"These thoughts of the kitchen knife seem to be as deeply embedded in the animal nature of women as the desire to spend a week with the MySpace chick is embedded in dudes."

And vice versa, Cary. It's just the same the other way.

Like one of the other responders here, the minute I find out my husband feels jealous about a situation - this has only happened about three times in fourteen years - I stop the situation. No questions asked. If you love someone you don't want them to feel threatened. That way madness lies. Lots of exciting and passionate power games, too, if that's what you're into, and some people are.

But not you by the sound of it. So DTMFA. He's gone out there to check out that woman and see if he'd rather be with her than be with you. And by the way, if he's that interested in a loser who has no other friends except a guy who already has a girlfriend that she's met on MySpace - well, sounds like they might be made for each other.

How about this for a plan:

1. Tell him very clearly how you feel on the phone asap. Something along the lines of: I don't want you staying with her.

2. Depending on his response, is he says: really? Okay. Sure. Then that's great. Go on as before. If he laughs, refuses, belittles your feelings and fears, tries to make it about this being a free country where he can do what he likes etc etc tell him to spend his week with her on Craigslist finding a new place to stay. Get rid of his stuff - or move out yourself - and don't look back.

As other posters have said - you feel how you feel. You don't need permission to feel jealous when he pulls something like this - it's part of being in a relationship with someone. It's healthy. It's normal. He's the one messing.

Start a blog reviewing films and TV show NOW ... we desperately need you.

I'm a writer (at the moment) and a failed filmmaker, just a year younger than Juliana Hatfield, and the kind of questions she's pondering really hit home with me. Not that I have ever had any success - but I'm curious to know what that's like! And I'm inspired to read of someone else who just won't stop because - for me - the urge rto write and the stories don't. And it's great - on a day when I am feeling like an idiot for not pursuing something more worldly, something more in my control, something with some money and recognition, no matter how slight, guaranteed at the end of the day - to hear that someone else feels the same way about their thing as me.

It's a great German word - they have so many great words that describe just so exactly the thing - meaning, literally 'world pain'. That's maybe what Cary is experiencing - I offer it here because sometimes having the word for something really helps. It's where you feel the pain of the world - you feel it. It's unbearable, and impersonal, and vast and eternal. And you're feeling it. I think feeling this only helps the world in as much as it helps you.

As for the LW: Well, I was thinking just what some of the other letters have mentioned: that you can feel this now because it's safe to. So go on, feel it. Mourn the hard times you've been through and the happy times you will never have again. Mourn for everything you don't have, and at some point your tears will be done and you can move on to dream new dreams and live new experiences.

Secondly - how about joining some kind of women's menopause support group? It sounds crunchy and cosmic and would only work if you live in the right kind of area for it, but I think it can be tremendously helpful if you embrace menopause as a time to heal and let go and move forward.

In any case, this sounds very hormonal to me. But I don't dismiss hormones. Sometimes I think my whole life is actually just a phsyical and emotional response to my hormones ... or is that just the progesterone talking?