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Gee, the anger, the vitriol, the bitterness....ummm, that's of the responding letters from readers. Why this kind of thing touches such a nerve, I can't say! But for God's sake, people, this letter writer was NOT writing about his divorce or his child-support/alimony settlement, or the general evil of women, etc. How off-topic can you get? If you have serious, deep-seated issues about women or about your last divorce, PLEASE FIND an appropriate forum to vent on -- this ain't it.
As far as this letter writer, most posters seem to be missing the fact that he is and was severely depressed, and that's why he was proscribed Celexa. Don't you think it's possible in his miserable, wet-blanket depression, perhaps he wasn't very appealing to be around? and therefore that's why the wife's ardor cooled off so fast after the wedding? it's not easy living with a seriously depressed partner.
I can attest to the power that sophisticated anti-depressant drugs (SSRIs) can have on your mood and sex drive. They eliminate the "lows" of misery and sadness, but by the same mechanism they destroy the "highs" of joy and sexual desire. I hope this is helping this individual cope with his depression, but I am disheartened that he seems to be blaming everything on his wife. It is very rare that "everything wrong in your life" is attributable to your partner -- and if so, you both clearly need to be out of the marriage.
It's always really dangerous and misleading to read a very one-sided complaint like this letter (and why doesn't the writer even attempt to show a fair view of his wife's possible side of the equation?) and fill in the blanks, based on our own personal (distorted) experiences or anger. The wife would probably tell a very different story -- I am reminded of the bit in "Annie Hall", where Annie and Alvie are separately seeing shrinks, and she is telling her shrink "we have sex constantly, every few days" and he is telling his shrink "we never have sex, maybe once or twice a week". LOL.
When a severely depressed person on heavy meds tells you something like this, it's to be taken with a grain of salt -- he may be speaking out of the depth so of his depression and not giving you an accurate picture of the truth. We can explore all the possible ramificiations (does he have good personal hygiene? has he been helping with child care?) but honestly we can't know this.
The only possible position, in my view, is that both people sound desperately unhappy in this relationship, at least one (if not both) are very depressed and dysfunctional and at least one small child is involved. Intense therapy, both individiual and family, seems to be urgently required!
As far as the readers and contributors here: some of you need to take a cold, hard look at why this particular letter, from a depressed and heavily medicated STRANGER would set you off on such intense expressions of misogyny, rants about your previous bad relationships, or general unhappiness with society's sex roles. If you are chomping at the bit so frantically that any mention of marital problems from complete strangers gets your panties in a twist this bad, then you need some intense therapy of your own -- get it fast and get it now.
