Dear Karen, My husband is not being very understanding about something, and I need your advice. He is angry with me because of the way my mother is, which is, in HIS opinion, very meddlesome. How is that my fault? I love my mother, and we’re very close. She cares...
Dear Karen, My partner has been unemployed for a few months now, and has basically moved in with me. I don’t feel financially strained to have him here, but I'm running out of patience. I don’t think he is working hard enough to get a job. I need him to support me...
Dear Karen, It’s that time of year again – my husband will invariably get me something I don’t want for Christmas, and ignore what I’ve told him I do want. Again. It wasn’t always like this…for the first few years, he tried to listen and to give me what I wanted. ...
Hi, Karen, I hope you can help me with this, because I’m at my wits’ end. If I have to trip over the over-full trash one more time, I’ll scream! What is wrong with my husband that he doesn’t do this one frickin’ simple job, when it needs to be done? Why do I have...
Dear Karen, An issue arises between my man and me every Christmas. I come from a family that enjoys the holiday immensely – in all ways. Christmas is not something my man looks forward to with the same level of excitement that I do; each year, a couple of weeks...
This can be such a challenging time of year for people, partly because our expectations of experiencing all this joy, fun, love and happiness (that’s supposed to be abundant in our lives through the holidays) may not actually be happening. In fact, quite the opposite...
If you’re like most women (from my observations), you can get yourself fairly worked up leading up to Valentine’s Day...and the media sure does throw gas on that fire! Note: If you’re a woman who doesn’t get emotionally hooked by this “Hallmark holiday”, you may...
Hello, Karen, I’ve been married for many years, and am not sure I’m willing to stay in the marriage any longer. I am married to a man who is not being very cooperative. The more I explain what it is he’s doing that upsets me, the more he seems to do it. The more I...
Dear Karen, I am very frustrated, and I hope you can help me. My husband has become a lazy S.O.B., and seems perfectly content to let me work like a dog. When he gets home from work, he spends all his time playing on his stupid Xbox, when it should be perfectly...
Dear Karen, I am so frustrated I could scream! I feel like I have no support at home – I feel like I’m doing it all, and alone…and meanwhile my man gets everything he needs from me (and then some!). What gives? Am I just living with the world’s most selfish man? –...
Dear Karen, How do you get past your husband’s "I don't have time for this" grumpies when he’s too busy and tired to talk, and you need/want him to listen or to get his input? What’s the best way to get his cooperation? – Anonymous Dear Anon, Excellent question; now...
Dear Karen, I am really unhappy about something - I hope you can shed some light on why my husband is being such an idiot. He is a total workaholic, and can’t seem to carve out any time for me. I tell him how upset I get when he’s not around, and he just doesn’t...
Dear Karen, I’ve tried everything under the sun to get my husband to lose weight, because I want him to be around for a long time - and he’s got to be shortening his life with all the extra weight (not to mention I am just not that attracted to him). I’ve tried:...
Dear Karen, My parner is such an idiot! I give and give and give, and he shows no appreciation for the sacrifices I’m making so that we can be together (we live about 2 hours apart, and I drive to his house every weekend). He just expects me to be there, at his...
Dear Karen, My husband and I can talk about anything - except money. No matter what I do or how good my intentions are at the start of the conversation, by the end we're arguing and the tension lasts for days after. There are a lot of money issues we need to discuss...
Dear Karen, I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 18 months now, and it’s been really great lately. In fact, I’ve decided recently that I want to marry him. My question to you is this: how do I get him to propose to me soon? I want to have us be in the same home,...
Dear Karen, “My husband is pretty depressed. I don’t know what to do about it. He doesn’t seem to respond to any of my efforts to get through to him, or to cheer him up. It is really getting ME down, and I am having a hard time with this. How do I help him get...
Karen, I am madly in love with my boyfriend, and I want to be married to him. Here’s my concern: I’ve asked him to stop doing something that bothers me, and he hasn’t done it yet. I’m feeling like I can’t trust him until he does what I’ve asked him to do. ...
Dear Karen, Why is it that I just can’t get my husband to talk about the issues we’re dealing with? Every time I tell him we need to sit down and talk, he either starts joking (which infuriates me!), or he suddenly has to go take care of something he forgot about. ...
Dear Karen, My husband insists on his “boys night out” once a month. They play poker, smoke, drink, and God-knows-what-else (he doesn’t really open up about what they do, no matter how nicely I ask). Isn’t he supposed to have outgrown that, once he got married and...