Dear Queenie,
My brother and his fiancée got married last year and for months before the wedding nobody in either family could talk about anything else. My fiancé and I had been engaged for a longer time than they had, but for several reasons we hadn’t scheduled our wedding yet, so this was kind of hard for us to get through.
We finally were able to start planning our wedding and then my brother and his wife announced that she is pregnant with my parents’ first grandchild and the baby is due some time around the date we have chosen for our wedding and now the new baby is all anyone talks about.
Queenie, is this fair or are we being selfish?—Ignored bride-to-be
Dear Bride-to-be,
Talk about sibling rivalry! Do you really think your brother and his wife deliberately planned her pregnancy so that the baby would arrive close to your wedding date and take all the attention away from you and your husband-to-be?
Go ahead with your wedding plans and try to stop “keeping score” on who is getting more attention. You will feel much better if you can manage to do so.
Dear Queenie,
My mother-in-law gave me a necklace and earrings set that was given to her when she got married. I love the necklace and I wear it all the time, but the style of the earrings is so out-of-date that I never wear them.
Queenie, would it be okay to have the stones in the earrings reset to be more fashionable?—Jewellery Etty Ket
Dear Etty Ket,
Technically it would not be wrong to have the stones reset, but your mother-in-law’s feelings might be hurt. Why risk starting a family feud?
Put the earrings away in a safe place and try to find a new set of earrings that also match up with the necklace. Who knows? In time the old earrings may become fashionable again. It does occasionally happen, you know.
Dear Queenie,
My wife has spoiled our son rotten. I have a very good job and we have made some very good investments, so we are very well-off for money.
Our son seems to think we are as rich as Donald Trump and gets angry if we do not give him as much money as he wants. When we bought my wife a new car he expected us to buy him one too – a very expensive one! – instead of giving him his mother’s old one. He has a part-time job, but it pays very little, so he asks us to pay for the insurance and buy him gas.
Queenie, what will it take to get him to stop mooching off us?—Fed-up father
Dear Father,
Your son will continue to mooch off you for as long as you permit him to get away with it. The only thing that will stop him is for you and your wife to turn off the money faucet and learn to say “NO!” – and stick to it – when he asks for something.
If your son is 18 years or older he is legally an adult and you are no longer obligated to pay for his room and board, education, transportation, clothing, etc. Make sure he understands this clearly, explain to him exactly what you expect of him financially and otherwise, and be prepared to take the necessary measures – such as taking away his car and even throwing him out of your home – if he does not start living up to your expectations. And be prepared for him to take at least a little while to learn to do so.
Dear Queenie,
One day my husband and I planned to meet up at his job to go for lunch, but when I got there he wasn’t there. I called him a couple of times but the calls went to voicemail.
He finally got home at dinnertime and when I asked him where he was he said he was at work all day but his phone battery died.
Queenie, I was there and he wasn’t. Why is he lying to me?—Angry wife
Dear Wife,
Apparently he was elsewhere doing something he does not want you to know about. Have you told him you were there at his job and couldn’t find him? Knowing that might persuade him to ’fess up.
However, you may want to consider seriously whether you want to continue in any kind of relationship with someone whose word clearly cannot be trusted. Give him another chance, but do not tell him he is “on probation,” and see how things work out.
Dear Queenie,
My husband used to be a drug addict when he was in high school. He got sent to rehab and has been clean for many years but he still can’t keep a job.
He’s very smart but he never graduated high school because of the addiction so he never went to university like his family planned for him and because he doesn’t have the education the only jobs he can get are ones he says aren’t good enough for him.
Queenie, things can’t go on like this, but I don’t know what to do.—Fed up wife
Dear Wife,
You will have to decide whether you want to stick with your husband and hope things get better, or end your marriage. If it is the latter, consult a lawyer.
However, if you decide to stick it out for at least a while longer, remember that it is never too late to get an education. There are several programmes through which your husband could get his GED (general education diploma) and with that he could even go on to university and even complete the requirements for a degree.
The Women’s Desk, Hope Estate Road #4, Upper Prince’s Quarter, tel. 542-7940, 520-1145, or 520-1146 probably can help you get the necessary information about and even put you in contact with these programmes. Then all you have to do is persuade your husband to try.
