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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 made a mess of my whole relationship. I met Kenny in October 1996. At first, we were just two flirts who saw each other once a week in a bowling league...until one day he told me that his car was in the shop and ask if he could catch a ride with me. I obliged and when it was time to say goodbye...he kissed me. Actually, it was a shock considering that we knew very little about each other's situation and merely flirted on a regular basis. After that day, we grew closer and closer. It was a rare day that you didn't see us side by side. So up until about June of 1997, everything seemed great. That month, he left DC for Chicago for a bowling tournament. When he returned, things were weird -- he wasn't calling as much, he hadn't come to visit, etc... So being in the heart of summer, I barely cared and went about my fun. Oddly enough, my I don't care attitude must have piqued his curiousity because he chased me intensely. By now it was July and his birthday. While celebrating that weekend, we were very careless and I became pregnant. So here comes the first complex twist of our relationship because up until now we were just having fun and enjoying each other's company. (Okay, here's where I should back up a bit and let you know that the month that I met him, his ex-girlfriend gave birth to their son...and supposedly had left the baby with him and went back to Texas to rebuild her relationship with her ex-husband.) I wasn't ready to be a mother and he was just unsure...on one hand, he wanted as many children as possible but on the other hand he had a child less than a year old. Well, to further complicate matters, I found out in September, that his ex-girlfriend not only lived in the DC area, but was living under his ROOF. At this point, I decided to break it off because this wasn't the kind of drama I was used to. But after pleading and begging and crying, I agreed to stay in the relationship but not have the baby. The ex-girlfriend moved out and everyone attributed her staying with Kenny and his family as her needing a place to stay while she got herself back up on her feet.

So we continue on in our own little world until a young girl who frequented a nightclub that he hung out at decided that she could live without him. She stalked us to no end with claims that she had herpes, that she had been intimate with Kenny, and that we all needed to seek medical attention. Well, needless to say, I had myself checked out and turned up with a clean bill of health. So the weight of her argument was null and void. But the passion of her argument still kept me on my toes wondering what really had happened between the two of them.

The Herpes Girl incident happened sometime in January of 1998. So in February, I'm just happy not find her lurking in the night waiting for us to come in for the evening. With what seemed like the worse behind us, we begin to make plans for the future, our future. Until, one night when I was really ill, he got scared and confesses to me that he had had sex with someone and she was expecting a baby in June. Well, if you count back...if I had carried my baby to full term, my child would have been born in May and this other woman's child would have been born a month after. You can imagine my disgust, especially when he told me that he slept with her to get over me after I had found out that he had lied about his son's mother living in DC. So while he was begging for me back, he found time to sleep with someone else (who also had a boyfriend). He had recently received a phone call indicating that he might be that father of this child. So once again, I'm faced with a life altering decision...of which I choose to stay with him. The child was born prematurely in March and the question of paternity is still lingering over the situation even a year later.

Remarkably after all of this, we decide to move in together. Big mistake. I was working a job 80 hours a week, and he stopped working all together! He also wrecked my car! But I'm still hanging in there. I decided to have him help me on my job in order to get another paycheck to supplement our household. But honestly, to work, play, and live with someone just became too much.

By Christmas, I couldn't take the long hours at work, so I quit. And decided to start 1999 with a clean slate. Little did I know that this would be the downward spiral to our relationship. Kenny started to follow up on some leads that he had for a new job (finally) and so did I. By the first week in February, we both had started two new jobs that we loved. We car pooled in the morning and met up after work. Unfortunately, he bowled 6 days a week so our days would end until 1 o'clock in the morning to start again at 7 o'clock. This lifestyle wore heavy on us. We argued constantly and by the first week in March he moved out.

The craziest thing that happened from the split up is that he didn't leave on the pretense that we were finished, but that he was moving in with someone who worked with him and lived close to his job. Well considering that he had gotten the job through one of our friends off-and-on girlfriend who had the hots for him, I figured it was her (especially because of how close they had gotten recently). She now works with him. She also is a bowlaholic and will spend every waking hour in the bowling centers with him. She also allows him to drive her car anywhere and will ride with him anywhere. To date, he holds fast to the story that she is his friend and that we're relaxing until we get our thing back off the ground. Of course, my first thoughts were that he left me for her. And to our large circle of friends, I'm quick to indicate that fact. Everyone tells me that I'm nuts...because they are just friends. But I know that she wants him even if he sees her as a friend. But to make matters worse, I think that my actions are detrimental to the relationship ever having a chance. I can't even figure out why I want to continue this relationship especially after all of the lies and torment. I think that I feel like I endured so much that it's not fair for someone else to reap the benefits of my hard labours. But I show up at different bowling centers that I know he's going to be at. I sit outside of his job trying to catch a stolen moment between him and the "friend." And the sickest thing of all is that I haven't one single piece of evidence to prove that what he's saying isn't true. Am I nuts? Am I making too much out of nothing? Obviously, I realize that we both needed time and space to sort through our own issues. But do I have too much time that I've romanticized being this stalking detective? And if we're "relaxing," why do I feel so tense? (I can't eat, I can't sleep. I've lost twenty pounds since he left.) Is he sending me mixed signals because he won't forward his mail or pick up the rest of his belonging? Are those signs that he wants to keep a foot in the door? Am I neurotic or am I suffering from a severe case of heartbreak? Should I cut all ties so that I can get on with my life or should I "relax" and let whatever happens happen?

-- Nicole

Dear Nicole,

I guess you've noticed that telling someone to "relax" is counterproductive. So about your resulting cross-country bowling ... well, that's what civilian experts call "searching behavior." According to our own Belleruth, "it's an attempt by the psyche to stay connected because the loss of a relationship is so hard to accept and integrate. If it creates problems of its own with him or her, and takes on a compulsive quality -- so that it's actually increasing the involvement with the ex -- it's not good. Not necessarily 'nuts,' but it should stop. Then again, when drive-bys and call-bys are done for just a few months and there's no actual contact or interference with the other person's life, I'd say it's pretty normal... at least normal for someone who has trouble with separation, which is, well, most of us."

And in the best of circumstances, it helps the searcher gradually drop the ball and watch it roll away.

You're not quite there yet.

To delve into why not, let's consider your questions about his current behavior. He won't forward his mail or pick up his stuff? And you are trying to analyze this!? Nicole, we are talking about someone who can't remember where he put his ... well, you know. Interpretation, though madly tempting, is completely beside the point.

Of his actions, anyway. But let's go back to yours. Look, sweetie, I'm not trying to tell you that the good stuff with him wasn't good. But he has committed deal-breaker after deal-breaker here, bowled gutter ball after gutter ball. I know some of what went on happened when you two weren't officially a couple. But when kids -- not to mention lies -- start popping up here and there, BG gets a whole lot less generous. So what is in this for you? You tell me. Well, you started to when you said, "It's not fair for someone else to reap the benefits of my hard labours." First of all, um, what benefits? Second of all, point taken. Emotionally, anyway. All that "work" for nothing? If you can't make this work out -- perhaps you're thinking -- then either you wasted your time, or you failed. Ick. Not to mention you're sad and you miss him, period. Hence the searching. And the tossing, the turning, the starving.

So Nicole, do what you can to hurt without hunting. To cut ties, yes. And to shine a flashlight down that alley to see what might keep you with someone clearly out of -- as in beneath -- your league. Might take a while, yes, but little by little, you'll feel those pins reset themselves. Oh, and please please try to eat healthily. (Like maybe not at the Bowladrome.)

Love,
Breakup Girl

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