Letters to the Editor
Gwool
Published Letters: 366 Editor's Choice: 40
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Not an Open Book En Provence?
[Read the article: My husband read my journal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You Wrote: "Wow, I'm really surprised by all the letters from married people who champion the "open book" relationship. Whatever happened to one's own secret garden? I'm with the LW on this one; if I didn't have an outlet to vent my negative feelings, I'd be one negative person in real life."
Followed by: "I've been married twice..."
I'm not really sure I would want to take advice from a two time loser anymore than I want to go seek out a closeted pedophile in a collar and ask him for marital advice, either.
As I noted earlier, but the time you've been married 24 years there's not going to be a whole hell of a lot you do NOT know about one another. You are likely to have had a few hellacious passages of marital time in that period as well that might have caused less connected folks to pack it in. In this instance perhaps the newlyweds are finding out about one another a little too quickly, but it has happened.
It's also a crisis. I have found my wife and I can bicker over who left the cap off the toothpaste and other ridiculous stuff and yet magically pull together and work incredibly well together in a crisis. Perhaps the LW's familial crisis coupled with this sharing of personal thoughts/"betrayal" will work out fine.
Humor also works. Even dark humor akin to that which I originally posted works. I mean, it beats pissing on boundary markers, packing up my shit, and handing over half of my assets -- net of legal fees -- every 5 to 10 years or so.
But what do I know?
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What a surprise
[Read the article: And the winner is ...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan Walsh didn't like any of the republican candidates?
Wow, there's a surprise.
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Added Dimension
[Read the article: Should I stay in my marriage?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kids add another dimension. Think of marriage as a succession of knots. The longer you're married, the more knots you've tied and therefore the harder it becomes to extricate oneself from said marriage if that is what one wants to do.
In my instance I lived in sin for a while before making it legal. At that time I lived in a run down two family in an area still discussed as a potential for Gentrification a quarter of a century later. When we'd argue prior to being married I would simply run through the down side. I'd have to change the locks and pile her shit outside on the porch.
It didn't hit me that we were really tied together until we had our first post marriage sparring match. Piling her shit outside the door of the two family that was still only in my name would NOT work. I'd need a lawyer and all the other bullshit to get out of it.
In short, I had higher stakes to make it work. So those who argue it's "just a piece of paper" either have not been married or are not the ones who would lose financially if said paper got torched.
Now throw in kids. Watch the little bastards grow into teenagers. Watch the unified parental front get weakened by that added manipulation of teenage minds.
Watch the fucking fur fly.
So, yeah, there have been times I have pondered divorce. Many of those times have been as a result of arguing over how to raise the kids more than anything else. On the flip side the thought of leaving the kids is an added impetus to want to stick around.
Well, that and not necessarily wanting to give up everything I own, that is.
So there is no hard and fast answer. The longer you're married, the more knots you've tied. Some hack through it, some marvel at the Gordian knot that has become their personal life, I guess.
Nobody said marriage was either. And certainly nobody said added kids to the mix would ease the tension.
It just raises the stakes. Suck it up and make a decision and then live with the consequnces.
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Keep it in your pants
[Read the article: Daddy's becoming a woman!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Keep it in your pants. That's the advice given horny males all the time as they are growing up, right?
Well, keep it in your pants a little while longer. You have an 8 year old girl who seems well on the way to LunacyLand in her own right. Hanging on before going under the transformation for the sake of the person to whom you have a responsibility and obligation might be a reasonable gesture. You brought this kid into the world. You have to consider her whether you want to or not when you are making decisions in your life. (Yeah, parenting sucks. Deal with it.)
This is not saying the he can't become a she. This is suggesting that maybe He/She/It should consider what kind of impact this might have on his/her/its daughter and simply proceed with some caution.
Talk to a pyschologist. Figure out what kind of impact this might have on the girl. If it means rescheduling the trip to the chopping block then do it. The person's gone this long as a guy, what's a few more months/years for the sake of his/her/its child?
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Ageism?
[Read the article: Fondling Stephen Colbert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I like Colbert and I like Fonda's acting skills and physical appearance. I thought it a little odd as well. Colbert clearly looked uncomfortable suggesting both shyness and perhaps a commitment to monogamy that is somewhat foreign and out of vogue today.
All I can figure is that I was looking at her thinking that she has, indeed, aged (however gracefully) and that 60 somethings playing the role of the vamp just look silly. She's still a very attractive woman, but the girlish come on just seems out of place the way it would if Warren Beatty put my pants half way down his ass crack, donned a wife beater T and a hat on backwards and went trolling for young women half his age.