I cheated, came clean, and after some work, he forgave me. We’ve been together for over a year and shit has been fantastic. He’s my dream dude, so why am I the one having trouble trusting him?

You’re the one having trouble trusting him because you’re the one who cheated. Cheaters are always plagued with trust issues. It’s a little slice of karmic retribution I like to call cheater’s irony.

I’d tell you I’m sorry, but I’m not. You cheated, and now you’re worried he’ll do the same to you. Tough shit. That’s just how it goes.

I’ve been with this man on and off since middle school. We have an eight year old daughter, which is the main reason why I’m still with him. He is a great man, but I am not truly happy. We have built a home for our daughter together, and I feel wrong to end it and have to put her through the heartbreak and mess. What the hell would you do?

It doesn’t matter what the hell I would do, because I wasn’t stupid enough to get knocked up by some guy I met at recess. What the hell you should do is continue putting your daughter first, and get ridiculous notions of being “truly happy” out of your head. “Truly happy” doesn’t exist. It’s just another bullshit manifestation of the “happily ever after” fantasy.

You’ve built a home for your daughter with a great man. Nicely done, but you don’t get to fuck it all up over a mild case of existential ennui. I’m sorry that you’re bored, but tough shit. It’s not your daughter’s fault that you regret settling down with your first pre-teen crush. She’s eight, so for at least the next decade, her best interests come first, and your best interests come second. That’s what it means to be a mother.

Now, as for becoming happier more often in your current circumstances, take a hot minute to examine what exactly you feel is missing in your relationship. Do you want more passion? More excitement? Or do you just want a shiny new dick to sit on every once in a while? There are any number of obvious solutions to all kinds of unfulfilled needs, but if your problem really boils down to a bunch of “this isn’t how I thought my life would turn out” angst, then please just shut the fuck up and go do some yoga like all the other listless housewives.

(Nerve)

I can’t stop thinking about the person my partner dated before me. They only dated for a few months but I know it was really intense and even though we’ve been together for ages it keeps cropping up in my mind. I never used to be jealous before, why is this happening now, so far into our relationship? It’s completely irrational and it’s driving me fucking crazy. I don’t know what to do anymore.

Let me make the problem obvious for you by translating some of your bullshit:

When you say, “I can’t stop thinking about the person my partner dated before me,” what you really mean is, “I can’t help projecting my own relationship insecurities onto the nearest available target.”

When you say “I know it was really intense and even though we’ve been together for ages it keeps cropping up in my mind,” what you really mean is, “I’m terrified that they had better sex than we do, especially now that things are getting stale between us.”

When you say, “It’s completely irrational and it’s driving me fucking crazy,” what you really mean is, “I’m not self-aware enough to recognize self-destructive patterns in my behavior.”

And of course, when you say, “I don’t know what to do anymore,” what you’re really saying is, “I’ve never really known how to handle the inevitable ennui that sets in with every long-term relationship I’ve ever had.”

My boyfriend and I have been together two years. We’re gonna have to do the distance thing next year— we’re graduating, and I found a job here while he found a job at home. Is this a terrible time to tell him that I still want to explore being poly? It’s either the best idea or the worst and I can’t tell which.

This all hangs on your use of the word “still.” If you’ve already explored polyamory together, or at the very least brought up the possibility of being polyamorous, you should already know how your boyfriend feels about it.

Don’t act like this shit is a mystery. You two can either handle it, or you can’t. Factor in the added stress of a long distance relationship, and you know damn well whether this is the best idea or the worst idea.

Either way, it’s still probably better than the alternative.

(Nerve)

I fucked a guy last night. He has a girlfriend, and has for over a year. I was aware this girlfriend existed when I fucked him, and in fact had met her before. They are not in an open relationship, so him having sex with someone else is bona fide cheating, and not okay. He’s swore me to secrecy on the subject and we agreed it wouldn’t happen again, though I have a feeling a part of him wants it to happen again. I don’t, because (at the risk of sounding like I’m wallowing in self pity) I’ve spent the entire day berating myself internally for having acted like a morally reprehensible whore. I guess what I’m asking is how is the best way to make peace with it, or should I make peace with it, or maybe I just want you to give me the metaphorical kick up the ass I deserve for this. Help.

I can’t help you. This shit’s on you. You did wrong. You deserve to feel like a morally reprehensible whore, and if you have the slightest bit of integrity, you’ll make peace with this incident by resolving never to do it again.

Don’t have sex with another woman’s man. It’s as simple as that. Obviously, the guy in this situation is a deplorable asshole, but this isn’t about him. It’s about his poor unfortunate girlfriend who you knew about ahead of time. Put yourself in her shoes, and recognize that she’s the one you hurt.

The good news is that you seem to have a conscience. Listen to it in the future, because this is some basic golden rule shit: Do unto other women’s boyfriends as you would have other women do unto yours.

