She Is Not Your Therapist: When Openness Becomes a Burden

The first message arrived at 1:13 in the morning. Are you awake? By 1:47 the man had sent seventeen. The anonymous woman had counted them, writing a small number in pencil beside each screenshot. The call that followed lasted two hours and nineteen minutes. Beside it, in another pen: Tuesday. She works at 8:00.

I read that folder at my dining table at almost the same hour, with my phone beside me, and counted the people I've woken at one in the morning with something that could have waited until nine. It was more than two. I know what are you awake asks of the person who reads it.

The most available man she'd met

I'll call her Elena. She works in a pharmacy and has to badge in at eight. She objected when I described her former partner, whom I'll call Lucas, as emotionally unavailable. "He was the most emotionally available man I've ever met. You're using available to mean expressive."

Lucas could name his feelings precisely and trace them to his childhood. He also listened well, remembered what she said on Sunday and asked about it on Wednesday. For the first year their long conversations felt like proof of depth.

"We were addicted to understanding things we weren't changing," she said.

Enough

A previous partner had cheated on Lucas. When Elena went out and didn't answer for a few hours, he got anxious, and told her so the next morning, calmly. They talked it through. Then it happened again, and again. The wording improved each time. The pattern didn't.

What did he want? At first, nothing. Later, texts. How often? "Just enough." Enough for what? "Enough that he didn't get anxious."

That's the trap. "Enough" had no fixed size, because her messages had become part of how he managed his own feelings. So she started checking her phone more when she was out, sending a heart, a photo, home soon. Nobody demanded it. She simply knew.

When she finally told him, he said he'd never asked for half of those messages. "Was he right?" I asked. "Yes." She didn't blame him for all of it. He was responsible for what he kept bringing to her. She was responsible for arranging herself around his discomfort without saying what it cost.

Beside one exchange the anonymous woman had written: She is managing feelings he hasn't even had yet.

Talking and handing over

We rightly ask men to talk instead of going silent. Talking is good. The question is whether the feeling ends up shared or handed over. A few checks:

• Do you talk about the same feeling again and again without anything changing?
• Do you reach for your partner at hours that cost her sleep or work?
• Does she adjust her behaviour in advance so you won't feel bad?
• Who else do you talk to: friends, family, a professional?

The opposite pattern, a man who shows nothing until it's processed, is in The Man Who Never Needs Anything. Both can leave a partner lonely. Elena and Lucas's story is chapter twenty-four of Become My Papi, alongside The Broken Man Fantasy.

Questions people ask

Is it wrong to rely on your partner emotionally?

No. It becomes a problem when one partner's messages and availability become the main way the other manages anxiety, and the pattern never changes.

What is emotional labor in a relationship?

Here it means managing a partner's feelings in advance: texting, reassuring and adjusting your behaviour so they will not feel anxious, often without being asked.

Where is Elena and Lucas's story from?

It is chapter twenty-four of Become My Papi by Nora Vellick.