My Boyfriend Has Changed, and Now I Don’t Know Who He Is Anymore!

Estimated reading time: 19 minutes

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I’m writing to you because I feel completely lost.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for over three years. I fell for him when he was this sweet, kind, slightly awkward guy who made me feel loved, safe, and seen. He was thin, a bit self-conscious, but that never mattered to me — I loved who he was, not how he looked.

About a year ago, he started going to the gym. At first, I was proud of him. He wanted to feel stronger and more confident, and I fully supported that. But slowly, it became everything. The gym is all he thinks about. He’s there constantly. He talks about nothing else. It’s like everything else — our shared interests, our time together, our emotional connection — just stopped mattering.

He’s changed. Not just physically, but emotionally. He used to be affectionate, thoughtful, and present. Now he’s distant, dismissive, and strangely arrogant. He tells me things like, “Now I’m the one who could open Tinder and be with whoever I want,” and constantly points out when other women stare at him or flirt. It doesn’t feel like he’s sharing — it feels like he wants me to feel insecure.

What hurts even more is remembering how deeply he used to feel things. Once, early in our relationship, we were watching a Marvel movie and I made an offhand comment about how I liked Captain America’s physique. It wasn’t meant as anything serious — just a silly compliment on a fictional character. But he got really quiet. Later he told me that it made him feel like he wasn’t enough. I remember holding him, reassuring him, telling him that I loved him just as he was.

That same man — the one who used to lift others up, who was generous with his words, who genuinely cared about people — feels like a ghost now. He’s not that guy anymore. He used to be humble and warm, always trying to make people feel better about themselves. Now he talks down to others, brags constantly, and acts like anyone who isn’t as obsessed with fitness is beneath him. He’s become a stereotype — the arrogant, crass, shallow “gym bro” — and it breaks my heart to say that.

Yes, more women look at him now. Yes, he gets attention. And he sees that as a reward. He likes it. But it’s like he doesn’t care that the version of him who truly meant something to me is slipping away. That version — the one I loved so deeply — is being erased. And I’m the only one mourning him.

I still love him. Or maybe I love the version of him I used to know. I don’t know if that man is still in there somewhere, or if I’m clinging to a memory. But I do know this: the man he used to be was everything to me. That man was my love.

What do you do when the person you love stops loving who they were — and you’re the only one who still does?

Sincerely,

Lost and Heartbroken

It always sucks when it feels like someone we’ve cared about is slipping away, LaH, but it hits a little different when that person seems to not just have vanished but left a changeling or a pod person in their place.

It’s one thing when your partner is gone, no longer physically present in your life. Even with the gaps where they used to be, the fact that they’re not there makes it a little easier to move forward. The first day of their absence serves as a sort of marker, a delineation between the time before and after the end of the relationship.

It’s another thing entirely when they’re gone but still there. Whether they’ve clearly checked out or when it seems like they’ve just become someone different entirely, the fact that they’re still there physically – looking the same, but behaving so differently – is almost enough to make you question reality. Did you get Berenstained? Did you open the wrong door and find yourself on the wrong side of reality? Did your sweet babboo get infected with some weird memetic virus and now they’re just off? It’s like you can’t even mourn the loss because they’re both there and not there at the same time.

And to make matters worse, it’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder – just as you are now – what you can or should do about it. Do you hope that there’s a window where you can try to bring the version you remember back like Luke trying to convince Vader that there’s still good in him? Do you accept that the person you loved is different now and that the relationship you had is over? And why did it happen in the first place? Could you have stopped it, somehow, if you caught it early enough?

Well, I can answer the last one at least: probably not. This was something that likely was always going to happen, in some form or another. It was just a question as to when and what the trigger would be.

Now, there’s going to be an almost instinctual reaction to blame this in part on outside influences. A lot of bodybuilding forums and influencers have long been a breeding ground for toxic ideas about… well, everything, but especially ideas about manhood and masculinity. The Venn diagram of gym bro culture, crypto, grindset hustle culture and absurdly fragile masculinity is basically one very large overlapping circle. When there’s a continual push of “you’re not good enough, you’re not doing enough, you’re not hustling enough, you should be doing more”, it’s easy to fall into a mindset that ends up just hurting you and isolating you.

This is especially when many fitspo and bodybuilder influencers are pushing out and out fraud by insisting that their steroid-enhanced physiques are strict natty, nothing but pure power of will and a diet of chicken breasts and whitefish. When their fans, who don’t have the assistance of trenbolone, don’t get the same results, they feel like they’re the ones at fault somehow.

