Insatiable

Dear Cary,

I (female) am about to start a Ph.D. program based in a company. My (male) partner took a research job at this same company after rejecting other Ph.D. programs. He is loath to do literature reviews. He is loath to write. He's been telling me for months how happy he is not to be in a Ph.D. program.

But now, just when he told his boss that I am starting a doctoral program, his boss, who had never offered him a Ph.D. slot before, suddenly asked him why he doesn't consider doing a Ph.D. too. He called his sister for advice, and she asked him if he wouldn't feel bad if I had a Ph.D. and he didn't. I get what's going on ...

He wants my advice about doing this program. I'm too angry to give him advice. I won't respect him at all if he suddenly changes what he wants because a bunch of backlashers think he's a buffoon if he doesn't match my degree. But he seems to really be considering the option. I am in the firm grip of a power struggle. Help!

Fighting Off Backlashers

Dear Fighting,

What's wrong with him getting a Ph.D. too? Why can't your ambition serve as an example to him? Why do you insist that he stay one rung below you on the ladder? Imagine the reverse situation: A husband is about to pursue a Ph.D. program; the wife has always expressed a lack of interest, or a dread, of such an undertaking. But the wife's brother, and her employer, suggest she give it a try anyway, and she thinks, well, if my husband can do it, why can't I? Wouldn't it be rather heartless and cruel of the husband to try to stop his wife from such an undertaking?

Have you considered what signals your "partner" would be giving his boss if he didn't take the hint about the Ph.D.? Wouldn't he be signaling to his boss that he doesn't really care to advance, to become more valuable to the company, to increase his skills and expertise? Wouldn't that be a kind of slow professional suicide? Maybe he finally realized that his work life isn't about doing what he enjoys, but doing what he can to contribute. On the other hand, perhaps what you're really saying is that your partner has demonstrated that he has no spine, that he's a copycat, a worm, a striving, conniving operator and not a free thinker, unbowed by boss and academy and unimpressed by fancy degrees. If that's what this moment means, then perhaps it's all over between you.

But you really ought to dig deep in yourself and be sure. What else is going on here? Have you fallen in love with the idea of being the one with the Ph.D. in the family? Does it diminish your accomplishment if your husband does it, too? Are you not strong enough to share the stage? Somewhere deep in your heart, where you carry the dreams you never say out loud -- I am not attempting to belittle you here, but I am asking you to drop your defenses for a moment and honestly assess your inner hopes -- do you imagine yourself as a hero for women? Do you see yourself declaring your independence, breaking away from the family mold? And does your partner's desire to emulate you feel like encroachment, or copying, almost like the unwanted imitation of a sibling, perhaps?

There are more important matters here than your own desire to see yourself in a certain way, to be unique and impressive. You can still be a hero for women. But you may have to share the stage. That's what having a "partner" is all about. The question is: Is this a man you could proudly share the stage with? Or is he just riding on your coattails?

Dear Cary,

About four years ago I ended a relationship that symbolizes the lowest period of my life. Both my girlfriend and I were addicts, and after several attempts to rehabilitate together, it became clear that she didn't really want the change. I ended the relationship and proceeded to sort myself out on my own. I've been clean since then, and in the past year have finally felt ready to date again.

I know I messed up my body pretty good, but to my dismay I'm discovering that the consequences of my past vices have manifested specifically as a more-than-usual impotence. Also, there seems to be a psychological correlation tied to the fact that we used to make love exclusively involving drugs and (toward the end) pornography. I hesitate to use the word "love," but I still believe there was something honest and tender beneath the wreck we had made of things. Now, I'm not willing and can't risk finding out if drugs (prescription or otherwise) would bring back some performance. But I've verified that pornography does, though I'm reluctant to introduce this to any future relationship. I sure hope there's some other way.

I haven't mentioned any of these specifics to any recent girlfriends and subsequently all of these relationships have ended before becoming anything more than short-term.

In a new relationship, how do I broach the circumstances of my problem as the time arrives when physical intimacy is normally expected?

Nearly F.U.B.A.R. (in my mid-20s)

Dear FUBAR,

Face it, if you're an addict in recovery, you've already got enough issues. I wouldn't start wishing you were normal all of a sudden, even after four years. It can take twice that time to get even halfway normal. Sheesh, and you're so young, you probably never had a sex life without the drugs.

Remember that moment of clarity when quitting the drugs became more important than the girlfriend or the scintillating underground lifestyle or the clothes or the rock-star thinness or even those increasingly brief flashes of medicated OK-ness? What you need to do is cultivate that memory, carry it with you, relive it, act it out in your daily life. Because that moment is the sexiest and most attractive thing about you: that you quit bullshitting long enough to get clean. Now you're flirting with bullshit again. You're thinking maybe there's a con you can use to get over with a woman. Banish the thought. That way lies madness and death, asylums and jails. So be utterly, utterly frank, without expectation of understanding or sympathy or anything. Admit your fear as you admit it to yourself, without sentimentality, just as frankly as you'd admit that your grandmother was Swedish. That is, not with any shame attached, but just as one more fact in your dossier. If you're an addict, you've got issues, but that doesn't have to be a huge group therapy moment. It's just part of who you are.

I would also consider your overall regimen of fitness, just for your general well-being and also, tangentially, for your sexual performance. Exercise regularly and eat lots of fruit and vegetables.

By the way, the link between addiction and pornography is a fascinating one: instantaneous, worry-free access to the id, to feeling; the messy and chaotic material of the unconscious neatly packaged as tits and ass; or as needle and spoon; or as a bottle and a pocketful of cash: that endless highway of insular well-being stretching out before us as long as we've got the materials at hand to channel our discomfort. But the discomfort is existential and eternal, and until you accept that every day, you're likely to be buying little baggies again real soon.

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