Looking back on January 4, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

It’s that time of year again, when we bow our heads and reflect on the year that’s passed. This is also when we ask ourselves “What the heck just happened?” I’ve been doing that a lot for the last few weeks and I was hoping that your immense intellect and other really cool super powers can help me sort it all out.

I just got out of a really horrible “relationship,” got myself into a really swank bachelor pad, been doing some really swank bachelor things, and all around having a great time. I sometimes get nightmares about my ex, but I try not to let that bother me. I did my share of “closure” with her. When I left, I “closed” the door. My question is this…When I was younger, I was with another gal who I thought was IT. She was the “template” of the woman I wanted in my life. We had great times together, we had bad times together. We broke up after 7 years of this and did not keep in touch for 3 years. That was four years ago. Now, we’ve been hanging out a lot (when I’m in town or vice-versa), talking (mostly via phone or e-mail), laughing, flirting, and getting more comfotable with each other. I have no complaints about that except that I’m finding myself falling in love with her again. What’s the problem you say? I know that she’s not falling for me and I can’t seem to look at anyone else without the spectre of the template popping up. It’s like I’ve put on blinders and narrowed my choices. I’m also starting to second-guess myself. Did I break up with my ex because I know that the template’s there? By the way, the template is still single and currently not seeing anyone. My friends try to set me up on dates and such, but I just don’t find anything in common with these women. I think I’m going crazy, falling for someone who lives halfway across the country, who I know doesn’t have the same feelings for me like I have for her. ARRGGHH!!! It drives me batty!!!! If I think about this logically, I know that I want to continue being friends with her (just friends though) and find another. I know I’m not the same person I was at the beginning of the year, much less in four years ago….but I guess logic truly goes out the door when you fall in love. Anyway all-seeing and all-knowing one, if you can help me sort this out it would really mean a lot to me. I don’t think I can go through another year with these feelings hanging over my head. Thanks.

— Back to the Past

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YourTango’s Best Relationship Books of the ’00s list — while not a complete disaster — strikes me as funny for two reasons:

• The coveted top two spots are occupied by books written by…comedians.  Hey, if I want to be lectured by some smart-aleck goofball about my love-life, I’ve got my bathroom mirror, thank you. The credentials of the other authors are a little shady, too: reporters, secrets-revealing “playas,” and Harvard MBAs, but only two actual relationship counselors.
• Only a few of these “relationship books” are about, well, relationships. The bulk are basically how-to books (for straight women) to snag a mate, please a man, or foil those slippery guy-tactics that, allegedly, all men employ, at all times.

A decade is a long time, and surely there have been more subtle, less condescending, and more realistic books written about love that don’t nakedly play into women’s fears and insecurities, nor into the myth of male weakness that says all straight guys, harboring endless secrets, are afraid of women. So! What are your favorite relationship books of the past ten years? (Aside from THE OBVIOUS, of course.) Alternate perspectives (LGBT, non-marriage-oriented, bridge-lovin‘) encouraged! My list would include:

• Love in the Present Tense: How to Have a High Intimacy, Low Maintenance Marriage by Morrie & Arleah Schechtman. This slim volume contains some of the most useful relationship advice I’ve ever read, and much of it is counter-intuitive bordering on heretical. The Schechtmans — marriage counselors with backgrounds in business — argue convincingly against ideas like “couples need to love each other unconditionally,” “relationships are hard work,” and “conflict is always a sign of trouble.”
• How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving by David Richo. It’s easy to fall into unconscious childhood patterns when we are in the vulnerable position of loving someone. Psychotherapist David Richo — an uncommonly poetic writer — emphasizes mindfulness and a spiritual approach to partnership, avoiding the manipulative strategies that we almost all fall into when we aren’t careful.
• And Tango Makes Three. This important book based on a real gay penguin couple who “adopt” a baby both raises the profile of New York’s Central Park Zoo and teaches kids (and reminds adults) that a family is based on love, not a template. Sure, they conveniently omit mention of Gus, the depressed polar bear, but that story’s been covered elsewhere.

So what else, bookworms?

Taking stock on January 4, 1999…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I seem to be suffering long-term effects from a breakup that occurred in May of this year. We started dating in January, he was very warm, caring, called every day, brought flowers and wine whenever he came to see me. Told me everyday that he was thinking about me. We were very hot together.

