Fiance won’t leave for girls’ weekend

DEAR ABBY: I live with my fiance, and we are being married in eight months. When I asked him if he would go and stay with his parents or some friends on a weekend when my girlfriend comes into town so we can have girl time, he got highly offended and said he isn’t leaving “his” house. I pay more than he does in rent, and I don’t feel I should have to rent a separate place. He doesn’t understand girl time: drinking wine, watching chick-flicks and talking about our lives. I want to dedicate all my time that weekend to being a good friend, but he doesn’t get it. I have told him that if he ever wanted me to go stay with friends or visit my parents so he could have a guys’ weekend, I would have no problem with it. Am I asking for too much? — Needs Girl Time

in North Carolina DEAR NEEDS: I think expecting your fiance to leave when your girlfriend comes to visit is a bit much. Do you plan to make the same request after you are married? I would think that the idea of being subjected to one of your “girls’ weekends” would motivate him to make other plans. However, because he is unwilling, you and your girlfriend should consider splitting the cost of a hotel room for the weekend.

DEAR ABBY: Over the last 13 years in his job, my husband developed a “very friendly” relationship with a clerical person. Now that he has retired, she wants to continue it by meeting with him (and me) for dinner. We have had dinner together once, and when they began to talk shop, I became the odd one out.

Although I interjected myself into the conversation, it was clear there is real feeling between them. He says she’s “just so nice.” She continues to send emails addressed to both of us and asks me (since he is not computer savvy) to relay that she misses him greatly and he was her “ray of sunshine” every day when he would walk in the office. Should I be worried, jealous or envious? It is only now I have become aware that she was so important to my husband at work. I had no knowledge about their relationship before.

— Uncertain in New Jersey DEAR UNCERTAIN: I don’t think you have anything to worry about. That the conversation at dinner revolved around the office is not surprising. The office and the job were the basis of their relationship.

DEAR READERS: No Thanksgiving would be complete without sharing the traditional prayer penned by my dear late mother:

Oh, Heavenly Father, We thank Thee for food and remember the hungry. We thank Thee for health and remember the sick. We thank Thee for friends and remember the friendless. We thank Thee for freedom and remember the enslaved. May these remembrances stir us to service. That Thy gifts to us may be used for others.

Amen.

— Love, ABBY