Live Q&As

This is a terribly hard decision to make because unfortunately, as has played out over and over again, women who truthfully accuse powerful men of sexually abusing them often find themselves trashed. If you go ahead, you need to be prepared to have your entire life exposed: that shoplifting arrest in high school, the bad check you passed in your twenties.  As you know, men who behave this way almost always do it to many women, and they need to be exposed and stopped.  When Hermain Cain was first accused of sexual improprieties, he went on the attack and it wasn't pretty for his accuser.  But then other women stepped forward and Cain was cooked. I hope you step up, but  first you should protect yourself.  Talk to a lawyer about how best to go about this. If you have the names of other victims, maybe an attorney can reach out to them and they might come forward to support you. You can strategize about how best to make your situation known -- probably through an interview at the local newspaper.  You will be  doing the citizens of your state a service by letting them know the true character of the man who would serve them.

Leave your contacts out one day, buy the the Van Morrison CD with "Brown Eyed Girl" on it, hand it to your boyfriend, bat your eyelashes  and say there's something you've got to show him. Look, I sympathize with your situation. My mother has spectacular turquoise eyes, my father had small brown ones. Get what  got? Yes, I was robbed of my baby blues, but I've never gone the contacts route because it would seem kind of silly to at the end of each day to Cinderella-like revert to a brown pumpkin.  But eye color is a deeply trivial matter, and if this makes a difference to your guy, then you didn't want to get serious with him anyway.

I had a neighbor in exactly this situation and I could only marvel at her confidence and generosity as she seamlessly brought the new sibling into her children's lives.  That baby brother was often at their home and he attended all the important functions of her two kids. When I said something to her about how amazing she was, she said whatever the adults did, the children were all a family and she wanted them to feel that way about each other.

 I doubted I could have been that magnanimous. So I understand your anger, grief, and pain. But it will benefit you in the long run of life if you can support your own children's embrace of their new sibling.  To get through this I think you need a therapist to unload to,  at the very least. Together, you can figure out strategies so that you can support this newly constructed family without feeling you are going out of your mind.  If you have primary custody of your kids, because of your husband's perfidity you have become a single mother. That's a huge load to carry, so don't be so quick to limit your children's time at their father's.  It's good for them, and for you, if he is stepping up and spending a lot of time with all his children.

Tragically, this kind of wound is being suffered more and more by our soldiers and I hope your letter gets widely distributed among them.  There is nothing for you to feel guilty about. You do not need to tell your husband things are better, you just need to reassure him that he remains a marvelous, inventive lover.  Tell him that you are so lucky that out of a terrible sorrow, you two have been able to become closer.

I'd wish you'd told us what your kink is: Plushies? Handcuffs? Rubber gloves?  I'd also like to hear how you dropped hints about your fetish: "I was thinking tha a fun thing we could do over the weekend is to  take a drive and see local wineries. Then that night I could dress up as Rocky Racoon, and you could put on some rubber glover and handcuff me to the bed."  Thank you for giving me an opportunity to express one of the rules of sexual behavior I've gleaned from this column. That is, if you have a fetish, that's news the other person needs to hear before your relationship gets serious and sexual. I have heard from too many people who had fallen deeply in love then found themselves blindsided by their partner's new, and to them awful, demands.  If you bring this up early enough your new love can say, "Sounds like fun, let's try it," or "I appreciate your telling me, but I'm sorry I find that to be a massive turn-off." You've waited too long, but tell your girlfriend now, before she stumbles on your fetish website and you are forced into a long overdue talk.

I agree with you that dressing up as Honey Boo Boo and family is a tasteless mistake. It's not a matter of offending the neighbors, it's a matter of explaining to the kids that even though these people are on television, they are real human beings  leading dysfunctional, even depraved lives. You understand the impulse to laugh, but mocking the poor, uneducated, and disabled will make your own children appear mean  and insenstive.

Good point -- it is sex.

