Help, I Keep Falling in Love With People I Can’t Have!

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

I’ve been single for about 6 or 7 years, been getting back into dating and putting myself out there for the last year and a half of that.

I had a quite severe (felt like it, anyway) romantic setback early last year while dating a non-monogamous man. He was kind, sweet, funny and every time he would touch me, it was as if my whole body was on fire.

But then he ended it because he was in the middle of a career change and only had bandwidth for his main partner. And I’ve realised that I’ve come to resent him. Because before dating him, I didn’t know what it felt like to hunger for someone’s touch and now, every time I try and date someone and I don’t feel that, I just get an overwhelming feeling of disappointment.

It’s like being single and dating was actually kind of fun when I didn’t realise what I was missing. But now I do know, every date I go on where I don’t get that feeling just feels like a letdown.

And that, on its own, wouldn’t be so bad but I’ve started working on a stage production and I feel an overwhelming attraction to my director. He draws me in when he talks about art and theatre and politics. I get that same rush when we go out for drinks after a show.

I don’t know if this is me just wishing for things but there have been times when we would be in a group of people and I would catch him looking at me. And the only other time I can recall someone looking at me in that way was when I would catch my ex-boyfriend watching me get dressed. And when he looks at me that way, I feel naked but not exposed if that makes sense.

But he’s in a loving and committed relationship with someone else. So, you can imagine how devastated I feel right now.

I don’t know why I’m so stupid. I seem to keep falling for people I can’t have. I actually plucked up enough courage to ask a woman at a bar out a couple of weeks ago and she had a boyfriend.

I guess what I’m looking for is advice on how to continue to put myself out there when it feels like I’m some damaged, leftover loser who keeps gravitating to people who don’t want me.

Thanks,

Tired And Lonely

So, what you’re experiencing is pretty common in the aftermath of a relationship ending. It’s more intense in part because the last man you were seeing reminded you of what you’re missing after you hadn’t had it for so long and now you’re rather understandably worried that you’re not going to find it again. So now you’re in that uncomfortable place of missing what you had, knowing that this level of intense attraction is out there and feeling especially left out because your previous partner – intentionally or otherwise – reminded you that he had a primary relationship, and that wasn’t with you.

It’s never a good time when a relationship ends, but sometimes those break ups feel like you’re being told that you aren’t as important as someone else, and that often comes across like your ex putting a little extra stink on it. So I’m not surprised you’re feeling especially low at the moment.

But I wonder if that feeling low isn’t running a little deeper than just that break up. Often, when we realize that we just “happen” to pursue people who are unavailable or who we know aren’t suitable partners, there’s an element of self-sabotage involved. Sometimes this is because we don’t feel “worthy” of a partner who would actually return our feelings. Other times, it’s a perverse form of self-protection; there’s some part of you that feels like getting into a relationship right now would be bad – for suitably personal definitions of “bad” – and your subconscious is directing you to relationships that are inherently “safe” because you know at some level that they can’t work out.

So I think it’s worth asking just where your head’s at with how you’re feeling about yourself and about dating. Is it possible that your ex’s break up has hit you particularly hard or managed to score a critical hit on your self-esteem without meaning to? Were you possibly feeling particularly unlovable or undesirable and his ending the relationship just managed to poke that particular wound?

Another possibility to consider is that what you’re experiencing with your director is a tale that’s as old as theater itself. Performances – on stage, on TV, on the big silver screen – are high-pressure, high-intensity environments, with a lot of stress, a lot of intense demands on your time and attention and a whole lot of pent up energy and frustration that often has nowhere to go. These intense situations are often bonding experiences for everyone who works in them, but they’re also notorious for spawning tumultuous and tempestuous feelings. After all, all those emotions that’ve been shoved into the pressure cooker are gonna have to go somewhere – often messily and all over the place. There’s a reason why showmances happen so frequently between members of the cast and the crew, and why they tend to fizzle as soon as the production is over. They’re like a summer storm: intense, loud, chaotic and over almost as fast as they begin.

So it’s entirely possible that your white-hot attraction to your director is as much a matter of circumstance as it is a tendency to chase after partnered people.

Now, what I would suggest that you do right now is to take a deep breath and do your best to center yourself. When people are especially caught up in a maelstrom of very large, very loud feels – such as, say, crushes and crushing despair after a break up – it becomes harder to actually stay rational and keep a level of perspective. There’s an understandable tendency to round things up beyond what the evidence actually says – such as taking a string of bad luck and assuming that it’s much worse than it feels. It would be good to take a moment, try to find some stillness inside yourself and ask, as objectively as you can, if it really is that you’re constantly pursuing people who you can’t have or if you had a couple recent experiences that just feel like it’s every time you put yourself out there.

