Queen of Pain

Dear M

My boyfriend is really confusing me! We started out as a secret casual sex thing, He d idn't want people to find out, so i wouldnt show him any special treatment when we met up in public, but he'd get mad at me when we saw each other alone later and acuse me of being mean to him and flirting with other guys. BEing scret wasn't workingm so i asked if we could have a normal boyfriend-girlfriend realtionship. that worked ok for about a month, then he semeed to loose interest, never calling me and not seeming like he wanted to have sex with me. Then he sugested we see each other, but see other people at the same time. So I did that and hooked up with some guys. That REALLY pissed him of. HE got supper jealous. I have been really attentive lately, and he seems to be ignoring me again. Either he's mad and jealous but paying attention to me, or bored and not paying attention to me.. What's going on??


I think you're pretty capable of knowing what's going on here, and what you should do: He can't be pleased, and you should dump him.

But I haven't written a column in several days, AND this one is late, so I'd better lay it all out here to the best of my ability, and colourfully:

When some people think of the words ‘sadist’ or ‘masochist,’ they think of whips and chains and hot wax, when that stuff can just as easily be associated with the words ‘fun,’ and, believe it or not, ‘healthy’; A lot of people with pain and/or humiliation kinks treat it like what it is, and they let their mates in on their fantasies, and it stays in the bedroom, or wherever they keep the cuffs – in other words, in their sexual lives. It’s a game, so they play it. No harm done.

Your boyfriend, on the other hand, is a sado-masochist in a less sexual sense of the word, living the shit 24/7 like a psycho, and likely loving every minute of it no matter what he would have you believe or even what he would acknowledge to himself.

Relevant?: my father once told me that you can tell a lot about a man (like, what he may be like as a mate) by the way he treats his mother, and this observation of his is scarily bang-on. Somewhat in the same vein, you would be surprised at the degree to which some men want to create with their partners something reminiscent of what they had with their Moms, regardless of whether they have good feelings about them or good relationships with them. Either they attempt a recreation of a good mother-son experience, or a correction of a bad mother-son experience. I hate pop psychology just as much as the next hipster, but it’s seriously uncanny, you guys.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy had a serious hate-boner for his mother. Maybe Mom abandoned him in some way. Maybe she left, maybe she cheated on Dad – kids can take it very personally and feel very betrayed when their parents leave or cheat. But, few sons can manage to hate their mothers completely, and the shadows of some very deep feelings manifest themselves in very strange romantic relationship behaviour. Maybe when he’s being cold and bitchy to you, he’s in fact reaming Mom for whatever she did to him. Regardless, somewhere along the line, this guy came to be turned off by things like security and fidelity and affection, and turned on by stuff like paranoia and jealousy and cruelty. Puke!

Regardless, I think he does want you to go out and make him jealous. People who are capable of being honest with themselves about having a similar type of desire identify as cuckhold fetishists. They get off on the idea of their mates getting off with others.

I’m not the most jealous gal, and I have to admit that my eye wanders – just because you’re on a diet doesn’t mean you can’t look at the menu – but cuckholding is definitely not my thing, and I think it’s a rare couple who isn’t just doing it to look unconditionally cool and can really work this arrangement without destroying each other most unsexily. However, as long as there are people out there who really like this, and manage to lead happy lives while putting it into practice, and can find other people who want to sleep around on them and don’t want to otherwise hurt or take advantage of them, and everybody takes measures to be safe, it’s fine with me.

This guy? Only feels alive when something sketchy and skanky is going on in his life, to make him jealous and to give him something to yell about to you, a.k.a. “New Mom” – all of this is why he looks disinterested now that you’re being good to him.

Here’s another twist: he would rather we all not acknowledge this. He doesn’t want the boom mic or the camera cables slipping into frame, he doesn’t want anybody to see the strings on the puppet, especially you, but mostly him. He likes that he can feel turned on by his jealousy and also feel justified in punishing you, which also turns him on. Your performance is way better for him if you don’t realize it’s all a game and you feel your hurt and confusion genuinely, because it can help him to forget that it’s all a game. It’s all a game that he is selfishly refusing to let you in on.

Either he has a hate-boner for his mother, or he’s watched and/or read more drama than he’s actually managed to live yet. Is he an artist?

In trying to apply this idiotic formula to his life, he is forcing it on your life. It’s a pretty weak formula, it works for him because he’s a pretty weak person, and you should dump him! Wheeee.