Hi Alex

It’s good to hear that she enjoys her experiences with you.

Well sexual conversations for her are a very large part of her life. Not talking about it is asking her to hide who she is from you.

I can understand the discomfort with everything. I would think of it in this way. She was sexually assaulted as a child. It is common for sexual assault survivors to subject themselves to difficult sexual experiences afterwards.

My husband had a pornography addiction. He talks about it sometimes and it did make me feel uncomfortable. But it was also a big part of his life for a long time. I didn’t want him to feel ashamed of it. Perhaps she doesn’t want to hide who she is from you or to feel ashamed of it. If her past experiences are too much for you, perhaps she isn’t the right person for you.

We all have experiences and hers are unusual. But I’m sure that you can have empathy for the difficulties that she has had.

Wishing you all the best! ❤️🙏

Hi Alex

It’s pretty common for couples to discuss their previous sex lives. I’m sorry to hear that you have been arguing. Are your arguments related to your topic today? Or other things too?

It sounds to me like she might be hinting that her regularly engaging in sex years are behind her. She is older than you, perhaps she is going through menopause which actively changes sexual drive for women? I hear it can change a lot of things during sex too.

For women who say have had a hysterectomy sex can be very difficult too. There are lots of things that women have to deal with while for men, not as much changes.

Perhaps you fear that her comments reflect on your performance? But perhaps she is trying to communicate her personal difficulties?

It might be worth looking online for information about menopause and things that can help with that for sex. Not because of you, but to help her.

Realistically though, she may not want to have sex as frequently as you do. How do you feel about that?

Wishing you all the best? ❤️🙏

I just wanted to say that even though it might not feel that way to you, I think you’re a really strong person to have been through the things that you’ve been through.

Some people would have given up and you haven’t. You’ve worked really hard and treat even the “difficult” (I’m putting it politely, but they are far more than difficult) people in your life with compassion. It’s not an easy thing to do at all.

I think that says a lot of good things about your character.

Hi Nycartist

Quite often people misattribute being friendly for being flirty. It’s not uncommon for people in happy relationships to be flirty as a joke either as they feel secure in their relationships they don’t see it as true flirting where there would be a sexual interest.

I don’t think that your friend calling you flirty is a bad thing. Has she said anything else judgemental recently? You mentioned that there used to be issues between you both, could it be that you are worrying about those issues cropping up between you again?

Are you assuming that your friend isn’t being supportive? Or did she say something to suggest otherwise?

My husband is flirty without realizing it. Sometimes my sister and I tease him lightly about it and we all laugh together. Sometimes these comments are banter and jokes as opposed to serious?

I definitely think it’s possible to have relationships which aren’t judgemental and are loving and supportive. The trick is meeting kind people with good communication skills.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Laven

I’m so sorry to hear about the difficulties with your foster family, as well as the verbal abuse that you endure. It must be difficult being a care giver in that situation.

I was informally adopted and experienced similar difficulties with my adopted family. It’s really hard isn’t it? What has been hard for me is feeling that you’re never accepted. Do you have difficulties with feeling like this too?

To me, you sound like a good woman doing her best against all of the odds. You don’t deserve the way you are being treat. You deserve to be loved and appreciated for who you are as well as the things you do. It sounds like you lost that feeling when your partner left. Would you agree? I’m sorry that your heartbreak continues.

Do you feel like if you didn’t care for your foster mom no one else would and something bad would happen to her?

It sounds like your foster mom has had these difficulties with verbal abuse towards you for a long time? I would agree that it’s not because she’s old.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Seaturtle

Congratulations on the new job! A nanny is very similar to mothering. We are actually thinking of getting a nanny. It’s a shame that we can’t hire you as a nanny as we are on the other side of the world. You sound like a really good nanny. I’m glad to hear that the job doesn’t stress you out.

It does sound healing taking care of this girl the way that you should have been taken care of. It makes me angry for you that you were blamed for being a child and treat like that. I wish that someone would have stood up to your father for you growing up and stopped him from behaving like that.

I probably have a controversial opinion on understanding abusers. I think it’s a good thing that you understand his circumstances and appreciate the resources he was able to provide.

For a long time, I couldn’t understand the idea of forgiving abusers. It took a lot of work to get to the point of where I could. To me, it is important because it isn’t really about them. It is about making peace within ourselves. I don’t think forgiving them takes away anything that they did, or erases that pain. But understanding that they are broken fallible people that probably shouldn’t have had children was helpful to me. I can’t help but in a way be thankful for existing. Not thankful to my abuser. But if she hadn’t had a child I wouldn’t be alive. And if my adopted mother hadn’t taken me in I wouldn’t be alive either. If I hadn’t been through what I’d been through I wouldn’t be the person that I am today. But yes, I think understanding abusers is a part of forgiving them.

