DEAR CHICO AND DELAMAR...

I’ve been married for three years, but it wasn’t my choice to marry my husband, even if we already have a child. I wanted to teach in a Catholic school and they required me to get married if I wanted to work for them.

Since we got married, we have not had the usual relationship of a husband and wife. We don’t fight. We don’t sleep together. We don’t even talk at night before we sleep. He never says I love you, unless I tell him. I love him and it really hurts when he neglects me. I’ve told him that if he really loves me to show it to me. He just tells me that he’s not a showy person.

Recently, I met on a social networking site a person I loved 10 years ago. We lost contact when he went into the seminary, and when we touched base again, we had a long seven-hour chat, and I felt that I was falling for him again. He’s even kept the poems I sent him 10 years ago!

We feel like we’re really compatible. However, we also know that we can’t be together. We decided to have a deal for the sake of my marriage and wait for a year for my husband to change. But if nothing happens, then that’s the time we will give ourselves a chance to be happy together. We decided to see each other at least once a month.

I really don’t know what to do. It is really difficult for me to decide. If only I know what my husband feels towards me, then I can easily decide. I cannot ask for a friend’s advice because I know I am doing wrong, but I really love this guy from my past and I am looking forward to a future with him. – Trina

CHICO SAYS…

This is a mess that needs cleaning up soon.

First, I don’t know what possessed you to decide to marry a man just because a job required you to do it. Get papers xeroxed, yes. Get NBI clearance, yes. Get married? Uh...I don’t think so. For your sake, I hope there were other reasons that played into your decision to marry your husband.

Second, I can understand people who say they’re not showy; but “not showy” is very different from invisible. I’m sorry but I don’t get how two people, who vowed to love each other until one croaks, can live together but not sleep together and not tell each other they love each other. We always say this on our show, but the real death blow to any relationship is not hate, but apathy. Hatred is a passionate emotion that could still signal fiery feelings for each other. Apathy only signals cold unfeeling death.

I’m not surprised that you find yourself finding refuge in the arms of another man. I wouldn’t be surprised as well if your husband is doing the same. I’m not saying he is, I’m just saying that it would NOT come as a shock.

Third, about this other guy, obviously he fills the needs that your husband cannot (or will not). I’m actually wondering with equal bewilderment why your husband agreed to marry you for the reasons you stated, unless he thought otherwise. This other guy offers an alternative way to carry on a relationship. It’s just sad that you realize this after marrying a guy just so you can get hired for a job (I’m sorry, I can’t move on, I just can’t believe you did that!). You deciding to give your husband a chance to prove himself before you jump ship to be with your soulmate (forgive the tinge of sarcasm), is like a gay guy who decides to call himself bisexual for a year, after which, if he still craves the cock-a-noodle-doo, will finally decide to come out as a full-fledged gay rainbow-colored unicorn.

It’s a halfway house to an inevitability. You can’t treat emotions like cold cuts that you can put in the ref until you know what to do with it. You’ve basically given yourself a year to come up with enough justifications to leave your husband without feeling guilty for it. It’s almost as if you’re saying: “You have one year to prove to me you love me, and if you fail, then you give me no choice but to leave you.” You’ve managed to go from philanderer to the aggrieved with one fell swoop. You are then able to pin your marriage’s demise on your husband’s inability to step up to the challenge, as if you never had any choice in the matter. Plus, during the entire year that you’re magnanimously allowing your husband to pass a test he doesn’t even know he’s undertaking, you just so happen to see your paramour once a month, just to keep the extra-marital fire burning, until the time comes when you can self-righteously dump your husband and find your happiness after years of oppression you’ve suffered under an unjust spouse (Do I sound sarcastic, because I’m trying hard not to...).

You just need to know that should you decide to push through with this, you will be cheating on your husband for an entire year. Waiting for your husband to change his ways when your own ways need mending sounds mighty hypocritical to me.

