The Daily Record

Mary Haworth's Mail

MAN AND WOMAN, EACH MARRIED TO ANOTHER, SEEK COUNSEL ABOUT THEIR MUTUAL LOVE

DEAR MARY HAWORTH: I'm writing this to please someone else as well as myself, and we have agreed to do as you say. But don't tell me that I am infatuated with this man, for I am not.

I am a mature woman, mother of two children, married to the most wonderful man on earth, I guess. I must have loved him at one time, until two years ago -but nothing as compared to the way I love another man now. Writers say perfect, you are so happy. But I have never been so miserable and unhappy as I am lately.

I am in love with the most wonderful man on earth-and can't marry him. He too is married and has small children. If I could forget him, no doubt everything would be fine: and believe me, I have tried hard to forget him. He was in military service for some time, and there was hardly an hour I didn't think of him. He wrote me once and instead of destroying the letter I kept it and read it over and over.

Now he is back and I am more in love with him than ever. I can tell when he is in the same room without seeing him.

NONE SUSPECTS THEIR LOVE YET

If it weren't for the children I wouldn't be writing this: for I know what I would do. But they are our responsibility: they didn't ask to be here. But must we torture ourselves for the rest of our lives, for them? Would they really expect us to? So far, no one knows of our love but us. I haven't had the heart to tell my husband. He says he loves me very much; but I am getting so I don't even want him to touch me or kiss me-because it seems it should be Bill.

It wasn't something I wanted to happen. I couldn't help it; just happened. Oh, I love him so much. I have never been one to make quick and rash decisions; and believe me I have given this problem plenty of thought. Please advise us.

C. B.

WOMAN'S CRYING FOR THE MOON

DEAR C. B.: As I get the picture, your anguish consists largely in crying for the moon. You want something you can't have, at least not in terms that would satisfy your heart. You admit you can't have a love life with Bill, compatible with peace of mind, and yet you refuse to dismiss the temptation. Therefore you are miserable and unhappy, a depression caused not so much by love itself as by a pernicious mood of conflict and frustration daily renewed in, and by, your imagination.

In all probability, your essential problem consists in having more energy, ability and intelligence than your daily routine calls for. Very likely your mind is pretty idle or stagnant for the most part, not exercised to in diversified good works--for example, on behalf of church, school, good civic government, etc.

Now the typical weakling, or half-baked, solution of daily tedium, when one lacks the character and resolve to really change things, is to fall in love romantically with a semi-stranger-maybe someone in the environment, maybe a movie or TV star. After that the mind is occupied, almost hourly, with all sorts of fantasy excitement-the wonders that might happen, IF.

But mark the IF. It is the barricade that reminds of the difference between reality and meaningless mooning.

SUIT ACTIONS TO THE ACTS

My advice to you and Bill is to concentrate on the facts of your case: the pros and cons of breaking up homes to possess each other--and leave emotion out of the reckoning (at least deny it the driving reins), until you've reached a logical verdict on "what to do." This is the rational mature approach to breaking the stalemate in your thinking.

It is the positive way to reconcile the conflict in your hearts, by choosing the course that offers most solace in the long run.

At this writing you are blocked by wanting too much. You are unwilling to forfeit what you have, in exchange for something else that you think you want more. Which suggests that you have security and know it with your wonderful husband; and that you are hypnotized by Bill's sex appeal, while sensing (unconsciously), that he is a philandering type-perhaps incorrigibly so.

Mary Haworth counsels through her column, not by mail or personal interview. Write her in care of (The Daily Record).