Baggage Check: Open Mouth, Eject Secrets

GOT ISSUES? Dr. Andrea Bonior will help you sort them out.

One of my closest friends confided in me that she is several weeks pregnant. (This was unexpected.) Her boyfriend didn't know, and when he came over, I accidentally congratulated him on his impending fatherhood. My friend was miffed and refused to speak with me. I have tried to make it up to her in e-mails and even sent her flowers. She has ignored it all. What do I have to do to make it up to her? — Blabbermouth

There are some mistakes — losing a job for someone, revealing a long-hidden family secret, accidentally branding someone with a curling iron — that might take a bit more than flowers to be forgiven for.

It's not that what you did was deliberately hurtful or cruel — after all, I'll take you at your word that it was an accident. It's just that the damage was particularly brutal. There may also be nuances to your friend's resentment that are unwritten here — if you've been particularly blabby before, if your mistakes had a particularly tough aftermath, or if she happens to believe in Freud's view of "accidents." For these reasons, you might not know exactly what you're up against. In that uncertainty, you have just two things on your side — the truth, which are the regrets you can continue to express in letters or e-mails, or with skywriting — and time. In fact, after you're sure your case has been stated, you might want to give her some space and let the latter work its magic.

I'm engaged to a wonderful woman. I have a female friend who is my "text buddy," meaning we are always communicating through mobile text messaging throughout the day. Although we have never met in person other than the day we met, we text each other so much that even while I am on the phone with my fiancée, I find myself sending texts to this girl. I don't have feelings for the girl; it's just for fun and I enjoy it. My fiancée found out about her and has grown jealous about my "texting" affair, but I tell her it's not like I'm cheating. Or is it? Is she being too sensitive, or am I really being inconsiderate to her? — Troubling Texts

I hate to pull something from the "how to phone it in" advice columnist's playbook, but the fact that you wrote shows that you know there's something not altogether knightly about your behavior here. Like Bryant Gumbel, I have a host of questions — how your girlfriend "found out" about something that should never have been hidden in the first place, the nature of these text messages, and — this is just for my own research — what kind of phone plan you have.

But, undeniably, you do have feelings for this person. Even if they are completely platonic, she's playing a rather large role that your fiancée appears unable to. I'm not saying that your fiancée has to meet your every need (then there would be no reason for Haagen-Dazs!). But when there is another person, especially another woman, who seems to be more integral to your daily existence, it is understandable that your fiancée would start to wonder what that other woman has that she doesn't.

You have to be honest with yourself about just why it's so "fun" and whether there were aspects of it that you were trying to keep secret. Even if it's not an issue of chemistry or flirtation, it appears that there's a woman to whom you feel more connected — albeit wirelessly — than you do the woman you're about to marry. You might try to wean yourself off of these texts and see how you do while trying to let your fiancée in more — sharing whatever kinds of things you do with Ms. T9. It's no crime to have a text buddy, but if your fiancee's vision of marriage is one in which she's your most frequent confidante, and she very clearly isn't, there will most certainly be rough waters ahead.

Talk back to Dr. Andrea by leaving a comment below. To ask a question for Baggage Check in the Express print edition, e-mail baggage@readexpress.com or submit an anonymous question here.

Art by Eric Reece for Express