I AM over 40, and seeing a divorced woman of 50. She has been divorced eight years. She belongs to a health club I am against her going to. The reason is: She’s had many intimate encounters with men there in the past, including a sexual romp with a trainer. She says he no longer works there.

I have no issues with her going to another coed gym, and I’ve asked her to switch gyms, but she won’t. She says this gym is too convenient. Do I have a right to be upset, knowing her past at that gym?
Oskar

Oskar,
An old Peter Arno cartoon shows a bride leaving a church after a military wedding. Arm-in- arm with her new husband, she descends the steps beneath the crossed swords of his fellow grenadiers. Looking at each man in turn, she says, “Hello Freddy, hello Peter, hello John…”

The inference is clear: Each soldier is a past paramour.

A new gym won’t change anything; it will just give her a new group of men to be involved with. You are reasoning in circles, and circular reasoning always means we understand the problem, but don’t intend to do anything about it.

The problem isn’t the gym, or Freddy or Peter or John. The problem is her. Why won’t you kick her out of your life? We suspect it’s because what you like about her is the same thing other men like about her.