Dear Joely: My Wife Wants an Open Marriage. I Want My Wife.

She wants to experience other men. He can’t bear the thought of it.

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Dear Joely,

I'm a 35-year-old male. I have been married for 9 years to a woman who is currently 27. Although she was very young when we met, we have a great relationship. We communicate well, for the most part, we share common interests and friends and we seem to make one another happy.

Last weekend, she kind of dropped into a conversation we were having that she would like for us to try having an open relationship. I was so thrown that I didn't know what to say... I find the idea absolutely abhorrent. She said that she is happy with our sex life, but that she increasingly feels the need to experience sex with other men. She wants to be honest about it.

I'm afraid I didn't handle it as well as I could have. I said something like "Don't be ridiculous, I'm your husband, you're my wife, we're happy." When she tried again to talk about it, I blanked her. It led to an argument and we haven't sat down and talked about it properly. We haven't had sex since.

I thought we were approaching a time when we could start planning to have our first child and she comes up with this, straight from left field. I can't bear to think of her with someone else and the whole idea is driving me to distraction. I don't even know how to have a conversation with her about it without going off the deep end.

I have no idea what to do and I hope you can help.

Yours,
Call Me Old Fashioned, But...

Dear Call Me Old Fashioned, But...,

You're not old-fashioned. You're monogamous.

Which is unfortunate, because your wife has just announced that she'd quite like to be monogamous with you and occasionally naked with somebody else.

I can see why you didn't immediately reach for the family calendar.

But “Don't be ridiculous, I'm your husband, you're my wife, we're happy” isn't going to make this disappear. In fact, there's one word in that sentence doing rather more heavy lifting than it should.

We.

You thought we were happy. You thought we were approaching the point where we would start a family. And perhaps you are happy. But your wife has just told you that there's something significant going on inside her that wasn't included in your version of “we”.

You need to hear it.

Not agree to it. Hear it.

Because I don't yet know what your wife means when she says she “needs to experience sex with other men”, and neither do you. You stopped listening before she got to that bit.

She may be sexually curious. She may have discovered that monogamy doesn't suit her. She may love you perfectly well and still be struggling with the idea that the last new man she will ever sleep with entered her life before she'd finished becoming an adult.

And we probably ought to linger there for a moment.

You're 35. She's 27. You've been married for nine years.

So your wife was around eighteen when you married her, and apparently younger still when you met.

I'm not going to turn you into a villain on the strength of some arithmetic. But nor am I going to pretend the arithmetic isn't sitting there waving at me.

The woman you're married to now has spent virtually her entire adult life as half of a couple. Whatever else she's had — a happy marriage, good sex, shared friends, somebody she loves — she hasn't had the experience most of us take for granted of finding out who we are romantically and sexually as independent adults.

She may now be wondering.

That does not mean you owe her an open marriage.

Please don't let anybody persuade you that recoiling from the idea of your wife having sex with other men means you're possessive, insecure or insufficiently evolved. Some people thrive in open relationships. Some people would rather exfoliate with a cheese grater.

You appear to belong to the second group.

Believe yourself.

An open marriage requires two people who genuinely want an open marriage. One person enthusiastically exploring her sexuality while the other lies awake imagining where she is and what she's doing isn't ethical non-monogamy. It's misery with progressive branding.

But your wife gets to believe herself too.

If what she's telling you is not merely I'd quite like this but I don't think I can happily remain sexually exclusive for the rest of my life, then you have a much bigger problem than whether you can talk her out of it.

That's why you need another conversation.

Start by owning your first attempt. Tell her you were blindsided, frightened and hurt, and that blanking her wasn't fair. Then tell her something equally important: you don't want an open marriage, and you're not going to pretend you might just to keep her.

Then ask the question you should have asked the first time:

“What happens if I say no?”

Not threateningly. Not as a test.

Because her answer matters enormously.

Does she say, Then I'm disappointed, but I choose our marriage?

Does she say, I don't know?

Or does she say, Then I don't know whether I can stay married?

Those are three very different futures.

And while you're finding out which one you're living in, put the baby plans away.

A baby is many things. A relationship stabiliser isn't one of them.

Don't start trying to create a child while one of you is imagining parenthood and the other is wondering what it would be like to have sex with Steve from Accounts. Sort out the marriage first.

You may discover that this is a desire your wife can talk about honestly and ultimately choose not to pursue.

You may discover that something fundamental has changed.

What you cannot do is return to last Friday, when you didn't know any of this.

That's the really rotten part. She didn't just ask you whether she could sleep with other men.

She changed what you know about your marriage.

Now you both have to decide what to do with the knowledge.

Yours, monogamously,
Joely

Dear Joely: Should I Just Outdrink My Mother?

When the family party starts with cake and ends with you defending your life choices.

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Dear Joely,

My sister turns 40 next month and there's a big family gathering planned — all the immediate family (there are four of us kids, plus Mum and Dad), along with aunts, uncles, cousins, partners and kids.

Over the years I've learned to dread these get-togethers. It's not seeing everyone that's the problem — it's what happens once the drinks start flowing. My mother gets very personal, often downright nasty, and I can see her mood start to turn after a few wines. My aunt usually joins in on whatever her cause is, and then I've got both of them gunning for me. It feels like a sport for them.

