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Predicament of the Week
In which Breakup Girl addresses the situation that has, this week, brought her the most (a) amusement, (b) relief that it is happening to someone else, and/or (c) proof that she could not possibly be making this stuff up.

Dear Breakup Girl,

I've been dating a man on and off (mostly off) for five years. We have been through hell and back again. He couldn't commit, so I left.

I found an incredible man who I fell in love with and we got engaged.

So, you ask, what is the problem? Ex-boyfriend comes back into my life: contrite, humble, and wanting me back.

There is this incredible bond we share and an all-consuming passion that I do not feel for my fiancee. My fiancee and I share a comfortable love and my ex, and I share a raging passion that goes from one extreme to the other. Do you choose safety and security, or passion and uncertainty?

-- Tell Me Lil' Lies

Dear Lil' Lies,

Ooh! Excellent question.

Almost.

Do not, for one second, equate "marriage" with "safety and security." Especially if it is your first one, I'll warrant that -- "comfortable" as you may be -- you've never faced anything quite so terrifying and uncertain. My whole life? With one person? Every day? How on earth am I gonna pull this off? (Not to mention the flipside: for many couples, nothing is more passionate than their marriage. Not just because they're passionate, but because they're married.)

By the same token, perhaps at no time did you feel safer and more secure than with the massive, dramatic -- yet also thus familiar -- ups and downs and ons and offs and hells and backs you had with your ex. (I mean, look at Penelope, below -- what she's up to is the "safe" stuff.) And remember Tired of the Drama? She wasn't. (I can only imagine what kind of chutzpah it took you to leave.)

So where do my observations leave you now? Well, there are two main possibilities, with a billion nuances along the spectrum in between.

One, that the groom is always greener. Oh boy, does what you can't have look good; oh boy does it make what you do have look bad. Your future with an "incredible" guy you truly love is intact, and would have remained so, unquestioned, until your "What am I doing?!" wires are tripped by the one guy on the planet with the power to do so. All of a sudden you question everything. "What if I don't jump for joy and slip on that latex number the second he calls to say he's on his way?! What if I think about the phone bill for five minutes without breaking a sweat about him?! Eeek! There must be something missing!" But all that's been brought to light are totally normal fears, and no wonder. They just look bigger and scarier through the lens of passion past.

Or two, the return of Drama Ex has woken you up to the fact that you are missing elements that you do need in a long-term partner. There's stuff you weren't facing. You didn't see, until contrast and memory knocked, that there's a bottom-line bond you two really don't have. You didn't realize you weren't so comfortable with "comfortable" after all. It is lovely, but it's not enough to carry the day-in-day-out 'til death you-know-what.

Well, which is it? BG does not know. The questions I'd try to answer -- regardless of the role Drama Ex may have played as the trigger -- are: Do you want to get married? Do you want to marry this guy? Is he -- a bird in the hand, and/but for the rest of my life -- far too good to gamble? Consider that. Who knows, reconsidering this thrilling/terrifying commitment may inspire just the kind of passion and uncertainty you thought was missing.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Related Breakup Girl Animation: "Taking the Leap"

NEXT LETTER:
Should I tell someone who's taken that she's stolen my heart?