Dear Prudence,
I am due to be married in a few weeks to my fiancé whom I truly love, and in so many ways I look forward to being his husband. (We are gay men in our early thirties.) We have been together a little over two years, and we are extremely different in almost every way. We have dramatically different careers, families, academic histories, religious backgrounds, etc.
Despite all of that, we have never had a fight, and I would say we communicate very well. Between the two of us, we also have two therapists, a spiritual director, and a pre-marital counselor. I have often said that someone too much like myself and in a similar career would have made me think about work all the time, and I’d never have time to just be a human being. But now I’m questioning whether that’s all just a self-justification.
I have a friend “Joe” from my hometown, across the country from where I currently live, who is also in my career field (also a gay man about the same age). We’ve known each other a few years, but never dated or even talked romantically, partly because we met after I had moved away, around the time I started dating my current fiancé. I see this friend every day on social media, and we share many mutual friends. He and I are so alike in every way that I am unlike my fiancé. Lately I’ve been thinking about this friend very often, mostly wondering what could have been and sometimes even wondering if I could be making a mistake in getting married.
I don’t think I want to blow up my soon-to-be-marriage for the thought of a person with whom I don’t even know if there’s any mutual attraction, but I also don’t know how to stop being wracked with self-doubt. Please help!
— Magnetic Attraction