Just Because He Has That Problem....

On a message board I frequent, one of the members was telling us about his recent serving with divorce papers from his wife. Unfortunately, a common enough occurrence, but this one struck a chord with me.

Apparently, he's recently started a new job as a teacher and is therefore quite busy putting together PowerPoint presentations, tests, worksheets, etc. and is therefore on the computer a lot. His wife is VERY upset at this as she thinks he's up to no good on the computer, instead of doing work. He goes on to say that a friend of his wife's recently told her about her husband's addiction to internet porn, and so the wife has transferred that fear to the husband.

This reminds me of a situation I was in with a relationship I was in long before I met Jennifer. Her sister divorced her husband because he was an alcoholic and wouldn't admit it or seek help. Fair enough - can't say I blame her at all.

However, any time I drank a beer or whatever, that fear was applied to me. It got very annoying - I do enjoy a good beer now and again, to the point that I belong to a Beer of the Month Club. But I'm not an alcoholic. I go for days or weeks at a time without a drink and don't think about it at all. Sometimes I just want a beer. No big deal.

So despite my exhortations that I was not an alcoholic, she simply couldn't get it out of her weak mind that I was headed down the same path. Now, that's not necessarily the reason that we finally broke it off, it was just one of many (should have done it much sooner, in retrospect).

I'm writing this here because I get a bit irrational about people who project their fears like this and that's not going to help out my message board friend at all.

Anyway, this makes me even more thankful that I met Jennifer - who doesn't project her friends' fears onto my habits/activities. She's a confident woman who knows who I am, knows that I love her, and would never do anything that would piss her off (well, maybe in fun...). Thanks, honey! I love you!