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Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been faithfully reading your column since February, around the time I was breaking up with a guy I had been very unsuccessfully/unhappily seeing for a year and a half. If I could sum up our problems in a sentence, I would have to say that he was kind of a Bad Boy: brooding, depressed, grouchy, inattentive, unaffectionate. I was Suzy Accommodating. So when I finally broke things off, it was a huge step in the right direction. I admitted to myself that I deserved better and sent him packing. (Oh, and he had a new-ish girlfriend on the back burner so that helped seal the deal.)

Anyway, we talked on the phone and e-mailed for a couple months after the breakup, both very miserable, codependent, trying to guilt the other person into professing a lifelong commitment to one another (yes, even as he had a new girlfriend). But I stood my ground and, BG, I officially stopped all communication between us for two months. It worked wonders! Now he and I have a healthy respectful distance; we send each other an e-mail "how are ya" once every three weeks or so, no big whoop. I'm finally over him!

Enter the new guy -- I'll call him Dave. I got set up with him by a mutual friend. We first met at a party. We exchanged e-mail addresses. I thought he was cute, he thought I was cute -- but no big sparks flew.

Cut to a month later -- our mutual friend's wedding. We end up hanging out/hooking up (rated PG-13) the night before at his hotel, and then spent the wedding day all ga-ga over each other. The chemistry between us was fantastic.

So we agreed to see each other some more, both of us admitting that we've been badly burned before in relationships so we're both a little skittish about the R-word. But he calls, he e-mails, we go on dates, we sleep over each other's apartments -- everything goes in a very couple-y direction.

Let me take a sec to characterize this man. He's awesome. He's the first guy I've ever dated who laughs at my jokes, makes me laugh, touches my hair, talks as much as I do, worries as much as I do, and knows how to cook something besides a frozen burrito. He's not afraid that wearing his bike helmet will make him look like a dork. But he also shamelessly whistles Top 40 crap music and laments having shaved off his gigantic Ted Kaczynski-inspired beard (so he's not exactly Romeo). But he's generally happy, confident, kind, and affectionate; all the things I knew I deserved all along but never actually encountered.

Enter his ex. Yep, a month after we've been giddily dating, he announces that in three days he has to go on vacation with her and her family! He had hinted that she was still a little hung up on him (they dated for three years and broke up in February), but I had no idea that she still depended on him to the degree she does. Worse, he doesn't like her, doesn't feel attraction to her (only pity), and wishes he could just cut the cord, but feels like it would be "too mean." He also characterizes her as unstable, depressed, lonely, and needy; all the things that my last boyfriend was but that I eventually knew well enough to leave alone.

He even has a picture of them as a couple on his wall -- he said if he takes the picture down, "she'll flip." Ditto for what happens if he tells her he can't go on the vacation. Turns out they also call each other (yes, he calls her) and e-mail often. This fall, she will return to school in the city where Dave and I live. I can only imagine what that will mean.

BG, I know this place in a relationship happens to a lot of people. Heck, I've been there. But if I had known that this level of emotional commitment/codependency existed between them, you better believe I would have exercised more caution from day one. I feel duped. He even said he had been "hoping to keep these things separate."

So we're at a standstill. As I write, he's drinking his morning coffee with Mrs. Ex-Girlfriend and the family dog. Before he left, I did what I felt I had to do -- broke it off. I said he needed to have enough courage to let this girl go if he's going to have a new one. (We were definitely at the boyfriend/girlfriend stage; we had just said we didn't want to see other people a week before this happened.)

So it's over. I'm crushed. The perfect guy turns out to be a spineless martyr. Our mutual friend tells me he fully intends to sever ties with his ex and come crawling back to me. But I don't think I can trust him after this. Can I?

Am I being too hard on him? Too easy? Did I set myself up for this somehow? Please enlighten me, because I've never been this romantically dejected in my life.

-- Completely Disillusioned in Cambridge

Dear Completely Disillusioned,

If anyone's generous about ongoing contact with exes, it's BG. Sometimes couples figure out that the reason "it's" not working is that they're really fundamentally only friends in the first place. Sometimes affection persists as truly and purely platonic, simple as that. They have to be thoughtful; their new flames have to be noble. That's that.

But this...is not...that. As you have surmised, these two are not pals. The fuel in that jet is guilt; that photo's hung with good guy gum. Objects in that rearview mirror on his helmet are way closer than they appeared. It's not so much that you're jealous -- right? -- it's that this "spineless" business is not a quality you neither anticipated nor appreciate. Not to mention his naivete -- at best -- about the possibility of permanently "keeping these things separate." I might even suggest that their involvement is not only a big blinking warning sign for you, but also a buzzing neon EXIT sign for him. Or, to really go for metaphor pileup, perhaps it's the helmet he's unashamed to wear -- you know, the one designed to protect him from Something Better.

Until, perhaps, now. Your friend really could be right. Could be that the riot act you read him -- and brava for actually following through -- is just what he needed to yank him out of his delusion. I just don't think that anyone had waved their arms, held up a mirror, and said, "Yo! Reality!" until you did. Which also means, in a sense, that you've already set the tone for being anyone but Suzy Accommodating this time around. No guarantees, of course; but if he does pedal back -- and his level of getting-it-ness appears, well, school-in-Cambridge level -- then I don't see how you couldn't give it another spin. Good luck.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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