Allow me to respectfully disagree with your assessment of No One’s Webmistress’s problem. Ironically, I probably wouldn’t be saying this had you not posted the text of his message. Yes, it is obvious from his letter that he is not very bright at all, and his grammar and spelling are atrocious. But it seems like he is legitimately curious and looking for information. He admits he didn’t do well in school. He doesn’t know about Antarctica, but wants to, and he gets admonished for it? That sort of attitude will likely scare him off from trying to improve himself ever again.

As far as “looking for love” — I don’t see that at all. Maybe I haven’t burned off all of my hope for mankind yet, but the closest thing in his note to that was “someone to talk to,” which seemed more about someone to ask his questions to, rather than someone to hook up with. He made no reference to gender in his note at all. And if you are trolling for online romance, I don’t care you stupid you are, you don’t search “Antarctica.”

A neutral response is a good idea, pointing him to the website with the answers he wants. We have enough ignorant people in this country, we should always encourage those who want to increase their knowledge.

MRM

I was almost not going to write because I am so firmly convinced that this is a really silly problem that I am blowing up into nothing. However, the fact that I have lost sleep, have broken down in tears while vacuuming, and have experienced a change in feelings towards my husband makes me worried. Which is why I’m writing you. You give great, clear-headed advice, and I hope that you might be able to help me out. I also apologize in advance for the length of this email.

I’m 21 years old. My husband is 22. We’ve been married for six months, but we were together for two years prior. Everything has been good, with a few bumpy spots. I love him and he loves me, we support each other, we communicate pretty well, and we enjoy each other’s company. One thing that we keep coming up against is the lack of things we have in common — he is interested in computers, I love to read. He likes sports, I like movies. I’m a liberal, he’s a conservative Republican. I’m totally pacifist, he dreams of being an officer in the military. He believes in God, I don’t. He would rather work, while I’d rather go to school. The list goes on and on. Personally, I always felt that this was more of a good thing than a bad thing, because we’d be able to share new things with each other and learn from each other.

It hasn’t turned out that way. Instead, he resents me for not being as interested in football/baseball/hockey as he is (he sees this as a rejection of HIM, not of football/baseball/hockey), and I get frustrated when I can’t get him to go to a concert with me. I’d learned to deal with this by doing what I enjoy with other people who also enjoy it and making compromises. Fine. No problem. I’m agreeable.

Things took a turn for the worse when we began discussing, seriously, my plans for the future. My plans include going to school for a physics degree, and hopefully following that into a position with NASA or an affiliate program as a research assistant, and eventually as a full-fledged scientist, working in astrobiology or astronomy. This is a goal I recently reclaimed from childhood after I gave up on it due to naysayers. My husband, however, thinks I am wasting my time, and that if I want to do something science-related, that I should be a doctor, that I should focus my efforts towards people. When I tried to discuss the feelings I have about science with him, when I tried to explain to him that yes, space exploration is important and useful and that any pursuit of knowledge is worthwhile, he blew me off with the most surprising statement, that “some things, like the stars and the moon, were not for man to know. Some things God just meant for us to look at.” I couldn’t have been more surprised if a little man jumped out of his ear and started dancing around on his shoulder. He knows that I am agnostic, and he knows that I don’t live my life based on the limitations others place on me, especially ones that come from God or Allah or any deity like that. I don’t have a problem with people who do choose to follow religious tenets, but I refuse to do it myself. I understand the point he was trying to get across, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

I tried very hard to explain my feelings and thoughts towards this whole matter, which led to another part of the problem — concepts that were so easy for me to grasp, he wouldn’t even try to understand. He said, “You are smarter than I am, all of this stuff is beyond me, I don’t see any importance in it.” I disagree with every single bit of that and tried to explain why. After I started getting very upset, he tried to reassure me by promising me that I would have his support through all of my pursuits. I want to believe that he will, but now I feel like he will not.

Sars, this may sound silly, but I’m tremendously disappointed. I’m disappointed that the man I love refuses to even try to learn or show interest in my interests, that he thinks my interests are silly and not worthy of my time, and, most importantly, that he is unable to break his mind free of the constraints. I’m a total proponent of free thought and scientific inquiry — it vitalizes me and makes me happy. He refuses to even try to understand why. I know that I should accept my partner, flaws and all, but I have this sick feeling of insurmountability about this. I don’t believe in soul mates, but I had thought that I was marrying a man who was as interested in asking and learning as I was. I don’t feel like he understands me, or even cares to. Most importantly, I don’t feel like I will have his support later on. I think he is thinking that maybe I will change my mind as I go through school, and I’ll settle down on something else, which may very well happen, but I don’t want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know if this is normal. I don’t know if this is something that couples just get over and move on with. Most people have given me the same reactions that he had given me: that I shouldn’t bother, that I should do something practical, that God wouldn’t want me to, that I’m showing off, yadda yadda yadda, ever since I can remember. It’s not for lack of reciprocation — I’m flawed, but I try to be aware of and in tune with other people’s feelings and thoughts. I don’t want anything to come between my husband and me, but I don’t know if I can handle being with a person who does not share any of my beliefs or ideas, or even wants to understand them. I love him more than anything else, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s comfort or codependency speaking, and not my true feelings. I know that marriage is supposed to be a compromise between two individuals, and I had thought that our love of each other and the few things we do have in common would be enough to build a stable foundation for the future. Was I totally in left field to think that? I tried talking to my father about this, and one of the things he said was that people should be allowed to believe as they wish — but how can I do that when that person is my husband?

Should I just suck it up as the territory that comes across with being married? Or do I have a legitimate worry? Thank you so much for reading this.

Alone and Misunderstood