Housing problems from October 18, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

OK. Here’s the deal. I’m 32, and I was dating/sleeping with this 20 year old guy. Now, I live with him, and we aren’t together anymore… Not my choice. So, anyway, any good ideas on how to live platonically with someone you used to sleep with and still want to sleep with who doesn’t want to sleep with you, while staying roommates and paying the rent…. Hmmmm. Pretty long winded huh?

— Amy

Dear Amy,

Actually, no. No, your letter’s not all that long-winded, and no, I don’t have any good ideas on how to live platonically with someone you used to sleep with and still want to sleep with and who doesn’t want to sleep with you while staying roommates and paying the rent. Time to hang the VACANCY sign.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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

This week Lynn counsels a gal who is Sad and Confused because her boyfriend of two years wants some time apart…

He said he needed time to get his head straight. But we were still seeing each other about once a week  and talking a few times a week.

Sounds reasonable, but it’s been five months now. Should she keep waiting or put her foot down? Read the full letter and Lynn’s advice over at Happen, then come back here and comment below.

Lacking confidence on September 28, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I kicked my girlfriend out of my apartment at college because since we moved in together she has been sucking me dry of money. In only a month that we lived together I gave her $850.00 dollars. I feel I was the idiot. Well, now I am having a hard time having the courage to ask girls out on a date — yes, I fear rejection and honestly I have no confidence in myself to flirt or whatever. Seems like all the girls I’m interested in want the jocks or the ones with the new trucks. What should I do? I already turned down Model Search because I was still in a relationship — should I pursue that still?

— Rick

Dear Rick,

Does anyone want to tell Breakup Girl what “Model Search” is? Seems to me like we have enough of them, without having to go looking. Or, are some missing?

In the meantime, listen, Rick: you had a bum deal with that girl, and it’s made you twice-shy. But I think the balances in your security and confidence accounts might have been a little low even before then. I’m sure it was very nice of you to give her so much money, but it was also a little needy. On your part. Did you maybe think that getting an ATM card at Rick Bank was the only way she’d like you, need you, stay? You were trying, in your own way, to be the cash jock, the guy with enough money for the new truck. It’s all the same. Something to think about before you relaunch Girlfriend Search. And I’m hoping you won’t have to go looking too hard.

Love,
Breakup Girl

To hell and back on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

BG, I have a dilemma. I have been in a relationship since I was 16 years old for almost 8 years now. We’ve (mostly I) have been through H-E-double-you-know-what and back during the past 8 years. We’ve had a child together, been through “break-up and make-ups”, the other woman crisis (that he still to this day denies),a long separation, you name it, we’ve been through it. Even though we had a rocky relationship in the beginning, things had begun to get better and we hung on to each other. We live together now and we’ve discussed marriage several times and it’s been just that…discussions. No, rings or dates or anything. That’s not my whole problem. My problem is I feel like I’ve been taken for granted for too long. I’m expected to just sit back and go with the flow. I have grown up and matured and I had hoped that our relationship would grow up and mature too. 8 years is a long time to be with someone. I want a mate who is not afraid of commitment (the legal kind as well), someone who is affectionate, not afraid of intimacy, to show love, who knows how to communicate, who doesn’t play games, who knows what love is, all the good things that come with a good, healthy relationship. All the things I and my boyfriend seem to lack in our relationship. I feel like I want more and I deserve more than he is willing to give me. I also feel like I’m being selfish and kind of giving him an ultimatum. But I want to be happy and I can’t continue to live like this and keep waiting for him to one day get a clue! How do I end this relationship when I’ve invested so much and given so much of myself to this person? Should I end this? I’m so confused. We’ve broken up many times before and I took him back hoping that he would keep his promises, but I don’t want to continue that cycle!! Please Help!! Advice!!! I need advice!!

— Ms. Rick

BG’s advice after the jump!

This house is not a home on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I think I’m going insane. I just broke up with my boyfriend of three years and nine months. We’ve also lived together for about two and a half years… We still have to live together because neither of us has the money or the means to move out. We have our own rooms, so that makes the situation at least livable. I don’t want him back at all and the feeling is quite mutual; in fact I don’t know why I stuck it out in the relationship so long to begin with.

Anyway, I’m saving up so that I can move out. It’s been about a week since the breakup and I haven’t even cried yet (nor have I felt the urge to). Unfortunately loneliness is starting to hit me like a freight train and I really find myself craving male companionship and affection like some sort of psycho co-dependent weakling. But my ex seems to be taking the breakup so well– I haven’t seen even one smidge of sadness or regret in his face. Then again, one of my main problems with him was that he was about as caring, warm and romantic as a frosty bottle of liquid nitrogen.

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In and out of love on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Where to start? I’ll just tell you everything and your editors can cut it down.

