Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: It’s my last year as a high school student and I have liked this girl for two years now. She’s a year younger than me and I’ve known her since my sophomore year. Thing is, with her I’m so awkward that I can’t hold a good conversation. I’m good at conversing with anyone but her. I was gonna confess to her in person before class started, however, she came in late, so I thought it’d be best to give her a letter expressing my feelings.

I talked to her for a bit and when it was time for her to go to her classes, I gave her the letter. While walking with her, I feel like I was stalling too much. I could’ve told her then and there that I liked her, but I couldn’t. It was like the words were stuck in my throat and other words that were not in the theme of confessing came out instead. After school she texted me asking if the letter was a joke and I told her that it wasn’t. It threw me off when she asked me that. We talked for a bit and then she said to wait for an answer. It’s been 3 days since that happened and I still haven’t gotten an answer. Though I did tell her in the letter to take her time since right now we’re on a Thanksgiving break, so I understand.

If she does say yes, I want to take it slow. My other relationship kind of stung me as my feelings for my ex went away which is the reason why I broke up with them (+ we were rushing a lot). I don’t want that to be the same reason why I break up with my crush (if she says yes) which is why I want to take it slow.

How do I get closer to my crush? How do I know what I want? How do relationships work? What do you have to do to make your partner and you happy? Is waiting for a confession answer bad? If she does reject me, how do I move on?

Thank you,

Butterflies All Tied Up

DEAR BUTTERFLIES ALL TIED UP: Ok, BATU, the first thing you need to do is take a deep breath and slow your roll. You’re hyped up and trying to plan 52 steps ahead when you haven’t even gotten past step one. All you’re doing is working yourself into a panic over a thousand theoretical situations, when what you need to do is just slow your breathing and get zen.

So, rather than all the existential questions, let’s focus on the here and now.

Now, as a general rule, I’m not a big believer in just confessing how you feel to someone… at least, confessing by itself, anyway. While declaring your crush on someone makes for dramatic moments in CW shows or anime, in the real world… well, it’s not the best or most effective way to go about things. The reason I’m not big on just confessing your crush is because you’re functionally handing your feelings to someone else and saying “here, now its your responsibility to do something with this.” Now they have to not only figure out how they feel, but how to handle your feelings too and make the next move. That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone, especially if you aren’t sure of how they feel. Hell, they may not know how they feel. They may think you’re cute as hell but aren’t sure about anything else. They may have been dying inside for a chance to tell you how they feel. Or they may not be interested at all. A confession of love, however, tends to ask for a lot more definitive answers than they may have. As a result, there’s a real likelihood of getting a reflexive “I don’t feel the same” because they don’t know how they feel yet. It’s easier to default to the status quo, even when they may feel something for you too, than to take the next step and risk everything.

This is why my recommendation isn’t to confess your feelings, it’s to ask them out on a date. Not “hang out some time”, not “get together” but an actual, definitive date, on a specific day and time and (ideally) for a specific activity. This, in my experience, is a much more efficient and effective way of handling things. Not only is your interest implied — folks rarely ask people out on dates if they’re not attracted to them — but it makes saying “yes” much easier. They don’t have to figure out how they feel about you, about the situation and decide what to do next. They only thing they have to decide is if they want to go on a date with you. This doesn’t require that they decide precisely how they feel or what this does to your relationship with them — the bar to “do I want to go on a date with this person” is much lower and much less intimidating. Even if they aren’t sure how they feel, if they’re open to the possibility that there’s more beyond “yeah, BATU is hot”, a date is a perfect avenue to explore that possibility.

But all that’s for next time. What do you do now?

Well, you wait.

Think about how you feel when you try to talk to her. You get mush-mouthed and trip over yourself because everything feels so momentous and important. Imagine if, while you were in the middle of trying to figure out how to make the words go, they demanded you make a choice about something vital. You’d want a few moments to at least figure out how to string words into coherent sentences at the very least.

The same is true of your crush. Clearly your confession caught her by surprise — that’s part of why she asked if this was a joke. She, in all likelihood, has to parse her own feelings and that’s the sort of thing that can take time. Yeah, it can feel to us like it’s an obvious yes/no choice, but for the person who may never have even thought about it before, it can take some self-examination. That takes a while, especially if this came out of the clear blue sky. Meanwhile, any pressure from you — not that you’re pressuring her now, mind — can make it harder for her to arrive at an answer.

