PRIVACY NOTICE

Tormented? Driven witless? Fear not, help is just a short letter away

I DO… BUT ALSO, KIND OF, I DON’T

I want an open relationship. I have broached the topic numerous times, but my man won’t listen to my pleas. Also, I want to move abroad. He wants to stay put. Finally, he wants children, and I despise children. We’re both 23. He is a wonderful man, and we’ve been so happy together that I married him six months ago. But do these three disagreements foretell our doom? – MRS CONTENT FOR NOW Content, my cumquat Yes. However, because you’re happy now… because the hard part of marriage isn’t the disagreements but the boredom in between… because nobody knows what to do in a marriage until they do it… because next week, you may choose to picnic under a 100-year-old tree in the country and decide to open your own winery and never leave your state… because your husband may start raising a pack of Russian wolfhounds, mush them to record-winning glory and forget all about having two-legged kids… because keeping marriage going is fun if you make it fun to keep going… and because when you reach the advanced age of 24 (early mid-twenties!), you may get new ideas… well, Mrs Content, I’d say your marriage is likely to last as long as, if not longer than, a third of the marriages in the country.

SOMEBODY NEEDS A DRINK AROUND HERE

My sister is a teetotaller, which would be fine if she didn’t regularly lecture those of us who drink about how we are “poisoning” ourselves, “heading for an early demise”, etc. It’s especially frustrating because none of us drink more than two glasses of wine or beer at family shindigs, and I rarely drink at all! We certainly don’t comment on her life choices – for example, she worships her nutritionist and doesn’t eat anything that comes in a can. And aside from one distant aunt, there is no alcoholism in our family.

At the last gathering, when my husband, cousins and I each had a glass of wine, my sister read us the riot act. My husband pointed out that he has a family history of heart disease and that studies indicate that wine decreases the risk of this illness. She stormed away and followed up a few days later by sending me an article about wine’s effect on the memory, with a note that said, “Food for thought – protect your brain.”

Her vocal opposition to alcohol is adding a lot of stress to family visits and celebrations, and it’s making me not want to spend time with her. Please help! I’ve been avoiding her calls and we haven’t spoken since her latest email (except for my email back to her, in which I provided a long list of articles about the positive effects of alcohol). – POPPING MY CORK Ahhhh, Popping, my parsnip Every proud family has a splendid member who is constantly requiring something to be done about him or her. You have a choice: you can either send her a note subtly attached to a Bpa-packed can of corn telling her that everyone is extremely fond of her but that if she continues acting like a dingbat – shouting “Poison! Poison!” at family parties – love her as much as you all do, you will cease inviting her. Or… You can stop her cold by following the example set by one of my old boyfriends, an Olympic swimmer named Mike Troy, who, when I (jokingly!) advised him against downing his third double-double chocolate milkshake, said, “You’re right, Jeanie, you should have it.” And, taking aim, he threw it on me.

Now, it so happened that I was Miss Indiana University at the time, and queens – especially queens wearing little white halter tops with daisies appliquéd on them and white cigarette pants dripping in chocolate – do not take this kind of behaviour. Waiting just long enough to see the whites of his eyes, I swilled my Coke into his face with my right hand and fired off my hot chips with my left, missing him entirely, but scoring such a massive psychological advantage that it took him several seconds to regroup and squish the top of his hamburger bun, slathered with mustard, onto my forehead. After I brought his own basket of onion rings down upon him, his friends joined the fight. People who were there (and even those who weren’t) talked about it afterwards as if they had been at the Battle of Agincourt.

But here’s the point: since that day, I have never so much as flicked an eyelash at what friends are drinking, let alone remarked on it. (Note: Mike won gold in the 200m butterfly and the 4x200m freestyle relay, and I am an idiot. I should have run off and married him.)

