DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a 67-year-old Black woman who lives in a mid-western state. I have an adult son who lives a few miles from me, but I have never been married or been in any relationship. I’ve had brief flings and “entanglements” that were far from healthy, but never a long-term, committed relationship. I was prepared to accept being a single woman in the last years of my life because my life is a good one, but my then therapist encouraged me not to accept it since I truly longed for a serious, committed, healthy long-term relationship.

Thus, in May 2024, I took the plunge and went on an online dating site that featured plus-size women and, after meeting many icky men (in terms of their behavior) met a 21-year-old man from [a foreign country] with whom I felt an immediate connection. Not just sexual attraction, but a soul connection. I had no intention of falling in love with a man young enough to be my grandson, but it happened. I have no logical explanation for it. It just happened.

After a year of texting and video/phone calls, I took the risk and flew to meet him in his home country. We spent two wonderful weeks together in a resort town. In the back of my mind, I’d hoped to discover that I didn’t love him and that I could let him go when I got back home and got back to “reality.” I thought, perhaps, I was allowing myself one last adventure like Kathrine Hepburn in Summertime. However, the time we spent together, cemented us more. And I realized, I didn’t want to go back to my lonely life the way Katherine Hepburn’s character returned to hers.

I know my fiancé loves me. His words and behavior demonstrate his love for me every day. We communicate well. We are honest with each other. Our values align. For his part, he is surprisingly emotionally mature for his age and he was looking for an older woman. Yet he doesn’t see me as old–in fact, he finds me beautiful and sexually appealing. I think he’s gorgeous inside and out, and I enjoy his youthful spontaneity. We intend to marry and we have applied for him to get a visa to come to the States, which could take up to two years to be approved–if  it is approved.

Obviously, where my fiancé and I are now didn’t come about without concern from my friends and family (and me!!), but after my positive experience overseas and my son (who has communicated with my fiancé several times over the past year) giving me his blessing, my friends and loved ones are happy about our relationship. My fiancé and I will see each other again in November for another two weeks, and then the plan is to meet every six months for two weeks until his visa comes through.

My fiancé has decided to move to the UAE next month because he hopes to build a better life for himself there while he waits to join me in the States. I think this is a fabulous idea because his home country doesn’t present many opportunities for him and he needs a fresh start. But here’s the rub: He told me that if he is not granted a visa in two years to come live with me in the States, he wants me to come live with him in the UAE. He simply will not continue living apart after two years.

As much as I love him, want to marry him, and build a life with him, I cannot see myself moving anywhere. I have a job that pays well and provides excellent health benefits, and I plan to work for ten more years if possible. I’m taking my Social Security now, so that has increased my income, and I’m financially secure for the first time in my life. I have a lovely home and a nice car. I love my son and do not want to leave him or my grandchildren. I have friends and feel comfortable and at home in my community. I envision my fiancé coming here and going to school and starting a good career, while I financially support him. I know because of our age difference, I will most likely die first, and I want to give him a great start in life, so that after my death, he can find a woman he can love and have children with. He hates when I mention anything about dying, but I am the practical one in the relationship. But believe me, I want all the time I can have with him. I want to always be his first and best love. But I want our relationship to blossom here, not in the UAE where I don’t know the language, wouldn’t be able to work or have the personal freedoms I have here as a woman. Above all, I’m afraid of being poor and without health insurance since I have chronic health conditions that require regular medical maintenance.

My fiancé believes that he will easily find work in the UAE and with his salary combined with my Social Security, we can have a great life. He doesn’t want me to work and feels I should enjoy a life of leisure after working since I was fourteen years old. This is when I feel our age difference! It sounds romantic, but I’m severely allergic to poverty. I don’t think he appreciates how important financial stability can impact a relationship.

I have not told my fiancé completely how I feel.  Well, he knows my preference is for us to live in the States, but he doesn’t know that I can’t fathom his Plan B, if Plan A falls through. I just keep praying Plan A works.

But if it doesn’t, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to live without him. I can’t imagine ending our relationship. I don’t want a life without him. I love him. He’s brought so much happiness to my life and healing to my soul. I do want us to live together. I want the everyday ups and downs of married life. I want to see where our love and relationship takes us. I want to spend the last chapter of my life with him. I’ve waited all my life for love like this and I won’t let it go.

My son tells me to chill out, enjoy my time with my fiancé, build our relationship, and face whatever comes in two years. However, one of my close friends (who is a few years older than I am) says I should tell my fiancé right now that I won’t leave my life here, so that he knows what will come if his visa doesn’t come through.

