Transcript:

September 26, 1962

Dear Sylvia:

Glad to get your letter today and to find that you are still fighting, not moping.

If you really mean it about separation and not liking him, I would advise going whole hog and getting a divorce. You can certainly get the goods on him now while he is in such a reckless mood. If you wait, until he finds out a) you’re not as spineless as he thought and b) maybe he made a mistake and wants to wiggle in again, you’ll have a much harder time getting the evidence. Also, by that time, he may have YOU over a barrel, and you may be wanting to marry someone else, and he may be doing something gruesome like insisting on custody of Frieda, etc. etc. If this seems too final to you, just remember, you can always marry him again if you want to, but you might have a hell of a time getting a divorce especially there in England if you don’t really do it now.

Advice on nanny: Get a really, really good one. Someone you like as a person, as well as someone who is good on her job. This will make everything much smoother for your children. If you have to change around this will be very poor, especially if your work comittments would require you to take trips (even short ones) etc. It may cost you more, but it is well worth it. I’ve always had to pay my housekeeper slightly more than the going rate, and I’ve never regretted it.

The rest, you have said for yourself. Keep him out of your bed. In the U.S. if a woman sleeps with her husband after he has committed adultery, she can no longer sue him for divorce on those grounds as her act of sleeping with him constitutes condoning his misdoing. That is the practical reason. The other reasons you already know.

Have NOTHING to do with his family until the whole question of the children and their custody is completely settled. Then, visits to grandparents may be undertaken safely, but not before.

All of the above I tell you not only out of common sense, but out of very bitter experience with my own first marriage.

Your children will be fine if you are happy, otherwise they won’t. By happy, I mean fundamentally self-confident, not just party-gay. Get a copy of Erich Fromm’s book, The Art of Loving. I really mean this. Get it and read it. Then read it again. Let me know when you have done so, so I can be truly sure you did, as I think it very important for you to read this book at this time. If it is unavailable there, tell me, and I’ll send you a copy.

Up to this point in the letter only one child was screaming, but now I hear three, so must close and take care of things. I wanted to answer at once.

Love as always,

Ruth B.