Relationships Talk

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Q. The affair of the necklace: I recently found out that my husband of five years has been cheating on me for about two years. Of course I am angry and devastated. I kicked him out, got tested, and have started divorce proceedings. This should be pretty cut and dried, but there’s a catch. Over the last two years, he has been taking pieces of my jewelry and giving them to his mistresses. Normally I would just call it a wash, since he bought most of the jewelry. But one of the items he swiped was an heirloom necklace passed down from my grandmother. I know which mistress has the necklace because my idiot ex posted pictures of her wearing it on Facebook. I am not sure if I should go confront them myself or call the police, as doing so might risk them destroying the necklace—or if I should instead just speak to my lawyer and hope he can make them bring the necklace back. Please advise!

A: I think speaking to your lawyer first is your best bet. You may need to file a claim and report the necklace stolen, but there’s no harm in talking to your divorce lawyer first and discussing the best way to go about getting it back. Take screenshots of the pictures you’ve seen on Facebook so you have a record of the theft. I’m so sorry you’re going through this, and I hope it’s some small consolation that at least your soon-to-be ex-husband was foolish enough to leave an obvious trail of his theft.

Q. Just an incubator: After a traumatic birth that resulted in an emergency cesarean section under general anesthesia, my newborn daughter ended up in the neonatal intensive care unit for evaluation. As I was waking up from surgery, my husband was at my side telling me details about our new baby girl, who I desperately wanted to be with. She was doing well but needed to be monitored for a few hours, and because I was immobile in a hospital bed, I couldn’t go see her. My husband asked if his parents, who were in the waiting room, could go visit our daughter in the NICU. I told him no, I’d like to meet her first. He asked again, explaining that they may have to wait for hours. I said no, I wasn’t comfortable with that. He asked one more time, and I was so exhausted from the birth that I just said, “Do whatever you want,” so that I could get some rest. He went off to the NICU, and the next thing I remember was being in my hospital bed, alone, receiving texts from my father-in-law containing photos of my brand-new baby girl being held by my in-laws. Prudence, it broke my heart. In that moment I felt alone, empty, and discarded by my husband.

My daughter was brought to me four hours later—she was perfect and is the joy of my life. I can’t, however, seem to find it in myself to forgive my husband or his parents for what transpired on the day she was born. In the year since this incident, I have pulled back greatly from my in-laws as they continued to intrude upon our nuclear family in the months following the birth. This has caused great strain in my marriage. How do I get past this? How do I forgive my husband for steamrolling me during one of my most vulnerable moments? How do I spend time with my in-laws, who treated me like nothing but an incubator for their precious grandchild?

A: It would be one thing if the day of your daughter’s birth was simply a one-off episode you couldn’t get past, but it sounds like it’s part of a larger pattern that doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. If you’re trying to pull back from your in-laws but they’re continuing to intrude on your family, it doesn’t sound like you have your husband’s support, and that’s a significant issue. It’s certainly admirable to want to forgive your husband for his behavior that day, and to try not to let the events around your daughter’s birth affect the time you spend with your in-laws, but you don’t say that he’s apologized or given any sign that he understands why you felt pressured, hurt, and abandoned. It may be that before you forgive him you need to have a harder, more intensive conversation about how he hurt you that day, and to agree upon limits you can set as a team with his parents.

How to Get Advice From Prudie:

• Send questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

• Join the live chat Mondays at noon. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the discussion.

• Call the voicemail of the Dear Prudence podcast at 401-371-DEAR (3327) to hear your question answered on a future episode of the show.

Q. A porn star doppelgänger: I have found a porn star that looks a lot like my girlfriend. I have watched her videos often. I want to show my girlfriend her “twin.” Do you think that’s a bad idea?

A: I suppose my answer depends on the following: Do you and your girlfriend have a history of talking about porn with one another? Do you think she would be flattered or interested? Do you think she would get anything out of this conversation, or do you think you would find it erotically charged and are overwriting her feelings with yours? Are you pretending that she might like something you like so you don’t have to take responsibility for expressing your own desires? Have you prepared yourself for how you’ll handle it if your girlfriend is not impressed and is in fact turned off or even hurt by this revelation? What will you do if you say, “I’d like to show you a porn actress who I think looks like you?” and your girlfriend says, “No thanks, I’d rather not”? What will you do if your girlfriend does not see the resemblance? There are a lot of questions you’ll need to answer for yourself before you decide to bring this up with her, and I can’t possibly answer them for you. (Good luck figuring all this out!)

