Reader’s tattoos draw fire from wife
Dear Abby: My tattoos are destroying my marriage, and I just don’t understand why. I’m a 56-year-old elementary art teacher. Since I was young, I have loved the artistic expression of tattoos, and I ALWAYS envisioned having them, lots of them.
It had been about 10 years since my last one, but I decided to get another one. Telling my wife about wanting another one was awful. My wife of 28 years hates tattoos. We have terrible arguments every time I get one. I have covered my entire upper body. I love them.
I just returned home with roses tattooed on my hands, and my wife is ready to leave me. She says I have gone too far with all my ink. I’m a responsible and respectful person. I don’t drink, smoke, gamble or have any destructive vices. I’m highly regarded as a leader and role model at my school.
Friends, colleagues — even strangers — compliment me on my tattoos.
However, you would think my tattoos and I are the devil in my wife’s eyes. Am I the problem, or is her perception of tattoos the issue? Please, any advice would be greatly accepted.
Art in Las Vegas
Dear Art: It is your body, and you have the right to do what you want with it. It is possible that over the years, when you told your wife you were getting more, knowing her feelings about it, it came across to her as disrespectful of her feelings.
Having never spoken with your wife, I can’t guess her reason for talking about leaving you, but it’s important you ask why those roses were the last straw.
Dear Abby: My husband and I have been married 20plus years. His mother has never liked me. I have never done anything to her or her husband.
My father-in-law passed away two years back, and my mother-in-law is older. If something happens to her, how am I supposed to react?
I know I have to be there for my husband. My husband and I get along wonderfully, but at the same time, I would feel like a hypocrite if I went to her funeral. We haven’t spoken in over a year.
Hates Hypocrisy in Michigan
Dear Hates: Attend the funeral and comfort your husband, who likely will be hurting and need your support. And when you do, ABOVE ALL, refrain from humming, “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead.”