Love me, love my wife?

Is it OK for me to see my married male friend without his wife tagging along?

By Garrison Keillor

June 15, 1999 | Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a single woman determined to live the most joyous life possible until I meet the man who will love me and whom I can love. My life is really very full: close family, many artistic opportunities, satisfying work. I find, though, that I don't want to limit my friendships to other single people, and I find that, while I can be friends with a married woman and not feel I must pay equal attention to her husband, the same is not true with married men. I'd like your opinion. Can a man and a woman be "just" friends, or is the question of sexual attraction always present?

My relationship with a particular couple has been the source of a great deal of anxiety. I met him before I met her but knew very soon that he was married, and therefore not available to me. She is an interesting person, but I prefer his company. We have spent time together, the three of us, and I am happy to have them both in my life. But so often I wish I could just talk to him alone for a while, and then I feel guilty for that wish! I try so hard not to let it show. Am I kidding myself?

Miss LonelyHopefulHeart

Dear Miss,

Yes, you can be friends with a married man and not have sexual electricity make your hair stand on end. It happens all the time. You do have to walk a careful path so as not to excite your friend's spouse's jealousy, but if your conversation is mostly with him and not with her, then you should feel free to pursue it.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm blazing along on my first novel, clicking out 2,000 words a day when I'm rolling, and I keep wondering, how many words in a novel?

I know it varies widely and that the novel is done when the story is told and all that, and I also know that I'll know when I'm finished. But what are the actual word counts?

Curious

Dear Curious,

I'm so envious of someone who clicks out 2,000 words a day, I'm tempted to say, "4,684,330," but the truth is that you're getting into the novel league when you approach 50,000, and around 100,000 you may want to stop, sit down and read the thing to see if you're done. You don't want to write more than your reader cares to digest.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 31-year-old male, recently finished with my Ph.D., but planning to blow off the bitter politics of academia to seek my fortune in Paris a few months from now. My problem is that I am unable to enjoy any of the good luck that has recently been raining upon me. Ever since a disappointing break-up with my fiancée three years ago, I have been filled with cold distrust toward other people. Worse than that, I may have inadvertently strung a couple of women along, wrongly giving them the impression that they might have a chance. By most people's standards, three years is probably a bit long to be nursing wounds from a relatively amicable separation, but I feel like a part of my soul has been cut out and I hardly know where to find it again. Any thoughts you might have would be appreciated. But the following question strikes me as especially relevant: Are these things best cured gradually, or isn't there something immediate and quasi-ritualistic (e.g., skydiving, a courageous knife fight) that might jolt me out of this dreary era?

Black and Blue

Dear Black and Blue,

Put the idea of a courageous knife fight away, OK? Most knife fights are short and brutal and nothing you'd consider ritualistic. I don't know about skydiving except that it's nothing to try if at first you don't succeed. Go seek your fortune, young man. Enjoy Paris. Enjoy it for all it's worth. Read up on it so that when you arrive the city will already be alive in your imagination. Let the glory of the city and the delicacy of French culture be the intense experience that will wash this bitterness away. Your miseries took place in English, so speak French for a while. As for cold distrust, it won't do you a bit of good in Paris; it will be wasted on people who will have more than enough cold distrust for you. So start being charming, sir. And look for your soul in Paris, a city of profound civilization.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I had an unfulfilling experience in a writing program long ago, and wondered what you thought of them. Do they do more harm than good?

