DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long time reader, first time writer. Thank you for putting out so much good stuff, you're a big help for a lot of people.

A bit of backstory for me, I had an interesting childhood, abusive father, bullied in school etc. which really hammered my self esteem. I basically bottled everything up for years until it all exploded. Ended up spiraling into depression, had a passive suicide attempt about 3 years ago and hit rock bottom really. The good news, since then I've had 2 spells of counseling and my mental health is now much better. I've also worked quite a bit on myself, to the point where I've come from never having a date to having a couple of short relationships, couple of casual things and I've improved immensely in that part of my life. This is way more success than I ever thought I'd have.

The thing that's inspired me to write in today is that even though I can see how far I've come and all I've achieved, I still find everything absolutely, painfully difficult. Socializing exhausts me in general, but especially in bars and clubs. I always seem to be on guard and frankly it's all wearing me down. There is still this block I have mentally, where I'm so scared of getting hurt again or opening up that I can't really just let myself go and make the moves I want to, or I shut down interactions/ relationships that could go somewhere due to fear basically. I'm also incredibly nervous about doing anything that would jeopardize my mental health. I left my last job because it was causing me to slide again and I don't want to risk ever getting near to where I was 3 years ago.

Another thing that's laying it on right now is that I'm currently traveling. A couple of my friends are absolutely amazing with women, they make it look ridiculously easy and go from one hot girl to the next like they get handed out with the cereal. They are great guys who absolutely deserve their success and I'm happy for them, but it just highlights to me that even after all this work I've done I'm still no better than bang average on a good day at all of this. This is what is getting me down. I've read all the articles you've written about staying internally validated and not comparing yourself to others and it's all good advice, but I'm struggling to keep everything focused on the right things, which ends up with me taking nut shots to my self-esteem over the frustration.

I'm still young, mid 20s in decent health and everything, so I know I have the time, but it's just so draining to actually realize how far I've still got to go after all this work. My motivation to keep going with the whole self improvement thing is waning, I've stopped approaching, don't do speed dating or anything else that I had success with. I went on a couple of dates with this girl 2 months or so ago and just had no emotional energy left to give. I just see it all as a grind and I struggling to deal with it at the moment. I know you went through similar sorts of challenges back in your "bad old days", so any advice you could give would be hugely appreciated. How would you recommend I get through this?

Thanks

Tired of The Grind

DEAR TIRED OF THE GRIND: First of all, ToTG: congratulations on all the work you've put into your mental and emotional health, and all the progress you've made. That takes a lot of grit and courage, and you should be proud of just how far you've come.

In fact... that's part of what I want to talk to you about. See, you're doing one of the things that I used to do back in my bad old days: you're so focused like a laser on the end goal - being able to get women like your buddies - that you're missing just how much progress you've made. The problem with what you're doing is that you're working under the assumption that you and your friends started at the same place and the fact that you're not doing as well as them means something's wrong with you. But that's not it. That's not it at all. You didn't start at the starting line; you had to sneak your way past guards, climb over walls and through air ducts just to get into the goddamn arena, never mind into the race itself. 

But here's the thing: you freaking got there. You made it past all of those hurdles, things that would make most other people say "screw this noise" and turn around, and got your ass into the game. Yeah, you're not at the same point as people who had some advantages you didn't... but they didn't have to fight the way you did or as hard as you did. So you need to take a moment and recognize that you've fought long and hard to get where you are and that is goddamn amazing. You're not some third-string bench-warmer, you're Rudy at the championship game, man.

Of course, all of this means that you're going to have some scars. I mean, c'mon: you've been through the fires of hell and you've got the ashes to prove it. But that block you're dealing with right now isn't fear, it's the anticipation of fear. You're so worried about the feeling of "Oh god does this mean it's going to happen again" that you're trying to avoid anything that might trigger that fear... including the things that you long for. And that's understandable. That part of what makes us human. But the fear is an illusion. It's a phantom. It's the exaggerated, funhouse mirror version of reality. The fear is honestly worse than the reality.

