Dear Carolyn: I married my high-school sweetheart when we were both 25 not because we were soul mates or even particularly happy together, but because we were imagination-lacking, co-dependent and afraid to let go. We stayed married for three years before I cried uncle and filed for divorce, with his agreement that it was the right thing to do. While it was painful at first, we have wound up more or less friends again, and share a social circle.
He is getting married again in four weeks, and Im invited to the wedding. First marriage for the new bride. Ive been perusing their wedding website and, maybe this is my glass of wine talking, but Im having a hard time with all the quotes and hashtags that reference forever. She is so happy they will be together forever.
Dont get me wrong, I hope their marriage works out, but that language seems ridiculous considering he has been married before, believing it would be forever, and it wasnt. This is leading me to rethink attending their wedding — Im afraid I might scoff my way through the ceiling. Any ideas to reshape my thinking? Feeling Discarded
Answer: Oh, but its so easy you guys thought it was forever, but you were imagination-lacking, co-dependent and afraid to let go (now theres a sign to have tastefully lettered and mounted over my sink), and this time the couple is mature and clear-eyed and in loooove enough for a lifetime.
Yeah, yeah.
But do you really want to live in a world where hope never triumphs over experience?
And/or where a bride-to-be hashtags, #hopingitsticks?
I dont. But if you do, or if you dont but youre not feeling it, and/or if you present even the slightest scoff risk, then maybe its time to back out. Doing so four weeks out is not the most polite move ever, but it beats the day before, and it beats eye-rolling the bride.
Dear Carolyn: My wife is having an affair, and I know all about it. In fact, I knew about it before it even started, as she came to me telling me she was interested in a physical relationship with someone she had just met.
Ever since then I have been faced with the choice between telling my wife to stop, or allowing it to continue to its conclusion.
What I really want is for her to want to stop on her own and, more importantly, to want me in the same physical and emotional sense that she wants her fling. Though my wife denies it, I have always felt like a check-box husband the kind who has all the qualities she would write down on a piece of paper when thinking of her ideal husband (though Im far from perfect). But rarely has she demonstrated the passion or desire for me that I would hope for from my wife.
Her affair demonstrates she is capable of such emotion, but maybe not just for me. The affair is the symptom, what do I do about the disease? Check-Box Husband
Answer: Terrible situation, Im sorry.
Unless they agree openly and up front to other arrangements, spouses deserve either to enter marriage feeling completely wanted or to have the wedding called off.
