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Dear Dr. NerdLove:
So there is this girl I have been dating officially for 2 months, I am 23 and she’s 18. We fell in love and we clicked after months me pursuing and waiting for her.
When we started the relationship, it was all okay, but along the way, she sometimes wished that she made it with her shitty ex. Recently her ex passed away, and she’s been distant with me, when all I am trying to do is be there for her. She somewhat misses him and wanted it to be him (and that is okay), but I feel the distance is bothering me.
Despite all this, I’ll still be there and wait for her, but is there anything specific in which I can help her get through this? She compares me a lot to her ex during the relationship, maybe hoping that I could replace him.
Personally, all I want is just for her to look at me instead of her past.
First Time, Second Chance
Hoo boy. I’ve got bad news and worse news, FTSC.
We’ll start with the bad news.
So, a lot of times I’ll get a letter from someone with concerns that their partner is hung up on an ex or they feel like their partner is hoping to get back with their ex or isn’t fully over them. Usually, in these cases, it breaks one of two ways. Either the person writing in is the one with the issue and is letting their anxiety and jealousy get in the way of things, or their partner just isn’t in a place where they’re ready to date.
Well, congratulations FTSC, because this time it seems like both things can be true. And hey, there’s an additional bonus of “maybe you shouldn’t be in this relationship in the first place.”
So let’s start with the obvious: first and foremost my dude: your girlfriend’s ex just died. Even if we separate her relationship from the equation, this is also likely her first experience with the death of a peer – not a pet or a grandparent or a distant figure but someone who was her age and involved in her life. That alone is going to throw someone for a loop. Doubly so if it was someone who she was close to.
But also this was her ex-boyfriend. This wasn’t just someone she was close to but someone she cared about and clearly still had strong feelings about. The fact that they broke up doesn’t mean that he’s vanished off the face of the Earth or that she’s chosen to forget that they were ever together or even that he existed. People can and do have complex, even conflicting feelings about people they used to date… even if those people were assholes.
So, yeah, it’s entirely understandable that she’s “a little distant” right now. Christ, my guy, she’s dealing with a really significant loss in her life. I get that to you he’s the shithead who treated her badly or whatever it was that made him her “shitty ex”. But to her, it was someone who – shitty or not – was an important person to her, even if it was only for a little while. She’s in mourning and she’s probably trying to sort out a lot of very complicated, very weird feelings. That’s going to take some time, even under the best of circumstances.
There’s not really a lot for you to do that’s going to help her speed up the process. Having lost family members and close friends over the years, I can tell you that there’s not much people can do besides be there – literally be a comforting presence. Sometimes that means not saying much and letting her feel whatever she’s going to feel. Sometimes it means holding her while she screams about the unfairness of it all. Sometimes it means leaving her alone while doing the little things that she may not be able to do or have the bandwidth to accomplish – bringing her food, cleaning her place, making sure her plants are watered and the mail’s brought in.
And sometimes it means giving her space to grieve, because it can feel awkward and confining to grieve with someone else around.
So if you want to help, then the best thing is to be there for her, without judgment and with the understanding that she isn’t going to be in a position to reassure you right now about how she feels. That’s not a fair thing to ask of her in this moment, even if it wasn’t her ex. But it was. And that’s its own can o’ worms.
Which brings us to my next point: I don’t know how to tell you this but I don’t think she was really over him. If she’s comparing you to him – and not in a positive “oh, you’re so much better than he was” way but in a “I hope you can take the place he did” way– then there’s likely a lot of very conflicting and not terribly great feelings going on.
I would also point out that you two have been dating for a grand total of two months. I know when you’re young or don’t have much relationship experience, that can seem like a very long time. But trust me: it’s an eye-blink. At two months, you’re almost certainly not even at the “can fart freely in front of one another” stage, never mind outside of the New Relationship Energy stage of things. If she’s been comparing you to him a lot and bringing him up often? Well… that’s not a great sign for the longevity of this relationship.
This part of your letter is what really leapt out at me: “we clicked after months me pursuing and waiting for her” Dude. My guy. This ain’t great. Now maybe I’m misreading things, but this sounds a lot like you were pursuing her and waiting for her while she was still with her ex. If I’m reading this correctly, that sounds a lot like she went from one relationship (with her ex) to another (with you), with very little time in between. If that’s the case – and to be fair, that’s a big if – then you’ve really set yourself up for failure.