Right now, you're spending a lot of your energy trying to avoid your fears - more energy than it would actually take to confront them, in fact. You just keep convincing yourself that you're going to lose, that you are inevitably going to fail, so there's no point in trying. Small wonder you're drained; you're letting that fear sap everything from you, without even taking the little victories that tell you that you've got far more going for you than you realize.

The sooner you learn how to grapple with that fear and push through it, the sooner you'll realize you're further along than you believe you are.

And the easiest way to deal with that fear? Plan for failure. Expect failure. Because you know what? Failure's gonna happen. A lot. To everyone. Even your buddies, who attract women the way cheese attracts mice, fail. You just don't notice it because you're paying too much attention to their successes. But success doesn't teach you anything. A lot of times success is just luck - or you end up taking the wrong lessons from those successes. When a plane comes back from a mission shot full of holes, you don't patch those holes and assume you fixed the problem; those are clearly places where it could get shot up and still make it. You want to pay attention to the places where getting shot full of holes brought down the plane and work on those areas.

So it is with failure. Failure teaches you valuable lessons. You learn to recognize what went wrong and how to avoid it next time. You start to learn your real strengths and weaknesses, not the ones you think you have. And the most important lesson you learn is this: failure isn't fatal. You can mess up - badly, even - and still survive. You may not get with that one woman... but you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again with someone else. 

Pain's inevitable. Nobody can avoid getting hurt. But while pain may be inevitable, suffering is optional. And you suffer far more from trying to avoid pain than you do learning how to take the hits, roll with them and pop back up again because you've given up on even the chance of success.

These are choices you're making, my dude. You're choosing to believe that you will fail and it will break you. It won't. You're stronger than that. Yeah, you'll fail. It's part of the learning process. Everyone fails. But when you learn from those failures, when you dare to push yourself back up to your feet again? That's when you win.

You have to believe that you can survive. You hold that power in your hands.

You can win if you dare.

You've got this.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have an ethical question.

The short version: a decade ago I met someone, we talked online a lot, those chats got steamy, and I saved them. Now I'm debating if I should get rid of those saved chats.

Long version: when I met J, I was in a terrible place: 25-year-old virgin with body image issues and depression, under-employed, and self-harming. J (who is gender-neutral) essentially made helping me a short project, out of the goodness of their heart, and we had what I call a "two-month-long one-night stand". Since we lived in different cities, we communicated online only, until J invited me to their city for a weekend of sex and sex ed. This did wonders for my confidence, and our friendship helped me stop cutting. (Nine years clean!) A critical step in the process came when J laid out for me, in considerable detail, what they would do in bed with me once we were in the same place. Until that moment I had not really believed I was physically attractive to anyone. I saved that chat so I could look at it again later and remind myself it actually happened, and I saved other (sometimes steamy, usually very personal) chats as well.

Ever since then, we have been supportive friends. We don't talk all the time, but we always know the other person will always be there. We've watched each other go through all sorts of relationship ups and downs. When we're both single (and only then) we flirt, though this hasn't happened in a while and nothing comes of it.

J's in a relationship "up" -- getting married to a truly marvelous person -- and I'm in a relationship "neutral" -- single for a year. The wedding has made me think about those saved chats. I look at them maybe once or twice a year, if that, but while they aren't the same level as nudes, they are they are personal and intimate, and critically I don't think J knows I have them, so it feels a little non-consensual. So on the one hand, it seems like the ethical thing to delete them.

On the other hand, I'm a very history-oriented person, so deleting those chats would be like deleting all evidence of a key turning point in my life. Also, while my depression is much more under control, it's never gone -- so having evidence of J's validation is sometimes very nice.

On the third hand, I know I'm still attracted to J, so I'm a little suspicious of my judgment on this.

What do you recommend? Delete the sexy chats, or preserve the historical artifacts?

