How do I tell my lovely boss she stinks? She’s a smoker and while, of course, she doesn’t smoke inside the building, she does outside during work hours. Sometimes she comes in to talk to me right after she’s had a cigarette and smells just awful. And the awful smell lingers.
I guess smokers don’t realize how they smell right after they’ve had a cigarette. She’s a great boss and a wonderful person. Is there a way I can politely ask her not to come see me until it’s been at least 10 minutes after she’s had a cigarette?

—Hates Cigarette Smoke

After four years together, my partner and I recently tied the knot in a small, intimate family wedding. However, despite our efforts to create a joyous atmosphere, unexpected family tensions cast a shadow over our special day. Following our first dance, we invited guests to help us clear some space for dancing, but unfortunately, some misunderstood and began leaving prematurely, inadvertently signaling the end of the celebration. Despite our attempts to clarify, the damage was done, and many departed swiftly. Soon after, my husband’s father became upset and left abruptly, while his mother remained distant for the rest of the evening, leaving my husband feeling overwhelmed with guilt. This unfortunate turn of events has left us both saddened and unsure of how to navigate the aftermath. The stress of the situation, especially in light of my pregnancy, has left me reevaluating how I envision future interactions with my in-laws and how I want to raise our child within this family dynamic. My husband keeps asking if he was at fault for this? I am absolutely certain that regardless of what happened, his parents should have never acted in the way they did, but I might also be biased.

—Distressed Bride

My best friend, “S,” is engaged to another friend, “E.” S and E have been together for about two and a half years, and are planning to get married in October 2025. I am generally friends with both, but was friends with S first, and am much closer to S. Since the beginning of their relationship, S and E have had communication issues and have had really high highs and low lows. They are in couples counseling. I don’t think they should get married. I’ve been against it the whole time they’ve been engaged. They both have disabilities that clash, and often make it difficult to live together (for example, E needs a clean space but S can’t maintain spaces, S is over-stimulated by loud noises and E mostly makes loud noises to show affection), and have very different communication styles. I know I can’t tell them to break up. But being around them, together or separately, recently has been driving me bananas, and I become unpleasant and unkind. How do I separate myself, while also still supporting my best friend? I care about both of them a lot and want them to be happy, but I also want to be happy.

—Friend in the Middle

I’m in my sister-in-law’s wedding in three weeks. When she first selected her bridesmaids eight months ago, she sent all the websites for the dresses and said we could pick any dress that was a certain length, material, and color she selected. She said she’d like to know which we picked, but it wasn’t for approval, she just wanted to know. I immediately let her know two I was going to order to determine which I preferred, and would return the other. I ordered the recommended four months out. I definitely liked one more than the other, so I let my SIL know which dress I was keeping, took it to get altered for length, and returned the other within the refund time frame. Yesterday, my SIL texted me saying someone else had selected the same dress as me and she didn’t want any duplicates, so could I please swap and wear the other one I had ordered? I said, unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to since I’d already returned it and gotten my dress altered.

She lost it. She started yelling about how she just wanted everyone to be in a different dress and since I’d picked out two, it shouldn’t be a problem for me to switch. I said if I still had both, I would switch, but that it wasn’t an option anymore. She told me I needed to reorder the other dress to wear. I told her I would be glad to if she was going to pay for the dress and the rush production and shipping fee that would now be required and be OK with it just being pinned since there wouldn’t be time to alter it. She told me if I couldn’t get the dress, I didn’t need to be involved in the wedding. I replied that I thought maybe that was for the best and that I’d just attend as a guest. She told me no, if I wasn’t up there as a bridesmaid, I didn’t need to be there at all. I know she’s being ridiculous, but do I need to just give in to keep the family peace? I can afford the dress and fees, so that’s not actually an issue.

—Just Give Her What She Wants

My husband and I own our house while his ex lives in an apartment complex. My 8-year-old stepson spends half his time with us so his laundry adds up pretty quickly (we have our own washer and dryer while his mom uses a laundromat). His mom has always found it difficult to accept my presence, despite the fact I have been in my stepson’s life since he was a toddler. They broke up before the baby was even born, but his ex tried to win my husband back several times through increasingly desperate means (she has shown up drunk at my mother-in-law’s place screaming and crying that they were meant to be together). She seemed to calm down after our wedding two years ago, but we recently announced our pregnancy.

