“Everything’s more dramatic and exciting on the Dark Side of the Force!”

Before we dig into today’s letter, I really like this “Ask Polly” piece at The Awl, I Miss My Maniac Ex. The Maniac Ex is what we around these parts would call a Darth Vader boyfriend.

So you focus on that one magical night, in the middle of a sea of terrible nights, where he held your hand and treated you like a person and you drank too much and that awesome song was playing and you imagined, in that moment, that you two were destined to be together forever, and your whole life might be this good. Lucky for you, your whole life turned out even better than that, it just doesn’t feel like it because you’ve become acclimated to love the way you used to be acclimated to suffering. Those highs you miss are the sorts of highs that occur in a life mostly made up of lows.

There are plenty of different kinds of bad partners. A Darth Vader, to me, is one who strings you along with tiny bits of your heart’s desire at carefully controlled intervals. Not enough to actually sustain you, but enough to keep you hooked. Enough to make you abdicate everything you know about what’s good for you.

Her advice about how to refocus these pangs and get past it is quite good.

Today’s letter, the first to come into the new inbox, is also about exes and regretting the past.

Dear Captain Awkward,

Two years ago, I ended a romantic relationship badly. It had been on-and-off-but-mostly-off for very, very long time…and by that time, it was a long-distance thing. When I broke things off, I was hurtful and ugly, ordering him to not contact me anymore. I received one text message from him after that, to which I did *not* respond (even though he wasn’t a stalker, I, in this way at least, treated him like one and held my ground on the no contact). I never heard from him again. Over the course of the last two years, I’ve learned a lot about myself and I’ve found an assertive authenticity that has boosted my self-esteem. I also recognized my wrong-doing in the way I figuratively kicked this guy in the nuts and felt a great deal of sorrow over it. My issues (that I have since made a lot of progress in working through) caused me to treat a fellow human miserably. It sucks to have been that woman.

I have no desire to begin any sort of relationship with him but at the same time, felt that I owed him an apology. A few months ago, I sent him an email that gently said just that. I completely understand that I have no right to expect a response – I’m totally cool there and I do not expect one (and said so in the email). For the record, though, I’ve grown enough to know that I don’t need his forgiveness; I have already forgiven myself. We all know where Good Intentions lead. . .but I did want to acknowledge to him that I know how badly I behaved and that I was sorry for it because that’s not what he deserved from me. And that I knew the relationship could not ever be again (seriously, I can’t stress enough my understanding of “Done” as a proper noun kind of finished) but that I wished him the best.

So, O Wise Captain, did I commit a huge and glaring mistake in sending that One Last Message? Or did I do a decent thing from the right sort of place in myself?

Signed,

Decent Or Delusional?

Dear Decent/Delusional:

You say you’ve forgiven yourself, so I want you to embrace the possibility that back when you broke up you were doing the best you could to take care of yourself. In an on-again, off-again thing, you needed to be Permanently Off, and you cut off contact completely because you’d tried to break up before and it hadn’t really taken. Maybe you were afraid that you’d second-guess yourself to death, or that he’d talk you into one more try, or your stupid pantsfeelings would rear up and trip you on the way out the door (again).

Adulting has a good, simple list of things you can do to be “decent” when breaking up. It echoes this old post, and should satisfy the folks who think that this is too cold (even if it is sometimes necessary self-preservation). But even if you are as gentle as you can possibly be, there is no way to break up with someone who still wants to be with you without causing them some pain.

I’m relying on Adulting heavily today, but there are apologies we make for other people, and there are apologies we make for ourselves, and I think this one was more the second kind. Why? Because you’re still gnawing on the problem trying to get something you didn’t quite get. You didn’t get reassurance or forgiveness from him, so now you’d like to get it from us.

Even if you could travel through time and space, you couldn’t go back and fix your old mistakes.

If you’d written to me before you sent the apology letter, I would have advised you to hold off. You say you don’t want to reopen any kind of relationship with him (even a friendship), he lives at some distance (so you don’t share a social circle and it’s not about maybe running into him somewhere and wanting to smooth that over). While your letter may have provided him some valuable vindication and resolution, there is a high potential that it just made him uncomfortable. He spends all this time dealing and forgetting and moving on, then WHAM! He has to think about all of it again, and he has to do it on your schedule, and he has to let you have the last word (again) or else open up some new awkward line of communication. The fact that he didn’t contact you when he got the email actually speaks well of how things ended up! It means that he has enough closure that he doesn’t need to engage with you about what happened anymore.

When I’ve gotten out-of-the-blue apologies from people that I’m not really interested in interacting with in the present day (grade school bullies, someone I went out with a few times nine (!?!) years ago), I generally feel weird for a few minutes (sometimes because I am trying to remember the person at all). Then I either delete the thing and block them, or write back something like “I hope you feel better after apologizing – honestly, I had forgotten the whole thing and you have nothing to be sorry for. Best wishes” and then delete/block because I don’t want to get into a whole thing about the ancient feelings of total strangers. Whatever they are about has nothing to do with me at this point.

I realize you were more intimate with this guy than that, but apologizing after a few months would have been way too soon because you were still emotionally engaged in the situation. Two years is too late. So my theory is that maybe there was no good time to apologize to this person, and the emotional statute of limitations has run out.

But you know what? That’s just my opinion. Some people are really touched and moved by late apologies. It may have felt really good to get your note, and helped him put something to rest. And making amends has its place, though even 12-step programs include the caveat that amends are not about apologies to make yourself feel better, they are about directly restoring what was lost or doing so symbolically when reaching out directly to someone would distress them – you aren’t entitled to forgiveness or redemption.

So, how do we help you put this completely to rest? Because right or wrong, you need to stop torturing yourself about this, and it’s not like you can apologize to him for making a weird, unwanted apology.

Closure is something you make for yourself, so make it. Delete his phone number and block his email so that if he does send you a reply at some point it will go into the ether, where it belongs. Get rid of old messages, letters, photos if you haven’t already. Create a goofy ritual: Say “I am sorry” three times and walk Widdershins around a churchyard. Pick one of your friends at random and buy them pancakes that are secretly “I am making amends to the universe through a small act of kindness” pancakes, or better yet, donate a little money anonymously to charity.

It seems like you are a thoughtful person who tries sincerely to learn from their mistakes, so comfort yourself with that. You apologized as cleanly as you could and didn’t ask for anything for yourself, and that doesn’t make you a bad person or “delusional.”  It makes you kind. And by writing this, maybe you gave someone else a way to ask “Who is this for, really?” when they consider reaching out to someone from the past.

Sometimes you don’t get congratulations from the universe when you level up, and self-awareness has to be its own reward.

Darth Vader: Not really that fun at parties.

Ahoy Captain!

My boyfriend grew up around people whom he describes as ‘hateful and angry,’ who would call you [insert slur] if you pointed out their racism and misogyny. Later, he fell in with some really scary addicts. When I met him, the hard drugs and more violent people were gone, but he’s still friends with the non-violent ones.

My problem: Boyfriend’s BFF, ‘Jerkface.’ In no particular order:

1) He’s racist.

2) He’s fat-phobic.

3) He hates anyone who’s not an atheist.

4) He’s sexist. When I call him out for telling rape jokes, he says I’m overreacting. 

5) He mansplains. A friend once told him “Don’t be so condescending,” and pushed him through a window. Bystanders shrugged and said, “To be fair, he is really condescending.”

6) He used to hit on me constantly, in front of Boyfriend. He’d angrily mention how he called dibs on me, tell obscene jokes about me, ask me out, and lie about hooking up with me.

7) He encourages Boyfriend to drink WAY too much.

Much of this happens when Boyfriend is drunk, and he (a) does nothing and (b) doesn’t remember anything afterwards. Many people avoid Jerkface whenever possible; one even asked, “How does he get invited places if no one likes him?” I’m afraid people will assume Boyfriend is also a horrible person and avoid us too.

I confronted Boyfriend, and he acknowledges that Jerkface is a bigot, but says he’s just a product of their environment. If they were to meet for the first time today, he wouldn’t become friends with Jerkface, but they’ve been friends for 15 years and he’s like family.

However, Boyfriend also said he wants to be an ally. He’s been very receptive to the reading material I’ve given him. I told him I don’t want to be around Jerkface, and if Boyfriend wants to be with me, he needs to go to counseling and learn to confront Jerkface and his ilk.

Consequently, I haven’t seen Jerkface in months, Boyfriend spends much less time with him, and drinks much less. However, Boyfriend has admitted that he still can’t find the words to confront Jerkface because he’s worried about derails, like “You didn’t mind before” or “Girlfriend is just like Yoko Ono.”

Our relationship depends on Boyfriend’s either African Violet-ing the asshole or learning how to tell him off. So,

1) Can you suggest a script my boyfriend can use to talk to Jerkface?

2) Jerkface is engaged, and Boyfriend will be their Best Man. I don’t know if I’ll go to the wedding. I don’t want to cause stress on their big day, or put Boyfriend in the middle. What do you think?

Thanks so much!

Hi there:

I believe you that Jerkface is completely awful, and I applaud your decision to never spend time with him. Don’t go to the wedding (and don’t apologize for not going). Ask that Jerkface never be invited to your house. If you go somewhere and Jerkface also shows up, ask for your boyfriend’s backup when you say “Let’s get out of here.” If your boyfriend won’t have your back, these are indeed dealbreakers.

But I think you’ve already won this one, right? Boyfriend was receptive to your suggestions, up to and including “reading material,” and you don’t have to deal with Jerkface anymore. So what’s this ultimatum that he has to “confront” Jerkface or stop being friends with him or lose your relationship? What’s this worry that “people” will think your boyfriend is like Jerkface and avoid you?

Because, honestly, “unspecified people might think _____ about you (if you don’t do what I want)” is not-so-secret code for “I almost definitely think _______ about you.“

While we’re decoding secret messages, it’s very possible that  ”I want to confront him like you want me to, but I just don’t know how/can’t find the words” means “I agree with you and you are right about everything, but despite that he’s still kind of important to me and I don’t feel right totally cutting him off so am stalling for time.“

Jerkface is objectively awful. But if he’s not really in your life anymore, this maybe isn’t about him anymore. This is maybe about you trying to scrub the last vestige of Eau de Jerkface off your boyfriend. This is maybe about his history of irresponsible alcohol use, and about him taking some steps to reassure you that he won’t fall into old ways. (Acting like a dick when drunk and then conveniently not remembering it afterward is a Your Boyfriend problem, not a Jerkface problem).

If your boyfriend confronts or de-friends Jerkface, it’s serving some kind of ritual purpose in proving that he’s transcended his upbringing and is ready to be a good partner for you. And it puts the blame safely on Jerkface, instead of on your anxieties about other things in this relationship, like, will his drinking get out of control again even if he’s not around Jerkface? Will he, in moments of stress, fall back on old habits and say terrible stuff (or watch as his friends say terrible stuff) and then not remember it?

Maybe?

I don’t know, maybe it’s okay to want that proof that your boyfriend really has left his old ways behind. But maybe, if your boyfriend is otherwise doing right by you and is respecting your wishes to never be around Jerkface, this is one where you can be graceful in victory and trust time to solve the rest.

My suggested action for your boyfriend is to RSVP that he’ll be coming to the wedding solo. No need to call attention to it or confront anyone; that’s what they make those little response cards for. I think Jerkface might be onto the fact that you don’t like him and can feel however he wants about the fact that you won’t be there. If Jerkface does make a thing about it, your boyfriend can just keep repeating the basic facts – “Whatever, man, she isn’t coming. But I’ll be there!” and if Jerkface calls you Yoko Ono (like that’s an insult?) your boyfriend can say “Whoa, let’s change the subject” and then change the subject.

The script for you is “He has been rude enough to me that I am sure I never want to be in the same room as him again. As long as you can respect that and not pressure me about it, you run your relationship with him how you want. I love you.“

Because weddings sometimes bring out the worst in everyone, I must ask: Have you socialized much with the bride? Does she know about your dislike of Jerkface? Do you think she’ll get into the middle of things if you refuse to go, or see it as a referendum on their beautiful love? Even if she is totally oblivious to/chill about your history with Jerkface, get ready for him or your boyfriend to try to use her as a trump card to pressure you to go to the wedding, like, “I know you hate Jerkface, but consider the BRIDE on her SPECIAL DAY that you are RUINING.“

Keep these scripts up your sleeve just in case:

• “Oh my god, I didn’t know I had the power to singlehandedly ruin someone’s wedding! That’s amazing. Do you think if I really focused my powers, I could convince her to marry someone cooler?”
• “You’ll probably have way more fun without having The Disapproving Feminist looking down her nose at y’all, and I’ll definitely have more fun at home, reading bel hooks and drinking wine in the bath.” 
• “I think hating the groom’s guts pretty much obligates me to refuse the wedding invitation, actually.”
• If talking TO the bride, try for “I hope you will have a great wedding day and be very happy. Sorry, I just won’t be able to attend.” No need to explain why. It’s a party, not a compulsory work meeting.

That way Jerkface and the future Mrs. Jerkface (!?!) don’t have to pay for dinner for someone who hates them, you don’t have to hang out with Jerkface, and boyfriend doesn’t have to drop out of the wedding of his oldest friend.

Dear Captain Awkward,

I seem to have found myself in what I think is an unspoken romantic FEELINGS triangle. I have two friends, B (a lady around my age, early twenties) and T (man-type person, mid-late twenties). I am also a lady. B and T have been friends for maybe three years now and are, by all appearances, best friends. I entered their social circle about a year and a half ago.

From the beginning, I have had feelings for T. I did a little bit of flirting, but he never seemed to respond, so I cut my losses and began dating someone else. T and I are very close now, the wonderful kind where we forget about the time when we hang out. We have brunch every other Saturday or so and watch movies and talk.

My relationship of about a year ended about a month ago. There were sympathy-brunches with T and, during the most recent one, he kissed me. This was not unprecedented. He had been getting flirtier and I apparently had thought enough of it to talk to a mutual friend of B, T, and I, and her reaction surprised me.

“If you want B to like you, you won’t pursue T,” she told me. She wouldn’t say much and was very vague, so I inquired more closely about it because, those feelings for T? Still very much there, it turns out.

From what I can tell, B has maybe had feelings for T for ages but never acted on them? And that’s it, really. No one will say much.

So now T likes me and wants to see where things go. Despite not wanting to boyfriend/girlfriend each other right away (neither of us are in that headspace right now), we are both very much infatuated with the other and want to explore it.

When I asked, T told me he and B were not and had never been involved romantically and he was unaware of any unspoken feelings. I get an inkling that he knows how B feels about him (if she does? I don’t know) but doesn’t want to address it.

So here is my possible FEELINGS triangle. Do I have a responsibility to bring this up with B? T and I talked about how we’d keep this discreet unless we decide we want to boyfriend/girlfriend each other, but this feels important. (Maybe it only feels important because people are getting cagey about it?)

Dear Captain, please help me decipher all this. I really would like to pursue things with T because he is ever so lovely, but I am getting weird vibes from this whole situation.

(P.S. B knows nothing about this at present time.)

Sincerely yours,

Respectfully Crushing

****

Dear RC,

Sexy Typewriter here.

If there were such a thing as The Track Meet of Friendship, RC, you would win the blue ribbon every year while the rest of us selfish jerks would only get those ugly purple-and-gold participation badges. You are a seriously lovely human for considering and anticipating the needs and feelings of your friend.

That said, there’s such a thing as being too kind and considerate. Really. Like many kindhearted people, I think you are forgetting that your desires are as legitimate as those of your friends, neighbours, relatives, etc. And when it comes to certain things (such as, I don’t knowwww, the possibility of achieving true romantic love?), you probably should not sacrifice your own potential happiness just to keep things from becoming awkward for B.

Here is some perspective: B has had three years to make a move on T. Three years. Would you like to know how long it takes to say, “Hey T, I really like you!”? Three seconds. (I timed it and everything.) And yet, the two of them have been platonic this entire time. And B has never once hinted to you that she harbours Important Secret Feelings for T. Oh, and T has made his mutual interest in you clear. All signs point to “Game on!”

If you feel weird or backhanded for seeing what naturally unfolds between you and T, why not just use your words and ask B how she’d feel if you and T started dating?

Our Captain Awkward is good at scripts, so here’s my shot at one: “So B, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but T and I have lately developed some more-than-friend feelings for each other. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do about this yet, but if we do go the dating route, I’m wondering how you’d feel about that.”

Note that you are not asking for permission. You’re merely giving her a heads-up and gauging her feelings. In an ideal world, she’ll be thrilled for her friends. Orrrrr (more likely), B might go really quiet. Or voice concerns (that may or may not include shit-talking T’s dating past). Or maybe she will just absolutely detonate a FEELINGSBOMB in your general vicinity. Be gentle and understanding (as if I need to tell you that, Friendship Track Meet champion) and let her know that you value her friendship and will be as discreet as you can about your romantic relationship with T, if it comes to that.

You and T are adults, and if you are both feeling feelings and want to date each other, I say you damn well should.

Your feelings for T are just as legitimate B’s, RC. Someone else’s Top Secret Unrequited Romantic Feelings do not get to be the boss of you.

Follow Sexy Typewriter on Twitter @sexytypewriter

Hello Captain,

My problem isn’t really a problem as such, I am well aware that I’ve got it pretty good and most likely I am in a state of ‘the grass is greener’, but I need help figuring out what to do with these feelings.

