Dear Queenie,
My parents are always ready to babysit for their next-door neighbors, but they won’t even take our kids – their grandchildren – for an afternoon. They always say they are too busy, and once they said our children are too much for them to handle.
Queenie, we think family should be more important than neighbors. And what do we tell our kids when they ask to visit their grandparents?—Offended
Dear Offended,
Do you ever take your children to visit their grandparents with you, when you are there to look after – and control – the children? Perhaps your parents meant what they said: that without you present your children are too rambunctious for them to control.
Dear Queenie,
I’m going on 35 and I’m beginning to worry that I’ll never get married.
Queenie, how do I go about finding someone to share the rest of my life with?—Still single
Dear Still single,
Stop thinking about every man you meet as a potential husband. Just try to make new friends. And do not chase after attractive men – let them chase after you. If you are lucky, someone will find you to share his life with. If that does not happen, at least you will still have lived a full, productive life.
Dear Queenie,
My mother-in-law lives with us and she loves to cook so she prepares all our meals. This has always been a big help because my husband and I both have full-time jobs.
The problem is that recently her cooking is not so good. She will make the food hours before we are going to eat, so it sits there on the stove until mealtime, and she cooks things too long until they are almost burnt and hard to eat. If she doesn’t have the right ingredients or can’t remember them, she uses substitutes that usually don’t work very well.
We don’t want to talk to her about this for fear of offending her.
Queenie, what should we do?—Worried daughter-in-law
Dear Daughter-in-law,
The first thing to do is to take your mother-in-law for a complete physical and mental check-up. She may be showing signs of dementia and things might get worse to the point that she would not remember what to do if something caught on fire.
It also might be a good idea for you all to prepare your evening meals together. If she does not want the “company”, you could put it to her to that you want to learn how to cook as well as she does.
Dear Queenie,
I love my girlfriend but her house is one big mess and I can’t stand it, so we spend all our time together at my house. She even makes jokes about what a terrible housekeeper she is, so we have talked about it but things don’t change.
Queenie, can we make things go right if we are so different?—Neat-freak boyfriend
Dear Boyfriend,
If you do not belittle your girlfriend or expect her to change her housekeeping ways you can make things work as they have up to now – each of you has your own place and she visits you at your house.
However, if you ever want to live together you will have to expect to hire someone to do the cleaning and housekeeping, and she will have to expect to learn to live in a well-kept, tidy environment.
Dear Queenie,
My husband and I have been married for about 25 years and things have gotten real boring. There isn’t any passion or romance like we used to have.
We don’t want to go on like this for the rest of our lives, but we don’t want to be like enemies if we get a divorce. I think we could still stay friends, especially because we have children, but my husband doesn’t think so.
Queenie, how can we keep our marriage going, or stay friends if we get divorced?—Middle-aged housewife
Dear Housewife,
There is a good reason for the phrasing of the marriage vows – “for better or worse, … until death do us part”.
Things change in any relationship, especially after children come along, and basically you have promised to adapt to whatever happens and stay together for the rest of your lives. Maintaining a good relationship requires effort and the ability to adjust to those changes.
However, if you decide to get divorced you can still stay friends, even if you only do so for your children’s sake. It may not be easy, but it can be done if you both make the effort.
