Dear Joely: Why Do I Keep Going Back to Men Who Hurt Me?

Dear Joely,

Congratulations on your column. I have really enjoyed it so far. You make me smile and sometimes laugh. I hate that I need to write to you about something serious. If my letter is too much of a corta-onda — as we say back in Brasil — please don’t publish it.

I am 26 years old. I grew up in an abusive household. There was always a lot of yelling. My father was a drunk and when alcohol was involved, it was nothing for him to hit my mother.

As kids, my older sister and I tried to protect her as best as we could, but we couldn’t be there all the time. She would often walk around bruised and, of course, she suffered mentally as well.

My sister left as soon as she could, leaving me alone with my mother and father from age 13. I didn’t blame her. I still don’t.

My mother died young from cancer — at just 45. It is fair to say life was a disappointment to her.

I say all this by way of my background. My problem is that I’m finding relationships incredibly difficult. I tend to date men who are a fair bit older. Things start well, but they always turn out abusive.

I don’t stick around when this happens, but I have been known to go back and “visit the scene of the crime,” hoping things will be different. Of course, they never are.

I have tried going to counsellors. I can’t seem to relate to them and there are not many where I live. I know you can’t solve a problem that has been with me forever, but I just thought you might be able to give me some perspective.

Thank you, Joely,

Machucada

Dear Machucada,

First, your letter is not a corta-onda. It is not a mood-killer. It is a human being telling the truth.

And I’m very glad you wrote.

You grew up in a house where love and fear were tangled together before you were old enough to know they should be separate things. You watched your mother being hurt. You tried to protect her when you were still a child yourself. Your sister left, as she had every right to do, and you were left carrying far too much.

That is not “background.” That is weather. That is the climate your nervous system grew up inside.

So when you say you now find relationships difficult, I’m not surprised. Not because there is anything wrong with you, but because you learned intimacy in a dangerous room.

This is the part I want you to hear clearly: you are not choosing abusive men because you are stupid, weak, dramatic, or secretly “asking for it.” You are being pulled toward a pattern that your body recognises before your mind has a chance to object.

Sometimes what feels like chemistry is actually familiarity wearing perfume.

Older men may feel steady at first. Protective. Certain. Grown-up. But if the dynamic later becomes controlling, cruel or abusive, then the age difference may be part of the power imbalance, not an accident beside it.

The fact that you leave when abuse appears matters. That is a strong and sane instinct. Please respect that part of yourself. She is trying to save your life.

The part I would be more careful with is what you called “visiting the scene of the crime.” That phrase is painfully accurate. Going back to someone who has already shown you harm is not romance. It is the old wound asking whether this time the story might end differently.

I understand the hope. Of course you want the person who hurt you to become the person who makes it right. That would feel like justice. It would feel like repair. It would feel, perhaps, like rescuing the younger version of you who could not rescue your mother.

But abusive people rarely heal us from the harm they caused. More often, they repeat the lesson.

So here is one practical rule I would like you to try:

When a man becomes abusive, the relationship is over. Not paused. Not under review. Not waiting for his sad childhood explanation. Over.

You do not need to keep returning to check whether fire is still hot.

Counselling not working for you so far does not mean you are beyond help. It may mean you have not yet found the right kind of help. For what you describe, I would look specifically for someone trauma-informed, ideally with experience in childhood domestic violence, coercive control and relationship patterns. General counselling can sometimes feel too light for a wound this old.

You might also find it easier to begin with something less face-to-face: online trauma therapy, a domestic violence support service, a group for adult children from abusive homes, or even structured reading and journalling while you search for the right person. The right support should not make you feel judged, rushed or “too much.”

You are not too much. You are injured.

And injured people do not need scolding. They need safety, repetition, patience, and new experiences of being treated gently until the nervous system slowly begins to believe that gentleness is not a trick.

Please do not try to solve your whole life at once. Start smaller.

Do not go back to men who have harmed you.
Do not explain away the first signs of cruelty.
Do not mistake intensity for intimacy.
Do not confuse being wanted with being safe.

And when you feel the pull to return to someone who has hurt you, try saying this to yourself:

This is not love calling me back. This is the wound looking for a familiar door.

You signed yourself Machucada — wounded.

Yes. You are.

But wounded is not ruined.

Wounded is not doomed.

Wounded is not unlovable.

It only means the next part of your life must be built more carefully than the first part was built for you.

And you are allowed to build it.

Yours with tenderness, and absolutely no tolerance for men who make love feel unsafe,

Joely

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Dear Joely: The Bedroom Goes Quiet

Dear Joely,

My wife and I have been married just over four years. It is a second marriage for both of us. I’m 53, she’s 49, and until recently we’ve always had a very active sex life. That’s partly why I’m so thrown by the sudden change.

For the past few months, she always seems to have a reason not to. She’s tired. She’s stressed. She wants an early night. She’d rather read, scroll, or disappear into a game than come to bed in any meaningful sense of the phrase. She’s friendly enough, and not cold exactly, but there is a distracted quality to her now, as though I’m approaching her from slightly too far away.

I’ve tried not to make a big performance of it. I’ve been patient. I’ve made dinner, brought flowers, made an effort. She seems touched by those things, but not moved in the direction I’m hoping for. The more I try, the more I begin to feel like a man laying rose petals in front of a door that isn’t opening.

So now I’m wondering what I’m meant to think. Is this just a phase in a marriage and I’m being oversensitive, or should I be worried there’s someone else?

Signed,

Missing My Wife

Dear Missing,

The first thing to say is this: a drop in desire is not, by itself, proof of a third party lurking in the shrubbery.

People go off sex for all sorts of reasons. Fatigue, resentment, distraction, hormones, low mood, buried irritation, feeling unsexy in their own skin, or simply getting stuck in a pattern where avoidance becomes easier than explaining what is going on. The human libido is not a punctual little clerk. It wanders off, goes silent, and sometimes needs coaxing back under less pressure than flowers and hopeful dinners can create.

That said, you are not wrong to notice the change, and you are not shallow for missing your wife in this particular way. Sex is not the whole of a marriage, but neither is it nothing. When it goes quiet without explanation, people start telling themselves stories. Usually unpleasant ones.

Before you leap to infidelity, I would ask a duller but more useful question: have you actually spoken to her plainly, without the bouquet, without the seduction campaign, and without making the conversation sound like a charge sheet? Not “Why don’t you want me?” Not “Is there someone else?” But something closer to: “I miss you. Something feels different between us. Is anything going on that I’m not seeing?”

Because at the moment you are trying to solve a communication problem with romance, which is understandable but often ineffective. A woman can enjoy a lasagne and still not want to take her clothes off. The flowers are not the issue. The silence is.

If she brushes you off repeatedly, refuses to talk at all, and leaves you alone with your increasingly inventive theories, then yes, you may have more cause for concern. But don’t promote yourself to detective before you have first tried being a husband in a chair, asking a difficult question and waiting for the real answer.

There may be someone else. There may equally be stress, sadness, menopause, anger, boredom, or some private knot she hasn’t yet untangled into words. Your job for now is not to guess correctly. It is to open the conversation without accusation and see whether she meets you there.

You say she is friendly. I would aim for something more intimate than friendly. Friendly is for baristas and neighbours. Wives should, at the very least, be reachable.

Yours, with a steady hand,

Joely

More dilemmas? Read more letters and replies in the Dear Joely advice column.