The Equal Friend I have a good friend I’ve known five years. We met when I lived out of state, prior to the birth of my daughter. She’s never met my daughter, but we stayed in touch over the years and frequently exchange e-mail and pictures. She sends my daughter gifts for her birthday, Christmas and other occasions. Since my daughter was born, I’ve separated and started dating again. I’ve been seeing the same woman for a year, and she’s very opposed to the gifts my friend sends my daughter. She thinks it’s weird, and there’s an argument anytime a gift is received. She doesn’t want anything to do with my friend, despite my friend trying to be her friend. My girlfriend says she has a right to be upset, and compares it to a situation where I got upset that she accepted a gift from a coworker.

On that occasion, when a coworker told her he liked her as more than a friend, she told me she would stop spending time with him and wouldn’t accept any gifts from him. A month later, she accepted a birthday present from him and I was offended she accepted.

I don’t think the situations are comparable. My friend, over the course of five years, has never expressed interest in me or made advances. We’ve just been good friends. I told her that were it more, I would be the first to do something about it.

Does my girlfriend have grounds to be upset? Should I tell my friend not to send gifts for my daughter?

~ Tom

Tom, the soldier and poet Henry Howard, beheaded by Henry VIII, once observed that the happy life contains good health, a quiet mind and “the equal friend.” By an equal friend he meant a companion with whom we have no quarrel, no strife, no jealousy, no hidden intentions.

Howard’s phrase “the equal friend” sticks in our minds. When someone is your boss or subordinate, you are not friends because you are not equals. But you are lucky. The friend who sends your daughter gifts is an equal friend.

We would not say the same of your girlfriend. An honorary “aunt” sending gifts to your daughter is not the same as a girlfriend accepting gifts from a man who wants more than friendship. The situations are not comparable.

You caught your girlfriend with her hand in the cookie jar and chastised her. Now, as a payback, she wants to admonish you. The problem is, your hand wasn’t reaching for a cookie.

Ben Franklin said there never was a good war nor a bad peace. But love feels neither like war nor like trying to make peace. We don’t get letters from people in love because their minds are quiet. In your letter, however, we hear strife, jealousy and tit for tat. We don’t hear love or continuance.

Giving in to someone who badgers us seldom solves problems. Though it is the easy course, it creates more prickly situations. There is no reason your friend cannot send gifts to your daughter. There is better reason to question whether you and your girlfriend belong together.

Love brings two people together. It is not a test of wills. The more you are afraid to go out and date again, the more you fear not having someone next weekend, the more you will follow the easy course. The more commingling of commitments and furniture and finances, the harder it will be to disengage from someone you should not be with.

Henry Howard began his list of good things by saying, “My friend, the things that do attain the happy life be these...” Howard then offered a test. If what he said is true, at day’s end you will find “the night discharged of all care.”

Think about what we say and decide if all your cares are discharged.

~ Wayne & Tamara

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com. Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com. Direct Answers appears in newspapers in the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK, Grenada, Guyana, Spain, Lesotho, South Africa, Antigua & Barbuda, Papua New Guinea, and Kenya.   Direct Answers Archive 2009

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