If youre future father-in-law cannot be anyplace that alcohol is consumed then he has a long way to go in his recovery.  I agree that bringing a support person is a good compromise because sooner or later your father-in-law is going to have to learn to go out to dinner with friends who want a glass of wine with their meal.  If a wedding is not the place for him to try this, then as with the engagement party  it's sad he won't be able to attend. Your fiance should tell him that when you two get back from your honeymoon , you will take him to dinner and raise a glass of cider to celebrate.

Speaking of foxes, I assume people who raise chickens understand that incessant crowing is a siren song to predators for miles around -- and I don't mean kids with BB guns. A fox or a dog could easily have taken out your local Chanticleer.  Stand your ground (not in the Florida sense, just the moral one) and tell your neighbors your son has denied any involvement, they have zero evidence, and they just need to be more attentive to guarding the hen house.

I basically agree, but lots of people are slamming the letter writer for her lying eyes.

It's all very nice to say that young, vulnerable subordinates should quit, or report the boss, or otherwise stand up for themselves. But master manipulators use their power over others to get what they want. This guy holds the threat of unemployment over the women he pressures into bed. He's a creep and the voters should know it.

She's being insensitive to you.  Being fair to one's children is not a matter of everyone being treated exactly the same. If one daughter looks smashing in green, and the other looks sickly, you don't buy both green sweaters because that's treating them equally. Your oldest daughter gets financial help from you the other's don't and no one resents that.   It could be that instead of being with your eldest daughter's children as a group, you could occasionally take one or two out to a zoo outing, say. Otherwise, you need to explain to your eldest  that you have the same amount of love for all  your grandchildren, and that means being flexible enough to recognize the best way to show it.

Attending a wedding at someone else's church does not imply endorsement of all that denomination's teachings.  It's  an endorsement of the marriage of two people you presumably care about.  It's nice of your cousin to include your children in the invitation, but you should probably just get a babysitter for them.  That way you can just enjoy yourself and not worry about handling restless kids. If you can't make that work then decline and send a lovely gift.

Yes, and what goes on in one's head is fortunately encased in a skull so our little private movies are just that. The problem is when your partner become Cecil B. DeMille and recruits you to star in an actual production of "Plushies in Chains."

Good idea, thanks.

Where's your new husband? He needs to respond to his grandmother's message by explaining to her that grandpa repeatedly, and loudly, insulted your friends  at the wedding and that you quite properly pulled grandpa aside and told him to cut it out. If your husband's family wants to cut you two out because you refuse to be entertained by racist and homophobic rants, then that frees up a lot of time to be with more agreeable people.

Thank you for this perspective.  Such closeness not only benefits the kids, but the kids, as they grow up, will appreciate that the adults did not create barriers to them feeling like true siblings.

You're entitled to contact the police, but even if you don't want to, you should fire this woman immediately. When do so, you can tell her that you're  sorry for her situation, but items have started going missing and you're letting her go.  You don't have to say anything to her son, and he can continue to come over. Just  bring him to the door to meet his mother when she picks him up.

I have an image of your wife with anEPA inspector barging into your bathroom and collecting water samples.  Perhaps your wife will also be psychologically scarred if you tell her you place your hairy, germy tush on the same toilet seat she uses. I agree that when you're in the shower, the warm, casading water makes it impossible not to contribute your own stream. And for goodness sake, not only is urine not germy, there are no traces left given the torrent of clean water that follows. Okay, shower pee makes her shudder. So she need to occasionally spray the stall with Lysol if it makes her feel better. Mostly she needs to let you shut the door and and be at peace.

Melissa needs to understand that in a professional environment she needs to not only be an asset but restrain her assets.  This is the kind of thing a more experienced professional can tell a young one.  Pull Melissa aside and say that her work has been great, but her attire is not up to office standards and she  needs to be wearing more supportive undergarments.  You can smile and say that she can see you know of what you speak.

I can't believe that people think this was a happy quid pro quo. The boss was in a position of power and used his to manipulate a young, vulnerable subordinate. She knows this is what he does with young women.  Sure, it would have been better if she'd refused, but surely people understand things don't tend to go well for those who decline.  Well, at least these responses will give the letter writer a taste of what's ahead if she comes forward.