Dear Breakup Girl,

Eight weeks ago I wrote you a letter regarding my recent breakup with a wonderful guy. I was feeling guilty because I broke up with him for financial reasons. I’m a single mom and was going broke (half) supporting my ex. When I tried to submit the letter, it wouldn’t go. As I was trying the 2nd time, the phone rang. Yep, it was him. He said he’d been working the last 6 months to get in better financial shape for our future. He was so sincere, and had made so many changes, that I went back to him. Now we share the bills equally, and are getting ahead already. We are engaged to be married, and I wonder if it had to do with the letter that never got sent. Well, thanks anyway.

— Not Guilty Anymore

Dear NGA,

1. Who-HOOO! Congratulations.

2. All other second-timer wannabes: heads up! Don’t just tell your re-intended that you’ve changed — or, worse, that you will. Hint: proof helps. This gentleman may still lapse back into [in this case, financial] problems here and there, but he demonstrated a clear willingness to acknowledge and take them on. That’s the difference.

3. You guys should still actually send your letters.

Love,
Breakup Girl

This advice was originally published September 14, 1998.

Via @Naunihal: Oldly-wed couples, counter-intuitively enough, might tank at The Newlywed Game. As Wired reports, a new study from the University of Basel has found that “couples married for an average of 40 years know less about one another’s food, movie and kitchen-design preferences [?!] than do partners who have been married or in committed relationships for a year or two.” (Dramatically, when data for these preferences were combined, all couples agreed  that “Julie and Julia” worked better as a book. — BG)

This pattern was observed among 38 couples aged 19 to 32, versus 20 couples aged 62 to 78. The greatest knowledge gap was in predicting food preferences, which just seems weird. The researchers’ hypotheses?

— Older couples pay less attention to such specifics, figuring eh, what’s left to learn?

— Older couples, rightly or wrongly, perceive more similarity between themselves.

— Older couples come from a generation in which men and women generally knew less about each other to begin with (Cf. Don Draper and Megan, not that they’ll last long enough to qualify as “older”)

— Older couples may be more likely to use “white lies” to keep things running smoothly. (“Seriously, your beets are my FAVORITE”)

And yet! Even though they knew less about their partners in certain areas, long-term couples reported more satisfaction with their relationships. So even if we start to space on the little-ish things we like (“I could have sworn you’d prefer Ikea”), it’s the like-like we share that pulls us through.

Anyone remember the arranged wedding at the Mall of America? Cynics might assume that that couple — the bride chosen by the groom’s friends, the two met at the altar — would be long divorced, you know, from their third marriages. Not so! Eleven years (and three kids) later, they’re still happily committed. What’s their secret? “I don’t think it’s that much of a secret,” David Weinlick told TODAY last year. “It’s really about how we make it work together. Committed to being together.” (Okay, that’s not saying so much, but I think he knows what he means: to italicize “committed.” As in: not “let’s see IF this works,” but rather, “let’s see how we can commit to making this work.”) And voila.

All of this is to say you should probably seriously consider getting married at Navy Pier in Chicago on June 25. Now, the major difference here is that it’s okay if you’ve, you know, met your intended before you walk down the aisle. It’s a charm-us-with-your-charming-story contest run by  Vocalo.org — sort of like if NPR did Current TV, with much content supplied by users — who will supply the charmingest coupe with an officiant, cake, musicians, hair-styling and makeup for the bride — plus a lovely venue on Lake Michigan and a potential listening audience of zillions (who, one hopes, will all be directed to your gift registry).

Vocalo is seeking to interview couples on-air over the next weeks. More info here. Fun! (Really, you can’t afford not to enter.) And who knows, maybe next year they’ll have some sort of charm-us-with-your-charming-I-dig-being-single story contest. With cake, too, of course.

Dave Hamrick and Lindsey Nebeker, two people diagnosed with autism — and madly in love — are scheduled to appear on tomorrow’s Good Morning America. (Close to the top of the second hour, we hear.) From their profile (by BG’s alter ego) in this month’s Glamour:

“People like Lindsey and Dave put so much thought and dedication into making their relationship work,” says Diane Twachtman-Cullen, Ph.D., a speech-language expert who specializes in autism and knows the couple well. “Frankly, we could all take a page from their playbook.”

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, Deafened By Silence shouts out, wondering how long she should put up with her boyfriend’s seemingly random implementation of the silent treatment. “I am concerned that this passive-aggressive behavior will continue and ruin our relationship,” she writes. See what Lynn has to say, and then come back here to speak up!

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, BG’s alter ego’s column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). Today, we meet Frankly Frustrated, who comes by his nickname honestly. What’s the problem? No love from his lover. “My girlfriend and I have a great relationship except for one thing: sex. There is no passion or excitement in our relationship,” he writes. And: “I try to initiate intimacy, but she just buries her head in my chest and hugs me.” And: “Kissing is huge for me, but she doesn’t like to kiss, because she says she can’t breathe out of her nose.”

Yyyyyeah. Lynn felt the same way when she read that line and snarfed her seltzer. How can Frankly get some heavy breathing back into his life? Find out here — and then come back to comment!

Find out what she told Frankly here — and then come back to comment!

“I’m crazy about her!” “My ex is a psycho hose beast!” It is customary, and often fitting, to dip into the lexicon of mania to describe love and its effects, salutary or otherwise. But what happens when real mental illness — the kind that shows up in the DSM — shows up in our relationships?

Breakup Girl has dealt with that issue here and elsewhere. And now, an essay from Nerve.com by Justin Clark, which just surfaced via Alternet, offers a compelling personal read about what it’s like to love someone bipolar. It is possible, Clark maintains, even fascinating and rewarding. “When I looked at Sara, I felt inspiration, not pity,” he says of the date on which she outed herself as bipolar. “And even though I’m not the type to plunge quickly into relationships, I was convinced I was in love. I invited her back to my place. Aside from a quick trip to clean out her studio apartment a few weeks later, she never went home. ‘Of the two of us,’ I told her as we lay happily in bed, ‘I must be the crazier one.'” Read the rest here. It’s harrowing and lovely. (And after that, after all these dark posts about DSMs and STIs and Client 9s — crazy, right? — we promise to lighten things up for you ASAP.)

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, BG’s alter ego’s column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). Today, we meet “Desperate Non-Housewife,” a full-time medical student whose live-in partner does his laundry twice a week, mops every few days … what’s the problem, you ask?

“I am not a neat person,” Desperate writes, “and I have a hard time cleaning house. I see how this is unfair to him and his daughter…I’m scatterbrained when it comes to these things. This has become an ongoing argument for at least six months. (He always brings it up if we argue about other things, because he knows he is right in at least that department.) How do I deal with this?”

How, indeed? (Hint: Don’t sweep resentment under the rug.) Click here to read more — and remember, if you have questions of your own, please submit them via AskLynn@match.com.