If you REALLY wanted to save your marriage, drop this other guy, work things out with your husband (minus the time limit), and tell him what you want out of the relationship and see what he wants out of the relationship and decide once and for all if you guys are on the same boat. If things can be worked out, then just do it minus the distraction of a soulmate on the side. But if you decide that the relationship is unsalvageable, then call it quits and call it a day. No need to drag it out for an entire year of lying to yourselves and each other. Save yourselves the time and trouble and cash in your chips while you’re relatively ahead.

Just one last piece of advice: when weighing your options, try to find your part in the blame game. Whenever someone comes to me with a version where it’s all the other person’s fault, red flags instantly shoot up. In every story there are at least two sides. I’m sure your husband is far from ideal, but you need to own up to your end of the fault-finding.

I’m sure you’ve made mistakes too (hooking up with your extra-marital soulmate aside). Just the fact that you ended your letter with: “I am looking forward for the future to be with him” tells me that you’ve already made up your mind, you just don’t know how to go about it.

It’s no crime to find your happiness outside of your marriage; you’re not the first and you won’t be the last. It’s your right to want out of a relationship, but there is a wrong way and a right way to go about it. No matter how awful a spouse you may think your husband is, he still deserves to be treated with the requisite respect. Deal with this issue now. Delaying it will only be wasteful and cruel.

DELAMAR SAYS…

You are trapped in a series of spiritless decisions. Getting married because it is a requirement for a job is not the best reason to get into it. Half-hearted at best, this is not the way to approach a partnership that you hope will last a lifetime. You married him to qualify for a job; do you wonder why you are unhappy with this decision?

So he is not showy or affectionate this should have been a point that you considered when marrying him. You need your emotional needs addressed by your husband. He needs it from you too. But getting married under the circumstances that you had doesn’t make him more affectionate towards you. Let’s face it, would you overflow with love and affection if you knew someone married you out of a job requirement? Probably not, right? He might not know it but he definitely can sense it. What with the not sleeping in the same bed together set-up and the lack of communication makes this marriage a business deal more than anything else. And you wonder why it is not able to meet your emotional needs.

And now, you have decided to have a plan B with someone else. Wait one year for your husband to change and then go with someone else if he doesn’t? Another half-hearted decision in the making!

If you want to be happy, start working on the problem head on instead of designing an escape plan if things don’t work out. Right away you are entertaining and almost expecting that your husband will fail you when all efforts should be focused on exhausting all possible means to make your relationship with your husband better. How does this approach make your marriage work? How does it give you an all-out honest to goodness attempt at making your marriage work?

If you want to save your marriage, don’t go outside of it for solutions. You need to talk to your husband. Speak the truth and listen with an open heart and an open mind to what he has to say too. What you do affects him. What he does affect you. So, you have to think of him too when trying to solve the problems of your marriage. It doesn’t sound like you have any communication at all with him. Why don’t you start working on that? Ask him to sit down with you and talk about your situation. Then listen to him. And I mean, really listen. Whatever he has to say will definitely impact your next step in this whole scenario so find a way to speak the truth with him.

Whatever way you choose to go whether you will work on your marriage or leave your husband for good, you have to really understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. Try to get a realistic expectation with your every action. You can’t say I married him as a job requirement and then wonder why you are not fulfilled emotionally in your marriage. It simply isn’t a realistic expectation. Decide with your whole heart what you want to do and then make it happen.

Save your marriage or start anew with another. Either way you have to know which one you want and then go for it. This is not a problem about one man or another. This problem is really about you and what you want and then sticking to it and giving it your all especially when things get tough. You are half-hearted and undecided which way you want to go. You expect your happiness to be given to you by someone else, your husband, your job or your old flame. When really your happiness will start with you knowing what you really want and then setting things in order to make that happen.

You can do this! I really believe that. Go and take charge of your life. Make decisions based on what you want. Don’t expect other people to work on making you happy. That is a job you will do for yourself. Should people not respond the way you want them to then you will know that you will just have to change course to get to your happiness. Good luck to you and I really hope that conviction will find you one way or another.

(Chico and Delle welcome your letters. Write to: youth@mb.com.ph or fax through 527-7511. Listen to the Dynamic Duo Monday to Saturday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. over Monster Radio RX 93.1)