Did you notice that the letter writer called the friendships that she's fretting over "second-tier friendships"?

I actually regret having gone to a couple of the weddings of second-tier friends during my immediate post-college years.

The resentments I built up about the hundreds of dollars (a huge amount of money in those days) I had to shell out for hotels, dresses, flights, etc., actually made me resent these friends, and I'm not close with them now (but I never was...).

However, a first-tier friend recently told me she's getting married, and I am overwhelmed with excitement. The event will involve travel, hotel and a dress, and I'm looking forward to spending every penny it will involve. I even have to miss a critical conference at work. C'est la vie. My (first-tier) friend is getting married!!!

Second-tier friends who live far away probably don't come to your house to help you when you're really sick or immobile - and you probably don't go to their houses either.

If you believe any of these old college friends are people with whom you could, over time, develop a first-tier bond, go to the wedding. If you are sure you know these people and yourself well enough to know that there's no substance to these friendships, don't go, and don't feel guilty about it.

Listen to CosmicMojo:

--Saying NO is strength. And saying no to your mom's manipulating ways IS strong. Saying you're staying home IS strong because you've found the power to resist her manipulations, found the power to stop the games, the denial.--

I think you're 90 percent recovered. But there's a big 10 percent to go. I'm not lecturing you; just speaking from personal experience with my own mother, who is similar to yours. That 10 percent continues to rule my life. Someone, I think, radar, said to remember that appearance is not reality. Reality is very hard to face.

The reality is that you have a mother who has always - and still - puts appearances to the outside world - before your pain, safety, well-being - and your very existence.

It can take a lifetime to wrap your mind around the fact that your mother doesn't have a maternal instinct and never will. She will save herself, before she'll save you. She's not the mother who runs into the burning building to save your life. She's the one who saves herself and lets you burn alive.

I have the same kind of mother, and am back in therapy to take care of this once and for all. You don't need to go to the party.

--Dear Cary,

I broke into my neighbor's house, rummaged through his tax returns (they were sitting on the dining room table in full view!), and learned that he's taking tax deductions I'm not sure he's entitled to! I'm CONCERNED about him. Should I confront him?--

Cary: I don't understand why you answered this letter without acknowledging the LW's incredible transgression. She didn't run into her father at a local restaurant, where he can see and be seen by others - she, for all intents and purposes, broke into his e-mail account.

She said she saw an e-mail account attached to her father's name she didn't recognize. Many of us have several e-mail accounts between work and hobbies and online forums that our loved ones would not recognize, because they're none of our loved ones' business.

This woman is not only NOT this man's spouse or partner, she's his daughter and she doesn't even live in the same house. She's a plane ride away, she says. Why is she keeping track of Dad's e-mail accounts?

LW: GET A LIFE and drop this. Confront him?! Are you kidding? If I were your father, I'd be furious at your lack of respect for me and my privacy. It could take a lifetime for me to forgive you. But maybe that's what you want?

The idea of your "snooping," which is way too benign a word, is incredibly disrespectful and downright strange.

Your husband is wrong. Focus on your own life. I don't buy your "concern." You said something to the effect that you work on your own monogamy. I don't know what that means, but I'm sure it has everything to do with your "snooping."

You're involved with some kind of transference; you're focusing on your father instead of yourself or your husband or whoever you're really and truly "concerned" about.

Get a therapist and do some "snooping" into your own psyche. Tell the therapist what you did. Once you start snooping around in your own heart and mind, you may find the peace you're looking for.

This puzzles me from a previous post:

"Of course, she should tell her mother because her mother's plans for her retirement and old age are presumably built on the assumption that her husband of 35 years will stay with her."

Until the LW snoops into the mother's email account(s) to find out if she too is having an affair, how can we say what the mother's plans for retirement are?

Perhaps the mother's plans for retirement include a gentleman friend. Perhaps the mother is talking to her best friend about how sick she is of her husband, and how she can't wait to leave him, and will do so once she gets her financial affairs in order.

Why is the father the bad guy?

LW: please break into one of your mother's e-mail accounts and report back ASAP....