Married but alone
My husband and I have been married for almost 30 years. Sometimes I think I don’t know him at all. He hardly calls or texts me when at work, but he would call his siblings at any time of the day. He doesn’t answer my calls or respond to my texts messages, either. He is often late from work, usually arriving two hours after he’s done even though it’s 30 minutes away.
I feel isolated and lonely. I’m often perplexed by my husband’s reaction whenever I tell him how I feel. Recently, I told him, “I don’t think you love me.” And he replied, “Go tell your friends that.” He isn’t happy if I go out for dinner with my girlfriends. He seldom goes out, because I caught him lying once.
I feel trapped and tired in this relationship. What should I do?
— Is This Married Life?
Trapped, isolated and lonely — so much sadness in such a short letter. Whatever is going on with you and your husband, it’s clear the status quo isn’t acceptable. Partners should not begrudge each other for having dinner with friends or talking often to siblings. It sounds as though you’re both stuck in a toxic cycle, and it’s going to take an outside force to break you out of it. Ask your husband to attend marriage counseling. If he refuses, seek therapy on your own; websites such as BetterHelp and Talkspace connect patients with health care professionals via video chats, text messages and phone calls, so you don’t even need to leave your house to get help. But please, do get help. It could change your life.
I disagree with your answer to “Doctor Mother,” who noticed a lump on her son’s girlfriend’s neck. My husband, “Bob,” was sitting next to his boss, “Roger,” who is a doctor and health commissioner. Roger noticed that Bob’s neck bumped out when he swallowed. Roger examined Bob’s neck while he swallowed again and said to go for a biopsy. It was thyroid cancer in both lobes of his thyroid, which he then had removed.
A year later, I noticed a lump in my daughter’s neck during a visit. She was in her early 20s. She followed my advice and had it checked out. A biopsy revealed cancer in a lymph node that had come from her thyroid. She had the thyroid removed one month later. Had I not insisted, the cancer could have spread even further. I don’t even want to think of that possible outcome. Today she is 39 and cancer-free. My husband is also cancerfree.
So my advice for “Doctor Mother” is to speak up and tell her son’s girlfriend to get it checked out. Better to be safe than sorry! A lump isn’t always a skin condition. It could be a swollen lymph node.
— WNY Reader
ACROSS
1 Actress Swenson 5 Pops out, as a
DVD 11 White lie 14 “Little” Dickens
girl 15 Golf goof 16 Mined metal 17 Regularly go out
(with) 19 Old horse 20 Rip off 21 URL suffix for
charities 22 __ time: never 23 Getup for Woody
of “Toy Story” 27 Like some consonants, as the nasal “n” 30 Actress de
Matteo 31 Press into
service 32 Invalidate 35 “The Lion King”
lion 38What“2+2=4”
is an example of 42 “Say cheese!” 43 Spreadsheet info 44 Baton Rouge sch. 45 Unlikely to throw dirty clothes on the floor 47 Word after systems or psycho 50 Preferred way of
doing things 54 “__ girl!” 55 __Kosh B’gosh 56 Listless feeling 60 Old electrical unit 61 Front part of a hand tool, say ... and the last word of 17-, 23-, 38and 50-Across? 64 Emeril
exclamation 65 Tarzan and
others 66 Like villains 67 Having five
sharps, musically 68 Creates anew, as
a password 69 Alluring
DOWN
1 Color printer
refills 2 Old hair-removal
brand 3 TV show about a
high school choir 4 Llama-like
mammal 5 Expressive punk
genre 6 Good name for a
phys ed teacher? 7 Finland’s secondlargest city 8 Careful 9 Overbearing
leader 10 Messy room 11 Group of related
typefaces 12 Tehran native 13 Fathered, in the
Bible 18 Congeal 22 Accepted the
loss, financially 24 Like permed hair 25 “True __”: HBO
vampire series 26 Constellation bear 27 Watering holes 28 “Sure __
standing here ... ” 29 Shrine in Moscow’s Red Square 33 Hoppy beer, for
short 34 Coup __ 36 Big cheese 37 “Sometimes you feel like __ ... ”: classic candy jingle 39 “Prince Valiant”
queen 40 Bring in 41 Hindu princess 46 Traveling acting
band 48 Half of all
blackjacks 49 Contact __ 50 Disney deer 51 Filmmaker Coen 52 Pack animals 53 Bell tower sound 57 Campbell of
“Scream” 58 Windows
alternative 59 In a lazy way 61 Watering hole 62 Earn after taxes 63 Naval rank: Abbr.
Trapped, isolated and lonely — so much sadness in such a short letter. Whatever is going on with you and your husband, it’s clear the status quo isn’t acceptable. Partners should not begrudge each other for having dinner with friends or talking often to siblings.