Now, her dirty underwear is making its way into the laundry my stepson brings home. The first time, I figured it was a mistake and tossed the thong into the trash, but by the fourth time, the pattern was clear. It is just so bizarre. I haven’t mentioned it to my husband and just keep throwing the items away. What should I do here? I mean, eventually, she is going to run out of underwear, but I worry she will start to escalate to get a reaction here. She has done so in the past and I really don’t want to deal with this during my pregnancy.

—Dirty Laundry

My adult sister has been dating a man for about three years. I’ve met him twice, largely because I moved out of state a little after they started dating. I moved back in September. I got her boyfriend a gift certificate for Christmas and she responded that it was inappropriate to buy a gift for him and that I was further wrong for “crossing boundaries”. She’s never informed me of this “boundary, ”and when I brought this up she mentioned that it was “common practice” and known to be poor taste (to give a gift to your sister’s significant other). What does etiquette have to say about this situation?

—Befuddled Gift Giver

A year ago, my boyfriend’s adult daughter sent me photo evidence of her father on a dating site for married men. He had used the service while married in the past. Naturally, he denied it, but I found credit card activity that proved otherwise. I have asked for more transparency (credit card statements, unlocked cell phone) but he refuses. I fear I’m being taken for a fool. What are my options?

—Trusting to a Fault

Low stakes question: My husband and I have been together for over 45 years. We have different senses of humor; I’m more dry-witted and he’s more slapstick. Most of the time it works, but sometimes he says or does something that I don’t find at all funny. He’s waiting for my laugh and I sit in silence. He’s hurt/mad that I’m not amused, and I’m amazed he thinks what he said or did is even mildly funny. Do I need to laugh at everything he says? Is there a better way to handle this? After all this time, you’d think it wouldn’t cause problems but somehow this can turn into a huge argument.

—That’s Just Not Amusing

I have a friend who comes over weekly to watch Jeopardy and have dinner with my wife and me. I rarely see this person outside of our one day a week meeting, but she has many different groups of friends and she’s constantly talking about them and showing me pictures and videos about their times together. I really like her, but I feel very envious of the fun things she does without ever receiving an invite to participate. I don’t really understand this compartmentalization of her friends who circle each other but never meet. I’ve even told her that it makes me feel bad to hear about the fun she’s having and not be invited, but she doesn’t seem to get it. I don’t want to stop our weekly visits, I really do enjoy her company. Do you have any suggestions on how I can swallow my envy and just enjoy her for what she is without feeling sad about being excluded?

—Friends with Friends

I’ve been married for a year and a half and need help determining if it’s time to cut my losses and divorce. My marriage has not been what I thought it would be, by any stretch. My husband and I fought all the time in the lead-up to our wedding (grappling with insomnia, a family estrangement, financial challenges, etc.). I’d hoped things would get better after the wedding—we enjoyed periods of consistent joy earlier in our relationship and I was excited to get back to that—only that consistency has never returned. We’ve had some good days, and what feels like far more bad days. We still fight all the time. He’s been laid off twice since our wedding, unemployed for more than half of the time we’ve been married. His resulting self-esteem crisis has left me in a marriage that feels like it’s hanging on by a thread.

I just want to consistently feel loved and supported, and while I know my husband does love and care for me, his inability to bring his best self to our marriage with any degree of consistency has been devastating. I feel alone. I know he’s trying to do better—he’s in therapy, has expressed how much he wants to show up for me, etc.—but I’m tired of being unhappy. I can’t stand the thought of waking up to another day of unhappiness. To add complexity, I’m nearing the age where I need to have children if I ever want to have them. I still love my husband and ideally want to have children with him, but I can’t imagine taking that next step with him when we haven’t even had the chance to enjoy our marriage, just the two of us.
What should I do?

—Running Out of Hope

When I was in kindergarten, I had a rat tail hairstyle that my mom was very into, but the other kids made fun of me about it, and eventually I decided to get my hair cut. My mom was very sad about it at the time and decided to save the long lock of hair after it was cut. She’s kept it in a chest for about 30 years now, but as she’s planning to move out of her current house, she mailed me three big boxes of photo albums, random school work, etc., and in one of the boxes was my rat tail, sandwiched in a scrapbook! What do I do with a 30-year-old rat tail? I don’t feel right throwing it away, but I’m very creeped out.

