Comments

1
the ending killed what would have been great advice.
2
That is a whole lot of ew.
3
I'm guessing that the end of Dan's advice was, you know, a joke... but even if it wasn't, so what?!? Dude has been a prick, and that's what has what has made him less attracted to him, so if she's willing to put so much effort into it, and he's not able to dig himself out of the hole, he had it coming.

(That said, she should grow up and leave him before she starts cheating on him behind his back if he's willing to change and that still doesn't do it for her.)
4

This chick doesn't make sense.

First she says that he's great at sex. But she wants to sleep with other men.

Then she's "in it for the kids".

Most people would be more than happy just to have a live-in whore such as your husband (or female equivalent for us guys...or vice versa for LGBT...or...well you get the idea).

My guess is that you like "being treated like a teenager" because it makes you feel young and pretty.

You haven't really told us what your value on the open market would be (if in fact they'd be lining up or not).

To me this sounds like the case of the person who actually has it better than everyone else, and therefore has nothing to complain about (like the rich guy who wants to be like his regular friends) so she makes something up to complain about.

Please go away and leave us unsatisfied people to our misery, while you enjoy your high salary, and live in 'ho.

5
@4

Are you sure you're not her husband?
6
@4: "This chick doesn't make sense.

First she says that he's great at sex. But she wants to sleep with other men."


bailo, I knew it was you before I even scrolled down, because emotions and nuance are so outside of your....whatever the fuck it is you are "about"
.
jayzus, not only are you daft, you wear your idiocy as
some sort of badge.
7
@5, Bailo is married to a Fleshlight.
8
"The moral of the story is this: All men are jerks. All women are neurotic."

That's one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes, and it seems especially applicable here. I don't think either of them is completely blameless.
9
Get counseling, and if it doesn't work, get a divorce. You owe it to your kids.

Teaching your kids that it is okay for men to treat women as objects to be controlled is setting them up for problems, either for abuse if they are female or being abusers if they are male. Either way, it's bad.

Get help; do it for your kids.

Your husband probably was turned on by you being strong and independent. It sounds like he saw it as a challenge to break you. The more you let it work, the more you hurt yourself and your kids.
10
@5 What I wanted to say, in a tenth of the words, brevity being the soul of wit, and all...

If you aren't willing to walk if the situation gets bad, then, as Dan says, you have no leverage. Personally, I can't imagine staying in a relationship "no matter what." Sure, people shouldn't just throw in the towel, and should try to work things out, but if your husband has no interest in dealing with his control issues (and assuming you aren't acting out just to yank his chain) then leaving might be your only option. I don't actually think people should stay in a miserable marriage "for the sake of the kids," I think all parties deserve better than that.
11
Throes. Say it with me.
THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES
THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES
THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES
THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES THROES

Not throws.
12
I dunno. Just flip the husband-wife and he-she words around and it sounds like the typical married guy complaining about his wife.

Like 5280 says, each is probably to blame. I feel sorry for the kids.
13
Well, the wife certainly doesn't sound like she has any love or respect for her husband. Why would he want to have sex with her? It seems like her problems with work/life balance are just a convenient excuse. He's appropiated a classic passive-aggressive neglected housewife tactic.

Also, if he's a lousy husband and father, why not dump him and find someone better? There are guys out there who would fit the bill and still fuck like champions. And the kids aren't being done any favors, seeing their parents in constant turmiol.
14
Having been married to a controlling abuser, I should have lots of sympathy for the writer. But instead I wonder what's being left out. We don't get much in the way of details about the controlling behavior she's alleging (mine would have been something like, "Refused to pick me up and gave me two days of silent treatment for having dinner with a friend after work, completely routine behavior on his part."). And being an hour and a half late--well, was this the umpteen millionth time she came home that late, leaving her husband to deal with the kids on a school night with homework due and tears and etc. and she once again didn't bother to call? Something about the lack of details here makes me want to know more before I condemn the husband.
15
As a woman and wife, I'm just kinda confused and a little suspicious of the DW. Yes, there are controlling asshats who can't handle strong women. And I'm not completely unsympathetic: my husband was attracted to me being strong and independent and got confused when I didn't turn into a 1950's housewife after we got married (counseling had to be involved there, but that was about 15 months into our marriage, not 15 years).

