ArcaMax

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

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

Dear Annie: We have one son who is married and has two beautiful children. At Christmas time, I go all out to make sure that I gift the grands things I know they will enjoy and appreciate.

We also exchange gifts with my son and daughter-in-law. This past year, it was an Omaha Steaks assortment, which I know they love to receive. In addition, ...Read more

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

Dear Annie: I have a problem that feels small when I say it out loud, but it is starting to take up way too much space in my head.

I have a close friend, "Megan," who has quietly turned into the scorekeeper of our friendship. She keeps tabs on everything. If I take two hours to text back, she will say, "Wow, must be nice to be busy," with a ...Read more

Dear Annie: My wife and I have been married eight years and we have two young kids. They are my whole world. I love being a dad in a way I did not expect. I am the one who volunteers for bedtime stories, who gets up early on Saturdays so my wife can sleep, who actually enjoys the chaos of backpacks, snack cups and little shoes that disappear. ...Read more

Dear Annie: I'm a 73-year-old married woman, and my husband and I have a full social life. We regularly host other couples for happy hour, dinner and holidays. I enjoy it, and I'm grateful to have good friends at this stage of life.

One friend in particular is a woman my age whom I've known for years. We generally get along well, which is why...Read more

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

Dear Readers,

This time of year, my inbox fills with the same quiet sentence written a hundred different ways: "I'm tired of being the reasonable one."

It comes from the woman hosting Sunday dinner who gets criticized no matter what she serves. The man who keeps lending money to a sibling who never pays it back. The adult child who answers ...Read more

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

The city invited me to ride on its inaugural hot-air balloon flight. We headed to the local high school fields at a chilly dawn, and the brand new balloon slowly woke as air and heat gave it shape. The burners thundered, and the basket rocked beneath our feet. Then the ground loosened its hold. Gravity softened. The familiar sense of weight, not...Read more