Dear Abby: Oh, FFS

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: For the past year I have been married to a man I love with all my heart, but we have yet to reside in the same house. He lives in another city with his child's mother and gives me excuse after excuse as to why he won't leave. It's either that he's scared to have to pay child support, or he's afraid of my temper (which I'm seeking help for), or it's just not the right time.

I think I should take priority over his child's mother because I am his wife. I am fed up with the excuses and ready to call it quits. What should I do? -- MARRIED BUT ALONE IN MARYLAND

DEAR MARRIED: Keep working on your anger issues, but call it quits. Obviously, your "husband's" priorities lie elsewhere. Whether in the legal sense or the emotional, he appears to be very much married to his child's mother. As it stands, you are already living as a divorcee, so make it official and move on.

Comments

[cereta]

The title pretty much sums up my feelings. You can jump right over the fact that you married a man with a child and thus someone with a priority that at the very least is neck-and-neck with you, or whether you want to be married to a man who is afraid of supporting that child, and right to, why the hell are you putting up with this? "Just not the right time"? To move in with he wife? (Assuming, btw, that you are legally married; I wouldn't discount the possibility that he is still married to his child's mother.)

[vass]

(Assuming, btw, that you are legally married; I wouldn't discount the possibility that he is still married to his child's mother.)

I was wondering about bigamy myself.

She needs a lawyer.

The poor child.

[kaberett]

*... stare*

[cereta]

I KNOW, RIGHT?

[xenacryst]

This falls squarely into "what is the rest of the story" land for me. I mean yeah, failure to communicate ... with each other, with Abby, with, well, anyone. There are probably many things LW is not telling us.

However, I do have a o.O to Abby's "anger issues" comment - LW doesn't come across as unduly angry, just ... messed up.

[cereta]

The LW says she has a temper, but I wonder how much of that is self-insight and how much is coming from the "husband."

[xenacryst]

Oh, yeah. Somehow I skipped over that. I guess there was already too much WTF by that point and I quit processing.

[delphi]

...wow.

[recessional]

...yeah, wow. (Also dude if you're living with the child and mother and NOT being a useless sponge, you are already "paying child support". That is the point of child support: it assumes that, were you living with the child and other parent, you would be contributing your half to the household and to the upkeep of the child, and aims to make sure you do so even if you are somewhere else. So if you're genuinely "afraid" of paying child support that . . . is another cause for SERIOUS EYEBROW RAISING.)