Q. Money: My husband and I lost our only child when he died at age 6. One of the ways we consoled ourselves was getting involved in the lives of our nieces, my sister-in-law’s children. We ended up paying for much of their extracurricular activities and their college. My other sister-in-law is currently over 40 and pregnant. She has loudly made it known that she has bankrupted herself to get here and that she expects my husband and me to pay for any future college costs. We plan on retiring in five years, and we have nothing saved for this pregnancy. Frankly I think it is gauche to expect us to pay. My sister-in-law made the choice to proceed without a partner; that has nothing to do with us. My husband is a soft touch. How do I deal with this?

A: I agree that it’s gauche and rude for your sister-in-law to announce that she expects you and your husband to pay for her unborn child’s college tuition. I also think it’s unnecessarily judgmental for you to decide her child isn’t worth supporting in the same way you’ve supported the other children in your family simply because your sister-in-law is a single mother. I think the stronger case for not giving her money comes from the fact that you don’t have any money saved for this relatively unexpected pregnancy, not because she’s a single parent over 40. You say your husband is a “soft touch,” and while you two don’t have anything set aside for this child, it also doesn’t sound like he’s completely closed off the possibility of giving something. So I think your first step is to talk to him. If your preference would be to give nothing and his preference would be to give something, you two should agree on a workable compromise before talking to your sister-in-law.

Whatever the amount, even if it’s nothing, you certainly don’t have to explain or justify why it may be less than what you’ve been able to give in the past. If she is rude enough to ask, simply say that this is all you’re able to give without risking your own retirement, and leave her status as a single parent out of it.

Q. Loan: I foolishly cosigned a loan with my niece so she could go to college. My sister has extremely bad credit and couldn’t afford it. She begged me to “give her baby a chance at a better life.” My niece has always done well academically but is very self-centered. She promptly failed out and stopped making payments on the loan. My sister made every excuse in the book—never has a girl had a more harrowing tale of bad luck. But when I called my niece, I got the truth—the loan was “your problem, not mine.” My sister continued to make up excuses, and I flat-out told her she had raised a little monster and was a bad mother.

We haven’t spoken for four years. I paid off the loan with my savings. Now out of the blue, I have received a wedding invitation from my niece. Included was a handwritten note saying that we have been apart far too long and that she wants me there on her special day. No apology. I am torn. Is this an olive branch or another money grab? It also included directions to their registry.

A: It certainly may be an olive branch; the question is whether these terms your niece is proffering feel sufficient for you to try again. Would you be interested in re-establishing a relationship, even a casual one, without an apology or ever seeing any repayment of the money you lost? If you think it’s possible, albeit difficult, then you might consider attending (and buying the cheapest thing on the registry). You might also respond to the invitation and say that you’re excited for her, that you also miss her, but that you still feel pain over the way she dismissed your feelings and significant financial loss, and that you would want to meet to talk about it before resuming a relationship.

Q. Not enough hours in the day: I’ve got a wonderful life and family—I absolutely can’t complain! I have two small children, a career I enjoy with great benefits, and a husband who still loves and adores me after over 10 years together. My only problem is that my husband and I are completely out of sync when it comes to our sex life. After a full day of work, taking care of two energetic children, and keeping up with the day-to-day chores around the house (which my husband does help with), I’m totally exhausted! He’s raring to go once the kids have gone to bed, while I just want to be left alone. I’m an introvert as well, and having some quiet time alone helps me recharge. He sometimes takes this as a personal affront, especially when the only quality time the two of us get together comes in the evenings. How do I balance my needs with my husband’s? It feels silly to schedule sexy time, but is that what it’s come down to?

A: Based on the day-to-day responsibilities you’ve described, I don’t think it’s especially unreasonable to schedule sex—you’re really busy! Moreover, you say that your husband does “help with” the day-to-day chores, which is all well and good, but certainly frames the upkeep of your home as primarily your responsibility, with your husband filling in on an ad hoc basis. At least part of the problem may lie in this attitude. If your husband has this much energy at the end of the day, then he can put some of it to good use by stepping up around the house instead of seeing you as the director and himself as the occasional assistant.

Q. Hair today, gone tomorrow: I know most people write in with roommates who are too dirty, but I’m living with someone who is very clean. I’m not a messy person and consider myself a pretty considerate roommate. I’ve noticed over time that this person will rearrange the bottles I keep on the bathroom sink to be, I guess, in her preferred order (we share a sink but have a fairly big vanity with our own sides to it). And this is just one example of the ongoing organization she does to everyone’s things. Tonight I was brushing my hair when my phone rang. I left my brush on the vanity with the idea that I’d resume once the call was done. In that time, she cleaned out my hairbrush. Removed every last hair. I have long, thick hair, so my brushes aren’t normally pristine, but I feel a weird mix of a boundary crossed and embarrassment that she must think I’m messy or gross! I normally put the brush away after use. It’s not like it’s been out for days.

I’ve never had a roommate act like this. I’ve mentioned wanting to help her keep things clean several times, but she always just wordlessly does these things. I get always cleaning the counters, but organizing my things and cleaning out my personal items is so strange! How can I keep both of us sane for the next year?

A: Ask your roommate not to touch your things. Tell her that if she notices something that’s out of place, she should ask you to put it away yourself, and that you don’t want her cleaning your hairbrushes or rearranging your toiletries. That’s a perfectly reasonable limit for you to set, and you should draw a clear line between regular tidying up and unnecessarily touching your private effects.

Q. Re: The affair of the necklace: This could very well become a “he said, she said” affair. Not only should you get screen grabs of the mistress wearing the necklace, you should get any photos you have of yourself, your mum, and your grandmother wearing the necklace that predate the mistress, to prove that you once had it in your possession. Otherwise he can just claim you saw the necklace on Facebook and decided you want it as payback. Any documentation you have of the necklace from before your marriage will go a long way.

A: A man who’s willing to give your grandmother’s necklace to someone he’s having an affair with is also a man who’s probably willing to lie about how he got it—that’s a great point, thank you.

Q. Regifted wedding: My parents had a courthouse wedding when they were teenagers. They scrimped and saved and always put their kids first. I am the oldest and engaged. My boyfriend and I already co-own a home and have three dogs. Both of us hate being in the limelight. We have saved for a wedding but neither of us are excited for it, and honestly we hate doing wedding-y things. We have the basics booked right now—a date, a place, food, etc. And it happens to be in the same week as my parents’ wedding anniversary. I joked with my fiancé that we should let my parents take over the spotlight since they never got a real wedding of their own—he looked me dead in the eye and said let’s do it. He was serious. And I got excited. My fiancé has no family other than his estranged father. He adores mine. We have the money and all my parents’ friends and family are coming anyway. Why not give my parents the dream they want when we are only fulfilling it because of social obligation?

We haven’t offered it to my parents yet. I told my siblings, only to get told off by my younger sister. This was “weird” and “grandstanding.” You can’t have a wedding if you are already married. It is against the rules. She was vehement about it. My brothers were supportive, but my sister’s objection left me shaken. Would I be violating some wedding directive with this idea? Yes, my fiancé and I shouldn’t have gotten this deep in, but we did, we want to get out, and why not let my parents enjoy it? My mother never got to wear a white dress or get nice pictures taken. My father never danced with his bride in celebration with everyone he loves around him. Are my fiancé and I doing something wrong if we offer this to my parents?

A: I don’t know that it’s wrong, exactly, but if you do make this offer, you should do so with zero expectations and grant your parents total freedom to decline. It sounds like at least some of this idea stems from your discomfort with the sort of wedding you’ve planned for yourself. If your parents appreciate the gesture but don’t really want to inherit a full-scale wedding from you, let them decline and find another way to honor the ways they’ve sacrificed for you and your siblings—book them a couples’ massage, or help them plan a vacation, or write them a thoughtful letter about how much you appreciate them. You say “why not give my parents the dream they want,” but I’m not sure this is the dream they want. It may be, of course, and if so, don’t worry too much about your sister’s idea of what married couples are allowed to do. But make the offer casually, and let them say no thanks without any pushback if they’re not interested.