But any woman who dismisses her husband as good for nothing but sex after telling you about how wonderful she is? Yeah, I wonder about that relationship. Does her husband work? Has his work suffered for her accomplishments? Have his contributions to the household been dismissed? Did she treat her husband like a child first so he turned around and started treating her like a teenager? And is he perhaps not as dense as she thinks he is and senses the fact she wants to fuck other men, and therefore is freaking out at the extra, night-time 90 minute delay?

I'm not saying DW-hubby isn't a controlling asshat. But I've seen some of my successful women peers treat their husbands like utter shit, and they are mystified when their husbands don't swallow that shit with a big smile on their face.

And by the way? It's common courtesy to tell your spouse when you're running late. Cell phones are great for that. I give my husband lots of freedom to go out with his friends, and he knows that in return, all I ask ahead of time is a general ETA and whether or not I need to include him in dinner plans. If his plans ran long, I just ask a quick e-mail or phone call so I know what's going on - takes him 30 seconds. Because as a spouse, you don't exist solely to sit around placidly waiting for your partner, and then rolling over whenever they decide they want sex. Swapping of traditional gender roles doesn't change that.
16
gus, why is he Bailo? (know thy enemies, and all...)
17
The word she's looking for is "throes", not "throws". Get it right, people.
18
I stayed with my crazy ex-husband much longer than I should have, partially because the sex was good. But really, how much time can you spend fucking? It can't be enough to make up for all of the other miserable hours you spend together. And I found other guys that fucked me just as well (and some better!) once I was free. All of the fun, none of the batshit-crazy bullshit. Leave.
19
If he's a shit father and a terrible husband who's letting the children see him treat her like crap, how does staying with her benefit the kids? Maybe ending a relationship she hates and showing them what Independent Mom looks like is a better solution. Counselling sounds like a waste of time (but I guess, if they want to try it out...).
20
Oh hell no.

I'm with DW.

Seven. And. A. Half. Fucking. Years. with a man who could be her husband's gay twin brother. Every goddamn day hearing about my flaws and shortcomings and constantly coming up short. Walking on eggshells all the time because of his anger and his badgering.

And NOBODY outside of the relationship gets it. Because you're supposed to WORK on a relationship, right? And you're supposed to work to be your best you and isn't it great to have someone so close at hand to point you in that direction?

Difficult as it may seem to extricate yourself from the situation, DW, I strongly encourage you to do just that. I cannot describe in words the elation that I felt driving away with what I could carry of my personal possessions crammed into my car.

But it gets better. It so gets better. At least it did for me. And my new rule is that no one is allowed to yell at me ever again. And that rule gets applied without exception. And for the past 2.5 years I've enjoyed a great relationship with a good man who genuinely likes me and has never felt the need to criticize or raise his voice to me.
21
Canuck, that handle is just his latest here on Slog. He's been commenting here forever and a day, and his name (and original handle) is John Bailo. He's a Republican who rents an apartment in a strip-mall exurb of Seattle called Kent, and he likes to rail endlessly about the deserved death of cities and unfair taxation of property owners and his expertise in hetero-ness. Keep an eye peeled and you'll get a delightful sample of his many views. Draw your own conclusions, but I find him almost perfectly creepy.
22
@4, she's saying he's good at sex, but they don't have a lot of it. Where's the confusion here?

I'm calling shenanigans on this letter because I refuse to believe that such a successful businesswoman doesn't know the difference between "throws" and "throes" or "I'm" and "Im", but that's probably just because I like to think good things about the future of grammar in this country. I may decide to give her a pass on the second, being as it's supposedly sent from her iPhone and punctuation is a bit trickier on those. I refuse to accept the first.
23
Ah, gus, thanks for the explanation. Yeah, he was bugging me on yesterday's SLLOTD, and today he appears to be in fine form again. Wonder if he hangs out with Seattleblues?

