I, along with my husband and our two kids (15-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son), am spending the entirety of their Christmas break traveling to visit various family members. We’re planning on visiting my 70-something father and his similarly aged girlfriend of several years, “Claire,” who he moved in with last year. He adores Claire and seems to have a new lease on life after my mom died 10 years ago, and I am very happy for him.

We plan to stay with them for three days. However, I have concerns about some of Claire’s decor (I have seen the house, my husband and children have not).

Claire was a burlesque dancer and model in her 20s and 30s. There are two relatively prominent topless photos of her in their living room, as well as a completely nude photo in the bathroom and guest bedroom. I would rather my children not be exposed to these photos. My daughter struggles with body dysmorphia, and she frequently criticizes herself and comments on other girls’ bodies who she considers to be more attractive than her. I’m confident that seeing nude photos of her step-grandma (who was very conventionally attractive) would make this visit tougher than it needs to be for her. My son, meanwhile, is a typical 13-year-old boy, and I suspect that these photos would lead to a lot of snickering and the horrifying (for all parties) possibility of him engaging in what all 13-year-old boys do.

I brought up these concerns with my father and requested that he and Claire take the photos down while we are staying with them. He talked to Claire, and they declined the request, saying that it’s Claire’s house and that he and Claire are happy to handle any issues that arise because of the photos. He has a great relationship with his grandchildren, and while I’m glad he’s open to these conversations, I don’t think he understands the extra stress something like this adds to what might already be a stressful vacation. I’m open to talking to Claire directly, but she doesn’t know the kids super well and has never had children of her own, so I don’t know how sympathetic she would be.

My husband has suggested that we just stay in a hotel, but we are already on a very tight budget, and we would be visiting their house anyway (it would be even more stressful to plan a three-day visit involving only seeing them outside of their house, especially during winter weather). I brought it up again with my father with the same result, and I’m growing resentful that he doesn’t seem to understand how important this is to us. Do you have any suggestions for convincing them to simply remove the photos for a few days? I’m happy to go in and do it myself and put them back up before we leave, so the task itself is not an excuse. Help!

—Mom of a Phone Fiend

I want to talk to Sara about getting braces within the next year or so. But when I brought this up to Jaime, they reacted as if I’d wanted to get Sara a nose job and liposuction. They said there’s nothing wrong with Sara’s teeth, and that our society’s expectations of perfect teeth are unhealthy. They said they would still have dated and fallen in love with me even if I’d had jacked-up teeth, which (knowing from extended family members how bad it could have been) I doubt. They said they refused to put Sara through years of pain and self-consciousness for mere cosmetic improvement. Jaime even said they did not want me saying a word to Sara about her teeth, and insinuated they would divorce me if I did. When I said fine, I’ll just have her braces seen to during my custody weeks, Jaime said they would have them removed every time they got Sara back, just to destroy my work.

We agreed to table the subject for now but are still in a state of tension. And I’m still worried that not doing something about Sara’s teeth while she’s young will hurt her socially and career-wise in the future, and be harder for her to fix herself amid adult responsibilities. Advice?

—On the Cuspid of Disaster

I’m a 28-year-old man, and my wife, who is 25, and I have been married for a bit over a year now. One thing is increasingly becoming a bit of a snag: kids.

About three years ago, we tried for a while to get pregnant, but it didn’t really happen. Then she changed her mind and told me she “liked her life as it was.” I was honestly fine either way. But now she keeps going on about how she “absolutely does not want to get pregnant,” due to the effects on her body. I absolutely do not want to adopt, which is a hill I will die on. I guess children aren’t something I wish for above all (maybe yet), but at this rate, the option might just not be there at all. Should I wait for her to change her mind or just accept that I likely will never be a dad?

