Marriage & Love

First of all, before I get into the topic of the day, I'd just like to say that I'm so excited that my boy Bieksa scored the winning goal in double overtime to send the Canucks to the Stanley Cup finals! What an intense game! I was so nervous the whole time! And then for Kesler to score with 13.something seconds on the clock in regulation time to keep us going...OMG. So stoked!

And, congrats to Olivia for winning the Biggest Loser season 11! All girl final, which was awesome, but I pegged Olivia to win early on, and she did! What a transformation of those 3 girls! So great! So great! Yay for purple! (I'm wearing purple today in honour of them!)

Ok, now to the topic of discussion. It's not about my marriage, which is pretty damn fine, despite me not working and money becoming a small issue.

No, this is about a phone call I got from an old friend yesterday. It actually has been on my mind quite a bit.

Here's a little background on this friend. I've known her since elementary school, making her my oldest friend (since I only talk to 1 or 2 people from elementary school) - she's practically family. She's very religious, which is part of the problem here. She's devout to her religion like no other friend I know, but she's made mistakes too, which I know she struggles with. This is probably the hardest part for her. She's been married for 5 years to a really great guy (even she admits how great he is - I figured it out within seconds of meeting him).

So, what's the issue? She has discovered that she is madly in love with another man that she's known all her life, and this guy is madly in love with her, and wants to marry her and have kids. And she is so torn. She's fighting her feelings and her religion. She loves her husband, but she loves this other guy. She knows that if she gets a divorce, she will be effectively shunned from her church and some of her family may never speak to her again.

So, of course, the biggest question is: what should she do?

And of course, she asked me that question. And I have no answer. We talked and talked and talked. I just have no answer for her. Absolutely no answer for her. I asked if they've thought to see a counsellor, and I think she wants to, but her husband isn't necessarily being supportive of it. I think he hopes that she will figure it out on her own, and in the meantime he's doing everything he can to remind her of how great of a husband he is, which is only making her feel more guilty.

I can only hope that talking it out with me has helped her. I don't think I had much advice for her, but I let her talk it out, and hopefully it helped.

I had another chat with a friend yesterday morning, and I seemed to help her out without knowing it, so that's good too. Maybe without knowing it, I helped my friend with her marriage woes.

The chat I had with my other friend, well, it was quite different. I won't get into it, but it's complicated. Love between women always is, I think. But we talked it out, and she talked to the other woman, and they worked things out. I feel pretty good that I was able to help, at least a little bit. I think I just made my friend see who she is through the other woman's eyes, and that helped.

At least I helped someone...