Dear Gabby: #14 How to leave impotent husband

#14 How to leave impotent husband? / Deceptor not safe space for truth to be told

Dear Ann Landers: I have been married (in name only) for five years. I was a lonely divorcee (age 47) and John was a well-to-do widower (60) when we were married.

The first night we were married I found out he was impotent. I know it's not his fault, but he should have told me. (He later said he was afraid he'd lose me.)

We had everything a happily married couple could want, a lovely home, friends, trips. I can't say I wasn't living the good life, although I missed the physical side of marriage some.

Now I have met a wonderful man. He is my age (52), and it was skyrockets and Roman candles the first time we were alone together. We're in love and want to get married, but I hate to hurt John.

Would it be wrong to leave John and grab what little happiness is left in life? IN LOVE

Dear In Love: If you want to justify leaving John, the fact that he failed to tell you about his impotence is sufficient. (That's probably grounds for an annulment.)

Trying to keep an affair a secret will be like trying to smuggle dawn past a rooster. You'd better tell John before he tells you. —ANN LANDERS

Gabby's Response:

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Gabby’s Response:

Hi In Love: If you buy something and it's not what the merchant presented it to be, if it doesn't match your picture of what you thought it would/should be, and if you don't tell the merchant immediately, and if you don't return the product, then keeping it and using any part of it, is tantamount to acknowledging the purchase agreement.

I'm having a hard time getting "wonderful." That he conspires with you in deceiving John brings to mind other adjectives. Yes?

If it's happiness you want then focus on your integrity. Neither you nor "52" can respect each other, not while the foundation of your relationship is deceit. There can be no sustained experience of love in the space of lies and withholds.

You ask if it would be wrong... the far greater wrong I see is for you to marry any man, not at least until you are the space for men to tell the truth and to be honorable around you.

When you put in your integrity you can begin to work on the leadership-communications skills it takes to inspire honesty. Thank you, Gabby

BTW: One problem with deceit, as with John not telling you upfront about his impotency, is that one can't be absolutely certain that any undesirable consequence (as with a health problem) is not a consequence of one or more out-integrities. There's a possibility, however remote, that his problem is a consequence of one or more deceits way before he met you. Our integrity is such that we won't let ourselves get away with unethical behaviors. His deceit with you was merely one more in a lifetime of deceits and withholds. To enter into the communication mastery curriculum one must first make an agreement to clean up life's perpetrations (deceits, thefts, lies, cheatings, and abuses), in so doing one eliminates the possibility of integrity as a barrier to producing one's stated intentions. Until one cleans up life's perpetrations, all communication breakdowns, to include broken agreements, are somewhat influenced by one's integrity. Once one's integrity has been restored then a broken agreement is solely a communication problem, not a communication and/or an integrity problem.

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