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Dear Breakup Girl,

I'm 29 years old. I went out with a guy (35) for seven years and lived with him for about four years, We broke up 12 months ago and I now learn he is getting married to someone he has known for five months, and has seen only ten times as she lives in another city 1100 miles away. He would never commit to me and when I said "I wasn't going to wait forever" he broke the relationship up. I still miss him terribly (I have now moved interstate) and can't believe he is marrying someone he hardly knows. Our friends tell me she is the total opposite to me in every way possible. I know what he used to admire about me and I find the attraction to this girl hard to believe. We used to fight a lot but we did love each other. How can someone walk out of a seven-year relationship and commit himself to another so soon? He still asks our friends about me constantly and seems to be intent on following my life. I am miserable, miss him terribly, shocked to the core with this news and wonder if I will ever get over this. I have not seen or spoken to him since we split. What am I going to do??

--Kathy

Dear Kathy,

Yowch. Here is Breakup Girl's diagnosis: consider the situation a permutation of the Opposites Attract rule. He spends seven years with you, four living together, yet is for whatever reason unable to commit. Then he meets New Girl, who is not only your exact opposite personality-wise, but who also offers that tingly fun feeling at the opposite end of the romance spectrum -- the everything feels so wonderful and new Honeymoon Period -- and who, thus far, lives not in the same flat but at what might as well be, by comparison, the opposite end of the earth. Get it? He's thinking: "I'm not antsy any more -- this must be love ... and honor, and obey...!"

As for what you can do -- well, not a whole lot. If I were you, I'd tell your friends that that's all the information you'll be needing, thanks. Unless, of course, they break up -- not that you're bitter/vindictive/self-righteous-- in which case you'll require an immediate fax and hard copies in triplicate. Give yourself time to grieve, spill to Breakup Girl, plot "Friends"-style wedding-intervention capers -- and then make your own vow to move on.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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