Dear Readers,
There were quite a few people who did not like my advice to the father with the two daughters. I got a few good letters about that. One said he should put a bedroom aside for them in his house with his new wife. I think that's a great idea. Another said, "The father should require his children to respect his wife, but he should also let his children know that he cares about them and that he is sorry for hurting them by leaving when they were teenagers and by raising them without the basic rules of respect that they needed."
There were other comments that led me to think, generally, that maybe you thought I was saying this father's a great guy and he should go about his life without a care, abandon his daughters, etc. I wasn't really thinking that. I figured he would still be their father and all that. I just thought he ought to try to change the footing of the relationship a little bit. Right now, it seems to me, the relationship with his daughters seems to be confusing, full of pain, and out of control. I was just thinking he should be a little more definite. Maybe he could just say to his daughters, I love you, I am sorry for all the pain in the past, and I want to try to make a new life for us in the present, today, as a family. And just have some ground rules. No hitting. No yelling.
That's sort of what I had in mind. Not that he should just abandon them, nor that all obligation ceases. He still has obligations. It's just that his daughters are adults, so more of the adult burdens of life shift to them.
On to the letter of the day:
Dear Cary,
I have been in a relationship with a woman for a little over four months. In pretty much every respect, it has been absolutely incredible. We spend every night together, we share a lot of common interests, we are alike in all the right ways. We have met each other's parents and have seriously discussed moving in together. There's a problem, but the thing is: I can't decide how big a problem it is.
A few months before she met me, she dated another man for about six months. He was, by her account, emotionally manipulative. When he broke up with her, she was extremely upset. Some time after we began dating, she told me that he had begun phoning and e-mailing her a great deal, even coming to her house and work unannounced. I was uncomfortable with this, but the issue was never really discussed again. Over the next few months, we grew closer and closer. Despite how great everything felt, I was always somewhat suspicious. I chalked this up to my own insecurities, which are admittedly an issue of their own. I could not shake the feeling that despite her interest in me, he was still somehow a part of her life.
A week ago I did what from your archives I understand is a fairly common but very bad thing. While she was in the shower, I checked the text messages on her phone. I'm pretty ashamed at myself for doing it, and though you will have a hard time believing it, I did not actually think I would find anything. But I found a rather unpleasant message. When she got out of the shower, I confronted her with it, and over the course of the last week we have been discussing it a great deal.
He had been phoning her and sending her text messages nearly every day for quite some while. He had even phoned her at her parents' house at Christmas. He was trying to get her back and also trying to get her to move with him abroad. When we first started dating, she had seen him a couple of times but only for coffee. She told me that she did not answer his calls when he phoned most of the time, but that she did occasionally e-mail him or talk to him. She swore that since she had recently moved and changed jobs, he did not show up at her door anymore.
I feel deeply hurt by this. The trust issues that I had, and which I thought were problems of my own, turn out to have been at least somewhat justified. I do not know what to believe anymore. I have confronted her about secrets and lies before, about trivial things (I thought), and she told me that she would be more honest. So when she told me that she did not want to get back together with him, that she had not seen him except when he unexpectedly showed up at her door, and that she loved me, I wanted very much to believe her. And I think I do. I asked her a number of questions about it, and she truly opened up and told me a great deal. Whether she left anything out I can't honestly say, except that I believe she is trying to be honest. She admitted that she had not done enough to get rid of him and had partly liked the attention he was giving her when he had once been so cruel.
I told her that if we were going to survive she would have to make a decision -- it was either me or him (or maybe neither), but it was not acceptable to continue on like this. I do truly love her and feel that we can get past this, but I have told her that she must work hard to regain my trust, which includes not lying to me and making it as clear as can be to him that she does not want to be contacted by him anymore. I'm afraid she will revert back to keeping things a secret rather than dealing with the problem.