—Potentially Childless

My husband (of many years) and I recently returned from a very enjoyable vacation. On the return car ride, out of the blue, he made the accusation, “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

He went on to criticize me for my behavior in one of the lovely restaurants we had visited. As we left after our meal, I briefly stopped at a nearby table to tell a woman that I had been admiring her dress and that it was beautiful. Her face lit up, and she thanked me. Her husband had a big smile, too, and he wished us a nice vacation. The whole interaction took less than 30 seconds, and I caught up with my husband to leave the restaurant. He described my behavior as intrusive and unwelcome, and said that it was embarrassing to be with me. I was stunned at his impression of the moment and said that she was clearly pleased by the compliment, to which he replied that she had no choice but to appear pleased.

I am a friendly, outgoing person in public, but am very aware of the cues people give that they do not welcome interaction, and I always respect those. My husband, though polite, is very reserved in public. I told him that we are very different in this way, and that neither of us is right or wrong, but that I am not going to change my outgoing nature simply because he is not. I confess that this incident has made me assess my willingness to travel with him. To me, part of the pleasure of traveling is the incidental connections you can have with people. Am I misunderstanding the etiquette of interacting with people in public?

My fiancé and I have been planning our wedding and want to keep it pretty traditional. We agree on almost everything, except when it comes to the wedding party and who’ll be in it. For context, we share a closely knit friend group consisting mostly of guys, which I don’t mind at all, but it means I don’t have my own group of girlfriends to be bridesmaids.

When discussing who we’d choose, my fiancé ‘claimed’ all of my close friends as the groomsmen and when I protested, he suggested I ask my friends from high school (who I haven’t spoken to in years) or my university friends (also all guys). I was taken aback by how unsympathetic he was, because he’s normally much more caring and considerate and this felt very out of character. It really upset me and I’ve avoided talking about it since.

As a kicker, my fiancé also has a best man lined up, but the person who I’d pick for mine is already one of the groomsmen. My position is that we either share everyone or forego the wedding party altogether, but I don’t know how to navigate such a non-traditional approach within an otherwise traditional wedding, especially in front of family members with a tendency to be judgmental. How do I untangle this mess so I can get on with the regular stress of wedding planning?

I went to Thanksgiving dinner at my ex-husband’s, along with my mother, because this was his year to have our two boys, ages 7 and 9, with him for the holiday, but we wanted to have the family together for them all the same. My mother is 70, and she carries a purse the size of a small suitcase wherever she goes. When we left, I was putting it in the trunk of my car and noticed it felt unusually heavy. I made a joke about her having enough stuff in there to survive for a month on a desert island, but didn’t think anything of it.

When we got home (my mother has mobility issues and lives with me), it was then that I discovered the reason why her purse was so heavy: She had pilfered a bottle of expensive cognac from my ex’s bar! When I confronted her, she said he had several of them and wouldn’t miss it, plus she saw nothing wrong “with a little compensation” for him breaking up the marriage. I am horrified and humiliated by my mother’s actions. My ex and I are finally on cordial terms, and I am afraid that if this comes to light, our relationship will be torpedoed. Based on that, would it be OK to look the other way in this one instance?

—Mortified by Mom’s Sticky Fingers

I got married this year to a man who is truly my best friend, after several years of wonderful dating. However, I’m still finding that I have a hard time turning off my “single brain,” even years after being out of the dating pool. I would never cheat, but I’ve always been a naturally flirtatious, romantic daydreamer. I just love men and it’s hard to head off little crushes and attractions, even to people I absolutely wouldn’t actually be compatible with if I’m being honest. I’m comfortable with the notion that yes, it is completely natural for adults in committed relationships to have these experiences and it doesn’t invalidate their long-term relationship, but it just feels more inappropriate and guilt-inducing now that I’m actually married. Any suggestions on tamping this down? I just feel like it has the potential to hurt my marriage in the long run!

Because of my childhood, a prenup is very important to me. My now-fiancé was married and divorced when he was very young, before we met. His ex-wife and his own family have been vocal about the belief that she got shortchanged in the divorce, which shocked me. He’s always been generous and open with me about money and everything else.

