This is a terribly sad sight to see:
That is the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, dancing quite familiar with pop star Olavi Uusivirta somewhere around 4 a.m. at a club in Helsinki. You would be forgiven for thinking the two of them were married to each other — they are intimately close, face to face, at one point he appears to put his face on her neck.
But you would be wrong. Both of them are married, but to other people. Presumably their spouses were not in the club — or if they were there, they were off to one side, perhaps watching confusedly as the two cuddled on the dance floor.
You might think you already saw this video, since more video leaked this week of the Finnish prime minister partying it up, but that was a totally different – and sadly, less disturbing – video.
It would seem an obvious bit of advice to say "Don't do this."
Then again, a major world leader did it this week, and nobody really seems to care aside from the tabloids.
Mrs. Marin certainly does not seem to care, insisting that nothing wrong happened when she apparently allowed a man who was not her husband to possibly kiss her in the middle of a dance club.
"If someone has kissed me on the cheek, there's nothing inappropriate or something I can't handle or tell my husband," she told reporters.
Uh huh. Let us make an unhappy and hopefully incorrect wager that Sanna Marin's marriage is in more trouble than she is willing to admit.
Let's add another detail as reported by The Sun:
Witnesses told the paper that Marin, who is married with a four-year-old daughter, had seemed to be flirting with several different men in the club.
"Sanna danced intimately with at least three different men," one claimed.
"She also sat on the laps of two different men. She placed her hand next to one man and he held her gently by the arm."
Gossip is dubious, but I'm not going to be surprised if that's true.
Beyond that, let's use this unfortunate little scandal as a timeless and important refresher about a key rule to follow when you are married:
Don't do this. Don't be intimate, even slightly so, with someone who is not your spouse. You are more than capable of judging if a situation is inappropriate. If you have to ask yourself, "Is this an inappropriately intimate situation with someone who is not my spouse?" then the answer, as a rule, is absolutely yes.
And yes, dancing chest-to-chest with a non-spouse in a dance club and allowing him (or her) to caress your neck in any way is quite intimate.
Protect your marriage. You and your spouse may be the strongest couple on the planet, but the strength of your marriage is dependent entirely on the vigor with which you protect it. Save your closest, most personal, most vulnerable exchanges and interactions for your spouse and nobody else.
Do this, and your marriage will last as long as the two of you do. Ignore these rules and you might end up in the Finnish tabloids, struggling to explain just what the heck you were thinking doing that at 4 a.m.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
