the bonnie situation

There are times when the world’s slings and arrows make me want not so much to take up arms against them as to cock my head to the side like a confused puppy and say, “Huh?”

In my mailbox this morning, I received this letter:

From: bonnie@wife.com
To: puppygumalick@aol.com
Sent: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 6:44 AM
Subject: mr.bonnie@husbandcorp.com

So, I am sitting there, eating my breakfast, and I  see on  my husband's laptop some interesting non-work  related message string.    Alas, it is my husband  e-mailing, and desperately/pathetically trying to hook  up with, some...er..eh..what would one call you?    

So, as I am reading about plush and furry things and  him trying so hard to get a nude photo of you, I hear  our 22-month-old daughter coughing upstairs.   What  does one do?    I'm sure this is some sort of money-inducing thing for  you.  And what I could stomach to read of your  (self-absorbed) blogs, you are used to married men  approaching you in that forum.   But lets get real  here.   And this in no means going to you because I  won't say anything to him....   

I read the letter. I see this woman in my imagination in her sunny E.I.K. with her bowl of cornflakes or Kashi or yogurt or whatever. I see her chest going thump-thump-thump with the fear-creeping horrorslothian suspicion that her husband is Having An Affair. I feel her not-unpleasant tingle of righteous anger. I hear her baby coughing. And then I see her ignore it in order to confront me, the Suspected Other Woman.

Knowing that I have done nothing but corresponded in a mildly flirtatious manner with a man whom I didn’t know not to be unmarried, I reread her grammatically fractured email and I respond with this:

From: puppygumalick@aol.com
To: bonnie@wifey.com
Sent: Sat, 12 August 12, 2006 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: mr.bonnie@husbandcorp.com

Bonnie,

Your marriage is none of my business. I do wish you luck with it.

Sincerely,
chelsea girl

And then I go about my day. A couple of hours later, I come home and find that Bonnie has once more chosen to write me, rather than confront her husband. Perhaps, though, in the meantime she’s finished breakfast and tended to her croupy child. She writes:

From: bonnie@wifey.com
To: puppygumalick@aol.com
Sent: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 12:35 PM
Subject: Re: mr.bonnie@husbandcorp.com

Ah, but yes- the marriage does become part of 'the business'.

I wish you luck as well.

Huh. I think to myself. And then I decide to give the explanation that Bonnie could figure out for herself should she actually read the mildly flirtatious exchange between her husband and myself, or should she actually ask her husband how he came to be in possession of said nude picture of me. I write back:

From: puppygumalick@aol.com
To: bonnie@wifey.com
Sent: Sat, 12 August 12, 2006 12:41 PM
Subject: Re: mr.bonnie@husbandcorp.com

Look, Bonnie.

I am not a prostitute. I have never received money from your husband, nor have I ever met him. I am a female blogger. I do, occasionally, receive emails from my readers and I do, occasionally, answer them. Your husband had read my archives and read a post I had written about raising money for a friend of mine's cause, fibromyalgia. He emailed me and said that he had spent $150 on a fundraiser for MS and suggested that this warranted the naked picture I had promised anyone who donated over $100 to my friend's fundraising event.

I sent him a topless picture of myself, one that had been on my blog and that I had taken down. Perhaps it was dumb of me, but my thinking is that the picture shows boobies. That's all. And given that everyone has boobs, it just didn't seem a big deal to me.

I have no designs on your husband, your marriage, or what appears to be of the biggest concern to you, his money.

I really suggest that you step off me and ask your husband--or yourself--what the problem is and stop harassing a complete stranger.

Best,
chelsea girl

I realize that in raising this topic of suspected infidelity, I might be simultaneously raising the hackles of legions of unhappy wives out there. I realize that I might be incurring the wrath of wronged women (and we all know that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, even if we can’t actually remember where that quote comes from). I realize that I am opening up my mailbox and comment section to potentially endless uxorious vituperation.

I realize too that I have had three affairs with men who were married, all of which I have written about here. The first I did not exactly know he was married, though I also didn't know he wasn't. The last two, I did know, and I fucked them anyway. I haven't made it a practice to sleep with married men, mostly because I find it inherently painful, but I also don't think that it's my job to police other people's morals.  Currently I am devoutly and openly monogamous with my boyfriend, Donny, but I would never categorically state that I think that infidelity is always wrong. I myself am not in favor of breaking my word to people, so I tend not to cheat.

