Like mother, like daughter?

D wrote me recently that she is disturbed by news she got from her daughter. Brittany and her boyfriend were driving through Texas visiting his relatives, when their car broke down. Apparently they can't fix it, and so they have decided to sell the car ... without telling the buyer about the problems. D goes on to say, ...

I realize being up front about the car's problems requires her to eat the cost of the auto, but basic ethics doesn't leave much wiggle room. If "Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you" is the basis of ethical decision making for all religious people, and is also accepted by secularists, what she is doing is not admirable. I told her so...and she sees the issue clearly, but she feels she can't afford the loss of so much money.... Honestly, what is the point of reading great literature and philosophy if it doesn't make you a better person? I may read weekly magazines and even indulge in the NYRB and The New Yorker, all frivolous wastes of time according to Brittany (I hear about this every time she visits), but I stubbornly believe that what she is doing is wrong despite my low brow reading material. Well...what can I do except love her dearly and vocally, and set another example? Not much.

I'm not quite sure what to say about this, so I haven't said anything. My last letter back to her picked up other topics entirely and was silent on this one. But it's not that nothing comes to mind ... only that I don't think any of it is something D wants to hear.

"Set another example?" Sure. That would be great. Where would you start? Maybe with the time that Brittany was travelling in eastern Europe and stole a volume of philosophy from somebody that she stayed with, just because the book was plainly over the head of its owner? Because he would never begin to understand what it was saying, while she could? And you laughed. You thought it was funny.

Or we could talk about the time early in our relationship when I was disturbed about Son 2 lying to me, and you brushed my concerns away dismissively by saying, "Hosea, everybody lies." You thought it was interesting to look at why and when people lie, but took the lying itself for granted ... like some law of nature.

Gosh, I remember a time back some twenty years ago, when you were still friends with Wife and Brittany was still a little girl. One evening you were visiting Wife and me, and you told us with real amusement about something Brittany had done a few days before, sneaking around behind your back so she could do something you had forbidden to her. I forget the details. You had punished her, partly for the original offense and partly for sneaking about it. And Brittany threw a fit, yelling at you that it was so unfair for you to punish her for being sneaky when you yourself were the sneakiest person she knew! You chuckled while telling us this story, and remarked with a little self-deprecating humor that of course she was right. She must have been all of six years old at that point, and already she knew you so well.

You tell me, D, where do you want to start? Children learn what they live. We reap what we sow.

I still love you madly, now and ever. Don't get me wrong, and never doubt it. But don't think I can't see.

What the hell does Donald Shimoda know?

This evening as I was folding laundry, I was thinking about the risks that all of us in the infidelity racket run (and especially in little niches like infidelity blogging) ... meaning mostly the risk of discovery, of the wrong people finding out what we have been doing or saying. And all of a sudden, totally unbidden, a quote popped into my head, expressing what must be the most useless possible advice for this sort of situation. It's lifted out of Richard Bach's Illusions, which some of you may remember as a font of 1970's-style "spiritual wisdom," ... or what passed for wisdom back then. (God, but youth is a wonderful thing!) And it runs:

Live never to be ashamed if anything you say or do is published around the world -- even if what is said is not true.

The first clause, of course, sounds like sturdy, old-fashioned Victorian moralizing: you know, ... never ever say or do anything that could look even the slightest bit wrong. The second clause blows that meaning to Hell. Taken as a whole, all that epigram can possibly mean, then, is "Don't give a good goddamn what anybody says about you: no matter who, no matter what." And that advice, too, has a respectably hoary antiquity about it, although it is hardly Victorian. "Classical" comes closer. I'm sure Diogenes would have approved.

Of course, Diogenes was homeless, lived in the streets, and saw no reason not to masturbate in public. It may not be the easiest way to live.

It may not be the easiest advice to hear.

It might also be wrong. Or at any rate, your mileage may vary. Now why did that even pop into my head? It's not like I have thought about Richard Bach in ... decades ...?

Very strange.

When do we tell the children?

I have been assuming that I would wait till Son 2 is safely packed off to boarding school in the fall, and then ask Wife for a divorce. But today it occurred to me that maybe I should make it just a little sooner.

What I read is that when you tell your kids (and that has to be after I tell Wife, right?) the two of you should be there together, in person, and you should present it as a mutual decision. If I wait till they are both at school, then when can we tell them: Thanksgiving Break? Great way to liven up the holiday, huh? And what are the odds that Wife can keep from calling them ahead of time to wail about the unfairness of it all? Maybe not high.

