DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a question which is a bit different from your usual fare, but I hope you can help me with.

I’m a gay man in my 20s and I like to go out with my friends. Many of these friends are single women, who are interested in finding – if not the man of their dreams, then at least the man of their immediate needs.

But – here I profess to have no clue how you heteros operate – when I’m out with my friends, especially if it’s just me and one woman, every guy will assume I am her boyfriend. This is good for weeding out creeps, like the ones who will apologise to me for talking to her (she gets to choose who she talks to, even if we were dating). But isn’t so good for my friends, or for more awkward guys who wouldn’t even try to join our conversation or when we’re having a dance. My friends like awkward guys.

I’m about as camp as you can get away with in a straight bar, but I know a lot of guys have no gaydar at all, so short of wearing my ‘Too gay to function’ t-shirt everywhere – how can I project that my friend and I aren’t a couple?

We already do things like not touching overly when we dance, sitting in a way that’s open to the room, don’t flirt at all, we take turns buying drinks. How can I make sure I’m only cock-blocking the guys I know my friends don’t want anything to do with?

Yours sincerely,

Talk To Me, Goose

DEAR TALK TO ME, GOOSE: Welcome to the world of messed up gender dynamics, where seeing a man and a woman together socially means they have to be a couple.

The biggest issue you and your friends have isn’t you, it’s what’s going on in those awkward dudes’ heads. Making a cold approach to a woman who’s with her friends can be incredibly intimidating. The approach anxiety they’re feeling is bad enough, but now it feels like they have to run the gauntlet of judgement full of people who’re just itching for a chance to shoot him down and humiliate him. And if there’s a guy there? Now they’re worried that she’s got a boyfriend who’s going to beat the snot out of him for talking to “his” girl. The more confident or socially experienced guys know better, but they’re also better at reading signals. They’re more likely to take the initiative, to read the social cues and to simply ask how everybody knows everybody else if they’re unsure.

Sadly, that doesn’t help you or your friend. Unless you have the ability to magically shut up the cute awkward guy’s jerkbrain or edit out these anxieties, there’s really not much you can do to keep these people from jumping to conclusions about your presence. It can be hard to read behavioral cues you mention from across a crowded bar, especially if they don’t know to look for them. Unless they’ve studying you, it’s unlikely that those awkward guys have noticed that you’re alternating buying drinks (honestly, even I would be hard pressed to notice that). Playing up the camp side of your personality only travels so far; if they’re not close enough to hear you (and in a loud venue, that’s gonna be pretty damn close) then they may not pick up on it. Many of these awkward shy guys tend to assume “talking together” is the same as “flirting”. Remember: these are usually guys who’re looking for reasons that justify why they shouldn’t approach. Everything becomes fodder for the worst-case-scenario running in their heads.

And even if they do realize that you’re gay and thus no competition (ugh, I hate that mindset) , you’re still part of the audience that they feel will be judging them.

Honestly, I think the best thing you and your friend can do is to be exceedingly obvious about signaling interest to the guys they’re interested in. If your friend catches that cute awkward guy’s eye and gives the “come over here” gesture or head nod, they’re much more likely to suck it up and approach and you’re better able to give off the “gay best friend” (hooray for stereotypes!) vibe rather than “get away from my woman”.

The other possibility is to go up to likely prospects yourself and bring them over for your friend. If there’s a cute awkward guy your friend has her eye on, it may well be worth your going over to him and telling him “My friend over there thinks you’re really cute and she’s too shy to tell you that she wants you to come talk to her.” It removes the ambiguity of “is she really sending signals or am I imagining things” and helps establish that you’re not a “threat” to them.

You may have to have an excuse to pull your friend away if the guy turns out to be a creep – can’t really do the “emergency boyfriend” card when you’ve brought her a flirting partner – but this will help keep you from freezing out the guys she wants to meet by accident.

Good luck!

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been married for 10 years. My husband is a good companion, but our sex life has been tricky. Basically, I feel like the default settings of marriage (monogamy, a focus on intercourse, vanilla or male dominant sex, an expectation to communicate sexual needs nonverbally) are designed to meet his needs and not mine. I thought we were working toward an acceptable compromise, but then a terrible thing happened.