I can’t quite chill out because the possibility of his visa being denied at this historical moment in America is very real. But I also can’t tell him, “Hey in two years if you aren’t here, we’re done.” I don’t want us to be done. And maybe–just maybe–I could be brave enough to try to create a new life for myself in the UAE if our relationship is as good as it is now. Also, I think giving our relationship a two-year deadline will put a pall over our relationship and my fiancé will doubt my love and commitment.

I thought by writing this letter, I’d figure out the answer by the time I finished it. But I haven’t.

What should I do?

True Love Finally Came Along (and I Don’t Want to F--k It Up)

DEAR TRUE LOVE FINALLY CAME ALONG: You mentioned Katherine Hepburn in Summertime, TLFCA, but this sounds a lot more like How Stella Got Her Groove Back to me. Which honestly gives me a lot of pause, considering how the actual story ended for McMillan and her husband.

I bring this up because, frankly, there’s a lot going on here that sets off my Spidey-sense like woah. Let’s start with why a 21-year-old man is on a niche dating app, matching with someone who’s thousands of miles (and at least an 11 hour plane trip) away. This alone is enough to make me go “hmmm”, especially considering that one can’t open Tinder, Hinge, Feeld, Grindr, OKCupid or Bumble without seeing folks in Brazil, the Philippines, Nigeria and other countries in the global south popping up regardless of search radius or preferences, with all the hallmarks of a ChatGPT-written profile.

It’s not that young men can’t be into older women, nor that young, conventionally attractive people can’t like plus-size women, nor that folks from overseas may not be interested in meeting folks who don’t live in the same country. Any and all of these things can be true. But the combination of the three sounds an awful lot like the start of a pig-butchering grift or other romance scam.

That’s not to say that good things can’t possibly happen, but there’s a reason why “too good to be true” often is. This is the sort of situation where “trust, but verify” is incredibly important, especially when things seem like a fairy tale come true… or following the plot to a best-selling book and/or record-breaking hit movie, for that matter. A little hope mixed with a lot of skepticism and careful investigation is warranted in a situation like this. Hell, these days, when scammers, grifters and conmen have access to robust AI and deepfake tools, even video chats aren’t necessarily ‘proof’ that these people are who they say they are.

Now the fact that you went out to see him was… not something I’d have recommended. In fact, a lot of folks travelled to meet their overseas, online-only matches have been robbed or worse when they showed up hoping to make the love connection happen in real life. Thankfully that worked out well for you and you had a great time… but now we’re back to How Stella Got Her Groove Back territory – the actual story, not the book or the movie.

The one where Terry McMillan’s husband turns out to have been gay and apparently used McMillan for her money and to get citizenship.

I’ll freely admit to being a cynical bastard and funwrecker, which is part of why I can’t help but point out a lot of things that strike me as being sus.

To start with, it’d be irresponsible of me to point out that your fiancé’s home country is targeted by Trump’s 2025 travel bans, which �will make his getting a visa difficult. To make matters worse, even if he is allowed to travel to the US, the odds that he won’t be rounded up and deported is low. ICE, after all, is on a rampage as they round up legal migrants, including green-card holders, people granted asylum and refugee status. Being married to a US citizen offers no protection, nor is it going to be a reliable path towards citizenship for him.

But also moving to the UAE strikes me as being an unwise choice at best. While the UAE is incredibly attractive to expats who want a more permissive business and investment environment, it’s infamous for the way MENA migrant workers are exploited – from the kafala system that creates an incredible number of restrictions and opportunities for exploitation, to labor abuse, wage theft, recruitment and management “fees” and questionable labor protections.

I’m also quirking a skeptical eyebrow at his declarations that his income plus your social security would mean that you don’t have to work and he’d be able to treat you like a queen. That… sounds far more like romantic pillow talk by an idealist at best, and the sort of thing that tends to fall apart like cotton candy in the rain when it runs headlong into reality.  If I’m only somewhat skeptical, it sounds a little like a very gussied up version of an inherently conservative “women are supposed to be at home taking care of the house and children” worldview, just disguised in softer language. At worst… it sounds a lot like the “saying the things my partner wants to hear to make things more appealing” stage of the grift.

But what really sticks out to me is the two-year window. Considering the very long odds that your fiancé will be granted his visa (and the high likelihood of his being forcibly removed, visa or protections be damned), it seems like this is less of an “if-then” situation and more of a way of saying “you’re moving to the UAE with me or else.”

