Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
This has been on my mind for a while – how do I stop my past experiences from affecting my chances at love in the future?
It’s hard for me to describe my life because I’ve become quite numb to what I’ve been through. I think most people would probably see it as extreme or traumatic.
From childhood, I’ve often felt like I didn’t quite fit in, and that sense of disconnection has continued into adulthood. I’ve tended to hold on to relationships longer than was healthy, even when it was clear they weren’t right for me. When those relationships eventually ended, it was often messy, and I was sometimes left feeling as though I was the one to blame. As a result, I’ve never really had a stable or consistent friendship group. I’ve maintained contact with a small number of friends over the years, but even those connections have been somewhat irregular.
My romantic history has largely involved emotionally complicated relationships. In a number of cases, I’ve been involved with partners who had their own unresolved difficulties, and several relationships ended abruptly or in ways that were distressing. In a few instances, situations escalated into serious disputes, including accusations or conflicts that cannot be justified. There were also occasions where trust and boundaries became significant issues. A recurring pattern seems to be that most partners brought prior negative experiences into the relationship, which may have contributed to instability or miscommunication between us. I’ve kept the details intentionally general for my own safety, but I want to make it clear that I’ve never engaged in any inappropriate behaviour. In fact, despite the circumstances, I’ve always dealt with matters calmly, and exited as soon as it was safe to do so.
Professionally, I’ve also experienced a significant setback, as I lost employment following allegations of serious misconduct. I was able to provide evidence supporting my position and was ultimately cleared through formal processes, including regulatory review and legal proceedings I pursued myself. However, the impact of those situations has continued to affect my ability to find work. No smoke without fire, as it were.
More recently, I was alone for a period of time with a woman I had been friends with for about two years – she had suddenly developed a deep resentment toward men after a breakup, and things became unhealthy when I refused intimacy. Not long after that, someone anonymously contacted me online accusing me of hurting people and of rape.
Reading this, someone might wonder what kind of person goes through all of this. Am I a bad or harmful person? Are any of these things true? I don’t believe so. I’ve dedicated much of my life to working with people, supporting their development and wellbeing, and I teach a hobby, bringing some enjoyment into people’s lives. I’m also retraining in an area that would better position me to support others, as I genuinely want to see the world a better place. I’m well-educated. I’m very self-reflective. Outside of that, I do fairly ordinary things, and I tend to spend most of my time alone. I’ve never done drugs. I’ve never physically harmed anyone. I’ve never committed a crime. I’m not argumentative or aggressive – when conflict arises, I attempt to resolve it peacefully. From the outside looking in, you wouldn’t think I had experienced the things that I have. The people who hurt me? They’ve moved on with their lives, surrounded by friends, dating around, in long-term relationships, have children and so on, seemingly with no consequence.
Throughout all of these experiences, I’m still living in the home where I experienced abuse as a child. It’s been incredibly difficult to leave without stable employment or a strong support network. Through therapy, I’ve come to understand that my relationship with my parents was challenging, and that many of my later experiences have reinforced a deep sense of “not being good enough”. None of that abuse is active now, but it’s hard to heal in the environment in which it took place.
Objectively, my life has improved a lot over the past couple of years. I’m starting to develop a more secure sense of who I am and build healthier friendships – slowly but steadily – although I know I can still be somewhat closed off at times. I’ve made progress with emotional healing, and have started to feel my emotions deeply and have cried a lot. The people I surround myself with seem to like, and even admire, me.
Still, I now feel afraid of getting close to a woman. People often ask if I’m seeing anyone, perhaps because, on the surface, I seem like a decent, put-together person. It’s not that I think I’m unworthy of love; it’s that I don’t really know how to relate. Most women I meet seem to have had stable support systems, active social lives, and a wide range of life experiences. I worry about what happens if they ask about my childhood or my work history. What happens when they realise I only have one or two close friends? If I ever spoke about my experiences, would I be believed? Am I even choosing the right person, given that my judgement around “green flags” feels unreliable? Can I still be vulnerable without it being used against me, or without overwhelming the other person?
I feel like I’m performing a version of myself that doesn’t quite match how I feel inside. I don’t know what to do with all this baggage. I live a life of fear, either that these people will come back to hurt me, or that I’ll walk right back into another hurtful situation. I haven’t been on a date in a few years now.
Past Isn’t Merely Prologue
There’s a saying that’s come up in the column before: if one person calls you a horse, you’ve met a crazy person.
If three people call you a horse, it may be time to check out some saddles.
The point of this saying isn’t “if enough people say you’re something, they’re probably right”, it’s that if something keeps happening to you, consistently, then you need to do some self-exploration and trying to figure out what’s going on and what – if anything – you’re doing that’s contributing to it. It’s a variation of “the most common denominator in all your relationships is you”; you are the only thing that’s present in 100% of every relationship you’ll ever have, after all. So, if the same or similar situations keep coming up, especially if they have a consistent or very similar arc, then it’s important to do some introspection and figure out what’s going on. If you don’t, then you’re all but insuring that they’re going to keep reoccurring.
A person who consistently ends up in toxic relationships, for example, may well need to look deep within and see if there’s something about those partners that correlates to their toxicity and that’s what’s drawing them in. But at the same time, there’s also every possibility that their partners aren’t necessarily the ones who are toxic but ones who are reacting to the person’s behavior in the relationships.
This is hard to do, because it requires being willing to be very honest with yourself, in ways that can be difficult to achieve. It is very difficult to take an honest and sincere look at oneself because our self-concept can and does color our perceptions. This is true for both positive and negative self-concepts; someone who thinks of themselves as a pathetic loser is going to have a hard time seeing how much they’ve accomplished and what they’re capable of. Someone who thinks of themselves as a Good Person or The Only Sane Man can have a difficult time seeing the ways that they’ve caused harm or contributed to making things worse. Taking honest stock of the situation can be hard, because it requires being willing to accept that you may be wrong about things and about things in particular that are very close to your sense of self and identity.
Part of getting around this is to look at the facts, the things that are objectively true, and to ignore the parts that aren’t relevant, subjective or only serve as a distraction. Talking about the people who have wronged or accused you living good lives while you’re wracked with worry is an example of this. This is an example of the just-world fallacy – the assumption that bad people are punished for their sins – and ultimately neither relevant nor particularly helpful. One way or another, if they’re not a continuing presence in your life or an active factor, then whether they’re living the life of Riley or wailing and gnashing their teeth doesn’t really matter.
In this case the things that seem to be objectively true is that all of your relationships up until recently, personal and professional, seem to have been tumultuous and end with a great deal of drama and strife. Friendships seemed to fall apart regularly, relationships seem to end with all sorts of dire accusations. Even your professional life seems to follow a similar pattern, which include serious allegations and various investigations. The fact that these things keep happening suggests that maybe there’s another factor you’re missing. This doesn’t automatically mean that you’re guilty as charged and lying about it, but rather that there’s some contributing factor here that you’re not seeing. Trying to identify that so you can correct for it will be a critical part about whether you’re able to move forward or not.
But that’s about as far as I can go because you’re really not making it easy to actually help you. You’re asking questions that I can’t answer, because you have left out a lot of information that’s going to be a hell of a lot more relevant than whether women are going to think that it’s weird if they learn you only have one or two close friends.
Let’s address a rather obvious elephant in the room: you’re being incredibly vague about what happened – in those relationships and with your work – and that’s contributing to the problem in a couple of ways. The most obvious is that it gets in the way of actually addressing what happened and what role you may have had… in no small part because that vagueness suggests things you may not want suggested. That lack of directness carries a sense of dishonesty and cover-up, and it’s going to lead folks to certain conclusions. And I will be blunt: the way you dance around the topic and use euphemisms strongly suggests accusations of cheating, harassment, assault or worse, and I can guarantee I’m not the only person who came to this conclusion almost immediately.
And this is precisely the issue with being vague: if it wasn’t as bad as all that, then your vagueness works against you.
I understand that you’re trying to avoid both being identified and also wanting to avoid a knee-jerk reaction that people may have to certain topics. The problem is that dancing around things leads them right to those possibilities and, moreover, makes it seem more plausible that you’re guilty as charged. Bringing up topics like “my exes brought previous negative experiences and that contributed to their misunderstandings” ends up coming off as defensive and, for a lot of people, like you’re trying to pass the blame off onto someone else. Whether that’s what you’re doing or not is beside the point – this is what your vagueness is going to lead people to think, especially considering how consistent these issues seem to have come up. That’s not going to help in any way, shape or form – not in managing your reputation, not in figuring out what’s going on or what to do about any of it – whether that includes making necessary amends or moving past false allegations.
Without that relevant information, and it is relevant, people are going to draw their own conclusions. Without any other details or data to work with, there are no boundaries for what conclusions people are going to draw. That means that you’re setting yourself up for the likelihood that people are going to assume the worst, which works against your ostensible goals. If, for example, the issue at work was that you were accused of embezzlement or some form of malpractice, then you don’t want people to leap to assuming that you harassed or groped someone at the company picnic. Similarly, saying “I was cleared by regulatory review and legal proceedings I initiated myself” doesn’t make you sound like you were proven innocent, it sounds like you filed a lawsuit, which isn’t going to help matters.
At the same time, without knowing what people are accusing you of, there’re very few ways to meaningfully address what the issue might be, if it is the case that it’s all been a long string of bad luck, malfeasance or absurdly poor communication skills or what. If it truly is a case that you kept dating people who had past trauma, mental health issues or who just weren’t in a place where they were healthy enough to date, then all this vagueness only serves to make it harder to address the question of why you kept dating these people and what drew you to them in the first place.
Similarly, there’s no real way to say that you will or won’t be able to move forward, in part because I have no way of knowing what the fuck you’re trying to move forward from, regardless of whether it’s deserved or not. Will women believe you if they “find out” about your past? Not if you’re talking about it like this.
