bluecastle

I'm curious: What does it mean to be "deprogramming?" Talking to a therapist? Reading about things to expand your perspective? I'd like to hear more about that, if you're willing to share. Part of the reason I ask is: Your post displays a lot of awareness—about your past, your parents, and how all that could potentially affect/interfere with your adult life, especially in the realm of romance. And that awareness is great—the first step. The second step, if this makes sense, is to not be hyper-driven by that awareness. Metaphor: We all know that driving can be dangerous, that accidents can happen, and that some accidents can be awful, fatal. Thing is, the people who drive around with darting eyes and white knuckles, thinking constantly about the potential of getting into accidents? The people who are, in effect, driven by that while driving? They are often the ones who get into accidents—realizing their worst fears, in part, by being obsessed by them. In other words, try not to think of romance (and life in general) as a binary—one where you either (a) fall into the "psychological trap" to which you are uniquely vulnerable or (b) succeed in avoiding that trap. Because in truth it is none of those, but something murkier, and all the more wonderful for that murk. Most all of us have experiences that go south, don't sit well, result in pain, echo pain/dynamics from our pasts, and so on. And all that is totally okay—the winds of life, not a verdict. So long as you can spot that something is not feeling right—and it certainly sounds like you've found that switch, extricating yourself from a hard situation and beginning to carve out a life makes room for your authentic self—you will be okay.

Sure, sex is likely a big part of it. Another component, perhaps: This whole thing, at least until recently, has been very safe for your emotionally. After all, while you've engaged with him physically, your primary emotional engagement throughout and up to this present moment has not been with him but with someone you're deeply familiar with and have known your whole life: yourself. To my eyes? It seems that you've now hit the limits of that being satisfying, kind of like someone hitting a tennis ball against the wall and eventually starting to get thirsty for an actual opponent. He has been remarkably clear, in words and actions, about not being that or wanting that. You know this, and are presently dating around in search of that while holding onto this because...well, because it's brought you a lot of pleasure and you don't want to give that up. Very human. Alas, a car only runs so far on fumes—or, perhaps a better metaphor would be: a person can only get so high on fumes. So I highly doubt it's going to be some epiphany provided by these pixels or a therapist that will prompt a shift, but simply the car coming to a stop, the high no longer delivering, at all. An optimistic read on all this: He delivered exactly what you needed, for a spell: some warmth (and plenty of heat) while you were still processing some heavy life stuff in a major transition. How further strife is avoided? You thank him for that, sincerely, in the confines of your own mind and heart. Then you move on so you can find the kind of connection you've realized you're truly craving and ready for.

Why do you want to "get over" what you've described? I ask this earnestly. I can only speak for myself, but there are three areas of compatibility that are essential for me to pursue a relationships with anyone: emotional/spiritual, intellectual, and sexual. If in exploring these realms I find there is a glaring disconnect, I take that to mean the relationship is not worth pursuing. You and this guy? I don't think anything is gained by theorizing about whether or not porn has played a role in his desires and approach. Maybe, maybe not. What matters is that what he's into is not what you're into, at all. Were you writing here about "getting nothing out of it" because he was too vanilla I'd say the same thing.

Ooof. So sorry about this. I admit I found this very hard to read and to come away seeing a way for you two to thrive together. Remove the emotional affair from this and I'd likely say the same thing, as what would you be describing here? A relationship with someone who substitutes control for trust, leaving you feeling immensely lonely and often on edge. That was the state of things before the affair, by the sounds of it, and a big reason the affair took hold. It's also something that he seems unwilling and unable to face—namely, that he too has played a major, and arguably greater, role in corroding the relationship. My advice, moving forward, would be to tell your husband clearly—and calmly—that you are at the end of your rope. Add that given the vows you took, your daughter, and ostensibly the sincere love you once shared, you are insisting on 6 months of couple's therapy to see if there is a path forward together. If he agrees to that—okay, that allows you to know you are doing everything in your capacity to see about a moonshot of a resolution, and you can reassess things in 6 months. If he doesn't—you'll know it's time to talk to a lawyer. I offer that advice, in the name of transparency, less as a way of saving your marriage than as a salve for your own spirit, to lessen the guilt. Should things end in divorce, you will know you tried everything. You can explain this to your daughter down the line, when she invariably asks more probing questions as she enters adulthood. One more thing: While I understand how much it must devastate you to think of how divorce will affect your daughter, to my ears what you've described here—her being witness to this relationship, as it currently exists—would be far more damaging.

