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After my dad died, we found the love letters

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Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#121

Post by l2silver »

geoffmanning wrote: post #108
crossroadsguy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard this play out too many times. Most recently here, a college junior's wife revealed four months after marriage that she is actually a lesbian (she didn't share it – he caught her in their bedroom with a colleague of hers when he returned home early from the office), and he would be free to do what he wants; she should be too. Hit him hard, but he said they should go for an annulment— out of question; a di…

> No, he is a bad person! Ffs That is quite the judgement of a person you've never known, based solely on the view of one person's brief writing processing a deeply emotional experience. Your judgement reflects poorly on you.

There's too much apologizing for people's horrible actions these days. Nearly everyone is a sympathetic character when you get to know them, but that doesn't excuse them. There were other people, in his situation, who took different approaches that didn't result in locking a woman away in a loveless marriage for her entire life. I'm sure a lot of us come from easier situations, but the people who come from hard situations will probably tell you, yeah, it was hard, it was horrible, but he didn't have to do that.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#122

Post by Freak_NL »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #92
Freak_NL wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author obviously has this as an acquired habit or affectation, possibly for stylistic reasons. It's interesting that some people can read this just as well as normal prose, but to others it feels as if someone is pouring sand all over their well-oiled gears. I gave up after a paragraph as well. I fully support people writing in whatever way pleases them, but for broadly accessible article length text capitalisati…

Many readers rely on articles being written in a specific language, does that mean every writer is obligated to publish every piece in every language? Has it occurred to anyone who sees capitalization as a must-have for legibility, that an opportunity is being presented to train oneself to read text without traditional capitalization? Maybe it's because I studied poetry, or because I was a voracious reader of experim…

There is no obligation at all (my comment did not include any must beyond that being a requirement for broadly accessible text either). Merely the observation that if you want to write accessible text in any chosen language, following conventions means that you expand your reach.

Experimental language has its place. I can quite enjoy that too depending on the context. But combining the wish to convey a story or message with avant-garde text layout turns it into something more akin to art. I'm not always in the mood for that, in part because it is more taxing to engage with. In this case I figure the goal of the author is for readers to hear their story, not grapple with their specific manner of self-expression. Of course if their life goal is to make lowercase text common and acceptable, then this may be completely on point. My point about the accessibility of the text still stands though.

> Has it occurred to anyone who sees capitalization as a must-have for legibility, that an opportunity is being presented to train oneself to read text without traditional capitalization?

I can train myself to read text upside-down as well, or in Klingon, or with no spaces at all. I have no wish to do so, since most authors seem to regard such text as unnecessarily harsh on their readers. Besides, being able to read well because you have a solid grasp on the conventions, lexicon, and idioms used is a net benefit to me. Our brains are pattern matching machines after all — pattern recognition is what we humans excel in. If have no desire to diminish that skill either.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#123

Post by tgv »

throwaway142351 wrote: post #59

I'm a dad too, and I'm in a somewhat similar situation. My son is under five, and it feels like I'm still at the very beginning of his story. I've known I was gay since high school, probably even earlier, but I kept choosing whatever seemed like the easiest path. It felt easier to stay closeted. Easier to date a woman. Easier to move in together, propose, get married, and even have a child than to face my truth. I lo…

Try to do it peacefully, and keep good relations. That may require a lot of preparation, time, and emotional dealing, but you're weighing your struggle with your history against two lives. It may also be in your interest, because a fighting divorce may end with you not seeing your son. That's a price I consider too high.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#124

Post by mallets »

l2silver wrote: post #111
crossroadsguy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard this play out too many times. Most recently here, a college junior's wife revealed four months after marriage that she is actually a lesbian (she didn't share it – he caught her in their bedroom with a colleague of hers when he returned home early from the office), and he would be free to do what he wants; she should be too. Hit him hard, but he said they should go for an annulment— out of question; a di…

I think I am totally naive on this subject, why was the divorce so hard for him? In that society, they just don't let you get divorced unless both parties agree to it? And with the evidence he had of her being a lesbian, does that mean nothing? What is even the point of divorce in that society?

I'm guessing India, and it's dowry part of it that complicates things a lot. And once either party goes into legal proceedings, it becomes a shit slinging mess of he-said she-said. Hence why most people try to "settle" things out of the court even if they were the victim. You wouldn't wish the Indian legal system on your worst enemy.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#125

Post by ycombinete »

pavlov wrote: post #75

Ouch. This hits incredibly hard. I’ve been this dad who sits frozen at the TV every evening. I had the affairs with the emotionally unavailable men, and became one myself. Before you judge the man in this story too harshly — and there’s certainly much to judge, especially given the follow-up post — consider the environment he and I grew up in. Being gay as a young teenager in the early 1990s could feel literally like…

Have you read John Cheever’s diaries? It’s the same story.

I can’t really get into his fiction, but the diaries are astounding.

He gave them to his son to read and publish posthumously.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#126

Post by [deleted] »

quitit wrote: post #38

From reading both posts, there's a few things that come to my mind: - It seems this is how the author is processing her father's passing, and it's not really up to us to make moral calls on the content of the posts. They are thoughts with gaps of missing context against a real life of highs and lows which is not readily condensed into a blog post. - I'm peering into the life of a private person, that feels like a vio…

[deleted]

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#127

Post by ryanjshaw »

pfdietz wrote: post #83
throwaway142351 wrote: post #59

I'm a dad too, and I'm in a somewhat similar situation. My son is under five, and it feels like I'm still at the very beginning of his story. I've known I was gay since high school, probably even earlier, but I kept choosing whatever seemed like the easiest path. It felt easier to stay closeted. Easier to date a woman. Easier to move in together, propose, get married, and even have a child than to face my truth. I lo…

I'm straight and love my wife of 44 years. But I long ago made the thought experiment of what would happen if she were in the same kind of situation you were in: what if she decided I was a mistake, or that being in a relation with a man was a mistake, and that she needed to do something else. I decided that would require I support her in that. How can you love someone and not want what is best for them, even if that…

There’s a big difference between changing and lying. I wouldn’t be happy if my spouse lied to me.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#129

Post by Alt-F4 »

quitit wrote: post #38

From reading both posts, there's a few things that come to my mind: - It seems this is how the author is processing her father's passing, and it's not really up to us to make moral calls on the content of the posts. They are thoughts with gaps of missing context against a real life of highs and lows which is not readily condensed into a blog post. - I'm peering into the life of a private person, that feels like a vio…

[flagged]

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#130

Post by jemmyw »

71bw wrote: post #104
pfdietz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm straight and love my wife of 44 years. But I long ago made the thought experiment of what would happen if she were in the same kind of situation you were in: what if she decided I was a mistake, or that being in a relation with a man was a mistake, and that she needed to do something else. I decided that would require I support her in that. How can you love someone and not want what is best for them, even if that…

I can relate to this probably the most out of everything I've seen on HN so far. My fiancee is pansexual and overall seems to prefer women, so I surely am quite a bit of a surprise in her life (to the point where her family laughed at the fact that I 'fixed her' the first time I met them...) as a straight man. I know she loves me, I love her with all my heart but I am aware that at some point she may want to change m…

I don't really see why you should support that. In your case your wife is not closeted and living a lie, everything is out in the open. So deciding to change you for someone else, regardless of sex, is no different than if I decided to change my wife for another woman. We give stuff up to make a commitment to someone else. It doesn't always work out and I'm not saying people should stay together when they don't want to, but I am questioning your pre-acceptance of your partner wanting to shag someone else even though that would clearly make you very unhappy.
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