Advice from Both Sides

Double talk from a husband and wife counseling team. Nils and Sherry Diaz-Arvidsen look at love from both sides now -- and still can't agree.

Nils and Sherry Diaz-Arvidsen are relationship counselors without portfolio. They are visiting lecturers at the Santa Barbara Institute where they specialize in issues of delusion and dysfunction.

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Dear Nils and Sherry,

Bob and I met online four months ago through a Web site that specializes in matching overweight people. Things are going very well between us, but we have one disagreement: I see nothing wrong with letting our friends know we met through the personal ads, but Bob is embarrassed and wants to keep it a secret. I don't want to spend the rest of our life together living a fat lie. What should be do?

Kathy, Houston

Kathy,

Sherry: It's never good to begin a relationship on untruthful ground.

Nils: The last thing you want to do is marry someone and find out three years later her doctorate is actually from a correspondence school in the Bahamas.

Sherry: Or that your husband was previously married to a graduate assistant who claimed he knocked her up.

Nils: But your boyfriend's embarrassment shouldn't be discounted. Perhaps you could compromise with a variation of the truth. For example, Tell friends you met at a gastro bypass seminar. Much like a husband who tells friends his wife is at a "spa" when she's actually drying out at the Betty Ford clinic.

Sherry: Or that your husband is working late when he's actually thumping a bunny at Motel Six.

Nils: The key is to come up with a solution that works for both of you, because when one party is unhappy, the other party will inevitably flee to the arms of a less frigid friend.