Previous installments of The Toast’s advice column from two disparate and imperfect persons can be found here. Last time: Advice About Dating Ladies and Having a Bad Sister.
How do you know when it’s time to break up with someone? I’ve never had to so I don’t know. Like if you’ve been with someone for 6 years, and you’re in your 30s and you live with them and you don’t hate them but you don’t love them either, or you do just not the way you think you should, but your work and your identity and your housing and your social life is all basically completely tied to being in this relationship… this relationship which is mostly just… fine. It’s okay. It’s like 50% fine and 50% stressful and frustrating.
Do you leave? Knowing you’ll miss the 50% that was okay and knowing you’ll have to start over completely socially because you were literally completely alone (yes, literally, just trust me on this one) when you met him and everyone you know now is through him? But maybe you’ll be completely and totally relieved to be free of the parts that were bad or boring or just not you? Or maybe you’ll forever regret leaving this person who is so weird and unlike anyone else you’ve ever met and sometimes made you laugh so hard you almost threw up…I don’t know. How do you know?
Nicole: I feel pretty confident about answering this one, because I can start by trotting out some pet theories that obviously do not apply to everyone but are, in fact, extremely accurate. (flexes fingers outward, settles in)
1. I think that, as a rule, people (women more than men, perhaps? IDK, gender is a construct, but here we are) have way, way too high a bar for who they will go on a first and second date with (must be over 5’10, cannot listen to Linkin Park) but allow inertia to take over very swiftly into an established relationship, to the extent that the decision to move in with and marry a willing, long-term partner often involves far less substantive, critical thought than triaging your OKCupid responses. I mean, dying alone is scary, we’re all on the same page with you.
2. I 100% believe, and continue to believe, and HAVE to believe, that when you know, you really do know. I have so many friends (and Nicoles) who have been in mediocre relationships, talked about it constantly, agonized, broke up with or were broken up with, found someone new, and then literally the next thing I heard them say about their partner was “can you make it to my wedding next June?” By which I mean to say, even though I think we are alone in a godless world and there is no meaning of life except for that we create ourselves, there is a qualitative and meaningful difference between a happy, relaxing relationship that brings you both (or all nine of you) joy and comfort and love, and one where you’re just content enough not to care about its inadequacies except at three in the morning or after watching a romantic movie and suddenly feeling very cold and fragile.
Please break up with this person. You can be happier than this. Find out how.
Mallory: Ye gods, you’ve made it to your 30s without ever having broken up with someone? I have so many questions for you. But enough about that now: of course you leave them. Of course you leave them!
Do you have any idea how splendid it is to walk through the door of your very own home and hear absolutely nothing? To see everything arranged just as you wanted it arranged when you left, to know that no candles are lit, no windows are opened, no meals are prepared without your exact say-so? It’s wickedly lovely. There are no voices, no one moving around inside with complaints about their boss you don’t want to listen to, no one pointedly not-unloading the dishwasher at you. The laughing sounds wonderful, but why should you deny yourself the joy of a well-lit and quiet house that opens up only for you in order to stare across the dinner table at someone who makes life grey? Send him (nicely) packing; keep the friends you both made; take to the sea.
Through some things she’s said, I’m becoming more and more convinced that my new and amazing ladyfriend was abused by someone in the past. While this realisation makes me upset, that’s not where I need the advice.
What I’m worried about is how I should…be…with someone who’s gone through this. I think I know most of the answer which is: listen, be gentle, don’t assume things, be extra careful with consent. (i.e. Be a decent person like I would be with anyone.)
I’m just worried. I think she’s fantastic. I want to be a good person and I know I don’t have any relevant experience. I don’t want to step on any blatantly obvious landmines because I just don’t understand… I know no experience is generalizable, but I’m wondering if you two wise disparate persons know of any good literature out there or have any advice.
Nicole: I am mostly having Mallory field this question, because she is very wise, but from my own limited experience of people who have been treated in such a fashion, in addition to the need to be kind and gentle (which we should all endeavor to be, of course), you will have to try to take on the burden of being better at fighting than they are, when those times come. You’re not asking about fighting, but relationships will involve disagreements, and we’re not always great at modulating our reactions to them.