As a mother, I can say that being a parent is a lot harder for me than not being a parent. Initially, it was very difficult. But it is getting easier. I think how busy I am is rather self imposed and my choice. Not an easy choice, but the alternative is giving things up.

For me, both of my mothers were severely abused. My biological mother came from generation abuse. Her father raped her amongst other things. She was a single mother at a very young age, because of a man 10 years older than her was irresponsible and got off on siring children then abandoning them. She had very severe mental health problems and she asked for help at one point and was turned away by an idiot doctor.

My adopted mother came from an abusive home too. She also had multiple abusive husbands who were violent and sexually abused her. She also has mental health issues.

Help for people with trauma is a relatively new thing. A lot of older people have had very little or no help with the trauma they experienced. Birth control was also not really a thing for a while.

On the other hand. Your father’s financial situation improved and he still abused you, so I don’t think his financial situation can be used to excuse his behaviour. But you did mention that he had a difficult childhood himself. Perhaps this is the real reason that he did what he did. That being said, everyone makes a conscious decision to either continue the cycle of abuse or stop it. You chose to stop it. Your father chose to continue it and he has to live with that choice. He chose to feel powerful, re-enact his abuse this time in the role of abuser and traumatise his own children.

Perhaps part of the reason he asks for constant praise is because he suffers internally. Abusers often live in denial of what they have done with pain buried deep inside eating away at them,

It sounds like to me you are in the process of removing the tape from your mouth and learning to protect yourself and find your voice.

Ah I see, there is a lot going on with the relationship with your friend. It can certainly be difficult with people who aren’t used to you being assertive. They will need time to get used to how things are now. It is a good thing that you are standing up for yourself.

Not only, does she not acknowledge your feelings about the situation. She is also imagining that she is the only one who is hurt.

I think that you should definitely speak up when she is critical. Like saying that you lack empathy when you are an empathetic person. It is just hard when she immediately started blaming you.

So she’s still in an abusive relationship add is complaining about it. That is a shame. To me that means she wants to be depressed.

As someone who grew up with abuse I don’t understand the people who are adults that choose to be in abusive relationships. It is a relatively self-imposed problem.

Sometimes as you get healthier you start to notice more and more unhealthy behaviours around you. Do you think this could be happening here?

Please do not feel self-conscious for discussing your thoughts and feelings. I think that your authentic self is pretty amazing and utterly disagree with the people calling you selfish. Ultimately, we all have a responsibility to take care of ourselves. If everyone did that, there would be a lot less pain in the world.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Nate

As Anita said, it sounds like you have some unrealistic expectations for dating.

At 21 even while dating, most people don’t even know what love is yet. You hear about it in media, but even that is contrived.

It’s highly unlikely that you will find love even in a relationship as a 21 year old. People are still figuring themselves out and trying to build a life. Yourself included.

Dating is really just like having a friend that you have sex with. Don’t pin some unrealistic ideas on it. It’s even okay just to want to have the experience of having sex. It’s a normal part of growing up. The easiest place to meet someone who wants to do that is at a party.

If you take things as they are. Allow people freedom. Develop friendships and get to know people without expectations of dating them. In time, it’ll happen.

Some people you are attracted to and some you aren’t. It is the same for women. There is nothing more interesting than a guy who actually cares about you as a person and a human being.

Meet lots of new people, have fun, have lots of new experiences and make lots of friends! Things will fall into place.

Wishing you all the best! ❤️🙏

Sorry I started to fall asleep towards the end there. Didn’t really finish my thoughts.

The problem isn’t really the ADHD, it is the depression. When she wasn’t depressed you got on fine? Over time, if she works on her depression she would theoretically return back to her old behaviour. But this isn’t a quick or easy process to recover from her depression, so her current behaviour will persist for a while. It’s not something that she can just turn on and off.

It sounds like you went to your friend with this problem expecting empathy and for her to want to work on the friendship. This is a healthy expectation. Instead what you got is “It’s not my fault. You’re being mean to me for not accepting me the way that I am. I’m hurt.”. You got a lot of misplaced blame for your natural feelings. Your friend has natural and acceptable feelings too. They do make sense because it is a painful and sensitive topic for her. But it isn’t your fault. You are a kind person and I think you would have more empathy for her situation if she had shown you empathy and not blamed you. For both of you right now, it can be difficult to show someone empathy when you are feeling defensive. What do you think?

You deserve empathy from your friend as much as she deserves empathy from you. Your intention has been to try and resolve difficulties in the relationship. You inadvertently stepped on a land mine (a trigger for her) in the process. You didn’t know it was there, that she would react in this way. It is a lot to take in and process when your relationship has already been suffering.