@20 "And you're supposed to work to be your best you and isn't it great to have someone so close at hand to point you in that direction?"
Sounds good, right? Everyone is always supposed to be evolving, but at some point you realize their idea of "your best you" is actually a mirror image of them. Everyone should be loved for who they are, rather than who someone else thinks you should be. Glad you have found someone new!
24
@14 and @15 have it in my opinion, with an aside props to @12.

Imagine the letter written from the other perspective.

Dan, I'm writing to you from my desk crying. It's 9:00, and my husband is late AGAIN. He's been late more and more frequently to his 'business dinners' and he doesn't even call. I know he's supposed to be only having dinner, but I think he wants to cheat on me.

Last night, he was an hour and a half late, and we had a fight. I had a hard day at work, then had to manage the kids on my own, again. I had to prepare dinner, do the housework, and put them to bed...with no help. Of course, I was pissed. I pitched a shit fit, and went to bed without fucking him. I woke up to him jerking off. What The Fuck!?

My husband says I treat him like a child, and that I'm trying to possess him. But, I'm not. I just want him to be around some more. I was initially attracted to his headstrong and successful behavior, but I never realized how alone it would make me. Whenever I bring it up, he belittles me and tells me I'm a lousy wife and mother. Then, he fucks me and rolls away from me.

I wish I could leave him, but I'm sticking with him for the kids. What do I do?

Lonely Wife
25
I've heard how the performances in the asteroid belt scene in the Empire Strikes Back demonstrate who picks up battle fatigue from a traumatic experience, and who doesn't. Because nothing responds to them, Leia and Chewbacca flip out. Because the ship responds to his piloting, Han Solo doesn't flip out.

Divorce-threats or no, if DW's husband doesn't feel like anything responds to him -- like the housewives who formed the early foundation of feminism didn't feel like anything was responding to them -- why should he behave any other way than the way he's behaving?

It's like that kid in "There Will Be Blood" -- if he were left to work it out himself, why would he refuse to scream to work out his own deafness?
26
If this woman's side of the story were 100% true, Dan, this would be good advice. But you know that the husband clearly has grievances that he probably views as legitimate too. Recommending an ultimatum is not going to help.

But then again, sex advice is your trade, not relationship advice.

Lots of commenters picked up on this same point (12, 14, 15, 24, etc.)
27
Hm. Well, considering that it's pretty normal human desire to fuck different people, let's seperate their relationship a little bit from the desire to fuck different people. \

She's jonesing for some extra action. I think no one can be blamed for that. Unfortunately we in the US live in a society where "extra-marital" affairs are considered, somehow, wrong. Even if there is no chance of a baby being born as a result of any extra sex, the sex is somehow "wrong".

That said, I think Dan is right when he says that she should confront him about his assholistic behaviours and try to work toward some sort of resolution. After that, perhaps DW could work towards opening up their relationship so she can fuck other people.

Depending on the dynamics of their relationship, perhaps opening up their relationship would wake him up to the realities of what their relationship has become, and it might make him reconsider his actions and mindset. But that's for them to decide.

Good luck, DW, hope you get some extra action. 15 years is a fuck of a long time. (bad pun not intended.)
28
I stewed angrily for hours, finally jerked off

Can a female "jerk off" ?

How does that happen...
29
Jesus, Bailo, go upstairs and ask your mom.
30
DTMFA
31
She needs to end this for the both of them and their children. It's clear she no longer loves or respects her husband and if she's being accurate he's controlling and passive aggressive. Kids would rather have parents who are happily separated then miserable together.
32
Honest or not, it sounds like a shit marriage and they should divorce while they're able to.
33
Dan nailed this one.

#4 and #24 don't have a clue ... it's common for women to endure for the sake of the kids. DW, Sooner or later you have to realize you can only be a martyr for so long. I've been there and done that... You're enabling his behavior. It's time to be true to yourself and stop making excuses for putting up with it. It'll be hard on the kids, but living in a dysfunctional family is difficult too. You're their role model, and you surely don't want them to follow your example of enduring. Maybe they need to see a woman strong enough to stand up for her rights. I know it's not easy.
34
Hey, DW: I have had to work on a lot of weird intimacy and commitment issues because my first example of a 'successful' relationship was my parents' completely nonfunctional 'in it for the kids' marriage. What have I learned? That 'for the kids' sake' the worst fucking reason to ever stay with someone.

