Category: Advice Column

We were together for about nine months, and up until a month ago, I genuinely thought things were going well. Then, out of nowhere, she told me we needed to break up. I was blindsided. When I asked why, she said I wasn’t attentive enough and that she deserved better.

I felt confused, angry, and hurt all at once. I thought I was giving her the right amount of attention. Clearly, she didn’t see it that way. I would have fought for the relationship. I would have tried harder. But when she said she could “do better,” something in me shut down.

Several months ago, my wife (35F) and I (30F) agreed to try opening our relationship. We had a few solo and shared experiences, and pretty quickly it became clear we weren’t on the same page. She didn’t like me forming connections with other people, but she didn’t want to “force” me to stop. I, on the other hand, enjoyed exploring other relationships and wanted to keep that door open.

Over time, I developed a separate relationship with one of our shared partners. My wife knew about it, though she was uneasy from the start. We struggled to figure out how much detail she wanted and what boundaries felt safe. This was all new territory, so I tried to tell her as much as she asked for while keeping things from feeling intrusive. At one point, she even reached out to my partner to smooth things over between us because she knew how happy that relationship made me.

I’m 25, my fiancée is 29, and we have a one-year-old son. My brother is 30 and his husband is 31. I work on a farm and make $58,000 a year.

About 18 months ago, we renovated our house and I borrowed $25,000 from my brother. We agreed I’d pay him back with no set timeline. I even wrote a simple contract saying, “I will pay you back,” but it didn’t include dates or amounts.

Since then, we’ve had our son and have been living paycheck to paycheck. We haven’t been able to start paying him back yet, and he knew our situation and never pushed for money.

My wife and I have a six-month-old daughter. She’s mostly a stay-at-home mom, working two half days a week while her sister watches the baby. I work full time and attend school one day a week. From the beginning, we’ve had a setup we’re both happy with: she handles most of the household duties—cooking, cleaning, and baby care—and I support us financially. Honestly, we’re living a life we both wanted, and my wife does an incredible job taking care of our daughter and our home.

On weekends, we usually split baby duties and try to make sure we each get some personal time. Lately, though, our baby has hit a sleep regression and is waking every couple of hours. Since my wife breastfeeds, she handles all nighttime wake-ups. She’s a light sleeper and struggles with insomnia, while I’m a deep sleeper and wouldn’t wake to the baby anyway.

Recently, my wife has asked me to wake up with the baby both weekend mornings so she can get an extra hour of sleep. The baby wakes around 7 a.m., and during that time I get her dressed and take over. I understand why she needs it—but sometimes I want to be the one who sleeps in. I brought this up, and she said she really needs that hour because she can’t nap during the day the way I can.

I’m going through a very difficult time in my marriage. It started when I entered a period of depression. My wife and I both have demanding jobs, and a new project at work required longer hours, which is what triggered the depression.

While I was dealing with that, I made a serious mistake. I started confiding in a coworker about how I was feeling. I believed I could trust her as a friend, but I was in a vulnerable state, and that led to an affair.

My wife found out, and we are going to counseling on Monday. Right now, our marriage is on the ropes. I’ve been trying to get her to understand my depression and how low my mental health was, but she doesn’t want to hear it.

We have been a couple for 7 years. I only now realize we both view her very differently.

From my perspective, she’s never been interested in fashion at all. Always wears black jeans. She has dozens of black tops. She doesn’t wear makeup. Doesn’t get her nails done. Only does root touch ups. And I love her and don’t care about this at all.

From her perspective apparently, she dresses elegantly and minimalistic. She says she is always wearing “no makeup” makeup (I guess she means mascara – not sure). She says she pays the salon every month to colour her hair or it would be grey.

My wife (34F) and I (35M) have been married for 10 years and been together for 15. She is 7 months pregnant and has gestational diabetes which has been very hard on her, and by extension very hard on me too and our relationship.

Her doctor has strictly recommended she follows a strict diet, and that means no sugar or high calorie foods such as alfredo sauce, or pizza and the likes. Naturally she has been very very upset because she has cravings but there’s no way she can indulge. She has gotten sick of the alternatives suggested to her and would start sobbing sometimes when we go outside because she will see all these food places only to realise she cannot eat what she wants. I feel for her, I really do.

Yesterday, my son (25) told my wife and me that he’s cutting us out of his life, seemingly out of nowhere. He sent a long letter accusing us of being “emotionally abusive” when he was growing up. My wife and I believe in tough love, and we don’t think a family needs constant platitudes like “I love you” said out loud to function—but I feel like he’s taking this way too far.

He claims we were controlling, uninterested in his life, and dismissive of his feelings and interests. He even says he was depressed for most of his childhood because of us and that he once felt suicidal. He accused my wife of “robbing him of his childhood” because she talked to him about her emotional struggles. But we’re a family—talking and being close is part of that—and this all feels deeply unfair and, frankly, selfish.

My wife (32F) and I (33M) have been together for nearly seven years. She is the most important person in my life. She was four months pregnant with our first child.

The first three months of the pregnancy were extremely difficult. She was constantly sick, had severe morning sickness, and experienced intense mood swings—so much so that I began questioning whether I had married the right person. About a month ago, my office held a team-building dinner where there was a lot of alcohol. Afterward, one of my coworkers invited five of us back to his place. I got very drunk and made the worst mistake of my life: I slept with another coworker, Lisa (26F).