It may be on you to: wait longer to become upset, think of their triggers first, NOT leave the room, or leave the room, based on what makes them feel safest. And the best thing for this, really, is to talk to them when you are not fighting, and say: “Darling, loved one. Some day we may have a fight! What makes you feel best during one? If you walk out, am I to follow you, or do you like to simmer in the basement until you have yourself together? Does eye contact make you feel listened-to, or threatened? Are there sentences I should never say?”
It seems like a strange exercise, but I think that, when you love someone, you’re pretty decent at being good to them most of the time, but it is MOST important to be good to them when you and/or they are upset, and if someone has a history of abuse, you can never err on the side of being too conscious of that in bad moments. Ask them what they need, and then do it. Even when you’re mad. Especially when you’re mad.
Mallory: [Treads cautiously out onto a storm-toss’d sea] I don’t have any books I can recommend offhand (although maybe some of our readers will, and should feel free to say so in the comments), but I can offer my own and particular experiences, which may or may not prove helpful. It is a sad and sorry truth that if you are interested in dating women, the odds of your being in a relationship with someone who has experienced abuse is going to go up, particularly if you are interested in dating queer and/or trans women.
On the one hand, I think it’s important to remember that the most important thing to focus on is the woman you are dating, not the woman-who-has-experienced-abuse you are dating. It’s possible that you’ve dated women in the past who have experienced abuse without knowing it; abuse is hideous and abuse is commonplace and not everyone who has suffered from it will say so aloud. I mention this not to send you into fits of paranoia, of course, but to set this in context: almost on a daily basis you will interact in some way with a person who has been abused. You won’t always know it; it’s part of the context of who they are but it isn’t who they are, if that makes sense. I mention that only because in some instances, it can be easy for someone who has been fortunate enough not to experience abuse to be so shocked and horrified by their first encounter with it, even secondhand, even years after the fact, that they sometimes go about treating the person who has suffered it like a fragile piece of glass, which isn’t necessarily helpful.
Something I think is important to bear in mind is that whatever emotions you experience about the abuse of the woman you love — protectiveness, anger, sorrow, regret, resentment towards the people who should have been there to support and protect her at the time, whatever other feelings you’d like to throw in the pot — they’re yours, and not hers, to deal with. You may find that there is a conversation between the two of you where you find it helpful and appropriate to say “I’m so sorry this happened to you, and I’m here to talk about it if you would like to;” there will never be a time when it is appropriate for her to have to help you process your anger or sadness over her experience. A lot of people who share their experience of abuse — particularly when the abuse occurred a long time ago — find themselves in the unenviable position of having to soothe and calm friends and partners who respond with emotional outbursts. Her experience, and not your feelings about her experience, are the real point here. There are some things it may feel helpful to say — “I’d like to kill the [X] who did that to you,” “I’d have been there to protect you, if I’d known,” “Your [family/teachers/caretakers/friends/etc] should have done something to stop it; they failed you” — because at first blush they seem to express sympathy with her situation, but are in fact useless to her. She has already had to process how she feels about the people who were at one point or another complicit in her abuse; you were not there to protect her, no matter how much you might like to have been, and it does her no good to claim you would have fixed something you cannot change.
So, while you may feel anything from pointed and particular rage at her former abuser to enormous sorrow at a family or a system that didn’t step in to protect your girlfriend’s safety and well-being, your reaction is not something she should have to deal with. (This advice is probably more relevant if her abuse was something she experienced a long time ago; it may be less helpful if the abuse you’re speaking of is relatively recent and she’s still sorting out how she might choose to respond.)
How to proceed, then. I think it’s a good thing your girlfriend has felt comfortable in starting to talk about this with you; I think it’s a good thing that you want to respond well; we are off to an excellent start. Continue taking her cues. If she talks about it in a brief and matter-of-fact way, take her at her word and thank her for confiding in you, remind her that you love and support her, are genuinely sorry about what she has experienced and are here for her if she ever wants to talk about it again. Do not assume she is hiding pain from you because you assume that she must be worse off than she is. Do not ask specific questions if she does not seem genuinely open to them. Do not look for a big emotional catharsis if one is not forthcoming.
