Let's hear it for divorce!

This poor woman who wrote to Cary Tennis this morning needs a cheerleading squad.

I am married to the man of my dreams -- except for one thing: He won't touch me. I'm not just talking about sex; I mean he's averse to basic human contact. We're down to a chaste kiss as he leaves for work, an occasional hug when I ask, and sometimes another chaste good-night kiss before he turns his back to me and falls asleep.

Yep, she needs to leave him. I know--easier said than done. But what people don't like to talk about is that starving someone for sex and affection year after year after year can drive them insane. This woman is putting up with insults from the man who supposedly loves her that would likely make her slap a stranger who said these things to her.

For the first several years of our marriage, he blamed my weight as the sole reason we were not having sex. Let me clarify that I am an attractive woman with a beautiful face, long blond hair and a curvy, voluptuous body, which many men find very attractive -- just not my husband. He told me about five years into the marriage that he'd felt deceived, that he'd believed I would change and lose weight.

Divorce is too good for the person who marries and then starts attacking their spouse and telling them they have to "earn" love--how was she supposed to know that he didn't find her attractive? He married her, didn't he?

The letter-writer has an affair, which causes her husband all sorts of grief. Frankly, he should have taken a pill and looked at the bright side--he gets to keep his wife without to make love to her. She set it up so he wins all around. Of course, he doesn't see it that way. So now that the husband has learned the hard way that contrary to popular belief, women really do want sex, he's given in to the occassional obligatory night of romance, letting her know that she should be slaveringly grateful for any attention in the most romantic way possible.

Every once in a while (three times last year), my husband takes pity on me and says that it's time to reset the clock. That means we do the deed. Then I can no longer say, "Come on, honey, it's been three (four, five, six) months since we made love," since the clock is reset to zero. After such a resetting, it is an unspoken rule that I am not supposed to ask again for a really long time.

Okay, we've all been nasty to people we're supposed to love. At what point do you take a look at yourself and say that for all the grief you've been giving this person, you may actually hate him or her?

So what's the hold-up? Why hasn't she kicked him to the curb? Well, it turns out that she's bought the whole story that it's selfish to get divorced, that you are a failure if you do it, and that you have to "work" at marriage. Of course, we all know who does most of the "work" in a marriage that needs working on. She lost a bunch of weight and puts up with his shit and goes to counseling and tries to understand. He does the hard work of condescending to fuck her once in awhile as long as she understands that he's doing her a huge favor. And through all this, she still manages to find a way to avoid feeling selfish by making it clear to Cary that she wants basic human things not for herself; oh no, this if for the children. Or the lack of.

I'm starting to go a little crazy from being starved for simple affection. And, yes, for sex, too. And deep down, I fear that I will never have a family, something which is extremely important to me (and, I thought, to him).

Cary tells her nicely to kick this guy to the curb. This is why I'm sick of people who bemoan how our divorce rate is so high because people are selfish. (And we all know what sex the selfish people are that are pictured by the person saying this.) Rarely will you people regret their divorces--each individual divorce has a very good reason for it. Mostly you'll just hear people regretting getting married in the first place, as this woman will be doing very soon down the line. Her husband, if he has any ability to self-examine, will be regretting screwing the whole thing up.

In Texas, we joke about the "Your Honor, he needed killing" defense. Well, some people just need divorcing. It'll do this guy some good to be dumped on his ass. It's the only way he's going to learn that he can't just walk all over someone like this and expect loyalty in return. Or learn that if he doesn't like sex, then it's not right to get into conjugal relationships.

I'm sick of everyone picking on the fine institution of divorce. All we see is the negative part--it breaks up marriages, it's sad, boo-hoo. We neglect to note that for many, if not most, people who divorce, by the time they are pushed to it, they are so miserable that divorce is like getting freed from prison. I think we should have a Divorce Appreciation Day, if for no other reason than helping people like this have the opportunity to see divorce in a different light--not as a sign of failure, but as a long overdue escape route.