A guy wonders how to handle his girlfriend’s secretive behavior and black-out drinking.
Originally appeared at She Said He Said
Dear Sexes: A few nights ago, my girlfriend and I, who love each other, were in my apartment drinking with some friends and she got drunk. While drunk, a friend of one of her ex-boyfriends came into the apartment and she became extremely upset and became very concerned about her ex-boyfriend finding out about the night. Also, before going to sleep, she repeatedly referred to me by his name. She didn’t remember anything the next morning. I believe that there may be something unresolved. Am I justified?
She Said: Okay so the idea of this blog is that Eli and I talk to you guys just like we’d talk to one another…
So if Eli had come to me back in his dating days and told me this story I would say this:
Run for your life, Dude!!
WTF, man?! She freaked out about her ex knowing she has a boyfriend, and then she called you by his name?
No. No. No.
This girl needs some time alone to resolve these issues with her ex. Nobody, neither girl nor guy, should be entering into a serious relationship with someone who is this freaked out about someone else.
Don’t even get me started about dating someone who blacks out from drinking. Bad sign, bro. Danger ahead.
Keep those boundaries clear, let her know this shit ain’t cool, and cut ties if she can’t clearly commit to you without hang-ups.
He Said: Does your girlfriend suffer blackouts, or does she have amnesia? Of course she remembers her actions, and calling you by her ex-boyfriend’s name. She was most likely looking for some sort of reaction from you. And if she’s behaving that way, you’re probably right – she does have some unresolved issues with her ex. Even if she doesn’t remember anything, and the whole evening was her subconscious acting out, that’s just as disturbing. Why was she calling you by her ex-boyfriend’s name? Did she think you were role-playing?
You could ignore the evening’s events, and see if it ever comes up again. But if it bothers you (you cared enough to ask us about it), I would just be straightforward with her, and ask her what’s up. It’s also okay for you to give your two cents, and let her know you thought it was weird, wrong, strange, inappropriate, uncomfortable, etc… – whatever it is you feel. Or you could just ask her if she still has feelings for her ex. Don’t lose too much sleep over it. Do you have some exes names you can call her? Just kidding, don’t do that. Maybe she’s just a mean (or strange) drunk.
About She Said He Said
It seems to me that there’s too much missing context here. Maybe she was concerned about her ex finding out about the night because he might come over and be a jerk. We all have people that we’d rather not show up at a gathering and a friend of his being there would have made the possibility much greater.
Second, being drunk doesn’t make people expose their true self. Men kiss men when they’re drunk and that doesn’t mean they’re closet homosexuals. If the writer is honestly worried about his girlfriend’s drinking, then he needs to address that issue without villianising her behavior while intoxicated.
Alcoholism trumpts potentially nonexistent hangups on an ex.
Please ignore the industrial-strength rationalization hamster from this commenter, and dump your girlfriend post haste. If you still want to keep her around, then demote her to a jumpoff while you look for a new numero uno.
You can thank me later.
Alcohol lowers inhibitions, it doesn’t create desire ex nihilo. Sure, kissing another guy doesn’t make you gay, but it might make you think it’s a better idea than your sober self might allow.
Now the tricky thing is determining whether her actions were the combination of no inhibitions and freudian slips, or deliberate provocations to see how much of her shit you’ll take. Is this completely out of character for her, or does this fit into a pattern of behavior? Perhaps what she needed was a little liquid courage to be a complete ass to you, to see if you really love her.
Okay, if she really was black-out drunk that’s also a problem.
Dump her asap. Don’t date addicts.
I dated a girl EXACTLY like this. She would get really drunk really fast because she was on meds, and every time she would end up thinking I was her ex. I didn’t realize until I looked back, but it’s obvious now that it was all an act. She knows what she’s doing, and she’s trying to garner attention to the fact that she has “issues”. As much as it sucks, you have to do yourself a favor and break it off. It’s not worth it, man.
Run, don’t walk, away from this one, this is trouble. Imagine a lifetime of this shit.
Firstly I think she was fully aware of everything she was doing while she was drinking and I don’t believe that she forgot everything the next morning. It was all an ACT. An act which was incredibly disrespectful and hurtful to you. Did you feel good about what she did? Are you happy right now?
I would be very angry. You should be. And you shouldn’t excuse her behaviour just because she was drunk. People use alcohol as an excuse to do things they could never do while sober. Half of the behaviour that people indulge in when drink is all a big act, an elaborate lie. The alcohol is just a way that people can justify bad behaviour.
Do you think being black-out drunk is a condition which doesn’t exist?
I recall listening to Episode 286 of the Savage Love Podcast earlier this week in which a man claimed to have been black-out drunk and sexually assaulted by an ex who has been stalking him. Now I’m wondering if I should believe his story, if maybe he was fully aware of everything he was doing and that he didn’t forget the next morning. Perhaps it was just regret-sex and now he’s making up a story to feel better about himself and his choices. I hadn’t considered that angle until now.
Never having been black-out drunk, or having claimed to be, I don’t really have any personal experience by which I can adjudicate whether someone is lying about an experience or not. I do believe that alcohol only lowers inhibitions, it doesn’t make you do things you aren’t otherwise inclined to do. But we all have inhibitions, and the question is what does it mean to say alcohol lowers them. My commitment to my partner is an inhibition on having an affair with the woman flirting with me at the hotel; whether there is an amount of alcohol consumption that would leave me so inebriated as to ignore my inhibitions is something I’ve never found out. I’ve always thought I have particular mental fortitude, but perhaps I’m just fooling myself and I’m only a pour of Glenlivet 18 away from violating my own standards.
Perhaps you have experience in this area, or particular expertise in alcohol consumption and its effects on decision making and long term memory encoding. I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to learn more about this, as such knowledge would no doubt be useful in my life and those of my friends and loved ones.
“Do you think being black-out drunk is a condition which doesn’t exist?”
No I do think people can definitely black out from alcohol but its not very common. It happens rarely.
“Never having been black-out drunk, or having claimed to be, I don’t really have any personal experience by which I can adjudicate whether someone is lying about an experience or not.”
Its not the phenomenon of blacking out that I am questioning. I am fully prepared to believe that it happens. What I am not prepared to believe is that it tends to happen on precisely the days where you publicly cheated on your spouse:
http://www.zimbio.com/Lois+Feldman/articles/5/Lois+Feldman+Says+Bathroom+Sex+Ruined+Life
But my frame of reference for questioning this is the way I think people work. People tell lies all the time. For sake of convenience, to void something painful, to justify themselves. Have you ever told a lie when you were a child because you knew your parents would get angry. We all do it so we know others are capable of it. And the time its done most often is when you are trying to get out of something. The convenience and self-serving nature of the blackout is why I am far less likely to believe it. People especially tell lies (often inconsequential white lies) to maintain a consistent image to other people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life
And the other part of this is that people are fundamentally irrational and complicated in their psychological motivations. People do weird things for strange reasons. But what they do is purposeful. Being drunk is just a good excuse to be able to engage in this behavior and have it justified by your drunkenness.