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I Don’t Know How To Get Over My Ex

February 26, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I can’t move on from my ex. Or, really, I don’t want to move on. I’m still in love with her and I feel like we can make things work somehow—even though we’re not speaking at the moment.

The story: At the beginning of 2020, I separated from my wife of two and a half years (call her A). We had been long-distance for most of our relationship, and having problems for a while, although I didn’t acknowledge them until they blew up in our faces. I was sad and conflicted about our separation, but also relieved. It felt like the right decision for both of us.

About a month later (the end of February), I connected with B. I wasn’t looking to get serious with anyone, and I told B that. B was looking to date seriously, so I sort of thought we wouldn’t go anywhere. But we had such a strong connection, physically and emotionally.

After we’d been on a few dates, B left town to visit family. It so happened that this is when the COVID lockdown started, and she ended up staying with her family for almost 3 months. During this time, we texted every day. Soon this escalated to regular sexting, and then phone calls and Skype sessions. We talked for hours on end. At one point during this time I tried to break things off, because I didn’t feel ready for the kind of relationship she wanted. B was understanding. But, I texted her again a few days later and we went back to the same pattern.

We kept this up until she came back to town at the end of May. By this point I was all in. I told B I was in love with her and wanted to be exclusive. She told me she was in love with me too and wanted to date me. She did ask whether I thought I wanted to have kids, because up to that point I had told her I was unsure. I told her I was still unsure, but open to the idea. That seemed to satisfy her.

Things were great at first. We spent a lot of time together. The sex was (I think) the best the either of us had ever had. We were extremely open and emotionally vulnerable with each other. Most of the time, I felt totally at ease with her. But my uncertainty about having kids seemed like it started to weigh on her. In July she started expressing serious concerns about the fact that I wasn’t sure about having kids. She was also looking for a partner who would be the primary breadwinner, and she was worried that I wasn’t interested in this — or that I was interested in it only because it’s what she wanted. (Some more background: I was just finishing up a graduate degree program and unsure on my next steps — and likely many years away from making the kind of salary that could support a family.)

When these issues came up I would say things to assuage her, and we would carry on as if things were normal. But they kept coming up every couple weeks or, sometimes seemingly triggered by unrelated issues. (E.g., one time I liked the post of someone I had hooked up with in the past; B saw this and took it as evidence that I wasn’t ready for a committed relationship with the prospect of kids, etc).

In August, I made a trip out of town to see A, to close the door on our relationship–this would be our first in-person meeting since the prior fall. B and I had discussed this, and she was very supportive of my going to see A. But when I got back, B said she wanted to end things. She said she felt like she was getting in the way of my and A’s relationship, and didn’t want to feel like our relationship was caught up in the middle of that. I argued with her because I was so sure of my feelings for B and that things with A were over. We ended up deciding to take a break.

But, although B continued to insist we were on a break, we continued seeing each other, sleeping together, acting in every way like boyfriend and girlfriend. This continued for a couple weeks, during which we had more tense discussions about the issue of whether I really wanted to have a family and be a provider. I insisted that yes, I wanted this. And I did want it. My relationship with B had changed my perspective: I had never been with someone I was so passionate about. Unlike with A, I was excited about the prospect of having kids and building a family with B. But B felt like I only wanted these things because she wanted them, and that this put too much pressure on her.

At the same time, by the end of August, all of these conversations and the uncertainty about our relationship had started to make me insecure and needy. I was hyper-sensitive to her being less physically or verbally affectionate, or to her not wanting to have sex. When I expressed these things to her, she seemed to react both with understanding and attempts to soothe me — and frustration. The last week of August was filled with tension, with both of us getting frustrated with each other over small things. B broke up with me at the end of the month.

But we kept seeing each other. I sort of thought that this would be like the last time we “broke up”. Things were different, though. B expressed that she felt like she wasn’t in a place to have a relationship. I told her that I was fine with this, that I just wanted to know if she was dating or looking to date other guys, and she agreed. While we kept acting “relationship-y” in many ways and we continued to be sexually intimate, she wanted to stop having intercourse. As the weeks passed, she was comfortable with fewer and fewer sexual activities–she said she didn’t feel comfortable being so intimate with someone she wasn’t dating. She was also cagey about whether she was looking to date other guys, and expressed frustration when I asked about seeing a dating app on her phone, for instance. (I wasn’t snooping–an app notification popped up when she was showing me something on her phone.)

Our hangouts were usually pleasant, though, and B seemed genuinely more relaxed / at ease now that we weren’t dating. But this new arrangement only made me more needy and insecure. We would frequently have conversations negotiating our status (e.g., whether she was seeing other guys, what kind of sexual activities she was comfortable with, why we couldn’t just dating). I tried to say I was fine with the new situation, but obviously I wasn’t, and it would keep coming out. We agreed to stop talking/hanging out for a week at the end of September. After briefly resuming our quasi-romantic relationship, a final conversation about a month ago led to B insisting that we stop talking altogether.

I know this story sounds crazy. But I haven’t felt so strongly about someone ever. Despite our problems, I still feel like our chemistry is incredible. I can’t stop thinking about how to get her back–how much time I should go before reaching out, what I should do or say to convince her that I really want the things that she wants, whether I should try to be friends with her again, and so on.

I’ve been doing all the things you’re supposed to when you go through a breakup — focusing on personal growth, exercising, hanging out with friends, going on dates, etc. But I can’t get B off my mind.

I think I probably just need to hear some hard truths, so lay it on me.

Sincerely,
Stuck in Love

[Read more…]

Is It Too Late To Save My Marriage?

December 30, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Dr. NerdLove,

Longtime reader. I absolutely love your advice. Thank you for everything you’ve done for people, including myself. I’ve never written in but your articles have helped me through a lot. But now I need something more specific. I don’t think I’ve seen this yet. Here we go.

I am a 29 year old female, married to a 32 year old male. We have a 1 year old daughter together. Unfortunately, for most of our relationship I have been emotionally abused by him. Gaslighting, trying to separate me from family and friends, downplaying my accomplishments, yelling, lots of yelling, calling me names, and abusing alcohol; he’s done everything. I, luckily, have pretty high self-esteem and never fell for the ways he would try to separate me from people. I still have close friends and are close to my family. And they have been my rocks through some real torture.

I can’t say his negativity hasn’t had an effect on my self-esteem, or zero effect on relationships. I’m still nervous to invite friends over, worried he will ignore them (he’s done that) and make them feel really uncomfortable. So I go to their house. There’s a lot of things I realized I’ve been doing to make him more comfortable at the expense of my discomfort. Also, so we don’t fight.

It kills me I never left him. I did once but he got me back. I view myself as this strong woman, but it’s been eye-opening to go through something I’d never thought I would go through. And put up with things I never thought I’d put up with.

I hope I’ve given enough background because all of this is to say, about 3 months ago, he had a realization as to how he was treating me. He came home profusely apologized and admitted there was something wrong with his brain. He has sought help and is seeing a therapist. He has cut back on drinking A LOT. And I finally see the original man I fell in love with. At least parts to him. He’s starting to love my family again, we are having fun again, he is actually helping me with our child, he is listening and talking to me more. The list goes on. It’s everything I’ve wanted except…

It might be too little too late. I keep having flashbacks of all the shitty things he’s done to me. I keep having panic attacks and my therapist says I have PTSD. Even in these good times I’m on guard. Idk if that will ever go away. The other part is, it’s not like he’s made a full 180. He has A LOT to work on. It’s wonderful he’s putting in the work, but he still has anger issues, he still has problems with my friends, and he has yet to recognize how his childhood has played such a big part on who he is (he had an alcoholic, angry dad). He has told me his childhood was great. From the little snippets I’ve heard, it was not.

I realize this evolution is a process. I’m trying to be patient and kind. But it’s really hard. Really really hard. And I feel so bad because I want to leave him. He’s finally doing the things I’ve asked him to do for years and I still want to leave. I don’t know if I’ll ever be over what I’ve been through, what he’s done and said to me.

Let me note, as the father of my child, he will always be in my life. And I want him to be a part of our daughters life. This isn’t a situation where I am worried for her. He is a good dad. So if we separate I’d like us to remain friendly.

Am I being selfish? What kind of person doesn’t leave after someone slams cabinets but leaves after that same person starts to love and appreciate them? I’m just exhausted. Absolutely exhausted. And don’t know what to do.

-Tired

[Read more…]

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

[Read more…]

How Can I Learn To Avoid Being A Victim?

October 19, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I think I’ve come to the denouement of my real problem, but as it was a painful process and is still ongoing, I’d like to relate my story and see if you have any good advice for moving forward.

I cut ties with a toxic partner about a week ago. I think one of the hardest things about our relationship was seeing massive red flags everywhere and allowing myself to have my mental slate erased like an Etch-a-Sketch by the fact that this abuse was unintentional.

So, in 2013, I was feeling good about being alone when I met Jake (names have been changed to protect the innocent) online. We seemed to hit it off, so we started going out. We had mind-blowing earth-shattering sex that eclipses my memory of our first year. He was unemployed, and I helped him with the caring kick in the ass he needed to start making money again and move out of his parents’ house. He felt a lot of guilt about mooching off their support since he quit his lucrative last IT job and squandered his savings. I was also living at home, and understood the shame that comes from not having income.

I quit my retail job to work in my field in 2014 and was glad of it because my resume had even more holes in it than Jake’s swiss cheese history. I was let go about a month later. This was a big blow to my self-esteem but Jake was there to get me through the rough times. After living with roommates for a year, he decided to move with me to a shared house where I would be independent of my parents. He floated the idea of being my sole source of financial support, so I could focus on my career without stress.

Then he asked me to marry him.

I was a little taken aback since we were both kind of anti-wedding if not anti-patriarchal-symbol-of-property-exchange, but I said yes. In the months leading up to my moving in with Jake, his insistence on a D/s relationship became subtly more aggressive, and I said sure we can try that. I’m probably a french vanilla with sprinkles as kink goes, and it wasn’t difficult, until I got triggered one evening and was unable to “red” out (red means stop, yellow means slow down, like a stoplight) of a scene. I insisted that this was due to a scene dynamic I was unprepared for, but Jake cooled his jets and held onto resentment that I wasn’t into being kinky. A few months later, I tried to take it in a different direction – dog seemed to have a different connotation than slave to me, so I suggested pet play. Jake didn’t understand the distinction, but was excited to learn.

A few months later, I moved in with him. The roommates we shared a townhouse with were passive aggressive and weird and made life annoying. Worse, tensions at his job were inciting Jake to look for new work. When OPM investigated his candidacy further due to a fudging of being fired to a “mutual decision for me to leave,” Jake’s chances for keeping his new job seemed to diminish (as far as I know he still has it, go figure). We had a huge fight about whether the government was right to brand him not suitable for a clearance – I insisted that it was not a personal judgement of his character to say that if he lied to the government in fear of losing his job, maybe he wasn’t the best candidate for a clearance. He locked the door to our bedroom and bathroom for an hour.

Having resolved that fight semi-peaceably with a decision to table our engagement, which involved shearing off my bride hair, we moved forward. I got a job as a pet sitter and dog walker that was stressful but allowed me to be financially independent for the most part. I got a much better job a year later that was just enough above minimum wage for us to afford an apartment in an expensive part of the city closer to Jake’s job, where he was put on non-cleared overhead for a negotiated salary of 63k or so. Mine was somewhere around 30.

So we moved into our own one bedroom apartment in 2017. Fights were regular. In the interim years, my friends had stopped inviting us to social engagements. My family mentioned they wanted to see us more often. But whenever I would see someone without Jake, he treated it as emotional cheating, and leaving him out of my life. I increasingly wanted time alone in the apartment, which only spurred on Jake’s feelings of abandonment.

