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Canadian author Lynn Coady has an opinion. This is her edgy but hilarious online advice column exclusive to DearAnyone.com.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Coady of Conduct:

My wife left me and our two kids last month and ran off with a man who works with her at a local insurance office. He has been divorced three times, and is the slick, oily and ''too smooth'' type. My wife just got into insurance six months ago to help us out financially. She clearly fell prey to this guy's charms. The children and I have been walking around shell-shocked.

Here's my problem: my wife called last night to ask whether she could visit us. She's left the guy and the office and is living in a motel across town. I still love her, but I don't know if things will ever be the same after she betrayed me and the kids. What do we do?

Torn in Iowa

I'm tacking this letter on to the end because it started to seem that males were faring poorly in this particular column--getting called assholes and having their nuts threatened and so forth--and a "bad wife" letter, I'm hoping, will provide us with a bit of gender parity. I can't tell you to punch your wife in the nuts (although I can't help but wonder how slick Mr. "Too Smooth" would look writhing on the. . . no, no, I have to stop this), but I can observe, if it makes you feel any better, that she sounds like a self-indulgent twit. And it *does* make you feel better, doesn't it? That's because you've been wronged in a big way. You'd be entirely within your rights to kick the lady to the curb (metaphorically speaking--as you know I only counsel pretend-violence). She's not only hurt you, but delivered a good solid punch to the emotional nuts of your two children. Kids never respond well to the old disappearing-mother trick. That said, if you can patch things up and convince the children that Mom was, shall we say, fake-punching, it may undo some of the damage and ease some of the pain. It's up to you to gauge your own particular pain-level at this point. Can you stand up? Are you breathing okay? Can you take a few steps? Then maybe you'll be alright.