So the best thing you can do right now is let it go for now. There aren’t any actions you could take that will influence her choice in a positive direction, and most would work against you. Giving her space to decide how she feels and what she wants to do with those feelings  (if anything) is your best choice. Not only are you being respectful of her desire to take time to think, but letting her have her time is more confident — and more attractive — than dancing in attendance and checking over and over if she’s got an answer yet. Make plans for what you do next and then put it out of your mind as best you can. And while yes, that’s easier said than done, it’s still all you can really do for now.

Here’s the thing: if she does return your feelings — or at least wants to go on a date or two — then taking things slow will be the right choice. You’re very, very young and this isn’t automatically going to be your last relationship ever. Taking your time and feeling your way forward is a smart choice. Even with all the advice in the world, your first and early relationships tend to be matters of trial and error. You’re still getting to know yourself and gathering experience in situations you’ve never dealt with before. It’s a lot easier to handle if you don’t rush; you have more time to think, to plan and to react instead of barreling ahead and ending up in over your head before you realize it.

And if she says no? What do you do then? Well, you give yourself some time to have a sad and feel the fuck out of your feels. Not months or years, but a couple solid weeks of feeling down is within reason. You may be a badass monster with the heart of a nuclear reactor, but even Satan took a moment to go “well FUCK” after being thrown into hell. Then, while you still may be sad, you don’t let yourself wallow any longer. You get up, dust yourself off, square your shoulders and start moving forward. While it absolutely sucks to get dumped or rejected, you will survive it and you will feel better. And — importantly — this is your last year of high-school. Before you know it, you’ll be off to your next stage of life, whether it’s college or something else, and you’ll be watching this moment in time get smaller and smaller in your rear-view mirror. You’ll be in the next stage of your life, with new people, new crushes and new opportunities and you’ll be ready to take the lessons from this experience and apply them to your next crush.

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: Been friends with this fellow for nearly three years and he’s more affectionate with me than anyone else we know. Like when I asked other people, “Here’s what he did, do you think he like-likes me,” they all said yes. I had the feeling like someday we’d get together and it seemed like from some things he said, it felt like we would. When we first met, doing theater, he was still getting over a breakup and he had told me he wasn’t good at flirting or figuring that out or asking girls out and he had crushes on people but never did anything about it. I eventually “deduced” that the crush remark meant ME, and I was all “okay, fine, we’ll just see how friendship goes for awhile, give him some time, and if he ever seems like he wants to, I’ll ask him out,” but we were still ah…snugglier than with other people. Like beyond just usual hugging and “touch is my love language so I hug people” stuff. I felt special and like he cared about me. I won’t get into it all, but I did think it was a mutual crush even if nothing was exactly coming into fulfillment at the moment. 

Pandemic effed everything up and he seems to be an “in person” person rather than “chatty online” person so things didn’t super progress on any front after all when in person wasn’t a safe option. After awhile I got convinced that he was over it/me, because being pandemic alone screws with your head and I wasn’t around him IRL to know differently. Then I actually was around him again last month and surprise, that ol’ physical buzz had not gone away, he was happy to see me and said so, agreed that we need to hug more often, and ah…well, I finally decided to suck it up and ask him out, which he took as “oh, so we’re having a friend hang?” and invited others along, but nobody else went. You get where this is going. We were alone, I spelled out at the end I was referring to “wanna get into a romantic relationship” and he said he “suspected” I liked him, but “no” and “You’re a really good friend, but.” He didn’t say a lot other than that but my impression is that he NEVER had a mutual crush on me in the first place. Like the mutual connection I thought we had all these years? Wasn’t. I don’t think he had a clue as to what I was talking about with regards to that. 

It actually came out worse than I thought to find out that he NEVER had a crush on me and NEVER liked me back like that at all, he’s just…overly cuddly, I guess? Not to mention clueless? Like seriously I would not have been as affectionate as I was, said the things I said, given him handmade affectionate presents that he loved, had I not thought this was mutual feelings. I really hate it when someone likes me and I don’t like them and, well, you know why a woman’s terrified to reject a dude — I make like a banana and split out of a guy’s life if I have to tell him no, it’s a nightmare scenario thing for me and I didn’t want to cause anyone else to feel like I do when it happens. So I feel horrible that I made him have to reject me and I was probably tromping over boundaries and thinking it was okay. Like why was he doing what he was doing if he wasn’t into me romantically? Like everything I thought about this friendship/relationship/potential relationship was wrong. It breaks my brain now, thinking back on all the moments we had together and apparently it wasn’t mutual at all. Was it EVEN a friendship at all, or was I just lying in wait waiting for him to come around like dudes have done to me? Am I one of those creepers that I hate? Even if he doesn’t feel that way, I now feel that way.

