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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 “The Unwelcome Guest” whose boyfriend made her sleep on a yoga mat on the floor next to the bed he slept on when they visited his sister. “Both Bob and I have chronic health issues, and I asked if we could stay at a hotel for the four nights, even offering to pay. Bob refused out of concern for Nina’s feelings, so I spent three nights on the floor, with resulting pain and stiffness. By the fourth…

I’m 42 years of age and have never married. Although I have had a few successful stints with women, I ALWAYS find a flaw in my partner. It is a real problem for me. It started in college. I would always have certain girls I was very attracted to and would do anything to date. However, when they showed interest in me and we started to date, I suddenly found them less attractive. I am definitely attracted to women; I just constantly struggle to stay attracted to a woman for more than a month or two. I find ridiculous flaws like their chin, their eyes, their figure, their teeth and other minuscule…

I’ve been dating a divorced-with-no-children man for about a year. We are in our fifties. He hasn’t proposed yet, but we have been talking about our life “together” in the near future. He was married for fourteen years; she left him three years ago. I was married for thirteen years; I left him seven years ago. [Supposedly] his ex initiated contact with him through text messages a little before we met, and she texts him every two to three weeks. He says they don’t talk about personal stuff, but, I wonder, what in the world divorcees with no children can talk about? And more questionably: Why is she contacting him when she…

I’m a longtime lurker and have been helped greatly by your posts and the DW community. Thank you for all you do. This is my first time writing in, and I hope you can share some compassionate wisdom with me. I’m a 28-year-old New York City transplant from small-town Minnesota. I like NYC for now, but I know ultimately I want to move to a mid-size, nature-y, diverse city (I’m from an immigrant family and want to set roots where I can raise children around all types of cultures) with good public transportation. I also know I want to live somewhere with job opportunities in tech since that is what I am…

My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost six months and he has an ex with whom he shares a son who is almost 13. We plan on getting married, but we have a few things to work on…like boundaries with his ex. They have been apart for ten years, but he still invites her on his family vacations and they planned a family vacation to the Bahamas this May. My boyfriend’s whole family is going — it is a 25-year anniversary party for his sister and brother-in-law. He did invite me to go, but I’m not able to. I have never met the ex. She calls constantly (not about the…

My loving relationship of five years (three years living together) ended recently. I have a son from a previous marriage and he has a daughter from a previous marriage as well. Three months ago, we went to city hall to get married, and it was there my life ended. He found out by the clerk that I had gotten married when I was 19 (to a man I divorced but who is the father of my two other children who are 23 and 26). I sat him down and told him the ugly truth: I married a guy in Greece and had two kids. I was physically and mentally abused for years…

Six years ago I saw my brother-in-law (my sister’s husband) holding hands with another woman. My memory is he walked out of the bar with her, and his friend (a male) following behind. I was absolutely shocked, to say the least. A few days later I had a conversation with him about what we did on the weekend and I mentioned that I was at that same bar. He flinched. It’s as if his body language said “Shit, I hope he didn’t see me.” A few weeks later I confronted him and asked him about it. His response was that I was “reading too much into it” and that it was a…

​​It’s time again for Shortcuts. 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. My boyfriend is seven years older then I am, so I don’t like to tell him he can’t hang out with his friends when he chooses to hang out with them over me because there are some things I can’t legally do like drink. However, he has this one female friend who often hangs out with him alone. She asked him…

I began communicating with my beau online over five months ago. “George” is black and I am white; I commonly refer to him as the black, male version of my best friend since childhood. We felt an immediate connection, even reminiscing about many childhood similarities. I have never experienced such a complete connection at the soul level. We are both divorced (he for ten years and I for almost two, but after a long process of counseling and healing before I filed) and in our mid-forties. It has been wonderful; we have had four dates, three of them meeting halfway between us (the third one was overnight) and once when I drove…

I am writing you in desperation. Yesterday was my mother’s birthday and I asked her not to make any food for me or my family because I did not want to bother her, but she kept insisting on making food. Finally, I said I will also make a dish, but she said no. So I said OK and then I went to her house to celebrate her birthday, but I guess she was so exhausted making food that she told my brother, “Next time when it’s my birthday, just take me to a restaurant.” Well, I got offended, because I told her not to make food and then she was complaining to…