Do you want your sons to grow up thinking that the right way to treat their girlfriends and wives is how your husband is treating you?

Do you want your daughters to grow up thinking that being in love means being treated by their husbands the way yours treats you?

No?

Then either fix it or leave, but stop saying you're 'staying for the kids.' Being given a completely unhappy marriage as the baseline model for a relationship fucks kids up just as badly, if not worse, than divorce.
35
@15 and @24 are correct. The DW-husband seems like a douche but the letter is loud with the sound of dogs not barking in the night

It's not unusual for strong, independent and successful women to get furious at husbands for not being as strong, independent and successful as they are, and the resentment probably shows whether she realizes it or not: the whole alpha women start to hate their beta men sort of thing.* (What did Helen Gurley Brown say? Something like "we've spent decades crafting the sensitive, caring, supportive male, and now that we have them we're calling them wimps".) I've seen files where such a wife never reconciles her desire to have a partner who is there for the kids with her desire to have a husband who's at work earning cash and fulfilling THE traditional role for men. It's a big reason why I'm wary of the backstory: she doesn't say why he's a lousy husband and father. Is it because she's the main breadwinner and he doesn't contribute enough? Or is it because he falls down on the home front? The lack of clarity is telling. She's the one coming home late, not him, note. And somebody who loathes their husband as much as DW does is probably finding every reason in the world not to be around him.

* - A guarantee: when she has an affair it won't be with a sexy poor guy it will be with a sexy person even more successful than her ... a guy who'll be with her instead of his own family, a guy who's got somebody at home looking after the kids when he's coming home late. (Chasmosaur is right: he no doubt knows she wants to be with anybody but him.)
36
@33 it's also common for successful businesspeople to blind themselves to their own faults. It's also common for business people to blame everybody else for bad situations instead of acknowledging their own flaws.

So, which one is the trump cliche at work in this woman: a guiltfree martyr who's only trying to do her job and enduring for her kids, or a self-obsessed business person who blames her husband for getting pissed because he has to deal with everything on his own?

Really, your idealistic story is just as fucked up as putting the blame completely on her. But, there's probably more to this story than her sainthood edition.
37
DW, I haven't heard your husband's side of the story, but if your description of his controlling behavior is accurate then I'm here to say that you're not doing your daughter, if you have one, any favors. Nor are you doing your son's eventual female partners any good either.

I grew up in a household that sounds a lot like yours. Dad was always berating Mom and Mom did a lot of crying. There was no physical abuse, because he managed to control her behavior just by screaming a lot. If I'm not mistaken there was abundant sexytime as well. My head knows this is wrong--I've managed to emulate my father's professional success rather than Mom's dependency--but in my personal life somehow I still manage to let men walk all over me. My brother, in the meantime, picked up some tips from dad that he uses to keep his wife in check--I like her a lot but I'm kind of hoping for her sake she'll get sick of it and bail.

These lessons, learned young, die hard. Ideally you'd (get counseling or) leave for your own sake, but if you can't then do it for the sake of any little persons who are watching and learning from your example.
38
Is some extra martial action really going to make it easier to stay with this guy? Unless she's planning lunchtime quickies with random strangers, she will have to carve out enough time to meet and fuck other men. Clearly something of a challenge. And what if she meets someone who is nice and a reasonable lay? Won't it jsut make her marriage harder to endure?

Though she may think some extra sex will be the marital bandaid she needs, it seems likely that she's also after companionship, positive attention and emotional support too. If she can find that in a side dish, why stick with the largely unappetising main?

If it was the opposite situation: fantastic husband and father with low libido/lacklustre sex skillz, then an affair could potentially shore up a marriage with lots going for it and plenty of reasons to stay.

