My husband received something very strange in the post ...

[OnSilverStars]

In the post today, my husband received a letter. It was hand written with his name and address on the outside. No return info. The writing in the envelope is definitely a woman's

Inside is a copy of an "essay" I googled it and it's by Robert Louise Stevenson. It called "on Marriage"

The gist of it is that marriage has lots of ups and downs and requires communication

There is nothing else. No name, just a folded print out of this essay.

Any explanation, other than my fear? I have no reason other than this to suspect anything.

YABU - don't jump to conclusions

YANBU - he's cheated.

I'm shaking. This feels so surreal. I hope I'm overreacting. He's currently at work.

Ps. We open each other's post. We think nothing of it - usually. It's always junk or bills

Then he was like, "what if I get another one with something else in tomorrow?! What is I have a stalker" "who do we know in tyneside!?"

This is the bit that would have been on watch.

It's not a poem. The quotes are several paragraphs taken from a book of essays by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson.
The quotes are not about marriage. They are about youthful hope contrasted with later experience.
The text is online and easy to get hold of:
robert-louis-stevenson.org/works/virginibus-puerisque-1881/

The cut-and-pasted paragraphs come from the second essay in the book.

So is ''beyond the pale'' considered racists now or what?!
Seems rather a stretch if it is.

@JinglingHellsBells Congratulations on managing to sound so uppity with the OP, whilst at the same time using such an offensive and racist phrase.

@Feelingconfused2020

Did you open it and read it? Is there generally an issue in your relationship which would mean you read his private mail because I don't think most of us would do that.

I'm not trying to be judgey but it does seem a bit odd. As if you already had suspicions or were an overly jealous person?

Is there generally an issue in your relationship that means you don't read each other's mail?

I open my DH's, he opens mine. We also have full access to each other's phones. Why wouldn't we? It's practical and we know everything about each other anyway.

I find it weird that couples don't do this.

But hey horses for courses.

@tara66

So is ''beyond the pale'' considered racists now or what?! Seems rather a stretch if it is.

Yes.

Would have me on watch.

@halfeatenhamper

And by the way, it's probably best not to use the 'beyond the p' phrase as a lot of people find it extremely offensive nowadays, by all accounts.

Um... what?

'Why do you write to people who haven’t requested you to do so? What if the recipient would not want the “encouragement” and would perceive it as intrusive and offensive and utterly unwelcome?'

Doesn't seem to stop those menus from a Dominos coming through the door every few weeks.

Another thought; there are new estates near me where all the roads have more or less the same name like:

Jasmine Road
Jasmine Street
Jasmine Drive
Jasmine Terrace
Jasmine Avenue
Jasmine Park

It is quite possible that 2 people with a common name like, say, David Smith could live at the same number on each of the 2 addresses!

@tara66

So is ''beyond the pale'' considered racists now or what?! Seems rather a stretch if it is.

It always has been racist.

[quote SpudsandGravy]@halfeatenhamper

And by the way, it's probably best not to use the 'beyond the p' phrase as a lot of people find it extremely offensive nowadays, by all accounts.

Um... what?

[/quote]
It refers to us barbarians in Ireland, outside of Dublin which was once known as the Pale.
So if something is beyond the pale, it was outrageous, uncivilised. Something you would expect from Irish Catholics.

We got a letter from JW recently a very long scripture and other ramblings about how to raise a family!! It was all handwritten. I know it was JW as i saw them post it, it wasn't signed

re "beyond the pale" - the pale was the part of Ireland under English control in the middle ages .... nothing to do with skin colour 🤨

Re. photo copiers - my Post Office has a large one which members of the public can use for a fee - it is quite busy all the time, when not broken.

Well, 'the pale' is not particularly flattering to the majority of people in Ireland - it does by default rather define them as lawless and/or uncivilised.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale

www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beyond-the-pale.html

@dinglethedragon

re "beyond the pale" - the pale was the part of Ireland under English control in the middle ages .... nothing to do with skin colour 🤨

No...but racist nonetheless.

That's really strange. The only "bad" explanation I can think of, is that he has had a bit of a grumble about your marriage recently to someone - it may not have even been a huge deal, he could have just said he was finding things difficult now you have dc. Then to be helpful, someone may have sent this to encourage him. It's pretty obscure though and strange they haven't included his name. Can you think of anyone in his family/friends circle who likes weird poetry and might do that?

Otherwise, no idea. He sounds just as puzzled as you. It's very odd.

Btw, I'm not at all 'woke', I'm fairly anti-woke if anything, but I genuinely don't understand what you mean by female writing. I'm not doing the faux naïve thing. Unless it had hearts dotting the Is (in which case I'd think more likely to be a teenage girl) I really don't think I could work out sex by handwriting! I am not sure I could guess the writers age either, unless there was some kind of very obvious giveaway.

We had a similar letter last week addressed to “our dear neighbours” giving marriage advice. Also hand written and wasn’t until DH went to throw in bin noticed it had “from JW” on back of envelope.

As soon as you posted this I thought JW.

They don’t always let you know who they are when they come to the door. So why would they on a letter .

Bet they follow it up in a few weeks with a brochure or something .

I've seen these types of things spoken about on Reddit.

I was going to say it is probably something pretty normal with a normal explanation eg a JW, addressed to the wrong person etc but his reaction seems a bit suspicious to me.

So husbands name is not that common and our house is nearly a century old and not on a common street name.

However DH has put something on Facebook, "did anyone send me random RLS quotes?! If so why?!" Or to that effect so think he's pretty
Innocent.

He also noticed the person who addressed it used a ruler when writing. You can see lines and the bottoms of the letters are flat - incredibly straight.

Not all the excerpts are from On Marriage. Think the last one is from "an apology for idlers"

But there is very little on the internet about any of the lines! So strange. He says it's making his head hurt

What would your idea of a non-suspicious reaction have been, toocold54?

Anybody else thinking "maybe I should read some of RLS poetry or books...