DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This might sound odd, but my son is 17 and is apparently going through his first big breakup of his first serious relationship. He’s been dating her since his freshman year, and she is 2 years older. It is likely due to the age difference/life experience difference, since he’s still in school and she’s graduated and working and lives on her own.

He’s my oldest and his dad and I both had kind of terrible dating/relationship histories before we managed to find each other. That means I don’t really know how to coach my kid through this without giving him unhealthy advice. My experience isn’t really a great place to start, unless I want to say “oh, DO NOT do this.”

What I’m managing to do right now is get him to focus on self care, acknowledge his emotions and not suppress them, and find things to do to fill the time he would have been spending with his ex. I’m not speculating on her motives, or trying to give him advice about anything beyond, communication and listening. He wants to stay friends with her, if that’s possible.

Is there anything else? I want him to not hate her. Angry, ok, that’s fine, but I want him to understand that often relationships just change too much for people to stay together. I want them to be able to be friends if it’s possible.

It doesn’t help that we live in an area that it’s hard for nerdy folks to find each other, and both of them are pretty nerdy.

Nerd Mom

DEAR NERD MOM: I’m sorry that your son’s going through this, NM. The first breakup is always the hardest, in no small part because you have no idea what to expect. It can feel like the end of your entire world, especially when you’re 17 and everything feels like it’s of Earth-shattering importance.

When it comes to trying to support him and help him through this… well, this is good news/bad news sort of situation. The bad news is that he’s probably not going to listen to you or believe you. After all, part of the prerogative of the young is to believe that they invented love, dating, relationships and the like; there’s no way an Old like us could possibly understand how they feel.

The good news is: he’ll still hear what you’re saying. And even if he doesn’t accept it now, it’ll still sink in.

So, off the bat, I want to let you know: you’ve been giving him all the right advice. The best thing he can do right now is give himself space and time to feel the f--k out of his feels and let himself be sad and upset about this. A relationship ended; that’s something that should be mourned. Similarly, prioritizing things that make him feel better — not “less sad” but make him feel like he’s doing positive things for himself and his life is an important part of recovering from a breakup. This is why one of the things I tell people who’re having a hard time after a breakup is to work on themselves. Sometimes that means hitting the gym and getting in shape. Other times, that means using that pain as fuel for other activities; maybe this is a time for him to throw himself into a new hobby or attack some dream or goal he’s had. Reconnecting with friends and making sure he has a solid team supporting him is also important. It’s a reminder that even though this all sucks, he’s still got people in his life who love and care for him and have his back. All that is going to be key to beating back that feeling of “why am I such a loser” or “she broke up with me and that means nobody could love me or care for me.”

But the next thing I tell people is possibly the most important: he needs distance and space from her. I understand that he wants to stay friends; that’s a noble goal and it speaks well of him… assuming that he means it. But he can’t be friends with her right now. The pain is going to be too present, the wounds too fresh, and he’s still going to be in the same mindset of when he was dating her. He still has the patterns he developed while he was in a relationship with her, and he’s going to fall back into those without thinking. But those patterns were for a person and a time that no longer exists; falling back into them will be akin to someone forgetting that they lost a limb and reaching out with the phantom arm they no longer have. He’s going to need that time apart — without contact — so that he can reset things and come to friendship with her as a new relationship, rather than carrying the expectations of the old.

This is one of the reasons why I advocate taking the Nuclear Option — where you unfollow, mute or block your ex on social media, delete their number and texts and otherwise excise them from your life. You need that time away from them, and it can be entirely too easy to fail your Wisdom save and try to get back in contact before you’re ready. Just as importantly though, is that blocking or unfollowing her on social media means that he isn’t getting served up reminders that he’s been dumped every time he looks at his phone. Breakups are hard enough; when you’re constantly having your ex thrown into your face, it’s even harder. It’s bad enough when you’re tempted to look up her Instagram or TikTok to see what she’s up to or if she’s dating someone else yet. It’s even worse when it just comes to you through your notifications. By muting and unfollowing her, even if he doesn’t actually unfollow or block her, then he’s protecting himself from the pain. He’s also putting an extra barrier between him and checking her relationship status; it won’t prevent him from looking if he’s determined, but each extra step makes it easier to resist the impulse.