I got his permission to have my ex send me sexy photos. I asked her to send me a sexy audio recording, which I assumed was in the same spirit. (This was utterly stupid of me, I realize. I should have asked specifically about each file format.) Both the ex and I had a much stronger emotional response to the audio recording than I expected, so we agreed to stop flirting online at least until I’d got it sorted with my husband, and possibly forever.

I told my husband that things had gotten a little intense with the ex, so we’d decided to cool it with the flirting, and he freaked out. He said he didn’t want to hear any more and demanded that I stop speaking to my ex block her on all social media. I did what he told me to do. The ex was understandably hurt and upset, and I feel terrible about the way I treated her. If I pretend that none of it happened, my husband acts like his usual nice self, but if I mention her (or start crying about her), he gets angry and accuses me of being selfish. I can’t apologize to her, because he has said that I can’t contact her, and I’m not going to go behind his back.

I know I destroyed the friendship with my ex permanently, and that’s really sad, but survivable. But there are also repercussions for my marriage. I am afraid of trying the poly thing again. It’s not ethical to make people vulnerable and then cut them off like that. My husband says he’s OK with exploring polyamory, but I don’t trust him not to freak out and issue an ultimatum. I’m fine being monogamous for now while we build trust and communication, but I am going to feel miserable and stifled if we have to be monogamous forever. Also, I feel really hurt about the fact that he forced me to choose between our marriage and my friendship in such a harsh way, and that he refuses to talk to me about it.

Is my marriage over? Are there things I can do to make it not over (that do not require a time machine)? Help!

-No Clever Name

DEAR NO CLEVER NAME: Your husband’s behavior has torpedoed any chance of an ethically non-monogamous relationship, NCN. He can talk about “being ok with exploring polyamory” all he wants, but his behavior says this is a bad idea. Jealousy and envy happen in every relationship, but the way he handled his feelings was immature as hell.

Opening up a relationship – even if it’s only to some sexy flirting with no real potential for follow-through – requires open, clear and honest communication from both parties. You both have to be able to say “Hey, I’m feeling X right now, can we talk about this?” and find ways of working through things together. That’s part of how you build the trust and security needed for being monogamish. Emotional explosions, ultimatums, tantrums and threats are the opposite of open communication.

Let’s look at the specifics in your case: you realized that your activities were starting to cross a line and made a mutual agreement to take a few steps back. This is unquestionably a good thing; it speaks volumes to the relationship you and your ex have and the respect you have for your relationship with your husband. Then you, in the spirit of openness and honesty, explained to your husband that things were getting to be too much and you decided to stop flirting with your ex for a while. Again: totally reasonable. You’re literally telling your husband that you recognized that things were going beyond what you’d agreed to and you were putting your relationship with him first.

Apparently your husband stopped listening before you got to the “…so we decided to stop, possibly for good,” and promptly freaked out. By refusing to hear any more and forbidding you from seeing them, he’s effectively shut down any possible communication between the two of you on this issue and any  issue regarding open relationships – including if he’s actually OK with them. This makes it impossible to discuss anything; how can you be open about how you’re feeling if he’s just going to start hurling accusations and guilting you into obedience?

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying he was bad for getting envious, or that he’s bad because being monogamish may not be for him or for feeling insecure. Hearing your significant other tell you that they started having an intense emotional surge for an ex is understandably upsetting even in the most secure of relationships. The problem is how he handled it and is continuing to handle it.

It would be one thing if, after his freak-out, he was able to say “OK, I had a bad reaction and the things you said about your ex made me feel insecure. Let’s talk about this.” Instead, he continues to throw tantrums if you even hint at the fact that losing a good friend hurts. I certainly don’t expect people, especially people who may not have had any experience with open relationships, to be perfect communicators right off the bat, but if he can’t recognize that you’re saying to him “I chose you over my ex” or to express his feelings in ways other than “NOOOOOOO”, then that doesn’t speak well for their relationship skills in general.

So my question for you is: how much do you want this relationship to work? Do you feel that there’s enough good left in it that this can be repaired? If so, then I strongly suggest that you hie yourselves to a sex-positive relationship counselor – you can find one at The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists – and work on communicating and dealing with issues envy and insecurity. And I’m going to be blunt with you: It’s going to take a lot of work to repair what happened. And it still may not work out.

If you don’t feel that this is something that you can repair or that is worth repairing, or that your husband will work to repair… well, then you’ve got a decision to make.

But I want to re-emphasize: you did everything right here. This is on your husband, not you.

