Life Advice
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Single File: Connectedness or Putting Down Roots
Feminism is changing. The vitality that made sisters of us all, women tethered to one another by indignation and conviction, is becoming more personal. The battle for equal partnership is being waged in corporate offices, day care centers, private homes -- no longer by bra-burning mobs in public squares -- and it will ultimately be won by women ...Read more
Forget the apps and algorithms. To find love, maybe just go to a 166-year-old bar
PHILADELPHIA -- McGillin’s Olde Ale House, the 166-year-old pub in Center City long owned by the same family, has determined that being a matchmaker is a strategic advantage in a crowded industry.
Of course they serve draft beer, Philly cheesesteaks, and wings — but the bar has leaned especially hard into being, in its own description, the ...Read more
Asking Eric: Alexa’s eavesdropping makes for uncomfortable visits with friends
Dear Eric: I have friends who have Alexa in their homes, and I understand that Alexa is a valuable tool when used as indicated. I also understand that it “listens” to any conversation carried on in its presence. This bothers me, because we often have intimate and/or professional conversations.
Is this a legitimate concern, or am I being ...Read more
Older But Not Weaker
Dear Annie: I'm a 75-year-old widow who has lived in the same little Cape for 43 years. I still do my own shopping, I drive myself to church, and I host Sunday supper when my joints cooperate. I'm not fragile, but I am ... older. And lately, I feel like everyone is determined to treat me like a porcelain figurine.
It started after I slipped ...Read more
Ask Anna: Help! I don't know how to handle Valentine's Day in a new relationship
Dear Anna,
I’ve (36-year-old female) been seeing a new guy (34) for about six weeks — we’ve been on six dates, things are going really well and there’s clearly mutual interest, but we haven’t had the “what are we” conversation yet. Now Valentine’s Day is coming up and I’m completely lost. Do I acknowledge it? Plan something? ...Read more
Asking Eric: Conflict at concert stage ruins band fan’s tradition
Dear Eric: I have been attending shows of local bands for more than two decades and have met a very nice group of people who go to these shows and developed many nice friendships. Due to health reasons, I normally sit in the chairs in the back, will wander and socialize at times and sometimes at the intermission I will go up to the front of the ...Read more
Teen's Content Creating Has Gone Too Far
Dear Annie: I'm a 42-year-old mom of two. I've been remarried for three years, and I'm trying hard to do the blended family thing with grace. My husband has a 16-year-old daughter, "Mia," who lives with us half the time. Most days are fine, but there's one issue that has turned our home into a low-grade reality show.
Mia has started recording...Read more
Asking Eric: After brother’s death, his terrible wife wants to stay in touch
Dear Eric: My husband’s brother was a nice guy, albeit boring and a conversation hog. But he was family and we invited him, along with his wife and son, to our home over the years (they lived 500 miles away). He passed away three years ago.
His wife is one of the nastiest people I’ve ever met. She was verbally abusive to her husband, ...Read more
Showing Up Sick Is Selfish, Not Brave
Dear Annie: I genuinely like my job and most of the people I work with. We are a small office, so we see a lot of each other, share the same kitchen and bump into one another all day long. Normally that is fine, but lately one co-worker has turned cold and flu season into his own personal hobby.
I will call him "Carl." Carl has a special ...Read more
Asking Eric: 70-year-old fears he is a sugar daddy
Dear Eric: I am regretfully asking myself if I have morphed into a de facto sugar daddy. I'm in a four-year live-in relationship with a 42-year-old woman. I am 70.
Many might think the 28-year age gap is prima facie evidence of a sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship. However, to date, the relationship has been the best, as it has been adorned ...Read more
A Fantasy That Raises Questions
Dear Annie: My husband and I have been married for 21 years, and our intimate life has always been great. Lately, though, over the past couple of months, he's become interested in role-playing. He loves to play the husband with a mistress, saying things like, "Don't let my wife catch us," or "I hope your husband doesn't come home and find us."...Read more
Picking Up the Pieces After Being Left Behind
Dear Annie: I'm wrapping up a HORRIBLE, out-of-the-blue abandonment divorce from my soon-to-be ex-husband.
In 2023, I came home from teaching kindergarten to find out my ex took the majority of our furniture and moved out of state. He blocked me and erased me as if I didn't exist. It took several months to locate him with a private detective....Read more
Missing Intimacy in an Otherwise Good Marriage
Dear Annie: I've been married for 27 years, and by most measures we have a good, steady life. We're healthy, financially secure and get along well. There's no infidelity or drama.
The problem is there's no romance or passion either. I've started to feel deeply lonely in my marriage.
My husband is kind and dependable but distant. He's gone ...Read more
Ask Anna: The guy I'm dating won't stop pressuring me about condoms -- what do I do?
Dear Anna,
I’ve been seeing someone for about two months. From day one, I told him I’m not on birth control and that condoms are nonnegotiable. Yet every time things get physical, he starts pushing back — asking if we can “just this once” skip it, saying condoms don’t feel as good, or promising he’ll pull out or be careful. We ...Read more
Single File: Male-Bashing -- How to Recognize and Avoid It
One day soon, in the middle of male-bashing with friends, you're going to discover that you're not participating as enthusiastically as the rest. When that happens, I hope you pat yourself on the back and think of me. It was the exercises of self-exploration in this column that you used to strengthen yourself and become abler to give yourself ...Read more
Ask Dating Coach Erika: How do I write the 'right' profile?
I get a lot of questions that sound something like, “Can you help me write a profile that attracts the type of person I'm looking for?”
In the most loving way, I say, “No, I can't do that.”
And I don’t answer that way to be dismissive. I answer that way because I genuinely don't know what the person you're looking for … is ...Read more
His parents wanted him to follow Jesus. He chose polyamory instead
PHILADELPHIA — Franki Jupiter grew up in St. Louis, the son of a Presbyterian minister and a Bible Study teacher. He was raised to believe he should marry young and remain committed — to both Jesus and his wife — for life.
But Jupiter, 39, didn’t end up doing so.
“I love people, and I’m not great with impulse control,” he ...Read more
Millennial Life: Thoughts and Prayers for the Second Amendment
We have been told, for decades now, that dead children are the price of freedom. School shootings are tragic, yes, but unavoidable. The Second Amendment is sacred, and any attempt to regulate guns is tyranny.
So when a man was shot and killed in Minnesota while legally carrying a firearm, not threatening anyone, not firing, not even holding it,...Read more
Ask Anna: My girlfriend's male coworker texts her constantly -- should I be worried?
Dear Anna,
I’m 35 and my girlfriend is 30. She works at a tech startup and has gotten really close with one of her coworkers — a 28-year-old guy who just moved to the city. They’re part of a work friend group that hangs out outside the office pretty regularly. Last weekend, the whole group went to a concert that I wanted to go to, but I ...Read more
Single File: Fusion Feminism
Again and again, my mind returns to the letters I receive from women discouraged and frustrated in their relationships with men. Recently, when I was thinking about a photo I had seen of Gloria Steinem in softly curled tresses, the letters and the photo jelled and became an insight: The chief exponent of female equality was urging her flock ...Read more
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