relationship drama Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

Help, He’s Afraid Of Flirting

February 3, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dr. NerdLove,

This will probably needs some context. First, I’m polyamorous; I’m married, have a long-term girlfriend, and still occasionally go out with new people. Everyone knows and consents, it’s all ethically done, and it’s going great.

The second important part is that I was raised in the evangelical tradition of purity culture; more specifically the relatively egalitarian I Kissed Dating Goodbye tradition, where both men and women are pressured to avoid any proximity to anything even vaguely sexual. Obviously I don’t cling to that still — I’m a progressive feminist who’s dealing with more anger at my faith and upbringing than fondness at the moment — but I clung to it long enough that my first sexual encounter was on my wedding night, in my mid-20s. Polyamory was something my wife and I transitioned into after a few years of marriage and a looooot of research and soul-searching.

That setup might have been rife for things to go wrong; basically learning how to date as an introverted married man in my late 20s with little sexual experience beyond a single partner sure was awkward at times, and in general it can be difficult to meet people who are cool with the whole non-monogamy thing. Half my matches ghost when I bring it up, even though I state it clearly in my profile. But aside from some awkwardness and difficulty finding people, it’s actually been a super positive experience and not much has gone wrong. It’s been really amazing being able to have casual sex and connect with people without the pressure of purity theology haunting my every move.

My problem is that I’m deathly afraid of coming on too strong. I’m sure my relative lack of experience is part of it, but I also spent the first decade since my adolescence believing that anyone who pursued sex was inherently a sinful scumbag, then transitioned to a more progressive outlook that’s painfully aware of how many shitty, horny men women have to put up with on a regular basis. I no longer believe the former, but I suspect the conditioning is still in there somewhere, and mixed with a fear of accidentally coming across like a pick-up-artist asshole or something, I basically just never do… anything.

It took my girlfriend and I months to have sex, even though we both wanted to, because I was so slow-moving and cautious that apparently gave the impression that maybe my non-monogamy wasn’t a sexual thing. Most of my conversations on dating apps fizzle out after a while of conversation that focuses on getting to know the other person, and sometimes I wonder if it might have led to something if I’d been more openly flirtatious. But I’m so concerned with my partner’s comfort level that I never make any sexual interest known.

Part of this is a personality thing, I know; I’m a generally very considerate, open, and vulnerable person, and not all that good at stepping outside my natural modes of behavior. Acting cool or confident has never been my strong suit, and the less said about my attempts to dom for my submissive partners, the better. I’m naturally concerned with the comfort of whoever I’m with, and don’t want to injure that by accident or design.

But I think some part of me still assumes that sexual advances are unwanted unless it’s been made explicitly clear to the contrary, which means I never make the first move and lots of connections just never go there. I know that women enjoy sex too, and it’s possible to express my sexual interest without being creepy about it, but I don’t feel confident I know how, and my anxiety about accidentally coming across wrong keeps me from making any advances.

I’d love to hear your perspective.

Sincerely,
A Purity Culture Survivor

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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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I Can’t Bring Myself To Have Sex and I Don’t Know What To Do…

December 30, 2019 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Doctor,

Recently I have been frustrated, solely with myself. Because in the last few years I’ve lost 40 pounds, made impressive strides in my career for a man my age, and went from not being able to talk to anyone to making classes/groups of people screech in laughter. I say I’m proud of myself because I am, but there’s one last hurdle I need to get over and I’m hoping you can provide perspective.

Women who I consider beautiful, and who I want to sleep with, try to sleep with me, and I freak out (yes I’m a virgin). One of two things happen:

1. I completely begin over-analyzing and ask myself “Do I want a relationship with this person? Or just casual sex? Will I ruin my chances if I have sex now?” I basically twist myself so backwards that by the time I have made a decision, they have completely moved on.

2. I panic and just straight up say “no”. Even when I mean yes! I will admit it stems slightly from a fear of performance, but I’ve been really working to overcome that and don’t really feel like that’s the main problem.

When I take a step back and analyze the situation I walk away with this conclusion: I don’t know if I really want to have sex with someone because I don’t really know what sex is, as stupid as that sounds. Of course I know what it entails physically, but not what it entails on an emotional level.

I know the standard narrative is that men are pressured to have sex with anyone as soon as possible, but I feel as if that’s been reversed. All my good pals tell me I should wait for someone special, but in all honesty I’m horny, and I feel like I’m being pressured to wait for this completely unrealistic fantasy that’s never going to just walk into my life. I want to have the physical act of sex so I can grow and learn emotionally, therefor when someone I do really love comes into the picture I won’t panic like I do right now.

To sum it all up Doc, should I have sex with someone who I do like, but know I won’t end up with in the long run, or am I wasting a valuable emotional moment in my life? Because to be honest the lack of sex has really been dragging on me mentally, I will not say I’m depressed, but I do have some serious slumps sometimes. I get distracted, I become angry at people who I love, and I can get easily agitated at times. These aren’t horrible situations compared to others but I feel like I’m suffering and having anxiety all for something completely natural that people do everyday.

