Direct Answers

My husband and I recently celebrated our sixth anniversary. We planned to build our dream home next spring, but that was postponed when I told him I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore.

My husband is truly an incredible man. Very honest, responsible, respectful, and caring. I love his family more than my own. He would be a wonderful father, but there has always been something missing. Why I don’t know. I have everything anyone could want in a marriage.

I had doubts even before we married, but I kept going with the flow. I’ve thought about leaving many times. I have wasted my husband's time, the time he could have used to find the woman who would give him an honest marriage, and the baby he always wanted. I want a baby also, but knowing how unsure I am, I couldn’t do that now.

I cheated on my husband, and he is aware of it. Knowing that he still loves me and wants me. I don't deserve that. I have been to counseling and bible studies, but still wonder if leaving is the right thing. I love him, but I can’t be married to someone I don’t want to make love to.

My mother and father have the kind of marriage I don’t want. They don’t sleep together, communicate, or make love. I don’t want to resent my husband the way my mother resents my father. I have been told my feelings will change, but it’s been six years and they haven’t changed yet.

Can I learn to love him intimately? I feel I am wasting my time and my husband’s time.

Joy

Joy, things wrong from the beginning don’t somehow become right. If that was true, you could marry for money, or marry to please your parents and be happy. Going with the flow was the easy road. It became the hard road.

Once the wedding was over, all that was left was what was really there. Louis Armstrong, the great jazz trumpet player, said, “If it ain’t in your heart, it won’t come out of your horn.” It is not in your heart to love this man. It never has been. You mirrored back what he thought he felt for you.

You have nothing bad to say about your husband, but already you understand your feelings are turning to anger, resentment, and bitterness. Until you are completely honest with him, he will feel he tried everything and failed.

The new year is a time for hope, a time to make things right which are not right. Time is passing. Two people are being hurt here. There is hope in this if you admit what went wrong, went wrong on the wedding day. There is hope if you understand why you did what you did, so you never do it again.

Wayne & Tamara

Pursuit Of Perfection

I am a 17-year-old male who recently got back together with his girlfriend. My problem is what to do about a night that doesn't go so great. If it ends on a bad note, or my girlfriend doesn't seem like herself, I get upset and blame myself.

My girlfriend tells me to stop apologizing, that dates almost always have something go wrong. I only get to be with her maybe once or twice a week, and I want that time to be perfect. Am I expecting too much?

Jon

Jon, if you want each date, each task, or each day to be perfect, you will be haunted by a sense of failure. Many things are beyond our control. There are no happy perfectionists.

A successful life is one in which we grow, become more, and realize what is in us. This means we start with less and become more. This means we start somewhere short of perfection.

If each day was perfect, no day would be more than ordinary.

Tamara

Wayne & Tamara are also the authors of Cheating in a Nutshell, What Infidelity Does to the Victim, available from Amazon, Apple and most booksellers.