a job. At best it’s like “Oh, you’re hot, so you don’t have real problems” and at worst it’s like “Filthy, filthy whores!” So then, the idea of dating someone who also doesn’t live up to my sister’s ideas of perfection, but seeing that they’re really a good person and someone I love and respect, it’s like living, objective proof that my sister’s MWC is bullshit. Like, I can’t be a perfect paragon, and neither can my girlfriend, but that’s okay. We can both just be human, and even if we don’t get a perfect, Hollywood romance, we can make a lasting relationship together and that’s awesome.

So, thinking about all this, I have two questions:

When it comes to things we want but don’t need in a relationship, how do we differentiate between things that we don’t need but still aim for, and things that we don’t need, don’t try to obtain, but would love if we found someone with those qualities? Like, I know I’m never going to actually date a cosplay model. I have absolutely no idea how I would go about meeting one, and even if I did, there are so many other factors that go into a relationship. It’s precisely because they’re human beings that even if I were to meet a cosplay model, we could easily just be incompatible because of our lifestyles, worldviews, or any number of other things. And it’s entirely possible that everything I’ve just said about my idea is really disrespectful and fetishizing towards cosplay models. If that’s the case, I’d appreciate clear-headed advice on how to shake such a toxic mindset. But even unrelated to my case, surely we all have things we’d like to have in a relationship that aren’t strictly necessary, like our ideal partner being a doctor or a redhead or whatnot. Should we still aim for those things, or just be appreciative if they happen? How do we determine that?
If our ideal of a relationship is a rejection of abuse we faced, does that signal us getting over the abuse or the abuse still controlling us? I am attracted to a living rejection of the madonna-whore complex because I was a victim of the male version of it as a child, but does that mean I’ve got my own, different complex that I need to work on? I know my sister abused me because she wanted to reject the idea of all men being like my father. And even though I’m confident I can break the cycle, I know it’s possible to make different, but equally terrible, mistakes in our desire to avoid the mistakes of our abusers. How can we check ourselves to make sure that won’t happen?

I hope this message wasn’t too long, and I hope that there’s something deeper that other people can learn from my own, specific situation. Again, if I’ve said something disrespectful or fetishizing, don’t hesitate to tell me. Even if I’m in the wrong, that just means I have to learn from that wrongness and do better. In the meantime, I hope you are staying safe and healthy, what with the viral situation, and I hope you have a great day.

Sincerely,

-Eager to Learn

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