Dear Queenie,
An old friend is visiting the island and he invited me out to lunch to talk about old times and catch up on what we have been doing. We won’t be doing anything wrong, but I didn’t tell my husband because he is very jealous and would have a fit if he knew and I don’t think he will ever find out.
Queenie, do you think he would be right to be mad at me?—Uncertain wife
Dear Wife,
If you are keeping it a secret from your husband you are going behind his back, which is a betrayal of trust, and he would have a right to be angry. How would you like it if he did something like this to you?
Why not ask your husband to join you and the old friend – and the old friend’s wife, if he is married? If the spouses are bored stiff, at least they will know you are being honest with them. And who knows? It might turn out to be a four-way friendship.
Dear Queenie,
I was out with a friend and we met this guy and she said she really liked him, so I made myself scarce and let her get better acquainted with him, but the next time I happened to meet up with him he asked me for a date and I went out with him. Now she’s mad at me for stealing him from her.
Queenie, did I do wrong? Should I back off and let her have him?—Feeling guilty
Dear Feeling guilty,
There is no reason for you to feel guilty. The fact that your friend liked this man does not mean he felt the same way about her, and I doubt that he would have turned to your friend if you had refused to date him. More likely, neither of you would ever have seen him again.
Dear Queenie,
My wife and I have some problems that we can’t seem to solve by talking to each other. I want to go for counselling, but she refuses because she won’t discuss private matters with someone else. But at the same time she tells her mother everything that goes on between us and asks her for advice.
Queenie, is it wrong of me to feel she violated my confidence by talking to her mother about our private matters when she won’t go to a counsellor?—Offended husband
Dear Husband,
Your wife does not consider her mother to be “someone else,” but more like an extension of herself to whom she has been taking her troubles all her life. Try to explain to your wife that to you her mother is just as much “someone else” as a counsellor would be.
And if you cannot make your wife understand your point of view, go for counselling without her for help in learning to deal with those problems you mentioned.
Dear Queenie,
What do you say to someone who is showing off something new, like clothes or a piece of jewelry or whatever, and you think it’s just plain ugly or vulgar or cheap?
Queenie, are you supposed to lie to spare their feelings?—Etty Ket
Dear Etty Ket,
Remember that old saying, “If you cannot say something nice, do not say anything at all”?
But usually you can find something nice to say, like the clothes fit well or are a pretty colour, or the jewellery really sparkles or shines in that light, or the cheap whatever-it-is must have been a real bargain.
Dear Queenie,
My boyfriend talks about the most private things to anyone who will listen. I don’t care when it’s his things he talks about, but when it’s stuff that should be private just between the two of us, like what we do in the bedroom, I get upset. He always apologises for upsetting me, but he still does it again and again.
Queenie, how can I get him to respect my feelings?—Embarrassed
Dear Embarrassed,
Your boyfriend does this to get attention and if he knows it upsets you and he still does it he is not likely to change. You will have to decide whether you are willing to put up with this kind of treatment – and him.
If you want to really let him know how this makes you feel, you can get some revenge by chiming in on his next embarrassing recital with something embarrassing about him – like how he can’t “get it up” in the bedroom without help, for example. But if you do this, be prepared for him to get upset with you – and maybe, if you are lucky, dump you.