Ethical Historian

DEAR ETHICAL HISTORIAN: Y'know, there's a lot of debate about that to do about the artifacts of our past relationships. Almost all of us tend to have keepsakes of our happier relationships; letters, photos, little trinkets that remind us of the good times we had. Most of the time, these are fairly harmless bits of nostalgia that we can take out, enjoy that warm hit from times past, then put 'em back and call it good. Now there are often people who feel threatened by the evidence of past relationships - the story of the Jealous Girlfriend is a well-worn routine from the early days of the Pick Up Artist scene - but for the most part, these are just reminders of days gone by. Getting rid of them just because the relationship ended smacks of trying to pretend the relationship never happened, an emotional damnatio memoriae that ultimately denies how we became the people we are today.

But some of those mementos can be of a sexual nature, and that's where things get tricky. We live in a culture and society that's profoundly sex-negative, and sees sexual expression as something shameful and degrading, even when it's in the context of a committed, monogamous relationship. And in the aftermath of a break-up, the question of "what should we do about with these mementos" gets thorny.

On the one hand, there are those who insist that they should be destroyed; after all, you (so the theory goes) no longer have that person's consent to see their naked bodies. But at the same time, if you take this argument to it's logical extension, then you're no longer allowed to remember them or the way their skin felt or their hair smelled because hey that relationship's over.

On the other hand, there are those who will say that these were given consensually between two partners and like all gifts, there's no obligation to return them later. But then there's the fact that they were given under a specific context; if the relationship ended badly, those relationship artifacts can go from being mementos to weapons that can be used against the giver.

And sometimes, those memories can be weaponized by a third party. In this day and age, securing those particular relics is difficult. Cloud storage sites get hacked, computer repair techs steal people's nudes from their hard drives and sexy files of unsuspecting innocents get shared far and wide. One only need look at The Fappening or boards on Reddit, 4chan, 8chan and elsewhere that are dedicated to sharing "found" nude images. Even purely physical keepsakes can get out into the wild; the infamous Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton sex tapes were on physical media, not digital storage.

These are all issues that've become part of the modern dating landscape. If we share those sides of ourselves with our partners - as many, many people do - there's the chance that they won't just stay with our partners.

Now in your case, EH, the odds of some spicy chatlogs getting out and causing problems is low. Not zero, but pretty darn low. So the bigger question here is: why are you holding on to them? As you say: you still have some feelings for J. Is this a way of holding onto the relationship, instead of letting it be part of your past? There's nothing wrong with the occasional naughty trip down memory lane, but if this is a way of keeping the hope alive, even as they're getting married... well, that's not healthy. It may be good to interrogate your feelings on this and see if your desire to keep that validation and evidence of your past is exactly that, or the fig-leaf you use to justify keeping them.

The other question involves the ethics of having them in the first place. While it's generally a good rule of thumb to assume that anything you send to another person is likely stored and archived somewhere, a lot of folks tend to assume that hot chats and sexting conversations are lost to the ether; hell, that's part of the whole point of services like Snapchat. As far as violations of trust go, it's pretty far down the list, but some folks might still feel weird about knowing that those records exist.

So with all of this in mind, here's my guideline for when it comes to things like nudes and sexy pics from past relationships: if you're on good terms with your ex, ask what they'd prefer you do. Of course, in your case, EH, first you're going to have to explain that you have them in the first place. Which is gonna be awkward. But honestly? I suspect this will cause more amusement than consternation.

Some people are cool with their exes - especially ones they're still friendly with - keeping the pics. After all, just because the relationship ended doesn't mean that you now hate that person and want to retcon the relationship into having never happened. Others may prefer that you'd delete them, if only to keep them from ending up on dodgy blogs and subreddits.

In your case, you don't need to explain about how they give you validation or that you feel like they're an artifact of your past. Just say "Hey, turns out I have logs of some of the chat sessions we had, would you prefer I delete them or is it ok if I save them?" and let them have the final say.

And as a general rule: if you aren't in contact with your ex - it was a bad break-up, you never want to hear from them again or vice-versa - go ahead and securely delete them. It's better all around to err on the side of "get rid of them" than it is to have trouble down the line.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been through an ordeal that is really tempting me to swallow the red or black pill. My girlfriend of nearly a year dumped me. She said I was too nice, a pushover, cute but not sexy, and she wants to see other people.