It plays to the voice of your insecurities and fears, confirming everything you’re worried about and telling you that the answer is MAN EVEN HARDER THAN BEFORE, YOU LITTLE BITCH. The contempt it encourages for yourself quickly becomes contempt for other people too.  

And that honestly sucks. It turns something that’s an overall net good into something toxic. Working out, getting exercise, getting in shape are great. Taking care of your body and health is important! But when it becomes a way of keeping score, a way of saying “this makes me better than you”, instead of loving your relationship with your physicality… it curdles the soul and poisons the connections you have with the people around you.

But in a lot of cases, it’s not the influence of particular subcultures or communities that’s the cause. They’re the method, the path the change traveled, but not the trigger, not the initial infection. That was already there, embedded in the psyche like a bomb waiting for the signal to detonate.

I suspect the real issue was insecurity that your boyfriend had already, and the gym was the method he was using to try to alleviate that feeling.

There’s a lot of pressure on men from other men to look a certain way, to act a certain way, that you have to be a man in a very narrow, stringent and specific way. There’s an insistence that women are lying when they say they like dad bods or a diverse array of bodies because… well, because women lie, basically. And if you let that belief linger and fester, it’s very easy to find “evidence” that it’s true; any off-hand comment gets turned into “proof” that your partner is secretly disgusted by the fact that you don’t look like a walking balloon animal and dreams of their hero with the Marvel physique carrying them off one-handed. It doesn’t matter that you can like the bodies of celebrities or influencers or porn actresses and your girlfriend or wife; women only want one thing and that one thing involves more gains, more cutting phases and single-percentage body fat.

There’s also a lot of pressure ­to see relationships as a battle for influence – who’s “in charge”, who’s got the higher “value”, who’s the more desirable – and that’s relationship poison, especially when you have that inherent insecurity. If you feel like your partner’s “out of your league”, that any attention they get is a threat to you, it’s not necessarily a surprise that when that turns into something bitter and resentful.

So I think it’s likely that your boyfriend has always had this nagging feeling in the back of his head that he wasn’t good enough and that any relationship he had was haunted by the ticking of the clock counting down the minutes until his partner decided to “trade up”. Getting into the gym to get yoked may well have been less about wanting to be in shape for the sake of getting in shape and more about making that voice shut up. And there’re a lot of people looking for guys with precisely those sorts of insecurity, who’ll gleefully stoke those fires and encourage them to see their newfound physique not as an improvement but as a weapon to get revenge on the people who they blame for their insecurity.

And for someone who may have felt insecure and unsure, who always worried about the strength of his relationships and connection to his partners, who may not have had many friends or a community with care and support? That change can be heady. It’s easy to get caught up in that rush of power and feeling of potential, especially when there’re folks who are ready to hype him up about it. We talk about the zeal of the converted, and that is precisely the sort of thing that can happen when a guy finds the very thing that seems to fix their single greatest anxiety. They take to it with a level of enthusiasm and eagerness that, if left untampered, can easily become their entire personality.

I mean, God knows that back in my bad old days, when I was getting into the PUA community, I was becoming a serious asshole. Friends have commented on how dickish I had been acting at the time. I let it consume a significant portion of my life in no small part because it was the first time I felt empowered in an area of my life where I had always felt insufficient. Small wonder it fucked with my head; a sudden rush of power, even if it’s mostly imagined, can be intoxicating.

So yeah, I suspect the real issue are the insecurities and little bitter feelings that your boyfriend may have been wrestling with. Those snide comments about being the hot one or getting attention are as much about saying “see how it feels?” to someone he may well perceive as never having felt that same insecurity or worry. After all, women have it so much easier, don’t you know?

But what do you do about it? Is this a permanent change, or is there some way to bring the guy you knew back? Well… yes and no. For some folks, there’s a wakeup call, some moment that, if it doesn’t snap them back to reality, at least puts them on the path of walking it back and finding a healthier way of managing those feelings. For others… well, not as much. Some people get so invested in this new side of themselves that the sunk-cost fallacy kicks in; they can’t let go without admitting that maybe they spent too much time and energy. Their ego won’t let them admit defeat or face the awkwardness of admitting they were wrong, so they have to throw more and more into it. For others, it was something that finally gave them permission to be who they always were at their core.

