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AnonAnon
So I’ve posted on here a couple of times that my H has repeatedly asked me if I am having or have had an affair. I have not. Never have. Never even considered it. He asked me several weeks ago what I would do to prove it and you all gave me some great feedback. I have, unfortunately, not been strong enough to follow it. This weekend he asked if I would take a lie detector test. Part of me wants to cry and part of me wants to laugh. I know I need to get out, but am having the hardest time actually doing it. I really don’t have anyone IRL that can help me through this. I don’t even know that I have a question here, just need some support. Thanks.
Anon
Do you have children?
If not, what is holding you back?
I’m glad part of you can laugh at his demands, but I am a little scared for you.
Please confide in a close friend or family member today. And hire a lawyer. Today.
Anon
In spirit, I have your back. He is being crazy and that he has no brakes or filters is concerning. You know where the door is — it is time to use it and cut your losses here.
Chl
Oh my gosh. I’m glad he is making it so clear that this is bonkers but I am so sorry you’re in this situation. We are rooting for you and I bet that there are people in your life who you might not think of but would absolutely want to help you get out of a situation like this.
Anon
Your husband is not going to stop. He already doesn’t trust you for basically no reason. You have no other options. You have to leave. I support you leaving, immediately. I don’t support you staying and just hoping it gets better, because that is lying to yourself. Get out! Now! Get a consultation with a divorce lawyer or two as soon as you can.
anon
I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this. It sounds like whatever you do will never be enough for your spouse. What you’re experiencing can go from bad to scary. I’m not at all qualified to give advice, but can you find someone who is as a next step? A lawyer, therapist with DV experience, or DV hotline?
You don’t have to do everything at once. Just go to one person who knows how to handle these things and ask them for help on what to do as a next step. And then do it. And then ask for advice on the step after that.
Anonymous
I will take you at your word that you don’t have friends or family in your town who would help you. But you definitely have access to real life, local resources through a DV hotline. Even if you don’t qualify for specific services based on your income, the hotline should be able to help provide you concrete tools to help plan how you’ll leave and help you find a lawyer. I don’t remember the details of your prior posts, but there are also organizations tailored to specific religious/cultural backgrounds if that’s a component of why you feel stuck. Good luck!
Anon
Please know that you deserve better. That is not normal. Spouses don’t ask for lie detector tests.
Do you have your own bank account? If not, open one today. Put any cash you can without him noticing. Gather your important documents (birth certificate, SS card, passport. marriage certificate, retirement statements, bank statements etc). Bring them to work if need be or put them in your car.
I really encourage you to tell a friend as you make a plan to leave him. Maybe you feel embarrassed. Don’t be! People will support you and want to help you.
Anon
If he’s controlling/monitoring your spending – I’ve seen a suggestion to use your debit card for things like groceries and get small-ish amounts of cash back every time.
Anon
Cash back can show up on the line description on statements. I wouldn’t do this. Ask someone in the grocery line if you can buy something for them and get cash.
Anon
Nobody is going to say yes to this, not to mention it’s 2023 so nobody’s going to have cash on them anyway.
Anon
If he’s controlling and monitoring spending, I think the best idea is to set up your own account and then withdraw a pile of money the very day you leave. Let the notification of the withdrawal of a few thousand dollars be the notification that you’re gone.
Anon
Step 1: call the local DV hotline. Just because he is not hitting you (or is he?), doesn’t mean this isn’t abusive.
Step 2: make an appointment with an attorney. Reach out for recommendations – someone here will have a good one.
Step 3: go to appointment, ask for the attorney to file the paperwork, serve him, and be done with it.
Step 4, the hardest one: find out who your real friends are. Yes some people may take his side; other people will rally behind you.
anonshmanon
You need to look at the long view. The lie detector test (which is not a reliable method anyway) will not change anything. Let’s say you ‘pass’ the test, your H will maybe let it go for a few weeks. But he doesn’t trust you, that’s a foundational problem no test or proof or evidence can fix. He will come up with new accusations before the year is up. He will not stop. Given that, do you still want to be in this relationship 1 year, 5 years, 10 years from now?
Anonymous
It’s not really about trust. It’s about control.
