Letters to the Editor
pewella
Published Letters: 81 Editor's Choice: 15
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Regrets? How *dare* you!
[Read the article: The ones who weren't]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why is it that a woman writes an essay lamenting her two ghost babies, and posters feel compelled to shit all over her for having a range of emotions about it? As if she is a silly indulgent twit for always wondering about the children who might have been.
We live, thus after time we have regrets. We have regrets because we make choices. Whenever there are endless possibilities to a decision, we'll regret the loss of those endless possibilities because that is human nature.
Some men might regret all the tail they never got. Those times when they could have gotten laid, but didn't. Some women will regret the same things. I sure as hell do. Some people regret that they lost their One Big Love. In middle age we regret how we wasted our youth. At the end of the month, I regret some of my purchases when I get my credit card bill.
Of course though, as with anything reproductive, the readers of salon range from the intelligent and empathetic, to the judgemental hysterical finger-waggers who leap at the chance to scorn the decisions of those who have entered the reproductive realm.
If Joyce Maynard had never given those two pregnancies another thought, then she would be one cold woman. It's only natural to feel a twinge. To wonder every now and then what sex the baby might have been. What he or she would look like. How they might have changed your life for the better or worse. I look at the two kids I have and often wonder about the one that didn't make it. I don't grieve per se, but I do wonder. I wonder because I have a brain and I can think. It's natural. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had married my previous boyfriend. I wonder what it would have been like if I had gone to medical school. Like everyone, I, and Ms. Maynard, wonder, ponder, reflect and occasionally regret. So stop shitting on someone for being honest just because her regret is - GASP - to do with motherhood.
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Velora
[Read the article: The ones who weren't]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're absolutely right.
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Pretty Lady
[Read the article: I want to carry a child for my sister]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your letter the the LW was Seriously Annoying. Not only for its Flippant Condescending Tone, your inability to see the Husband's Point of View, and the fact that most of the letter was a forum for you to Talk Obsessively about the Swain Whose Sperm Got Away - what makes your letter so Seriously Bloody Annoying is its Abuse of Capitalization. I can be guilty of this crime as well, but you went into overdrive. Perhaps Obsessive Capitalization should have some limits placed on it? I bet you also use "impact" as a verb.
Never write another word again.
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No wonder the author is tired!
[Read the article: Old school]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"But, at 47, with two kids under 5..."
That phrase sent a shudder down my spine. I'm 36 with two children under four, and every night my husband and I collapse into bed as if we've run the Boston marathon. I can't imagine if I had to add another decade and try to do this. And there are two of us, we don't have to struggle as a single parent. And we have two good incomes, so none of the financial worries of a freelance writer. To the author: Honey, you don't need to feel badly about not running marathons, you do that every day by just getting by.
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Jealousy in engagement as a bellwhether for a future marriage
[Read the article: I want my fiancée's exes to die violent, painful deaths]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In my personal experience, when one half of a couple consistently feels jealousy, whether founded or not, the existence of this jealousy is a sign that a future marriage will not successfully weather the other stresses that marital life will bring. Same thing for finances - couples that can't agree on how to arrange money will have problems in other areas of their marriage. Well, the presence of jealousy means that the underlying dialogue of the marriage is not based on mutual respect.
I have experienced jealousy from both sides. When I was young, I felt jealousy because I was immature and insecure. Later, I had a boyfriend who was jealous, and it was stifling and annoying. Neither feels very good.
If the LW feels jealousy, he's either young and immature, or his finacee is playing games with him, which is disrespectful and does not indicate that she wants him to be happy or feel good about himself in the relationship.
At the end of the day, the only way to handle jealousy is to come to the realization that you can only have control over yourself. If your partner is doing things that make you feel jealousy, you have two choices. After telling them how certain actions make you feel, if these actions persist, and you continue to feel jealousy, then you can either suck it up, or youleave that person. But you can't control your fiancee and you can't make her stop. Attaining that sort of self-control takes maturity which is still probably a couple of years off for the LW. It might be wise to delay the wedding until both halves of the couple realize that marriage is about building the other person up, not chipping away at them until they are worn down.