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Ask the LifeQuake Doctor – Jun 2016

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Dear Dr. Toni:

 

I am a thirty-one-year-old woman who is a total loser at love. I have no problem attracting men, but within a month to six weeks they stop calling. I don’t understand what I am doing wrong. I have been clean from drugs and alcohol for five years, but I am wondering if I have a love addiction because I think about guys all the time when I am at work. I have a good job and am paid well. I am educated and considered very attractive, but I don’t seem to be able to keep guys interested.

 

Can you help me?

 

–Distraught in Silicon Valley

 

 

Dear Reader:

 

You don’t give me much to go on here, but let’s see. I’m going to ask a question here as a way of answering this.
How quickly do you sleep with these guys? When a woman has sex with a man, she typically bonds through the chemical that is stimulated called oxytocin. If this happens before a relationship has really been established, a woman can have expectations that are the exact opposite of a man’s. Men actually are wired to provide and protect us, but if we engage with them sexually too soon and then attach too quickly, they feel it and will often distance themselves.

 

If you do have a love addiction, you are probably doing this. I recommend the group Sex, Love, and Fantasy Addiction Anonymous (SLFAA). If you go online to research locations, hopefully there is one in your city. I also would suggest developing and establishing nonsexual friendships with men for at least two months before you let it become sexually intimate. It will allow you more objectivity. Sex makes us go deaf, dumb, and blind, and at your age, hormones are raging because of the biological mandate to make babies. Date guys you aren’t highly attracted to and practice being their friend. Check back with me and let me know how that goes.

 

 

Dear Dr. Toni:

 

I am a twenty-seven-year-old recovering heroin addict who has been dating a Hispanic lawyer. I am Caucasian and we live in South Florida. He does not have a history of addiction. He is Catholic and I am not. I have a good job as a personal assistant, but I am tired at the end of my workday. He is a type A personality who can go all night. He prefers to have sex at night and can stay up for hours. He works at a family-owned firm and thinks it would be sacrilegious to have “out of wedlock” sex with me right before he goes to the office and sees his family.

 

I am very tempted to start drinking coffee at night to keep up with him, but I am afraid I won’t get enough sleep to function all day. What should I do, doc?

 

–Dazed and Confused

 

 

 

Dear Reader:

 

God is not strictly nocturnal.

 

Perhaps you can explain to your boyfriend that sex out of wedlock in the dogma of the Catholic Church is a sin at any time of day. I would encourage you to go to a Codependents Anonymous meeting. You are abandoning your recovery when you abandon self-care. Explain to him that women need more sleep than men to function, even at your age.

 

If he really loves you, he will either leave the office early, find a way to get together at lunch or deal with his hypocrisy about morning sex. I suspect his resistance to it has more to do with not being a morning person. At any rate, a man who wants to support your sobriety will compromise. Spend five minutes a day looking in the mirror and repeating the phrase, “I love you (your name).” You deserve all the rest you need to stay sober and healthy.