Dear Writer or a Fool:

Cary's advice ("keep writing") is pretty sound so far as it goes, but it is not complete: he did not, I believe, tackle the real issue that you were asking about: what should you do with your writing?

Here are some thoughts on this issue:

1) Keep sending your writing out to the magazines, contests, and so on.

2) Explore all avenues you can find to get your writing to the notice of your potential readers.

Today, you have a great new medium available that was not there for generations past: the Internet.

Start a blog - this kind of short-circuits the 'intermediaries/ middle-men' (editors, judges, and so on), and gets more or less directly to your potential readers.

Of course, you still do have to figure out how you will make your blog known to your potential readers (this is no trivial matter!) But many have managed to figure this out; if you keep writing, maybe you will be able to do this also.

Best wishes,

-- GSC

Cary's advice, shorn of all the gratuitous 'extras':

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First, seek the immediate advice of a lawyer and an accountant to see where you would stand legally and financially if the marriage were to end.

Second, take two weeks' vacation time and insist that your husband take vacation time as well. Go away for a few days.

Third, when you get back, contact a professional in the realm of marriage and family counseling.

Fourth, try to arrange for your husband to have some support for himself, whether through religion or family support group or a therapist, so that he can begin unwinding this terrible knot he has tightened around himself. There is probably much he needs to talk about with someone outside the marriage.

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My advice, no 'extras':

All through the very difficult you and the children will be going through, keep very cool and calm. DON'T PANIC!

1) Same as Cary's No. 1.

2) Tell your husband that you do love him very much.

3) Work out in detail for your husband (with the accountant and lawyer's inputs as needed) just how much this sudden move of his is going to cost him: for one thing, he has to provide you, IMMEDIATELY!!!, adequate support to last you and the children one/two/three years...

4) Get him to move out immediately (as that is what he wants to do in any case and there would be no point at all in keeping him tied up to you and the family). But BEFORE he moves out he absolutely has to provide adequate resources for your and the children's needs for at least one year, maybe two or three. Keep that money in an account that he knows nothing about, that he can never reach.

5) Ask him to take therapy while he is away from you. He evidently is in dire need of that.

6) When he comes back to you, as he may well do (I believe it is almost certain that he will), be generous if you can manage that: take him back; NEVER EVER talk about this sorry episode - to him or to the children.

(But: Permanently keep that nest egg of one/ two/three full years' support for you and the family in an account that he cannot ever reach!

One could provide a whole lot of reasoning to back up the above advice of mine, just as Cary has tried to back up his advice to you with reasons (rather inadequately, I'm afraid).

I can do that for you if you desire.

But it would be best if you were to sit down and write down for yourself, step by step, the various things you really want to do along with your reasons for feeling that those are really the things you want to do. Give it enough time: your mind will itself work out the right answers for you. It's the best possible therapy for you in the painful situation you are finding yourself for no apparent fault of yours.

-- GSC

The article did NOT get down to the heart of the matter: How come US citizens have not yet risen up in protest against the grotesque abuse of a civil society committed by GW Bush and his criminal gang?

Unless US citizens raise their voices in protest, rise up and throw these scoundrels out of power and into prison (preferably at Guantanamo for the rest of their miserable lives), they must be judged to be complicit in the crimes committed by GW Bush and Gang.

--- GSC

Gold stars, red stars, blue stars, yellow stars, red crosses, brown tick marks, whatever:

Please have a brief explanatory legend coming up when one rolls over the stars, crosses or whatever...or alternatively please devise some other way to let people readily know what's what, what's hot, what's not...

Thanks and regards

GSC