Dear Queenie,
My boyfriend grew up in a family that didn’t believe in celebrating holidays and special occasions like birthdays. He enjoys parties and such as long as they are not related to a holiday or anything like that.
Queenie, would it be okay for me to ask him to join me on certain occasions just for the fun of it without bothering about the possible meaning of it all?—Traditional girlfriend
Dear Girlfriend,
You can ask him to do so, but do not be surprised if he will not. It would be like asking a fish to trade its scales for feathers.
If you cannot accept his attitude and live with it happily, look for someone who feels the same way you do about such matters.
Dear Queenie,
A friend of mine was a sex addict. I knew about it but didn’t say anything to anybody. Eventually he was caught having sex with an underage girl and was sent to prison, but I am certain this just happened once and usually he had sex with adult women.
Maybe if I had told someone he could have been made to get treatment for his problem before he got into so much trouble.
Queenie, how can I apologise to his family and everyone else who knew him and didn’t know about his problem?—Sad friend
Dear Friend,
There is no way you can apologise to your friend or anyone else for not doing anything about his problem before he got into trouble on account of it. That is over and done with, and it is too late to matter what you say now.
Perhaps professional counselling would help you understand how you could have let all this happen, and help you learn to deal with your own problems.
Dear Queenie,
My grown-up son lives with us and sometimes he brings his girlfriend to our house for a visit, but she spends the whole time in his room and never even speaks to us. Even if she stays the whole night she stays in the room she is sleeping in and he fixes her meals and they eat together in her room.
I don’t like the way she behaves toward us, but I don’t want to interfere in my son’s relationship.
Queenie, how can she be so rude, and what can we do?—Ignored parents
Dear Parents,
Your son’s girlfriend may be not so much rude as terribly shy, or she may never have been taught good manners.
Either way, you should talk to your son about this. Maybe he can help his girlfriend relate to you better.
Dear Queenie,
I know someone who has a habit of correcting other people if they make a grammatical mistake or use a wrong word when they are talking.
Queenie, aren’t they being very rude? And should I say something about it?—Offended
Dear Offended,
If they are doing this in public when the other person is talking, yes, it is very rude.
To avoid being rude yourself, talk to them about it – tactfully! – in private, and hope they listen to what you have to say (without correcting any mistakes you may make, I hope!).
Dear Queenie,
My husband used to be healthy and active but now he is sick and it weakens him so he can’t do the things he used to do to keep busy and it makes him feel depressed.
He depends on me to keep him busy and I can hardly go out to run errands without him getting even more depressed. We can’t afford for him to go into a nursing home and he doesn’t have any family living near us.
I try to stay busy, but I feel trapped.
Queenie, what can I do?—Depressed wife
Dear Wife,
There are community organisations that offer services like district nursing and home visitation that could give you some relief. You could arrange with one or more of them for home visits for your husband, which would give him someone to socialise with besides you, and then you could use the time they give you to follow some interests of your own.
You could also talk to your husband’s doctor. There might be some medication he could prescribe to relieve both your husband’s physical and mental problems.
