< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >
 

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have a boyfriend; we've been together through thick and thin for over eight years now -- since we were 16. Never broken up, never even thought about it. Until this winter. I got a new job in a new city in a new part of the country. He and I both thought it would be a great new experience, so we both went. Things were great -- kind-of lonely at first, but we made friends, had fun, and got along.

Then I started hanging out with the guys from work. You should know that I am the only girl in the department. All the guys are older, and married. (See where this is going?)

So I become pretty good friends with one of the guys. He confided in me about his affair that he'd been having, how it turned sour, how his wife doesn't understand him, and neither does his girlfriend, yada, yada, yada. I lent a sympathetic ear.

Then, one day, after things with Girlfriend are over, and he's back with his Wife, he asks me (just me, not the group) out for a drink. I accept, because I am intrigued where it will lead. I drink too much, he kisses me, I like it, say I wouldn't mind more where that came from, and we end up doing "it" in his big ole' Crown Vic. It was yummy, to say the least.

So wouldn't you know, now I'm in a relationship with Man Who Isn't Understood By His Wife. And I fall for him -- hard. I start to think that perhaps I need to get away from my boyfriend (and best friend) of eight years. I think that maybe this married man is different from what I read about in magazines. Especially when he moves out on his wife and gets his own apartment about a mile away from mine. I move out on my boyfriend, who is utterly and totally confused by this.

Move ahead three months. Things with Married Man aren't going so well. Boyfriend has actually stuck in there trying to figure out where my head is at and where he went wrong. Married Man realizes that Boyfriend and I are soulmates, and that he needs to leave things well enough alone. Plus, as I pointed out to him, maybe things with his Wife aren't all that bad after all.

So we work things out with our respective Others. I'm sad, because I still have feelings, but he seems pretty much over me, even though we still go out to lunch with each other every day. I'm pretty cool with it most of the time.

Now this past Friday we went out drinking with the guys from work, and he's basically all over me. He says things like "what was I thinking?" and "I didn't realize how much you meant to me." So we kiss in the car, and the next morning, I high-tail it over to his pad for a little bit of action.

However. He and his wife are going to some Marriage in Trouble Weekend this weekend. Part of the rules of the weekend state that if there is a third party involved, the person with the third party needs to drop all contact with them. He's not willing to do that, but he's also flaking out on me again too.

The problem is, is that the sex with Married Man is out of this world. Sex with Boyfriend is...nice...but nothing compared to what I have in the other relationship. I've done things and experienced things with the Married Man that I've never done or experienced before. And he says the same thing about me, and I do believe it. Sex with his wife is never worth it, sex with me always gets him to cloud 9, etc. Of course, I'm younger, wilder, and wear mini-skirts, which explains a lot, and I've known that all along. However, we are also still very good friends. We've confided and grown close. I'm his longest relationship outside of his wife, and he's my longest relationship outside of my boyfriend.

I don't know -- should I give the keys back to his apartment? Should I get another job to get away from seeing him every single day? How does one get untangled from this mess of emotions? And, should I never see him again, even though we do make such good friends? If I can see him again, about how long must I wait before I stop getting those crazy butterflies of passion? I never, ever, ever thought that I would be one of those homewreckers in the world, but here I am, and I need some advice.

All I can say is that I got plenty of advice from people who have been there and done that, and it's all true. I'm just glad that no one has said "I told you so."

-- S.

PS: Oh, and there are no kids involved on either side, so at least we have that going for us.

Dear S.,

No one, including me, is going to say "I told you so," because you can do -- and have done -- that plenty well yourself. And rehashing won't help anyway. So let me tell you this: Give back the keys. Decline lunch. No lifts in the Crown Vic. Strictly business, S., strictly business. It will not be easy, but what choice do you have? (Besides leaving the job, which we'd probably all like to save as a last resort.) That is: when you pretend to be "friends," you sleep together. When he goes on a Marriage in Trouble Weekend, he breaks the rules -- with one of the troublemakers -- before he even unpacks. To me, that spells Marriage Really in Trouble. Not to mention: Guy Who'll Also Never Leave.

So if I were you, I'd have your own Trouble Weekend with your boyfriend. Because at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if someone's already told him -- about you -- "I told you so."

Love,
Breakup Girl

< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >