Direct Answers - Column for the week of October 13, 2003

I've been friends with "Jenny" for three years after my husband and I started a business with her husband. When her husband decided he didn't want to come to work anymore, we pretty much took his name off the business, and they stopped calling and coming over.

We would call, but they'd never answer or return our calls. Through another friend we learned they split up. I had some information about Jenny's husband I thought she needed to know, so I met with her. I told Jenny her husband cheated enough for an entire football team.

Jenny told me she never called because her husband said we didn't pay him an even share of the business profits. Even though we didn't have to, we showed her proof we paid him right. After all that we became friends again. We hung out every other day and talked on the phone every morning.

Jenny even found a guy to like her and her two kids. She seemed really happy and believe me, if you knew her, a piece of chocolate would make her happier than she ever was in her marriage. The only thing is, she dumped the new guy. Then suddenly she stopped calling and coming over.

Yesterday I went to her house and her ex was there. I turned around and left. I'm pretty sure the only reason she wants to be with him is because he is the father of her kids, but she is willing to give up her friendship with me for him. I know what you're thinking, same as my husband, she never really was my friend if she would do this.

I wrote her a letter in hopes of getting my friend back, but I'm not sure it will do any good. What else, if anything, should I do?

Tara

Tara, what your husband said is not quite right. It isn't that Jenny never was your friend; it's that you can't root for both teams in a basketball game. Jenny was faced with two competing realities. Either her husband is a good person worthy of respect, or her husband is untrustworthy.

While Jenny was with you she could cast her marriage in one light, but once she went back to him, she had to recast her marriage in a different light. She couldn't hold both pictures in her mind at the same time.

Your experience is a familiar one. Often when a couple breaks up, a friend of one of them will share in all the secrets of the marriage. If the couple gets back together, that friend will be left out in the cold because they know too much. That is what happened to you.

While Jenny's husband is in her life, she will not be your friend.

Wayne & Tamara

Star Struck

I am dating the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and I love her more than anything in the world. Obviously there is a problem, or I wouldn't be writing. My girlfriend is extremely jealous, especially of celebrities. She wouldn't talk to me for three days after she asked if I thought actress Eliza Dushku was attractive, and I said yes.

I never look at other women, and she seems only to be jealous of celebrities who are way out of my league. Not too many movie stars hang out in my small town in Ohio. What should I do?

Dean

Dean, this could be something you can learn to live with, as long as you don't move to Hollywood. But we never suggest a person alter or change their actions for the sake of another's irrational jealousy.

If you change yourself for her, she will not respect you. She may be attractive enough to get any man to jump through hoops for her, but the man she settles down with will probably be a man who doesn't.

Tamara