Trust that the person who knows best about handling your girlfriend’s past abuse is your girlfriend. You can, of course, say something like, “If there is ever something you would prefer I do not do or say in our relationship because it brings up troubling memories, please let me know; I would never want to inadvertently cross a line or hurt you in any way.” If there are times that she suffers and wants to lean on you, make sure that you are a secure and a reliable enough person for her to do so. But beyond that, take her at her word and take her life at face value. If she seems well and she acts like she is well, then she most likely is well, and not full of secret emotional landmines. That can be difficult for people — of any gender — who have been abused, to feel like every time they share that part of themselves with someone, they are immediately perceived as an emotional invalid whose words cannot be taken at face value (“How are you? How are you really?” the implication always being, “of course you cannot be all right in the way that I am all right, tell me the secret sorrows I know you must be hiding”).
I say this, of course, not to in any way minimize the horror of abuse, but as a reminder that it is possible and indeed common to be both “a person who has experienced abuse” and also “a well-rounded and complete and a generally happy human being.” She may have — indeed, she likely has — developed over the course of her lifetime ways of dealing with and assuaging what she suffered. She has likely talked about it, and had many feelings about it, and possibly gone to therapy and told family and friends and done any number of things to help herself, and she may not always feel like it is a defining characteristic of who she is.
I don’t know how new this relationship is — six months? three? — but since you don’t have a long-established connection with her, you have very few claims on her history, and there’s not much you can ask at this point without being intrusive. Let her take the lead in sharing her past with you; if at some point she chooses to be more detailed about what she’s experienced, thank her for doing so and ask her what you can do that’s most helpful. She might have a few ideas in mind; she might want you not to bring it up unless she does so first.
I wish you the best! You will do well, I think; you seem very kind and eager to listen, which will serve you well.
Tags: advice, advice from two disparate persons, breakups, dramz, mitch and cam are the worst couple in the world, relationships, she said she said
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Hear hear, Mallory! Excellent advice.
I would only add, regarding a partner with abuse in the past, to pay attention to physical cues as well. Proceed carefully if the person’s voice is saying ‘yes’ but their body is clearly saying ‘no’. Regardless of the type of abuse, anyone who has been abused has experienced their needs being railroaded, and may still be learning how to use their voice and say no, even with someone they very much trust. Although I like to think this is general common sense, and not just the way to proceed with someone who had experienced abuse.
this is great advice.
This! I want that and I haven’t experienced abuse! It’s so important that saying yes is made an active decision, and that if anything feels the least bit weird we stop and make sure it’s ok.
But this is probably why I wrote in – being afraid that I might not know if the things I was doing were ok. Thinking that being careful and paying attention wouldn’t be enough and I was going to Fuck It All Up.
It seems like the regular checking in and being careful is working for us though.
Since I wrote in, she did tell me about what happened (no, obviously I didn’t ask; yes, I was really goddamn upset but not around her; no, I didn’t ask her to hold my hand through it). I’m feeling a lot better about it now, and even more after this post.
Mostly, I guess, it was important to understand that nothing’s a panacea. Like… I can’t protect either of us from getting hurt by being together. That’s true in any relationship! But the things we’re doing seem to be working well. Now I’ve got a few more things to think about and talk with her about.
I’m so glad things are working out for you! You’re clearly a very kind and sensitive person to be asking about these things. More people like you in the universe, please!
Honestly, general supportiveness is enough. I told my ex-partner about my abuse, and he was wonderful. He listened to me, comforted me, assured me he didn’t think I was gross (I asked, because my big worry was that he’d think I was disgusting if he knew) and then he let me take the lead. He never brought it up, and his behaviour towards me didn’t change a bit. Life went on as usual. But if I ever started randomly crying mid-sexytimes (or anytime) he’d just stop what he was doing and hug me silently and let me talk if I wanted to. DEFINITELY none of that bullshit “your sadness is ruining our sex life” or anything like that. Never any pressure in any way. And that’s it! It was great. I felt safe and able to express myself if I needed to without feeling like my abuse was hanging over the relationship. So really, it’s quite simple stuff.
I wish you and your ladyfriend all the best!
i love this
This. forever. thank you.
Nicole and Mallory, you are both wise and gentle, and again I thank the Universe for the Toast.
Letter Writer 1: Pack your bags, darling. Pack your bags right now. Find a friend or family member to stay with, if you can. Don’t let this doubt sit in your chest until you’re looking at him across a table full of children (or maybe just you’re looking at grey hairs in the mirror, we all have different paths)
caveat I may be projecting slightly. If it’s just meh, and not horrible, and he doesn’t actively mistreat you, I think gorebooth;’s advice below is truly spot-on. Even something as simple as revisiting a location you went to when things were shiny and new or going out for a nice meal or a cool event and really spending time talking about not-the-bills and not boring shite can be revitalizing.
