As always, Lovegevity welcomes Bruce Sallan of A Dad's Point of View to the blog. Please visit www.brucesallan.com to contact Bruce and to enjoy the various features his website offers, including an archive of his columns, contact information, links to his published work, photo galleries, reader comments, and much more.

Couples Need Couples

While on a recent vacation, my wife and I had a stimulating discussion with friends about friends. We were enjoying a meal with two other couples and one of the men asked the question, "Have you found many couples that you are friends with and, if so, how have you met them?”

What followed was a spirited discussion about friends--same sex friends, friends as couples, and opposite sex friends, when you’re married (or monogamously involved). The conclusion was that it is not simple.

As we were on a trip hosted by Dennis Prager (radio talk-show host, writer, and lecturer), I found myself immediately paraphrasing him because he’s often discussed this issue. He said that for two couples to be friends, a number of relationships have to be in place. Each man must like the other man; each woman must like the other woman, and the same for the opposite gender in each couple. If any one of those relationships doesn’t work, the friendship of the two couples is in jeopardy.

We began despairing over the difficulties of finding good couple friends. One of the couples that had been married for 47 years related that their friendships with other couples changed over time. When one of them didn’t truly like one of the other people in a couple, that friendship was ultimately doomed or, at best, marginalized.

Several of us were in second marriages, and we all had the same surprising experience of what happened to our friends from our first marriages. Everyone at the table had suffered the same thing--that most of their friends vanished as a result of their divorces. Only those same sex friends that existed prior to the marriages were likely to remain friends. My wife and I had exactly this experience and over the years that we were single again, we each built up a new group of friends.

Now remarried, the challenge has become to integrate those friends into our new married life and we’ve found somewhat difficult. My wife’s friends were mostly single women without children while my friends were mostly men in marriages with children.

We’re again facing the struggle of finding and nurturing new relationships. And, like most things in life, one gets what one put out. Since my wife and I have found ourselves increasingly busy, we’ve not put in much effort to nurture new friendships. We’ve met each other’s friends and some have made their way into our lives, but many have not. As Dennis says, he’s got to like the other husband, she’s got to like the other wife, and so on, meaning you have to have eight relationships to work for two couples to get along. Not that simple, is it -- think about it.

Also, as my wife didn’t have children before becoming a stepparent to my children, her friends more often than not also didn’t have children. That is a defining difference with couples. No, it’s not wise to only talk about your children, but it’s inevitable that you will, to some degree.

My best friend and his wife make their primary friendships with other parents when his three children were young. For this friend and his wife, these friendships sprang from relationships developed at their synagogue and their children’s schools. With my children now older, the connection to their schools is practically nil, and my wife and I don’t share the same faith so our religious affiliations are also different. Consequently, those avenues are not available to us.

Ironically, there is a couple that we’ve started to become friends with via the same sort of connection that my best friend had when his kids were younger. My older son has a girlfriend and for "young love” it seems to be a very enduring and a good relationship. Her parents live nearby; we both are concerned about issues that they may have (e.g. intimacy at this age) so we share similar interests plus, of course, we’re geographically compatible. They are likely candidate to fulfill our couples’ friendship vacuum.

We also have the added hurdle of a second marriage and the previously mentioned loss of friends that occurred to both of us during our respective divorces. Ironically, I began this column quoting a discussion that took place on a trip hosted by Dennis Prager. The friends we made on that trip were perfect for us because we shared similar values and interests. The frustration was that only one of those couples lives nearby. The other two couples we befriended live out-of-state.

We finally got together with that one local couple after several failed attempts due to mutual scheduling conflicts. I hope that friendship develops. But, it’s very clear to me that developing new friends in our "middle aged” second marriage status is a challenge. And, we also acknowledge that we haven’t put enough of an effort into it yet. I’m counting on my wife to take care of this, and she’s counting on me. Checkmate.

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Today's guest post comes from relationship expert Maryanne Comaroto. Are you looking for a new relationship? Just beginning one? Trying to decide if your current interest is The One? Maryanne has great advice for you no matter where you are on the relationship spectrum.

Who’s to Blame?

Summary: According to a senior Iranian cleric, earthquakes are caused by promiscuous women.

(Recently) in Tehran, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi spoke to a group of worshippers. He warned them that in order to protect themselves from natural disasters, they needed to follow a strict code of modesty, especially modest dress.

"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he warned them.

For a moment, I was speechless, and wondered whether someone could really come up with something so ridiculous. But then it occurred to me: it's thinking like this that has led to the prevalent view of women as the prostitute/victim. And what powerful prostitutes, we are, too - so powerful that men feel threatened enough to want to control our actions, our movements, and our clothing. It's women who cause natural disasters, it's women who lead men astray. of course, it's all so clear now! Maybe Sandra Bullock's husband is right to blame women for his abhorrent philandering!