—Distressed Former Rat Tail Owner

I am a rather neat, clean, and organized person, but he’s making me feel like I’m some stupid slob with all his corrections about cleaning. Yesterday he came in while I was vacuuming and started criticizing the path I was taking throughout the house to vacuum as it is different than his and his “obviously” makes much more sense. I have tried to have conversations with him about all of this where I have pointed out that I know he was raised with very stringent rules and consequences for not following them, but I wasn’t so I am not going to have the same background, experience, knowledge, etc. he does. I have also tried to point out that just because I accomplish some tasks differently from him, it doesn’t mean that it is wrong as long as the overall goal is accomplished. He mostly took that as criticism of his family and the way he was raised. I haven’t unpacked my last couple of boxes and, honestly, I’m thinking about not doing it and just looking for a place on my own again and breaking up with him. Our relationship was great before we moved in together, but I just don’t think I can live with this level of criticism and oversight over basic daily habits. Is there a different approach I’m missing to discuss this with him, or is it just a major mismatch between us that I need to walk away from?

—Clean, But Not His Way

I have been friends with another attorney for several years now. We both graduated law school about the same time and practiced in the same field of law. During and after the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, her employer couldn’t pay a full-time salary and moved her to a part-time position. My friend was increasingly frustrated by this and her unhappiness soon dominated our conversations. Once it became apparent that this was not a temporary problem, I suggested that she change employers. She took my advice but in the year since then, she hasn’t been able to hold down a job. She has a good resume and hasn’t had a problem getting hired at good, well-paying positions in her field, but she seems to self-sabotage at each position. She constantly puts down her own abilities and, according to her, she often refuses to do things her employers ask, claiming that she doesn’t know enough to do them.

I find this distressing because, from my interactions with her, it seems like she does know enough to do these things and has the capacity to pick up new skills with relatively little training, but she seems unwilling to push herself to do so. She also seems to have personal conflicts with people at each of the positions she has worked at, some of which sound justified and some of which do not. Throughout this time. I have tried to be supportive and offer practical advice when asked, but I don’t think I have done much good for her.

Recently, she has become very upset, as some of her relatives who had been providing her housing and covering some of her expenses have told her that they will not be able to continue to do this indefinitely and have advised her to start making arrangements to live on her own. My friend has been worried about her future since and has been catastrophizing. Now, she’s suggesting that she could move in with me. In the past I had told her that she was always welcome to stay on my couch if she needed to, but this was always meant as a short-term solution to help get over a crisis for like a month or so. I really don’t want to have to take care of a 35-year-old woman indefinitely.

There will be a position opening up at my office soon, and I’m pretty sure I can get her hired if I recommend her. However, it is very similar to one of the positions she was recently fired from. I personally think that she has the capacity to do it and feel like if I just assisted her in finding her feet with it that it could work out. I asked her if she wanted me to put her name forward and she was non-committal and said that she didn’t think she could last at it and wouldn’t want to embarrass me I feel guilty that things have worked out so poorly for her after following my advice, and I feel the job could be a good opportunity for her, but I also don’t want to set her up for failure by pushing her into taking a position that she lacks the confidence to do. I also really don’t want a roommate at my age. Any ideas on how to resolve this?

—Bad Advice Giver

My wife and I are both high-income earners (top 1 percent in the U.S.) and we are both almost-millionaires. I recently quit my job to recover from burnout and to work on a solo project. My wife agreed to this plan because the project has the potential to free us from corporate life by generating a significant amount of passive income. I’ve set a deadline for myself to go back to a corporate job by the end of the year if the project is not successful. Since the project timeline is relatively long, I want to work sustainably to avoid burnout. After prioritizing sleep, exercise, nutrition, and mental health, I end up working around five hours a day on this project (including weekends when we have no plans).

My wife has told me that she is not satisfied with the number of hours I am working. This disagreement has led to a couple of bad fights. Her “ideal husband” “works hard.” She is afraid I won’t be able to deal with the chaos of kids in the future. Granted, I am working less than the standard 40 hours per week. But it’s not like I’m doing nothing; I have a deadline and I make consistent progress every week. I will also note that I still pay my share of all expenses and we still maintain a similar lifestyle as before. To use a Reddit-ism, am I the asshole?

