Wife worries golf will drive hubby out of their marriage
Editor's note: Wisconsin's long had a love affair with golf, but at least one reader of Ione Quinby Griggs' advice column in the original Milwaukee Journal Green Sheet had a notion that playing the game contributed to other possible love affairs as well. For her part, Griggs, in a column published 60 years ago on Aug. 17, 1957, advised her reader that she play through, too — golf, that is, not the other thing.
Are marriage responsibilities too early in life, and keeping up with the wrong "Mr. Jones," two reasons for men dating other women? This wife thinks so. Read her letter:
Mrs. Griggs: Let me give some good advice to teenagers: Don't go steady!
My husband and I went steady for six years before we got married and were the only ones we ever dated. I am 23 and he is 25. We were happily married for three years, until two months ago. Now he wants to have some flings.
I found out he went golfing with a girl one Sunday when he was supposed to be with other men. I sat home with my two beautiful children that Sunday from noon until midnight, unaware of what was happening. He golfs an awful lot with men who want to go on flings, too, and they go to taverns later and meet women.
When I told him I knew he had dated a girl, he lied. Later, he told me the truth.
We get along very well otherwise, but lately I've been so nervous and suspicious of him that I don't think I can take any more. I don't think it's fair! Why should I sit home while he is making out with other women, then maybe someday learn he is in love with one and wants to marry her?
The way I feel now I want to get even, but I know that's being immature, and I'm sure I won't do it.
Please help me! I want to save my marriage. — Disturbed Disturbed: This is the golfing season. I hope today's Green Sheet is spread out for golfers to read, especially the young ones who married early and now think they should find some thrills away from home. Boys, avoid all circumstances that will distress the wife who has been obliged to stay home and keep up with the children. Chances are she walks far more than the distance covered by an 18hole course, and doesn't get much sun and outdoor air.
It isn't a sin to play golf with a woman not your wife, but have sense enough and consideration enough to tell her about it if one happens to join the golfing party. Don't let her find it out by accident or through gossip. And do respect your marriage enough not to look for "flings" that would jeopardize it.
Suggestion to the wife: It's probable this golfing episode didn't mean a thing to your husband beyond a casual golf twosome with exchange of pleasantries, so don't work it up into a tragedy or a gruesome forecast of worse to come.
If you like golf, too, arrange to get a baby-sitter and golf at the same course, not with a detective's eye but for fun. If your husband can play golf, there is no reason why you shouldn't, and it's up to him to provide the baby-sitting fee.