Two months ago, I moved out of the apartment I shared with my boyfriend of four years. He’s 24; I’m 22. We were inseparable, so close…until his high school buddies moved to town. He became cold and distant, and told me he wanted to be on his own for a while, but didn’t know if he wanted to break up. I left town to give him space to figure things out. We barely spoke, and when I returned, I bumped into him and his new girlfriend! He said, “It just sorta happened.” I’m sure -- right after I left. I need to know why he lied instead of just admitting there was somebody else. I miss him desperately, and feel lost without him, but I harbor so much bitterness and resentment, I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.
--Seeking Closure
It’s a stage-of-life thing. Guys in their late 40s quit their big job “to spend more time with the family.” Guys in their early 20s quit their big relationship to spend more time with women named Mocha and Destiny who swing around a greased pole.
No, this guy didn’t inform you of his intentions with the emotional maturity and verbal finesse of a thrice-divorced couples therapy junkie: “I’m hearing that you’re not hearing that I’m more into ‘Girls Gone Wild’ than Girls Gone Wifelike.” Men -- particularly men in their early 20s -- tend not to deal well with emotional conflict, especially any that seems guaranteed to lead to uncontrollable weeping. Maybe that’s why, instead of telling you it was over, he only sort of told you -- becoming cold and distant, and suggesting that he merely wanted a little vacation from the relationship, not a permanent escape from Alcatraz. And maybe you didn’t want to know any more than he wanted to tell you, so you ignored the fact that he wasn’t exactly jumping on the couch Tom Cruise-style and shouting, “Four more years! Four more years!”
All that matters now is that it’s over. You don’t need to know why he lied to you. You don’t even know if he lied to you. Chances are, he simply took a look at his friends and realized what he’d become: A 24-year-old guy living the life of a paunchy suburban house-husband -- minus only the mortgage, the bleeding ulcer, and the hearse in the form of a big red minivan. Now, it’s your turn to look at where you’re at: no, not feeling lost without him, but feeling lost without you. Be honest, isn’t fear of having to go it alone where much of this rage is coming from? Maybe now you’ll be forced to do what you should have been doing these past four years -- becoming somebody instead of becoming somebody’s girlfriend.
Your 20s, especially your early 20s, are the time to make a mess of your life -- date the wrong guys, take the wrong jobs, and join and quit the Peace Corps: “Turns out I’m more attached to indoor plumbing than I thought!” Mistakes are cheaper now -- provided they don’t require bail. And sometimes going the wrong way is the only way to find the right way. Besides, if you don’t do dumb things in your 20s, when will you do them? As your kids are going into college? “’Bye, kids, I’m off to hitchhike across Africa to find myself.” “But, Mom…who’s gonna drive me up to move me into my dorm?” “I don’t know, dear, but are you using that backpack?”
December 19, 2006When I was working late, my girlfriend, “Renee,” and her gay best friend, “Eddie,” got drunk and slept in the same bed. Eddie said he’d drunkenly staggered upstairs to her bedroom by accident. Renee said it’s happened many times, he’s “like a brother,” and there's no sex. Two nights later, I went to the emergency room (Renee wouldn't take me). When I returned, Eddie was upstairs again. Renee first denied it. Eddie joked he was “making a head count,” then said he was looking for his dog. I’ve told Renee that if she’s my girlfriend, she can’t get drunk and share a bed with other men, no matter whom. She says I’m putting her “in a box,” and dismisses my feelings (as usual). Am I wrong to believe that, even if there’s no sex, two adults sleeping in the same bed is intimacy Renee should save for me?
--Her Straight Boyfriend
Let’s not confuse Bukowski with Nora Roberts. Your blotto girlfriend and her equally shellacked buddy sleeping it off on the same bed isn’t “intimacy,” it’s flophouse sweat and dumpster breath times two.
Don’t be too quick to take refuge in the sparkly Teflon of Eddie’s homo-hood. With two people blind-drunk in bed, who can be expected to remember (or care) who plays for which team? Cozy turns cuddly, bodies start rubbing together, and the next day your girlfriend’s muttering to herself, “How odd…I dreamt Eddie was in my bed saying, ‘My, my, Brad, what big man-boobs you have!’”
So, is it wrong for Renee to turn her bed into the skid-row Sheraton? Well, apparently, it isn’t wrong for Renee. Or, maybe it’s neither wrong nor right for Renee, and simply part of a drinking problem: Adult swim in a fish tank of gin turns into an adult slumber party -- not so much by choice, but because Eddie managed to grope his way to a mattress with a warm body on it instead of spending the night facedown, drooling into the living room rug.
Not unexpectedly, you find it troubling -- a dealbreaker, even -- that your girlfriend regularly spoons some hairy drunk who marks your side of the bed with his man smell. When you inform her of this, she acts like you’ve just issued an edict forbidding her to leave the house unless she’s wearing one of those pup tents with a peephole. But, are you putting her “in a box”? Of course you are -- the box where a guy’s girlfriend is free to see other men socially, except when she’s half-naked and lying in bed.
In a relationship, there are two people’s feelings to consider. In this one, there are hers and Eddie’s. Where does that leave you? Well, for starters, hitchhiking to get medical attention while they’re back at her place playing Barbie’s Dream House (with wet bar). Excuse me, but a woman you call your girlfriend packs you off to the emergency room solo and you come back for more? Notice anything missing here, such as even the slightest show of concern for you or the relationship? Clearly, your priorities are different. It seems you’re looking for love. For her, “Let’s get drunk and pass out together!” takes precedence. The only question you should be asking now is “Why am I still here?” It’s a big world out there, filled with single women. Perhaps there are better ways to spend your time than hoping your girlfriend and her man in chaps will pop out from under the covers with a more promising sort of excuse, such as, “Actually, we’re right in the middle of an AA meeting!”
December 10, 2006I’m 23 and married just over a year. Six months ago, before my husband and I moved so I could start law school, I slept with an older attorney, a co-worker. I was wracked with guilt and confessed to my husband. Now, he’s constantly depressed, angry, and insecure, and I’ve happily buried myself in my studies, trying to forget that another outburst awaits at home. I regret what I did, but I don’t need to be constantly reminded. I can’t help feeling I married too young. I still love my husband although I don’t feel “in love” with him, but I stubbornly refuse to admit failure, and hold out hope things will work out. I’m overextended with studying, and keep waking up with a sinking feeling that something needs to be done. But what?
--Silently Stewing
You take the relaxed approach to marital reconciliation -- simply holding out hope things will work out. You might apply this strategy elsewhere in your life; say, to home remodeling projects. Yes, forget drills, saws, and socket wrenches. Hire psychic construction workers, ply them with beer and Chex Party Mix, and have them spend the day holding out hope your kitchen cabinets will grow new doors.
Your marital problems probably started with an equally relaxed approach to thinking -- a failure to use your head as more than a staging area for your hair. In this, you’re not alone. A lot of people, especially those in their 20s, make life-shifting decisions without really thinking them through. Take that pledge, “Till death do us part,” as in, “I’ll never, ever have sex with anyone but this man.” Can you seriously promise that or be counted on to make any decisions of lasting consequence at 22 -- in lifetime terms, essentially 22 minutes after you’ve recovered from being blind-drunk at prom?
Your approach to cheating seems just as "yeah, whatever." What was the idea here, you’d have sex with this hotshot attorney, hop out of bed, and blithely be on your way? Oops, what’s that thing following you home? Look, it’s a little black blob of guilt! You tucked it away in your purse. But, like Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua Tinkerbell, which she dumped on her mother after it got Tinker-huge, your guilt soon outgrew your handbag. Next thing you knew, you were giving a piggyback ride to a black blob the size of a Barcalounger. “Yoohoo…Honey…” After all, what’s a husband for besides hauling your oversized baggage around?
Now, there’s a creative take on justice: You do the crime, somebody else does the time. (Your future clients should be so lucky.) Meanwhile, you can’t quite get what, exactly, the big deal is. You said you were sorry; how come your husband’s still lying there on the front walk like Humpty Dumpty? Um, just a guess, but it might have something to do with all the effort you’re investing in rebuilding his trust and the marriage you exploded; or, as you put it, “stubbornly refus(ing) to admit failure” (while stubbornly avoiding doing anything else).
Ask yourself what’s really tragic, a marriage that ends or a marriage that goes on too long? Maybe the best you can do is turn this into a learning experience, and resolve to take a leap second/look first approach to life. This isn’t always foolproof, but even if it doesn’t stop you from, say, marrying too young, maybe you could get unmarried in a kinder, gentler way -- maybe by informing your husband it isn’t working, and parting friends. And, wow, maybe that’s what love is -- getting out of what love was supposed to be without mashing the other person’s ego into gruel.