DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My girlfriend and I (a lesbian) have been together for almost 2 years now. I love her very much she understands me better then anyone and I can’t see my life with anyone else… but I have an issue with her attitude.

She has a bad attitude towards me: she tends to take little things out on me and when I tell her she is being mean, she tells me she is not doing anything wrong. I don’t know how show her that when she talks to me like that it really hurts. We have had many fights because of her attitude; that’s what we mostly fight about. And she realizes finally when we both are in tears that she was being mean, but then I feel like we go through the same process.

I don’t know where to go from here and I DON’T want to break up with her I love her too much.

Pretty Poison

DEAR PRETTY POISON: Break up with her. Now.

I realize that’s the opposite of what you just told me, but the fact of the matter is, you’re in an abusive relationship. It’s an all-too-common cycle – she yells at you, finds fault in all the little things you do and refuses to see that she’s hurting you until you break down in tears and then she’s apologetic and promises you things will be better. But they’re not. She’s keeping you off balance emotionally and dangling just enough hope to keep you around, then proceeds to start the whole process over again.

And unfortunately, it’s not going to end unless you make it end. And that means leaving her. You may love her, but she’s not showing you love back. Her behavior isn’t that of a loving partner. She’s not showing you that she cares for you or respects you. She’s hurting you. And she’s doing it deliberately. Her abuse of you isn’t your fault, no matter how much she may insist that it is.

Get out. Get out now and find somebody who’s good for you. Someone who doesn’t pick on you or bully you, someone who actually cares for you and treats you with dignity and respect. It will be hard to leave – you’ve spent years building a life together, after all –  but you have the strength.

You can do this.

And be sure to write back and let us know how you’re doing.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My partner and I have been together four years now. I have been going to her family reunion every year since we have been together. We bring our two girls every year to spend time with family, most of whom we see just once a year.

This year she told me she invited her friend to the reunion. I don’t mind spending time with her friend, but our reunion is a weekend long event where we all enjoy camping, hiking, relaxing and spending time with family.

I feel like having her friend there would take away her time to spend with the family. Is it wrong to say she should not invite her friend?

How should someone go about it without hurting anyone’s feelings and seemingly feel like a jerk?

Three’s a Crowd

DEAR THREE’S A CROWD: I’m not entirely sure this is a fight you need to be having, TaC. This is a family reunion for her side of the family; it seems to me that this means that she would be in a better position to decide what would or wouldn’t be appropriate, including whether she invites a friend or not.

In fairness, it strikes me as a little odd, but honestly, different families have different dynamics. You leave out a lot of potentially relevant information: who is this friend, how long has your partner known them, what kind of friends are they, etc. If this is one of her oldest and dearest friends — someone who’s family in all but blood — then that’s one thing. If it’s a co-worker that she hangs out with on occasion, that’s another.

I’d be curious to know just why she wants to invite her friend along and how her friend would be fitting into the dynamic. Would the friend be staying with you all, or would they have their own place? Is she thinking that this would be a good place to play matchmaker with another family member? Or is it more of a case of “well, I think %FRIEND would really enjoy the event”?

Those are questions you’d have to ask your partner. But as I said: ultimately, it’s her family and her family’s events. I think that gives her the final say in who comes or doesn’t to the family reunion.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: A lot of the profiles on dating apps contain little to no information about the person and only a couple of pictures at best. I tend to skip over these profiles as it seems the woman isn’t really making any effort to find someone or doesn’t have much to offer (no hobbies to mention, likes/dislikes?) 

I also feel like I may be missing out if I don’t attempt to message some of them.

What are your thoughts on this? Are they worth pursuing and how would you message someone who gives you little to nothing to talk about when messaging them the first time?

Thanks!