Good luck. And write back to let us know how things go.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Since I graduated high school I came into my looks and as a result during college. I was quite popular with women even though I was really shy, however after college I started to bald severely nearly losing all the hair on the top of my head, gained some weight from 145-175 at 5’10 which gave me a gut and also started receiving wrinkles on my forehead and under my eyes. During this time period of about 2 years I went from getting constant attention to being practically invisible.

I can understand this because people have standards and what they define as attractive, however a lot of the time if I so much as made eye contact with a woman even on accident I would get nothing but the coldest stares back at me.

Sometimes I would even overhear them talk to their friends about that ‘creepy guy’ referring to me as there was no one else there that it could be. Now however I have been working out and getting in good shape, have had a lot of my hair restored through medication and have gotten rid of the wrinkles through a skin care regiment. As a result I seem to have gotten a lot of attention and just treated better overall from people. If I make eye contact now for example I get nothing but smiles so it is a bit embittering.

I would like advice on how to not let that get to me as I feel a tad bitter over the fact that I was treated so harshly and now that I have improved myself I am all of the sudden good enough for them. It definitely has created trust issues for me and not wanting to truly put myself out there seeing how shallow individuals can be.

– Second Time Around

DEAR SECOND TIME AROUND: There’s a phrase from Hamlet that I like: “There is nothing either good or bad but that thinking makes it so”.  Your circumstances haven’t changed so much as your perception of them have.

There’s a tendency for people who come into their own later than others to feel as though they’ve finally gotten their due. After years or even decades of being awkward/ignored/ugly/whatever, they’ve finally gotten what they feel they deserve. The problem is that in a lot of ways it’s not that they’ve actually changed so much as gotten their hands on Dumbo’s magic feather. It’s less that they’ve been changed so much as they’ve changed the way they feel about themselves. That change in their self-perception affects how they act and – importantly – how they choose to see the world. As cliche as it was, the power was in them the whole time.

That’s in no small part what happened to you. You came into your looks later and celebrated it… but then this one thing changed and suddenly your whole life did too. This was in no small part because how you saw yourself changed.

Bald guys, after all, do get dates and girlfriends. So do chubby guys. So too do guys with wrinkles. But you felt as though you’d become ugly and undesirable and so… you had.

Now don’t get me wrong: the frustration and emotional pain you felt was real. But what you perceivedfrom others… was less so. The thing you have to remember is that we are all unreliable narrators in our own lives. We filter our reality through the lens of our attitude and our expectations. When we think we’re too bald, too fat, too wrinkly for anyone to love us or find us attractive, we look for evidence that we’re right. And of course, we find it… whether it’s actually there or not. What we’re doing, more often than not, is a lot of mental story telling. We’re telling ourselves the story of what the other person is thinking when they look at us, even when we have no basis for it. Are they giving you cold stares because how dare Quasimodo think he has a chance with Esmerelda? Or are they dealing with things that has absolutely nothing to do with you and you just happen to be there?

The same with the whispered “what a creep” conversations. Did you actually hear your name or a description of you? Or did you hear them talking about a creepy guy and assume that they had to be talking about you because who else could it possibly be?

You went in expecting a negative response and you got one. And to be fair: there likely isn’t anything that people could say that you, in the mindset you had at that time, wouldn’t see as a negative response. Even someone being polite and positive would almost certainly have been interpreted as being pitying or a trick.

The thing to remember is: this filter works both ways. 

When you were feeling your best – then and now – you expected a more positive response from women and you were getting them. You paid attention to the responses you expected to see and disregarded the ones you didn’t. You were able to ignore negative responses from women because you were able to de-personalize it. Yeah, she may have looked right through you or rolled her eyes, but that had nothing to do with you…

The more you recognize how much our cognitive biases and our attitudes shape our lives, the more you can consciously use it. Choosing to be positive means that you’ll see more of what you hope for from others. Focusing on the things that make you feel good about yourself makes it easier to project that same good feeling onto others, which makes you feel more confident. Even when you don’t have the face of a model and the body of a Greek god, feeling like you’re the sexiest bastard and people dig you changes how you behave and how you see the world. So even when you don’t look the picture of perfection: treat yourself like you are. Dress sharp. Carry yourself with confidence. Pay attention to your grooming and your presentation.

These will all help maintain that “I’m sexy and I know it” attitude that in turn, will change how you see the world.

To be sure: there are shallow people in the world. There always will be. And I’m sure there were people who saw you and wondered how you had the balls to drag yourself out from under your bridge to inflict yourself on others. But not only are those people far less common than you’d think, those people are assholes. The last thing you need is to let the opinion of assholes define your worth or sense of self. The best thing you can do is simply disregard them. Let their glares and judgement slide off of you and resign them to the dustbin of irrelevancy.

There are amazing, caring and trustworthy people out there. You just have to let yourself see them.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a polyamorous hetero man. I have one partner that I’ve been with for a few years. We have a fantastic relationship.

I’ve also been trying to meet someone else in about that many years, but I’ve not been fruitful at all so far. “Date within your kind” they say, and so I agree that dating only poly people makes for less complications, but the community in my city (just like in almost all cities I bet) is still nascent, and so does not make for a very large pool of people. You can add that to the dozen poly people on OkCupid – not very good for an abundance mentality.

I’m quite open myself to date outside that circle, but that presents some issues: many people being closed to having anything to do with someone poly (especially someone with a partner – and that’s their choice even though it’s unfortunate); and the others, well, are harder to deal with. It’s kind of hard to come out to someone as poly, given that there’s no clear line when I should tell someone that I am (saying that out of the blue just after hi to anyone would be pretty weird and takes a lot of energy), and often it’s not something that comes up on the topic.

Emotionally it can be hard too as I’ve had the standard non-mono disclaimer on my Tinder profile, and it felt like girls were avoiding me like the pest. Add that to the remaining others who mostly treated me like garbage, and… yeah I’ve deleted the app.

That said, I’ve had a few short liaisons where I kept it to myself and it made me a little… uneasy, so I don’t necessarily like hiding things either. I don’t want the person to be losing their time if it’s a deal breaker either and since my partner and I are going to live together soon, that makes the logistics awkward.

My question is two-fold: how do I meet people who are compatible with me (either on the short or longer term), and how/when/to whom should I say I’m polyamorous? For instance, if I meet someone who’s down for something casual, how do I make that viable? What information do I owe the people that I meet? How do I make it easy on both myself and the person?

When Poly Means One

DEAR WHEN POLY MEANS ONE: Dating when you’re poly or even in an open relationship comes with its challenges, WPMO. Well… for men, anyway. Poly women have very different challenges, but they rarely involve the issue of potential suitors.

As you said: you’re limiting your dating pool. You’re filtering out all the people who prefer more common relationship styles. And while yes, it’s best to date within your tribe or species (i.e. people who’re already open to or familiar with polyamory) that can be a smaller pool of potential candidates.

(This, incidentally, is similar to a lot of the issues that comes with dating while being LGBTQ – the people who you’re compatible with is going to be a small percentage of the overall population.)

So what do you do?

Well, there’re a number of options. The first is to start looking towards partners who are already outside of the mainstream. Within the kink community, for example, people are more likely to have an understanding of how poly relationships work, which may mean they’re more open to dating someone who’s poly. This doesn’t mean treating Fetlife like OKCupid per-se, but getting to know people in your area can open up possibilities.

You’re also more likely to meet people who are up for non-traditional relationships in nerd settings. I can’t count the number of people I’ve met at cons who are either open, poly or cool with non-monongamous relationships. Geekery tends to go hand in hand with kink and non-traditional relationships.

When it comes to disclosure… well, I’m of two minds. On the one hand, I’m a big believer in informed consent and letting people opt-in. However, this comes at a cost. Online dating, for example tends to make people a little less flexible; because we can pre-screen potential candidates (as it were) we tend to stick to what we think we want. We are less open to serendipity or discovering that maybe we’d be willing to give someone a shot even if they don’t line up perfectly to our checklists.

As a result, an argument can be made that not mentioning being poly in your dating profile is an allowable lie as long as disclosure comes sooner (i.e. before sex or commitment) rather than later. This lets a potential partner get to know you as you, not as the stereotype of WPMO-The-Polyamorous they may have in their head. And if you’re just meeting someone off Tinder for NSA sex… well, a lot of people may choose not ask or want to know in the first place.

But this approach comes with its own risks; many people will feel tricked and that’s going to really upset them. So you have to weigh the risk/reward ratio to this.

As a general rule, I’d disclose earlier rather than later; if not during the heavy flirting stage then definitely before pants start coming off.