Again: I know you’re young and don’t have much experience under your belt. I have been where you are, I have done precisely what you’ve done and I can tell you for a fact that this is not a good way to start a relationship. You have already over-invested in the idea of her and a relationship with her, which means you’re already setting yourself up for heartbreak. But the fact that it sounds like she went directly from one relationship to another means that she never really had time to process her break up, her ex and what made him shitty.
And that’s if, in fact, he was; it’s hard not to notice how often “shitty ex” or “shitty boyfriend” tends to mean “guy who’s dating the person I have a crush on” more than anything else.
But if she hasn’t had that period of time when she can process her relationship, feel the fuck out of her feelings, mourn the break up and start getting over him? Well… I hate using the phrase “rebound” for a lot of reasons, but that’s a pretty solid description for your situation. So, for that matter, is “replacement goldfish” – going by the “hoping you could replace him” comment.
She’s going to be doing a lot of the processing and grieving while she’s dating you and those conflicting feelings are going to be an issue.
And now we have the worse news. I really am sorry to have to say this but I don’t think this relationship is going to last much longer.
As I’ve said, I have been where you are. And I don’t just mean “having pursued someone in a relationship when I should’ve let that go and looked for people who were actually available”, I mean “dated people who suffered a sudden loss early in the relationship,” and once again I can tell you from personal experience: that tends to be the end of the relationship.
A sudden, massive upheaval in someone’s life has a tendency to make them think about what’s important to them. One as massive as a death can make someone really question their life as it currently stands and rethink their choices. It especially tends to make them rethink their current relationships. More often than not, this causes people to realize that they don’t want to be in a relationship right now – not when it’s a very new one without the level of mutual investment, shared history and connections that a longer-term relationship might have.
Well, you don’t get much more of a massive upheaval than the death of someone close to you. Doubly so if it’s an ex. Triply so if you have complicated and unresolved feelings about that ex.
And you and she have only been together for two months.
Even if we leave everything else out – how invested you are vs. where you are in the relationship, whether she was on the rebound or seeing you as a replacement goldfish – you’ve been together for two months when this massive tragedy struck. That is going to bring up a whole host of complicated, uncomfortable and very, very intense feelings and it’s going to make her seriously consider her priorities and what she’s doing with her life.
And as much as I hate to say it: that’s probably going to lead her to decide that she’s not ready to be dating right now. Possibly not for a while. And your waiting around in hopes that she’ll come back to you when she’s processed everything just means that you’re going to be spending a lot of time waiting because the odds of her coming back are very, very low.
Now, none of this is guaranteed. I could well be wrong and this could just be a rough patch. But I don’t think it is.
So my best advice? Do your best to be there for her. But be aware that this relationship is likely going to come to an end soon and the best thing that you can do in that moment is to grieve it, accept it and move forward with your life.
I wish I had better news for you. I know just how shitty a situation it is to be in and I don’t envy your going through it. But it will pass in time. It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.
Good luck.
Dear Dr. Nerdlove:
I’ve (25, cis male) been seeing my girlfriend (29) for over a year now. I met her family this past holiday and we all got along well. Her family even invited me to spend time with them after the holidays.
I was having a conversation with my girlfriend’s sister and cousin when the topic led to the ending of her engagement with her previous fiancé. I already knew about the bad break up, but I didn’t know the details as to why. Months before the wedding, my girlfriend suggested the possibility of an open marriage after they got married. The fiancé immediately ended the engagement over the suggestion. I kept my reaction hidden and moved on to something else.
I haven’t confronted my girlfriend with this information and still trying to process the whole thing. First, I feel it’s none of my business when it comes to my girlfriend’s past relationships or the choices she makes. I also don’t have any issue if others want to have an open marriage. But if the question had been posed to me, I probably would have the same reaction as the ex-fiancé. Which leads me to wonder if my girlfriend still has such desires. And there are still lots of details I am not clear on.
