But if not, there is nothing sexist about castigating the LW. She shows no compassion for “Anna” aside from how it will affect her perfect life with the fiancé. No, she doesn’t need to go full onslaught maternal on the girl, but by inferring the girl is a complete freak and will be a burden forever, she comes across as callous and uncaring. She could have simply written the daughter is immature and lacks some social awareness, but she has to put her down like a mean girl middle-schooler. She’s unattractive! No one will marry her! She’s clumsy! Menstrual blood! She’s stupid!....ad nauseam. The LW doesn’t appear to want to have anything to do with her and seems to want some sort of validation that is OK to marry the dad, but have nothing to do with the daughter.

The father strikes me as a complete tool and is probably using the LW as a means of no longer having to pay anyone to deal with his daughter. However, the fact that she saw nothing wrong with the girl’s father previously only seeing the daughter “once a week for a nice dinner” after suffering the trauma of her mother’s abandonment doesn’t make me feel any sympathy for her at all. I get the impression that if the status quo with Anna living apart from the father with the nanny was continuing, there would be no hesitation to walk down the aisle. I feel for the teenager, what a shitty hand in life she was dealt.

I agree with one of the responders up-thread who is wondering what the big deal is. I attended college in the eighties and we never shied away from discussing female bodily functions and whatnot. Because of the warnings of toxic shock syndrome, I remember being mortally afraid of leaving a tampon in for too long, but I can see it happening if one puts one in on top of another. I remember discussing in great detail the childbirth experience with the first of our group to have a baby— the blood, the gore and the pain. Heh, and if anything brought home the messiness of it all was the poor paramedic trainee who passed out while observing (the relatively) uneventful birth of my first son. Even now, as we march towards middle-age-itude, my friends and I still compare notes on what is happening with our bodies. Heck, now we have even more to compare notes on – hysterectomies, ablations, colonoscopies, the list just goes on and on. Communication is never a bad thing, and if you’re grossed out; it’s not like anyone is forcing you to read about it.

Agreeing with many of the posters for you to see if the school your husband attends offers mental health services to spouses. Also, I couldn’t infer from you letter, but were you experiencing depression prior to the loss of your friend? If not, perhaps you will only need a few sessions to help you work through your grief.

On a been there done that note, during our first five years of marriage, my husband was pursuing his PhD in an engineering field. I was also working 50-60 hours a week. Occasionally I would go with him to his lab on some of the evenings and weekends when he had experiments and projects running that demanded his attention. I would bring books or paperwork from my office to keep myself occupied, while he worked on the other side of the room pouring over SEM photos and analyzing data. When he was able to take a break, we’d run and grab a cup of coffee or take a quick walk around campus. It was a small way to keep connected that worked for us.