New Here? Welcome! Dear Wendy is a relationship advice blog. You can read about me here, peruse the archives here and read popular posts here. You can also follow along on Facebook and Instagram. If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected] (be sure to read these guidelines first). Thanks for visiting!
I haven’t done a “From the Mailbag” post in a while and today I have not one but two letters from my inbox to share. Both writers take issue with the same column — “Where Can I Find a Decent, Much Younger Woman?” — and for the same reason:
They argue that, as an advice columnist, my job is to strictly give advice and not to pontificate on politics. In short: I should stay in my lane. In a shock to probably no one, both of these LWs are dudes, and one must assume new DW readers. I’m sharing their letters unedited.
Dear Wendy,First of all disclaimer!! I give you the right to put this on your site how you see fit. I DO NOT give you the right to give my contact info out in any way.
Now thats out of the way I feel the need to write this letter to you in regards to the response you gave to Morning Quickies: “Where Can I Find a Decent, Much Younger Woman?”
First off you were very rude to the person in question. He reached out to you to get some advise and you completely destroyed his hope. Aside from that you also gave bad advise. Though it is much harder in his place to find love due to all the good ones are usually taken by the time you are 35 years old, you could have offered some hope to him. Your response came off as being “you got no hope stop chasing youngsters for sex.” I can tell you that no, this is not the case. Maybe he was looking for love and not lust with the addition of having young fun like going out on the town. most 45 year old women are not really into this. I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job but clearly you haven’t been in the “dear abby” game for a long time.
Secondly don’t bring politics into the matter. referencing a trump rally clearly defines you as a definite democrat. Honestly your going to lose more readers than gaining.
And lastly there are good/nice guys out there that are just looking for love, maybe due to them being hurt in the past or it never worked out. So the next time someone reaches out to you for advise/help go easy on them, you never know when someone will rip apart your response and feed it back to you on what you are doing wrong. I doubt you will read this at all but if you do best wishes to you in the future and your dear abby opinion section.
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I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything, but my partner of two years isn’t getting me a Christmas present just like he didn’t get me a birthday present this year. I earn $304 a fortnight and he earns $500+ a week. We live with his parents so we don’t pay bills — all he has to do each week is put fuel in his car. I have spent over $1000 on presents throughout the year. I have a pretty big family, so I have to buy all these Christmas presents for people in my family plus we are going on a camping trip in January for which I paid for some new supplies, like an awning, camp oven, recovery kit, sleeping bags, and this brand new expansive tool kit. I have been going broke in that I don’t buy myself anything anymore because my partner will mention something that he wants and I will be stupid enough to buy it for him and spend what little money I have. I need to save up to buy a car next year and don’t know how I will ever do it. I just feel pretty depressed because he isn’t getting me any gifts at all. When I spend most of my money on everyone else, I just feel very unappreciated. Please tell me that I’m not over-reacting. — Going Broke
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I set a goal for myself for this year to read 25 books. I chose that number because it seemed both doable and ambitious enough for me that I would *have* to change my habits, which was the point of the goal. Many, many moons ago – before kids and even before marriage when I had a lot more uninterrupted solo time (and the focus and energy to fill said time with activities other than lying horizontal staring off in the distance or at a screen) — I easily read a book a week, but in more recent years, I’d be lucky to reach 10 or 12 books in a year. So I set a goal of 25 to nudge me back into the reading habit, to force myself to put books back on my radar (reading reviews, asking for recommendations, constantly adding to and updating my holds list at the library, where I get 90% of my books).
I’m a little sad to say that I’m going to fall short of my goal for the year. I’ve only finished 17 books so far and, if I’m being honest, the likelihood of me finishing more than three in the next four weeks is very, very slim. However! There are an additional 12 books that I started and didn’t finish and I think that should count for something. In some cases, I read a good 200 pages of a book before I gave up. In all cases, I read at least 25 pages before deciding I wasn’t feeling it and moving on.
All of this reading – even if I didn’t finish as many books as I set out to finish — accomplished what I hoped it would. I am reacquainted with a hobby I love — both the actual reading of the books and the information-gathering around books I might like. Literature is a bigger part of my life at the end of this year than it has been in a long time and this is a very good thing. I’m looking forward to lots more reading in the year ahead! In the mean time, I’d love to share with you what my top reads of this year have been.
These are the books that have stayed with me, that I continue to think about weeks and sometimes months after finishing them:
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I recently re-connected with my high school boyfriend and we started dating soon after. He lost his wife to her second round of cancer in January. He had been her caretaker for the majority of the three years before she passed. He said he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, traveling and all. He has two children who have been very judgmental about his dating me, due to their own grief. Right before his daughter got married and the day after what would have been his and his wife’s 30th anniversary, he stopped saying “I love you” and told me he was numb. My friends say to be supportive and he will get through this. I just felt like I was blindsided and judged by his children. — Blindsided By Kids
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I haven’t done a “From the Mailbag” post in a while and today I have not one but two letters from my inbox to share. Both writers take issue with the same column — “Where Can I Find a Decent, Much Younger Woman?” — and for the same reason:
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