But the one thing I think he needs to hear most is, likely, the thing that he’ll believe least: “this too, shall pass”. It’s easy to look back on our breakups with the benefit of hindsight and know that yeah, we got over it. But when you’re in the middle of it — especially when its your first and you’re soaking in a stew of hormonal chaos, as all teenagers are — it feels like this is what the rest of your life will be like. Letting him know that this pain is temporary, that it will fade and he will feel better is important. He won’t listen. He’ll be convinced you have no idea what he’s going through. He’ll swear up and down that this loss is too great and this pain is eternal. But it will fade. He will feel better. And that’ll be ok.

As a wise man once said: “You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on.” It sounds a little cold, but it’s true; the pain will ease. It always does. You just have to keep moving forward and keep finding reasons to move on with your life while you wait. Time is the great healer, whether we realize it or not.

You’re doing a good job NM. Your son’s gonna be fine, especially with you in his corner.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a question about relationships, especially the early stages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honeymoon’s Over

DEAR HONEYMOON’S OVER: There’re a few things happening here, HO, and it’s a mix of the biological, the psychological and the emotional. On the biological side, there’s what’s known as the Coolidge Effect. This was named for a famous (if apocryphal) story about President Coolidge and his wife visiting a farm that was supposed to be the model for new and efficient agriculture practices. The president and Mrs. Coolidge were being given tours of different parts of the farm, and when Mrs. Coolidge came to the chicken yard, saw that there was a rooster who was banging away at one of the hens. “How often does that happen?” she asked her guide. “Oh, dozens of times per day,” he replied. “Well be sure to tell that to the President when he comes by,” she replied. When the President reached the chicken yard, his tour guide relayed his wife’s message. Coolidge asked his guide:  “Does the rooster mate with the same hen every time?” “Oh no,” said the guide, “it’s a different hen every time.”

“Excellent. Tell Mrs. Coolidge.”

Here’s how that applies to sex and the honeymoon period in relationships. We’re a novelty-seeking species, and our brains are built in a way that encourages us to seek out novelty, especially sexual novelty. When we’re with a new partner, our bodies go into overdrive, pumping out oxytocin and dopamine straight to the pleasure centers of the brain. But we’re also a very adaptable species, and we’re especially prone to hedonic adaptation; any sensation, no matter how pleasurable, becomes just our new normal over time. And as we stay with our partner, we start to produce less and less dopamine and oxytocin during sex. When we meet someone new, then the level of production ramps back up again. 

However, that doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to just hit it and quit it. Part of what happens is that we switch from “f--k like greased weasels on meth” to “get cozy and nest”; the passion fades to become a more intimate sort of connection. The kind of connection that, amongst other things, encourages support and comfort and stability… qualities you want if, say, you’re trying to raise a family. So while that initial excitement may fade, that doesn’t mean that the love fades, just the chemical effects of infatuation and novelty.

But biology isn’t destiny, and that drop-off in oxytocin during sex doesn’t mean that passion is doomed to fade. Sex is one way that we generate oxytocin. But so is good conversation, physical touch, laughter and physical excitement. One of the reasons why the honeymoon comes to an end isn’t just because of the Coolidge effect but because we settle in, we get comfortable and we start to become more familiar with our partners. In fact, as I’ve said before, Esther Perel talks extensively about how the loss of mystery and the comfort of familiarity create a paradox of relationships. The comfort helps us bond emotionally, but can dampen our ardor; because our partners become known to us, they’re less of a mystery and we feel less of that excitement of the new.

Now there are a lot of ways of avoiding this — up to and including choosing to not live together — but one of the best and easiest ways to avoid that loss of passion is to make sure you continue to have sexual adventures with your partner. The idea of “we settled down and now we don’t have crazy sex any more” is, unfortunately, incredibly common — so much so that the idea of the sexually adventurous long-term couples tend to be comedy fodder in pop culture. We’re expected to laugh at the middle-aged couple who turn out to be kinksters or swingers or who go off to Hedonism II or other sexually charged vacations. But in reality, those are the couples who are keeping their relationships alive and vital; they don’t have to reignite the spark because the spark never went out for them.

