My girlfriend's best friend is her ex. They broke up six years ago (upon mutual agreement). She swears she's much happier being his friend and says they both feel they weren't meant to be romantic partners. Well, she clearly adores the hell out of him, and he's her go-to guy for her problems (family, career, and probably any issues with me). She respects my opinion, but sometimes I feel she only asks for it so I won't feel second banana to him. We've only been dating eight months, and I feel she believes what she says about their friendship, but part of me worries that she's still in love with him but not aware of it. During one of their long phone chats, if he said he wanted to be with her after all, I suspect I'd be dumped fast.

If this were a chick flick, you'd be the plot device -- the guy the girl's with just so she can figure out that she should marry the other guy. (Start worrying if you roll over in bed and see a couple of prop men unplugging your lamp.)

Of course it's hard for you to believe that a guy who once wanted her body now just wants her ear. Their insistence that they're just friends does run contrary to the wisdom of the noted therapist Billy Crystal, who warned in his seminal work, "When Harry Met Sally," that "men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." Sure it does -- mainly when they have yet to have sex with each other. But, these two have been there, done each other (and done each other and then some). Chances are, the thrill of the chase really has given way to the thrill of getting on the phone so they can cluck like two excitable hens.

People commonly think love is only supposed to come in groups of two, like on the ark. But, this "two-topia" -- the notion that one person will meet your every emotional, sexual, and career counseling need (while leading you in a killer ashtanga workout) -- is actually an impossible ideal. The truth is, in addition to your romantic partner, you can have another deeply important person in your life -- a friend-plus! -- who you love more than a typical friend but who you don't love naked (or don't love naked anymore).

And sure, if your girlfriend has a BFF, you'd prefer it to be somebody named Melanie, whose interests run the gamut from shoes to shoes. And yes, she could suddenly decide to "put the ex back in sex." But, six years post-breakup, it's likely her attraction is more therapeutic -- having a longtime friend to lean on who's probably helped her dust all the skeletons hanging in her closets (home, office, and beyond). Don't get all wound up in trying to compete with him or meet her every need; you just need to meet enough of them and keep getting to know her. Throw yourself into your relationship instead of obsessing that it will end, and try to focus on the merits of their friendship. This guy enhances her life, and if her life is enhanced, she's enhanced, and so is her life with you...even if that flies in the face of everything you've ever heard about how love is "supposed" to play out. (Shakespeare wrote "Romeo and Juliet," not "Romeo, Juliet, and Bob.")

Two male friends who know I'm happily married have made a pass at me recently. One's kind of a player, so...whatever. The other I considered a very good friend (of seven years), and I find myself remarkably angry with him. Some friend. I feel like posting a blog item, "I have never been unfaithful to my husband and never will be."

When one dog tries to hump another, it generally isn't because he finds the other dog ethically sketchy. I get that you aren't a chihuahua with computer privileges, but there's a good chance the thought process for these guys was dog-humpingly deep. I had you send me your photo, and you're gorgeous. Men make passes at women who are blindingly attractive -- and not necessarily because they devalue them as friends or think they'll be quick to toss their wedding ring on another man's night table. Sometimes, impulse, dirty martinis, desperation, and seven years of a woman's hotitude just come to a head. This isn't to say you should excuse what these guys did or continue being friends with them if that's painful, but it may help to understand that the calculation here may not have involved a comprehensive risk/benefit analysis...beyond you're beautiful and they're drunk, and if they're going to be relegated to meaningless anonymous sex, they'd like it to be with you.

Two years ago, my man left his 22-year marriage to be with me, but he told me he loved his former wife and would always want a friendship with her. I accepted that (I'm friends with my ex), but I'm bothered by the amount of contact they have. They do have two adult children and own property together. But, although she's living with a new partner, she sometimes wants to borrow his car, have him pick up the dogs, or drop off some paperwork. They phone about every other day, and not a week goes by without his stopping over -- occasionally for a family dinner. I get plenty of his time, energy and affection, and I know their relationship isn't romantic. The issue is split loyalty -- all the effort he's putting into remaining "loving friends" with a woman who'd love to see our relationship fail. Am I being petty and jealous? It feels like she's clinging hard -- and so is he.

--The One Who Stole Her Man

Once you get to a certain age, there's no starting a relationship with a clean slate. You meet somebody and it's never "Hi, here I am, just me and this little suitcase!" -- unless his entire family disappeared into a giant sinkhole or went back in time while on vacation and was caught in the volcanic eruption at Pompeii.

There is much to be said for having a mature attitude about one's divorce. Friends of the divorced encourage it by emailing inspirational quotes like "When one door closes, another door opens." Annoyingly, in this case, that quote continues "And then that first door opens back up and a woman leans out and asks what time your man'll be coming over to take the dog to the vet."