They tend to target my job (I work in healthcare, specialising in abortion and contraception services) and the fact that I'm single by choice — endless fodder for judgment and meanness, apparently.

My Dad will sometimes touch my arm as a small gesture of comfort, but he never speaks up — he doesn't want to rock the boat. My brothers ignore it entirely. My sister has tried standing up for me a few times, but it never goes very far — she's always been the golden child, so even her pushback doesn't carry much weight with Mum.

I'm close with my sister and want to be there for her party. But I've been through this so many times, and I always end up leaving early, hurt and upset. My mother never mentions her behaviour afterwards, which somehow makes it worse — like it never happened.

I know a common suggestion would be to talk to her directly, but I don't think that would land. She tends to play the victim and would likely get hysterical rather than hear me.

I'm already anxious about this, three weeks out. What can I do — either to protect myself on the day, or to stop dreading these events altogether?

Yours,
Considering trying to outdrink her

Dear Considering Trying to Outdrink Her,

Don't outdrink her. You need your reflexes, and she's had years to train for this event.

I can understand why you're already anxious. You're not catastrophising about something that might happen. You've been to this particular show before, you know the cast, and apparently after a few wines your mother and aunt perform a little two-hander called Everything That's Wrong With Your Life.

The important thing is that you're not going for them. You're going because you love your sister and want to be at her 40th birthday. So I don't think you should surrender the party in advance just because two other guests have repeatedly behaved badly at previous ones.

I do think you should go differently this time.

First, have your own transport and your own exit plan. Tell your sister beforehand that you're looking forward to being there, but if Mum starts on you, you won't be sticking around for it. That way, if you do leave, your sister knows exactly why and you don't spend half the drive home worrying that you've ruined her birthday.

More importantly, decide now that you are not going to defend yourself.

Your job does not require a submission to the Family Ethics Committee. Your relationship status isn't a vacancy your mother needs to fill. You don't have to persuade either of these women that your life is acceptable before you're allowed to enjoy it.

The moment it starts:

“Mum, we're not doing this tonight.”

If she keeps going:

“I came to celebrate my sister. I'm not discussing my life with you when you've been drinking.”

Then leave the conversation.

And I mean literally. Pick up your glass and move. Go and talk to a cousin. Find the children. Become passionately interested in whatever's happening near the sausage rolls. You don't have to leave the whole party merely because your mother has opened court proceedings.

That's the bit I'd really like you to change this time. At previous gatherings, it sounds as though Mum and Auntie Chardonnay have been able to choose both the subject and the duration of the attack. They start, you defend yourself, they escalate, everyone else becomes fascinated by the carpet, and eventually you leave hurt.

No.

They can start. They don't get to decide that you stay.

If your mother follows you and continues, then yes, go home. No showdown. No devastating final speech from the doorway. No attempt to make a drunk woman finally understand something she has been declining to understand while sober for years.

As for your family, everyone appears to have found a role that keeps them comfortably out of the firing line. Your aunt supplies ammunition. Your brothers have apparently entered witness protection. Your sister occasionally attempts peacekeeping. And Dad touches your arm.

I'm sure the arm-touch is loving. But unless Dad's arm contains a tranquilliser dart for your mother, we're going to have to classify it as emotional support rather than active defence.

The good news is that you don't actually need any of them to rescue you.

That's also how I think you begin to stop dreading these gatherings. At the moment, the anxiety starts three weeks early because you're imagining the same ending you've had before. Mum gets drunk. Mum gets nasty. Aunt joins in. You endure it until you can't, then go home devastated.

Give the story a different ending.

Go to your sister's party. Have a lovely time. Don't explain your career. Don't defend being single. Don't enter the witness box. And if your mother decides that her daughter's 40th is the perfect occasion to get pissed and conduct another performance review of her other daughter, let her discover what happens when the employee simply walks out of the meeting.

She'll probably pretend nothing happened the next day.

She can.

You'll know something did.

You stopped standing there for it.

Yours, declining to appear for the defence,
Joely

Dear Joely: Is He Dating Half the Office?

When a brilliant first date suddenly comes with an unexpected colleague.

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Dear Joely,

I'm 24 and work in admin for a fairly big furniture and homeware company — nice office, about 35 of us, mostly women, and we all rub along really well together. The warehouse side has more men, and we cross paths at lunch and in the canteen.

There's a floor manager there — I'll call him Norry — who everyone loves. Friendly, always up for a quick chat, and (I'll admit it) properly fanciable and funny with it. He always has me in stitches.

A couple of weeks ago he asked me for a drink and I said yes before he'd even finished the sentence. We had a brilliant night — proper flirty, talking rubbish till late, and he said a few things that made me feel like he actually saw something in me — how I dress, my sense of humour, that I "have a way about me" he can't stop thinking about.

At the end of the night we had a bit of a kiss — quite full-on, if I'm honest, and it could easily have gone further, but I held back. Didn't want to dive in headfirst. Still, I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

I've seen him at work a few times — nothing but knowing looks and a bit of teasing now, which is exciting in itself — and we've texted a little, nothing serious. I kept expecting him to ask me out properly. I know he's busy with football and part-time study, but I really felt something between us.

Then yesterday we had lunch at the pub for Annie's (from Accounts) 30th — just the office girls. I turned up about fifteen minutes late, and Annie was already passing her phone round, showing off photos from a night out. When it got to me, there they were — her and Norry, dead cosy, sat on the bonnet of his car, big smiley selfie, looking every bit the couple.

