Estimated reading time: 18 minutes
Hey Doc,
Before I get started, I think it’s important to note that I’m writing this on the heels of a breakup with frankly a great girl who I dated my entire senior year of college (late August to this past week). That was by far my deepest and most successful relationship emotionally and it was only eight months, so I don’t know what that says about me (but hopefully not much, I’m still pretty young).
With that out of the way… the reality is I’m terrified. I’m about to start law school in the fall and I feel like I blew my chance (if I’m objectively looking at it the relationship ended largely because of my mistakes, not some mutual parting at graduation). The core of my fear is that all of my success in dating has come from relationships kind of falling in my lap rather than anything that I did to make them happen. For example, this one came from an apartment mate introducing us back in late August and her making clear she was into me very soon after. I feel like that “falling into my lap” effect may be unique to the undergraduate environment. Further, two of the three have come from women being assertive with me, not vice versa (one was just mutual with a really good friend, I’m pretty sure I wrote a letter about that one too). Now, often times when I express that concern to friends, family, etc, they hit me with the same thing: I’m in my early to mid-twenties and it’s way too early to worry about struggling to find the woman that I will marry, have kids with, etc, and that the reason women have been assertive with me at times is because I do have “the goods” of attractiveness, intelligence, whatever else, and that will continue and I will eventually find the relationship that results in getting married.
My previous girlfriend was someone who I was beginning to imagine would be that person for me and if I hadn’t made so many mistakes and exhausted her emotionally at times maybe she would’ve been, I have no way of knowing now. I know I need to work on myself a little more before my next relationship so that doesn’t happen again. I don’t want to get too caught up in the oneitis side of things because I never could’ve imagined this relationship happening at the time of my last letter and then it did not even three months later, but I’m just entering a new phase of life now where it feels like I’ll be a lot busier and meeting women will be a lot harder. I know many people find their person outside of undergrad, and I know this letter is very much informed by the fear and pain of this breakup and its timing on what was supposed to be such a special time (graduation week), but I do think there’s a deeper fear even beyond that. How do I meet women when I’m busy in law school and I really have no experience being the one who pursues a relationship, asks someone out, initiates flirting, etc.? I’m not really going to have an environment where going to get food and watching a show in my campus apartment with a woman counts as a date anymore; I feel like the expectations are going to be much higher and as of now I am going to struggle to meet them. I am sure another woman can form an even deeper bond with me than I had with my previous partners, I just have no idea how to find her now that I am out of such a comfortable environment. I have never used dating apps and based on everything I hear about them in online discourse I really don’t want to start, for instance. So many of the people I know have graduated with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and a couple of them are engaged after having dated for multiple years. I know I can do it too, I just don’t know where to start now that my entire world has shifted under my feet.
Thanks for reading!
Emotionally Exhausted Beyond Belief
Ok EEBB, I want you to take a deep, calming breath. Take a second one and hold it for the count of four, then breathe out to the count of four. Do this again; in, hold it, exhale slowly.
You’re working yourself up into a panic here by inventing future problems – what I call “borrowing trouble from the future”, and you’re freaking yourself out about it. You’re right: a lot of this is coming about because you’re dealing with a very recent break up and you’re in that phase of “oh shit, what if this is the last relationship I’ll ever have”. You’re making it worse because you’re focusing on how you’ve been a mostly passive participant in meeting people and you’re convinced – again, because you just had a break up – that this is going to mean you’ll never meet someone or know how to get them to like you.
I promise you: it’ll be ok. You just need to slow your roll for a second and chill.
Here’s what I want you to know, just right off the bat: stop worrying about where your next relationship will come from. You’re coming to this from a place of panic and a fear of loss, and that’s a bad place to make decisions from. So the first order of business: ease the panic, calm down and get to a place of stability and peace.
You’re winding yourself up because you suddenly have a void in your life where your girlfriend used to be. That negative space is screwing with your head, because you can’t not notice it. You’ve spent several months building habits around her presence, literal and metaphorical, in your life and that sudden absence is glaring. It’s like how you don’t notice a persistent sound until it’s not there anymore and now you can’t help but notice the lack.
