(For the record, BTW, he is a divorced father, not a "Single Dad." This self-aggrandizing tag only underscores his attempts to denigrate his ex-wife's role in their daughter's life, while inflating his own.)

It is difficult to give LW the benefit of the doubt when all he has told us about his daughter is that she is now straight and sexually active. Everything else in his letter is about himself. The poor girl has much more on her plate than she can handle already. Whatever the reasons she is bouncing between her parents, she's been uprooted, might even be going to a new school during her senior year, and has been or continues to be confused about her sexual identity. Her parents' sexual behaviour and history is inappropriate and intrusive information at her age. There is no way she could possibly handle the feelings and thoughts this would introduce for her. Dad seems blithely unaware of his own hostility and boundary issues inherent in confronting his child with intimate and complex abortion accounts.

But he's not that worried about her. Otherwise he'd focus more on prevention: peer pressure, social identity, the role of alcohol and drugs on decision-making, contraception, and the risk of HIV transmission (AIDS is still the fifth leading cause of death among all young women, number one among young African American women). Not just "the whole pregnancy issue," although that's where he's seems fixated.

Perhaps he should be talking to a therapist about his own unresolved feelings about the abortions, rather than inflicting them on his child.

My husband and I have been together for 29 years. We've been poly for 16 years. Of course, nothing lasts forever, but our intentional family has prospered far longer than any of us expected. Although there will always be those whose only goal is exploitation, just as in any other social construct, being open to a poly relationship is about much more than sex and who is doing what to whom and who gets to go next. For us, being poly opens us up to other views of life and other experiences, other wisdom and other humor, other viewpoints and other goals.

There's a thirty year difference between the oldest and youngest. We are native to downtown New York & the Deep South. We drive Beemers and Harleys and Beetles. We are high school graduates & Ph.D's. We are childfree, have children, have stepchildren. We are travelers and nesters. We are apolitical and conspiracy theorists. We are: loving, honest, thoughtful, generous, funny, caring, and somewhat smug. We are not: jealous, bored, manipulative, resentful, disloyal, perfidious, or closeted. The kids are just as screwed up or well-adjusted as any other kids. Most of all, we are happy, and we are together.

We've already experienced loss and tragedy, and it did not always bring us closer. But our family offers a deep bench of support, maintenance, and nurture, and this has - ultimately - sustained us.

It's not for everyone. But what the hell is? And why should it be? If there can be diversity in sexual orientation and ice cream selection and movie stars WLTF, then why assume that the one-size-fits-all dyadic relationship SHOULD work for everyone? Especially when it so clearly doesn't.

I do wish I could do justice to the previous letters, but I just have enough time to recommend one of my favorite books: _Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen_, by Fay Weldon. This book comprises a series of essays on the times of Ms. Austen: the social milieu, the economics, the legal realities, etc., etc. It puts Austen and her oeuvre into brilliant perspective. As is most of Weldon, it is an easy read, and leaves one feeling it was time quite well spent.

And I can tell you one of two things will occur:

1. It will be a disappointing encounter. Yes, even illicit lovers can be boring, or smell awful, or take forever to come, or laugh at your dick; or worst of all, it could be exactly like sex with your wife.

2. It will be a glorious encounter. You will experience emotions you've only read about, fly higher than you thought possible, mind meld without Spock. It will be your deliverance.

If (1), then you will have risked your marriage for crap. Even if the Missus never finds out, you will feel shamed and degraded, and never again have as high an opinion of yourself. If the Missus finds out, the shit will hit the fan. For crap. For crap!

If (2), your world will turn upside down, while hers might not. You will become obsessed, it will complicate her life as well as yours, perhaps without a satisfactory outcome. Your marriage will suffer, probably end, with all the emotional, social, parental, legal, & financial upheavals that will ensue. Perhaps it will be worth it. Probably not, but perhaps so. And if it does work out, poof! 15+ years from now you will be in another happy long-term relationship. What happens then?

If you can't stop traveling solo for work, then stop drinking when you do travel. Then take a little time to look at these women while you're sober. If they still look like they could be worth the possible destruction of absolutely everything you now hold dear, then, honey, go for it.

OTOH, perhaps a new sports car would help resolve your midlife crisis. Ooo, shiny!