Every time someone asks me to do something, or I want to take some time for myself, I can't because I have no other childcare. I hear about old friends getting together and having fun, and missed opportunities to do the same. I feel trapped and crated.

You need time away from the kids and husband. You and he need to trade off watching the kids, whether it is girl's night out or what. This is common for people who will not let others watch their kids. If you can not let him watch the kids, you need to ask yourself why. If he's that irresponsible, why are you married to him? If he's not going to kill the kids, what are you getting out of playing the martyr?

Trade with other married couples if you can not afford to pay a babysitter. But I would say cut an expense elsewhere (like cable) and pay for a sitter to save your sanity.

My husband watches the kids while I do things, and vice versa. I trade with neighbors. I pay for sitters. I use the YMCA's cheap sitting (usually $2 per hour).

Martyrdom does no one any good. You have cabin fever. You need adult time, freedom time. That's why you feel desperate and trapped. Your prison is made by you, it appears.

You also need some adults around you who are not your husband. You live in fantasy and write. SOme local theater companies will put on original, local plays. Write a one act. Several communities have 48 Video Projects. Write it and do it. Tell hubby he's on deck that weekend, and he gets one off. Take baby steps. But get out of the house.

I don't get this "drop friends because married and have children" thing. As a single woman, I went to stuff by myself. As a married, I have parties with a babysitter in the house and mixed company. I know single people with kids, without kids, married without, married with, and I am still friends. Ironically, my four closest female friends do not have children. I do. We still have stuff to talk about and do.

My kids have toughened up my schedule, but their lives are busy, too. That's what outlook (or lookout, as my husband calls it) is for. I have parties to see my friends, with playing cards and games and bad music and kids underfoot. It's potluck, which some people see as tacky, but it works for me.

I guess I am blessed. But my friends were never nuts to begin with.

Teensy's corncob reference and etc.

Teensy - it's a little early in the morning for 'a bit corncob-ish' references - if I'd been drinking coffee it would have ended up shooting out my nose and onto my monitor.

After reading some responses I have to agree that I'd certainly not want a 'friend' who was going to 'improve' me. Part of friendship is accepting people for who and what they are. About the biggest mistake you can make in a relationship (bigger mistake for those of you who are entering marriage) is thinking you can change another person...-- marc22309

Teensy, I love a laugh in the morning. Keep it up!. marc can get a new monitor.

marc22309 is right. The LW sounds controlling, bossy, and boring. Most of us do not want to be "projects". I enjoy my friends. I can go to them with problems, but that is not the basis of the relationship. The basis is mutual respect, enjoyment, and that something in their personality calls to mine. It may be an opposite, or a similarity. It may be something I aspire to. But I enjoy them first. I am happy to see them. It sounds like people are ducking when LW shows up. LW do you criticize a lot ( you would call it "critiquing")? Do you offer unsolicited advice?

Have fun. Is there anything you do that absorbs you so that your mind stops, that time stops? Do it with people.

First there must be fun.

LW sounds like his or her friends are home improvement projects. What do you do for fun? WIth others? Seriously.

I have friends. I like people. I like being by myself, too. LW needs to work on him or herself, so that he or she can have fun and be interesting, not needy. Learn to be alone first. Then people will want to be with you.

The author is telling us that Rush Limbaugh is like George Wallace. He's indifferent to the impact of all of this as long as he gets what he wants.

And some of the comments are great. The trolls trying to claim Southern black masters oppressed them in the 1950s might try taking their meds. As a black Southerner, I laughed harder than I ever had in my life at that one.

The generational passing of the torch has begun.

Why does the writer think it's ok if this is just his "persona"? How does that make some of his remarks ok? She keeps saying "persona" as if it absolves everything. It just makes that "banality of evil thing" worse. He doesn't even believe it. That doesn't make it ok.

I agree with thorin01. These people feel completely free to use violence. The fact that they picked that line, and not the usual misreading of the COnstitution (the 90s militias usually misread the Constitution) is a threat in being.

Inciting violence is illegal.

Somebody needs to remind them that this is the US. The Magna Carta stopped applying once the US COnstitution and Bill of Rights passed. The only reason they went the the Carta is because the US Constitution does not support them.