Daniel Mallory Ortberg: Thanks, everyone! See you next week.

If you missed Part 1 of this week’s chat, click here to read it.

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Vintage Dear Prudence

Q. Anti-aunt: When my husband was 16, he began an affair with his aunt, his mother’s brother’s wife. She was 35, and I believe she took advantage of him and lured him into an affair when her marriage was falling apart. They remained in a relationship for 10 years. He ended it six years ago. We have been together for three years and have young children. He told me about this affair before we were serious, and he said it had been true love. Now he has deep guilt and regret. At times he has even wondered how he got so lucky with our family given his “great sin.” The problem is that because he is close with his cousins, his aunt’s children, she still has access to our lives. I have no reason to believe he is in contact with her. But he asked me to accept his cousins’ friend requests on Facebook, which I did and now regret. I am really struggling with all of this. I want to delete his cousins and asked him to delete them, but he says they are his cousins and he can’t. We have fought about this several times. Am I being crazy? Even deleting them would not guarantee she will be gone from the picture. I’m seriously confused and losing faith in us.

And find even more letters in the Dear Prudie archive.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Thinkstock.

Daniel Mallory Ortberg is online weekly to chat live with readers. Here’s an edited transcript of this week’s chat. 

Ortberg: Good morning, dear hearts and gentle people. Let’s get chatting.

Q. Not getting any: My husband of four years and I have an open relationship and date people separately. Lately, he has been fairly successful in dating, whereas I have not. I am happy for him, but I also feel jealous and angry that I am not having similar results. To compound things, our sex life has dwindled. He works evenings and is always tired when I initiate—which I totally believe!—but it leaves me feeling depressed and unwanted.

We have talked openly about these issues, and are trying to work through them together, but I am still struggling. Do you have any advice? I want to be able to be happy for my husband, instead of focusing on my own perceived struggles. I also wonder whether my dates notice that I’m not overly happy or enthusiastic, and how that could be compounding my dating troubles. I’m not sure how to advocate for myself while simultaneously treating my husband with kindness. I don’t want to nag or put undue stress on him, but I want to feel loved and desired! Can you help me sort this out?

A: I don’t think it’s putting undue stress on your husband—who is your partner in life, open relationship or no—to be honest about your struggles and to ask for the support you need. It’s great that you’ve been able to talk about your feelings with him thus far, and I think you two should discuss what you could do as a couple to prioritize the sex life the two of you have together right now. It’s great that he’s had success dating, but if his professional and personal schedule is so jam-packed right now that he doesn’t have time or energy to sleep with you, then that success comes at the cost of his primary relationship. An open marriage can’t possibly work if the “marriage” part takes a back seat to the “open” part. Scaling back, or even temporarily hitting pause, on his outside dating life so that you two can refocus on each other may go a long way toward relieving your stress and feelings of being unwanted.

Q. Changing his religion: When we first met, my husband and I connected on the notion that no one religion has it all right. When we got married, in my church, we agreed we would raise the kids in my religion so they had at least a foundation of some faith. We weren’t regular churchgoers, but went to mine when we did go. Two years ago, my husband reconnected with the religion of his youth and has become quite devout. His strengthened spirituality is not the issue. The problem is that he now “hates” my religion. He has adopted a very fundamental view of the Bible, which has made it extremely difficult to talk about anything but the weather. Our kids are now in their preteen and teenage years. Although he doesn’t typically speak against my faith in front of them, he definitely tries to convert them.

Our world has been turned upside down. I’m afraid to divorce him because he’ll only have more alone time to try to convert the kids. And we agree the kids would not handle a divorce well. When the kids go off to college, they would be adults and free to choose their own spiritual path and probably more able to handle their parents’ split. But how do I get through the next few years until then?