My stomach hit the floor. I put my acting face on sharpish, but inside I was gutted. Everyone was going "ooh, lucky you, he's gorgeous!" and "you'll be walking down the aisle before Christmas!" — all said in fun, obviously, but it properly stung.

Maybe I'm being daft, but I really like him. Part of me wants to just ask him outright what's going on, so at least I know where I stand. I know the sensible thing is to write it off as one nice night and move on, but my gut's telling me there's more to it than that.

Please help.

Yours,
In Bits

Dear In Bits,

I don’t think you’re being daft. I think you may have accidentally wandered into the romantic clearance section.

Let us examine Norry. Handsome, funny, universally adored, works in a building populated largely by women, knows exactly how to make you laugh, and is apparently gifted at producing compliments specific enough to make a woman feel she has been individually selected from the catalogue.

“I like how you dress.”

“I love your sense of humour.”

“You have a way about you I can’t stop thinking about.”

Very nice. Lovely finish. Available in several departments.

Because the interesting thing here isn’t simply that Annie from Accounts appears to have got her hands on Norry. It’s that Annie may be evidence that Norry has got his hands on a rather wider section of the workforce.

You had a brilliant, flirty night with him. He kissed you. He made you feel that something particular was happening between you. Then he didn’t ask you out again, despite apparently finding time to become sufficiently cosy with Annie to pose together on the bonnet of his car.

I would therefore resist the temptation to think of Annie as your romantic rival. For all you know, she’s simply one aisle further along in the same showroom.

And before anybody writes in, yes: Norry is single and perfectly entitled to date more than one woman. You and he had one date and one kiss, not a civil ceremony. The question isn’t whether he has broken some sacred covenant with you. He hasn’t.

The question is whether Norry has developed a pleasant little habit of making women at work feel uniquely chosen while keeping his options as extensive as the company’s sofa range.

You can certainly ask him what’s going on with Annie if you want to. But I’d ask calmly and then listen very carefully to the answer. Don’t tell him what answer you’re hoping for. Don’t minimise your own feelings to make things easier for him. And if the explanation requires an Allen key and twelve pages of diagrams, put your coat on.

Most importantly, don’t feel embarrassed about having believed him. You weren’t foolish. A gorgeous, funny man asked you out, paid you highly personal compliments, kissed you and continued flirting afterwards. Most reasonable people would conclude that he fancied them.

He probably does.

I’m just not entirely convinced you’re the only one.

So by all means find out where you stand. But before you invest any more heart in Norry, make sure you aren’t looking at a beautiful display model that’s already been tried out by half the showroom.

You deserve better than flat-pack romance: exciting when you first open the box, increasingly confusing once you realise there are several important pieces missing.

Yours, checking the staff discount policy,
Joely

Dear Joely: Does It Count as Cheating If We Haven’t Done Anything?

When every message is innocent, but the relationship isn’t.

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Dear Joely,

I’m married, reasonably happily, and have been for eleven years. About six months ago I started working closely with a man in another department. Nothing has happened. We haven’t kissed, touched inappropriately, exchanged naked photographs or accidentally found ourselves sharing a hotel room at a conference.

But I think about him all the time.

We message most days, ostensibly about work, although work now seems to require an extraordinary number of observations about what we’ve had for dinner, things our partners have said, songs we like and whether either of us slept well.

I know when he’s had a bad day before his wife does. He knows things about my marriage that I haven’t told my closest friends. If something funny happens, he’s the person I want to tell. I’ve started choosing clothes for work based on whether I might see him.

Here’s the ridiculous part. We’ve never actually acknowledged that there’s anything between us. If you read our messages individually, almost every one could be defended in court.

My husband has met him. He likes him.

Last week my husband saw his name come up on my phone and said, completely innocently, “You two have become good mates.”

I felt sick.

So what exactly am I doing? Can you cheat on someone without ever doing anything that technically counts as cheating?

And if the answer is yes, what the hell do I do about it?

Yours, apparently not dead,
Married

Dear Married, But Apparently Not Dead,

The good news is that your vagina has an excellent alibi.

At all relevant times, it was elsewhere.

Unfortunately, I’m less convinced about the rest of you.

You’ve presented a meticulous case for the defence. No kissing. No inappropriate touching. No naked photographs. No hotel-room incident requiring you to explain why there was only one bathrobe.

You would particularly like entered into evidence the fact that every individual message is innocent.

I’m afraid the court is more interested in the pattern.

Because yes, something can become an affair before anybody takes their pants off.

We like physical cheating because it has lovely clear borders.

Kissed.

Touched.

Fucked.

You can point at an event and say, “There. Thursday. 9.17 pm. Infidelity commenced.”

Emotional intimacy is much less considerate.

There may be no Thursday. There may just be six months of Tuesdays.

A message after work. A private joke. A song. A bad day you tell him about before you tell your husband.

Nothing happens.

And then nothing happens again tomorrow.

Until an entirely defensible collection of nothings has become something.

And I think you already know that, because your husband saw this man’s name on your phone and said:

“You two have become good mates.”

And you felt sick.

That’s the bit I’d pay attention to.

Not because your husband caught you.

Because he didn’t.

