I married my high school sweetheard in 1977, and I have to think some of those years we spent together were good, because if they weren’t that would make me an idiot. He collected albums of our favorite bands, including the Police, and when Sting went out on his own we got three of his records: The Dream of the Blue Turtles, Nothing Like the Sun, and Ten Summoner’s Tales. He loved to crank them up on Saturday mornings, to the consternation of our daughters, and we would sing and hum along as we worked around the house.

The day he told me he was going to a Barry Manilow concert with “the girls in the office,” I just laughed. Then there was another concert – Bread, I think – and he went to that one too. He bought Bread and Manilow records, although he didn’t play them much at home. I went with him to the mall while he got one ear pierced and listened while he told the mall girl that it was “cheaper than a sports car or a divorce.” But apparently it was money wasted, because one month after our twenty-fifth anniversary he told me he had made an appointment with a lawyer. I tried hard to keep things civil – I even patted his hand while he sobbed in the kitchen chair and said, “I never meant it to turn out this way” – but subsequent events, including a phone call from his secretary’s ex-husband asking me how I felt about the fact that our estranged spouses were living together, have turned our relationship into the sort where I just wait for him to die, so I know I’ll never, ever have to speak to him about anything ever again.

I was with one of my daughters in her boyfriend’s car recently. We were on our way to a restaurant and the two of them were looking for a CD to put in the player. As they were shuffling through the options, they found a Sting album. “Not Sting,” I burst out, surprising everyone in the car (including myself) by the vehemence of my response. Now, I like Sting, a lot. I think he is one of the most lyrical and literate singer/songwriters we have. But at that moment I was forced to admit that almost anything by Sting is forever ruined by the fact that the songs from those albums were burned into my brain by a man who had his own tales to tell, tales like “you don’t respect me any more,” and “I can’t take the way the kids get around you,” and “you don’t put in your share for this family,” and all the while, he was busy writing the old, old story of The Man Who Is Seeing His Youth Slip Away.