April 2007

Dear Dale:  I’m a 56 year old lesbian. I have one child, a son who is gay. My relationship with my son’s adoptive mother just ended after 34 years. My ex moved in with a woman who had an affair with another friend of ours, who was also in a relationship at the time! My problem is that I still love my ex, and want us to be together. Any ideas how I can get over this? --Joyce via email from Duluth

Dear Joyce: I strongly recommend some individual therapy during this transitional period. If you and your ex did not have couples therapy during the process of this change, then perhaps you might encourage a few sessions together to steer towards friendship. Fortunately, your son is grown, and can take care of himself. Yet friendly relations between his parents can only help him, and you.

Having been a faithful partner gives you good reason to feel confident about making the right choices as you move forward. Integrity pays dividends, which bountiful returns you can choose to enjoy.

Dear Dale: I love my partner because he is very good to my parents, who are old and failing. He is also a fabulous homemaker. I have never been so pampered. The issue is that I no longer feel sexually attracted to him. I feel guilty about this. We have only lived together for one year. In every other relationship that I have had (three of them) I have been more attracted to my partners than to my current one. But, even so, they all left me eventually. One man and I, my first, were together for eight years until he left me for a police officer.

My sister tells me that I am sabotaging this current relationship because I want to be the first one to leave for a change. I hope that this is not the case because there is too much at stake. God I hate this! I am not good at pretending to feel something I don’t. What do you do when you fall out of romantic love even if you still love your partner platonically? –Robert via email from San Francisco

Dear Robert:  It seems that your partner brings loyalty, tenderness and emotional strength to your life and that of your family. Rare and highly valuable are these gifts before you.

Passion is perhaps the least understood among the essential building blocks to romantic love. A matchmaker sees how passion may or not prevail as the long-term force that holds couples together. A familiar partner brings peace, comfort, and companionship. However, good sex always helps. For those who want, sex therapy is generally very effective.

It comes down to whether it is your intention—and his—to commit to each other. Whether to grow together or apart is a choice that we all make in our relationships every day. Do what in your heart feels right. And bless you both.

Dear Dale: My problem is that I am dating three men right now. I’m 27 and single. I’m feeling guilty about whoring around. But I only play safe. After a weekend of drugs, and then drinks to get to sleep, I wake up wanting someone next to me. But then the next weekend comes, and I can’t help myself. I want to be out with my friends getting high, and probably sleeping around. The only men I’m interested in getting serious about are already married—to women. Am I totally fucked up or what? –Jaded Before 30 via email from San Jose

Dear Jaded: The dark places where we choose to go point to bright ones at their opposites. Sometimes we rely on the popular crowd to feel whole, and then wake up sober—or not—intending to forge our own good lives freely. You have picked straight and married men in the past in order to learn the benefits of choosing single and gay ones now.

Your intention to grow stronger builds one step at a time. I encourage you to enroll in group therapy among other peers of similar circumstances. Also, look up friends and family, and schedule some fun visits in these weeks to come.

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