I knew he was going through a divorce shortly after we started dating. I know that’s the big #1 no-no in dating. I just waited for 2 years after my divorce for a man just like him to come into my life. I was ready to fall for someone.

Several problems happened during the early part of our relationship: one of his parents died unexpectedly and he was suffering massive guilt after that. His divorce took a very nasty turn for the worse. My life was making great improvements all the way around.

In April, he started to tell me that he needed time to think. I let go for a couple of weeks and then he wanted to see me again. I saw him once and told myself that this was the last time I would ever see him again and I used it as a way to say goodbye to him inside myself. We never said goodbye.

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MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn aids Vexed Veronica, whose dates keep vanishing:

We had lots in common and had fun on our first date. He left me a message the next day (in the morning, even!) saying he had fun and wanted to hang out again that night. We had another good time and I left him a message the following afternoon. I haven’t heard from him in over a week.

Read the letter at Happen then come back here to comment!

Ask Lynn is the advice column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com), that Breakup Girl does in her mild-mannered secret identity. Same advice, less cape.

This month’s letter is from a gal who is dating a guy with an ex and child attached. He seems to be saying and doing all the right things, yet she is Afraid of baby mama drama. Is she being overly cautious or playing it just cool enough? Sound off here!

(This letter was recently posted at Happen Magazine, and you can read the comments from Karl R and stefdawn here.)

Put on some hot cocoa and curl up with this tale of Christmases Past and Christmases yet-to-be from December 14, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Here’s my wish list, with some background and explanation. It all started last Christmas actually… I’m in college, my boyfriend graduated from the same school about a year and a half ago. I went home for Christmas (I’m from about 2000 miles away, so it’s a relative-distance relationship…40 minutes when I’m in school, a couple thousand miles when I’m not). At this time we’d been dating for almost eight months. Our relationship had been going mostly wonderfully, fairy-tale and all. It had been my longest relationship EVER, as before the longest relationship I’d been in had been for about two weeks. When we met, we became close friends quickly. He was smarting from his breakup with a particular psycho-hose-beast.

She was his first ever/serious relationship. Over the summer (while I was home) she called him, yelled at him for a while that he’d gotten on with his life (meaning she was jealous of me) and that was the last I’d thought I’d ever hear about it.

Well, it was the holiday season, so being the sweet sensitive person he is, he decided to send PHB a Christmas card in an attempt to “make peace.” Personally, I would have never attempted communication with someone who treated me that badly. I would have lost their address, everything. So, there I was at home, trying to deal with my family and distant friends (also depressing holiday traditons) and one morning I got a phone call. I had been out all night the night before, so I was still asleep when my boyfriend called. My mom woke me up to tell me that he was on the phone.

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Oh noes! Flirty messages from old flames are troubling enough to current spouses, but for some married people, the temptation of having all your old flames just a click away may be too much. Divorce attorneys are reporting now that at least 1 in 5 divorce petitions cite Facebook as proof of an affair or inappropriate behavior.

We get emails from people worried about IM and text messages from exes, which certainly isn’t new, so as easy as Facebook makes it to reconnect with old flames, it’s no surprise that those inclined to stray are finding it easier to do so with more people, more often.

“The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to,” says Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online, in the Telegraph UK article reporting these findings.

Some cheaters are flaunting their misbehavior, and even informing their jilted spouse of their impending divorce by updating their relationship status.

While I believe that it’s possible to be platonic, mutually respectful friends with exes, I can also empathize with those who really kinda hate Facebook. Hate how ghosts of nightmares past seem to come back from the grave complete with slutty profile picture and a comment for everything that’s said and done, and how “it’s just Facebook, it doesn’t matter” starts to sound pretty weak when every word has an audience of hundreds or thousands.

Yule regret staying with him on December 21, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend seems to get mad when I talk to other guys, but when I try to talk to him he kinda ignores me for his other friends and the only time he talks to me is when no one else is around. He can never go anywhere with me, but I am always the one to ask. I just wanna be free from him. Do you think I should break up with him? I was gonna dump him, but thought I would wait until after Christmas because otherwise both of our holidays will be bad. I don’t even want a present from him because then I’ll feel bad. What should I do? I’m so confused! Please help!

— Nicole

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Speechless! I need to let People tell it while I compose myself …

One of Hollywood’s most enduring relationships has ended – Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have broken up after more than two decades together, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

Christmas is ruined. Bah Humbug!