—Lazy Husband

I lost the love of my life to homicide when I was 20. We’d been together since childhood. I’ve dated occasionally after a lot of goading and years of counseling to try to get my life back together, but I just don’t feel that connection with anyone else. I’m in my late 30s and happy in a successful career. I left the area where we grew up shortly after it happened, and recently, I’ve started coming back for business. Every time I run into someone I knew or my parents knew, I’m asked why I’m not married with kids yet. I’ve tried to be polite with my responses, but the questions and badgering don’t stop. I even wear my ring. How do I get people to leave me alone about not having a corporeal husband and stop trying to pawn me off on someone’s never-married nephew?

—Forever Married to My Love

My husband Joe and I have been having problems in our marriage for a while, even though we’ve only been married for a few years. It came to a head when my Dad died and he wouldn’t come with me to the funeral… because his friend had a gig at a comedy festival that weekend. So I buried my Dad, got drunk in the family home alone (my mom and brother died in a car accident a few years ago so it’s just me left), and when one of the neighbors I grew up with came around to give his condolences … I cheated on Joe. I felt really bad about it once I sobered up, as it’s not something I’d ever expect of myself. I went home early, told Joe, and it’s been a lot ever since.

He wants to forgive me, but he gets angry and mistrustful a lot. There’s a lot of fighting. He doesn’t think he has anything to work on other than forgiving me. Any attempt to point out anything he has done that wasn’t great for our relationship is seen as an excuse. Maybe it is. We recently started therapy and our therapist said there would be a lot of anger, distrust, reassurances, and hard work for years to come. Is it really awful that I don’t want that? Maybe if we’d been great before, I could see it being worth it, but spending years grating myself raw against Joe’s anger just to climb back to the not that great relationship we had before seems masochistic. Worse, at least masochists get off.

I’m not enjoying this. I want to go home and move into my Dad’s old house instead of selling it. My job’s remote, so it wouldn’t be a problem. It just seems like Joe should get to be the one to dump me. Not the other way around. (And for the record, I’ve no desire to get back together with the guy I cheated with. I was not incapacitated, but I was pretty drunk and very sad and it seems gross for someone to leverage that into sex.)

—Isn’t It His Turn to Make the Call?

Am I wrong to expect support from pregnant and new-mom friends? A few years ago, I received a series of devastating blows: a complex health diagnosis that meant I would likely not be able to have children, plus I had to move in with my aging mother to become her caretaker. My friends have been sympathetic, but that was about it. No offers to drive me to appointments, no extra calls or hangouts to check in or take my mind off matters. I think they just didn’t know what to say or how to act around me and I fell off the radar as they were consumed with their own busy lives. I empathize. Still, it was a lonely experience.

Fast forward, now these friends are pregnant or new moms. It feels unfair to be celebrating their upward life momentum when I have been robbed of so much. I’m being invited to showers and kids’ birthday parties and while I’m happy for them, I can’t get over a sense of injustice; that my pain was never adequately acknowledged, yet I’m expected to show up to their events and shower them with gifts. I know they are entering new life stages that are incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and stressful. I, too, am in a new life stage. But I can’t help but see their phase as one that still has so much happiness and societal celebration…while mine is anything but. I don’t know how to express myself on this issue without it seeming like I’m centering someone else’s joy around my own issues. How do I get over this? Is it on me to do so?

—Pity Party for One

I’m a mom with a young son and we enjoy visiting the library together. The children’s librarian is very sweet and I get the sense this is her first job in the field (she is young and seems a little overwhelmed, but does a nice job in the children’s department). After a recent storytime, another parent pulled me aside and asked if I saw “what had happened.” Admittedly, my son was being a little squirmy that day so my focus was on him more than the story/activities, so when I asked, the other mom told me that the librarian, who was wearing a short-ish dress, had been sitting in the chair with her knees apart and (to paraphrase more politely what this mom said) was revealing more than she should have.

(I’m honestly not sure if she was saying she wasn’t wearing underwear… that would be crazy, right?) Between juggling my son and the turn the conversation took, I was completely taken aback and didn’t ask any follow-up questions in the moment. I did see that the librarian was wearing a sundress but didn’t see the revealing moment(s) myself, although I could see it easily happening if she wasn’t paying attention to how she was sitting.

