Adapted from a recent online discussion. Dear Carolyn: Two years ago, we were invited to skip our son “Johnny” ahead from first grade to second mid-year. My husband was a bit insufferable about it, bragging to a number of our friends about how well Johnny was doing academically. This really bugged me at first but …
Dear Carolyn: What is it about single women and “dating” married men? I just broke up with my girlfriend of two years because I could not live up to her past married “boyfriend.” I was not as funny, charming or fun as he was. Funny thing, they never did anything except have secret meetings at …
Dear Carolyn: I have a daughter who is having an incredibly hard time adjusting to middle school. There’s SO much more going on with her emotions, internal regret (“I wish I had done X instead of Y!”), and her self-imposed pressure to do well in school. We don’t pressure her at all about her grades …
Dear Carolyn: I have been divorced 14 years and have two adult children. Recently my children informed me they do not like the man I have been dating for several years and do not want him at family events. Why they do not like him: He is the complete opposite of their father. Also, he …
Adapted from a recent online discussion. Dear Carolyn: I am a married woman with two elementary-age sons. I’ve often felt I do way more to help the three of them than they do to help me, which is understandable with kids and frustrating with a husband. But lately it’s gotten much worse. I’ve been …
Adapted from a recent online discussion. Dear Carolyn: My ex-husband and I have been divorced for about 10 years. Our kids are grown and in their 20s and 30s. My ex and I still live in the same town we raised our kids, but only one kid still lives here. Our marriage had some …
Adapted from a recent online discussion. Dear Carolyn: Meet a guy online, engage in light “sexting,” maybe even meet and have sex. Neither of us is interested in anything serious and we establish that at the beginning. I lose interest — just not feeling the connection — so the next time he contacts me, …
Dear Carolyn: I haven’t spoken to my husband’s parents since a week after our wedding. Several things happened that caused increasing tension, including: my mother-in-law blowing up at me when I articulated concern about a racially insensitive comment (I made several olive-branch attempts to reason with her on the importance of my speaking up); my …
Adapted from a recent online discussion. Dear Carolyn: We’re going to see my partner’s family, including her 25-year-old child, who has acted like a sullen brat since we married 10 years ago. As in, has not spoken to me or acknowledged me in any way and treated my partner poorly as well. Generally I …
Adapted from a recent online discussion. Hello, Carolyn: My husband and I are at a crossroads, trying to decide between staying in our current city, near his family and where we have established friends, or moving back to where I am from originally. We would be closer to my parents and in a (hopefully) better …
Dear Carolyn: I have a close, small group of friends who I have known for decades, and two of them are divorced, both more than five years ago. We have always shared things that bother or hurt us in our lives. When I complain about some hurtful thing my husband has said, or about a …
Dear Carolyn: “Jeff” has been my best friend for almost 20 years. We’ve supported each other often during that time. A couple of years ago he started seeing a woman he met online. Right from the start, Jeff noticed sometimes she could be quite disrespectful, especially when things didn’t go her way. After a couple …
