but 80% of you dumbasses think the current boyfriend is obviously the cause of the problem.

Unbelievable!

child's best interest to be geographically close to her father, be able to see him on weekends instead of every 6 months,etc, etc..

for another reason as well. Many displaced employees, even white-collar ones, are doing the same type of jobs they did two years ago for half the pay. Or, in a different permutation, employers are expecting candidates to fill positions with responsibilities several pay grades up from the advertised position at the advertised position's pay scale.

So, for example, in accounting, you may have a hierarchy:

Staff accountant

Senior accountant

Accounting manager

Controller

Tons of companies are advertising, for example, for a Senior accountant, at a Senior accountant's pay, when the position is really a Controller position in everything but name.

A couple of years ago you could say, with some leverage: "Hey, if I'm gonna be a Controller, I'd like to be paid as one."

These days you'll have 50 people behind you who will gladly take the position if you don't.

hee hee.. you too can be a sexy young blonde, in my classes I will teach you how to be reborn from different parents...

changing your diet will cure your depression?

Only if you're depressed cause you're fat

& anxious depression, etc..then come the weird rationalizations and trying to think your way out of it.

You won't be able to think your way out of it, you'll just have to let time or another relationship do their work

LW's vanity & not inconsiderable self-love took a hit when, for once, she was the dumpee and not the dumper..

It'll be good for her in the end

Good for you!

I think it's the opposite. The younger generations are so overweight that it may be getting to the sad point where the average 45 year old who grew up in the 70s has a better body that the average 25 year old.

than meets the eye..

But of course I am the judge, and never the penitent..

Or was it, the victim, but never the executioner?

That is correct I tell ya..

With enough positive thinking you can fly I tell ya!!!

If it's an appropriate setting. Seriously.

Instead of embarking on the road to alcoholism, you may just find that, like Churchill, you can get more out of alcohol than alcohol gets out of you.

That would only be a good thing if she was married to you, right?

the wife is so kind, the guy is so willing to work in therapy and they improve their communication so much, yada, yada..But you don't get to be separated unless you're seriously fighting..

There's so much missing from this picture it's not even funny, of course you would never know that from all the omniscient mind-readers in this letters section..

but a loveless marriage is much sadder.

hasn't she left him? Is the phrase "actions speak louder than words" not chic anymore?

he's got the same lukewarm feelings towards you as you do towards him.

EX-wife

when your body's ability to metabolize the C2H5OH is much better.. If the progressive increase in severity of hangovers from nearing 40 are any indication, I can't imagine what it'll be like a decade or two from now..

There's a very basic physical difference between the possible consequences of the two.

Believe it or not, the glorification of male "studliness" and fear of female "slutiness" seen in this guy's story & in the letters is not just some fabricated cultural artifact of the "patriarchy".

(his little head would look perfect in one of those whack-a-mole games at the arcade) and still gets laid all the time..Good for him!

"See, there's this thing called free will", as if it were some kind of obvious tautological statement.

You might want to reconsider the unquestionableness of your assumption.

that her description of Brazil was embarrassing.

Look at me, I'm the hipster who discovered Salvador's carnival ! (yeah about 25 years too late)

Daniela Mercury as some kind of iconoclastic musical genius! HAHAHA She's as mainstream and overproduced as they come, the Madonna of Brazil.

The line where she compared the mediocrity of American politics to the splendor of Brazil!? In a lot of places in Brazil, there's no need for mediocrity in politics because a gun is faster and easier.

Brazil is a beautiful country with incredibly warm people, but just try making a living there if you happen to choose the wrong parents (i.e., that aren't part of the very small slice of upper middle-class to above).

things are tough all over.

obvious.

I think the jist of the Anna Karenina line is that, for people to be happy, everything has to fall in place. One variable goes wrong and everything can fall apart. Yeah, kind of like a machine actually.

end of message

"As long as a person does not initiate the use of force, threats of force or FRAUD"

What rock have you been living under there my friend?

but some Repulicans are actually starting to sound mentally ill!

He's the best fade out there. Whatever he says to do, you just do the opposite.

obsessed with being "cool", they are mortified they might actually be seen with someones who's not considered "cool" by their other supposedly "cool" friends. That's why no one can make friends. If they would just loosen up their sphincters a bit and try being a little more social with everyone that comes along, this problem wouldn't exist.

Where I grew up in Latin America, people are so naturally outgoing and social I don't think they could snub people in this manner even if they tried, they'd rather just chat the potential snubee up, introduce him to about three dozen other also not-uptight people and just have a good time.