Are you projecting slightly? I probably have not been reading enough comments and open threads to know how you are doing. But I hope you are doing well.
thank you sweetheart! I am doing ok I guess. Up & down.
lol never ask me if you should break up with whoever you’re with and expect an answer other than “yes of COURSE you’ll love glorious solitude”
And if you live in a horribly expensive city and you have to get a roommate? Because then you still have someone lighting candles, opening windows, and pointedly not unloading the dishwasher. But you don’t get to have sex with them.
Right but if the LW was concerned about being alone a roommate (or several) might be a really perfect decision. She’ll get company and she might be able to make new friends and meet new people through them. If you’re nervous about craigslist I recommend either writing on the toast open thread and trying to get in touch with people in your city.
If you want something easier and more established find the hairpin group for your city (even if you no longer read the hairpin, I mean I’m assuming most people have read Nicole and Mallory’s work for them from before and that’s good enough) and ask about roommates there. I made like, all of my friends from a hairpin facebook group, and those groups usually do meetups. If the LW lives in NYC wait a few days the details of the toast/hairpin combo group will be posted in an open thread soon and she can hunt for friends/housing.
Solitude is not glorious for everyone and she may do well with a roommate. If not, look towards the outskirts of the city, the suburbs, or smaller cheaper neighborhoods. Even if you have to pay for it with a long commute if solitude is what you want it can be worth it (I commute an hour to work but live alone in an adorable neighborhood and it works for me).
“Do you have any idea how splendid it is to walk through the door of your very own home and hear absolutely nothing? To see everything arranged just as you wanted it arranged when you left, to know that no candles are lit, no windows are opened, no meals are prepared without your exact say-so?” This was so beautiful. I often fantasize about having the money to break up with my roommates by buying them out of their leases and wandering the whole giant house (it would be ridiculously large for me) I love in nothing but fancy robes singing songs and leaving my books and half-filled water glasses wherever I want.
this is how i live every dayyyyyyyy
You could move into an apartment and you and your friends can all rent individual studio apartments side by side and it would be adorable and you’d have your alone space and also people just a knock across the way.
If I tried to do that though it would end in me climbing through their windows and cutting them open and sliding inside for warmth because I hate living alone. But I admire/am impressed by those who do.
Mallory, I have noticed this about your responses too! I am currently elbow-deep in wedding planning, and I have entered this bizarre world where marriage is the only outcome that anyone could ever want. Your response here was wonderful. I’m psyched to get married to my dude, but I loved being single. It’s weird in wedding world, where singleness is something to be escaped at all costs. And LW1, the last time I moved out of a boyfriend’s apartment and into my own place? Man, that was a feeling. It’s suprisingly quiet, at first. But you settle in, and then it’s just the most wonderful thing! Hmm, already missing living alone…
Advice to LW1 was superbly correct. As someone who languished in a relationship for 11 years (!!) with someone she hadn’t loved or even liked in ages, Inertia: it’s real. I can attest to the fact that you will be so much happier. Not at first. No. At first it kinda sucks. And scary. But then you meet someone else and they make you a better person and vice versa and it’s effortless and lovely and amazing.
I’d offer slightly different advice to LW1. Obviously if the advice here immediately resonates, and LW1 really just needs permission to go, then, go!
But as someone nearing the two-decade mark in a relationship, there are times when things feel… blah. And sometimes that’s because the relationship has gotten a little musty, and you need to reconnect with either other. And other times (maybe most times) it’s because you yourself have gotten a little musty, or impatient, or stuck, and it’s easy to project that onto one’s life partner. I agree that when you want to be with someone, you know, but I’ve found that you don’t know continually with the precise same level of conviction for all time. There are glum, doubt-filled times and then the laughing and the certainty and the joy can return.
And that line! “this person who is so weird and unlike anyone else you’ve ever met and sometimes made you laugh so hard you almost threw up” That’s so real, so not the usual “he’s nice and kind and smart” boilerplate from these kinds of letters. So I’d ask LW1, is there anything the two of you can do to laugh that hard together again? Maybe try couples counseling, or try going to that odd place you both used to like, or something. Talk to him. Maybe he’s feeling the blah, too, and wants to dream it all up again with you. I’m not saying it’s definitely that way, but it can be, and it’s worth finding out if that feels like a real possibility to you.
