Whether a new family blends or merely emulsifies depends, in part,
on how long and how steadily it is stirred (never shaken). The success of
the blending also depends on the order in which the ingredients are
added. After a death or a divorce, the single parent has to bond with the
children before a stepparent can be brought delicately into the
mix.
One consolation: if blending a family after a death is hard, you
should try blending one after a divorce!
DEAR DR. FRANK,
I fell in love with my boyfriend my freshman year in college, and
now I'm 25. The relationship is good, and I can imagine a future
together, but I haven't seen much of the world or had any other serious
relationships to compare it to. I wish I could cryogenically freeze him
and then marry him in five years. How do I deal with the part of me that
wants more freedom and experience while I'm still young? Am I just
choosing something safe and secure instead of taking a risk that might
lead to a more deeply lived life?
Dear Young,
You want "freedom" for "experience" before you marry. The
implication is that you want sexual and romantic experiences with other
people, since those would be the only experiences you'd agree to forego
when you marry. How many people do you think you would have to sleep with
before you turn into a grownup?
If you want to use your current freedom for experiences that will
make you more mature, I suggest that you practice doing the sorts of
things that mature and responsible people do rather than stretching out
adolescence.
Most people can't think of a richer, more deeply lived life than
one spent in a committed relationship with someone who both brightens and
comforts their shared life. I don't know whether your boyfriend would be
a good partner, or whether he would even be available after you return
from your adventures.
Questions you might ask yourself: Is he so insensitive that he's in
a great big hurry to marry you when you are clearly not ready? Is he
uncomfortable with the nonsexual adventures you might find maturing and
expanding? Is he offering a model of marriage that would be a kind of
emotional death? These would be disqualifiers.
Marriage is scary. It should be, particularly for people who don't
know many marriages that are working. Talk to some people who have
successful marriages. Marriage is gloriously comfortable when you are all
the way in it; the scary part comes when you try to withhold part of
yourself from the relationship. Waiting until you are older, sleeping
with lots of people until you get it out of your system, or marrying lots
of people are not among the factors that predict marital success.
At the moment the mature thing would be for you to acknowledge to
yourself and your boyfriend that you are not yet mature enough for
marriage, but you are too mature to marry when you aren't ready to commit
to it 100%.
DEAR DR. FRANK,
I've been married for ten years and have two young children. Last
week I realized I am gay, after falling in love with a woman at the
school where I teach. I had one bisexual experience in college but
dismissed it. I love my husband and don't want to cheat on him. However,
the feelings I have toward this woman are unlike anything I've ever felt,
and I feel that if I don't explore this side of myself, I will be
shutting a door on my deepest longings. I feel very conflicted and don't
know how to discuss this with my husband.
Dear Wife and Mother,
You have just discovered something that most people don't seem to
know, and many others have forgotten: we are all bisexual, if not in
practice, at least in potential. When people become aware of this, they
may panic as you are on the verge of doing. They may embrace their
homosexual potential and convert to it, or run from it and hide it and
develop homophobia. Actually, they could just deal with it the way they
deal with their spare heterosexual longings: enjoy the attractions and be
careful not to act on them. The categories of "straight" and "gay" have
no convincing biological basis. They may start as psychological leanings,
which, with enough practice and preoccupation, become social and
political distinctions and even hot spots in the brain.
I dare not tell some people--whether they think of themselves as
straight or gay--that we are all bisexual, even if we Have never
experienced same-gender sex. Such a realization would be far too
traumatic for the sense of self they have built up around their sexual
identity. But I'll let you in on the secret: most of us effectively train
ourselves, often from quite early on, to think of one of the genders in
sexual terms and to avoid doing so with the other (and once we develop
those attractions, we don't really have a choice about our feelings, only
a choice about our actions).
Of course, with enough practice, we can train ourselves to be
sexually responsive to the other gender--or most anything else.
Untraining us from a sexual attraction is far harder. The end point of an
active enough sexual training would be full bisexuality. That is quite
normal.
You experienced at least one man and one woman back in your youth
and chose the man. I suppose you could try another dozen or hundred of
each gender and then choose again, but I fear your life would be in
shambles by the end of that experiment. And it would merely prove what
you have just discovered: you are capable of sexual attractions with
people of either gender.
Tags:
abby,
advice,
courtship,
daughter ginger,
distressed merchandise,
dr frank,
dr laura,
first date,
frank pittman,
genuine wisdom,
imperfections,
lithium,
manic depressive,
medicine cabinet,
medicine closet,
psychiatric history,
right off the bat,
skeletons,
urine samples
