Columns

I met this guy online about a year ago — on XBox Live, playing a game. We became friends and have been talking seriously and faithfully every day (all day; sending hundreds of texts daily) for about a month. He is about 1,300 miles away. He is a virgin, and he has never been in a serious relationship. We are the same age. He has told me that I’m beautiful, that he loves my personality, and that he wants to meet me more than he’s ever wanted to meet anybody. He is pretty much my dream guy. We have so much in common, and even after tens of thousands of text messages,…

It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today, we hear from “Too Old to be Crushing Like This” who wondered if it would be inappropriate to date the brother of her high school boyfriend who died over 12 years ago. They’d met up again recently at a birthday party and sparks flew, despite their six-year age difference. Keep readind to see if they went out.

I’m a military spouse and the moves, deployments, loss of employment (multiple times due to moving), full-time single parenting, and general hard luck have taken their toll. To add to that is the almost unavoidable infidelity on my husband’s part. I mean, by now I’m a machine. I don’t do emotional, I don’t do intimacy, I don’t do connecting. I certainly try, but it’s tough when I rarely or never see my husband. And this has been, jeeze, six years now. I can handle all of this, but the infidelity stings. The fact that he generally crowd-sources emotional support and looks everywhere but home for companionship stings. I read all of those…

It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today, we hear from Nicki Stapleton (aka “honeybeenicki”) who shared an incredibly candid and touching essay with us last year about her life as a prison wife. Go back and (re)-read it, and then read her uplifting update below (spoiler: her husband’s been released from prison and is back home now!).

I’m a 21-year-old, gay college senior and just got out of a year-long relationship. I was in love for the first time. It’s not that I was inexperienced before I met him. I’ve had experiences that have built large walls around my heart, but this relationship was real and mature. It was everything that I thought I deserved after all the crashing and burning I went through with dating over the past few years. The day we broke up, he ended up with a guy whom he was friends with throughout our entire relationship, whom I had always had suspicions about. It’s becoming more and more evident that my ex cheated, but…