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I Just Discovered My Boyfriend Is Living a Double Life

May 22, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove

I’ve been involved with a guy for a little over 5 years. We actually met online. I still remember the night I clicked on his profile. Based on looks, he wasn’t the kind of guy I would typically date, but from his profile and the small chats we exchanged online, he seemed pretty cool. The only problem was that we lived in different states.

Although Philadelphia and New York aren’t so far from each other, at the time it seemed like a world away. Nevertheless, we both agreed to meet each other after a few weeks. Long story short, we hit it off pretty well. And quickly became very close.

In the first few years of dating, we honestly didn’t get to see each other more than 1-2 times a month. But despite that we called, texted, and video chatted every day. In my mind, the relationship was real.

There was never any indication that he had anyone else in the picture. He seemed very transparent about his life.

Fast Forward towards the end of 2018. I decided to create an Instagram account to promote a small startup business. His profile popped up as a suggested follow. I decided to scroll through his page (I chose not to follow simply because I didn’t want to seem like a stalker). Most of the pictures on there were pictures/videos that I had either taken of him while we were out together, of activities we both did together, or things that he’s already shared with me through regular chats and messaging. However, I have to say that I was taken aback by the fact that he had no pictures of us anywhere on his profile. They were all pictures of him, or his nieces and nephews.

Anyway, I had seen a few post of his latest “nephew” who was born earlier that year, around the same time I began to notice a shift in our relationship. When I clicked on the picture, not only did he identify the child as his own but the child had his same f**king name.

I will never forget how heartbroken and crushed I felt when I discovered this.

What was even worse was that I found out that besides me there were two other women in his life. The mother of his child, and another woman who he had been dating for as long as me.

I tried to break things off with him, but it seemed like the more I pulled away the more he drew me back in. And within time we ended up becoming closer than ever. Our 1-2x a month visits literally turned into at least 3-4x a week (with both of us taking turns to make the back and forth travel). He made every effort to show me that he was done with the other women, and even had me speak to the mother of his child directly.

Everything seemed okay until a few months ago when I found out I was pregnant. He was adamant that I needed to get an abortion and that he didn’t want a child (even though he already had one). Initially, I was considering an abortion myself simply because I didn’t think I was ready for a child. But when I thought about it more, I didn’t feel comfortable with the process. I told him that it wasn’t something I wanted to go through with. Instead of trying to understand my perspective, he literally went into a rage and told me that if I didn’t have the abortion he would want nothing to do with me. I thought this was all just talk, that he was just scared, and would eventually come into his senses later on. But he meant every word.

I don’t know what to do. There are moments when he’s randomly super sweet to me, and acts life everything is okay. Then there are back to back days where he sends me long rants of how I ruined his life by not having an abortion. I’m completely baffled by this monster that I used to call my boyfriend. A part of me thinks that the reason he is so mad is because he’s still leading a double life.

What should I do?? I’m honestly scared of this man. But at the same I still do love him.

Btw, the baby is due in October.

Pregnant and Lost

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So Your Friend Is Making Porn: A Guide to Not Making It Weird

May 11, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown has had a number of surprising side-effects. One of them has been an explosion of social-distancing influenced horniness. This in and of itself isn’t that unexpected; Thanatos and Eros go hand in hand, after all. Many people respond to stress and the threat of death by wanting to reaffirm life — and there’re few ways that make us all feel more alive than some good ol’ bangin’.

The problem is: social distancing, a lack of testing and no vaccines means that hooking up with people is a no-go. La petite mort has an entirely too high of a risk of bring la grande mort along with it. As a result: there are scads of horny people with nowhere to go and nowhere to blow.

Not that this doesn’t stop folks from trying anyway.
(via straightwhiteboystexting)

Of course, where there’s a demand, the market will rush to match the supply. So it shouldn’t be surprising that there has been a veritable explosion of people turning to making porn while they’re in lockdown. In fact, the influx of self-produced porn has become so ubiquitous that even Queen Bay herself dropped a reference to the subscription site OnlyFans in Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage”, giving the platform both an awareness boost and a dose of social cachet. People who’ve turned to various forms of sex work, including lewd cosplay photos, camming, and video work, run the gamut. There are folks trying to make the ends meet, experienced sex-workers changing mediums, people who’ve always had an exhibitionist streak, and folks trying to stay in the spotlight.

But regardless of why folks have turned to amateur porn, one thing remains true: discovering someone you know is naked on the Internet can make things awkward in ways you might never have expected.

When it’s your ex, it goes from “awkward” to “this all ends in fire.”

This leads to a host of questions that many people never expected to have to find answers for: what do you do when you find out that your friend, your co-worker, your friend’s sister, or your kid’s babysitter is making porn? Do you mention that you know or that you’ve seen it? And is there any way of consuming their content that isn’t inherently creepy?

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How Do I Ask My Girlfriend if She Was Abused?

April 17, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Doctors’ Note: Today’s column includes a discussion of familial sexual abuse.

Hi Doc,
I have a situation that I’m not quite sure how to handle. TL;DR: There’s a pretty heavy subject I am contemplating raising with my partner but I’m not sure how to go about it.

To explain, I (he/him) have been seeing my girlfriend since last fall. We’re both in our early 40s. Overall things have been great and we have been very good at communicating with each other. We’ve both been open about the fact that we think our relationship has long-term potential and we made the joint decision, fairly early on, to be exclusive.

About a month into things, she opened up about the fact that she was coping with some pretty significant past trauma issues. She wasn’t specific, and, to be honest, she still hasn’t really directly told me what this past trauma consists of. She’s mentioned a strained relationship with her parents, specifically her mother (I’ve met them both several times, and I get along with them really well); the way she tells it, the strain comes from them 1.) being extremely emotionally distant during her childhood (her words) and 2.) having to bail her out of some past mental health crises and losing patience with her (again, her words).

She also has an older brother (they’re a year apart in age) who lives several hours away (she and her parents live in the same town), and apparently they go through long periods of not speaking (when we started dating, she hadn’t spoken to him in almost 5 years and hadn’t seen him in 8). This is where my question/concern comes in. She’s made a lot of statements about her brother that make me wonder if this trauma is centered around him. For example, we were planning to join her parents on a trip to spend the holidays with him and his family, but at the last second she canceled the whole trip because she couldn’t find an acceptable place to stay in the area. This seemed kind of weird to me, because I’d found several possibilities, but she nixed them all for one reason or another. I could tell the trip was causing a ton of anxiety for her so I just let the whole thing drop and went with what she wanted without making a big deal out of it.

She’s also told me on more than one occasion that she has always been afraid of her brother, that growing up he had a really bad temper, and once she even commented, “When we were kids my brother would lie in wait so he could attack me.” Which… just struck me as a really strange (i.e., concerning) way to talk about their childhood conflicts. Finally, she’s also told me she’s had a recurring nightmare for several years in which her brother is sexually assaulting her.

I suppose you can guess where I’m going with this. I strongly suspect her brother has sexually assaulted her but I’m not sure how to go about asking her about this.

I’m feeling this trauma tension within our sex life. Sometimes after particularly great sex, when I’ve really felt us connect during the act, she becomes really anxious and withdrawn afterwards. This feels so much worse than if the sex was just not good, you know? I have asked her if there is anything I might be doing that makes her feel uncomfortable, or triggered, but she has always denied that, saying she feels very comfortable with me, and that she ”love[s] our sex,” but that past experiences come up sometimes that have nothing to do with me. (She put it as, “I have some issues around sex that I am still processing”).

This has happened a few times, and I’ll be honest, it’s heartbreaking, to see her face go from pleasure to pain like that, and to know that I might be (unintentionally) the cause. I try to take her at her word, but … I still wonder if I actually am a trigger and that she doesn’t know how (or doesn’t want) to tell me.

Doc, I’m not sure how to talk to her about this because I don’t want to trigger a trauma reaction if it’s true (or even if it’s not). I should add that she does have a therapist, as do I. I guess I am just asking for your perspective on how to approach this topic with her. Is this a conversation that should maybe be had in couples counseling, rather than me try to do it on my own? And, though I’m afraid to ask, do you think this situation, if the things I suspect are true, might end up being one of those deal-breaking situations where the relationship has to end because there’s an insurmountable issue that is no one’s fault? (God, I hope not.)

Thanks for any thoughts you might have.

Untold Stories

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My Boyfriend Keeps Calling Me A Slut And I Don’t Know Why

April 13, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

My boyfriend and I have been together for six years. I am 40 and he is 50. When we first met, I was attracted to him but I thought he was not available. We worked together for a few months. The nature of the work is that we spent nearly the whole day together in the field each day, and we got to know each other well.

When we met, I had been divorced for about six months. During that time, I had a few casual hookups and short relationships. One of these casual relationships happened while we were friends. At the time, I confided in him about it. Time passed, my boyfriend and I started dating, and I haven’t thought about being with anyone else since.

The issue is that he frequently brings up the fact that I had sex with this other person. Sometimes it is in the context of me giving him a criticism or a complaint, and his response is “Well, you did this thing.” Sometimes, this connection seems, to me, to be illogical and unfair. For example, the most recent time was a few days ago when I said something to him about being careful because of the virus (his job requires him to be go out in public every day). He was moody for a few days and then told me that it was hypocritical of me to tell him to be careful of getting sick when I apparently think nothing of sleeping with random guys who could have diseases. In fact, I probably have all kinds of diseases I don’t even know about, according to him. Sometimes, when he starts thinking about this past incident, he will say (text) pretty nasty, slut shaming-type things to me.

The other piece to this is that I believe he has some kind of undiagnosed psychological condition such as depression or bipolar disorder. I’ve suggested that he go to a psychologist, or that we go to therapy, but he has never wanted to do that.

The end result of all this is twofold:

1) I feel like I hesitate bring up many issues for discussion because I’m afraid it will become about how I slept with someone six years ago before we were dating.

2) I get confused by the way he does this, because I think, Why is he with me if he thinks I’m so trashy? But also, I think that sometimes he gets into his head and maybe it’s more about how he’s feeling than it is about anything I have done, and I can just ignore these episodes.

So should I treat this as something that he does that is irrational and maybe an expression of his mental health? Just let him vent and then forget about it? (I have sometimes just temporarily blocked him for the night and by the next morning everything is fine). On one hand, I have a pretty forgiving temperament and I can easily overlook it. On the other hand, I feel something like despair when I think that in five years, ten years, etc., he’s still going to be saying “In 2013 you did x” every few months. I just want a better way to communicate with each other, especially when we are in disagreement.

Past Is Prologue

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Why Do Her Guy Friends Get Weird After Sex?

March 13, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

Straight cis female in her late 20s here. I don’t date a lot and sometimes crave physical intimacy, so when I do have sex a few times a year it’ll typically be with a friend I’ve noticed seems open to it (to be clear, different friends, not one specific person). Usually we’ll be drinking and hanging out and it turns into a sleepover. The past year, though, I broke this habit because I’ve lost some friendships this way — basically, they all ghost me after sleeping with me, even if we’ve been friends for years prior.

Tell me this: why are guys so weird about casual sex? As far as I can tell, it’s not that they develop feelings for me… it’s that they think I have or will develop feelings for THEM and therefore distance themselves so they don’t have to face the awkwardness of turning me down for a relationship. Problem is, I don’t want anything more from them! I just sometimes want to have a fun sexual encounter and would rather do it with a friend than a stranger, for a variety of reasons including but not limited to safety. I don’t think this is a bizarre or extraordinary concept, but I could be wrong.

It really feels like the guys I sleep with have been conditioned to assume the girl always “wants more” and it’s their job to fend her off. That in and of itself I find injurious, but it’s adding insult to injury knowing that these guys like me enough to fuck but not to date (irrespective of how I myself feel about them). Also, side note: the offense I feel about this might have something to do with a deep-seated insecurity about my weight — I take care of myself and I know I’m pretty, but I’m tall and generally large. (Think Ashley Graham but WAY less smoldering.) There’s this notion that fat girls are fine to sleep with but not be seen in public with, and I can’t help but let that tinge my thoughts sometimes.

If these friends DID develop feelings for me, I assume they’d do something about it, but none of them has ever asked me out after sleeping with me, so I come to that conclusion by process of elimination. If they weren’t weird about being friends after sex, this wouldn’t bother me, but as it stands, it just magnifies their lack of interest in me as a whole person, with both sexual and social needs. So I lose a friend and feel undesirable. Super fun.

Recently I messed up and slept with a friend of 2-3 years I had always told myself I wouldn’t sleep with. When it was clear that’s where things were headed one drunken night, I said I wanted to keep being friends even though I knew sometimes things can get awkward after intimacy–I didn’t want that to happen because I value our friendship so much. I even paused while making out (pre-sex) because I was really worried it would mess up our friendship. Ultimately we kept going because I knew acting so torn probably WAS seeming weird and anyway we had already started down that path, so even if we stopped then it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in terms of what happened between us afterward. (I didn’t voice any of that last part, just reasoned through it in my head.)

Surprise surprise, now things are markedly weird between us. He’s gone completely AWOL on our friendship–we used to see each other every couple weeks and occasionally text in between, but he hasn’t responded to any of my 2-3 texts over the past month about random, innocuous, friendly things. I also recently ran into him at an event we used to sometimes attend together with other friends. He always used to invite me if he was planning to go, but clearly isn’t doing that anymore. Essentially, I acted the same way after we had sex as before we had sex… and apparently there’s something wrong with that? I know better than to ask him why he’s being weird; guys loooove gaslighting in response to that question, as I’m sure everyone knows.

Am I crazy for having the expectation that I can maintain a friendship after sex? Is there something wrong with wanting that? My solution these days is to not sleep with friends anymore, which is fine and easy and not a problem, but I still can’t get over the baffling pattern I encountered over the past few years. It could very well be I’m in denial and either REALLY bad in bed or somehow otherwise deficient, but I’m pretty self-aware and have decent self-esteem, so I doubt this would be the case–then again, if it’s happening every time, maybe I have a giant blind spot to something really crucial.

For what it’s worth, the most recent sexual encounter (the one detailed above) was good. Not the best I’ve ever had, and I’m guessing he’d say the same, but we both got off and I, for one, had a fun time. So why would he ghost our friendship like this? Why do they all?!

Thanks,

No, She Doesn’t Want More From You

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