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Welcome to the 78th edition of Into the A+ Advice Box, in which we answer all the queer and lesbian advice questions from A+ members who submitted their queries into our A+ ask box! Here, we answer your questions in a space just for A+ members, safe from the general public. (No guarantees regarding your ex, however.) Here, the Autostraddle team’s doling out advice on everything from sex and relationships, to friend and family dynamics, career questions, style, and more! We’re doing this column TWICE a month, now.
Every SECOND A+ Advice box of the month is themed, like this one! Next month’s theme is GENDER FEELINGS. Let’s talk about gender feelings and those feelings when it comes to ANYTHING, when it comes to style and fashion, options and paths in life, coworkers and friends, social media and insecurity, dating and relationships, family and identity — anything. And also, I gotta note here: this is expansive. Cis people have gender feelings! Trans people have gender feelings! Nonbinary people have gender and/or agender feelings! All are welcome to ask questions and participate. Get those questions in by Monday, March 6th. This will publish on the 17th!
The general Into the A+ Advice Boxes, where we take questions on practically any topic, publish on the first Friday of each month, and you can send questions on any topic, at any time.
So, now, let’s dig in!!
Q1:
One of my roommates just started hooking up with someone I had less than positive sexual experiences with about two months ago. It wasn’t anything untoward, I just felt like this person was pushy and not understanding me, even though I had a huge crush on them. I talked about all of this with my friend. It seems like these two have a great connection. Technically I know these two aren’t doing anything wrong, but I feel intense humiliation and betrayal. I feel like I’m the one who has to just suck it up and be fine with everything to make sure our dynamic doesn’t change, and my friend has basically asked me not to ruin this for them. And I also sort of pushed them toward this person because I suspected they would get along and maybe was also self sabotaging.
In any case, am I a narcissist? Are these feelings valid? I don’t understand why this whole thing feels so humiliating. Please help; I don’t want to feel so angry.
A:
Valerie Anne: I don’t think feeling weird about your roommate/friend dating someone you had a weird experience with makes you a narcissist. I think your feelings are valid, but I also think that, if you want to, you could get past it. If it was truly just a mismatch and the sex was bad because you weren’t connecting, and it’s just embarrassing (vs. something more serious), I think it can still be okay; because embarrassment is one of those emotions that only has as long a shelf life as you let it. It’s easier said than done, of course, but I find sometimes anger isn’t anger at all, it’s just embarrassment on fire. So you to try to put out that fire however you have to, let it burn out over time, or just absolutely smother it in new memories until you can’t even feel the heat anymore.
I do also understand feeling a bit betrayed; if I had told a friend about a negative experience I had with someone and they decided to start a new relationship with that person, I would feel a little like they were devaluing my experience, but the truth is, like you said, they didn’t do anything wrong. I hadn’t drawn that boundary or asked them not to, so who am I to say who they can and cannot talk to, you know? Betrayal is one of those tricky things that you can feel betrayal without ever having technically been betrayed, because our brains have all these fun little invisible boundaries that sometimes even WE don’t know about until they’ve been crossed. Which sounds a little bit like what happened here, that when you were pushing them together because you thought you’d get along you thought you’d be fine with it, but then suddenly you realize you’re not as fine as you’d hoped.
That said, I think it’s very reasonable of you to set some boundaries here with your roommate. Figure out the situations that would make you more or less comfortable and express that; maybe you just need a warning when they’re over so you don’t walk into a common space and get surprised by them and get a rush of leftover embarrassment you weren’t expecting. Maybe you don’t want them to come over at all for a little while. Maybe you DO want to specifically hang out with your roommate, this person, and a few other friends to sort of exposure-therapy yourself into moving past it. Whatever you need to try to work through it, ask for it. If your roommate is truly also your friend, and if they are dedicated to making this situation work, they will take the necessary steps to make sure you’re comfortable in the hopes that eventually you barely even remember the negative experience at all and can stop thinking about them as a person you had bad sex with, and only think of them as your roommates partner, and maybe even your new friend.
