Dear Queenie,
I was married for more than 30 years and five years after my wife died I married again.
The problem is my new wife can’t stand the thought of me being married before. She can’t stand to see a picture of my late wife or hear her name mentioned. We had to move into a new house and get all new furniture and everything because she refused to have anything to do with anything that had belonged to my first wife.
Queenie, is this normal? Is it wrong of me to remember my late wife or is my new wife being unreasonable?—Remarried widower
Dear Remarried,
It is not unusual for a second wife to feel that she has to compete with her husband’s memories of his first marriage, but your present wife seems to be carrying this tendency to an extreme. Apparently she is very insecure.
Try to avoid saying or doing anything that she could take as a comparison to your late wife. But also encourage her to get some professional counselling, with or without you.
Dear Queenie,
My husband and I are having financial problems and our parents are not helping us out, even though we are always doing repairs around their house that they would have to pay someone else to do and driving them places so they don’t have to take a bus or a taxi.
Queenie, is it wrong for us to want help now rather than to inherit their money when they pass away?—Resentful daughter
Dear Resentful,
Do your parents know about your financial problems? Have you asked your parents for help and they refused?
And how much do you really know about your parents’ financial status? Are you all that certain that they could afford to help you out without going into debt themselves and that there will be all that much – if anything – for you to inherit when they die?
Perhaps instead of looking to your parents for help, you should look for help in managing your own finances better. A professional in the field might be able to help you establish a realistic budget, and I believe at least one community service organisation offers budgeting courses or workshops.
Dear Queenie,
After my best friend got married she changed. She and her husband argue and yell at each other all the time. Separately they are nice enough to be with, but together it’s very unpleasant to be in their company.
They keep inviting me and my boyfriend over to visit them or to go out with them and we don’t want to because we can’t stand the way they treat each other.
Queenie, we don’t want to offend them, but we can’t stand being with them either. What can we do?—Discomfited
Dear Discomfited,
Either you continue to make excuses to avoid being with the two of them together, or you tell them (separately, I suggest, and as tactfully as you can manage) why you avoid the two of them together.
Dear Queenie,
My ex-husband wants me to agree to accept less child support in exchange for his promise to pay for our children’s college tuition when they get older.
Queenie, do you think this is a good idea?—Ex-wife
Dear Ex-wife,
NO!!!
In the first place, there is no guarantee your ex will be financially able to pay the tuition when the time comes, or even if he is able that he will keep his promise.
In the second place, how will you pay for the children’s food, clothing, medical expenses, school fees, etc. in the meantime?
At the very least, consult a lawyer and have this agreement put in writing. And make sure your husband is required to maintain adequate life insurance with you and/or the children as beneficiary/ies, just in case.
Dear Queenie,
My parents didn’t have what you would call a good marriage but they stayed together because their religion doesn’t allow divorce.
After watching them for all those years I decided never to have children of my own, for fear of doing the same thing to my children that my parents did to me, and when I finally got married my husband and I agreed that we would not have children.
The problem is that ever since I got married my mother keeps bugging me about when I’m going to give her grandchildren. I keep telling her “never” but she keeps it up and my father sides with her because he says she is lonely and it’s my duty as her child to make her happy.
Queenie, how can I get her to drop the subject?—Childless and happy that way
Dear Childless,
Tell your mother straight out why you refuse to bring children into her family. She will not like it, but she deserves the truth. And while you are at it, tell your father it is his job, not yours, to make her happy.