Silent Snake

DEAR SILENT SNAKE: As a general rule, if they don’t have anything in their profile, my vote is to just swipe left and move on. A completely blank profile with only a couple of photos tends to be one of three things:

1. They haven’t bothered to fill things out before taking  it live and are planning to come back to it eventually… maybe

2. They don’t feel like they need to bother doing so/ don’t feel like they have anything to say

3. It’s a fake profile — likely a bot or trying to be a bait and switch

Regardless of which is the case you aren’t missing out on anything by skipping right over them. At best, that blank profile is neutral; at worst, it’s a mark against them. Not only are they not giving you anything to work with, but they’re also not giving you any reason to be into them in the first place. Yes, their pictures may be hot… but you’re getting nothing else to tell whether it’s worth your time to talk to them and every reason not to. If it’s a bot or bait-and-switch, then you’re never going to actually engage with the person in those pictures. If they’re a real person but they don’t feel they need to put anything in their profile, then that’s all you need to know to swipe left. If they don’t know what to say, same thing. And if it’s a case that they put their profile up before they finished it and will come back… well, it’s a shame, but that’s their mistake. Since most apps are swipe-based these days, there really isn’t a “hold this until later” mechanic to see if anything changes. And if they aren’t going to take it seriously, then why should you put in effort that they hadn’t felt the need to put in?

Plus, swiping right on the off chance that it’s a mistake and not a bot has s--tty odds even under the best of circumstances.

You’re better off ignoring them and looking for someone who actually takes it seriously enough to fill out their profile completely.

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’m a 28-year-old straight white male. I am a virgin who’s had some minor success with online dating in the past though I still haven’t gotten a full-on relationship. I’m kind of socially isolated: I have plenty of acquaintances but no close friends that I hang out with.

Anyway, after having taken a three-year break from OLD after a few hard rejections online in order to take care of my mental health, I created an OKCupid account three months ago. Initially, I wasn’t taking it that seriously, I just wanted to see who was out there as well as whether or not I could get any likes with new pictures (I’ve had life long body image problems, I was worried that no one would like me since I’ve gained a little weight). To my surprise, I got several likes from girls on the platform. Most of these turned out to be duds: they were either too conservative (anti-trans, for example), not attractive to me, didn’t seem to have anything in common with me, or were bot accounts. However, there was one girl on there, let’s call her C, who seemed like a good match: she was liberal, chubby but cute, and shared my interest in video games and tabletop roleplaying. She mentioned that she wanted to get married and have a child within the next five years. This was alright with me, I wanted a relationship with a girl that could ultimately be my wife if things worked out, I eventually want children, and five years from now seems like a fine time-frame for all of this to possibly happen (I still live with my parents, but I recently finished my Masters and hope to get a job that allows me to live independently soon).

So, after a few weeks of hesitation, I liked and messaged C and we seemed to hit it off. After a few messages, she asked me what I was looking for on the site. I told her that I wanted to find love, eventually, get married, and have children. She seemed happy about that and we continued messaging for a couple of days. I was asking basic get to know you questions about her interests, her spirituality (pagan), and her life. When I ask her about her childhood, she gives a message detailing her life story: her father was a deadbeat who abandoned her and her mother when she was young, she dealt with bullying and depression all throughout middle and high school because of her weight, and she and her mother had to live with their meth-head uncle for several years after her mother lost her job. Now, this set off some alarm bells for me. I’ve had a relatively blessed, middle-class life and, besides some bullying in middle school and generalized anxiety disorder in college, it’s been pretty happy. I started to wonder if we could relate to each other, having had such different lives. I’ve also had bad experiences with girls with difficult pasts, which I’ll talk more about later on. Ultimately I decided to ignore these warning bells and keep messaging her, I couldn’t know how we’d work out in the long run, so there was no reason to give up yet.

We kept messaging, but eventually, her replies started to become shorter and less detailed. I thought maybe it was because she was growing tired of using OkCupid’s messenger and was unsure if I wanted to progress things beyond just talking on a dating site. I decide to message her my cellphone number in case she wants to text, but she says she’d feel more comfortable using snapchat, so we do. We continue messaging and out of nowhere, she asks me if I have any major health problems. I say no and ask why she asked. She replied that she just wanted to know for future children. When I joke about her thinking too far ahead, she says she was just wondering and that she wants to have a child “sooner rather than later”.

Then, she asks me the big question: exactly how sexually experienced was I? I know some girls don’t want to date virgins, and I was hoping to get into this topic later after we’d been on a few dates. However, I decided to be honest and told her I was a virgin. She said she was fine with it and that it was pretty obvious since I was reluctant to flirt, and told me that she feared my conservative parents were to blame for my lack of sexual experience. She was worried that I wasn’t interested or sex or would object to her more taboo sexual interests, so she asked me what the dirtiest sex act I’ve ever wanted to do was.

Now, here was where I made a mistake. On one hand, it was pretty obvious to me at this point that, based on this question and other things she had said while we were messaging, that she wanted to be sexual with me sooner than I’m comfortable. I want to get to know someone and be comfortable with them before I have sex, when I’ve gotten sexual in the past with girls I had just met I left the experience feeling deeply uncomfortable and guilty. I feel I need at least three dates before I’m ready to do sexual acts with a woman. On the other hand, as a virgin with a high sex drive, I’m getting pretty impatient about losing my virginity and sometimes when I feel like a girl might be willing to have sex with me I throw out my doubts, previous experiences, and rationality and immediately try to pursue sex. Unfortunately, my rising sense of discomfort that things were going way too fast, my lust won out and I decided to answer her question.

After telling her all my sexual fantasies, I asked her what hers was. She mentioned that one of her sexual fantasies was “breeding” (being full of cum, as she put it) and this again set off some alarm bells since she mentioned wanting a child so much. I told her I was fine with her fantasy so long as she used birth control when we were having sex until we married and were ready to have a child. She replied that she didn’t use birth control, and finally I realized what was happening: she didn’t want to get married and have a child in a few years, she wanted to do that now. This was not something I wanted: I wanted a date a girl, see if we were compatible, be boyfriend and girlfriend for a few years and THEN get married and have children. Ultimately I decided to end things there, saying that it was nice to talk to her and that, while she was a cool person, I didn’t feel we were compatible. I then proceeded to block her on Snapchat & OKCupid, feeling guilty that I had led her on and then rejected her so suddenly and feeling dirty since I had was stupid and shared my sexual fantasies way before I had even met a girl physically.

This was a deeply uncomfortable experience and unfortunately its emblematic of several similar experiences I’ve had since I started dating four years ago. Many of the women who’ve been attracted to me over the years have wanted to move way too fast, wanting me to have sex with them and become their boyfriend or husband before we’ve had more than one date (or, in some cases, before we’ve even met in-person). Most of them a similar to C, having had rough childhoods and trauma. I seem to attract these kinds of people and I don’t know why. Is it because I get too personal in messages? Is it because I have a babyface and am not experienced, so people see me as innocent? Are these just the kinds of people that use OkCupid and other OLD sites?

So that’s my first question: How do I stop attracting people like this? How do I identify these types of people so I can avoid this in the future? What do I need to change about my behavior so I don’t lead on people and make the desire a relationship too quickly?

My second question is about what C said about it being obvious that I was a virgin since I was reluctant to flirt. This is not the first time I’ve been told this from people I’ve messaged on OLD sites. Now, I try to be playful and fun in my messages, and I try to compliment the people I message so that they know I’m attracted to them. Is this not flirting? I try to avoid sexual compliments and discussion when messaging on OkCupid to avoid being creepy, is this wrong? How do I message women without sounding like a virgin?

Thank you,

Mr.Slow-and-Steady

DEAR MR. SLOW-AND-STEADY: Hoo boy.

Alright, MS&S, I’m going to get to your questions in a minute but before I do… well, I hate to say this, but you’re asking the wrong questions. This is a very significant case of “the problem you’re asking about isn’t the problem you have” because, frankly, I’m pretty sure you got catfished.

There’re a few key points here that set my Spidey-sense tingling. First is her origin story, for lack of a better term. While God knows plenty of people have really s--tty upbringings and deal with abuse, family trauma and living in dire circumstances, a lot of catfishers will give a long detailed list of all their trauma and horrible background both to engender sympathy in dudes — especially ones who have White Knight Syndrome — and to provide convenient reasons for why they “can’t” or won’t do certain things that would confirm their identity. The second was waving off your wanting to communicate via text for Snapchat instead. While God knows there’re plenty of ways to avoid giving a real number, services like Snapchat make it very easy to create and throw away accounts with relative ease. The third sign was the very weird ways that the conversation would go — from asking about your health to insisting on talking about your dirtiest fantasies with virtually no preamble, to going on about having a breeding fetish.

Any one of these, in and of itself would be explainable. Some of it — insisting on talking about your health and/or dirtiest fantasies, for example — would raise a few eyebrows but it wouldn’t be that far out of the norm; God knows I’ve had some conversations with folks I’d met on dating apps that would set your hair on fire, long before we met. But it’s the combination of all three that makes me suspect you were dealing with someone who was getting their jollies by screwing around with you and seeing how far they could take this.

