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I'm going up to Miami to sign the divorce agreement papers this morning.

So, I thought this was interesting. I came across this article on The Huffington Post. This is CRAZY. She could be me writing about my husband. (And, how boring of him to be such the stereotype of a poster child for the childish narcissistic middle aged man.) This is from an article by Erica Manfred.

"Dumping someone is certainly an act of fear, aggressiveness and symbolic violence. When an individual dumps a partner he expresses narcissistic rage comparable to a child's temper tantrum," explains sociologist Catherine B. Silver, in an essay in Cut Loose; edited by Nan Bauer-Maglin. This is the difference between men who are simply unfaithful but want to stay in the marriage and men who find someone else and dump their wives--the act of aggression. Why are some men so cruel? It's all about neediness. He needs you to admire and approve of him, but hates himself for having these unacceptable, "unmanly" needs. Men see us on some level as their mothers and when mommy lets them down they get mad, especially if their actual mommies let them down when they were kids. My ex's mom let him down big time by totally ignoring his emotional needs. I was supposed to take mommy's place and be the big tit, but I fell down on the job. When men hit middle age this internal conflict intensifies because they see that most of their life is over and they're never going to get whatever it was they wanted from mommy, i.e admiration, unconditional love. They direct their hatred at us, their longtime wife/mommy combo, because they're so dependent on us. Finding a new love cuts the umbilical cord. Of course the same pattern repeats with the new love, but by that time the marriage is long over.

"Infidelity is harder on women, who are more vulnerable to feelings while men are a law unto themselves," explains psychoanalyst Simone Sternberg. "Men don't allow themselves to empathize with women's suffering. It's too threatening. Also underneath male supposed indifference or even hostility is self-hate which they project onto the wife. They can't afford to empathize or they'll have to experience the full force of that emotion." This went a long to way to explain his cruelty.  (My husband has never apologized or showed any empathy for my suffering.)

Unfaithful husbands--even husbands who have always been loving-- can be inexplicably brutal. The incongruence between you makes it all worse. He's already found a new partner, and doesn't feel the loss of the marriage. You, on the other hand, are shattered, terrified of the future and collapsing on friends and relatives. His happiness is the unkindest cut of all. He's already detached from you, or is in the process of detaching, which makes him excruciatingly insensitive. For us older women this scenario is even more painful, since the departing husband has found love, usually with a younger woman, and we know that we're unlikely to do the same--our years of prime sexual attractiveness are over and available men will be few and far between at our age. I was furious that my husband waited so long to leave when he insisted he'd been unhappy since day one. Then why hadn't he left on day two when I was young enough to find another partner? 

OK, so I just had to share that and back to the pretty pictures tomorrow...