Ask Amy: Don't elaborate breakup motives

Dear Amy: I've been in an on-and-off relationship with a man whose handsy, flirtatious style of interacting with women always has bothered me. I've broken up with him over this and have explained in detail several times how humiliating it feels to me when he acts this way.

The times we've started up again, he always says he's a "new man" who understands my feelings. He even thanks me for helping him to be a more respectful person. Then, a few months later, things begin to slide.

This time, the slide was accompanied by a health scare for me when I had some symptoms that are commonly associated with an STD. I tested negative for this disease, but his behavior toward one woman in our group became so flirtatious that my mind started interpreting threats everywhere regarding our relationship.

I decided to look at his text messages with this woman, whom he once described as someone he feels "fatherly" toward. Sure enough, they had engaged in a sexual relationship during one of the periods when we were separated.

At this point I just want to make a clean break from him, but I'm struggling with how to talk to him about learning that he's lied to me for years about his relationship with this much younger woman.

He will erupt at hearing that I looked at his phone, despite anything I might say about feeling worried about the connection between my health, our sexually intimate relationship and his behavior.

Any suggestions for how I should handle this?

He might believe he is being blindsided, but many people do not actually want a chapter-and-verse recitation of their own faults and failings when their partner is already leaving.

I suggest you convey: "I'm tired of not trusting you. I'm tired of worrying about your health and mine. This relationship is too much work for me. This roller coaster isn't good for me. I need to make a clean break and be on my own."

Dear Amy: My wife and I are seniors. We recently began a casual friendship with another couple. We've shared two restaurant meals with them over the past three months.

They are heavy drinkers and large eaters. We are neither — with the result that their share of the bill is much greater than ours. But they don't offer to cover the extra costs. Our last meal together resulted in them eating (and mostly drinking) $80 more than us, with the two couples splitting the bill evenly.

My wife indicated that she'd like to put together another dinner, and I said I would ask for separate checks. She feels that this is "cheap."

Amy says: I'm with you. Getting separate checks is not "cheap."

All you have to do is to establish this deal one time, and, from then on, it will be the way things are done without you needing to raise the issue again. You can say (to these folks and then to the server), "We're going to go with separate checks."

I would consider this a good way to move forward in a relationship with people you don't know very well.