Dear Amy: I am a 52-year- old man and have been married twice. I am in a 10-year relationship with a wonderful woman. Three years ago, I was unfaithful to her, and she found out. I told her that I ended that relationship and that it was a short-term affair. However, it was actually a seven-year affair.
I did end that affair a year ago, and I have been faithful since then and want to marry this woman. She has forgiven me for the affair and we have a good relationship.
However, she has never believed that it was a short-term affair. She says that if I cannot come clean and tell her everything about that affair, it will never go away.
She thinks that if I hold on to these secrets, then it will happen again. I believe that it is better to leave things unsaid and move on with our relationship.
Do you believe that if I keep these secrets that I am still holding on to that relationship, or am I justified in not telling her the whole truth and hurting her more?
– Confused in Boston
Dear Confused: What I think is much, much less important than what your gal thinks. She’s the one holding the reins to her future. She’s also on to you. You need to come clean.
Be honest – you’re not afraid of her hurt feelings. You’re afraid of her learning about what a feckless coward you’ve been.
Let me remind you that you have two failed marriages and many years of infidelity behind you. Let me suggest that you try something radical here. Whatever you were doing that led to these failures, do the opposite.
By my math, you were unfaithful to the wonderful woman you now want to marry for nine out of the 10 years that you’ve been together.
You should not enter into marriage again without premarital counseling. Counseling is all about telling the truth and growing enough to accept the consequences of your behavior – and your truth telling.
…
Dear Amy: I would like to comment on women making the first move.
I made the first move in church on my now-husband.
He was an usher and I made a point of sitting in his section at church. I would smile at him and he would look at me like a frightened pup. We eventually became friends.
I told a mutual friend about how much I liked him, and my friend told me to be transparent with him.
So I told him that I enjoyed our friendship and I would like it to be more than that, but our friendship was more important to me than being his girlfriend.
Within a few weeks, we were dating. Three months later we became engaged, and we married three months after that.
We wasted no time once we knew that we were meant for each other. People gave us three to six months.
Seventeen years later we are still together and half of those people who didn’t think we would make it are divorced.
I would urge the women out there to be friends with a guy first. Then be transparent. Let him know how you feel. If it is meant to be, then he will come around. If not, a good friend is always good to have.
– Happily Married in New England
Dear Happily Married: Women who are interested in asking men out have to figure out how to be as bold and as resilient as men have traditionally been.
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