Hara Estroff Marano offers advice on broken promises, May-December love, stepfamilies, and emotional affairs.
By
Hara Estroff Marano, published on January 01, 2008 - last reviewed on November 03, 2008
Most alarming is the implication that a child who is "wholly ours, no extraneous factors," would be different from, possibly better than, other children in the household. For sure, raising stepchildren can be daunting because of all those "extraneous factors," not to mention all the intrinsic ones. They need all the love and discipline from their biological parent and the respect and care of a stepparent from whom love may, or may not, later flow. I hope you read up on the nature of stepfamilies and rise to the challenge by caring well for the children you have.
When you married, you knew that deep down you probably would want more children. You attempted to sacrifice your needs to land the guy. Put aside, for the moment, the double dishonesty, to yourself and to him. Complying with someone else's unilateral terms only breeds resentment, and in the long run, that corrodes a relationship from within.
How do you now deal with a relationship begun under false pretenses? A lot will depend on your husband, his nature, his views on loyalty, his need for control, and his capacity for empathy. Talk to him about the situation; open the conversation by telling him about the sadness of your dilemma. Having a partner means you ought to be able to share your innermost thoughts with each other, not that you demand he see things your way. Indeed, your husband may feel betrayed, but don't overreact to his initial response. Changing his mind would require a miracle, not to mention surgery. The best you can hope for is to use your husband as a cushion for your grief. We can't get everything we want in life. The real sadness is that you already have so much but find it insufficient. Give your love to the family you have.
Happily Never After
I am engaged, love my fiance deeply, and have no doubt that we will be very happily married. But I have developed an intense emotional connection with a man at work. He is married, and while nothing physical has happened between us, I fear that we are engaged in something worse: an emotional affair. We are spending more and more time together, often seeing clients and going for drinks afterward. Neither of us says anything negative about our partners, but we have acknowledged that if we were both single, things between us would be different. Should I feel guilty?
No. You should be feeling relieved that you have been presented with a test—and failed. At least you know where you stand. You are sure that you and your fiance "will be" very happy. That is a form of magical thinking, expecting that a wedding band will transform the relationship into something more rewarding than it is now and you will live happily ever after. Maybe you've read one too many fairy tales. In real life, you have to accomplish the work you have been unwilling to do: Emotionally invest in and commit to your fiance. Once couples marry, they generally feel free to turn their attention to other life goals, and so they begin paying a bit less attention to each other than during the courting period. Under the best of conditions, two people leading busy lives have to work very hard to maintain closeness. They have to share information constantly, and they have to talk about what's happening inside their heads. You're not even married and you're looking for closeness and excitement elsewhere. Save yourself later grief and put your engagement on hold. You need to figure out who you are and what you want.
Send your questions to askhara@psychologytoday.com
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