emotional health Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

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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DR. NERDLOVE LIVE: Managing Your Emotional Health During COVID-19

March 25, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

How do you manage anxiety in the middle of a pandemic? How is living under quarantine affecting you? In my first LIVE teleseminar, I talk about how to manage stress and maintain your emotional health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Want to take part? The next seminar is on 3/31 at 3 PM CST. Join me at the Dr. NerdLove Facebook Page and be sure to join the NerdLove Academy group!

DOCTOR’S NOTE: So since I did this over Facebook Live, there’s a little funkiness with the audio. I’ve done my best to clean it up but some of it is baked into the episode itself. Sorry ’bout that, we’re seeing what can be done for next time.

Does He Need To Let Go of Past Relationships?

February 24, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

To the esteemed Dr. NerdLove:

Should I get rid of a treasured memento of a past romantic (and currently platonic) relationship before pursuing a new one?

I’ve only been in one serious relationship. It started as an online, long-distance relationship shortly after high school. After a couple years, she moved in with me. While we had our ups and downs, of course, I think it was mostly a pretty solid and healthy relationship overall. Of course, we were young; we were therefore experiencing a whirlwind of change both within ourselves, and outside of ourselves.

To summarize, we’ll fast-forward a decade or so: ultimately, she leaves me and moves back home. I was not fulfilling her needs, which hurt a lot because I felt like she was fulfilling mine well; I did not want her to leave. We tried some couples therapy, but I think it was “too little, too late.” While I did not want her to leave, I respected her decision and assisted her in getting back home safely. So while the breakup was certainly not mutual, I still feel like it was relatively amicable; we wanted to stay friends.

So we agreed to go silent for a few months. We started talking again at the new year (she left in September of 2014); however, it quickly became apparent that I was not ready for friendship yet, although she had moved on. So we agreed to go silent again. In late 2018, I entered therapy. After some time, my therapist suggested I contact her again; I did so in early 2019, and we have been doing well as friends since then.

While we were still together romantically, she gave me an item that she hand-crafted from scratch. I still have this item, and it reminds me of the good times that we shared. While I am not generally a sentimental person, this particular item has strong sentimental value for me.

However, I have recently considered that I might start dating – for the first time, at age thirty-five. That’s likely to come with a whole host of complications on its own, and I’m definitely nervous about it.

But this brings me back to my question: should I get rid of the item that my ex crafted for me? Or, perhaps more accurately: would it be a disservice to a new relationship for me to continue holding on to it? Is it an indication that I’m not fully “over” my ex?

Were the situation reversed, I think I would feel uneasy about it. But I’m also still quite insecure (working on that before I wade into the dating pool), so I’m not sure how a “healthy” person would feel about it.

What are your thoughts?

Old, Alone, and Still Confused

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Why Does He Keep Failing At Relationships?

February 10, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello, Doc.
I’m 27 years old guy. Lately, I’ve been trying to comprehend my feelings about my last two relationships and setting my boundaries. I’ve always had low self-esteem with all that it implies. No firm boundaries, conflict avoidance and so forth. I’m working on improving my lifestyle and with the changes comes confidence. The only thing that leaves me confused is romantic relationships.

Last year I was dating this girl, May. Mostly out relationship was great. We had similar life positions, we took interest in each other’s hobbies and we hated the same things.

But.

Sometimes she would get really pissed at me for various reasons. Sometimes she would interpret my words or actions in a weird way, like I was trying to be covertly rude with her, other times…I don’t even know…bad mood? When she didn’t like something, she would lash out on me and say, in very unpleasant ways, that I don’t appreciate her. We dated for about six months in total and during that time she broke up with me three times. Every time she apologized shortly after the fight but refused to discuss it. After the third time we didn’t see each other for two months. Then we got back together, spend two weeks doing a lot of romantic stuff and having mind blowing, leg shaking sex (leg shaking for both of us, which was interesting). Until it happened again.

We were discussing our plans for the upcoming weekend when she said she wanted a surprise. I thought it was a cool idea. I said that I too want a surprise. She got mad. I did my best to defuse the situation and it turned out she thought that I meant some passive-aggressive shit like “Oh, I want many things too, honey!”. My idea was that I’d make something for her on one day and she would do something for me on the other. Sometimes I want to be treated like a queen too, you know. I decided that it was time to call it quits and thanked her for the good times. I know, I’m describing her as my crazy ex, but I can put my hands and my heart on the Necronomicon and swear that she is a cool and smart person and it really saddens me that our relationship didn’t work out. I guess we expected different things from each other.

Then there’s July. I dated her before May, about two and a half years ago. It was a hard case of oneitis. I adored her immensely. I had a crush on her since the first time I saw her. After two years of admiring her from a distance I asked her out. We dated for 5 months, she broke up with me and told she wanted to be friends. That was heartbreaking but I tried my best to stay cool. It was very hard to move on, as we are co-workers and I see her every day. But we actually became friends. Not close friends, but still. Over time, though, I started realizing that she’s not that great of a person as I imagined she is. She’s good and caring and all. But I feel like she’s a little resentful, a little tactless and a little manipulative. I say “a little” because usually it’s very subtle, only noticeable by her snarky, out of place or passive-aggressive comments, said under her breath every now and then. It’s subtle and I’d usually pretend I didn’t hear those remarks, but they were enough to make me have bitter-sweet feeling every time we met. Happy to see her but waiting for it to be over.

