Too much PDA during church

The following column was originally published in 2013

Dear Annie: There is a young couple in our church who spend the entire mass making out. They kiss, tickle, rub and caress each other every minute of the service. It’s very distracting. It is also distracting to see other people in church snickering and rolling their eyes. I am praying that these two read your column and have a PDA wake-up call.

- Switching Masses

Dear Switching: It is not uncommon for newly enamoured couples to have difficulty keeping their hands off each other. They think others will see it as proof of their love, when in actuality, it is a sign of immaturity. Finding another mass is one option. The other is informing the priest about proper decorum in a place of worship.

Dear Annie: I’ve been married for 32 years, and my wife has been both verbally and physically abusive to me all that time. She uses vulgar language, is sarcastic and likes to hit and punch me. I almost filed for divorce after five years, hoping it would make her change, but it didn’t work. She has anger, stress, weight, sleep and back problems and does nothing about them. She’s crabby all of the time.

How do I tell her in a nice way that we will never survive under the same roof unless she makes progress on these problems? -Lost in Wisconsin

Dear Lost: Your wife doesn’t believe you will leave her. You’ve tolerated 32 years of verbal and physical abuse, and quite logically, she expects you to stick around for more. Like many abused spouses, you believe you can make things better, but that requires her cooperation. Please contact the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women (dahmw.org) at 1-888-7HELPLINE.

Annie’s Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column.