This is why a big part of keeping the passion in your relationship is that you don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the adventures are over. Maybe that means you give yourself artificial restrictions, so you don’t get into the routine of sex at the same time, in the same place, and in the same manner. Maybe it means you explore different fantasies or kinks or toys to your repertoire. Regardless of what you do, it requires being an active participant in your relationship, instead of hoping that it’s not going to start to fade this time.

Just as importantly: you get more by giving more. One of the unspoken truths about relationships is that our partners mirror us, and vice versa. Part of the reason why we tend to settle into comfortable, but less glamorous, routines is that we choose to allow it to happen. We start to take things for granted. We don’t dress up the way we used to, we don’t do the little things we used to for our partners because it made them smile, we don’t flirt the way we used to and so on. Because we don’t keep that little edge we used to have… our partners follow suit. And it becomes a reinforcing cycle; we get a little more comfortable and so our partners get a little more comfortable, so we let things relax a little more.

Now, it’s easy to get sidetracked by who did what first, or who triggered it. But the truth is that who did it first ultimately doesn’t matter. What matters is deliberately choosing to break the cycle by not letting yourself get comfortable and give up the things that you used to do in the early days of the relationship. When you make a point of living up to the promise of the early days of the relationship, that in turn encourages your partner to do the same. And when you both continue to treat your relationship as though you’d just started dating, you turn that into the same self-reinforcing cycle.

This is why, if you want to keep your relationship vital, it’s important to channel your inner Gomez and Morticia Addams. Part of why they’re such a beloved and iconic couple — and both relationship goals and role-models — is because they never stop putting in the effort for one another. Because they treat their relationship — even after decades of marriage and two kids — as though they were still newlyweds, they keep the spark alive. They continue to flirt, to seduce, tease, dress up and celebrate their relationship. They, in short, never let a day go by where they don’t make the other feel like the most sublime, desirable creature ever to slither over the earth.

With all that having been said: the fact that things ease and people relax over the course of a relationship isn’t a bad thing. There’s a lot to be said about the easy, comfortable intimacy of a couple that have seen each other at their weirdest or least kempt and love each other madly regardless. And sometimes a quiet, low-key relationship is exactly what folks crave; they don’t want fireworks and roses, they want a partner to share the couch and watch The Great British Bake-Off with. And that’s just as beautiful and valid too.

Of course, there’s also a third option, HO. You could decide that you ultimately prefer short term relationships. While I realize that we as a culture celebrate long-term relationships, the length of a relationship isn’t what makes it a success, nor is it a marker of the quality of the connection. Relationships that don’t last for decades, or that end with one or both partners dying in the saddle are just as valuable, just as valid and just as wonderful. If the New Relationship Energy is important enough to you that it’s a priority for you, there’s absolutely no reason for you not to lean into it. Choosing to have a series of shorter, more intense relationships is a viable and legitimate choice.

Just make sure that, if that’s what you choose, that you and your partner are on the same page.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Funny story, my [now] ex introduced me to your column many years ago, as he felt you gave practical advice to all those who had perhaps, lost their way.

I now feel I am that person and I honestly have no clue what to do about my current predicament.

We met under unusual circumstances, I had an accident and he was the law abiding person assisting me with my situation. We went out on a couple of dates, once the matter had cleared and I just felt he was too immature and wasn’t feeling it (he was 21 and I was 23). Unfortunately, he was. However, we attempted to remain ‘just friends’ for a couple of years after. But we knew when we would catch up, there would always be kissing at the end (or maybe in the middle of the date).

Jump to to New Years Eve, and he came and picked my friend and I up from the city after his lengthy shift (it was 2am and he had driven a long time to pick us up). He and I got into a disagreement about ‘finally’ taking that step and sleeping together or just progressing in general.

I was scared because my previous relationship ended with the guy cheating on me.

So, we did it. We met a few days after New Year’s Eve, went on a date and I initiated the sexy times. And that’s how our little love story began.