My boyfriend knows I’m bisexual. The girl I’m seeing on the side (with his consent) know I’m bisexual. Hardly any of my friends know and the ones that do have reacted poorly, more so to the openness of my relationship with him than anything else. How do I explain it so that they understand I’m not betraying him?

You don’t have to explain yourself to close-minded people, but if it’s important to you that some of your more vanilla friends understand the type of relationship you have, start by letting them know that monogamy and fidelity aren’t the same thing. Being true and faithful in a relationship has no inherent connection to how many sexual partners you have.

Open relationships aren’t that big a deal. Bisexuality isn’t that big a deal. A bisexual woman with a primary boyfriend and a girlfriend on the side really isn’t that big a deal. In the spectrum of non-traditional relationships, your situation barely moves the needle on the freak-o-meter.

Not that your lifestyle choices are anyone else’s business, but if your friends aren’t even capable of wrapping their pointy little heads around the concept of open relationships, you might want to consider finding some new friends.

(Nerve)

Two years ago I’d describe myself as a pretty badass bitch who handled relationships with confidence and dignity. Now, post first big love, I find myself having to consciously fight sexual jealousy and struggling to be vulnerable with the newest infatuation. What gives?

Two years ago you didn’t know shit about love. Now you know a little. Keep it up, and in two more years you’ll know even more.

Is knowing that someone will be a good father, and knowing that someone loves you immensely in a way that you have never been loved before enough of a reason to marry that person? Also best sex of my life.

Maybe. There are worse reasons to get married. There are also better. You’ll end up bored as hell sometime around 2020, but that was probably gonna happen anyway.

Find out if you can cohabitate with the dude before you go squirting out any of his babies, and don’t expect the best sex of your life to be a thing you keep on this list indefinitely.

My boyfriend of three years won’t let me move in with him. He says it’s because he wants to “have something that is just his” (referring to the house he bought last year). This stresses me out all the time, because it makes me feel like he doesn’t want a future with me. We work together, so I often worry that our mutual work environment is what holds us together for him. Should I cool it, or is this something that warrants a huge discussion?

A huge discussion? Ugh. No wonder your boyfriend doesn’t want you to move in with him. I’d tell you to cool it, but first you’d have to be capable of actually being cool, and you’re way too insecure in your relationship to pull that off.

Are you prepared to break up with your boyfriend? Didn’t think so, which means that brow-beating him with “we need to talk” level conversations isn’t going to get you what you want. All it will do is reinforce his need for personal space.

You already work together and socialize together. It’s not outrageous for your boyfriend to feel that living together might be too much, and I’m sorry, but if your mutual work environment really is the only thing holding you two together, then you’re screwed. That’s a huge red flag, and there’s no way your boyfriend will ask you to move in with him if he’s already emotionally checked out from the relationship.

I know this answer won’t alleviate your stress, but maybe it will get you to take a step back and start looking at the bigger picture. Three years is long enough to know whether you should be planning a future together. Do you really want a future with someone who’s still keeping you at arm’s length?

Read this week’s column over at Nerve.com.

My girlfriend lies to me. She works until 11 but sometimes has to stay after for prep/clean. She doesn’t get home from work until 1:30 or later though. She always smells like booze. She walks in the door saying, “What a long day, had to clean blah blah, the alcohol reps were in tonight or they gave us a couple beers to stay late…” There have been a few times where people have mentioned to me that they saw her out at a bar or something when she was telling me she was at work. The problem that I’m having is, I don’t care if she goes out for drinks after work with her friends, I do that too. It’s unwind time. She knows I don’t care. We have a really mellow and open relationship so she can’t be cheating on me. There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, for her to lie. I can’t stand lying. It makes me not trust anything she says. Can you please help me? Why is she lying?

Your girlfriend is a functioning alcoholic, and she’s lying because alcoholics lie. That’s just what they do. Of course, you’re asking about petty bullshit while playing down the glaringly obvious problem (“She always smells like booze”) because you’re an enabler. That’s just what they do.

You’re going to read this and not believe me. (I can smell your denial through the internet.) That’s fine. This isn’t an easy thing to hear, so let me tell you what’s likely to happen next: Nothing. You won’t say anything to upset the delicate balance, and she’ll continue drinking and lying.

Eventually, her lies will grow from little and white into something bigger and considerably more shady. She will betray your trust in some manner that you finally deem unforgivable, and it will cause the relationship to dissolve.

It won’t stop there, of course. This kind of thing will become a pattern. There’s always another slow motion trainwreck waiting around the corner for a “mellow and open” enabler like you. I imagine in a decade, you’ll have quite a few of your exes calling you out of the blue to apologize as part of their ninth step.

Then again, maybe you’ll prove me wrong and confront your current girlfriend about her drinking immediately. I hope so. It still doesn’t end well for you two as a couple, but at least it’ll play out much faster.

The sooner the better in her case.

(Nerve)