Dear Eric: I’ve been in a wonderful year-long relationship with a man who treats me like a queen, and we have plans to eventually get married. We happen to have a mutual friend, who I’ve actually known for more years than he has. The mutual friend is known by many as a toxic person who is also a selfish bully and I believe he is using his friendship with my boyfriend to raise his own image and legitimize his toxic actions.

I would never give my boyfriend an ultimatum to choose me over his boyfriend, but I have to admit that I feel some resentment every time she spends time with him, which affects our relationship.

My boyfriend is aware of my feelings for our mutual friend, but he continues to date and date him as if nothing is wrong. i’m stuck

“No more Mr. Yuck.”

Dear Done: While your reasons for playing the role of Toxic Avenger may be noble, it’s time to hang up the cape. If it’s your resentment that’s affecting your relationship, rather than anything your boyfriend is doing to you or your relationship, then you need to end it. If you don’t, you risk toxicity yourself.

You write that your boyfriend is dating this person as if nothing is wrong. That’s because there’s nothing wrong with him. Unless your boyfriend is toxic himself, he is unlikely to date the toxic friend to loathe you. So don’t take it personally. As an adult, he will have to own the social consequences of his friendship. You can keep a gentle “I told you so” in reserve in case things turn sour for him.

Sometimes our partners or loved ones have bad friends. Sometimes these friends are even toxic. Sure, it questions their judgment and makes for some annoying encounters, but ultimately, our partners and loved ones are free to make their own decisions, even ones we don’t agree with. If we stand in the way of this, we deny them autonomy, which creates a whole new set of problems. You have expressed your opinion. So be it and I hope he comes to his senses.

Dear Eric: I am a 50-year-old woman who has reconnected with a 41-year-old man I dated years ago.

Before we moved in together, physical intimacy slowed down to maybe once a week every two weeks. He claims he was stressed about his job and it had nothing to do with me.

It’s been more than six months of living together, and now it’s almost a month before he’s “in the mood.” We cried and argued about the lack of intimacy in our relationship. Each time he claims he’s still attracted to me, but he’s just not interested in sex anymore. He said he didn’t have that desire. He’s worried if he tried to have sex, he wouldn’t be able to perform.

I made it clear that sex and intimacy are very important to me and I think he needs to get help to find out if he has low testosterone or not. He claims he wants things to “work themselves out.” I love him and I love our home that we share together, but I refuse to live in a sexless, affectionless relationship. Am I selfish and unreasonable?

— Lost love

Dear Lost: You can’t be faulted for being honest about your needs. Sex is not a requirement of a relationship. But communication is. Even if you talk about it, I don’t know if you are communicating effectively.

I don’t know what he means about things working themselves out. How? Why? When? It’s not his fault if he’s stuck and not sure how to fix this problem. But there is a difference between being stuck and being avoidant.

When our bodies or desires change, especially in ways we don’t want, the change can cause embarrassment. And embarrassment can span a whole web of behaviors. If we don’t get to the root, the web gets more complicated.

There are solutions: talking to a trained professional – together or alone; the test you mentioned; adjusting your sex life so that you explore intimacy in ways that don’t put pressure on him to perform.

Ask yourself what a loving relationship looks like – get creative. Physical connection is important, but challenge yourself to think beyond the physical. Then ask him the same. Tell him you are at a crossroads and ask him to be your partner in finding a way forward. Sex is part of intimacy, but the ability to be vulnerable is paramount. You can both practice vulnerability by working together to find new forms of intimacy. I hope he will take this step with you.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or PO Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.