DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m not a person known for being succinct, but here’s the tl;dr as short as I can make it (it will not be short):

About nine years ago I had a very tumultuous breakup with a guy who cheated on me, the person he was cheating on me WITH, and basically every other woman in his vicinity. It came at a really bad time in my life, and put me through the wringer for years.

Cut to last year when I was doing a lot better, and soon after a celebrity death that deeply affected me, I saw on my ex’s Twitch channel (yeah, I looked in on his socials once in a while; I’m only human) that one of his pets had died and he was a mess about it. It triggered a flicker of empathy in me, and after mulling it over for a week or so, I decided to reach out to him to offer my sympathies.

That actually went better than expected. After lots of texts and post-mortems on our old relationship and many apologies from his end, we eventually settled into a friendship that lasted for a year and a half. We talked nearly every day and agreed that this was better and we never should have dated in the first place. And we really, truly, got along great when we weren’t all entangled.

Cut to the beginning of last September when things got a little spicy and we ended up sexting. The next day we both agreed that it was fun, but neither of us felt the need to do it again, and it felt like we’d buried the past and could move on. And for a while, we did, and things were just…normal. It was nice.

Two weeks after that he calls me out of the blue to say “I need to come clean to you about something. I’ve been seeing someone for the past two years.”

Which meant…for the entire time we’d been friends again. Which meant he’d been hiding her from me every single day for a year and a half. Which meant he cheated on her with me and made me complicit in that cheating without my knowledge or consent.

I was absolutely livid and told him to a) tell her the truth and b) go the f--k back to therapy so he could figure out why he keeps doing this s--t. Our entire friendship was contingent on one thing that I told him on Day Two: Do not ever do to another woman what you did to me. Which he did. With the same excuses as nine years ago – he was sorry, he loathes himself, he was weak, he doesn’t understand why he lied to me, he hates himself for hurting me, blah blah BS et cetera.

He did end up going to therapy, which I know because he texted me that his therapist’s advice to heal from his situation (HE needed to heal?!) was to not be in contact with me anymore. I was devastated because despite everything, I really did treasure our friendship and wanted to work through it. Instead he dipped out of my life – again – after dropping an emotional bomb on me – AGAIN.

The point of this whole thing is that yes, I know I’m better off without this guy in my life and yes, I broke off all contact permanently and unfollowed and/or blocked him everywhere. But I can’t help missing him like crazy. I’ve journaled pages and pages about how much I miss just shooting the s--t or sharing dumb memes with him. We really did get along like gangbusters. I’m trying so hard to come to terms with the fact that I’m never going to understand his reasons for hiding an entire-ass girlfriend from me for a year and a half…though I have a suspicion it was because he was hoping to get me back in the sack one day. Which I made very clear was not going to happen, despite the one-off sexting.

I’ve distracted myself with every possible distraction at my disposal. I’m in therapy. I’m journaling and not contacting him. How do I finally get this man off my mind? I’m walking around with this friend-shaped hole in my heart and it F--KING SUCKS. And while I’m at it, any theories as to why he would do this to me (AGAIN) in the first place? Chair Leg of Truth me if you gotta.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

DEAR ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK: Let’s address the ex, first: I don’t know if he was necessarily hoping to get you back, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. Nor, honestly, do I think it matters what he was thinking or why he hid (or, at least, never mentioned) his girlfriend to you. It’s completely understandable that you would want to get your head around his reasoning, but I suspect there wasn’t any. Or at least, nothing that would make sense if you weren’t privy to the 24/7 live feed inside his head… and possibly not even then. He may not be able to tell you what the f--k he was thinking.

And honestly, I’m not sure that your knowing would make you feel better.

I suspect this feeling of “there has to be a reason for it” is as much about trying to reconcile how you feel about him and your idea of who he was and what you had with him with his actions and how he hurt you. If anything, I’d guess that maybe part of this is the feeling that there should’ve been some sign or indication that you missed, some way that this pain could have been avoided… and honestly I’m not sure there was, or that anyone could’ve recognized it if there were. Some things can only be seen in hindsight, no matter how glaringly obvious it seems then. Sometimes we simply can’t see the oncoming train; we can only see the evidence of it in the aftermath.   

What does matter is that he definitely screwed this particular pooch, and that’s on him.