Jealousy is the guard dog of human relationships, an evolutionary adaptation that helps us defend ourselves against mate-swiping. As cognitive psychologist Dr. Nando Pelusi and I discussed recently on my weekly radio show (blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon), jealousy is productive when there's a real threat that your partner might fall for someone else and leave you for them. Jealousy is counterproductive when you know he's going to leave you for someone else -- but just for a few hours a week to drop off some paperwork and deworm the dog.

Of course, to be human is to be small and petty. (To be successfully small and petty is to not let it show.) Lashing out, snapping, "Excuse me, but wasn't she supposed to get her husband privileges revoked in the divorce?" will just make him defensive. Instead, use your vulnerability in a powerful way. Evoke his sympathy by saying something like "Listen, I understand that you two have kids and property and a friendship, but I'm feeling a little insecure about all the time and attention you're devoting to her." Chances are he'll reassure you by explaining why you have nothing to worry about, and maybe even consider dialing it back a little. On the bright side, you're with a guy who isn't one to drop-kick his obligations the moment some husband-stealing hussy comes along. Maybe try to laugh at how happy endings are sometimes the messiest and enough to make you pine for a good old Jerry Springer-style breakup. At least when one's dumping the other's clothes on the front lawn, pouring gasoline on them, and lighting them on fire, the logical human response isn't ringing the perpetrator up and asking to borrow their car.

One of my coolest girlfriends is in love with a total dud. He gets wasted at every party, talks in front of her about how hot other women are, and is generally pretty disrespectful of her. I keep wanting to yank him aside and ask him whether he knows how lucky he is. Now I'm thinking I need to yank my friend aside and tell her she can do better.

--Disgusted

It's considered an act of friendship to tell a girlfriend that she's got a piece of spinach stuck between her teeth. You'd think she'd be equally appreciative when you point out that she's got a soulmate stuck in some other woman's cleavage. But, her ego is probably all tied up in her belief that she's found love, and she'd probably just get combative. Instead of telling her she's making a mistake, try to get her to come to that conclusion by borrowing from an addiction therapy technique called "motivational interviewing." Get her to talk about what she wants (all the wonderful qualities she's seeking in a man), and then gently ask her how that stacks up against what she has. By drawing the discrepancies out of her, you're leading her to do the math: She hasn't so much fallen in love as she's slipped in a pile of something somebody should've picked up with a plastic bag.

For 10 years, this woman and I have had a hot-and-cold long-distance relationship, the temperature of which she's always controlled. She's 56; I'm 46. Last year, she felt ready to try for something lasting. She couldn't afford to travel, so I paid for her flight. She stayed with me for two wonderful, passionate months, and then we vacationed together in February. I paid for her flight, rental car, hotel, and meals. Again, it was very passionate. Last month, we vacationed together again, funded by me. The day she arrived, she declared her sex life a thing of the past. I was stunned and found sharing the bed rather challenging, but I've never forced myself on any woman and I'm not about to start. My friends are now fuming. I counter that in funding everything, it was never my intention to be paying for "horizontal refreshment." Was she wrong to agree to this trip and then change the terms of our relationship? Am I in denial in not feeling angry?

When you've been romantic with a woman for a decade and you're taking her on yet another "passionate" getaway, it's reasonable to expect she'll be interested in doing more in bed than letting you watch as she does the crossword puzzle. (If she's feeling kinky, you could be in for some mind-blowing sudoku.)

It cost you, what, $3,000 -- the price of a TV the size of a small European country -- to have her personally deliver the news that she wouldn't be having sex with you? You'd be leading your friends in fuming if you hadn't gotten all tangled up in your self-image as a gentleman. And no, just because a man buys a woman something -- dinner, for example -- that doesn't mean she owes him sex. But, let's be honest; we all know he isn't buying dinner out of an overwhelming desire to feed hungry females free lobster, and it isn't brotherly benevolence that's behind an all-expenses-paid vacation from a man who does not earn a living as a game show host.

The question is, was this woman's lack of pre-vacation disclosure a random act of jerkhood, utterly unpredictable, like a Russian satellite landing on some poor schlub's beater Yugo? Or, more likely, was it utterly predictable based on years of your showing her you'd take whatever she dished out? Your lack of anger is telling. Anger gets triggered when you feel somebody's shorted you on something you were entitled to -- like the courtesy of a phone call (before you paid for yet another "passionate vacation") informing you that the birds are taxidermied and the bees are dead.

Chances are, you're a too-nice guy -- a guy whose "niceness" is actually suckuppy-ness, who believes his perceived loserhood will be "cured" if only he can get into a relationship. Ironically, the loserhood is caused by the willingness to do anything for love. That doesn't get you love; it gets you doing anything and everything for it and ending up with blue balls and a big hotel bill. In the future, even if you can't quite believe you deserve a mutual relationship, you need to risk acting as if you do, and speak up and even bail whenever one turns out not to be. Everything won't always be 50/50, but you and a woman you take on a romantic vacation should be on the same page about the proper placement of the "Do Not Disturb" sign: on the doorknob all weekend, as opposed to around her neck.

