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Dear Breakup Girl,

HELP!!! How do you pick yourself and go on after your life has been shattered? I found out a month before my scheduled wedding that my fiance was having an affair behind my back. When I discovered what was going on, he begged me to forgive him and told me the affair was over. I did this, after a lot of soul-searching and some couples counseling, and we rescheduled our wedding for this spring. The week before Thanksgiving, I went to his house to pick him up to go look at a reception site and found him in bed with another woman. Now, our wedding is off for good. I have handled this situation with great dignity and poise. I have even managed to maintain my sanity and sense of humor, for the most part. My problem is that I want to move on. I feel as if I can never trust another man again. I have become cold and detached when it comes to all males. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone because of what I let this jerk do to me. Any suggestions?

-- Lindsey

Dear Lindsey,

Yes.

1. Call first.

2. Note that it was perfectly natural -- if not advisable -- to give him a second chance, especially after soul-searching, counseling, etc. Had you not, you'd have written me to ask "What if?"

3. Note that you "feel" as if you can't trust anyone else. Note that this is an accurate emotional report, but not a statement of fact. You have it in you; you just don't feel like it. Yet. Though this feeling may not vanish, at some point you will meet someone worth taking the risk of / making the decision to hit the "override" button. And you will.

4. There's no grammatically graceful way to do this, but rewrite your second to last sentence so that it says that you're the jerk. NOT THAT YOU ARE. But this, bottom line, is how you feel. Never mind what he did (at least twice), it's that you -- as far as you are concerned -- "let" him. This makes you -- in your mind -- the stupid jerk. This makes you -- not "all males" -- the stupid jerk. So no wonder you don't feel like dating them. Last time you did, you wound up feeling like an alone stupid jerk. See?

So Lindsey, with just a teeny bit of editing, what your letter tells me is that you are already someone who knows exactly how you are feeling and exactly what you are doing. And when you feel like doing it with someone else again, you will.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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