I am young adult, and pretty much my whole adolescent life I have had no interest from guys, and I internalized this as meaning I was unlovable and hideous. The first guy to ever show any interest in me, lets call him John, resulted in such excitement from me that I convinced myself the attraction was mutual.

The relationship didn’t turn out to be a disaster, as eventually I developed to love him and feel incredibly attracted to him and we have been together for about a year and a half. I know this is pretty messed up as I was forcing myself to be with him for the first few months of our relationship but miraculously it has developed into actual love.

Anyway, to my issue.

John was pretty much my first everything. Before him I had a few horrific, sloppy, face-licking kisses at a drunken New Year’s Eve party in the city but that was it. Our sex life doesn’t really leave anything to be desired, and he is a wonderful and caring partner.However, recent interest from guys that I work with, has made think about the future of our relationship. I was always interested in having casual encounters, not necessarily sex but that too, and I had given up on that with the total lack of male interest. Now that I have interest, the old feelings are resurfacing and I kind of feel trapped with the idea of never experiencing a single life.

Now, I know I’m being horrible and greedy and I am probably just wanting this because I don’t have it, but I need help deciding what I should do. Is this bad enough for me to leave my relationship? I fear that one day I may resent John for this, which he obviously does not deserve, and I do really love him but at the same time wish our relationship had developed a few years from now so I had the chance to explore my sexuality. Should I leave these things as harmless fantasy? Am I a horrific person for wanting more when our relationship is already so wonderful? Please help me and talk some sense into me, feel free to lecture! I need your rationality because I have none!

Hello there!

I realize that some people really do marry their first loves/sex partners when they are very young and have happy lives. And some people have arranged marriages where the attraction and love happen later…and have very happy lives. We inherit our ideas about romantic love and when is the right time to pair off permanently from our upbringing, our culture, and our situation, so I don’t want to tell you that it’s impossible to be happy if you don’t follow my finicky Liz Lemon-y model of serial dating.

And yet…most people I know who have happy relationships right now did not marry their first partners. Or, they did, and then they divorced those people and went on to have supercalifragilisticexpialidociously better lives with partners they met later when they knew themselves better. And they didn’t marry people because they thought they couldn’t do any better (so might as well force themselves to love this guy!) And while I am very happy to be in love now, the times that I was single and able to do stuff like “move across the country because I felt like it without giving one single fuck about other people’s priorities or opinions” were times of huge growth and I would not trade them away for anything. There might be more to the whole “single life” you feel like you might be missing out on than sex. Are you doing what you want with your life? Work-wise? Education-wise? Travel-wise? Are you living your life to please yourself or to be a part of this couple? Sometimes we develop crushes on people not just because we want to bang them, but because we want to BE them. Make a long list of stuff you want to do in the next year, five years, 10 years. Then ask yourself: Does it seem like John should be in that picture? Does having him in that picture make the list of stuff you want to do seem more possible, real, exciting?

There are a couple of things that really trouble me about your letter. The part where you had to force yourself to be attracted to John. I don’t think it’s an accident that you included that. The part where you link your relationship to him to your really low self-esteem and the worry you had that no one else would be attracted to you. The part where you claim that you don’t really even have a question, when you are in fact second-guessing your entire relationship and how you feel about sex. The part where you admit your desires for sexual exploration and experimentation, but immediately tie them to your notion of the attention you are getting at work as a measurement of how attractive and worthy you are. The part where you use the words “feel trapped.” The part where you call yourself “horrible” for maybe having second thoughts about the relationship and worry that you “may someday resent John.”

Secret: You already kind of resent John, and your brain is already looking for reasons to go live in the post-John future, which is why you included the part about having to force yourself to be attracted to him. Right now your brain think you need some ironclad reason, so it’s casting about for one, but you feel guilty because he has been nice to you and not done anything wrong. The good news is, you don’t need an ironclad reason! “I think I might be happier being single” is a good reason. It is totally natural to re-evaluate a relationship that got off to a, to be honest, EXTREMELY DODGY start, and see if it is still working for you. Also, I don’t get the sense that you guys have been together all that long, and you don’t have decide whether you permanently want to be with him in (what I’m guessing) are your early 20s. Question on, my friend. Question on.

Whatever you decide about your relationship, I highly recommend Jaclyn Friedman’s book, What You Really, Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety, and not just because she had me on her podcast this week and I find her to be wise and hilarious. I think it would be good for you to sit and do some reading and writing and figure out what you want out of sex. Maybe it will help you have some conversations with your current partner about what you’re feeling and what you want. Maybe it will help you realize that you want to find a different partner or partners to get your needs met. I also recommend seeing a therapist if you can. There’s something really self-effacing about your letter that bugs me and I think you should work out a lot of these feelings about yourself with a pro.

Things I know:

• You are not horrible for wanting to be single for a bit and maybe explore sex with other partners.
• You are not horrible for questioning whether you want to stay in your relationship, for whatever reason.
• You are not horrible if you find your “pretty-good-but-not-great” sex life lacking and want to do something about it.
• Wanting to break up with someone is not horrible and does not make you horrible and selfish. Pretty much everyone reading this (and definitely the person writing this) has broken up with someone sometime. Are we all horrible people?
• You, Letter Writer, are probably not horrible.

If you broke up with John, he’d survive, and you’d survive. Yes, sometimes breaking up really hurts, and to get what you need you end up in the position of hurting someone else and that can feel scary. But the reality is that you’d both be sad for a while and then you’d eventually get over it and meet people who are super-into you. So don’t let guilt, or a sense of “You loved me when no one else wanted me, so now I owe you” keep you with someone you don’t want to be with. Is breaking up scarier than saying “John, I care for you, but I want to change things up. Would you be willing to try ___________?” (Open relationship? Some kink you’ve never told him about or want to try?)

If you do decide to ask for an open relationship or a big change in how you relate sexually, have the conversation before you actually do anything with other people. I give a huge massive side-eye to “I want to see other people, is that okay? Cool, because I already am!” (That doesn’t make you ‘poly’, that makes you a jerkass.) Listen to what he says. Don’t use ultimatums or try to force him into agreeing so you can go bang someone the next week. Give him some time to adjust and have a real discussion. What has been an ongoing problem for you isn’t really a problem for him until you bring it up with him, and it’s not fair to expect him to be okay with it immediately on your schedule.

Frankly, I’m pessimistic about relationships that start in a monogamous model and then try to transform into an open- or monogamISH or poly- model in the middle. Based on my inbox and personal experience, it’s usually a sign that something is doomed but needs a little time to die the rest of the way. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world, if it gets you into a place where you are ultimately happier and you can mind your manners and your partner(s)’s feelings in the process.

If you DO decide to break up, leave out the part where you had to force yourself to be attracted to him. And leave out the narrative about how you love him but just want to experience “the single life.” Go with the most adult breakup possible in this situation: “I’m sorry, my feelings for you have changed and I don’t want to be together anymore.“

Let’s talk for a second about these hot dudes at work. Whether or not you ever hook up with any of them, I think they are sending you important messages that you need to pay attention to. You’re getting the primary message, which is “Hey, people think you’re hot! Howabout that!” The secondary message is “Hey, guess what, there are people on the earth that you don’t have to work at being attracted to. HOWABOUT THAT!?!?!?!“

We’ve seen on the blog that sexual attraction ebbs and flows in long-term relationships, and sometimes people do have to put in some “work” to keep the spark alive and stay connected to each other, especially as you start adding the question of marriage/kids/shared household/BIG TIME FUTURE STUFF! to a relationship. But the work you do in your relationships shouldn’t feel like “doing your taxes when you’re pretty sure you’re going to have to pay” work. It should feel like a “cooking your partner a nice dinner” level of work, or if it’s been a while, a “taking a second to send a birthday card to your Grandma because it will make her happy” work, as in, you have to buy the card and remember to get stamps and find a mailbox on your way to the train and there’s a little bit of effort involved to get it in the mail on time but it isn’t really that big a deal and it feels great to do something nice for someone.

Speaking as a monogamous-leaning person, I think that when you’re deciding whether to stay with or settle down with someone for the long haul, the prospect of being with them should feel like a giant adventure. “Woohoo! We both rolled a hard 20, so now I will do it with only you, possibly forever! I win everything!” Not that there won’t be crushes and slumps or second thoughts or compromises along the way. You’ll have to make some serious choices about sex, but also about career, where to live, family, money, and not every single one of those choices will be 100% perfect or easy. But choosing to be with someone shouldn’t feel like choosing to make your life smaller or choosing to miss out on things that are really important to you. A good relationship shouldn’t make you feel trapped. A relationship that works for one partner but not for the other does not work.

Only you can decide what you want. All I can do is remind you that what you want is important. It’s more important than what you think you’re supposed to want, or what you force yourself to want, or what you used to want, or wish you wanted, or feel guilty for not wanting more. So pay attention to what you want and do some thinking before you decide anything important, ok? You only get one life, I think you should be extremely greedy about making sure that you get everything you want from it.

If you had met up with your ex that day, this would have been the expression on his face. Still feel guilty?

Hi! This is very sweet, right? But don’t spring it on someone the first or second time you meet them. Friend-date people for a little while and if you’re meant to be friends you will totally figure it out.

Dear Captain Awkward:

I ended my first romantic relationship earlier this year. I’m in my early 20s, still in college. He was 10 years older than me. Long story short, we had met during the previous summer and had been attempting a long distance relationship. We talked constantly. Though he was needy and was borderline smothering me at times, he was sweet and fun. We finally met up again in early spring and everything seemed fine. Shortly after, he decided to tell me that he had slept with two other girls while we were apart. To get them to sleep with him, he told them that he had feelings for them. I was disgusted and called off our relationship. Still wanting to be amicable, I left the door open for a future friendship, but I told him that I needed some time. 

I wish it ended there. After a few months, I contacted him again. In a moment of loneliness and weakness, I wrote him a letter apologizing for cutting it off so abruptly. I also apologized for not being expressive enough-I’m not lovey-dovey and I tend to be shy about expressing my true feelings around men (Somehow, at the time, I felt that I had caused him to cheat on me-which I now realize was HIS decision. I have no control over his actions.) I missed him, and I wrote that I wanted him back in my life. Note that I never expressed any desire for a romantic relationship, and I had previously said that I wanted to be friends in the future.

After a month of casually e-mailing back and forth, he suddenly sent me a text message asking to meet me somewhere near my school. After a few texts back and forth, I found out that he had traveled cross country to see me, without warning. A trip to see me would have been long and costly. I panicked. Clearly, what he was doing was beyond being “friendly”. My entire mind and body seemed to be screaming: “Do.Not.Meet.Him!” I didn’t. I sent him an e-mail to leave me alone, and everything finally ended there.

I never wanted to start a romantic relationship again. I had only wanted to start our friendship over again. Was I leading him on? I’m still beating myself up over this. I hate that I had to hurt him, but at the same time, I don’t want to see him again. I felt that he was trying to pressure me into doing something that I didn’t want to do. He proved that he would always think about his own needs/desires first, not mine. But I still can’t justify my own behavior. Was I in the wrong?

Love Rookie

Dear Love Rookie:

Your former dude mistook your friendly email for a romantic gesture, so he made what he thought was a big romantic gesture in return, except really it was a stalkery gesture. That isn’t about you “leading him on,” that’s about a story he told himself in his head about what you wanted and about what would happen when he showed up. You say you felt like he was trying to pressure you into doing something you didn’t want to do. You felt correctly! He was in fact a “needy & smothering,” high pressure and manipulative guy! Who lies about his feelings to get girls to sleep with him, which constitutes actually “leading someone on!” You learned what he was like the first time you parted ways, and then you tried to give him another chance to be in your life as a friend, and he blew that other chance.

Maybe, after getting dumped the second he hit the UK, Lloyd Dobbler grew up and stopped being such a smothering, clingy weirdo. That’s not really Diane’s problem to solve, though.

You did the right thing by not meeting him. Your instincts, the ones that said “Aaah! Too close! Too weird! Don’t meet him!” were protecting you. Maybe from danger. Maybe just from an extremely uncomfortable confrontation with a guy who thought flying across the country at the drop of a hat was a normal thing to do. That’s the Gift of Fear at work.

I’m sure it was very hurtful to him when you did not want to meet him, but that’s not your fault. He set himself up for a fall and seriously overstepped your boundaries. Hopefully he will learn to save giant, romantic gestures for people who are actually interested in his giant, romantic gestures.

Since he has not gotten in touch with you since you asked him to leave you alone, I think you’re safe from further pop-ins, but it might make you feel better to block him on email & social media and see if you can block texts and calls from him on your cell phone. It’s one step closer to leaving him and everything about him entirely in the past.

I don’t think you did anything wrong here. You get to change your mind about people. You ESPECIALLY get to change your mind about people as a direct result of their actions. So why are you beating yourself up?

Well, there’s the whole idea of “leading someone on” to contend with.

I think it is cruel to deliberately toy with someone’s feelings for fun like, for instance, lying to them about your emotions in order to get them to sleep with you, which your ex-boyfriend did to people. That is bad and he should feel bad.

But what mostly happens is that people are in the middle of working out how they feel, or they haven’t figured out how to express their feelings. Maybe they want to be more into someone than they are, so they try to psych themselves up to date someone and then realize later that they aren’t that into it. They get put on the spot and don’t feel like they can say no. Or maybe they are just having fun flirting, or they have a different level of interest in someone than that person has in them at a given time. I’ve definitely really liked someone after one date and then not been so into them after date two or three, and I’ve definitely been on the other side of that, where I like them more the more time we spend together and they like me less. Navigating that stuff can be painful, and awkward, but it’s just part of being human.

This movie has totally grown on me as a movie about the power of Wishful Thinking and Entitlement.

The badness comes when the other person puts on their Entitlement Goggles and runs everything you say through the Wishful Thinking Translator. The Wishful Thinking Translator adds deep, heavy meaning to all interactions. And it also translates things you say into things that the Wishful Thinker gets to have: Your time. Your attention. Your affection. Your pants.

Say you have a nice time hanging out with a new acquaintance or date, and this conversation at the end of that.

Other Person: “Do you want to have dinner sometime?“

You: “Sounds good. I’m a bit swamped at the moment, though. Can I get back to you next week?“

Wishful Thinking Translator: “She promised to definitely have dinner with us next week. Time to start scanning Yelp reviews and making reservations.”

Say you remain swamped, stuff slips your mind, and you don’t actually call the person to get together next week.

Someone who really likes you but who is not using a Wishful Thinking Translator on what you say might feel a bit bummed, like, hey, maybe she doesn’t really want to have dinner. They might check in in a casual way, like “I’d still love to make a dinner plan, maybe on X day? Let me know when your schedule clears up.”

If you really like them and want to have dinner, you’ll probably reply and try to set something up. If you don’t want to have dinner, you’ll hopefully send a reply saying so, but if you don’t, both parties will figure dinner was not meant to be and drop it until you do get in touch.

Someone who is using a Wishful Thinking Translator is angry. You promised you’d have dinner, precioussssssss. You owe them dinner gollum gollum gollum. If you do not actually have dinner with them, you are a flake and a mean person who “leads people on.” They will come across as needy and smothering in trying to set up that dinner. And if you say “Oh man, I am so sorry, I am still really swamped” you’ll get a passive-aggressive “I BET YOU ARE” or “If you don’t like me, you can just tell me. You don’t have to LEAD ME ON like EVERYONE ELSE.” This is because when someone is speaking Wishful Thinking and the other person is speaking normal speech, refusals or failures to connect or follow up get sent directly to the Jerkbrain where they receive the worst possible interpretation. “She didn’t reply to my email or call me to arrange dinner = I AM HORRIBLE AND I SUCK AND NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE ME.“

The bummer is, I think most of us have been on both sides of this interaction. Someone we like agrees to get “coffee sometime” and we pump our fists in the air because Coffee, It Is On Like Donkey Kong! And then coffee never happens, because OBVIOUSLY WE SUCK AND NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE US. If we react to the person from that place of extreme self-doubt & entitlement, our reactions will be disproportionate and weird. We will creep them out.

When you’re on the receiving end of someone else’s extreme wishful thinking, it can really mess with your head. A seemingly innocuous interaction will end badly and leave you feeling bad and second-guessing yourself. Like, were you being a flake? Do you lead people on? You’re a nice person, and you don’t want to be someone who leads people on, so should you just go out with them one more time to show that you’re not like everyone else? (No.) Or apologize in some way?  (No.) All they did was try to do something nice, right? So why are we so creeped out? It’s not fair!

A manipulative person will use that tiny bit of self-doubt to wedge themselves into your life. They can’t have your freely given affection, so they’ll appeal to your sense of fairness and desire to be a nice person who doesn’t reject people who make nice gestures, like flying across the country at the drop of a hat to pay you an unwanted visit. Gavin de Becker calls this “loan sharking”, and commenters here call it “favor sharking”: Doing something for someone that they didn’t ask or want you to do, and then acting as if it entitles you to a favor or time or attention or affection in return. When someone’s attention feels strange and unwanted, it’s important to cut through all the favors and expectations of niceness and ask yourself, bluntly: “Do I want to spend time with this person? No? Okay, then, let’s all believe in the no.”  Love is subjective and unfair. Manipulators will do almost anything to cut you off from asking yourself that question and saying a clear no. They will do anything to make it about abstract things like “fairness” and whether you “led them on” and what their expectations were. They want it to be very difficult to say no. Sometimes you have to cut people off in a way that feels quite cold and brutal, both to you and to them, and it sucks. But it’s better than staying involved with someone you don’t want to be involved with.