Now if it really is the case that your radar is pinging on unavailable people almost exclusively, then it’s probably worth taking a look inwards and seeing how you’re feeling about yourself in general. Much like jealousy, this sort of behavior is often a sort of check-engine light; maybe it’s just the gas cap needs to be tightened, but maybe there’s something in the transmission that needs to be looked at.

But if it isn’t – if it’s just recency bias rearing its head and making things feel more frequent than they actually are – then my advice is to take a moment and remind yourself that just because something feels obvious and true doesn’t mean that it is. Then I’d take some of that feeling – feeling desired, feeling like you’re skin is being set on fire in the best way possible – and realize that this isn’t fantasy, it’s you remembering that people have made you feel this way, that they felt this way about you in the past and will do so again. And then take that energy and plow it both into the play… and possibly even into some of your fellow crew members.

Just, y’know. Not the director. Theater is theater, but you don’t need that sort of drama.

Good luck.

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Hi, I thought my boyfriend family were lovely people when I first met them. There were a few awkward moments. For example they are really passive and do not communicate with each other. We went on a camping trip and they sat in silence for the most part. However, the more I hang out with them, I notice passive communication between each other. His mom was fine, but I would notice small things and eventually there was a flip. She would bring up other girls that my boyfriend knew in childhood or through a friend, but did not have a relationship with. I’m his first girlfriend and first everything. I don’t think she is aware of that. These women also have more similarities with her.

Me and his sister had a conversation about PCOS and fibroids and trying to heal it by losing weight. Out of nowhere [his mother] said I was chunky and started laughing. Which me and everyone in the room paused to. She noticed our reaction, then looked to her son and asked if I said something rude and gave puppy eyes. He didn’t want her to feel guilty, so he said “no”. However, after we talked he called her and told her what she said was rude. He thought her comment was wrong, but felt caught off guard. This doesn’t matter, but I’m 5”4 and 140lb. I have what looks like a bbl body, but because my fibroids grown because of stress from work, I got some belly fat. However, it still wasn’t chunky comment level, especially considering everyone’s weight in the room.

These comments made me have body dysmorphia and arguments with my boyfriend. We sleep at his parents’ house when we visit. They have blowup mattresses. We live together, so we are used to cuddling together. One of the blowup mattresses she gave us had a whole that we were sleeping together on deflated eventually. She kept saying that when she used it, it lasted her a week… I thought this was a joke and didn’t want to bring up that we were cuddling and sleeping on one mattress.

I’m not exactly sure what problem she has with me. Her son is 28yrs old and I’m 24yrs old. We are both full grown adults, but for some reason she has a strange attachment to her son. Even though my boyfriend is a people pleaser, he is not a mama’s boy. However, she trying desperately hard for him to be. A couple weeks before that visit they met a woman in a store that said daughters in laws ruin everything so that probably got in her head.

She is also jealous when he spends money on me and when we travel together. They have a family group chat that they talk on every day, but she calls twice a week. I have heard their conversations together, and when my boyfriend talks about me, she circles it back to her. He sometimes lie to her about me paying for stuff, even though he did, because he knows she gets upset by it.

I’m not sure what to do. I really don’t want to be around her. However, my boyfriend is very handy and can learn how to do things quickly. For this reason his mom calls him or tell him to come down. It doesn’t really feel like a question. For example to replace a window or do installation they will get him to do it and it’s a 5hr drive to their house. The father is in the picture, but he isn’t as handy. Their relationship seems okay, but they do have passive arguments. My boyfriend does ask me before sometimes, but I notice it has been a constant thing lately. I don’t know what to do because I don’t want to be around her.

Because of my hormones, I like more protein, more fiber, and staying away from certain carbs. Part of him coming to their state is that they take us out to eat or bring food. She didn’t go with any of my food request, which they asked about beforehand. Then said I could get it the next day, but got New York style pizza instead. Me and my boyfriend felt bloated and not like ourselves because it was a big change to what we were eating.

She keeps saying she loves me and I felt like I’ve been nice to her. I understand how difficult it is to feel like your losing your son. Most mothers do have an unhealthy relationship with their son. In combination with that, plus her constant need of attention just makes me uncomfortable. She also stop and talk to strangers, but they are only men she finds attractive. Which made me realize she is constantly looking for attention, mainly from men. She is probably upset she doesn’t get the same attention from her son since we started dating.

I’m not sure if I should keep going with him to see them. The weekend becomes draining for me and I feel like I have to act peppy all the time.

His Beloved Smother

Awkward relationships with your partner’s parents are a tale that’s practically older than dirt. As soon as hominids evolved into having discrete family units, they also started complaining about the in-laws.

