The problem is that the BF can't forgive himself for small mistakes.

I'm sure that there is a label for this sort of thing, but this is just how he views the world. He is probably much harder on himself than on you.

So, this is about him. When he is critical.

He is unlikely to ever "get it."

That should inform your decisions. If you stay in the relationship, you will need well defined boundaries and a certain degree of detachment to manage this.

If you can't live with it for the rest of your life, the time to cut loose is tomorrow.

Luck -- which I'm afraid you will need.

What a weird situation.

Since the computer evidence for infidelity is there and concrete, maybe you would like to dig into it in more detail.

What's weird is that you don't seem too broken up about it. Which is fine, if that's how you feel. However, you do have some wonderfully revealing information about your wife that you might be able to use to figure out what is really going on.

Depending on how extensive the documentation is, you might be able to figure out her dreams, aspirations, etc. Like, what they had/have that you didn't/don't.

This is a gross over generalization, but today, women with children tend to be angry. They work too hard, etc. The typical husband tries to make an effort, but that can just make things worse. Plus you admitted to being clueless.

I'm assuming that your wife has a full time job.

A lot of times people just want acknowledgment regarding the effort they expend trying -- they don't necessarily want to give up control.

This is remarkably common for both men and women.

Just in case that is it, you can see -- for example -- if you start doing the dishes or laundry or whatever, it may be a positive, but sometimes it can have the opposite effect. Like you implying that it "isn't that big a deal" and you'll just do it.

Figure out what she was missing, and it really could be something as basic as understanding or acknowledgment.

If she is looking for someone that is better in bed, forget it.

Just some random thoughts.

This was Clearly over the line, and the only way to apologize is to do it. His first attempt to joke his way out of it was sort of worse.

The worst thing was any joke about Bristol getting knocked up is just wrong, among other reasons because she actually had the exprience. It was just fundamentally unfunny and in bad taste.

By the way, I was appalled by her as a candidate. People around this place tend to be pretty sensitive and politically correct except when republicans are involved.

Dave was very lucky. He was talking himself on a limb and sawing it off. Palin overplayed her hand and Dave's straight forward apology (after a week) left Palin with nothing other than accept it or grossly overplay it, inviting backlash.

For example, Letterman's comment that he actually CHECKED Bristol's age to make sure she was 18 before telling the joke was idiotic. That implies that he actually seriously thought about the joke before telling it.

Another few days of "explaining" what he meant and didn't mean would have done him in.

>but we haven't actually *fixed* anything, have we?<

The credit markets are much better behaved than last fall. The spreads between treasuries and investment grade bonds were at record levels. They are currently much lower and a lot of bonds have been sold recently. In addition, banks raised $50 billion in capital since the "stress test" announcement.

A lot of deleveraging has occurred, a lot of excesses are in the process of being unwound in a reasonably orderly manner.

I don't know if that qualifies as fixed, but it is better than it was.

>The economy is going to continue to contract for awhile. Things could still reach cataclysmic levels of disaster.<

It could be 2010 before we see growth. And we still could see disaster. However, the chances are much lower than they were from Oct 08 through early April. A lot of the fiscal stimulus is still in the pipeline and will be spent in 2010.

I don't even know if we disagree on much. I just noticed that out of 50 messages, other than the one mentioning oil prices, no one seemed to doubt the major assertions of the article.

Even your main stream liberal economists like Krugman were in favor of major intervention -- with the disagreement centered around the details of how it was implemented.

It is impossible to prove what would have happened without massive intervention, but we were close -- in my opinion -- to a classic deflationary spiral or as you put it, cataclysmic market failures.

Calling the interventions the greatest swindle jumps the shark. A lot of the assertions significantly overstated the costs and ignored the benefits.