I don’t think that he was wrong when he said that he needed to heal; it sounds like he’s got his own issues going on in the background that you and I aren’t privy to. Similarly, I don’t think he was intending for it to sound like he was saying he needed to heal because of you. But there’s a significant difference between “intended” and “outcome”.

Bringing it up the way he did, and phrasing things the way he did, sure as s--t made it sound like he was blaming you in some way. It certainly feels like he was making your feeling betrayed and deceived somehow an injury done to him, despite his being the organizer and ringmaster of this particular goat rodeo. That wasn’t cool of him and he really should’ve thought that through before saying it. 

What he should have done – besides apologize – is not said anything about the therapist (way to make it their fault for cutting ties, big shoots) and just said “hey, I’m not in a place where I can be a friend to you the way you need or deserve, and I think it’s better if I step back from us.”

It still would’ve sucked to lose the friend after you’d reconnected… but at least it wouldn’t have had the effect of making you feel like you were being blamed for this, in a completely unnecessary, unfair and needlessly hurtful way.

(I suspect “unthinking” and “careless” likely define a lot of his behavior in general, if I’m being honest.)

Now, I think part of what happened – and is still happening – is that while he was a s--tty person in important respects, the fact that he was s--tty in those areas doesn’t retroactively undo the fact that at one point and time, you and he had a connection. You were together for a long time, had a lot in common and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. That’s not the sort of thing that just “goes away” at the drop of a hat.

It’d be nice if finding out that someone we cared about was a s--thead would retconned our history and we could just move on, secure in the knowledge that they were just a s--tty person and the past never happened. But unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

The feelings and the friendship you had were real. The history you shared and the common interests made it easy to fall back into old patterns – including increasingly spicy texts that lead to that sexting session – and it felt good to be back in that place. Like easing into a warm bath or putting on a pair of well-broken-in jeans.

Having the reminder of the good times, painted in the golden light and soft focus of nostalgia, makes it harder when you have to give them up a second time. It feels like even more of a betrayal because, theoretically, you’re older and wiser now. Instead, you ended up with “Second verse, same as the first/ a little bit louder and a whole lot worse”. And that really, really sucks. It’s almost like a glimpse of what could’ve been, but having it snatched away, again.

This is no small part of why it’s so hard to let go. Yeah, he sucks (a lot) and he hurt you. But that pain doesn’t erase the past. It doesn’t undo the experiences you shared or the feelings you felt. It’s just the marker of where those feelings stopped. You feel the way you do because you had good feelings with him and they were snatched away again, leaving a vacuum behind. For a year and a half, you were creating a new pattern, a new branch of your life with him in it and then it was gone again. Now you’re seeing the empty spaces where he used to be and dealing with the emotional reflexes of a life where you were still friends… a life that doesn’t exist any longer.

It’s going to take time for those to fade. You’ll unlearn those reflexes over time and life will fill in those empty spaces. There will be other friends and other lovers and you’ll build more branches of your life with them that will soon occupy the spaces where you originally made room for him.

Unfortunately, there really isn’t any way of speeding things up. It can help to go out, make new friends and forge new connections… but they’re not going to have the same heft and weight of a connection with someone you’d known for years, not at first. Those take time to build; you can’t force it, even when the connection feels incredibly intense in the early days.

For now, life goes on, and so do you. Feel the f--k out of your feelings, journal the s--t out of your journaling, hang out with friends and remind yourself that life is for living. Find things you love and engage with them with your full heart and soul. Dance yourself into an ecstatic frenzy until you touch the face of God, if that’s your thing. Giving yourself other things to pay attention to will help ease the pain and make it easier for those empty spaces to fill up again, with new and better people.

Time is the great healer and you just need to let time do its work. As much as it sucks now, it won’t suck forever. This, too, shall pass.

It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass. I promise.

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 am literally not even 20 minutes removed from my first (and probably last) experience with a sex worker. Oh man. So a little background on 1. what led to this moment, and then 2. I’ll talk about the moment, and 3. how I feel right now, after the moment.

1. I’ve been struggling REALLY HARD from a breakup over a year ago. I’ve been miserable since and have seen a multiple therapists about it through the year. Although they’ve helped, it’s been temporary. I also realized through therapy that I have a sex/porn addiction. Anyways, the breakup made me realize I needed a fresh start because other aspects of my life were also in shambles (career, finances, social group etc). So I moved to Spain, and tonight, I was feeling incredibly lonely as I do most nights. So I decided to impulsively look up escorts in my area (the sex addiction trigger popping up). I messaged one and really nervously walked to her place, which leads me to….