Remember this: It is not your job to anticipate and manage every possible iteration of other people’s feelings. It’s your job to figure out what your feelings are and be true to them.

And so often, accusations of “leading someone on” go hand in hand with male entitlement and slut-shaming. “You smiled at me/wore a pretty dress/have had sex before/have had sex with ME before/looked like you might have had sex with someone at some previous time/said you’d go out with me again/kissed me/fell asleep in the same room as me…..and I interpreted that as being some kind of written contract with my penis.” It’s a way of making someone else’s desire for you and wishful thinking about you all your fault, to try to guilt you into doing what they want. So if someone uses the phrase “You led me on” or “I bet you just lead guys on” or “Are you leading me on?” see it for what it is: EXTREME NO-GOOD RAPE-CULTURE BADNESS. It’s a neg. It’s designed to get you to spend more time with and/or sleep with someone who senses that you don’t actually want to sleep with them. It is, in the words of Admiral Ackbar, a trap.

You’re suggesting that you “led him on”, and I’m suggesting that you are not a bad person because you’ve internalized some of our fucked-up culture into your head and think that “leading someone on” is actually something that can happen without malicious, deliberate intent. Intent that you did not have, ergo, you did not lead anyone on.

Good news: Your self protective instincts are fully operational!

Letter Writer, this ex of yours sounds like a major manipulator, and I’m betting that he did a real number on your soul and you’re still sorting through the aftermath. I bet the way he treated those other girls is also telling about some ways he treated you. People like him are great at making you second-guess yourself. I’m here to tell you that his unplanned visit to your campus was not friendly, it was not romantic, and it was way out of line. I’m here to tell you that you were smart to break up with him, kind to want to mend fences, and extremely smart and self-protective to mistrust his motives and stay away from him. Your self-protective instincts are fully operational! Now what remains is for you to get the last of him out of your system.

Suggested steps:

1. Block him on every conceivable communication outlet. I don’t think you should have any more contact with him ever again. I don’t think you guys will ever get to a happy, friendly place where everything feels good, so make a completely clean break and do what’s best for you.

2. If you find yourself worrying about this, and cycling through memories and thoughts of him, stop and say: “There is nothing to forgive, but I forgive myself anyway.”  Or write that in a journal 1,000 times. Or write a letter to him that you don’t ever send. Do some ritual thing to make a break with the past.

3. Channel residual guilty feelings into being nice to people that you want in your life. Volunteer. Buy a friend pancakes.

4. Talk it over with a counseling pro. I think this guy probably got into your head in more ways than one, and it may take some time and a trained, friendly ear to get him back out again. If it’s affecting you to the point that it is messing up your moods and your life, it’s worth doing whatever you can to lay it to rest.

5. Be nice to yourself and spend time with awesome people who make you feel awesome.

Love,

Captain Awkward

Doug wins at relationships.

Hi Captain and Awkwardeers! I have a problem that may or may not be an actual problem and is probably easy to solve, but asking friends for answers gave me nothing but contradictory answers, so I thought maybe you could help.

I’m young (in college) and just started dating one of my friends. It’s great. I’ve known him for a long time, we share interests, we’re comfortable together, butterflies are in full effect, et cetera. The only problem is, I have no idea what I’m doing! I’ve never dated anyone before (I’m twenty-one) I don’t really have any girlfriends I could ask/am not comfortable asking my mom, so I’m essentially fumbling my way through the dark without a flashlight or roadmap. When do you move in for a kiss? What are the milestones? What does and doesn’t constitute PDA? What about gift-giving, is there ettiquette for that? Will our shared group of friends be uncomfortable about our dating? How do I get over feeling shy about asking him this stuff? How SHOULD I feel about this guy, anyway? I have experience with crushes, but not with what a mutual adult relationship actually feels like. The cumulative effect of all this is that whi le I really enjoy spending time with him, I spend the time we’re NOT together panicking about what I might be doing right or wrong. Is there any kind of Relationships for Dummies guide for people like me?

Sincerely,

Confused in Canada

Hi there, Confused in Canada!
Commander Logic here, and congratulations on new love! New love is fantastic, and I’m so happy for you!

What you’re dealing with here is an acute case of overthinking, with an associated infection of The Shoulds. Which you seem to be aware of, and that’s awesome!

I’m going to get to your overarching question in a sec, but first some short, pithy-ish answers to all the mini-questions you put up in there:

When do you move in for a kiss? – Whenever it feels like you want to kiss him. If it feels like an extra-bad time for it, say “Can I kiss you?” and then act accordingly.
What does and doesn’t constitute PDA? – Public Displays of Affection are just that: showing in public that you like this person. Holding hands, kisses, hugs, etc. What constitutes excessive PDA is up to you and your person to decide, though the law encourages you to keep it PG-13 at most.
What about gift giving? – That’s between you and your person, though as a rule of thumb, keep it low-key, affordable to your budget, and expect NOTHING IN RETURN. Give happily because you know it’s something the other person would enjoy. Receive happily because the other person thought about making you happy.
Will our shared group of friends be made uncomfortable by our dating? – Heck if I know, and heck if you should care. You aren’t dating AT your friends, and they really don’t have a say in who you date one way or another. I know it sometimes doesn’t feel that way, but I promise, your friends’ comfort does not trump your personal choices.
How do I get over feeling shy about asking him this stuff? – Same way you get to Carnegie Hall… a taxi. (RIMSHOT) No, I mean practice. Just say the stuff that’s on your mind and ask what’s on his mind. Your mantra for this is “Neither of us are mindreaders, and I was wondering/thinking this.”

“Should” we be cuddle buds? Eh. Who cares?

Finally, the biggie:
How SHOULD I feel about this guy? – I don’t know him or you, so I’m going to say you should feel exactly how you feel at a given moment.  Love him down to the toe jam? Great! Find him suddenly annoying? Fine! Right back to toe jam loving the next second? Normal! Even if I DID know you both, I’d say the same thing, because you are the boss of you, and no one else is.

This ties into the question that underlies all of this: HOW DO I RELATIONSHIP THE RIGHT WAY?

The answer is annoyingly zen: you just do until you don’t.

Consider the Golden Retriever. (That’s in reference to a break-up, but it’s relevant to ongoing awesome relationships as well.) It doesn’t question WHY it loves you. It doesn’t question the best way to show its love. It doesn’t know WHY chasing and bringing back the stick is SO SO SO MUCH FUN. It doesn’t give a damn. It just loves the moment, and does what feels right in the moment, from jumping on your lap even though it’s way too big for that now, to laying in a sunbeam hoping you’ll dispense belly rubs.

Where you have it up on the Golden Retriever is that you have the ability to use words to optimize your relationship experience. Whereas the Golden Retriever will jump on laps for all eternity, you and your partner can have the conversation of “Hey! I know that [metaphorical equivalent of lap jumping] is how you like to feel close to me and loved, but it is really uncomfortable for me. Would [metaphorical equivalent of chin resting in lap] be okay with you in the future?”

Maru represents your relationship. The box represents “Milestones.” You don’t have to fit your cat into one box.

Which brings me to your question about Milestones.  In a good relationship, I’ve found that there really aren’t any required milestones, and that can drive goal-oriented people up a damn wall. I mean, there are culturally significant milestones (thank you very much rom-com and “get a wo/man” industries), but they do not – DO. NOT. – have to be adhered to on a particular schedule, or at all. The Relationship Milestone Police are not a thing, even if your Auntie Bessie or Toxic Friend Hepzibah are all over you for not hitting arbitrary milestones in some specific order or particular way. First date, first kiss, first fuck, first overnight stay, first party with friends, first meeting the family, first “I Love You”, etc. etc. to death. Maybe you’ll hit all of these over the course of months, or years, or on the very first date, or “out of order,” or the “wrong” person initiates them.  All of those schedules are fine. Maybe you’ll NEVER meet their family because their family is full of abusive meat-buckets. Maybe you’ll never have a “proper” first date, whatever that means, or you will and then forget about it. You can also develop milestones of your own! Outside of what is culturally dictated! Your first movie marathon could be important to you as a couple. Your first photo session. Jointly resetting your facebook statuses, or whatever. What matters is that you are happy with the relationship in the moment.

To recap: How to Relationship

1 – Are you happy to see each other? Then you are doing it right.
2 – Is something in the relationship making you unhappy? Then talk about it.
3 – Are you agonizing over what to do? For best results, agonize out loud to the other person in the relationship.
4 – “No one is a mind reader.”
5 – “I feel how I feel because I’m the boss of me.”
6 – Do and say what feels right and good, at that moment. Even if it’s awkward.

You’re already doing great, and I promise, if you’re happy then you’re doing Relationship correctly.  Good job!  Commander Logic OUT.

Happy 2013, everybody!

Dear Captain Awkward:

Here’s the deal. About 4 months ago I moved with Boyfriend about a thousand miles away from my family and friends for a job offer he received. The city we moved to is big and we figured that it would be easy for me to find a job there. That has not been the case, and I am still unemployed. That’s not the problem. 

I have decided to end the relationship with him. It has been waning and I am no longer happy in it, so it is time to go. I have the breakup planned and I will be moving back with my parents while I wait on some jobs that I have applied to in other places. 

My question is this. How do I let the friends I’ve made know? Boyfriend and I live together, so as soon as we break up I will be leaving and I likely won’t get a chance to see them again. I want to have a chance to say goodbye, but it doesn’t seem right to tell them I’ll be leaving before the breakup happens. I really like a lot of them and I was enjoying getting to know them, so I will miss them and don’t want to just leave without even a word. 

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

Sincerely, 
Moving Friend

Dear Moving Friend,

I started to answer this in a quick email, and then I realized that a lot of people could probably relate to the awkwardness of letting people know about a breakup.

I suggest that you set up a casual farewell event before you leave town. Something where you will hold court for a few hours at a local bar or coffee shop and whoever wants to stop by can stop by (and you can sit there with a book if you like). Don’t invite people  yet – you are correct, it is pretty horrible to inform the friend group of a breakup before you do the actual breaking up –  but pick a venue and block out the time.

Then break up.

Then, I suggest an email, which you can tailor to each person as necessary.

“Dear friend, I wanted to let you know some sad news. Sadly, (partner) and I have split up, and I’ll be heading back home where my family lives as of (date).

Your friendship has been really important to me since moving to (city), and I definitely didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. I realize it’s last minute, but if you have a bit of time on (day), please stop by (place) between (time and time) and have a drink with me if you can. If not, I completely understand and hope we can stay connected with Facebook, Twitter, etc. and that you’ll look me up if you are ever in (city).

Thanks so much for your kindness and company these past few months, it’s meant the world to me.

Best wishes,

(You).”

Does that work? It lets people know the facts & conveys your affection, and as a bonus, it saves your boyfriend from having to do potentially humiliating work of notifying mutual friends about what’s up. Hopefully they can reach out and buy him a beer once you’re gone.

Good luck getting through a really sucky time with grace and a minimum of emotional and logistical carnage, and good luck finding work that you like. Breaking up sucks even when it’s the right decision. I’m impressed with your clear head and your desire to be kind & mannerly while also taking care of your own needs on your way out the door.

Dear Captain Awkward:

I’ve been with this guy for 2 years now. We had a falling out for about a month but we’ve been talking again since September. It’s been 4 months that we’re talking again and he’s afraid to make me his girlfrend because i messed up our relationship a little 2 years ago. We’re basically going out, we do everything we did when we were together, but its not official. He won’t let go of the past. At this New Years party we went to, he hung out with this other girl the entire night but claims nothing happened between them. He wants to make me his girlfriend now because im threatening to leave him. I dont know what to do, I’m hoping you can help me. Advice at least? I’m so lost.

Dear Lost,

The whole “You can’t be my official girlfriend because you did terrible, unforgivable things that I constantly bring up and blame you for, but I wish to keep enjoying your attentions and your…attentions” is one of the classic jerk-ploys. If whatever you supposedly “messed up” was so terrible that he doesn’t like you anymore, he wouldn’t hang around with you. If he still likes hanging around with you, then what you did can’t have been so terrible. This is a ploy to keep you around 100% on his terms, and dole out just enough affection and attention to keep you hooked and interested, but not enough to make you feel secure and happy and loved. And then, bonus! He gets to use your past to make you feel like everything is your fault. Manipulation 101.

If you really, really want to try one more time to make it work, say “Hey, if you’re interested in a casual relationship, that’s fine, but I’m not, so we should probably end this and let ourselves actually move on.” See what he says. If he brings up past-whatever-it-was, say “Hey, that was 2 years ago. I’ve apologized and done what I can to make amends. You either forgive me, in which case, don’t bring it up anymore, or you don’t, in which case, let’s end this. I can’t have that hanging over my head anymore.“

Honestly, though, I don’t like this dude and I think you can do better than reward his shitty behavior or hold onto him with ultimatums. That’s my advice. “This isn’t working, and I want to break up. Let’s make it a clean break and not hang out or talk for a few months while we figure out how to move on. Happy New Year.“

If you’re worried about backsliding into some kind of ummmmfriendship where everything stays confusing, the solution is simple:

• Email: Block.
• Facebook: Unfriend/block.
• Twitter: Unfollow/block.
• Cell phone: Block.

Do not unblock for at least three months.

Dear Captain Awkward

I’m currently in a happy poly relationship where me and this other individual are dating the same person (X) whom we both have a primary relationship with (the girl and I have a secondary relationship). X recently proposed to us but, for a very good reason, will officially marry Y (the other girl) and will marry both of us in a private joining of hands ceremony. While I love both of them very much marriage terrifies me and I can’t really articulate why. It’s more like a general feeling of no I don’t want to do that. The problem is I don’t feel like I can say anything to X because I don’t want to scare him away from marriage- it’s complicated but basically X didn’t want to get married again ever but outside circumstances have forced the issue and while I’m thrilled to hear he’ll marry Y I wasn’t thrilled to hear that it came with the added secondary wedding.

Thus how do I bring up the fact I don’t want a marriage ceremony even after saying yes because I was drinking and it was a shock and I didn’t want to ruin the moment? Also how do I bring up the fact that I’m holding out for someone I could see myself being married to as opposed to my current two partners whom I can see being with for the rest of our lives and being very good friends with but I frankly can’t guarantee that we will always be romanticly and/or sexually tied? Finally how do I get out of the secondary marragie without jeopardizing the first marrrage which is rather important that it happens? 

Uncertain about marriage

Dear Uncertain:

You actually seem very certain about marriage, in that you do not want it. Therefore, under no circumstances should you marry (even in a not-legally-binding fashion) anyone. Here is your script:

“I really want you guys to get married and am happy for you and I love you both (all?). However, now that I’ve had a chance to sober up and think it through, I don’t want to participate in any kind of marriage ceremony of my own, and would like to stick with our current jam.”

You don’t actually have to give any reason beyond “I don’t want to.” Having a general feeling that you don’t want to get married IS a reason, nay, THE reason to not get married. “I can’t really explain why, but I know that I just don’t want to.” Marriage, outside of the legal status, means different things to different people. If this isn’t what marriage feels like or means to you, then don’t do it.

If somehow that jeopardizes the first marriage, that’s not your problem. X also gets to decide that he does not want to get married. If your withdrawal is enough to scare him off, then he maybe doesn’t actually want to get married. Which is a great reason to not get married.

Whatever health insurance/work visa/Green Card/spouse exemption from testifying in court/tax deduction reason that this marriage “needs” to happen, it can happen without you. If the others pressure you about this, and try to make it your fault or blame you if the whole thing falls apart, they are WAY out of line. You’re not stopping them from doing whatever they want to do, and if they don’t want to do it, then they must have some reservations of their own that weren’t created by you.

This is because relationships aren’t transitive! Isn’t the whole poly jam is that X and Y can have their relationship, and you and X can have your relationship, and you and Y can have your own kind of relationship, and you all get to define and negotiate your own boundaries for what that means and what you want to do? That means that YOU, Letter Writer, get to define YOUR own boundaries for what kind of relationship YOU want. Which means not marrying anyone you don’t want to marry. If something is not working for YOU, then it is not working, period.

The sooner you speak up and rip the bandaid off, the sooner they can go about planning their wedding, perhaps with you as celebrator-in-chief.

Dear Captain Awkward,

My partner left his wife a year ago. (We’re all polyamorous, and our relationship began with her blessing and permission.) She was emotionally and verbally abusive to him. I had lived with the two of them for many years, and I moved out when I finally recognized the abuse, and admitted to myself that the situation was not improving and not going to improve. It was one of my hardest decisions, and I felt I was abandoning my partner. I thought that when he recognized the abuse for himself and moved out (a year later), things would get better and he would cease contact with her. Instead, he spends time with her every week, because he wants to stay friends with her. And he admits this is at least partly out of fear of what she might do if he doesn’t. He also claims to be testing his ability to maintain boundaries with her, so that he doesn’t “get into a relationship like that again”.

This is hard enough, but he keeps pushing me to talk with her as well. He thinks I would somehow benefit from talking with her, despite the rage and outright hatred I feel towards this person. I accept his right to decide who he wants in his life and how. I accept that he doesn’t want to talk about the abuse, so most of our circle of friends doesn’t realize how bad things were, or why I want nothing to do with her. But damn I’m sick of being told that I need to learn forgiveness for a person who does unforgivable things.

