Dear Margo: I have been best friends with "Anne" since kindergarten. Until recently, we were both single and loving it. We went on a trip abroad with some friends, and I started dating "Julie." This was my first lesbian relationship, and it was new for me and everyone else.

Anne, I guess, didn't know how to take it and brings it up at awkward moments. Like when she is introducing me to new friends, she'll say, "This is the lesbian." Lately, when Julie, Anne and I are hanging out together, Anne will get mad at either Julie or me for no apparent reason (sure, we kiss, but it's normally a peck once or twice the whole time we are with her).

Anne and I are planning to go abroad again next summer, just the two of us. She keeps talking about how when we're there I'm going to hook up with every hot guy there. This puts a strain on our relationship. What is going on? — Suzanne

Dear Suz: Your longtime friend has known you as her straight girlfriend, and now she's clearly uncomfortable with the new development. Her prediction of hot-guy hook-ups makes this rather obvious.

I do think it is graceless to introduce anyone as "the lesbian," so you might ask her, when making future introductions, to say, "This is Suzanne." If she has trouble grasping your point, you might ask her if she would ever consider introducing anyone as "the Jew," "the fat boy," or "the one with A.D.D." — Margo, clarifyingly

When Nagging Need Not Be the Only Solution

Dearest Margo: I think my issue is one of the oldest in the book. My fiance and I currently live together. He owns his own business and works from home. I work in an office, and my job is extremely "people-intensive" and emotionally draining.

I often arrive home to a filthy house. I am expected to be peppy and upbeat while I clean up after him, cook dinner and listen to how his day has gone. I have brought this issue up a number of times, and while it might change briefly, we snap back into the same habits as soon as I quit my kvetching.

I don't want to go into our marriage already being the nagging wife, yet it is irritating that it does not occur to him to pitch in. When he chooses to, I am expected to practically give him a medal for doing what I unceremoniously do every day. Anytime the subject of our having children comes up, I simply cringe. I can only see it as another person to attend to!

What's most frustrating about this is, beyond these issues, he is an amazing man . . . the most charming, honest and sincere person I have ever known. I believe he loves me very deeply (as I do him). Is this just a case of you can't have it all? — Someday My Prince Will Clean

Dear Some: To your essential question, the last line of your letter, I would say the answer is "Yup." If you put great love — with an amazing man, the most charming, honest and sincere person ever — up against the fact that he's messy, it seems quite clear-cut to me.

I am not unsympathetic, however, to a working woman who comes home to find it looking like a cyclone blew through. Because you haven't had any luck trying to retrain him, why don't you both pop for a cleaning person? This resolution almost seems too obvious to have eluded you, but maybe that's why you wrote to me. — Margo, pragmatically

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Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers' daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to [email protected]. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered.