by Rudy Cheeks

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I've been going out with a woman for about a year now and we just got engaged. We're planning the wedding -- something she's really into. I am, too, but I guess you could say that I'm not quite as involved in the whole ritual as much as she is. Here's the problem.

One of my best friends is getting married in about a month and he's asked me to be in the wedding party as one of the ushers. Naturally, they have a balanced number of female and male attendants slated for the wedding party. So I have been paired up with one of the female maids, and there will be pictures and the like taken for the scrapbook.

The problem is that my wife-to-be is very jealous of the situation. She doesn't like the idea of me posing for photographs and even marching in the wedding procession with another woman. I've tried to explain that this is just a formality -- that I have no interest in (and hardly even know) the woman who I'll be paired with just for the sake of pictures and wedding etiquette. My fiancee's still quite irritated by all of this.

I agreed to this some time ago and can't really pull out of it now. Do you think that my fiancee is being unreasonable and, if so, what can I say or do to smooth this out?

-- Reluctant usher

Dear Reluctant usher,

Yes, I think that your fiancee is over-reacting a bit. Unless you're being asked to pose for pictures where the photographer instructs you, "now, mount her like a dog," your formal duties will be pretty innocuous. Be sure to spend plenty of time with your fiancee at the reception, letting her know that she's the only focus of your love and interest. Explain your duties in terms of what she would do in a similar situation if it were her friend who was marrying and she was asked to be in the wedding party. I assume she would be loyal and accommodate plans for her friend's wedding day, but maybe I'm wrong here.

The other thing to think about: now that you know your fiancee's level of jealousy, is it something that you can live with after you're married? This is something that will crop up in other ways throughout your life together. You must decide if it's acceptable and something you'll be able to deal with in the future. Your wife-to-be sounds like she needs a lot of attention. As long as you're able to give her that attention and remain cognizant of her needs, things should work out okay.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

My girlfriend and I have very different attitudes toward sexuality. I've always been a pretty casual "let it all hang out" type of guy, but my girlfriend is very uptight when it comes to sexual matters. I am by no means a big pornography fan, but whenever a movie comes on cable TV where they show a little bit of nudity or sexual activity, she gets this disgusted look on her face and wants to change the channel. She says, "How can you look at that filth?"

The fact is it's hardly "filth," just the typical amount of sexual content you'd expect in an R-rated movie. I would never think of bringing a magazine like Playboy into the house, because I know how my girlfriend would react (not that I'm necessarily a regular reader of Playboy). But the same thing holds true for magazines like Details or Maxim, which tend to have quite a few cheesecake shots, although not full-out nudity.

Our sex life is okay, although she's not too adventurous and always wants to make love with the lights out and in bed, rather than, say, on the kitchen table where I've enjoyed myself in the past with former girlfriends. How can I make my girlfriend more relaxed around things sexual? She tends to think anything that isn't out of the Ozzie and Harriet handbook is "slutty" and "dirty."

-- Mr. Frustration

Dear Mr. Frustration,

This is an incompatibility situation. In all likelihood, she's not the woman for you. Was there sexual or emotional abuse in her background? Frequently, people who are as sexually inhibited as your girlfriend have had some sort of abusive relationship in their past, be it with their parents or past boyfriends. If this is the case, I suggest you discuss it and see if she'd be willing to consider counseling and therapy as a way of dealing with her inhibitions.

There's also a strong possibility that she will resist such a suggestion. She may think there's nothing wrong with her, and that you (and the rest of the world) are just sexual libertines. Because of your apparent incompatibility, you should probably reassess the relationship.

Without a willingness to confront this as a problem, she's not likely to change her attitude or feelings about intimacy and sex. It's not a question of you being right and her being wrong, or vice versa. It's just that you're not on the same wavelength when it comes to how you express your sexual desires -- a deal-breaker in an intimate relationship.

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