Should I End My Four-Year Affair With My Mother-In-Law, And Other Advice Column Questions
There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists (and subreddits) addressed in recent days.
Should I End My Four-Year Affair With My Mother-In-Law?
I'm a 34-year-old man with a superb wife. We've been married eight years, and things are great between us. The problem is my mother-in-law. I'm sleeping with her.
She is an incredibly attractive woman and still in her prime. She and my wife look like sisters. But my mother-in-law knows a thing or two more than her daughter in the bedroom.
This affair has been going on for four years now. It's getting hard to not want to be with her all the time, instead of just a couple days a week.
If this should come out, it will wreck two families, and I don't want that. But I think I'm falling or have already fallen in love with my mother-in-law. Plus, the sex is incredible. Any suggestions?
[Creators]
Annie Lane urges the letter writer to come clean to his wife and be prepared for his marriage to end. "As much as I try to encourage married couples to work through thick and thin, honestly, I can't see how someone could come back from this," she writes. "Your wife deserves to be in a loving, respectful relationship — and not stuck in whatever kind of sick game this is." Read the rest of her answer.
Should I Accede To My Husband's Demand For A Paternity Test For Any Child We Have?
My husband and I are trying for a baby. We've had many talks about parenthood and are mostly on the same page.
One part leaves me cold: He says he needs paternity tests for all our kids. Every aspect of our relationship is solid and wonderful except for this. We've never cheated on each other, but when he tells me he wants the test I feel like he doesn't trust me. He says that's not the case.
He says it's not "fair" that a mother always knows the baby is hers while the father can never be 100 percent sure.
I'm completely in love with my husband and want to have a child with him, but this is ruining the entire experience for us. I'm pregnant and I haven't even told him yet. I know he would be ecstatic and would love to know, but I feel none of this really matters until the paternity test — and then he can finally love our child, with proof it's his.
Am I overreacting? Should I just let him have the paternity test?
Carolyn Hax urges the letter writer to take steps to protect herself and her child from her husband's controlling and paranoid behavior. "Someone who has such an emotional need to get what he thinks he should get, who is ticked off at nature for not guaranteeing him fairness, is not well," she writes. "Seriously not well." Read the rest of her answer.
Is It OK That My Best Friend, Whom I Allowed To Move In With Me, Is Now Wearing My Underwear?
I'm single and live alone. My best friend from college recently got divorced and is in the process of building a house. I told him instead of getting a rental or moving in with his parents, to just stay with me. It's been great — he takes my dog for daily walks while I recover from a minor foot surgery, he cleans up after himself and even cooks really great meals.
However, one morning when I got up to eat breakfast, he was in the kitchen making coffee and I noticed he was wearing my underwear. I thought we may wear the same brand and style, so I asked if he was wearing my underwear and he said yes, he borrowed mine because he forgot to do laundry. He never gave them back and a few weeks ago, I caught him wearing them again when we were changing in the gym locker room. Is this a violation of bro code? To see someone else wearing my underwear pisses me off.
[Slate]
Danny M. Lavery takes issue with the "bro code" framing but validates the letter writer's annoyance. "[I]t's simply rude to borrow anyone's underwear without asking, and you're perfectly entitled to tell him to knock it off in no uncertain terms," he writes. Read the rest of his answer.
Am I A Jerk For Getting Mad At My Husband For Surprising Me With Unwanted Changes To My Heirloom Engagement Ring?
My husband and I didn't really have a spontaneous proposal, we just mutually agreed we wanted to get married on x date. I told him that for my engagement ring, I wanted to wear my late mom's. It's a simple gold band with a small diamond on its own. My husband wanted to add onto it and make it fancy but I honestly loved it as is and am not into big flashy jewelry. He reluctantly agreed and I started wearing it not long after…
Fast forward 10 years and our anniversary was a couple of weeks ago. I can't wear jewelry at work and we have 3 young kids, so I tend to not wear my rings anymore unless we're going out to eat or there's a special occasion. I keep both in my jewelry box. Every year for our anniversary (birthdays and Christmas too), we just flat out tell the other what we want so there's no confusion… I told him all I wanted was a new purse, sent him the link.
Come our anniversary … I notice my gift is smaller than a purse should be and open it. It's my engagement ring, but basically supersized. There's a few other diamonds and he added an inscription. The cost of all of this was way more than the $40 purse I wanted. I was in shock and asked him why he did that. He said to surprise me. I said that I liked the ring as is, it's been in my family for a few generations and he basically ruined it by glamming it up. He got upset and started calling me ungrateful, even though I've told him several times throughout the years that I don't like flashy rings and I wanted to keep it the same. He refused to tell me where he got it done, so I had to do some digging and paid for it to be mostly reverted into its original state, though they were wary about removing the inscription as the ring is so old. I did end up paying a hefty chunk.
My husband is continuing to call me ungrateful and says it was a present. I told him I didn't like it and he should've checked with me before making those changes. AITA?
The commenters on the r/AmItheAsshole subreddit vote that the letter writer is not the asshole here. "I have no idea why he didn't just get you a flashy anniversary ring if it matters to him that you have a flashy ring," one of them writes. "Damaging your family's heirloom for his ego makes no sense to me." Read the rest of their answers.
How Can I Get Married When Everyone In My Town Thinks My Fiancé Is A Bad Guy?
I just got engaged, and I couldn't be happier. But my fiance is referred to by the entire town as the "bad guy" because of his past. He's changed a lot, and I really want this to work out, but people come to me and say he's not marriage material, and they try to make us break up (one of his exes in particular).
He told me about his past, and I don't judge him for it because everyone has a past. He really wants to get married. How can we have a wedding without everyone knowing about it, especially our family?
[UExpress]
Abigail Van Buren cautions that there may be some truth in the entire town's opinion of the letter writer's fiancé. "Make your engagement long enough that your fiance has time to prove to your parents and the community that he is a changed man," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.
How Can I Get My Son's School To Stop Prioritizing Social Justice?
I write as a concerned parent of a fifth grader at a private school that appears to prioritize "social justice" over academic excellence. The school has brought in a consultant and now the kids are reading all this new woke literature, and at the expense of the classics we all grew up on, like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Most of the teachers and parents I talk with just want school to be school—not some kind of Maoist social reeducation. Who is this all for?
I'm a left-wing New York City Democrat. I believe strongly in equal rights for all people. And I think we've still got a ways to go when it comes to equality. But I don't want school to make my son feel bad just because he's white. It's not like he owned slaves. His great-great-great-grandparents were starving in Ireland during the time of slavery.
Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer argue that racial literacy will enhance rather than detract from the letter writer's son's education. "This isn't about making your son 'feel bad'; it's about educating him," they write. "If this curriculum is successful, kids won't leave feeling responsible for what happened in the past, but they will learn that they are responsible, moving forward, for what they do with whatever power they might have." Read the rest of their answer.