Nico: I do think that unfortunately if you’ve communicated with your roommate about your negative experience and they continue to see this person, that is their choice. I’m sorry you went through that. I however also agree with Valerie that you are well within your rights to have an honest conversation with your roommate and to establish some boundaries that will help you feel comfortable and safe in your home. Also, people have the capacity for growth! So, like Valerie said above, things could be different with your roommate and your other person and sometimes all we can do is be honest with folks and let them be adults.
Q2:
Okay so I know if I posted this on reddit AITA, I would be the asshole…back during lockdown my partner got really really depressed because she lost her career, wasn’t able to grieve properly when she lost relatives, and basically just sunk into a pit. I was left to take care of all the household things or most of them I guess. I really really tried and I’m someone who also suffers from depression myself but I got resontful of my partner not helping me clean. Now, she’s doing a lot better and she’s been really proactive about her mental health and got on meds and exercises and does a lot of housework now and basically things are all good! but I feel like I can’t move past the basically like entire year of having to take on so much. I know it’s not fair but it still bothers me because I feel like I can’t get that time back. How do I accept that it just sucked for both of us and move on?
A:
Heather: I actually don’t think this makes you an asshole at all. Taking on all the household things that go into keeping two lives running is A LOT. Not just physical labor, but emotional labor too: constantly planning for what needs to be cleaned and making time to do it, making sure you have all supplies, managing your energy to make sure you’re able to get all the things done, and if you add groceries and cooking on top of all that? Or taking care of kids or pets? Car maintenance and repairs? Social plans and medical appointments? That’s full-time job stuff when you’re managing it for at least two people.
Resentment and frustration around the division of chore labor is one of the main things most couples deal with, and it’s never cut and dry because every pair of humans has different needs and wants and upbringings and overwhelm around certain household tasks. (My favorite chore, for example, is vacuuming. I love to vacuum. I could vacuum every day. It’s the chore that makes my wife want to poke out her own eyeballs!) You can love your partner with your whole entire heart, be so supportive of her mental health journey, and also feel loss and sadness and even a little bitterness because you had to do it all alone for a whole year. All those things can be true at once.
In the best partnerships, you can rest in the knowledge that one day the pendulum will likely swing back in the other direction, and for whatever reason — grief, depression, sickness, accidents, other responsibilities — you’ll be the partner who needs the extra help. You’ll be the one whose laundry is bursting out of the hamper, and your partner will be the one to swoop in and make sure you have clean clothes. You’ll be the one who can’t manage to cook any kind of meal, and your partner will be the one who makes sure there’s food in the house and that you have good meals to eat. She’ll take care of you the way you took care of her.
If you think she’s the kind of partner who’ll do that for you, and you understand that you’ll probably not be operating at 100% for your entire life, maybe there’s some relief in that? It doesn’t sound like she was taking advantage of you, and it also sounds like she was able to battle all that hard stuff and build herself back into becoming the kind of partner you need. That kind of resilience is so admirable! And it sounds like she was able to do that, in large part, because of your support. And that’s so admirable about you! It’s okay to have your own kind of grief over what you missed out on, and at the same time to know one day she’ll probably be missing out on stuff because you need her in a similar way. That’s totally okay! Not every feeling you have requires action, and not every feeling you have about your partner is always going to be gratitude and admiration. Life’s full of complications and compromises. The key is choosing a partner who will be there with you through your inevitable tough times too.
Q3:
I’m nonmonog and previously wrote in about having 2 girlfriends. Ro’s (I think!) advice was great and I realized it wasn’t sustainable or healthy for me to have 2 girlfriends and I’d totally abandoned myself. I broke up with one, for a lot of reasons. But there was one unresolved incident – I won’t give a ton of details, but basically she experienced a violation by a friend of mine. I tried to facilitate mediation but she refused to talk about it for a long time and didn’t want to talk about it directly with the person at all. When I eventually, with her permission, spoke to that person, they responded beautifully – really showing up to be accountable. (They are still part of my community and we’ve continued on working through preventing violations & repairing trust.) But I broke up with the girlfriend shortly after. We are not in touch.
