LW- you say you have remained good friends with the women after the threesome-open relationship didn't work out. For the women who "arranged the dates, then became distant" or "stared at the fire" to the embarrasment of you and the second woman, have you spoken to your friends about what was going through their minds at those moments?

When the two bisexual women are taking their turn with each other, do you ever feel left out or distant? Or merely entertained by the spectacle?

I have never participated in a threesome specifically because I didn't want to encounter whatever particular set of emotions and boundary issues might come up in a situation like that (i.e., jealousy, boredom, feeling left out?). I have nothing against threesomes as a rule-- but I think unless you hire a couple of prostitutes who are paid to keep their emotions out of it, how can you avoid feeling the positive AND negative emotions that come with the act?

Maybe it comes down to, women are capable of having casual sex for pleasure, but once you have entered into an ongoing relationship with them, you have already brought their emotions and expectation into it and so the women's sexuality and emotional lives are going to be entertwined.

With talk comes understanding and intimacy. I don't think that level of intimacy is impossible in an open relationship, but I think you have to be realistic that for your partner to submit to MFF threesomes, she is going to have emotional reactions to it and you need to open to exploring that and not be embarrassed that she isn't performing to your expectations.

Otherwise, you are just having cardboard masturbatory experiences and may as well just go to the Bunny Ranch.

I am lucky both my mother and mother in law have really helped out to the best of their respective abilities. My hippy m-i-l is funny though, the degree to which she abhors traditional roles and titles (even though, in retirement, she knits and bakes in excess of my more conservative/square mom).

She didn't want to be grandma for the longest time. She wanted to be called G-ma. (Right). Now she lives far away but during her longer visits when she actually does get involved with some of the caretaking (evening baths, meals, whatever), she still refers to herself as my kid's "quasi-parent."

I just have to laugh because come on, what else can you do? "Quasi parent????" Is that supposed to give her greater authority or less stigma than "grandparent?"

Baby boomer silliness.

So nice to finally read a story of a man who loves his wife and kids even under trying circumstances.

All of the oral histories in the series up to this point seem to involve serial monogamists and cheaters so this was really refreshing.

Right before reading this essay I read Heather Havilresky's review of Breaking Bad, and her first few paragraphs did a snarky bit on the eternal optimism of Americans and then reading this pastor's story, well, it sort of proved her point.

But in a good way. I don't begrudge the Atheist's point here, and I don't begrudge the Pastor taking solace in his faith. Why should we believe in a God that is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, yet who permits children to suffer?

No religious faith can satisfactorily answer that question. Yet faith persists in spite of that dilemma and for some that faith does give strength when strength is needed. A faithful person would say, God didn't intend for the child to suffer, he paired these parents with this child in order to ease the child's suffering.

It may be just a trick of the optimistic mind to assign purpose and meaning to otherwise random and painful circumstances. But this man's religion seems to be working for him and his family. He doesn't appear to be a hypocrite. He is trying his best and I admire him for that.

Why on earth would you agree to another 7 years of waiting to settle down and have children when you are ready to have children now at 28? Do you have any idea how much more difficult it will be to conceive children at 36 at 37 compared to now? Any idea how much more physically exhausted you will be as a parent of a newborn?

Long distance relationships that go on long distance in perpetuity and indefinitely (beyond 3-5 months which is an adequate amount of time for one person to uproot and relocate to wherever the other person is) are not real relationships.

Break it off and stop spending the money to visit this guy. You are his pen pal. His love for you is theortical at best. He isn't even trying to be faithful to you!

Sorry it sucks to have your heart broken this way but on the upside, you won't have those day-to-day memories to contend with since you spent so little time together in the day-to-day.

Good luck and have fun finding out what a real relationship is all about. You are going to have a fantastic time of it.

This one is possibly the one that terrifies me the most.

After the birth of my second child, I spent $120 on gadgets designed to sound an alarm if one carried one's keychain too far away from the car seat without unlatching it. It never really worked properly-- the alarm would go off at all times unless you did this complex thing to re-set it and finally my nanny just removed the batteries from the device to get it to stop ringing.

I didn't return it to the manufacturer because for me, I guess I regard the money spent it as a sort of mystical talisman that will hopefully prevent me or any of my children's other caretakers from doing this horrible irreversible thing.