Here’s the thing: every relationship with the parents of your partner is an awkward dance because we all have our own familial dynamic; trying to adapt to a new one (or add a new person into the mix) always means that there’s an adjustment period while everyone tries their best to find the balance between The Way Things Have Always Been and How To Accommodate The New. So there’s inevitably a period where shit is just weird and uncomfortable, especially if someone’s dynamic is entirely different from yours.

I mean, if you come from a family of Stoneface McGee’s and your partners’ family’s primary love language is shouting and hand-waving, you’re going to feel all kinds of uncomfortable until everyone finds their equilibrium. So a certain amount of patience and willing to go with the flow is necessary.

But there’re also times when one parent or the other just doesn’t vibe with who their beloved child has brought home and that’s when shit tends to hit the fan in slow motion.

It sounds to me like your boyfriend’s mom has some boundary issues, a seemingly unhealthy need to be the center of attention and a tendency to not think before she speaks. To your boyfriend, who grew up with this, this is normal. That doesn’t mean that he necessarily likes it, but it’s what he’s used to and there’s often a dynamic that can feel hard to go against. Especially if he’s pushed up against some of her behavior before and gotten nowhere.

Now, from what you’ve said, I don’t think she dislikes you, but I think she definitely has a tendency to not think or care about how what she says may come across or be construed. That doesn’t make it ok, though. Even if it’s being said with all the love in your heart, making fat jokes ain’t cool. Comparing other girls he knew to you isn’t cool. And while some things – like forgetting about your dietary needs or requests (which, as you said, she asked for) – may have innocent explanations… there is a point where ignorance is functionally indistinguishable from meanness.

The problem is that you don’t have much pull here. This is very much a family problem and the person who’s going to have to step up and say something is your boyfriend. He’s going to have to be the one to take the lead on telling his mom to knock it off with the jokes and stray comments, to remember that you all had specific food requests and so on. You should stand up for yourself and call out those comments too, especially when she’s insulting or mocking you for your physique, but he needs to be the one tanking and taking most of the aggro. She’s his mother after all.

But he also needs to be willing to start enforcing his own boundaries between him and his mother. At the moment, it sounds like he’s done a lot of “go along to get along” as part of his tendency towards people-pleasing. That tack tends to end with people asking for even more, and even more still later on. As an adult, he needs to be able to say things like “don’t make jokes like that period, but especially not to my girlfriend” or “sorry, I’m not available this weekend.”

An 5 hour round trip to help with occasional big projects is one thing. Getting voluntold on the regular to make that trip to do various odd jobs – especially if they can afford to hire a contractor or handyman – is verging on the unreasonable. As you said: he’s a grown-ass man, with his own life and his own responsibilities, and she is, likewise, a grown-ass woman who presumably can hire someone to replace a window.

Now, maybe those requests are as much bids to see her child, who’s a not-insignificant distance away, and that’s understandable. But part of the kids growing up and leaving the nest is that they start having their own lives and their own responsibilities. It can be an adjustment for the parents, but it’s a necessary one. And if she’s someone who needs male attention at all times… well, that’s a her problem, not a him problem and especially not a you problem.

I would also point out that you don’t necessarily need to go with him every time he goes down to see his parents. This isn’t The Defiant Ones where you’re handcuffed together or Wedlock where if you get too far from your partner, your prison collar blows your head off. You have your own boundaries and your own life too. If going every time with him leaves you drained and miserable, you arewell within your rights to send him off with a ”have fun storming the castle” while you stay home and do whatever you were going to do that weekend.

You don’t necessarily want to make a habit of never coming down, but you can certainly be more selective of when and under what circumstances. It doesn’t have to be every time she snaps her fingers to summon him.

Start with a talk with your boyfriend about his mother, boundaries and how her behavior affects you. As I said: she’s his mom, and thus he should be taking point on this. If he needs you to back him up or support him when he gets the inevitable pushback – and there’s always pushback when you’re enforcing boundaries against people who rely on your not having them – then by all means, be his backup. But he needs to be able to do this, for his own sake as much as for yours and the relationship.

Meanwhile, don’t be afraid to give your own pushback in the moment when she makes those comments. A simple “that’s not funny” or “I don’t appreciate that” is all that’s necessary. Even if she comes back with “I didn’t mean it that way” or “don’t be so sensitive”, again, you just need to reply with “ok. I still don’t appreciate comments like that” or “that still doesn’t make it funny”. You don’t need to engage with her deflections or derailments, just stand firm on that one fact: she made an inappropriate comment and you don’t appreciate it.

Do it enough times, and she’ll get the picture. Because if she doesn’t, you’re not going to be coming around nearly as often… and likely neither will her son.

Good luck.

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This post was previously published on Doctornerdlove.com and is republished on Medium.

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Photo credit: iStock