I want to continue being here for my partner and helping him heal. I’ve also recently recognized that when I lived with my partner and his wife, she was also emotionally and verbally abusive to me. This compounds my difficulty in dealing with the situation. My Team Me is very small, because most of our friends don’t know about/understand/recognize the abuse, and I don’t know how to talk with them without saying more than my partner wants known by our circle about what he went through. He doesn’t believe he’ll receive support because he is a man who was abused by a woman.

Any advice from you and the Awkward Army would be appreciated so much. I feel like I’m suffocating on secrets and expectations.

Can’t Forgive

Dear Can’t Forgive,

This is a rough situation. The good news is that relationships aren’t transitive. If your partner wants to unwisely carry on a relationship with his former abuser, that does not automatically obligate you to have a relationship with her, too. And if you need to reach out to a trusted friend or two and be honest about what happened to you, you are allowed to ask for that support from your friends. You can do that without disclosing your partner’s business. You are also allowed to seek friendships that do not touch on your partner at all.

Here is a script for your partner:

“Partner, to be honest, I find it very troubling that you remain so entangled with your ex-wife, and I sincerely wish that you would cut off contact with her and let yourself heal and move on. But I also realize that is your decision, and that you are allowed to manage your relationship with her in whatever way you choose. But I absolutely draw the line at having any interaction with her myself. She abused me. I don’t forgive her. I don’t like her. I don’t want to know her anymore. So please do not ask me again to spend time with her, and please look into some counseling so that you have a safe place (that is not me) to discuss your interactions with her.“

As for talking about it with friends, you can tell your partner:

“Partner, I don’t want to spread your business around among the friend group, but I am not going to lie and pretend everything is great.”

With friends, you can say “Partner still sees his ex-wife sometimes. I prefer to avoid her entirely. I don’t think she treated either of us very well.” That’s honest and to the point. You don’t have to go into why if you don’t want to. But you don’t have to lie and pretend that everything is great and that you all want to hang out – I mean, they know he got divorced, right? They can fill in the blanks themselves that there was some reason for it.  And find SOMEONE you can talk to. This is eating you up.

I understand why people feel sensitive about revealing abuse they’ve suffered and worry that people won’t be supportive, so I would never pressure anyone to disclose if they are not comfortable. But shame & silence helps abusers cover up what they did, and you don’t have to conspire to keep this lady’s secrets when they affected you, too.

Hey Captain Awkward,

I am the LW of the “how do I break up with my mean ex who scares me?” Recently I have received harassing emails and blog comments from his new girlfriend telling me I am a liar and a bunch of other such things. Also telling me to stop “making up stories of my abuse.” 

I emailed her back and said, “Sorry you do not believe me, but I am not lying. I am blocking your email so you cannot email me again.” Is there a script I can use that is better in case she tries to contact me again. 

I am really upset about this. Not so much because she doesn’t believe me/he is lying about what he did but because it is dragging up things I want to forget. 

Thanks, 
Not Making It Up

Hello again, Not Making It Up. I am so glad that you are out of that relationship, and so sorry that he has spun his girlfriend up to harass you by proxy. She’ll probably find out soon enough that you were not making things up, and the thought of that is just so sad to me. I can’t wish that on her, not for anything, even if she is being a jerk to you.

I think what you said to her was just fine. Going forward, my advice is to block her from leaving comments on your blog, and if she contacts you again, just don’t respond at all. Every time you respond, your ex-boyfriend gets the satisfaction of knowing that he’s got your attention again. He’s using her to try to manipulate you, and stories of you to try to manipulate her, so that both of you have to think about him and each other and feel crappy, because he is an abusive lying shitmitten.

If you leave it totally alone, eventually they’ll leave you alone when they figure out that they can’t capture your attention. Someday you’ll probably get a message that says “Sorry, you were right about everything.” Hopefully this will all be so far in your past that your first thought will be “Wait a second, who?“

In the meantime, they’ll probably find ways to ping you now and again. Each time, delete/block whatever it is to the extent you can, do something really nice to yourself, and congratulate yourself for getting out from under the thumb of this guy. Your life is so much better now, right? And so much better than this lady’s is. You are brave and smart, and you can definitely handle and outlast this.

Dear Captain Awkward:

A friend and I are in an awkward situation. Both of us share the same ex who is also in the same broad social circle (online social groups & conventions), who has turned out to be what I would call a stalker in the wake of our breakups with him. She dated him first; I dated him a few months later. My breakup with him was partly due to the fact that he was still hung up on her. He would read all her public tweets/blogs/etc. and try to make them conversation, so I concluded he was not ready for a relationship with me, and I ended it fairly early. 

Well, now he is also reading up on me. My friend and I, who both did not maintain friendships with him after our breakups mainly due to his clinginess, have both been told by other mutual friends that he is maintaining the same strangely close, stalking attention to any public accounts he knows to be our own, and will inevitably try to make one or both of us the topic of discussion when he can.

My questions for you are first, is this stalking? And secondly, what recourse do we have against this, if any? My opinion is that he’s stalking us, but my friend questions that because he is doing it in this strange, roundabout way, where it’s entirely likely that if we didn’t have these mutual friends, we’d never have realized he was doing it. It’s certainly an unhealthy obsession, and it’s definitely uncomfortable. Is there anything that can be done, or do we simply have to hope he eventually gives up and moves on?

It’s right on the verge of stalking. It’s probably not enough for any kind of legal recourse (though you document it anyway in case it escalates) and whether it fits the definition partially depends on whether he wants you to know what he’s up to in order to upset you or force you to think about him. Is he bringing you up with mutual friends in the hopes that they’ll mention him to you?

Good news, the definition of what he’s doing isn’t important. His intent is only marginally important. The fact that it’s making you uncomfortable is important.

Here’s how I would handle this:

Block/ban him anywhere you can, and never, ever respond to anything he says anywhere you can’t. If you run into him in public, do whatever you have to to not be alone with him. Say you’re at a con and he follows you or starts horning in on conversations where you are (trying to use the camoflauge of the group and your reluctance to cause a scene), don’t be afraid to cause a scene. Walk away. Report him to an organizer. Say to him (or have a friend say to him for you): “Ex, this is a big event, and I’d like you to go find some other people to talk with. I am not interested in catching up or comfortable in having you close by.” Then do not respond to anything else he says. Ignore him completely. Also tell your friends what’s up, so they can rescue you if need be. 

Many online communities have rules about how members can interact with each other. Take a look at your terms of service, and/or check in with one of the mods. If his behavior is crossing the line (where he’s bringing you up or linking to you in every thread), the mods may be able to put him on notice and edit/delete certain posts. If something like that happened here, or there was a situation where the person was responding to everything you said in a disconcerting way, I would at very least put that poster on permanent moderation and delete all references to you in their posts. If I notified them at all I would say “Your mentions of and responses to x poster have become excessive, to the point that it is creepy and disruptive to the community. If you want to keep posting here, find a new topic.” Any response other than “Sorry” and not doing it anymore = immediate banning. It wouldn’t have to even be creeping you out to creep me out, and I would never even reveal that you asked me to do it. “Freedom of speech” means you can’t be locked up by the government for expressing an opinion. It doesn’t mean you can’t be kicked out of a party where you’re peeing on the carpet.

While how he interacts with your friends isn’t actually your problem to manage, they may be understandably at a loss for how to handle it. When the topic comes up, let your friends know how very, very uncomfortable you are with his continued attention and ask your friends to immediately change the subject if he brings you guys up with them. “I thought it was creepy when he did it to Friend, it’s definitely even more creepy now that it’s me.” They should give him zero attention/approval/sympathy around anything to do with you. And if they feel able & comfortable, they should let him know exactly why. For example:

Him: “I saw that LW and friend wrote that they had fun seeing you last week.”

Them: “Huh. Have you read The Twelve yet? Do you know if it’s as good as The Passage? I hope that if they make a movie they won’t try to cast it with white people.“

Him: “Did you hear what I said? I was asking about LW and Friend. Do you think they’ll be at the con next month?“

Them: “Yeah, I heard you. Okay, this is awkward, but you bring them up to a degree that makes me uncomfortable. I hope you can find someone else to talk to about them, but I’m not the right person. Let’s change the subject  - read anything good lately?”

If he persists, “Yeah, dude, I’m sorry, but that was a serious request. Let’s pick this conversation up another time, ok?” and they should bail. No wallowing, no rehashing.

Someone who is actually a good friend to him can level with him. “You seem seriously hung up on these ladies, to the point that I think you should talk to a pro about your feelings. This level of engagement with someone who broke up with you isn’t normal, and I think it’s hurting you and stopping you from moving on. Whatever you decide, I know that I don’t want to discuss them with you, so, new topic.”

In the (sad) best-case scenario he is not malevolent, just fixated and obsessed – the behavior of checking up on you and the mentionitis has become a habit that he can’t break on his own, and he really needs some help to overcome it. Limerence can make a person feel temporarily crazy – I know I’ve definitely kept unhealthily picking some emotional scabs instead of letting time and distance turn them into scars, and it took good friends being very, very blunt to help me snap out of it. That doesn’t mean you have to put up with a single bit of it, or be the one to steer him towards help.

It’s important that your friends own the discomfort themselves and don’t pass on the news that YOU are uncomfortable. Not because you’re not uncomfortable, but because letting him know that (perversely) rewards the stalking behavior. Stalkers have temporarily abdicated shame, so “She is seriously freaked out and grossed out by the way you are constantly mentioning and keeping tabs on her” passes through the Wishful Thinking Translator and comes out the other side as “She’s thinking about me!“

The Gift of Fear suggests that if you do not respond at all, eventually he will become fixated on some other unlucky soul and leave you alone. It’s hard to do when he keeps popping up in your peripheral vision, but it’s the only way to shake him.

Dear Captain Awkward:

I need some advice on being a decent human being.

My wife and I have been together for 8 years, married for 5. She has severe depression and anxiety. She’s been in therapy since before I met her, but her illnesses still hit her pretty hard. I do as much as I can for her — earning an income, taking care of the chores and cooking, always giving upbeat feedback.

She hasn’t had a full time job in a few years, but she takes on a smattering of freelance projects because she says her career is the only thing that makes her life meaningful. Unfortunately, it’s a huge struggle for her to complete these projects — generally she’ll start them the day they’re due, and I’ll have to sit with her for moral support and try to take care of as many aspects of it (printing, mailing, etc) as I can without any professional training.

Most days she sleeps in late, spends the day messing around on the internet, and then tells me about how stupid and worthless she thinks she is. I can usually get her to a point of resolving that tomorrow she’ll wake up on time and I’ll help her make a plan to get some work done, but that generally doesn’t happen. Getting out of the house helps, but the process of getting her to get up the nerve to go can be exhausting.

She is also convinced that none of her friends care about her — though she has more and better friends than I do. She’s very intelligent, so she has an exceptional ability to rationalize and explain away any evidence I present to counter her thesis that “I am a horrible stupid person who nobody likes and who is probably just faking my problems because I’m stupid.”

The reason I’m writing is that this should not be a big deal for me — she’s not hurting me, I’m not the one who’s depressed, I do get out of the house for work and to see friends. But I find that as much as I love her, and as much as I love spending time with her, there are times I start to feel frustrated, start to wish her depression wasn’t a shadow hanging over everything I do. I know that’s not OK, and most of the time I can keep my focus on her rather than on me. But it seeps through sometimes, and I worry that it will affect her or that I’ll slip and say something like “let’s not make plans — tomorrow you’ll probably just sleep all day anyway.” 

Do I just need a kick in the pants?

Overwhelmed Husband (#429)

This one is a different song set to a similar tune:

Dear Captain Awkward:

I need a better way to interact with my husband. He has a whole long list of flaws in spite of which I love him, but these flaws seriously increase my workload and stress load, and I am sure I could learn to enable him less and get more out of my life, if I knew how.

Briefly, he has rarely made any money in our 16-year marriage. While unemployed he has not been a particularly good homemaker (he cooks brilliantly, but can’t stay organized, can’t pay bills on time, can’t keep the house tidy, had to have our child in full-time daycare from age one since he couldn’t handle the stress and boredom of child-minding, he can’t get around to getting his driver’s license, can’t stay on top of serious paperwork like his right to live in the country, etc.). 

I think he might have ADD or depression, but he won’t seek a diagnosis or take it seriously that his contributions to our household are so small.On the plus side he’s lovely with our child when he does spend time with him, and he’s funny and loving and smart and I don’t love many people so my love for him is pretty important to me. He also loves me deeply. 

I feel like if I were a single parent, though, I’d have an easier life. I think it’s partly because I like planning things and using my time efficiently, but for some reason he saps my initiative. I don’t like staying up when he’s gone to bed, I rarely feel good about planning some me-time leaving him alone with the child (and he does make me feel guilty about it), I can’t even insist on taking some time to get (job-related) work done when we would otherwise both be home with the child (partly because I am a big procrastinator about my work, but also because I can’t seem to act independently when he’s around).

I know there’s a lot wrong with him, but I can’t make him fix those things. But I think I am also handling things badly, and don’t know how to fix me. I don’t have many friends, and no close ones where I now live. I feel like I’m wasting my life.

Helpless Enabler (#430)

Dear Husband and Enabler:

I am going to ask you both the question that beloved poster Sheelzebub always asks people:

• If your marriages continued exactly as they are now for the next year, would you stay?
• Would you stay for another five years? Ten?
• Would you spend the rest of your life going on as you are now?

There are more questions here. I recommend these in particular:

• What goals and dreams do you have for yourself that you are ignoring or putting off “until someday, when partner gets better”?  Is there any way you can get started on them now?
• Have you thought about seeking therapy for yourself?  Not to “fix” your partner, but to nurture yourself in handling all of this?

Whether or not either of you technically have depression, it is ruling your lives just as surely as if you did have it.

I’m sure your partners are lovely people. I’m sure they deserve love. I’m sure they would give anything to not suffer from depression. I’m sure they have major guilt about the possibility that they are dragging you down.

Truths, some of them sad:

• You can’t make them feel better.
• You can’t control or change their behavior.
• Even if some of the stuff that is affecting you badly is not all the way their fault, it is still hurting you.
• You can’t fix the relationship by yourself.
• Loving someone isn’t always enough to build a happy, functional life with them.
• Your needs are real and SUPER FUCKING IMPORTANT.

What you can control is:

• Your own level of self-care, whether that be seeing mental health treatment for yourself, making sure you get exercise and time to pursue hobbies you like, looking for friends and activities outside the house and doing them because they make you happy.
• Asking directly for things you need from your partner and drawing bright boundaries with them. They may not be able to immediately meet those needs, and they may not immediately respect those boundaries, but by starting this work you are giving your relationships their best possible chance for survival.

Husband, you get to say:

“Wife, I need you to start your freelance assignments earlier and budget enough time to get everything done. I have my own work to do, and I am not going to scramble to help you anymore at the last minute.”

And if she ends up in a huge crisis at the last minute, you get to take yourself to the movies. There will be professional and emotional consequences if she fails to get it done, and she will likely try to make those your fault and your problem, and it will be very hard to hear the things she has to say both about you and about herself. But you are allowed to draw a line about what you are reasonably willing to do, and working full time + doing all the household chores + doing her work, too is not reasonable.

When she gets into a cycle of talking about how awful she is and no one loves her, you get to say “It’s really hard for me to hear you insult yourself that way, so I’d like us to stop talking about that now.”  Or “That is your Depression talking, and Depression is a big fat jerk liar. Let’s change the subject and give Depression a chance to chill the fuck out.” You don’t have to hang in there with her through the entire cycle and listen to all of it. Negative self-talk is self-reinforcing. Cut it off at the source if you can.

You get to schedule regular time out of the house.

You get to ask her for a joint plan for handling household chores differently, and if she can’t do that with you, you get to just straight up ask her to handle some things when it will take a load off of you. Start small. “Wife, can you make sure to take the garbage out tomorrow? I’d sure appreciate it,” or “I would like you to cook dinner one night/week from now on.” If she hears that as “Wife, I think you are a horrible person and I don’t love you” that’s her Depression talking, not you, and not your fault. If she tells you all about how she can’t take the garbage out because she’s horrible, you get to say “It really sucks that you feel like that, and I wish I could take that away from you, but I still need you to take the garbage out tomorrow even if it’s hard.”

You get to ask her to go to couple’s counseling with you specifically to work on finding a better division of labor at home. You also get to ask her to work on that with her own therapist. “Wife, I need us to figure out a better division of labor around the house. Can you please ask your therapist to suggest some specific strategies that might help with that specific area of life?” What she says and does in therapy is her own business, obviously, but you’re not a dick for suggesting it.

And Husband, I know this thought fills you with guilt and dread and you are not ready to even think about it, but if you end up separating from your wife because you are unhappy and do not see the situation getting better, you will not be a bad person. Whether or not any of this is her fault, the situations IS harming you. It is harming you.  The way you talk about yourself, as a potentially not-decent human being, makes me so very sad. You are good and you are doing your best.

“Enabling” Wife,

I think you probably would be happier as a single parent. I think you are trying to parent two people right now, and it is unfair, and it sucks.

If you’re not ready to make that decision, that is understandable. It takes time and putting some support resources in place. But I think that it’s good that you admitted the possibility to us here.

In the meantime, you get to say to your husband, “Please take care of your drivers’ license paperwork by the end of the week, thank you.” If that starts a shame-spiral, so be it. That’s HIS shame. If he responds with an excusedump you can say “I’d still like you to take care of that this week.” Because you DO actually NEED him to be able to drive & live legally in the country. You need this even if he is depressed or has a hard time with executive function.

You get to say “Husband, please take Child to the park for a few hours, I need to focus on work right now.” Even if it weren’t work-related, you get to say “Husband, I need a few hours at home to myself. Please take Child somewhere that is Else, thanks.” You also get to say “I’m going to the office for a few hours to knock out some work. Have fun!” and get the hell out of there.

You get to pursue friendships, work, and activities outside the house without a guilt trip or a negotiation. “I’ll be going to the gym on Tuesday nights from now on. Thanks for looking after kid! Can I bring you anything back from the store?” 

Both of you, you get to make reasonable requests about things that affect your quality of life. Like “I would like you to look for a part-time job or volunteer gig that gets you out of the house for at least 10 hours/week.” On the surface, that sounds patronizing as fuck, right? How can you say that to a fellow adult? But, you guys, you need your partners to do something that gets them regularly out of the house. To bring in some income. To bring them in contact with others. You need them to do it, and they’re not doing it on their own, so you need to gently ask them to do it.

I think the key to doing this in the least patronizing possible way is to not get too far into what they need or suggest that whatever you’re suggesting will be better for them. Make it about your needs, and make the requests small and specific. “I will be happier if I know I have a few regular hours with the house to myself. Can you go work at the library or a coffee shop one night a week?” “If I give you a list, can you do the grocery shopping today? Thanks.” Depressed people are depressed, they’re not stupid – they don’t need the lecture about how some fresh air will do them good. “You would feel better if you washed some dishes” is a true, they probably would feel better! But the whole problem is that the question of whether the dishes get washed is being ruled by their feelings, instead of your need to not to have to do the dishes after every single meal. “It’s your turn to wash the dishes tonight” or “I really need the kitchen to be clean, can you take care of it?” is a better, more direct, more true request.

It’s so hard to be involved with a depressed person. I say this as a depressed person who has not been managing it so well lately (Roughly: meds stopped working, need new meds, getting meds requires effort, which would be a lot easier if I had better meds, ergo I need new meds. I will solve this conundrum at some point, just, not today). I am worthy of love, like your wife and your husband are worthy of love, but if you lived with me you would still be within your rights to say “Jennifer, it is your turn to do x household chore now,” and you would not be being mean to me. If I heard your request and used it as an excuse to be really mean to myself, that was STILL not you being mean to me. That was me being mean to myself, which I am an expert at doing, and would have done anyway, and at least by you speaking up there is maybe a chance that something will get better.

Whatever you both decide, please, please, please find some people who can support you and give you some breathing space from these relationships. I think your own health depends on having some outlet away from the guilt and the sadness.

Oh Captain, my Captain!

I need some help. Last year, I was in an abusive relationship. My ex raped me repeatedly and often manipulated me. When we were together, I became close friends with another guy. Guy #2 eventually owned up to having feelings for me, and I found myself in a very awkward position. Wherein I was dating a terrifying man – who I later learned was a sociopath – seven years older than me, but was attracted to my close friend.

Fast-forward to February of 2012. I broke up with The Ex, who then proceeded to harass me, guilt-trip me, threaten suicide, and spread rumors about me amongst mutual friends. Unfortunately, being in a very not-good place mentally, I blamed myself and spent a lot of time trying to make him feel better, which he took advantage of.

A few months later, I started dating Guy #2. The ex began harassing both of us brutally, but #2 and I made it through.

But he’s having a really hard time handling my past. He blames himself for my abuse, because he thinks he should have talked to me and asked me to break up with The Ex sooner. But I think he also blames me a little bit, even though he won’t say so. Once he said “it’s a hard story to believe” and another time, we had a big argument – we almost broke up – because he was “disgusted by” it and sometimes couldn’t look at or touch me.

I just feel like he’s not trying. I really want this to work out, because I trust & love him. But things are getting worse, to where almost every time we’re alone, we start fighting about it. He’s depressed, but won’t talk to anyone. I’ve started seeing a counselor to work through my issues, but I feel like our relationship would improve if he did, too. He says him talking about it would be a waste of time, no one can help him, I don’t understand because I’m not in his situation… etc. But every time I ask him to explain, he just says he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Sorry for rambling; I’m just worried. Maybe we should break up, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I just don’t know if our relationship is as important to him as it is to me.

I guess what I’m asking is, how can I talk to him about how much he’s hurting me? How can I convince him that talking to someone, even if it ends up not being helpful, is at least worth a try?

Frustrated and Confused

Dear Frustrated and Confused:

I think your current guy was probably a helpful force in getting you out of your old relationship, but you do not owe him the rest of your life in return for whatever he endured at your ex’s hands or the assistance & comfort he provided.

I also think he is a bad fit as a partner for you now and that you would benefit a totally fresh, single start. Expressing disbelief and mistrust about things you’ve experienced, blaming you for your own abuse, and expressing disgust at touching you are VERY, VERY BAD. Objectively bad. He is turning something bad that happened to you into something bad that you are doing to him and then punishing you for it.

His depression and refusal to see a counselor may very well contribute to your relationship struggles (not least because he should be processing the feelings about what you both went through someplace that is not AT YOU), but I think you need to be with someone who a) believes you b) doesn’t blame you and c) doesn’t withhold affection. “I am mean to you sometimes because I am soooooo depressed” has the net result of “I am mean to you sometimes.” I’m sure he is better than your last partner, but do you really want to set the bar that low and be in a different kind of bad relationship where you aren’t treated very well?

Advice:

• Keep seeing the counselor on your own.
• Imagine your life a year from now where there is no mean man being mean to you and also no sad man being sad at you (and mean to you). What would you do with your life if you didn’t have to pour so much energy into figuring out how to make it work with some depressed dude who isn’t very nice to you?
• If you decide to break up, here is a good script: “I am grateful for the way you helped me escape from ex, and I care about you very much, but this relationship is not working for me and I am ending it.” If you think that ending it will be difficult and that he will not let you go quietly, there is some advice here.

You didn’t ask me to help you break up, and I’m trying to be respectful of that, but I just have a very bad feeling about this whole situation.

You could say “Partner, I really want you to seek out some treatment for your depression. This is because I care about you and want you to be well. This is also because I think you need a safe, private place to process your feelings about what happened with (Ex) and how he treated us instead of taking those feelings out on me. Whatever you decide to do, it is not okay for you to blame me for that, act like you don’t believe me, or tell me that you are ‘disgusted,’ and I don’t want you to say those things to me anymore.”

Boundaries have to be backed up by ACTION. So if he says something horrible to you, you need to be ready to say “You don’t get to say that stuff to me. Apologize now, or I’m leaving.” And then you have to be ready to leave, and to stay away unless you see some action on his part (like going to a counselor) that helps you trust that things actually will get better. If he says terrible things to you and it ends up with you staying and trying to comfort him & reassure him and make excused for him because he’s sooooo depressed, that sets up a very bad pattern where he gets to keep saying terrible things to you.

It only gets better if you’re prepared to leave if it doesn’t. I am so sorry to say this, but I think this is another case where it would help you to admit how bad things are, prepare to leave, and then actually leave. Please talk to your therapist honestly about what’s going on in your current relationship. There are people in the world who will believe you and who won’t blame you. There are people in the world who won’t shut you out when you try to get them to take care of themselves. I think the world holds a much better future for you. I know you care about this guy and the prospect of being alone might be sad and scary, but I swear, if you can kick free of this and put taking care of yourself absolutely first, with a little bit of time on your side you will feel so light you can fly.

There are better boyfriends in the world than this one, for sure.

Dear Captain Awkward:

Hey. I have done some bad things. I need to tell you about it so you can help me figure out how to not do bad things ever again.I started dating this guy two years ago, my first relationship. He was a really fantastic guy. But it slowly became clear that he had a lot of problems of the mental health variety. Since he was my best friend and I loved him and we were going to be together forever and other teenage nonsense was in my mind, I tried to help him even though I know nothing about depression. Then he became dependent on me and I became dependent on him being dependent on me, and it slowly turned into this nightmare where I spend every day listening to him talk about how much he wanted to die and I was just constantly emotionally exhausted.

Anyway long story short I finally realized how unhealthy that was and broke up with him for both our sakes. Then I spent a while feeling super guilty and sad and angry, and just really confused. Meanwhile, a younger friend (who is also really hot) started moving in, and by moving in I meant he started doing really sweet things for me and being adorable. And I, being lonely and confused, totally went for it, and he asked me out only a month after I had broken up with Guy #1 and I said yes, because I felt like I might as well. 

I went out with this guy and did not feel ANYTHING for him. So I called it off. But then the post break-up guilt started again and I thought I just didn’t give it enough chance and if I just worked harder I could do it, and I just quit too easily, so I went back (I know, it was stupid.) And, well, I still don’t feel anything, except that his text messages are really creepy now. But guess what, Guy #2 totally broke down to me and it seems that he’s depressed too.
Now, I realize Guy #2 is not a good match, and I feel really bad because I’ve caused so much pain to Guy #1. So my questions are, what the hell do I do now, am I a terrible person, what do I do about Guy #2, and should I go apologize to Guy #1 to give him some closure, and why do I keep attracting these guys, and do you have any advice about dating depressed people? I just don’t want to hurt anybody.

I have read your letter several times now, and I fail to find any “bad things” that you did.

It seems to me that you dated  a few people, did the best you could to be nice to them, and then broke things off honestly when you were no longer happy. It is okay that you tried out dating Guy #2 to see if it was for you. Finding out that it wasn’t right for you is a sometimes-very-sad-but-entirely-predictable result of dating someone.

That’s pretty much the best you can do by anybody. There is no guaranteed way to avoid hurting people. Sometimes what someone else wants (to keep dating you) and what you want (to not be dating them anymore) come into direct conflict. Are you going to keep dating someone who doesn’t make you happy rather than risk upsetting them? Are you going to let fear of what might happen stop you from giving something an honest try? That seems like a lot of pressure to put on yourself.

Also, while a month may feel like a short window between leaving one relationship and getting into another, we are not in Ye Olde Victorian Timez. There is no obligatory mourning period where you wear black and grieve the passing of a relationship. While it’s understandably hard to see someone who recently used to date you dating someone new, you didn’t owe Guy #1 a certain interval before going out with someone else.

My practical advice is:

• Do not apologize or otherwise contact Guy #1 because things with Guy #2 have gone south. First, I don’t think you actually owe him an apology. Second, do you want to go back to hanging out with (and emotionally supporting) Guy #1? I’m thinking no. So leave that alone.
• Break things off with Guy #2. He will be sad and hurt, but you don’t want to date him anymore, and I think you have to be true to that.
• Be single for a while and get both of these guys out of your system.
• When you’re ready to stop being single, date around casually a bit. Go on dates with a bunch of different people and see who you click with.

After two experiences in a row with guys who are pretty down on themselves and not the best at taking care of their emotions, I can see why you want to figure out how to screen future partners for people who are more likely to make you happy. So let’s talk about how we do that.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Every single person has some kind of weirdness or baggage that makes them some person’s version of 100% undateable. You. Me. Them. Everybody! Fortunately, we all also have qualities that make us just what someone is looking for.
• Attraction is subjective and unfair. You can’t force yourself to feel it when you don’t. And it’s possible to feel very attracted to people who don’t make good partners for you.
• Rejection (or lack of connection) is totally normal. You can/will meet lots of people who are perfectly fine/great/awesome, whatever but who aren’t right for you and you aren’t right for them, and that is okay. You don’t have to know that right away when you meet someone and you are allowed to take a little time to figure it out.

So it is okay to make “takes good care of mental health” a thing you are looking for in a partner, and use the process of getting to know someone to figure out if you can have a happy day-to-day life with someone.

For a less-loaded example, I spent a long time dating someone who didn’t really cook. He would cheerfully go grocery shopping and help with preparation, but he was almost never the initiator of meals. So 8 times out of 10 I was the chief decider and implementer of dinner. You eat a lot of meals together when you date someone for five years, and over time the different way we approached food became a source of tension. It wasn’t a dealbreaker on its own, and if the relationship had been awesome otherwise I would have treated it like a Price of Admission. But once the relationship died, I could admit how important that was to me.

So when I was dating again last winter, I knew that one of the things that I was looking for in a partner was a similar attitude toward cooking. I did online dating, so I put something in my dating profile about wanting someone who thinks it’s fun to scout out grocery stores and cook together. I responded favorably to people who mentioned cooking in their profiles in a way that seemed like they knew what they were doing but were also fun and relaxed about it. When I started dating my current partner, I saw that he was good company around cooking and eating and that we fit together well that way. It was a green flag in wanting to get to know him more.

If I had met someone who didn’t like cooking, I might have bailed. This is because my former relationship had taught me that cooking and eating with someone, having certain rituals around that and trading off responsibility for that, are super-important for me having a happy life with someone. Not liking to cook doesn’t make you a bad person, but in a perfect world that’s something I wanted to share with someone, so I was allowed to try to find someone who is a good fit that way.

For a more loaded story, I told this tale here in the comments once: I went on a few dates with someone who was handsome and nifty. After a little while, there was no kissing stuff, so I asked him about it and if he’d want to try that out. He came out to me as asexual and said that he would happily oblige me if I wanted sex but he would probably never initiate it. Reader, I stopped seeing him. Not because he did anything wrong, but because I know myself and I knew that what he described about how he handles sex in a relationship would not make me happy. I realize that plenty of people find ways to negotiate a happy relationship despite not having sex drives that match up, but I was also allowed to decide that I did not want to sign up for that kind of negotiation after going to the movies with someone a few times. There are plenty of people who are fun to go to the movies with and who like reading; better for us both to find people who match up well in other areas! His honesty and self-knowledge about his own desires allowed me to make a good decision about whether to get more involved.

Forgive yourself for not figuring out everything you want from your very first relationships. Now you know more than you did before about what you need. Having someone who takes care of their mental health – by seeing a therapist and going to the doctor and staying on top of those needs and not expecting their partner to be their sole source of emotional support – is super-important to you. You are allowed to actively try to figure out whether a potential partner is good at that before you get deeply involved. My partner and I both have diagnoses, and soon after we met each other we disclosed our stuff and talked about how we handle it and what the other person could expect. I left that conversation feeling like “Cool, he understands and has compassion for my stuff, and he has a good support structure in place for taking care of his stuff. Cool, we can do this.” Of course stuff happens, and you can’t always predict when someone is going to go through a crisis or how they will handle it, but when a new dating partner hits a personal rough patch, you are allowed to decide if you want to sign up for this. And if they seem to be leaning on you more than is comfortable, you are allowed to say “I think you should talk to a pro about this stuff, it’s not something that I can really handle as your girlfriend” and see what they do.

We do end up taking care of each other sometimes, and there is something amazing in the caring for someone and being cared for in return. But every single day should not feel like work. And one person should not have to serve as Emotional Rescue Squad.

I think you are very smart to figure out that there is more to life than shoring up some guy’s emotions at the expense of your own. Keep awesomeing!

Hello!

I didn’t find anything in the archives so I hope I’m not asking this when it’s been covered before. My boyfriend and I live together with his 11 y/o daughter, and I’m having some trouble figuring out how to be “dad’s girlfriend.” Quick background: My boyfriend (we’ll call him A) had his daughter (N) when he was 16, married and divorced N’s mom, moved two states away for work and when N’s mom was visited by CPS N was taken away. When A finally got a phone call about now N had been taken he was there as fast as he could be (18 hour drive one way) and has had N in his custody ever since (6 years now?)

One of the things I love most about A is how dedicated of a parent he is. Where the awkward happens is that I’ve only been out of my family’s home for 3 years (2 of which A and I have been dating) and I’m still struggling to figure out how to be the adult figure. A takes care of most discipline and dictates chores, rules, etc for N, and that’s great, but I don’t know what is acceptable as the girlfriend.

I don’t feel comfortable taking a motherly role, because N still has a mom even if she’s states away, and N is still at the age where EVERYTHING ABOUT ABSENT PARENT IS COOL. It breaks my heart, my (very basic) understanding of psychology makes me think that she misses having a mother regardless of all the crappy things mom did. Even after N had a telephone call where mom put the phone to her chest (or simply thought no one could hear over the phone) and said “Why doesn’t she just get over it already?” N talks about how much she loves mom and wishes to go visit.

That ball is totally in A’s court, but I’m stuck wondering what I’m supposed to be. I’ve had step parents myself, both of which took controlling/authoritative roles. I -hated- it. I’ve avoided doing that (out of my own fears of being “evil dad’s girlfriend”) but now I’m stuck in a limbo where when I’m alone with N I don’t know what might be out of line, so I turn into a wet noodle and clam up. It doesn’t help that I’m incredibly introverted and N isn’t so I have a hard time relating.

I just want some outside perspective on what I might do as Dad’s girlfriend. I’ve gone over the subject somewhat with A but he’ll usually give me a “You’re doing fine!” answer and I’m still stumped. Any awkwardeers have experiences to share?

Yours truly
Perplexed Girlfriend

You know what I like best about your question? That when you ask how to be “Dad’s Girlfriend,” it’s clear you don’t mean “how can I deal with the unfortunate fact that the guy I love has this pesky kid,” but “I think Kid and I could maybe be more to each other than we are, and I’d like that, but I want to get it right and I’m not sure what right is from Kid’s perspective.”