Several of my Jewish friends have found love on JDate. I am a 32-year-old man who isn't Jewish and has no aspiration to convert but would like to give JDate a try. Huge faux pas?

JDate advertises that its mission is sustaining "Jewish traditions" -- apparently including the tradition of pissing off one's parents by getting together with a Catholic. Where I live, in the 21 to 41 age group, I counted 279 non-Jewish JDaters, including four lesbians looking for nice Jewish girls. The thing to be wary of is that people are prone to be overly inclusive at the point of sale. A woman may sincerely believe some interfaithy thing can work, and then the relationship gets serious and her parents lay on the pressure, and before you know it, you're getting dumped for Shlomo McShlomowitz. Should you end up dating some hot Hebrew, as tempting as it is to focus on all the ways you're compatible, you'd better dig into all the ways you're not. Sure, relationships are compromise, but it's one thing to put off the zombie movie till next weekend and another thing entirely to try to answer the question "What will the children be?" with "Jewish on Wednesdays and Catholic on the weekends?"

I've been with my boyfriend for three years. The first year was rocky. He was selling drugs, got addicted, and went to prison. Three months after getting out, he relapsed. I persuaded his mother to send him to rehab, and afterward I found us an apartment, where we've been for six months. He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills. His job just got cut back to 16 hours a week. He has applied for a handful of positions but isn't consistently looking, and he spends lots of time fishing. Meanwhile, I'm paying for groceries, dinners out and any puny vacations, and I've bought him new clothes so he'll look his confident best. When I say I'm exhausted pulling this much weight, he uses his sobriety as a tool, saying, "Look how much better I am; I did this all for you." My last relationship was much more equal, and I ended it because I felt like I didn't matter. I do like feeling important to this person, and I do like the love, affection and kindness he shows me.

It must have been hell for you in your previous relationship when stopping your boyfriend's self-destructive behavior only involved putting out messages like "Just say no to chicken-fried steak and the occasional cigar."

Some women do volunteer work; some women date it. You and your boyfriend are a classic combination, the drug addict and the enabler. Addict behavior is immature brat behavior -- throwing over tomorrow to get your rocks off (or snort some rock) today. These days, your boyfriend's nose might not be powdered ("Crack: The other white meth!"), but he's leaving you "gone fishing" notes instead of going looking for "help wanted" signs. Then again, why should he man up when he can always count on you to mommy up?

Welcome to "the well-intentioned path to hell," as Dr. Barbara Oakley puts it. Oakley, author of the fascinating book "Cold-Blooded Kindness," studies "pathological altruism," help that actually ends up hurting -- sometimes both the helper and the person she's supposed to be helping. Oakley explains that your boyfriend may not be the only one in the relationship who's been getting a buzz on: "Part of our sense of altruism -- of wanting to care for others at cost to ourselves -- is related to the positive feelings we get from our nucleus accumbens and related areas (the brain's pleasure center)...the same areas that are activated when we get high on drugs or gambling."

You have a choice: Keep pressing your paw on the little lever for your do-gooder's high, or accept the risk of seeking real love with the sort of man who can live without you but would really rather not. Real love means having a crush on a man as a human -- respecting and admiring who he is, as opposed to pitying him for what he's done to himself. A man who really loves you wants the best for you; he doesn't guilt-trip you ("I did this all for you!") into ignoring your own needs so you can better meet his. Should you decide to stay with your help object, inform him that you'll bail if he doesn't start putting out more than a clean urine sample. If he doesn't come through, either accept your fate as Mommy II or finally act on what you've spent three years pretending not to know -- that a woman without an addict is like a fish without a Smart car.

I'm a woman who's been online dating for two years. I've noticed that people who've been on the dating site as long as I have often put up different pictures. By never changing my picture in two years, am I broadcasting that I'm a loser? I feel changing it seems more loserish, as in, "Hey, anyone want me from a different angle?"

Do you also suspect Banana Republic is going out of business every time they update their store windows? Changing your picture is a way to say "New and Improved!" -- a classic advertising gambit that seems to perk up sales despite everybody knowing it probably means "Toothpaste's largely the same, but check out the butterfly and sparklies we added to the package!" Keep in mind that research has shown that men are drawn to flirty, smiley shots of women, and common sense says to avoid cropping all your photos at the shoulders, as this leaves a little too much mystery about what shape the rest of you is in. Have fun while posing and you should seem like you're having fun putting yourself out there -- as opposed to having fears that the next man at your side will be the utility worker who discovers you sitting mummified on your couch.