Seconded. I’ve been in intertia-ruts, and I’ve been in stuck-blah ruts, and they feel remarkably similar. One is not worth the work, the other is absolutely worth it.
I agree. I would also suggest that LW1 consider whether it’s the relationship itself that has become stagnant, or whether there are other areas of their life (job, school, etc.) that are at a standstill and adding to that feeling. Last time my LTR was in a difficult/boring place, those were major contributing factors.
This is excellent advice, too. What also stuck out to me from LW1 was when she said that she has no friends outside of her partner, and that her whole life/work/identity is bound up in the relationship. I’d say that if you’re not totally resolved to end it, it might be useful to develop a bit of a social life outside your relationship, or cultivate your own hobbies, or anything that might help you develop a sense of self that isn’t dependent on your status as part of a unit.
If you do decide to end it, then having done those things will making leaving less scary. Or maybe you’ll decide you do want to stay. Either way, it’ll be illuminating to know whether your relationship is compatible with you having a strong sense of self, having personal goals and plans, and generally being a happy, productive person.
Yes! This is so important. I’ve been in my current relationship for over a decade, and one thing that has for sure helped us get through the blah times is having friends/interests apart from one another. It helps keep us feeling like we are our own people, while also giving us new and interesting things to talk to each other about.
Nicole’s thoughts on mediocre relationships and Mallory’s on encounters with abuse are perfect (your thoughts on the corresponding things are also good, but these particular parts are beautiful).
“just content enough not to care about its inadequacies except at three in the morning or after watching a romantic movie and suddenly feeling very cold and fragile.”
Shit.
Yes, yes that. About two years ago, in one of those moments (about an hour after making out) I realized I felt like I’d used him, and so I had to break up with him. Which made him feel worse, especially the whole LITERALLY AN HOUR AGO WE WERE NOT WEARING CLOTHES, but then I didn’t have to sleep in the same bed that night realizing I didn’t want him there! And it was terrible and weird for a few days but I had my own place back and I could do what I liked and never had to watch two episodes of Doctor Who if I wanted to watch something else and it was marvelous and essentially like taking to the sea but without the sea and more hanging around with my other friends who’d never liked him and making them tacos and having a lovely time.
If you cannot take to the sea, make yourself tacos. It will do similarly though with less poetic resonance.
Yes, LW 1, listen to Nicole and Mallory! It is so hard, after so many years, to think of ending an okay-but-not-amazing relationship. Because you were in love with them once! So very in love! And if you were once, then why not again? You’ve already done this for 6 years, so why not another 6, and another 6 after that?
Sadly, you cannot will yourself to be more in love with another person than you are! Wouldn’t it be nice if you could? But you can’t. And sometimes it feels like it’s been so long since you felt that way about someone that you don’t know whether you are even capable of feeling those emotions at that intensity again. After all, you’re older and wiser now.
This is not true. If you’re questioning on the regular whether you want to be with someone anymore, and half the time the answer is no, then you need out! You’re looking at potentially 50 years of being together, and spending 25 of those years wishing you weren’t. Can you imagine 25 years of being tied to someone you don’t want to be with?
No. You need to fall in love again, even if the only entity you’re falling in love with is yourself, and your glorious solitude. And perhaps you will even meet another person who makes your heart feel crushed and bursting simultaneously, in the best way possible! Either way, you will remember what it feels like to be happy, if not all of the time, then most of the time , and be so thankful you didn’t settle for less.
Nicole, you are so right about figuring out how to fight before you ever do fight. I would recommend that to anyone, not just people who’ve experienced abuse, but it’s definitely more important for those of us who have.
Mallory, your response to the second letter writer is all kinds of perfect. My fiancee and I have both experienced abuse, and I volunteer on a sexual assault crisis line, and I can’t think of a single thing to add to your response.
I’ve volunteered for RAINN, and one of the books we routinely recommend to partners/family members of survivors is Trust After Trauma: A Guide to Relationships for Survivors and Those Who Love Them by Aphrodite Matsakis. It’s not the most current literature out there (published in 1998, I think?) but it’s still pretty comprehensive and might be helpful.