We make about the same now, but we plan on having kids, and I know that could skew my earning power. I want us both to have the ability to get out. To me, that means each having separate personal money outside our pooled shared funds, plus a clear prenup about how to divide assets if we do divorce. He has agreed on the shared funds/personal funds, but refuses to negotiate and sign a prenup. He argues that we’re just setting ourselves up for distrust and divorce. I love this man, but I’m ready to walk away over this. Is this unreasonable?

—Advance Planner

Of course, I wouldn’t be asking you for help if certain family members didn’t decide to develop main character syndrome and decide that this was the greatest insult that they have ever suffered. My husband has been very clear that anybody who has a problem with this can go, umm, fornicate themselves. I find that a very satisfying view, I even respect it, but these are people in our lives, and I am wondering if there is a better outcome to be had.

—They Can Go Fornicate Themselves

Last night on Thanksgiving, my wife and I split the wishbone, and I won. When she asked me what I wished for, my answer was for her to lose 10 pounds. She’s been furious with me since. I wasn’t trying to be mean—she’s been complaining that she needs to lose weight and what I meant was for her to be able to do it; it was just poorly phrased. I’ve tried to explain myself, but she thinks I’m trying to get out of trouble. Any ideas for smoothing this over?

I’m the child of a displaced non-white immigrant. In an effort to connect with my family’s culture, I cultivate an “exotic” fruit in my garden. Traditionally, this fruit is used in ceremonies and rites, so it has a spiritual aspect too.

This fruit is now in season, and strangers in my neighborhood are knocking on my door and leaving me notes asking if they can “have,” “try,” or “taste” these fruits. Some are even showing up with empty cartons to fill. These neighbors are not the neighbors who say “hi” to me—they are complete strangers. Furthermore, they are not asking to trade or barter, and they don’t seem to want to cultivate an ongoing friendship with me.

This behavior fills me with rage and conjures up the expectation that people like me are here to undertake low-cost agricultural labor or to selflessly share and patiently explain “exotic” cultural traditions. I also feel like they are treading upon my personal cultural practices—which have not been easy to establish or maintain given my isolation and the fact of my permanent separation from my familial homeland.

How do I tell these people to bug off without making them feel uncomfortable? I imagine telling them why I’m bothered (and I don’t think I should have to—because it is private), only for them to say “I had no idea you were not white and that this was not a secular thing for you.” But it’s pretty racist for them to make any such assumptions about who and what I am, right? Also, it’s interesting to note that my town is majority Black, but it’s only white strangers showing up at my door asking me to give them free stuff.

I’ve been friends with “Tania” for a long time. She is very anti-kid. Not just child-free—she doesn’t like children at all and will say so often. Some of it is pushback against gendered expectations in her family, which I sympathize with, e.g., she is expected to regularly care for her infant niece while her brothers and brothers-in-law (including the father!) are never handed a child and diaper bag the moment they’re through the door to visit. Still, her dislike of kids is extreme.

I have always wanted to be a mom, as she knows, and she acted happy for me when I got pregnant, even if there were plenty of jokes and comments about me ruining my life and sleep schedule forever. The problem is … now I don’t know how to talk to her like we used to.

She spent years complaining to me of her mom friends “prattling on about their rugrats,” meaning I’m unwilling to talk much or at all about my child to her. But I have a 6-month-old, and honestly, he takes up most of my life! If she asks how I am, it’s hard to answer without worrying that I’m “prattling on.” She always complained that she lost her friends when they became parents, and now I’m seeing why! I do have other things to talk about, and I’m in touch with other friends, but I feel so self-conscious with her now, and resent the feeling that the most wonderful thing in my life irritates her. But she has said she misses me, and I miss her. Can you advise on how to approach this? Do I tell her the truth and risk being another “baby-obsessed, self-absorbed mom” she complains about, or wait this out until I have more to talk about?

When we were teenagers, my grandmother gave her wedding dress to my sister “Opal” and me, stipulating that she could wear it at her wedding or pass it on to me, the younger sister.