He trusts the description he’s been given.

Good mates.

And you know it doesn’t quite describe what’s happening inside you.

People get crushes while married. They notice other people. Marriage does not cause every other sexually interesting human being on Earth to become a pot plant.

So forget, for a moment, whether a magistrate would officially declare you unfaithful.

Ask yourself instead:

What are you protecting from your husband?

The frequency of the messages? The intimacy? The anticipation? The fact that seeing this man’s name on your phone does something to you?

Because secrecy doesn’t always mean deleting messages and changing passwords.

Sometimes secrecy is simply allowing somebody to possess all the facts while withholding the meaning.

Then comes the more interesting question.

What do you actually want?

Do you want this man?

Do you want your husband?

Or do you want the version of yourself that appears when this other man is looking at you?

Funny again. Interesting again. Desired again.

Sometimes the intoxicating thing isn’t the new person.

It’s who we get to be with them.

So I’d put a little distance between you and your colleague while you work that out. Not because Joely has arrived in sensible shoes carrying a laminated sheet entitled APPROPRIATE WORKPLACE BOUNDARIES.

Because you need to look at your marriage without comparing it with a man who currently exists in beautifully edited fragments.

Your colleague doesn’t leave wet towels on your floor. You don’t know how he behaves when the boiler breaks and somebody has gastro.

Your husband is living in the full-length feature. This other man has an excellent trailer.

That doesn’t mean the attraction isn’t real.

It means you don’t yet know what it’s real for.

So no, Married But Apparently Not Dead, I’m not sentencing you to seven years for aggravated messaging.

But I am confiscating the argument that nothing is happening because nothing has happened.

Something has.

Your husband called it friendship.

Your stomach objected to the verdict.

I’d listen to your stomach.

It appears to be the only member of this arrangement who has stopped pretending not to know what’s going on.

Yours, in defence of innocent vaginas everywhere,
Joely

Dear Joely: My Best Friend Shagged Someone Beside Me

When your best friend crosses a boundary you didn't know needed explaining

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Dear Joely,

You seem good at holiday problems so I thought I'd write in. I happened to find you while scrolling by the pool. My best friend (let's call her Christine) and I are both 24 and have known one another since secondary school. We are very close. There's no one either of us knows better in the world. We are called "the fixture" by my family. She's on the next sun lounge as I type this, but things are a bit strained at the moment.

We recently came to Tenerife on a holiday break, for a week. We looked forward to the trip as we have all our holidays in the past. Our days are made up of sunning ourselves, reading, chatting and swimming. In the afternoons we go back to the apartment and take our time getting ready for the evenings, a few drinks, getting showered and dressed and then out for dinner, more drinks, dancing and fun.

Last night was just like that. We both drank probably too much. Well, it was too much. At some point, I knew I needed to go back to the apartment. Christine wanted to stay out. I didn't think that was a problem. She was having fun with a guy. We weren't far away from the apartment. So I told her goodnight and told her to have a good night.

The sun shines in the curtains in the mornings and this morning was no exception. I felt as rough as a badger's arse. I looked over at Christine's bed. It was then that I realised she wasn't alone. I think it was the guy she was last dancing with when I left. To be honest, who cares? They weren't just sleeping, they were actually shagging. You know, in that kind of "let's do it quietly so we don't wake her up" sort of way.

I felt the bile rising in my throat, and I ran to the toilet and was sick. My head was banging and I was suddenly so angry I could barely see. I went back to my bed and just yelled at him to get the f*&% out. Christine started to protest. I just kept yelling, "Get out."

Things have been strained between us, to say the least, since this morning. I've got my dark glasses on and I'm under an umbrella on my sun bed, as I said. But I'm furious with her. She's tried to talk to me, but I won't have it. I just can't believe she'd treat me like this. I hope you can answer me urgently.

Yours,
Barf & Bitter

Dear Barf & Bitter,

First things first: your friend should not have brought a man back to your shared bedroom and shagged him while you were asleep three feet away.

I don't care how quietly they did it. Sex is not made private by reducing the volume.

You were entitled to wake up furious. You were entitled to tell him to leave. And Christine owes you an apology for deciding, without consulting you, that your shared bedroom could become hers for the night while you remained inconveniently unconscious in the other bed.

So far, I'm entirely under your umbrella.

But now I'm going to pull my sun lounge slightly away from yours.

You say, "I just can't believe she'd treat me like this."

Like what, exactly?

Because there are two possible offences here, and I'm not convinced you know which one has made you so angry.

Imagine the same morning again. Same murderous hangover. Same Tenerife sun drilling through the curtains. You roll over and Christine's bed is empty.

An hour later, she wanders in wearing last night's dress and somebody else's grin. She tells you she went home with the man from the bar and had spectacular sex.

Are you furious?

If the answer is no, excellent. We know what happened. Christine violated a perfectly reasonable boundary about your shared room, behaved selfishly while drunk, and now needs to apologise. You need to stop refusing to speak to her long enough to let her do it. You've been friends since secondary school. Don't turn one inconsiderate shag into the Treaty of Tenerife.

But if you're reading this and thinking, Actually, Joely, I'd still have hated it...

Then I'd be interested in that.

You call yourselves "the fixture". Your family calls you "the fixture". You holiday together. You have your rituals: sun lounges, books, swimming, the leisurely transformation from daytime selves into evening selves. And you tell me there's no one in the world who knows either of you better.