So she dumped me, but later tried to bargain an open relationship but I put my foot down and said no. Things were good through most the time as far as I can tell and she even admits that early on things were great and the sex was pretty good. But as time went on she expressed some sentiments that stirred greater insecurity in me. I developed a premature ejaculation problem but we still had pretty damn good sessions at several points throughout the months.

But now I feel like everything the incels believe is true, she’s going off to see the chads while I’m left to rot in all the insecurities that were just confirmed. I feel resigned to swallow the red or black pill and just cannot bring myself to believe in any optimistic projection given by my friends, family, or those such as yourself. Where do I go from here?

At The Crossroads

DEAR AT THE CROSSROADS: There’s some critical information you haven’t given me, ATC: you haven’t told me how long it was between when your girlfriend dumped you and then asked if you were ok with an open relationship and how long it’s been since the two of you ended things for good.

Because, honestly? You sound like this happened a couple of weeks ago and you’re still hurting from the fact that you were dumped. And hey, that’s legit. Being dumped is an awful feeling. But it sounds to me like you’ve been sitting around and stewing in your resentment instead of doing what I usually recommend for the newly single.

As it is, the only things that the Red Pill (Reddit-based men’s rights movements) and the Black Pill (Incel communities) actually offer you is justification for your anger. All either of these are intended to do is keep you feeling awful and make you angry at women for… well, pretty much for existing and not being mindless sex-dolls.

Hey, man, I get that you’re hurt.  But I’m gonna be honest with you: right now, you’re mostly looking for reasons to STAY angry with her. And hey, I get it. I’ve been there, done that and built a career out of it. I got dumped by someone I thought was the perfect girl just after I got fired from what I thought was the perfect job. And at the time? The most charitable thing I called her – when I wasn’t trying to be above it all – was a stinking pirate wh

e. But the truth is that anger eats at you. It may feel good to hate and to lash out at that bitch as what done you wrong at first. But honestly? There’s only so long you can insist that God has s

t in your dinner before you are just angry for anger’s sake.

I mean, none of the various flavors of Men’s Rights Advocates –not the Red Pillers, not the MGTOWs, not the incels are actually happy. The incels are all currently crabs in a bucket, busily sharing “suicide fuel” trying to goad each other into being the first to off themselves and everyone else is busy arguing over who hates the femoids more.

Now, let’s look at what you’ve actually said about your relationship. First: your girlfriend told you that you were too nice and a push-over. Ok… that’s valid. It sounds a little paradoxical – how could someone be too nice? – but nobody worth dating actually likes being with a doormat. Being the only person with an opinion in a relationship is shockingly draining; it feels like the other person has basically abdicated their entire being to you. Being someone who actually has some spine, an opinion, some confidence is an important part of making a relationship work.

But let’s look at this next part. So your ex wanted to see other people. Not going to lie, that can sting. Some people don’t do monogamy well, and if you’re one of those people who needs exclusivity, that can really hurt. You’re left asking yourself “why am I not enough?” Except it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Some people ultimately need novelty and new partners. Now someone call Sir Mix-A-Lot because there’s a huge “but” coming…

BUT

It’s not that your ex didn’t care for you, or that she didn’t enjoy banging you, ATC. In fact, the fact that she came back after you broke up and asked about an open relationship is as clear of a sign that she enjoyed being in a relationship with you… it’s just that she couldn’t be exclusive with you. I mean, come on. She’s seeing other guys but she’s asking if she can come back for you, specifically. That’s a pretty big sign that no, she DOES want you, too.

Now, that wasn’t a relationship you wanted or could handle and that’s fair. That’s valid. But the fact of the matter is that while she didn’t care for you the way you need, it doesn’t mean that she didn’t care as best she could. You just weren’t compatible is all. Which again, completely sucks… but at the end of the day, that’s life. It’s better to find that out sooner, than later.