The thing about catfishing is that it’s not always a Monte Te’o situation, where someone is creating an entire relationship for s--ts and giggles or pretending to be someone else because they don’t feel like they could be themselves with someone they’re attracted to. Nor, for that matter, is it always about scamming people who love not too wisely but too well. Sometimes you’ll get folks who get bored and want to see how far they can push things and some who get their rocks off by having dirty chats with strangers.

I strongly suspect that you were dealing someone (or a few someones) who were somewhere around the latter. Whether it was just to see how hard you’d bite, or if they got a thrill from sexting under false pretenses, I think that in this case, it’s not an issue of attracting the wrong people so much as falling for someone’s bulls--t profile. And to be clear: I don’t think you’re gullible, naive or stupid. I think that someone took advantage of your eagerness and frustration and your inexperience.

Now, I’ve written about best practices when it comes to spotting catfish and fake profiles before — check their social media presence, use Google to confirm particularly outlandish claims, reverse image-search their pics, and meet up in person as soon as feasible. Failing that, Skype, Facetime, Zoom and other video chats are your friend. But it’s also important to refine and trust your instincts, especially if something seems too good to be true or it’s coming at a time when you’re particularly hornt up. Horniness makes even the smartest of people make poor decisions; a little dickful thinking can override a lot of warning bells.

(Seriously, asking about health issues should’ve been the first clue that this was about to go south, regardless of whether this was a catfish or not…)

So on the one hand, I don’t think you need to really worry about why you attract folks like C, here, because I think C isn’t actually C. But on the other, you also mention that you’ve run into similar issues before, with people who were on a different timeline than you, sexually or relationship-wise. How do you deal with this?

This one is simple: boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

It’s less about “what can you do to make sure that only the right people are drawn to you” and more about “why are you letting the wrong people stay?” If someone is pushing for a relationship before you’re ready — especially before you’ve even met — then that’s a sign that they’re not someone you want to date and to look elsewhere. Making it clear that you take things slow and want to get to know someone before you get serious or physically intimate is drawing a line in the sand; people who push against that or want you to let go of your boundaries are making it clear that they’re not right for you. Maintaining those boundaries means that the wrong people won’t stay in your life. Having strong boundaries, even in the messaging stages, helps keep the drama llamas and line-steppers out of your life before they ever get any sort of traction.

There’re a number of points where you should’ve paid more attention to your boundaries and to those warning bells. The health question alone should’ve been enough to make you say “I’m not sure this is relevant to anything”. However, her asking you out of the clear blue sky about being a virgin and pushing the conversation towards sex, fetishes and sex acts are another area where you should’ve been ready to push back or say that you didn’t want to talk about this with someone you hadn’t even met yet. I get that being horny and turned on can make folks overlook big honkin’ red flags, but there really is a point where you’re better off to rub one out and tell her that it’s a little too soon than to let the conversation go in directions it doesn’t seem you were comfortable with.

Now with all that having been said, there’re a few areas where it seems like you’re contributing to your own issues. You drop the occasional clue that there’re things you need to work on, such as a tendency to get too personal, too quickly in the messaging stages. That’s definitely a thing to dial back; if you’re giving a lot of personal s--t right off  the bat, that tends to be an indicator of poor emotional and social intelligence; while being open and vulnerable is good, getting really personal really quickly tends to be a red flag for folks on the receiving end. And if someone is cool with that… well, that’s often a red flag in and of itself.

But without more details, it’s really hard to say. As a general rule, boundaries and being choosy about who you match with and message is going to be more important than worrying about leading people on. While there’re things that could be sending the wrong message in your profile — especially if you’re mentioning wanting kids or a family — you also can’t control who does or doesn’t respond to you. Even if you avoid every possible hint or clue that would make people think you want something that you don’t, there are still people who will be looking for things you aren’t. I mean, ask women about the guys who message them for same night hook-ups, even if they explicitly say that’s not what they want.

But that having been said, you mention that not only is this a recurring issue, but you tend to connect with people who’ve had trauma or rough childhoods and that they’re the ones who tend to push the line past what you’re comfortable with. I think that you need to take a step back and examine just why you seem to zero in on women who have — or claim to have — troubled backgrounds. I think part of the reason why this keeps happening is because you keep going for the same type of women and, frankly, that can be an issue.

