"Dr. Spielvogel," he says, "I'm having a problem that I often have. It's with my GF. It's the most important relationship in my life. I have trouble telling her in the moment when I am feeling bad. So I tend to store up my resentment.
"I've become emotionally frozen.
"Her birthday was the other day. We planned to spend it together but flexible. She might have brunch or dinner with friends.
"Two days before, I get this mass email with all the plans for her birthday. It didn't make me feel special. I got the same notice as 50 other people. It felt like a slap in the face. I didn't feel special. It said to me, I don't care if you want to do this activity or not. I don't care how you feel about this. I'm indifferent to you. If you want to spend my birthday with me, you'll do it my way or not at all.
"I didn't say anything in the moment. She's very similar to my GF Peppy from 2000. She's happy, peppy, everything's great, and if I express any pain at her actions, then I'm a dick.
"She's always doing things that I can't point to as wrong, but they just make me feel bad. But if I voice my pain, I feel like a dick. She doesn't want to explain, justify or defend herself, but always does if I voice objection, and then she's pissed at me, and she punishes me by standing me up, maintaining radio silence or the like.
"She comes over to pick me up for her birthday celebration. She's frantic and filled with anxiety. As she's driving, she says she took a medication to slow her heartbeat and a tranquilizer. We keep getting close to getting into accidents. This is a girl who's driven me in the past after a couple of wines over dinner. Her cell phone is buzzing. I say, 'Please don't answer that.'
"We're cruising along at 60mph on the 10 East and she says, 'I'm not answering it. I just want to see who's calling.' So she picks up her phone and looks at who's calling. And in that time, we cover about 100 yards.
"So I'm feeling super unsafe. I often feel unsafe around her. I wish she would've told me that she'd taken a valium before she picked me up. I could've driven or made alternate plans.
"I don't say anything because I don't want to have a conflict while she's driving.
"I don't connect with her at all during the celebration. I get along fine with her friends. We come back to the hovel. She's all giddy as she listens to the messages on her phone wishing her happy birthday.
"I have to eat. She lies down. And boom, she goes to sleep. And she's out.
"She'd gone from super-high to catatonic in ten minutes. It was weird.
"I felt left out the whole day. I felt left out when she was super-high and I felt left-out when she was catatonic. By 11pm, I wanted her to leave and I put on the lights and she got up and left.
"She tells me about a friend from working asking her to the movies that week. It didn't feel good to hear. She wasn't asking me how I would feel about that. She doesn't ask me how I would feel about any of her choices. She just tells me her decisions and I can like it or lump it. I don't feel special. I feel the object of her contempt."
"On her side, she rejects having to explain herself. I don't want her to feel like she has to explain herself when I voice my pain. I just want her to hear me."
