DEAR ABBY: My wife has always been well groomed, with an obsessive interest in her fingernails and toenails. Every three or four days, she spends an hour trimming them. Recently, I discovered that she has been keeping the nail trimmings. She actually has three large plastic containers full. When I confronted her, she claimed it […]
Dear Abby
Husband’s secret teenage affair has awkward epilogue
DEAR ABBY: When my husband was a teenager, he had an ongoing affair with his mother’s 20-plus-years-older friend ”Nicolle.” He would call her by a nickname to signal he wanted sex. Fast-forward three decades. His family, unaware of their illicit and illegal relationship, regularly invites Nicolle to our family functions. They even call her by […]
Husband with sleepy wife wants marriage to wake up
DEAR ABBY: I have been married to my soul mate for 25 years. We get along great — she’s my best friend and a good mother to our three kids. (She takes care of my mom who lives with us, too.) The only problem is, she loves to sleep. She will do anything for us […]
Anglo woman using Spanish fears she may be out of line
DEAR ABBY: I am a retired librarian who lives in Texas. I am what around here is called ”Anglo,” meaning white and not Hispanic. I speak four languages, with varying degrees of proficiency. Recently, a friend who is Hispanic told me that if an Anglo speaks Spanish to a Hispanic person, it’s considered an insult […]
Her obsession could bring a loss of job
DEAR ABBY: I live in Dubai and started reading advice columns around 10 years ago. I find them fascinating as they give me insight into the lives of people who live in different cultures and have very different ways of thinking. I have learned a great deal from these columns and am often impressed with […]
Three ‘surprise’ babies are not enough for mom
DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have three children. Before we were married, we discussed that I wanted a big family. He said he didn’t want kids at all. This didn’t bother me because I had been told I would never be able to have children. We ended up not only having one ”surprise” baby, […]
Relative’s incontinence is the elephant in the room
DEAR ABBY: One of my relatives has become incontinent. She leaks badly. Most of the time her pants are wet. When she comes to visit, she doesn’t hesitate to sit on my furniture, and when she stands up, she causes a spot on my carpet! I’m worried my house will start to smell. After she […]
Girl feels pressure to choose her path after high school
DEAR ABBY: I’m a young woman of 16 years and I’m in the second year of high school. Next year will be my last, and then I will have the pressure of relatives and friends wondering what I will do with my life. When I was little, I said I was going to be a […]
Woman can’t break from her decades-long affair
DEAR ABBY: I have been dating a married man for 30 years. Our relationship started a few months after he got married. I know it was wrong to begin the relationship, but it started just as a way for me to get sexual experience. For him, I think he was infatuated with the idea that […]
Wife forbids man from longtime friendship with coworker
DEAR ABBY: I recently retired after 26 years of working with a professional partner of the opposite sex. Now my wife expects me to cut off all communication with her. There was never any intimacy or sexual attraction at all, just a friendship established over many years. I have explained this to my wife many […]