Anon
What exactly are you having a hard time with? Is it having some place to go? How to afford that? Thinking about filing for divorce? I am going through this now and the only way I could deal with this at the place you are at now is with baby steps. Only deal with the most important immediate things first. That would be where will you go (it sounds like he would not leave the house so you have to) and how will you pay for it. The first few days may be at a friend or family’s house, or an inexpensive hotel. That will give you at least a little time to get away from him and think of next steps, which is where you will move to. If money is an issue, even getting a new credit card just in your name and using that to pay for housing in the short term is better than being with this person.
Hugs. I am so sorry you are going through this.
Trish
I suspect she is having a hard time because he has isolated her from her family and friends and abusers make their victims feel worthless. What kind of work do you do and how big is your office? There has to be someone who may not be a friend but who would be sympathetic to you. We are all pulling for you! Please make a new handle and keep checking in.
Anonymous
Do you have a DV support line that you can call from work? Or a local women’s shelter?
Your husband is the kind of guy who ends up killing his wife, so even if you have to drop everything and run, please find a way to get out now!
Scuttle
My ex was like this — he was the one who was cheating and it was all projection. Please get a lawyer; thinking of you.
Anon
That was my immediate thought – he’s cheating and projecting it onto you. It’s apparently pretty common. Although tbf, him cheating is not the most concerning thing here.
Anon
Thehotline d-o-t org will help you make a plan to leave.
anon
Do this from a public computer and make calls from a non-personal phone (work line?). He doesn’t trust you and I wouldn’t doubt the lengths he’d go to to figure out what you’re doing.
Anonymous
OP here. We do have children. That is the biggest thing that is holding me back. I’m afraid they will take his side and not understand what I am going through. I know one will understand me, but the other 2 may not. Finding a place to stay in the interim is also difficult. I’m not sure I could find a place that would lend itself to having all of the kids have space to spend time there. I would want to know that they have that option. He has control of all of the finances at this point. I don’t have the combination to the safe where he keeps things like social security cards and important papers so I would have to access to those.
Anecdata
Big hug to you OP
I can’t guarantee that your kids won’t be mad/frustrated/take his side, especially in the short term. But I can absolutely guarantee that seeing you refuse to be treated like this, seeing that this is not a healthy normal way to treat a partner, and not something /they/ should put up with in relationships either, is the best thing for them long term
Anon
Ok… so start with simple things.
Make a call to one of the Domestic violence helplines, and just get some emotional support and ideas about how to approach this with 3 kids. Ideally, you will not leave your home…. he will. That can be your goal right now, as we are in a scary place, but you haven’t expressed that you feel unsafe.
If you can, share what major city you are near, and we will tell you lawyers you can call.
Is there anything that critical in the safe? I mean you don’t really need a social security card or passport right now. Do you have a debit card, so you at least know what is in your bank account?
Anon
If you leave, maybe your kids will be mad. Maybe they will someday understand.
If you stay, they WILL learn that this is normal – or at least that Mom thinks this is normal.
Anonymous
Given that OP is afraid they will take his side/not understand what she is going through, they have already learned it is normal.
Chances are dad has been manipulating them from the get-go…and that the two that won’t understand are boys, and the one that will is either a girl or a younger more sensitive boy that has trouble relating to dad… (this is the dynamic I’ve seen play out…)
Anon
I know you want to have a place that has room for all the kids, but that just may not be possible. I know moms that have left and had to rent a one bedroom apartment and share the bedroom with the children. If this is what you have to do for now, then you need to do it to get out of this relationship. Just think of this as the first step; you can figure out a bigger place sometime later on.
Anonymous
The DV people can help you get replacements for your documents, and they can also help you with not having access to the finances.
Please call and speak to someone about your situation!
Anon
In case you needed another red flag… this is it. He is controlling and this is not normal (to not have access to important documents). Big hugs to you OP. I’m in the Baltimore area if you’re around here by any chance.
Anonymous
The documents thing is not normal! You’ve gotten great advice here. I’d add that you might want to start a collection of proof of your mothering, in case there’s a custody battle. Also, if you have pricey jewelry he’s given to you, maybe collect that.
Trish
I am thinking you may want to make an attempt at documenting some of this. As an example, the fact that you can’t get your own documents. Or save any texts that have to do with taking the lie detector test. I am guessing many of his texts would be considered problematic but he may try to paint you as a crazy liar.