2. To sum it up. It was bad. I was nervous, scared, excited, and just confused. It felt weird the whole thing. She wasn’t into it, there was a huge language barrier, and it felt so fake. I also originally booked 30 minutes but my nervousness wouldn’t allow me to relax and so nothing really happened the first 30 minutes other than me just bumbling around (mind you it’s been over a year since I had sex). Then I felt bad for her, for me so I booked another 30 minutes (140 Euro down the drain….gulp). The next was just as awkward as the first 30. Lots more bumbling and me trying to get aroused, but I couldn’t. I also have a history of not being able to get aroused with people I just met, I think I am a demisexual is the term. So overall, the experience was flaccid (intentional use of the word here….). So this leads me to…

3. Wow. I feel copious amounts of shame. Shame that I relapsed hardcore (I’ve gone to some SAA meetings and have been trying to stay sober), shame that I just threw away 140 Euros, and shame that I couldn’t perform. I feel confused, sad, VERY depressed, and even lonelier, and lots of anger for going through with it and wasting my money. I really don’t know what my question is, but just advice would be great on the whole thing. I feel honestly, so s--tty right now. I’m trying to use this experience as a catalyst for change. I know I have a lot deeper issues than just sex deprivation (which is another issue too). I need some help please. Thank you so much Dr.

Not So Casual Encounter

DEAR NOT SO CASUAL ENCOUNTER: That sounds like a painfully awkward and embarrassing experience and I’m sorry you went through it. 

There are a number of things to unpack here, but there’re two areas that I want to focus on. One is dealing with the feelings that you’re experiencing right now. Let’s tackle that first.

So to start with: you really don’t have anything to be ashamed of here. Let’s leave the inability to get aroused aside; that’s something that happens to everyone at one point or another. Penises are divas and will frequently make like Pavarotti and refuse to perform if circumstances aren’t perfect. If you’re prone to first time jitters, had too much to drink or your heart’s just not into it, you’re like as not to find yourself trying to shoot pool with a piece of rope. It’s natural, it’s normal and it’s honestly not that big of a deal. I can all but guarantee you that it’s not the first time the escort has dealt with situations like this… possibly not even the first time that week.

It’s not surprising that you had a lousy time, even if we separate out feelings of shame and humiliation. This was a bad time and not great service. You and she couldn’t understand each other, you were already feeling under the gun (30 minutes is NOT a lot of time, especially if you’re not ready to go or need time to warm up, as it were) and from the sounds of it you picked the wrong provider for the sort of experience you likely actually wanted. You wanted something closer to what’s known as a “girlfriend experience”, rather than just getting down to business and going.

Between the way things were organized, a lack of overall experience, the mismatch of expectations and a language barrier and a time crunch… yeah, that’s a recipe for an awkward encounter getting more awkward as one flails about trying to fix things in the moment.

But also it seems like you were seeking something entirely different than just getting your rocks off. I suspect, if the language barrier hadn’t been there, you might not have had sex so much as just companionship… which is actually fairly common. A lot of escorts have clients who are looking for someone to talk to and to not be alone; sex, if it happens at all, ends up being a secondary or tertiary concern.

So no, I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of. You were lonely, feeling lost and out of control and you went looking for comfort. That’s a perfectly normal and human response.

I think, if there’s anything to take away from this, it’s to recognize that sex is often the vehicle that people use to find what they’re actually after. Visiting an escort isn’t all that unreasonable a means of easing the loneliness. Paid companionship is still companionship and it meant you weren’t going to be as lonely for an hour or so. But ultimately, you were looking for human connection rather than sex and the difficulties you had stemmed from that.

This was ultimately a learning experience, something that helped you get a little closer to understanding what you were actually looking for. The literal price of this lesson stings, I’m sure, but people have spent far more to learn similar things about themselves. I think that reframing this as “ok, that was awkward, but now I know myself better and I have a better idea how to handle this” will be much more helpful here.