I’m getting married next summer, and I decided I would wear my grandmother’s dress. It was then that I discovered that my sister had sold the dress a long time ago. She didn’t tell me anything about it. We had a huge fight when I found out. She argued that our grandmother gave the eldest sister the dress, and she had the right to do whatever she wanted with it. But it was always understood that if Opal didn’t wear the dress, it would be mine.

I’m so furious that I’ve decided I’m not inviting Opal to my wedding. Our parents are aghast. They’ve said she’s my sister, and I have to forgive her. Opal sent me a text saying she’ll buy me a vintage dress in the style of Grandma’s dress. But every time I think about a new dress, I break down in tears.

My sister and I are identical twins, but we grew up terrorizing each other. I was the girly girl, while she was on her way to a PhD in preschool. I had a learning disorder, and my sister would constantly correct people and say she wasn’t the ”stupid” one—I was.

My sister started the college track in ninth grade while I went to a middling school. Our parents did their best to treat us equally and celebrate our accomplishments, but you really can’t compare taking a beauty school test to getting a master’s at 21. I will admit I gave as good as I could get. If my sister were the smart one, I was the pretty one, which was stupid, as we were identical twins. I want to say we settled down and grew up to be close, but that would be a lie.

When I got married and was obsessed with all the details, our cousin jokingly called me a bridezilla, and my sister cut her off. She told her this was my big day, and it wasn’t like I accomplished anything else worth noting. This wasn’t the first or last time my sister said stuff like this. I have been married for 15 years and have two beautiful children. We used IVF and have a few embryos still left frozen.

My husband and I were debating whether to have a third child when my sister bulldozed in. She was ready to be a mom, had everything planned out, saved, and sorted, except her eggs weren’t viable. So the completely obvious solution was to give her our embryos!

We refused, and my sister threw a fit. I was apparently stealing her only chance to be a mother, and worse, my parents are on her side. They think that giving her the embryos costs us “nothing,” and we already have children, so I was denying my sister out of pure spite. I don’t know how I would feel if my sister bothered to ask rather than make a demand, but it was a demand and one that isn’t happening. My problem is that I am very afraid it might permanently poison my relationship with my parents. We were supposed to travel to their place for Christmas, but after all this, I am afraid to. Help!

I’m a single woman in my late 30s. I thought I was mostly done with the “wedding guest” stage of my life, but recently, there has been a huge second wave of engagements and weddings. During the “first wave” of weddings, I was in my 20s, unmarried but in relationships, and just assumed that it would be my turn eventually. It was easy for me to celebrate others’ love, after all, my marriage was just around the corner!

But that’s not how it turned out. I’ve been single for many years now. I’ve done everything they tell single women to do—I’ve gone to therapy, worked on myself, I have a vibrant social life, many hobbies, a good career, and so on. I’m not lonely or unfulfilled. But no amount of friends or hobbies can truly fill the void of a romantic partner (for someone who wants one). I have worked so hard to become a successful, kind, well-rounded person, and I am so ready for a serious romantic commitment, but it just hasn’t materialized.

I feel very fortunate that so many people value me enough to want me at their wedding, and while I am happy for my friends who are getting married, I have started to feel intense envy and despair. I want love and commitment so badly. I can put my feelings aside for the duration of the wedding, but without fail, I end up sobbing at home alone when it’s over.

I don’t want to be the bitter single friend. I’m also not naive enough to think that I’m guaranteed to find a partner—I know that it’s entirely possible that I won’t, so the typical “you’ll find love when you least expect it!” advice doesn’t work on me. How do I move past these ugly feelings so I can be truly happy for my friends who have found love?

