This week in the Love Lab:

Dump you significant others ass, and let them move on.

I’m a 23-year-old guy and I have been dating my 21-year-old girlfriend for two years. After she graduated, she moved from the East Coast to the Midwest to be with me while I finish my degree. Everything was great until she moved in. She has a 9-to-5 job and pays her bills. After work, though, all she wants to do is get high, drink, and watch TV. I find myself cooking every meal, cleaning up after her, and doing all the laundry. On top of this, a very mean side of her has emerged.
I know that we all have our shitty qualities and that I am a shitbag for thinking this stuff, let alone writing to you, but what should I do? If I stay with her, I’m neglecting my future happiness. But if I dump her, I break her heart, which I don’t want to do. Plus, she moved halfway across the country for me.
Shitty Boyfriend In The Midwest

This is inelegantly put, I realize, but it came to mind when I read your letter and my Tourette’s requires me to put it in print: If not break her heart now, SBITM, then when? And if not you, SBITM, then who?
Look, darlin’, people get dumped all the time. And you know what? Most of us require dumping in our 20s. Yeah, yeah: hearts break. But very few hearts break irreparably. She will get over it. Which is another way of saying that one day, believe it or not, she will get over you.
And here’s why being dumped is often good for us: After a person is done wallowing in a pain that no one else has ever experienced or can possibly comprehend—although others’ inability to comprehend never seems to stop a dumped person from yammering on and on—the person begins to examine the failed relationship for clues. Why did it end? Whose fault was it? If the dumped person determines that fault lies with the asshole ex, the dumped person resolves to be on the lookout for telltale signs of assholery in the future. The dumped person dates smarter and more defensively.
But often a little voice in the back of the dumped person’s head tells the dumped person that the fault is theirs—that she, in this instance, was a stoned, drunk, inconsiderate, mean-spirited sack of shit—and the dumped person resolves to change or date only people attracted to stoners and drunks and slobs.
So dump her, SBITM. Then, while she packs and verbally lashes out and fucks your friends, remind yourself that dumping her was the loving thing to do for her. There is no other option—unless, of course, you’re willing to spend the next seven decades cleaning up after this inconsiderate piece of shit.

I’m writing not for advice, but to open up a discussion. For five years I had a famous partner and eventually lost him to groupies. I was aware that he might one day be tempted to explore this side effect of his career, so I wasn’t too surprised when he finally made the decision to “go there.” However, I am left with some unsettling thoughts, apart from the heartache.
To him, this is a harmless and fun chapter in his life, but I see a darker side. His relationships now feature a misbalance of power. I feel a healthy adult seeks sex with equals. To me, groupies act like unpaid prostitutes, and my ex has decided it’s okay to use girls who adore him without giving much in return. I can’t see how this can be of benefit to either the girls or to him. I worry that these experiences help form permanent negative patterns. Harmless fun? I don’t think so. Any thoughts?
Worried Ex

Just one, WE: How is this any of your business?

Yes, groupies are like unpaid prostitutes—but they are compensated, WE, with refracted fame, the dubious perks of being “with the band,” and the human papapapineapple virus (or whatever it’s called). So I hardly see these assignations as necessarily one-way exchanges. The use is mutual. Your ex may be permanently damaged by this kind of attention or he may tire of cheap, meaningless sex and come crawling back to you. Or, hell, he may one day star in a squalid and depressing reality show in which he deludes himself into believing that the women who surround him desire his paunchy old body and his surgeon-battered face and not a shot at reality-show fame.
But, again, what business is it of yours? He’s your ex and the women he’s sleeping with are consenting adults. We can tut-tut and conclude that your ex is using these women and that these women are no better than hookers... and so what? You’ll still be his ex, he’ll still be banging groupies, and groupies will go on chasing rock stars long after your ex is playing the casino circuit.

Dan Savage's pocast is linked here: http://columbiacitypaper.com/Savage-Love/
Dan Savage’s podcast is now linked at columbiacitypaper.com   This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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