I was just coming back to say that it might be helpful for the letter writer to contact an organization that helps survivors! It’d be confidential, so they could safely give more details than they’re comfortable putting on the internet and maybe get more specific advice and access to helpful literature. It is absolutely okay for a loved one to call a sexual assault crisis line or go into a centre to find ways to support their loved one. Just don’t call a crisis line and then hand the phone over to your partner; that’s happened and it’s really disempowering and uncomfortable for the survivor.
Just don’t call a crisis line and then hand the phone over to your partner; that’s happened and it’s really disempowering and uncomfortable for the survivor.
uuuuuuuuggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Thanks! I’ll check it out.
“Don’t make the person who has experienced Tough Stuff comfort you about their Tough Stuff” is generally the rule I want everyone to learn. We are all becoming grown ups, tough stuff happens, do not make extra emotional work part of the equation.
I want to thumbs up this about fifteen more times.
This is so true. I really like how this article explains it: Comfort In, Dump Out http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/07/opinion/l…
Yes! I went out to help my grandmother as my grandfather was passing away, and it was awful and miserable because he had Alzheimer’s and there was so much that I had wanted to say and wouldn’t be able to. But: my grandmother did not need to hear that. I told my mother some of it (this was her stepfather, although he was very important to her he never raised her, so we were mostly in the same circle), and my father some. But I knew that my aunt and uncle and everyone who lived in that area would need someone to go around being as helpful and cheerful as it is possible to be in these circumstances, because just a few months ago, they lost a five day old grandson. I still don’t know what to say to them about it, but I showed up and made tea and put some of my emotions in a box to talk to other people about.
LW2 — the website Making Light (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight) runs an intermittent series of posts called “Dysfunctional Families Day” which features very thoughtful, heartfelt, often anonymous personal commentary on messed-up families and abuse. The most recent (I think) post is here, with links to previous posts: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015…
One of the things they stress is to not be “hlepy” — that is, try and fail to be helpful (and possibly make things worse.) Listening, respectfully, to people sharing their experiences is key, and particularly for people who are living with something that happened to them a long time ago, they may not actually NEED your help (as in, they’ve been functioning more or less fine for many years.)
I, personally, do not come from an abusive background, and I’ve found this to be a valuable resource for understanding/not being a dick to those who do.
Thanks, I’ll check it out!
This is great. Thanks!
Oh my goodness, LW1, please break up. It can be hard to be alone, but honestly, if you are living with someone you don’t even like all that much and you feel like all of your friends are through this other person then. . . you are already alone. If you don’t like it, there are many many things you can do besides remain inert. Captain Awkward always has good advice about meeting new people: http://captainawkward.com/tag/making-friends/
Also, I know not everyone agrees with me on this, but it has been my experience that the world is full of incredible, awesome people. The people in your life now are not the only people you can ever have in your life. You have not been measured out your only dose of Your People to whom you must hang onto forever or die alone. You will lose some of these shared friends in the breakup, if you break up. You will grieve them. But you will find new wonders and friendships and romances in time. Good luck out there.
When I become Supreme Ruler of the Universe, all humans will be separated from each other, legally and physically, and any who wish to find each other again will have to put actual effort into it. This process will be repeated annually.
I like the cut of your jib.
I love this so much.
On meeting new friends, if that’s what you’re worried about if you breakup, it can be done. I also did the completely totally alone thing for a few years (well, I had parents but they lived literally like 9000 miles away so they didn’t count) and then moved to a new city and made a wonderful set of friends. The best tip I can offer is joining a book club (or really any club). There isn’t as much pressure to socialize and be cool because you can always resort to just giving your opinions on the book but then often peoples opinions on the book will naturally dissolve into fun regular conversation. Book clubs at bars are extra good, if you drink, because alcohol can soothe your nerves. Meetup is great for this kind of thing. I also know people who made friends via intermural sports, and while I am not sporty I’m told it’s fun and some places have teams where you compete and then all go out for a beer to celebrate your victory/loss.
LW1, I have been you! When I was 29 I left the first and only boy who had ever loved me. It was hard. I had to make all new friends. I spent about six months with no one to talk to but my cat. I cried A LOT. I worried that I would be alone forever. But the lesson that I learned is that it’s better to be alone than to be in a relationship that keeps you from being your best self. Don’t spend your life in a cramped shelter because it’s warm enough and keeps the rain off. The very least you can ask of life is that it let you stand up straight.