​​I have two problems, probably two sides of the same coin. I hate always being the one who keeps friendships going. I have a group of friends that get together at the same time every year. I organize it. Everyone seems to have a great time. The couple of times I didn’t have time to organize it, it just didn’t happen. I have parties, BBQs, social outings from time to time and the house is full, and people stay late, etc. But I’m never invited to anything at anyone else’s house. I have friends that I’ve had since I was 6 or 7 years old and we treasure those friendships. But if I didn’t get us together or get the group text chat going, the friendships would have died. I’m OK being this guy. I just wish that SOMETIMES someone else would step up, or invite me to something.

Also, I hate “let’s grab lunch/coffee/drink sometime.” I never say this as just a polite thing to say. If I say, “let’s grab lunch,” I mean it. I’ll follow up. I felt stupid a few times when I followed up with people and realized the other person had never really wanted to have lunch/coffee/drink. If I’m not really into that person I just say, “It was great to see you. I hope your ‘whatever’ goes great.” I’m good at social cues at work. I know who is upset, bored, anxious etc. I’m good at that with my wife, friends, co-workers etc. But I seem to have a huge blind spot when it comes to acquaintances. I never seem to know when they want to socialize or when just saying hi is enough.

I haven’t had a party/BBQ, etc. at my house in a couple of years because I’m irritated at always being the one doing the inviting and wondering if everyone was coming because they had nothing better to do and didn’t really care about being friends. I really hate this. I’m a good friend to those who want it. I have about 10-12 people I keep in fairly close contact with, but my fear is that if I wasn’t the “glue,” as my wife puts it, I’d never hear from them again.

—Resenting Always Being the Glue

My husband “Mark” and I took our 5-year-old son, “Giacomo,” trick or treating for the first time last year (we opted not to prior to that because of COVID), but we realized pretty quickly that due to minimal streetlights, it didn’t feel super safe. Since there are still a lot of families on the street, this year, some other concerned neighbors and I decided to plan an afternoon trunk-or-treat for the weekend before Halloween. We advertised it throughout the neighborhood and on Next Door and were thrilled to get such a positive response from other families who wanted to join!

Unfortunately, I’m still processing how it actually turned out—all because of one family’s behavior.

While most of the groups participating had fully decorated trunks and were engaged with all the kids coming by, this family opted to turn it into more of a tailgate than a trunk-or-treat. While they did have a bowl of candy on a table out on the sidewalk for kids to take from, they spent most of the time ignoring the event in favor of grilling, playing music (which wasn’t even Halloween themed), and having a party, which included alcohol! While no one appeared outwardly intoxicated, we were shocked that the group was drinking beer and what I believe were hard seltzers in the middle of the day during an event for children.

We were distressed—Mark’s uncle was an alcoholic, which led him to be a lifelong teetotaler. He is highly aware of how triggering alcohol could be to someone with his family history and stays away from it as much as possible, which I respect. We planned for him to walk around with Giacomo while I handed out candy, but when we realized what was going on, he told me it was too upsetting for him and that he needed to leave completely. Since he was gone, Giacomo walked around with another family we are close with while I handed out candy.
While he seemed to have a good time, it was upsetting to me that after so much planning I couldn’t be with him to experience his first real Halloween.

My issue is this: Is it common for people to do this at these events? The other neighbors and I didn’t even think to mention it while advertising it, so while we didn’t explicitly say it was an alcohol-free event, I feel like they owe us an apology since we couldn’t participate fully as a family. I’m also concerned that they would just repeat this behavior next year even if told not to, so is it out of line to ask them not to participate at all? We don’t want to create animosity, but I also want to make the expectations for the event clear so everyone knows it’s not an opportunity to party. How should I proceed?

My partner of nearly 30 years and I recently got married. We had a catered ceremony and reception, and people treated it like a normal wedding and gave gifts, mostly of cash and checks. My new wife is keeping her last name. One of the guests made out a check to “Adam and Eve” (not our real names) with no last name on the check. We don’t need the money (which is among the reasons we got married), but I want to honor them and accept their gift. It feels very weird to ask for a new check. My inclination is to just toss it without comment, but then we can’t honor and accept their gift. Any ideas?

—Thank You for the Gift