That lack is making you uncomfortable, as is the sudden awareness that your last few relationships just happened. So now you’re worried that this lack is going to be a persistent presence that will never be filled again. It’s the fear that you’re going to always have this hole, like a wound that never heals, and that it’s going to define the rest of your life.
I am here from the future to tell you: no, it won’t. You will adjust to being single again. You will meet people in the future. You will have other relationships. This moment will pass. It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass. In fact, seeing as you’re just starting law school, you’re probably going to end up in a position where you won’t have the time, energy or mental bandwidth to even notice it until it’s closed itself again.
Not that dissimilar from how you now notice the noise because it’s gone, really.
The second order of business is going to be very simple: get settled in your new life. Like I said, you’re starting law school soon, and your life is about to get very full of classwork, study, more classwork and – if you’re like a lot of law students – whatever work you can get that will allow you to stay ahead of your bills but still keep your grades up. You are in no real place to judge just how much free time you’re going to have or how easily (or not) you’ll be able to manage your energy, your schedule and your life.
I talk a lot about how people don’t account for the opportunity cost – the time and energy something takes – when trying to add a new habit or relationship into their lives. Right now, not only are you not taking the opportunity cost into account, you don’t even know what your metaphorical budget is going to be. Trying to figure out how to meet people and go on dates is going to be an exercise in futility right now because it’s all a theoretical exercise. Getting invested in a plan right now is going to run headlong into the hobnailed Boot Of Reality, which exists to stomp your dreams into paste like a sociopathic system AI with a foot fetish looking to collect on the Daddy Tax.
Yes, that was very specific, I know. Not the point, keep up with me here.
I bring this up because right now, what you’re most afraid of and what you’re ultimately asking for is a feeling of being in control. You feel helpless and adrift and you’re looking for a way to feel like you have your hand on the tiller. That’s why your anxiety has kicked into high gear; your anxiety’s job is to try to anticipate and avoid problems. The problem, though, is that you’re inventing problems based on imagined futures based on present reality, and your present is defined by your loss. So you’re in a place where you’re trying to prevent future loss based on what you’re currently experiencing, and you’re getting stuck in a panic loop because the solutions you’re coming up with require knowledge you don’t have yet. And – to make things worse – you’re focused on the wrong knowledge.
Well, the easiest way to resolve the issue is to take one of the problems out of the equation. In this case, that would be to take dating and meeting people off the table for the moment. I want you to pay very close attention to the fact that I said “for the moment”. This isn’t a permanent situation; it’s just a matter of not expending your limited resources in areas that aren’t a priority right now… no matter how dire things feel. Think of it like a space ship venturing into unknown territory; you want most of the available power to life support, shields, navigation and sensors, not the ice maker or the music system in the officer’s lounge.
Taking dating off the table and instead focusing on recovering from your break up and getting settled and locked in for your first year at law school is going to make things easier for you, because it gives you one less thing to have to deal with. Instead of having to plan for a future you’re imagining out of a sense of fear and loss, you simply have to trust yourself that you’ll be able to figure things out when the actual need arises. And because I know what you’re about to say: that self-trust is going to be built by handling the things that are going to be more important and more immediate and based on the now, not the imagined future.
When you are more settled – both in terms of getting over your break up and having a firmer grasp on what your first year as a law student will demand of you – then you’ll have a better idea of how much flexibility and available resources you have to expend towards dating. You’ll be in a much better place to know what you can offer and what’s going to be too much for you. When that point comes, then you can start thinking about meeting people. And again, I want you to pay attention to my words here: meeting people, not finding a girlfriend. Meeting people and having a social life is going to be far more conducive to opportunities to meet people you might want to date. And when you do meet people that you may want to date, here’s what you do: you talk to them. You make friends. You get to know them as people, rather than focusing like a laser on whether they’re someone you’ll want to spend the rest of your life with.
Over the course of getting to know them, you may decide that they’re someone who is, in fact, worth your time and that you’re interested in them as a potential date. That’s when you invite them to do something that lets the two of you spend time together and – ideally – doing some sort of activity. It may be going to play pool or skee-ball. It may be going to a museum or a gallery showing. It may be just taking a walk in the park and getting ice cream between classes. None of it requires the level of overthinking you’re currently engaged in.
Now I am going to give you something to hold in your back pocket for when you do meet someone you actually want to date and have the time and bandwidth to pursue something with: you were not an entirely passive participant in your relationships. You didn’t just sit there like a lump and suddenly someone grabbed you by the hand and said “hi, we’re dating now”. If you stop and look at it honestly and objectively, you’ll notice that you were talking with them, spending time with them, hanging out and building connections. They may have taken the steps of initiating the change in your relationship – from casual acquaintance or friend to lover – but it didn’t happen without your participation. You have the skills you need to find a new partner. You’ve already demonstrated this. The only thing you may need to do in the future is to be willing to say “hey, I would like to date you”. And honestly: that’s really all it takes. You make the offer, just as your exes did with you, and they say “yes” or “no”, just like you did.
It doesn’t need to be smoother than a jar of Skippy. It doesn’t need to be cooler than a penguin’s nuts. You just have to make it clear that you like them in ways that aren’t platonic and you’d like a relationship with them. Even if it’s a little awkward or cringe, if they’re into you, that’ll just make it charming.
So calm down, divert power to primary systems and just focus on what’s right in front of you. You’ll get through this. I promise.
You’ve got this.
All will be well.
My relationship with my wife seems to be falling apart and I, with my hand to God, don’t know why. I don’t think we’re heading for divorce or anything yet but there’s been so much tension between us lately that I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t a possibility lurking in the back of my mind.
I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I am doing everything right, but it feels like literally every choice I make is wrong, simply because I’m the one making it.
To give an example, she’ll come home from work and want to talk about work, then complain that I’m not listening. I absolutely am, I can even repeat what she said to me word for word. This doesn’t seem to count because. Won’t explain why she thinks I’m not listening, just says I’m not. I even make a point of not giving advice, just nodding and saying things to show I’m listening.
Another example; she’ll talk about how there’s a movie she wants to go see or a band playing at a small venue. I’m frequently busy at those times because I tend to be on call on weekend nights, so I offer to buy her the tickets so she can go see it with a friend. I figure at least I’m not keeping her from doing the things she wants and I can provide her with the chance to go. She decides she isn’t interested after all and stays home, but I can feel her frustration and anger in the air. Meanwhile I’m sitting here grateful that I didn’t spend money just to have her be upset at me.
It’s all little things but all those little things have led to a heavy atmosphere in our home like a rain cloud that follows her around whenever I’m involved.
So ok fine, it’s my fault some how, but she can’t explain what’s going on and I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, so I can’t fix it. I don’t want her upset and I don’t like that I’m upsetting her, but I swear to Christ I have no idea what I’m fucking doing wrong! If I knew, I’d stop doing it!
Tell me Doc, what’s the problem here? Am I being an asshole? Is she picking fights? Something’s up and I don’t know why. Please help.
Asshole For Unknown Reasons
The good news, AFUR, is that I don’t think you’re on the verge of divorce, and this is a fairly simple problem.
That’s it actually. There’s not really any bad news here that you don’t already know about.
It sounds like there’s a communication issue more than anything else and if you can resolve that, then hopefully you can get things on a more positive track. But it’s that communication problem that’s turning everything into one big, continual snarl of hurt feelings.
The key to solving any conflict in your relationship is first to correctly identify what the conflict is about. This is why I so often say “the problem you have isn’t the problem you think you have”; because folks misidentify what’s going on and end up trying to solve the wrong problem.
This isn’t about you being an asshole, AFUR, it’s about not understanding what your wife is asking for. You end up feeling like (or inadvertently acting like) an asshole because there’s a fundamental miscommunication going on that’s getting in the way of things.
Let’s take the “you’re not listening” issue as an example. This isn’t a case of not “listening” so much as “not hearing and understanding what I’m trying to say”, which is a different thing entirely. Under a lot of circumstances, the issue is going into “problem-solver” mode when your partner is actually just asking for you to listen and let them vent. But that’s not always the case, and there’re a number of times where someone’s just not catching what’s being asked for. One thing that is helpful to figuring out what’s needed is to pay attention to the language being used. What emotions are being expressed? If there’s a lot of words about how your wife is feeling or things she’s experiencing, then what your wife is most likely looking from you is sympathy and reassurance, possibly even comfort. If she’s bringing up details and data – facts, numbers, that sort of thing – then there very well may be a request for actual advice or assistance in some form.