So, at your next family party, if you wish to perform a truly altruistic act – plus entertain the old-timers and set a questionable example for the rising generation – order a glass of shiraz, and when your sister raises an objection, let fly! If emails and “long lists of articles” don’t penetrate your sister’s frozen brainpan, baptise the woman in the name of loosening up! Then, pour her drink on your own head and say, “Sisters’ deal! If we bash the beverage, we wear it!” Your heroic action may make her a better, more lovable and less controlling sister.

THE MOTHER OF ALL MISTAKES

I’m a guy. My wife and I met when we were at university. Her mother was nice and good-looking, and as time went on, we developed a close relationship. It eventually led to cuddling. Clothes on, then naked. She never wore underwear, and I loved it. We ended up having sex a few times. She taught me things, helped me grow and experience life as most people don’t. Our meetings stopped when she moved to another state, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

After we married, I told my wife everything. She said she pretty much suspected this had been going on, but she was still mad for a while. Then she told me it turns her on to imagine what happened. That got me super-excited, and we’ve been role-playing during sex. But my question is: is this normal? – GOOD KARMA Karma, you bounder Normally, I’d forbid someone like you from speaking to any mother-in-law again, including the Queen. But let’s see... The woman who taught you to “experience life as most people don’t” is now out of the picture. The lovely young wife you betrayed – lied to, cheated on – does she leave you? Does she give you a running kick out the door? Does she even excoriate you for your faithlessness? No! Her romps with you are now twice as exciting! What can I say? You’re one of those irrepressibly lucky people who escape life’s moral muckheaps unscathed. So I will not be angry with you. (Just ignore the silent rebuke in my eyes.)

GRAB A TISSUE

I think back to when he asked me for a first date, and flew me in his plane to the mountains for a picnic. He was my rock, my confidant. His support helped me rise quickly in my career. I felt I could achieve anything. We married. I was in a constant state of euphoria.

Then, one day, my husband didn’t come home. That morning, he got out of bed, kissed me, said he was getting the plane ready for a special trip for my upcoming birthday and told me he would see me that afternoon at the gym. He didn’t show – totally unlike him. With a weight on my chest, I went to the airport hangar – there was his car, parked out the front, and as I noticed a commotion on the tarmac, I got an alert on my phone saying that a pilot had died in a plane crash. Minutes later, the emergency response team gave me the same news. It was my husband. My happy existence ended. I’m tearing up just writing this.

Everyone tells me I need to move forward, start dating again. I’m a young widow; I get that. So I let my friends fix me up with two nice gentlemen, but they pale in comparison to my beloved. Will I always compare? Will I ever be with another man? Are there any spectacular men left? I would love to experience again the blissful life I once shared with the greatest man I’ve ever known.

PS: I did grief counselling for two years, which helped me get to here. – BROKEN HEARTS CLUB MEMBER Club, my dear, dear love What do you mean, “two nice gentlemen”? Good Lord! You’re beautiful, clever and rich: there are thousands of “spectacular” men who’d be honoured to be in love with you. And how will you meet these alluring specimens? By going to new places, enlarging your social circle, volunteering with a charity, hitting a bucket of golf balls at the driving range. And I don’t need to mention the best apps – Bumble, Hinge, etc – do I?

As for your other questions: yes, you will “be with another man” (probably several). Yes, of course you’ll “compare” and find the entire male race riddled with flaws. Yes, you will adjust. Yes, you will live a “blissful life”... but only on one condition: that you don’t make that life totally about men. You might be just as happy, or a great deal happier, being on your own.

My darling, every ELLE reader is sad to hear about your husband. Time will lighten your suffering. And I admire you for your ardour, loyalty and genius in foreseeing the possibility of a new and exciting life.

Q.

I hate looking frumpy. Is it uncool to wear mini-skirts as you get older? I’m beginning to notice other women glancing at me rather nastily when I walk to work in my Converse and short skirts. A.

Oh, please. Fashion is art. If you don’t occasionally shock a fellow woman on your walk to work, you’re missing one of the joys of life.