Yes, it’s certainly possible that people who’ve got trauma or rough personal histories have their own issues going on that may influence their relationship patterns. Some may have an anxious attachment style and may rush into relationships or sex; others may sense an opportunity of one sort or another and want to lock that down. But there’re plenty of folks who have a history of trauma or went through awful s--t growing up and aren’t clingy, needy or jump the gun on relationships or sex. The fact that this keeps happening is an indication that it may be an issue on your end, rather than your dating app profile.

As the saying goes, sometimes the most important common denominator in your relationships is you. If you’re consistently having these issues and they seem to coincide with women with this particular background or history, then that makes it much more likely about what’s drawing you to them.

Remember what I said about having White Knight Syndrome? One of the reasons why some men will be drawn to women who they think they need to “save” is because they don’t believe in their own value or desirability. They feel that by “saving” someone or “healing” them or otherwise “fixing” them, they will have “earned” the right to be in a relationship. This is problematic for a lot of reasons. To start with: women aren’t your project; they aren’t there waiting to be fixed by someone, they’re out there trying to live their lives. Having Studly Goodnight swoop in to “save” them tends to mean that they end up with a dude — even a well-meaning one — who has ZERO understanding of what they’re going through trying to save the day and generally making a mess of things. Dudes with White Knight Syndrome tend to not see the women they want to “save” as people with wants and desires and agency, so much as both the puzzle to solve AND the reward for solving it.

Worse, guys who do get involved with women who have severe issues — emotional, health, financial or physical — often have no idea what they’re in for or what a relationship with them would mean. They end up in over their heads very, very quickly and tend to either burn out or split.  And of course, there’re the ones who are happy to let those White Knights into their lives. A lot of those types tend to be bad news — frequently because they’re deeply co-dependent, incredibly toxic or occasionally both.

So, while you work on your boundaries, I think it’s going to be a good idea for you to take a step back and do some deep exploration into just what it is about these women that draws you to them. There seems to be some unexplored issue that is making these women especially appealing to you, even though they almost always prove to be wrong for you. It sounds to me like you should sort that side of the equation out first. Once you’re able to address whatever aspect means that you respond to that particular commonality, you’ll be in a better position to choose women who are right for you, instead of having to constantly fend off all the wrong ones… and the ones who likely aren’t who they say they are.

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: My husband and I (he’s a straight man and I’m a bi woman) have been together for 25 years, and most of the time I see him as the best partner possible. Loving, kind, thoughtful, funny, and a wonderful father. Where things aren’t so great is our sex life.

Up until last year my sex drive was at an all time low. I was dealing with a misdiagnosed mental health disorder, and the medication I was taking meant my desire completely tanked. So having sex once every month or even less was fine by me. I wasn’t even masturbating, which I’ve always enjoyed, so it wasn’t like my lack of interest had anything to do with him. But things have changed and it’s becoming a big problem.

Now that I have a proper diagnosis and am taking the right medication, my sex drive has skyrocketed. Sex once a month isn’t enough. I masturbate every day, sometimes more than once, but I miss having sex with my husband. And it’s not just the physical act, but also the closeness and emotional connection that I’m looking for. But he doesn’t seem interested. At all.

I’ve tried everything I can think of. I initiate sex regularly, but the majority of the time he says he’s too tired. I’ve bought sexy lingerie, suggested we watch porn together (what kind is his choice), bought books, offered to do a strip tease, role play etc etc and nothing seems to work. At this point I’m not sure if it’s that he’s no longer attracted to me, that he really is too tired, that he’s getting it somewhere else, or that he’s unable to keep an erection (more on that shortly).

We’ve talked about this outside the bedroom when we’re both calm and he swears it isn’t a lack of desire or attraction to me. He says he’s especially tired at night, which makes sense because he works a physically demanding job. But I’ve tried initiating sex in the morning or on the weekend and that doesn’t work either. So I’m left with the last two possibilities …cheating or ED.

The last few times we’ve had sex he’s had trouble staying hard. I’ve given him oral, tried manual, stimulated everywhere I could think of, dirty talk, dirty movies, and no dice. The last time it happened I asked if everything was OK and he said that having trouble staying hard is just what happens to 50 year old men. But from everything I’ve read that just isn’t true.

He doesn’t want to see a doctor, which I find frustrating. I know that vaginal penetration isn’t the be all and end all of good sex, but not being able to get him off at all is driving me crazy. And yes, I miss good old fashioned screwing. But most importantly of all, there’s no cuddling, no physical connection, and now he’s sleeping on the couch.

I’m starting to think it really is me, or that he’s getting it elsewhere. He’s been working in a woman’s house over the last month and he’s been talking about her a lot…how nice she is, how smart, how much he admires that she’s raising her daughter alone after being widowed. Ok, so he also said he thought I’d like her, but the repetition of her virtues made me uncomfortable. When I flat out asked if there was anything going on he snapped and said just asking him that was insulting. When I pushed for an answer he said there was nothing going on, that he wasn’t cheating, nor would he ever. I’m almost sure that’s true, but there is a small part of me that wonders.

So what do I do? No matter why this is happening, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a sexless marriage. Leaving or cheating are not options…I love and respect him too much for that. Please help, because I’m –

Hot, Bothered and Missing my Husband

DEAR HOT, BOTHERED AND MISSING MY HUSBAND: This is a hard one, HBMMH, because… well, because there are a lot of possibilities here, and frankly it may not be any one thing. When we look at problems in our relationships and we start to list out potential causes, it’s very easy to try to pick a singular cause and assume that if we fix this issue then everything else will fall into place.

Except, that tends to be a false choice. It doesn’t have to be one issue at the exclusion of all others; many of those possibilities can be true. Or some of what we assume are causes are, in fact, symptoms; treating those wouldn’t actually fix the underlying issue. If, for example, your husband went on ED medication, that might mean that he can get hard, but if the issue is that he’s just not attracted to you any more, then he may get hard but still won’t want to do anything about it.

With that being said, the thing that leaps out at me  is  the absolute lack of intimacy; not just sex, but physical intimacy. No touching, no cuddling, and now he’s sleeping on the couch.

That, I think, is the biggest tell. But before we get to that, I want to dig in a little to root causes.

What I suspect is that this is a cascading issue that stems from the way your libido tanked on the medication. This is a really common issue with mental health care; even when you’re getting the right medication for the right diagnosis, a lot of psych meds will kill your libido deader than disco. This has caused a lot of problems with couples, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m a big believer in being willing to tell your doctor that the side-effects are intolerable and you need to switch to something else.

The problem is that sometimes this initial issue can spiral outwards and carve a groove that it’s hard to get out of.

Now keep in mind as I lay my suspicions out: I am absolutely not blaming you for what’s going on — I am just describing what I think is a likely process that lead to where you are now. This is more about how your husband responded to the situation, and it doesn’t seem like he covered himself in glory here. But to be fair to both of you: you found yourselves in difficult circumstances, and the common advice is not only frequently unhelpful, but wildly inconsistent. In fact, it tends to vary drastically depending on who has the higher libido.

As it stands, it sounds like you and he made the best decisions you could under the circumstances with the information you had at the time… even if the outcomes are far less than ideal

You don’t say how long that your libido had been in the tank, but I’m willing to bet that this is the root cause. If your sex life had been robust before you went on your medication and it suddenly fell off a cliff, then I can see a point where your husband started to, for lack of a better term, give up. For all that (some) men like to position themselves as creatures of logic and clear thinking, the truth is that we’re emotional as hell… fragile, even. When we feel undesired by our partners, it can be really difficult to keep a level of distance and recognize that it’s not about us. Even when we know intellectually that your disinterest in sex has an external cause, it can be hard not to take it personally. There can often be the nagging voice of the jerk-brain saying “well… what if it is you, after all?” That can be incredibly damaging to one’s self-esteem because it feels so incredibly plausible. And because that doubt whispers in your own voice, it is very easy for that to create a crack that can spread and grow.

Alternately, there may have come a point where he just resigned himself to the fact that this relationship was no longer sexual, and he was just going to have to accept this. That can be equally as frustrating and cause folks to pull back. Men, in particular, are prone to equate physical intimacy as a prelude to sexual intimacy, and so it’s all too easy to fall into a rut of thinking “why bother cuddling if it just means I’m going to be left frustrated?”

And while yes, we need to normalize casual physical intimacy being decoupled from sex in general… if that’s been his mindset, I can see why he’d pull back physically too. It’s not helpful, it’s isolating and it makes the whole situation worse… but I can understand the why of it.

