V.C. Andrews Eat Your Heart Out

This question is vintage Dear Margo.

DEAR MARGO: I am engaged to a man who has an unusually close relationship with his sister. They have a long history of living together as adults and behaving like significant others. Past partners felt like outsiders in their world.

Well into their 40s, neither one had ever been engaged or married until I came into the picture. Our relationship has been a first for him: beginning a life with me while still trying to remain close to her. Their history has created friction between all of us. Sadly, he is in the middle.

Although he has stepped up to the plate in many ways, I feel we need some guidance moving forward. Instead of tackling each issue as it arises and having the same argument/discussion regarding each of our roles, I wish we could come to a general understanding of what is acceptable.

His sister can be quite good at creating drama. It is as though her brother is finally moving on with marriage while she is holding on to the hope that she can remain his pseudo life-partner. She has openly said that no one comes between her and her brother.

Regardless of her behavior, we are trying to work through this situation and want to be rid of this strife. I genuinely feel bad for him and want us all to respect each other in each of our different roles . . . I just don't know how to accomplish this. -- FRUSTRATED WITH FAMILY

Dear Frustrated,

Hmmm, how to put this gently… your boyfriend fucked his sister, your boyfriend had a sexual relationship with his sister. She is confusing her roles as sister and life-partner because to her they are one in the same. I would buy her being merely emotionally dependant if she created a stink for awhile then found something else to do, say a boyfriend; or if the siblings were younger, say in their teens or even early twenties. Forty years old, no serious relationships between the two of them, a long history of living together and acting like significant others, that spells I-N-C-E-S-T.

One of the messed up things about incest is its nearly impossible to break up and never speak to the person again. It is taking an emotionally intimate relationship between siblings, making it sexual and emotional then trying to tear the sexual part out, but leave the emotional part. The best argument against incest (besides “eww gross”) is you can never make a clean break. The best argument for incest (just to be fair) is no in-laws.

Your boyfriend is finally trying to break the sexual part of the relationship, probably not for the first time. My guess would be one (or both) of them wants children and it can’t happen together, so it is time to move on.

The easiest solution is for you to find someone else without that sort of baggage. If you’re so emotionally invested that you still want to be with him I recommend that you remove yourself from the conflict. Tell him in no uncertain terms that you will not compete with his sister. When a situation arises that pits the two of you against one another tell your fiancé to do whatever he wants because you refuse to compete. Hopefully he’ll put her first for sisterly things, like say she needs help moving and you first for wifely things like who he sits beside at weddings. Let all the conflict be between him and his sister with you completely out of it. He can’t be in the middle of the fight if it is between the two of them. Also, it is important for the sister to see that her brother puts you first on his own, not because you force him. If you aren’t put first, and you’re at an engagement stage, you’re an idiot to stay.

MRS Degree

This question came from Dear Abby. I am itching for a question from internet land.

DEAR ABBY: I'm writing because I'm not sure who else to ask. I'm 22, in college, and I'm tired of having to defend what I want to do with my life. My major is liberal arts. I chose it only because I have no passion for any specific area.

When family or friends ask what my major is and I tell them, they generally come back with something about majoring in "unemployment" or making sure I have a "backup plan" in case I don't find a rich husband.

Abby, all I want is to be a mother to my future children and a wife to my husband. I'm tired of defending myself, and I'm beginning to think my desires are not normal. What can I say to people when they question me, and is what I want normal? -- UNSURE IN THE MIDWEST

Dear Unsure:

One thing a lot of people, especially the crowd over 45 or so don’t get is that a bachelor’s degree doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore. As far as getting a job after college you need something more than just a BA to make yourself marketable. The exceptions are if your major specifically trains you for a particular field such as nursing, or engineering. Those fields seem to be moving towards a master’s degree, but they aren’t quiet there yet. Enlighten family and friends of this fact when they give you a hard time.

You would be just as marketable with a liberal arts BA as with a psychology, criminology, or communications BA. That isn’t the degree you’re looking for though. You are looking for a MRS degree. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last. At the end of the day you are pursuing your own happiness and who am I (or anyone else) to stand in your way.

The majority of straight women especially those approaching thirty want nothing more than babies and husbands. Your desires are quite normal. It’s kind of annoying if you’re outside that norm like myself (gay, and like children ok… if you cook them right). But hey, we aren’t all alike and the world is a better place for it.