A: If the only reason you’re not pursuing a divorce right now is the fear that your husband will have more alone time with your children to try to convert them, then I’m not sure that spending the next six to eight years under the same roof is going to be a sustainable option. It’s true that divorce can be very hard on children, but in some cases, where the breakdown of the marriage relationship is total and impossible to disguise, acknowledging the split can sometimes be a relief, rather than merely distressing. That said, if you’re totally committed to waiting to divorce until your children are off at college, I think couples counseling will help you agree upon, at the very least, some rules for co-parenting. If your husband isn’t willing to go, go by yourself so you can figure out the limits you want to set. Make it clear to your children that they’re under no obligation to choose sides or to adopt a religion of any kind, and feel free to disengage from any religious debates your husband may want to rope you into.

I think the likeliest outcome is not that your husband will successfully convert your children to his particular brand of religiosity—it doesn’t sound at all attractive based on what you’ve described—but that he’ll completely alienate them. You say he’s now almost incapable of discussing anything but the weather without trying to connect the conversation to his newfound fundamentalism, and I can only imagine your children feel like they no longer have their father’s interest or attention unless it’s on his terms. Check in with them to see how they feel about religion being such a frequent topic of conversation, and make sure you can spend at least some time together where you talk only about secular things. If you eventually find that it’s not possible to do so and stay married to this man, I hope you’ll let yourself consider separation as an option.

How to Get Advice From Prudie:

• Send questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

• Join the live chat Mondays at noon. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the discussion.

• Call the voicemail of the Dear Prudence podcast at 401-371-DEAR (3327) to hear your question answered on a future episode of the show.

Q. Troubled sister, how to let her be an aunt: My 31-year-old sister is three weeks out from a monthlong stay at a psychiatric hospital for an extreme manic episode, consisting of extreme paranoia and delusions, including thinking everyone were Nazis. This is her first hospitalization, although she has a history of addiction, anxiety, and being overall difficult. Since leaving the hospital, she has not yet seen a psychiatrist, therapist, or been to a support group despite recommendations and encouragement. She has no job and might lose her apartment.

The reason I’m writing is my two girls, ages 6 and 2-and-a-half, who normally have a relationship with my sister. My sister wants to see them very badly, despite extreme emotional swings, and despite having sent me cruel and emotionally abusive texts on multiple occasions, unprovoked. She called my children “spoiled” and said she feels nothing for the younger one but feels like she gave birth to my older one. My therapist has advised me to hold off on allowing her to see them, but I am getting pressure from not only my sister but my mother as well. We tried to video chat, and my sister had an extreme trigger upon seeing my mother’s helper doing some dishes, so I’m not sure whether an in-person visit makes sense. How can I protect my two children from a potentially unhealthy situation but still somehow facilitate a relationship with my sister? Is this possible?

A: I think the most important thing for you to do is to separate out your own (perfectly understandable) concerns and resentments about your sister’s behavior toward you from the question of whether you think she can handle a supervised visit with the kids. Whether or not she’s able to keep her apartment or has a history of being anxious or difficult seems less important than what her most recent trigger response looked like when she saw your mother’s helper, or what “feeling nothing” for your younger child might look like in practice. Your sister is dealing with some extreme challenges right now, and I think you need to find some age-appropriate, non-stigmatizing, and non-judgmental ways you can speak to your children about their aunt. If any readers have experience trying to contextualize and explain serious mental health issues to their children, please let us know what’s been helpful to you in the comments. It may also help to plan, with the help of your therapist, how you would handle a visit with your sister if she had a trigger response or experienced a delusion, and under what circumstances you would cut a conversation short. That way you can go in with a plan, one that gives you a strong sense of what distinguishes discomfort from an actual lack of safety. Don’t let yourself be pressured by your mother’s preferences, and only plan a visit or conversation when you think the time is right.

Q. Is this cheating?: I just discovered that my (allegedly) monogamous partner of 24 years has been using Tinder to “chat” with others to “feel good about himself.” In today’s digital age, is this considered cheating? It is in my mind, but I’m wondering what the rest of you think. If it matters, Tinder was installed on a hidden secure drive—with a biometric unlock! (He forgot to hide the notifications, and I saw “Tinder: content hidden” pop up on his phone.) This is totally hinky, right? “Just to chat” is bullshit, right?

