Just a thought about the girl mulling over life with Mike. In her letter, she mentions being attracted to/crushing on other guys, and that those feelings are making her question being with Mike for ever, or even just for now. What she needs to realize is that those feelings are normal, and probably won’t go away even if she does leave Mike and take up with someone new (either right away or eventually). I’ve been married to my husband for three years, and we dated for seven years before getting married, and I still get HUGE crushes on guys. I was worried, at the start of my marriage, that these meant I had made a big mistake. But, they always go away, or get replaced by a crush on the hottie of the week. And I am still deliriously happy with my husband — couldn’t imagine life without him, as he’s my best friend and confidant and all that other mushy stuff that you read in Hallmark cards.

Guess what I wanted to convey to Girl was that if the crushes are what’s making her question what is otherwise a great relationship, she should know that these crushes are normal. And they can even help the relationship (nothing wrong with a sexual fantasy every once in a while). It was clear that Girl had some other issues to work through, and maybe she can’t fully get through them while being half of a live-in relationship. And there’s something to be said for spending some time alone (it sounded like Girl hadn’t had any alone time — as in no boyfriend — for quite a while). But if her only problem now is the crushes/attractions, she should be careful she doesn’t throw away a good thing, because what’s around the corner probably won’t be much better.

Cat

I wanted to chime in on the situation with the psycho downstairs neighbor, because I’ve lived the psycho downstairs neighbor scene myself (not to the extreme your correspondent describes, but pretty damn annoying — she called the police to report that she heard my husband beating me, when nothing could have been further from the truth — that sort of thing). I agree with your advice to a point, but I also think that if Pissed-Off Neighbor is truly attached to her apartment, there are some things she can do.

First, her city may have a local tenants’ rights association. If so, she should contact them ASAP for advice — it’s likely free, and she may have more options than she realizes. In our case, when we contacted our tenants’ association, we learned that our landlord had the legal obligation to provide a safe and habitable environment, and that “habitable” does not include harassment from other tenants. We used this fact to our advantage in subsequent negotiations (see below).

Second, if she isn’t already, she should start documenting everything. Every taunt, every insult, every night of wall-shaking music, and in particular every complaint to the manager — who, by the way, is behaving like a real wimp-ass, from the sounds of things. (Not to lay all the blame at the innocent girlfriend’s feet, but she is technically responsible for what goes on in her apartment. Has the manager tried talking to her? Maybe they can spend time at Psycho’s place instead.)

Third, by all means bring the owner of the building into the loop. What we finally wound up having to do with our Psycho Neighbor was send a registered letter to the owner of the property management company, with full documentation of the problem and language provided by the tenants’ organization, informing him that a) we were aware that our legal rights as tenants included a safe and habitable living environment, b) the harassment we were undergoing was intolerable, and c) if he didn’t make the problem go away, it would be our pleasure to see him in court. Guess what? The problem went away very quickly.

We eventually left anyway, for other reasons, but we did so on our own terms. Pissed-Off Neighbor may eventually have to leave, too, but she’s not without options, and she’s not without power.

Once Pissed Off, Now Serene