But this isn't that situation and she should leave. She can still have intermittent hot sex with her husband when he's her ex.
39
@24 Well done
40
Please don't stay for the sake of the children. You can't just pretend everything's alright, because they'll know. And then, god forbid, you'll blame them for your decision.
41
were you 90 minutes late without calling or did you call? makes a huge difference. and are you often late without calling? again - these details make a huge difference. if you're consistenly inconsiderate that kind of thing can actually add up to massive resentment. if you try your best to call when you're late, etc., then your husband is over-reacting. need more details.
42
Ok seriously, divorce is not a terribly traumatizing thing for kids to go through. PLENTY of kids grow up with divorced parents (including myself) and end up totally fine. I have to say: I am so glad my parents are divorced, not only because I didn't have to see them fighting all the time, but it also helped me grow as a person (I know, really corny, but it's true). If you've got your reasons for staying in the marriage, fine, that's your choice. But don't do it for the kids. You owe it to your kids to get out.
43
I'd be pissed if a partner was an hour and a half late without calling, too. My SO did that just the other night -- we were supposed to have dinner at home, and he met up with friends and ended up rolling in almost 4 hours after he had said he would. I was really pissed off. If he had just called and said, hey, I met so & so who I haven't seen in awhile, I'm going to stay out later, go ahead without me, love you, I would have been just fine. I wasn't the one out of line by yelling at him when he finally showed up; he was out of line for leaving me hanging all night and not picking up the damn phone.
44
@39 thanks.

It's wrong though. I missed a detail in the original letter. It says that she came in late, he reprimanded her, then she demanded sex, which didn't want...and, it was this refusal of sex which launched the fight. It wasn't "I came in late, he picked a fight, then he refused sex." It was, "I came in late, he bitched about it, I demanded a good fucking, he refused to, we had a fight over that, then he went to bed while I jacked off and fantasized about cuckolding him." Her words.
45
@44
Ow. It sounds even worse phrased that way.
46
Misanthrope may be right.

She claims he's a lousy father, yet he's the one at home at 8 and not 930.

She claims he reprimands her for being late, and that is very typical behavior. Sounds like she's late a lot then.

He declined sex, she let that fester for hours.

She's out late at business dinners, and has fantasized about cheating for over a year. She's probably telegraphing that desire to him. Then, after stewing about not getting laid, she jerks off and fires off a letter asking for permission. That's not a crisis of morality, it's a tantrum for validity.

"You've arrived a point where you're somehow eroticizing your desire rebel against your husband's illegitimate parental authority. Like a teenager might flip her father off behind his back before sneaking out of the house after curfew, you're going to show your husband by fucking someone behind his back."

That's probably the best part of Dan's analysis. Still DW wrote him, not the husband, so like any good attorney he has to back his client and not blame the victim. Still, I don't exactly see what she's a victim of yet.
47
He's a lousy father, but she wants to stay with him for the kids? They'll survive a divorce. DTMFA x 100. Dan, you dropped the ball on this one.
48
IF (and it is questionable) her husband really is as controlling and emotionally and psychologically abusive as she says, she should get out now. These are classic behaviors for an abusive spouse and every day she (and her kids) are in harms way. I can attest that after 15 years of marriage, I certainly wouldn't overreact to my spouse being 90 minutes late after a business dinner. I've also never experienced 'too angry' for sex, but that probably says more about me than either Mr. or Ms. DW.
49
Or.....she's a career obsessed inconsiderate cunt.
50
@ 33 - Well, of course #24 doesn't have a clue. Neither do you. Neither do I. Because we're only hearing it from one side.

If DW's description is accurate, then yeah, Dan's advice is spot on. But I don't see how #24's characterization is at all incompatible with the situation laid out in the letter. The truth is, this is one of those cases where we really don't have information.

Also, I'm pretty skeptical about counseling, but Dan's right - this is one of those cases where they should seek counseling. If only because it sounds like passive-aggression is what passes for communication in this house.
51
I don't know why you're staying in this marriage, but it's definitely not for your kids. Do you really think they don't know that you're miserable and don't like each other?

