Hot water

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

This past holiday season, my husband and I went to a Christmas party held by his boss. He has a hot tub at his home and we were all invited to use it. After a number of hours, when the crowd had thinned a bit, I decided to take him up on his offer. A few other people with whom my husband and I are friendly from his work put our bathing suits on and went in.

After a while, one of the women in the tub mentioned that my husband hadn’t been around for some time. I looked for him and finally found him coming down from the upstairs of this rather large house (where the bedrooms are, by the way). He was with a female colleague, they were laughing and he was telling her that she has "mighty fine buttocks." When he saw me, he acted quite nonchalant.

We all went back to the hot tub, but before the night was over, the same woman pulled down my husband’s bathing suit as a prank. I’ve been thinking about this incident ever since. I asked my husband if he had been fooling around with this woman and he denies it, but I don’t know for certain. We were all drinking and I don’t have a very good handle on what may have happened. Nothing like this has ever occurred before and we’ve been married for more than five years. My question is, what can I do about this?

— Troubled

Dear Troubled,

I must give your husband two points for the nicely turned phrase "mighty fine buttocks," if those are his exact words. But that’s about it. And that’s also about all you can do about it. Obviously, a number of people at this party were faced and acted badly. Whether your husband had any sort of dalliance with the other woman is something you’re probably never going to know.

However, he does know that you know that his deportment at the party left much to be desired. Learn from this. Neither you nor your husband should get faced at hot tub parties. Accept your husband’s explanation and do your best to forget about it. If you witness any behavior like this again, though, you’ve got to give him a serious talking-to and let him know that you’re not trusting him and it will be "three strikes and you’re out." Here’s hoping this was just one-time dumb behavior.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I am 41 years old and I have what I guess is a unique problem: I continue to be in love with my first girlfriend. We went together when we were in high school and I’ve never gotten over her. She, of course, has married and lives in another city with her husband and three children. Because of my feelings, though, I’ve never been able to have a successful relationship with another woman. I just don’t know what to do.

— Still Smitten

Dear Still Smitten,

Perhaps you’ve seen the 1987 film Moonstruck? If so, you’ll surely remember the scene where Cher (she won an Academy Award as best actress for this, probably because she put gray in her hair and didn’t wear skin-tight leather pants throughout the entire movie) is set upon by Nicolas Cage and she slaps him in the face and bellows, "Snap out of it!"

This is what I suggest you do. Please, however, do not derive any other lessons from this film, even if you are an unbalanced opera-loving, poetry-spouting, wooden-handed troglodyte. Dwelling and obsessing on this woman for so long has probably kept you from being open to other people. You have closed yourself off and refused to accept that there are many, many wonderful people in the world with whom you could connect and who could connect with you. Snap out of it and start living.

Send questions and romantic quandaries to rcheeks[a]phx.com.