Dear Tits and Sass: Sugar Daddy Dependence Blues Edition

Dear Tits and Sass,

I am an escort in Calgary, Canada and am desperately looking online for some help. I’ve been escorting for a year now and throughout the year I feel I’ve gone through some serious turmoil, and want to get out.

Particularly, throughout my journey almost right away I [met] a sugar daddy and we have had an arrangement for pretty much the whole time I’ve been escorting. Of course, he was very generous with his money in the beginning. Then it turned into an arrangement and everything was still fine and reasonable. As time went by and boundaries got crossed, I have now shared so much personal information with him and started to develop feelings in a weird way. He obviously doesn’t feel the same, as he is married, but he does use manipulation tactics to keep me interested by almost promising some sort of false hope that we will get married and live happily ever after (he doesn’t say it that way, but he gives subtle implications).

Aside from the emotions, though, he has become my top client as he provides the most income for me. However, during this time, I feel I have put up with so much emotional drainage and despair. He has manipulated me and treated me so poorly (mentally). He stays at my place for hours and expects me to text and entertain him when he’s not around. Escorting also became a problem to him at one point too. So it’s like I just can’t win and make him happy. Plus, I have to be so honest with him [about] my personal life on top of that and it’s just draining.

Long story short, I just don’t think I can handle it anymore, but I don’t know what to do. I am so scared to cut him off as I’ve been (in some ways) more comfortable seeing fewer clients due to having him as a source of income, although he consumes so much of my time and demands [so much of] it. Plus, he always thinks I’m lying to him about my “feelings” towards him and always wants me to prove it. I’m just exhausted. I’m starting to wonder if it would be better to just cut him off and go back to seeing more clients again. At what point do you end it with a client, even though I have become dependent on him? I realize as time goes by it’s just going to get worse and worse. How can I change this dynamic again? I barely have enough time for school, and I feel it’s almost like he doesn’t agree with me being in school, which is why I started escorting in the first place (to pay debt, etc.). How can I fix this mess I got myself in? I just want to be normal. Please, I’m crying for help,

SAD (Sugarbabying Ain’t Delightful)

Nell Gwyn: Oh, my friend, I have been here. Sugar daddies always start out so promising, don’t they? They’re so generous and often at least tolerable in the beginning. Unfortunately, my experience with them has almost always been that it’s a trap. I’m not sure if they’re actually consciously manipulative; at least, not in every case. But they know we end up being dependent on them, and they use that to their advantage. They use it to manipulate you, drain you, possess you, maybe even abuse you if it goes far enough.

I’ve had a few SDs in my day, but one in particular whom I both made a lot of money off of and whom I got in way too deep with. The good news I have for you is that I made enough money off him to be able to comfortably move across the country and still have a good chunk of savings left. But the bad news is that you read that right—I moved across the country to break myself from his grip. I don’t think things would have gone badly, per se, had I been brave enough to end it any other way. Plus, there were other reasons for me to move. But it certainly was a convenient way for me to solve my problem with him, which was just… him. I was addicted to his money because it meant I never had to worry about hustling all the time. Didn’t have to place ads (if I didn’t want to), didn’t have to deal with the anxiety of meeting new clients, didn’t have to worry about making ends meet. Still, he was petty and emotionally draining and, at times, cruel. I didn’t like him and I didn’t want to be around him anymore.

I’m not necessarily suggesting you do the same as me, and it doesn’t even sound like that would work for you, either. It seems like you might be in a tough spot with your bandwidth. He’s demanding so much of your attention that you can barely even focus on school, let alone another hustle. The best way to play this, for the time being, may be to attempt to change your boundaries around how much of your time he’s taking, and then hold strong until you have enough free time again to pursue escorting or another job (assuming either is an option for you). If you haven’t already, definitely use school as the reason you can’t see him as much, or text as much, or wherever it is that you need to draw that boundary. If you can, I would transition him out of being a client slowly, once you are less dependent on him financially. But if he’s going to make it hard for you to work other gigs at the same time, or not respect your boundaries around needing more time, he’s gonna have to go a lot quicker.

If you have any money saved at all, try to remind yourself that you will be able to get by for at least a little while without him. And always, always try to keep your options as open as possible. I would never go so far as to tell another sugar baby to not actually fall for their daddy, I know it’s complicated. But I suspect you’ll feel better about the whole situation if you can try to keep your head in the business side of the game. Don’t forget that you hold the power over him in reality; ultimately, all the money and promises in the world cannot buy him unrestricted access to you. He has to respect you and your needs as well, otherwise, he’s no good to you as a sugar daddy and especially not as a husband.

Katya M: At the beginning of your message you mention going through serious turmoil since starting escorting a year ago and wanting to get out. Will ending things with this client be enough to alleviate the stress escorting is putting on you? Either way, from what you said in your email, that sounds like a very toxic and unbalanced relationship and one you should end—once you feel you have a safety net in place. Whether that means saving up some money and toughing it out one more month, finding other clients to jump into seeing right away, or getting a straight job, is up to you.

You asked how to change the dynamic again, something I think everyone in emotionally abusive relationships wonders. He won’t go back to being the person you met at first because that person was more of an idealized hologram than a living, breathing, manipulative asshole. If it would help you with closure, it’s worth writing him an email explaining that the arrangement with him has turned into something that consumes more of your time and energy than you can handle. As you said, he’s leaving you with barely enough time for school. Men like this don’t actually care about you, no matter what they say. He just wants to use you and leave you helpless and resourceless. Get out while you can!

Once you have cut him off, cut him off ENTIRELY: change your phone number if you have to, block him everywhere. Treat it like a bad breakup. It’ll hurt for a while and be an adjustment, but you’re strong and resourceful enough to do it, and once you don’t have this demonic monkey on your back demanding all your emotional labor, I think you’ll start to feel a lot more in control.