Dear Readers, Bloggers and Commenters,

Thank you for the support, the interesting conversations and for all of your help. I won’t be posting any more letters - after everything that has happened in the last week or so, Lover and I have decided to take separate paths. And without her there isn’t a blog to write.

The decision for an abortion was ours and it wasn’t entered into lightly. Lover has read most of the comments and she might reply to some of them herself. I can only offer her my support, based on my own experience in the last ten days, to Lover and to anyone who faces such a decision:

Decide carefully, you have to live with it. Once you have decided, live your life. Don’t regret your choice, no matter what it is.

For everyone whose anonymous emails I still have, I will reply to you first and then delete your email. If you still want to post anonymously you should visit The Lives of Others.

I started the site out of frustration over some aspects of my relationship with Lover and never anticipated the levels of attention that the blog received - certainly not from the media. 19k+ readers have read Dear Lover since the 5th of May.

For the huge number of readers here who are irregular visitors to blogs I cannot recommend these people higher:

Annie Rhiannon, Damien Mulley, Bock the Robber, Darragh Doyle, Granny Mar, Irish Flirty Something, Jazz Biscuit, Le Craic, Midget Wrangler, Nathalie - CCC, Nutty Cow, Pedro Monscooch, Red Mum, Red Scrapbook, Rick O’Shea, Sarah Carey, Sinead Gleeson, Spanish Exposition, Stranded on Gaia, the Chancer, Thrift Criminal, Twenty Major, and Una Mullaly.

Love,
Me.

Dear Lover,

Remember when I said how great your family were and how shit mine are in comparison? I stand by every word. What good is religion of it splits families open?

Love,
Me.

I’ll be away for a bit longer but wanted to thank everyone for their support. I’ll start putting your anonymous posts up again soon.

Dear Lover,

You are about to make a huge decision. Can we talk about it properly first? Please?
I don’t know if it is a mistake. I don’t know how I feel. I just don’t want us to wake up a day/week/month/year later and regret it.

Love,
Me.

An anonymous submission:

Dear Chrysopoeia,
I am with you right now and we are lying in your bed. It is in this twilight, this haze of slumber, that everything is right. That everything is how it should be. That we are together.

It is two days ago and I am mad at you. Your parents are in town and they are taking us out tomorrow. I don’t have a nice shirt with me and I want to go home and get something else to wear. You want me to stay, and you don’t understand how I could want to go home. I think that you are with me because you are afraid that you will not find someone who is nicer than I am. I think that you are with me because I am older than you, and you want a father figure. I think that you are with me because you are afraid of being alone. I think that, even though you are one of the most unselfish people I know, you expect me to do everything for you.

It is three days ago and we are sitting on the couch. I feel like I don’t know you anymore. Like a lost child in a shopping mall, things feel out of place and awkward. It has been like this since you told me you still have feelings for him. When I ask you if you are hungry, I am really asking you if you still want me.

Your answer of thai food really tells me that you don’t know. That you are confused. That you like thai food because it is close, and you know it, but you sometimes think about this delicious miso you had years ago.

It is a week ago and we are both in your bed crying. We have been talking about where we are and where we both want to go. I want to settle down and start a family. You don’t. In the end we stopped talking, because we were too afraid to speak the truth. Afraid of endings. Afraid that we will make the wrong decision.

It is nine months ago and I am standing at your door for the first time. You are more beautiful than I ever knew. You are unlike anyone I have ever seen. Thinking back blurs my mind and it numbs any of my doubt. I don’t know where we are anymore. We move back and forth, from the past to the present, and like a Bosch painting everything falls apart.

How much longer we will continue to fool ourselves?
Up and down, up and down, and up and down again.

And now I am with you again, back in your bed and I am finally leaving for work - two hours late. I know where we have been and what we have said and experienced, but I do not know what tomorrow will bring. All that I know is that when I am with you, everything feels complete and whole. All that I can ask is that you feel the same.

Love,
Augurello

Feel free to send on your own anonymous love letters to here.

