A twofer from August 24, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Okay, two questions.

1) Say you were hooking up with (OK, sleeping with) a guy for a month. Literally every night. Also you’ve known the guy for a year, pretty well, and been friends. He gets out of your bed one Saturday morning and asks you what you’re doing later that day. You then don’t hear from him for oh maybe three weeks. Then you call his machine to point out you have a bunch of his clothes at your apartment. Then you find out he’s been going out with his ex girlfriend and a lot of your “friends” know about it and have not told you. Then say you feel really depressed not to mention you feel like a really really big tool. Say you are normally a cool person. What do you do? Thanks, please help, I need it.

Now my roommate:

(more…)

Dying for an answer on August 17, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Help — my relationship of fifteen years is on the rocks because his ex-wife is dying of cancer. He is spending all his time with her at the hospital and won’t talk to me about the situation. I feel totally useless and unloved. Question: should I just hang in there or think about pushing for a resolution from him? We are in our 50’s and have not married due to trying to keep things separate for our kids and the tax benefit these days of being single vs. married.

— Lynn

Dear Lynn,

Yuck. What an uncomfortable and unpleasant situation. Unfortunately, no, I don’t think now’s at all a good time to push for anything, except ways to entertain yourself in his physical/emotional absence. I’m not evaluating or defending the way he’s handling things; I’m just saying that when someone’s going through the [impending] death of a loved one, all behavioral bets are off. I don’t know his personality; it’s possible that he might detach himself just as much were the loved one a relative rather than a LOVED loved one — it’s just that the latter is obviously more unsettling for you. So it’s a bummer, but right now all you can do, grim as it sounds, is wait to see how things shake down after her death. That is, if you really want to stay. I mean, you tell me about this “useless and unloved” feeling: is it bothering you mainly because it’s so wildly uncharacteristic of your relationship, or because it’s a long-standing malignancy that seems to have metastasized? So ultimately, it’s not about waiting vs. pushing. It’s about deciding for yourself what kind of cure you really want to find.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Ask Lynn is the advice column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com), that Breakup Girl does in her mild-mannered secret identity. Same advice, less cape.

This month’s letter is from a gal who is dating a guy with an ex and child attached. He seems to be saying and doing all the right things, yet she is Afraid of baby mama drama. Is she being overly cautious or playing it just cool enough? Sound off here!

(This letter was recently posted at Happen Magazine, and you can read the comments from Karl R and stefdawn here.)

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn answers a letter from a gal who is dating a guy with an ex and child attached. He seems to be saying and doing all the right things, yet she is Afraid of baby mama drama. Is she being overly cautious or playing it just cool enough? Sound off here!