Boyfriend may have lied about being fully vaccinated

Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend said he was vaccinated, but I’m suspicious he said that so I would stop asking. I went online to try to print out a proof for him but there was nothing for his name, birth date, and phone number.

I don’t know how to ask him to get the vaccine without admitting I “spied” on him. Do I just go to restaurants on my own and keep quiet?

— Suspicious

The vax-card problem would have solved itself if you’d let it — by making plans to go somewhere that required proof and letting him either produce his or explain why he couldn’t. Done.

The other problem is that you think he’s capable of lying to you on a lifeand-death matter merely for his own convenience. Another is that you used dishonest means to try to bust him.

These are fundamental dishonesty problems and offer no such — literally! — black-and-white solution. You will have to be direct, brave, transparent, all the things you’re proposing not to be with your “keep quiet” suggestion.

Conveniently, admitting you went online to try to print out his proof of vaccination — and why — will likely tell you if both our suspicions are right.

Dear Carolyn: My husband and I have made up a will and, being childless, designated our nephews as beneficiaries. However, all three of them have been making their political views public, views espousing intolerance for everyone not the “same” as them. I cannot reconcile their hate and intolerance and am thinking of changing our will. None of the nephews needs the money.

How do we move forward with such polarizing issues at hand?

— Disappointed

It’s so easy to get in the weeds on estate questions as it is, and adding politics is a way to make sure you feel as bad as you are distracted.

The first and most important thing your wills need to do is take care of each other, since the most likely outcome is that one of you survives the other. If you didn’t hire a reputable local attorney to write your wills, then pay one now to check your work.

I realize this is not what your question was about. However, this unsexy mutual care is most of what you’re deciding now and your quality of life may be riding on it, so please humor me.

Once your care and feeding are attended to, then you can worry about any bigger statement you make with your wealth.

And that is indeed the point of the second part: the impact you would like your life to have made. Your mind has drifted to polarization and who “needs the money” (never as easy to judge from the outside as we think) and hate and disappointment — and while these all matter in the aggregate, they are distracting when taken alone.

They’re also negatives in what works better as a positive process.

So think larger-scale and in the affirmative. How can this money best serve your and your husband’s priorities?

Feeling good about the answer is how you’ll know you’re doing it right.