Cognitive Dissonance |
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| Direct Answers from Wayne and Tamara |
I still love my wife and am committed to our marriage, but I
believe she no longer loves me. Over the past few years we've
become more distant, to the point where we no longer share any
intimacy. She is a decade my junior, and we have been married for
nine years.
Many factors contributed to our situation, but one major issue was
children. She dearly wants to be a mother, and we've tried for
years. We've come to learn that I'm infertile. This was quite a
blow for both of us. We investigated adopting, but were both
overwhelmed by the hoops we needed to jump through, as well as by
the intrusiveness of the whole process.
I don't want to suffocate my wife in a dead-end marriage, but at
the same time I feel a moral conflict about ending it. I attended
church schools for 12 years and consider divorce taboo.
Ed
Ed, sooner or later each of us must decide what we believe. You
can't be a vegetarian slaughterhouse owner. The two are mutually
exclusive.
The decision about your marriage is not solely your own. But to
the extent you have a voice in what happens, your experience and
your upbringing seem to be in conflict. Whenever two elements in
life are in conflict, we need to take a thoughtful look at them,
then rid ourselves of the one which seems wrong. That is the only
way to end the struggle.
We can't make this decision for you. You have to decide which
value is higher. But once you establish the habit of pruning
contradictions in your life, your life will gain a force and a
focus it never had before.
Wayne & Tamara
Room For Improvement
I guess I need you to tell me what I already know. I am 40 years
old. I am dating a 46-year-old man. We have been dating for six
months.
I am black and he is white. I have dated white men for the last 20
years. I have met some I really liked, but I never met one who
really loved me. I have one daughter. Her dad is a crackhead,
liar, and thief. And he doesn't pay child support.
I thought all I wanted in a man was a guy who didn't do drugs, had
a job, and was willing to get married and have another child. My
current boyfriend is all these things, but he does not make my
heart sing.
I am starting to feel like a free prostitute. He says he loves me,
but he is not willing to introduce me to his family. He says in
another six months I can meet his family, and we can get married.
But he doesn't like talking about the future. I feel I am being
made responsible for the continuation of this relationship.
I have cats and plan on keeping them. He is allergic to cats, so I
always have to go to his house. I was never that unhappy with the
relationship until about a month ago when he got angry and did not
talk to me for three weeks. All I want is to find a man who is my
friend, then my husband.
Tiesha
Tiesha, why are you asking what you already know? Because this man
is such an improvement over the father of your child. You think
you should be grateful for that, but "better" is not the same as
"right."
This "better" makes you feel like a prostitute, and that is not
"right." The particulars don't matter. Knowing when something is
not right is everything. It is reasonable to want a loving, caring
husband. Knowing what you want will guide you. Knowing how he
makes you feel, makes him fall outside the guidelines.
That's the idea behind dating. You go forward when it's right.
You stop when it is wrong.
Wayne
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Wayne and Tamara Mitchell are the authors of YOUR OTHER HALF.
Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or
e-mail: DirectAnswers@echowork.com.
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