Letters to the Editor
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"Crazy love" (few letters back this page) is right
You're being waaaay too nice to her -- your sense of fairness has gotten completely skewed.
Even if you don't want to demonize her, all you need to know is that she's a flake and simply doesn't have the goods to make this work. That's not going to change in any *meaningful* way, anytime soon; to improve she has to have the desire and a certain of self-knowledge to work with, and she hasn't got those at this point.
I'm 100% sure for my part that there's nothing lost by walking away. This is not one case where you should be wondering about "what if's" or giving her (any more) benefit of the doubt.
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Mystery kids
Argh!
There are two children in the middle of this mess. LW doesn't mention their birth mother, doesn't mention their ages, doesn't mention their genders, doesn't mention much at all about them except that they "embraced" the current wife.
We do, however, get a blow-by-blow on how much sex he's getting and how much step-mom may be getting. How nice (?) for the grownups.
I repeat: There are two children in the middle of this mess. From the sound of it, no one is paying much attention to them. Their birth mother is somewhere else, and the adults who are present are obsessed with themselves and their troubles. The troubles may be real: adultery, money, divorce, etc, but meantime those kids are doing... what?
If they "embraced" step-mom: was that for real? Or did they do it to please you? If it was for real, then they are in for (another?) round of loss. If it was to please you, then you really have your work cut out.
First of all, LW, grow up. Cary's right: attend to your kids. If they are school age, check in with teachers and any other adults who know them well: how are they really doing? Are they getting the support they need? Are they putting on an act because they think you can't handle the truth? Kids do that, you know.
Then put together a support system for you and the kids. I'm not talking babysitting for future dates, I'm talking other families to hang out with, other parents you respect who can support you in all the difficult decisions and stages of parenthood. What precisely you do will depend on the ages of your children, but do something.
You may find that by attending to their needs and putting together a healthy social network for yourself, things will shift. You may not feel quite so anxious. You may even meet someone nice, someone who embraces those kids back. But first, attend to those kids!
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Dear "take a step back"
Take a step back writes:
"I hear what you're saying. But I do think there could be more in this letter than an "innocent victim"."
I think there are many possibilities, among them that this guy is more to blame than he lets on. But that's all that it is -- one of many possibilities. Why assume more than that? (By the way, I did not write "innocent victim," just "victim.")
"Two previous years of a stormy relationship already and he had no clue this was a possibility? Sounds like abnormal igorance to me."
I think he said he had been married one year. I don't recall him writing anything about the relationship being stormy, although he does mention his anxiety, which I can only imagine did not manifest itself in "nice" ways.
"The truth is, I can imagine my father, who was verbally abusive toward my mother for years, writing a letter like this at the time my mom decided to divorce him. He had absolutely no idea why my mom might want to leave him..."
I suspected you might have personal reasons for your comments. I would hope that you would be careful not to assume that every man who is victimized, abandoned, cuckolded, rejected etc. is parallel to your father. And note some key differences: We have no reason to assume the LW was verbally abusive, and your mother took a direct route (leaving) rather than a half-assed one (cheating when she really wanted to leave).
"We (the adult children) have decided that he probably has a mild form of Asperger's syndrome."
You must have your reasons. But be careful with armchair psychological diagnosis. In any case, it does sound like your father has serious issues, and his reluctance to seek help just makes it worse. Good luck with him. The unfortunate thing about being out-of-touch is that it tends to push people away farther, causing the problem to feed on itself. It is strange to have to be the "adult" in dealing with your own parents, isn't it?
"So when I read this letter, and noticed all the little signs of emotional distance,"
I didn't notice those. Not that they weren't there, but I didn't see the LW betray any detail that would lead me to conclude he was the source of the emotional distance.
"...coupled with the willingness to quickly invade his wife's privacy rather than talk it out(checking the computer, etc)"
See, now here it really appears to me you are projecting your own interpretation onto the LW. Because your description above is at odds with the actual letter. The LW clearly states that he tried discussing it with his wife several times, and only after repeated unexplained behavior did he dip into her email.
"The wife's behaviour is not exemplary, but the LW doesn't seem very aware of the people around him either."
"Not exemplary" is one way to put it. As for the LW not being aware of people around him, where do you get that?
"Is he emotionally impaired and/or controlling? I don't know. But there's enough in this letter to make me think that it's possible."
I agree that it is possible. But it is also possible that he is a regular nice guy who happened to get screwed over. Now, the real question is, why would a regular nice guy get married to somebody so immature? There are many possibilities there. We can only guess. Sometimes even the smartest people have blind spots.
"Would a control-freak consider themselves (and present themselves as) a control-freak, or just rationally concerned?"
This is a strangely self-fulfilling bit of logic: "He must be a control freak because he doesn't come across as a control freak..."
"So I think that the LW should look very carefully at himself."
Well, based on what you have written, I think you should continue looking closely at yourself and the way your parents' split has affected you. My guess is that you absorbed much of the pain of your mother's abuse. As for me, well, I am pretty messed up in my own ways.