DEAR SUSAN: I've been dating a lady for some time, and we've gotten to know each other well. What worries me is that she reminds me of my ex-wife — so much so that I'm afraid things between us will work out the same way they did with my failed marriage. She smothers me with her love, which is a similarity that scares me. I am at a loss and don't know what to do. I'm trying to cool things down between us, but she takes it as a put-down. — From the "Single File" blog

DEAR BLOGGER: It looks (and feels) as if you're replaying your first marriage. This new woman has a style of loving you — "smothering" — disturbingly similar to your former wife's and then feels rejected when you point it out. If she can't hear it and you can't say it, what hope is there for the give-and-take of a long relationship between the two of you?! Give-and-take is so crucial to the continuation of the relationship; it needs sorting out now. No excuses, please, for delay. Smart of you to spot this similarity to your first marriage and nip it in the bud. If this woman can't see the danger and persists in smothering you with her style of "love," well, it will hurt for a while, until the relief makes itself manifest. Old patterns die hard.

DEAR SUSAN: I really like this guy. He's smart, funny and solvent. But — this comes with a lump in my throat — he is too sexed for me. He wants to go to bed all the time, day or night, and doesn't particularly care whether I do or don't. What would marriage to him be like? — From the "Single File" blog

DEAR BLOGGER: In a word, hell. Don't kid yourself into thinking that things would be different after a wedding. That he'd suddenly soften and begin to care deeply about your input is airy-fairy stuff. It just wouldn't happen, and month after month of being shut out of (his) life would wear badly. Very badly. You'd start to feel like a mute, unable to express yourself next to this goliath. And the resentment inside would build to a point where it would express itself in the wrong places, in wrong ways. You'd embarrass yourself and him. Things between you would go badly. There, I've painted a dark future for marriage to him. Now, what were you thinking about seeing other people?

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