Ask a Married Dude: Frackers Love Too

by A Married Dude

I’m 25, and have been in a relationship since college (almost four years now?!). We’ve had our share of ups and downs, I know this man wants to marry me, and loves me more than anyone has in my life. This used to make me happy, but ever since I started graduate school in the fall, my eyes have been wandering and I feel totally uninterested in my relationship. I feel two sources of pressure — one, that if we make it through grad school (the next two years) we’ll definitely get married and that freaks me out (too young!), and two that he is one of my first serious relationships and I might be missing out on a whole world of other, better, serious relationships.

I realize that if I was not in grad school and able to attract the attention of nice, attractive, interested-in-the-same-things-as-me men, this would not be an issue, and that maybe if I can keep my eyes on the prize I’ll make it through these two years and look back and think I was crazy to even think about ending it, but I can’t! I don’t know what to do. I’ve always had the willpower to see crushes just as temporary crushes and nothing more, but my willpower is fading quickly. I feel like I just don’t want a boyfriend right now, but this decision would literally crush him (we moved cities and he quit his job so I could go to grad school), and what if I’m totally and completely wrong? I realize this makes me a semi-selfish bad person. Please help. I’ve started voraciously reading advice columns despite of myself looking for answers.

If the guy quit his job and moved to be with you, it’s my opinion that you owe him as much as possible. You’re young, and wondering if something else is better is normal. It’s not your fault you don’t know that after 20-odd sexual partners and a small handful of serious relationships you’re likely to just come back to wanting somebody who would quit his job and move to be with you. I can tell people this, but there’s no way to show it to them. At least until the technology from Total Recall becomes a reality. (We’re waiting!)

“Used to make me happy?” I think that’s what you need to examine right there, because’s that’s potentially all you need to know.

I recently started a new job. This job is good. I have a salary and benefits, even a 401k for fucks sake. I have a lot of student loans, so I need this type of steady income with benefits type of gig for the next 9 years at least. The work is interesting, challenging and fulfilling. Great. I can even read this entire site everyday and people still think I’m doing a decent job of my job. Even greater. ONE PROBLEM: I just found out I’ve accidentally started working in the oil fracking industry. My company’s technology is used in a wide array of industries. I would not be surprised if at least one polar bear was saved by this same technology. Nonetheless, this makes me feel really really … well, vomity all over. I don’t even know all that much about oil fracking, except that I think it is kind of the same as frost heaves on roadways, except on a scale three bajillion times larger, underground, and (to be totally dramatic about it) it is cracking the earth in half.

So, first, am I right to feel so vomity about my multi-industry-assisting technology assisting this shitty industry? Second, I like my job. I want to keep it. I need to keep it. Is there anything I can do, besides being the boss and telling this huge source of revenue to go stuff itself? Can The Boss even do that?!?

Ah fracking, the water sports of geology’s sex life.

Fracking is bigger than any one boss, so give up hopes of killing it from within. Hell, even the smoldering good looks and talent of Mark Ruffalo cannot stop the practice. He’s the new Incredible Hulk. If not him, what hope do any of us have?

Plus, if, like you say, you don’t really know that much about the practice, how can you be so sure it’s that evil, besides, you know, the bias liberal mainstream media. Fracking employs a ton of people and a ton more people in ancillary industries that supply the fracking industry, like the sand miners supplying the needs of hydraulic fractureres. Maybe you’ll meet a hot sand miner.

Better yet, if you’re going to lead the Fremen against the House of Harkonnen and turn the mining operations for forces of good, you’ll have to know as much as possible about the industry.

I’m a chick. My boyfriend and I have been together for a bit over five years. With the following info, I recognize that I’m a terrible human being, but I still have questions (even terrible people need help). So, as stated, we’ve been together over five years. Our sex is extremely sporadic, about four to six times per year over the past four (a bit more in the beginning). We never had a honeymoon period, he seemed to just “accept me” as his girlfriend and left it at that at some point. I was super into him in the beginning and wanted him emotionally and sexually, which he wasn’t willing to give.

We moved in together within a few months of dating. I really love him and know he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever dated (based on day to day niceties, like making dinner, hugs, little kisses, telling me I’m pretty, etc.), but he’s also absolutely oblivious to my needs. I can tolerate his poor house keeping, maybe? (I seem to be his mommy in the laundry/cleaning/dishes/etc. department, even though I work more hours than him) if he could at least give some in the bedroom (not just get off but get me off maybe every few times). I’ve talked to him about this A LOT, as in, I want to have sex more and get off sometimes, you know how to do it, why won’t you reciprocate, why don’t you want to fuck me, I want to do things together, I want you to hang out/ you give my friends a chance, etc., but he always shuts down or doesn’t follow through, and now I have stopped trying. We are currently financially bound. We couldn’t live without roommates/each other due to our finances. I have cheated on him without penetration, several times (about once a year), and have been STD tested after these encounters, which are always when intoxicated, not an excuse, regretted it when sober, but still enjoyed it. I have tried to talk to him about opening up our relationship, but he’s absolutely against it.

