Does size matter?

How do you know when it's over, how do you know if you are big enough for her and what should you do if your sister's husband wants to have sex with you?

By Cary Tennis

Apr 9, 2002 | Dear Cary,

How do you know if it's over?

It's like this: I'm 30. About six months ago I broke up with my boyfriend of five years. He was like my husband. I never wanted a husband, but there he was: a loving, faithful, bright person who wanted to be with me forever. Our relationship was, I believe, based on a combination of intellectual affinity and mutual protection from the big bad world.

What was lacking from the start was a sense of challenge and growth. I crave stimulation and change. He, well, doesn't. So I did most of my "growing" on my own: long solo trips, plans for school and new moves alone. Which mostly never transpired. I became more like him than he like me. Together we became very stuck. (We're both struggling writers.)

Things had been going downhill from a sort of low place, but no one was admitting it. At a very fragile moment, another man came into the picture. A nice, loving person, but like me in some crucial ways: impulsive, searching, adventurous. I moved out. The scenario was pretty "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Scenes From a Marriage." I took a long trip to the other side of the world. I returned and tried to have a pure friendship with my boyfriend while secretly seeing the other man, finally consummating our attraction. The other man quickly saw that I wasn't ready to move on and broke up with me. My boyfriend wanted to make our break more real and stop seeing me altogether. So what did I do? I went to our apartment to pick up some things, found my boyfriend there and, after a long and depressing talk, rolled on top of him, which determined that, in the near future, we would be together.

So, we are back together after a very half-assed break. Our problems haven't been solved, but we are more aware of them. There is a painful weight in the air that only I understand. I can't bear to tell him I was with someone else, but I wish I could. I wish that all the real shit and muck and horror could come out, that we could truly work through them and come out brighter and stronger, but it's fucking unbearable. And because we are unable to talk about this, I know we have no future.

I mean, why couldn't my boyfriend say, OK, Dear, go, run like the wind, explore the world, see other men, and I won't hate you, you can call me, I'll still be there. I can't be a free spirit and be with him at the same time, and I can't let go of him.

I Cannot for the Fucking Life of Me Make a Real Decision

Dear Indecisive,

Let's be clear about what a decision is. A decision is a done deal. It's not a bid, or a bluff, or an experiment; it's a commitment to a course of action. When a runner fakes to the left, that's not a decision, that's a gesture intended to induce a decision by the opposition. The runner uses the fake to clear the field for himself; it's a way of gaining power and flummoxing the opposition.

What you've been doing is throwing fakes.

The person who refuses to commit gains a temporary advantage; he can sit back and wait and see what the opposition does. But eventually, if you don't commit to a course of action, you get crushed with singularly professional violence.

The only difference between taking a flight to Rome and breaking up with your boyfriend is that on the flight to Rome you can't turn the plane around just because you start to feel scared about Portugal or rejected by London. When you make an adult decision, you stay on course, just as though there were a strong-jawed, mustachioed pilot up there saying, "Sorry, Ma'am, you bought your ticket to Rome, start speaking Italian."

Your behavior so far has not been good. It sounds to me as if you have equivocated and practiced self-deception in order to avoid making decisions and following through on them. You are living in a world of suspended wish-fulfillment and unrealistic expectations; your boyfriend is not likely to say, "Fly, free spirit! I'll always be here for you!" So what you have to do is stop pretending that things just happen to you. You are doing all this. Own up to it. If you don't want to be married, don't live as though you were married. If you feel trapped in your relationship, end it.

Buy a ticket to a breakup and get onboard.

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