Look my dude. If you want to sit around stroking your rage boner, that’s your prerogative. But that’s all it is; empty angry masturbation. If you want to actually feel better, actually let the pain fade away? Then you need to take care of yourself and give yourself some closure.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My fiancé is crazy and controlling. She has pretty much isolated me from all of my friends. All of my friends actually hate her. They think she is trying to change me and forcing me into a lifestyle I’m not ready for. We even share a cellphone because she doesn’t want me messaging people without her knowing. If she doesn’t want to do something, we sure as hell will not do it because she has the final say in everything. We even work together and share a house together and we’re supposed to be getting married in October. I’m honestly not sure if I’m ready. She wants kids and I really don’t like kids. I’m still deeply in love with my ex-girlfriend. If she ever got married, I think it would destroy me. I think she is my real match in every way but she lives really far away and always seems to be in a relationship. I don’t think she will ever be ready to settle down. I know she still cares about me too but again, she’s far away. She has been e-mailing me for 2 years now because we used to be best friends for years before we dated and my fiancee forced me to stop talking to her even though I really want to speak with her. I think I’m settling for my fiancee. I’m afraid to be alone and now I’m getting near my 30’s and I just don’t want to be the last person to be getting married and starting a life. What should I do?

Cold Feet

DEAR COLD FEET: I’m just curious, CF, did you see this horror movie that came out last year? Made a big splash, lotta Oscar nominations? First time director? What was it called again?

Oh yeah…

GET OUT.

Quite frankly my dude, you’re giving this list of things your fiancee does and I don’t quite get how in the pluperfect hell she became your fiancee in the first place. Like… are you being held hostage? Does she have your soul in a jar? Blink twice if she has your soul in a jar.

More seriously: you DO realize that you don’t have to be with her right? Like, you can break up with her. Right now even. Right this second. Before you even finish reading this. You could dump her so hard that her great grandparents would say “dude what was that?”

You could, and I’m just spitballing here, ditch your phone, change all of your passwords, clean out your bank account, pack up your things, get copies of all of your important documents, throw it in your car, and get the hell out of there over the course of a morning and be entirely free of this entire mess. Because, honestly? You sound like someone who’s asking permission to make a jailbreak.

So hey, permission granted. Your fiancee is a controlling, abusive awful and you need to get out of there like all of Hell and half of Hoboken were after you.

Right now, your ex-girlfriend isn’t a concern. What you should be doing is paying attention to the fact that your fiancee is waving more red flags than a military parade in Tiananmen Square. Because if any of these behaviors sound familiar:

Insult you or humiliate you, especially in front of your friends and colleagues

Belittle you, minimize your accomplishments and repeatedly tell you that you’re worthless or a failure

Tell you that their abusive behavior is your fault

Constantly accuse you of being unfaithful or require you to “prove” you’re not cheating on them

Keep constant tabs on you, demanding that you check in with them regularly. They may also monitor where you go and with whom

Isolate you from your friends and family

Accuse your friends and family of lying in order to “drive you apart”

Restrict your access to money or finances

Use or deny sex and intimacy as a form of control

Snoop through your emails, texts, instant messages, phone calls and social media profiles

Hide your keys or your phone to keep you from seeking out help

Use false accusations (or the threat of accusations) of abuse to keep you in line

…then it’s time to recognize that you’re in an awful, abusive relationship and you need to peace the hell out, Cub Scout.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been reading your blog for about half a year now, as well as your new book on surviving relationships, and I gotta thank you for your pearls of wisdom, you’ve led me from not knowing the first thing about flirting to being in my first real relationship. Which is where I’m at right now, and I’m writing in hope that you could shed some light on my situation.

So about two months ago, I met a wonderful lady on an organized trip for youngsters (ages 18-23 I think). We had an amazing time on the trip, we connected on the first day quite a bit, lots of flirting and good vibes coming from both of us, then on the second day we said we’ll give it a go. We had a good time that day, we kissed on the third day (as much as we could whenever we were away from the rest of the group), then we parted. That never happened to either of us before, but we really liked each other from the start, and I suppose the stars all aligned perfectly that we just went at it without much need for barrier breaking. The trip was almost over, and we both knew it would be a bit of a challenge from then on, since we live in opposite sides of our country, about 3 hours away from each other, but we said we’ll try it anyway.

Surprise surprise! We managed to make it work, we met almost every weekend from then until now, taking one weekend off so we wouldn’t burn out too hard. We had a bunch of sex, we met each other’s families, and we’ve connected deeper and deeper. I truly think we have something special, that there’s a reason we connected so fast. I believe it’s because we align exceptionally well on some sort of spiritual level, as in even though we didn’t know each other that well, we could feel something special that words can’t describe. It’s like we just get each other intuitively, like we already met before, like our spirits are fused and now it’s up to us to make this into something beautiful. Anyway, that’s our status right now, meeting up on weekends and trying to have a good time with each other. Also we text or call each other pretty much every day, this is important context.

Now, here’s why I’m writing you: I don’t have good experience with relationships prior to this one, only bad experience. I won’t go into detail, but lots of heart-break, confusion, depression at times, basically what I assume most people go through at one point or another. The catch with me specifically is that all of that negative experience has left me without any real faith in a relationship being something constant. What I mean is I often have the feeling that my significant other could leave at any point, without explanation, without closure, without any reason other than “I don’t love you anymore”. I try to remind myself that people don’t give up that quickly or easily on the ones they love, but it’s hard to fight these emotions. In my (unrealistic, primitive) mind I just assume that there’s nothing about me that people could love over a long period of time, which (I think) is ironic because that’s what I really want out of a relationship.

So that said, I’m having such thoughts and feelings on a weekly basis, if not daily. Every time her and I text each other and the conversation doesn’t flow, I feel it. Every time I tell a joke and she doesn’t laugh, I feel it. Every time she says something and I zone out, I feel it. Not so much that I’m anxious about it, but enough that it’s starting to f

k with my psyche. I mean I still function and everything, but then something random and seemingly unimportant happens between us, and suddenly nothing is stable anymore.

On top of that, I’m scared that talking to her about this could only make things worse, because I tried to do that a little bit, and she didn’t know what to say, which is understandable. Essentially I fear that if I try to solve this with her instead of with myself, then I’d be doing both of us a dis-service. On the other hand, I don’t know whether the problem truly stems from something messed-up inside of me, or from something either of us can do to make it better.

I love this woman Doc, the way I hope to be loved. I also know that love doesn’t last forever, and that one day it will be over, but I don’t want that day to come early because of my own stupidity or complacency. I’m frustrated that I don’t know what I’m doing right or wrong, and I’m scared that that will f

k up me or our relationship. Do you believe there’s something I can do to help myself get out of this state of mind? Or do I just have to stick to it and believe in what I’m doing? Any advice would be infinitely appreciated.

Lost Soul

DEAR LOST SOUL: Here’s something a lot of advice columnists won’t tell you: sometimes dating is as much a matter of luck as it is anything else. There will always be things that are completely outside of your control. In a very real way, relationships are a lot like poker. There will be times when pure chance means that you just get a series of bad hands, one right after the other and the only thing you can do is grit your teeth and play through as best you can, as quickly as you can.

But, just as in poker, you have to learn how to keep your wits about you. When you start taking bad luck personally, you start to make bad decisions. Sometimes it means that you start to take chances, going in on bad calls in an attempt to pull yourself out of the hole. Other times, you end up losing your nerve, giving up a good thing because you’re convinced that your luck is about to reach out and slap you down.

But the fact that you’ve had a bad string of luck doesn’t automatically mean that the problem is with you. Relationships fall apart for a multitude of reasons, ones that often have more to do with your partner than they do with you. Dating someone who’s in the wrong stage of life, for example, can make it feel as though you’re the problem, even when you aren’t. It can leave thinking bullshit thoughts like “Well, if I were better, they wouldn’t have left,” or “If I hadn’t been so X, Y or Z, they wouldn’t have fallen out of love with me.” But in reality: the reason why things fell apart is because they were the wrong person.

