Dear Jen,
Maybe you can help me on the dueling perspectives of staying with someone you love for who they are (even though they don't have job or major aspirations), or ditching them in hopes of finding someone who shares your progressive ideas, doesn't smoke a pack and a half a day, and doesn't try to cheat the welfare system.

P.S. He takes care of his whole family, including a handicapped nephew, which leaves little time for a job. I know, I know, excuses.

- In Love With A Loser

Dear Loser,

As someone who has dated the homeless, the drug addicted and a guy who gave me nothing but crabs for my birthday (no card even!), I have no patience left for fixer uppers. I realize this isn't about me and my issues, but I figured you could learn from my skid row of experiences.

We choose the things in this life that we think we deserve, whether we do it consciously or subconsciously. When I was spending romantic evenings in the conjugal visit trailer, for example, one could safely say I was suffering from a severe bout of the low self esteems. Which is what I'm going to attribute your present situation to.

If you were living up to your full potential, being the super goddess that you landed on this earth to be, loved yourself, knew what a catch you were - don't you think you'd choose to be with someone who isn't going to be breathing through a hole in his neck someday? I don't doubt that he's a great guy (my little crack addict wrote me the sweetest poems), but there are great guys out there who can challenge and inspire you, take care of themselves and their loved ones and reach for goals that are farther away than the remote.

It sounds to me like one of the only things you two have in common is that you both love to play doctor: he takes care of his family, you (and the federal government) take care of him. This is a very lovely and noble trait indeed, but when you do it at your own expense, it reeks of dysfunction and denial. You know when you're on an airplane and the stewardess does that little demonstration with the oxygen mask that drops down from the ceiling? She always tells you to put yours on first before helping out the person or child next to you with theirs.

And so it is in life. You'll be much more valuable to everyone involved if you're coming from a healthy place.

Let me put it this way: if you saw one of your heroes with someone like him, wouldn't you wonder what the hell she was doing? It's time to be your own hero. Get rid of him and find someone you deserve.