Now let’s get to the thing that I have been trying to not say. You don’t mention it in your letter, but I have to ask: how much are you supporting him already? While I doubt he may have directly asked for help (yet), have there been times where he’s had unexpected debts or financial emergencies and boy this has really screwed with his plans? If he hasn’t run into any already… well, I suspect they’re coming soon. Especially after he finishes his move to the UAE.

I hate to say it, but this all smells fishier than the Corpus Christi fishing pier at low tide, and I suspect it’s going to get worse.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’m wrong and I’ve let my cynicism rage out of control. This could well be the story of an Odd-Couple-esque pair of lovers – seemingly mismatched, yet perfectly suited for one another, kept apart by cruel circumstance. I doubt it, but it’s certainly possible. But – and someone call Sir Mix-A-Lot because that’s one huge BUT – even if that’s the case, I don’t think this is a story with a happy ending. Even if everything is 100% on the up and up and everyone’s acting in good faith, I think that the Trump administration all but guarantees that your lover boy isn’t going to be allowed into the US, which means it’s the UAE or nothing. And – as you mentioned – moving to the UAE is going to be one hell of an ask, especially for someone you haven’t known very long, nor spent more than two weeks with at a shot.

And that’s the other issue, frankly. Yeah, you’ve been talking for over a year before you saw him and you had a great two-week vacation at a resort… that’s not the same thing as really spending time together. Two weeks on a romantic vacation isn’t going to teach you anything about what it means to live together as a couple, to socialize, to face hardship together. It’s an idealized situation and while it feels incredible and it would be amazing if every day were like that… it’s not and it won’t be. Under the best of circumstances – which these aren’t – I’d highly recommend that you want to give it more time and to spend longer periods together to get to know one another when you’re not in ideal circumstances, nor in the honeymoon period of the relationship. It’s rather startling how much things can change when you don’t have the cushion of an all-inclusive resort to pad all the sharp corners and edges of a relationship.

If you want my honest advice: I’d say that you should enjoy this for what it is, see it as evidence that you don’t need to give up hope for love and adventure and to recognize that this means you are a desirable person who would make a wonderful match for someone… someone who doesn’t come with as many caveats and complications as your current fiancé. At the very least, I think you need to make it clear that you’re not moving to the UAE, end of story and see what happens. I would also suggest that you should be on the lookout for requests for “emergency” assistance or his putting a lot of emphasis on your helping him out financially, if you aren’t already.

And if, at the end of two years, he can’t get his visa? Well… it’s one of those times of “better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” seems apropos. Not every love story is meant to be an epic. Some work best as a short story… or possibly another best-selling novel. 

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: Sorry in advance for some grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.

The tl;dr version of the letter is basically “How does an aromantic, very sexually confused autistic guy with an avoidant attachment style deal with relationships?” (and by relationship, I mean, friend with benefits with the emphasis on friend)

Now, doing things in order, I’m aromantic, meaning that I never felt any romantic attraction towards anyone. I do feel sexual attraction (more on that later), but I never had romantic crushes (or I can’t make the difference between them and friendship), so I suppose that in the 35 years of my existence if I never had them, I won’t have them for the rest of it. I’m not romance averse, as long as it’s not directed at me. If it is, then it feels icky.

Then, there’s my sexuality. And the shortest word to describe it is chaos (technically it’s abrosexual if you want the label, but it’s a weird one). It’s literally changing all the time. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what I’d find attractive in the next 20 minutes. Trying to make sense of it makes me even more confusing, so it’s easier to go with the flow. But it’s not something that I can do with dealing with people IRL. That mysterious person wouldn’t be able to change their gender to match the chaos inside me (and still, they’d have to deal with the moments I’m not attracted to anyone anyway).

And finally, the attachment style. I’m avoidant, meaning that at first, I will seem to get closer to you, until one point where I’ll keep you at arm length. I can’t really pinpoint the moment where I’ll start do that though and it’s mostly unconscious. On the other hand, I do know that I do that, so I won’t go to the extreme of starting to ghost or block people out of it, but I can be a bit colder, especially, if you’re forcing me to get closer. There’s also the “funny” situation where I get more attracted to people who are unavailable to me.

The self-esteem could also be better. I’m finding myself annoying most of the time. But looking at the data, I can’t confirm it’s how other people see me, since I still have friends who visibly like to hang around with me. So not really sure how, but I’m doing something right there. And I even had some people admitting having a crush on me (somehow???), not that it’s great with my situation.