Sorry to hear about this tough moment. I don't think anyone is "in the wrong" here, and encourage you to turn the prism a bit to try to see it in a different light. What's happening here are two truths that are presently hard to hold alongside each other. A big part of being a grownup is dealing with such moments. Truth one: Your mother, for reasons she has maybe not articulated well, has a desire to live in another country. That's a big decision, and I can only imagine it's something that's been simmering for a while. Has she ever talked about this? Has she offered any explanation for her reasons? Truth two: You are close to your mother and the idea of her living far away hurts. That's understandable. She's likely been a constant in your life, always there. Imagining it any other way fries the emotional circuits and stirs nerves. My advice is to find a way for both of you to sit down and share these feelings. That's not one conversation, but likely many, and it's critical to be able to approach it without needing to prove that anyone is "wrong." Your mother, in addition to being your mother, is a human being. She has urges, desires, curiosities that are hers and hers alone—and that she has likely put on the back burner in the name of raising you. Part of getting into your 20s—becoming an adult—is coming to understand this, and to make room for our parents not just being "ours." That does not make them "bad." Do you think you can reevaluate those ideas a bit and try to understand a bit more where she's coming from? Odds are that, if you can show her that, you may get it in return and find some of the angst around all this being soothed by deeper understanding of each other's humanity.

Sorry about all this. Am I understanding correctly that what happened here is: you had this conversation with your boyfriend over an electronic device, your parents then went through your conversations, and their conclusion from what they read is that you can no longer have devices, must attend therapy, and have to end your relationship? If that's the case, what I want to say is: You did not actually mess up. You expressed sharp, complicated feelings to someone you trust. That is essential not only to being a teenager but being a human being. Once upon a time, before there were smartphones and parents who could look at them, what you're describing is simply a conversation of the sort people have all the time: venting frustrations, etc. Of course, your well-being is something your parents care deeply about—and clearly they are concerned. I wish for all of you that their reaction was less punitive, as it seems there are some difficult feelings you'd probably love for them to better understand. Maybe therapy could be a good thing for that? How do you feel about the idea of talking to a therapist? Do you think it could be helpful? What I'm maybe trying to get at is: Perhaps you can use therapy to find a better way to talk to and connect with your parents, including talking to them about the very issue here—that you understand they are upset, that you want to address this as a family, but that you don't believe ending the relationship is something that needs to happen. Related to all that, would you be open to sharing some of the reasons your parents don't like this boyfriend?

With respect, I don't think what you're describing here is "catering to her." That would imply that you sincerely cared about her needs and, as one does when they sincerely care about another's needs, did their best to meet to them. A more accurate description above, I think, might be "catering to myself." Or more specifically: "catering to my own deeply unhealthy habits." And if you can rephrase it like that—"I'm just not catering to my own deeply unhealthy habits anymore"—you may find the bitterness eroding, a sincere sense of self-empowerment taking root, and end up a few inches closer to a paradigm shift. Further explained: Your primary motivation in "catering to her" seems to have nothing to actually do with "her." It was about personal reward, you seeking the great and elusive elixir of appreciation. "OMG, Alex, these desserts are truly the BEST things I've ever eaten THANK YOU so much!" That was the drug being sought. When brother's gf failed to deliver this high, you became itchy, unnerved, upset. There is a glaring parallel here with your mother. Much of your life, including this moment, is constructed around "slaving away" to get her to appreciate you, to quench that thirst, fill the void. Sadly, she is not hardwired to dole this out. For emphasis, one way to think of all that would be: Planet earth is shaped like sphere, water turns to ice at 32 degrees, and your mother is not hardwired to dole out the love you crave. These are hard, implacable facts about the world you live in. And that third fact is hard to wrap the head and heart around. I get that. Hugs. I've got a parent, my dad, who, while possessed with many lovely qualities, is incapable of delivering the base-level emotional nourishment I crave. There will always be some hurt in me about that, as there will always be some hurt in my left shoulder connected to a nasty bicycle crash in 2010. Thing is, just like I've learned not to sleep on my left side (because it compounds hurt), I've long learned not to engage in magical thinking and back breaking to extract some salve from my father (ditto). I hope you can get there. You have a lot of life to live yet. While we have very little say in the agonies that befall us in childhood, the saving grace of adulthood is that we get to choose how we react to them.

I'd say this is pretty normal, one of the (many) things we now have to deal with in the age of social media. Most people flail a bit in the aftermath of a breakup—doubting their choice one moment, drinking too much the next, becoming ultra spiritual or nihilistic, craving attention, whatever. Before social media? You just didn't have a window into this unless you happened to, say, walk in on your ex at a bar with friends. Now, alas, we all live at that bar, in some amorphous pixelated way, though there is good news. It's easy enough to avoid either by (a) unfollowing or (b) deleting the app for a bit. I highly suggest one of those two routes for you. Having been in a version of your shoes—sifting over social media activity like an archeologist looking for some mythic symbol—I can't begin to express the sanity that followed simply by taking a break from the apps. And if what you'd like is to reconcile? I agree with the above: Ask her to meet up and tell her how you feel. Plenty of people get back together, and while it doesn't alway work out it's a lot better than trying to turn nothing into something, which is, at its core, all that social media is.