Am I being an idiot in giving her another chance, or am I making things out to be worse than they appear? Is she keeping some sort of contact with him simply out of spite (enjoying watching him suffer, etc.) or is she finding it hard to cut him loose because she is still uncertain of what she really wants? I should also tell you that she fears confrontation a great deal, which is why she tends to hide things. At least part of the reason why she doesn't just tell him to F-off is because of this, at least I think. Should I stick around to find out?
(P.S. I realize that should we continue on, I will have to regain her trust as well. I do not intend to, nor will I ever, spy on her or check messages, etc., again. Obviously, I've got issues of my own that I'm trying to address, the problem being that it's extremely difficult to do so in the current situation)
Confused and Sad
Dear Confused and Sad,
First of all, you've only been together four months. That's not enough time to really get to know someone. So your expectations seem a little high, and your fears seem a little exaggerated. "I'm concerned," you say, "that I will never really get over this. As I said, we've talked about this a number of times over the last week..." See what I mean? One week is not much time to get over something.
Nor is talking with her necessarily the way to "get over this." You don't really know whether you can believe this woman. So talking with her shouldn't reassure you. Based on what's happened, you should feel a little anxious. Your lack of trust, it seems to me, is well-founded. Not only have you not known her that long, but it's obvious that you're not the only man on her mind.
I don't think that means she's being a bad person. She's just not a simple person. Besides, you're making a lot of demands on her for a guy who's just been around for four months, and you're the one who snooped on her text messages while she was in the shower.
So it seems right and natural that you two should mistrust each other.
As to the dynamics of your relationship: People tend to repeat certain patterns with their first few loves. That's only natural -- it takes a few tries to get it right. So if she was manipulated by this previous man, she may be setting herself up to be manipulated by you as well.
Not only that, but you and the previous manipulative man may have more in common than you suspect. He may have been cagey and emotional in his manipulation, while you are high-minded and full of principle. He may be a feeling type while you are a thinking type. But you both seek control over this woman.
Beneath attraction and love is often a struggle for dominance. Beneath complaints about manipulation is often a forbidden attraction to surrender. There may be something in your obsession with her behavior and her transgressions that excites her. Otherwise, she would simply defend her private life, tell you that you have no business snooping in her text messages, and that would be that.
So she may be playing a role in the only drama she knows, in which the man exercises authority, setting the agenda, the rules and the punishments, and the woman plays the seductress, subverting the man's authority while at the same time reveling in his critical attention.
If that's the game being played, you're playing your position admirably, attempting to ferret out her secrets and demanding that she adhere to your principles.
You may not realize that your moral and ethical categories are not as real and powerful in the world as they seem to be to you (sometimes our personality types blind us to that). You also may not realize that the strands of rational power you project into the world are like strings others can pull to work you like a puppet.
So let's try asking this: What does she want? What does she need? You mentioned that she gets satisfaction from this man's attentions. So she has a need to be desired, to be sought-after. Don't we all? She was hurt by this man and still has some feelings for him. There is nothing unusual in that. Her feelings are not under her conscious control, any more than yours are.
You may think that your demand for honesty and forthrightness is just common sense and naturally takes precedence over her rather ill-defined needs for attention and secrecy. But your demands are really just another form of irrational, subjective hunger. It is no more her duty to do the things you require than it is your duty to do whatever she wants. You simply hunger for rationality, while she hungers for attention. They're both subjective hungers. Neither has the greater claim on virtue. But you act like you have a monopoly on reason and common sense.
You've made ultimatums and demands that she come clean. But if she were to divulge everything she thinks and feels, would that do? What of the many, many fleeting thoughts and unconsummated desires that make up the daily life of the psyche? Is all that to be cleansed as well, subject to your security review?
I am only hinting around at things here, and it may sound like gibberish to you, but I sense there are important yet hidden assumptions at work here: That there are final ethical and moral categories which, if adhered to fully, will ensure a happy and confident union, for instance. What I'm suggesting is that if you place all your faith in these bright and symmetrical categories of right and wrong, truthfulness and falsehood, "getting over it" and "not getting over it," you may miss what is actually happening in your relationship.
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