Dirty little secret

Dear Cary,

I met this man four years ago, when I first moved to a new town and was looking for a place to live. We were good friends for a while, then we slept together. Two days later we go out for a drink and he says that he doesn't want to be with me, doesn't want to marry me, doesn't want to have babies with me.

I'd never thought about that, but I said OK and then we went back to being friends. This pattern continued for about a year, with a hiccup when he met somebody else (which didn't amount to anything): We'd get together, then he'd panic and dump me. After that we got closer -- I really loved him -- and eventually I moved into his place, a room in a shared house. This was a disaster, no room for my stuff, no privacy, lots of mess. We fought all the time.

After getting some counseling I pulled myself together and got another job. Then, I went to London for a couple of days and he goes out in my absence, takes Ecstasy and gets off with a work colleague. I found out about this soon afterward and he starts to stay out all night at her place, leaving me in our room, in bed, alone. So, distraught, I moved out to some friends for a while and tried to concentrate on my new job and getting a place to live.

He came over to help me paint my new room and we ended up back in bed. So this goes into a year of him going to and fro between me and the other woman and me ending up distraught, a total mess, having panic attacks, unable to drive my car. She generally takes precedence over me in his affections and time, but each time I try to cut him off, he hounds me with e-mail and phone messages until we're back together. He says that he has little in common with her and prefers my company, but praises her matching underwear, social connections and thinner body. I met a couple of other people during this time, but nothing ever happened, as I was too wrapped up in this man.

I slept with a work colleague on a couple of occasions, but it was a mistake. I told him about this and he went ballistic and very jealous, even though he's mostly with her. Then she moves back home (she is from Europe). I'm really happy about this and he says that it's over be between them, but she continues to write (I read some of the letters lying around his room, which was a bad mistake), visit and phone. Each time she visits, or he visits her, I'm totally devastated as he drops me like a stone, but then afterward he makes a big effort to win me back.

Then, earlier this year he hangs around for a bit, unsure about the future. I spend ages being supportive of him and trying to encourage him to do what he really wants to do -- he hated his last job anyway and wanted to change careers. He even asks me to buy a house with him -- as a business venture -- but I decline as I know he's still seeing the other woman. So he decides that he wants to travel and goes away to Africa for a month. Then he comes back and we go on holiday together. She finds out about this -- we have some mutual friends -- and according to his story dumps him. So then he moves back home to Scotland and we have three or four months of living apart, spending as much time together as possible visiting or going away together, getting on really well. Then, as is his dream, he decides to go and travel the world by himself, not at any point asking me to go (I don't have the money to give up my job and travel anyway). In the meantime, my mum has offered to help me buy a house, so I've just bought my own place with a great deal of help from my parents.

So we've been e-mailing each other (he's in the Far East) most days and talking and keeping in touch. He says that he misses me all the time and wishes I were there. This is tearing me up, as I love him, but I don't trust him at all. I think it's only a matter of time before he meets somebody else, though he claims to be only thinking of a future with me and that he's changed. He's going to New Zealand and wants to live there, perhaps permanently. I'm trying to sort my house out, working away, trying to pay off my considerable debts from postgraduate study, trying to work out want I want to do next. I haven't been totally honest in my relationship with him either. I've seen (and slept with) a few other people this year -- four to be exact. My ex is an extremely jealous and possessive person and would be devastated if he knew of my infidelities to him. He comes from an extremely messed-up family background (alcohol, divorce, infidelity, child abuse) and I think this explains, though does not excuse, some of his behavior.

He's also the first person I've met who I click with totally: We get each other's jokes, have the same interests, love to do things together, and we have house-shakingly great sex. We also fight and disagree all the time, but that adds to the attraction. But last week, after a great deal of heart searching, I decided that I should stop having any contact with him and e-mailed to tell him so. I'm 31 and I'd like to meet somebody to settle down with and have babies. I'm sick of all the mess and the hurt that I've been through in the last four years. I don't want to go to New Zealand to live, I'm happy here. But (and most of your letters seem to be about the "buts" in life) I miss him terribly already. I feel empty, but I feel free. Should I be practical and rational and tough and stick this out and hope to meet somebody else who's more, erm, functional? Should I e-mail him and demand that he come home? Should I just e-mail him, so we can be friends and see what happens? Should I be honest with him? I'm scared that I'll never meet anybody else that I have the same feelings about, but I'm also scared that he's the wrong person and that if we stay together, I'll be unhappy.

Bereft in England

Dear Bereft,

What kind of unhappiness do you prefer? Do you prefer the kind of unhappiness that makes you scream with rage and break windows, or the kind of unhappiness that makes you wander the moors, bleakly wondering if you are alive or dead? The unhappiness of rage leaves no doubt as to your existence but often brings harm to others. The unhappiness of melancholy, or depression, on the other hand, is a kind of emotional suicide, an abnegation of desire, a turning away.

Choosing your brand of unhappiness is a way of beginning to think about happiness. The happiness that is the opposite of rage is ebullience. The happiness that is the opposite of melancholy is serenity. Which appeals to you? You could swing between both. In fact you probably are doing that already. Perhaps what has occasioned this letter is that the rage has tired you out and now you are ready for depression. I would guess that ebullience would appeal to you, and that therefore it is probably what you most despise, and why you would never marry a soccer player.

Does this make any sense? Are you beginning to see that you are at war with yourself?

Being at war with yourself, you must know your enemy. I think that the enemy in your case is the woman who is tired of the excitement and would like nothing more than to sit calmly and drink a cup of tea with her mum. That is such a boring and uninspired thing to do that somewhere in your battle manual you have instructions to destroy that boring and uninspired person, because she is not desirable to the kind of man who is writing you letters from New Zealand. So you have been systematically destroying that woman, in order to keep him happy.

Of course, the obvious truth is that if you win the war against yourself, you die and are thus disqualified. So you and the boring woman you hate have to find a way to peacefully coexist. She does not like this guy who keeps betraying her. You, of course, betray her as well when you accept his betrayal, but she accepts that from you, because you are her twin against which a war cannot be won without death.

The more I talk about you, the more you begin to sound like Sylvia Plath. But she would know what to do. She would go write some poetry and then kill herself again.

So please, don't kill yourself. Just accept the fact that you have had enough excitement for one lifetime and that it's time for you to settle down with your mum and drink a cup of tea.

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