People are telling me not to throw out the friendship — he clearly likes you, just not like that, they argue, especially my therapist and my mother — but how do I get over someone romantically while they’re still around? Isn’t the advice to cut them off so you stop thinking how wonderful they are? Also, see above on “was it actually friendship?” After all this, what I would normally choose to do is go back to not talking to him again — like, did he even notice I wasn’t talking to him for most of the year? — and he probably wouldn’t even notice, I presume. Or at least dial it way back to “just see him at occasional group hangs and that’s it” territory, which is probably all it was ever going to be anyway. I did tell him after the “no” answer that I was going to be dialing back our relationship, though I didn’t really spell out what that would entail. I was too shocked to really figure that out in the moment. 

However, two issues with this: (a) I talked him into auditioning for a show I was auditioning for, we both got in, and now I’ll be seeing him a LOT for the next few months. At the bare minimum I need to stay on public good terms with him until this show is over, so “avoid him/get some space” isn’t an option. And (b) it’s Present Season, he likes to give Christmas gifts and at this point I feel incredibly awkward about gifting him anything again. I do make handmade gifts for certain friends and he was in that category, but I wouldn’t have given him as…affectionate…ones as I did had I but known. I kind of want to say “We’re never giving gifts again” except it feels like a whopping slap in the face and would definitely hurt his feelings and be Not Normal. I think it’s jerky to not reciprocate gifts and not give him one if he gives me one, which he will, and it also seems kinda face-slappy to go from “knitworthy” to “here’s a gift card when you know I don’t normally do that sort of thing.” I will definitely see him a lot during the Christmas season now and it’s gonna come up. 

I’m trying to subtly avoid him as much as I can in rehearsals, but he’s acting like things are normal and came up to me to chat the other day like nothing had happened, texted for Thanksgiving, very deliberately sat next to me anyway today at one point. So presumably he’s fine, but I feel weirded out. I don’t EVEN know on the hugging issue if/when that comes up again. Can one tell someone “Uh, with the level of affection we had going on, I feel misled here and you need to dial it back down?” There’s another fun conversation I don’t want to have either. I told him I was going to dial back our relationship after that but didn’t spell out stuff like “no touch, no presents” exactly, and while part of me wants to lay down those boundaries, another part of me feels bad doing that and know that while he’d go with it if I said that, it would also hurt his feelings. It’s not like I want to shut him out of my life, but aren’t I supposed to be not caring about him more than he cares about me? How do you get over that when he’s around you being cute and talented most days of the week?

I don’t know what the hell to do here. Do I want to be friends with him after this? Yes and no. My instinct is “burn it to the ground” right now but I’m not 100% on that and acknowledge that I might not quite want to utterly get out forever even if I feel like that now. Can I take immediate time away from him? Nope. I can’t figure out to go no gift/token gift card gift/buy some random thing/still make him a token something/go with what I was going to make either, since that’s kind of based on whatever friendship level we may have going in the future. My therapist thinks I’m making a big deal and I am, but the very foundation of what this relationship was built on for me turned out to be wrong, I do not know how to proceed from here, and I gotta figure that out like, now. (Especially if I end up making something, hah hah, because I’d have to start that soon.) Now what do I do? I really don’t want to discuss this whole thing with him ever again, I feel uncomfortable as shit and I’m not at all sure I can just be “cool” and “normal” either about it for the next few months, acting be damned. I don’t know what the hell to do. Any suggestions?

Signed,

I Am So Totally Clueless

DEAR I AM SO TOTALLY CLUELESS: Believe it or not, IASTC, you’re not the only person who’s gotten confused by how touchy-feel-y-cuddly someone is with their platonic friends. Some folks are just cuddlebugs and really enjoy platonic cuddling and snuggling with the people in their lives. While it’s not necessarily common among straight guys — hellooooo toxic masculinity and touch starvation — it’s actually rather nice to see some dudes feeling like they can be more affectionate and expressive. Just, y’know. Not when it confuses people into thinking there’s non-platonic interest behind it.