That's a beautiful friendship.

It may also have become an arrangement whose terms you've stopped examining.

Sometimes the most intimate friendships acquire invisible rules. We don't announce them because we don't realise they're rules. You'll choose me. I'll choose you. Other people may come and go, but this is the relationship that remains. This particular territory belongs to us.

Then somebody wanders into the territory wearing nightclub trousers and suddenly we discover there was a border.

I'm not telling you you're jealous of Christine. I'm certainly not telling you you're secretly in love with her. Perhaps neither is remotely true.

I'm asking whether you felt displaced.

Because your reaction interests me. You weren't merely irritated. You were incandescent. And somewhere between the badger's arse, the vomiting and the strange man moving rhythmically in the next bed, several different kinds of nausea may have become acquainted.

Incidentally, I wouldn't place too much evidentiary weight on the vomiting. You had drunk far too much and woke with your head banging. Christine's sex life may be many things, but I'm not yet prepared to hold it legally responsible for your stomach.

What I would do is take off the dark glasses, turn towards the woman on the next sun lounge and let her speak.

She may say, "I'm so sorry. I was drunk, I wasn't thinking and I behaved appallingly."

She may say, "I genuinely didn't think you'd care."

She may even say something that makes you angrier.

But at the moment you don't know, because you've sentenced your oldest friend before hearing her defence.

And when she has finished, tell her why you were angry.

Not just "You shouldn't have done that."

Tell her what hurt.

If all that hurt was waking beside an unsolicited live sex show, that's quite enough.

But if something else hurt too, don't be frightened of looking at it. You don't have to give it a name immediately. You just have to be honest enough to notice it.

You asked me urgently, so here is your emergency holiday prescription:

Drink some water. Eat something salty. Stop looking at Christine over the top of your sunglasses as though you're Joan Collins discovering a second will. And talk to your friend.

You have several days of Tenerife left.

Don't give the best sun lounge to a grudge.

Yours, in better boundaries and separate bedrooms,
Joely

Dear Joely: Was I Just His Wank Bank?

The memories are warm. The messages are filthy. Then she suggests meeting in real life and discovers just how little of the relationship exists outside his trousers.

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here?

Dear Joely,

An unanswered message has hurt me a bit, and I thought you might be able to give me some perspective.

Yes, it’s a man involved.

This man is not a current lover, far from it. I am not trying to win him back, and I wasn’t expecting some grand romantic reunion at the airport.

Here it is in a nutshell.

I met him when I was about 24, living and working in Scotland. I’m in Australia now. We worked together. He was married with two young children. We fell very hard for each other, and I became the other woman.

It went on for a few years and was exactly as intoxicating and dreadful as those situations tend to be. Ecstatic highs, terrible pain, an astonishing amount of sex and not nearly enough sense. I remember being convinced that I could no sooner hold back the tide than stop loving him.

Eventually he left his marriage, but he did not leave it for me. He left me as well and began a relationship with another woman from the office. They lived together for five years. I was heartbroken for much longer than I care to admit.

But somehow we never disappeared completely from one another’s lives.

Over the next thirty-five years there were occasional calls and messages. He would bring up old moments between us, sometimes very sentimental ones, as though they still meant something to him. I listened. I gave my best advice when he went through difficult times.

We have slept together a few times since, on my rare trips back. Our connection had always been intensely sexual.

About ten years ago, I suggested meeting while on one such trip and he sent me a very harsh reply. It was so dismissive that something in me finally woke up. I stopped speaking to him for years.

Then, around five years ago, he contacted me and asked whether I was really never going to speak to him again. We began corresponding once more. Some of it was ordinary conversation, some of it reminiscing, and quite a lot of it sexual.

To be blunt, I began to wonder whether I had become little more than a sort of wank bank.

He has old and newer photographs of me. He sends sexual scenarios and dick pics. I have joined in and sent him nude photographs too, although the truth is that I wasn’t really getting much from it anymore.

I wasn’t pining for him. I wasn’t imagining a future.

I simply thought there was affection there. History. Some basic friendship after all this time.

I told him I am going to Scotland for a holiday in a few months and will be flying home from his area. I asked whether he might like to spend a couple of days together at the end of the trip. I made it easy for him. I said that if he was happily involved with someone, or it simply wasn’t appropriate, that was completely fine.

He answered the next day with a breathless little message about how lovely the trip sounded, complete with enough exclamation marks to frighten a flock of birds, but he did not acknowledge my suggestion that we meet.

Not yes. Not no. Not even, “I’ll think about it.”

He simply stepped around it and carried on.

I wasn’t expecting sex. I wasn’t expecting declarations. I wasn’t even necessarily expecting him to say yes.

I was expecting a reply. I thought he'd be pleased to see me after all this time.

I think what has upset me is that for years he has spoken about our shared past as though it mattered to him. He has recalled rooms, moments, sex, things we said and things we did. He has accepted my listening, my advice, my photographs and my availability. He has behaved as though there is some tenderness attached to that history.

Yet when I appeared in the present as an actual person, asking for nothing more than a courteous answer, he vanished.

It feels awful. Worse, it feels familiar.

Not because I am still in love with him. I’m not.

