Letters to the Editor
Brulette
Published Letters: 40 Editor's Choice: 8
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How can Chesler judge???
[Read the article: The mother-daughter wars]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The premise of this piece is not only pointless, but is based on a judgmental assumption: just because Chesler claims to have had a difficult relationship with her own mother does not mean that she can accurately judge the difficulties that another daughter, namely Rebecca Walker, has with her mother. Chesler is either egregiously naïve or incredibly presumptuous to somehow think she is well within her rights to second guess Rebecca's own experiences with her mother. They are her experiences alone and Chesler can really know nothing of them!
More saddening, I think, than Rebecca's rejection of her mother is the second-wave feminist condescension that Chesler propagates in this article. Shame on her!!
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Who the hell cares???
[Read the article: My hip-to-waist ratio is nobody's business but mine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Persecuted for being skinny in a skinny-obsessed culture. Boy I feel sorry for you. Now can you continue on in your smug way and quit whining??
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How very Todd Solondz-esque!
[Read the article: My wife left me because the dolphins at Sea World gave me an erection]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Makes me want to watch Happiness again, except I think I can bear watching that one only once.
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Your friend may be more embarrassed than you.
[Read the article: I was masturbating in my office to kinky Internet porn when another mom walked in]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Did you ever consider that? Quite honestly, if I walked in a on a friend masturbating, I would feel really embarrassed for having breached their sanctuary. That's why it's not a good idea to pop in on people like that. If your friend is as good a friend as you describe, then she probably feels terrible about surprising you while you were masturbating. Or, if she somehow thinks you're a dirty pervert for masturbating, I dare say that you probably don't want her for a close friend anyway. As someone with some kink I'm sure you seek peers who at least don't see masturbation as a sin or an abomination of nature.
Relax. Time will heal your misplaced shame. Hold your head high, act as if nothing has happened, and in time it will probably be forgotten, as it should be.
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When my boyfriend caught me drinking secretly . . .
[Read the article: My husband's an alcoholic but doesn't think he has a problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW, I imagine you must have already confronted your husband about his alcoholism. Plainly. Not by insinuation, not by wringing your hands, but by plainly and bluntly acknowledging that he is drinking way too much and you are well aware and his behavior is unacceptable.
I suffer from alcoholism. I was a miserable drinker, though. Drinking to hide the pain of all the confusing and dreary things that were going on in my life. One day as my live-in boyfriend of 10 years and I were on our way out the door, I said, "Go ahead, go start the car, I'll be right there," as I always did, so I could grab a slug of vodka from the big bottle in the pantry before we left the house, and instead of going out to the car he quietly sat in the living room after shutting the front door, and as I emerged from the kitchen he confronted to me.
I was beyond humiliated. And that was my breaking point. I knew right then and there that if I didn't stop drinking, he was going to leave me. I'm still not drinking today and attribute that to that moment of dire shame.
I'm not saying that your husband will have a realization such as that, but give him the chance, at least. I just don't buy that he thinks there's nothing wrong with his drinking. He knows it's wrong. Alcoholics feel like shit and experience a lot of depression and lethargy that comes from the alcohol itself as well as all the trouble and confusion and lost time it creates. Alcoholism is a sad, sad thing, and your husband is threatening you with emotional blackmail. I've done that too. I threatened to kill myself, to slit my wrists open with our sharpest Japanese fish boning knife and have succeeded in downing narcartics and barbiturates with alcohol in a flimsy attempt to end my life. It's not a pretty sight, and I never would have gone in for such hysterical dramatics had I not been drunk.
Good luck. I pray for you and your husband, whoever and wherever you are.