Unfortunately there aren’t any easy answers, WPMO. The challenges in finding compatible partners is part of the price of entry when it comes to an open/polyamorous relationship, especially when it’s still in the early stages of cultural acceptance. There will have to be compromises to necessity; you may have to look further afield than normal and be open to something long-distance if you don’t have much luck in your area.

Regardless of the approach you take, you’re going to have to spend some time finding what best practices work for you, in your community.

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: Recently I met a pretty nice guy. I wasn’t gonna date him but I liked talking with him until one day he confessed that he used to be the abuser in an abusive relationship. That made me wonder what happens to people like that after their abusive relationship ends. I mean, does being an abuser once or twice make a person dangerous for others for life? With STD you at least know that infecting others is not something infected person wants to do. But being violent and manipulative towards one’s partner seems to be something one must be able to control. Which makes a former abuser into a person that others should keep their distance from. Yet, it seems to be a bit unfair. So, my question is whether trusting the former abuser is no different from trusting someone with criminal record or it requires super extra caution because people rarely change?  

No Need For A Clever Name

DEAR NO NEED FOR A CLEVER NAME: Whoof. This is a tricky one, NNFACN. On the one hand, I have pretty much zero sympathy for people who abuse their partners, either physically or emotionally. It’s a deep violation of the trust that we put in our partners, and the scars that result can last a lifetime. On the other hand, I do believe in redemption and in the potential for people to come back from the Dark Side.

Unfortunately, the “I’m so ashamed, I’ll never do it again” card is an incredibly common play by abusers as a way of manipulating their victims into sticking around – so many that it’s hard to trust someone with an abusive past, even when they were disclosing it to you so you can make an informed decision about your association with them. After all, the world is full of people who are a sucker for a good redemption story.

And yet at the same time, you don’t necessarily want to slap someone down for being honest with you, especially when they’re (hopefully) doing so in good faith.

You can see how it’s possible to tie yourself in knots over this.

So I’m going to be honest: my knee-jerk reaction is “Not just no but HELL no”. But again: I WANT to believe in second chances and people’s ability to change and do better. And on the other, other hand, there are people who eagerly want to take advantage of that belief.

So here’s my thought on the matter: if you’re going to pursue this, you do so with an incredibly skeptical eye and some VERY finely tuned bulls

t detectors. You follow the old Russian proverb: trust… but verify. Someone who has a past as an abuser is someone who needs to be vetted extra carefully — we’re talking CIA levels of carefully —  before entering into a relationship with them. There are many, many questions that need to be answered: what happened, how did he or she start abusing their partner, why did they stop? Were they abused themselves? Did they have specific triggers? Was the abuse part of being addicted to drugs or alcohol? Have they undergone addiction counseling? Anger management therapy? Worked with a psychologist to deal with their underlying issues? Do they have references - exes who can tell you about their relationship?

That is not a joke – being able to talk with former lovers about the (ex) abuser can give you a more rounded picture of what he or she is like and whether or not they fake remorse as part of the abusive cycle, and they’ll have perspective that their ex doesn’t.

The guy will also have to be willing to accept that pretty much everything they do is going to be going under a microscope over the course of a relationship – little things that might be brushed off as happenstance or not a big deal can have vastly different significance when you know the person doing them has a history of emotional abuse. It will be a while, possibly a long while, until their new partner may fully trust them and the ex-abuser will have to accept that he or she is going to be on double secret probation until they’ve proven themselves. And it will take a LOT of proof.

And even then… that may not be fool-proof. Some abusers are very, very good at earning their partner’s trust, and there are many who can play the long game. It’s a good idea to have someone else as a potential sounding board/canary in the coal mine.

But to be honest: this is all theoretical. My idealism is warring HARD with what I’ve seen others experience in abusive relationships. My instinct is still to say “date somebody else.”

At the end of the day: it’s tricky, it’s complicated, and it depends entirely on the individuals involved. I want to believe that people can be redeemed, but I would demand some pretty goddamned extraordinary evidence of change. 

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in an unfortunate situation at the moment. You see, my boyfriend is in an abusive friendship, and I’m not sure how to help him. His friend, who I’ll call “Danny” was a mutual friend of ours for some time. In fact, it’s because of him that my boyfriend and I met! My boyfriend has known Danny for nearly ten years, and considers him his best friend. I met Danny 4 years ago and recently ended our friendship; he started out nice but within the past year became abusive towards me as we became closer friends, and I finally worked up the courage to get out of the relationship and cut him out of my life.