The thing to understand is that the only way someone comes back from this is that they have to decide to do so themselves. They have to have that moment where they say “hang on, I don’t like what this is doing to me” or where something makes them see the effect that these new behaviors are having on the people around them. Your influence here is ultimately your presence in his life. You can talk to him about how his behavior is affecting you, how your relationship is suffering because of it. You can ask friends to reach out and say “dude, you’re really acting like a dick, is everything ok?” In fact, I recommend that you do so, especially friends of his who aren’t part of his gymbro circle. But there comes a point where you have to ask yourself whether you’re going to want to stay in a relationship with someone who behaves this way.

How long are you willing to put up with this, if you knew that he wasn’t going to change? Another year? Six months? Two? If he’s changed to the point that he’s not the sweet guy you were dating and the guy you’re with now is cold and contemptuous to you… well, sometimes you have to be willing to love him and yourself enough to leave.

Now it’s certainly possible that losing you – as cocky as he is acting and shitty as he’s behaving right now – may be the thing that slaps him across the mouth and makes him realize what his behavior is costing him. Realizing he’s at risk of losing a good thing may be what snaps him out of that haze and give him the motivation to actually look at his behavior and cringe. But it may not. He may decide that this is his sign to “trade up”. And if that’s the case… well, as much as it hurts, it’s better to have exited that relationship now rather than giving him more opportunities to slap at your own sense of self-worth.

If you do decide that breaking up is on the table, then do it without hesitation. Don’t linger, don’t hold it as a possibility; break things off quickly and cleanly and without the expectation that this is going to break the spell. If you don’t fully commit to ending the relationship, then all that’s happened is that you’ve told him that you’re not serious about how much this bothers you and that he can continue to treat you with this contempt and disrespect. It’s the complete break that’s often necessary to make someone realize how bad they’ve fucked up. It’s the sudden absence that shocks people awake; the fade away is just gradual enough that they don’t even notice it until it’s too late. And by then, the affection and respect you both is usually gone too.

It’s a shitty situation and I’m sorry you’re going through with it. Talk to him, ask his friends to talk to him… but decide if you’re willing to stay with who he is now, not the memory of who he used to be. A clean break will heal the fastest and hurt the least.

Good luck.

---

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’m going through the hardest moment of my life so far, at 24 years old.

A few days ago, I ended my first-ever romantic relationship. It was her first too. We were together for almost two incredible years — genuinely the best years I could have imagined. We met in a way that felt like it was out of a movie, and the connection we had was beyond anything I thought was possible. It doesn’t feel real that it’s over. It feels like something inside me is dying.

So, what went wrong? Was it cheating? Fights? A lack of love or chemistry? None of that.

We were truly perfect for each other. We trusted each other completely, communicated well, and shared amazing chemistry. But in the end, it came down to our futures not aligning.

To give some context: I’m from a Western European background and have spent most of my life in the U.S., but I always dreamed of moving back to Europe as an adult. My girlfriend’s story is different. Her family is from Eastern Europe and has been working toward building a life in the U.S. for over a decade. She and her sibling are already here, and soon her parents will join them. But her parents will rely on them completely —financially, socially, and emotionally — due to the major language barrier and other challenges. That means that staying with her would mean committing to a life where we’d never really have an independent household. We’d never get the chance to build a life that was just the two of us.

I think I could have lived with that — just to keep her. But the bigger issue is that a future in Europe, something I’ve dreamed of for so long, would be off the table. I care deeply about European culture, lifestyle, and even the career opportunities there. My own parents recently moved back to Europe, and my brother likely will too. If I stay here, I’ll be left completely alone in the U.S., with no family outside of my in-laws.

We talked through every possible compromise. The truth is, the only time we’d realistically be able to move to Europe together would be after both of our parents had passed. And by then, it would be too late to live that dream with the people I love. Not to mention I have been under immense family pressure to “follow the family plan” that inevitably pounded these worries into my head. Not sure if that’s relevant. Maybe, maybe not but it is certainly one of my doubts.

These dreams of mine disappeared after meeting her. But over the past several months, they started to resurface, and I couldn’t ignore them. I’ve made the decision to return to school for a master’s degree in Europe next year before it’s too late; would that option still have felt open to me five years from now. For obvious reasons, it forced our hand. We broke up — mutually, but painfully. So painfully.

Now I’m left wondering: was it worth it? Did I just give up the one person who will ever love me completely for who I am? Will I ever love someone the way I loved her? Right now, I just can’t see it. But staying scared me just as much.

I am constantly daydreaming of ways we still end up together, because to be honest I can’t envision a future without her.

Please, help me make sense of all of this. I feel like I’m drowning.

