Independent While Dependent by Susan Deitz on Creators.com

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Independent While Dependent

DEAR SUSAN: Our youngest daughter, 24, is a college graduate. Now she's back in school for a second degree, and she works (in the field of her advanced studies) while attending school. Currently living at home, she has taken on a boyfriend 10 years her senior. The problem is she is sleeping with this person several days a week in her room in our house. We are looking for an answer as to the rightness or wrongness of this one-year relationship. (I'm also enclosing my check for your book "Single File." I am sure it will be good reading.) — Concerned Dad, Long Island, N.Y.

DEAR CONCERNED DAD: Your book is being mailed first class. Tucked into it is my "Declaration of Undependence," a credo your daughter might want to consider. It might just spark a lively conversation with you and her mom; at least, that is my hope. An honest dialogue among the three of you may open up some honest (but repressed) feelings on both sides of the issue.

But when you ask about the rightness of the sexual relationship taking place under your roof, my advice turns cautious. There are questions that must be asked: Is your wife as baffled about the goings-on as you? Does she also disapprove? If so, the talk you will initiate with your daughter should encompass independence. She's a big girl now, educated and productive, so she should consider taking her own apartment — or rooms in a large house, perhaps near her college. She earns a paycheck; she's earned a degree (and working on a second). She needs to earn respect — yours, as well as hers. I have a hunch she's as bewildered as you are by her choices, and she may very well be able to exhale with relief when the three of you finally confront the situation.

With love and respect on all sides, the conversation can't help but end well.

Maybe the three of you will go to a nearby eatery to share the first relaxed meal in a long time. She needs to realize that she's asserting her independence through this sexual relationship but that she is doing it while dependent, in her parents' home. It's inappropriate, inconsiderate and disturbing for all involved, and she needs to realize that.

DEAR SUSAN: Answering your survey: I would love to have one love for a lifetime, but instead I have found one at each stage of my emotional growth. I am 60 years old and have been divorced for 25 years. I have had several long-term relationships with wonderful men. As for the second question, no way do I expect or want sex on the first date. I only date men who want to know ME. If all a man wants is a body, let him find another one. They are pretty much interchangeable. P.S. I love your column! — Eileen E., Moline, Ill.

DEAR EILEEN: In all the 450 questions I asked, the issue of lifetime love or loves at different stages is the one that held the most fascination for me. Even as I composed the question, I knew what the majority of respondents would answer. (Listen carefully, readers.) The question drew an overwhelming response from the 1,900 singles who took part in the survey, even from those men and women whose marriages had ended and therefore disqualified them from attaining one love for a lifetime. In spite of their reality, they STILL said they dreamed of one love for a lifetime. Pfft! There goes the myth of the swinging single. Good riddance.

The findings in my survey (codified and nationally representative) confirmed my strong belief in the decency of the unmarried community. No swingers or swappers there; after the first rush of liberation from marriage, 99 percent of men and women who found themselves single for one reason or another wanted to be part of a loving, warm relationship. They found the sexual overchoice of single life tacky and degrading, not the fun it was sold as being. Oh, how proud I am of singledom.

Write to Susan Deitz in care of this newspaper. She will answer all letters that come with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Or you may e-mail her at info@creators.com.