But this leads us to the second thing I want to bring up. To be perfectly blunt: sex addiction and porn addiction aren’t really a thing. I’ll quote the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists on this:

“AASECT 1) does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder, and 2) does not find the sexual addiction training and treatment methods and educational pedagogies to be adequately informed by accurate human sexuality knowledge. Therefore, it is the position of AASECT that linking problems related to sexual urges, thoughts or behaviors to a porn/sexual addiction process cannot be advanced by AASECT as a standard of practice for sexuality education delivery, counseling or therapy.”

Now, I know there are a lot of organizations and dubiously credentialed “experts” who will insist that it very much is. However, it’s important to note two related things:

1) sex and porn “addiction” is correlated very strongly with religious belief and guilt; the people most prone to seeking treatment for sex or porn addiction tend to be very religious and frequently have complex and troubled relationships with sex and sexuality

and

2) Many if not most of the organizations and counselors promoting sex addiction “recovery” or “treatment” are religiously based and affiliated with various churches.

This isn’t to say that people can’t have problematic relationships with sex or porn. However, these tend to be a form of self-medicating �– the way that drug addiction is often a result of external factors, such as depression or being unhoused – rather than being addicted to sex or porn itself.  If it weren’t porn or if porn were less easily accessible for one reason or another, the majority of people with problematic relationships with porn would be having a problematic and compulsive relationship with something else.

It sounds to me like you have issues surrounding self-worth and shame than with sex or porn. Dealing with those, finding better coping mechanisms and more effective methods of improving your sense of self, self-control and overall well-being are going to be far more helpful than beating yourself up over an awkward sexual encounter.

I think there’re three things that would be helpful here, from this angle.

The first is to forgive yourself for the awkward encounter you had. It wasn’t a good time by any stretch of the imagination, sure, but it’s not something to be ashamed of. You were trying to meet a need and picked something that seemed right in the moment, but turned out to not be what you actually needed. That’s not shameful; you were making the best decision you could at the time and that’s OK. You know better now, so you won’t make the same decision in the future.

The second is to find a sense of control. Right now, it sounds like part of the problem overall is that everything feels very chaotic and unmanageable. A lot of maladaptive behavior is often born out of seeking a sense of control over some aspect of one’s life – even if that control is ultimately negative. Focusing on even just one area and creating a zone in your life where you feel both at peace and that you have things handled is a very good way to remind yourself that you’re not, in fact powerless, and that you have a much better handle on things than it feels in the moment.

Maybe it’s working on your conversational Spanish. Maybe it’s learning how to make tapas or a window-box garden. Even if it’s just taking a weekend to give your apartment a floor-to-ceiling deep clean, finding some small area to express your agency can be huge in terms of creating a zone of comfort and peace. And when you have that foundation to work from, it becomes much easier to start breaking down those seemingly immense, chaotic disasters in your life into smaller, much more easily managed components.

The third thing is that I think you’d do better if you were seeking help from a therapist or counselor who’s trained in dealing with issues, especially feelings of shame regarding sex and porn use, from a sex-positive perspective. That doesn’t mean that the advice is “EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET LAID, GO GET SOME, YOU’LL FEEL BETTER”; it means recognizing that sex isn’t shameful nor something that needs to be restricted or regulated and that people should be having the sex they want (including no sex) with other consenting adults who want the same thing, in a healthy and productive manner. And if the sex you want to be having is more in the context of a relationship or with someone you have an emotional connection with, then that’s the kind of sex you should be having.

While AASECT doesn’t have a referral directory for therapists or counselors in Spain, many of the professionals they list will do video appointments. I’d recommend you check them out.

Finding that comes much more easily when you are coming to it from a place of understanding and self-compassion, rather than shame and recrimination. You deserve the sort of compassion and understanding you would give to your best friend; giving it to yourself and being kind to yourself is going to be much more productive and easier on your heart and soul than beating yourself up.

Be gentle with yourself. You deserve it.

All will be well.

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 boyfriend and I have been together for over 2 years living together most that time. We both have been married and divorced. We were best friends in high school and remained friends our whole life. When we started dating, he told me that when he is in a relationship the woman he is with is his whole priority. He has female friends, which, whatever, we are adults, I have male friends.