However, I'm not going to say that other people can't, or shouldn't, and that might enrage further some already seething women.

In response to this Bonnie situation and to further throw caution to the cyberwinds, I have to say that two things about this email exchange surprise me (other than it happened at all and the truly nonsensical last sentence—I mean, “And this in no means going to you because I  won't say anything to him....” What does that signify? I recognize the words, but I can’t find any meaning there), and they are these: why is this woman emailing me rather than talking to her husband? And what is her major concern with money?

The first one question, why she would attack the Suspected Other Woman, I might explain with the basic human response that it’s easier to attack the Other than the One You Love (And With Whom You Are Really Angry). I am the straw woman here. I am the symbol of her husband’s wandering eye and laptop; I am the symbol for her significant other’s signified wanderlust. It’s easier to attack the symbol than question the reality.

The second one, why both of her emails bring up money, that one I really can’t connect with. What, exactly, is Bonnie concerned with? Does she see me as a second-home wrecker? In her mind, has the money her husband spent on me and my “money-inducing thing,”  my “(self-absorbed) blogs” taken a crucial Caribbean vacation away from her and hers? Has his excessive spending made her table her long-awaited plans to redo her E.I.K.?

Or has it taken cough syrup out of the mouth of her daughter?

Because the truth of the matter is this: the only money I know this man has spent is a couple of hundred tax-deductible dollars on benefit tickets to a charitable foundation to help people suffering from a debilitating illness. In recompense of which he has received a lovely night out with his wife, the satisfaction of knowing he has done some small good for people less fortunate than himself, and a picture of my boobies.

Oh, and the wild accusations of his wife. Something in which I too get to share the deep, deep pleasure.

Comments

[Shel]

Ouch... another hazard of the Internet Age, the unshared enjoyment of the great, big, sexy world out there...

Something tells me Mr. Bonnie has shared NONE of his erotic online journeys with the Mrs., to his loss (and her disgust, upon discovery). Mr. B has got a VERY uncomfortable discussion ahead of him... but maybe they can come to some compromise...

Been there, done that, lost the t-shirt collection in the divorce... Something that has been remedied in my subsequent relationships, including sharing the delight of reading your blog...

Shel

[Alana]

Hi Chelsea Girl,

Bonnie's dysfunction is almost too painful to bear. I hate knowing women are still like this somewhere, all over, still---silently seething, so desperate and sad and so lashing out at another woman when it's really got nothing to do with the two women but this one woman and her husband. With that in mind, Bonnie's reaction to you is useless. I want to cry for you both.

CG, do you think that in emailing you Bonnie has in some indirect and dysfunctional but nonetheless significant way flexed a muscle? You think this means she will, eventually, talk to her husband instead of rant at you? Could this be a baby step for her? Maybe. Imagine if one day she thanked you because in you she saw a reflection of the strength she actually longed to have for herself. The freedom.

I don't know. Right now, her jealousy feels petty and embarrassing. It's not empowering her. At all. If anything, her husband's manipulation of her is growing larger and her self esteem is ever shrinking in size.

Meanwhile, you're gracious and tactful. As glowing in the cybersphere as ever.

A

[CyDy]

I read years ago an article about sexual infidelity in monkeys. The author reported in a puzzled-seeming tone that when it happened, the other female monkeys would beat the crap out of the offending female and then [as I recall] fuck the male[s]. I concluded that the author, a male primatologist, needed to spend more time with his own species of primate.

[Alana]

Oh yes, in response to Shel's comment here on Mr. and Mrs. Bonnie: That's just it, Shel! Why can't the Bonnies share a mutual erotic pleasure? Why do men feel obligated to enjoy in secret and then women "discover" and freak out as if the man just committed a murder?

I had a semi-friend in graduate school who happened upon her husband jerking off to Internet porn, a girl's webcam or something. Don't remember the specifics just know this friend found him out and became completely upset. She told me she was offended he'd jack off to Internet porn.

"What's wrong with me?" she asked me.

"You didn't join him," I said.

I don't think she considered me exactly "sympathetic to her plight," and so we didn't talk much after that.

[monique]

Interesting. And vaguely disturbing to read those emails. And yeah, she should take it up with her husband instead of going after the supposed Other Woman.

However....