Sincerely,
Just a dude who wants some wisdom

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Am I Being Abused? Or Am I The One Who’s Wrong?

December 20, 2019 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Doc,

I have an issue. I’m a 29 year old female. I started dating a man this last year after almost going 4 years without a relationship. I was abused (sexually, emotionally, and physically) by my first boyfriend at 19. I have and still am seeing a therapist.

There are other issues in this relationship. My family is from a different country even though I was born in America and still aren’t at accepting him. He has no strong familial or friendship connections and has a good job and won’t branch out to my friend’s husbands. He sticks like glue to me at a last event dampening my mood.

Lately he’s been getting frustrated. I’m not a morning person and need to stick by strict times for plans so I can wake up on time and not rush. I had finals the last weekend and was up studying. We made tentative plans to meet and I slept in and he got mad at me for ignoring calls and texts. I apologized multiple times for not informing him I was up studying and he tells me how disappointed he consistently is that I need to wake up much earlier.

It’s exhausting. I’m with him for the most part of the weekend and I feel I can’t have 10 minutes in the morning to take a dump or drink coffee. And these last few plans I make and he goes along with it. He knows how I need a set time (10 am, etc) and he’s all lazy about agreeing to a time. He then demands me to get up early and I’m squashing his hopes when I don’t.

I also work with my family and now need to go in next week to the office. He has a week off and I can sense an imploding argument because I need to hang out with him all day.

Now he’s demanding sex out of me, but December was a month I was assaulted and I’m sick of it. He’s been pushy for intimacy and I’m meeting him where I can. I told him I’m waking up with nightmares. I get he’s frustrated but I feel guilty and just want to get it over with so he gets off my back .

I also sometimes leave a cup of water in his sink (don’t live together) and got yelled at for not sticking it in the dishwasher (he claims it’s not yelling but was pissed). He said I was being disrespectful. Although if he leaves dirty dishes I usually wash them and do it so it’s one less thing for him or pick up his dirty clothes. I have tried to tell him that I usually leave dishes in a sink and do it at night but it’s a big deal apparently. Sometimes I’ll do it and don’t get snapped at but I feel confused and hurt when it does happen

I have a bad habit of pulling on sleeve or back of his shirts if his hand is away. We went out recently and he was walking faster so I pulled on his sleeve. And he claims he didn’t yell but his voice was raised and people were staring. He loudly said for me to stop messing up his shirts and he won’t ask again and he said I’m going to ruin all his clothes. I turned inward because I hate being yelled at. I tried to say it was an accident and he said no you always do this and why can’t you just say that you want to hold my hand. He claims I’ll ruin the hem and the sleeves fabrics on a sweatshirt or a t-shirt. I felt like I got slapped in the face.

I know I ruined his watch band because I was absent mindlessly playing with it on his hand. The rubber broke. He said he wasn’t angry but he always tells me how annoying it is or tells me how I ruined it. I even offered to pay for a whole new watch that was like that one he likes but no, it’s complain-ville.

I feel like I can’t do some behaviors. I always knock stuff over at home to annoy my mom (minor stuff like a dryer sheet or pen) and I usually pick it up. He blows up at this. I did it a few times (like a business card) and forgot to pick it up. Granted his place was a mess.

And he said I was again being disrespectful and making his place more dirty. I started crying. I had folded his clothes and picked up other stuff but I feel awful.

Now he doesn’t get why I don’t feel safe. I also got a breakdown at one point when I had to put a cup in his sink and didn’t know what to do with it.

I even put it on the table and he got mad at me for not using a coaster. I never raise a fit when he eats in my car and makes a mess. I just cleaned it. He’s left recycling in my car and I’m the one who cleans it. I feel like making a stink about it but I never saw an issue and just toss it out

I just don’t know if he’s angry at me or just frustrated because on top of my family and my trauma he is being pent up.

Any feedback would be helpful.

Thank you

Who’s The Victim Here?

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Ask Dr. NerdLove: I Cheated. Now She’s Threatening To Blow Up My Marriage.

December 2, 2019 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

Long time reader, first time emailer. This one is a bit of a doozy, and I am very much at fault, but I need your advice on how to move forward.

My girlfriend and I (let’s call her K) have been dating for nearly 5 years. We’ve going through a tough year. We both moved back to our old town after a few years away for work, but have struggled to reacclimatize. The city just isn’t quite the same, moving was a nightmare, but we hate our new jobs (she’s stuck because she needs to work off a student loan and I’m stuck because there’s very few options in my field of tertiary IT education in my country). As a result, we have constantly been up and down in our relationship this year, and every time I felt like we got to a good place, something would come and set us back again. We really love each other though, and we’re committed to making this work through all the shit.

