I Found the Secret Equation for Keeping My Working Wife Happy. Now She’s Grateful I Retired!

Dear Prudence Prudie replies to readers’ comments and suggestions. Advice by Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris? Sept 11, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by darul ulum/iStock/Getty Images Plus, Nadya Ustyuzhantseva/Getty Images Plus and Slate. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Each week, Prudence asks readers for their thoughts on the letters she’s received. Her reply will be available every Friday. Hey Prudie, To Wife Wants My Retirement Work Schedule: I was you five years ago. My wife also wanted to know my plans for the day, every single day. I sat down with her and explained my overall plans for the upcoming months. I said, if there is something you need me to do—take something to the cleaners, pick up a prescription, etc. just tell me. I’ll get it done. We have a shared grocery list. I do the grocery shopping, overall meal planning and cooking, and laundry (yes, I understand which of her clothes do NOT go in the dryer). Every other week we have a cleaning service. I do sweep the floors, Swiffer mop, change sheets, etc. on the off weeks. I make her lunch every day. I make her breakfast and coffee while she gets ready for work. When she comes home, I ask if she wants a glass of wine before or after her shower. I try to make her life at home as stress-free as possible. I go to the gym around 11 a.m. daily. I meet friends, go see grandkids, volunteer, and do things at our home. Some days I do the absolute bare minimum. Now she’s grateful I retired and thanks me often for making her life easy. I guarantee you that if you spend two to three hours a day doing these things, she won’t micromanage you! —Private Chef, Houseman, and Boy Toy The glass of wine before or after her shower takes this to the next level! I’m glad this is working and that you can have your bare-minimum days in peace. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Hey Prudie, I’m REALLY torn about Cycling Through Options, the biking dad. On the one hand, the time commitment of this biking hobby per week is no different than a round of golf. On the other hand, four to seven hours of biking over a weekend feels like a decent amount of biking on weekends. I’m assuming these are weekend activities based on only doing it two or three times a week. Can this time commitment be broken up into smaller pieces during the week? Thirty minutes to an hour a week seems reasonable to manage IF AND ONLY IF all the household tasks are accounted for, and you’re able to provide your wife with the same amount of time away from parenting every day. Younger kids are up early, and it seems like you’re biking during the most active part of the day. If they nap or have quiet time, can you bike then, when it’s not disruptive to the ebb and flow of the day? I grew up with a dad who exercised every day when he came home from work. It was just built into the schedule; the trade-off was that my mom got to read books, and he was responsible for keeping us occupied when that happened. —Can You Bike a Little Every Day? Yes, I agree: “IF AND ONLY IF all the household tasks are accounted for.” My sense is that where the letter writer went wrong was deciding that he was going to bike and then trying to find ways to make it work, rather than deciding he was going to do equal parenting duties and then consulting with his wife to make biking work. Hey Prudie, Re Cycling Through Options: As a distance runner and mother of two (with a demanding, stressful job, as well), there was some missing information from the bike letter: When is he going biking, and what is going on with the kids during that time? He says four to seven hours/week over only two to three rides. This means his rides are pretty long. Is he squeezing them in before/after work? Or is he spending most of Saturday and Sunday mornings biking while the wife gets the kids to soccer and karate and runs necessary errands? That will very much elucidate whether his wife is being unreasonable. For reference, I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning so I could squeeze in my run and still get my child to physical therapy and then school. I have run laps around the soccer field during weeknight practices. I have loaded my kids onto bikes and had them ride alongside me while I run, or plopped them down in the football field with toys while I did speedwork on the track. In my little corner of the endurance sports world, moms routinely adjust their training to accommodate kid schedules, and dads often just train whenever they find it most enjoyable (not saying it’s universal, but it is a distinct pattern). That’s a dynamic that can lead to well-founded resentment. The letter writer did not provide enough information to let us know if it’s happening here. —Holmey I know this wasn’t the point of your letter, but I’m inspired! Hey Prudie, To Still Sneezing: If your friend’s mental health issues are responsible for the lack of cleaning, then she is not “disrespecting” you by neglecting to vacuum. You don’t ever have to stay at her house again—I wouldn’t—but at the same time, you don’t get to take personal offense at her mental health issues. Cleanliness/cleaning tends to be a sensitive spot for a lot of people, and especially women. There is no tactful way to bring up the subject specifically. That said, you can take her out to lunch or talk with her on the phone, ask how she’s doing, suggest seeking treatment (if she reveals enough information about her mental health difficulties to make that suggestion logical), ask her how you can support her, and otherwise be a friend to her. If her health improves, the house should get cleaner (though her pets might prevent you from visiting allergy-free, no matter how clean the house may be). —Onelaw I really agree with most of this. The only place I’ll quibble is that I worry that someone who is inclined to feel disrespected by a struggling friend’s dirty house may not have the mindset to also be the person who gently nudges her to seek help and supports her. Hey Prudie, Re Ex-Girlfriend’s Parents Let Me Know Their Secret: I’m the one who got away! I had a boyfriend all through high school. We talked about marriage but in a nebulous way; then in college, I broke it off with him. Believe me, nobody twisted my arm. I simply met other people and changed my mind. And yes, I was shocked when I met up with this ex over 10 years later, and the guy was still bitter about the whole thing, even though he had a wife! So, take a deep breath, do something nice for your wife, like take her to dinner, and don’t think about this woman anymore. She sure doesn’t think about you. —Mango Love the advice to focus on the wife he actually has instead of the woman he’s married to in other people’s fantasies. Classic Prudie My boyfriend, “Alan,” has been attached at the hip to “Ally” since college. There have in-jokes about Alan marrying Ally if he was straight and about Alan being her baby daddy if they both hit 40 without partners. They have lived together and text each other all the time. Alan made the choice to move to our city because Ally was here. I feel like the wicked stepmother coming in to ruin the fairy tale. Ally is obnoxiously nice and considerate. Her family adores Alan, and me by default. The entire setup feels like a sitcom. Advice Dear Prudence Marriage