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Asking Eric: Wife’s comments to son-in-law bother husband

Life Advice / Asking Eric /

Dear Eric: We are retired grandparents to 7-year-old twins who live close by. We are delighted to help with kiddo chauffeuring, grocery shopping or anything else needed by two very hard-working parents.

Today after dropping off groceries, my wife noted that the refrigerator, in her opinion, had an unpleasant odor and was very quick to share her...Read more

Breaking Up Without Breaking Him

Life Advice / Dear Annie /

Dear Annie: I've been with my boyfriend for over three years. We met when I was a freshman in high school and he was a sophomore. I fell head over heels right away, and we became official nearly a year later. Over time, I learned about his painful childhood -- absent father, a mother who had him young and has since moved away, a hostile ...Read more

Asking Eric: Parents’ house has become free hotel for friends

Life Advice / Asking Eric /

Dear Eric: I live in a small town about five hours from my parents, who live in the biggest city in our state. They have a beautiful home with a great downstairs room that is perfect to stay in when I visit. My father has Parkinson’s, so I make it up close to every month to hang out and try to make life for my mom a little easier. Sometimes I�...Read more

Love Met With Silence

Life Advice / Dear Annie /

Dear Annie: I never thought I would be in this position, but I have become estranged from my adult daughter. We used to be incredibly close. When she was younger, we had long talks late into the night, and we would laugh until we cried on road trips. I was there for every heartbreak, every success, and I truly believed we had a bond that would...Read more

Milllennial Life: The Script is Ours to Write

I had a frilly pink dress in second grade that I only wore a handful of times. There are some photos of me striking some sharp poses in our backyard, but after I outgrew that dress, I didn't follow up with any similarly typical frilly costumes of girlhood. As I grew, I went with comfort over style for a long time -- and some might say even to ...Read more

Asking Eric: Brothers spar over 35-year-old loan

Life Advice / Asking Eric /

Dear Eric: My brother has children with whom I was extremely close when he and his wife got divorced in 1989. He never supported his kids, never paid child support and drank away everyone’s money, including $20,000 in rehabs that my parents paid for.

My brother asked me if he could borrow $5,000, and he would start making payments to pay it ...Read more

Love, Boundaries and the Thermostat

Life Advice / Dear Annie /

Dear Annie: I'm really struggling with how to handle my daughter's relationship. She's in her early 20s and is smart, funny and ambitious. I'm so proud of her. But I just can't seem to get behind her boyfriend.

He's not unkind, but he's ... aimless. He can't seem to hold down a steady job, he leans on her emotionally (and sometimes ...Read more

Asking Eric: After job loss comes shame and meddlesome advice

Life Advice / Asking Eric /

Dear Eric: I had a bad falling out from a very toxic job a few months ago. Since it ended, I’ve been dealing with feelings of shame and betrayal, but I’m doing what I can to clean the fallout from my brain. I’m in therapy, I’ve taken up some new hobbies, and I’m reconnecting with old friends. I’m taking some time off from full-time ...Read more

Procrastination Today Could Cost Me Tomorrow

Life Advice / Dear Annie /

Dear Annie: I have a job I love, but I'm at risk of losing it because I'm lazy and I procrastinate. My job is mostly autonomous, which makes it a little too easy to put things off and not work hard -- but now it's catching up to me.

Do you have any advice on how I can become a harder, more proactive worker before it's too late? -- Lazy in ...Read more

Asking Eric: Son family treats parents’ house like a storage unit

Life Advice / Asking Eric /

Dear Eric: My wife and I uprooted from our rural community and bought a home to be nearer our grown children who had both settled near the city. Soon after, our son and his family of four and a dog lost their housing as their rental situation failed after the landowner passed away.

Of course, we took them in and several months later they found ...Read more

Keeping Hope Alive After a Family Rift

Life Advice / Dear Annie /

Dear Annie: I'm struggling with how to move forward after my adult daughter, "Rachel," cut me off two years ago. We used to be close. I raised her as a single mom after her father left, and we leaned on each other through a lot. Things started to change after she got married. Her husband, though polite, has always kept a distance from me. I ...Read more

Single File: Cohabitation Quiz

Life Advice / Single File /

Let's take a summer break from the usual, same-old (yawn) essay format and sprinkle some questions about living together as a lifestyle choice and (quite possibly) rebellion against marriage. My nationwide survey saw it coming, this fast-growing option, but no one could have predicted its overwhelming numbers. As it turns out, this extra-legal ...Read more

Olena Tieriekhova/Dreamstime/TNS

I'm the only one asking questions!

Life Advice / Dating Advice /

In online dating, I often see two competing factors:

1. People genuinely want to meet someone great (or at least they think they do).

2. People are lazy and don’t take the time to do online dating well … or at all.

This conversation happened to a client of mine (the woman in this exchange) on Bumble:

Her: Do you still drink iced coffee ...Read more

TNS

Ask Anna: My boyfriend just met my ex-hookup -- now he won't talk to me

Life Advice / Dating Advice /

Dear Anna,

I was 23 when I finally got my own place. There was this attractive guy who lived down the hall from me and we had some flirty exchanges that eventually led to a hookup. Just a one-time thing, and afterward we'd only exchange quick hellos if we ran into each other. A few months later, I met my current boyfriend, who I've been with ...Read more

Millennial Life: From Ghost Stories to Gatekeeping: Millennials and the New Wave of Book Bans

Starting at about second grade, when the novelty of reading about a family of bears started to wear off, I inhaled ghost stories. One of my favorites was "Wait Till Helen Comes" by Mary Downing Hahn. It was about dead kids, dead parents, and, the cherry on top of a trauma sundae, navigating a blended family.

I was lucky as a child. I didn't ...Read more

Single File: Chairman of the Board

Life Advice / Single File /

Agreed, the month of May is the usual time for tributes to moms' indispensable role. But mine is an off-season paean to those women who -- by some inscrutable twist of fate -- find themselves Chairman of the Board, responsible for every decision in their husbandless household. Why now, and why them? Because while motherhood is sacred in America,...Read more

Sarcasm and online dating: A tough pair

Life Advice / Dating Advice /

We’ve all been there: Someone we don’t know extremely well—maybe a work colleague or friend of a friend—sends a biting text that immediately causes you to raise your eyebrows. You may ask friends, “Hey...what do you think this means?” Internally, you’re debating whether you should ever talk to this person again ... or if it was ...Read more

Nikuwka/Dreamstime/TNS

Ask Anna: Love after baby -- Mother's Day advice for exhausted new parents

Life Advice / Dating Advice /

Dear Anna,

My husband and I welcomed our beautiful daughter six months ago, and while we're absolutely in love with her, I feel like my husband and I are just ships passing in the night. Between diaper changes, feedings and sleep deprivation, our relationship has taken a backseat. Date nights seem like a distant memory, and when we do have a ...Read more

Single File: What If or As If?

Life Advice / Single File /

Years ago, during my single-mom-and-widow phase, fear was very much the biggest part of my emotional baggage. A whole family of what-ifs would wake me in the middle of the night and start droning their litany of fear. What if my son never again has a father? What if I get sick and can't care for him? What if that nice man I just met doesn't call...Read more

7vect0r/Dreamstime/TNS

Straight talk on the small (but often stressful) stuff

Life Advice / Dating Advice /

Whether you're navigating first-date logistics or attempting to decide dating app behavior, dating today comes with a thousand tiny decisions that can leave you second-guessing.

I get these kinds of questions all the time, so here’s a roundup of real scenarios — with my unfiltered takes — on how to handle them. Spoiler: None of these ...Read more

 

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