I would like to encourage you to keep some hobbies and maybe part-time work (even if it’s volunteer) outside the home even when you are a mother. Cultivating interests outside the home will make you a more well rounded individual and thus a better mother and wife. If you live solely through your husband and children you might flip out and become a longenbarger basket/Avon/Amway lady after your kids become more independent. We don’t need any more of those people in the world.

Bisexual Boys Gone Wild

This came from Dear Margo.

DEAR MARGO: I've been living with a guy for nine months, and it's fair to say I am the nosy type. Past relationships have made me not trust anyone.

My guy and I are very serious and discussing marriage. But every time he's gone, I snoop, and if you look, you shall find. Seven months into the relationship, I am looking at his online chat logs. I am reading a conversation between him and a female when he tells this person to start talking to him on his other IM account, one I never knew he had.

Well, he has another account where it says he is a cross-dresser and bisexual. I am very confused at this point because this is the man I want to marry. I look through his logs and e-mails and find that he's been talking to other men and women about meeting with them to have sex. He also has an online friend (female) who knows all about his "other life."

So I contact this woman, and she sends me all the conversations they'd had. He talks about how he loves me, hasn't cheated on me yet, but wants to have sex with men. I begin to freak out thinking the man I love is gay. So I confront him, and he tells me that he has been in four sexual relationships with males, just out of curiosity. This all happened before he met me, so then he decided he wasn't gay.

He has started counseling, doesn't use the computer anymore, and is doing everything he can to prove that he loves me and wants to be with me. So I guess my question is, what do I do? I love him, but I am not sexually attracted to him anymore. Every time we start to become intimate, I need to stop, because all I can think about is him with another man.

--- CONFUSED AND IN LOVE

Dear Katie Kate Confused,

Dump him. I don’t think he is completely gay, but he isn’t straight enough for you. If he we merely curious why sleep with four guys? Why not just one? And I am betting that it’s been more than four, I bet four is how many he has had online records with i.e. he thinks you may already know about three or four guys so he fesses up to four.

Why did he start counseling? Does he want the counselor to make him completely straight? Counseling doesn’t make you straight any more than computers make you gay. There were bisexuals before there was Microsoft. They may have looked for sex in clubs, bath houses, and other places of ill repute but they existed before the internet.

Thinking of your boyfriend as bisexual is a huge turnoff for you. There is nothing you can do to change that fact, and there is nothing he can do to change his bisexuality (try as he might), so it’s time to move on. It isn’t fair, but that is no excuse to stay together. Some people are born ugly, stupid, or poor. It isn’t their fault but all those things can affect their dating pool. Being bisexual is no different, had you known when you first started dating you would have terminated the relationship then.

Horny Teenagers And Their Shocked Mothers

This came from Dear Abby

DEAR ABBY: My 14-year-old daughter, "Jessica," is mature for her age and a straight-A student. She is entering her freshman year of high school. She is an avid reader, and I have recently found cause to be concerned about what she's reading.

Abby, Jessica is reading adult romance novels that feature what I consider to be content that is too mature and erotic for a child her age to read. I have told her to stop buying them, but I know she's still sneaking them into the house because I found some when I went into her room to clean.

What should I do? I'm uncomfortable about her reading this type of material. What will it do to her future relationships and her judgment of what's acceptable and not acceptable in those relationships?

We have argued over this. Jessica says there is nothing in the books that she didn't already know about, and having learned about sex and relationships in school, there is no reason why she shouldn't be allowed to read what she wants.

Is she right? Am I being overprotective? Or will her current reading choices cause future problems? -- NERVOUS IN BERNARDSVILLE, N.J.

Dear Nervous,

She is physically mature enough for a sexual relationship but not mentally. So where is a teenager to turn with all these often embarrassing… uh… feelings… down there? Masturbation of course. It’s been keeping teenagers sane since the typical age for marriage cruised past 16. That’s where the romance novels come in; you see they are basically girl porn. The books are giving her an outlet for all the pent up hormones without the risk of pregnancy, STDs or heartbreak; and they make her hella good at mad libs. Sounds like the perfect situation for a teen.

She has unrealistic expectations of relationships, just like all the other 14 year old girls. I think it’s a law or something. You’re worrying over nothing. Just out of curiosity, would you have been so flabbergasted if you caught your 14 year old son with a playboy?