I’ve continued to struggle with feelings of frustration and anger towards her because her shutting down prevented community healing in real time. I know people respond in all kinds of illogical ways when they are violated – as a survivor, I know I have protected myself at the expense of rational measures of accountability – however I feel like she did a disservice to me, and to my community, by refusing to engage. And, without going into details, I also feel like she didn’t take any responsibility for her role in the interaction, and really basked in the attention and sympathy she got from being a victim – again, something I’m familiar with and have done before! Writing this is messy. How do I forgive her? Do I deserve her being accountable to me? Should I let it go & accept non-closure?
A:
Ro: Managing conflict between a romantic partner and a friend can be really tough, and it sounds like you felt (and still feel) caught in the middle. I’ve been there! It sucks! But initiating a mediation for a situation that, according to my limited knowledge, you weren’t directly involved in — when at least one of the participants was clearly uncomfortable and not interested in seeking closure at the time — was not the right move. I totally understand your frustration, but it seems like you’re centering your needs and your comfort instead of the people who actually experienced harm here.
The best thing you can do right now — for your sake and for the sake of your ex — is to let this situation go and leave your ex alone. Your ex doesn’t owe you accountability or closure. She gets to handle this situation on her own timeline, in a way that feels comfortable for her and in a way that might look nothing like your own healing journey. And if that pisses you off? That’s ok! You don’t have to forgive your ex or think of her fondly. You can be angry and sad that there’s been a rift in your friend group. But while you feel those feelings, you have to respect your ex’s privacy and the mental work she might be doing on her own.
Your friend also gets to handle this situation in a way that works for them and in a way that doesn’t put you in the middle of things. If you feel like that’s happening, set some boundaries so you’re no longer a part of this and you can all have the opportunity to move on.
Darcy: Ro’s advice is spot on here! I just want to quickly emphasize something that Ro noted far more comprehensively above: a person who has been harmed does not owe the person who harmed them anything in the name of “community healing.” She is not accountable to the person who harmed her in any way. She’s also not responsible for providing you, a third party in this situation, with closure. I think sometimes we lose sight of that, so I just wanted to underline it here! Sending you care.
Q4:
I just got off the phone with my dad who told me “your mother is mad at me” and when I asked why he just said “I said something she didn’t like and now she will probably not talk to me for a few weeks”. They have always been like this and upon reflection, I have inherited these bad habits for conflict resolution and instead alternate between pretending everything is fine!!! while secretly holding a grudge about minor things until they become major things and I explode. I would like to not be that person, but am not sure how to break that pattern. Thoughts?
A:
Darcy: As I’m sure you know, recognizing this pattern is an important first step, so congratulations on identifying that! I think one way to interrupt this pattern, if you have loved ones you trust, is to be transparent and talk about it as it’s happening. “This thing happened with the laundry yesterday, and my instincts are to ignore it and let it fester, but I’m trying to interrupt this pattern. Can we talk about it? It’s not a big deal, but I’m trying to interrupt this pattern as it happens.” I think this will feel uncomfortable at first, but will start to normalize over time! You can also be transparent even if you don’t recognize the feelings when they first crop up, because you’re ignoring them: “Hey, last week this thing happened, and it wasn’t a big deal, but I’ve been doing that thing I do where I let it fester, and I’m trying to do that less these days! Can we talk about it?” The more you can be open about your feelings and your process, both with yourself (journaling may help here) and with your loved ones, the more that process will normalize!
I also want to note that you don’t have to assign blame when you talk about something that’s weighing on you. When we spend a lot of time with our loved ones in close quarters, there are plenty of things that aren’t the other person’s *fault* that still can trigger us, confuse us, or make us irritable! Being able to openly say things like “I don’t think this is about you, but X situation has really been triggering me lately, is this something I can vent about/explore out loud to you?” is one way to approach those — and if you have a trusted confidante who is *not* the person triggering or frustrating you, but who is a good neutral third party (not a person who, to quote Saint Marie Kondo, “likes mess”) to occasionally talk to about your feelings, that’s an option too!
Q5:
My father was really emotionally abusive growing up, and I haven’t talked to him in 12 years. I don’t feel guilty about not talking to him because every time we’ve hung out, it just devolved into him pushing my buttons until I cried and mocking me for being weak and emotional. I’ve tried to hold him accountable, but it immediately turns into him gaslighting me and bringing up some anecdote from childhood about how I was terrible so I’m fine having a really really strict boundary with him. Honestly, not talking to him for so long has allowed for me to remember good aspects of him without thinking about the bad as much. I know forgiveness isn’t something I’ll be able to attain with him in my life, and people keep telling me I need to forgive him. Maybe I’m just not at that point now, but I don’t feel like I need to. I’ve been in therapy preparing for his death because he’s getting older. Potentially, there will be this lack of a satisfying resolution. I don’t feel like I need to forgive him to be healthy. Am I completely delusional? I’m not looking for therapy suggestions, I’m just interested in hearing peoples’ perspectives on how they approach forgiveness.
A:
Sally What I’m reading here is that you’ve gone through a lengthy process to work through your feelings about your Dad and you’ve got into a good place about it as a result of that work. There are some people that care for you that haven’t gone through your experiences, and have an opinion about extra stuff you need to do to achieve their view of “resolution.”
I also haven’t gone through your experiences, but I absolutely think you’re valid in understanding your own needs in this situation, and you don’t need to forgive someone just to adhere to expectations if you don’t feel it’s right for you.
Heather: I am so sorry you’re having to navigate this impossible situation, my friend. I lived through a similar kind of relationship with my mom. She died last year, and I hadn’t spoken to her in almost 15 years. I always worried that if I didn’t see her, or at least talk to her, one more time before she died, if I didn’t forgive her, there’d be all this unresolved conflict for me. That I’d be consumed by shame and guilt. Especially because, near the end of her life, she pulled out ALL the stops trying to rope me back into her life. What I realized in the year leading up to her death was that it would be absolutely impossible to see her again without her adding EVEN MORE TRAUMA to my life, on top of the trauma she inflicted that I’m still trying to pull apart and heal. 100% guaranteed, without a doubt, for complete and total sure, she would have abused and traumatized me more.
So I decided not to see her. It was the toughest decision of my life. I was shocked when she died because I had expected to feel like such an asshole — but I didn’t. I was sad for her, for the life she lived, and all the people she hurt and all the lies she told and doubled down on to try to justify her abuse. But mostly what I felt was an overwhelming sense of relief, that she wasn’t hurting anymore and that she could never, ever, ever hurt me or my sister ever again. I have felt a sense of freedom in the wake of her death that I could never have anticipated. I have, for the first time in my life, stopped looking over my shoulder, stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am healing in ways I never knew I could because I don’t have to be afraid of her anymore. I’m even finding an ability to be absolutely furious at her, which I was never able to do when she was alive, and that, too, is cathartic.
You don’t owe your dad ANYTHING. If forgiving him will help you, then absolutely pursue that, but it’s not something that needs to involve him in any way. You can forgive him without ever having any contact with him again. But you also don’t have to forgive him. AND whatever you decide right now, you can change your mind about later, as you grow and heal. You can decide down the road you do want to forgive him; you can decide actually, no, you’re still fucking furious and rightly so and he doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. This is your life and your journey and you get to decide what’s best for YOU at every step of the way.
I have forgiven my mom in some ways, because I needed to do that, for myself. There are some things I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive her for, things that were so deliberately and fundamentally reprehensible for a mother to do to her children, and that choice is for me too. Maybe I’ll change my mind one day. I doubt it, but I’m open to it. It’ll be for me, though; not for her or for anyone else, because the person she abused was me, and so I get to decide what is and is not forgivable, and what that forgiveness looks like. Most of my family will never understand any of this, and I’ve made peace with that too. They weren’t the ones who were traumatized by her, so they don’t get a say in how I choose to handle that trauma.
