October 2023

2023-10-01 05:35:11
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Dear Carolyn: Recently, my girlfriend changed to a better position at work, thanks to the recommendation from an ex-boss. Here’s what transpired next:

· Ex-boss asked her to leave work early and meet him for dinner, as it was his last night in town.

· He asked her to drive and meet at his condo (his family lives in another city).

· They went to a restaurant with her favorite cuisine (my guess, he knew this from working together 10 years) that was walking distance from his condo.

In my mind, this was a textbook affair setup and/or an upper-manager power play, testing his power over her.

She did not share this setup with me until following the fact. She was oblivious to my concerns regarding the potential professional ramifications of going to an upper manager’s condo, then dinner, right following receiving a new job he was pivotal in her receiving.

Did I have the right to be (very) upset regarding this scenario? She swears it was all business talk and texted me on her drive home.

J.: Upset at whom? If this were your girlfriend’s hetero female ex-boss, then we’d be saying, gosh, what a thoughtful goodbye from a longtime mentor — logically planned, too, since meeting up and then walking meant neither waited around at the restaurant.

So. If you’re upset at the ex-boss, then okay, I guess. The setup did needlessly invite suspicion. But if nothing inappropriate actually happened, then any reason to be (very) upset seems to have expired with the harmless end to their dinner.

If it’s your girlfriend who has you so upset, then why? For going at all? For not giving you the details first? For showing interest in her ex-boss that you find inappropriate? For not being credible when she cited “all business”? For being too naive to see the affair and power issues? These are very different things — though they do all come down to one, whether you trust her. And if you don’t, then it’s time to break up regardless; the dinner has no meaning except as a window onto the rest.

Is it possible, then, the person who has you so upset is … you? I can’t be the only one getting a [mutters a silent prayer of self-loathing] cuckolded vibe off your question, where the anger whispers in your ear that you were played publicly for a fool by a girlfriend (who happens to have just advanced professionally). Which would indeed be a power issue, just not the one you suggest — and would ultimately be an admission of your own vulnerability.

If I’m wrong, and I do hope I am, then please accept my apologies, since it’s basically a sexism accusation tied in a bunch of unsavory cultural threads — and, count ’em, four paragraphs of analysis.

But if I’m right: It wouldn’t change the matter of how trustworthy your girlfriend is. It would change the matter of how trustworthy you are — in the sense of your ability to read a potential threat accurately and manage your emotions in response. This dinner may have been a “textbook affair setup” and a “power play,” but do you know what else is both of these things? Life. Every day. All the time.

It’s normal for your emotions to alert you when something seems off. It’s important. Your feelings tell you to pay attention so you can see whether you have a real problem or a false alarm.

When your feelings scream “MAYDAY,” though, in response to a one-off, moderately suspicious scenario that challenges your power in a relationship, that says you’re not thinking clearly enough to distinguish between problems and false alarms. It says you go straight to seeing things as a threat, then wanting (expecting) girlfriends to hole up in the bunker with you, figuratively speaking — which is the beginning of a lot of relationship-killing and potentially dangerous behaviors like jealousy, possessiveness, isolation, control, surveillance.

Or maybe not dangerous, just endless, pointless, soul-sucking: either constant anxiety, or a hamster wheel of fights nobody can win, or both.

The best way to manage these existential emotional threats is to perceive fewer of them and accept life as the crapshoot it is.

The best way to perceive fewer things as a threat is to trust yourself to be okay, in time, even when the outcome of a relationship isn’t. Even when you “lose.” Most of us are proof that a person can be fooled, humiliated, dumped and forgotten, more than once!, and still lead a wonderful life.

The best way to deal with this ex-boss thing, then, is to imagine how you’d respond if you were this kind of calm, trusting, confident person — then do what that person would do.

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