Letters to the Editor
mattielisbon
Published Letters: 86 Editor's Choice: 17
-
Although I totally agree
[Read the article: I want more commitment from my married girlfriend]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that this guy should simply back off, especially since he never tells us he loves her either, and doesn't want to marry her, so he offers her nothing in terms of leaving her husband. However, he's not forcing himself on her. It seems more like she keeps reeling him back in.
So he is responsible for his own behavior, but she will likely just find someone else if he backs off. His problem, and his association with this sordid stuff, would be over, but the cheating will probably continue with someone else.
Still he needs to be realistic. If she's willing to cheat on her husband, how much does saying "I love you" actually mean coming from her? She said "til death" and all that jazz when she married her husband, right? And she presumably tells her husband she loves him, right? And she probably tells him she's not cheating, too.
So her "I love you's" are not worth the breath they take to say. It's all bullshit. She can't possibly love you in any adult way, since your relationship is all about texting and flirting (while apart) and monthly sexual trysts.
That's not a relationship, you have no real-life experience together, so how can she say she's in love -- and mean it?
-
Well, she's always been a star to me
[Read the article: A star is born (at age 51)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]since Truly Madly Deeply. No story about Ms. Stevenson is complete without mentioning that film.
Even if this movie is crap, I'd watch it just to see her.
-
You can't "look" for ideas.
[Read the article: I need more ideas! Where do they come from?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ideas come when you've created some emotional space for them, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Sometimes emotional pain brings me ideas, or joy, or a current event or story that touched me. Sometimes I'm tickled about a concept and roll it around inside my head like a pinball until it falls into that little hole and sets off the bells and lights . . .
But in my case, I've never sat there and looked for an idea, or tried to power an idea out of my head. They come when I'm on the freeway lulled by the drone of the road, or in the shower, or at 3:00 a.m. when I can't get back to sleep.
I have the opposite problem from the LW. I have a zillion ideas, some works complete, some half done, outlines and notes, and haven't sold anything . . . My fondest dream is some time and emotional space to focus on writing, but I have to work for a living in the meantime, so the ideas fill up my head and clamber to be released.
Where ideas come from in my part of the universe is from everywhere, with only quiet time and space as obstacles to getting them down on paper.
-
@Poco
[Read the article: Scenes from a group marriage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm sorry sir but you are hopelessly naive. Was I supposed to stay married to a man who'd fallen in love with someone else?
Do you stay married to someone who abuses you just because "you promised"?
At the moment most people marry they probably fully intend to honor that vow for the rest of their lives. I'm truly thrilled for you that your wife never did anything to make you think twice about your vows.
But not all of us are that lucky. There are all sorts of things, small and large, that can make a marriage miserable enough that all the good and pure intentions of the wedding day become lost, and the feeling of drowning sends us looking for a way to escape.
It is possible to find leaving a marriage to be the kindest and most loving thing to do for someone, and there is no sin in taking care of yourself even if that means you break a promise that was made without the benefit of foresight into the hell a marriage can become.
I left my marriage because my husband was in love with another woman, enough so that he openly cheated with her. I tried the honorable "we're not happy anyway, let's split" thing but he wanted to retain his house and relationship with his child while still pursuing her. My marriage indeed became hell, a place where I was shoved out into the cold, my feelings unprotected in favor of a stranger who invaded my life.
But even if all that happened was that we fell out of love, or wanted such different things that we couldn't get along any more, divorce still wouldn't make us dishonorable.
Again, Poco, I'm glad your marriage worked out. Not everyone's does, and honorable people can make an honorable choice, given how their marriage evolves, to leave.
-
Amen @Tacroy
[Read the article: Why can't I find a relationship that will last?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A married acquaintance said to me "You should find out what's wrong that you think you need a partner so badly". Since she's my supervisor I didn't say what I was thinking, which was "What was fucked up about you that caused you to get married?"
People who have partners are always trying to tell those of us that don't that we must be flawed for wanting one. No, actually, it's a normal part of being human that we crave partnership, love, sex, companionship, that we want to share our lives.
People are always telling me that as soon as I don't "need" a partner, one will come. Well, I don't need one to survive - I've proven that. But I do want a partner, and sometimes the need for intimacy is like an ache that won't quit. And ironically other people tell me I scare off men because they see me as extremely self-sufficient.
So I can't win either way.
It's normal to want a relationship. Don't let anyone tell you different.