DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This is a question with a lot of background, so thanks for your patience.
I’m a 57 yo woman who has had an ongoing… thing… with a 71 yo career cop for 30 years. We met I was trying to get sober (I did shortly thereafter) and was just out of two quick, consecutive, abusive marriages. He didn’t tell me he was married at first; I found that out after sleeping with him a few times. I continued to see him over the next three decades. His wife died a dozen years ago and he took up with a girlfriend. He refused a traditional relationship with me but was happy to continue what we had.
I finally recognized that for me, he was the embodiment of the pinnacle of success that every NYC girl from a working-class immigrant family dreamt of – except that I never wanted the policeman/fireman husband and the house in East Cupcake with the barbecue in the backyard. I went to school and have forged my own path.
I have kept going back to him, though, because in many ways, he is a connection with a loving past that I never had (my childhood was horrific). I recently wound up living with him in his house for several months, and I have found out a few things.
He continues his pattern of disingenuousness. He did not tell his girlfriend he was sleeping with me, and he told me he knows she wishes he would change his mind and marry her, but he won’t, and he stays with her because it’s convenient. He went out and shagged some other woman while I was staying with him. When he owned up to it, his response was full of a lack of agency: “I really didn’t want to,” “we usually wind up sleeping together,” etc. Then he compared me to this woman and told me the sex was better with me!
From my viewpoint, the sex with him is lousy. When he touches me, it’s as though he is trying to wrestle with a rusty lug nut. It may have been better in the past, or I may have been less experienced, but it’s terrible now.
I had a separate bedroom in his house but mostly slept in his room. The few times he slept in “my” room, he said things like, “I’ll catch up with you later,” and “I hope I didn’t forget anything,” as though he were leaving my apartment to drive home instead of going down the hall to his own room.
His habits are so engrained. He has health problems: diabetes, HBP, bad back and knees. He smokes cigars, drinks too much, lies to his girlfriend, hangs out at Hooters, and sleeps around. I suspect he tries to fill in empty spaces within himself but that the effects are only temporary.
He has stated he does not want to remarry, and despite the fact that I wanted a relationship with him for many years, I see now that it would not work with him. He told me I am a square peg (I am, it’s true), and that I would have to sand off my edges to fit into his round hole. I can’t do that, so that’s that. I agreed with him that it wouldn’t work, and he seemed surprised. I think he’s also confused because he is not in touch with any of his other affairs. I moved away, but I kept in touch over the years. I see that he breadcrumbed me for years and allowed me to entertain fantasies about a future with him that he knew he had no intention of fulfilling, as he is doing with his girlfriend.
He does have good points. He has given me job references and helped me financially over the years. I have repaid all the money. He allowed me to stay in his home, even when he went out of town for several weeks. On the other hand, while he did attend two funerals with me in the past, he ditched me for my son’s wedding.
I am confused about why he trusts me and tells me the truth when he lies to his girlfriend. He trusted me not to tell his wife about the affair, and now, not to tell his girlfriend. I feel icky about the lies and complicit in his dishonesty. Also, I wonder about whether I was a victim. Was he taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable person? Did I participate in that? I spent a lot of time over the years wondering why I was always available when he called.
Now I’m not sure what to think or feel, although I do feel kind of dumb to be dealing with these issues at my age. I would appreciate your perspective.
Not Lost Anymore
DEAR NOT LOST ANYMORE: Not gonna like NLA: I have no goddamn idea why you kept going back to this dude. I mean, the sex is lousy, he treated you with contempt, he was cheating on all of his partners with you and made it clear that he had absolutely no interest in treating you like an equal, a partner or even with anything other than the bare minimum of whatever it took to keep you coming back around.
And why should he? I mean, look at all the s--t you write about him and the way he treated you and you still kept going back. Even from a strictly utilitarian point of view, dude had absolutely no reason or incentive to change his ways. Leaving “maybe it’s good to not treat someone I sleep with like s--t” or “I am hurting someone and I should stop” aside and looking at this with pure, cold-blooded calculation… there’s no motivation or incentive on his part to change. There’s not even a glimmer of “well, if I want NLA to stay, I have to change things up”.
That’s part of why he’s continued to trust you and tell you about how he’s been lying to his wife and to his girlfriend. He trusts you with all of this because you’ve never gave him reason not to. You never told any of his partners that you exist, you’ve never advocated for your own needs, your own pleasure… he gets exactly what he wants from you with no pushback.
Though, to be blunt: I don’t exactly see that there’s any value in pushing back. I mean, I’m sorry, the person you’ve described is garbage. Bad sex, s--tty treatment, disrespect and he’s cheating on his partners with you? Woah, what a total catch! And again, in the spirit of blunt honesty: his “good points” are baseline at best and certainly doesn’t make up for the giant pile of steaming sentient horse s--t that is the rest of him.
I don’t think you were victimized or being taken advantage of; at least, I don’t think this guy was some Svengali who was manipulating you in secret and sinister ways. I think that you were trying to fill a need and there was something about him that at least felt like it was fulfilling you. A lot of times, we end up in s--tty relationships because there’s that one thing that we’re getting from it. The problem is when we let that one thing blind us to the rest of their bulls--t and, worse, we fail to realize that we can get that need met without the death of a thousand mistreatments that comes with them.
In your case, it may well be as you say: it felt like a way of connecting with an idealized past you never had. Problem is, the present was s--tty and the future ain’t showing any signs of change. Which, again, brings the question of “why in pluperfect hell is he even vaguely in your life again?”
I think the best thing you can do for yourself is figure out exactly what this dude is bringing in your life. Not the relationship — that’s clearly not great — but just the thing that makes you come back again and again. Get to the root of that, and you’ll be in a much better place. Specifically, a place where a) you can figure out a healthier way to meet this need, b) and find a better partner in the future and c) where he is nowhere to be seen.
The next best thing you can do for yourself is dump this guy. Dump him so hard his ancestors feel it. Cut all ties, burn all the bridges behind you and don’t bother roasting marshmallows in the blaze because the smoke is probably gonna be enough to turn the whole area into a relationship Superfund site. And if he does reach back out or tries to pull you back into his orbit, do yourself a favor and light the dude up so much that people will speak of what happened to him in hushed tones, leaving his shattered remains as a lesson to children in the future about how not to behave with people who care about you.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com