Would it be easier if everyone would say exactly what they want out of a conversation? Sure. But if we all were that cool and collected and rational at all times, I wouldn’t be doing this job. People are messy, and sometimes we aren’t even sure what we are trying to say or have the right words for it. Sometimes we’re even used to having to circle around what we want because we’ve been trained by experience that asking for what we need just gets ignored or worse.
But it’s important to remember you’re just as capable of using your words as your wife is, and you can use your words to get clarity. There’s absolutely no reason that you can’t say “ok, what can I do to help?” or “Would you like a practical solution or would you like tea and sympathy?” It can feel a little odd to ask, I know, but that momentary awkwardness is going to get a hell of a lot more accomplished than guessing or assuming a default response.
That same issue – not hearing what the other person is saying or asking for – is why your wife is upset when she tries to make plans. The problem isn’t the plans, it’s what the plans mean. It’s a little like the perennial classic of “I want you to want to do the dishes”; the issue isn’t the dishes need to get cleaned, it’s that the person saying this wants their partner to actively notice that the dishes need to get cleaned and to take care of them so their partner isn’t always on dish duty. It’s not an issue of whether or not dishes went into the dishwasher, it’s feeling like they’re a partner in this relationship instead of feeling like they’re about to have a whole horde of cartoon mice singing “Cinderelly, Cinderelly, night and day it’s Cinderelly…”
That’s the thing that you’re not catching, here. She’s not proposing plans or suggesting going to things because she wants to experience those things – not entirely, anyway. The problem is that she’s trying to make plans with you and you’re batting them away without realizing it.
The thing you’re missing is that these offers, going to the movies, going to see a band, and so on, are what marriage-expert Dr. John Gottman calls “bids”. They’re offers and asks for connection or communication. When we refuse or reject those bids, it feels like a rejection or refusal of the person, not the specific offer.
This is one of the reasons why the whole “love languages” thing can be important; they’re a convenient short-hand for understanding how you and your partner both give and receive love. The same thing applies to understanding bids – if you don’t recognize them for what they’re intended to be, you run the risk of hurting your partner’s feelings because you’re basically telling them to stop annoying you with their pesky desire to be close to you.
Your wife has been proposing things for the two of you to do together – to add these to the bank of shared experiences you have been building during your time as a couple. When you say “nah, but here, why don’t you go take Marceline,” you’re refusing that bid for connection and that feels like a rejection of your wife, personally. You don’t intend it, but you’re basically outsourcing connection and shared experiences to another person. And while it’s unquestionably a good thing for everyone in a relationship to have a life and social network that’s outside and independent of the relationship itself, that doesn’t mean that you don’t also want to keep spending time together, too.
Now, there’re practical reasons why you can’t go on the days that she’s proposing – you’re on call, which means there’s a non-zero chance that you’re going to get the signal like Matt Trakker is putting together a team for a mission and you’re gonna have to bail. Fair enough. But the answer here isn’t to refuse the bid, but make a counter-bid – you can’t go on X date because you’ll be on call, so how about you do a different activity on Y date instead when you know you’ll be off the clock? Then you’re not refusing the bid for connection, you’re saying “this isn’t going to be possible for reasons that are out of our control, but I still want to have this sort of experience with you, so how about we try this other thing?”
If it ends up being the case that no, your wife was suggesting that movie or that band because she wants to see it/them specifically, then your offer of “well, I can’t make it but let me facilitate your ability to go” is going to be seen as a different bid, not a refusal.
With all that being said: if this has been going on for a while and things are getting heavy, then just fixing the communication issue is a starting point. You may not realize what you were doing, but that doesn’t mean that acknowledging and apologizing is going to make those hurt feelings vanish into the ether. I think it may not be a bad idea to see about having a couple sessions with a relationship counselor to figure out how you can help ease the hurt you caused inadvertently and to work out a way the two of you can communicate your wants and needs more effectively.
Think of it like a bid for greater connection and understanding. Hopefully, your wife will understand what you’re doing. But maybe be clear about your goal when you pitch it to her.
Good luck.
