Dear Queenie,

I need to know this in a hurry. When an engaged couple break up, who gets to keep the engagement ring?

Queenie, that diamond cost a lot of money, so who should get to keep it?—Jilted

Dear Jilted,

It depends on who breaks the engagement.

An engagement ring is the tangible symbol of the promises two people make to each other that they will be married – a spoken contract to marry. The one who breaks his/her promise has to pay damages, so to speak.

To put it simply, if the man breaks the engagement the woman gets to keep the ring, but if the woman breaks the engagement she has an obligation to give it back.

If they break up by mutual agreement, they should also come to an agreement about the ring, which usually represents a considerable financial investment, as you say. I would suggest that they sell the ring and split the proceeds. After all, why would either of them want to keep the symbol of their shattered romance?

However, if the ring was a family heirloom, in all fairness it should be returned to the family from which it came, even if it was the member of that family who broke the engagement. In that case, some compensation would be in order.

Dear Queenie,

My good friend who used to be in the same class as me is not anymore and we barely see each other at school at all. Whenever I do see her, she acts like some queen bee, like anything I say makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and she will also always make some rude or sarcastic remark.

She was one of my best friends. Now she hangs out with these high school girls who act like I’m in first grade practically.

Please, Queenie, what should I do?—Frustrated friend

Dear Frustrated friend,

It is a sad fact of life that old friendships sometimes break up when new friendships are formed. Apparently your ex-friend is trying to impress her new friends by treating you unkindly. If she can do that to you, you must ask yourself how “good” a friend she could have been?

Ignore her behaviour. It is probably a symptom of her insecurity, and certainly an indication of her immaturity.

Be loyal to the friends who haven’t dumped you and have dumped on you, and try to find some new friends, ones who can be counted on to treat you well and to stick with you through life’s developments.

And learn a lesson from what you are going through: never to treat anyone else the way this girl has treated you.

Dear Queenie,

I haven’t had my period for the month of May and I was supposed to get it around the ending of the month.

I am worried because I did not have my period. I keep seeing the white, but the red is not coming and I keep feeling my tummy hurting but nothing happens.

Something terrible happened to me and I don’t know how to explain it to my dad because I am scared. You see, my cousin forced me to have sex with him last month so that is why I am so scared.

Queenie, could I be pregnant? I hope not because I am only 16 and I am scared. No one knows what happened to me so please help me soon.—Scared Girl

Dear Scared Girl,

I don’t know why you should be afraid to tell your father you were raped. It wasn’t your fault and you are not to blame in any way. However, if you feel you can’t talk to him about it, tell a female relative or teacher you trust, or go to the Women’s Desk or Safe Haven for help.

You must see a doctor immediately to be examined for injuries from the rape and possible STDs or worse. And yes, it is possible that you are pregnant. If so, you will have to decide whether you want to have the baby, and the decision should be made very soon.

I strongly advise filing a complaint against your cousin with the police. He must be prevented from doing anything like this again, and you will feel much better if you stand up to him and fight back against what he did to you.

And if he threatened to harm you if you told anyone, he must be punished for that too, and you must be protected from him.

Dear Queenie,

A few months ago I broke up with my boyfriend, because he was accusing me of sleeping with other men. We had a huge argument and he told me never to call him or think about him again.

I told him that I would like to be friends, but he said no. He told me to erase his number from my phone and forget about him. He called me names and told me I was a whore.

Recently, he came over and asked my cousin to call me. When I came out, he asked me to step into the car. In the car, he asked my forgiveness and to be my friend. I accepted. Then he asked to be my boyfriend again. He told me that he loved me and he never stopped loving me. I thought about it for a while and I said yes.

Queenie, I really still love him and I wanted this day to come around for a long time now. Do you think I'm being fooled again or do you think he wants to try to make it work?—Still in love!

Dear Still in love,

I’m all for giving people second chances, but I have serious reservations about anyone who could treat you the way he did, ignore you for months and still say he loves you. (I am assuming, of course, that his accusations were totally unfounded.)

If you decide to give him that second chance, make it clear that the first time he even hints that you might be cheating on him, you are finished with him forever. No third chance. Then stick to that decision.

Remember the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” (once, in this case, being his recent apology).