DEAR CAROLYN: My fiance is wonderful and we love each other very much. In public, he’s polite and mature. When we’re alone, he passes gas loudly, laughs hysterically at it, tells offensive jokes, smells his dirty socks – like he’s 15! He says I should know he’s just kidding, but 10 minutes later expects intimacy, not knowing I’m so turned off! Am I unreasonable? Or does he need to grow up?
-Va.
No, you do.
If this guy were unhappy to be a 15-year-old playing grown-up, then maybe a mate who was eager to finish raising him would be just what he needed.
But he sounds very not unhappy. Deliriously not.
You’re the unhappy one – and because it’s over flatulence, bad jokes and socks, you think you’re right, he’s wrong and he should change.
No, no, no.
Maturity means understanding that the world doesn’t bend to your demands. Ergo, his assuming certain manners in public, saving noises for home – the one place of one’s own. You need to see your world for what it is: You’re engaged to a wonderful, cheese-cutting, bad- joke-telling, sweaty-sock huffer.
You can decline to pull his finger; you can ask him not to be gross (at inopportune times); you can love him as is; you can leave. What you can’t do is rebuild him.
DEAR CAROLYN: I finally found a wonderful girl. We’ve both experienced pain and hurt in previous relationships and grown from them. So, we’re a little guarded. Regardless, I feel we have good communication. It’s become apparent we are afraid of the other leaving. I consider us realists, but we are crazy in love. Do you think it’s healthy to have a small amount of fear not tied to anything particular that either has done to the other, but perhaps due to the past? Or should we continue riding the carefree, crazy-in-love train?
-Healthy Fear?
If this is your carefree crazy-in- love train, I’d hate to see your cautious, protect-your-old-wounds train. (Must be the one still in the station.) You imply that your love-crazed fear of losing each other means you’re overly emotional, but I believe the opposite – that anticipation of loss is the mark of the level-headed realist. I’ve said it before: Most relationships end. Gradually, abruptly, tragically, mercifully, but end they usually do, friendships and romances alike.
Which means a little fear is not only healthy but smart – not so much in a self-preservation sense (though that has its place) but in a take-nothing-for-granted sense. Let your fear be a background reminder that the people you love are precious.
“Background” being the operative word. Too often, fear takes over, and the drive to keep people overtakes the desire simply to be with them. That’s when it’s time to revisit the past to see if your having “grown” from it isn’t simply what you’ve told yourself to explain why you still dwell on it.
And talk about it. And communicate about it. And talk about communicating about it.
DEAR CAROLYN: A woman just hit me with the not-you-me-no-longer-feeling-what-I-was-feeling talk. I know nothing I say will convince her of the magnificence of me, but what if it is commitment issues? Would commenting on this possibly stop a breakup?
-Puzzled in Bawlmer
Oh no. Not the not-you-me-no-longer-feeling-what-I-was-feeling talk. The only thing worse than that might be the I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself response – so, no, I don’t think you should say anything about your commitment-fear theory.
Big style points, though, if you can pull off some mention of the magnificence of you.
Either way, trust her to mean what she said. You not only save yourself the futile anguish of reading things into her words. You also leave her with a dreamy parting impression: that you like and respect her enough, and yourself, to accept her parting even though you’d greatly prefer her to stay.
DEAR CAROLYN: Should I provide my mother with my boyfriend’s colored history before she meets him? I don’t want to tell her anything about his age (I’m 24, he’s 34), where he lives (with his parents) or what his past is (divorced), and why he is living with his parents (planning to buy a house). I’m afraid she will see only that he looks bad on paper. I want to be fair to him as well.
-New Jersey
If you want to be fair to this guy, you might want to stop judging him so harshly yourself.
Granted, not many high school seniors lobby to be voted Most Likely to Get Divorced and Move Back In With Parents. But he’s employed, unattached, saving for his future and too young to be a dirty old coot. No apparent malingering or malice. Give him some credit.
So he’s got 10 years of life on you. If your mom fears that you might be hurt, don’t argue, because she’s justified. Experience gaps are tough to bridge.
But if your mom believes – or you believe – he needed to execute those years flawlessly to be worthy, time for a flawlessness check on thyselves.
