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Dear Breakup Girl,

My dad was diagnosed with cancer in July. It looks bad; prognosis is less than a year. I'm going back to my parents' house for two months to help out while Dad does radiation and maybe chemo. This involves taking time off from work and temporarily relocating 800 miles away. Yow.

Given the circs, I am not surprised to find myself missing my ex-fiance (we broke up three years ago, but have stayed in touch through mutual friends and occasional e-mails). Here's the wacky part: he is nearly finished with the dissertation he started while we were together; and which I spent a considerable amount of time chewing over with him in its first three years or so of process.

I need an intellectually challenging task I can do while I'm at my parents house. I have some ideas for how to get out of the house as well (karate and substitute teaching) but since we don't know how my dad's condition will change, I don't know how much time I'll be able to take for outside pursuits.

I have tentatively offered to read my ex's dissertation for him, but gave myself two or three weeks to make up my mind definitely (and to get home and suss out the situation). He has hired a friend of ours to formally edit it, so I would just be generally reading and offering insight. But, the problem is that it was exactly this kind of intellectual collaboration that attracted us to each other in the first place, so I am afraid it may end up feeding my current fantasies. However, it may also offer an important piece of closure for me about our time together (I have been very curious to know how the project turned out and I think it could be a pretty big hit in the academic world). I'd like to see how the thing is turning out, and if I can offer an insight or two along the way, that would be a really fun, bright spot in a really hard time.

So, is this a cool idea that happened to show up at the right time to help me through a stressful situation; or is it a harebrained scheme born out of grasping at straws in the face of some major life changes? I'm leaning toward it being a basically cool idea as long as I keep a grip on myself, but some outside perspective would be more than welcome. What do you think?

-- Reenie

Dear Reenie,

First of all, I am so sorry about your dad, and am so glad you can be there for him.

About reading your ex's work, well, almost all I can say is that you're asking all the right questions about a relationship that itself was pretty much ABD.* Though remember, you're asking them of someone whose own body of work tends to be fairly generous about maintaining civil -- even productive -- contact with exes (though I understand that intense meetings of (a) minds and (b) body parts are often on a continuum).

So if you're going to defend this dissertation, you just need to answer a few more questions for yourself:

Does he have a girlfriend who (given (a)+(b) above) would freak out enough to make it not worth it?

Could you insert a "...but I can bail if I can't deal [for fiance or family reasons]" clause in your agreement?

Let's say it does feed your (and possibly his) "current fantasies." Is that necessarily a bad thing? You might want to draft an abstract on that.

Love,
Breakup Girl

* All But Dissertation. Gradschoolspeak.

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