Was this for a specific night? Or a general "We should get a drink sometime?" I mean, from what you've offered here you've most likely collided with someone who is too flaky to really bother with. What I meant by "think of it as fun" was more about the total randomness of it all: some people flake, some don't; some people will be more intrigued by you than you are them; many message exchanges will go from momentarily fluttery to crickets. Nothing to sweat too heavily or think of as "playing games."

"Playing games" feels like an awfully harsh conclusion to reach, as does "gives an excuse" in the context of her not being able to go out. I may be reading things wrong—and feel free to supply some more specifics as to how you asked her out and what she said—but I can't help but think you may be looking a bit too closely for harbingers of toxicity rather than just accepting that dating is a big ol' crapshoot. Anyhow, all in all it just doesn't sound like she's super duper interested. Yeah, she exchanged numbers. Yeah, she poked you after seeing you at a party. But then she kind of fades out just as quickly. That's not game-playing. That's just the baseline—how all of this goes far more often than not. If you can think of it like that it's all a lot easier, and more fun.

There are things we invariably have to mourn when ending any relationship. Good sex, say, or a cozy human pillow alongside with to watch Netflix. And, quite often, pets. I get that it's heartbreaking, but I think you need to ask: Which is greater, the pain of no longer having a relationship with this puppy, or the pain of staying with her/having regular contact with her? Flash forward to 8 months from now, as a thought experiment: You're dating someone new, it's going well, and you have to explain how you have an occasionally temperamental relationship with an ex with whom you share a puppy. How do you think that lands, with a potential partner? Do you want that moment, or some version of it, for the next 10-15 years? All of which is a lot of words to say that, in your shoes, I would let this puppy go whenever you are ready to let the relationship go. I would focus on something beautiful but presently bittersweet—that one indisputably wonderful thing about the past year is that it let you know how much you love having a dog in your life. And then I would look into moving into a flat that allowed pets, and spend some time on adoption sites to find the companion that best suits my new, and much lighter, life.

When I used online dating platforms I tended to have a very brief text exchange—enough to gauge a bit of wit and some semblance of humanity behind the profile—and then I'd say something like, "Hey—this is fun. How's about we continue this conversation in 3D? Coffee or a drink this week?" I don't think there's really any right or wrong way to go about all this, but personally I'm in the camp that most time spent trying to "get to know" another human being over screens, phone calls, etc., is far closer in actuality to staring in the mirror than anything else, so I avoided all that. All in all, I tried to treat the platforms in the exact same way I did when it came to meeting people in real life. You go to a dinner party, there's an intriguing stranger you'd never met, you exchange a bit of small talk, ask for a number, make a plan.

It’s always a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s just not that rare to have a brief period of “paradise” with another human. Rare is when it expands rather than contracts.

Well, her own mother explained it pretty directly: this is just how she is. Now, if you want a more highbrow explanation, one could say something to the effect that we all develop a way of being to cope with the daily challenge of existing in the world. Those who opt to be negative and snappish have found in that a certain comfort, maybe a version of the illusion of control we all seek in different ways. But here’s the thing: there is a super slippery slope that comes when we get obsessive about “understanding” a certain person. Very quickly it can become a way from hiding from ourselves or avoiding even more difficult questions along the lines of: What is it in me that continues to accept this? Sounds like, in the grand scheme of things, you two enjoyed a very short period where things were nice. Time has revealed that to have been the exception, not the rule, a very common (and always sad) place to land after a year with some. But perhaps even sadder (to say nothing of more hurtful) is to continue to imagine she may magically return to being the person you wish she would be as opposed to the person she truly is.

I think this is a case where "cultural norms and etiquette" is a synonym (or euphemism) for "antagonism." And while I in no way mean to point a finger at you here—I love your posts and vibe!—I do think part of the present friction stems from an unwillingness (mainly in men) to just call it like that. To say: Yeah, women have had the short end of the stick for millennia, been objectified and treated as lesser by men, that sucks, it leaves a mark, and so on. When that can't be common ground, grievances expand, get misdirected, and tensions are magnified. That said, I very much agree with the idea that we're in a moment of knee-jerk reactivity and black-and-white thinking. No text back in two hours? Ghosted! Don't agree with my point of view? Gaslighter! Forgot to empty the dishwasher? Covert narcissist! The default language has become increasingly incendiary, which doesn't bode well for sincere connectivity, since language is the tool we all use to make sense of the world around us.