When It's Time for a Clean Slate

Dear Margo: I've known "Austin" for almost three years, and we're not just friends, but the kind with benefits. At first I thought this was just a rebound, but I came to know him and fell in love. He's smart, nice, honest and a gentleman. Over the years, I've expressed to him my desire to take our relationship to a different level, but he never got the clue. He kept telling me to find someone special, and that when I found that person, we would stop seeing each other. A few months ago, I told him I'm done waiting for someone who is never going to love me and it's over. He e-mailed me back, telling me his reasons for not wanting to be in a serious relationship, one being his finances are bad.

Just last night, he told me he had bad news. He said he's thinking about a serious relationship with a girl he met a month ago! I feel so stupid and used. I wish I could take back that one lonely night after I'd broken up with my longtime boyfriend three years ago. I feel so abandoned and cheap. I allowed this "relationship" to go on longer than it should have, and I guess he never thought of me as anything other than a sex object. He knows I read this column, and I hope he reads this and knows how much he's hurt me. — Sadder but Wise

Dear Sad: I suspect he does know how much he hurt you. Your situation is more common than you think, however, and not always in a friends-with-benefits situation. Often, a couple will date for years, he won't consider marriage, they break up, then he meets someone soon after ... whom he marries. There really is no explanation for this. Stop beating yourself up and thinking you're cheap. This was no one-night stand. And this is someone you came to care for. Alas, he didn't fall for you in the same way. I would hope that all the "friends with benefits" would understand that what happened to you could happen to them, but when these arrangements start, both parties are pretty much, well, friends who become sex partners thinking there will be no emotional entanglement. They are often wrong. Pick yourself up and begin again, as you say, sadder but wiser. — Margo, forwardly

Mommie Dearest Is Alive and Well (Though Maybe Not Well)

Dear Margo: My problem is with my mother-in-law. She is extremely nice to me, but how she treats her daughter, my wife, is another story. Frequently when we visit, she will say dreadful things to her, like, "You look fat today" (my wife is 5-foot-4 and 105 pounds), even though she knows my wife suffered from anorexia in the past. They've had a rough history, something for which my wife is seeking counseling, yet I can't ever decide whether I should intervene during these verbal harangues. Is it appropriate to tell my mother-in-law how nasty she is being? — Wildly Uncomfortable

Dear Wild: Actually, what I think is appropriate is to skip the drop-ins altogether. Why your wife would even consent to go is beyond me. I don't know what her therapist says about this, but these visits sound to me like pouring gasoline on a fire. And yes, I think it would be useful for you to tell this harridan that her unloving attacks aimed at her daughter have caused you both to decide to steer clear of her and her outbursts. — Margo, remedially

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Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers' daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to [e-mail]. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered.

COPYRIGHT 2008 MARGO HOWARD

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