The other mom apparently went to another library employee and complained but I don’t know if it was addressed in any way. The librarian still wears similar clothing to work but I haven’t seen anything inappropriate in the few interactions we’ve had with her since then (we’ve been back to pick out books but storytime was on a break for a few weeks so we haven’t seen her in that context since).

It looks like storytime is going to start up again in a few weeks and I’d like to take my son. But what do I do if the problem continues? I don’t want to embarrass this poor young lady, and I’d think this would be something you’d want to hear from a supervisor rather than a random library visitor, but I don’t even know how to talk to the manager without drawing attention to myself having this conversation since it’s a small library. I also don’t trust the original upset mom not to make a scene if she returns. I see no reason to stop going to this library, as it has a lot of great offerings and is super conveniently located. I don’t have an issue with the librarian otherwise, but it feels like a potentially fraught situation that I want to handle respectfully and appropriately (and without making me someone whom library employees side-eye or hate). Do I just have to handle this in one of those tough growing-up/learning about the world conversations with my son and leave the librarian alone?

—Storytime Snafu

I had a friend, “John,” with whom I was inseparable from 5th grade until junior year of college. I’ll probably never have a friend like that again. We were true friend soulmates. Long story short, he had a legitimate mental breakdown almost exactly 10 years ago, through which I completely supported him and his family. He sort of recovered normally, then promptly became ultra-religious out of nowhere. I, an unapologetic agnostic, tried not to let that get in the way of our friendship. I was a groomsman in his wedding, I never negatively commented on his belief system that I vehemently oppose, and I tried my best to support whatever life he felt he needed to live to be fulfilled.

But as you can imagine, it became difficult to relate to him about anything, given that the literal only thing he cared about was his faith. Our friendship waned, even though I still cared a lot for him. I am getting married in June and quarreled first with the notion of having him in the wedding party (which I quickly realized was a terrible idea) and settled on just simply inviting John and his wife. I knew he was not going to come. But when he sent me a letter of refusal asserting that this marriage was “fake” because it was not under the umbrella of his church, and how he would be unable to witness a sacrilegious event like my wedding, my blood began to boil, and I’m unsure how to proceed. I am completely fine completely closing the book on this relationship. But the urge to write him back and verbally tear him to shreds is growing by the minute.

—The Angry Agnostic

How do I deal with a chronic “one-upper” at work? No matter what I (or my co-workers) say, she will immediately let us know we are not at her level. If I discovered an awesome obscure pizza place on the weekend, she says she eats there every night and knows the owner. If I rent a lake house for a few days, she says she always rents a 10-bedroom mansion there because her great-grandfather discovered the lake and obviously, she owns half the beach, too. If a co-worker tells a story about how they broke their arm surfing when they were a kid, she says she broke both arms surfing when she was a kid, as well as four ribs, her collarbone, and five toes.

It’s a small office—we are kind of trapped together, and I love my job and I love my co-workers, but this is driving us crazy. The other hard part is that the higher-ups LOVE her. She is extremely charming with them and always compliments them. And she is not totally horrible at her job, but she’s not great at it either. She tends to do less work than everyone else but talks herself up like she’s running the show. I have also seen her take credit for other co-workers’ work, but she is so sneaky and calculated about it that we would look like we were not being “team players” if we called her out. Would you please offer some advice to help us get through each day with this exhausting woman?

—Not Down With the One Upper

At my (37F) last job, there was a woman on my team who was close to my age and we got along well. We went out to happy hours with our team, would grab lunch with other co-workers occasionally, and generally had a nice office friendship. Toward the end of my time at that office, she clearly wanted us to develop more of an out-of-office friendship and would invite me to dinner or drinks, just the two of us. Unfortunately, I found that I didn’t really enjoy her company one-on-one. She found an opportunity to complain about every topic that came up. “Oh, you went to Mexico? God, did I tell you about the time I got so sick in Puerto Vallarta?” “You’ve started meditating? I can’t sit that long, have I told you my lumbar thing is acting up again?” “You’re doing a home improvement project? I wish I could do something like that but my husband won’t lift a finger to help.” I tried to be empathetic and give her the benefit of the doubt for a couple of months, but her knack of turning even the best news or most benign comment into a 20-minute venting session became exhausting and I always left our interactions feeling drained.

