Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years. Each Sunday, we dive into the Dear Prudie archives and share a selection of classic letters with our readers. Join Slate Plus for even more advice columns.

Dear Prudence,

I’m a cis-gay man. My best friend is a cis-straight woman. She has been through a journey the last few years with her spouse, who came out as a trans woman. There were some breaches of trust along the way (starting hormones and hiding it, etc.), but with counseling and a lot of work, they have come to a good place and are very happy.

I know their relationship is monogamous, particularly from a recent conversation where my friend asked me as a gay man how I navigated my ex-partners’ friends all being part of the sex he was attracted to. She wasn’t trying to keep her wife from having female friends, just had never thought of that dynamic and was curious how it has been in my relationships.

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Well, I was on Grindr tonight and stumbled across my friend’s spouse. It was clearly looking for hookups, obscuring parts of her face, and even linked to an OnlyFans that I am sure my friend doesn’t know of. What should I do? I have been cheated on in the past and always said I wished someone had told me. But I’m not so sure I would’ve really wanted that. They have worked so hard to rebuild their marriage, and I don’t want to be the one to blow it up, and especially to cause my friend all of that pain. But I also know how guilty I’m going to feel every single time I see her.

Dating apps are not at all private. And how do you run an OnlyFans without your spouse knowing? How many bad excuses can you make for going out on dates with other people you meet on Grindr? It almost seems like your friend’s wife wants to get caught. Since she is doing such a bad job keeping her activities secret, I’d just let it play out. If your friend really wants to turn a blind eye to what’s going on for the sake of maintaining a “happy” relationship, she will. And if she decides to pay attention and ask more questions about these “friends,” and why the person she’s allegedly in a “good place” with is always being secretive about her phone, it won’t be hard for her to get to the truth herself. —Jenée Desmond-Harris

From: “Help! I Found My Friend’s Spouse on Grindr.” (June 22, 2021)

Dear Prudence,

My girlfriend “Abby” and I have been together four years. Abby lost her job last year. I have been paying all expenses, including both car payments. We always let each other handle our families.

My mom sacrificed a lot to raise my brothers and me. Her car was over 20 years old, so my siblings and I got together and bought her a brand-new one. I saved and used my commission bonuses to pay the most, since my brothers don’t make a lot. We surprised her on Mother’s Day. She cried like a baby and hugged us all. She also posted it to social media, where Abby’s mom and family saw it. Abby only called her mom for the holiday and told her siblings she couldn’t contribute money to take their mom out.

Now Abby’s family is giving her serious grief over it. Rather than stand up to them, Abby is blaming me for showboating and not thinking of her mom. We had the worst fight of our relationship—I called her spineless and selfish, and she is angry at me for helping my mom. I told Abby I was paying for her car and gas and that should have been enough. She started to cry.

Abby has turned down offered employment (think retail) and has limited savings. I worked hard for months and months to save for the car. I have tried to be patient with Abby over her job search, but right now I am rethinking everything. I need some outside perspective here.

What are your plans for this relationship? Have you and Abby talked about marriage, a future together, kids? I ask because there seems to be a serious disconnect between what you are already providing her—you’re paying all the bills, including car payments; that’s no joke—and what she seems to expect beyond that. If you were married, she would have more of a right to know what you’re doing with your funds. But you’re not even married! It seems like she’s asking for way, way too much.

There’s another way of looking at it, which is that she may feel like she’s stagnating, and is taking her stress about that stagnation out on you. The uncomfortable feelings that unemployment produces are myriad: self-doubt, depression, worry about the future. I don’t see the fact that she turned down one job as proof that she expects you to cover everything forever. Maybe that job was awful, or maybe she just didn’t understand how strongly you feel about her getting some of her own funds back so that you can ease out of your role as sole provider.

If you can talk to her seriously about what she sees herself doing next, you should do that. It sounds like you resent having paid for so much for so long, and you need her to start working again, to take the stress off of your relationship. If that’s the case, and you haven’t made it explicit, please do. —Rebecca Onion

From: “Help! My Neighbor Is Furious That I Moved Her Clothes Out of the Dryer.” (June 1, 2021)

Dear Prudence,

I have been happily married to my wife for 20 years. I met her when she was in grad school. I’m a decade older than her and was working a successful career when we met. We hit it off right away and were married 18 months later. We have two kids and it has been a wonderful, mutually caring, supportive, loving relationship.

Recently, my wife began talking in glowing terms about “John,” a new male colleague. I thought nothing about it, but then discovered they had been texting frequently outside work hours, and not always about work. I asked her about it and she said it was just work-related inside jokes, funny memes, etc. A few weeks later, we had a casual conversation with my in-laws about buying a vacation property. My wife got excited and immediately started texting John about the possibility of buying the vacation home so that John and his wife could vacation with us. I asked point blank (but calmly) if she was having a physical or emotional affair with John. She denied it and said she understood why I was upset and that she should have talked to me further about the vacation home before discussing it with anyone else. I believe her.

I don’t believe she is having a physical affair, but I remain worried she has slipped, or is slipping, into an emotional affair. They continue to text every day at all hours, including outside work in early morning and evenings. She continues to tell me they are just “good friends.” After I saw another text from John, she revealed that she had been talking to him about stressful issues at work and how they might be affecting her mental health. I conveyed that I was hurt that she hadn’t shared this, and she said she only talked to him first because he is a colleague and he understood the work issues she was going through, whereas I understand little about her field. This was cold comfort. I’m not sure where to go from here. Am I overreacting? Should I just take her at her word?

Your wife is allowed to have a male friend with whom she discusses her mental health, real estate, and the like. Whether or not that crosses into “emotional affair” territory is pretty subjective, and asking “are you having an emotional affair?” is pushing for an admission or denial of guilt. I suspect using the term with her point blank dramatically raises the stakes of a conversation in a way that is not helpful, especially given that it sounds like she’s being pretty open with you about what her and John discuss, as well as reflective about how it affects you, even if she’s not changing her behavior in the way you’d prefer.

I think you’ll have the most success in future conversations about this by focusing on sharing how you feel and what you’d like your relationship with her to look like. And remember that you are allowed to feel hurt and want more time with your wife, regardless of whether her actions fit a specific label. Conveying that you were hurt that she confided in John about a work issue rather than you is a great start; her response that she wanted to connect with a co-worker makes sense (I cannot imagine trying to catch my boyfriend up on the context of all the stuff I vent to my co-workers about). Could you next express that you would really like to hear more about what’s happening at her job, and with her mental health, because you care about her, and want to feel closer? You’re going to have trouble controlling when and whether she talks to John—but what is in your control somewhat is the curiosity you express about her work life. It’s not about making it a contest with this co-worker guy. I suspect feeling more secure in your own friendship with your wife—romantic relationships are part friendship, after all—will just make you care less that she also has a friendship with this dude.

One other thing I wonder is if the texting John at all hours is just annoying because it takes her out of the room with you. There might be a conversation to be had here that’s less about John and more about how you feel when she’s on her phone with someone else when you’re around. Never texting other people in your presence probably isn’t realistic, but maybe you could schedule some phone-less date time. You’ve been together 20 years, you say a bunch of nice things about your relationship at the start of this letter, and it sounds like you guys are pretty into each other. While there’s no magic solution here, and you might need to keep having some conversations that are a little tricky, I bet that you two have already made it through a lot of things that would have felled other couples. —Shannon Palus

From: “Help! Do I Tell My Boss I’m the One Who Hasn’t Been Flushing the Toilet?” (May 20, 2021)

Dear Prudence,

I’m a man in his mid-40s who has been happily married for 10 years. I particularly enjoy my wife’s dry, some would say sarcastic, sense of humor. Her wit not only attracted me to her as a partner, but it was one of the things that got me through a difficult time in my career, enabling me to see the humor in absurd and uncomfortable situations. About 18 months ago my wife’s mother passed away suddenly and my wife began seeing a counselor. After a few appointments, the counselor prescribed an antidepressant medication, Paxil, and my wife’s has been taking it ever since. As a result, my wife’s personality has changed. Not dramatically, but enough so that she has become a glass-half-full, constantly cheerful type of person. I have no idea if this is common or perhaps if she was always depressed and her dark humor existed for her to deal with it. I’m glad she’s happy now but I thought we were happy before and frankly, I miss my old wife! The new rainbows-and-sunshine person I’m living with gives me a headache and I find myself less attracted to her. I feel like a jerk and don’t know what to do. Help!

I’ll get back to you with an answer in a few weeks, because now that my husband has seen your question I assume he’ll start slipping Paxil into my half-empty coffee cup hoping for a similar change in my disposition. I have had many letters from people desperate to get their annoying loved ones on some kind of medication to take the edge off of jagged personalities. But I’ve never received such a cri de coeur from someone who wants the old sarcastic, unmedicated person back. But as an old, sarcastic, unmedicated person myself I appreciate hearing that not everyone wants a partner who has the buoyant outlook of SpongeBob SquarePants. You’re right, however, that telling your spouse her new cheerfulness has you wanting to get into bed, alone, and pull the covers over your head, is going to be a difficult, even baffling conversation. It’s best if you first broach this in the context of just checking in with her about the grief that propelled her to the therapist’s office. If she’s feeling more acceptance about her mother’s death, you can ask if the therapy has moved on from that to deal with other aspects of her life. This will give you the opportunity to talk about whether she feels the medication is still necessary and why. Depending on how that goes, you can say that you miss the sarcastic take she had on life. Tell her you don’t want to interfere with the treatment plan she has arrived at with her therapist, but as far as you’re concerned, her personality never needed any tweaking. —Emily Yoffe

From: “Help! Antidepressants Have Made My Wife Too Cheery.” (April 11, 2013)

I hate my son’s girlfriend of 13 years. They are high school sweethearts who are now 30 and talking about buying property and eventually starting a family together. He currently lives at home and helps pay my mortgage, among other things. If he leaves, I will be forced to sell the house and adjust to a new lifestyle.