When Messed Up People Become Inappropriately Attached

Sadly, I write from experience.

FLUMMOXED AND SAD wrote in to Dear Margo:

Last February I met an amazing woman online.

Meeting online is NOT the same as meeting in person. It can facilitate meeting in person, but it isn't the same as doing it. I say this as someone who has made pen pals online. Yes, there is a kind of interaction there, but do not confuse it with an in-person relationship.

We have been talking ever since, and we have met. On those occasions, we
have been intimate.

So you have a pen pal that you fornicate with.

In many ways I feel I've found someone with whom I feel safe.

Interesting. What does that say about you that it takes someone who is at a distance and interacts with you mostly through controlled communications for you to feel safe?

However, I have always had many friends of the opposite sex.

Which translates to: One of us is not attracted to the other (that is, if they are not fornicating).

Recently, my best one, who lives locally, has been dealing with some personal issues. As a friend, I was spending time with her, babysitting for her and listening to her without the judgment she was receiving from her family.

Sounds like you are the “nice guy” who she gets to do things for her while she goes out with other guys, who aren’t so nice. Like the guy who knocked her up.

The problem is that I have been open about my friendships and what I do on a
day-to-day basis. Now the woman I love is feeling betrayed, which has put a dent
in my long-distance relationship with the woman I feel a complete love for.

Ugh. She has no right to tell you what to do – only the right to tell you under what conditions she’ll continue to carry on with you. She is essentially a pen pal, and for you to get so hung up on her shows that something is wrong with you.

Now I am trying to make her feel comfortable with a friendship that has never been inappropriate or intimate. She says she just needs time. In the meantime, I have become a recluse from my other friendships because I don't want to withhold information from the woman I love.

Yuck. See what I mean? And it is possible for a friendship to be inappropriate even if there is nothing sexual. It's called... using, or abusing.

She has been betrayed so often by other men, and I don't want to be that guy.

So you want to be the guy who lives by the insecurities of a pen pal? What’s wrong with you?!? Either she keeps picking bad men or she is experiencing the same difficulties everyone faces in personal relationships, and is blowing it out of proportion. Either way, you’re subjecting yourself to drama you don’t need with someone who has relationship problems, just like you do.

Dear Margo replies:

I don't think there's anything you can do; maybe a therapist could help.

YES. He needs some therapy.

You are having to tread lightly because of her past hurts. What she needs to understand is that you are not these men; you are you.

Right. Both men and women tend to lump the other sex together as one monster, and that’s not right. People should be treated as individuals. That does not mean you ignore the realities of human behavior, though.

I would strongly recommend that you not let any woman dictate your outside friendships; it is neurotic, a form of control and certainly a sign of insecurity.

Good advice. Perhaps what we need are fewer relationship experts who try to make relationships work when they are based on the signifcant flaws of the participants. We need more experts willing to say "You should not get involved with someone else until you deal with this problem in yourself."