It feels awful because I thought that after thirty-five years we had become old friends. Or, at the very least, two people who had once meant enough to each other to warrant basic respect.

Am I making too much of an unanswered message?

Or have I finally understood that he is sentimental about the memories, but not especially concerned with the woman who lived them?

Yours,
Closing an Account

Dear Closing an Account,

You are not upset because he did not agree to see you. You are upset because he could not bring himself to answer you plainly.

That distinction matters.

For years, he has revisited the history between you. He has remembered the sex, the rooms, the private moments and the woman who once loved him beyond reason. He has accepted your photographs, your attention, your advice and your willingness to enter his fantasies. This has apparently required no shortage of enthusiasm on his part.

Yet the moment you asked him to meet you in real life, he became strangely short of words.

There is something shabby about a man who can summon the energy to maintain a wank bank but not the manners to acknowledge the account holder.

He may insist, if challenged, that the memories meant something to him. Perhaps they did. But sentiment is very easy when it asks nothing of us. It can survive for decades on reminiscence, fantasy and selective tenderness. Ask it to do something as ordinary as answer an invitation and suddenly the whole structure begins to wobble.

That is because nostalgia can imitate intimacy for a very long time.

You thought the two of you had become old friends. He appears to have thought he had retained access to an old lover.

Those are not the same arrangement.

The unanswered message was not the wound. It was the diagnosis.

Never mistake someone’s ability to remember you for their willingness to show up for you. They are entirely different talents.

He has shown a considerable gift for the first and very little appetite for the second.

Do not ask again. Do not send a wounded follow-up. Do not explain why his response hurt you. Do not provide him with another opportunity to turn your perfectly reasonable expectation into an emotional discussion he can avoid, minimise or eroticise.

And when he next returns with a sentimental memory in one hand and his trousers unfastened with the other, do not confuse the performance with affection.

The house of cards has already fallen. You are simply no longer obliged to crawl underneath it looking for friendship.

Yours, in closed accounts and considerably better investments,
Joely

Dear Joely: Two Women Turn Every Friday Lunch into an Accounting Tribunal

The meal is pleasant. The company is good. Then the bill arrives and eight grown women begin reconstructing lunch from witness statements.

New
here?

Dear Joely,

I’m sure this is a problem as old as time, but I am living it and it sh*%s me every time it happens. Perhaps you can help.

A group of six to eight women from my office goes out to a fairly basic restaurant for lunch on Fridays. It’s a good way for us to catch up without the interruptions of work. The boss knows and allows us a little more than the allocated hour, which is nice.

At the end, we get the bill. Most of us are perfectly happy to split it, except for two members of the group who insist on paying separately.

It always turns into a palaver while all the adding and subtracting goes on. Then, without fail, there is another mini-deliberation about the tip.

Usually, I’ve had a nice meal and enjoyed the conversation, but when this happens I can’t help throwing the stink-eye at the culprits. Last time, I think I even sighed out loud.

I should add that none of us drinks alcohol at these lunches, so it’s not as though these two Karens are being asked to subsidise somebody else’s bottle of wine.

Am I being unreasonable, or are they?

Yours billigerently,
Cathy

Dear Billigerent Cathy,

The problem is not that two women want to pay only for what they ordered. That is perfectly reasonable.

The problem is that eight hungry adults are attempting to perform forensic accounting beside a cooling plate of chips.

Splitting the bill works beautifully when everyone has spent roughly the same amount and nobody minds subsidising somebody else’s extra side of halloumi. Paying separately also works beautifully when the restaurant is told at the beginning, rather than when the bill arrives and Sandra suddenly begins reconstructing lunch from witness statements.

So next Friday, say this before anybody orders:

“Can we decide now whether we’re splitting the bill or paying individually? If anyone wants to pay separately, perhaps we can let the waiter know before we start.”

That is not rude. It is administration, and administration is best conducted before dessert.

As for the tip, agree on a percentage and divide it in the same manner as the meal. There should be no second summit meeting unless the waiter has performed CPR.

And retire the word “Karens”. They may be parsimonious, exacting or simply watching their money. You are allowed to dislike the palaver without turning two colleagues into a meme.

The stink-eye may remain, but deploy it sparingly. Like truffle oil, too much ruins lunch.

Yours, with the calculator already open,
Joely

Dear Joely: The Case of the Wandering Toe

Dear Joely,

I am fortunate to live in one of the nicer areas of Sydney with my husband and our two young children. All is as well as can be in those departments.

We are very good friends with our neighbours across the street. They are a couple, about ten years older than us. Every month or so, the four of us get together for drinks and some food. We alternate between our houses as the venue.

We both have spas in our yards and, at the end of these evenings, we usually end up having a tub together, with more drinks and chats. We don’t wear clothes on these occasions. This isn’t for any racy reason. It just came about because none of us normally wears clothes when in our own spa, so we figured: why would we start on these social evenings?

Nothing is made of the nudity, and we all really enjoy chatting together in the warm tub under the stars.

All good so far, but the problem is this: the male neighbour has taken to touching me underwater with his toe.

I don’t mean an accidental touch. I mean he is putting his toe between my legs and looking for encouragement.

This is incredibly awkward for me. If I call it out when it’s happening, that’s the evening — and possibly future get-togethers — finished. Or he could deny it.

If I speak to the female neighbour about it alone — we are very close as friends — she might feel awkward or jealous, or not believe me.

