DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a girl I’ve sort of adopted, and she is having sex with the men in my friend circle and they all have girlfriends including my ex and my boyfriend she had become friends with these woman also she has sex with these men and afterwards says she is a piece of s--t and she don’t know why she does it.
But I should have been the exception of the rule, because I have been there for her and she lived with me and I took care of her she is in her mid-twenties and should know better I’ve had gut feeling for the last 6 months that there was some secret something going on between her and my boyfriend. They both denied anything happening I left for a three week trip out of town and within a week they had a threesome together, knowing how I was feeling about the who situation.
Is there a mental health issue for a woman to blatantly disregard people’s feelings and boundaries to people who has done absolutely nothing to her to deserve this type of disrespect and horrible behavior? She now has no lasting friendships and really doesn’t seem very upset when she is confronted by the women she has hurt she just says “I don’t know why I did it ” “I’m a piece of s--t ” but she continues to sleep with more men, almost like she has to have other woman’s men.
I’m truly hoping you could bring some light to why she would behave this way before someone really hurts her for sleeping with their husband or boyfriend.
Not Down With OPP
DEAR NOT DOWN WITH OPP: I’m not sure why you thought you’d be an exception, NDOPP. This sounds very much like a case of “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal”. You knew who she was and what she was like. She hadn’t shown respect to anyone else’s relationships; the fact that you were close with her and treated her like found family doesn’t necessarily grant magic resistance to her desire to f--k up other people’s lives.
Now as for why? Well… honestly, the why is less important. It’s not as though knowing that, say, she has deep-seated trauma and punishes herself by consciously or subconsciously isolating herself by burning every conceivable bridge is going to change things or make it better. She’s still f--king up people’s relationships with joyous abandon.
I’m also not inclined to ascribe a mental health issue to her behavior. Being an asshole isn’t a mental illness, after all, and some people are just assholes.
It’s certainly possible that she has something akin to borderline personality disorder; some people with BPD will act out in disruptive and harmful ways as a particularly dysfunctional form of self-defense. BPD tends to correlate with trauma and a deeply ingrained fear of rejection and being hurt and some people will behave in ways that push others away in a misguided attempt to keep from being hurt.
Is that what’s happening here? F--ked if I know. Having BPD doesn’t make you a serial cheater/homewrecker, and god knows most people who do have BPD don’t act out like this. Just as relevantly, though: Dr. NerdLove is not a mental health professional, and even if I were I wouldn’t be able to diagnose someone third hand via letter.
The more important part is that, as I said, it doesn’t really matter. Maybe she does have BPD. Maybe she has some sort of trauma and she acts out sexually. Maybe she just really likes breaking taboos or gets off on the power of knowing she can “take” someone else’s man from them. In either case, it’s not as though there’s anything you can do to change that. You’re not her doctor, her legal guardian or someone who’s in a position to actually “fix” her, nor should you be trying.
However, there’s also the fact that it seems like you’re putting everything on her and not on the men – including your boyfriend – for their part in this. Someone can’t “steal” your man, as though he had no choice in the matter. It’s not like she’s a succubus, magically enthralling men and leading them into temptation against their will. All of the men involved are as much to blame; it takes two to tango, and they all chose to cheat with her. And while I’m on record as saying that not all infidelities are equal, there’s a difference between “I had too much to drink and failed my wisdom saving throw while I was on vacation” and hooking up with someone who’s been making her way through the entire friend circle and leaving destruction in her wake.
This is why the “why” of her actions doesn’t really matter. The bigger, more important “why” is “why is she still in your life”? Even if we leave out the “well she never did it to me” aspect (especially since she eventually did), the fact that this person was causing such chaos and strife in your social circle sounds like a very good reason to kick her the f--k out. It’s also a good reason to be upset with the folks she cheated with.
That it eventually came back around and bit you in the ass? Well, like the scorpion said to the frog, “you knew I was a scorpion when you met me”.
Stop worrying about the “why” and focus more on the “what” – specifically, what’re you going to do about her. And my recommendation would be for you and your friends to drop her like fifth period French.
Good luck.
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