Even open relationship needs some parameters

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I have an open relationship with another couple. When we are out in public together as a foursome, we sit with each other’s spouses.

While I am fine with light touches in public, my husband and the other wife make out like teenagers. This is tacky, in my opinion, and quite embarrassing to the other husband and me. We have both expressed this to them, but they continue.

My husband said that someone once told them they were “a beautiful couple.” Although we are consensually open, is this behavior tacky?

Gentle Reader: It seems that for this to work, it requires rules and restrictions. Yes, the very things that you went into this arrangement hoping to avoid.

But if it is causing more pain than enjoyment for half of you — to say nothing of onlookers, to whom it is absolutely tacky — then the four of you must establish parameters for what is acceptable outside of closed doors.

Presumably you have already figured out how to successfully manage what’s behind them. Dear Miss Manners: My name is unique, but not particularly hard to pronounce once you hear it. I try to be sure people are pronouncing it correctly.

Someone I know very well still mispronounces it. The time to correct them has long passed, but I would like them to know how to say it right. How can I bring this up without embarrassing them — or me?

Gentle Reader: Meet someone new in front of your friend.

Send questions to Miss Manners’ website: www.missmanners.com; to her email address: dearmiss manners@gmail.com; or through postal mail: Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.