Dear Abby: I am a 23-year- old woman who has always had a hard time letting people down or saying no. A few months ago, I met a man online who lived across the country, and within a week he was telling me he loved me.
We had several problems in the first few days, but we worked them out. Two weeks after he first told me he loved me, he proposed. We had never even met. Being the person I am, I said yes. He told me he was going to buy plane tickets for me, as soon as he could find a place to live. (He was living with his parents.)
I called him later that night to tell him I was deeply sorry, but I could not accept his proposal nor move to be with him. He became irate and told me he had already bought the tickets, and unless I was on that plane he would sue me for the money he’d spent. He has shown me no proof that he bought them.
Now he’s threatening to send some indecent pictures that he somehow managed to get from a past lover of mine to all my family and friends. Can he sue me, and how should I deal with his threats about the pictures?
– Not in Love
Dear Not in Love: Your online suitor appears to be both vindictive and an extortionist. Ignore his threats about posting the pictures. Can he sue you? If he bought the tickets, he might be able to take you to small claims court.
The larger lesson here has to do with the revealing photographs of you that wound up on the Internet in the first place. The danger in posing for X-rated pictures is that in the cold light of day, they can be a huge embarrassment.
…
Dear Abby: I am 24 years old and have been married five years. My husband, “Richie,” and I have known each other for about 15 years. I loved him as a friend, but the older we got, the more his mother pushed us together.
When we married I thought it was a joke. We got in the car to go somewhere, and when I asked where we were going they said to get married. Well, it was not a joke. Neither my mother nor my father was there.
Richie and I fight all the time, and I have reached the point that I don’t even want to talk to him. I can’t stand him. I have told him I want a divorce, and he tells me he will kill himself. I would hate myself if he did that. We have a 5-month-old baby. What should I do?
– Sick and Tired
Dear Sick and Tired: Go home to your parents. It’s time you and Richie took a break from each other. Discuss this with a lawyer. If you married Richie because of coercion or trickery, it’s possible your marriage could be annulled. I wish you had written me sooner, because then there might not have been a child involved.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