Anon
Hi OP – you are in a similar situation that my mom was in when she left my biological father approx. 25 years ago. I am her oldest daughter, and I have two younger sisters, so I’m speaking to you from a place similar to your children. My mom left because she didn’t want us to think that this type of behavior / abuse was “normal.” She also didn’t have control of the finances; we had to flee while my biological father was out to lunch. She intentionally placed various important items around the house a few weeks before we left so that she could grab them at a moment’s notice. Then, we took the car and headed straight to a women’s shelter. Once there, they helped her set up a bank account, obtain copies of important documents (social security cards, birth certificates, etc.), and got her in contact with a divorce attorney. They also helped us find affordable housing. From my perspective, our time at the shelter wasn’t bad – I was with my sisters and other kids, and they had toys and activities to keep us busy. They also facilitated getting us into therapy to cope with the divorce. We all turned out okay, too – I’m a lawyer, my youngest sister is a director at a company, and my middle sister is a full-time mom. As for my mom – once she had her feet under her, she remarried a very kind man, went back to school, and got her PhD in psychology. We all fully supported my mom’s decision, and are very thankful that she left and spared us from the abuse. I’m very proud of her decision, and I understand even more now how difficult it was. I’m sharing this story to let you know that it can turn out okay for you and your kids if you decide to leave. Sending you support virtually, whatever decision you make. <3
Nesprin
LEAVE HIM. You deserve so much better than this jerk’s nonsensical jealousy.
anon
In case you need to hear it again: this is not normal, and you have done nothing wrong. There is nothing more that you can do to prove your innocence. Please start taking steps, even the tiniest ones, to get out of this situation.
Anon
This.
This is an entire community of thousands of intelligent, determined women, and all of us who’ve posted in response – and every person who’s read and not commented – are behind you. You can do this. Like I said on a morning post, Future You is giving Current You a big hug.
anon
I don’t usually comment, but feel compelled to – yes, yes and yes. We are all supporting you. You have done nothing wrong. You can do this.
Do you have local support? Where are you located? If you’re in Boston I’ll meet you for coffee or lunch tomorrow. This hive will be your village if you need it.
anonshmanon
+1 million.
Anonymous
I’m not sure if this would help you, but I might approach a request for a lie detector like I’d approach a request for a paternity test. I have nothing to hide so if you want the information then fine. But the fact that you don’t trust me is a dealbreaker for the relationship. If you choose to insist upon the test then you choose divorce.
AnonAnon
OP here. That is pretty much what I told him, I don’t have anything to hide so I don’t care about taking a lie detector test. The problem is that no matter what I do it won’t be enough for him to let it go. So taking the test won’t make things any better in the long run.
Anonymous
“if you have nothing to hide…” ? What happens if OP ‘fails’ the test because she is anxious? Polygraph results can’t even be used as evidence in court because they are so unreliable…
Anon
An ex of mine’s ex wife had him take a polygraph bc she thought he was cheating (he copped to watching porn to an elder in the cultish church they were part of where porn is forbidden and it escalated from there). He failed. Twice. Even though he was not cheating.
This is a damned if she does damned if she doesn’t situation. Please please take the good advice already given and get out.
Anonymous
I might take the offensive here and hire a private investigator to see if he’s cheating. Get a financial picture of your joint assets also. Are you on the house? The bank/investment accounts? Any kid saving accounts? Start a private bank account just for you. I’m so sorry he’s being so weird. What is he proposing needs to happen if you are having an affair? Separation? Divorce? He’s already lining his offense/defense up; you should too. (Is there a prenup with an infidelity clause, out of curiosity?)
Anon
Even though he has all the documents locked up, you can get duplicates at the physical locations IF you’re also on the accounts. Go to the bank and ask for a statement or account info. Write Social Security for a duplicate card. Write your birth-county office for a copy of your birth certificate. Get a copy of the deed to your home from the County.
OPEN A PO BOX.
AnonAnon
OP here. Follow up question regarding housing. I know that he would want to keep the house. It has always been important to him and not to me, so I have been stuck on how to find a place for myself that the kids can be at and have enough space, etc. that is not terribly expensive. In the next year or so there will only be one kid at home, the others will be of college age. I am happy to let him keep the house, but can I ask him to leave until things are sorted out? The one attorney I talked with a few years back said most people just live in the same house until things get sorted out. Not sure that would work in my case.
Anon
You may have to get a one bedroom and the kids sleep in that room when they are with you and you sleep on the couch, or vice versa.
Anon
Yes, you can ask him to leave. I would talk to a lawyer first…. to have firm recommendations from a knowledgeable source.
He may be a jerk and refuse. Only you know if you can tolerate living with him until you leave the house for good. I hesitate to tell you to sacrifice an asset too easily that may make taking care of the kids easier, and he certainly needs to pay you accordingly if he keeps the house. Sometimes you just don’t know what will happen until… it happens…. until you tell him your decision.
Anon
Does your employer have an EAP (employee assistance program)? If so, use it! They are totally confidential, free and can help you strategize and connect you to other resources.
NaoNao
Said with love, but I think the priority here should be getting out now, and sorting out the “enough space” later. Most modern bedrooms are big enough for two beds, and most 2-bedroom apartments can sleep up to 5 people (I see this all the time in my apartment complex–families with multiple children in a 1 or 2 bedroom unit). The idea is to get breathing room and *safety* while you figure out the details, not to buy or rent a forever home. Older kids are likely on the go with school, hobbies, activities and friends, and just need a place to “crash” + a tiny bit of privacy. Younger kids (like under 10) might feel like it’s an adventure to sleep on an air mattress or a futon they fold back up every morning. Folding room dividers are $100 at discount home goods stores, and beaded curtains even less.
Here’s the thing: it will be painful. There is no magical easy one and done solution where there’s a phrase or word or action that you can take to “make him stop” or change him and everything is now great OR find a $400 a month 4 bedroom house with a garage apartment with no money down and no credit check or whatever. I think the sooner you accept it’s going to be painful and uncomfortable and upsetting for everyone, the sooner you can get out of this scary and dangerous situation. You kind of have to choose your pain: the pain of knowing you’re modeling abusive love for your kids and maybe even putting them in danger, as well as your own life and sanity—for the rest of your life or until he chooses to leave, or the *temporary* pain of moving out and going to a smaller, cramped place *for now* until you get a job, get on your feet, get your family and friends back, move on, etc.
Also I would attempt to reach out to friends and family. Many friends are waiting for the “lightbulb moment” where an abused woman realizes the situation and wants to get out. Even if they’re not in the same country, they might be able to send money, cosign a loan, loan a credit card, help you sort out legal stuff, call around to apartment places, recommend you for a job, or just be a sympathetic ear.
anon
Please, please speak to an organization in your area specializing in family violence. I am a family law lawyer in Canada, so it might be very different there. But those organizations may be able to connect you with a lawyer for some free (to you) legal advice. It might be possible to have him removed from the home temporarily, which will give you space to think and plan safely. But the org should at least be able to help you assess personal risk and do some safety planning.
This might be coercive controlling behaviour, which is a serious matter. Just focus on the first step: call a local family violence organization.
Anon
Are you the Church Jeans poster by any chance? I remember being very worried about you and your situation. You deserve better than this. I hope you get out of this situation and find a path forward where you are valued and loved.
CreditRisk
Your post resonated with me because I’ve been through something similar although not as severe.
I have 3 children and my eldest is 12. I decided that I wanted the divorce completed as quickly as possible. It was done in 4 months. Assets were divided easily because his pension was huge so I got the home, which I now rent out.
It’s a prescribed process when you get divorced and I fully empathize with you delaying. I would start with getting a DV therapist followed a divorce coach and attorney. This nightmare is going to take 3-5 years to ‘escape’ and no you won’t have fully escaped once divorced because controlling men will always want to control you. He will use the children, which I think you know, therefore understandingly have delayed getting divorced.
In terms of finances, I suggest you start with getting yourself ready to boost your income. You are now expected to earn your own money with alimony being very limited in many instances. If you need to complete any certificates etc I highly recommend doing all of that now. For about a year I was in a fog and with the controlling behavior, it quickly slipped to harassment, which I ignore because I can’t prove it’s him doing it.
I assume you have been isolated from your family and friends. I bet your family have been waiting for you to wake up and leave him. Many of my friends are thrilled I’m divorced. They just want me to move closer to them.
Anon
I haven’t dated in so long that I’m pretty sure I’m making a bigger deal of it in my head than it actually is. I’m overthinking it to a ridiculous degree. Reminds me of when I was between jobs and I could not get my head around interviewing and job hunting, so I would try to think my way into a new job (spoiler alert: it didn’t work). I know I need to just start DOING the thing but I am avoidant and freaking out. Help?
Anon
You can’t think your way into dating either. You have to take steps. Download an app. Go on a shitty first date. Get that over with. Then you’ll feel better about it.
