Family member enjoys degrading others
Without her love, I am a lost soul.
Do you have any suggestions?
-- Lost
Dear Lost: You have conveniently left out any detail of what you might have done that could have contributed to your wife snapping, and although your heartbreak is quite evident, your behavior is not helping.
I agree with your wife that 10 years of you writing to her every day is excessive. When someone asks you to stop doing something, you should stop.
My armchair diagnosis is that this daily letter-writing is your anxiety talking, and my main suggestion is that you pursue counseling and treatment on your own, in order to sort out your feelings and reactions, and to see if you could do things differently. You might not win back your wife's affection, but you would probably feel better with the appropriate treatment.
Dear Amy: "Flummoxed" wondered how to respond when people make cruel, self-deprecating remarks about themselves.
When people talk themselves down, I try to offer this reaction: "It really hurts me to hear someone talk down about a friend of mine." Get it?
-- Friend Indeed
Dear Friend: I get it, and I like it.
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(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@amydickinson.com. Readers may send postal mail to Amy Dickinson, c/o Tribune Content Agency, 16650 Westgrove Drive, Suite 175, Addison, Texas, 75001. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or "like" her on Facebook.)
