Dear Nicka:

You shared that you are fairly recently divorced, a mother to a 6 year old, shared custody. You re-entered the dating scene in mid-January this year, started seeing a younger man. After a few weeks together, he left the country and had sexual interactions with another woman (or more) in that country. He told you that he assumed you were “doing the same, an assumption based in nothing”. When that happened, you “felt drained and doubtful”, and you gave him a very long list of questions and concerns that you wanted him to address, detailing your fears and doubts, wanting him to assure you that he will be honest with you in the future, and refrain from hurting you again.

Discussing the list on the phone was short, “He didnt want to talk about any of it.. and then totally withdrew, ignoring my calls and texts, unable to be reached”. At times he responded to you, and at one of those times, you wrote” “He called me a psychopath but said he missed me”. Eventually the communication died out altogether, leaving you “totally over him”, but also embarrassed.

After that, you met your now 45 year old boyfriend (“possibly ex”), who stays at his sister’s home in an upstairs bedroom, “and mostly reads and paints”. He was never married and has no kids. The two of you started as friends in art school (both having returned to school to get your respective degrees). Over time, “feelings started to grow”.

“He seemed different from a lot of my previous choices in men, but I slowly began to see that he wasn’t that different, after all”. He is a good listener, artistic, a great lover, and seems to care a great deal about you, but sometimes he made “off handed comments” that hurt you, and while watching movies, he openly fawned over actresses he found attractive, even though you told him that your ex-husband blatantly stared at women in your presence, and your boyfriend commented that he “felt this to be really disrespectful”.

You talked with him about it, and he said that “he would try to filter himself a bit”. He also told you: “that he is an adult and can make his own choices and that we’re too old to be trying to change certain habits if we don’t want to; it is not my job to change or control him”. Later, during an argument while he drank too much, he “alluded a bit angrily to having to filter himself” for you. It was a “very long and draining argument”.

The other night you joined him and his family to a party by the pool, had too much caffeine before hand, then drank too much and .. well, I read the story (I enjoyed your sense of humor, by the way).

You asked: “What do you think I need to see and hear out of all of this?”-

My answer:

1. As you make practical choices in life, including whether to end this relationship or not- choose what will minimize your stress level, which I think should be your highest priority, for your own well being and for your daughter “who is having some serious growing pains with the divorce, Covid-19, and a frequently stressed out mom“.

2. You mentioned your lack of social support: “a frequently stressed out mom who has no other family or friends around.. I don’t have anyone else to confide in about this”- if you find my input helpful, keep posting here and I will be glad to read from you and reply every time you post.

* Now, my comments regarding the relationships you described:

– the first man, it was not effective to give him a long, or very long list of your questions and concerns, fears and doubts. There was an assumption on your part that he is able and willing to process all that information and come up with a plan of action that will take care of your long list of issues with him and otherwise. I very much doubt that he was that capable. Even if he was a capable psychotherapist, he would have been way less capable in the context of a personal relationship. You gave him too much credit, giving him that list and attempting to discuss it.

– the second man, like you implied, he is quite immature, but he reads like a good guy. You see him as worse than he is; again, giving him too much credit in a negative way. His easy going lifestyle/young age lifestyle may be a benefit to you, in comparison to being involved with a very mature, busy and very uptight man.

– you are overly critical of the men, expecting some kind of impossible perfection from them. Not that any of the men was even close to any idea of perfection, but your expectations are unreasonable. You watch them too closely, looking for reasons to get suspicious and offended, not giving them the space to just be. You expect them to remember everything you told them at all times, be focused, and filter themselves accordingly, on an ongoing basis- an impossible task for a human (possible for a computerized robot).

Having this unrealistic human-behavior expectation would make a healthy and lasting relationship with any man, including one who is almost perfect- an impossibility.

– reads to me that you are over-reactive at times, to put it mildly, earning yourself the term “psychopath” that the first man mentioned and the what the second man referred to as your violence (“he still tried to.. play up my ‘violence'”). A daily routine of aerobic exercise, like long, brisk daily walks, listening to guided meditations and practicing Mindfulness can help you to pause between feeling triggered and reacting/ over-reacting to the feeling.

anita