Tell ex, no more online exchanges

Dear Carolyn: My ex from two years ago and I didn’t speak at all after the breakup, but since the beginning of this summer, we have been talking online for hours every day. It is totally innocent and will never turn into anything romantic ever again.

The wrench is, he has this shrewish, controlling new girlfriend who ended our relationship and hates me.

Am I in the wrong for tacitly condoning this behavior? I told him once I would only talk to him if he was honest with his girlfriend about it (not that I care about her feelings, but it seemed like the moral thing to do), but that went by the wayside when he reminded me said girlfriend is totally unreasonable about these things and is easier sidestepped than confronted. What say you?

– D.C.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAGH, say I.

You’re both making this “shrewish, controlling,” not-at-all-new, two-year girlfriend sound more sympathetic than she probably deserves.

If he has such a big problem with her “unreasonable” rules, then he can break up with her. Knock-knock.

And taking someone’s attention for “hours every day” is not innocent when a fairly established girlfriend probably feels she has a rightful claim to at least some of that time; and when that time is instead going to his ex, who resents her and has ample motivation to undermine her; and when he’s lying, by omission or otherwise, about how he’s spending his time. Maybe the girlfriend is a shrew who done you wrong, but you’re being pretty horrible to her, too – and you’re doing so for the dubious privilege of spending time with a guy who so lacks the courage to break up with women himself that he needs to recruit other women to do it for him.

So, the better question here is, what say you? I would suggest: “No, thanks.”