A recurring issue in our relationship is sexual imbalance. K is a highly sexual person and, though I used to be, the stress of moving and work the last 3 years has killed my libido and made me pretty vanilla (to the point where I was scared of toys because of the threat they posed to my shitty fragile masculinity, even though I know that’s not actually the case). I will admit I’ve probably gotten too comfortable in my relationship. Every very time K would bring up this issue, I really would try to be more attentive, but would eventually fall back into old habits. It’s hard to maintain a healthy sex life when I’m feeling like shit in my work life, but maybe that’s just an excuse. I know sexual incompatibility is another bad sign, but like I said, we’re committed to working through it.

Now for the really shitty bit. About 6 weeks ago, I knowingly cheated on K with an old flame (let’s call her Z). Z and I had kept in touch bit from time to time (first mistake). She texted me saying she wanted to come over to see me on the pretense of seeing my dog who is really cute (first red flag). So when K went away on holiday, I invited Z to our house. I didn’t really want to, but she kept pestering me, and I kinda wanted someone to talk to about K – we were in another rough patch dealing with the sexual issues. So she came over and we had a few drinks (though we weren’t drunk) and spoke about our respective relationships and their struggles (Z is polyamorous, but had been struggling with her partner being very stressed, affecting their sex life).

It felt really good to open up to someone about K, especially the intimate things, because I often kept this stuff bottled up. We were getting physically close through most of these conversations, and at some point she started spontaneously giving me a massage (second red flag).

And then it all went downhill. We started kissing, which very quickly led to sex. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was being selfish and in my head I really just needed a win because of my issues with K being because of me. I figured she was in a similar mindset, though she knew full well what she was enabling me to do. I guess we both needed a win.

I thought that was the end of it once she’d left. I knew what a shit thing I’d done. I’ve been struggling all year with depression and self sabotage is a bit of a pattern in my relationships (though not with cheating). So I kinda hated myself for it, but it did give me perspective. I loved K and wanted to throw myself into our relationship as penance for what I’d done.

Soon after, Z texted me again, feeling terrible that she’d helped me cheat on K. I needed to fix this, she said – which meant telling K about what I had done. My stance on this was that no, K didn’t need to know about this thing that was once, meant nothing at the end of the day and was over. She blackmailed me saying that if I ever proposed to K, I better have told her first, or she would. We fought back and forth over text, ended up basically telling each other to fuck off and blocking each other on all social media. I thought that was the end of it.

Now comes the really fucked up part. To cover my tracks, I blocked Z on all of my, AND all of K’s social media (through access to her phone). Like I said, I took the approach that not telling K would be the best option. It was over.

Fast forward to this past weekend, K and I are back in a good place, and went down to somewhere we used to live for the weekend. Knowing this was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I proposed to her, and she said yes. I wasn’t thinking about Z, and I thought I’d covered my tracks well and was working through my own self destructive behaviour by being a better person for K.

Turns out I’d forgotten to block Z on K’s Instagram, and the day after our social media announcement I got a text from Z that she hoped I’d told K first , because she was going to. I hopped out of bed, took K’s phone while she was sleeping (wow, I’m a dick) and scoured it to find Z following K on Instagram. I blocked her immediately (no traces of any threatened message) and thought I would be okay. Until Z started making multiple alt accounts and following both of us. She was on a warpath.

Backed into a wall, the weight of my actions crashed down on me and after much deliberation, I caved into Z’s blackmail. I told K before she could.

K was terribly hurt, and I’ve put her in a shitty position now – she can’t take back all the well wishes on our engagement, or tell anyone about my infidelity because there’s no way they would let her stay if they knew. She says she forgives me (to an extent) and understands the cocktail of shit that led me to this shit show. We are both pretty much going through the five stages of grief about this.

I have promised to be better, and am taking steps to go and see a therapist to work through my fucked up psyche (about a year too late but better late than never) and we’re going to see K’s therapist together later this week for couples counseling.

The only bright side to this is that Z has thankfully disappeared (I don’t even even want this to be posted on Kotaku in case she sees and it stirs up a shit storm), and that K loves me (and our dog) enough to want to stick around and try to work through this.

It’s really hard. I am wracked with guilt. I love this person and I feel like we can build our future together on a clean slate now that everything is out in the open. She loves me, but worries whether love is enough. I keep asserting that it is because I don’t want to lose her. Uncoupling also brings with it a host of logistical problems that aren’t worth it, especially if we can (which I believe) work through this.

I know it will take time, and that I’m probably doing most of the good things to fix things already. I just feel like shit, and I guess I’m looking for some sort of affirmation that this will pass and we’ll be okay. I know that’s not your job and I’m probably going to get realtalked into the ground, but even typing this out has been cathartic, so at least that has helped somewhat.

I feel like shit, I need help, and I can’t bear to lose her.

Engaged Pile of Poo

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