Checking In
Taken for a Ride Without a Car
Thu Apr 6, 6:25 AM ET
DEAR MARGO: I'll try to keep this brief. I'm a 45-year-old guy who met, fell in love with and married my beautiful wife, who is 28.
We met in January, married in September. The relationship was very strong for the first year, and then started dissipating to where it is today, with me sitting in this apartment, by myself, writing to you.
I spent very lavishly on her, to the point where I had to sell my house because I couldn't keep up the payments along with all the other debt I'd acquired. We had been looking at places together, until one day she decided to get an apartment by herself, "to take a break from each other" and have friends of her own. So now she lives across town in her place, and I'm here, in mine!
I let her take all my stuff (furniture, etc.) to her apartment with her, I guess because I hoped that within a month or so I'd be there with her, but now it doesn't seem that way. She does not want a divorce; she says she just needs her space and her friends. This makes me jealous because all of her friends are male.
She is adamant that there is nothing sexual between her and her friends, but still I feel my heart being ripped out of my chest when I know that there is another man with her watching movies or just hanging out. To make it worse, she has all the comforts of a home, and I sit here on my only chair.
What do I do -- wait for the love of my life to realize she misses me, or get my stuff and move on? -- DAZED AND CONFUSED!
DEAR DAZE: You have proven once again that love is blind. I regret your heartbreak, but here is what you need to do: Get off your only chair and find a good lawyer. This babe has you totally bamboozled, and you need to inform her that the jig is up. You will no longer finance her "space" or her "friends," and you don't care if she wants a divorce or not; you do.
By all means, get your stuff back, stop being Daddy Warbucks, and fire up some anger about the way this gold-digging femme fatale has been using you. -- Margo, correctively
MALE CHAUVINIST PIG -- GEEZER DIVISION
DEAR MARGO: My husband's extended family and church community are, in general, incredibly sexist. I do not mind if the women prefer to adhere to '50s social values and gender roles. I do mind that both the women and the men persist in directing their sexist attitudes toward me.
Consider, for example, a recent visit to my husband's grandparents' house. The first question from the old gent was, "Are you still making that pretty girl go out and work?" The pastor who officiated at our wedding called me "the weaker vessel" and insisted that the family unit required a hierarchy, with the man placed before the woman.
It does not help matters that, although I am probably the most educated person in the family (my grandfather-in-law is an illiterate, high-school drop-out, while I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from a first-rate private institution), the men insist upon ignoring my contributions to political or other vaguely intellectual discussions.
How might I politely suggest that we agree to disagree and that, in the future, no further sexist comments be directed toward me? -- BEFUDDLED
DEAR BE: Forget about having any C-SPAN discussions with Gramps & Co. This gang really sounds retro and beyond educating. You cannot enlighten people with the minister's or the grandfather's history and life experience, so stop trying.
If I were you, I would try to think of this antediluvian claptrap as somewhere between sad and funny. Truly, there is no payoff in being annoyed by people who are so out of it. -- Margo, swinishly
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Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers' daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to dearmargo@creators.com. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered.
