I'm still reading. And I found your letter extremely well written. I pretty much think you trumped Cary on this one in terms of your insight into this letter writer. Well done.

What's more is that I personally VERY much relate to you and your experience/assessment of the girl with which you were once involved and who skewered your heart...so much so that I wonder if you knew her before or after me (<--attempt at humor, but the sentiment is true). I've arrived (and I must admit am still arriving after maaany years of having 'moved on') at similar perspectives on my own gem of a gal. But your articulation...I appreciate it.

the experiences a person has as a child are FUCKING NO JUSTIFICATION for their decisions and actions as an adult. It's called growing up. Don't allow this bitch to justify her shitty behavior. He should dump her loser ass.

i was in a relationship very much like this so i understand what's going on here. i doubt anyone's still reading this thread, but here's my analysis / biased opinion based on what happened to me.

something happened to this girl when she was growing up, maybe once, maybe a couple times. sexual abuse, parental abandonment, emotional neglect, etc. something -- something that made her be very cautious and scared of trusting and loving other people and trapped in a mindset of looking out only for herself.

on some level, she's very intimidated by this guy. he's got his shit together -- a degree, etc. he's got some level of independence and independent thought. he also has the werewithal to stay in a relationship with her and show her that dedication, even while she craps on him. for this reason, he is flawed -- weak, needy, dependent, etc. he probably is, but it's also a vicious cycle of lose-lose situations. she puts a hurdle in his path -- if he fails, he doesn't love her. if he overcomes it, it's because he's obsessed or weak or some other reason.

she only feels in control when she's, well, in control of him. when she's not in control, she acts out. it's also when there are demands put on her. if she can't meet them, she feels like a horrible failure and terrible person.

you want to know why she cried? because deep down, she knows all this. she knows how mean and cruel and insensitive she is, and how nice, decent, and caring this young man is ... but she hates herself and she loves him ... so, by extension, she hates him.

everytime she feels emotional weakness, she snaps back. puts on her big girl face, and acts composed. makes some excuses and blows her feelings off.

i feel very, very sad for this girl because she's going to go through life like this for a very long time, possibly forever, and she's going to ruin some peoples lives -- including hers -- along the way.

the guy she's with right now is probably a fairly decent guy who tries hard with someone who's completely fucking insane. he's atypical of the guy she likes -- the typical guy she likes is someone who she woos and then she drops (because he never meant anything to her and was never a threat) or they drop her (because they're either an asshole or someone like this guy after going through something like this) ... she made the mistake of getting involved with a real person, someone who really loved her and wouldn't just quit on her.

... all this bullshit with other people is just a power game. other people come into play when she's feeling out of control, and she exerts control in this way. she doesn't want to be weak and come out and have a serious discussion about what she wants and needs out of the relationship, she just selfishly self-medicates with the most delicious drug of all, love from someone else.

... her naievete regarding this new other guy is not facetious. she wants to be thought of as smart, funny, intelligent, etc., anything other than a cheap fuck. she doesn't want to acknowledge that this guy probably just wants to fuck her because she's hot.

anyway, i'm sick of writing. that's all i got. i'm a goddamn genius. too bad i had to get my heart shattered to learn all this stuff.

This girl states from the get go that she never expected this relationship to last. She kept putting qualifiers on it like "if he doesn't move with me" etc. etc.

She doesn't want to be in this relationship and doesn't have the cajones (obviously) to end it, and meanwhile she's making this poor boyfriend suffer through a lesbian exploratory fling, an out of town fling and a threatened trip to Turkey with another guy?! Come on, she's trying to get her boyfriend to break up with her so she doesn't have to be the "bad guy".

I hope her boyfriend reads this and kicks her to the curb - fast.

fucking cuckhold who is dumb enough to marry you and:

1. Subsidize a lifestyle you didn't earn or work for.

2. Subsidize your philandering.

3. Subsidize your weekly visits to have your nails and hair done and massage/spa treatments.

4. Subsidize your weekly/daily visits to SAKs or Neiman Marcus racking up lots of debt and sales.

5. Subsidize the payment of all the consumer debt you rack up before you marry.

6. Subsidize your eventual divorce while you justify taking 1/2 or more of everything, generous alimony and the children (hopefully you are barren) and making him pay jut to see his children.

I could go on, but you are fucking pathetic and probably not very attractive. I have fucked and done a houdini on chicks like you many times and never regretted it. Asshole.

Well Barbie, you've got an unusual group of friends, is all I can say.

1.)If she doesn't see philandering as relevant, then she's a pretty unusual woman. I suppose it's her prerogative, but she's hardly typical of the average female in my experience. I'd also be very surprised if she didn't see it as relevant if she started to lose his emotional attention to one of these other women. As for me, if I were a woman, I sure as hell wouldn't tolerate cheating or fail to see it as relevant. Pretty much every female friend I've had this conversation with feels the same way. But that's just me, and my circle of friends.

2.)Sounds fucked up, and like the cheating is a symptom of some serious problems.

3.)I don't want to say gay relationships don't count, but, well, apples and oranges. Stereotypes aside, many gays are quite promiscuous, as you know. Again, their prerogative, but not representative of average behavior or attitudes.

4.)If I came home and found out my girlfriend had stepped out on me, there would at the very least be some serious recrimination, and it would probably mean the end of the relationship. In my circle of acquaintances, one of those two has invariably been the response to cheating when it's happened. If your friends resumed with no hard feelings, more power to 'em, but again, they're highly unusual, and not like any people I've ever known.

I think what you've learned is that most people don't like cheating, and are not as tolerant of it as you seem to be. That doesn't necessarily make them less able to see nuances than you. I understand that relationships can be a mess, poor communication happens, sometimes one partner's needs aren't being met, etc. One can look at a situation and intellectually see how cheating happens. But that doesn't mean one has to excuse it morally or forgive it emotionally. It's fundamentally dishonest, and most people find it hurtful, which means, frankly, that it's a shitty way to behave, and if it's judgmental to say that, well, color me judgmental. Personally, I think problems of this sort should be solved by either a.)discussing things with the partner and trying to fix the problem, or b.)acknowledging that the relationship isn't working, being an adult, and taking responsibility for ending it in a mature, humane way. I have no desire to be tolerant of immoral, selfish behavior.

Anyway, I've learned a valuable lesson reading the reponses to my posts. Cheating strikes to the core of most people, in a very negative way. I guess I'm just used to a more nuanced response, and I had forgotten what a hot button issue it can be.

Best of luck to you all....