Letters to the Editor
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Out of Control
LW, you are out of control and you know it. You're like an alcoholic who's been on the wagon. One drink and you're on binge.
You don't feel guilt because you're getting high on the thrill of getting away with something. Which means you're going to take more and more risks.
When it all comes crashing down, you'll see what's important to you: the thrills or your husband and your career, the respect you have in your community. I recommend thinking long and hard about this question now. Otherwise, you might not know what really mattered until it's gone.
And if you can't stop without help, get some help. As a practical point, I'd delay the big confession until you've made the commitment to change your behavior (or the decision that you're not going to).
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Anonymous 9:57
I am saying that if so many people think it is okay (like timbuktom) then they must all enjoy fucking around. Does that make them sociopaths too. Women can't be sociopaths for doing the same think men are doing if the men aren't sociopaths too. Is everyone who screws around a sociopath? I don't think so. Therefore she is not a cunt or whore either unless guys who do this are also pricks and whore.
I hope this letter isn't deleted. I feel like Lenny Bruce but without the humor.
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Atheism
Cary, I suspect most atheists, like me, came to their beliefs slowly after plenty of exposure to churches. And believe me, Dad of 13 yo fundie has had a ton: his wife was fundamentalist. Can he sit in a church and listen to all the crap he's rejected with an open mind? Can he be non-judgemental about a bunch of people who are telling his daughter that he's going to burn in hell for eternity? He might force himself to sit through that crap, but can he turn off his brain and convince himself it's not utter nonsense? I doubt it.
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LW, the partner we all fear
At first I wanted to ask LW why she doesn't just have an open relationship, be a swinger (do people still use that word?) then I realized she has to have the risk element, the danger. She essentially loves the intrigue, the lies & all the rest of it. She sounds a bit like an addict; I'm also curious what makes her happy in her current relationship. Does it meet some basic narcisstic need, providing a 'home base' for you to work from?
LW, why don't you just admit you don't care emotionally and just go for the sex aspect and live as an honest polyamorist? Do you want to hurt people and fuck your life up?
Cary's right -- get 'unmarried' and start being honest. Start with yourself and take real risks -- which is what honesty requires. Real risks of rejection, of not getting everything you want. The adrenaline-risks you're taking now are just bullshit, adolescent games. Was your parents marriage like this?
And finally, LW, ewwwwwwww. I am soooo glad I'm not married to you.
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I doubt this is a fake letter... I know someone just like this.
I know this LW sounds completely over the top, but I know a woman just like her. And this woman inserted herself into my marriage in numerous ways and almost destroyed it.
She is a serial cheater. She feels no remorse. She knows it's wrong. She enjoys being a slut. But she wants to stay married.
Dimestore psychological analysis? She has extreme self-esteem issues, a fear of abandonment and, yes, I have used the term "sociopath" in reference to this woman before. She wants to stay married so people will approve of her, socially. She sleeps around behind her husband's back (though she recently inadvertently disclosed some of her nastiness to him) to assure herself that she's worth a damn. Sex is the only thing she has to offer. She's essentially an emotionless robot and struck me as a sociopath when recent events came to light.
Bottom line is that there's nothing to do or say with a remorseless "serial cheater" like this. Cary's letter was uncharacteristically brief and frank, and rightly so. There is only so much you can do with a waste of skin like this. If anything the letter was ripe for publishing from a purely journalistic sense: "Yes, dear reader, there are horrible people in this world."
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Atheism
I was dragged to a fundamentalist church for about a year when I was a teenager. I was socially unskilled and thought the girl doing the dragging was my friend. I didn't understand she was just racking up "heathen-points". Some things I was told by the pastor during his sermons at this particular church:
1. Insane people are possessed by demons. Nice to know! I'll pass that one on to my schizophrenic cousin.
2. Women belong in the kitchen, popping out babies. Therefore, my family was especially hell-bound, since my mother was working the day job while my father built us a house.
3. Gay people are all going to hell. Because they are EVIL.
4. Anyone who is not Christian is EVIL.
5. My personal favorite - UFOs are actually demons who come to kidnap Christians so when the Apocalypse happens, there won't be any Christians left to save the heathens.
I'm not saying all Christians believe these sorts of things. Most of the Christians I know are friendly, tolerant, and respectful of other people's beliefs.
But they AREN'T fundamentalists.
Cary, before you blithely tell someone to expose their child to MORE of this stuff, maybe you should actually sit in on a few sermons.
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Now this is interesting.
Some people seem to be responding to last week's letter about taking the teenager to church. I sooo wanted to avoid that one.
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"Just once I'd like to see Tennis call a bad person a bad person"
No shit.
If there was ever an example of the "everyone gets a trophy" culture of entitlement and praise, this column is usually it.
For fuck sake, some things are worthy of negative judgment. Sleeping around on partners UNAWARE of the activity is flat out wrong on so many levels, and this broad says she feels no remorse. (We're not talking consensual or open marriages, here, which is different.)
One can only assume her conduct has caused considerable pain for others be they the people she screwed or the unwitting parnters of the people she screwed. One can only hope there is such a thing as Karma and that the payback is, indeed, a bitch for this bitch.