I get that marriage is often about shared sacrifice, but you would be amazed at how one-sided that view often is -- that is, wives are supposed to sacrifice along with their husbands, but the reverse is often not the case.

Try to make a list of all the days over the last year in which you watched your children while your wife went out and did anything remotely fun, whether it was clothes shopping or drinking with her friends.

Now make a list of all the times you went out without her.

Isn't it your turn to sacrifice even a little bit? Do you really expect your wife to be a martyr to your sobriety along with being a martyr to your addiction? Shouldn't your sobriety make her life even a little bit better, like, for instance, allowing her to resume a normal adult life?

Also, if you are just feeling left out, take a deep breath and try to accept the following: while you were busy drinking your wife developed coping mechansims in which she learned to be independent of your support. It's going to take a lot of work on your part to reverse that.

1. He has told you the truth: he never met her. If he never met her, what she looks like -- her physical attributes, her age, style, make-up -- are totally irrelevant to what happened. It's not hard to give good phone or good internet sex. It's a bad sign, of course, that your husband wandered mentally to the point that he sought actual validation or feedback. That's the real problem, and it's more than little likely that it could be a symptom of bigger problems down the road (like when he really ponders why he did what he did), including whether he wants to stay married.

2. He is still lying, because he did meet her and he knows very well what she looks like and all the rest of it. In which case, you still have a real immediate problem with your husband and whether you can trust him.

I personally see a big difference between an internet and a real realtionship and I think you deserve to know the truth. But in either case, it's your husband and the relationship between you that needs work.

There is just so much a woman should have to put up with and this is way, way over the line.

Somewhere in my basement or attic is a shoebox full of torrid letters written by my ex-bf from many, many years ago. I don't care (after 20 years of marriage) whether my husband reads them, but I would be heartbroken if he threw them away. LW's girlfriend probably keeps these mementos for the same reason I kept those letters, they represent a peak at who she used to be, and by extension, where she came from and who she is. They are important to her.

From what I can deduce, GF has done nothing to provoke LW's jealousy or curiosity other than move in with him. Thus, his actions are entirely opportunistic and not even remotely defensible. The fact that he took even momentary pleasure in doing this makes it even worse -- this is, apparently, for him, a kind of horrifying little game. Neither she, nor he, if he is honest, has any idea where this kind of thing will end or what new thrills he will seek at her personal expense: will he delete her contact list or drain her bank accounts because he can too?

I have long understood that Polanski fled because the judg more or less telegraphed that, after giving some kind of approval to a deal between the defendant and the prosecutor about sentencing, he decided that he was going to throw the book at Polanski in order to heighten his own media profile.

This is the story, anyway. How it is that the judge "approved" the original deal is a mystery, as is how anyone figured out he had changed his mind. Then again, California is the same state that hosted the O.J. Simpson media circus debacle.

The point is, that judges are not bound by "deals" between prosecutors and defendants, and while willingness to plead guilty can be made contingent to some degree on sentencing considerations, you are usually testing your luck. Judges take deals because to ignore the deals would mean a much higher burden on the court in hosting jury trials for defendants who have lost confidence in the prosecurtor's ability to deliver a deal.

Polanski, of course, thought it was unfair, and it probably WAS unfair in some sense of that word, because a deal is a deal, after all, but then, the law is the law, after all, and Polanski seems to have broken the law without considering whether his actions were fair or just.

Even now, Polanski seems to think that he owns the upper hand on justice, and that his case should be resolved at no risk to his person. It's hard to have sympathy for him. Most likely, he will be lightly sentenced for all the reasons that have been explained, particularly, the victim's stance. But when you break the law, you do put yourself at the mercy of the court. It's a lesson he seems not to be willing to learn.

I think the biggest mistake Ms. Edwards made was to enable her husband's presidential campaign nothwithstanding her knowledge of the affair. Not only was it deeply unfair to us the people, unsuspecting fools as we might have been, but ultimately, it made the denouement of his astoundingly cruel and thoughtless actions inevitably public and probably that much harder for her and their children to deal with. I wish they could find the wherewithal to go back to having a private life, as tortured and unhappy as it now must be. All I can think is, how sad for their children.