That’s where you are right now, LS; you’ve got a good thing going, but you’re letting a run of bad luck screw with your head. And in fairness, when it comes to love, it can be hard not to take bad luck personally; after all, you’re the common denominator in all of your relationships. When you get hurt enough times, it’s very easy to start to feel as though you’re helpless. You become so scared of being hurt again that you end up paralyzed, anticipating the pain before it even happens. And, the cruel irony is that this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy; believing that you aren’t deserving of love tends to make people sabotage their own relationships. They react to the potential of being rejected instead of what is actually happening. They push their partners away because they refuse to believe that he or she is being real with them when they say that they care.

And when things do fall apart because of all of this… well, that just reinforces the meme that you’re unworthy or undeserving of love and happiness.

Now while my standard advice is to unpack some of these issues with an actual therapist instead of a loudmouth with an advice column, I do have a suggestion that can help you to unlearn this sense of helplessness: take every little positive interaction with your girlfriend as a victory. Each little moment you have – the comfort of how she fits in your arm, the way she sighs when you kiss her – are all micro-revolutions; they’re tiny wins against the forces of self-doubt and self-loathing. The way she breathes in the scent of you when she moves in close is a reminder of how far you’ve come and how much she desires you. And when you have those moments of panic – the dread of “oh god she didn’t text back immediately, she must hate me,” – you remind yourself of those little micro-revolutions. They’re the signs that all is right in the world and these moments are just that: moments. They’re little glitches that you’re blowing up into major malfunctions instead of just the randomness of every relationship. These micro-revolutions are the balm against the anxiety; they talk you down enough that your logical brain can override the panic and remind you that she didn’t text back because she’s busy. She didn’t laugh because the joke didn’t land right, not because she’s getting ready to dump you.

The other thing you need to do though? Trust her enough to talk to her. Let her know that sometimes you get little twinges of insecurity. You know that it’s irrational, but sometimes these little irrational moments flare up out of nowhere. And while you don’t need it every time – it’s not her responsibility to manage your emotional state – there’re times when it flares up enough that you’d appreciate a little extra sweetness and reassurance.

And you know what? She’s going to let you know that she gets just as anxious at times. She’s going to have the same random insecure moments. And at those times, she could use your comfort too.

You’ve got a good thing going here, LS. You just need to learn to trust your girlfriend enough to let go of those past hurts and embrace what you have.

You’re going to be ok. I promise.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have been following your posts for a while now and has helped me in many situations, but I need your help with something incredibly hard.

I have been in a relationship for almost a year now. During this time my girlfriend has done things that have made me lose trust in her. I gave her couple of chances, and she really tried her best to make our relationship work. She stopped talking to her guy friends and was really open to me. But my incapability to trust her again slowly changed my feelings towards her. I felt I don’t love her anymore. It doesn’t help that my family is against me dating her. So, I decided to end things with her.

She doesn’t want to break up and is begging me to give her another chance and work this out. She says she really needs me and has never felt like this about another man before. She thinks I am her soul mate. I feel really guilty that I hurt her and makes me very sad. She says she will wait for me however long that takes and keeps loving me.

What do I do?

Pulling The Trigger

DEAR PULLING THE TRIGGER: I’m going to level with you: you can’t really break up with someone and NOT hurt them. Break ups, even the most amicable ones, hurt. It’s the end of a relationship and that’s always going to sting, even just a little. The only thing you can do is cause as little unnecessary hurt as you can on the way out. And what you’re doing now? That’s causing pain that you don’t need to cause.

It can be hard to break up, even when you know it’s what needs to be done. But drawing it out makes it so much worse for everyone. If you’re going to end things, then you need to do it as quickly and cleanly as possible. The sharp pain fades the quickest and the clean break heals fastest. If you feel bad about hurting your soon-to-be ex, then you need to do the kind thing and make it fast. Don’t talk it out, don’t stick around to argue about the whys and wherefores. Just tell her it’s over, that you’re sorry, you wish the best for her and go. If you truly don’t want to hurt her, then you need to be firm. More than that just prolongs the pain.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)