And here’s the thing: it’s not impossible that you’re drawn to people who are either not stable or who will lash out at others because of the trauma and abuse you suffered as a kid. Growing up in a chaotic and harmful environment could well have affected your ability to connect or communicate clearly and cause a metric fuck load of issues surrounding boundaries, communication, compatibility and conflict management, which could create a situation where these things keep happening and will keep happening until you address them and correct them. But without knowing what the hell you’re talking about or what happened, there’s no way to be able to say.
If you want people to believe you’re more than what your past suggests – rightly or wrongly – then you’re going to need to live your life with integrity and in alignment with your values and your highest good. Your actions and behavior – your daily lived behavior, not a performance – is going to say far more about who you are now than anything else. But you’re still going to have to be able to talk about it, and do so with clarity instead of hoping to talk around it.
If you want to be able to make a case for why things weren’t your fault, why your past reputation was incorrect or even why you’re not the person you were back then, you’re going to have to be willing to address things openly, frankly and succinctly. You’re going to have to be able to discuss what happened and why, how it came about and what you’ve done in order to actually address the issues and – if necessary – how you’ve been making amends or trying to make things better. And even then, people may simply not believe you. It may not be fair, but it is what it is. You’re just going to have to accept that as their prerogative.
But again: I can’t answer these questions, simply because you aren’t willing to say what the hell happened. Until you’re ready, willing and able to talk about it, there’s simply no way to address it or move forward.
Dear Doc,
I’ve been dating a young woman (she’s 24, I’m 31), my first and longest relationship in a few years. As often happens, she’s starting to ask a lot of questions about “what are we” and wanting to put a label on our relationship. I’ve been holding off because I don’t see what the big deal is about labels. My girlfriend is getting upset that I don’t take this seriously, but I just don’t understand what the fuss is about. We’re both adults, we both know what we’re doing, why do we need to put a label on this. Am I just being wrong and stubborn for no reason (as many of her friends seem to think?) or am I right and this is just a pointless fight? What’s the deal with labels?
Labels Are For Products Not People
There’s already a label on your relationship, LAFPNP: it’s “situationship”. And that’s not a label your lady friend is understandably not fond of.
As wizards and mages know: names have power and to name something is to contain and define it. Giving a label to your relationship gives it shape and definition, sets expectation and tells others how to understand it, while also guiding the people within that relationship.
The reason why your lady friend wants to define the relationship is because she wants to know what you have and what to expect. She is looking for not just clarity but intention, a sense of where you both are and what you’re both seeing and expecting. Giving it a name – saying that you’re her boyfriend, her partner, something – gives not just weight but relief; it creates a structure around which one can fit one’s expectations. Calling you her boyfriend, for example, suggests a level of commitment and longevity; you may not be on the path to marriage, but it’s also understood that you are seeing this as something significant in your life. There’s the expectation of care and connection, and of giving one another priority in ways that you wouldn’t give a stranger or someone where your primary (or possibly only) connection is sex.
The fact that you’re holding off and resisting things carries the feeling that you’re doing so because you’re not committed or interested in taking this seriously. Whether you sincerely dislike labels or not, the way you’re pushing back doesn’t suggest that you’re standing on principles, it suggests that you’ve got one foot out the door and you’re trying to avoid anything that would slow you down from leaving. Or that you’re trying to avoid telling her what you actually want, because you know that if you do, she’ll dump you like fifth period French.
Now maybe I’m wrong and you’re avoiding labels because you feel that they’re inaccurate and what you consider “commitment” may be different from hers. Maybe you’re worried that things are moving too fast and that’s bothering you. Or you think that the term “boyfriend” is juvenile when you’re in your 30s. But if that’s the case, then you’re not doing yourself any favors. Ironically enough, in trying to avoid that conflict, you’re only creating more, and conflict that didn’t need to happen in the first place.
If you are committed to her and this relationship, then I suggest you sit down and actually have that “defining the relationship” conversation. Even if you dislike labels, you should talk about what this relationship means to you, what you expect, what you can offer and can’t offer. You want to talk about things like exclusivity or non-monogamy and what those may entail, to make sure you’re both on the same page. And, if it turns out that you and she have different and incompatible ideas of what you want from this relationship and how you see it moving forward, then you’ll know it’s time to wind things down and move on.
But just reflexively resisting labels isn’t going to preserve the status quo. All that’s going to happen is that you’ll be increasing the sense of disconnection and estrangement she’s clearly already feeling, and at some point she’s going to reach a tipping point. When that moment comes, one of two things are going to happen: she’s either going to call the question and give you an ultimatum, or she’s going to just leave. Neither of these are good outcomes, and both are likely to lead to the same place.
If you actually like her and value this relationship, then you need to have that DTR convo, even if you don’t give it a particular label. It may also be worth asking yourself if the label really matters that much to you, and if so, why, because it clearly matters that much to her. If you’re intending to stand on principle no matter what… well, that’s your call. But you better hope that’s a consolation when you’re suddenly single again.
Good luck.
