Dear Annie: My husband is a sweet man who says he loves me. But ever since he took a management position, his already bad temper is totally out of control. He must be civil to his co-workers, so he takes out his frustrations on our daughter and me with a lot of yelling and verbal abuse. He apologizes afterward, but still continues to do it.
This is the way my brother-in-law treated my sister for 29 years, until she had finally had enough and divorced him. I swore I would never allow myself to tolerate such treatment. I am 52 and have told my husband I can’t take much more. How do I maintain my sanity? — Crying Inside
Dear Crying Inside: Your husband should not be wound so tightly that he has to let off steam by yelling at you. Worse, he is teaching his daughter that tolerating such abuse is part of marriage. Insist your husband go with you for counseling so the two of you can work on his anger problem. If he won’t go, go without him.
Dear Annie: Recently, my husband and I and several relatives went out to a restaurant that promised to have a table for us in 30 minutes. At the end of the half-hour, the waitress began setting up a table, but did not seat us. When my husband asked, we were told they needed to combine the first table with a specific second table in order to have room for all of us. The party at the second table had paid their bill some time before and was chatting. We were told they’d be leaving “soon.”
Fifteen minutes later, the other party still had not moved and two people in our group had to go home. Since we had walked there from another engagement, we could not easily go to another restaurant. My husband finally approached the people at the second table and asked them to leave.
As you can imagine, they were not happy and lodged a complaint as they left. The hostesses were not happy, either. The manager told us it was not their policy to ask customers to leave, no matter how long they lingered. Since we had to wait for that one table, we were being held hostage by the oblivious selfishness of the squatters and could have been there indefinitely if my husband hadn’t acted.
Should we have handled this differently? — Disgruntled in Denver
Dear Denver: We understand your annoyance, but diners can linger as long as they wish if that is the policy of the restaurant. No one likes to be rushed out the door if they are still enjoying the conversation. Instead of telling other patrons to leave (that’s totally inappropriate), you should have requested that the wait staff find two other tables to push together in order to seat your party. If that was not possible, you should have left and told the manager why.
Dear Annie: I read the letter from “All Ways a Lady,” who said she is “happy, honest, hard-working, loyal and intelligent,” but when men find out she is “slightly overweight” they won’t give her a second look.
By “slightly overweight,” does she mean 10 pounds or 50 pounds? I have seen online profiles that say the same thing, only to discover the woman is a 350-pound bruiser.
We single men who are looking for a decently sized woman will be immediately turned off by huge rolls of fat. I, too, could lose about 40 pounds, but I don’t try to mask that fact and would appreciate it if women did the same. — Honest in Tennessee
Dear Tennessee: Well, you are indeed honest. But grossly overweight women (and men) are caught between being honest and getting a date. When they fudge about their size, they’re hoping the date will be impressed enough by their personality to overlook everything else. But we agree it doesn’t usually work that way.
Annie’s Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column. Please e-mail your questions to anniesmailbox@comcast.net, or write to: Annie’s Mailbox, P.O. Box 118190, Chicago, IL 60611. To find out more about Annie’s Mailbox, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Published in The Messenger 2.13.08