Dear Coquette,

You seem like someone who knows something about healthy anger. I just tapped into some serious rage over childhood sexual abuse in a therapy session. My therapist is wonderful and is proving to be a great guide through this, but I’d also love some advice from my favorite ass-kicker. How do you stay angry? I’ve realized that I never let myself be angry, and I don’t want to lose it now.

Healthy anger? There’s no such thing. Your goal should not be to stay angry. Your goal should be to let go of your anger.

Right now it’s still fresh. You’re expressing anger that’s been suppressed for a long time. It feels good because you’ve experienced a breakthrough. That’s the healthy part of this process, and that’s the part you don’t want to lose.

Processing anger is a wonderful thing, but only if it allows you to move on, because anger is poison. Knocking it loose isn’t enough. You have to flush it out of your system.

Allow yourself to feel all of the emotions you need to feel, but don’t try to hold on to them afterwards. Anger leads to acceptance and ultimately to forgiveness. That’s where you want to end up: Forgiveness, and not for your abuser’s sake. For yours.

He’s got a lot of women swooning. He can have any one of them, and he chooses a few. He’s open about this. I’m one of them and so is she. He’s good to me. Great, in fact. It’s magical. But she’s also a stunning woman, a beautiful person, and very hard to hate. He doesn’t hide anything and tells me everything I want to know, but the jealousy still makes me insane. Do I have to give up this relationship because I’m too much of a pansy to handle it?

By your description of this other woman, it sounds like you’re more than just jealous. You’re also envious. Those are two separate but easily confused emotions that you need to deal with differently.

You should combat jealousy with trust, and you should combat envy with contentment. Remember, jealousy focuses on something you’re afraid to lose. Envy focuses on something you want to gain.

Your jealousy is your fear of losing him, but your envy is also your desire to have what she has. When you say she’s “very hard to hate,” that’s your envy talking. Get rid of the envy, and you’ll suddenly find her “very easy to love” instead.

Most likely your single biggest problem is that you feel like every hour he spends with her is an hour he doesn’t spend with you, but you simply can’t allow yourself to think like that. An open relationship is not a zero-sum game. If you’re gonna share, you can’t do it begrudgingly.

You have to trust that he’s being completely open and honest with you, and you have to be content with the time you spend together. If you can’t, that’s OK. Don’t stay in the relationship if it’s making you miserable.

Dear Coquette,

Why won’t guys look at me? I’m 30, pretty, smart, well-educated and have a good career. I like to think I’m a strong woman (or at least appear to be strong, since I’m whining here). Yet when I go out with friends, all of whom are in relationships, guys hit on my friends, never on me. It’s like I don’t exist. True, I’m not very good at hitting on guys, but my friends get hit on without doing anything. Damn, sending this question feels weird.

Either you’re wrong about being pretty, or you’re wrong that guys never hit on you. Take your pick. It’s one or the other.

If you’re willing to jump right in and call yourself pretty, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, which means that unless you’re an insufferable bore or a big pile of awkward, you’re probably just clueless when it comes to being hit on.

Odds are, you have a selective memory. You remember all the guys who hit on your friends, and you remember all the guys who didn’t hit on you when you wanted them to, but you don’t remember any of the poor bastards who tried hitting on you when you weren’t interested.

Of course, pointing this out doesn’t solve the real problem, which is that you secretly think all your friends are much more attractive than you. It doesn’t matter whether this is objectively true. What matters is that you believe it to be true.

Yes, that’s really the problem. I didn’t need to know that all your friends are in relationships, but you thought it was important enough to tell me. It bugs you. That’s the tip of your iceberg of resentment.

This entire question is a head-fake towards male attention when at your core you have issues with female competition among your friends. You start out with, “Why won’t guys look at me?” when what you’re really asking is, “Why are guys looking at them?”

That kind of indignation is poisonous to female friendship, especially when you don’t recognize that it’s there. You need to acknowledge some of your underlying feelings about your friends, and deal them with before your negativity starts to fester.

Dear Coquette,

I’ve just realized that I treated one of my exes very poorly during our break-up. I feel terrible about it and it was never my intention to be cruel, and I want to apologize. I understand this is just me trying to get rid of the guilt I’m suddenly feeling, but do you think it could be mutually beneficial? Should I try a short and direct call or email or just forget about it?

If you genuinely believe that an apology might have a positive effect on your ex, then it’s something to consider. If an apology will have a negative effect on your ex, and you’re just trying to get rid of the guilt, then don’t do it.

The whole point of an apology like this is that it’s not about you. It’s entirely about someone else’s feelings. The goal should be closure for your ex, and any benefit you derive from that is incidental.

I’m 20 going on 40. He’s 30 going on 20. Does this work? Or am I just fooling myself into thinking our respective stages in life won’t get in the way of a serious relationship?

You’re fooling yourself, but not about what you think. You’re not going on 40. You just think you’re way more mature than you actually are. He’s not going on 20. He’s just an emotionally stunted man-child more comfortable dating a girl than a woman.

Yes, you’re still a girl. Quit making that face.

The good news is that your respective stages in life won’t necessarily get in the way of a serious relationship. You’re not gonna live happily ever after, but hey, sticking it out for a year or two at your age definitely counts for something.

