"My Boyfriend Said Something I Can't Unhear"

Hi everyone,

One of the most heart-wrenching details in this week’s Hello Hayes comes at the very end of the letter, when the writer says her boyfriend “promises” he isn’t insecure about their relationship — despite drunkenly and aggressively proving the opposite while blacked out at a bar.

TL;DR context (though it’s worth listening to the first two minutes of the episode for the real texture, I’m oversimplifying here):

• Boyfriend meets girlfriend and her friends at the bar. He pregames alone and arrives drunk.

• Girlfriend introduces boyfriend to a new (girl)friend of hers

• Boyfriend says, “I know my gf is attracted to you” (gf is bisexual)

• The couple gets in an argument, wherein bf calls her a “dumb c*nt”

• Bf later apologizes and promises he will never let this happen again

• Gf writes to Hello Hayes

“He promised he isn’t insecure in our relationship, which I have to take at face value because I know our communication is strong and he would tell me if he was,” she writes.

Ugh. This is the part that got me.

Aside from the fact that, from the outside, his behavior clearly reveals insecurity…I just don’t trust what he’s saying. Not because he’s intentionally lying, but because he may not have the language to understand what he’s feeling. (Or, frankly, the interest.) We cannot make something true just by saying it is. You can’t manifest your way out of an insecurity — or homophobia, for that matter.

The boyfriend is responsible for a lot here, but I don’t entirely blame him for not telling the truth. He might genuinely believe he isn’t insecure. But his behavior is telling us something he can’t articulate yet.

I talk more about this in the episode, but what I keep coming back to is this:

It’s not about whether he’s telling the truth.
It’s about whether he has the capacity to find the truth.

That’s what I hope the letter writer takes from this week’s conversation, too.

Quick favor, would you please hit the “heart” button at the top/bottom of this post? Tapping it makes a big difference in how my work is shared across Substack. Thanks and happy reading!

Excited to hear your thoughts,
Hayes