Separate Ways

I know this is going to sound insincere or like I’m not taking your pain seriously and I absolutely am. This really sucks and I empathize. What’s happening now is… well, unfortunately, it’s series of lessons that everyone learns eventually, and that you can only learn them hard way.

At the risk of sounding like I’m dismissing your feelings, what you’re experiencing is premature enlightenment. It hurts and it feels like your heart has been ripped out of your chest, in no small part because this is your very first love and you were feeling it so intensely precisely because it was your first. It was new, it was astounding, it was the first time you understand why poetry was important because that was the only way to put what you were feeling into words. And a feeling like that seems like it should be so incredibly strong, so incredibly important that no force in the Universe should be able to stand up before it.

And then you discover that this isn’t true. And that’s not even a slap to the face, that’s like someone has taken a sledgehammer to your chest. You’re knocked off your feet, you feel like your body has forgotten how to breathe and and your limbs don’t seem to want to respond to your brain. The world has been turned upside down and what you thought was a fundamental law of the universe has been broken. How could this be? What kind of uncaring, capricious and cruel god could give you this feeling and then rip it away like that?

And that’s when you have learned: not every relationship is going to last forever, even when you both love each other to distraction. As much as it hurts and as unfair as it feels, love by itself isn’t enough to make a relationship work. This isn’t a case of anyone doing anything wrong or messing up. It’s not a matter of one or the other of you making the wrong choice or being selfish or whatever. There are wonderful relationships that ultimately have to end, simply because there was one factor that didn’t line up in such a way to make it possible to continue. And that’s what happened here. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not the consequence of anyone’s actions. It’s just, well, life.

Here’s the thing you need to understand: love by itself isn’t enough to make a relationship last, but a relationship ending doesn’t mean that the relationship didn’t work. It’s not that you and your girlfriend weren’t right for each other. It’s that you were right for each other for that period of time.

Every single one of us is always growing and changing, every single day. When we’re in a relationship with someone, we are choosing to grow and change with them, and we do our best to ensure that we grow and change in ways that keep us together. But sometimes – many times, really – there comes a point where the way we’ve grown means that what was right for us at one part of our lives is no longer right for who we are and where we are now. You and your sweetie were perfect for one another in that golden time you had, but the people you are now are no longer the people you had been. Your needs are different and your circumstances have changed, which means what you have now doesn’t fit the way it did before. And that’s a shame. It really is. It hurts, and there’re few hurts quite like the first time you experience this. Few that hit you to the core of your being the way this pain does.

But the pain will fade. It doesn’t feel like it now, and it hurts so badly that you are absolutely, unquestionably sure that I couldn’t possibly understand it. It feels like nobody could feel this sort of loss and survive, never mind see a day when it doesn’t hurt this way. I promise you: it will ease in time. There is a day coming where you will be surprised to realize that it doesn’t hurt like it did, when you can breathe a little easier without that hitch in your ribs. You will be more surprised to notice it by its absence than by anything else. It may feel now like this day will never come, but I promise you that it is coming and sooner than you realize.

I want you to know this truth: this is not the end of love for you. The lesson you are learning now, the one that you won’t want to learn, is that this was not the only person you could love, nor the only person who could love you. There is no One, simply because there will be many Ones in your life, and each will be unique and each will be special because they will be the One for who you are in that moment. This relationship isn’t any less special because it didn’t end with the two of you dying in the saddle together. It’s not that you didn’t love each other enough to overcome this. It’s simply that this relationship reached its natural conclusion, and where the two of you were growing together, you are now going to grow separately, in your own ways and on your own paths.

It’s entirely possible that this isn’t the end for the two of you. There’s always the chance that your fates will intertwine again in ways that you can’t predict or see coming. But you can’t rely on that either. You need to accept that this love story, as wonderful as it was, has reached its final chapter, and its time for your next chapter to begin. Trying to hold onto it past its natural conclusion only holds you back and keeps you from the growth that needs to happen now.

Take time to mourn this loss. Something beautiful has come to an end and that deserves attention. It deserves the respect of your tears. It deserves the acknowledgement of the passing of an age. But in every ending, a new beginning is born. This new stage of your life like a phoenix – the burning flames are what enable the new growth to happen.

It will get better. The pain will ease and your heart will heal. There will be love in the future. It won’t be the same as this, but no love will ever be the same as the one before it. Each will be special and unique and wonderful and terrible in its own way.

The pain won’t last forever and the tears will dry. You’ll be ok. I promise.

All will be well.