Which makes perfect sense to me. When you started dating A, you didn’t know how things were going to go with him, much less with Kid. And even if she was the coolest 9-year-old on the planet who wanted her dad to be happy and understood that having an awesome woman in his life would increase the chances of that, and even if she was prepared to accept that you might be an awesome woman, she’d have been wary, wondering if you were going to be around long enough for it to be worth letting you into her heart, and if you were going to be around how it would change things for her. And you’re an introvert, so not the kind of person who could’ve jumped in and been instant BFFs even if she’d been primed for that, which she probably wasn’t. So try not to feel bad that you’re not closer already.

But it doesn’t sound like N is seething with animosity towards you. And at this point you’ve been with A two years, and you’re all living together. My sense is that under the circumstances, the you-and-Kid-kind-of-holding-one-another-at-arm’s-length dynamic doesn’t feel right anymore. You’re ready for more. You realize that your triangle is missing a side, or at least that one side is weaker than it should be.

I think your instincts are right on about that, not just from your perspective, but from Kid’s (and maybe even A’s).

Years ago, a colleague of mine whose life-partner actively did not want a child (he already had grown ones) was planning to go ahead because her partner had given “permission,” on the terms that he would never be expected to change a diaper or give a bath, pick up the child when it (and clearly the guy thought “it”) was crying, take it to school or a doctor’s appointment, or be the one to adjust his schedule to stay home with it. The child was to be hers only, and he could absolutely ignore it. I’m sure my colleague thought he would fall in love with the child once he/she was born, but I found the fact that a man who had had any exposure at all to kids could even propose such a thing thoroughly chilling. What would it do to a kid to be absolutely invisible to his/her stone-cold parent on a face-to-face basis, every day of his/her life???? (The couple broke up, thank god, before anyone had to find out).

Need I say I like you a whole lot better than that guy? I think it can only be good for Kid to be told that although you’re quiet by nature and had bad step-parent experiences that have made you not want to tromp into her life like an elephant, and you know her relationship with her mother is important to her and you don’t want to edge her mom out or anything, she is such an irresistably awesome kid that the better you get to know her the harder you’re finding it to be just Dad’s Girlfriend. That she feels like family to you, and though no, you can’t swear it’s forever (because that’s dependent on what happens between A and you), you’d like to have a relationship directly with her — to build the third side of the triangle, without worrying too much about what label y’all put on that relationship. (Or if a non-motherly label would make either of you (or her mother) more comfortable, tell her you’d like to treat her like a much-loved niece, if that’s ok with her).

Yes, I know it’s important to be careful with prospective step-kids, given that you and the parent could break up. No, one doesn’t want to rush things. But given that you and A have been together two years and you are all living together, I don’t think now qualifies as rushing.

I think it is far, far better to risk loving each other and having that direct relationship than for her to think your reserve with her is because you don’t like her. Because that carries the message that she’s not all that powerfully lovable. Which is what she’ll think (at least sometimes) if that third side of the triangle is flimsy. Other times she’ll just think there’s something wrong with you. Sometimes she’ll wonder how her father could love someone who is apparently ambivalent to her, and what that says about his true feelings for her. (“Does he think it’s perfectly natural that she’s not that into me, because he wouldn’t be, either, if he wasn’t my dad?”)

Obviously, you’ll need to talk to A about this, but it sounds like he already trusts your instincts with his child. Unless your relationship with him is wobblier than it sounds, I think he’ll be pleased you want to give more of yourself to Kid, especially given your sensitivity to her perspective. I really don’t think you’re in danger of overreaching, given your natural diffidence.

On the contrary, I think you may need to work on the diffidence a bit. You may not be the adult in your household, but you are an adult. The ball is not entirely in A’s court. You get to raise the subject of what you need for the household’s relationships to feel healthy and happy. And you absolutely get to require that Kid treat you with courtesy and respect when it’s just the two of you. That is not a right reserved to parents; by insisting on it you won’t be usurping someone else’s rights or pretending to be someone you’re not. You may want to get some step-parenting books from the library to help you navigate those waters.

As for How To, do ordinary life stuff with her. Gradually be the one who drives her places more often (car rides when it’s just the two of you are great for connecting with kids). Encourage A to have you be the one who takes her on little errands; take her for haircuts or to the doctor; take her shopping for A’s birthday gift or a birthday-party gift or new sports gear when a season starts; if you and she like shopping, just take her shopping, period. Cook/bake. Do her nails. If you/she prefer less girly stuff, do that — just make it about the stuff; no “get to know you” lunches or awkward forced hang-out time around the house where you’re not doing something. And don’t force it; make things casual and occasional offers/invitations like “I’m in the mood for chocolate chip cookies, want to help make some?” and don’t act bummed if she says “nah.”

Basically, just eliminate the idea that you’re doing her a kindness by holding back, and do what comes naturally from there, and you’ll do fine.

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Dear Captain & Friends,

A while ago, I had a falling out with a lover I’d had for a relatively short time. They are in the habit of not speaking to people when displeased with them, and my last contact with them was to say that I would contact them when I felt like I was in an emotionally good place to talk again. I also made it clear that they could contact me before then, and I’d be open to scheduling a talk at that time.

After some time and hearing some of the hurtful things they said about me to my primary partner, I’ve decided that I don’t really want to talk to them. Some of my actions and habits were clearly misinterpreted, and while I don’t think this former lover is a bad person, I also don’t think they use their words enough for me to feel comfortable around them. I use my words A LOT, and I’m pretty direct about discussing what bothers me, why, and if I think it needs to be changed or it’s something I know I need to relax about. They didn’t choose to communicate their boundaries or feelings to me, except for a little bit at our falling out, when it was already too late for us to talk about fixing things. That’s not the kind of (lack of) communication style I want in my life. I’ve already started taking a look at how I was misinterpreted and deciding what I want to do differently in the future, with other people, to avoid that issue the best I can.

There are two problems with this.
1) I feel guilty because I said I’d say something when I personally felt like the rest of my life was going smoothly enough for me to talk. I don’t care for going back on my word.

2) We share a (large, to be fair) social circle, which they’ve been in far longer. I get anxious when considering going to events I know this person will be at, not knowing what they may have said about me to other people (they spoke poorly of one person they were *still sleeping with* when I was seeing them) and also fearing what people will think if they notice me and this person avoiding each other/not speaking.

What do you think? Should I offer to schedule that talk, or at least say I don’t care to? What kind of script could I use? And how can I deal with going to the same events?

Thank you for your time.

Going for Calm & Responsible

Dear Calm & Responsible:

If you think sitting down with this person and talking through some things will make you feel less anxious (about attending future social events, for example) and help you leave things on a better note, then by all means schedule something.

Script: “I promised I’d get in touch when things got more manageable around here, so this is me getting in touch.”

But what to say then? You don’t want to be sex partners again. You don’t even really want to be friends again. You mostly want them to stop discussing you with people who are not you.

I think big “clearing the air” talks are for when you have a relationship you are invested in preserving. When you are really done with the relationship and not interested in reconciling or spending any time together, you risk just opening old wounds or giving a false impression of your level of investment.

So if you want to let the whole thing drop, let it drop. You’re 100% allowed to just move on without a big talk if you think it will just stir up bad feelings and long discussions about stuff you don’t really care about anymore. A little time has gone by since this note came in, so I doubt this person is waiting by the phone to hear from you. Not getting in touch with them to talk things over IS a kind of response. It means: I don’t want to be in touch with you right now. As Elodieunderglass and others have stated: There is no special reward you get for being the most accommodating and nice to people who hurt you.

As for how to handle things in the social circle, it is completely probable that this person has gossiped about your relationship, so your anxiety at the possibility of some friction is understandable. But that friction and awkwardness is eminently survivable. I think you should keep going to fun events you like, nod at this person and say a brief hello, and focus on talking to the people you really like. If something awkward comes up from a third party, you can say “Yes, we dated briefly, but it turns out we were a bad fit. No need to rehash it, what’s new with you?” or (if they are pushy)” or “Wow, my least favorite topic! Well done!” depending on who/how close you are/what they say and how they say it. People will figure out pretty quickly that you don’t like to go over the gory details of your love life in public. Anyone who keeps crossing the line once you’ve set up the boundary that you don’t want to discuss it is way out of line and you may proceed to the “Look! Over there! Is where I want to be!” stage of interaction.

If you do think your former partner will be receptive to some communication and that talking things over are likely to make things better, ask yourself: Is this person better in email vs. text vs. phone vs. chat vs. in-person? and choose your medium.

Script #1: If you feel you need to draw a boundary about what is and isn’t up for public discussion

“Hey, I promised I would get in touch at some point, so I’m getting in touch. How are you doing?

(listen)

Okay, cool, so I’d love to figure out how we can be in the same social spaces and not step on each other’s toes or make each other feel weird…what do you think?“

(listen)

“Well, one thing that would make me more comfortable is knowing that you will take any concerns or issues you have with me directly to me before you discuss them with others. It really hurt my feelings when you told (stuff) to Partner that you didn’t tell me, and I don’t like the idea of the details of our sad business being out and about in the friend circle. Can you reassure me about that and help me feel more comfortable?“

(listen, likely to a lot of justification)

“I don’t want to reopen old wounds, but I did want to be clear that privacy and directness are important to me. Mostly what I’d like is to be able to say hello to you at (events) in (social circle) and have that be positive and have us leave things on a good note. Is that cool?” or “What do you suggest?”

Script #2: If you feel compelled to honor the promise to get in touch eventually but don’t actually want to discuss anything.

“Hey, remember how I said I’d get in touch? I’m getting in touch. How are you?”

(listen)

“Cool, that’s good to hear. Well, I don’t have anything really serious to talk about, I just didn’t want things to be awkward when we run into each other at events. I’m really grateful to you for giving me the time and space I asked for, it really helped me feel better about everything.”

You do feel “better,” right? Not awesome, or you wouldn’t be writing, but more confident about what kind of treatment you need from a partner and probably happier now that this person isn’t still a big factor in  your life? This person doesn’t have to know that “better” = BETTER WITHOUT YOU.

If this person tries to open up a big serious discussion, you can close it off. “I appreciate the apology” or “I appreciate your efforts in wanting to clear things up” + “But there’s really no need – let’s just let bygones by bygones and I’ll run into you at (events) when I do. Take care!“

You don’t owe them reaching out in the first place, you definitely don’t owe them a full airing of grievances.

Script #3: They get in touch with you.

“Wow, yeah, I’m still not ready to talk.“

(listen)

“Well, since you’re here, I’m pretty sure I’m not interested in resuming any kind of close friendship, but I would like to see you sometimes at events and not have that be painful and weird for either of us. Being able to say a quick hello to you at parties and then chill and enjoy everyone who is there would make me feel like we left things on a good note.”

In all of these scripts I am trying to outline specific behaviors that would be comfortable or okay, because when someone has wronged you and is trying to make amends it can be helpful if they know specifically how to go forward.

I hope this helps and that you can return to enjoying parties without worrying about what this person is saying behind your back. Good on you for figuring out what you really need from a relationship.

———————————

Finally, dear & beloved commenters, it’s the week of the winter where I remind people that the tip jar is open. If you can throw a dollar my way, I’d be ever so grateful.

I don’t have a special reward this time around, but I took my short film The Wardrobe out from behind the password and now everyone can watch it. Here are some other projects that I’m excited about:

• A short film I directed, Meet In A Public Place, is in the last stages of post-production and will be ready to be posted here on the site soon. Premise: It’s always good to Google someone before you meet them in person for the first time, but it’s possible to take this too far. Much too far.
• Boyfriend and I wrote a webseries together about a married couple that tries to bring the spice and connection back to their marriage. Unfortunately they decide to do this by using sex tips from Cosmopolitan. You want to see this web series, right? Your donation will help us get it made.
• My graphic designer friend is starting to work on Captain Awkward Swag – t-shirts, reusable bags, mugs, cross-stitch patterns, and most importantly, greeting cards. Need to tell someone that you don’t want to be friends anymore or that they make you 30-35% more human? We’re on it. If you think something should definitely be on a card or a t-shirt, tell us here.

That’s all for now. Thanks always for reading and being the best community on the internet.

Hello Captain and Friends,

I come from the type of broken home that looks shiny on the outside. The one bright spot in growing up with my neglectful (but not abusive towards me) parents was/is my big brother. We’ve always been very close and have essentially been each other’s best friends since some rather cruel fallings-out we had with our respective friends groups in high school. I wouldn’t say we tell each other everything, but definitely the important things.

My brother finished his Master’s last spring and decided to spend the six months after that traveling. He was doing the student-backpacker thing, so we didn’t keep as closely in touch as we normally do, mostly postcards and brief calls and the occasional email. So imagine my surprise when he came home at the end of December with a fiancé I’d never even heard of.

I’m pretty hurt by this and I think I’m justified. I’m sure that his boyfriend is a great guy, but our parents’ New Years’ party was the first place I met him and also the first time I’d seen my brother in six months. My parents went through the roof, my dad (his step-dad) especially, who has never really accepted that my brother was bi and who used to occasionally express that non-acceptance with his fists when we were younger. There was a huge fight at the party. My brother and his boyfriend left early. Ever since, whenever I talk to my brother, all he does is complain about how he knew mom and dad would react that way and tell me all the horrible things they’ve said to him since. (Apparently they’ve bombarded him with voicemails and even roped other family members into it.)

Obviously I mostly nod and tell him they’re jerks (because they are), but I also want to make it clear to him that they’re not the only ones upset and that I’m hurt too. I’m afraid that anything I say will be seen as taking their side or come across as homophobic or petty. (For the record, I’m totally fine with his bisexuality and have met and approved of past boyfriends. It’s the speed and being kept in the dark that are upsetting me here.) I mean, I know things happen on long trips that seem awesome and then you come home and things change. I don’t want him to get hurt, but also, yeah, I’m pissed he didn’t tell me he’s marrying a stranger.

How can I tell him all this without turning it into him accusing me of siding with my parents? I want to support him, but he’s been through a lot and I’m really worried.

-Wary Sister

Dear Wary Sister,

I understand that you are hurt and why this comes out of left field for you. Your brother and you are close, so when he brings home someone he’s never mentioned to you, it feels like he is saying “We’re not so close, and I don’t care what you think!” Feelings of hurt can be justified, without them being your brother’s responsibility to manage.

Your brother fell in love and wants to marry someone. He’s not doing anything he’s doing AT you, and none of this is ABOUT you.

Also, once someone says “I’m marrying this person!,” the ship where they wanted other people’s approval or opinions on whether/when/how they should do it has permanently sailed. The person wants you to get on the good ship “Yay!” with them or forever hold your peace. There are cases where you have good reason to not be putting on your jaunty sailor hat, like this one and one I’ll be posting about shortly, but even in those cases like abuse or fraud or extreme worry where you feel like you ethically must speak up it helps if you have very low expectations of how much the happily engaged person wants to hear it. Weddings, y’all. One reason they are so fraught is that I can think of so many examples of  ”I am marrying this person! But not doing it in exactly the way you imagined I would! By all means, make me responsible for all of your shattered dreams & hurt feelings! I am totally making all the choices I make in order to hurt and confound you!” playing out, even when people love each other and want to do right by each other.

If you want to rebuild the closeness with your brother, get to know his new partner. Ask if you can spend time with both of them. Go into it with the attitude of “I want to find out what is making my brother so happy!” and not “Things may seem really great when you’re on vacation, but….” If red flags are waving, you’ll spot them, but treating this partner as someone who needs to be defended against or investigated from the start, or calling him “Some Stranger!” will not bring you closer to your brother or help him in any way that he wants right now. Keep in mind:

• He’s NOT a stranger to your brother.
• Sometimes people know each other for only a short time and then get married and are very happy.
• Your brother may have very different expectations about how and when you guys tell each other things. You guys weren’t in frequent contact, so he may have been saving big important news for when you were face to face again. You see this as a slight, but he might see it as “Boyfriend, I can’t wait for you to meet my sister! You will love each other! She will be so surprised!“
• In a country where marriage equality is still being fought for, in a family where such things are discussed with “fists(!)”, cut your brother some slack for being cagey and wanting to control the manner of delivering his big news. He gets to set his own comfort margin about this, as does his fiancé – they get to decide that together..

Whatever dream you had about how he would introduce you to the person he wants to marry, please do not let that become more important than the real relationship that is in front of you. Work on reconnecting with your brother. Get him to tell you all the stories about how they met. Spend time with him and his partner and do not take any of this out on him. Show your brother that you are and continue to be a safe, supportive sister and prove that you’re not like your folks by not being like your folks–who are ruining this opportunity to become closer to your brother by making his happy news all about their feelings of disappointment.

Give it some time and you may be able to have a good conversation about how you want to be involved in the ups and downs of each other’s lives. Your brother might tell you why he didn’t tell you sooner or bring it up himself, but he needs a chance to relax and feel safe first. This is a good time to say “this isn’t about me right now” and let go when you give love:

Before we jump into sad, serious things, Gollum dreamed a dream (of coming to your party?) Courtesy of my friend @spyscribe. You guys watch The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, right?

Now, some letters about living situations gone bad (#451) and very, very bad (#452).

Dearest Captain,

I need some help with relationship ambivalence.

It’s been 3 years and we live together. This is going to sound awful, but I recently has the thought that I am better than him at almost everything. He is extremely unsure of himself and is very dependent on me. He needs help/frets about making even the tiniest decisions. His indecision about inconsequential things used to be something we joked about, but now I just feel very smothered. He often makes his problems/feelings my problem or responsibility. I have had the occasional moment of, “this is definitely right for me”, but more often I have had doubts about whether I really want to be with him.