So how to find someone with that? An easy answer could be some one-night stands, but that isn’t too interesting to me to begin with and then the autism and the social anxiety going with it wouldn’t let me live that down (my brain would scream danger to me for the entire thing). So, a longer thing is necessary to me. That’s why I talked earlier the friend with benefits, with the emphasis on friend.

How can I do that to a person? Basically, it would be asking of them: If you fall in love with me, I won’t be able to return your feelings, I’m not sure when I’d feel attracted to you and if you get too close to me, I will start running away while giving mixed signals. Who the hell would want that over any other decent relationship? I’m to the point where when one of those people who had a crush on me said that they found someone else, I felt relieved. Like “Good, you have found happiness without having to deal with my BS”.

I know I can work on the avoidant attachment style issue (working on it very slowly, because it’s hard), but the rest stays a puzzle to me. How can I work with that, without causing heartbreak for the other person and guilt on my part?

The Most Complicated Guy

DEAR DATE OR DIE: And here I thought I’d seen every permutation of relationship questions out there. Congrats, MCG, this is a new one for me. 

OK, so this one’s a mess, in part because I think you’re asking the wrong questions here. Your problem is that part of what you’re asking for at the end – how do you find the perfect relationship but also ensure that you don’t ever cause someone to get their heart broken – is not just impossible, but also seriously putting the cart before the horse.

Hell, I’m not entirely sure there even is a horse at this point. Or a cart. Mostly just an IKEA kit, a bunch of parts, fasteners and an Allen wrench in a pile and instructions that make no sense.

I know I sound like I’m being dismissive, but what you’re asking is kind of like saying “I want to start running, but I’ve got flat feet, shin splints and reduced lung capacity; how can I find a run club where I won’t completely outshine everyone else in the club?” You’re presuming a whole lot of conclusions before you’ve even gotten to the point of knowing what kind of relationship would even work for you and whether people you would connect with are even at risk of falling in love with you in the first place.

I mean, right off the top, you can’t guarantee that you won’t hurt someone or that you could keep them from falling for you. Not if you’re going to have any sort of intimate or emotionally connected relationship. That’s not how people work, and assuming that there’s some way to thread that needle perfectly is naive at best. Admirable, but naive.

Again: that’s not my saying “bold of you to assume that anyone could love you”, that’s my saying “let’s start with focusing on some basics before we worry about your being such a Casanova that you leave a trail of broken hearts and shattered lives behind you.” Because, quite honestly, I think you’re thinking a little too heteronormative in terms of relationships when you’re anything but. A traditional relationship – even the kind of FWB relationship you’re imagining – isn’t going to work for you. Certainly not under the conditions you’ve described.

I talk a lot about finding people who are right for you, and a big part of that requires knowing what, precisely, you want and what kind of relationship you’re actually open to. Then you would want to look towards finding people who are more likely to be receptive to that kind of relationship. ��So let’s roll it from the top, starting with the easiest part: being aromantic. Aromantic people – that is, folks who don’t feel romantic love – can and do have relationships; I know someone who’s aro who is currently juggling about three or four partners, depending on the day. They genuinely care for their partners, but don’t necessarily feel what most of us would call romantic love for them. Which is fine, honestly; there’re many different kinds of love, and romantic love – agape – isn’t the always the most important part of a relationship.

It is entirely possible, for example, to have a relationship that’s founded on fondness, affection, respect and sexual connection, but not romantic love. Romantic love isn’t the glue that holds a relationship together; it can be the motivator, it can be the intensifier or the reason why the relationship started, but God knows I’ve fielded plenty of questions from people who were wildly in love with their partners… but who couldn’t be in a relationship with them.

To the extent this is going to be relevant to your situation, it means that you’re going to want to prioritize things like mutual compatibility – especially in areas like lifestyle and sexuality – over a romantic connection. It may mean having that you’ll be a little more analytical in who you date or decide to start a relationship with than the average bear, but that’s fine. Data and Spock both had friends and companions throughout their lives. Hell, Spock was basically the third leg of a poly triad of platonic hetero life-mates.

The tricker aspect is your sexuality and your attachment style. I think it would be healthier �– or at least easier for others to grasp – if we referred to your attachment style as “feral cat” or “outdoor cat”. You’ll get close to others, but on your own terms and in your own time and only so close. You vanish for a while, but come back eventually like nothing’d happened. This can be a little frustrating for folks who are expecting a more traditional or conventional connection… but there’re also people who prefer this. There are a lot of folks who are more on the introverted side of the spectrum who could well appreciate a relationship with someone who doesn’t expect a lot of togetherness and who finds time apart as important as time together.