So what if we choose mid-August? Just before they leave ... Son 1 for his Junior year, Son 2 for his Freshman year? Maybe it is a burden to start the year with, but then we also notify the schools that maybe the boys will need some extra support, ... and hell, they won't be the first students whose parents are divorcing. The schools should have some idea how to support them.

I figure we should say, "Look, we haven't had time to settle any of the details yet, but we'll take care of that this fall. We both want to have as little conflict as possible, because that hurts everybody. We both want this to be as fair as possible for everybody. So don't worry about how it will turn out because we will handle it like grown-ups." We may be lying through our teeth to say that, but it has to be the right thing to say.

By that time, I had better have worked out my version of a Parenting Plan and a Financial Plan, with my lawyer's help. I figure to tell Wife I've been seeking advice on how to work things out "fairly" and suggest that she come with me to my lawyer's office ... then let my lawyer take over. Wife won't like much of what I have in mind, of course. I hope to be able to persuade her, however, that any other possible outcome will be even worse for her. I even think that's true, because I think that if we fight there will be nothing left.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. The gist of my idea was, How about if we drop this on the boys just before they leave for school in the fall?

Oh, and I had an idea how to keep Wife from wailing to the boys (and everyone else) that mean old Hosea is picking on her by asking to leave. I can introduce the topic to her by saying that I know she has already told her online boyfriends she wants to leave me as soon as the boys leave home in the fall. How do I know? Because she went to bed one night still logged into her online chat, with that conversation sitting staring at me on the screen. That's even true, at any rate in all but the smallest of details. Then I can tell her that I'm not angry, because I think she is right ... we really have pretty much come to the end. How about if we tell the boys now, and then start planning the arrangements once they go? She can hardly complain if it is all her idea. The fact that I had the very same idea quite independently just shows that maybe it's a pretty logical one ....

Of course, it'll be a hell of a way for them to start the school year. But then maybe, just maybe, they won't be all that surprised.

Time for bed

No, I don't mean it like that ....

Every night, at least on week-nights, Son 2 goes to bed right after dinner. Usually this isn't remarkable, because usually (what with one thing and another) we have dinner kind of late so it's already closing in on 9:00 by the time we are done. Son 2 is 13, but he has never had the energy or stamina of Son 1; he wears out more easily and always has. So when it is closing in on 9:00, he's ready for bed.

But once in a while we get our act together a little earlier, and we're done eating by 7:30 or so. Like tonight. And what does he do then, when it can't be any later than a quarter of 8:00?

"I'm going to brush my teeth and go to bed. Good night."

It has happened a few times now, consistently enough that I have noticed. And I wish I understood why.

Of course, there could be lots of reasons. Maybe he really is tired. Maybe he finds that going to bed early makes it easier for him to get up in the morning. Maybe he has discovered how to masturbate, and is practising.

But somehow I can't avoid the feeling that he looks just like I do around Wife, that he just wants with all his might to be somewhere else. And even if that's the case, there could be many reasons. That I'm boring. That I'm terminally square. That I'm old and clueless. (While he's 13, I'm 50.)

Or have I done something he is mad at? Or do I just make him profoundly uncomfortable when I am around, as Wife does me? Or what?

I wish I knew. It's not even that I mind being alone. It's not like I had something planned for the evening, that he is dropping out of. Which brings us back to the possibility that maybe staying up is just boring for him. It could be true.

I wish I knew.

The "ironically married" ...?

I began this blog some years ago trying to understand my own marriage. That's why, in and around the soap-opera style drama or the salacious bits or the gaseous philosophizing, I have fragments about marriage as such: when it works, when it doesn't, and why.

Anyway, here's another contribution to that genre, a piece by Pamela Haag (whom I just discovered today) called "The Ironically-Married Class, and How They Got There".

Why yes, I have been spending too much time today dicking around on the Internet instead of getting any work done. Why do you ask?

Why is this man angry? part 2

I see that some other people have been writing about Newt's marital situation, besides me:

• Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha in the New York Times, "No One Approach is Ideal"


• Dan Savage in the Ney York Times, "Voters Accept Adultery But Not Honesty"


• Ralph Banks in the New York Times, "The Perils and Promise of Openness". I include this one mostly for his observation that "Most single Americans want to marry their soul mate. But the surest road to discord, sexual and otherwise, is to expect your partner to complete you." Quick -- can someone shoot off a short e-mail to Plato? Maybe he can update the Symposium to take out Aristophanes's speech on just that ....


• Pamela Haag at bigthink.com, arguing that "Newt Gingrich’s Apparent “Open Marriage” Proposal Actually Makes Him Look Slightly Better, not Worse, Than What He Was Before"


• ... and the infidelity blogosphere's very own Kat, on "Newt Gingrich and Open Marriage"

Purely for what it's worth ....