Were you ever young? Have you completely forgotten what it's like? Kids aren't blind idiots. They just don't have the context or skills to process everything correctly yet. They know you're fighting. They know you're unhappy. They probably think it's their fault.

DTMFA. You're doing exactly no one any good by staying in this shitty backwards marriage. It doesn't matter whose fault this is. You both clearly need out.
52
He's not going to change. You've even helped him by doing what he demands. Stop letting him push you around. Take back your power.
53
12-15, 24, 26, etc. -- Largely agree, and some lucid & clever stuff.

Man... Thought I'd check out the comments on this one-- I'm newish to SL via app and thought this was a total misread. But now that I'm looking at the comments, two quick observations: 1) Troll much?; 2) Seriously, I get the cathartic aspect of these things, but there is some wicked self-projection going on. And not just because I disagree with the interpretations, rather I'm of the full-blown conviction that there is some head-up-ass damaged ego bullshit that is positively ubiquitous around here. No names, but have a sense of self-removal, people.
Also, definitely not a fan of bailo or his opinions...
@ gloomy_gus
But you're an asshole for re-posting his name and personal info. Just sayin'.
Et en fin, "jerking off" *can be taken literally if you want to-- it's actually a favorite: basically involves a gentle tugging from the stem of the clit. Careful.  
54

For the record, my flippant/bloviating response that I'm re-posting to satisfy my own self-involvement: feel free to disagree.
 Hey Dan,

Totally disagree with your advice on this one, mainly because I want to play a little blame the "victim" ('cause it sounds like she might really deserve it).

While it's refreshing to hear from someone with some balls for once, she basically said:

"I've resented my husband and only valued his sex for a long time now. I got back home late when he (sounded like) was expecting me (probably didn't call to let him know), then got pissed when he wouldn't put out."

Doesn't sound like there was much mutual consideration there-- dude's not at your beck and call, and has probably picked up on the anger-waves you've been sending for the past year or so. So when you don't act like he's got a life too, well, maybe it's not some surprise his dick isn't getting hard for you. It's not great waiting around for someone for 2hrs who then couldn't give a shit, and resists managing the conversation when your feelings are obviously hurt.

Neither one seems great at the whole communication thing (witness the 2am stranger outcry), but i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's not (just) him who's kind of a prick.

...and maybe you want to check into bdsm. Not because you're a successful career woman and need to be dominated-- but because you sound like that's what you're into him for.

I'd hate-fuck her...
55
I hate this "staying together for the children" argument. My parents stayed together because of me, and that's probably the reason I've never seriously been interested in marriage my entire life. The fact that you believe him to be a bad father means it is even more imperative for you to DIVORCE THIS MAN. Go out, get a real life and maybe even start a relationship up with someone who treats you the way you would want your children's future spouses to treat them. It doesn't sound like you're all going to starve to death if you have to support your family on your own, so you're not doing you're kids any favors. But if you persist down this path, don't be surprised if you see your kids either run from the concept of a permanent relationship or recreate the one you have now with someone else. ARGH.
56
The problem here is obvious: She only married the guy because he was hot/good at sex, despite knowing he was a jerk, and now is blaming him for marriage problems. Is he a jerk? Yes. But you married him. If you married an asshole, you cannot fix him and make him a nice boy. To fix him you must Unmarry him.
57
28
no.
but frat boys, who wrote this letter, can....
58
#24, your role reversal made things much clearer. But it comes to the same thing - get counseling to try to work it out and if the guy's as big an asshole as DW says, then get a divorce. If the only unusual factor is that it's a woman, not a man, then standard advice applies.

Once the counseling bit tries (and presumably fails), then she has the right to start divorce proceedings and look outside the current relationship. Or if DW doesn't want to get counseling because she's past all that, then start divorce proceedings and look outside the marriage.

Either try to fix it or walk out the door.
59
I was once married to a "successful businesswoman." She would have business dinners, too. Once she forgot to mention that she had such an engagement, her cell phone was off, and I was at home with two toddlers, worried that I hadn't heard from her. The only co-worker I could contact had no clue. By 10 p.m., I had bundled the kids up in the car to drive to her office to see if her car was there. It wasn't. At 11:30, I got a call from her phone with a male voice apologizing for keeping my wife out so late. It was the company president, and they'd had a business dinner with clients.

