Dear Amy: I’m a 24-year-old married woman. My husband and I have been married for two years and dated for two years before that.
In the past year, my husband cheated on me with two women, so I left him. After a month he convinced me of how much he wanted me to come back.
Only two months after returning to him, he went back to having a thing with a woman behind my back.
It has been six months since that happened. I’m still with him, and we haven’t had any women problems since.
I love my husband dearly and I know that he loves me in his own way, but I haven’t been able to forgive or forget.
Even though he is behaving well, I can’t seem to trust him when he’s on the phone or when he goes out. We’ve had fights because of this, and he thinks that there is no hope for us. I’d like to go to therapy to try to work things out. If it doesn’t help, then I will agree that we should break up.
What can I do to get him to give therapy a chance?
– Can’t Trust Love
Dear Can’t Trust: I’m with your husband. There is no hope for your marriage because he has no intention of being in it.
There isn’t much you can do to compel your husband to go into therapy because he has no motivation to change. People usually try therapy when they want to understand or change their behavior. Your husband’s behavior works just fine for him, because he gets to be married when he feels like it and cheat when he feels like it, and then when you want to repair the relationship, he’ll just leave it altogether. At some point, tolerating this becomes more your problem than his.
Get yourself into therapy. You need to work on understanding and then changing your own behavior. Three strikes, and he should be out.
…
Dear Amy: I am an elderly widow with several much-
younger friends who insist on having me to their homes for dinner or taking me out to eat.
When I go to their homes, I usually take wine and candy. I am no longer able to cook and entertain in my home, and neither am I financially able to treat them in a restaurant, but I do that at times, which is a strain on my budget.
When they entertain me, I am the only one, but when I take them out, there are two people and they both drink several glasses of wine with dinner.
What is a gracious answer to this problem?
– Alice
Dear Alice: You sound a little put upon that these young friends think enough of you to invite you to join them for dinner. I suspect that a lifetime of being polite hasn’t prepared you to accept these social gestures for what they are – invitations without strings.
Elderly widows with limited incomes who are unable to entertain guests in their home are exempt from the entertainment reciprocation rule.
I hope you realize you have earned all of your dinners. Your only job with your young friends is to be good company while you are with them – and a grateful guest afterward.
Bring a bottle of wine, or some flowers from your garden if you can, and send your young friends a nice note afterward. Relax and enjoy yourself!
…
Dear Amy: I have a bet with a cousin. Your answer will determine the “winner.” Is it customary and expected that when you are invited to a wedding that your cash gift should cover both the gift and the cost of your meal? Hurry, I need the $5!
– Barbara
Dear Barbara: I have heard of people attempting to guess the cost of a wedding reception as a way to calculate how much to spend on a gift, but this idea is absurd. This means that a young couple hosting a modest wedding with cake and punch would receive a lesser gift than a couple that throws an extravaganza? Not in my book.
You win.
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