A: I think there are plenty of people who use dating apps primarily to bolster their own egos and remind themselves that they could land a date tonight if they wanted to, so I think there’s at least a possibility that your partner hasn’t actually gone out with or slept with any of the people he’s chatting with. (It’s also possible that he’s “trickle-truthing” you—i.e., there’s more to the story.) That said, it is entirely hinky that your partner has been using a dating app on a hidden drive and hasn’t talked to you about it, and you have every right to be upset about it, to ask questions, to feel as if your trust has been violated, and to object to the practice.

Q. Don’t actually want to be a whistleblower: In less than a month, I’m starting my second year at a small nonprofit. Last year, I got myself in hot water a few times by questioning certain practices that don’t align with my understanding of best practices and state regulations. There’s a very strict hierarchy, and I was very careful not to go over my direct supervisor’s head, but I did end up in an administrator’s office getting dressed down so hard I ended up having a panic attack and sobbing in my car before pulling it together for my shift. Previous experience I’ve had in similar positions leads me to believe that I am in the right to push some of these issues. But again, it’s a small, gossipy staff. and I’m already in danger of being branded a troublemaker.

This will be my last year in any case. Should I put in an anonymous call to the state and get us audited? There are definitely some violations going on. Should I continue to follow the proper procedures, to bring my concerns forward, even though previous efforts have burned me pretty badly? Should I try to keep my head down and just go home happy at the end of the day?

A: If the violations are such that you think you could go home happy at the end of the day without reporting them, then that’s certainly an option worth considering. If the violations could potentially endanger someone’s life or well-being, then that’s another question. Only you can answer that, of course, since I don’t know the specifics, but I think it’s worth asking yourself, what’s the absolute worst possible result that could arise from these conditions, and do I consider it serious enough to make an anonymous audit request after my previous attempts have failed?

Q. Re: Troubled sister, how to let her be an aunt: While I don’t know the sister’s medical status, it’s important to keep in mind that many psych meds take longer than four weeks to fully kick in. Your sister doesn’t sound stable. She might not even remember certain events, like saying that about your youngest. It’s important for her to demonstrate stability before she sees your kids. She can do that by following her care plan and being compliant with her meds. We had this situation in my family, and waiting for stability was the right call because our loved one also wasn’t following care plans and soon required a second hospitalization.

A: This is a helpful perspective. I can imagine that right now things feel deeply fraught and time-sensitive, and that if the letter writer’s sister isn’t able to see the children immediately, she may regard it as a referendum on her character or ability to be a part of her family members’ lives. But feelings aren’t necessarily reality in this case. Delaying a visit by a few weeks or months, and sticking to video chats in the meantime, is absolutely a viable option. You shouldn’t try to rush a visit before your sister is ready just because emotions are currently running high.

Q. Too much modern family: I’m a 28-year-old woman who’s been best friends with “Colin” since we were in fifth grade. Colin’s married to “Jim” and has an adopted 7-year-old called “Rose.” He lives several states away, but we visit at least once or twice per year. When Colin comes to see me it’s great, but when I go to see him we spend too much time with his family. Jim and Rose get included in all our activities, and it really bums me out not to spend quality time with Colin. It’s not that I dislike his family, but Colin is my real friend and I want to see him not them.

I’ve tried to suggest that he and I do things alone, but he says it would hurt Jim and Rose’s feelings. Now he wants to come and visit and bring Jim and Rose. They’re not staying with me, so I don’t really see how I can say no. Do you have any suggestions? I don’t want to be mean, but I don’t want to spend the entire visit talking to Jim and watching out for a small child. Can you give me a script for this?

A: I can’t, I’m afraid. You can’t ask someone to detach from their spouse and child just because you like them better, especially when it comes to taking a vacation. I understand that your friendship with Colin extends back to your childhood and that you feel a proprietary sort of connection with him, but just because you’ve known him since the fifth grade doesn’t mean you can ask him to periodically turn his family off and go back to being the unattached, free time–having single person you once knew. It would be one thing if you were asking him to occasionally get lunch together one-on-one, but there is no polite or reasonable way for you to ask him to travel without his husband and daughter. Your childhood friend now comes with a husband and child, and there’s no way around that.

