Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for December 05, 2014

Hey, no spoilers allowed!

And there’s your answer!

@ somebody short …very funny. Thank you! I’m surprised at Phil’s reaction. But did read 12/15/2007 and saw Phil’s reaction then but it was 7 long years ago!

Oh no! I thought Phil might be ready for this! I sure hope he is though. Or Val and the girls will have a wretched Christmas. D: I have faith in you Phil!

Poor guy is just nervous because if he says something positive, then most will be shoving him to the altar. But if he says something negative, then that may be the end of the relationship (or at least some problems).

On the phone? Really?

Wouldn’t it be nice if he plans to surprise her with a ring on Christmas Eve.

They are both reluctant to reveal their own feelings, and want to take a cue from the other. This can go nowhere for a while.

The kids would cause all kinds of chaos in a marriage… Val has no history of putting Phil first…only of letting the kids wreck everything. How would this work out well?

Go ahead and answer, Phil. And while you’re at it, why not tell her whether those pants make her butt look big.

…Yikes. Poor guy.

Phil had a lot more hair back then…

Oh, come on, Phil, if you truly love her, say so.

I love the “deer in the headlights” response! When you get your feet out of the quicksand, RUN PHIL! Run like the wind….

I will be very disappointed if Phil backs down for fear of commitment. So far, he has been an upstanding guy. However, Val has never pushed, so he went with the flow.If is not Saturday, so maybe we will get another day of sweating it out to hang us up until Monday.

Uh oh!

Phil proposed years ago but now he is feeling differently? I guess he is too used to the friends with benefit status and no longer wants to move their relationship to the next level. At their age, there is really no need to get married. Yes, Evie married Arnold in her golden years but Arnold lives abroad so she needs to change her marital status to live with Arnold as his wife. This is not the case with Val and Phil. So, just stay friends with benefits unless you think it will become an issue when the girls are older and realize exactly what friends with BENEFITS means which would set a bad example for them.

Why not just be honest? Dammit, people just make things complicated for no good reason.

I can remember wanting marriage after my divorce when I first found someone special, but he later confessed that he was frightened of my 4 and his 3 in a house (I was not thinking of immediate union in that way – just us). But we broke up and I eventually moved away, while still loving him and was celibate for 2 decades until we reunited in 2012. Then he asked WHY I had moved and did not believe I could have been celibate, but that’s the way I am. I now know that his dream of traveling the country in an RV will not happen (he loves the dependency of his customer base there in IL).

I love weather here in AZ and will never return to the Midwest so I’m on 3 dating sites and I can wait until I find someone who is really right this time.

This is not the kind of discussion you should have on the phone at work. Bad idea.