< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >
 

Dear Breakup Girl,

I'd been seeing this girl for about a year and a half and this summer we got engaged. I was really excited, but not long after that she broke it off. I didn't know why so I kept trying to get a hold of her. She would not write me or e-mail me so I kept calling and getting the answering machine. I knew it was because she didn't want to talk to me but I had to find out why she broke it off.

After a while of this I finally got an e-mail from her telling me to stop harrassing her and that she was going to e-mail my parents and tell them that she was going to turn me in for harrassment. I was extremely hurt because now all of a sudden the woman I loved turned me into the guy from Fear (Mark Wahlberg) and all of a sudden I was the bad guy. It hurt so much that I couldn't even think straight and I didn't care about anything in the world. So I decided to drink and had a female friend over. We got drunk and things went too far. I didn't want to that night but for some reason I felt compelled to and I'm not sure why and I hate myself for not trying harder to get out of it.

A while after this my ex e-mails me and tells me that she still loves me and wants me back. But she had asked me if I had had sex since the break up. At first I instinctively lied to her but then feeling guilty I told her the truth and from there she said that there was no chance of getting back together. We would have gotten back together if I had not told her that night.

I feel so guilty and awful. It was all my fault and because of my stupidity I lost the girl I loved the most. Sometimes I feel as if I should have lied to her since she meant so much to me I would have been willing to have to live with it I think...I don't know. Do you think I did the right thing?

Just tonight I saw an e-mail about how she was over me and had moved on yet I'm still stuck in this time warp regretting what I did. If only I had known that she still loved me then it would have never happened. I know that.

Am I a jerk for how things went? I'm so confused and I love her to death and can't get her out of my mind and I know that the best thing to do is get over her but for some reason I can't. She's always there and I keep beating myself up for losing my fairy tale princess. What should I do?

-- Jeremy

Dear Jeremy,

Oh, buddy. I don't know if you did the Right Thing or not. In this case, actually, no such thing. But I do know this: NO FAIR for Miss Fairy Tale to bust your chops for having sex when you two were apart. Or even for instinctively lying about it and then recanting. What's that about? Yes indeedy, I do think there's an argument to be made for Living With, rather than Unloading, a regrettable act; that's my oft-repeated appraisal of the false-gold standard of full disclosure.

But look. There are certain folks out there who say that had our ex-boyfriend-in-chief just told the truth the first time, everything would have been okay.

AS IF.

And in your case, see, she impeached after a totally legal and frankly not even that tacky miss-demeanor on your part. Had it not been that, Jer, my guess is that she would have dug up some other dilly of a pecadillo to call you on. Sounds to me she was looking for an out before she got back in.

Also, you two are/were not allowed to just up and get back together in the first place. If the only thing you two had to discuss pre-potential reunion was whether or not you'd rebounded, then yeah, you definitely should have figured on rebounding all over again. Reunions, as I've said before, are not as simple as Be Kind, Rewind. Anyone in y'all's situation needs to talk. Like, really talk. Not tally.

So. Easy for me to say, but yeah, quit beating yourself up. She's doing that quite well for you, don't you think? You are so not a jerk. Nor are you stupid. You're a dumped, legitimately confused guy who made a booty call and happened to tell the truth about it to someone who wasn't prepared to deal. And that is not just some obscure, Jeremy-serving Breakup Girl contrivance of the law. You are allowed to miss her for a while, but you are not allowed to blame yourself. Take your time. And rent The Basketball Diaries instead.

Love,
Breakup Girl

< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >