Advice

On emotional baggage.

This is me, being vulnerable.  I’ve been dating this guys for around 6 months now—never been closer to someone faster, never fallen so effortlessly into a relationship.  He’s great, if a little needy at times.

So here’s the thing.  During a very long, relationship-y talk, he let it slip/hinted that he was sexually abused as a child.  Awful and incomprehensible.  And I checked (read: googled) around, and it explains a lot of mysterious problems—like his inability to orgasm but huge sexual drive.  I don’t know when, I don’t know who, and I don’t know how much.  All I know is that I want to be there for him and also that it absolutely terrifies me to take on that kind of emotional baggage so soon into a relationship.  So what do you think…is this a dealbreaker?  Am I just running scared from something real?

p.s. Just recently moved to LA and you’re helping me hate it less.

Welcome to LA. Try thinking of it as the first class cabin where the overhead compartments are a bit roomier. They have to be, because we’re all carrying a little extra emotional baggage on this flight.

Your new boyfriend’s childhood trauma isn’t anything to fear. There’s no need for something like this to be a dealbreaker, but it is something to take seriously. Don’t try and armchair psych this kind of situation. The last thing you should be doing is using google as a diagnostic manual.

In other words, his inability to orgasm isn’t necessarily a direct result of his past sexual abuse. It might be, but it might just as well be something else altogether. Leave that kind of shit to the pros. Be his romantic partner, not his shrink.

Don’t scapegoat his childhood trauma by attributing it to every little relationship problem. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Don’t be there for him. Be there with him.

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