I told my husband, and he seems more amused than anything.

I don’t want to encourage him in any way. I like things, apart from this problem, as they are.

I learned of your page from a different friend and thought — hoped — you might be able to help.

Yours

Unwanted Toe Attention

Dear Unwanted Toe Attention,

What a beautifully civilised arrangement you have created: good friends, warm water, drinks beneath the stars — and one man’s big toe attempting to start a separate social programme.

Let us clear up the only part that appears to be confusing anyone. Being naked in a spa is not an invitation to be touched. Your neighbour knows the difference between an accidental brush of the foot and deliberately placing his toe between your legs while watching to see what happens next.

This is not a rogue limb. He is conducting a small underwater feasibility study:

Will she react?
Will she say anything?
Might the toe be permitted to return?

The answer to the final question must be no.

You do not need to turn the evening into a neighbourhood emergency or suddenly announce, “Whose toe is that, and why is it there?”

Although it would settle the question rather efficiently.

The next time it happens, move away, look directly at him and say quietly:

“Please don’t do that again.”

No nervous laugh. No apology. No long explanation that allows him to pretend you have misunderstood the fascinating migratory habits of his foot.

If he denies it, simply say:

“Good. Then it won’t happen again.”

That is all you need.

I would not begin by speaking privately to his wife. He created the problem, and it should not be handed to the two women to manage between them over coffee. Speaking to her first also gives him the opportunity to deny it before you have ever addressed him directly.

Your husband’s amusement deserves a second conversation too. Tell him plainly that you are not flattered, entertained or secretly enjoying the attention. You feel uncomfortable and sexually intruded upon, and you need him to take that seriously. He does not have to storm across the street with a pool noodle unless that is what you want, but he does need to stop treating it as a saucy neighbourhood anecdote.

You are worried that objecting may spoil the evening or end future gatherings.

But darling, the evenings are already being spoiled. You are sitting in warm, bubbling water wondering whether a toe is about to make another covert border crossing while everyone discusses schools, renovations and interest rates above the surface.

That is no way to relax.

One calm, unmistakable boundary may be enough to return the foot to ordinary civilian life. Should it happen again, I would retire the shared spa evenings altogether. Not because nudity caused the problem, but because one guest has shown that he cannot be trusted with the arrangement.

Warm water, cold drinks and neighbourly nudity can coexist perfectly well.

They simply require all four adults — and all forty toes — to behave themselves.

Yours, with both feet firmly where they belong,

Joely

More dilemmas? Read more letters and replies in the Dear Joely advice column.

Dear Joely: Asking for a Friend, Obviously

Dear Joely,

I have to admit I’m not sure I really believe in this sort of thing.

Advice columns always seem a bit made-up to me. People write in with these dramatic problems and then someone like you gives an answer that sounds wise and everyone claps. Maybe I’m being cynical, but it all feels a bit neat.

Anyway, I read a couple of your replies and thought I’d test you.

What exactly are you offering people here? Because from where I’m sitting, most advice is just common sense with nicer words. If someone is unhappy, leave. If someone treats you badly, tell them. If you’re lonely, join a club. If you hate your job, get another one. I don’t mean to be rude, but it doesn’t seem that complicated.

The problem is, people don’t do the obvious thing, do they?

I know someone who complains all the time about being lonely, but then when people invite them anywhere, they say no. They say they want connection, but they don’t answer messages properly. They say no one understands them, but they don’t explain themselves either.

At some point, surely you have to stop making everything deep and just admit some people are their own problem.

So what would you say to someone like that? Not me, obviously. Just someone I know.

Yours,

Not Entirely Convinced

Dear Not Entirely Convinced,

First of all, congratulations on writing an entire letter about “someone you know” while leaving your fingerprints all over the windows.

Very elegant. Very subtle. Nobody noticed. We were all too distracted by the enormous false moustache.

You ask what I am offering people here, and I’ll tell you: not rescue, not instructions, and certainly not a small laminated card marked How to Live Correctly. Most advice is not magic. You’re right about that. A great deal of it is common sense with better lighting.

Leave if you’re miserable. Speak if you’re hurt. Rest if you’re exhausted. Apologise if you’ve behaved badly. Stop texting the person who treats you like an optional side dish.

Simple, yes.

Easy? Almost never.

That is the bit you’ve conveniently stepped over while wearing your sensible shoes.

People often know what the obvious thing is. The problem is not usually information. The problem is fear, shame, habit, hope, pride, attachment, grief, and the horrible little truth that change asks something of us before it gives anything back.

As for your “someone” who complains of loneliness and then says no to invitations, doesn’t answer messages, wants to be understood but won’t explain themselves — yes, they may well be part of their own problem.

Most of us are.

That doesn’t mean the loneliness isn’t real.

Sometimes people refuse invitations because accepting one means admitting they wanted to be asked. Sometimes they don’t answer messages because the first reply feels like stepping onto a stage. Sometimes they say no one understands them because explaining themselves and still not being understood would hurt too much.

Is that frustrating for the people around them? Absolutely. Is it self-defeating? Often. Is it solved by telling them to “just join a club”? My dear, if human suffering could be cured by joining a club, the world would be a much quieter place and municipal badminton would have saved us all.