Q. Re: Changing his religion: Please, seriously consider what it would do to your mental health to remain in a relationship with someone who no longer respects your choices in faith and is frequently trying to convert you and your kids. I was in a relationship with someone that also had a pretty “fundamental view of the Bible,” and knowing he felt the need to convert me eroded my self-esteem. I also felt drained trying to talk him out of extreme funks, which he experienced because he was daunted by the task of “saving” all our friends. You may think you can do it, but at the very least, consider that your kids need to be shown that it’s not OK for someone to be so disrespectful of their faith choices.

A: At the very least, I think the letter writer should feel she has the right to ask her husband to stop attempting to convert her. I don’t know what the children’s responses have been, but if they’ve expressed discomfort with his conversion attempts, it’s also fair to ask him to leave them alone. It’s one thing to express your religious views to your children and seek to ground them in an awareness of your faith tradition. It’s quite another to pressure them to adopt your own faith after they’ve declined to do so.

Discuss this column with Dear Prudence on his Facebook page!

More Dear Prudence

• I’m Worried My Daughter’s Boyfriend Is Gay. How Do I Tell Her?

• My Girlfriend Got Wasted and Made a Horrible First Impression With My Parents.

• My Husband Lost $20,000 Making Secret Bets on Sports.

• My Cousin Is Telling People I’m the Father of Her Unborn Child.

And find even more letters in the Dear Prudie archive.

After 13 years of marriage, I have learned that a lot of the old school advice about marital bliss is basically bullshit. For example, the way to my man’s heart, as it turns out, is not through his stomach but through me shoving an ice-cold drink in his hand and telling him to go mow the lawn for four hours. That is his happy time and I don’t judge. You know what else is bad advice? When couples are told to never go to bed angry. To that I say, fluff your pillow and rage sleep because your marriage may depend on it.

My husband and I have had more dumb arguments late into the night over everything from money to sex to polarizing ideas about who gets to control the TV remote. From the beginning of our marriage, we operated under that precious notion that if we kiss and makeup before bed then the next day would be bliss. Or something like that. But what really happens is that one of us ends up feeling bitter while the other one feels like the victor.

At some point, we stopped trying to keep the bliss and on occasion one of us would be marooned on the couch for a night of unhappy dreams. And for us, that means a happy marriage.

It turns out that when we back away from fighting and go to our separate corners to cool off, we can each vent with some flaming hot rage thought bubbles to get all the anger out first. Because, when I call my husband a jackass in my head, I’m not saying it to his face and his feelings aren’t being hurt. While we are busy cooling our vitriolic arguments, kinder and saner words start to form. Compassion takes hold and I can see my husband’s argument in a rational way.

The next day – or sometimes several days later, because let’s get real, marital spats sometimes take a while to settle down – we talk like civilized adults and work out problems out no matter how small or complicated they may have seemed when our emotions got in the way.

Marriage is hard. Sometimes I look at my husband I think that I will surely suffocate before we reach old age. And sometimes I feel like I am 26 again and falling in love all over again. The one rule that I have adopted in this big adventure is that there are never any rules that make sense forever. Our lives changed when we got a mortgage, then it changed again when we had kids, and now that we are entering our 40’s more changes are coming. Going to bed happy because we settled a stupid argument just doesn’t always register on our scale of what’s important anymore.

When my children are grown and should they choose to settle down with a partner, I plan to tell them that always being honest and kind is more important than always keeping the peace. Growth spurts and real wisdom don’t come from keeping the peace, they come from the experience of figuring out how to live with a person who doesn’t always think and feel the same way you do. Finding ways to co-exist can mean getting really creative and tossing out that antiquated advice crap.

As our 14^th anniversary comes into view, I feel blessed and lucky that my husband and I are still solid. But we are not the same people who fell in love a decade and a half ago. The kinds of arguments we have now had less to do with personal comforts like who sleeps on what side of the bed (I won that one many years ago) and more about the problems of raising kids, being good neighbors, and worrying over our future.

Marriage advice comes from a well-meaning place of love and good intent but sometimes the advice itself is just no damn good. My husband and I will keep making up the rules as we go because we love each other and we want to keep building a life together. And that’s about as solid as it can get.