Letters to the Editor
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It's over.
"I have a hard time imagining life without her, but at the same time, she could never be a part of my "real" life -- I have too much invested in my marriage and family to break it up."
What have you "invested in your marriage and family" You have decided - your marriage is already over - your family is already broken up. All that remains is to tell your wife as soon as possible and get the hell out of her house. Actions speak louder than words, and your words - "a great wife and two great young kids, all of whom I love dearly" ring as false as Bush's words on fighting for "freedom" and "democracy". The trite repetition of "great" says it all. Leave your family - you never deserved one. I hope you at least pay for your kid's education. I hope you have fun with various whores while your children wonder where their father went.
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the burden goes both ways
Someone needs to point out to this guy that perhaps his wife also feels "burdened and trapped by the overwhelming obligations of family and of keeping up appearances," especially if she is trying to pick up the slack from his undoubtedly noticeable emotional absence. Instead of confessing his infidelity, perhaps he should have an honest discussion with his wife about how she's feeling beneath the "perfect marriage" charade. He might be surprised. Perhaps after that conversation they can work together towards a new level of understanding and intimacy in their marriage, as opposed to him continuing to cowardly and selfishly seek an easy escape from his reponsibilities. His wife has feelings and needs of her own that almost certainly aren't being met by the current marital dynamic.
-Anonymous
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All Hail Jared
It's simply amazing that Jared is able to plumb the depths of Lost's psyche by noting he used the word "great" twice in one sentence. Jared, you have no knowledge of Lost's relationship with his family, so spare us your holier-than-thou condemnation.
Cosmicmojo, I agree with you -- the grass is never greener on the other side. Once the novelty of the relationship wears off, he'll be back to the same mundane existence, wondering where the excitement went.
But Lost never really indicated that he was thinking about leaving his wife, just that he felt more of an erotic and emotional charge being with the hooker. That's really not so hard to imagine. As a 10-year-plus married man w/ kids, our very vanilla sex life is down to once every six weeks or so. I have to say, the prospect of an exciting sexual encounter, however artificial it might be, seems pretty good compared to "get it over with so I can get back to my book."
Lost's big mistake, in my opinion, is that he's reading too much into his relationship with the hooker. My advice is about the same as Cary's: break it off with the hooker, get some therapy, and never, ever tell his wife about this.
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Who cares about this guy? The issue of how we work is way more interesting
Didn't have a whole lot to add to the commentary addressed to this guy, but cosmicmojo's letter:
"You have to pay the mortgage (or are you and your prostitute going to move back in with Mom and Dad?), get up every morning and plod to your job, pay the electric bill and live for the weekend."
prompted me to write.
The way we work and the fact that it's plodding is very much a symptom of "we've always done it this way." We take our jobs seriously because our supervisors take it seriously. The fact is, if our attitude toward work were different, it wouldn't be so dreary.
One thing, telecommuting could be way stepped up for most people. Less office, less trudging, better environment, less use of gas.
Another thing, if we could just drop the facade that the work most of us do is actually of any importance whatsoever, most of us would be a lot happier. If we went to work being able to admit it was a necessary evil, it would drop a lot of the pretense that what we're doing is "important."
And we dropped the facade, we could give people more sabbaticals to do things they truly wanted to do. Note, this doesn't even necessarily mean more vacation time. It just means that if someone wanted to take 2-3 months off periodically, unpaid, they'd be allowed to do it.
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I know there's still good in you, turn away from the Dark Side
Middle-aged men run amok sexually from time to time; at least you did it with a classy hooker instead of going to those married men's "bi" hotel orgies with no women participating.
It's not that hard to quit going to prostitutes. Just quit. And quit looking at porn, too. Quitting being a pervert is even easier than quitting smoking. No more doing things that would embarass your children if they knew, OK? Pick up some manly habits like beer and NASCAR. Make your wife your only sexual outlet. You'll remind yourself why you fell in love with your wife!
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Hello, Cary? Anyone home? What about STDs?!
What an incredible jerk this guy is. He doesn't deserve his family. Cary's advice is way, way off - you can't bury a betrayal like this one. This guy obviously doesn't want a family or to live the "settled" life - he wants to play with whores and indulge his whims, and he's willing to threaten his wife's life to do it.
HELLO, isn't ANYBODY worried about STDs?! What right does this monster have to expose his wife to godonlyknowswhat evil bugs?! He's threatening her life, and all Cary can worry about are his feelings?! This is like the guy playing with blowtorches and gasoline in the living room and telling him not to worry about getting a fire extinguisher. The wife deserves to know what her "husband" is playing with. She deserves to know what diseases (some life-threatening) that she's been exposed to. Infidelity isn't just about feelings anymore, folks - you're playing with your innocent partner's life. Yeah, condoms. But they don't completely stop HPV, which can cause cervical cancer in women. And I shouldn't have to mention herpes, HIV, etc. etc. etc. etc. People, he's sleeping with a prostitute. This is reckless endangerment.
This guy needs to come clean, 'cause his wife needs to know what an SOB she's dealing with and protect herself. Cary, you're pretty gutless not to address this important topic. Telling men who have sex with prostitutes that they can just "forget about it" is worse than dumb - it's life-threatening.