But while we’re talking about normalizing desired behaviors — like guys being less afraid of giving platonic physical affection — another behavior I’d like to see become more common amongst guys, gals and non-binary pals is to be willing to just ask for what you want to know, instead of trying to read the tea leaves. One of the reasons why there are often so many miscommunications like the one you had with your friend — or that Rejected had with hers — is that folks try to read between the lines, and try to piece together interest and intent from various clues. The problem is that people aren’t jigsaw puzzles; just because the pieces all seem to fit doesn’t mean that you’re actually seeing the right picture. And since everyone’s different — such as, say, being more cuddly than the average bear — one person’s “couldn’t make their interest more obvious with charts and graphs” is often another person’s “what do you mean,  this is what I’m like with everyone.” As a result, you get folks who get their feelings hurt because everyone may have been acting in good faith, but there was a translation error that completely changed everyone’s expectations.

Granted, the pandemic and attendant isolation almost certainly didn’t help either, especially if your crush was the sort of person who communicates better in person than over text or video chats.

Now, as with Rejected, I think an important thing is to not let the sting of being turned down retroactively ruin everything that came before. While I know it hurts right now, the fact that the relationship wasn’t what you thought it was doesn’t mean that the whole thing was bogus and fake. That’s just self-doubt and pain screwing with your head.

I also don’t think you necessarily need to throw away the friendship — assuming that he’s still interested, or that you are. Trying to play “ha, I care less about you than you care about me!” isn’t a winning strategy either; that’s the sort of thing that causes people to do stupid shit while they convince themselves they’re over someone and they really aren’t. It’s better to be honest about how you feel — to yourself at least — rather than trying to force feelings away. Not only does that not work, it usually just makes things worse. Accepting them and acknowledging them without acting on them and just letting them be works much better for letting inconvenient crushes fade.

By that same token,  while I’m a believer in the value of the Nuclear Option when it comes to break-ups, it’s a tool that needs to be used with care. The point of the Nuclear Option isn’t — as I’ve said before — “we broke up AND NOW YOU’RE DEAD TO ME”, it’s to give yourself breathing room to heal and keeping you from prolonging the healing process by being tempted to text them at 3 AM or check up to see if they’re dating someone else.

I don’t know if complete separation is strictly necessary here, or even possible, seeing as you two are in a show together. Even if you’re in the same production, unless you’re doing scenes together, you should be able to have space from him at rehearsals… even if it means hanging out in a different corner of the rehearsal space at times. However, in this case, I think spending (limited) time around him might help reassure you that while he may not have been into you the way that you were hoping, he did like you as a friend. Seeing him act normally around you may help ease the fear that the entire friendship was bogus and you were just hoping to backdoor your way into his pants.

Or it might not; I’m not there, so I can’t tell.

What I can tell you is that the way to handle things — at least until you find your footing again — is to be polite and friendly, if a little distant while you two figure things out. Keeping things polite, at the very least, will help with making things work during rehearsals and performances, and it’ll make any sort of reconciliation/”how do we want to do this” easier. The less you have to walk back, the easier it is to pick a friendship up again.

Just as importantly is that, yes, using your words is the right way to go with him. Saying “hey, just FYI, the hugging/cuddling/physical affection was a bit much for me, could we dial it back to a level I’m comfortable with” is entirely within bounds for you. Yeah, he might have a brief sad about it, but these are your boundaries. You don’t need to do things that hurt or upset you because he feels a little disappointed; that’s a him problem, not a you problem.  His feelings aren’t your responsibility to manage. Having that boundary, on the other hand, makes it possible for the two of you to be friends again and — if you’re ok with it — to resume hugging/cuddling privileges down the line.

And as far as gifts this year go? You don’t need to give anything hand-made, but you don’t need to just throw a gift card at him. If there’s something small but meaningful — a book or graphic novel, maybe — that might bridge the gap between “here I knitted this with my feelings” and “fuck you take your card and choke” without either slapping his had away or sending the wrong message.

The last thing to keep in mind: you don’t need to rush any of this. You’re allowed to take things slowly, process your feelings and let whatever the next stage of your relationship will be grow at its own pace. Yes, you’ve got rehearsals and shit, yes, we’re in the final lap of the holiday season with New Year fast approaching… but that doesn’t mean that you’re on a deadline. Feel your feels, establish some boundaries and then see where things go from there. Everything’ll be ok.

Just make sure to make a point of using your words, next time. The heart you save may be your own.

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 weird problem for you and I don't know if it's in your wheelhouse or not.