So here is my advice to your friend, whoever they may be wearing your shoes:

Stop using cynicism as a crash helmet.

It may protect you from looking foolish, but it also stops quite a lot of air getting in.

You don’t have to become one of those people who speaks entirely in therapy phrases and thanks the universe every time a parking space opens up. You don’t have to become soft-boiled and available to every invitation. But you do have to admit, at least privately, that wanting connection while avoiding exposure is a very lonely little trick.

Start small. Answer one message properly. Accept one low-stakes invitation. Tell one person the truth without making a joke immediately afterwards. Let yourself be seen in one inch of daylight and see if you burst into flames.

You probably won’t.

And if you still don’t believe in advice columns, that’s perfectly all right. I don’t believe in most things before breakfast either.

But you wrote.

So something in you is less convinced than you’re pretending.

Still not entirely convinced, but hopeful,

Joely

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Dear Joely: Why Do I Keep Going Back to Men Who Hurt Me?

Dear Joely,

Congratulations on your column. I have really enjoyed it so far. You make me smile and sometimes laugh. I hate that I need to write to you about something serious. If my letter is too much of a corta-onda — as we say back in Brasil — please don’t publish it.

I am 26 years old. I grew up in an abusive household. There was always a lot of yelling. My father was a drunk and when alcohol was involved, it was nothing for him to hit my mother.

As kids, my older sister and I tried to protect her as best as we could, but we couldn’t be there all the time. She would often walk around bruised and, of course, she suffered mentally as well.

My sister left as soon as she could, leaving me alone with my mother and father from age 13. I didn’t blame her. I still don’t.

My mother died young from cancer — at just 45. It is fair to say life was a disappointment to her.

I say all this by way of my background. My problem is that I’m finding relationships incredibly difficult. I tend to date men who are a fair bit older. Things start well, but they always turn out abusive.

I don’t stick around when this happens, but I have been known to go back and “visit the scene of the crime,” hoping things will be different. Of course, they never are.

I have tried going to counsellors. I can’t seem to relate to them and there are not many where I live. I know you can’t solve a problem that has been with me forever, but I just thought you might be able to give me some perspective.

Thank you, Joely,

Machucada

Dear Machucada,

First, your letter is not a corta-onda. It is not a mood-killer. It is a human being telling the truth.

And I’m very glad you wrote.

You grew up in a house where love and fear were tangled together before you were old enough to know they should be separate things. You watched your mother being hurt. You tried to protect her when you were still a child yourself. Your sister left, as she had every right to do, and you were left carrying far too much.

That is not “background.” That is weather. That is the climate your nervous system grew up inside.

So when you say you now find relationships difficult, I’m not surprised. Not because there is anything wrong with you, but because you learned intimacy in a dangerous room.

This is the part I want you to hear clearly: you are not choosing abusive men because you are stupid, weak, dramatic, or secretly “asking for it.” You are being pulled toward a pattern that your body recognises before your mind has a chance to object.

Sometimes what feels like chemistry is actually familiarity wearing perfume.

Older men may feel steady at first. Protective. Certain. Grown-up. But if the dynamic later becomes controlling, cruel or abusive, then the age difference may be part of the power imbalance, not an accident beside it.

The fact that you leave when abuse appears matters. That is a strong and sane instinct. Please respect that part of yourself. She is trying to save your life.

The part I would be more careful with is what you called “visiting the scene of the crime.” That phrase is painfully accurate. Going back to someone who has already shown you harm is not romance. It is the old wound asking whether this time the story might end differently.

I understand the hope. Of course you want the person who hurt you to become the person who makes it right. That would feel like justice. It would feel like repair. It would feel, perhaps, like rescuing the younger version of you who could not rescue your mother.

But abusive people rarely heal us from the harm they caused. More often, they repeat the lesson.

So here is one practical rule I would like you to try:

When a man becomes abusive, the relationship is over. Not paused. Not under review. Not waiting for his sad childhood explanation. Over.

You do not need to keep returning to check whether fire is still hot.

Counselling not working for you so far does not mean you are beyond help. It may mean you have not yet found the right kind of help. For what you describe, I would look specifically for someone trauma-informed, ideally with experience in childhood domestic violence, coercive control and relationship patterns. General counselling can sometimes feel too light for a wound this old.

You might also find it easier to begin with something less face-to-face: online trauma therapy, a domestic violence support service, a group for adult children from abusive homes, or even structured reading and journalling while you search for the right person. The right support should not make you feel judged, rushed or “too much.”

You are not too much. You are injured.

And injured people do not need scolding. They need safety, repetition, patience, and new experiences of being treated gently until the nervous system slowly begins to believe that gentleness is not a trick.

Please do not try to solve your whole life at once. Start smaller.

Do not go back to men who have harmed you.
Do not explain away the first signs of cruelty.
Do not mistake intensity for intimacy.
Do not confuse being wanted with being safe.

And when you feel the pull to return to someone who has hurt you, try saying this to yourself:

This is not love calling me back. This is the wound looking for a familiar door.

You signed yourself Machucada — wounded.

Yes. You are.

But wounded is not ruined.

Wounded is not doomed.

Wounded is not unlovable.

It only means the next part of your life must be built more carefully than the first part was built for you.

And you are allowed to build it.

Yours with tenderness, and absolutely no tolerance for men who make love feel unsafe,

Joely

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