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Dear Prudence,
I am a professional woman who has been married for 16 years. My job is stressful, and I often work 12 hours or more. We have no children. At first things were wonderful, and my husband always seemed like a sweet, mild-mannered, caring man. Three years in, he was laid off because his company ran into financial trouble. Because I am a high-earner, I told him he didn’t need to go back to work as long as he kept the house up and did basic repair projects. He never went back to work, but he never kept the house up, either. We also hired housecleaners to visit every two weeks, but in between nothing got done. I asked him to go back to work. He didn’t. I strongly suspected he was having affairs a few years later, but he always denied it. I have no concrete proof, but he did many suspicious things like hiding months of phone bills and having midnight texts. Years later he voluntarily took two polygraph tests to save the marriage (we stopped having intimate relations five years ago mostly because I no longer admired, respected, or trusted him, and because of my resentment toward him on several levels). He failed the tests.
Until lately, I generally ignored all my feelings and went about trying to have a good life. My husband will not discuss our issues because, he says, he clams up or needs time to think. I verbalize my needs and frustrations all the time. At one point he started snapping at me and rolling his eyes, but I firmly and strongly told him to stop, which he mostly has. I demanded that he get a job, and he finally works 25 hours a week making a small salary. He knows I no longer love him (in the least), but he won’t leave. We now live in separate bedrooms. We have been to two marriage counselors. I have told him I will go back if he is willing to discuss his unfaithfulness, which he still denies. He states the lie-detector tests are invalid. The house and everything we own are paid for by me alone. I need to divorce, but he will take everything I own, plus alimony. On the surface, he is a nice, charming, religious guy. None of our friends know about our marriage troubles, and they would be shocked to hear this. Advice, please.
You have learned the hard way that ignoring your feelings does not usually result in a good life. My advice is to leave your husband, who sounds terrible. Even if he managed to come out of a divorce with most of your stuff plus alimony, I’d argue you would still be better off. You’re still paying for everything now, but if you leave, you won’t have to live with a man you don’t love “in the least.” Go talk to a divorce lawyer today.
Then talk to your friends tomorrow. It sounds like the last 13 years of your marriage have been fairly agonizing, and that’s a remarkably lonely condition, and I hope you can find new ways to share a little more with your loved ones in the future. That doesn’t mean you have to relate every quarrel the moment it happens, but this kind of emotional isolation is overwhelming and breeds pessimistic thinking like “I can’t possibly leave, and I’m stuck no matter what I do.” You can leave him, and no matter how difficult the divorce gets, you never have to live with someone who takes advantage of you, lies to you, rolls his eyes at you, or refuses to talk to you ever again. Even if you have to move into a smaller place afterward, remember Proverbs: “Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” —Danny M. Lavery
From: “Help! My Husband Failed Two Polygraph Tests About His Infidelity.” (Nov. 19, 2020)
Dear Prudence,
I moved to a new state to be with my now-wife. We are both women and have never really had close friends here. It’s a very tightknit community, and people are very kind, but it hasn’t been that easy to break through. This year, I had a baby and ended up connecting with a group of new moms. I love my wife, but I feel like I was really missing having close friends, and I’ve been so happy to find some. The problem is that I’ve gotten very close with one friend in particular, “Rachel,” and suddenly I am feeling like I have a crush on her! I don’t know if this is just a new friend crush or what. I’ve never had a serious crush while I’ve been married. Now I feel like I’m being unfaithful to my wife in some way and I have to stop being friends with Rachel. But she’s the best friend I’ve had in years, and I really don’t want to! I don’t know what to do.
Let’s not assign your crush a specific motivation. It’s impossible to know whether you’d have developed a crush on Rachel if you’d already had a lot of close friends in the area, but I’m not convinced that crushes arise as a result of friendship scarcity. That’s not to say that isolation or loneliness can never contribute to the strength of feeling one develops for someone new. They certainly can! But I doubt you’ll resolve your crush by convincing yourself it’s just because you were so eager for new friends you briefly forgot the difference between friendship and romance. You’ve made some new friends, which is an unalloyed good, and you’ve also developed a crush on someone else for the first time since you got married, which is not a sin or an indicator that you’ve stopped loving your wife. It may feel uncomfortable, and you may be unsure how (or whether) to discuss this with your wife, but you are not being unfaithful. If you find yourself constantly seeking out reasons to be alone with Rachel in ways you want to hide from your wife, or emotionally withdrawing from your marriage, that’s another matter entirely. But simply having a crush on someone is not wrong or bad or something to be ashamed of. It’s a feeling, no more and no less. —D.L.
From: “Help! I’ve Developed a Crush on My New Mom-Friend.” (March 6, 2021)
Dear Prudence,
I am a thirtysomething who recently moved into a family-owned property out of necessity. My parents have been great about this, and I’m glad to be here. There is, however, one issue: a family acquaintance we’ll call “Moe.” I never liked Moe growing up. He gave me (and others) many unsolicited gifts and asked me to do projects for him. None of the gifts were themselves inappropriate, but the pattern of favors and obligations made me uncomfortable, even as a child. I decided I didn’t want to speak to him after he tried to date another family friend and didn’t take no for an answer. She had to basically cut him out of her life. His lack of boundaries is obvious. He continues to “gift” people various items that they neither want nor can actually store, seemingly also unaware that this is reckless behavior during COVID, and drops by other people’s houses randomly. My parents recently told me that he drives by my house at least a few times a week, to “see if they’re around.”