My boyfriend and I have been going out for almost 9 months now. We still are, I think. He is oh, so wonderful! We have been best friends for a lot longer than that. In a month we move in together when we go back to school. (Since we were best friends, we filled out a lease for an apartment before we were a couple, each thinking the other didn’t want to go out with us.) We are now two states away, due to summer vacation from college. We had the perfect relationship when we were together. We had all of our classes together, so we would study together and hang out together basically 24/7. We were both dreading the time when we would have to leave. This is the most serious relationship I have ever been in. He told his MOM that he thought I was THE ONE. (That seems like a big step to me…) He admits that he thought that we would last forever, and I agreed.

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Wanting permission on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Hello there, BG. I love your site…it has really helped me put some things into perspective. But, I still have a predicament on my hands that I haven’t been able to shake for quite some time now, and I’ve never really written publicly to ask for answers but here goes:

I am currently living with someone I met on the internet a little over 2 years ago. It all started like so:

I met her on IRC, we emailed and spoke on the phone for about 2 months, I ended up taking a trip out to finally meet her, we hit it off, 1 month later she moved to my city to live with me. Then I moved with her to her city for about 6 months. And finally now we have settled in SF and are living in a decent sized studio apartment (and paying an insane amount for it BTW). Anyways, we have always gotten along great and I really care for her, as I know she does for me. But I almost think she cares about me way more than I do.

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Moving out on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been with my boyfriend for almost 4 years. The first year, we were at different colleges on the East Coast 20 minutes apart, so we spent most weekends together but that was about it. Then we both graduated and moved to California, about 2 hours apart. We didn’t specifically plan to relocate together, it was mostly fortunate coincidence. After about 2 months of this, we found a place together, then lived together with various other housemates for almost 3 years.

On the outside, we look like a perfectly happy couple, and in many respects we are. But problems with housemates put a strain on our living situation, and this has spilled over into our relationship. We have some living style differences (he stays up until 3 AM, I have to work 9-5; I’m messy, he’s neat; he has good financial sense and I don’t, etc.) and each of us has character traits that irritate the other. I have thought long and hard about these things and have decided that I can live with them all. But he has some serious reservations about a few of mine (in particular, I can have a quick, sharp temper and he has a hard time dealing with that) and isn’t so sure he can live with them.

To complicate matters, this is his first real relationship. So he feels like he has no basis for comparison as to how happy he ought to be or as to what he ought to want out of a relationship. I’ve been in a few other relationships, so this is not a problem for me: I believe that this is a basically good relationship and worth saving. But he is not so sure.

For about the last year, he’s been satisfied enough with the relationship to want to continue with it, but not satisfied enough that he’s willing to make any sort of long term commitment. We have talked about this many, many times, but no kind of resolution has ever come out of it. Then, back in March, I discovered an advice columnist called Breakup Girl. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She’d written this really interesting column on space, which I read, and thought about. Not long after, my BF and I were getting into one of these discussions, and I brought up the idea of having some space. He agreed to think about it. About a week later, he came up with the idea of living apart. He suggested that it might be a good way for him to get some space and be able to think about the bigger problems in our relationship without getting distracted by all the minor day-to-day irritations involved in living with someone. So we discussed that for a couple of months, then agreed to try it.

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Out of order on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Here’s my situation. A few months ago, I moved into an apartment with a really good friend of mine, I’ll call her “Ann.” I liked living with her. We got along fine and we never fought about anything. I’ve always considered her one of my best friends, and although we flirted a bit it was nothing serious, just friend stuff. Anyway, a while back the two of us went out partying and had a bit too much to drink. We got back home…and, well you get the idea.

Normally I think I could handle this. Spending the night with someone doesn’t mean you have to get married or anything. The problem is, we both decided to try and make a go of an actual relationship. I realize this was a mistake now, but at the time it made sense.

Anyway, it was nice for about a month, but now things are really screwed up. In reality, my relationship with “Ann” is at a point were we barely speak to each other. I really have no idea how THAT happened! All I can say is that being friends with someone and dating that person are totally totally different things. It doesn’t help that she’s VERY hard to talk to.

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The party’s over on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been seeing my boyfriend for the last five years, and we’ve lived together for three. Before we moved in together, my mother and other family members kept objecting because “it wasn’t right” to live with someone before you were married. Of course I answered that their morals didn’t apply to me. Now I wish someone had told me the real reason, which is when you want to get out of the situation, you’re a lot more stuck than if you weren’t sharing the same house.

When we started going out, it was a fling — we both agreed that it was just one night, but kept seeing each other anyway and it sort of grew from there into the best relationship I’ve ever had. He’s one of only two guys I’ve really loved (and I’ve sown enough wild oats to know what I’m talking about); we always seemed to have a truly fantastic relationship — I really thought he was The One.

After he graduated from college (I’m a year older) we broke up for awhile while he moved to the west coast, but he came back after a few months because he decided that our relationship was more important than whatever he was going to do out there and that he was probably just going through a commitment freaking-out phase. Silly me, I thought this was OK and let him move into my new house.

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