Rule is not to intervene
Dear Carolyn: I am writing about this triangle of people I know. We’re all in college, and the guy is engaged to his longtime girlfriend. However, he has cheated on her multiple times with another girl. Evidently, the fiancée thinks they just shared a kiss one night. But, I know when they studied abroad together they ended up having sex multiple, multiple times. He told her he was going to leave his girlfriend, etc. They came back, and he broke her heart. But now the other two are engaged, and I’m absolutely outraged. This guy is such a jerk, and all he talks about is hot girls and breasts. Do I tell her she’s heading into a doomed marriage? – Trying to Help
If it’s true all he talks about is hot girls and breasts, she already knows but has chosen not to know.
And while I’m loath to suggest she’s completely responsible for choosing to marry him, since he is apparently lying to her, I also don’t care much for the idea of declaring her a completely helpless victim.
You are privy to a piece of information to which he’s denied her access. But she, presumably, is privy to countless others that he shares with her alone (even whilst a-broad abroad) – and from which she can make a character assessment of her own that might even be more reliable than yours.
That alone means a bystander in your position, wondering whether to intervene, has a complex decision to make. Add in the possibility of derailing a relationship that would otherwise bump and bumble its way to a warm maturity, and I think the rule has to be not to intervene, not unless something bigger forces your hand.
Like, your integrity. If you’re being forced to lie, you can refuse and tell the truth, or even just warn him you will. Obviously, if your information were life-or-death, you’d rat him out. (And unless he’s high risk, I don’t think possible STD exposure counts.) If it were a sibling or really close friend, you’d tell. You’d have to.
And if you choose not to tell and they marry, meet your new secret-for-life.
Dear Carolyn: My girlfriend is 29 and her mom still pays her car loan and auto insurance. This seems to me a thing between her and her mom. But I don’t want to be married and wondering if my mother-in-law is keeping up with the insurance premiums. Thoughts? – L.
Car payments and insurance are practical lifelines, and you’d certainly be justified if you were to insist they be handled in-house.
Likewise, the ability to handle baggage is an emotional lifeline, and if you were to insist that your bride-to-be find a way to deal with her mommy baggage that doesn’t involve drawing blood in monthly installments, you’d be justified there as well.