My graduate school advisor did the same thing constantly...to men and women both. In his case I think he was just clueless (he hated dealing with conflict and was worried about sexual harassment issues), although it's hard to imagine a man made it to his 40's without realizing that he was making people very uncomfortable. In my case, I endured it or ducked it for a couple of years before just asking him to stop, and he never did it again.

King George on the other hand seems to be completely aware of the signal he's sending.

I can't think of any woman who does this to a relatively strange man. It would come off as a sexual advance and dealing with mixed signals about sexual interest is really really awkward.

After looking at the pictures on the WholesomeWear website, I could not stop thinking about that literature classic "Curious George Flies a Kite". Given a strong enough wind, these suits could possibly double as transportation devices.

A couple of things I thought of when reading this letter:

LW: are you SURE he's having sex with this woman? Maybe he's not! If he is still impotent (oops, we're supposed to call it ED now), he sure wouldn't be advertising it. He might not be providing the other woman "goodies" and passes it off as "respect" or "wanting to get to know you better". I think this situation should enter into those mental filmstrips, they'd be more fun.

The age of 45 doesn't seem "young" (I know!) but 20 years from now you'll think ruefully about how you didn't appreciate how young you really were at 45. Think from that perspective! I'm certain there are things you can do now that you couldn't do at 25 or 30 and there are probably few things you can't do now that you could do at 25 or 30.

Sure, you're mad. Even if you didn't have such good reason to be mad, you're supposed to be mad at an ex. If you weren't, you'd be a saint and who really wants to hang out with an annoying saint?

I happened to read that Onion satire piece about a week ago, and anyone who read it without his/her satire/bullshit dectector going off should not leave home unaccompanied. After all, the author remarks on how she is "looking forward to induced dilation of my cervical opening and suctioning of my uterus" and "the chance to have a doctor insert a metal instrument into my womb to dislodge tissue from my uterine wall!" This guy is, as is sometimes said in psychology, "clueless".

Wow, he's really cute! I would never have thought he'd been female in a million years!

What a difficult situation for the LW. Enlightened man? Yeah, right. Cary is right calling this an affair, given the emotional intensity.

I'm not certain the marriage is over. If this is a one-time blind crush related to various issues ("ooh! I'm still sexually desirable when I'd written it off!") , it can pass and the couple could use what they've learned to address problems in the marriage. However, if the wife is emotionally "checking out" of the marriage, the situation is more bleak.

My only concern with the advice so far is that by denying access to Mr. Enlightenment, as logical as this seems, he becomes even more forbidden thus desirable fruit (I believe social psychologists call this the Romeo and Juliet effect). This may make the wife yearn for him or idolize him even more. Letting him come over and visit doesn't sound good either, though. Possibly doing some very non-sexual things with the other couple could open the wife's eyes to the fact that the man is a very ordinary man who won't ask for directions or uses too much incense (enlightened man just sounds like incense to me) or is curt to his wife or whatever. That's a risk too but I think it's no more than having the wife in a situation where she's likely to romanticize and dramaticize her "lost soulmate". The LW would be the best judge as to whether this would be a good or terrible idea.

If the situation is something they can work through, great. If the marriage is always going to include a woman looking over her shoulder, then it's probably better to divorce than model a marriage for the children that features a mommy who seems to be only vaguely aware of daddy.

"For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm."

And all this time I thought that if there's one thing the world's got plenty of, it's sperm.

How about increasing the availablity and production of low-cost protein sources, vaccines or at the very least good chocolate?

Having logged many hours with freshmen, I can attest to a group difference between men and women in terms of willingness to study and attend class. Even though I have more female than male students, it's more often male students that don't turn in minor assignments that add up, skip two classes in a row, stuff like that. This is a group difference: I have downright obsessive men and slacker women.

I think a fair amount of this difference exists because women mature earlier than men and this extends to the college years, particularly 18-19 years old. Eighteen is an age with a wide range of maturity, but males of that age may be a little younger than the women. Isn't going to class when you don't want to, making sure you understand an assignment, and preparing for an exam in a hated class (not psyc, of course) all markers of maturity? It makes sense then that women would outperform men to some extent, given that these are all part of academic success skills.

By the work years, men have caught up and it's not surprising that women's edge lessens.