I've been best friends with the same three girls since junior high. We're in our early 20s and living all over the country, but we've remained very close and stayed in touch. This winter I learned that one of them has been dating a divorced man in his 30s who has several young children.

Their relationship has become very serious very quickly, and they've talked about getting married. She says she loves him and loves his kids but she's not 100 percent sure. The rest of us are horrified that she would be in such a relationship, and we don't know what to do. (The psychotic calls from the ex-wife in the middle of the night, the fact that he doesn't ever plan to move from that small town and that he went on a month-long business trip and left her to take care of the kids, etc.) We've expressed our concerns casually to her, but she's kind of shrugged them off. We don't want to alienate her but we're all terrified that she is in over her head.

Do we express our fears more strongly and risk having her cut ties with us? We don't want her to feel like she can't come to us or confide in us. Could this really be love and could he really be "the one"?

Worried

Dear Worried,

Yes, he could, and yes, it could, and no, you shouldn't. Let her blow off steam about the ex-wife and the trip and anything else and don't intervene. If your friend can care for several small children for a month and still love a man, it's probably serious. Don't offer advice unless asked to, and then be circumspect. You're entitled to express your sympathy and concern in some general way, but I don't see grounds to be so fearful, frankly. And if we were all careful not to get in over our heads, this would be a nation of celibate shepherds gathering berries and living in yurts.

Dear Mr. Blue,

After 47 years of living a very emotionally confused life, I am finally waking up to life and its great and humbling truths. My relationship with my husband has been for the most part congenial, but I have torn feelings toward him. On one hand, he's been my salvation, seeing me through many rocky times. On the other hand, sometimes I can't stand his all-knowing, sarcastic attitude. My question is this: Do you think it would be selfish and ungrateful for me to hope for a better relationship with someone other than my husband? I love my husband like a brother. Should I be satisfied with that, and not presume to think I deserve more? I am truly grateful for his love and care. Should I resign myself to a life of quiet desperation? I have nobody waiting in the wings for me, nor do I contemplate any grand passions in the future. I guess this is hypothetical.

Athena

Dear Athena,

Who knows what you deserve in life, but desperation and resignation are not recommended, except for poets who need it to fill out their oeuvre. You're a monument of patience to have stuck with the sarcastic omniscient guy for 47 years, but perhaps sarcasm was his method of keeping the emotional confusion at bay. You can deal with sarcasm by meeting it head-on with an earnest demand that it be put in a drawer and brought out only for special occasions: It's adolescent, it kills conversation, it doesn't create anything. (He may be unaware of it himself.) Fight the sarcasm, and see if its diminishment makes you any happier. It's good that you're careful to acknowledge the good side of this sturdy marriage, the loyalty, the affection. If a grand passion came walking in the door in the form of a tall man with smoldering good looks and a big erotic imagination and a platinum credit card, it would surely make for an interesting summer, but eventually you'd have to deal with his humorlessness, or his propensity to lie about his past, or some other deficit. You might contemplate some other sort of grand passion, though. The greatest grand passions are not between men and women, but passions for God, for work, for art, for ideas, for some endeavor or body of knowledge or place in the world, and such a passion could cure this desperation. There is no happiness like that of the possessed. Perhaps you've been harboring such a passion and have postponed it, shunted it into a corner. Rediscover it.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I've been in a relationship for a year with a beautiful, smart, sexy, kind, savagely funny and cultivated woman who takes my breath away. We're both about 35. We moved in together last month. She has a stunning erotic imagination and dresses to kill, with a body to kill for. She loves art, history and music, and has a quick wit that never leaves her, no matter how dark the situation. I've been so lucky to find her.

And then there's the jealousy and the lying. I've had seven previous lovers, most in long-standing, monogamous relationships. She's had something like 90 lovers and hasn't been faithful to anyone for more than a year. The last one she is still married to, being unwilling to finish the paperwork for the divorce, and she corresponds with him by e-mail and maintains a strong affection for him. Her continuing dalliance with him has sucked much of the joy out of my life with her. We're together almost constantly; I'm fairly sure she's been faithful to date but I get suspicious when I catch her in occasional stupid lies: She can't seem to understand the foundation of trust. If she weren't so stupendously wonderful, I might want to leave her. But she is perfect for me when I am with her. I'm at a loss to know what to do.

Tense

Dear Tense,

Sounds like the year is up, and you're worried. Perhaps for good reason. The woman has an ambitious imagination and who knows where it may lead. It is up to her whether she chooses to be faithful to you -- you can't demand that she be, or construct a defense against lies, and so you should treat her as a wonderful temporary phenomenon, a firefly in the tall grass at sunset, and prepare yourself for the day you come home and find her gone. Take short views. Put Mr. Previous out of your mind. If you think about him, he'll grow into a giant. Ask her no questions and she'll tell you no lies. Be stupefied by her perfection and enjoy your life and don't kill anyone for her, including yourself.