relationship maintenance Archives

We’re Growing Apart. What Do I Do?

February 19, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Dr NerdLove!

I have an issue of, I guess, becoming less of a nerd. Let me explain: I (31f) have been married to my partner (35m) a few years now. When we started dating 7 years ago, we shared a lot of traits. Our best year together was when we lived abroad, worked in the same company so that our ”together-time” was during the lunch break, so then after work both of us played games for the rest of the day, separately or together.

Something changed after we bought an apartment though. Because it was ”my own nest”, I wanted to become more organized. I started pursuing more hobbies and dreamed of travel. You can see where this is going. I feel we have grown apart and there is nothing to talk about anymore. I guess my question is… how do I know when to break up? Or am I just being selfish?

There are a few things that make it difficult. On the one hand, he is the type to always be loyal and not let me go. I tried breaking up once and he just scoffed it off. Our day-to-day life together is good to ok. But I’ve started to feel better when I’m alone or with friends. He is also bad at communicating or being vulnerable; in important discussions he will become anxious and mix words up, and take multiple minutes to form words. He’s not very self-reflective either. I feel stuck. If I knew he’d get better at communicating it would be different. I’ve also thought of having a family in the future, but with him? I don’t know.

NerdLess

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How Can I AVOID Having A Relationship Like My Parents’?

December 16, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Doctor, I have been an avid reader of your blog for a few years and have finally mustered the courage to ask for advice. I really enjoy the laidback approach to answering some really serious matters, and the fact that you provide pictures of cute animals when things get really serious or disgusting. And of course the nerd culture references, especially anime references.

I understand that while I am from India and given the different social and cultural customs it might not be the wisest idea to ask someone living in the US for non academic advice, right now I would appreciate your advice. I honestly haven’t found any Indian contemporary who is not misogynist or believes women are a hive mind.

As for my background, I am a 25 year old dentist planning to pursue a master’s degree. I live with my parents and elder sister, which is pretty normal in India.

My parents are a classic example of everything that can go wrong in a relationship. My father is financially opaque and allegedly is more involved in his brother’s family and way more interested in chatting with strange women on facebook and watching really crude porn (he always downplays it by saying that he pressed some weird link, but that is all a lie, he is tech savvy enough to know how to block his facebook account) and complaining about my mother to anyone and everyone he meets, including me. My mother sees that as tantamount to cheating. Even prior to that she has felt that he is diverting more of his earnings to his brother’s family (who is employed).

This is not to say my mother is without blame. She has been narrating tales of all the injustices to me and my sister for as long as I remember, emphasizing how she sacrificed her pleasures after becoming a homemaker, while my father would be the representative of the family at all the gatherings of our extended families. I sometimes have felt sorry for my father who is never appreciated for whatever little he still does. Mother being a chronic complainer always sees the glass as half empty.

Even my father has recently resorted to using emotional blackmail against me and my sister. For example, he likes to repeatedly mention how he gets emotionally hurt every time I have to physically shove him away from my mother when things turn nasty. When I reason that violence is not negotiable he counters by saying that I should atop mother’s nagging. It is like if mother uses words, he’ll use his fists. He wants to get a licence to hit my mother without consequences. And things get nasty, slapping, hitting with sticks and there was one time when he bit my mother on the arm.

For my parents, the house and the cyberspace are war zones and they must gather people to their sides. Their arguments stem from ridiculously petty issues but escalate to trash talking and in bringing up events that happened before I was born.

It comes as a surprise to me how I remained a good student all through my school years and eventually have become a dentist.

The only impact of my parents’ toxicity that I am aware of is that I have grown to be extremely wary of expressing anger in particular and confrontations in general. My social life has been rather ordinary, even today I have a few friends from my school days with whom I am in touch. In dental school too I have been friendly with my peers, only the coming years shall tell me how many of them will remain in my life but I am optimistic.

What I wish to know from you is how should I approach dating.

Seeing the disaster my parents are, I have no intention of getting matched with a person I have no compatibility with or to even have her live with them. I fear she’ll become just as bitter, resentful and toxic as they are. The conclusion I have made at present is to focus on my education and career, get a place of my own away from my parents and then think of dating.

But I cannot exactly control when people come in my life. In India, most women get married before thirty and I fear that by the time I have enough money for a house away from my toxic parents (I assume i will be in my mid thirties by the time I become financially independent) there would be no single women left. Even during my years in dental school, three women got married and one of them gave her graduation exams while pregnant! It kind of like a biological clock for men.

This is what is always on my mind whenever I am interested in someone at the present moment. Though I fully understand that not all relationships will end in marriage and may collapse after that too, I don’t want to be the kind of person who is dating without any end point in mind. This may be an atypical thought coming from a man born in the late nineties by that is my old-fashioned way.

And I don’t think that anyone is there to “go on a journey to build and grow together.” Everyone seems to want the finished product, not a work in progress, financially or emotionally.

And to top it all off, it might all be pointless since the woman in question might be married off by her parents to someone else anyway. (Arranged marriages are very prevalent in India). Of course that applies to me too, but I don’t want to go down that path knowing how badly it can get when living with someone you are not compatible with.

I will appreciate your regarding my situation.

Thanks in advance.

Joyless in The City of Joy

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Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Does The Spark Keep Fading in My Relationships?

October 5, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

I have a question about relationships, especially the early stages.

That dopamine and oxytocin rush, that joy of discovering a new person and getting to know them, the excitement of exploring new bodies and new tastes in bed, the passion and effortless joy of early romance. All great. I love that.

And yes, everyone is putting on their best face at the start, but as things continue in this mould and we discover each other’s quirks and start to open ourselves up to each other more, it often feels like a punishment at best or a cruel joke at worst.

Because all that good stuff I mentioned at the start goes. Sometimes I get dumped, but not always. But certainly everything I love in the first paragraph is taken away — the big pyjamas replace the sexy lingerie; instead of discovering new things about each other, we settle into watching the TV we both like on sofa together; instead of romantic dinners, it turns into taking turns cooking of the same set of a few dozen meals, and so on.

As opposed to “effortless joy”, things move into the “routine warmth” mode. And whilst rationally I want to be satisfied with that, the relationship at that point often feels just like “good friends/housemates with occasional sex on the side”, and I find myself getting so very bored and wanting to get out and date again to get some novelty and excitement back in my life.

My friends have often told me that this is “real love” compared with infatuation, and it can be so much more fulfilling than the honeymoon period, but I don’t understand how at all. It feels to me like some cruel joke of attraction. Now, like I said, rationally, having a good friend and a housemate and a sexual partner all wrapped up in one person is clearly a good thing, but GOD, it’s dull and so much worse than the “honeymoon” period. I even tried long-distance relationships, where I hoped that only seeing each other two days a month meant that we would “use up” that budget of excitement slower, and “the good bit” would last longer (spoiler: it didn’t. I never said it was a great plan, but I’m running out of ideas!)

So how do I learn to accept that things will always turn dull in the long run, and not yearn for a new person, a new set of interests and drives, a new body, a new life, to discover and explore to get that “effortless joy” back?

Honeymoon’s Over

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How Do I Find New Friends During The Pandemic?

August 24, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Dr NerdLove,

I have been reading your articles for a few years and used to be one of the haters until a year or two ago. You have helped me a lot already in coming to terms with whom I should be.

However, to get to what I want to ask about: how do I make friends during this time of COVID-19?

So scenario, in 2018 I (male, 30) moved to a new country for work and met my then GF (we will call V) only 3 months after moving. I had zero connections in the city, and where I work either people are very socially isolated (Not negatively, can’t think of an appropriate word) or were in very strong cliques to begin with. This makes it hard to get in with people and even then I am not a person who invests in people. I’m trying to work on this although it is hard to change nature.

I met my girlfriend though Bumble, where we hit it off right away. I was very invested in her, which is something I don’t normally do. The real rub of this was that she was my first GF that lasted more than 3 dates. From there, it was very typical until the Big C came. One day the stress got too much, and an argument erupted and this time I let slip that I would like a family. Even to this day I have no idea why I said it. I had decided to take up counselling and try and make repairs to my mental health. After that argument, 2 weeks had passed and she returned from seeing friends and family . Then that is when we split up. We both agreed that this was best for us and it went by a well as a break up can be.

However, I had no choice but to live with V, as I had nowhere to go absolutely nowhere. This made realized that I fucked up big time and I felt so guilty and ashamed that I had to stay at her place until I could find my own.

I’m all settled into a new place, the pain is still lingering from time to time but it is a scar I’m glad to have. However, I need to build a much stronger support network for myself if I am to ever survive during this COVID-19 time. I have family and a best friend back home, but they are 8+ hours ahead of me. How can I make more friends if I can’t go out or do social activities?

Best Wishes,

Love In The Time Of COVID

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How Can We Hook Up (Safely) During the Pandemic?

August 14, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi,

My girlfriend and I are 60+ years old. We are both concerned about getting the COVID virus. We have separate homes and practice social distancing when we spend time together. My question has to do with sex. We do not kiss, massage, have intercourse, oral sex or manual sex at all now. I think we could safely use our hands to manually give each other orgasms. She thinks this could not be done safely. I think with masks and hand sanitizer we could enjoy it safely. It has been four months of abstinence and thinking of possibly a year or longer seems too long. Are their safe options to give each other orgasms?

Help, please.

Thanks,

Hard Up in Hanover

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