During the past holidays I fell into depressive mood and didn’t want to see anyone. I only met with my closest family and spend most of the holidays playing videogames with my best friend whom I haven’t seen for months due to life reasons. When we got back to work, it looked like July was avoiding me, keeping her eyes down when walking past me and when our eyes did meet, she would immediately turn away. I texted her to meet me at our usual secret meeting place (we kept our relationship as secret as possible), as I wanted to give presents for her and her daughter. But she replied to me asking why I was so eager to see her all of a sudden, after so many days! That’s where my admiration with her has ended. It was so unexpected and odd. I assume she expected me to reach out to her during the holidays and got offended when I didn’t (except the short exchange of congratulations). But we are not that close to spend all the time together and we met at my place just a few weeks ago. So, I told her that I didn’t insist on meeting and that was the last time we talked. I was thinking to call her if not to restore our friendship then to make peace, at least. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I don’t hold any grudges against her but I don’t want to have her in my life either because relationship with her is not that enjoyable, and it hasn’t been for quite a while.

And here I am, trying to get closure. I learned how to cut people from my life, to stand my ground and not fall into abuse. I don’t have the need to explain my positions in life and just do my thing. That, in turn, means that I’m closing myself from people even more than I did in the past. And potentially remove the possibility to connect with people who might be right for me. What if I was at fault in these two relationships? What if I wasn’t attentive and caring enough? Was it just incompatibility or my inability to adapt and compromise? Surely there was something wrong and stupid I did, I’m a human being after all, though I never mean any harm and I try put a lot of effort into relationships, which makes it even more frustrating. I’d like to pursue a new romantic relationship but I’m afraid I’ll fuck it up with my ignorance.

At this point I will appreciate any advice. Thank you.

Drizzle is a Lifestyle.

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My Anxiety Ruined Our Relationship. How Do I Get My Girlfriend Back?

January 6, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

Long time reader and love your content.

Background of how I met a girl (J, 25) about 6 months ago in class. She is a 10/10. I looked her up on Instagram and saw she had 5,000 followers and posts very spicy pictures, I was a big fan. We started hanging out and getting drinks over the course of a few months and got a long really well. This last summer we were hanging out again and when I dropped her off at her car she kissed me out of nowhere. My dumb ass thought she was just being friendly and never asked about it. A month or so later and I start to wonder so I finally asked her why she did that. Her response was she’s obviously attracted to me and has been trying not to do it again since we are taking another class together. I was stoked. We tried to not hook up so we could focus on the class but that didn’t last.

We started dating these last 2 months and it’s been awesome. We’re both on the same page as far as what we want in dating, to have fun with no drama or questions about where things were at. We both understood that we’re graduating this year and going onto our respective masters programs that will likely be elsewhere in the country. So the relationship wasn’t serious as it had no real future.

We got back from the coast 2 weeks ago after spending a couple days there. She left to go see her family in another city and I was ready for some alone time just to enjoy being lazy for Christmas break. Well we ended up having our internet shut off cause our roommate randomly moved out and it was in his name. So no video games for me. All my friends were out of town, so I had no one to hang out with. I went on hikes by myself and worked out but you can only do that for so long. So I got really bored over those few days. During the course of this I started texting her more and sort of relying on her to entertain me. Mind you I wasn’t texting excessively, it was 1 to 2 texts a day, but I planned on not texting much during this time to let the anticipation of seeing each other build back up.

I noticed that she was taking longer (up to 24 hours) to respond than she normally did and this started to make me think things weren’t going well. That’s been my experience in the past and I became really anxious. I began to think this was a hallmark sign that things were going to end soon. I ruminated on it for a few days and eventually convinced myself that my negative thoughts were true and that I needed to act.

The day I knew she was coming back, I sent her a text that morning asking if she wanted to go on a date in a few days. I heard no response. I called her that night before she was going to work and had no answer. This confirmed it to me that she was ignoring me and I was clear to ask what was going on. However, instead of just sending a simple text saying, “Hey, you seem kinda distant lately. Is everything cool?” I sent this ungodly long text about how I noticed she was becoming distant and in my experience this meant things were going to end soon but since we had been friends I wanted to continue to be friends. I said I understood that things weren’t serious and we were moving away this summer and so on.

Her response completely killed me. Her text was long as well, but basically, J said this was the kind of talk she didn’t want to have and she had been creating a little distance but thought I was awesome and had no intention of not dating. She liked that we didn’t ask questions or need clarity on where we were at. She explained that it took her longer to get back into town than normal and had been busy with family. I felt extremely stupid and embarrassed for how anxious I felt in the days leading up to my text. I was totally wrong. I apologized and tried to explain why I did it, that it was born out of anxiety and bad previous experiences but has never resulted in me sending a text like I did. She wasn’t too receptive and was pretty focused on how I questioned what we had. We talked on the phone the next day and I explained everything again in much better detail and had her considering a second shot, saying she was 50/50. But J also said she gets weird after she’s had arguments with past boyfriends, but didn’t really elaborate on it. She thought about it and texted me later that day saying she didn’t think it was going to work. J told me that it wasn’t so much what I did, but more her, and we should just be friends. My only response was “ok.”

I feel like such an idiot for what I did. I’ve always had anxiety (it’s human nature), but it’s never gotten to the point where it ruined something that was really good. I totally let it consume me and dictate my behavior. With it being the holidays and no one in town, no internet, and nothing to do, I couldn’t use my normal distractions to help quell the anxiety. I understand that this is something I really need to work on otherwise it will ruin things for me in the future. But I also want to try and make things better with J and hopefully date her again. I’m not going to talk to her for awhile to give her time as well as myself so I can get a better handle on my anxiety. But I do intend to hit her up in the future and see if I can get things going. I do want to be her friend and I’m not going to launch into trying to win her over again, but I think it’s worth it to try. So this is where I need your sweet PhD level of love knowledge for guidance. What is the best way to approach this? And how do you deal with anxiety in a new dating relationship?

The Anxious Dunce

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