Last night, he got arrested and put in jail for fighting with his brother. I had his phone, and a message from another woman popped up. I didn’t answer it, but I got curious and started looking at his messages. I saw where another woman was trying to hook up with him. She had sent him photos provocative ones. He also sent just a photo of him from when he was fishing. He didn’t tell her he had a girlfriend nor did he dent her advances. She asked him if he would like to hook up and He replied “Ya, when ya thinking?”. It never actually happened because he eventually said maybe another day.��Seeing this broke my heart. So my question is, do I confront him and let him know I invaded his privacy by reading his phone? Or do I just sit back and keep an eye on his conversations?�I don’t know what or how to handle this situation, or what to even say to him.

Advice appreciated please.

Who Do I Trust?

DEAR WHO DO I TRUST: I realize that I say “the problem you have isn’t the problem you think you have” a lot, but if I’m being honest, I’d be a little more concerned about the fact that your boyfriend went to jail for fighting with his brother. That strikes me as being more significant than messages on his phone. 

Leaving that aside: there’re reasons why snooping in general is a bad idea. You’re drastically increasing the likelihood of seeing things that you’d rather not see and can’t unsee.

Now that being said… I’d be curious to know more of the context surrounding some of these questionable messages. The way that you’ve presented them, it doesn’t sound to me like your boyfriend was actually responding to the woman hoping to hook up with him – or, rather, I could see ways that things that seem damning could, in fact, be relatively innocent.

Not mentioning that he has a girlfriend isn’t necessarily proof of anything, especially if they already know each other in person, for example. You can’t know if he’s mentioned you to her previously. Similarly, if she’s sending “provocative” pictures (which honestly covers a pretty wide range) and he’s responding with a picture from a fishing trip… that doesn’t sound like two people who are auditioning to be the last of the red hot lovers.

However, that’s strictly how I am looking at things, several steps removed. I’m not the final word on how to interpret all of this by any stretch of the imagination.

You’re actually there, reading those texts and I’m not. You know him and I don’t. You’re going to have to be the one to judge whether these are actual affairs in the offing or not. However, while I’m on the record as saying that cheating isn’t necessarily a relationship-extinction-level event, a lack of trust is. And it doesn’t sound like you trust him right now.

To my mind, if you’re seriously contemplating monitoring his messages to see if you catch him cheating (or planning to cheat), then you may want to call it now. If you’re sure that he’s looking to hook up, an absence of evidence is unlikely to be taken as evidence of absence. What will it take to prove a negative for you? If you never see any sign that he’s actually taken the plunge, will you be able to accept that maybe he’s not fooling around? Or would it feel more like you aren’t looking hard enough or, worse, he’s hiding it more effectively? What would it take for you to be able to trust him? 

Similarly, if you’re going to call him out without solid proof, do you think he’d come clean, or would he deny it… and in either case,  where do you stand? Constantly keeping tabs on him? Having to pull a double-backflip to regain his trust back for snooping, while also trying to be on the lookout for signs of malfeasance? Being on constant alert is going to be exhausting at best, and even if he’s on the up and up, it’s going to erode what you already have.  

To be clear: you don’t need proof – for whatever values of “proof” means to you – that he’s cheating. If what you saw in his messages is proof enough to damage your trust and you don’t know if there’s a way to trust him again that doesn’t require some sort of digital panopticon, then you can just break up with him. Hell, you can break up with him because you don’t like the color of his underwear or for any reason or no reason at all. You’re not required to stay in a relationship until you’ve been given permission to leave by The Authorities.

Plus there’s the whole thrown in jail for fighting with his brother, which still strikes me as being the bigger issue and the better reason to say “maybe this isn’t the best person to be with right now”.

If you feel like you need to confront him with what you know – and the understanding that how you found out is going to put a dent in the righteousness of your knowledge – then you can. I’m just not sure it’s going to help one way or another, and might just make you feel worse about the whole situation. Regardless of how that discussion comes out, it’s still going to be “do two wrongs make a right?” sort of scenario, and it’s going to be hard to feel good about it afterwards.

So my suggestion: game out the next few months in your head. Can you forgive him if he did cheat or intended to cheat but didn’t because of pure dumb luck? If you confront him, will you be able to accept him at his word if and when he denies it? If he reassures you that everything was on the up and up, are you prepared to work to regain his trust for having snooped?

If you choose not to confront him, what would it take for you to trust him again, presuming that you don’t find conclusive proof one way or another? How long is that likely to take before you’re satisfied?

You’re the only one who can answer those questions. Take time and think it through, as dispassionately and unemotionally as you can. Once you have an idea of the answer, you’ll know what your next move should be.

Good luck.

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