Dear Joely: My Boyfriend Gave Me the Holiday Ick

Seven nights in Greece, one shared bathroom and rather more information about her boyfriend than she bargained for.

New
here?

Dear Joely,

I've been in a relationship with a guy for almost eight months now. We met on Tinder and it felt like a great match from the start. He just seems to get me. We don't live together. I'm still with my folks, and he's in a share house.

This summer, we decided to go on holiday together.

It was the first time I'd been away with a boyfriend and also my first time in Greece. I'm 22 and he's 25. We went for a seven-night package, and it was all very exciting at first. The weather was beautiful, with nothing but sunshine each day.

On the other hand...

I'm not really sure how to put this delicately, so I'll just go for it. I didn't know that in Greece you can't flush the toilet paper. Not until I got there. I must be a bit of a princess because I found that unbearable.

Also, a couple of days in, I noticed I wasn't feeling quite as into my boyfriend anymore. I was starting to see things about him that I hadn't at home.

He would take his book into the toilet with him each morning and spend an hour in there. I'm not even kidding. I found this just gross. I didn't know how to approach the subject with him, so I let it be.

I also didn't like seeing his used toilet paper in there when I had to use the toilet. Just eeeeuuuwwww!

He was really messy with his stuff too. I like to keep a hotel room tidy. I asked him about this, but he didn't seem to take me seriously.

About halfway through, he got a stomach bug. This made the whole toilet situation worse. I kept finding myself torn between wanting to be caring and not being able to bear it, so I would leave the room and go for walks by myself. I took to using the public toilet rather than the one in our room.

It got pretty bad because I was even doing my makeup in a compact mirror rather than going to use the main bathroom mirror.

I'm sure I sound horrible, but even though there were a few other things that bugged me, this is the last thing I'm going to mention.

When he wasn't sick and we were exploring the island, I found he would talk down to the Greek people, as though he thought he was better than them. I was really embarrassed.

I just got quieter and quieter over the course of the trip. I suppose I went into myself. I also didn't fancy him much, and we didn't have a lot of sex, which is not like us.

Now we're home, and I don't know whether to try to put this whole sorry holiday behind us and get back to the way we were, or face the fact that I get on a lot better with him when we don't share accommodation. Which, to me, doesn't seem like it has much of a future in it.

I had the idea to write when I read that other letter to you about the ick. My situation seems a bit different, though.

I hope you can help.

Yours,

Cor-feeuuwww

Dear Cor-feeuuwww,

There is nothing quite like a first holiday together for stripping the soft lighting off a relationship.

At home, you see your boyfriend in portions. A dinner here, a sleepover there, perhaps a weekend if everyone is feeling brave. On holiday, there is nowhere for the ordinary machinery of a person to hide. You see how they pack, how they sulk, how they cope with illness, how they treat waiters, how long they occupy the bathroom and whether they regard the hotel floor as a wardrobe with better lighting.

So let us begin with the toilet paper.

You are not a monster because you found the Greek plumbing arrangements revolting. You were unfamiliar with them, sharing a small bathroom with a man who apparently regarded it as both lavatory and reading room, and then he became ill. That is enough to test even the most fragrant of romances.

The hour-long morning bathroom occupation would irritate many people. The fact that you did not know how to raise it says something too. After eight months, you should be able to say, “Darling, I love you, but I also need access to the toilet before breakfast.”

The mess is also not trivial simply because it involves socks and toiletries. You told him it bothered you, and he did not take you seriously. Shared living is built from tiny acts of consideration. Nobody has to keep a hotel room like an operating theatre, but they do have to notice when the person beside them is becoming distressed.

His stomach bug is the part for which I would offer him the most mercy. Illness is graceless, and very few people become more alluring while their digestive system is staging a coup. You were not wrong to struggle with it, though disappearing for walks while he was unwell may be worth thinking about. A long-term relationship eventually asks us to care for someone when they are inconvenient, unattractive and producing evidence we would rather not inspect.

But the detail I would not wave away is the way he spoke to Greek people.

That is not holiday mess. That is not plumbing. That is not a stomach bug.

It is character.

A person who talks down to local people while enjoying their country is showing you how he behaves when he believes he is entitled to something. Embarrassment in those moments is often the body’s way of saying, “Pay attention. This matters.”

You say you became quieter and quieter. That may be the most important sentence in your letter.

You did not merely lose sexual interest. You began withdrawing from the relationship while still standing inside it.

That is not simply a story about getting the ick. It is also a story about what happens between you when something is wrong.

Do not make a decision based solely on whether you fancied him while he had diarrhoea. Very few romances survive that particular lighting test with dignity.

But do not rush to “get back to the way you were” either. The way you were depended partly on not having seen certain things.

You now need one honest conversation.

Not a prosecution. Not a catalogue of his bathroom crimes. Tell him the trip made you realise that you communicate badly when uncomfortable, that you felt dismissed when you raised the mess, and that you were genuinely troubled by the way he spoke to Greek people.

Then watch what he does.

Does he listen?

Does he laugh it off?

Does he blame you for being precious?

Does he become curious about your experience?

Does he show any shame about his behaviour towards the locals, or only embarrassment that you noticed?

The future of the relationship is not hiding in the waste-paper bin. It is in his response.

You may discover that the trip exposed some manageable habits and one miserable week. Or you may discover that the version of him you liked best was the version you only ever met in carefully measured doses.

Either answer is useful.

And for what it is worth, there is no shame in learning that you do not want to share a bathroom with someone for the rest of your life. Civilisations have collapsed over less.

Yours, from the public toilets with my compact mirror,
Joely

Dear Joely: The Affair Was Perfect. Then He Went Down on Me.

