Annie’s mailbox: You can’t force someone to be decent
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Q. My husband and I have been married more than 40 years. He rarely calls me by my name and never uses terms of endearment. He just talks at me. I’ve put up with his emotional neglect and his forcing me to have sex when I didn’t want to. He’s had so many affairs, I have lost count. He has refused to do any repairs to our home except for the cheapest kind. He also built a garage as big as our house, and it’s so filled with junk that there is barely enough room for the cars. He also piles junk in the house.
This man is a scoutmaster, and everyone thinks he is a saint. He was on a nearby campout, and when I came home last night and turned on the kitchen lights, sparks shot out everywhere and all the electricity went off. I called my husband and told him he had to come fix it. He came home and played with the fuse box and then said I had to call an electrician. He said he was going back to camp.
But he didn’t. I called him after he left – and long after he should have returned to the campsite – but he still wasn’t there. He said he had just reached the town limits. When I asked where he had been all this time, he made up some flimsy excuse. What can I do? – No Lights
A. You can ask yourself why you are still with a man who neglects you, physically assaults you, has multiple affairs and can’t even bother to keep his home in good repair. We would consider this an abusive relationship. You cannot force your husband to be a decent man. You can, however, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org) at 1-800-799-SAFE and also get counseling for yourself. Ask your doctor to refer you.
Dear Annie: Thank you for publishing information about gluten and celiac disease. You wrote that gluten stimulates an immune response in celiac disease patients and then went on to mention long-term damage and implications.
It could help to heighten awareness among waitstaff and hosts if they knew the specific immediate immune responses gluten provokes in people with celiac disease. For example, my daughter suffers severe abdominal pain and unrelenting diarrhea within a day or two of ingesting gluten.
No one would knowingly provoke anaphylactic shock in a person with a nut allergy by “inadvertently” serving them peanuts, so people might be more careful about gluten if they knew the physical symptoms it causes. – Gluten-Free Mom
Email questions to anniesmailbox@comcast.net