It is strange that people so enjoy attacking someone/almost anyone who asks Cary for advice. There are many issues worth discussing in the LWs original letter. Here is my list of possible topics:

Do we overestimate or underestimate the power of "looks?"

What do we owe to those who help us and then abuse us?

What is the best way to say "Goodbye?"

When one person brings money to the table and another brings only his/her self, can there ever be an equal relationship?

How intimate should we allow communications with others to become when that attractive person is not the person with whom we have a primary relationship?

Should we allow a mere BF's or GF's parents to assist us financially, or should that be reserved for the formalized relationship of marriage?

Can you really know someone by a long distance relationship?

Can we really know anyone?

Instead of using the original advise-seeking letter as fruit for useful discussion, many people in this thread simply went on the attack. Makes one wonder if most readers can use the thinking part of the brain and the emotional part at the same time. Or walk and chew gum at the same time?

Are people's lives so unsatisfying that they wait all week for that one vulnerable individual to write to Cary so that they can pile on? If this is so, then they are in much worst shape than the LW.

Also, as long as people are tossing about the initials of various diagnoses, I wonder if they have heard of this one: Antisocial Personality Disorder, characterized by things like a lack of empathy, envy, and aggression.

However, maybe something else is in play here. The LW attempted to change the dynamic in the middle of the game when she wrote her subsequent letters. Some people who had offered advise to the original letter were perhaps frustrated by that change. I hope that makes them and the LW consider how difficult it is to change when people have gotten used to us being a certain way. For the LW, it took two letters and a couple of days to feed frustration here to a fever pitch level. Consider how difficult it must be for someone in therapy who is changing and improving to bring those changes home to a signicant other (or family or friends) and not pay a price in backlash. This is why people who get better in therapy often alter previous relationships. It could be that the LW has to move on simply because she is no longer the same person who entered the relationship and the BF cannot accept those changes.

To S.H.A.M. Scam Sam:

He expresses his "honest" feelings by squeezing her arthritic knee until she is in pain. He does this several times a day. Perhaps you did not read the LW's other letters in this thread so I will give you the doubt there.

I do not doubt your statement that you feel like you want to kill somebody. I have read some of your other letters. Until you can take a page from Islam ( ) Fascism, I will reply no further to your comments. He/she at least sticks to the subject at hand.