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You are here: Home / Archives for domestic abuse

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Is My Friend Being Abused?

February 1, 2019 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

(Doctor’s Note: today’s letter deals with abusive relationships.)

Hello Doc,

I would normally dispense with the niceties and whatnot, but I feel like I’m in the middle of a potential crisis.

The long story made short is that I’m a 23 year old guy who had just graduated from college with a bachelor’s, and there’s a female friend of mine  – “Annie” — who had recently turned 29 (although if you ask her, she’s around 32 but that’s a detail I’ll get to later).

I’ve become increasingly concerned about her, to put it lightly. We’ve built up a rather strong friendship over the course of well over a year, but it seems like something has been very off over the past few months.

I know this because she was willing to become good friends because she gave me her number to text her (before that, we were DMing each other via Instagram). We’ve shared quite a lot of similar interests in just about a lot of topics (ranging from our favorite movies to particular styles of art), as well as recommended each other various new things to try. We’ve even vented to each other about our more personal secrets.

But like I said, it seems like there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.

I noticed that Annie wasn’t really reading my messages or my DMs anymore plus her overall activity on Instagram and Tumblr have been significantly reduced, so I decided to email her. Some time ago, I asked her (through email of course) if she would be able to come to my graduation ceremony as well as let me stay over at her place (I graduated with honors and there was a cosplay convention on that same weekend as my graduation, and the con was about a couple of hours from where I live).  I was actually kind of expecting “no” because she wasn’t used to people staying over at her place, nor was she the kind of person to attend events with loud music and tons of people.

(In fact, neither am I, but graduation is pretty much a huge stepping stone that deserves commemoration).

The reason why wasn’t what I expected at all. She declined both offers because as of this writing, she has a fiancé that she’s been with for about three years now, and if her fiancé found out that another guy (even a male friend) took her to an event or let him stay at her place, then in her own exact words, “he would be significantly less than pleased… to put it lightly.” She then added that if her fiancé were to find out that we had been messaging each other as much as we had been in the past, then she would be forced to block me from all social media.

This wasn’t the only strange behavior I’ve seen from her. She has mentioned that she’s incredibly introverted and antisocial, but at least when we were talking more, she would at least take the time to talk when she was available. Not the case anymore. In fact, she was perfectly willing to give me her number in the past, but now it seems like she blocked my number for no apparent reason. She then DMed me on Instagram about that, trying to brush it off as a bug on her phone.

When another friend of mine tried to reach out to Annie, to check if this were a potentially abusive relationship, the she straight-up blocked them.

Finally, her whole demeanor has become a lot more… subdued, to say the least. I remember when we were texting until the wee hours of the night (it helps that she’s a night owl), she would get very emotional and very passionate about various topics. Nowadays, her personality seems to have just deflated into a shadow of her former self. She’s way less emotional now, and has become somewhat impersonal, almost robotic.

I’ve talked to another friend who recently got engaged , and they said that being engaged can come with less engagement with other people (especially on social media). According to them, it does kind of come with the territory. I do figure that’s understandable, except this feels less “guess they can’t stop bangin’” and more “blink twice if your soul is being held in a jar.”

Initially, I just brushed off all of this strange behavior from her because she recently became a business owner who works with several different countries (specifically China). Knowing that and her night owl tendencies, I could understand why she would be less active because I imagine that it’s a very demanding job that requires several hours of commitment. I mean, we’re both adults here, we both have real-world work to do.

In fact, I would even understand her having a fiancé and would have otherwise backed off because that kind of relationship requires a special kind of commitment… if her fiancé in question hadn’t been showing some serious red flags.

I just want to confirm that these are in fact red flags, and that I’m not going crazy:

– Annie telling me that her fiancé would be significantly less than pleased if any guy (including a male friend) took her to an event or let a male friend stay at her place.
– Annie telling me that if her fiancé found out we’ve been messaging each other as much as we had been in the past, then her fiancé would force her to have her block me from all forms of contact
– Her suddenly becoming way more willing to burn bridges with people, even with people she’s called friends for years (I can’t confirm this, but it seems like she’s unfollowed more friends who happened to be abuse survivors)
– Her outright disappearing from all social media and forms of contact (including her removing me from her Pokémon GO friends list for no apparent reason); she mentioned she’s a business owner who works into the wee hours of the night, but this disappearance is unusual even for her (I mean, she’s a diehard Pokémon fan for life!)
– Her apparently changing her age online to be “older” than she actually is (she has a history of dating men older than she is because she apparently finds herself unable to connect with guys around her own age, but this was well before I came into the picture)

After she told me about all the things with her fiancé and whatnot, I sent her a response email telling her about the potential red flags their relationship is showing, as well as all the strange behaviors that she’s been exhibiting over the past couple of months.

I haven’t heard from her since.

Interestingly enough, as of this writing, she hasn’t even unfollowed me on Instagram (she decided to follow me after her account had gotten hacked by Russian spammers; that was cleared up within a matter of hours), not even after I sent her that last email or after she blocked that friend who reached out to her.

This isn’t like she’s just “unfamiliar” with abusive relationships in the past; if anything, she has quite a history with them. Apparently when she was approximately closer to my age several years ago, she was in an extremely abusive relationship with a man who was about twice her age at that time. She doesn’t really want to talk about the details, but it more or less left her impoverished as soon as she left. Not too long after that, she met another guy and they started dating soon after. This now-ex had psychologically and sexually abused her, including forcing her to take alcohol and hard drugs to force her into caving in. As a result, she ended up alienating people she cared about, did some things that were uncomfortable and stranger for her, and developed C-PTSD as a result.

After all of this, she even created a sort of charity for abuse survivors and even creates hypnosis tapes for those survivors in order to help them recover (she’s a certified hypnotherapist, complete with degrees).

Additionally, I even did some asking around on online forums and chat rooms in order to determine if her fiancé’s behavior was indeed becoming abusive, and the overall consensus was pretty much “yes, the relationship is toxic AF and she should nope the fuck out of there ASAP.”

While all of this might be bad enough, here comes the part where I fucked up. After her mentioning that she had a fiancé, I was in panic mode because of past friendships that would cease to exist because that friend would immediately ghost me after that relationship had started (that’s another story entirely), and as a result, I let it slip that I was planning on asking her out someday. At first, I saw her as someone that I could summon up the courage to ask out, but as time passed, I got to know her more and saw her as the good friend I now have, to the point where I simply forgot to ask her out.

As a result, she got scared and put “romantically unavailable” on her Instagram bio (apparently because two other friends had tried to ask her out around the same time; I honestly didn’t know about this until another friend told me).

However, the number-blocking and deletion from her Pokémon GO friends list happened way before I let that slip out, so there’s no correlation here.

Besides, if she had been for fiancé for about that length of time, asking her out would have been a moot point back then.

I know you’re going to summon the Chair Leg of Truth on me for this cardinal sin, but fuck it, I honestly don’t care anymore because first and foremost, she’s my friend. I care about her as an individual, and I most certainly care about her safety (especially her safety).

I suppose I could sum it up to that being an inconvenient crush, but who knows? But then again, not knowing is part of the human experience, isn’t it?

It’s just that I really think she’s an awesome person, that’s it. In fact, she’s actually one of the few people I can actually talk to not just about personal items, but also about intellectually stimulating topics in such a way that I really can’t with most other people.

However, I am myself NOT ready for another relationship due to baggage that I won’t get into here (because then this will be a hell of a lot longer than it needs to be). I don’t feel emotionally ready for it, is what I’m trying to say. I even have plans to see a therapist to address this kind of baggage. On top of that, something like “getting into her pants” is NOT something I’ve thought about at all, not when she could be in potential danger.

Besides, it’s not like I can just drop her and move on with my life either, because like I said, her life could potentially be in danger.

In any case, I’ve asked my other friends for advice on what to do about this, and the best advice I’ve received so far is to just give my friend space. That’s… exactly what I did. I haven’t spoken to her in weeks, although I still find myself worrying about her every now and then, to the point where I check up on her to see that she’s doing ok (and that she hasn’t blocked me yet in case I finally decide to reach out to her).

I really don’t know what else to do. I guess I’m just looking for additional insight (especially from a professional), but more important, I just need advice on what I can do for my friend who may have potentially trapped herself into yet another abusive relationship.

Thank you for your time.

Stuck in the Middle with a Scorpion

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Ask Dr. NerdLove Tagged With: abuse warning signs, abusive relationships, ask dr. nerdlove, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, getting help, platonic friendship, white knight syndrome

No, Micro-Cheating Isn’t A Thing

January 15, 2018 by Dr. NerdLove 171 Comments

Every day it seems as though there’s a new “trend” in the world of dating that’s meant to panic us all. Whether it’s “cuffing season”, “backburnering”, “roaching”1 or some other cutesy Millennial-sounding name, there’s a flurry of articles to tell us all to watch out for it. And now there’s “micro-cheating”.

I was blissfully unaware of this current concept until Friday. That was when, as so often happens, my friends decided that evidently I don’t have enough rage in my life. But hey, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t at least brush up on the latest dating panics.

After reading a series of articles from Buzzfeed, Thought Catalog2, Business Insider, and more… well…

I feel a column coming on

Needless to say, I have some opinions on the concept of “micro-cheating”. And why, specifically, it’s bullshit.

Let’s begin, shall we?

What, Exactly, Is Micro-Cheating?

One of the important questions in any relationship is, simply, what have we promised to one another? For a monogamous couple, the line is fairly simple: they’ve agreed that they won’t have sex or engage in sexual activity with other people. Now, what precisely “counts” as cheating can vary – for some, it’s kissing, for others it requires the exchange of bodily fluids – but the lines are relatively clear cut. The idea of “emotional” cheating is… less so. In fact, many people would question whether emotional cheating is even a thing. But while we can dicker over whether it’s possible to have an “emotional affair”, sometimes the way we interact with other people can cause our partners distress.

But then we have “micro-cheating”.

Dating expert Melanie Shilling told Huffington Post Australia that mirco-cheating is “a series of seemingly small actions that indicate a person is emotionally or physically focused on someone outside their relationship.” And what would micro-cheating entail?

According to Shilling, one example would be texting someone outside your relationship or giving them compliments that you don’t give your partner. Other examples include commemorating anniversaries or memories with your ex, shutting chat windows when your partner enters the room, spending too much time on your phone on a date, or sending too many heart emojis when you text someone.

Being aware that other women exist? Totally micro-cheating.

Did you have a business meeting with someone of the opposite sex3 and not get any business done? Micro-cheating, according to Shilling.

Shilling is hardly the first to use the term micro-cheating. In the article 33 Ways Your Boyfriend Is Micro-Cheating (And Totally Getting Away With It), other examples include:

  • Reaching out to a girl who’s “just a friend” for a recommendation or advice on an issue he could easily Google the answer to
  • Confiding in or venting to someone other than his girlfriend when he’s feeling especially emotional
  • Recommending that his girlfriend starts wearing a certain type of clothing because he secretly wants her to look like the girl he’s kind of crushing on.
  • Gifting his girlfriend with a bottle of the perfume his crush wears so she’ll smell like his latest fantasy chick.
  • Closing his eyes when he needs a minute to escape and daydreaming about the girl he’s crushing on
  • Sending a photo to an ex that reminds him of a good time past
  • Establishing secret code words and/or inside jokes with women outside his romantic relationship

Needless to say, micro-cheating seems to be an epidemic, causing untold trauma to unsuspecting innocents as their lothario partners… interact with people outside their relationships like emotionally mature human beings?

This? This right here is why Daddy drinks.

“Stand aside NerdLove, this is a job for Doctor Whisky.”

This Is How To Be A Human

OK, let’s be real here. This is, to use the technical term, mindfuckingly absurd. It’s one thing to argue that emotional infidelity exists in the first place. It’s another entirely to pathologize normal behavior in a way that needlessly stokes the fires of insecurity and anxiety. The idea that someone can not only be cheating on you, but possibly cheating on you without realizing it is so far into the waters of what-the-fuckery that sanity is only a speck on the horizon. To be blunt, this reads less like the behaviors of a cheating partner and the ravings of someone who’s convinced that their partner is banging telepaths whenever they close their eyes.

They’re out there you know. And they’re horny.

99.9% of the behaviors listed are quite literally basic human interaction with friends. The remainder is so baroque that I’m left wondering if it was borrowed from a bad telenovela.

“…are…. are the monogamists ok?”

Take Shilling’s example of reaching out to an ex about an anniversary or some other significant event. To some, this might be seen as a sign of putting an ex ahead of your partner. Others might recognize this as “being a friend”. Ending a relationship doesn’t mean that you hate your ex, nor does it mean your entire relationship gets the damnatio memoriae. The fact that you have fond memories of your time together doesn’t mean you don’t care for your partner, any more than being nostalgia means you don’t care for your life now.

Do they close their laptop when someone comes in the room? They could be having steamy cybersex… or they could want to give their partner their full attention. Or they may just hate it when people read over their shoulder. They could be planning a surprise. Or their partner could, y’know, be irrationally jealous and they don’t feel like having a fight right now.

Did they have a meeting with someone of the opposite sex where no “business” got done? Have you been to business meetings, AKA where productivity goes to die?

Reaching out to a friend instead of Googling the answer? Google can do many things, but it can’t provide context. It can’t understand your needs based on knowing your particular circumstances. Or you may simply trust that friend over anonymous users on Reddit.

Are they using heart emojis in Facebook comments to people? That is, literally, how people communicate these days. Unicode hearts isn’t any more of an indicator that you’re giving your love to someone else any more than the barf emoji means you have food poisoning right now.

They have inside jokes with people? Friendship.

They confide with someone who’s not their partner? Friendship.

Giving a unique compliment to another person? Friendship.

Now, encouraging your partner to wear clothes or perfume that another person wears is weird… but quite frankly, the standards raised here are so questionable that I’m left wondering whether we can trust the interpretation of someone who seems to blare “Before He Cheats” 24/7 and Googles “undetectable keylogger” for fun. These are the declarations of someone who could take the silver in existential paranoia and the bronze in manipulative motherfucker.

And while it’s inarguable that secrecy and sketchy behavior can be signs of ill intent, there’s another, more sinister side to these “signs” of incipient infidelity.

Thou Shalt Have No Privacy Before Me

If there’s one common denominator with many of the signs of “micro-cheating” it’s this: you’re spending time with anyone other than your partner. Your partner is your alpha. Your partner is omega. They are all things and all people to you and to ignore this sacred bond is the crime that can never be forgiven.

In and of itself, this is the material of Overly Obsessed Girlfriend memes.

No but for real, these are kinda gross.

However, the underlying theme of these “micro-cheating” expressions is one of isolation and control. The idea that you don’t have any secrets from your partner, for example, is disturbing. How dare you not let your partner see what you’re writing. What kind of monster wouldn’t let his or her snugglebunny have access to every corner of their life? Only a cheating bastard would, duh! After all, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.

The desire for privacy – for a corner of your life that you don’t share – becomes cause for suspicion. Even your thoughts become suspect; are you taking a moment to daydream about something else? Cheater.

Just as disturbing is the theme of isolation. Reaching out to another friend is, likewise, a sign that you’re undermining your relationship. Having shared jokes, private conversations or even reminiscing over your past together is “putting your partner in second place.” Any relationship with someone becomes taboo because of the potential for micro-cheating. Did that business lunch last too long? Is he making too many calls about “work” for the actual amount of work done? Is he looking too long at another woman? Why did he send that link to her? Why did he laugh like that her joke. Is he too complimentary of her? Is he not complimentary enough?

As absurd and over the top these accusations sound, to many people, they’re distressingly familiar. It’s not a laughable way to put the fun in dysfunctional, it’s a flashback.

See, the behavior encouraged by the concept of “micro-cheating” mirrors classic abusive behavior.

  • Isolating you from your friends? Check.
  • Keeping tabs on who you talk to, who you spend time with, even who you message on Facebook? Check.
  • Demanding access to your emails and text messages? Check.
  • Constantly accusing you of “cheating” on them? Double-fucking-check.

Literally everything becomes a “reason” for the aggrieved partner to cry “Cheater!” , including and especially activities that the abused victim might use to protect themselves. Why would he give someone a fake name in his contacts? Because he’s a cheater… or because he’s hoping to keep it a secret from his controlling abuser? Why would she close her messaging app when her partner came in the room? Because she’s exchanging sexy texts with her secret lover… or because she’s reaching out for help to leave?

Every behavior, no matter how banal or mundane, becomes justification to be angry at their lover. These supposed slights and micro-infidelities, these ways of “undermining the relationship” makes all of the problems the fault of the micro-cheater. It wouldn’t be this bad if you just would stop giving reasons for them to be so mad at you all the time. 

Pathologized Anxiety and Weaponized Suspicion

Part of what is so insidious about the concept of “micro-cheating” is how it plays on anxieties and fears about not just relationships, but modern society. With the advent of social media, always-on Internet connections, texting apps and movie studios in our pockets, we are capable of connecting with more people than ever – and often in ways that others may be unaware of. It’s one thing if your husband comes home with the classic lipstick on his collar or your wife smells faintly of someone else’s cologne. It may break your heart to know that they’ve cheated on you, but you have a way of detecting it. It’s harder to conceal an infidelity when you have to be physically present to arrange it.

But when they can have entire conversations with other people – in front of you – that you are unaware of, how can you be sure that they’re not sharing too much? With the way Facebook encourages us to overshare and Instagram prods us to present a very particular form of glamor, how many ways is there for some homewrecker to sneak into your relationship.

Is he arranging an affair right in front of you?!

And worse – you don’t know who your sweetie may be in contact with, or why. He says he’s just friends with this person… but why has he liked so many of his photos on Instagram? Why did she share that article about sex positions on his wall? Why did she tell her ex “happy birthday” with a silly little gif?

Schilling can say that you need to be rational and objective, but the questions themselves are predicated on the idea that privacy is de-facto bad and having relationships separate from your partner are inherently suspicious. It presumes, not just a universal morality, but a universal and unspoken number of rules – rules that you can break without realizing they even exist. And – in the style of all great catch-22s – questioning the premise is cause for suspicion. You wouldn’t care so much about it if you weren’t thinking about getting away with something, would you?

Part of what makes the concept of micro-cheating both absurd and infuriating is that there is the occasional warning sign to be found. Somebody who’s continually downplaying their relationship – “I’m seeing someone, but it’s not serious. No she doesn’t get me, he’s always so distant, we haven’t had sex in months” – is a bad sign. But by the time you get to the legitimate warning signs, you’ve had to wade through lists of made up offenses that range from the banal to scenarios that would be farcical if they weren’t being portrayed as a real and deadly threat to your relationship.

All any of this does is create a system where any suspicion is valid and the worst possible explanation is the most likely. Trust your gut because you know something is wrong – even if the problem is that you don’t trust your partner.

And let’s be real; by the time someone is giving another woman a “hope certificate”, their current relationship may not be dead, but it sure as hell is on life support. And the doctor’s hand is hovering over the switch.

Care and Feeding of a Strong Relationship

Part of what makes the idea of micro-cheating harmful is that it presumes that any interest in another person is inherently bad. But the fact of the matter is that everyone gets crushes. Everyone finds themselves infatuated with another person or finds themselves having sweaty thoughts about somebody – regardless of their relationship status. It’s part of the human condition; no one person can be all things to us. We are all going to be interested in other people and no amount of monitoring is going to change that. Monogamy just means that we choose not to sleep with other people, not that we don’t want to.

And that’s fine. But trying to safeguard the primacy of your relationship by watching for signs of “micro-cheating” just creates a system of confirmation bias; you’ll find reasons to be suspicious because you’re expecting to see them. It discourages trust between partners and actively damages the relationship. Relationships aren’t depositions. You aren’t obligated to account for every thought, every action and every line of text, just because you’re dating someone. Putting a ring on it doesn’t mean that you no longer have an expectation of privacy. You always have the right to your own life and your own secrets.

“Look I’m sure that if I caught him checking my phone I’d be just fine because HEY SHUT UP.”

You also have the right to your own friendships outside of the relationship. Commitment doesn’t mean you signed a contract that says “All Your Attention Are Belong To Us”. Having friends, even friends of your preferred gender isn’t a threat to your relationship. Even being flirty with other people doesn’t mean that you are undermining things.

What makes a strong relationship are strong boundaries, not asserting one person’s beliefs as a universal standard. It’s on both parties to discuss and agree what the rules to their relationship are. Micro-cheating isn’t a threat to the relationship; it’s not even a thing. The real threat to the relationship is baseless accusations, accusations based on bullshit standards and substituting anxiety as intuition. If you want your relationship to thrive, forget the “micro-cheating” bullshit. Build a relationship founded on respect, trust and communication with your partner instead.

 

 

  1. Is that a thing? Did I make that one up? Maybe I should write a panic-inducing article about roaching [↩]
  2. Full disclosure: my book New Game +: The Geek’s Guide to Love, Sex and Dating is published through Thought Catalog [↩]
  3. Does this mean that gay men are incapable of micro-cheating? Or are they forever micro-cheating? [↩]

Filed Under: Relationships, Society, What Not To Do, wtf Tagged With: abuse warning signs, abusive relationships, cheating, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, is he cheating, is it cheating if, micro-cheating, relationship trends, relationships

Invisible Victims: Men In Abusive Relationships

June 16, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 99 Comments

Right off the bat: we’re going to be talking about abusive relationships. This is a subject that can be touchy for some people, so proceed with all caution.

So with all that said:

I write a lot about men behaving badly. In fact, I’m regularly accused – with some accuracy – of being much harder on men than I am on women. This is because, frankly, I want men to be better. I want masculinity to be something positive, not something toxic that mistakes violence for power, anger for strength, sex for value.

Sometimes that means talking about things men are doing wrong, so they can recognize it and do better.

Sometimes it means teaching men how to help themselves… even when the world tells them that they can’t.

Which is why I want to talk about a subject we don’t hear much about: when men find themselves trapped in abusive relationships.

In a lot of ways, men are frequently invisible victims of relationship abuse. When we think of abusive relationships, we often default to the idea of a woman as the victim with a man as the perpetrator. Rarely do we imagine men as the victims. To do so is almost comical – literally. The image of the angry housewife – usually fat and unattractive – waiting for at home for her milquetoast husband with curlers in her hair and a rolling pin, ready to dispense retributory violence for some slight, has been around for generations.

There’re only about 5 billion like this on stock photo sites.

But despite the jokes and cartoons about “henpecked husbands”, more men than many would expect are trapped in abusive relationships. It spans the gamut of ages and ethnicities, of sexual orientations and gender identities.

So today I want to shed some light on the subject – as well as talk about how to recognize an abusive relationship and how to leave one.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Masculinity, Relationships Tagged With: abusive relationships, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, male victims of abuse, men in abusive relationships, physical abuse

About Dr. NerdLove:

Harris O'Malley (AKA Dr. NerdLove) is an internationally recognized blogger and dating coach who gives dating advice to geeks of all stripes. Making nerds sexier since 20011

Remember: Dr. NerdLove is not really a doctor. [Read More …]

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Recent Comments

  • Mike Something I'd like to add LW1, I'm going to suggest an exercise I also recently suggested to another LW recently: if you find yourself in a situation like this again where you have just begun dating...

    Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Do People Say “It’s Not You, It’s Me?” ·  February 20, 2019

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    Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Do People Say “It’s Not You, It’s Me?” ·  February 20, 2019

  • aennilla LW2: I think PintsizeBro hit the nail right on the head there. People often think that intimacy disappears when they stop having sex, not realizing that the reason sex stopped is because they for some...

    Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Do People Say “It’s Not You, It’s Me?” ·  February 20, 2019

  • PintsizeBro LW1, I hope this doesn't come off as condescending because that's not how I mean it, but your mindset exactly reflects your current age. Even if you hadn't mentioned your age and college, I would have...

    Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Do People Say “It’s Not You, It’s Me?” ·  February 20, 2019

  • PintsizeBro LW2, you mention the lack of kissing almost as an afterthought, but that strikes me as the place to start. It sounds like your husband has retreated from non-sexual physical affection as well. Do you...

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