A second chance on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

First off, I love this place I come back every single week to check it out…you do a fantastic job with advice..and this would be your cue to come in :).

About two years ago, this guy, we’ll call him Adam, and I were together. We were together for about 9 months. We had our ups and downs like any other couple but we managed to get through them and survive as a couple. I guess that can’t last forever though.

To make a long story short, he cheated on me. It was a very messy break up, name calling, bad mouthing, etc, on both our parts (I know, I know, sounds like something little kids do but..well, I did say it was messy). As we went along our ways, things cooled down. About 3 months after we had broken up, his friend, whom we’ll call Jay, called me up because Adam was crying because he wanted to talk to me. He got on the phone and told me how much he loved me still and how he messed up terribly and he was sorry..he wanted to get back together. At this point, I still had feelings for him and I really had to fight myself not to just jump back into a relationship with him. I knew that the feelings were still to raw in my mind and heart so I told him it would be best for us both if we took more time apart to really thing about things.

Well, it’s been nearly two years..we still talk and are good friends..lately I’ve been feeling as though I’d like to try things out again. We’ve talked about why we broke up freely (something we could never really do while we were together with problems we had) which leads me to believe that we’ve both matured while we’ve been apart. That time apart has taught me how to be mature about a break up (I’ll never go back to the name calling and bad mouthing after a break up again; it caused too many hurt feelings), how to be happy by myself (I’ve had time to practice) and realize that I don’t NEED him now, as I often felt then, but would LIKE to have him back in my life on another level. He’s been hinting that he would also like to try things out again and has told me that he’d never cheat again because of the mess it caused. My question is, should I give things a shot? Is it true, once a cheater, always a cheater? The trust has been repaired so I was thinking that it’d be possible for us to give things another go.

— Time after Time

Dear Time,

You’ve done all the right things; you’ve said all the right things — to each other and to me. If I had a Get Back Together List (hmmm…), you’d be at the top this week.

Love,
Breakup Girl