23-06-2025
Help! Something Dangerous Happens When My Husband and I Share a Bed.
Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so we're diving into the Dear Prudence archives to share classic letters with our readers. Submit your own questions to Prudie here.
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I have separate bedrooms since I am an intolerably light sleeper and my husband thrashes like a beached whale when he sleeps. (I seriously got a black eye once from it!) Going back to his hometown means an expensive flight and not much money left over, so getting a hotel room is out of the question. How do we raise the fact that we need separate bedrooms? The last time we were here, I was only the girlfriend and spent the entire week exhausted and catnapping until people started asking if I was sick. I just do not want to raise any gossip, since separate bedrooms means marriage trouble to so many people. Can we just make up a medical reason and lie?
—Need Silence
Dear Silence,
I think there's an easier solution to this temporary problem, which is to have your husband sleep on the floor. If it's only for a few days, you can make up a reasonably comfortable pallet next to the bed, you can sleep without fear of violence, and you can hide the evidence from prying eyes every morning. (I assume he's been to the doctor about his sleep-thrashing, but if anyone in the comments recognizes this as some sort of alarming medical condition, by all means, let us know!)
—Danny M. Lavery
From: Zero. (March 15, 2016).
Dear Prudence,
I just found out that my best friend has been cheating on her husband for the majority of her marriage of a few years. I've always known it wasn't a perfect marriage, but my friend has always painted herself as a victim of her husband's mistreatment and my support and advice have been based on that perspective. Now that she's dropped this bomb on me—she's cheated with multiple people, some emotional affairs, some just physical—I'm kind of at a loss for how to respond. I think I'm the only person she's told. What is my responsibility here? I still love her as a friend, but I can't respect her actions. If I come on as too judgmental, I know she will never want to talk about it with me again.
—Cheating Friend
Dear Cheating,
You respond honestly but temper the outrage. You say that this gives you a totally different understanding of the dynamics of their marriage, you say surely she knows her inability to be physically or emotionally faithful makes a successful marriage impossible. You tell her you love her but find her actions deeply concerning. If she wants total support and will cut you off because you can't give it, then the basis of your friendship is as shaky as that of her marriage.
—Emily Yoffe
From: Dress-Up Dilemma. (Nov. 18, 2013).
Dear Prudence,
I have a co-worker with whom I had a fairly close office friendship. Over time, I developed a bit of a crush on him. (I am in a relationship, he is single.) In a spectacular mistake, I admitted this to him several months ago. After some awkwardness, our friendship seemed to resume as normal. Then in recent months he noticeably stopped speaking to me. I apologized for mentioning my crush and asked if I did something new to upset him or if my continued presence at work makes him uncomfortable. He dodged both questions, and now will only speak to me when absolutely necessary to get work done using the bare minimum number of words. I feel terrible and don't want to perpetuate an environment where we're both on edge around each other. At the same time, I understand his reluctance to talk about it. How can I address this, short of finding a new job?
—Crushing Silence
Dear Crushing,
Follow your co-worker's lead. Stop asking him why he's uncomfortable, stop trying to renew your friendship with him, and speak to him only when it's necessary to get work done. You took the risk of telling someone you work with that you had a crush on him (and, by implication, that you were willing to either leave or cheat on your partner for him), and you have to accept that not only does he not return your feelings, their reveal has permanently altered the nature of your relationship.
You realize this was a mistake, but one of the fundamental realities of mistakes is that sometimes you can feel terrible about what you've done and apologize, but that doesn't make anything better. There's no going back to an alternate timeline where you didn't say what you said, and one of the ways you can demonstrate to your co-worker (and to yourself) that you genuinely regret putting him in such an uncomfortable position is by granting him the space he clearly needs. He does not owe you any more explanations, and it won't help to further explain yourself in an attempt to feel less 'on edge' around him. Be professional and polite, stop asking him personal questions, accept that your friendship is over, and grieve in private for what you lost. (And, depending on why you made the confession in the first place, consider ending things with your partner, too.)
—D. M. L.
From: Risky Business. (Feb. 02, 2017).
My cousin is a single mother who needs rides everywhere. She has to take two buses just to get to the grocery store (with a toddler in tow), and that's both time- and cost-prohibitive for her. In theory, I don't mind helping occasionally, and I'm not going to let her go without food or diapers. But I work full time and have a busy life of my own…
