My dear Jack, you shouldn’t be careless with your marriage. Your wife is at an emotional inflection point and you’re not even aware. That’s careless. Yes, I know you’re working so hard to take care of the family but if you lose the family, what’s the point? If you keep going this way you’re going to get blindsided by life. You’re setting yourself up for a nasty surprise. I know you love her but you’re not paying attention to those things we spoke about.
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My dear Jil, it’s important you distinguish between love and sentimental expression of love. The two are not the same and if you don’t distinguish them you may break your marriage. A man may deeply and sincerely love you but may be poor at sentimental expression. That he is lacking in the sentimental department doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, he just needs to work on that. Of course, your feelings are legitimate, a man ought to express his love and appreciation to his wife. But you can’t say a man who works so hard to take care of you doesn’t love you. That will be unfair.
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My dear Jil, there comes a point we must stop digging ourselves in, in a relationship that’s no relationship. If you keep investing emotionally and materially in a relationship knowing your love is not requited, you’re digging a hole. There’s that point in this kind of relationship when we need to cut our losses. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. We’re talking years of life investment. But we can’t keep digging ourselves in, fooling ourselves we’re collecting clay to make bricks to build a relationship. The deeper the hole we dig, the more we’re caked in mud, and the more we disappear from view.
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My dear Jil, at some point you’ll have to take responsibility for your life, especially as it concerns marriage. I do understand your mom’s concerns but she’s only looking at the “image” of the family, not your emotional health. This guy you’re betrothed to… He doesn’t love you. He’s just taking advantage of your inexperience and youth. But life assumes you’re mature enough to handle issues by yourself once you decide you want to marry.
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My dear Jil, rape is a very traumatic experience. It is so traumatic it can terrify a marriage years down the line. Women have been known to die from rape. It’s because it’s beyond physical. It’s a violation of the sacred. Rape is so vicious it can shred the fabric of a soul, alter the balance of life energy. It kills something inside. Rape is not just one more incident in society. At the retail level it is the scarring of someone’s life. Our society ought to take rape much more seriously than we do. There’s a cultural shrugging of shoulders about rape. It’s locker room talk in boys’ circle, as if it’s some weekend discussion about Chelsea and Arsenal. Some young men in fact revel in the fact of rape. Which is really sad. Witness how some boys boast about raping a girl. Our tolerance of such banter and disposition is the cultural equivalence of conditioning boys for rape. There are boys boasting about rape in secondary school, boasting they assaulted girls during school socials. And for some boys it’s a sorority ritual. Which makes you begin to ponder the fundamentals of our society. And now we have livestreaming of rape. If only the law allows castration. Then there are those sickos who rape kids – eight-, nine-year olds. Some even babies. Surely such people are deranged. A nine-year old can’t know how to interpret rape. She’ll malfunction.
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Dear Jack, like many men you have a fear of intimacy. You want physical intimacy and nakedness but not emotional nakedness with a woman. You’re locked in. You don’t want to bare your soul to avoid vulnerability. Like many men you find that uncomfortable.
Unfortunately your girlfriend doesn’t realise it has nothing to do with her. She has no problems with intimacy. In fact she relishes being vulnerable. That’s how women create responsibility of care. She’s just committed herself to you in an absolute exercise of trust. It’s inexplicable to a man. Continue reading