Dear Lover,

I promise to:

• Give you whatever support you need/want.
• Help you to make whatever decisions you need/want to make.
• Stand beside you when you tell your parents.
• Rub your feet after we go shopping for maternity clothes.

This is both better and worse than breaking up. It’s better and worse than you finding out about the blog (which now seems like the least of my worries). Its both better and worse than nearly everything.

I’m 27 later this year. I’ve never seen Australia. I voted for Dustin. I make less than 40k a year. I could be a Dad in a little more than seven months.

Oh shit,
Love Me.

Dear Lover,

You called me at lunch today:

Me: Hey!
You: Hi.
Me: Everything okay? You don’t sound too good.
You: Yeah.
Me: Sure?
You: No. We need to talk.
Me: What’s up?
You: Nothing. We just need to talk.
Me: Okay. Want to grab dinner in town?
You: Yeah. Meet you in CafeBarDeli about 8?
Me: Cool. You sure everything is okay?
You: Yeah.
Me: You breaking up with me? Hahaha.
You: No. Maybe. I don’t know. We just need to talk.
Me: O-okay.
You: Yeah. I’ll meet you at 8.
Me: O-okay.
You: It’ll be fine. I love you.
Me: Okay. Love you too.
You: Talk to you later.
Me: Bye.
You: Bye.

This can’t be good. Oh shit.
Love,
Me.

Dear David Kavanagh and Cathal McMahon,

(This post is made up of the comments from yesterday. All of them are reactions to your article)

Oh for fuck’s sake! - Jo

I don’t see psychologists coming out against the unhealthiness of advice columns… - Jo

I think we all need an outlet to communicate, and say the things that we can’t say out loud. Surely a couples councellor of all people should understand that it’s only healthy to get this stuff out in the open, and that not everything can be said to a partner, no matter how close a couple claims to be. - The Man Who Laughs

My husband agreed about the kudos for things that don’t deserve it though.
But he also likes to not speak about how he feels ever. - Jo

You can accuse anyone who works in the public arena of seeking attention - it’s irrelevant when the content is of a high quality and when people get something out of it. Not to mention all the assumptions he’s making. - Eli

I went to talk to a therapist. To make a long story short, she helped me out quite a bit. She suggested that I write down the things I was having a hard time telling my lover, even went so far as to say that if I did not feel comfortable with keeping a notebook / diary, I might want to start a blog. - Aaron

people interact differently than they did 20 years ago, big deal. - Tom

another fine example of the traditional Irish media misunderstanding the nature of the Internet. - Sinead

It’s like Post Secret without the pritstick. - Annie

And in case that wasn’t enough, Grannymar is armed and ready. (Complete with: umbrella, ring/knuckle duster, walking stick, shopping trolley, a can of hairspray and sharp nails.)

Thanks to everyone who read, emailed and commented yesterday.
Love,
Me.

ps - Would any else really like to get a GI-Grannymar action hero? Fully poseable and comes complete with umbrella, ring/knuckle duster, walking stick, shopping trolley, a can of hairspray and sharp nails.

Dear Irish Independent Readers,

I’ve been pshyco-analysed by psychotherapist, couples counsellor and relationship expert David Kavanagh. In Mr Kavanagh’s opinion Dear Lover is:

…just another element of generation Y – twentysomethings starved of attention as children who are now obsessed with celebrity culture…

…not a healthy thing to do.

There are thousands of blogs in Ireland (many of them are personal or include personal/relationship details). Does that make all of them unhealthy members of generation Y?

I’m not too sure how true Mr Kavanagh’s assumption on 40+ bloggers is either: “Putting your life out in public is not necessarily something that a 40-year-old would want to do”

Just to clarify a few other minor errors:

• No one has asked me to reveal my identity.
• I don’t think I’ve mentioned anything about ‘being treated like a metrosexual‘.
• Who mentioned how many hits Dear Lover has been getting?

Or maybe he is right and I should be going to therapy.

Love,
Me.