Somewhere around the third time I was provisionally fired and made to look for and train my own replacement at my job, I stopped making transfers for rent to Jake. My salary had been cut but I couldn’t find work elsewhere. We fought about it but never discussed it. He insisted that if I spent less on frivolous things, I’d have the money to pay him.

I walked out of my job one day and into the ER for fear of my safety from suicidal depression. Jake was supportive and joined me at the hospital. I quit my job officially later that day. In the months that followed, I worked on myself and got two jobs to make ends meet – part-time at the job I’d quit a month ago, and part time dog walking. Things had reached a comfortable lull that I was thinking Jake and I could move forward from. I asked him about getting out of our lease and he said not to worry about it.

Then one day he started a roundabout conversation about moving into a townhouse again, this time renting a room so that I could afford rent. At this point, I owed him back rent on our agreement of some $3000. Next day, the current lease was cancelled, waiting for my signature. He toured houses without me, and we had our last big fight, after which I stormed out to stay with my mom.

I moved out, and we stayed friends. We tried a few months later to patch things up. It didn’t work. My family hated how he sponged my time. Then the pandemic hit. Jake texted me, as he often did while we were together, saying it was difficult to be the person no one wanted to talk to. I texted back viciously that he could see a therapist, work on himself for once. He blocked me. My family and friends rejoiced and told me all the ways he was awful. I thought it was because they were trying to be supportive.

Then last week I was thinking (a dangerous pastime), wondering how Jake was and if he wanted closure. He wasn’t the type to just cut ties out of the blue. I offered an olive branch over text and he called me by our secret pet name for each other in return.

In the next week, I talked with him for about 8 hours a day for four days. Jake had started therapy and antidepressants. Was working toward getting better and wanted to be friends, even platonic partners. On the fourth day, my family intervened. Since then, I’ve been untangling a web of unintentional gaslighting going back almost 7 years. I wouldn’t say I’m not responsible for at least some of the toxicity between us. But I have learned that he does not care about me and that was all I needed to put him out of my life for good. I am aware of the ways I hurt him – most were made clear to me at the time; some I had come to on my own. I didn’t and still don’t know how deeply I was hurt by our relationship.

I know, and am sorry, that you have first hand experience with both sides of this kind of toxicity. I think that’s why I’m asking you, now that I’ve asked everyone else in my life.

I guess what I’m wondering, as someone intentionally oblivious, being manipulated and abused by someone just as intentionally oblivious of that manipulation, how to understand and prevent it from happening again?

How can I know myself when my mirror is so distorted from years of warping? How can I know my yes when my no has been so absent? How can I recover and share mutual intimacy with future partners? More importantly, how can I love myself after years of being “loved” the wrong way?

Ex-Victim

[Read more…]

How Do We Tell Our Families We’re Polyamorous?

September 28, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc –

My wife and I have been together for 11 years and have 3 great kids. About three years ago my wife’s friend moved in during a tough spot and never left – we have been a ‘throuple’ ever since and she gave birth about a year ago. After our daughter was born we even had a ceremony and signed a living will to make us all ‘married’.

Here is the issue: She won’t tell her family. They all think we took her in during a rough patch and let her stay after she got knocked up by a dude they have all made up in her minds she was dating. They think it’s cute that she and my wife call me ‘daddy’ when they hand me the baby (‘go to daddy’ etc). My mother and sister know and are, broadly speaking, supportive. My wife’s family adores my “second wife”* and daughter.

*Yes we need better language than that but it’s the best I’ve got.

I get that her family is very conservative but I am not comfortable hiding our deal. I am in love two beautiful women and have great kids. Let’s shout it from the mountaintops or, at least, speak it in conversational tones from a well sized hill.

How do we come out to her family? I’m not comfortable hiding.

Thank You,
Three Some and More

[Read more…]

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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

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