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New readers, welcome to Dear Wendy, a relationship advice blog. Read some of the most popular Dear Wendy posts here. If you don’t find the info you need in this column, please visit the Dear Wendy archives or the forums (you can even start your own thread), do a search in the search bar, or submit a question for advice at wendy(AT)dearwendy.com. I’m in my early 20s and met my boyfriend of three months on an online dating service. We fell in love within the first two weeks of our relationship and have recently started to discuss our respective pasts. Before we met in person, my boyfriend told me he believed he…

In a feature I call “Your Turn,” in which you, the readers, get to answer the question, I’m presenting the following letter without commentary from me: I work at a small grocery store in my hometown. I’ve worked there for a little over two years and I enjoy it for the most part. I started there when I was a junior in high school, and it allowed me to become very close to a girl I only vaguely knew before. We were practically inseparable and our manager would schedule us at the same because many of the customers said we were like a free comedy show. Last July, I decided to stay…

It’s time again for Shortcuts. For every question, I’ll give my advice in three sentences or less, because sometimes the answer to a person’s question is so obvious and the need to hear it so great, being as clear and frank as possible is simply the best way to go. Today we discuss post-breakup photo etiquette, lying spouses, and traveling with an undocumented immigrant boyfriend.

I was seeing a man — “Rob” — last summer, whom I agreed to keep things casual with until, you guessed it, we fell for each other. He started taking me on romantic dinners, telling me how he cared for me and buying me lovely gifts. However, I was set to leave for a graduate writing program in the United Kingdom. He and my friends threw me a fabulous going away party. He stopped short of telling me he loved me, saying, “I love this, I love that and I love…” and trailed off. The day I flew to the UK he gave me his suitcase and e-mailed me THREE times to…

I’ve been with my boyfriend for nearly two years. In about a month, I’m going away to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for a little over two weeks, with no contact with anyone in the United States. He’s never cheated on me before, but I’m so afraid he’s going to. I told him I was scared and he told me he would never do anything like that to me, and that I’m the only girl he wants to be with. He also said, “Why would I cheat with anyone from our town anyway? They’d tell you! And since you’re gone, I have nowhere to go outside of town.” Should I be worried? Or…

In a feature I call “Your Turn,” in which you, the readers, get to answer the question, I’m presenting the following letter without commentary from me: I am a 21-year-old female who recently finalized my divorce. We are both in the military, and we were long distance for our entire relationship which obviously made it hard. We had a whirlwind romance and got married after nine months of dating, thinking it would be possible that we would be able to get stationed near each other after we were married. Well, that turned out to not be the case, and we remained stationed on separate coasts. Almost immediately after we were married he…

I recently dated a guy for over a year, but due to the stress and emotional turmoil that the relationship put on me, and self-esteem issues that I suffered from originally, I became bulimic a few months into the relationship. Though I knew it was wrong, and that it could cause health issues, I didn’t stop until a few days before the relationship ended a few months ago. No one, especially my ex, knew about my eating disorder, and everyone believed that I was just eating right and exercising more, since that’s what I told them. After losing thirty pounds, I decided that I couldn’t live that unhealthy lifestyle anymore, and for…