DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: In 2012-ish I was dating my first serious boyfriend. We were talking marriage, future, the whole thing. In retrospect there were A LOT of red flags that I ignored because it was my first real relationship and I didn’t want to listen to other people because I was just so in love with him. We had been together about a year and a half. He’d met my entire extended family. He told me he had a previous fiance and a child who died in a car accident. I was on my way home from college for the summer and I get a text from him. Oops wait… not him, his fiance of 3 fricking years. Not dead and no children either. He lied to me about pretty much everything except his name. I told the fiance that if he kept me on the hook for that long, there were probably others. She said he had photo albums with pictures of naked women who weren’t her. I tried to convince her to leave him as well, but they ended up getting married a few years later. Anyway, I dumped the douche canoe the next day and didn’t look back. There’s a lot more traumatizing details and events that would take too long to explain here. Long story short, this dude ruined me for a while.
Anyway, flash forward to 2022. I’m happily married. We’ve just had our second child. Who pops up in an unsolicited DM? His friggin’ wife. She’s on some rampage trying to get me to write a character statement for a judge or something about what a piece of s--t he was 10 years ago. I don’t know how she found my private profile or even knew my married name. I shut her down, block her, and think it was weird but over. No. Then Douche Canoe himself messages me separately and apologizes for her behavior. He bombards me with messages about how they are splitting up and he’s fresh out of his 4th stay in the mental health ward. He tells me how sorry he is and that he really screwed up by lying to the wrong girl blah blah blah. I still, and will continue, to hate him for what he did to me.
The problem is, hearing from him has reopened old wounds all over again. I feel like I am finding all this out for the first time. My husband is understanding of my moods and is supporting me as best as he can. He told me he understands and that I’m allowed to feel hurt and confused.
I feel guilty for even being affected by the whole thing since I thought I had those feelings dead and buried long ago. What can I do to stop reopening old wounds? Why does it still hurt so much? Will I ever be completely rid of him? I feel like a failure as a wife and mother for having these strong, unexpected emotional ties to someone who I don’t even want to be downwind of again.
The Past Isn’t Even Past
DEAR THE PAST ISN’T EVEN PAST: This is fairly easy, TPIEP: you didn’t reopen old wounds, they did.
But let’s jump back for a second: this dude hurt you. He told you absurd f--king lies that made him seem deep and significant and carrying wounds, in no small part so that you would feel like you were part of a grand romantic narrative… but mostly because it made him seem special. This was equal parts to get you, but also to bolster up his own ego. You believed him because honestly who the actual f--k lies about these things? Well, as we’ve seen from shows like Bad Vegan and The Tinder Swindler… lots of toxic, manipulative assholes.
It’s bad enough that he was a liar and a cheat, but the fact that you believed his lies? That’s what makes it hurt even worse. The fact that you were taken in by him is like the kiss of eau de f--k you, the squeeze of fresh lemon juice on the open wound that was finding out that he was a s--tty, lying, cheating bag of prolapsed rectums. It hurts so much more because it strikes you straight to your core; how could you have been so naive, so trusting, so whatever that he was able to mislead you like this? Well, not because you were stupid or too trusting or too whatever, but because he was a skilled manipulator. That’s not on you, that’s entirely on him.
So there he is, exposed as the liar and cheat he is. After a year and a half of being with this guy, you’re learning that nothing that you believed about him was true. The guy you thought you were dating never existed and it turns out that you never knew who he was at all. Yeah I’m absolutely not surprised how much this f--ked you up. You had your sense of reality turned upside down and given a shake and oh look a talking turd fell out. That’s going to screw with anyone.
But you recovered from this. You lived, you learned, you didn’t let this put a callous on your soul and you were able to trust and find someone so much better. Now here you are, a decade later, with a much better relationship and a much better life, happily relegating him to the garbage dump of S--tty Boyfriends Past and having done what I imagine was a significant amount of work to heal the damage he did. And lo and behold, his wife comes screaming out of the clear blue sky again and tries to drag you into her bulls--t and drama. So now the past is no longer prologue, nor is it even past any more; it’s very much the present and it’s stinking up your inbox like The Worst Toilet in Scotland. And I want to stress: this isn’t your mess to deal with, it’s his wife trying to push you back into this because you had the misfortune of believing a lying liar who tells lies when you were younger and less experienced.
Yeah, that’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt, not just because it’s a reminder of an awful experience you’ve tried to move on from, but because his wife isn’t seeing you like a person. She sees you as a hammer that she can use to sack-tap her husband during the divorce. How f--king insulting is that? To go to one of his victims and try to drag them back into her drama with no regard for your healing or well-being.
But in case that wasn’t enough, apparently it was two-for-one day at the self-centered-a--hole store because here he comes, a decade later and he doesn’t even have the dignity to be wearing a top hat and tails because while the notes may have changed, he’s trying to give you the same ol’ song and dance. So not only are they both opening old wounds like you’re stuck with scurvy on The Terror, but he’s got the f--king audacity to think that you might buy his bulls--t again? That ten years on, after he betrayed you in such a deep and fundamental way, thinking that you would ever want to hear from him again?
(Fun fact: while “making amends to the ones you harmed” may be a key part of various 12-step programs, the critical part folks often leave out is “unless attempting to do so will cause more harm.” Which is precisely what this dude is doing.)
So yeah, I’m not surprised that you’re feeling like this is a flashback to the trauma from the first time this happened. That’s exactly what this is. It’s the toxic relationship equivalent of The Matrix Resurrections, except instead of being an exploration and continuation of themes from a complex cyberpunk movie, it’s a couple of assholes hauling you back into their bulls--t and demonstrating that for them not a damn thing has changed. Second verse, same as the first, a whole lot louder and a whole lot worse.
And if I may: I want to applaud your husband, because he’s exactly right: you absolutely are allowed to be hurt and confused and also f--king angry about this.
What you shouldn’t do is blame yourself. Not for having fallen for his bulls--t, not for being hurt again or having deeply unpleasant feelings about all of this. None of this – literally none – is your fault. You didn’t seek them out. You didn’t ask for this. This was something they did to you. The fact that this hurts doesn’t mean that you’re a failure as a wife and mother, it hurts because they hurt you. If someone breaks your nose, then, after it’s healed, punches you in the nose again, you’re not a failure for being in pain. You didn’t fail to, I dunno, turn off your nerve endings or something.
This is the quintessential “this is a them problem, not a you problem.” You didn’t reopen old wounds. They did. You’re (rightfully) hurt, confused and upset by this because you got sucker-punched straight in an old emotional wound. You have done nothing to feel guilty about. I’m sorry that you’ve had to go through this, twice, but you need to remember: it’s not your fault. It’s theirs. Tattoo this backwards on your forehead so you can see it when you wash your face. Shave your head if you need the room: this is not your fault. It’s theirs.
Cut them out of your life like you’re excising a tumor. Block them on every possible way that they can get ahold of you, set up filters to send their s--t straight to spam folders or the trash where you never have to see it. If he continues to try to get around your blocks and filters, consider talking to a lawyer about some form of a no-contact order. It may be a hard lift to achieve, but having a judge say “shut the f--k up and go away” may be the open-palm slap across the mouth that tells them to never so much as blink in your general direction, never mind message you again.
This is not your fault. It’s theirs.
All will be well.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com