Both my ex and I are happier and better off than we were when we were trying to make our lives fit together when they just didn’t. I thought when I left that I didn’t love him anymore. While that wasn’t true–I loved and still love him tremendously–we’d gotten to the point where there was so much crap in the way that there was no room for the love we had for each other to exist. I had to choose between putting the work into clearing out the crap and leaving the whole thing behind me, and I chose to leave it behind. It wasn’t the only choice, but it was the one I made. And it was the right one. Because now (and it took A WHILE to get here, believe you me!) I have the kind of love where, if I had known it existed when trying to decide whether or not to leave, would have made me run out the door as fast as I could go.
But even if I had never found the love I have now, it still would have been right. There is no virtue to the kind of sacrifice that staying would have required I make. Not the sacrifice of the work–the sacrifice of myself.
This whole thing really resonated with me and a recent experience I had. I wish I could like it many more times. Thanks for writing.
Nicole, your #2 to LW1. I’m almost crying at my desk, over this bagel. Bless you.
(Note: Not crying because I think my relationship is in that place, just happy that other people believe and can put into words what I believe)
I actually quibble with quite a few of the specifics Mallory wrote, but I think we are in agreement over the general themes of, Don’t Try To Be Her Savior, and also Don’t Make Her Responsible For Your Feels About Her Feels.
Very true! (Also, if you have specifics to add or that you think could be improved, please share them here; I am exactly 0% more qualified than you are to give advice, so jump in there.)
Well, okay, I read this again, days after I meant to come back to it, so probably no one will read this, plus it is just my own experience, PLUS it turns out there really only two things I sort of quibble with and not “quite a few.” BUT ANYWAY.
The main thing that struck me was this line: “She has already had to process how she feels about the people who were at one point or another complicit in her abuse; you were not there to protect her, no matter how much you might like to have been, and it does her no good to claim you would have fixed something you cannot change.”
For the first bit, I can only speak for myself, but I totally had not dealt with my feelings about the people who were complicit. I think a partner with a certain level of trust (as mine had) could poke at that and really help the person work it out for themselves (as she did), but I don’t think assuming they’ve already dealt with it is necessarily a great default. (Flip side, of course, is don’t assume you are The One who will help them see the light or whatever.)
The second bit–I agree it’s not good to say “would have,” but I think it can sometimes be useful to say, “wish I could have.” (Again, personally) It helped me a lot to hear that, not b/c it changed the past, but b/c it made me feel my partner would go to bat for me in the present, and that did a lot to help me feel safe with them.
ok, LW1, maybe step 1 should be join a club or a team or a class.
Maybe it will give you great new friends. Maybe it will just give you something to do on Thursday nights.
Either way, it will be the start of a life that’s just yours, independent of your boyfriend.
You have some inertia in your life right now, and you are dissatisfied with your relationship 50% of the time. But maybe also, it’s a more general dissatisfaction, but since your relationship is a big part of your life, it feels like it’s all about the relationship.
So fight that dissatisfaction with some new experiences and some new friends. Maybe that’ll be enough, and you’ll end up feeling happier about the relationship too. Maybe it won’t be enough, and you’ll realize you can’t stay with your boyfriend. But if you’ve already got a little of your own stuff going on, it’ll be that much easier to leave.
[I]t is possible and indeed common to be both “a person who has experienced abuse” and also “a well-rounded and complete and a generally happy human being.”
Just…thank you.
I just want to say that even though non of this advise directly applies to me at the moment (except perhaps the bit about the fact that we encounter people who have been abused far more often than we like to think) this has made me feel much better. Much better about my new and serious boyfriend (and feeling worried about how serious I 23 year old am about this human) and better about my overwhelming desire for solitude, which I never quite know how to explain or feel about. TOAST THANKS!
Mallory and Nicole, thanks so so much. It helps tremendously to have reinforced that while there are things we do need to talk about and be careful about, treating her like fragile glass helps no one. We can’t change what happened but that doesn’t mean we can’t have something awesome.
I’ll talk with her about fighting. We’ve had talks about how we both deal with being upset, but these specific questions haven’t come up and seem super useful.
Also, I have to admit that while I personally really wanted to hear what you had to say, part of my motivation was what I found when trying to google for resources. Mostly I found whiny dudes being all “I want to have sex and she’s saaaad and doesn’t want to because someone hurt her why can’t she think about my poooooor peeeeenissss instead of that why doesn’t she seeeeee how much i’ve sacrificed” and then I _really_ wanted to burn things to the ground.
the dash toast dot net: increasing the signal to noise ratio of the internet since 2013
I’m super late to this party, unfortunately, but I thought I would put in my two-cents down here, for what it’s worth.