Here’s the wrench: My whole life has been in a shake-up recently. In the past two weeks, I found out I am losing my job (a job I REALLY love), found out I didn’t get accepted into grad school, then, last week I witnessed a stranger’s death. I was one of the first people to stop and help him. I stood over him as he died, before medics even arrived. The experience has really had a profound effect on me. I was very disturbed by what happened. BF knew I had all this going on though that didn’t stop him from wanting to have a big relationship talk about feeling that we’ve been in a “rut” for the past week. This was two days after the stranger’s death. 

On one hand, I feel like I should not make any major life decisions in such a period of upheaval. On the other, I get the feeling I am being tested and have a gut feeling towards making changes in my life. 

I have a gut sense telling me to end it, but I can’t *rationalize*why because everything seems fine between us. He is a very kind person, intelligent, insightful, sweet, cute, great sense of humor and he loves me very much. We live together very harmoniously. On the downside, he has depression that he has never attempted to do anything about. Recently, on my urging, he agreed to talk to a psychiatrist and then asked me to give him the number to a psychiatrist. Later, he blamed me that he hadn’t called because I never gave him the number. This is the kind of responsibility-shifting that really upsets me and makes me sad. 

In my society, there is a slavish devotion to “rational” thinking and I doubt many of my intuitions. Then here I am being the one who is indecisive and generally at-sea!

I have no idea what to do and could use a little wisdom! 

Private Secretson

Dear Private Secretson:

Your vague gut feeling that you want to end it IS the reason.

You don’t actually need a reason other than “I am not so happy here with you.” In fact, hanging out waiting for (or looking for) a clear, incontrovertible reason is going to destroy any and all affection you have left for this person. So your letter doesn’t sound awful to me. You’ve been through a traumatic experience, and you have a partner who is making that harder rather than easier. You are living with someone who makes you stressed out and tired. It’s okay. You can go!

Look at it this way:

You could break up and move out now, while you still have *some* affection for each other and can hopefully be kind and respectful throughout the process.

OR,

You could wait until you detest him and are fleeing the relationship like the scene of some horrible crime.

Someone doesn’t have to be objectively awful for you to not want to be in a relationship anymore.

Intern Paul is handsome, and smart, and funny, and will get you Gatorade and Cheez-its when you’ve been sick, build you a computer from scratch, and take care of your cat when you go out of town.

We dated for a few years, and then lived together, and we found out that we made each other less happy. We were in the exact state of ambivalence that you describe – I like this person so much! But I am not sure I want to be here for the long-term! So I am looking for a reason to end it, or a reason to stay! Everything that happens between us takes on a larger significance because it is part of a decision matrix! Am I happy? What is happiness, anyway? How much happiness does a person really need? Surely this is good enough? Moving in and then out again was an expensive and heartbreaking lesson, but we learned what we were supposed to learn from the experience, namely, “Do not marry.“

It’s really, really hard when things don’t work out like you planned. But it is okay to want and work for and change things to get happiness.

So I suggest that you reach out to your support network. Talk to someone about the death you witnessed, talk about your job loss, do everything you can to take care of yourself. Spend a little time looking at your finances & figuring out where you will go if you leave. Call your family, call your friends, work on your resume, find someone’s couch or guest bed you can sleep on for a little while, and make a solid landing for yourself. And then sit down and have the hard conversation.

“Partner, I am so sorry to have to say this, but I have decided to break up with you and find another place to live.”

He may ask why. This is natural and should be expected. People have a right to ask why, but they don’t have a right to know why, or be convinced about why. They don’t have a right to have why proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

What I suggest is that you not use this time to name things about your partner that you dislike. Once you’re done with a relationship, you don’t owe him an exit interview/life-tutoring session, and it’s mean to turn it into a list of reasons you don’t love him anymore. A good script is “Partner, I’m not sure I can articulate a good reason. But I know that my feelings about the relationship have really changed and it is time for me to end it.“

The question “Why did your feelings change?” is a hard one, and not one you can ever really answer to another person’s satisfaction when you’re trying to get out of a relationship. If you’re getting broken up with, you’re not stupid or weak for wanting to know that. What makes love stay? What makes it fade? We like to think that if people gave us a list of concrete things we did wrong we could know what to improve to guarantee that this pain of loss and rejection will never happen to us. But it doesn’t work that way. Closure, self-awareness, self-improvement, self-forgiveness come later. Those are things we give ourselves when some time has gone by, not something someone can give us on their way out the door. We think we want those lists of things we did wrong in the name of understanding, but hearing them during a traumatic moment means they tend to stay with us forever as “things that are true” about us that we can gnaw on in our most vulnerable moments. But we are changeable beings  - what makes us a bad fit for one person might fit beautifully with another.

Hi there Captain, Sweetie and Commander! 

I have a seemingly simple breakup question. I am in a relationship with a kind, caring, gentle manchild and I am sick of it. I want OUT. I can’t even imagine that there is a single thing that could happen that could change my feelings about this. We have tried, but he has never lived outside of home before moving in with me and I can’t stand his lack of independence, motivation, hobbies, interests, job, and friends.

The problem I have however is this; we live together and he has nowhere else to live. This is my house, in my name, and I can’t/won’t leave it. I need it for my kids! So he needs to leave. The trouble is, he has no friends or family and nowhere to go, or a job to pay for a place. How can I do this? Whenever I try to get him to leave he pulls the mental health card, which I understand because I have mental health issues as well but I think he’s doing it manipulatively. Basically I just wish he would pack up his stuff and go pleasantly, but clearly that’s not going to happen.

How can I kick him out when he has nowhere to go?

Fifty Shades of DONE

Dear DONE:

There are two questions here. One is “How do I break up with this person?“

The other is “How do I get him out of my house?“

Honestly, I think what you need right now is:

a) a savings account  for a security deposit and 1st month’s rent somewhere new. Do not tell him you are doing this, this should be a surprise that comes only when he is out of the house or has agreed and is actively planning to get out of the house.

People give the whole alimony thing the side-eye nowadays, but I think it has a legitimate place when people are financially intertwined and are making plans based on promises and assumptions of a shared future. While this is not an obligation, if the person you are breaking up with is financially dependent on you, and you are in a position to create a modest, temporary “If I’d known you were going to break up with me, I would have maybe put a little more in savings instead of buying you that awesome Christmas present/paying off your student loans/buying new living room furniture, Jerkface” fund, I say, do it.

b) Team You: family, friends, a counselor or therapist for you, and an attorney.

c) The beginning of “Team Him”, starting with a social worker who can help him address the mental health issues and maybe find him some housing, even a group home or halfway house situation, and

I would start with the lawyer and do nothing until you have engaged one.

I say this because:

• There are legal implications to evicting someone from a residence, and you should know what they are and make sure that you are following the letter of the law so that it doesn’t come back to bite you. We do not know where you live, we are not lawyers, we don’t know how long you’ve been living together and what your agreements were like. Even if we did know those things, and even if we were lawyers, we would not be YOUR lawyers. Commenters, please do not try to give specific legal advice. The Letter Writer needs to call an actual lawyer where s/he lives, tell that person all the specifics, and work within local laws, and nothing we can say is a substitute.

• Whatever relationship you have had with this person in the past, once you’ve asked them to leave and they won’t move out, this person is now in an adversarial relationship with you. If he were going to cooperate with you, when you first brought up the subject (after initial shock wore off) he would have said something like this: “I am very sad and also very scared about what happens next and where I will live. I feel overwhelmed – can I ask your help in coming up with a plan & a timeline so that I can find a new place to live?” 

You could have dealt with that, right? But he is refusing to deal with it at all.

If your employer has an Employee Assistance Program, one of the things they often handle is legal referrals.

Once you’ve talked to the lawyer, I think it might make sense to handle the breakup in two distinct stages.

First, can your kids stay somewhere else for…a weekend? A week or so? Longer? I think your lawyer will have advice that says that you cannot/should not vacate the residence for any reason, but you might want to get your kids out of the way during difficult conversations.

Then:

“Partner, I am breaking up with you. Our romantic relationship is over.“

He will ask where he is going to live. You can say “That is a separate discussion, but as of now, you should sleep ______ (guest room, sofa, basement) and store your things in (closet/storage space).“

The breakup is a final decision. Your bedroom? Is closed. Your persona around him? Robotic, detached, repeating statements like “I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that I don’t want to be your girlfriend anymore.” “I realize that this isn’t good news, because (mental illness, worries, etc.) I can’t solve those worries for you, but I do need to be honest about my feelings.“

His attempts to manipulate you are an example of “forced teaming” –  manipulating someone by trying to make problems into shared problems. Sounds like you’ve been dealing with a lot of this as your ex tries to make the question of you breaking up about where he will live. The fact is: You don’t want to be with him anymore. Where he lives is a separate issue, and not a precondition.

Your lawyer will have advice on how to officially notify him that he must leave, how to make a timetable, how to enforce that timetable, how to handle finances, your lawyer and a social worker will maybe figure out how involve your city government (access social safety net, mental health care).

This is an honesty zone, so let me say right here: This guy might end up in a homeless shelter. Or, depending on how pronounced his mental illness is, a state-run mental hospital.

And placing him there will seem unbelievably cruel, and he will let you know this every chance he gets.

He may threaten to harm himself.

Do while we’re being cruel and cold, put this in your back pocket.

1. Someone who threatens suicide to manipulate you, is committing an act of emotional terrorism. “I will murder someone if you don’t do what I want.” If he harms himself, it will not be your fault. He will be proving that he is someone that will do violence rather than break up with you in a clean, respectful way. You don’t have to negotiate with (or remain engaged with) people who threaten violence.

2. Once upon a time this guy had enough…intelligence? Charm? Wit? to get you to fall in love with him and want his company all the time. He had something going for him, even if you don’t think so now or it didn’t hold up to further scrutiny. What did he do before he met you? Where did he live? He didn’t spring out of a hole you dug in the back yard like that weird Timothy Green movie, right? It might help alleviate some of your guilt to remind yourself of this. In The Gift of Fear‘s”how to fire people” chapter, de Becker talks about making people feel like they have other options.

This is a really hard, sucky situation and I think it will take some time to extract this guy from your house. Protect yourself, protect your kids, use every single resource that you can find, and stay true to the truth, which is that you don’t want to be with this guy anymore.

“I made you this compilation of my thoughts and feelings. The agenda for our conversation is on Page 3. Please call my office to schedule our relationship discussion.”

Dear Captain Awkward:

My boyfriend and I are in our mid-twenties and have been together for about half a year. He treats me well, takes an interest in what I do and enjoy and is generally a good boyfriend. We have a lot of similar characteristics and the same silly sense of humor. When we first got together it was supposed to be a casual thing, but it ended up escalating into something more serious almost immediately. Right now we are together almost five days of the week and almost never go out alone. We sleep in a tangled pile. We are comfortable with just being in the same room doing our own thing. I have never pressured him into anything and neither has he, everything just happened. It feels SO nice and natural. He seems to enjoy it too.

I am developing some Serious Feelings for him and I can definitely imagine a future with this man, but I am not sure about what he wants from our relationship. I would definitely want to be with someone who wants to have a family and this is not something up for compromise. My problem is that both him and I are absolutely terrible at talking about emotional things. I even have trouble saying „I like you“ out loud, asking „where do you see this relationship going“ is something I feel is beyond me. I’ve tried to find a good moment to force myself to bring up this topic with him, but can’t seem to find one (or I can’t make myself to open my mouth). I’m also afraid that he will not be able to answer my questions for the same reasons (I know I’d have trouble with it). I don’t want to lose him and yet I don’t want to waste my time in a relationship that will not lead anywhere.

So I guess my question is, how do I get over this unnatural fear I have of talking about my feelings/relationship goals? Suppose I get over it, how do I make the conversation comfortable enough for him? Do you think it’s viable if we’re both funny the same way?

Miss Wordless

Not everyone appreciates the “I made you this binder of feelings & reasons” approach.

Dear Miss Wordless:

If you are happy, you are not “wasting time” in a relationship that “will not lead anywhere.” You are learning to be in a relationship and enjoy the day to day of getting a lot of your needs met by someone cool and nifty who likes you and likes spending time with you. That ain’t nothing, and you should not feel guilty about enjoying yourself for as long as you are enjoying yourself. There is no one right way to be in a relationship, and if the two of you like to keep it light and seem to have similar styles of communication and humor, that can be great.

Being funny (and funny together) is really important and a great way of connecting. But if you’re going to be with someone your whole life and really do that whole in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, through illness and births and death and all the stresses and joys of living every part of this complex and amazing life you’ve been given, you will need more than funny.

Dark times come to us all. If you are very, very lucky, when you reach those dark times you will have someone who loves you to hold your hand and wrap you in their love and support, and remind you of your own worth. This love doesn’t have to necessarily come from a romantic partner to be real and true. Sometimes love is a sandwich. Sometimes it’s killing the giant bug that crawled out of a crack in the ceiling. Sometimes the toilet in the place you’re staying in on vacation is backed up, and love means driving you to a safe pooping sanctuary. Being vulnerable is scary and hard sometimes. It carries risk of rejection. But it’s the only way that we can we connect with each other beyond the surface level and reap all the rewards of being truly seen and truly seeing someone else’s heart.

Fortunately you don’t have to lay out all of your thoughts/feelings/hopes/dreams at once. You don’t have to go right into deep heartfelt talks about THE FUTURE. Relationships don’t have to feel “intense” to be true and important and truly loving. You can use this relationship that is working and where you get along very well and spend all your time together to practice being vulnerable a little at a time and see what happens.

I think one thing that will help you learn to let your feelings cross the brain-mouth barrier is to practice being present in the moment and saying what’s on your mind in the moment.

“I think I might love you but I don’t want to say so in case you don’t want a family or see us having a permanent future together” is a lot for anyone to unpack in a relationship where you haven’t talked about feelings before. NOTHING is wrong with having any or all of those feelings, and you don’t or shouldn’t have to make your feelings smaller or more convenient in order to be with someone. But there is a lot of pressure and anxiety tied up in expressing them all at once and with such a strong future-emphasis. So start small, and start in the present, and start with expressing true thoughts and feelings you are having in a way that does not put pressure on the other person to feel any particular thing themselves.

• “I am glad you came over tonight.”
• “Thank you for making dinner.”
• “I love sleeping next to you.”
• “I am feeling very happy right now.”
• “That feels really good.“
• “That doesn’t feel good, can we stop?“
• “I feel sad.”
• “I feel nervous.“

See what reactions you get. Does he smile? Does he reciprocate? Does he open up a bit? Does he make you feel glad and comfortable that you said something about how you were feeling? Then things are good.

Maybe next you can practice asking for specific things.

• “Will you rub my back?”
• “Can you make dinner tonight?”
• “Can we do (that sex thing I like)?”
• “Is there’s something you’d like to do today?“
• “Does this feel good?“
• “I’d like to have a night to myself to catch up on reading. Can we talk tomorrow instead?”
• “Will you be my date to x event?”

Practice being honest about your feelings about what is happening now and checking in about his. Start with low-stakes, true things.

You say “we spend five days of the week together and almost never go out alone.” So one other suggestion I have to make things feel a bit less risky is that you do something to get back in touch with your solo life – spend a little solo time with your friends, make sure you do a hobby or art or sport or working at a goal that is yours alone and that brings you in touch with other people. I don’t know if it’s winter where you live, but I do know how tempting it is to curl up in the bundle of two and not motivate to go out and do things with others. That can be so great and comfortable, but right now if you’re feeling uncertain about relationship stuff s it can be good to get back in touch with the fact that a lot of people like you and want you to be happy.

These are the most basic baby steps, and I can’t script out your whole story for you. Maybe you have another year ahead of you before you can say “I’m in love with you” or blurt out “I want to have kids and I am hoping you want to have kids with me and that we can do that together” after an episode of Parks & Rec. This is a good news/bad news situation – until you’re comfortable enough to talk about having kids with the purported father of those kids, you’re not ready to have kids.

I want to leave you with three thoughts.

1) There is no way to know ahead of time what someone else thinks and feels and wants. There is no code for figuring it out and therefore guarantee that they will be on the same page as you before you speak up. Despite an entire magazine industry devoted to “Top Signs He’s Ready To Commit” written by people who have degrees in preserving the status quo from Dipshit University, the tools you have at your disposal for sussing out another adult’s plans, hopes, and feelings are:

• Saying what you want and seeing how they respond.
• Asking what they think and seeing what they say.

Your question, and its mention of “sleeping in a tangled pile” (lovely image, by the way) and asking if I think it’s viable because your senses of humor match was a little bit about asking for top! signs! this will work out! I mean, yeah, it sounds like the guy is into being in your company, and “actions speak louder than words,” but I think it’s okay to want the words, too. (See .gif, below).

2) If you are a lady, that does not means that you have to do all the work of figuring out feelings and the future. You are not this guy’s FeelingsTutor. You’re the one who wrote, so probably you will be the one to start saying things like “I really like you.” If he’s a good guy and into you, he will make it very safe and comfortable to trust him with those things, and he will say stuff back, even if it’s hard for him, too. If you start opening up and suddenly feel like you’re dating a Michael Cera character (like an onion, with each layer made of more Michael Cera) who only has one emotional mode, abort!