I’ve tried to talk to my family about it, and I get told that he “lacks social skills” and that there’s nothing they can do. I know some people have tried to implement boundaries, but I don’t know if they’ve stuck to them or if they ended up letting him back into their group. I do not want to start dealing with random “gifts” on my porch and really don’t like the idea that someone is scoping out my house for any reason! I feel comfortable telling him off—but what can I do to get my family to impose some boundaries and regain some sanity?
There’s an important distinction to be made between “social skills” and “taking no for an answer.” You’re right to be skeptical of your parents’ implied assertion that because Moe “lacks” something as vague and potentially wide-ranging as “social skills,” they can’t be expected to set reasonable limits with him like “don’t drive past my house to see if I’m home—call or text if you want to arrange a visit instead.” But don’t waste your time and energy trying to persuade your relatives to set boundaries they may have no interest in setting. This sounds like a long-standing pattern on both sides, and they may be as invested in giving him his way as he is in having it.
The good news is that you’re comfortable with the idea of telling him no yourself, which is a great place to start. While you don’t need your parents’ permission to set a guest policy of your own, you ought to give them advance notice so that they don’t unknowingly undermine you, should Moe attempt to circumvent you by asking them for continued “permission.” Tell them you’re going to let him know you don’t want to receive any gifts and you don’t want him stopping by the house unannounced, and then do so. If they refuse to back you up, at least you’ll know you can’t count on them for support and can act accordingly. They may never choose to set limits with Moe, but that shouldn’t stop you from setting limits of your own. —D.L.
From: “Help! My Family Won’t Impose Boundaries on Our Creepy Neighbor.” (Jan. 9, 2021)
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I made a list of baby names pretty early on in our relationship that we both love. But my mother-in-law has not been appreciative of the girl names (all plant-themed). When I first shared them with her she immediately started commenting on how bland or strange they were. And subsequent conversations (that she brings up) include her expressing her dream nicknames that she’s going to give each little girl (all the most annoying, common ornamental flowers that you see in every English garden) and continually making fun of one name I’ve had picked out for years. She’s even shared these girl names with her co-workers and friends just to try and get more opinions that might sway me. (I’m stubborn and I don’t care about peoples’ opinions on nonissues.)
Recently, she’s begun dropping hints that she would like one of our nonexistent girls to have a family name (her name). I’ve been very firm that I do not want to use that name and her responses usually revolve around the idea that she won’t have anyone to pass on the family’s antique bed set to (reserved for the girls with the family name, and also unimportant to my husband and I) or questions about why I don’t like the family name. It gets awkward. To follow this, I’ve recently been having pelvic pain and irregular menstrual cycles, but haven’t yet received a diagnosis of any kind. So my husband and I don’t even know if pregnancy is possible at this point. The continued talk about how weird and untraditional my girl baby names are is starting to grind at my patience. How can I politely tell her that I don’t appreciate this continual nagging over the names of children that may or may not be born in a way that she will understand and respect?
This is a great opportunity for your husband to run interference with his mother on your behalf! That’s not to say you can’t ever speak up for yourself with your mother-in-law, but this list of girl names isn’t just yours for your mother-in-law to either approve or disparage. It’s a joint decision you and your husband have arrived at together, and for her only to chip away at you on the subject while acting like he was asleep in the next room when you compiled a list must be additionally frustrating. All he has to say is “Mom, you need to stop offering commentary on the baby names we might pick out someday, and you definitely need to stop announcing what nicknames you’re going to give these hypothetical kids to ‘fix’ our decision.” Then, if (or more likely, when) she does it again, either of you can simply say, “You know we’ve already asked you not to do this. Please stop.” You’re perfectly entitled to shut those conversations down yourself—I only suggest letting your husband take the first pass at telling your mother-in-law to knock it off because it seems like so far he’s been letting you take the brunt of her criticism, and it’s a good opportunity for him to act like he’s on your team. But by all means, if she loudly sighs for the umpteenth time, “Who, oh who will I bequeath this hideous swan canopy bed to, as I have pledged and am by honor-bound not to give it to anyone but a kinswoman named Madeline II?,” you can say, “I don’t know! I hope you find a good home for the bed with someone who can really appreciate it.” It’s not your problem. To be honest, I don’t think it’s a real problem at all—but we’re all entitled to our own little made-up problems once in a while, and if she would like to be troubled about the future of this old bed, she’s certainly free to worry about it. —D.L.
From: “Help! My Mother-in-Law Won’t Stop Nagging Me About Baby Names.” (March 17, 2021)
More Advice From Dear Prudence
My husband has been texting his ex-wife rather extensively for some time and he has been hiding it from me. I would not be surprised if this has lasted our whole relationship.