A couple months back, I asked Mallory and Nicole’s advice, in what is sort of the flip side to LW2’s question. I have some instances of sexual assault/attempted rape in my past, which today translate to struggling with PTSD and depression. At the time I wrote in, I was entering into a new relationship at the time, and I was struggling with how much I should disclose about my past trauma, how soon.
In the end, I didn’t follow Mallory’s excellent advice about eating half a sandwich while the sun was shining, but only because Gentleman Caller sprung a DTR conversation on me wayyyy too soon. In the moment, I kind of panicked and said something like, “I have PTSD from sexual assault!” and then started shaking uncontrollably, which, way to play it cool, self. After that, the topic was never explicitly broached again, but from there forward, Gentleman Caller was always hyper aware of my personal boundaries when we were hooking up, in a way that made me feel really safe with him. He would pick up on the tiniest, most imperceptible shake of my head and stop whatever it was we were doing, and he always, always checked in with me, with a simple, “are you ok?” One day, this simple, reassuring ritual turned into what feels like maybe the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me:
“Are you ok?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, well if you’re never not ok, you just need to tell me.”
“Thank you.”
“…for what?”
I can’t speak for you or your Ladyfriend, but this is what worked for me. I didn’t ever get to the point where I wanted to discuss my past, but what I needed from him for our relationship to proceed was a level of trust that came from him noticing things and explicitly checking in with me, even though the motivation behind those little check-ins was only ever implicitly defined. So until your Ladyfriend is ready to discuss her past with you, I would say, just do whatever you can to make her feel cared for, and most of all, safe. Basically, just be as decent as you can.
As Mallory put it, I’m really glad that “I [gave] him the opportunity to be decent to me.” Things didn’t work out between us (maybe in part because of my issues), but we parted amicably and are currently working on how to be just friends.
My general rule: If you’re asking people on the Internet if you should leave your partner, you should leave your partner. (cf: http://yoshouldidumpthisahole.com/ )
This is great advice and I love The Toast – awkward segue where I am that annoying person who recommends another website – Captain Awkward is really great and one thing I have learned from her is not wanting to be with someone any more is a perfectly cromulent reason to break up with someone. They don’t have to have done anything wrong or be a bad person, sometimes you just don’t want to be in this relationship any more.
LW1: In the words of Sugar… “Wanting to leave is enough.”
Re: PART ONE: “Send him (nicely) packing; keep the friends you both made; take to the sea.”
Excellent. I think there should be a government foundation whose sole purpose is to fund 90-day round-the-world sea voyages for all ladies in this in “How Do You Know’s” situation. During the voyage, they will wear 30’s style gym bloomers and take brisk constitutionals along the upper deck, then have a warming cup of beef tea (Unless it is hot. If it is hot they will have cucumber and ice water). I would advise no active sexual affairs, but several significant glances across a crowded room at a.) Anyone who looks like the man from “Now Voyager” or, if your tastes indicate b.) The gentle, ginger widower form Aberdeen who looks like the butler you see in the opening credits for “Masterpiece Classic” I don’t know his name.
SEND HIM PACKING: PART TWO: Other divisions of the Foundation For Taking To The Sea will include a.) Last child in college. Mothers get a voyage and optional vaginal reconstructive surgery (but only if THEY want it). b.) Stay-at-home mothers who are abandoned with limited alimony will be given a “JOB RETRAINING AT SEA” cruise, afterwhich the ex-husband must totally support her until she finds a wonderful job. If no jobs are available, the Foundation will employ these women in the CLEAN UP AMERICA AND FIX THE INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM, which will employ them until they retire with a full pension no later than 62.
SEND HIM PACKING: PART THREE One last divisions of the Foundation For Taking To The Sea will include six-month cruises, including an intensive spa cruise, for women who worked for a crummy boss who didn’t appreciate them then laid them off anyway. The crummy boss will have to support all the ladies’ living expenses until she finds a job she really likes (when she gets home from her cruise). Same rules apply as to stay-at-home moms if no job appears within a year. She can go work on infrastructure too. Well, what do yout think? I think it’s a plan!!!