We dated for the next three years and you could say there were a few issues. Our first year of dating, he moved in with a few housemates — one being the girl he lost his virginity too. She had a new partner, but she made it clear she never liked me one bit, even though I attempted to gain her trust. Nothing worked. My boyfriend was finally forced moved out after discovering a torrid secret about one of the flatmates, meaning it could affect his job.

The year after, I went through a stressful work situation, and so did he. I thought we really stuck by one another.

I’ve never felt feelings before until he stepped into the picture. We just clicked. In every aspect. We were best friends and lovers and we could mess around and have fun, yet, still have a serious conversation when the moment called for it. We spoke about marriage and kids and even our kids names.

Right up until a few months prior to our eventual break up, he was showing me engagement rings.

2019 — my parents were going through a divorce and I was trying to be there for my mother. However, my boyfriend and I had made arrangements to move out at the end of the year. He did not believe I was going to go through with it. Stating that I would move in with her, or just up and leave him. We had a few serious discussions and I tried EVERYTHING to ensure he KNEW I was moving in with him. He was my future. We were ready to take that next step.

I don’t think I was convincing enough, and a week before we broke up, things had started to really affect me. My parents’ divorce, my stress at work… and even my boyfriend. We tried to go out one Saturday night to a comedy festival and a good friend of mine tagged along. It was a complete and utter mess! She got lost at another train station and my directions kept getting her lost and when I went to try and find her, I couldn’t. So I went back inside to where my boyfriend and I were waiting, and he said he would go and get her. He finally found her and when he came back inside to where I was eating, he made a snarky response and I blew a fuse.. The entire night was in shambles, however, we continued onto the comedy show and I tried to remain ‘calm’ and ‘in control’

Later that night, he asked what was wrong and I brushed it off. I wasn’t in a good head space and I (now) realise I was putting my relationship on the back burner and I wasn’t communicating well with him… at all.

He broke up with me a week later.

‘I love you…I’m just NOT in love with you anymore.’ He was crying as he said it, yet part of me knew he had shown up randomly at my house to break up with me.

We parted ways. For a few months (at least). Then we started sleeping together for the next 6 months. I was also trying to meet guys off Tinder and went on dates with them. One guy really appealed to me, and we started seeing each other every weekend (but it was strictly casual). I always knew though, that I was still into my ex. I tried to break things off with my ex, and that didn’t go as planned. My ex knew about this guy as well and he thought that things were getting serious between the Tinder dude and I.

My ex and I were texting a month ago, when he told me he had met someone a few days prior and wanted to ‘give things a go with her.’ That’s when I cut all communication and sent him a message saying my feelings had resurfaced, however, I was done. With him.

I then proceeded to block him. On everything.

Stupid, right? I didn’t get to see his reply. Maybe he didn’t? But I couldn’t face another rejection from him. I was still in love with him, whilst he was clearly moving on.

Sooo. Dr. NerdLove, as you can see, I still love my ex and care for him deeply. I realise the mistakes that we were made on my part, albeit too late.

My 30th birthday is coming up and I honestly thought I would be spending it with him celebrating… still together. Clearly I was REALLY wrong.

Can you please help me move on?

Hopelessly (still) in love.

DEAR HOPELESSLY (STILL) IN LOVE: So I think there’re two things going on here that are making it hard for you to move forward.

The first is the story of your relationship. One of the reasons why it can be hard to move on from a relationship is the way we tell the story of that relationship to ourselves. Like I said to Round and Round, our beliefs are the filter through which we see the world. That doesn’t just mean the things we expect to see or the things we want to see but the story we tell ourselves about our lives and experiences. This can affect the way we interpret what happened, colors our expectations and directly affects our emotional relationship to things. If, for example, your story is how awesome your relationship was and how it all fell apart out of the clear blue sky, it sets up a filter where we have a hard time moving on because we had perfection in our hands and we lost it.

The problem is that this is very rarely the case; a lot of times, we tend to gloss over the cracks and the flaws or not realize just how bad things could be. We as a species tend to focus on the beginning and the end and sort of just… overlook a lot of the middle.