Wow, what a revelation. What is it going to take for us to wake up and see this dangerous thinking for what it really is? If I were Mother Nature, this man would have nowhere to hide. I would rain down a plague of lightning storms, hurricanes, and tidal waves upon him that would show exactly how I felt about false accusations and unfair shame being cast on the beautiful creatures of my world. I would then bring on the mother of all rain storms, washing away the hatred, the fear, and the delusion that leads to this ridiculous behavior.

If I were the Ghost of Christmas Future, I would lead this man through his own land, right into one of Iran's top sperm banks and genetic engineering facilities. He would see how the facility was run completely by women, and how those women raised daughters who had gone on to become important world leaders. One of the facility's top achievements has been the altering of the male anatomy. Now, men must earn a penis by first proving that they are worthy of respect, and being consistently honorable in their thoughts and actions.

If I were an analyst, I might forego office sessions and send this man directly to a psych ward, where he could get advanced and intense help for his delusions. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that there was some catastrophic event in his childhood that combined with his cultural conditioning to create a mind that was bound to distort a repressed feeling of helplessness into a bizarre fantasy of evil women with supernatural powers.

If I were enlightened, I would have no room for hate in me, as the sadness of seeing this terribly damaged man would compel me to help him. I would embrace the emotional illness that severed his connection with the Divine, and with reality. Then, just for good measure, I'd probably give his spirit a wake-up call into right thinking by smashing him on the forehead with a two-by-four, as a particular ancient monk was known to do.

If I were a man, words like these coming from another man would fill me with embarrassment and anger, and I'd want to do something about it. I'd want to find a way to make sure that this man would never again feel compelled to bring unjust shame and humiliation upon womankind, which in turn reflects upon everyone. Perhaps we could start by fitting this man with a chador that couldn't be removed, or maybe a chastity belt would get the point across more clearly.

If I were an Iranian woman in Tehran, I'd be a lesbian, and choose a life of celibacy!

Each summer poses unique challenges for parents and kids. This summer is no different for my family as we’re moving sometime just before school starts in the fall. Everyone knows about the joys of moving and we’re happy with the new house that we think we have. The deal is yet to close, as of this writing, but it’s looking good. The prospect of moving again, just two years after our last move, isn’t a likely highlight of this summer. We have some minor work to do on the new house, though my experience is it’s never "minor.”

My younger son, Aaron, goes to summer camp each year and absolutely loves it. He’s developed summer friends that he stays in touch with all year long but only sees during each summer’s four-week camp session. They’re growing up together, it seems, summer after summer. So, for him, that will be the highlight of his summer, plus he loves sleeping and staying up late without the burden of school.

Will, my older son, however, has faced an unexpected change of plans for his summer. Responding to an advertisement on the job bulletin board at his high school, he applied and got a job at a to-be-opened (national) fast food franchise. He went through the whole process of job interview, acceptance, video, and even buying his "uniform,” per their instructions.

His start date was constantly postponed and, needless to say, he began to worry and I began to get suspicious. Five of his fellow high-schoolers were all hired at the same time. Will soon heard that one of them, a good friend of his, got a "you’re fired” letter that contained no reasonable explanation for the dismissal. As a result, my son visited their new location and asked both the owner and manager what was going on. He was also told that he was fired, too.

This devastated my son who, at 16, was seeking more financial independence and had planned his summer around this promised job. Now, in a funk, he will have to re-group and see if at this late date, in June, there are any summer jobs still available for teens. It’s a life lesson, but one I’d preferred he learned a bit later in his young life and certainly after he’d gotten some job experience under his belt.

I’ve written to the franchise headquarters twice and haven’t gotten the courtesy of a reply. I’ve also written our local paper, hoping they’ll publish my letter telling the story about how this new franchise so poorly treated our local kids.

I’d like the kids that were hired to actually organize a picket of this particular franchise, as it may teach them a lesson in peaceful protesting. It could also possibly get the attention of the parent company to make this right, in the form of some compensation for the lost summer wages as well as having the new franchise owners maybe apologize for such shoddy treatment of our local kids, especially after soliciting them directly. We’ll see if my son gets over his funk and chooses to fight back. I hope he does.

Each summer, for all my boys’ lives, we’ve taken a summer trip of some kind. This may be the first summer we don’t--at least not as a whole family. My wife will likely go to visit her family since an uncle and his wife are having a 50^th Wedding Anniversary celebration shortly after he’s recently had to have his leg amputated from an infection. Life always has its moments--the bright ones and the scary ones. My wife wants to celebrate this bright occasion and will likely bring our younger son with her on a short weekend trip, while my older son and I continue to deal with the move and refurbishing of the new house.

I plan to continue working on getting my radio show as good as possible and hopefully secure some sponsors, which means knocking on doors and putting on my sales hat yet again. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that, though I wore that hat for many years, in one capacity or another, during my showbiz career.