There ARE men out there who would rather jerk off to whatever they see or read online than ASK their wives to join them. Sometimes they have decided that their wives are too bitchy/fat/old/smart/whatever; instead of getting a reality check, they fixate on a fantasy world. For all we know, Bonnie's asked her guy, again and again, how they can make their sex life better, how they can be closer, and for all we know, he just brushes her off and/or puts her down. Maybe one of the reasons why she's so palpably insecure is because he's CHOSEN to shut her out of his imaginative and erotic life.

It happens, you know?

[Karl Elvis]

You know, I don't find a few wife's wild accusations to be too high a price to pay for your boobies.

Matter of fact, I think they're worth a few face slaps and a night on the couch. At least.

[alex]

love the pulp fiction reference, by the way...

[figleaf]

Me? I'm guessng your correspondent was a) a bit shocked, b) fearing the worst, c) trying to get her ducks in a row before confronting her partner and, finally, d) attempting to attempt to be civil while dealing with the shock of all-of-the-above.

The mystery sentence sounds like a classic snorked (badly edited/rewritten) line. I do that a lot. You are not obliged to make sense of it, however.

Nor are you obliged to participate further in her story with her partner. All in all you handled yourself well. Nicely done.

(I happen to think she handled herself *fairly* well in the sense that she could have been far less polite. Still, she wasn't very polite so...)

Take care,

figleaf

[skyboy]

What is an E.I.K. please?

[BDGurl]

Second that question on the E.I.K.

I have been in Mrs. Bonnie's shoes, and found myself agreeing with monique. For all we know, Mrs. B has tried to engage the hubby, only to have him lie and shut her out of his erotic musings. While it is true that her response of attacking YOU is not the optimal response, it may be symptomatic of a dysfunctional marriage rather than causal. Of course, this is all conjecture on my part. Indeed, her failure to discuss her own deep-seated fears may be the cause of his wanderlust! Only Mr. and Mrs. Bonnie could possibly know what's going on in their marriage.

Regardless, it would probably be better for Mrs. Bonnie to target her energies at the source of the conflict, her husband, rather than at you. Can this marriage be saved? Probably not if they can't discuss conflict directly. Hence, your suggestion to her in your second reply was right on. I hope that she took your advice to heart.

bdg

[chelsea girl]

E.I.K.= eat-in kitchen

I don't mean to appear unsympathetic to Bonnie at all. In fact, I can completely understand any woman's reaction to finding surprise emails/porn on her man's laptop; I've found the suchlike on Donny's in the distant past. It wasn't easy.

I just feel that emailing me was wrong. I feel that accusing me of taking her husband's money was wrong. And I feel that her letters to me were rude.

I do, as I expressed to Mrs. Bonnie twice, wish her and hers the best.

Her husband, brief as my interactions were with him, seemed plenty funny and nice. I want everyone, with the exception of some high-level republicans, to be happy. I hope Mr. and Mrs. Bonny can make it work, but I seriously doubt it'll happen until they can be open and honest about what they want/feel/enjoy/like/need/believe.

At least that's what I found with Donny.

kissykiss,
chelsea girl

[Rich]

Oh!! E.I.K.= eat-in kitchen.

Much clearer now!!

It was all for such a good cause and you get such a great reward in return. Its a shame things can turn in to such anarchy!!

[Christine]

Honestly, would you expect her to be anything other than rude? I understand your need to feel defensive amd attacked, but would you think that she would send a warm and cozy message politely inquiring if there is anything going on with you and her husband? And given that you a) have not been married b) do not have children (another difficult facet to making a marriage work and c) have openly written about affairs with married men.... what do you know about the inner workings of a marriage? What would you expect her to think about the situation? Not to mention, your cryptic one lined initial response was enough to probably really freak her out.

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate, but just offer the POV from a woman who's married with 3 kids. I'm not saying that either of you is right or wrong, but just... what did you expect?

[Dirty Joke Sir]

Awesome posting! Monogomy sucks btw!

[chelsea girl]

Christine,

What I am suggesting is that Bonnie should have asked her husband, the man with whom she has made a life commitment, the man with whom she sleeps at night and wakes in the morning, the man whom she chose to be the father of her child, the man whom she knows Biblically, profanely, sacredly and personally, before she went accusedly emailing a total stranger.

What I am suggesting, Christine, is that Bonnie act like an adult. Adults don't skulk and accuse stranger. Adults ask their partners what is going on.

