A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media which is our culture. Professors of humanities with all their leftist fantasies have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.
You can forgive people who do not follow you through a philosophical disquisition but to find your wife laughing when you had tears in your eyes or staring when you were in a fit of laughter would go some way towards a dissolution of the marriage.