DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long time lurker, first time writer( insert all gushing here). I really like how you give honest, occasionally painful but also necessary advice. I have a kinda awkward question for you and I hope you can help, because I am at a loss at the moment.
I have been very lucky in that I have managed to have mostly amenable break ups in my life and have stayed, if not friends at least cordial to a lot of my ex’s. It’s not unheard of for me to hang out with or casually chat with people from my past, and usually it’s a pleasant experience. Sometimes though, it gets weird.
A few months ago, an old lover from MANY years ago started a conversation with me about bars and the music scene in our city, looking for recommendations. I go out a reasonable amount, so this is not a strange thing. He is happily married with kids and travels a lot for work, so he has a lot of time to talk. We used to work in the same field, which is how we met and had an extremely brief fling at least 10 years before he met his wife., and we had remained peripherally friends.
Back to the story. I start chatting with Ryan (not his real name) and again it all starts easy enough. General life stuff, bar and restaurant recommendations, things to see while traveling, that sort of thing. But then the conversation turns to “hey, remember when we had a good time?”
And, sure, we did have a good time back in the day. But that was *back in the day*. I tell Ryan that while of course I remember our good time, it’s way in the past and I am cool with being friends, but that’s it. He agrees, and we keep chatting. During the day, it stays mellow and innocuous, but in the evenings it becomes way more sexual. Generally I just laugh it off and in the morning I get apologies. At this point, he had more than hinted that he would like to resume our earlier relations and that he really isn’t that satisfied in his marriage. I am starting to get uncomfortable with the whole situation. I feel like I am being used as an excuse.
How can I make it abundantly clear that I in no way want him to use me as an excuse to end his marriage? I like him as a person, but I am not about to restart any kind of relationship with him. I don’t really want to go nuclear option. But is there any other option?
Not a Home Wrecker
DEAR NOT A HOME WRECKER: There are a couple things going on with your ex, NAHW, and unfortunately, he’s made the decision to bring you into his drama.
The first is the classic siren call of The Ex. There’re a lot of reasons why someone might want to get back with an ex, even years after the fact. For some, it’s about unfinished business; the break-up wasn’t their idea, they thought everything was going great and then they got blindsided by a break-up coming screaming out of the clear blue sky. To them, it’s about either getting some form of closure (that they will never get, because closure is something you give yourself), or setting right what went wrong. To them, the relationship never should’ve ended and has taken on an almost mythical status and they’re always trying to get back there.
For others, it’s the lure of (theoretically) easy sex; y’all hit it before, he knows what you’re into, surely he can use those same old moves to get back into your pants for some of the same ol’ moves. Still for others, it’s the way that nostalgia puts a golden haze over everything; everything is softer and fuzzier and simpler and all the harshness and rough edges are smoothed away. It represents a better time, a happier time… regardless of what that time was actually like. And if they’re going through some rough times, say, with their current partner… well, the siren call of the past is hard to resist. The past may be a country to which we can never return, but that’s never stopped folks from trying. It’s also the place that memory can turn into anything if you’re determined to remember it that way. So you might, for example, turn a brief fling into a torrid whirlwind romance full of drama and passion that only ended because of forces outside of your control, rather than a “that was pleasant, well… bye.”
I think, based on your description, it’s safe to say that your ex is having a bad case of that Golden Haze of Sexy Nostalgia. He remembers the fling, he wants to get back there (metaphorically and also in your pants) and go back to a time when things were better. The only question I have – and, admittedly, I’m a horribly cynical bastard with a lump of coal where my soul should be – is whether the problems with the wife actually exist… or if it’s just entirely one-sided. God knows that “my wife doesn’t understand me” has long been the excuse of many a philandering husband who’s trying to eke some sympathy sex (or at least, nudes) out of women.
That having been said, I think it’s safe to say that he is, at the very least, unhappy in his marriage. This, I suspect, is part of why the chats start getting sexual as the night falls. He’s at home, possibly going over old photos from back in the day or doing a little light browsing on PornHub while the fam is asleep and dickful thinking takes over. You’ve been receptive to at least talking, you’ve got history, he’s horny and he wants to try his luck. And since you haven’t told him to f--k right off, I’m willing to bet that he’s taking that in the spirit of “so you say there’s a chance.”
Now to be 100% clear: I’m not blaming you. This isn’t your fault for not saying the right words to make him go away. This is my (slightly educated) guess as to his mindset when he starts trying to getting you to sext with him. He isn’t getting anywhere with you, but he’s trying not to hear that, so until he gets an unambiguous “f--k off and die”, he’s going to assume he’s got tacit permission to continue.
But that brings us the second thing going on. If you’re a long-time reader, then I’m sure you’ve seen me ask someone “are you asking me for advice on what to do, or are you asking me for permission to do it?” Most of the time, the answer is the latter; they’ve already made up their mind, now they’re just looking for someone else to tell them that it’s ok.
I suspect that this is the situation that your ex is in. He’s made up his mind that he’s going to leave his wife; now he’s just looking for the right self-destruct button to slam his hand down on. It may be that he’s hoping that this will also provide him with a landing pad (i.e. you) for when his marriage detonates messily and all over the place. Or it may be that he figures that it’s easier to hook up with an ex to start that ball rolling. As much as I don’t want to take away from the idea that you’re a desirable option in and of itself, I think that ten years of little to no contact followed by his being uncomfortably horny at you suggests that he may think you were a softer target. Which, let’s be real, is a bit insulting.
But that’s all his drama. You, on the other hand, are the innocent bystander he’s dragging into it. So the only thing for you to do is march yourself out of it.
Much as it sucks, I think you’re going to have to stop ignoring or laughing off his late night attempts to get you hornt up and tell him to knock it the f--k off. And it will likely need to be in direct, unambiguous words, because the odds are that either he’s going to pretend he doesn’t know what you mean (“oh no, I’m not trying to start an affair with you, perish the thought!”) or else he’s going to try to twist it in his head so that you didn’t really say what it sounded like you said. It’s easy to do that when someone’s just laughing it off. It’s a lot harder when that someone says “just to be clear, I am not now, nor will I ever be interested in sexting with you, sleeping with you or otherwise doing anything where parts of you enter parts of me and that includes emergency surgery”.
You don’t need to make it about his marriage or the divorce he seems to be trying to trigger; just that you have no interest whatsoever in talking about sex with him, nor do you want him bringing the topic up – whether it’s under the context of how things used to be or what you could get up to now. Draw that big, thick bright line and make it clear that his having any further contact with you is entirely contingent on his staying on the other side of it. If he sets a toe across… well, you warned him. Now he’s both missing a toe and also you, as he’s been cut off. And I do mean in that moment. Just a big “nope, told you, we’re done here” and then end the conversation. Possibly including blocking him if he doesn’t get the hint or thinks that a tearful apology in the cold, unforgiving light of sobriety the next morning is enough to excuse (and allow for more of) the habitual line-stepping.
I also want to be clear – not that you’ve indicated you feel this way, but it’s worth repeating – any problems in his marriage aren’t your concern. You’re not in any way obligated to coach him on how to stay married or help him fix his relationship, nor to help him find a less explosive way of ending it. He’s the one trying to make his mess your concern, which ain’t cool. He can make his own mistakes without your help or involvement and he can fix them the same way.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com