I (27/F) am married and in an ENM/polyamorous relationship. My husband (26/M) and I both have partners in addition to one another. Before now, things were pretty good; my husband, my boyfriend and I had something of a kitchen table poly relationship going on, while my husband didn't have a committed partner but a string of people he was sleeping with. Most of them weren't serious and didn't really fit into the dynamic we'd set up. We'd try, but since he was more interested in a series of short-term relationships that were more about sex than commitment, they rarely stuck around for long. This could be a bit awkward when they were clearly not comfortable with other people knowing their business (and one person who got very angry to find out he wasn't cheating on me with her) but we made it work.

Well, it worked until his latest girlfriend (29-ish/F). We'll call her Emerald or E for short. E was the first time that my husband got serious with somebody besides me and this is a problem. 

I'll be clear: my husband is (was? I'll explain) my primary partner. I love my boyfriend, don't get me wrong, but my husband is the man I built a life with. I thought that we were on the same page: that this was an addition to our relationship, not an "instead of". Then E enters the picture. My husband is smitten with her in a way I've never seen with anyone else. He's deep in the NRE and can't stop talking about how amazing she is, how fun she is, how smart, how gorgeous and how great in bed. I have to be honest: it kind of hurts to constantly hear about how great she is (and the implication that I'm not, because he doesn't talk about ME this way to people) but I understand how the NRE feels. So I try to let it go. 

But E actively encourages this. In fact, E seems to be trying to sabotage my relationship and I hate how paranoid and crazy this makes me sound. Except I'm not the one who even noticed it at first. It was my boyfriend who brought it to my attention and now I can't NOT see it. 

Here's an example: when we're all together, E goes out of her way to undermine my relationship with my husband. She inserts herself into discussions about our relationship and gives her two cents in ways that make me sound unreasonable. And the problem is that my husband uses this against me ALL THE TIME. 

I'm not going to say that our relationship was perfect before E came along. We've had our ups and our downs but we've come through most of it. I say most because… well, I'm the responsible one in the household. We've had a lot of issues early on  in the relationship where he ruined his credit score by defaulting on a lot of important bills, even going pretty heavily into debt because he's bad with managing money. He's got a good job that pays well, but he doesn't think much past the moment. He spends the money almost as soon as he gets it without any real regard to things like rent and bills. I'll come home and he'll have a new game console or something but the electric bill is past-due. So I'm stuck in the position of being the one who spoils all of his fun, because I have to remind him that he can't buy the latest gadget he read about on some gear blog that caught his eye because we have to cover rent that week.

(We have separate accounts for precisely this reason, plus a joint one that we contribute to for  household expenses. I'll give you three guesses who puts more money in the expenses account and why.) 

When we're all hanging out together and my husband mentions some new thing he wants to do or trip he wants to take or whatever, I have a choice. I can either gently remind him that this isn't in the budget (even allowing for the shared account) or I can bite my tongue and not say anything. If I don't say anything then E encourages him to get it or do it, especially if she can take part. "You only live once, you know" she'll say or talk about how this would be a good bonding experience for them. If I mention the money issue, E will chide me for being too serious or not letting my husband have his space. 

Similarly, she will make plans that interfere with plans I have with him — including important plans, ones that we've had for years before she was even in the picture. Like, she got angry at me because I was "interfering with her date night" with my husband because she just "happened" to schedule it on the same day as our anniversary. A date that she knew was coming up because we'd mentioned it before AND it was in our calendar. If we're on a date night for just us, she'll text him CONSTANTLY. And I know she's been telling him about how "bad" I am for him because as much as I love him he can't keep a secret to save his life and accidentally brings it up if we're disagreeing about something.

Lately she's been telling me, ME, how I've been failing as a partner and wife for my husband to my face and what I should be doing differently. She'll cite some book she read or some podcast she listened to like she's an authority on the subject (she's not) and of course, my husband eats it up with a spoon. She implies (or outright states) that she knows him better than I do, when she and my husband have been together for less than four months, when he and I have been together for YEARS. Lately she's been lecturing me about all the ways I was falling down in my "duties" as his wife and what I should be doing differently. Sorry, did I say "lecture" I meant "giving friendly advice". Just telling me all the ways she knows my husband's needs better than me in the name of "being helpful".

