kvetching up

  I went to read the column Dear Wendy did on Jenny and saw they must have had a system crash as a lot of the responses originally up were missing, including my own response printed here.    Bereft and Crestfallen August 30, 2022, 1:13 pm Every comment on the original advice request, starting with Wendy’s was welcome, and not incorrect, even though the advice varied. No one was wrong. My wife died in March, and her behavior never got better. I did as Wendy suggested (advice remarkably close to that of my therapist) and let go of thinking of my spouse as my partner. It was difficult. We were together 31 years, married for 23, almost 24. I cared for her until she died. Over time I discovered many more bad acts, none worth discussing now that she has passed. Had I understood the cruelty better an/or sooner, cruelty that was often times intentional and sometimes not, but always lurking– I would have left well before diagnosis. She hate...

Dear Abby, Dear Abby... Well I never thought That me and my girlfriend would ever get caught We were sitting in the back seat just shooting the breeze With her hair up in curlers and her pants to her knees Signed Just Married --from Dear Abby by John Prine I wrote to an advice column, Dear Wendy.  She, the columnist, responded.  https://dearwendy.com/my-terminally-ill-spouse-refuses-to-stop-cheating/   My spouse of 23 years was diagnosed with terminal cancer last August. In September, after starting chemo, she told me a coworker would shave her head. I said I wanted to do it, and she offered that, because he was bald, he would be best. She brought home an electric razor a few days later. When I saw it, I told her that this was a signal event and I could easily shave her head. I wanted every moment with her. She offered odd excuses. It got my antennae up. He shaved her head. I did something I had never done before: I went through her phone. I found she had been having a to...

You can't write if you can't relate Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate And my time is a piece of wax falling on a termite That's choking on the splinters --from Loser by Beck I wanted to avoid madness.  The days have been so calm.  But it wasn't to be.  Monday evening was nothing special.  Just Jenny, Abby and me doing our evening routines. Jenny surfing Facebook and texting with the pinché motherfucker, Abby writing songs and playing her guitar in her room, and me my head in the clouds, thinking all was quiet on the western front.  It wasn't to be.  Jenny, sitting in a corner of the sectional, said to me, "I just want to warn you I think I'm going to have a breakdown."  I didn't move to comfort her, although she made it clear she was on the knife's edge.  I'm not sure why I didn't move to comfort her. No matter, I just didn't.   She began to cry, a deep inconsolable cry, tired of living with a terminal illne...