But, it turns out, I was the bad guy. Calling her co-worker, waking the kids up, taking them out. I should have just "known" she had a business thing.

Two sides to every story.

P.S. My life is so much calmer now without her.
60
It sounds like the sex in this case is somewhat tangential to the larger problem: Some people live to work. Some people work to live. It sounds like the wife is the former, the husband the latter.

This will probably make them completely incompatible. My wife and I both view our careers as important. We know we want to do things that we feel satisfied by. But our ultimate purposes for those jobs are so we can have our livelihoods, our home and our time together. We work well together because we both want to work in careers that make us work hard, but don't require us to put in 70-hour work-weeks.

I'll invariably get hate-comments saying that I'm being unfair to women who want to succeed in business. Maybe so, but not everyone has that level of ambition and women, given societal conditioning of making them choose between home and career often are put in difficult places by their husbands. I wonder, if the husband in this case was the one working long hours and the wife was upset she was being left home with the kids all day, bored out of her mind (despite them having good sex often enough), and wanting to reprimand him for always being so late, where would the answer lie? I know what Dan's answer would be, but too often, this sort of thing occurs frequently in marriages, just the genders reversed.
61
It sounds like both people in this relationship think they're the martyr and the other person's the asshole, frankly.

It also sounds like it's about time to commit to intensive counseling or decide to break the fuck up already.
62
sam #58: "Once the counseling bit tries (and presumably fails) [...] if DW doesn't want to get counseling because she's past all that"

That's the kicker. I've seen counselling fail not because of the counselling, but because one half of the couple has already made the decision to go and is trying counselling as a last resort or just to get the other partner to STFU, or to use the counselling as ammunition-gathering for the subsequent divorce and emotional battering.
63
@26 "If this woman's side of the story were 100% true, Dan, this would be good advice."

Why is it that every letter written by a woman here gets the: it's fake! We can't believe her or take her word for it, she's a WOMAN treatment? For fuck's sake people.

Thanks, Dan, for some sound advice for a woman for once.

I can completely relate to this woman's plight in regard to having hot sex with a guy who can't handle being with a woman who is either successful or smarter than he is or both and who then reacts by controlling when and if the hot sex ever happens--especially if the guy also feels it's the one thing he's got going in the relationship. Lots of guys can't handle a woman who out-staminas them in the bedroom. All of the guys I've been with, at least. They get sour about it and take it out on you in little passive aggressive ways. Believe it or not, but that trope about guys only thinking with their cocks and always wanting to fuck actually hurts both men and women, in regard to heterosexual relationships--men because if they don't live up to that expectation, their egos get butt sore and women because they either feel like they aren't hot enough for the guy or feel like they have to gatekeep their sexuality.

In any case, let's give the LWs the benefit of the doubt. She sounds level headed enough and at least doesn't come off sounding like a conceited fratboy taking the piss.
64
@63 You should never give the LWs the benefit of the doubt. A good portion of LWs, men and women, only tell their half of the story. They don't see things from the other side...at all.

I suspect that you're the same way. I also suspect that you've compartmentalized any legitimate criticism of your personality into "Oh, the guy's just jealous of me being a successful woman." Are you single, btw?
65
Just fucking divorce him already! Jesus christ. If he's a horrible father in addition to being a shitty husband, then you're an asshole for making your kids suffer through living with him.

You're the reason you're in this situation, and if you don't get out of it, you have no one to blame but yourself.
66
@63:

I'm a woman, and I called this letter into question (@15).

And you know why? Because I'm a woman. Because I have a career. Because I see how other women in my career treat their husbands.

Yes, DW-Husband could be a total douche-bag. I'm not denying it. But her tone and lack of details makes her suspect.

I love my sister. But if you ask her about her divorce, it was ALL MY EX-BIL'S FAULT BECAUSE HE WAS JUST A HORRIBLE MAN (emphasis hers). She completely skips over that part where he found out she *was* cheating on him, which made him completely suspicious of her - she just talks about how he was always so suspicious of her and tried to control her.

