< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >
 

Dear Breakup Girl,

Over a year and a half ago, I became involved with a girl online. She was married and unhappy at the time. (I know, I know. That doesn't make it right.) We really hit it off and fell in love. After a few months, we decided to meet, and we did, in secret. She lives in the US; I'm in Canada. We spent a weekend together, as she pulled some big lie and managed to get away from home. I flew down there and stayed in a hotel. It was the most incredible first meeting I've ever had.

A few months later, things had reached a breaking point with her husband, he eventually questioned her, and she told him about me. Things were up in the air for a week when the guy called me at home, telling me to butt out. I called her on her cell phone (she was on her way from work) freaked out, told her what happened, and told her I just couldn't continue like this. Up until that time, he was a cipher -- he didn't exist -- so I guess I felt justified in what I did. But now he had specifically told me to leave, and I was going to.

She got home and asked for a divorce. It was over pretty quickly: she moved out, and they have joint custody of their 2 year old son (I forgot to mention that.) I couldn't join her, though, not just yet. I am finishing my last year of university. My work requires me to stay here until the end of summer '99, after which I'm free to go.

We got pretty serious and intended to get married when I got there. (We don't know of many ways I could legally live there and be with her, and one way is to apply for a fiancé visa so I could enter the country and marry her.)

Time went on. We'd see each other, on average, for a weekend, once every one and a half months. We'd talk on the phone nearly every day; our bills were huge.

About a month ago, she went away for a weekend in Florida with her step-uncle (they're of similar ages and are good friends). When she came back, everything went weird. She wrote me an e-mail saying she wanted time away to maybe date other people. I was confused and hurt. She started avoiding me, shutting off her phone ringer. She would only call me in the mornings from her work for a few minutes. I was dying. I couldn't understand what was going on.

Memorial Day weekend came along, and I didn't hear from her the whole time. On Tuesday, she's back to work, and she reveals that she spent the weekend with a guy (Guy A) whom she met on the Internet about a month before. They didn't have sex or anything, but she felt pretty strongly about him, she said. He was willing to move from his state to hers (it's kinda far) right away.

I was very upset, and I talked a lot with her. I couldn't understand how she was dropping this relationship we've had for a year for someone she met a month ago, and MOVING IN with him so soon. I just didn't understand.

I mean, I know she feels lonely. But I'm almost there. I could have understood (Linda) if she wanted out back when she still had a year ahead of her. But it's only a few months now. And the argument that maybe she doesn't want anything too serious breaks down because she sounds really serious about Guy A. If she just wanted to have fun dating people, then it'd make sense to drop me; I'm the serious relationship. But she'd just be going from being serious with me to being serious with him. So I don't get that. She eventually decided that she did want ME. She was going to tell him there was nothing between them. She assured me she loves me, and we've gone back to talking nearly every night. Things seem fine.

Seem.

Only seem, because I did something unspeakably evil.

I checked her e-mail. That was so wrong, but I did it.

She tells me that he hasn't written or called since he left on Memorial Day. But I now know that he has written her at least once, sending her an e-greeting saying that he truly loves her and can't wait to be with her for the rest of his life. She wrote him back saying, "Thank you for being with me, you're wonderful."

And thus we come to now. In fact, I only found this out a few minutes ago.

I don't know what to do now. I'm scheduled to go see her next weekend. The ticket is nonrefundable, heh, not that that's my main concern. I guess I should go see her face-to-face. Unfortunately, I won't get a response to this until AFTER next weekend, which really sucks. My problem now, I guess, is that I don't know what to do. Should I confront her, and if so, should I do it right now or in person? Or would that just drive her away even more because I was an idiot and checked her mail? Knowing her, it probably would.

But, darnit, BG, she's still lying to me even after she said she picked ME.

Is it truly over between her and me, and I'm just not seeing it? I had my heart set on this girl. I had never met anyone like her. She was/is my best friend and my lover. I love her son, too. It seemed so perfect. I know one big problem is that she doesn't want to hurt anybody; she's said as much. So maybe she just doesn't want to hurt Guy A. But, that argument could be used on ME as well. Maybe she wants out from me and just doesn't want to hurt ME.

To compound the situation, I found out she put an ad online in her regional news site, a personal ad, looking for someone for "fun and games," to hang out or whatnot. I don't know what to make of that, really. But I do know (again, through the evil that I did) that at least one person has responded and that they either already have gone out or are planning on it. This, however, could be innocent; I don't know. Given what's going on with Guy A, I don't even care.

I am so devoted to her. In this whole time, I've never even considered cheating. No one else measured up.

If I listened to my pride, I would have told her to beat it the moment I found out about Guy A. But I decided, back then, that I wouldn't toss away something that was so big and so strong over pride. I've done things for pride in the past, and I've found that pride only screws you up in the end. So that's why I still wanted her, even after that. But now, I don't know what to do. I'm afraid of getting down there and being cheated on. She assured me that she didn't sleep with him, but now...who knows? I just wanted her to want me the way I want her. I guess that sounds sad and silly or something.

What bothers me the most is that she won't be straight with me. Just say you don't want me, if you don't want me. I'm wondering if maybe she's just killing time until I get there. But then, once again that doesn't work, because Guy A also lives far away and wants to be serious.

Just give me some insight, BG. I don't know where to turn. I love her.

--Tornboy

Dear TornBoy,

Well, in order to get to the bottom of this one, you don't really have to admit that you snooped; I mean, I'll bet you don't even need to. Without playing games/manipulating/dissembling/setting a trap, you can do what reporters do quite appropriately: use off-the-record information as what's called "background." They don't cite the OTR data directly, but they can let it shape what they say; they can talk about where it got them. In your case, you can use it to talk about where you're coming from: a feeling that things are askew. A sense that she's not being straight. A hunch that -- now that you think about it -- has supporting evidence of its own, offline, in real life. Right?

I know how much you love her and how much you'd hate to lose the her you thought you had. But you've got to say something, TornBoy. Your sentence for snooping is how evil (your term) you feel -- not a gag order. Is there some sort of self-punishing algorithm at work that goes something like: "If I am evil enough to snoop, then I must settle for someone who has proven to be squirrely" -- ? Hey, you talk about not wanting to act out of "pride." Yeah, but here's Pride -- as in the whicheverth deadly sin -- and there's Dignity, which you're pretty much dead without. I'd lose her before you lose that.

Love,
Breakup Girl

< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >