Please for the love of everything not retarded listen to that woman.

I don't think the problem is that the woman the LW is married to has sinned, but rather how often she has sinned and in the same particular way.

Eighteen pages so far of comments on this article! Count'em.

No, I am not going to comment or reply on the substance of the article and those letters.

Isn't free speech wonderful, and to hell with being politically correct!

From the number of responses and the general nature of them (I did not read them all by far.) it is clear to me that you stepped on a landmine.

Just who (s)elected all those prosecutors, judges, juries, and therapists?

Please! Let me see the hand of any of you who have not sinned?

edziu's muse, you have your reasons for coming here, but I doubt they're widely shared. Cary isn't that good a writer, and an advice column isn't the best place to practice poesy; his answers should be more prosaic and less prosy.

I come here 'cause I like the train wrecks. I also think it's a good idea to warn the men who write to Cary that they might want to consider another advisor; Cary will favor the interests of any woman over those of any man. He even advised a male abuse victim to consider how he was contributing to his wife's desire to hit and hurt him. This is not an advice column any man should consider consulting.

Why do so many posters get riled up when Cary uses metaphor to expose the insanity in some of these situations? The LW's life IS rather, uh, bizarre to many, so why is Cary the crazy person when he's using this type of humor?

I'll agree he may not always hit the mark, but don't we come here for his special brand of writing, and because we know we will not get run of the mill Dr. Phil hard love every time from a guy like Cary?

If you don't think the veil dancing is funny, then perhaps you can at least see that the situation of the LW is one crazy dance.

When I think of an emotional affair, I think of the movie Norma Rae, in which Sally Fields' and Ron Liebman's characters grew deeply emotionally involved while working together. There not only was no sexual behavior between them but only a little ironic flirting. When Beau Bridges asks Sally Fields if she's gone to bed with Liebman, she truthfully says no, and truthfully admits "But he's in my head."

This is an emotional affair. I'm sure the Bridges character was wounded by this admission. But he knew his wife was trustworthy, and after Ron Liebman drove his Volkswagen into the sunset, that little by little he'd fade from her thoughts.

I don't see the current situation as an emotional affair at all. It's based on lies and sex, whether the sex is physical or not. It's cheating, pure and simple.

how old are the children and boys? girls?

I hear you loud and clear. Thanks.

The details are this: I was away on a business trip. Could not reach my husband one night. Last call I made to his mobile was at 3am - no answer. He claimed he left it at work. And admitted that he went out after hours with some work friends, and this woman was there too. I have come to believe now, because of other telling behavior, that it was probably just the two of them out after hours, alone together.

I get back from my trip, and find out that when I was gone he also took the kids to this woman's parents house on a lake, but told the kids not to tell me. Wow, that's some great parenting for you, huh?

He made the excuse that the lake would be fun for the kids. Fine, but do you need to lie to me about it, and instruct your kids to keep it from me too?

Just sick. Sick sick sick.

Thank you for your words of encouragement. Since then, there have been two other women that I know of. The letter writer who said that there's always a replacement is right. Spot on.

I'm glad that these letters have helped you and I hope you extricate yourself from this boyfriend of yours, soon!

But as to marriage, mine is going great thanks and I start off with a deep sense of mistrust because of people like this wife and my lying bastard of a father, it took me years to 100% trust my husband while we were dating and I didn't marry him until I did trust him.

People screw up, people make mistakes, people have crushes and blur boundaries, the people you love will hurt you, people wonder if the one they are with is the "one". The way married or people with respect for one another can work through these things is how the person acts after the catching or the suspicions over mistakes that arise. How do they react to your pain? Do they give a shit, are they sorry?

What your boyfriend is doing and what this wife is doing are disrespectful, emotionally abusive actions. They know about your pain and just don't care, their needs are more important.

The people we love hurt us, it's unavoidable, it's the apologies and reperations that matter. Lies and victim blaming are not I'm sorry, I made a mistake I'll do better.

This wife is never going to change who she is most likely and she has shown that who she is, is someone who constantly needs proof of love but is unwilling to return the same. She needs proof of love from these Bill's and John's, they want her even though she is really off limits. She needs proof of love from hubby by screaming "I want a divorce" just so he'll say baby, baby, no I love you, don't leave, it will crush me, I'll do anything. The jealousy she creates on purpose is also a proof of love act. This cycle will not stop unless she decides to trust that she's actually worth loving.

I think the LW needs to realize he is loveable too, that this drama and spying is just too much work, it's exhausting and it's bad for him and his daughter. Oh and the therapist is really shitty, it's okay to continue a friendship with someone she was having an affair with and you should just trust her when she's done nothing to earn that trust back?

So I agree with the advise that unless he can accept that his wife will always threaten to leave and need other men in her life and maybe he should get some honeys of his own, he needs to start stealth divorce. On the surface do everything the same, behind her back, get that PI, visit with all those divorce lawyers, do whatever you can to not leave this young girl who is forming her sexual identity alone with a manipulative abuser, who will most likely demand proof of love from her own child by forcing her to pick sides and demonizing you. Have you been perfect, no, I'm sure you haven't, the spying, any passive aggressive acts, but don't ever let her use your mistakes as the reason why she is allowed to go off and find these other men for intamacy considering she's been doing it all of her relationship life. If she's unhappy she would follow through and actually get the divorce, so you have to because you are unhappy. You've been dancing this pain dance for over a decade, it's time to get some joy into your life, you deserve it!

Then you should probably get some help to try and understand why you put up with this crap for so long and how to find and keep a more stable honest woman in the future.