There's just huge spaces between the lines here to be firmly on DW's side.
67
Just another asshole spouse looking for rationalizations to fuck other people without disclosing same to the spouse.

Hey, letterwriter, if you cannot go to him FIRST and explain politely and reasonably that you now intend to fuck other people and why, but instead you fuck other people without letting him know that HE TOO has a free pussy pass, you are just another cheating prick (or cunt, in this case). The fact that you can get kinda, sorta, maybe permission to cheat from the perpetually easy-on-that-issue Dan Savage doesn't change that.

Lady, EVERY cheating spouse has their list of rationalizations why someone else's genitals besides the spouse's simply *had* to be invited out to play, and reasons why the cheated upon spouse had no right to know that third parties were now on the menu. But almost none of the cheating spouses bother to explain these things FIRST to the clueless spouse. Oh, no. No need to give notice of the actions up front....no siree.

Huh. I wonder why...? Maybe because the rationalizations are total bullshit, like this letter likely is filled with. My guess is the husband's letter in response would start with "IS SHE FUCKING KIDDING ME!? Listen to the shit *I* put up with for her supposedly successful career...."

Also, most comments supporting the gal here would totally change course if a man had written in rather than a woman. Own that fact, you unprincipled hacks.
68
@60 You're not being unfair to women, you just don't want a partner that is career obsessed. My partner and I are very much the same way. Less money but so much more love and time together. It's great.
69
Am I the only one who thinks this was written by a man who switched the genders in his letter to get sympathy?
70
Stick a fork in it because this marriage is done. Whether she's telling the whole story or not, it's clear they're both miserable, as well as just not right for each other.
71
Christ, all you DTMFA mfs just don't get it, do you? Read this:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/marriag…

DAVENPORT, IA—Despite the bitter emotional toll it has taken on them, Beth and David Harrigan expressed relief Tuesday that they have been able to handle their 11-year marriage so amicably.

According to Beth, while it's clear that they will never fully reconcile their differences, she and David are doing their best in a bad situation.
. . . .
The couple's biggest concern has reportedly been their children, Simon, 7, and Laura, 9. Beth said that while she and David realized they could never completely protect the kids from the damaging effects of their continued union, they were doing their best to honestly answer any questions that come up.

"The marriage has been really hard on the kids, but we're making sure they know it's not their fault that it's like this," said Beth, adding that she tries not to bad-mouth David within earshot of her son and daughter. "Children are very perceptive—they can always tell when something's wrong—so we decided not to keep anything from them. It's not like we're ever going to be a happily married couple again, but at least we can try to make it as painless as possible for them."
72
This really isn't sex advice (or a sex problem). It's typical relationship trouble. I'm disappointed that Dan so naively accepted the writer's characterization of events. She places 100% of the blame for her relationship's difficulties on her husband, when the story she lays out makes it sound like she's just as likely to be in the wrong. Maybe he was thrown by the reversal of gender roles. I wonder how the advice (and the comments) would run if it was a guy saying:

"Yeah, I told her I'd be home at 8:00, and yeah, I didn't get home until an hour and a half later, but is that any reason for her to get all PMS on me? I was WORKING for chrissake. And then she wouldn't even fuck me! What a controlling bitch. If it weren't for the kids, I'd divorce her. In any case Dan, would it be OK if I cheated on her now?"
73
Sorry. Hadn't read through all the comments and didn't realize how thoroughly my point had already been made
74
This anecdotal defence is so annoying. Just because you were in a awful relationship does not mean she is, we don't know enough facts to draw that conclusion. She also wrote it at 2am when very upset.

The reasons for not discussing it are cowardly, she has no leverage? how about "you control me so much it makes me want to cheat on you"?. I think the issues may be very solvable, could you not have texted him to let him know you would be late? Why not give him a small amount of control? like knowing when you will be home, and he will have to compromise his behaviour too. If there is no workable compromise cheating is probably not going to make you happy, since you will still be in a relationship that makes you feel shit

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