Husbands on the run! “abandonment” paradox and a guide for the abandoned wife

Husbands on the run!

Oral reviews of Professor Lugano.

What did not impress Professor Lugano of Abandoned husbands: guide for the abandoned wife, is the statistical study of 400 wives abandoned by their husbands; and even less so are the survival strategies that abandoned women must develop.

“The book mentions something about Wife Abandonment Syndrome,” the professor coughed in rough, medieval English; kind of obsessive behavior that occurs immediately after the untimely abandonment of the husband, if you will allow the vernacularism, “overnight”, characterized by a combustive mixture of anger and aggression.

—Well, nobody likes to be abandoned. —said Mr. Masticardi.

“You won’t believe it,” the professor hesitated, “but that’s not the point.” The Abandoned Wife Syndrome intensifies when the “abandoned husband” rebuilds his life with another woman, almost always younger, more beautiful, more appropriately stupid. And not only that, apparently, these husbands on the run also have their own syndrome: Runaway Husbands Syndrome; specificity not absent of a certain logic, and which allows abandoned wives to believe that their partners abandoned them for something, an illness, for example, and not for another, for any other.

—So you recommend the book.

—No, but I don’t advise it either. In fact, I didn’t read it.

—But how dare you review a book you haven’t read? —Masticardi exploded—Not only does it demonstrate a lack of ethics, but also a profound ignorance of reseñology, a profession that only publishers and certain ecumenical councils appreciate.

“I do not object to your objection,” said Professor Lugano, “but I insist; I also do not advise reading it. In this case, my interest was diverted towards the word “abandoned”, a term that fell into disuse for many years but has returned, like almost all formal resurrections, with a meaning perfectly inverse to the original.

“Abandonment…” Masticardi muttered. “I’m not familiar with the term.”

“Look how curious,” said Professor Lugano, “nowadays everyone talks about “abandoned personalities,” as if the term referred to “abandonment” in any of its forms, that is, to the person who manifests a marked tendency to abandon anything, from a female to a game of tute or Basque pelota

—And this is not so?

—Up to this point I don’t notice any discrepancy, I mean, every person who systematically abandons their partners manifests a disturbance of the Ego.

—But in an opposite sense.

—I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.

“Look,” said the professor, already visibly irritated, “the “abandoned people” are not the ones who leave their partners, quite the opposite. For whatever reason (neurosis, low self-esteem, deplorable astrological correspondences), certain individuals feel an irrational fear of being abandoned. This presents a set of symptoms that is unnecessary to mention. The central point of the discussion is that the “abandoned” person is not the one who irresponsibly gives up, meaning: he abandons his partner; but the one who is afraid of being left.

—And what does this have to do with today’s review?

—That it is precisely a fallacy to write a manual for abandoned people when they are not the abandoned ones, but those who abandon. And that, my dear Masticardi, is an art that is learned by experience.

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