I’ve Been Married for 10 Years. Every Year, One Part Gets Harder.

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 25, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Intellson/iStock/Getty Images Plus, Muhammad al-Fatih/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, Re I Don’t Need Gifts From Claude: I am sympathetic to the AI-using gift giver, even though I myself don’t use AI. I’ve been married to my husband for 10 years, but my gift-giving abilities are getting worse over time. It’s hard to explain, but there was a ton of low-hanging fruit at the beginning based on little unique things my husband said. But now that I know him well and the unique stuff has been exhausted, I am scrounging, and I feel bad because I know my gifts now aren’t as good as they used to be. I’m running out of ideas. So even though I am religiously against AI, I sympathize with the gift-giver. And if my husband told me he knows I give the “best” gifts, that would just stress me out even further because I can’t keep it up! I might have an open conversation with the husband about why he is turning to AI and what insecurities he may have about gift-giving. Maybe it’s time to relax your expectations, or maybe there’s a new way in which he can show his love. —Anxious Gift Giver Hmm, yes, good point about the pressure connected to the “best” gifts compliment. Now that I’m a couple of weeks removed from writing this response, I had another thought, too: Is an AI-inspired gift really that much worse than one inspired by a gift guide, Oprah’s Favorite Things (which apparently still exists!), or the recommendation of a salesperson? 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, Re I Don’t Need Gifts From Claude: The other thing that might be causing this guy to reach for AI for gift ideas is the same thing that drives me crazy every Christmas: The older people are, the fewer things they like and do not already possess. I enjoy the challenge, but I don’t find it surprising that my brother defaults to getting everyone chocolates, since he knows he can just do that forever. Nevertheless, I think the message to the husband should be that you preferred not to suspect AI influence on his gift-giving. —Somebody Blonde That’s such a good point about how, as we get older, we tend to already have a lot of the things that would make good gifts. I guess that’s why your brother knows that consumables are always good (or at least fine) even if they can feel a bit impersonal. Hey Prudie, Re Animal Lover: I am a vegetarian and really prefer it when my non-vegetarian husband incinerates meat outside instead of in our kitchen. Never occurred to me that we might be victimizing a vegetarian neighbor. Anyway, if the person next door asked my husband to cook on the other side of the yard, he really couldn’t. His grill is, predictably, located on the back portion of our property that is flat, paved, and away from plants and wood structures. It would not be reasonable to expect him to drag his grill into the middle of a flower bed and hunch under the Japanese maple, setting the adjacent fencing on fire. Wouldn’t work anyway—there’s this thing called wind? Letter writer, people crammed up together in an urban setting have all kinds of challenges to figure out where one resident’s rights end and another’s begin. Your compass is off. What if the little old lady next door had her 50-year-old roses planted near your windows and the smell of roses made you queasy? Would you ask her to rip them up? (I have an uneasy feeling you might.) You need to find ways to handle your own sensory issues without expecting the world to warp around them. —Rain Ann Shine I laughed out loud at “I have an uneasy feeling you might.” Hey Prudie, For Father of Two: I would suggest the book Motherless Daughters for your wife and possibly for you to understand her longstanding pain. It is a longstanding classic that might be suggested in therapy. My aunts lost their mother at 5 and 8 and found it helpful, despite having had a stepmother who tried her best to be motherly. I hope you can convince your wife to go to couples counseling before this issue damages your marriage further. Best of luck to you and your family. —Abstruse Disciplines Thank you for the recommendation! This sounds like it could be really helpful. Hey Prudie, To Happiest Time of Our Lives?: Are you sure that Shane hasn’t acquired a bunch of debts recently and that’s why he wants to marry you? Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened. And you are absolutely correct in not buying property with him or commingling your funds. I wish you a long life of much happiness, and I don’t think that’s going to happen with Shane because he does not seem to have the emotional intelligence necessary to get married. But if you do continue with this, absolutely get a prenup. And make sure you each have your own representation. I think every couple getting married should have a prenup, and it is especially important in your case. —Carolina I’m open to the new debt theory! And thanks for mentioning the prenup, just in case she disregards the advice to stay single for now. Classic Prudie I’m (over)due with my second child, and I am not looking forward to the “help” that will come when she is born. When my son was born, my in-laws came for a week. They helped by holding my son, soothing my son, playing with him—all the things I wanted to do. To be fair, they also cooked and cleaned a bit, but I had no idea how to tell them to let us bond. My in-laws are coming again this time around, from what I understand… Advice Dear Prudence Marriage