Dear Joely,

I am 44, married with two children, aged 12 and 8, but the relationship is all over bar the shouting. It won’t be easy to leave. My husband is abusive, not physically, but through a complex web of coercive control. I am seeing a psychologist. That’s just some background.

For a long while, I have felt as though I am ripe to have an affair. As I said, there is nothing between my husband and me, and I am constantly left alone while he works long hours and travels abroad for work. I work as well, but the childcare has somehow worked out to be my responsibility.

About four months ago, I met a man through work and we really hit it off straight away. He is intelligent, kind and generous, and we have heaps in common. We get together for meals whenever we can, normally lunches because of our commitments. We talk and talk and talk. He gets me, and for the first time in years I feel understood.

I should mention that he is also unhappily married. That’s just the start of it, though. Our lives are so similar it’s actually spooky.

Over time, we built up quite a closeness and, yes, an attraction as well. We ended up making a date to spend a night together at a hotel away from the area where we live. My children were spending the night with their grandparents.

It was really quite lovely being with him in those circumstances. I got to dress up, and we had drinks at a nice bar and then dinner together. It had been years since I had done anything even remotely like that.

After the drinks and food, we ended up back in the hotel room. Things progressed to kissing, then touching, and soon afterwards we were naked in bed.

He went down to give me oral sex, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse.

It was awful. It didn’t turn me on at all. He was all over the place and didn’t seem to have the first idea about female anatomy. I found myself in the really difficult position of not knowing whether to fake it or say something, which I think he detected.

I tried to encourage him to have normal sex, but that didn’t work either. He wasn’t erect. After all the weeks of build-up, talk, closeness and caring, followed by the drinks and dinner, it was a terrible outcome. I felt like crying.

He ended up pacing around the room, not naked, and I tried to get him to talk about it. He wouldn’t speak for ages. Eventually, he told me he had never gone down on a woman before and had felt enough about me to make me his first.

My reaction was not what he had hoped for, and he felt ashamed and embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say.

We spent an awkward night together, and the atmosphere was horrible. Since then, things haven’t been the same between us. I miss him terribly because the messages and conversations haven’t been as they were.

Worst of all, I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams ever having sex with him again. It has completely turned me off. I wish I could change that, but I have the ick. A serious case of it.

If I’m honest, I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that he had never given oral sex to a woman at his age, he is 39, or that his first attempt, with me, was so bad.

I feel down in the dumps, lonely, sad and disappointed. To be honest, I wish I had just given an Oscar-worthy performance.

Pathetic in Putney

Dear Pathetic in Putney,

First, you are not pathetic. You are disappointed, lonely, sexually underwhelmed and currently living inside a marriage where your freedom has been slowly parcelled up and handed back to you in supervised portions. That is quite enough misery without adding self-contempt to the buffet.

And no, you should not have given an Oscar-worthy performance.

An Oscar-worthy performance might have spared him one mortifying evening, but it would have sentenced you to an entire sequel. Possibly a franchise.

The problem is not simply that he was bad at oral sex. People can learn. Female anatomy is not guarded by riddles, fire-breathing dragons or a subscription paywall. A willing, attentive adult can improve enormously by listening, asking and resisting the urge to approach a vulva like an unfamiliar control panel.

What seems to have killed the mood was the whole peculiar bundle: his inexperience, your shock, his shame, the pacing, the silence, the failed erection, and the crushing distance between the night you had imagined and the one you actually got.

You had not merely booked a hotel room. You had booked passage out of your life.

For weeks, this man had been intelligence, kindness, conversation, recognition and possibility. He made you feel understood after years of being controlled and neglected. By the time you reached that bed, he was carrying the combined weight of romance, escape, sexual resurrection and proof that another life was waiting.

That is an impossible amount of luggage for one man to bring into a hotel room, particularly when he has never previously travelled south.

Your ick may be permanent. Sometimes desire disappears with the speed and finality of a stage trapdoor. But it may also be protecting you from the humiliation and sadness of that night. You cannot order yourself to want him again, but you also do not need to decide immediately that the entire connection was fraudulent.

The more revealing question is whether the two of you can talk honestly now.

Can he say, “I was inexperienced, frightened and ashamed,” without making you responsible for repairing his pride?

Can you say, “I was disappointed and overwhelmed, and I did not know how to guide you,” without turning his lack of experience into a character defect?

And can either of you discuss what happened without pretending the evening was solely a technical malfunction involving his tongue?

Because there is another awkward truth here: neither of you is free. You are both using this relationship partly as refuge from unhappy marriages. That does not mean your feelings are unreal. It does mean the relationship has been growing in a greenhouse, protected from school runs, bills, domestic habits, difficult decisions and the full weather of ordinary life.

Before deciding whether this man deserves another chance in bed, I would concentrate on something more urgent: creating a safe, independent plan for leaving your abusive marriage.

Coercive control often intensifies when the controlling person senses separation. Please continue working with your psychologist, and seek specialist domestic-abuse support to help you plan practically and safely. Do not make your escape dependent on whether this affair survives. You need a door that belongs to you, not one held open by another unhappily married person.

As for your lover, one honest conversation is warranted. Not because you owe him another sexual audition, but because you miss the friendship and closeness that existed before the hotel. Tell him the night affected you, that his withdrawal has hurt, and that you would rather speak plainly than let embarrassment rot the whole relationship in silence.

Then see what he does.

A man can be forgiven for not knowing where everything is. At thirty-nine, however, he should be capable of having a conversation after getting lost.

Yours in better exits and considerably better sex,

Joely