Care and Feeding
Catch up on our many advice columns from the past week.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Liubomyr Vorona/iStock/Getty Images Plus and Maksym Rudoi/iStock/Getty Images Plus.
Slate publishes a lot of advice each week, so we’re pulling together a selection of our favorites. Here are a few of the most compelling questions from the week and links to hours of advice reading. This week: couch-sleeping husbands, grieving daughters-in-law, and opening marriages.
Dear Prudence
Just Come to Bed: This is one of those “my husband is great but…” questions. The “but” is he falls asleep on the couch sometimes. Not all, or even most, of the time but it tends to happen in waves where he will often for a week or two then won’t for several weeks. He has no problems with our bed in general. I am a light sleeper, typically waking up at every tiny sound (and with two young kids there are lots of those) but mostly being able to fall back asleep quickly. I’ve never asked my husband to come to sleep early or change his nighttime routine to accommodate me. All I ask is he comes to bed instead of falling asleep on the couch whatever time that happens to be.
If I wake up and see that he isn’t in bed but should be (basically if it’s past midnight), then no matter how hard I try I cannot stop my brain from fully waking me up. I can’t stop wondering if he remembered to check the doors are locked, or if he started the dishwasher, or if he got a call from work and is in his office. I inevitably have to get out of bed to find him and then I can’t fall back asleep for over an hour. My husband claims he isn’t trying to fall asleep on the couch but that he “can’t control it.” I’ve never “just fallen asleep” on the couch without meaning to/knowing I am and I want to call BS on that excuse. I think he just doesn’t want to get up and ready for bed when he is comfortable and half asleep on the couch. What do I do?
Care and Feeding
I Just Want to Help: My son passed away in a car accident eight months ago, leaving my daughter-in-law, who I’ll call Nancy, with my grandchildren, who are 3-year-old twins. They lived in a big city, and they always flew home for Christmas, even before they were married. I’m very worried about Nancy and my grandchildren. Nancy works a very busy job and seems overwhelmed. She refused to fly here for Christmas this year, even though it’s barely a 3-hour flight and she visited her family for her Jewish holidays in another state, and she only reluctantly offered for me to stay with them when I insisted I wanted to see my grandchildren for the holidays. When I arrived, the house was a mess, and she seemed frazzled and couldn’t socialize very much. The kids seemed miserable and were throwing tantrums, and she seemed too tired to adequately take care of them for the week I was there.
Things have been frosty ever since she refused to let my grandsons be baptized, so I didn’t want to criticize her and make things worse, but the situation seems untenable at this point. I gently suggested getting a housecleaner, and she said that she couldn’t afford it, even though I’m sure that my son’s life insurance must have left her with a hefty sum. I also suggested it might be good for her to get a less busy job that pays more. She’s an attorney for a non-profit, and it would be more lucrative and less stressful for her to get a more traditional lawyer job. She got angry when I suggested it, and I don’t understand why she won’t make these kinds of changes to make her life easier. I also suggested that she could move in with me, and I’d pay all the relocation expenses. I have lots of space, since your buck goes further in the Midwest, and there’s a church down the street that has free daycare for the boys. I could even watch them on my time off. She told me bluntly that she thought I should get a hotel, and I acquiesced since she seemed so upset. I just don’t understand what I’m supposed to do or how to help!
How to Do It
Curious: I’m bisexual, and I’m happily married to a man. That said, I do feel the occasional desire to sleep with another woman. I haven’t yet, but I’m contemplating asking my husband to open up the marriage. My idea is that I would only be allowed to sleep with women. I think it might work because the biological underpinnings of male jealousy wouldn’t be there in this situation, when I’m not sleeping with another man.
But I’m torn because he’s straight and I wouldn’t really feel comfortable opening it up for with other women, too. I guess I’m jealous! Do you think this arrangement could work?
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