Why isn't the second letter from the LW starred? I almost missed it. LW - I will take your word that your husband isn't trying to screw this girl. However, he's massively breached some boundaries by discussing your sex lives with her. His behavior is not okay and has already put him in a position where he cannot act as a disinterested party to help her.

I have a little sympathy for Cary; I have known a lot of young people like this one. Some of them pulled out of the tailspin in time to grow up and become advice columnists, and some didn't - they got pregnant and led lives of misery, got addicted to various substances and ended up in jail or dead. Sometimes a little help from an older person made the difference.

So, how can the LW help?

Well, first of all, this letter illustrates one excellent argument against polyamory. It's going to be extra-special hard for the LW to help this girl because she has abandoned the usual definition of boundaries in a marriage. Ordinarily, a married person confronted with a person who wants sex can say, "Okay, we can be friends, but sex is off-limits because I'm married." The LW's husband can't do that. In every interaction with this young woman who wants him sexually, he is continuing to choose to reject her, just as if he were single. Polyamory put sex on the table, and there it's going to stay. Things are much simpler for everyone when married means married.

Is it possible for them to help her anyway? The LW needs to be introduced to this girl first. That in itself may remind the young woman that the LW is in fact a real person whose marriage should be respected, and the difference in ages may help restore sanity by causing the girl to realize that this man is too old for her. (She's more likely to notice that the wife is older than herself than she is to notice that the husband is twice her age.)

Now, as far as actually helping: what you can do is limited. You have children. This chick cannot crash on your couch. However, you mentioned that she sees no point in college. Tell her that there is a point. Do everything possible to encourage her to enter college and to walk her through the steps of getting financial aid. Which leads directly to the second point - help get her a place to live where her parents can't abuse her. College students have access to cheaper housing than other people. She's 19 and if her parents are shits she needs to be living elsewhere, at her own place with her very own name on the lease, not just crashing at friends' places.

If you and your husband start acting like parents, expecting her to show responsibility about applying to college, calling her drunken binges stupid instead of pretending to be cool about them, and so on, instead of acting like freaks with fascinating sex lives, it's almost guaranteed she will stop trying to make it with your husband.

I have several different reactions to this letter, which I will break down for you.

1) It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if my husband had phone sex with someone else. Emotional affairs are fine with me as long as they stay long-distance and neither party uses them as an excuse not to fulfill the needs of the marriage.

2) Nevertheless, different things constitute infidelity in different marriages. If this constitutes infidelity in yours, it's infidelity.

3) Pretty damn stupid marrying a woman who's been divorced twice already because of infidelity. What, you thought she was going to turn over a new leaf just for you?

4) Nevertheless, you are now married to her and you have a kid, so it's worth trying to make this work.

5) The big one: your marriage counselor is an idiot. Get one with some connection to reality. It's not okay for your wife to "remain friends" with someone with whom she's had an affair. She can find a new friend. If the marriage counselor doesn't see this, he or she is too incompetent to counsel you.

6) You are not overreacting to the idea of her remaining friends with John. I personally think you were overreacting a little in the first place, but hey, if you think it's wrong and she thinks it's wrong, it's wrong. She needs to cut it out.

7) Don't punch John in the face. However, I won't report you if you tell him, "If you don't stop phoning and text-messaging my wife I'm going to have to punch you in the face. Get your own wife and leave mine out of it."

...they're Republicans. They aren't in the least apathetic about marching against abortion, gay marriage, and for prayer in schools. The question here isn't why are kids so apathetic, but why are kids so apathetic about causes on the left.

Whatever your heart tells you is the truth - don't be afraid to believe it. True "faith" isn't about clapping loudly so Tinkerbelle won't die; it's about having the courage to say, "I really did have a spiritual experience." Or on the other hand, having the courage to say, "When all the other people at my church were saying, 'Couldn't you feel the Holy Spirit moving among us,' I felt nothing."

Don't lie. Listen. And then believe in what you learn.