That being said, I wonder how much of this is a matter of a malignant sort of self-protection. You mention that you tend to fall for people who aren’t interested in you, but get cold towards people who try to push for more intimacy. That, to me, sounds like you may be subconsciously saying “I don’t deserve to have a loving relationship”, pushing people away who might actually return your feelings as you direct your attention towards folks who are “safe”. That is – folks who aren’t interested and thus won’t force you to deal with the idea that maybe you are deserving of love and affection.

Considering what you’ve said about your self-esteem, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the case. A lot of folks on the autism spectrum tend to internalize messages about how they’re “annoying” or “hard to deal with” and take it as a sign that there’s something wrong with them, rather than a matter of society not understanding or being entirely accepting of autistic people. If you’re seeing your autism as being an inherent negative, instead of just being a part of who you are, I could easily see how that could lead to the sort of “go away a little closer” behavior you mention.

And then there’s the abrosexuality. I’ll be honest: this is the first time I’ve heard of it, and I wonder how much of it is truly a matter of “constantly changing” and more that it’s pansexuality with sprinkles. Human sexuality is often a moving target, less of a sliding scale and more of a multi-axis graph that can fluctuate over time. Someone who’s bi or pan, for example, isn’t necessarily equally attracted to two or more genders, nor do they necessarily feel both romantic and sexual attraction in equal measure for the people they’re attracted to. There’re plenty of bi and pan folks who may be sexually attracted to multiple genders, but tend to be romantically attracted to (or more likely to form relationships with) people of one gender or another.  

Hell, some folks have a sort of single-target sexuality, where exactly one person of a particular gender hits just right, but they aren’t into other people of that gender.

At the same time however, even people who have more fixed sexualities don’t necessarily find the same people attractive to the same degree at all times.  Folks who have a “type” – redheads, dump-truck butts, skinny goth disaster bisexuals, whatever – frequently find themselves into people who aren’t their usual “type”, and may find their types change over time. Likewise, people who need a lot of sexual novelty can find that their desire for a person drops dramatically over time, simply because the newness has worn off.

So I wonder if your abrosexuality is akin to that, but on a more chaotic speed and schedule.

But you’re the expert in your sexuality, not me, so take my thoughts with all appropriate salt and skepticism. Especially since functionally it would all lead to the same place: a traditional committed relationship, even a more conventional friends-with-benefits relationship isn’t going to work for you. Not, at least, with the way things seem to be operating right now.

If you want my honest opinion, based on what you’ve described… well, honestly, I think you’re going to have a hard time squaring this particular circle. An ideal setup would be less of a friends-with-benefits relationship but more of a sexually fluid social group who’re open to occasional sexual encounters, but where the relationship isn’t predicated on sex. The problem is that, unless you manage to live long enough that Dr. Mensah is born and Preservation Alliance is becomes a functional community, this is going to be like trying to find an okapi in the wild, without a map or guide – not impossible but exceedingly difficult.

You might �– and I stress might – find something akin to what you would need as a floater between various polycules in the queer community – a sort of neighborhood cat that everyone feeds and occasionally sleeps in people’s garages or on their patios, but doesn’t really belong to anyone. But again: I think that’s going to be hard to find and a hell of a lot harder to actually pull off successfully. 

If you want a practical answer with minimal drama… well, I’d suggest that this is time when developing an established relationship with a few sex-workers would be easiest. This has its own difficulties and complications, for obvious reasons. It would, however, be the simplest in terms of logistics and relationship management. While it wouldn’t be a “relationship” in the most traditional sense, it would allow for the way your sexuality and attachment style work without requiring that you seek out the Goldilocks of relationship-anarchists in Seattle or the Bay Area.

But I think some of this may need to wait until you work on your attachment issues and your self-esteem. I have a sneaking suspicion that self-acceptance and learning to lean into your autism instead of trying to work against it may help considerably. Once you’re not seeing yourself as being a walking, talking annoyance and being deserving of love, I suspect it’ll be a little easier to find relationships that works for you, without all the attendant drama and complications.

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 in my thirties now and haven’t dated since my early twenties. Some of that has just been life circumstances, some of it has been excuses using those life circumstances, but I’ve finally ‘got’ to the place I want to be, and now I just have to face the naked truth: I’m f--king terrified of relationships.