Skeptical

Dear Skeptical,

I had an unfulfilling experience in a department store the other day. I don't know what I think about it. But it does no harm. You just look for an exit and go through it. There's a big colorful world out there to conjure up. If programs insult your soul, quit, and slam the door on your way out. Give yourself the pleasure of insulting the programmers.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I have brought my beloved husband to live with me in Iowa, my native state -- he is a New Yorker, from the Upper West Side, and the terms are that we will spend two years here, after which, if he doesn't like it, he has only to say the word and we will go back to the city. The thing is, I am a veterinarian; my career possibilities in Manhattan are limited to tending kitty cats, and I prefer cattle and horses and hogs, particularly hogs, which are truly fascinating and endearing animals. My husband is a writer. We've been here six months, and so far he's been so hard to live with that I've been tempted twice to send him back to New York alone. He makes fun of everything and everybody in such a sarcastic way, and lately he's taken to ridiculing my poor mother for her devotion to gardening and lawn care. I don't get it. He used to be more mannerly. What can I do?

Heartbroken

Dear Heartbroken,

Your husband is struggling with culture shock and needs to work his way out of it. Only he can do that. It's a long way from New York to Iowa. In New York, if you see someone on her hands and knees on the ground, you'd assume she was having a bad drug experience. Most dirt in New York City is dirt that you wouldn't want to get involved with. It's dirt that other people have been involved with. The devotion your mother expends on growing things would, on the Upper West Side, be expended on excoriating the mayor or finding a great Chinese restaurant. All you can do is be patient. And if you must return to New York and resign yourself to treating the urinary tracts of kitty cats, know that you, as a Midwesterner, are much more adaptable than a New Yorker, and you'll find a way to make it work.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Some years ago I was in a long, stupid relationship with a guy I should never have dated to begin with. When it was over, I was haunted by how many of his flaws I'd willingly overlooked. Then came Mr. Wonderful. He's the National Gallery, he's Garbo's salary. But he believes -- as Buddhists believe in the Middle Way -- that he's 5-foot-10. Well, I'm 5-5, and he and I are almost the same height.

What to do, what to do, what to do? Should I try to point out the reality of the situation or let it go? My fear is that I am too in love to see what this means, that he lies about whatever he doesn't like about himself and then forgets it's a lie. Or is this small potatoes. For what it's worth, I like him exactly the way he is and am prepared to spend the rest of my life dealing with his every shortcoming if I can just get past this one.

Being Honest

Dear Honest,

This is a small potato. The man is vertically challenged and he has clung to the notion that he's 5-10, which is not so different from a 130-pound woman believing she weighs 112. One of those tolerable little lies. But yes, take any natural opportunity to point out the reality, and tease him a little about his prevarication. This will let you know whether the man has a sense of humor about himself, and that is not small potatoes. That's crucial.

Dear Mr. Blue,

My beloved wife is in the fourth month of pregnancy, our first child, and we're both happy and excited. But I am slowly realizing that she assumes that I will be with her during labor, and I can't imagine this. I mean, I get woozy if a nurse draws blood from my finger, so how can I be of any use to my wife when she's in the turmoil of childbirth, which I understand to be a fairly bloody operation. How can I break it to her that this is impossible for me?

Nauseous

Dear Nauseous,

Under the Old System of fatherhood, the dad did not come into the delivery room. In those days, we men lived in hunting lodges in the woods and were brought into the village for breeding purposes and went back to hunting, and usually we were squatting around a fire eating half-baked venison on sticks and smoking cigars when a guy came by and said, "Hey, they say your wife had a baby," and we said, "Yeah, I was sort of thinking maybe it was something like that." Guys were out of the loop as far as babies were concerned. Nowadays, the father is a partner, present at the birth, helping his wife, holding her ankle, encouraging her, sharing her pain, mopping her brow, saying "push" when the obstetrician says "push," lighting incense and putting on a CD of a Bulgarian women's chorus if it's a natural birth, and if you skip all this and stay out at your hunting lodge, you will look bad and your wife will have reason to wonder if you really care about her. Go to the childbirth classes, learn what you can (which will make the real event less frightening) and know that a father in the delivery room is an ornament. Nothing really is expected of you but your ceremonial presence. You can always avert your eyes. The sight of the child emerging is something you shouldn't miss, but don't look when they administer the epidural or the episiotomy. Never look at an episiotomy.

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