The movie Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is a great example of this; Joel Barish has a hard time understanding how Clementine could just wipe her memory of their relationship because it wasn’t that bad, right? Then, as he is living through his own memories of things, he starts to realize just how flawed and conflict-filled things were. The golden glow of nostalgia — especially for the times when everything was great and it was all easy — can cause us to overlook or paper over the hard times and the times when things were a lot rougher than we realized.

It’s also possible to tell the story about how you “ruined” things and take on undeserved guilt. Just as people will tell themselves the story of how perfect their relationship was until it wasn’t, people will tell the story about how they destroyed their relationship because… well, because it ended and if they had loved hard enough or worked hard enough, they could’ve saved things. And unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Sometimes relationships come to an end; no amount of effort or love or talking things through can stop that. It doesn’t mean that anyone involved made mistakes or f--ked up or that the relationship wasn’t strong enough. Sometimes a relationship comes to the end of its natural life. That doesn’t mean that someone killed it or could’ve saved it. Not every relationship is meant to last until someone dies in the saddle, and that’s fine. But holding onto unearned guilt or self-recrimination is another way that we make it hard to let go and move forward.

I suspect things were starting to fracture earlier than you realize. From what you describe, it sounds like two of those there years were pretty contentious and stressful. From both of you having dire work situations — which can take a toll on relationships — to your parents getting divorced and the clear doubts and insecurities he seemed to be having about your relationship, it sounds like times were pretty damn rocky. And while I get that it seems like a judgement on the quality of your relationship, the truth is that purely external factors can detonate incredibly strong and loving relationships. Job loss, the death of a loved one, disease or disability… these all can trigger the cascade that leads to a relationship coming to an end. Sometimes it can be worked through. Other times it can’t.

That doesn’t mean that you and your partner didn’t love each other or care for each other; it just means that circumstances changed and the relationship you had wasn’t necessarily the one that met your needs in that moment.

I think understanding this will help you move forward.

The other problem is that you seem to be holding onto guilt for taking the nuclear option on your ex, even though you still have feelings for him. But also like I told RaR: you are allowed to prioritize your own emotional health and well-being. And while you may have strong or complicated feelings for your ex, the fact is that staying in contact with him, especially right now, is going to do you more harm than good. Pulling away, closing off avenues that would make it easier for you to reach out and — in the process — reopen old wounds… this is how you heal. You need time to process your feelings, to heal and to recover, and you can’t do that when you’re either hooking up, or you’re dying inside because he started seeing someone else. Closing that door is vital for you to move on. While it absolutely sucks and it absolutely hurts — stitching a wound is gonna do that — it’s necessary. The lesser pain is the price for healing and avoiding worse pain — both now and in the future.

So here’s what I think you need. The first thing you need to do is forgive yourself — for the relationship ending, for what you feel was your part in it and for your (understandably) complicated feelings. You also need to forgive yourself for doing what was necessary and prioritizing your own emotional health and healing.

The next thing is to give yourself permission to feel the ever-loving f--k out of your feels. A relationship ended. That’s something to be mourned. So mourn. Give yourself some time to cry it out, then find the forms of self-care that’ll help you recover. It may be drinks over Zoom with friends, long walks out in the sun, even giving your place a deep, floor-to-ceiling cleaning to symbolize a new start. Pick something that’s going to be useful for you.

The third is to give yourself time. The cliche is that it takes half the time you were with someone to get over them; that’s not actually true, but moving on after a break up takes time. Especially when the break-up was protracted in some ways; in your case, it’s not the day you two officially called it quits, but starting from the day you told him you were done and blocked him. That’s your starting point. And it’s going to be a slow process. It’s not gonna be a matter of a couple weeks and you’re good; you’ll have days when you’re convinced you’re better and absolutely over him and then you’ll be hit by a wave of feels. And that’s normal. But it’ll happen less and less over time, and the day will come when you realize that you don’t hurt as badly and that you haven’t for a while. And while you may not be ready to get out there and date again… you’ll at least realize that this wasn’t the end of love for you. It’s just the end of one chapter; soon it’ll be time to start the next one.

You’ll be ok.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com