Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been dating Danielle for about two months now, and I have grown very attached to her. The problem that I have started after our 4th date… She told me that she is in an open relationship with David (who told her back at Christmas time after a year and a half that he wanted to see other people, and wanted her to do the same. Shortly after we started dating David decided that he wanted Danielle back, and she told me about this, and that she wanted to continue the relationship with him TOO. At this point I took two days to decide if I want to get into this situation; the reason that I decided to continue is that Danielle interested me like no other woman that I have ever dated before.

In the last two months I have met several of her friends (who all agree that he should ditch him for me) with whom I get along great; in fact her friend Kristy apologized to me for ever getting the two of them together two years ago. Danielle currently complains that all the two of them do is argue.

Today I find out that, yesterday when she was at his house talking to him, he told her to pick between him and me, and she said “Chris” (me) and he told her to get out of his house, she was apparently ready to walk out the door, when she decided to continue talking with him.

A friend of Danielle’s has been telling me that I should ask Danielle to choose! The main reason that I haven’t done this is because I don’t want Danielle to say “I choose David.” I’d be crushed; on the other hand, if she chose me, I wouldn’t have to continue biting my lip every time his name is mentioned.

I was currently planning on telling Danielle something like “this open relationship between David and me is not working out for me, I don’t want to continue sharing your attention with him; I just don’t feel that we can continue a healthy relationship under these circumstances.”

Any advice? I just don’t know what to do.

— Caught in the Middle

Dear Caught,

Yes, you do.

Love,
Breakup Girl

This advice was originally published on August 3, 1998.