3) If you really know that you want to have kids someday, you gotta speak up about it sometime. Whatever that heart’s desire is – if it’s to live on a boat for a while or move to Finland or start a theater company or go back to school – you have to be able to say it out loud to the people who you want to really know you.

By saying it out loud*, you do take a risk. You risk that people will laugh at you, or not be on board. You risk that this person right in front of you will not be on Team You while you go after the things you want. You risk pain and disappointment.

By NOT saying it loud, you also risk never, ever getting what you want. Not because some evil nemesis put their evil boot down on your neck and stood in your way, but because you stayed silent, the people around you never knew what you wanted, and you never gave them a chance to actually be on your side or walk away from your side. And then time happened. Your silence + time + fear came in and stole your dreams from you, and then it was too late.

Every good thing that ever happens to us because someone said “Yes, let’s try it.” There is no love without courage, so be of good courage. Take your faults and walk into Camazotz. Take your passion and make it happen. Say “I really care about you and want you to stay in my life” to your boyfriend, and see what happens.

*can mean voice, text, email, letter, skywriting, or any form of expression.

It could be worse. Consider, for instance, an equivalent swarm of velociraptors.

Dear Captain Awkward:

I have had a very complex life in the last couple of years. I have gone from having a fairly normal life in regards to health and then I went on dialysis. Since that point I now have a kidney transplant.

My girlfriend currently has a really hard time wrapping her mind around the changes in lifestyle that I have to live. She almost finds my precautions somewhat unbearable.

What should I do? She also makes fun of my situation or lightheartedly jokes about it.

Unfortunately they don’t offer empathy transplants.

Was your girlfriend with you since before the changes? Because I would imagine that watching a partner go through dialysis and a kidney transplant would make it sink in that 1) Hey, you could have DIED 2) Following your doctors’ recommendations carefully is  serious business. If she met you after the changes, maybe the seriousness of it hasn’t really sunk in. Which isn’t an excuse, but it gives you a place to start in deepening her perspective.

If you want to try to make things work with this person, I think there is both a Big Serious Talk to be had and some day-to-day scripts.

The daily script is, when she makes a joke, to say something like “Whoa, that really hurts my feelings.”

After you say that, be quiet, and listen to what happens next. There is going to be a very awkward moment, and it is not your job to smooth it over – the awkwardness is the way that you get to the resolution. If she stops, apologizes, and changes her behavior, that’s a good sign. If you’ve been putting up with the jokes for a while, it may take a few tries for it to sink in – you are subtly changing the “rules” of how the relationship works and some people don’t get it right away. You can openly acknowledge the rule change with “I know I usually let it go, but….” or “I know you mean that as a joke, but….” when you say things like that, it really hurts my feelings. Can we find another way to talk about x issue?“

If after saying that her jokes hurt your feelings, she doubles down on the joking, or starts justifying why it’s okay for her to make jokes that hurt your feelings, she is pressuring you to ignore your healthy routines, she calls you “too sensitive” and tells you to “toughen up,” or for whatever reason the conversation ends with you apologizing to her for bringing it up and being upset, here there be Evil Bees.

I would try that script several times before escalating to the Big Serious Talk. You will get some information about what you’re dealing with that will help you have the talk, and you’ll get some recent examples of the behavior that bugs you.

The big talk is telling her what you went through, how painful and scary it was, and why these lifestyle changes are very necessary for you, and asking her directly for her kindness and support and to lay off the hurtful jokes. There is also some asking to be done about her point of view, one way to start the talk is to maybe ask her how things are affecting her. “I know we’ve been through some changes, and I get from the jokes that you make that you’re still really processing them. I know it was hard for you to see me go through that crisis. Can you tell me a little bit about what it’s been like for you? In a perfect world, where you get everything you want, how would our relationship work? Is there a way we can make the relationship work better for both of us?“

I don’t think it’s okay for a partner to belittle you for having needs, or make jokes about your health needs, or laugh off your very real concerns and issues, and this way of opening the conversation might seem way nicer than she deserves. My reasoning is this:  When you have to have a very difficult conversation, it helps to treat people as you want to be treated. You are modeling good behavior by being up front about your needs and asking her to articulate hers in the hopes that she will rise to the occasion.

In the most generous possible interpretation of her behavior maybe the jokes are her way of getting uncomfortable feelings out there that she didn’t ever feel safe to talk about when you guys were in full “gonna die, can’t talk now” mode.  A drastic change in diet or energy or what activities you do does affect the other person in the relationship, not to mention being a caregiver or watching someone you love go through a huge medical crisis.Whatever happened to her during that time was definitely happening to you way more, obviously, but *something* was happening to her and maybe she needs a safe place to talk about how scared she was. If she is a new partner and wasn’t with you during the time before the transplant, maybe she doesn’t fully understand what happened and how serious it was, and needs to be told explicitly what it’s like for you.

Your health needs and not-being-belittled-by-someone-who-says-they-love-you needs trump her feelings, obviously. But the best way to figure out if this is a My Girlfriend Is Bad At Communicating vs. My Girlfriend Lacks Empathy situation is to ask outright and give her the opportunity to surprise you with doing the right thing.  This talk might be a much needed way to process everything together and find a way forward. If it goes well, consider seeing a couples counselor where you can have an ongoing conversation about this and really work on communication.

Sadly, it may be the time you find out that you guys are really not on the same page. Maybe the changes in your lifestyle really are “unbearable” for your girlfriend. That is something she gets to decide, and she gets to leave and seek another partner. But she doesn’t get to hang around and be mean to you. If you open up and she makes fun of you, laughs it off, and keeps going with the jokes, realize that there are people out there who won’t treat you this way. And if she for one second implies that “someone in your condition” is lucky to have her and that you won’t be able to find anyone else, run (or wheel yourself, or crawl) for the nearest exit. That is a big, bad sign that she is emotionally abusing you, and that is 100% never okay.

Reminder, monthly London meetup is tomorrow. Sorry for not posting this sooner, guys! It’s been the week of 1000 meetings.

Dear Awkward Army,

London meetup this weekend, 23rd March!  All welcome.

11:00 am onwards, Leon restaurant, 36/38 Old Compton Street, London, W1D 4TT.

The venue so far has worked out well, so I’m sticking with that.  They’ve also offered us 25% off all our food and drink.

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/i9COr

Leon have a variety of good food at very reasonable prices – for central London, anyway!  Menu here:http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/menu/

This branch has an accessible toilet, and we’ll be on the ground floor in the back (around behind the food service counter).

I have long brown hair and glasses.  I will bring my plush Cthulhu to use as a table marker.  It looks like this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/7cb0/

My email address is kate DOT towner AT gmail DOT com

As discussed at previous meetups, I am happy to teach people to knit, so if you want to start or want help, bring something along!

By the way, I think it’s likely the April one will be on the 20th rather than the 27th, sorry about any confusion.

Cheers,

Kate

 

And now, a letter.

Hey Cap (and friends!),

There’s a little bit of background to this, but I’ll try to keep it short.

I have issues with my family. I guess you could say I’m the “black sheep” in a way. I’m the middle child, the only creative person, the only one who could be described as liberal, and (perhaps most importantly) the only one to inherit my mother’s bad depression, with a side of social anxiety. Add to this a big old heap of emotional abuse from my father and, later, my stepmother (who is thankfully gone now).

When I was in high school, I went through a lot of trouble, including self-harm, that was more or less ignored, and I didn’t do very well in school despite having clear potential. It was only later when I asked my parents about it that they said yeah, they always sort of knew that I had depression, and knew that it was holding me back, but they didn’t want to bring it up with me at the time because…they haven’t given a solid answer. As far as I can tell, they kind of sacrificed my academic future on the altar of not having an awkward conversation with me.

A few months ago, I moved out of state to live with my boyfriend and see about continuing into college now that I have things more under control. But every time I talk to my parents or my brother and sister, it seems like they have nothing nice to say at all.

I love my brother and sister, but every time I chat with them, they seem to be always upset with me. “Why haven’t you called us? Why haven’t you called Dad? You need to call us more and not be so ungrateful. You don’t even want to be part of the family.” Even putting aside the fact that they know I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to talking on the phone, I don’t understand how being busy up here and not able to contact home every day counts as ungrateful.

Then, the other night, a minor disagreement on Facebook randomly spiraled into them accusing me of hating our father, of not wanting to be a part of the family, and of being selfish in even moving away. These overtures were common before I’d moved, but now it’s been magnified so that they’ve become outright vicious about it.

I’m out of a toxic environment, but now the environment is starting to follow me. How do I tell my brother and sister that I still love my family (I really do!), but they need respect my decisions and treat me like a person?

Oh goody, when your abuser recruits others to do their abusing for them.

I want to review a few things about abuse (which includes neglect and/or emotional abuse). Well, I don’t want to. But I will. People can grow up in the same household and have two totally different experiences of what happened. Your brother and sister are probably being wound up by your dad, and investing in this story about how they are the Good Ones and you are the one who causes problems. And your leaving affects the stories they want to tell themselves about how they grew up. If they grew up in an awesome place, then why are you leaving it? And if they didn’t grow up in such an awesome situation, and you can just walk away from it, then they could theoretically walk away from it, too. But they aren’t, so are you like, judging them by making a different choice? Or leaving them alone to deal with JerkDad on their own, which is somehow “unfair”?

None of this surprises me, is what I’m saying. Abusers need to control the story about what happened, and will go to great lengths (including deputizing others and making them miserable by proxy) to keep that control, because it’s a way of controlling you. If your parents had gotten you help when they noticed you harming yourself, they risked that you would tell other people what it was really like in your house, which may have had real consequences for them or the imagined consequence of “someone somewhere thinks they are not very good parents.” Maybe you would have moved out, and been outside of their control. Maybe you would have gone off to school, and learned things, and been outside of their control. Maybe people in your town would have given them the side-eye at church. Or, maybe they saw you hurting yourself and they just didn’t give a shit, and now that you’re old enough to tell the story I and everyone reading this thinks maybe they weren’t very good parents. That cat is out of the bag, Letter Writer, so take care of yourself now that you are out of the house and have that agency for yourself.

Honestly, who knows or cares what their logic is. You don’t actually have to know in order to make good decisions for yourself.

Here’s what we do know:

1. Many people don’t get the whole “making a different choice than you is not an attack on you” thing. You left. They could leave too, if they wanted to. If they choose to stay? Great, enjoy that, then! Not actually a referendum on love or a reason for yelling.

2. Starting a conversation with someone who calls you with WHY DON’T YOU CALL MORE, JERK? is a good way to get people to call you even less, because why put up with the hassle? Telephones, roads, emails work both ways.

3. Living where you are living and putting some distance between you and your family is a good decision for you right now.

Your family doesn’t have to be horrible for that to be true, by the way. Some people grow really well while staying very close to and entwined with their families, but some people need to go off on their own and really break away for a while before they can come back and figure out an adult relationship with their folks. The stayers aren’t better people than the leavers, and the leavers don’t necessarily grow up better than the stayers – it’s just, whatever your situation is, you need to do what is right for you.

It sounds like your family sees you as a perpetual fuck-up. Guess what? For much of my adult life, mine did, too. They wouldn’t use “fuck-up”, they would use “We’re very worried about you,” or “We don’t understand your choices (to seem to fail at everything).” For a lot of my 20s, when I was really struggling with depression and figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, being around them for long periods of time would make me start to feel like a fuck-up. And then it would be self-fulfilling – I’d be so miserable and wound up that I would be in a reactive mode because I was so ashamed and on-edge all the time. If you’re constantly criticized, you start to react to people as if they mean to criticize you even before the words come out of their mouths, so it’s easy to launch the “Why are you being so dramatic/exaggerating/blowing things out of proportion/I was just asking/jeez, overreact much?” brigade and the you feel more like a fuck-up because you’re being gaslighted into believing that having normal reactions – stress, aversion, shoulders-up-around-ears, being on guard are somehow your own fantasies and not reactions to the constant criticism that’s being leveled at you.

You know what was a great decision for me? Moving really, really far away and staying there, and seeing them in smaller doses.

I just spent a few days with my folks last month, and we’re on much better terms now and it was mostly a great visit. But by the end of it, my dad’s constant mansplaining had escalated to the point that he took my toast out of the toaster, put it back in “correctly,” called me “stupid” for not being able to find the correct drawer where knives were kept on the first try in a kitchen where I don’t live, and actually SCREAMED at me for microwaving food for what he deemed to be an incorrect amount of time. Screamed. Spit flying and hitting my face. Screamed.

And that was a “great” visit. And if he read this (I don’t think they read the blog, they’ve never mentioned it, and I’ve never mentioned it to them though I don’t hide my actual identity), he’d tell me I was overreacting and blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Because screaming about things like “where we keep the knives in a rental kitchen” is normal in his world, so normal that there is a 75% chance he does not remember it at all, and I was raised to think that was normal. I would be the “emotional” one for being mad that someone screamed in my face (and having to walk out of the room and go cry privately and text my boyfriend because I honestly felt like I was going crazy), and he would be the rational one, because…he is a dude. A dude who gets so upset about microwave times that he screams. Rational!

And then I left, and I went to the small quiet room, where no one screams at me, ever. And if someone in my life now screamed at me, they would not do it twice, because they would not be in my life anymore, because screaming at people over trivial shit is not okay. I learned that by leaving home, pretty much forever, which was not without costs and anxiety and working hard to schedule visits so that I can get in and out with a minimum of screaming. Going home & maintaining that relationship means trying to always make sure I have a rental car, or schedule time with friends who live nearby so I have a break, and ALWAYS having my phone with me so I feel connected to people who don’t yell at me, and sometimes, honestly, Xanax. It means when they are nice and pleasant it makes me doubt my own reality, like, do I really need to keep my shields up? Am I being unfair? Ohhhhh wait, there is screaming about trivial stuff again, nope, it’s okay to keep my guard up. It also cost years of therapy to learn how to interact in a healthy way, keep my temper (or lose it more selectively), and be able to disassociate from what was happening and remind myself that their vision of me is not me. It also cost long periods of not interacting with them, with the explicit message “If you are not nice to me, I will not be around.” Eventually it worked and made everyone try very hard to be nicer. But I won’t ever lie and say it was easy.

Alphakitty said something really great in a comment yesterday:

I think part of a mother/father’s power to hurt comes from the Pedestals of Infallibility young children are encouraged to put their parents on. Even once we grow up and learn that our parents are just people, with biases and baggage and all that, we still invest their opinions of us with greater Truth and weight than we would give anyone else’s opinion. It’s all swirled together with the “Mother/Father knows best,” and “we only want what’s best for you” (even though their values probably aren’t quite the same as yours, so their definition of “best” is not going to match yours), and an implication that “we know you better than anyone else, even you” (though parents’ opinions of their offspring are often a) outdated, based on behavior/characteristics the “child” has outgrown, and b) distorted by their own values and their need to believe certain things about their kids).

Your parents, and your brother and sister, DON’T KNOW YOU BEST. And they don’t know what is best for you – they proved that when you needed help and mental health services and they just kind of forgot to hook you up with them. And this story that they have about how you are a fuck-up is not the only story, and not a story that everyone will have about you. And I think you were smart to get far, far away from them.

I think that now that you are away, you should do a couple of things:

1) Find (or continue) treatment for your depression.

2) Put your brother, sister, dad, and anyone else who makes you uncomfortable in social media jail. There are ways you can stay “friends” with someone on Facebook but make it so they can’t really see anything you post or do on Facebook. Or, consider unfriending them, or making a second profile where you connect with people you really want to. “I love you, but I refuse to get in Facebook fights. From now on email me at _____.“

3) Filter their emails and phone calls so that you choose to interact with them at specific, regular times. And possibly cut off all contact for a while, if it helps you gain some distance and perspective. For a long time, this is what I did: I would call or hang out periodically, and be pleasant as long as they were pleasant. When the first mean thing was said, I would leave the conversation and not interact again for a period of (generally) 1 month. 2 mean things? 2 months. 3 mean things? 3 months. It was not perfect, and it was very hard and painful and took a lot of psyching myself up and second-guessing on my part. But it was pretty essential in reminding myself: “Whatever happened in the past, I do not have to stay in conversations with people who are rude to me.” Sometimes I would just excuse myself, “Sorry, out of time to talk, catch you soon!” and sometimes I’d say “This conversation is really starting to stress me out, so I’m going to end it now” – it depended on how mean it was and my overall stress level.

4) Repeat “I am not responsible for everything they feel” until it sounds believable.

5) If you want to, say something like “I am really happy and excited to start school. I am taking a break from communication for a while while I get settled, and I’ll be in touch when I’m ready.” And then let them feel about it and react however they want. They will not like it, they will not understand, they will be mad, but it might still be what you need in order to feel okay.

6) It may never be okay. It will always hurt a bit and feel weird. That’s because abuse is destructive and it ruins everything, not because you are a bad mean ungrateful daughter. Your family is blaming you for things they did to you. Not okay.

7) The rest of your family might not believe you or see it your way. “But that’s just how he is…” “But I deal with it, why can’t you?” “You’re exaggerating.” “It’s not that bad.” Well, maybe it is that bad, for you, and they don’t have to agree for you to do what is right for you. It would be awesome if your sibs could be your allies, but if they aren’t, admit it and disengage. “We think you’re the worst, so move back here and prove you love us, or we’ll think you’re the worst” isn’t really a compelling proposition.

8) Kick ass at your studies and enjoy your new life.