Letters to the Editor
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living it
The article is an interesting read because my wife and I (age 47/55 and married 10 months now) are to some degree living out the scenario in the article. She is a watercolor artist and (now former) gallery manager and I am a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast and engineer. When worlds collidge it can be a disaster or terribly interesting and fun. My bride is learning about the world of motorcycles and I'm learning about the world of an artist. One room of the house has been turned into her studio so she can finally pursue her art full time. I am delighted to be able to help that happen. She's asked me to give up nothing but my bachelorhood and TV dinners, and rather has joined me (admittedly with some trepidation) on the bike which we have ridden to art galleries and shows. It's not about changing anyone, it's about joining together to make the sum of the relationship better than the individual parts could be alone. Smart and committed people can make that happen without diminishing either person.
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Another approach
My sweet, understanding, emotionally engaged husband has a major music jones. It takes up an enormous amount of his time and attention, and space in our apartment. His passion for it (and his other interests) was a big attractor when we met. He gives me room to do the things I like to do, even when he finds them silly or beneath the likes of an ivy-educated super-duper-ambitious pseudointellectual professional. He was also a 42-year-old bachelor when we met, and was quite reluctant to get married, although not to commit. I managed to persuade him to do so, after 3 years of dating, based on the same arguments our gay friends offer when explaining why they want to marry. I give him a lot of credit for overcoming his basic revulsion for the bourgeois institution of marriage. It helped that we planned the whole thing in three weeks and my dress came from Loehmann's.
Most of your dilemma does not appear to be one for me.
However, I'm not crazy about the neanderthal, racist attitudes of your husband's motorcycle friends, although he doesn't seem to share them. If he did, that would be a deal-breaker for me. I don't like the idea of my kids being exposed to those attitudes routinely in the chosen company of their stepfather. But what concerns me is the danger he faces, and what that can do to your family. As a confirmed bachelor, he needed to consider his effect on the people he was drawing legally and presumably forever, into his life. It doesn't sound like he did that. What if he is in an awful crash? Is it fair to ask your children to reduce their academic or life ambitions -- or desire for YOUR time and attention -- if all of your disposable income and much of your concern and emotional energy goes toward his nursing care? I don't know what I would have done -- I didn't experience your heady exuberance at meeting him. I do know that when you have kids (as I do), they have to come first. Only you can figure out what that means, but it is hard to see how introducing that level of unasked-for risk is fair to them.
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Confused
I can't find Cary's answer anywhere...
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Bridezilla
So... yet another story about how the man has to change and give up the one thing he loves.
How trite.
I've found that riding a bike is a good litmus test of how intelligent and mature a woman is.
The childish insecure ones who think "he loves the bike more than he loves me" show their colors early, and the ones that understand that working on the bike keeps your head from exploding from working on computers all week, are the ones you want to spend your life with.
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Mad Cow Joke
Mad Cow Disease wasn't discovered and named until the late 20th century, long after PMS was known and named. So, the joke was not only crude, misogynistic and unfunny, it was also inaccurate. Now that's funny. And if this woman was as smart and bookish as she claims (you know, her great literary reputation and all) she might have pointed that out and shut the clod up right there and then. Or she could have left. Or asked him if he makes jokes like that because he has a small penis. And she only seems to be offended by things that she feels affect her personally. The PMS joke only bothers her, she assures us, because she has witnessed her poor daughter suffering from cramps (which, by the way, isn't really a part of PMS but something different called dysmenorrhea, but why would such a brilliant librarian know that?) The anti-semitic attitude that she doesn't speak out against upsets her because HER people died in concentration camps. She gives women and librarians a bad name...
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Hmmm
As a long retired motorcycle racer myself (I found the link to this on SuperbikePlanet.com) I can only say one thing about this article. Get over yourself! By your account, this man has made a commitment not only to you, but to your children. He seems intelligent and financially responsible and on some level you find his sport/hobby sexy. On the other hand, in an overly dramatic way, you complain about his passion for life as demonstrated through, among other things, his racing. Over the years I've had opportunity to read a few articles in women's magazines complaining about what men find interesting. Unfortunately, in this case the complaints are serious against one man's need for healthy competition and his willingness to work through the myriad difficulties required to set himself apart and not the typical comic relief type complaints about his wanting to watch sports all weekend. Which would you choose? You may only have one. The sedentary couch potato drinking beer and eating chips toward an early coronary or a healthy man who just happens to have a life and interests outside of you and developed long before you came along. I hope beyond hope that you are able to understand someday that individuals are just that and part of a healthy relationship is understanding the difference between two people and working toward making a life together where all can be in harmony.