The Advice Goddess: July 2018

My boyfriend of two years read my diary and found out that I had expressed feelings for another guy while we were together. I never acted on them (and I wouldn’t have), and I probably shouldn’t have told the guy I liked him. But my boyfriend shouldn’t have been reading my diary! He broke up with me, saying he wouldn’t be able to forgive me. Now he wants to come back. What should I do? I don’t feel that I can trust him now.

Having regular sex with you does not give another person the right to rake through your diary like it’s the $1 bin at Goodwill.

Your boyfriend probably equated your approaching this other guy with an attempt to cheat, but it sounds like it was something different — a sort of preliminary investigation into whether you had any chance with that guy.

It turns out that we have a sort of inner auditing department that gets triggered to calculate whether “the one!!!” should maybe be that other one.

Accordingly, research by evolutionary psychologists Joshua Duntley and David Buss and their colleagues suggests that we evolved to cultivate romantic understudies — backup mates whom we can quickly slot in as partners if our partner, say, dies or ditches us or their “mate value” suddenly takes a dive.

Well, though you didn’t have sex with this other guy, it seems instructive to look at why women tend to have affairs. Research by the late psychologist Shirley Glass finds that women view seeking love and emotional intimacy as the most compelling justification for cheating. (Seventy-seven percent of women surveyed saw this as a compelling reason to have an affair, compared with only 43 percent of the men. Men were more likely to see sexual excitement as a compelling justification to stray — with 75 percent of the men, versus 53 percent of the women, giving that reason.)

As for whether you should take your boyfriend back, the question is: What was missing that led you to try to trade up, and is it still missing?

We’re prone (per what’s called the “sunk cost fallacy”) to want to keep putting time and energy into things we’ve already put time and energy into, but the way to judge whether something’s actually worthwhile is to assess how well it’s likely to pay off in the future.

If you feel (and act) more certain about your partner, he is less likely to have mate-guarding impulses triggered (like the temptation to snoop). However, if you do get back together with this guy, privacy rules need to be spelled out — and followed. (Presumably, your daily journal entries start with “Dear Diary,” not “To Whom It May Concern.”)

My boyfriend thinks there’s something wrong with me because of how much I sleep. I’ve always needed to sleep a lot (like, nine hours). I’ve been tested for everything, and I’m fine. Do some people just need more sleep? How do I get him off my back?

Okay, so you’re the love child of Rip Van Winkle and a log. Studies on identical twins suggest that our “sleep duration” (how long we tend to sleep) is between 31 and 55 percent “heritable” —which is to say factory-installed, driven by our genes.

Beyond your boyfriend not being tuned in to the genetics, there’s a little-known feature of our immune system — basically the psychological version of that plexiglass partition in liquor stores in bad neighborhoods — that may be causing him to worry about your sleepathons.

In addition to warrior cells being sent out by our immune system to attack bodily invaders, such as viruses, psychologist Mark Schaller’s research suggests we have a psychological warning system — the “behavioral immune system” — to help us avoid being exposed to disease in the first place.

This warning system gets triggered by, among other things, atypical behavior — for example, sleeping far more than most people. To get your boyfriend off your case, you might tell him that being adequately rested is actually associated with lower risk of heart disease, obesity, and psychiatric problems.

In fact, it’s even associated with less risk of early mortality — despite the things your boyfriend probably yells in bed: “Hey! Hey! You still alive? Should I call 911?”

(c.) 2018, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (advicegoddess.com). Weekly radio show: blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon