Columns

Advice for a woman married to a deadbeat dad whose friends don’t like her.

I have been married for 28 years but the love is dead. I have been having an affair for two years and am madly in love with this woman and she with me. We were making plans on one day getting married after my divorce. I have been going to school full-time along with working full-time to prepare to provide for her and myself. I met this woman as an escort (I am not proud of that but it’s the truth). We hit it off immediately, and I persuaded her to stop doing what she was doing and I eventually got her enrolled in a medical assistant school, which she loves. Recently…

She moved in with her boyfriend after dating five months and now wants him to kick out his mother who has lived there, rent-free, for three years.

My fiancé and I have been together for two years and got engaged six months ago. He’s from a different state, and, to be near his family, we moved from my home state to his right after we became engaged. All I have received since living here for the past six months are a lot of mean stares and cold shoulders. I’ve never done anything to these people but be helpful, polite, and friendly. It’s recently come to my attention that rumors have been spreading around my fiancé’s (very large) family about me, but, unfortunately, no one will tell me what has been said or who said it. All I came here…

I met a guy through a chat line and he immediately pursued me in a nice way. We talked on the phone for about five weeks or so and all was good. He sent me cute texts and we had a lot of fun. He lives out of town, but we finally decided to meet and he flew in to where I live. We had a great four days, and then he went home. After he went home, I noticed that he had cooled off. No cute texts, and phone calls were sporadic. If I tried to call, he would keep the call short and there was no pillow talk like before….

My boyfriend and I have been together for five years. We have a child together and he has a child from a previous relationship whom we have custody of together. A few months ago he purchased an engagement ring for me. I didn’t see it, much less know about it, until we got into a heated argument and he blurted out that he had spent a few thousand dollars on what I would call “the perfect ring!” I didn’t talk to him about it or even think about it. I didn’t want to ruin whatever he had planned. About a week ago we were on a family outing. During the outing we…

A year ago I started dating my co-worker. Everything was great for a while, but as time went on, of course, I grew to want a commitment. He is pursuing medical school, and, since he has decided to apply broadly, each time the topic of a relationship is brought up he says he can’t see down that path right now, that timing is wrong, and that he needs to gather what he’s trying to achieve as far as getting into med school. So as silly as it sounds, I always ask if that means he can never see a future with me. He has always answered that he can’t really answer that…

Trigger Warning: the following column contains sensitive content that may be upsetting to some readers. Upon receiving the following letter Saturday morning, I emailed the LW immediately with my response, but I’m publishing the letter and my answer in their entirety here today in the event that the information included may prove helpful to other women now or in the future. Last night I went to a party with my boyfriend and a few of his friends. When we got there, all of his friends were already drunk and they immediately began hitting on me in front of my boyfriend. I brushed it off, but they continued to make jokes about how…

Since tomorrow’s a holiday, I’m going to take the day off from posting, so we’re doing Shortcuts today. For every question I’ll give my advice in just a few sentences because sometimes the answer to a person’s question is so obvious and the need to hear it so great that being as clear and frank as possible is simply the best way to go.