I do, as I've said, have compassion for Bonnie. And you're right, I don't know what it's like to be a married woman with children. I can't even imagine how difficult that is, and I say that sentiment with the fullness of respect.

I do, however, have an inkling of what it's like to be in a mature relationship. All I'm suggesting is that before a supposedly wronged woman goes pointing fingers at the Supposed Other Woman, maybe she should ask the man what is up.

cheers,
chelsea girl

[LL]

Hell hath no fury-- I sat here for perhaps 15 minutes of my short attention span racking the Shakespeare I was forced to study at playwriting school, came up with nothing. So I, in my dorkery, knowing that there were larger more pertinent issues at hand. googled it.

"While many attribute the quote to William Shakespeare, it actually comes from a play called the "The Mourning Bride" (1697) by William Congreve. The complete quote is "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

I like the full quote a lot.

Also, I read the mystery line "And this in no means going to you because I won't say anything to him...." as "Don't think I am only emailing you-- I am going to confront him too".
If you break down the cadence of the angry woman and pretend she is speaking the line it reads like a poorly worded threat. I feel like in her anger she left out an "is".
So, if she were speaking it, you would hear in her operatives,
"And this no means is going to you because I won't say anything to him, you tawdry tawdry Other Woman with boobies that my husband has admired via the internet"!

In this read, she is slightly more empowered and there is a smaller less dim glimmer of hope.

Perhaps.

Good story, though, and you handled it gracefully.

[leigh]

Evocative, thought provoking, as ever.

I just went back and re-read the two entries about the married lovers. Your writing is so very brilliant. A masterful prosodist, your ability to unflinchingly look at matters of the heart is painful sometimes, for me, in its clarity.

I think there is pain and suffering in Bonnie's discovery. Unarticulated agony. I guess I am of the school of no messing with a married man, an absolutist. You are right, the facts are that you had a light email exchange, and you sent a boob pic that was posted here. But there was a man, on the cusp of your relationship with Donnie, who was married. Your jealousy was for a tryst he had, one of many perhaps, that turned into love. The wife is absent, discounted, eating cornflakes or hipper wifely fare, in her state of the art kitchen. The eat-in-kitchen, a poignant symbol (which is a NYism, as most of non-urban dwellers can dine in their kitchens)and used as a short hand example of why I am saddened when married men who I have come to see as friends, want to step over that line. I think of their kitchens, and how that is an emblem of their family, their loved ones, and as a friend I can include myself in that circle, but as a lover, I violate that friendship. I suspect Bonnie feels violated, angry and hurt. You are the violator. Her feelings about her husband, what transpires, is their own conversation, verbal or not. She is making contact with you, as someone suggested, as a first step to consciousness. You didn't fuck Bonnie's husband, but you did fuck the husbands of other wives, so how is she to know you won't fuck her husband. A scary and dangerous world, one we are constantly navigating, just looking for a little love, eh?

[chelsea girl]

Leigh,

Agreed. There is pain and suffering in Bonnie's discovery--something which I acknowledged in my contextualizing of her emails. I didn't mean to cause her pain. I didn't mean to cause her anything. I didn't know she existed.

I didn't know the dude who was emailing me was married. Would I have not sent him the boobie pic had I known? Maybe, maybe not. It seemed pretty harmless, in no small part because it was just boobies and in no small part because it had been a public picture on my public blog, though I had taken it down a while ago.

My argument with Bonnie is not how she's feeling. She has the right to feel however she wants. My argument with Bonnie is that she had to search out my blog and email me. My further argument with Bonnie is that her letters seem less concerned with my fucking her husband--which was not a possibility--and more concerned with how he might be giving me money. Both emails have to do with money. Not sex.

Check it out.

True, I did have some affairs with married men. I did feel jealousy. I also copped to it. I didn't run around emailing the new lover and accusing her of anything. My problem is how people don't want to confront the person they are really angry at, and they choose instead to take out their anger unfairly on a complete stranger.

I don't know what it's like to be in a happy or unhappy marriage, though I have plenty of experience being in an unhappy relationship. I just think that if you're going to choose to make commitments to people, you address the people to whom you made the commitments.

Bonnie has every right to feel however she feels. She has, however, no right to take it out on me.

cheers,
chelsea girl

[O]

There are a lot of Bonnies in the world, unfortunately--people who turn their (perhaps justifiable) rage and unhappiness against innocent targets. It's far easier and far less frightening to turn one's rage at the supposed "Other Woman" than to put it where it belongs. For some, if the "other woman" doesn't exist, they have to invent her. As happened here.

As always, you handled yourself with grace.

Love,
O

[Autumn]

Ah, the joy of being the other woman when even you didn't know you were.

You know, I completely sympathize. And if I can be misconstrued, and I blog about benign things, what else are people thinking?

Women - no, People - never cease to amaze me.

[Deana]

I agree with LL.

I believe that little sentence, meant that you weren't to think she was talking to you, out of reluctance or fear of talking to her own husband. I believe she already has/will.

In any case, I don't know what she thought you were. Prostitute or other. I agree with you now, CG, that her concerns over money are ill-placed.

Then again, I don't know her. Women never cease to amaze either.

In other "news", I read your blog from time to time and find it to be one of the very few (topic aside) that are well-written. And yeah, the topic happens to strike my curiosity as well! So, here's to hoping I get to read it for a long time, yet.

[rupert]

I think somethings are ...

jealousy is the one reaction we have psychologists have the most trouble explaining, so who know why it begins as it does and ends as it does, and all of it inbetween.

some people might see her concern as 'positive' attachment to her husband, imagine if she didn't care, that might be worse.

At a stretch, he might himself have cuckholding fantasies and created a wife for the titilation of it. The online world is very creative. That's the beauty of it.

Money for some is more important then everything else, as Miller once wrote, "Money and how it got that way".

It might be a mood thing, she might normally not care for slight online flirtations but at that time she's going through a bad time and thought to take it out on CG.

Flirtation I believe is healthy and I encourage it from both sides of a relationship, of course not every flirt can be spoken about, but if your partner knows you openly do it then, yes at times it may cut, and other times it may make you glad your still a sexual individual aside from the relationship you might be bonded to.

On the flipside yes, many people may be in more emotional complicated webs and he may very well be neglecting her and she him also - ultimately the thing that bugs me about it is that, indeed CG wasn't the appropriate target here by a long shot.

I'm responsible for my own actions, and it doesn't matter how many people throw themselves at me, it is their right as single or otherwise to hit on me as much as they like, it is my responsibility in a partnership to make what decisions I consider right.

But then again no one does throw themselves at me, no one constantly hits on me, I walk around asking people to but have no luck, even setting up my "hit on me" office smack bang in the CBD got no customers - so my partner's emotions are as safe as houses.

xox rups

was that two cents?

[Tea]

"...uxorious vituperation."
God! are you the Grand Pooba of Word Meisters or what? Your most excellent word usements slay me. But in a good way.

"Adults ask their partners what is going on."
All potential wife-as-goddess sentiment aside, yes, when faced with the prospect of a major marriage faux pas, grownups (male and female alike) should be heard saying something like: Honey, what the fuck is going on here? And what are WE going to DO about it?

Unfortunately, not many people ever get to that second question - because it's easier to write an angry rightous email to Chelsea Girl about her boobs than it is to look one's partner in the eye and... see one's self reflected.

Alas, this is not a perfect world where all people in big bodies are all growed up, or all holy matrimonied couples know what WE means, or DO - let alone, uxorious vituperation!

Great post. And I agree - you handled it well.

[Dielo]

Christine OTM. It really shouldn't be any surprise that a married woman wouldn't want to fire off a few warning shots to someone who is sending her husband flirtatious emails and nude pictures. All of which doesn't preclude her from also confronting the husband, I wonder why you presumed it did.
Plus your blunt, snide initial response couldn't have helped anyone.

[lisa]

Writing well doesn't mean that you always have insight or kindness.

I appreciate all the other people commenting here who have imagined this woman in a more compassionate way. I guess it's your perogative, chelsea, to out her on this because it's your blog. And you're the cool, sex pos, enlightened one. And she's the person stuck in something you're way way past. But... this wasn't your finest hour.

[chelsea girl]

Lisa,

So for me to have insight or kindness in your eyes, I should have what? Apologized privately? Said, oh, Bonnie, I had no idea I'd wronged you by sending a man whom I didn't know to be married a picture of my breasts?

I never claim to be cool, sex-positve or enlightneded. I claim to be fumbling my own way toward a better sense of my world. When I make mistakes, I admit them. Readily and often.