If things had gone on for long enough that this has become what he thought was his new normal, then expectations change, frustrations grow and it gets hard to pull back from things. Now that you’ve gotten the correct diagnosis and treatment, your libido is back, but he may still be in a place where his has tanked just because he’s been thinking “well what’s the point?” for so long that it’s hard to shift gears again. While he may not want to admit it, he may be feeling a certain amount of resentment and anger about that low period and he hasn’t worked through it. Hell, he may even realize that the way he feels isn’t fair to you. He may know, intellectually, that this was a case of medication and not about you or him. But again: emotions don’t listen to logic, especially when it feels personal.

And that could manifest in other ways. Remember what I said about how fragile dudes can be? That hits us in a lot of ways, including erectile dysfunction. Dicks are divas, and when s--t is even slightly off — including emotionally —  they tend to throw a fit and refuse to work. If he’s been feeling unwanted or rejected (which, again, is not what you were doing, nor is it fair to you) for a while, then he may be having a hard time getting things to work again. Doubly so if his job is physically draining.

And ED can be a mindf--k of its own; when you feel betrayed by something that used to be so reliable, it can cause its own anxiety, making you feel like less of a man. And since guys have been taught never to engage with our emotions, it’s easier to try to avoid potential triggers than it is to actually deal with the issue. Talking to a urologist would mean having to admit to the problem and that can be a world of NOPE, even though doing so would actually, y’know. Solve his under-inflated boner.

Then of course, there’s the other woman. It definitely sounds like he’s got a crush on her. This, in and of itself, isn’t a big deal. Crushes happen regardless of relationship status or satisfaction. All getting a crush on someone means is that you’re a primate with dopamine and oxytocin receptors. Now, with any potential feelings of rejection and frustration and the way the sexual component of your relationship had fallen off, it’s certainly possible that this crush feels a little more intense or tempting than it might have been before. It’s very easy to look at a relationship of years or decades, with all of the natural ups and downs and find that crush to be much more interesting because it’s so shiny and new, without all the dents and dings that come in every relationship. There may well be a part of him that keeps thinking about what it would be like to just cross the line and go for it.

Is he cheating? I dunno. It’s certainly possible; the non-denial denial sounds like the sort of wordplay that folks engage in when they don’t want to lie but don’t want to tell the truth either. It’s slightly more likely that he’s had some sweaty jerk-off fantasies and that’s as far as it’s gone. But I can’t say one way or the other about whether he has slept with her or just really wants to.

(To be fair: his wanting to sleep with her is, again, separate from his relationship with you. Regardless of whether things are good or bad and regardless of gender, humanity is a novelty-seeking species, including in sexa partners.1 Monogamy just means we choose not to sleep with other people. It doesn’t say that we won’t want to.)

So with all of this in mind, what do you do about it? Well, it sounds to me like you and he need to have a series of Awkward Conversations… and preferably ones that’re facilitated by a sex-positive marriage counselor. Of course, just bringing up the topic of going to counseling is going to be an Awkward Conversation in and of itself. My recommendation is that you both carve out time to talk, time when you won’t be distracted or have to run off to do other things. Sit down with him and ask him to let you speak without interruption until you’re done so you can get it all out. Explain that you’ve been worried about bringing this up because things have been uncomfortable lately and you want to make things work between the two of you again. Let him know that you understand how frustrated he had to have been while you had the wrong diagnosis, how you want to rebuild the intimacy you two had before and that you feel like talking things through with a counselor to guide things would help. This way you two could make sure that you’re both being heard and understood and find a way to get your relationship back on track and be happy and intimate again.

Then, give him space to ask questions and to share his side of things and how he’s feeling. Give him the same respect of letting him speak without interruption or questions until he’s done; it may be hard for him to figure out the right words to say or even how to express how he’s feeling right off the bat. Letting him work through it without your jumping in — even if there’re long pauses to think — will make it much easier for him to figure out what to say and how.

Then find a sex-positive couples counselor and make an appointment. If you need help finding one, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists has a referral directory to help you find someone in your area. Talking things out with a trained third party will help you both work through issues, give voice to the way you’ve been feeling and help you work together to find solutions. And it may also help your husband decide to talk to his doctor about his ED issues… assuming that those don’t resolve on their own as you all work through things.

This is all a difficult place to be in, and you have my sympathy. There may be some difficult conversations ahead… but hopefully you and your husband will be able to work through them and come out stronger on the other side.

Good luck.

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