It dates back to my main long-term relationship from my twenties. In retrospect, it basically followed a pattern of me trying to get her affection (both like comfort and sex) to little success, so I’d start pulling away or get annoyed, and then she would have a crisis that made me come back to comfort her and the cycle would repeat. At the time I thought I was just upsetting her and being a piece of s--t, sometimes I was when I got annoyed. Now she did genuinely have some serious going on and thinking back I know she just wasn’t really ready to be in a relationship, but at the time I was confused and thought it was my fault entirely. One time I really made plans to break up, and I was kinda s--tty because I liked another girl and wanted to ask them out, and then my girlfriend trauma-dumped a lot of stuff and I felt obligated to stay, which wasn’t great, but I didn’t know what else to do and felt I really would be a piece of s--t if I broke up with her after that.

Which made the break-up devastating – we moved in together with friends and in the first week she went really cold and distant with me until I confronted her about it. She said she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in a relationship and had to think about it. So I gave her more time to think (I think I mostly wanted her to just be honest and say she wanted to break up) until I eventually asked her again and told her to give a yes or no. She did say no, and we had an argument, but it was a relief at least. Until a few days later where she started dating another guy in the house who until that moment, I had considered a friend.

I stayed in that house for ten months. Maybe a little out of some self-destructive pride, but mostly because it was an effort to get out of bed, then to not want to die, then finally not to kill myself. Eventually I nearly tried, but stopped myself by calling myself a coward and vowing to kill myself later. Later happened, and then I think I just started drinking a lot. Though in the past few months I’ve managed to cut that out.

That relationship in my twenties really messed me up I think. I’ve always known that, but the more I unpack it the more I realize how much it messed me up. By the time I walked out of that house I was thinking I was the bad guy, that I deserved it, that I must have been such an awful boyfriend for her to be so callous because nothing else made sense – I couldn’t blame her knowing everything she has gone through (and knowing I was the only one she confided about it, the new guy didn’t know) and the new boyfriend I thought was more just an opportunist than anything else.

I’ve spent the past ten years doing a lot of stuff, I’ve stopped and started, even living and working abroad for a few years, but mostly avoided relationships. Sometimes I occasionally tried or thought about them when I had a crush, but I just waited it out until interest died.

So I’m sitting here ten years on and that wound has festered. I’ve had therapy, but it’s expensive so can’t sustain it really. I’m on a waiting list for counselling, but it’s long. I’m on antidepressants, but it’s a carousal of raising doses and trying new meds.

I can drag it out of myself to admit I’m not a total monster who is unworthy of love and that I have things to offer, I am empathetic and want to support others, even if I’m terrible at receiving care and have never met a compliment I can’t pass on and say someone else deserves. I’m self-reliant and look after myself, have friends, like to get out and do things (I’ve found social deduction games are a great way to exercise the old hypervigilance). But even getting close to the idea of a relationship triggers every fear that I’ll end up in some kind of situation like I did before, and I don’t know if I’d survive it this time.

So how do you even start when dating feels like it could literally be life-or-death?

Date or Die

DEAR DATE OR DIE: OK, DoD, before I get too deep into this: if you’re dealing with thoughts that are triggering these sorts of panic attacks and you aren’t in a position to work with a therapist or counselor, I’d recommend looking into some self-directed cognitive behavioral therapy exercises. You can find these all over the Internet, including at sites like MoodGym, and they’re a good way of working towards getting intrusive and alarming thoughts and feelings under control.

Now with that being said, there’re a couple of things that need to be addressed here. The first is that a lot of this is in your head. And I don’t mean that this is all made up or that these feelings aren’t real or valid; how you’re feeling is entirely real and valid and understandable.

The issue is that this is you are reacting to ghosts of the past that only exist in your head and not out in the world around you. You are holding on to responses based on events that happened in the past, at a time when you had no real experience or even a role-model that you could look to that would say “this is a bad scene and you should leave.” But part of the problem is that you’re still responding to all of this as though nothing has changed – that you’re the same person you were back then, that circumstances are exactly the same and that you would respond the same way. 

You are, in a very real sense, locking yourself in the past by not letting it be the past.

And look, I get it. I’ve talked a lot about my formative relationships and how they f--ked with my head and it took time to process and learn some important lessons from them. But part of the problem is that I spent more time reacting to them rather than interrogating them. It was a long time before I actually said “OK, why did I act like this, why did I let X situation go on for as long as I did, why didn’t I do Y differently?”, and an even longer time before I could say “because I was afraid of A” or “I didn’t think I deserved B”, rather than “because I was a weak and awful person”.