I think that had Bonnie sent me an email less accusatory, less dripping with avarice, and less insinuating that I was de facto in the wrong, I would not have posted it. In Bonnie's choice to send me a bombastic letter suggesting that I have somehow acted the part of a mad married-man seducer for cash, she kind of forfeits her right to kid-glove treatment.

Bonnie had lots of choices here. Her choice to confront me in the terms she did was not her finest.

But kudos to you for being brave enough to say what I'm sure many other readers were thinking.

Cheers,
chelsea girl

[madeline]

just started reading your blog recently and enjoy a lot of it.
but I agree with Dielo. "wifey" does indeed make some assumptions, but your wounded "puppy" stance and bitchy snarl of a reply reveal far more about your condecending attitude towards other, less "Hott", females who, perhaps, in the dim light of her tawdry EIK, can't summon shinyfivedollarIwent to grad schoolcallmeDoctor words like "uxorious", than shedding any light on the state of adult relationships in the 21st century.
YOU are the one who saw money as the motivation. What does that say about you?
but,I'll keep reading, cuz I think yer good,
but I'll stay far, far away from the comments section, which, to me, appears to be full of other pre-menopausal, hyper-hormonal, over-educated skanks who lament the state of "other" less enlightened souls such as yourself.
cuddles

[O]

Dielo, and also Lisa,

I really wonder whether you and I have read the same thing. In what way was Chelsea's initial response at all rude or snide? Is there some law that says she had to send an email saying oh my god, I didn't know your husband was married?--It ought to be clear enough from CG's post that this woman had access to the entire correspondence when she chose to contact CG. She knew perfectly well when she sent that vituperative email to CG that her husband solicited the photo, and never mentioned he was married.

But all of that is besides the point. When did CG make a vow to love honour and treasure Bonnie? I missed that post! Bonnie knows perfectly well who she should direct her anger towards, and chose not to.

CG has lots of compassion for Bonnie; she has expressed it time and time again above. Her point isn't that Bonnie shouldn't be upset, hurt, whatever. Her point is that *she*, CG, is NOT the person B needs to be angry with.

And by the way, I've been in the Bonnie position, I have a pretty good idea what she feels like. It's not so good.
But I sure as hell never blamed the *woman*. I put the blame where it belonged: on the person who had made me promises and broke them, on the person who lied to me.

And that's what Bonnie needs to do too.

Plus, it's pretty damn clear her major issue is the fear that CG is a summer-home-wrecker. Those emails she sent aren't the emails of a desperate unhappy woman who found out her husband is having an affair. They're the emails of someone who is worried about her standard of living.

Cheers,
O

[lisa]

I'll just say, though you never pretended to be, chelsea, you're no susie bright. I came here on her recommendation, and while she makes it look easy to be humane, rad, deep, personal and theoretical, this exchange and thousands like them happening on the web and in the world all the time shows just why she is one in a million. I think she'd make a lot more valuable meaning of all of this than we all apparently are able or willing to do.

[BDGurl]

Hmmm.

I would venture to guess that most of us can relate to both sides of this situation. Are there any of us who have not been betrayed by a partner's deceit? Are there any of us who have not been the recipient of attentions which were interpreted, correctly or incorrectly, as robbing another of his/her rightful goodies?

Like O, I don't see CG's letters to Bonnie as being less than courteous. As CG was wrongfully, and at least somewhat rudely accused of designs on Mr. Bonnie, I think the politeness of her responses was appropriate to the circumstances. I might have worded things differently, but then, I am not CG, and I was not the one accused.

Just my $.02.

bdg

[Karl Elvis]

Good lord people.

As one of the people who encouraged sweet CG to post that bit of incoherence from the poor misguided ms Bonnie, I have to say - get the fuck over it.

It's funny. Bonnie's emails to CG are funny, CG's attempt to be reasonable with ms B are funny only in that they went winging over her head, and CG's posting is funny.

Laugh or change the fuckin' channel.

Christ.

[O]

madeline,

Whoa! Where on earth did all that come from? CG's reply was hardly a "bitchy snarl"; as an exemplar of a "bitchy snarl" may I direct you to your own attack here? For example:

but your wounded "puppy" stance and bitchy snarl of a reply reveal far more about your condecending attitude towards other, less "Hott", females who, perhaps, in the dim light of her tawdry EIK, can't summon shinyfivedollarIwent to grad schoolcallmeDoctor words like "uxorious"

Uh, wow. I'm sorry if you feel inadequate or intimidated when people use words you don't understand. There's this thing called a "dictionary". It will help you know what words mean. I understand that you do not need a piece of paper that says "PhD" on it to buy one. They even have them online now you know.

