Man who’s leaving infertile wife thinks world revolves around him

By David McElroy · February 3, 2018

Josh was already sitting at a table when I came into the restaurant late Saturday afternoon. He had finished eating and was drinking a beer as he watched a basketball game.

I wanted to watch the same game, so I ended up at the table next to him. We chatted off and on about the game as it went along. He was friendly and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. At halftime, though, something came up about marriage — and he mentioned that he just left his wife today. He wasn’t wearing a ring.

I cautiously responded that he didn’t seem to be very upset about it.

“Yeah, it’s not really a big deal,” he said. “We’ve been married for four years and it turns out she can’t have a baby. Just found out for sure this week. I want to have kids to carry on the family name, so I told her I have to cut it off with her and find another wife. I hate it, because I loved her.”

He said everything so calmly that I couldn’t be sure he was serious. But the more he talked, the more he seemed like a monster.

“She can’t put a bun in that oven, but the oven sure is getting bigger,” he said. “Know what I mean? She was skinny and hot when we first hooked up, but she’s getting pretty chunky — and I really don’t want to be with someone who looks like that anyway. So it’s for the best, you know?”

I felt sick.

And I had no idea what to say to this smiling narcissist who thinks the world revolves around him. His selfishness quickly left me thinking the woman he’s leaving is the lucky one. Maybe she never realized what a terrible person she had married. He doesn’t want children in order to love and nurture them. He wants children because of how they reflect on him — as though they’re extensions of himself in the world. (This is a classical sign of malignant narcissism.)

I wanted to lecture Josh. I wanted to tell him he was completely confused about what love and marriage are about. But that felt out of place for me to say. So I stayed quiet and left as soon as I could finish eating. I listened to the rest of the game on the radio in my car.

I haven’t been able to get this guy off my mind in the four or five hours since then. I’ve alternated between feeling sick and feeling angry.

If anybody understands the strong desire to have children, it’s me. I’ve spoken of this many times, so if you know me, you know how much I want children.

But love shouldn’t be disposable. Not if it’s real.

There are good reasons for a marriage to end — and I think a lot of people stay in miserable marriages for the wrong reasons — but the lack of ability to have children isn’t one of those reasons.

If I met a woman and knew she couldn’t have children, I would avoid falling in love with her — and I would certainly never promise her a future together. But if I fell in love with a woman and had committed myself to her — whether we were married yet or not — I would be willing to sacrifice my desire for kids in exchange for the connection of love and understanding with her.

Isn’t that what love is supposed to be?

I was also astonished by the callous way that Josh — not his real name, by the way — casually rejected his wife’s body because of some apparent weight gain. In a perfect world, we would all have perfect bodies and be perfect in every other way, but in the real world, imperfections come along with pretty much everybody. (I’m probably more sensitive about this issue since I’ve struggled with weight over the years.)

And if you claim to love a woman, you accept her and value her and give her love and security — whether she gains some weight or can’t have the children you want.

There are a lot of things I want in life. Children are high on my list. But as much as I want kids, I would be willing to cheerfully give up that desire to live a life of love and understanding with the woman I love.

If you truly fall in love with someone — and commit yourself to that person — you’re willing to sacrifice for the sake of the relationship. For Josh, the world was all about himself. For someone who is in love, the world is all about what’s best for the two of you together.

If love is real, sacrifice is natural — and if love is real, the sacrifice will be worth it.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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