Parents worry about daughter's college drinking
Expect this conversation to be awkward and challenging. But have it anyway.
Realistically, you may not be able to alter her drinking. But your own honesty and vulnerability may eventually inspire her to take her own head out of the sand and be honest with herself, if not with you. The dean's office at your daughter's school might help, and collegedrinkingprevention.gov has some helpful information and ideas.
Dear Amy: My wife and I have been married for more than 25 years. We tell each other how much we love each other. For many of those years, we were sexually intimate. Suddenly, about 10 years ago, she stopped. We still hold hands and touch each other, but have no sexual contact.
I don't want to go outside our marriage, but it is really starting to bother me.
We are both well over 50, but I feel as though there are still years of intimacy that could be had.
Do I just accept the way it is and find someone else to release the frustration, or is this normal for our ages? I have never cheated, and don't really want to start now.
-- Frustrated
Dear Frustrated: If I told you this was normal, would you feel better? I don't think you would. Having an affectionate, loving, non-sexual relationship does happen in many long-term marriages, but one or the other partner often seems to feel cheated, lonely, sad and/or frustrated.
You have been tolerating this for 10 years, which demonstrates a heroic amount of patience, but now this involuntary chastity is starting to bother you, and so you should take the very first step toward either starting to mend the problem, or at least understand it. Talk to your wife.
She might have been hit hard by menopause. Or she might be waiting patiently for you.
A book that might help both of you is, "The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couples Guide," by therapist Michele Weiner Davis (2004, Simon & Schuster).
Dear Amy: Responding to the "Upset Wife," whose irresponsible husband was insisting on bringing another dog home, a spouse is infinitely more important than any dog.
Bringing a dog into such a family amounts to depraved cruelty to both. This guy should be (just barely) cleared to own a dog, but does not deserve to have a wife.
-- Dog Lover and Wife Lover
Dear Dog Lover: I like the way you put this.
========
(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@amydickinson.com. Readers may send postal mail to Amy Dickinson, c/o Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or "like" her on Facebook.)
