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Faithful for now
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Dear Mr. Blue, I am happily married, with one child and another on the way. I love my wife very much, and I also love another woman. I met her at my last job three years ago and have been trying to get past the feelings I have for her. I've never crossed the line of infidelity, but my feelings are so strong that it's hard to resist the urge to sweep her off her feet and passionately kiss her. I talked to a close friend about this and he said that it shows I have problems with my marriage and I should let my wife know about these feelings. I'm convinced my wife would understand, but it would throw a large bucket of cold water on a pretty good marriage. So, what do I do? Tell my wife? Run away with the other woman? Seek professional counseling?
Mr. Blue Garrison Keillor's column appears every Tuesday in Salon Books.
Feeling blue about your prose? In the doldrums over your last date? Ask Mr. Blue. Confused and Bewildered Dear C&B, Your friend is wrong, wrong, wrong. Your ability to get a crush on the Dark Lady proves nothing whatsoever about your marriage. But your three years of brooding over this crush is much too long to suffer. Don't get your wife all alarmed, she's expecting your child. So focus on that. And drop contact with the Dark Lady. Entirely. Immediately. You're not able to handle this friendship. If you continue to incubate this dark egg, it will hatch eventually and a creature will jump out and bite you. Roll it out into the cold and let it die. Dear Mr. Blue, My girlfriend and I are engaged to be married in April. We are both incredibly happy as are our respective families. Just one problem. We had a little accident five weeks ago and she is pregnant. The pregnancy itself is not a problem, but the timing is horrible. Our initial joy is now turning to confusion. We have considered the idea of terminating the pregnancy but find the idea distasteful, yet neither of us are sure we can handle the questions, whispers and innuendo that are bound to come from our traditionally minded families. How does one handle these things in this day and age? 2+1=3 Dear 2+1, Here's how you handle it: Hold your heads high and look everyone in the eye and if they ask, tell them the truth, and if they can't be loving and happy about the marriage being pre-blessed with issue, then that's their problem. Anyone who cares to whisper can go right ahead, but there is no innuendo here: You two made love and you ejaculated and she conceived -- nothing dark or mysterious there. Don't terminate the pregnancy. Do tell your families directly so they won't hear it from anyone else. But don't apologize or hang your heads even slightly. Thank God for His bounty and marry and raise your child and be happy over how it all turned out. Dear Mr. Blue, My girlfriend and I have been friends for five years and living together for over six months now and talking about marriage. I'm crazy about her -- she means the world to me -- and I have no serious misgivings. In fact, it's that lack of misgivings that worries me: How do I know if I'm thinking about all the implications? Concerned About My Calm Dear Concerned, What's to think about? You'll both get (1) older and probably (2) heavier and (3) duller and your love will be tried by (4) ugly little things you say and (5) sheer ennui and children who will cost you (6) sleep and keep you in a state of (7) paranoia and (8) self-doubt for years and (9) meanwhile there's the ebb and flow and gradual diminution of the sexual urge and (10) the fact that you look at your spouse sometimes and feel you married a complete stranger. But heck, a lot of that stuff happens to single people too. And if you marry a true friend, then it's vastly easier. And if you're crazy about her and she means the world to you, then how could you not? Dear Mr. Blue, I'm 23, a reporter at a Midwestern daily, just graduated from college, ambitious, talented (according to my colleagues), and my fiancé is 25, charming, kind, intelligent, understanding and so funny he makes me fall on the floor laughing much too often. He's still working in the mall, selling, which he hates. His dream is to be a cartoonist or a late-night talk-show host. But he is fearful to try and he cringes every time I suggest he go back to school. I watch him getting sadder and sadder about his mindless job, and I want him to be able to move on and do something he adores. His fearfulness worries me. How can I convince him otherwise without him resenting it? I'm not calling off the wedding for anything, but I'd rather have a happy impoverished student or comedian than a gainfully employed, depressed wage slave with low self-esteem. Please advise. Mallrat's Girlfriend Dear Girlfriend, Your fiancé's mindless job seems to bother you more than it bothers him. Perhaps you are worried about being held back by him -- that as you rise through the ranks of aging ink-stained wretches to the circle of the select, your underachiever will languish and be an embarrassment to the family. Evidently, he doesn't want to go back to school, so you should stop campaigning for that. Eventually desperation will overcome fearfulness and he'll give himself a kick in the pants and get out of the terrible job and do something else. Comedy is harder than journalism, so cut him some slack. He may not resolve this for a few years.
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