Amy Alkon

May The Divorce Be With You My apartment building has paper-thin walls, and I overhear a lot of what goes on between the couple next door. The man makes constant belittling remarks — calling his wife “ugly” and “stupid” and saying she’d cheat on him but no other man would want her. What leads a […]

Downward Doghouse There’s a woman in my yoga class I’d like to ask out. Though she’s friendly to me, I worry that this could lead to awkwardness in class if she rejects me or if we date but things go poorly. I have a two-year relationship with this class — much longer than my fantasy […]

Rust Issues My husband and I are in our 50s, married 25 years. I married for life, but I didn’t expect our initially happy marriage to turn into a dull housemates situation. With our children away at college, there’s no distraction from my husband’s lack of interest in having a fun, interesting life or even […]

Truth Ache I spent an entire Sunday with a really cute guy I met through a dating app. We kissed a bit, and I stayed over at his place (though I said no sex). Things felt weird Monday morning, so I texted to see whether we were still on for dinner. He asked to push it […]

Bed Over Heels? I‘m a 29-year-old guy with a “keep it casual” relationship history, but I can’t stop thinking about this new girl at work. Beyond not wanting her to date anyone else, I don’t want someone to hurt her or make her sad. No other woman has ever made me feel this way. How […]

Easy Rewriter At a dinner, a woman asked how my husband and I met. He says he spotted me in the campus dining hall, deliberately bumped me and spilled my drink on my tray, and used getting me a refill to ask me out. This never happened. (We met in class, and he asked me […]

Bark Ranger I’m a divorced guy in my 40s using dating apps. I’m keenly aware of what I do and don’t want in a woman and make it clear in my profile. For example, I write, “If you’re in a weird co-dependent relationship with a five-pound dog,” we are not a match. A friend looked […]

Leaping Sickness I thought I was happily married. Recently, I found a cherry Chapstick in my husband’s coat pocket – a kind he’d never buy. He claimed he randomly grabbed it at the drugstore checkout. Last week, he said he’d be visiting his mother at the nursing home, but I later learned he never showed. […]

Fossil Fool? My husband died of a heart attack at age 75. On his phone, I saw several unsettling texts from younger women, alluding to improper liaisons and asking for money. We often helped needy families, but I’m suspecting these women tempted and took advantage of a kind, caring old man, or maybe he turned […]