Which brings up the second thing that needs to be said: your first relationship was toxic – please notice I say “toxic”, not “abusive” – and neither of you were conducting yourself as your best selves. Now here’s the thing: this was because you two were both ill-suited for one another, but also neither of you were willing or able to recognize that this was a relationship that should have ended long before it did. And again: I get it; I stayed in my first relationship for far, far longer than I ever should have. But this is a case where the toxicity is continuing, in part because you haven’t actually reckoned with the why of it all so that you can learn from it.

Here’s what I mean: part of the problem you were having in your relationship was that you had needs that weren’t being met – sex, affection, etc. – in part because you were with someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t meet them. She had her reasons that went deeper than “because f--k you, penis, that’s why”, but that’s not important right now. The point is that you were making a bid for connection and that bid was being rejected. Just as importantly though: what you were looking for wasn’t unreasonable. Wanting intimacy and affection from your romantic partner is entirely normal and valid, and is considered to be part of the basic relationship package unless otherwise stated.

Now, that doesn’t mean sex, intimacy and affection are available on tap; people aren’t soda fountains or vending machines after all. Sometimes a person isn’t in the mood, is upset, distracted, not feeling well or otherwise not in a place where they can respond positively to a bid like that. But when every – or even most – bids for connection are being refused, that’s a problem in the relationship that needs to be managed.

It’s important to note that some of the issue was undoubtedly a matter of your not necessarily understanding how to express that bid, and part of it was in how to deal with when that bid was refused or rejected. You would pull away and be petulant; I think we can both agree that this wasn’t healthy. Your girlfriend would then conveniently have a crisis that would draw you back in. That was her unhealthy way of responding to your pulling away, framing a bid for connection as an emergency; rather than addressing the underlying issue, she did the thing that she knew would get you back, even though it didn’t solve the problem for either of you.

Part of the underlying issue is that she didn’t actually want to be in a relationship but insisted on staying in one. Which meant that she was both refusing to end something she knew she didn’t want, but also wasn’t willing to fully commit to being in the relationship, which meant that she was leaving you in the lurch. You were under the assumption that you were both in this in good faith and for the same reason. And the fact that she didn’t want to break up or “let” you leave meant that you were only going to face rejection for the majority of your bids for connection.

It’s this cycle of bid/rejection/withdrawal/bid/acceptance that created this toxicity; you were both behaving in unhealthy ways that ultimately encouraged more unhealthy behavior.

But here’s the thing: this all happened in part because you were young and inexperienced. You didn’t know what you were doing. You were a couple of kids fumbling around in the dark and it’s not surprising that you both bumped your heads and jammed your knees. Making mistakes is part of how we learn what not to do. But in order to do that, you have to actually understand what the mistakes were and then learn from them so you can move forward and not make them again.

And you haven’t. In fact, you haven’t even moved on from them and from what I can see, you’ve learned the wrong lessons from them. 

Now here’s why this is continuing to be an issue: right now, I’m 100% certain that you’re reading this and hearing “…and this is why you were and are an awful person” and reacting accordingly. I will bet cash money that you’re looking at it and taking all of the responsibility for this on yourself. And this line right here: “I couldn’t blame her knowing everything she has gone through” is why I’m willing to make that bet. You’re taking 100% of the blame for something that wasn’t 100% your fault.

Here’s the thing: not letting yourself be upset when someone treated you badly is dumb. At best, you’re trying to pretend that you’re not feeling the things you very clearly are feeling. At worst, you are taking on responsibility that isn’t yours, for things that weren’t your fault, out of a misguided sense of nobility that ultimately doesn’t help anyone. It ultimately makes things worse for you because it hinders you from recognizing what actually happened and why, which means you can’t learn from it, you can’t grow because of it and you won’t move on in the way you should have.

Had your girlfriend gone through some s--t? Sure. Did that s--t leave her with some s--tty coping mechanisms, maybe some responses that weren’t healthy and caused more problems? Undoubtedly. Does that mean she wasn’t responsible for her side of things in your relationship?

Absolutely the f--k not.

History isn’t an excuse for s--tty behavior. Trauma isn’t an excuse for treating other people poorly. It can explain how someone’s come to behave a certain way. It can give context to why someone acts in a particular manner or provide insight into how it came to this. But at the end of the day, these are still choices that she’s making (or not making), and she’s still responsible for them. One of the most important commandments of being in a relationship with someone is “Handle Thine Own S--t”; if you have issues that cause problems in your relationship with other people, it’s your responsibility to deal with the problem, not to dragoon other people into managing it for you.