I have never told him about my cheating. I don’t know if it matters, but I’ve walked in on him making out with a chick at his work (yay bartenders!) but didn’t really care so long as he was safe. I really love this guy and know it would kill him if he knew about the things I’ve done. I am trying to clean up my act but am finding it extremely difficult, as in, I am not completely opposed to outside action even though I know it’s wrong to betray someone like that, and I feel awful about it, but feel extremely lonely/unloved/unwanted/unattractive without it. I want sex and physical attention! And please don’t tell me that I don’t love him because I’ve cheated on him. I really do, but yes, I put my loneliness/physical needs/ wants ahead of him about once a year. Cheaters love too. I think I’m a fairly attractive/very smart/funny/interesting/good in bed woman and don’t know why he shuts me down. I really love him but don’t know how to fix this shit. I don’t plan on telling him about my cheating because I know it will just be baggage and fuck him up for his next relationship, and probably a little bit of the selfish side of not wanting to admit/recognize how awful I am. How do I navigate this cluster fuck?

Not unlike fracking, your cheating is a dirty necessity the details of which everyone involved would rather not know. Precautions taken or not. We just want to turn our junk on and have it come on. But then, you know, one day your drinking water catches fire and then you’re forced to deal with it.

I have to say, four to six times a year? A year? That’s not “sporadic,” that’s “we’re just friends.” Really, that’s what it sounds like you have here. Is it really a romantic relationship, or two really close friends who happen to sex each other every now and again? If you’ve really confronted him about this as frankly as you say, and he’s not willing/able to change, then it’s no longer really his fault. You need to make a tough decision about what future you want, a physically lonely one in which you hate yourself, or one with a fulfilling amount of fracking.

I promise you, this will only get worse.

By the way, you should copyright “Cheaters love too.” That’s a kick ass bumper sticker right there.

At 24, I am at a strange time in my life — I am a graduate of a prestigious university and masters program, but have been unable to find a job in my (small and competitive) field. Thus, I’ve decided to go BACK to school next September far from home, but meanwhile am living with my parents and working temporarily (for about seven months now) as a bookkeeper for a local company. It’s important that I stress that I am in a weird limbo space — I’m a very driven and focused individual, and this “limbo” was not part of my life plan. I’m eager to start school again and move away from my hometown.

Here’s the problem: in my first week at this temporary job, I met a wonderful man. He’s everything I look for in a partner: sweet, intelligent, funny, and passionate about living. I believe these core qualities cannot be learned and are special, and I cherish him for having them. At the beginning of our relationship, he insisted that he was in the same place as I: living with his parents very temporarily, working at his job very temporarily, and raring to go to make a life change. And even though he was never as driven a student as I, I believe he can be really successful in life. He has a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit and I could see him being a great businessman, and that is what he wants to do.

But it’s seven months later now. I’ve applied to schools, chosen the city I want to move to, I’m churning along. My boyfriend is not. Though he still claims to want to move forward in life with me, he’s not taken any actions. It seems that he can neither focus nor self-motivate for the future. This is really upsetting me and making me question things, especially because my last serious relationship ended slowly and painfully because of a similar difference in “life-phase.”

All this being said, I’m sure you would advise me to break up with him, as our lives are moving at such different speeds. The problem is I REALLY LOVE HIM. He’s the only person that has been able to make me balanced, put light in my life. We co-exist so peacefully and communicate well. We have wonderful sex and really respect one another. I can see him as my husband and, more importantly to me, an incredible father to my children.

So do I break up with him before it gets TOO serious or do I hang in there and hope he gets motivated? And yes, I’ve been very clear with him about how important it is to me.

I do really hope there’s a way to stay together. I never wanted my life to get in the way of love.

Congratulations, you’re starring in an unreleased Sandra Bullock film from 1998. An accomplished, driven, calculating women has life all figured out until she returns to her hometown and falls for a sweet, local boy. But as she gears up to conquer the world, will their life philosophies tear them apart?

It isn’t so much that you seem to be in different “life-phases” as that you think about life differently. The core qualities that cannot not be learned that impressed you are generally gained from life experiences, not school. He’s the only person that has been able to make you balanced and put light in your life? And it’s been seven months? Take your foot off the gas just a bit. You know what word is most commonly associated with “churning?” “Drowned.”

Also: “And even though he was never as driven a student as I, I believe he can be really successful in life.” Maybe you should not say things like this?

Here’s the ultimate problem, you begin a sentence, “Here’s the problem” and end it with “I met a wonderful man.” At this point in your life, any sentence that begins that way should not end that way. Believe me, there will be plenty of time for cyborgic marching forward into a future that, in your last years, will seem wildly less important than you could have ever though. Seven months? You’ll probably regret quitting on this after just seven months. Unless of course you’re a cold-hearted automaton. Are you a cold-hearted automaton?

Anyway, haven’t you been listening to Kate Bolick? There are no wonderful men out there. If you find a man you genuinely love and who loves you back, by God, try to make it work. Or end up on the cover of The Atlantic, which, I suppose, is the kind of thing driven people hold up as an accomplishment.

I am almost 30. I have been in two serious relationships but am single now. I have never been broken up with. No one has ever held my interest for long, and I’ve never dated anyone I thought I might want to marry. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in love. I am not sure if I want kids. I’m not really sure what I want, other than to keep working hard at my job, which is the most important part of my life. I don’t even think this is a question. Is it weird to be almost 30 and never have had my heart broken or dated someone I liked enough to even imagine marrying? I hope I don’t sound like an asshole, and I suspect the answer is “You are normal,” but maybe I’m doing this wrong.

You are normal.

Also, there’s this woman named Kate Bolick you should look up.

Previously: Kids — Worth It? And Game-Day Etiquette.

A Married Dude is a married dude who doesn’t claim to know everything about marriage. Do you have any questions for A Married Dude?

Photo by Yco, via Shutterstock