The letter writer says she can't control accusing her boyfriend, but she can. To date, she simply hasn't had enough negative reinforcement. Right now the process of dealing with her fear of abandonment by projecting a fantasy of infidelity on her boyfriend, then giving free reign to her impulsvieness and spewing the projection at him in the form of an accusation, is too rewarding. He reassures her, she feels briefly in control again, and the cycle continues.

She may not uncover exactly what is driving this behavior for awhile - that may take months with a therapist. But there is something immediate she can do about the behavior itself, regardless of whether she understands the underlying source.

She should sit down with her boyfriend and apologize for her behavior to date. Tell him that she does, in fact, trust him, and knows that the accusations she has been peppering him with are a problem of hers, not his, and that she knows she needs to deal with this problem before she drives him away. Thank him for his patience to date, and then enlist is help by telling him what steps she will take to cease and desist with the accusations:

1. When she feels insecurity and an accusation coming on, she will make the accusations only in writing - say in a journal. She will spend exactly 10 minutes outlining her fears. No more. Then she will spend the next 10 minutes writing about how she trusts him and knows he will not hurt her, and how the facts (where he's been, how he's been acting) do not support her suspicions.

2. She will make, and keep, the promise to not act on (that is, speak to him about) her whacked out ideas about his cheating for 24 hours. This is not an emergency, a matter of life and death; it is a matter that can wait for 24 hours. Then, if she still feels like it, and she's done her journal exercise, she can go to step 3.

3. Tell a trusted friend what she wants to accuse her boyfriend of. Give it another 24 hours, with another journal entry - 10 minutes of why she still feels he is 'guilty', 10 minutes why the friend's input supports the boyfriend's innocence.

4. And if she STILL feels compelled to accuse him, get him to agree that he will not speak with her or contact her for 48 hours after the accusation - only after this 48 hour period passes will he speak with her.

When she is faced with consequences - having to defend the accusations to herself, to her friend, nurse them over a cooling off period and face actual abandonment for her OWN behavior, she may gain some control of it.

And in the meantime, she should see a therapist. It seems to me she is deliberately pushing her bf away - the best way to deal with fear of abandonment, after all, is to leave them before they can leave you....and if you can create a 'crime' for them, then it's not even your fault.

The LW does not love the dog the way the husband does - that much is clear. But when she took the husband on, she took the dog on, and now she must cope with the (possibly protracted) the end of the dog's life with good grace, kindness, and compassion for all.

A new life is often as needful in the same ways as a life in the end stages. When her children were infants, the couldn't communicate except through sounds, often reeked with the odor of urine and poo, slobbered when they were happy, and ate and drank with unmindful, straightforward need. These things aren't considered horrible or disgusting - they are part of the beginning of life, and as such most people find them to have a certain innocent beauty. The end of the dog's life can be described in the exact same terms - it makes odd sounds, reeks of urine, slobbers, and lives only to eat and drink. Because the dog is at the end of it's life, these things take on a negative resonance, as we instinctively shy away from anything that reminds of the ugly truth of mortality.

If the dog continues to find joy in eating, walking, and the presence of it's master (the LW's husband), the LW should become a mouth breather for awhile, and change her perspective to see the dog's slow demise not as a smelly and annoying inconvenience, but as a simple and powerful demonstration of the circle of life. To her I would say: bear witness to this dog's death as you have it's life. Assist your husband in giving the dog a dignified and comfortable end, whenever that may be. Be grateful for the opportunitiy to help him with his grief - in this there will be learning, and beauty, as well.

And thank you, Cary, for your lovely words. I lost my 18-year-old dog last night at 2:30 a.m. He had been incontinent for a year, which I dealt with using dog training pads. Other than that, he was quite happy right up to his last days, though he looked a little the worse for wear (as he got older he got quite grumpy and hated to be bathed, groomed and generally messed with). It was the hardest thing ever, when he died in my arms. Seeing him there on the table at the end - so old, used up, and vulnerable, I loved him as much, more even, than when he was a hilarious little puppy with mischief on his mind. He was my friend, he was loved, he was love.