Dear Luv Doc,
I recently tied the knot in a very public wedding (cue the applause, confetti, and Instagram likes). Fast-forward four months – life’s going great, and I’m on a post-Bob Dylan-at-ACL high. Then, early the next morning, BAM! I find out my dear husband’s been doing the digital tango with not one, not two, but THREE other women. And it’s a greatest hits collection – two ex-girlfriends and one of the women he cheated with during his first marriage! Talk about a sequel nobody asked for. Apparently, he was sliding into their DMs like he’s auditioning for “The Bachelor: Instagram Edition,” using every app imaginable – Facebook, WhatsApp, you name it. When I confronted him, he did the emotional walk of shame, broke it off with all of them, apologized, and now shares his location with me like I’m his parole officer. But here’s the question: Do I forgive this emotional Casanova who gets his kicks in the virtual world, or should I run faster than Bob Dylan can mumble his way through a set?
Sincerely, Swiping Left on Emotional Affairs
Let me start by saying there’s sort of a lot to take in here – and by that I mean there are some really broad informational strokes that demand a lot of presupposition and outright conjecture. I understand that’s the gig. This is the life I have chosen, but if you get to the end of this screed and feel you have been judged unfairly, just know that, metaphorically at least, you have given me a blindfold and a stick, but you haven’t pointed me toward the piñata. That means everybody needs to take cover.
Couples – just like thirsty singles – occasionally need to process stuff and bounce ideas off people outside their relationship, otherwise they end up really creepy and stop getting invited to game nights.
First however, let’s begin with what I know to be an immutable truth: “Faster than Bob Dylan can mumble his way through a set” is, comparatively speaking, a glacial pace … for literally anything. Associating that phrase with the word “run” is absolutely oxymoronic. In terms of human perambulation, that would be akin to a malnourished paraplegic dragging himself across shag carpet wearing Velcro pants. I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been a Bob Dylan song that clocked in at less than five minutes since “Quinn the Eskimo.” Yes, I know the correct term is “Inuit,” just like I know it would be preposterous for a paraplegic to own a pair of Velcro pants, but for the purposes of illustration, sometimes you have to lean out over a ledge. Still feeling outraged? Share it in your subreddit. The point is, people with a penchant for speed don’t write 15-minute songs. Quaaludes maybe. So if you’re going to run away from this dude do it at an early Hüsker Dü pace at least. Bonus: They’re Minnesotan, just like Bob.
OK, let’s move on to the rhetorical quagmire of emotional affairs. Imma give you full benefit of the doubt and assume that your husband’s DM-sliding involved things like secrecy, betrayal of trusted information, and a strong emotional attachment that undermined your relationship. In heteronormative same-sex friendships that type of boundary-crossing is referred to as “wine night” or maybe “Sunday golf.” It’s generally acceptable in those scenarios because assumably nobody is trying to fuck anybody, even though the term “foursome” is super sus. Couples – just like thirsty singles – occasionally need to process stuff and bounce ideas off people outside their relationship, otherwise they end up really creepy and stop getting invited to game nights.
Unfortunately I don’t have the transcripts, so I can’t make the call about whether your husband’s social media DM’s with his exes were undermining your relationship, but merely the fact they were his exes is not enough to support the supposition that they were emotional affairs. They might have been talking about lawn care, or philatelism, or their workout regimens. All ironclad proof there are some things best not shared with a romantic partner. If however, you studied the texts and came to the inescapable conclusion that his long-term goal with DMing his exes was a nostalgic bone sesh that didn’t include you, that’s a pretty solid exit cue. In other words, make sure your decision is based more on empirical evidence than imagined scenarios. Unless you’ve communicated otherwise, it’s not unreasonable for him to communicate with his exes – especially if the nature of that communication doesn’t undermine your relationship.
This article appears in October 11 • 2024.
