#101: Dear Baby, Relationship Edition: “Everything’s fine except…”

Good morning!

While reading through Dear Baby submissions last week, I was surprised by how many of the questions were about relationships (even more than usual), and then surprised again by how many of them followed the same formula: My relationship is almost perfect, with one big exception. So I decided to make that today’s theme.

advanced meme

I’ll be answering four questions that complete the sentence “my relationship is great but” with the following phrase:

• he got another woman pregnant
• the sex is awful
• he’s weird about his ex
• I’m having doubts

I’ve been a little dismissive and jokey in the past about how much of my advice column and call-in show are about romantic relationships, but the truth is I’m obsessed with this topic in a very sincere way. I think romantic relationships are insane and special and impossible, and I think a lot of us spend a lot of our lives thinking about them. So I’m happy for this column to reflect that.

Okay let’s get to the goss.

1. He got a girl pregnant

“I’m submitting the following question/situation more out of desperation than anything. I don’t know who to speak to about this situation and feel incredibly alone and scared. My boyfriend and I have been together for 1.5 years and long distance (different continents) for the past 6 months. We love each other very much and he makes me want to be a better person. We’ve talked about a future together and have many hopes and dreams together. Since doing long distance we’ve also opened our relationship, which was challenging for me at first but eventually we found our balance and things have gone well. Recently, something happened that changed everything.

He told me a young woman he had a one-night-stand with just told him she was pregnant and she is keeping the baby. I’m absolutely stunned, and of course he is too. I feel like the future we imagined just crumbled before our eyes. He said he wants to be financially responsible and involved in the kid’s life, although he’s not sure what that looks like yet. From what I understand, the mother of the child is also not financially secure, so he will need to help her, too. I feel desperate and alone. How can this happen? How can he do this to me? Why? Why? Why? 

Things feel absolutely out of my control and I’m panicked. I don’t want to break up and give up our future, but I also don’t see how I fit into this situation. Perhaps there are ways we can try to make this work, but I also don’t know if I have the capacity and heart for this. I feel so powerless. I feel like the only solution is to break up, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this. It just feels absolutely unfair that my life with this man is being taken away so abruptly. I just want to hide in my bed all day, and I can’t seem to muster the strength to do anything else. I don’t know how to talk to my friends about this either, especially when a lot of them disapprove of the notion of an open relationship in the first place. My boyfriend is also trying to figure things out and going through a roller coaster, and I don’t know how to process this without overburdening him. The distance doesn’t help. I feel so stuck and alone. My question is, what should I do? How should I make sense of the situation? Is it even realistic to think about making the relationship work, or is a breakup inevitable? I feel so frustrated, desperate, anxious, angry, heartbroken. Thank you for your insights.” 

I’m so sorry you’re in this situation. It’s very much a soap-opera plot no one wants to live through. But maybe you can find some comfort in the fact that you’re not actually powerless. I understand why you feel that way—and also angry and heartbroken—but once you come to terms with the stakes of this situation, you might find you do have power. Certainly more than your boyfriend or the woman having his child. You  have multiple options here. To approach them with lucidity, I think you need to reframe the situation in more practical terms.

You’ve been with this guy for 1.5 years, a third of which has been from a distance, sleeping with other people. I’m not saying open relationships can’t thrive. But unless the terms of your open relationship didn’t dictate anything about using protection and being careful, he’s broken your trust. I do think it’s worth sitting with that—with the fact that this isn’t a random act of god. Your boyfriend got himself into a life-long obligation with someone he barely knows. I guess in the end the question you have to consider is simple: Has your 1.5 years with this guy been enough for you to know you’re ready to be the stepmother of his child? To relocate to wherever the mother wants to live (ad infinitum), to forever enmesh your life with hers, her family, everything that comes with raising a kid?

I’m really asking. Maybe your answer is yes. But as you turn over these questions I do want to reassure you that if you broke up with this guy, you would get over it. I swear with my whole body and soul. I’m not positive how old you are, but I’m guessing mid-twenties, because if you were older, I think you’d already know this. When you’re young and in a newish relationship (1.5 years may feel long to you, but in the scheme of life, it’s a blip), it can seem impossible that you’d ever leave, or that you’d ever find something as good or better. That overwhelming feeling is actually very sweet and part of life. But this is a moment to sober up a little. You probably don’t actually know your boyfriend as well as you think you do. He’s far away, he’s having a child with someone else. I know you love him, and plenty of people have stepchildren, share parental duties with multiple households, etc. But usually they aren’t forced into it unawares. A kid is a big deal. If you’re not looking to have one in your life right now, you need to take that resistance very seriously. 

You asked what to do, and if it’s realistic to make the relationship work. My answer is think very hard and very practically about what staying with this guy will entail for you five years from now, 10, 20, 50. Is it possible to make this work? Of course. But it won’t be easy, and it won’t have been on your terms. And given how fresh this relationship is, and that he’s already been careless with your trust in such a significant way, I can’t say it seems like the soundest possible choice. But this is your life! It will be full of twists and turns, and you’ve arrived at one of them. Luckily, you have a say which way it goes.

2. The sex is awful

“I’m currently dating a man whom I love very deeply and could see myself spending the rest of my life with. We just get each other in a very specific way, are always laughing, have similar values and ways of thinking, work in the same niche career field, rarely argue, and can generally communicate about issues in a constructive and adult way. I truly love him and am excited to be with him and explore a future. But… the sex is awful. So bad I don’t know where to begin.

There is no foreplay (and if there is, it’s short and pretty unimaginative), he will rarely go down on me even if I ask, the sex just follows the same pattern of two no-frills positions each time, lasts no more than 7 minutes, and often he doesn’t even cum (and neither do I obviously). He has a very low libido so he doesn’t want to have sex more than once every three days or so. To make things worse, I have a really high sex drive and approach sex as an important way to connect with my partner, so not being able to do that makes me feel neglected, doubtful, sad, etc.

While my partner is great about communicating in other parts of our relationship, it is very difficult to broach this with him because he’s sensitive about it. I also feel somewhat awkward about it so am not as direct as I could be. He knows I’d like him to go down on me more and that I’d like if we could find a way for him to cum from sex more, for example, but he doesn’t do anything differently despite knowing that I’m unsatisfied. I even tried suggesting we take a ‘spice up your sex life’ quiz to explore potential role play, kinks, positions, etc, which he took two days to fill out and responded with ‘no’ to most of the ideas. I also feel that having to ask for specific things in bed makes them infinitely less sexy because I feel like he’s only doing it because I want him to, rather than genuinely enjoying the experience together with me.

Do you have any sage wisdom for me? I truly could see a future with this guy but the thought of bad sex forever gives me cold sweats.”