But they do say that the best way of defining a word is by presenting an example of the thing: (I'd say, 'by ostention', but we've seen your reaction to words of more than two syllables before).

Definition: Bitchy snarl:
other pre-menopausal, hyper-hormonal, over-educated skanks who lament the state of "other" less enlightened souls such as yourself.

Just another over-educated skank,
O

[cmeckhardt]

Hello. I've been reading here for a bit, though I hadn't commented before (and I don't recall how I found your blog). It's lovely to read; thank you for writing.

I do think that you handled a yowling insult with calm and dignity.

I suggest that the repeated references to money are specifically to call you a prostitute, and thus a woman of ill repute and filthy appetites and the worst possible social standing. I have observed that calling a woman a prostitute is the worst gendered insult most women (and probably most people) can think of. So I suspect the focus is less on the money she (and her husband) won't have and more on the insult it implies to you.

(No, this isn't a very sympathetic reading.)

[sara]

It reads like someone for whom English is not a first language, to be honest. The spelling, unless you corrected it, is good - yet the syntax show a formality and a hesitance that I see often in non-native speakers.

And much of the mockery of the language thus reads like elitist mockery, because -- what? Because this is some being called "wife" who can't handle language with the facile turns of phrase of a person who spends their life weilding English for a living? Soon, it becomes a piling on, just because she is "wifey." Because she's made a different choice than many commenters.

Because she's an at-home wife and a mother, she must be soley concerned with money? I didn't see that in her response about "business." I'm honestly not sure what she was attemptign to get across with that, but it's not the first conclusion I would have jumped to.

[Runsatdawn]

I agree with you. However, I am less inclined to agree with you completely when you admit that you've slept knowingly with two married men. I'm married and I would rather my husband not sleep with other women, thanks.

[Al Sensu]

methinks Mr. Bonnie might have been purposely careless, elsewise he is a fool. i have just started reading and writing erotic stuff recently, and still deciding what discussion to have with my wife, but in the meantime i am being quite careful -- in fairness to her and me, i will disclose what i want to how i want to -- and not haphazardly. carry on, chelsea girl, and thank you.

[Bobo]

I have come late to this but feel I have to put myself into the game. Bonnie has young child which = no sex (for most people), hubby is out checking out the world because it’s something else to do, without actually touching someone else. She is scared shitless that she might be left and so rather than dealing with it directly she decides to confront you (silly); much like guys wanting the beat up the dude who is talking to “his” woman.

A recent study has shown that 80% of women have little interest in sex after 4 years with a given male. 80% of the men still want sex frequently. This seems to correspond more or less with the world as I have observed it. Once children come on the scene both parents usually focus on the kids more than each other, women focus on young kids more then the men do often to the exclusion of anything that is not essential. Add in work stress, crazy schedules and all the rest of it and there is not too much time for anything.

What’s person to do? We can’t ignore human nature, but we can make the best of it. Guys can do the online thing in moderation and not expect their spouses to be 22 year old porn starlets at the drop of the hat. Women can’t expect guys not to look or pine for attention and/or sex if they are not providing any. Guys the ebb and flow of sex during a long term relationship is part and parcel of the package (before, during and after our only pregnancy there were only 3 sexual interludes in 18 months, and I’m an every other day kind of guy; I survived it).

Ladies the monogamy deal implies that there is a cooperative if not enthusiastic partner/spouse in the mix at least once and a while. Working women and stay at home moms take on more of the rearing task then men do and it sucks the libido right out of you; make sure you are not sucked dry your relation ship depends on it. You don’t want the last time you screw him to be signing the divorce papers, it is very unsatisfying.

A little online flirting should not be a deal breaker (for either partner), if it is you are really placing quite the value on your existence. This subject requires more time, space and better writing than I have provided here but hey it’s what I have now. To those of you who are out there summing up the minutia each partner’s contribution to the relationship and looking for balanced accounting buzz off. The rest of you please go fuck yourselves; every which way and position you can it good healthy exercise for what ever ails you.