So when I got a new job last year, I started a slow fade. We were never close friends and only hung out a handful of times outside of work, so it felt appropriate to just let things fizzle. She would text, and I would say I’m really slammed, maybe we can try to meet up when things are less hectic. After a couple of these interactions, she recently texted me, “Hey what gives, you don’t want to be friends anymore or something? Lol.” I didn’t know what to say. I tried to think of every version of, “You’re a nice person but I just don’t want to spend time with you” that I could, but everything seemed so harsh. Another issue is that she still works at my old company with many people who are friends and/or important professional connections of mine. She is actually an important professional connection too, and could easily be asked for her opinion of me by future clients, employers, etc.

I responded, “Haha, I know I wish I had more time for fun these days.” Not directly addressing her text, but not quite a lie. Then she responded, “So when can we get a drink? Even if it’s a month or two out, let’s just get it on the calendar!” I haven’t responded. What should I do? Is there any way to say I just don’t want to hang out with you anymore without it blowing up in my face? Should I see her once a quarter and just reframe it in my mind as a networking lunch?

—All Vented Out

Ten months ago, my first love and I started talking on the phone. We had not seen one another in 40 years. This has led to infrequent in-person visits. I have been married for 30+ years but my marriage is like living with a nice brother. The man I have been meeting has been seeing a woman every couple of months for 14 years. Long distances are involved, so travel is necessary. We love one another, I have been to his home, and have met his son. He has been open about the other woman. I originally thought that I would be okay with this, but I find that I am not. As the time approaches when he will see the other woman, I get anxious, worried, and jealous. I do not want to give him up, and he won’t give her up. How can I accept this and be content that he is back in my life?

—Perplexed

Four years ago, I struck up a close friendship with a neighbor just a few doors down. Our connection was instant: Our kids are the same age and adore each other as much as she and I do. But there’s a catch—she and her husband are pretty strict about his kids being supervised by only her. Even though we’re incredibly close and although I trust her with my kids, they won’t bend their rules, not even for me. I’ve offered to help out by watching her kids for a bit so she can catch a break, but she always insists she needs to be there. It’s a bit disheartening and honestly, it stings a little. I know that their hyper-vigilance is driven by fear of something happening to their kids, but honestly, you need to be able to trust at least some people in this world. Why refuse people who are trying to become your “village” in favor of isolation?

—Curiously Conflicted

I work in an IT role at a very large, well-known and selective university. My role is very “back of house,” and I have no interactions with students, and neither am I involved in student life, admissions, or academics at all. I’ve recently received several increasingly demanding messages (some via LinkedIn) and several directly to my work email from a student services counselor working at my previous institution—where I haven’t worked for six years! The messages demand that I set him and some of his advising students up with a tour, connect them with dining services (?), faculty, and provide him information on public transportation and “sights to see.” This is not a person that I know, outside of working for the same institution years ago. We weren’t even in the same department!

Not only is this not related at all to my job, I have no knowledge or connections with these types of functions. Regardless, based on how aggressive the emails are, I don’t want to assist in any way. The messages are poorly worded with a lot of typos and grammatical errors and demonstrate a shocking amount of ignorance as to how admissions work at private prestigious institutions. The first two I dismissed as spam, promptly blocking him from my socials, but the emails concern me, especially as he’s now cc’ing me into emails to other people. I don’t think he can get me into trouble, but I’m embarrassed by his pushiness, his ignorance, and the fact that he is trying to leverage a tenuous connection with me to push his agenda.

To clarify, he is not faculty, he works in some kind of student support role. Also, this is just gossip, but my friend (who still works at my past job and knows him) told me he has been in trouble in the past for sexual harassment and he has a history of pushing boundaries. I also found an interview with the university paper where he says “he doesn’t take no for an answer,” which is why I fear he’ll keep escalating. My husband thinks I should escalate to his boss; however, according to his institution directory, his immediate supervisor position is vacant. I want him to leave me alone. Obviously, I’m not going to gatekeep how he interacts with my current institution—that’s not my business. I just want him to stop messaging me. I’ve gone over every type of response in my head and continuing to send the messages to spam and blocking where I can seems the best course of action.

—De-Tour De Farce