I don’t know if this was suggestion to someday try in the future or just a fun conversation started that went sideways. I don’t how to broach this subject with her without coming of as a jerk.
Is The Past Merely Prologue?
Alright PMP, I think your girlfriend’s family may have been telling tales out of class in this and I think it’s important that you avoid leaping to conclusions. As you said: there’re a lot of information that you don’t have, likely a lot of critical details too… and there’re likely even more details that your girlfriend’s family doesn’t have.
What we have, for now, is gossip, not history. You don’t mention how close your girlfriend is to her family, so I don’t know whether she would’ve given them all the dirty details. Some people are very close with their siblings and cousins, some folks aren’t. It’s entirely possible that there’s a lot of vitally important information that’s been left out or that the others were filling in a whole lot of blanks with their own speculation. So do yourself a favor and don’t try to draw a lot of conclusions based on what you’ve heard.
The fact that she floated opening up the relationship to her previous partner doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s going to have this conversation with you some time in the future. It’s certainly possible that your girlfriend is generally non-monogamous and prefers an open or polyamorous relationship over a monogamous one. But it’s also possible that this was a relationship-specific circumstance.
Dropping this particular mortar shell so close to the wedding could suggest a lot of possibilities. It’s certainly possible that she didn’t see why lobbing this when and how she did wasn’t the smartest move. It’s also possible that she did so strategically. There are people who propose or start practicing non-monogamy for reasons beyond they’re someone who has a lot of love to give, who needs a certain amount of sexual novelty or who just generally doesn’t do monogamy.
There are, for example, people who’ve used opening up the relationship because – consciously or unconsciously – they were actually looking for an escape hatch. Perhaps things with her fiancé weren’t as rosy as it seemed. It’s also possible that your girlfriend wasn’t satisfied with her sex life with her fiancé and this was how she thought she could fix it.
Now, one thing that’s important to note is that people who know that they’re non-monogamous and are going to require an open or poly relationship are more likely to bring this up early on. They’ll frequently agree to a period of exclusivity in order to both prove that yes, they’re committed to their current partner, and also to help build up the levels of trust and communication a non-monogamous relationship requires. So the fact that your girlfriend hasn’t mentioned it before, while not conclusive, doesn’t suggest that this is definitely in your future.
But there’re a lot of things you don’t know and a lot of things you don’t know that you don’t know yet. You know who does know those things? Your girlfriend. So you should ask her.
However, you don’t want to come in guns blazing about whether this is going to be your future too or treating family hot goss as the unvarnished truth. You want to start from a position that she’s going to be telling you the truth, not that she needs to do damage control after her family accidentally slipped you some scandalous news.
So when asking her, the best approach here would be to leave the whole open-relationship aspect aside and say “hey, your family had some wild stories to tell about your ex and your break up. I don’t think I we ever actually talked about it; what actually happened?” Then let her tell her story as completely as she can before you start asking follow-ups. Since I’m presuming that you weren’t told about her fiancé calling off the wedding in confidence, you can give a little info on what you were told, but it’d be better to let her tell her story without pushing one way or the other on the monogamy question. The last thing you want is for this to turn into a weird confrontation when it’s not needed or warranted.
If her asking about opening up the marriage was something she asked for and was serious about, you can ask “So how do you feel about that now?” or “Is that something that’s important to you?” Keep in mind: the answer may well be “yes, it is”. If that’s the case… you’re going to want to take some time to sit with it, rather than leaping to ending the relationship right then and there. It’s very easy to make snap decisions based on how you were taught to feel, only to realize that maybe on second thought you weren’t feeling as strongly about it as you supposed. Of course, by then, it’s frequently too late to do anything about that.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be cool with it or that you don’t actually prefer or require monogamy. You just want to give yourself some time to actually think about it before doing anything, rather than having a knee-jerk reaction. It may even help to do a little research and read up on it – I recommend Opening Up by Tristan Taormino and Building Open Relationships by Dr. Liz Powell (who, in full disclosure, is a friend of mine and has contributed to the column before.)
But that may not be an issue. That may well have been a situation-specific issue, not something she’s hoping to pursue with you.
But it’s better to have the information than a lot of unanswered questions lurking in the back of your mind.
Good luck.
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