Of course, I can't bring this up to my husband because if I do, then I'm just "being jealous" or because I have "less experience at being poly" than E does. It doesn't matter that E's last relationship ended in an incredibly ugly and protracted break up because (according to everyone who was around for it) she's an incredibly controlling and domineering "do as I say, not as I do" type. That got so ugly that even her husband eventually threw her out over it, especially after she kept interfering in HIS attempts to date too.

(I should point out that her husband was that poly-under-duress thing that Dan Savage talks about. Poly for her, but she kept vetoing all HIS partners so he never had one that lasted longer than a week) 

It doesn't help that she does things that I don't ask for or even want, because "she's just trying to help" or "thought we needed this", which just means that my husband takes her side when I point out how much she's been disrupting OUR relationship. I can't be upset at her because look at what she's doing and i should be more grateful.

I feel like I'm losing my mind, Doc. I swear that she has all but said directly "I'm his REAL partner, not you" but I can't bring this up to my husband because he doesn't see it. At all. It hurts me to hear about how amazing she is and what she's said and how she said this and that and the other thing and I can't say anything about it. We agreed early on that we weren't going to do the "primary has veto power" thing because that's not fair but I feel like I'm stuck with someone in my polycule that's actively trying to push me out and I don't know what to do. 

Help me, Dr. NerdLove, you’re my only hope.

The Other Other Woman

DEAR THE OTHER OTHER WOMAN: Hoo boy.

I can't say for certain whether she's trying to take your place as your husband's primary partner, TOOW, but it definitely sounds like she's trying to undermine your relationship with him. Maybe she's the "relationship anarchy" type who thinks that thinks that having primaries is wrong and she's trying to enforce her view of things. Maybe she's just a toxic controlling person and sees you as competition for your husband's time and attention. Hell, maybe she's hoping to push you out of the relationship entirely and take your place.

We can speculate wildly as to why, but honestly? The "why" doesn't matter. "Why", in this case, would give you insight to her motivation… but her motivation isn't the issue here. Her actions are, and her actions are saying that she doesn't respect you or your relationship to your husband and she's treating you with active disrespect under the most charitable of readings. And honestly your husband isn't covering himself in glory either.

Part of the problem is that your husband is allowing this to happen. I don't know if your kitchen-table poly arrangement is a "all part of the chosen family" thing or if it's more of a "we all hang out together regularly instead of having relationships that are entirely separate from our other relationships", but she's his girlfriend; by all rights, he's the person who should be establishing the boundaries with her. He should be the one to say "hey, maybe don't blow up my phone when I'm having a date with my wife" or to remind her that they can't go out because it's your wedding anniversary and you already have plans.

But he's not. And I suspect that, as you said, part of it is the New Relationship Energy. Whether someone's poly or not, when they're with a new partner, their brain starts producing oxytocin and dopamine at an elevated rate. These hormones go straight to the pleasure centers of the brain and make you feel amazing; you are quite literally getting high off being around them. It's why everything about a new partner is incredible and remarkable; even the way they chew their food is adorable.

Unfortunately, NRE also means that you're more likely to miss — or ignore — giant freaking red flags because who wants to interrupt the all-expenses-paid love trip they're on? So, to a certain extent, there's a motivation to… overlook, shall we say… certain things that might put a halt to those amazing feelings. It's like the old Percy Sledge song; he'll turn his back on anyone who says she's trouble.

It also certainly doesn't help that she's the new hotness; she's like the shiny new toy that's caught his eye and he's going to be focused on that for a while.

However, that's only part of it. The other part is… well, it's like you said: you're the Serious One. The Funwrecker. The person who throws ice water on his dreams of owning some new cool gadget or device. It doesn't matter that, y'know, he's got a habit of blowing through his budget on stuff and not having enough to cover his end of the bills. That makes sense logically, sure… but logic ain't here right now, emotion is and emotionally, this feels like you're cockblocking him from the latest Apple product or something. Meanwhile, since E isn't paying the bills and isn't in danger of getting evicted, she can be The Cool One. The devil on his shoulder that says "yeah, you can have the thing you want, ignore the old fuddyduddy who doesn't get it."

This, needless to say, ends up being another reason to not see anything going wrong. It's not necessarily something he's consciously aware of. I don't think he's thinking "yeah, E lets me get all the stuff I want, I'm going to side with her over TOOW", I think that he's going be inclined to look more favorably the person who's currently his primary source of dopamine. All that NRE ends up like a filter that just blurs away the hard edges of her behavior and makes it less of an issue to him.