Part of the reason I woke up to the abuse is because, when I talked to my boyfriend about Danny’s negative behavior, he said that Danny had *always* been like that! He had always been exceedingly selfish and demanding of his friends’ time, simultaneously belittling and jealous of their accomplishments, prone to unpredictable verbally violent outbursts, very controlling, and sexually inappropriate (a real creeper). I asked him why he is still friends with Danny if that’s the case, and he says it’s because he believes Danny is actually a good person, he just doesn’t know any better–and that he will one day change. He also says he is one of the few true friends Danny has that haven’t left him, and that everyone needs at least one friend.

My own decision to end my friendship with Danny put some strain on my boyfriend and I’s relationship, but we have mostly worked through it. (It helps that Danny no longer lives in the same state as us, and that I have no contact whatsoever with him.) But, from what my boyfriend tells me, Danny has not changed his behavior, and continues to hurt my boyfriend and treat him abusively. I do not want to pressure my boyfriend to leave a friendship he wants to stay in, especially since it might seem I’m only doing it because I am no longer friends with Danny, or that I somehow want to hurt Danny as “revenge” for abusing me. This isn’t the case, I just want my boyfriend to stop being hurt. How do I–in fact, CAN I?–make him see that he’s in an abusive friendship? And how do I help get him out of it?

Thanks for your help,

Worried

DEAR WORRIED: When we talk about abuse, we almost always talk about it in the context of an abusive relationship – usually romantic or parental. It’s incredibly easy to forget that friends can be abusers as well. In fact, in a lot of ways, it’s harder to rid yourself of an abusive friend because we tend to be so slow to recognize it and when we do, we don’t recognize just how much damage it does. I’ve lost track of how many people I’ve known who’ve had incredibly toxic “friends” and put up with their abuse for years – sometimes decades – because we just don’t have any real cultural recognition of the issue outside of cutesy names like “frenemies”.

Unfortunately, you’re caught in an impossible situation, Worried. You can’t make your boyfriend break up with Danny, any more than a concerned friend can make their best friend break up with their abusive partner. Making ultimatums will only make it worse; it gives Danny ammunition to claim that you’re just “jealous” and to whip out the “I was here first” card to play on your boyfriend’s sense of loyalty. And from the sounds of things, your boyfriend is admirably loyal – even to people who don’t actually deserve his loyalty. You also can’t make him see things the way you do; those years of being Danny’s friend are going to be a powerful filter. You can present the facts to him – point out how much he feels like crap after talking or hanging out with Danny, show him all the ways that Danny abuses him and cuts him down. You can even point out that if you were describing a female friend talking about her abusive boyfriend as “a nice guy who doesn’t know any better” and how “he’ll change some day”, your boyfriend would (probably) be insisting that she should leave his ass ASAP. But in the end it’s not going to do any good because things aren’t going to change until your boyfriend wants them to change. He is going to have to hit the point where he can’t take the abuse any more and recognizes that the only thing he can do is leave.

Now what can you do? Well, the most powerful thing you could do is something you’ve already done: you cut ties with Danny. You refuse to be complicit in the abuse by being part of Danny’s world and letting him manipulate you the way he’s manipulating your boyfriend. The next thing you can do is simply be Team Boyfriend; be the person who supports him, who cares for him and treats him the way he deserves to be treated. He needs someone on his side who can help draw out the poison. But – and I realize that this is going to be hard – you have to be non-judgmental as you do it. You’ve made your case about the way Danny treats him; the next move is your boyfriend’s. It’s ok to get frustrated that he doesn’t see the abuse but at the same time, blaming your boyfriend for not seeing things the way you do isn’t going to help him and will just push him away. You can keep him busy as the two of you build a life together. But the most important thing is simply be there for him. He needs someone to support him and this will be doubly true if and when he finally decides to cut ties. There’s going to be an ugly period as he processes everything that’s happened and he’s going to need your help afterwards.

It’s not going to be easy. In fact, it’s probably going to be pretty damn maddening. You’ll grind your teeth and want to tear your hair out. But in the end… being the support he needs will be the strongest and most important part of helping him break the cycle of abuse.

Good luck.

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