John Heisman knows a thing or two about relationships, having endured a divorce so nasty he had to leave the city of Atlanta and his job at Georgia Tech in 1919. He's here to answer your questions about relationships, sex, and other frivolities you will soon cut out of your life if you know what's good for you.
Dear John,
My husband and I have a happy marriage for the most part. One area we disagree on is our finances, though. He spends money on things like nights out with the boys drinking, and never blinks. Yet when I want to buy something modest for myself--a new dress, or a spa weekend, something like that--he explodes and says I spend too much money!
He's a good man. But this double standard is creating tension in our marriage, and I've had just enough of it.
Frustrated in Fredericksburg
Your husband is wise. Liquor is an investment; its dividend is the oblivion of the gutter. This is more payoff than 99% of life's swindles offer, so denigrate its honesty at your own credibility's risk.
Dresses and jewelry, however, are but the camouflage for a soldier of the heart. That soldier has one job: to hunt a man, find his weakness, and then strike in the depth of the cold night without mercy.
You should be allowed a certain budget for these martial decorations, harpy. Five dollars a year should be sufficient. Spend it on trinkets and baubles to shine in the dark while your man seeks happiness in the bright caress of the saloon. It shall be the most faithful lover he shall ever know.
Kansas City is a clerical error built on the compound interest charged by ignorance. That is unrelated but true.
To the next piece of poorly scrawled, half-literate correspondence:
Dear John,
My wife is pressing me for child support. I love my children, but I'm having a hard time paying my own rent, much less the exorbitant payments the court demanded I pay per month. Any advice on how to preserve my relationship with my children while getting some relief from my ex-wife?
-Strapped in San Antonio
You gave them life. Provided you have shown them how to fire and clean a pistol and have scowled at them when they displayed emotion, your obligations to them have been discharged. I repeat the advice given to me by my own father: Florida for bankruptcy, Bolivia for disappearance, and death in Mexico.
Dear John,
I'm a very religious person, and am in a dedicated relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am also in a committed relationship a beautiful young woman. I am trying to be chaste but it is very difficult, and marriage will not be possible for several years.
Do you have any advice on maintaining a balance between my duties as a Christian? And is kissing permitted, at the least?
--Torn in Tucson
My only advice is to cease this fabrication of a letter. There are no virgins in Arizona. Do not pester me with your lies any further, Mr. Torn.
If this letter is sincere: consummate this relationship immediately with fornication and appropriate payment. $3.75 and no more should be sufficient in the Arizona territories. Do not kiss: it is unsanitary, and could lead to fatal oral diseases.
Dear John,
I'm a bachelor (and happily so), and recently a coworker of mine and his wife not-so-subtly indicated that they'd like to involve me in their amorous activity. I've never tried anything like that, but should I even consider it given that I work with this man? If I go through with it, any logistical pointers?
- Three And Out, Boston
Three And Out, your libertine co-workers are a disgrace to the institution of marriage. When you are married, you betroth yourself and the body which is your temple to the other party and the other party alone. It is a sacred bond, and one between a man and a woman unbroken by the distractions of lust and others outside the marriage.
Fortunately for you, marriage is a lie. Do it. If you should find yourself in the Embrace of the Parisian, and playing the role of Fortunate Pierre, press through. It is unfortunate, but only half as shameful as the roles of the Confused Marcel or Superfluous Celine in the arrangement.
Take no precautions--courage is the greatest and only true prophylactic.
Dear John,
I'm diabetic, and--
I ceased reading your letter immediately, and burned it in a fire of great intensity. Away from my untainted touch, sugar urine vampire.
Dear John,
I'm dating a beautiful lady. She is a widow, and has two children as a result of her previous marriage. We will be living together as one family soon, and I am worried. Do you have any advice for entering their family without disrespecting the memory of their father?
First reassure these children that their father is dead. Remind them that death is forever, and that forever means they will never, ever see him again--not here, and not in some honeyed fairy land dairy farm of the imagination. Begin every interaction this way; it will establish the present as a life-priority, and you as a trusted truth-teller.
Second, put them to work in a place of industry immediately. Textile mills require the tiny skilled hands and boundless energy of youth. Should they lose either, the mines await. Grant them ten percent of their wages in summer, and fifteen in winter for shoes and pants.