I’m in love, but we’re going to college next year. She to Yale, I to Vanderbilt, so it’s most likely too far to keep a relationship in college. Do I just let it go or give a long-distance relationship a shot freshman year in college? It seems like it’d be near impossible, but I want to know what you think about it. Thanks, Coquette.

Let it go. Try to make it as mutual as possible. Your heart will break and you will miss her terribly that first semester at college. Still, if you say your goodbyes and split amicably, you’ll end the relationship on a high note.

If you try to stick it out, at best your relationship will die a slow death of long-distance starvation. At worst, incidents of infidelity will destroy your mutual respect. Either way, it ends badly.

It’s hard to see now, but the best outcome is that you remember each other fondly in the years to come. Life is long. It’s much better to have your first love as a friend 10 years later.

Dear Coquette,

I’m currently stewing in a pretty classic dilemma and would love your help. I’ve been into this guy for a few months now. He’s everything I want in a dude — intelligent, funny, genuinely kind, a great dresser, and has fantastic taste in music/books/movies. He’s been flirting with me pretty heavily, but then last night (after kissing me on the head and telling me he wishes we were closer) he mentioned that he has a girlfriend.

Obviously I’m disappointed — I’m just trying to figure out the best course of action from here. It’s inevitable that I’ll see him at least 3x a week for the next month or so. Do I try to get over him via ferocious makeout sessions with strangers at parties? How do I move on with dignity mostly intact?

This is neither classic, nor a dilemma. You are not stewing, and there’s nothing you need to move on from. At worst, you are experiencing minor disappointment over what amounts to garden-variety douchebaggery from some dude in one of your classes.

You don’t need to get over this guy. If anything, you need to get over yourself. Feel free to have ferocious makeout sessions with strangers at parties, but not for his sake. Don’t make anything you do be about him. He isn’t even worth the time it’s taking me to answer your self-absorbed little question.

Get a handle on your crush, kiddo. You felt a few warm and fuzzies, but the guy is unavailable and probably not all that trustworthy. Recognize that it’s not a big deal, and quit letting it go to your head.

We broke up, yet we’re still having sex and spending time together, having agreed that dating other people is cool as long as we communicate about anyone new. After talking about this, he said he still has no interest in dating anyone else other than me. My reaction to this is a feeling of guilt and an uncomfortable control over our relationship. I can’t tell whether continuing this is a good idea or not. Any advice?

You never broke up. Not even a little bit. Either end it for real, or acknowledge that you’re still in a romantic relationship, albeit one that’s past its expiration date.

If you don’t know how to break up, the first step is to stop having sex and spending time together. The next step is to stop allowing yourself to be emotionally manipulated by your ex. After that, I highly recommend actually dating other people.

After being with my boyfriend for about a year, I’m about to become single again due to distance, amicable differences, and his college graduation. Any advice on how to adjust to being single again without total emotional destruction?

Total emotional destruction? He’s graduating, not dying. Yeah, it’ll suck on a few lonely nights, but don’t be a drama queen. Have a few good cries, spend lots of time with your friends, and eventually you’ll find that you’ve moved on.

Dear Coquette,

I met a guy last week at a gay friend’s party. We hit it off, but he is bisexual and doesn’t believe in monogamy. I am also bisexual, a woman who mainly sleeps with men, and sees marriage to a man in my future. I have considered open relationships but have never tried one. A few of my friends (most of them gay) are in open relationships and it seems to work. I feel like I can fall in love with this man as we have so much in common and we connect on so many levels. I am 31 and want a family soon, and I want to let myself fall in love with him but am scared that I will get hurt if we pursue an open relationship. I know it’s only the early days but a part of me wants to try and experience this new sexual frontier in a loving and supportive manner. Another part of me wants to run for the hills.

My, what a lovely collection of red flags you have.

Let’s start with the fact that you’ve only known this dude for a week and you’re already talking about letting yourself fall in love. Come on, you’re old enough to know better than that. These are not the early days of a relationship. These are still the early hours of a crush. Get a grip.

It’s perfectly fine if you want a family soon and don’t want to waste time dating men with no long-term potential, but don’t confuse having high standards with this romantic version of a fight-or-flight response. You’re acting like a love-stoned teenager, and that’s no way to make a rational decision about a potential partner, especially one who challenges your ideas about commitment.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t explore new sexual frontiers with the non-monogamous bisexual guy, but you shouldn’t kid yourself either. If you want that experience, you’re probably gonna have to hit the snooze button on your biological clock for a hot minute, because new sexual frontiers are almost never the path that leads to marriage and kids.

This has nothing to do with monogamy, by the way. Open relationships can be great, but you both still have to have the same life goals. You are ready to settle down and start a family. Is this guy ready to settle down too? Will he freely admit to wanting children in the next five years? I kind of doubt it.

It’s wonderful that you’re smitten, and it’s understandable that you’re a bit freaked out by the implications of an open relationship, but don’t get distracted from your relationship fundamentals. Are you two genuinely compatible, and do you share long-term life goals?

Relax. You don’t have to answer that question until at least the second week.