Dear Sasha, Here's my problem, I am helplessly in love with my ex-boyfriend. We work at the same company and I see him fairly often. At this point he is not speaking to me and it is bothering me deeply.

Here's the drill-he is hands down the most beautiful person I've ever met, both inside and out-mentally, physically and personality-wise. He is a mensa, and for that reason, combined with his political ideas and general way of viewing the world, I really looked up to him as it were.  I will also add that I was raised in a very conservative household, and my Father is racist (and it always really bothered me).  It also happens that I'm white, my ex is black.  In short it was a wonderful time.

Here's where the breakdown occurred. He slept at another woman's house about 6 months in. He said that he was ill, and had texted a number of friends about it, and she insisted that he come over, at 2 in the morning. I was asleep at my own home and didn't get his message.  He told me about it and stated that nothing happened, she was just his friend.  I found it highly suspect and freaked out. I cried, acted like a 12 year old. In hindsight, I should have spoken to him about it in a normal, non-contentious manner. I had been cheated on before, but that's no excuse for mistrusting him and being accusatory. I actually don't think he did anything that night, I honestly believe that he just wasn't feeling well.

The day after this contentious fight about the other girl, he received bad news. He would not tell me what happened, just left town for an overseas trip. He came back about a week and a half later and didn't tell me he was arriving in town. We went to lunch that day and he was really cold and distant. I knew it was family related but was concerned about the fact that we didn't speak the whole time he was gone and that he was so aloof when he returned. I was used to speaking to him every day and spending the majority of my week with him. I was so self absorbed though, and so hurt and anxious from the recent fight that I didn't even consider the stress he had been under, or what he had been going through.

The next day, he said I was stressing him out and he dumped me. I am doing a lot better now, but I was devastated. have to admit-I am scary when I get upset. I cry, I get emotional, I try to fix things.  We stopped speaking for a few months.

Anyway, throughout our relationship, he would say some hurtful things, along the lines that I was racist, or that I wasn't attracted to him and didn't love him and that I wasn't attracted to him or that he questioned his integrity for dating me. In other words, a  bone of contention between us was that he thought I was racist, and I would lose it over what I perceived as rejection.  However these incidents were pretty rare-and the remainder of our time together was characterized by a sweet, easy and healthy dynamic.

Since we work at the same company, we share an interoffice Instant Messaging system. Several times since then, we've started chatting over IM. We'll usually end up discussing politics, and then it seems that every time we are becoming friends again, he will get angry over a political comment I make and tell me I'm a horrible racist.  I then respond with some vitriol, like go eff yourself...and then we stop talking.

The other BIG thing is that he gave me HPV. I had been tested multiple times for everything before, and three months after we were intimate, I found a bump, a genital wart on myself. I've been told by my doctor that it was most likely passed to my sexual partner at the time. This is an awful, humiliating thing to have. It's deeply distressing to me, and I'm pretty angry at him for not acknowledging or even discussing it.  I've tried to talk to him about it, but he refuses to even speak to me.
 
Here's the thing-I miss him in every capacity and it feels like my heart is broken, literally. Can you help me figure out how to deal with or handle this?  Signed, L

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Wow, okay, that was a lot of stuff you wrote right there. I have to say this might take the cake for being the most bizarrely layered love story, ever. So let me cut through all of the bullsh-t and tell you right now that this “relationship” is over. It’s so far gone and polluted that you’re never going to have what you had at the beginning, and to be honest, even in the best of times it sounded like crap.

If you don’t see that, I think it’s important for me to take this time to really spell it out for you:

1. You may or may not be a racist: Either way he thinks you are and I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing when you’re in a biracial relationship.

2. He may or may not have cheated on you: (Who the hell goes over to their “friend's” house at two in the morning when they're sick??) So you’re obviously battling some trust issues.

3. Someone may or may not have died in his family: The fact that you still seem unsure who or what happened during the time indicates that you guys have alarmingly poor communication.

4. He may or may not have given you an STI: I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of life-long commitment I dream of.

So L, seriously, does any of this sound worth holding on to?  Look, just because you love someone doesn’t mean it’s the right and healthy kind of love for you. And if I can be really straight up, I think what you’re most in love with in this relationship is the drama. I think you thrive off of it and I think that you think that fighting your way through something proves that it’s worth fighting for. IT’S NOT.

You need time apart from him and most importantly time away from obsessing over this unsalvageable relationship. It’s done and it will never be what you want it to be. So my advice it to cut things off with him entirely; that means stop talking to him, writing him and fighting with him. Cease all unnecessary contact. Trust me, this guy isn’t the one for you and the sooner you realize that the better.

Thanks for writing in and keep all your LIFE + STYLE questions coming my way to [email protected]