Dear Queenie,
My husband has a good job, so I don’t need to get a job to bring in more money. I spend my days keeping house and taking care of our children and doing volunteer work with a community group.
My husband thinks our house should be perfectly neat all the time and says I should spend less time volunteering and more time keeping the house clean, even though it is already perfectly clean and neat. I think he is being unrealistic.
Queenie, can you advise anything besides professional counselling?—Busy wife
Dear Wife,
All I can advise is professional counselling – for your husband, not for you. What he expects from you seems to be unrealistic at best, possibly controlling or even abusive at worst.
Dear Queenie,
When I was little my mother’s boyfriend molested me. I told my mother and she broke up with him, but after a while they got together again and he molested me again and this time she stayed with him. In fact, they’re still together to this day.
Now I’m grown up and married and I have children of my own and I told my mother she can see the children when she visits us but I won’t let them go to her house as long as she is still with that man and since then we haven’t seen her at all.
Queenie, why would a woman choose a sexual predator over her own child and grandchildren?—Offended daughter
Dear Daughter,
Your mother is so afraid of being alone that her man is more important to her than anything else, including her daughter’s welfare.
The most important thing for you is to protect your children from the man who molested you. If your mother complains about not seeing her grandchildren, be sure to tell her – again and again, if necessary – exactly why it is so and that it will stay that way as long as she is with him in any way.
Dear Queenie,
I sent a relative a nice gift for their birthday and I got a nice thank you note from them, but it was for the wrong gift.
Queenie, should I just be glad they wrote a thank you note, or should I say something about it being for the wrong gift, and if so, what should I say?—Thank You Note Etty Ket
Dear Etty Ket,
If you were thanked for the wrong gift, probably someone else was too. It would be a good idea to tell the note-sender – gently, politely – so they can correct the mistake with the other person(s).
Dear Queenie,
My mother was a great cook and she left a notebook filled with all her recipes. Now we can’t decide who should get the cookbook.
Queenie, what do you suggest?—Oldest sister
Dear Sister,
These days that should not be a problem. Scan or make photocopies of the notebook and give a copy to everyone who wants one. And be sure to save the scan or a few copies in case someone else decides later on that they want one too.
Dear Queenie,
There’s this person I work with that I like a lot and I think they like me too and I would like to ask them to go out with me.
Queenie, what do you think about people who work together going out together if there aren’t any rules against it where they work?—Interested co-worker
Dear Co-worker,
Romance in the workplace can be distracting and make it hard for everyone concerned to concentrate on the job, and if things do not work out well it can cause real problems getting the work done.
Personally, I am not for it, but aside from that, you should abide by the rules of your workplace if there are any.