So that's what's working against you. What should work in your favor is… well, presumably the love and affection and respect you two have for one another. So, for that matter, should the history that you two share. While years together of going through the ups and downs of married life isn't necessarily a guarantee that your husband is going to snap out of this and realize that your relationship is more solid and enduring than the one he has with hers (God knows folks have left spouses of decades for people they've known for months or even weeks), it should give more weight to your end of things.

Now part of what's going on is that E is trading on your politeness.  She's doing things that seem generous or thoughtful on the surface because it makes it harder to accuse her of anything. It's like how toxic people will insult their friend "for their own good" or "telling you the truth because nobody else will and I care".  She's trusting you to not make a fuss because you're trying to be "reasonable" because how can you be mad at someone who's trying to help or giving you gifts? It sounds like she's the passive-aggressive flavor of DARVO when it comes to conflict — that is, Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. She does things in the name of "just being helpful" because if you tell her to knock it off or lay into her about how she's interfering in your relationship, she can flip the script and insist that you're interfering with hers and look at how generous and giving she's been and she's tried so hard to connect with you and you just throw it back in her face. Now you're on the defensive and having to justify your feelings and how they're not an attack while she acts the part of the offended party.

So what do you do? Well, to start with: you get ready to stop being reasonable. Enforcing your boundaries with her over her "I'm just trying to help" is a good start. Whether it's doing you favors you didn't ask for or giving you unsolicited advice, it's time to tell her you don't want it, you don't need it and you certainly didn't ask for it. The fact that she was trying to do something for you doesn't obligate you to accept it, nor do you need to sit there and listen. Saying "thank you but we don't want this/need this" when she gives something or saying "thank you, but I didn't ask for/don't want your opinion" cuts her off at the knees. She can try to play to the crowd, as it were, by trying to make you out as being unreasonable, but if you refuse to explain or justify things, she has far less to work with. When all you say is "thank you, but no," and refuse to be put on the defensive, you make it much harder for her to shift the argument to how you are doing things to her. 

However, she's not the person you need to focus on here. Your husband is. Like I said: if you are his primary — and I presume you still are — then it's really on him to recognize that and respect that. Part of the way you can address this is to point out the ways that she doesn't seem to be respecting your relationship with him. Framing it as "disrespect" is far more likely to reach past his NRE haze than saying "I think she's trying to push me out of our relationship". While the latter may be true — God knows she's acting like she's trying to take charge — it's still the sort of thing that sounds more like the plot to a mid-90s thriller than real life. Disrespect, on the other hand, is a much easier lift to make. It's easier to accept, and, critically, easier to project himself into. "How would you feel if $BOYFRIEND texted me constantly while you and I were out on a date?" "How would you feel if $BOYFRIEND was always making plans that interfered with our date nights?"

Now to be clear: this can still be an uphill climb. It's easier for him to see your concerns as being jealous or reading into things that aren't there; after all, you're emotionally involved here. Whether he comes to that conclusion on his own or E nudges him towards it, it's an all-too easily scenario to see. What may help more is if this information comes from a less-invested third party. Say, another guy.

Like, and I'm just spitballing here, your boyfriend. He's the one who pointed it out to you in the first place, so clearly, he's perceptive enough to pick up on this. The three of you have your kitchen-table poly arrangement going on, so presumably he's close enough to your husband to talk about these things with him. If that's the case, having him pull your husband aside and go "dude, this isn't cool" may mean that your husband will be more receptive to hearing it than he might be from you.

(Also, and I hate to say this, it may play more into some of the systematic sexism we all get raised in. Your husband may take it more seriously if it comes from another man than he would hearing it from a woman.)

Regardless, you're going to have to remain calm and less reactive than you feel. Again, it's sexist, but getting emotional about this plays into her hands; it lets her flip things and pretend to be the well-meaning victim. Sure she may have overstepped her boundaries but she was just trying to help and you're being so mean. The less you react, the less you give her to work with and the less you give for her to use against you with your husband.

But at the end of the day, it's going to come down to how your husband feels. If he's still in it to win it with you, then hopefully the infatuation'll pass and he'll recognize that she's causing drama. However, if he's checked out of the relationship… well, then there's not really much you can do.

So, gray-rock E and see if your boyfriend's willing to broach the subject with your husband. Hopefully that'll help bring him to his senses and make it that much easier to kick this particular cuckoo out of the nest before she does it to you.

Good luck.

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