Once in a while I read a letter and get a sinking feeling. I got that feeling reading this letter. That woman feels no guilt and I am not inclined to cut her much slack. My ex was like that. He was incapable of guilt.

Maybe I am projecting. Or maybe I am just a bitch.

Without wishing to completely rule out the second hypothesis, I think you are projecting.

Why? Because you are taking this unhappy marriage so personally.

All I see is that a wife in the middle years has become sexually and emotionally infatuated with another man. This happens in millions of marriages at some point--it is a feature of the human condition that we are programed to become infatuated with individuals of the other sex--and if the marriage is basically stable, it will probably blow over sooner or later.

I feel sorry for both the LW and his wife, but that does not impel me to urge him to snoop for evidence to use in a hostile divorce proceeding in court.

I know it varies state by state, but in my state we have no-fault divorce, so all is necessary is that one partner wants a divorce. No need for private detectives or satellite photographs of the wife being mounted over the hood of her car.

So when you say: My ex was like that. He was incapable of guilt you are definitely projecting.

I was once married to a woman who like you suffered from female Othello syndrome (patholgogical jealousy). She would constantly snoop through my personal items and pockets and frequently accuse me of affairs with coworkers. (She even had me in a threesome with my best man and his wife on our pre-wedding night.)

Eventually the marriage was broken beyond repair.

At that point, having already told her it was over, living in a different country, and having already filed for divorce, I decided I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and after some years of celibacy, I started a relationship with another woman.

My soon-to-be-ex caught wind of this and began to use the phone to harrass every mutual aquaintance we had for details about this woman and at some point obtained her phone number and left threatening and obscene messages on her answer machine.

My point is that I am sure that SHE would have said that I was incapable of feeling guilt, but at that point I had decided that marital fidelity was of no further value and that having spent years of fending off false accusations of infidelity, I had decided to rid myself of guilt, since I would be accused of infidelity regardless of what I did.

I may also be projecting, but I suspect that at the point at which your husband experienced no guilt, it was not that he was a complete psychopath who had no conscience, but that he had made a cognitive decision that he was no longer committed to the marriage and didn't give a shit what you thought.

I probably don't read your letters as closely as I should, but what exactly is it that you want?

Do you want to be able to have one-night stands with lots of women, or are you looking for a relationship, a life partner, with kids, mortgage, in-laws etc.?

Do you want to have recreational sex, or is it only for procreation?

In that case what you want is a Filipina wife.

One of my neighbors is a big, fat middle aged guy who runs a used furniture store. He has a much younger Filipina wife and two beautiful daughters. They seem like a happy couple.

You can find Filipina wives who are professionals like doctors and nurses.

You will probably get all the sex you want until she has enough children, after which point your sex life will be dictated by the Pope.

Usually they can cook pretty good and if you like pork, then you are quids in.

When I left him, I didn't give a shit what he thought and I no longer gave a damn about his cheating and his pathological lying, but I did want to know what was wrong with him. Over the subsequent years of hauling not only myself but my daughter to shrinks, I had no less than three psychologists explain to me that my descriptions of my ex coincided with a diagnois of Sociopathic Personality Disorder, among other "diagnoses."

Many of my friends and aquaintances are psychiatrists and psychologists and I find it laughable that any one would take their opinions seriously.

Anyone who spends years paying three shrinks to tell them what they already know is nuts themself. Sociopathic Personality Disorder is just psychobabble for Complete Asshole. And of couse since you were paying these headshrinkers, they told you what you wanted to hear. Hope you feel you got good value.

If he had been seeing the same shrinks, they would not have told him he had Sociopathic Personality Disorder, which is untreatable, they would have diagnosed him with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome as the result of having to kill people in Vietnam, and they would have prescribed a long course of expensive therapy. It's an ill wind that blows no one any good.

A diagnosis of Sociopathic Personality Disorder does not exist--actually the name is Antisocial Personality Disorder. Such a label is useful in making a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, because it differentiates between being a Complete Asshole and being psychotic or suffering from an organic dementia that might make you less responsible. Having an Antisocial Personality Disorder does not enable you to plead insanity for your crimes.

So yes, you are projecting much. And you owe me an apology for confusing my character and attitude with that of your ex on the basis of a few statements. However, I don't actually expect that I shall get one.

Of course not. Do you think the people on the Jerry Springer show apologize to each other?