Letters to the Editor
ac_in_dc
Published Letters: 64 Editor's Choice: 12
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Perfect advice, Cary
[Read the article: My fiancé suddenly joined the Marines]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cary is 100% spot on this time: your fiance did this without consulting you, so you need to call things off.
One thing I remember from my failed marriage was the warning signs I received during my engagement that things may not go as planned. I felt as though I couldn't call things off, though, because the engagement felt like too much of a commitment. I wish, in hindsight, that I had viewed the engagement as more of a trial period rather than a done deal.
One final aside: Just because someone joins the Marines doesn't mean you can't marry them. It would suck, but they'd give him leave and all of that, and they can't deploy someone overseas continuously for 6 years. But this particular Marine-in-the-making doesn't sound ready to commit to marriage and a family.
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The beautiful thing about reading is it allows you to transcend things like gender...
[Read the article: Reading your way to a Y chromosome]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While a bit unsophisticated and lacking in diversity, I'm sure the manly book list has a net positive effect on the readers of this manliness blog. I mean, there are some great books on there, despite the ones that are overlooked. But it does miss a critical point about books, especially literature: one of its great powers is that it allows you to transcend your current situation and expand your horizons.
I'll never be a soldier during WWII, but I can sit in the meat locker along with Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. Similarly, I'll never be an Okie during the dust bowl or a subject of Big Brother (actually, I'm not so sure about that one), but The Grapes of Wrath and 1984 are two novels that had a profound effect on me in my teens and early 20s.
Why only read about men if you're a man? I'm a chick, and I love manly books. I live in modern times, and I learn so much from novels that take place in the past. I'm white, but I agree with Alice Walker when she says of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God: "it speaks to me as no novel, past or present, has ever done." Janie, a fictional black woman from the 1920s who speaks in dialect and marries three times, is my Everywoman and one of my models for self-actualization. Go figure.
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Stop worrying about the money; spend more time with your dad!!!
[Read the article: What happened to all my dad's money?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with the posters that it's tough to tell, from the information given, how serious this situation is.
A once a month phone call doesn't indicate a particularly close relationship; that's probably why you didn't see this disaster coming.
Anyway, my feeling is that if your dad's not asking you for money, then it's really not your call how the money was spent. If you feel like he's been taken advantage of, absolutely suggest a lawyer and accountant as Cary and other have suggested, but at the end of the day, it's not your call.
However, more than money or a lawyer or anything else, it sounds like what your dad needs is companionship, a social network, and folks to be close to. Why don't you focus on these things instead of the money? Take a trip together, talk more often on the phone, make him more a part of your life.
Finally, 70 isn't as old as a lot of these posters seem to think. My dad is 80, my grandma 89 (on a different side of the family, obviously) and I wouldn't dream of impinging on their independence in the way some of the postings here have suggested. Do old people do stupid things? Sure. But I'm 35, & I do a lot of dumb shit too. The suggestion to get your dad's mental faculties tested based on the info in this letter is, frankly, offensive.
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This is not about the sex
[Read the article: My husband wants a different form of eroticism ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW: The solution to this problem has little to do with additional sexual experimentation. Your husband's play-acting on second life meant that he checked out of the marriage when you needed him the most--you guys had a new baby, for cripes' sake! These on-line encounters are a form of infidelity, and need to be treated as such. Your marriage is in serious jeopardy, as you know, and it's time to call in the professionals. You guys have some serious wounds to heal, and trust to rebuild before you can begin experimenting in the bedroom again.
Now in the future there may be space for kinkier, bdsm-influenced sex. You can develop something slowly, through porn or talking each other through fantasies or something. But not right now. The emotional connection and the trust has to come first.