It’s a little like dealing with someone who has trust issues; while you don’t want to treat them with an absolute lack of care or concern, it’s on them to resolve the issues and to learn to trust again, not to expect the rest of the world to never let them feel a moment of doubt.

She had some awful stuff happen, which sucks and I’m sorry she went through it. But that doesn’t mean that s--tty behavior is no longer s--tty, nor that a toxic dynamic is no longer toxic. If you want to move forward, you have to be willing to take responsibility, yes, but only for the things that you are actually responsible for.

So, if we get back to the bid/rejection cycle, part of the problem on her end is that either she didn’t recognize the bid you were making (for sex, for affection, connect, etc.) for what it was, or how to respond to it in a way that wasn’t going to be a complete rejection. This was a conversation or series of conversations the two of you needed to have about your needs and wants and how you two could meet and manage them.

And if it was the case that this was going to be an issue – you wanted things from her that she couldn’t or wouldn’t give – then the right thing to do would ultimately be to recognize that you two weren’t right for each other and to break up.

That conversation didn’t happen – likely in part because I suspect you both knew that it would lead to a break up and neither of you were in a headspace to recognize that this is what you needed. Again: been there, done that, totally get it; breaking up feels like failure, like admitting you weren’t good enough or didn’t try hard enough. Not wanting to break up with someone because you didn’t to feel like The Asshole is understandable. And sometimes, even when you’re breaking up for the “right” reasons, you can still seem like The Asshole – to yourself, to your ex, to others.  

But that doesn’t mean staying together is the right call. There are times when someone needs to be The Asshole and, in those cases, it may as well be you, because nobody else is going to do it. And while it sucks to be in that position and nobody wants to break up, that may well be the least bad of a series of bad options.  

Sometimes breaking up is recognizing that while you may like each other, even love each other, that doesn’t mean you’re right for each other. Like the song says: sometimes love just ain’t enough.

That’s why the two of you flamed out in the way you did; things lingered and festered until one of you cracked. In this case, it was your girlfriend and she did you dirty in this case. She wouldn’t let you go, and she wouldn’t end things herself, but she wouldn’t and couldn’t be who you needed… so she waited until she had an opportunity that benefitted her and made it easier for her and did so in a very callous and uncaring way.

But you didn’t do yourself any favors by being petulant when you were refused, by not pulling the trigger earlier, nor in allowing yourself to feel the anger and frustration that you very clearly did and apparently still won’t let yourself admit to. You can say “yeah, I wasn’t being my best self” and also say “my ex done me wrong”. Both things can be true, neither cancels the other out.

Now, as harsh as all this sounds right now I need to emphasize something again: you were both very young and didn’t know what you were doing. That’s part of why you two f--ked this up. And you know what? You’re allowed to recognize this without thinking that this makes you an awful person. Yes, it was a toxic situation, but it doesn’t define you. You made bad choices out of immaturity and ignorance. Now you’re older, presumably wiser and you know now what you didn’t know before; if you encounter a similar situation, you will make different choices.

But only if you let yourself let go of this.

You aren’t wrong when you say that this has festered over the last ten years, and it’s festered because you haven’t actually dealt with the wound. The fact that you are still carrying around the guilt but not letting yourself feel the anger that you deserve to feel is like having debris in the wound. You need to drain that pus and clean and disinfect that wound if you want it to actually heal. And you don’t have to carry that anger forward. You can feel it, acknowledge it and then let it go. You can forgive her… but first you have to acknowledge that she’s done things that require forgiveness. And that means being willing to acknowledge that while you may not have been acting in alignment with your best self, neither was she. You were not the only person at fault here, and not facing that is what’s keeping you trapped in the past.

Once you can do that, you can then take the next steps of really digging into the “why” of it all. Sure, you didn’t want to break up with her because it would have made you feel like s--t… but was that the only reason? Were there other fears or insecurities lurking that influenced your decision to stay? Do you think that, knowing what you know now, you would end up in the same situation, or do you think you could advocate for your needs without feeling guilty for having needs in the first place?

That is the sort of thing you should be talking to a therapist or counselor over, because right now I think you need to hear someone else tell you that you could. But once you can recognize that your mistakes were made out of youthful inexperience and ignorance, that you aren’t defined by those mistakes and that you weren’t alone in making those mistakes?

I think you’ll be less afraid of falling into the same situation as before.    

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