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Dear Breakup Girl,

I am an intelligent, attractive, 30-year-old, geek female with a good job, bright future, lots of friends, a fair number of men interested in me from time to time, and all that good stuff. So what's my problem? I feel like I exist only to set up my friends...with my boyfriends. Over the past dozen years, I've had several boyfriends who were nice enough but didn't figure into my long-term, picket-fence dreams. All of them have found, among my friends, their One True Love, who, of course, wasn't me.

I met one guy in college and dated him for a year or so. He found himself attracted to one of my friends, and they began dating instead. My heart wasn't broken, but my pride was rather wounded, and I found it difficult to continue a friendship with either of them. I heard that they got married after graduation. I finally contacted them last year; they're still happily married, which I'm really glad to hear.

I met another man just after college who was a charming musician but not what I wanted in a lifelong partner. After a year or so with me, he met another of my friends, whom he fell for. They are now married, have a daughter, and by all accounts, are very happy.

A little while after that, I did something unmistakably stupid by marrying a man with whom I had been Just Friends for years but didn't love. I thought that I might end up spending my life alone and unhappy unless I married him. (How can 25-year-olds be so shortsighted?) I was wrong, of course; I was unhappy anyway. (The circumstances surrounding this marriage are a whole other letter entirely that I would have written if you'd had a web site then.) During our brief marriage, I became friends with a woman in our social circle, and she and my husband began having an affair -- which started after he and I had been married about a year -- and it was clear that they made a much better match than he and I did. I condoned their relationship for a while, even though I didn't feel comfortable in such an arrangement, and I soon requested a divorce. My former husband and friend are now planning to get married. I don't miss the relationship with him, but I do still try to maintain a friendship with both of them; after all, we still run in the same wide social circle.

Not knowing what else to do, I moved to another city to rebuild my life. I've actually done amazingly well here, gotten a fantastic job where my talents can shine, gone on the social butterfly circuit, found some wonderful friends, and dated some interesting men. I met someone who seems to be everything I've always wanted in a partner, and we have been dating for about a year now. I love him passionately, as he does me. My beloved definitely fits in my -- now our -- picket-fence dreams. Our friends and families are beginning to drop hints and make outright statements that they expect us to marry. We're not jumping into marriage just yet, but we are working toward it slowly.

What is holding me back, besides my fear of marriage after my first experience with it, is my feeling that this wonderful man may end up preferring one of my friends over me, like two boyfriends and one husband have done. I have told him the sad story of my love life, and he swears that he is with me and only me for the long haul. Still, experience does lead one to expect certain things, and I'm wondering whether to expect it again. Of course, this leads me to wonder whether I'm setting myself up for having it happen again, even as I refuse to go through it one more painful time. Self-fulfilling prophecies suck, and I really don't want to do that to myself. (To set the record straight, I have Brady-dated, and even dated-dated, men other than these four, with whom this stuff didn't happen, but this is a pattern I really, really want to break.)

I have just turned 30, and I want to have a husband to love and children to raise. I think that my beloved is the right one to go through life with. How can I get over feeling scared that he'll decide I'm not the one for him and fall in love with one of my friends instead?

--Gigi

Dear Gigi,

Sure, we all know that people often follow the "Familiar is Better than Good" pattern of here-we-go-again dating. But it is difficult to see how one would specifically set oneself up for setting one's husband up with one's friends.

So I'm afraid I'm just going to have to shrug and say, well, of course you're scared ...but I'd consider it more of a reflex than a reflection of reality. Accepting your fear as normal may be the first step toward letting it fade. And it seems like your overall act-togetherness factor is remarkably high, even/especially post-ill-advised marriage. So I'd go ahead and trust your friends, along with the hints they're dropping. Though if you wanted to elope to a desert island, I'd understand.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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