I have a dorky ex-husband and a distant self-obsessed husband of twenty years. (Just to show what a bad partner selector I am.) It’s been twenty years because the first divorce devastated my kids. They lost access to their dad and me too since I had to get a job to support us. When I remarried I chose to stay home and as a result have no appreciable job skills or current experience. I enjoy all my friends and the volunteer work that I do and Mr. Cold Fish makes good money but books and movies can’t keep me warm. Did I mention that the kids are grown and of course that means I’m losing my looks, what few I had?

Dear Sun,

You have to decide that for yourself, of course – but here’s how your letter reads. “I want to leave, but I can’t because of blah dee blah, but I want to leave, except that such and so, but I want to leave, although this and such isn’t so bad, but I want to leave.” In other words, in a perfect world, you’d like to leave Mr. Cold Fish and start over, but for various reasons, you don’t think you can.

You can. Your children have left home, and surely they’ve reached an age where they respect your need to live your life the way you want to live it. You say you have no current work experience, but keeping house and raising children and volunteering count as work experience – you just haven’t gotten paid for the work. As for your looks, well, I can’t speak to that, except to say that you should worry less about attracting another partner and more about doing your own thing.

I can’t tell you what to do, but leaving is doable, as the love in your marriage can attest. You could stick around and try to get Cold to go to marriage counseling and whatnot, but maybe it’s time to live on your own terms for a change.

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