In this episode:
Letter #2
My boyfriend and I have been together for about eight months now. He is what I consider my ideal partner. Things have progressed rather fast, and we have moved in together about five months ago. His divorce is still ongoing, made difficult by his ex. Apparently there has been a lot of drama and abuse in their marriage, primarily caused by her having a history of mental illness, and he has been able to put a stop to most of the drama by reducing communication with her. I have not been able to meet her to at least introduce myself although I am taking care of their child every other weekend. He is making sure we do not cross paths and told me that she knows not to approach me. There is something that doesn’t feel right about this but my boyfriend assures me that it’s for the better; if we let her in, she would just create drama. Am I overthinking this? Is this a red flag? I don’t see how saying hi to her would be so risky. Especially since his son is also asking me when would I meet his mom. Also, if she has a history of mental issues how is he comfortable with her having their kid most of the time? Thanks!
Letter #2
Hi ladies, follow up from my letter from the guy I had a situationship with in my apartment building. I’m still uneasy about the dynamic because I’m confused, so I thought I’d give more context as to how it progressed. We matched on bumble in June and texted for a couple days before I called it off. My reason for it was because he wouldn’t ask me on a date, talked too much about sexual things, and I wasn’t looking for a texting buddy. I told him I deserve better than this and that I am not comfortable with the level of sexual banter here and his reply was “sorry about that. I was just following your lead.” I sort of walked away at that point but then fast forward a month later and I don’t know anyone else in my apartment building and was feeling so unwell so I reached out to him. Honestly I wasn’t sure if I wanted to reopen communication, I just wanted him to check on me if I wasn’t ok. But I didn’t bring that up. We talked on the phone the next night and he said I made him feel like a creepy old man for texting me such sexual things. I felt bad for hurting his feelings and then he started pushing my boundaries over text to start talking about sexual things again. I figured he wasn’t looking for a relationship and honestly I was going through a bad time emotionally so I didn’t care and replied to his texts even though they were late at night. However, the communication was inconsistent and I noticed my self esteem started to get worse. He’d reach out one week then ghost me for a couple weeks then come back like it was nothing. This seems like an abusive pattern (inconsistency). Anyway he did want to get together that one night and I was ok with it at first until I processed my emotions about it a few days later. I reached out to him asking why he texts me so late and he said he’s busy during the day and that’s when he has time and that he’s not a good communicator. I was annoyed and told him to kindly leave me alone. Then he apologized and went on about how amazing I am, how he was confused and hurt that I ended things before, and that he’d at least want to be friends and be there for me. In person when I’ve seen him he is always sweet and once I dropped my bag and a ton of things fell out and he helped me pick all of it up. So it’s gestures and sides of him I see like this that I admire. Also, we have an age difference of 20 years, but is that really bad? Anyway my question is how do I stop feeling like I wasn’t good enough for more? I feel so horrible about myself that I was only able to receive a sliver of him. I don’t see him with anyone else and he’s in the apps so I don’t know if there’s someone else. How do I stop ruminating over this and get back to being my boss bitch self?