Anon
If your first date is really shitty, you can let him feel you up in public, feel him up in public, get thrown out of a public venue for your behavior and then say that you won’t go on a second date because . . . he is in the other political party. Hahahaha. In other words, no first date will be worse than Lauren Boebert’s recent first date.
Anon
Why are you freaking out? You don’t have to date if you don’t want to.
Breakup
I’m the breakup post from this morning. When I’m fully healed I plan on getting back out there again. Like interviewing, you just got accept the fact that you will be uncomfortable and it will get less uncomfortable with practice. I went on dates with about 14 different guys before I met my partner. I used an app and just viewed it as a introduction service. It was the first time I really dated as an adult woman (I was in my late 40s at the time) and I look back on that period fondly. Some of the dates were crappy but that made for a funny story to share with my sister and girlfriends later. I also met some really great people. Since I’ve done it once, I know I can do it again. We both can do it!
Anon
Aw, thanks for this vote of confidence! I admire your strength.
I get so wound up in my head like “HOW DO PEOPLE RELATIONSHIP?!?” And that is so not the point right now! The point is to… go on a date.
Anonymous
This hits close to home because I’m currently job hunting and spend much too much time thinking about having the job (what my commute would be like, wardrobe, training courses I’d take, etc.) before even hearing if I’ve got a screening call. So, my advice to get over the hump is to think less about being in a relationship and more about enjoying the actual dates as much as you can. That could be as little as enjoying having a reason to wear your favorite earrings on a weeknight. Would it help to step up your social time with acquaintances/more distant friends at the same time? I sort of equate that to reconnecting with your network while applying to jobs — remind yourself that you’re awesome and people like you.
Anon
I understand where you are coming from. I didn’t go on my first date (ever!) until after law school. I was always very shy. But then I wanted to date and find someone. After several years of many first dates, I met my husband. I tried to keep all of the dates low pressure in my head – I set a goal for like one blind date a month or every other month, and viewed each one as potentially just a fun night out and good practice. I suggest setting a goal for yourself like I did, and then treat yourself to something after each date as a reward for getting through it. After a while, I bet it won’t be so daunting! Good luck!! I am rooting for you.
Anonymous
Love this approach!
Anonymous
Writing extra anon on this. Maybe it’s to be expected as I age, (I’m 48) but I recently online snooped some past exes curious on how their lives have turned out. I am honestly reeling. My boyfriend from college married someone who seemed like a perfect match (deep passion for same hobby of his that I despised, had two beautiful kids together, and she even sort of seems like him–quirky dresser with a fierce sense of humor and features so similar she could be his sister). I then came across her obituary to see they only had about five years together before she developed breast cancer and then went through another five years of grueling treatments before she passed. Just so unfair. In another instance, a friend I’ve lost touch with is Facebook friends with a longer-term boyfriend who had broken up with me over our differences in wanting kids (we were a fantastic match, but he wanted them and I didn’t). His photo came up as someone I might know, and I couldn’t keep myself from clicking through. His parents had both died very young and the siblings were all super close. I had spent many holiday parties and dinners at his older sister’s. I noticed she was missing from a group photo and then saw a comment beneath on how her memory was still bringing everyone together. She died at 53 a few years ago, and I honestly felt the wind had been knocked out of me. It’s not right to reach out in either instance (I’m happily married–all of this was simply curiosity). But I’m just left feeling such profound sadness for these people who were once so close to me. I guess the lesson is not to snoop. Just really shaken up and it’s such an odd feeling since there just is nothing to do or say. Has anyone else experienced this?
Z
My first serious boyfriend (we dated around ages 16-17) died at age 23 in a car crash. I hadn’t spoken to him since we had broken up, but I was really profoundly sad about it – I still feel sadness over his death sometimes. The people you posted about are so young, too. It’s just awful when someone passes away when there is still so much life left to live.
No Face
Don’t shy away from this grief. It’s a part of life and none of us can avoid it. Enjoy the memories that you made with people who pass away, and then commit to make new memories with the people still here.
Anonymous
Good advice!
Vicky Austin
Yes – recently I learned that a high school boyfriend passed away due to the presence of fentanyl in a different drug he was taking. I hadn’t thought about him in many years, and had really stuffed down a lot of my feelings and memories about him instead of processing them. It brought it all up to the surface. I don’t have advice, but I’m sitting in a similar place, so I see you. And I think No Face’s advice is very apt.
Anonymous
The truth is, life is not always long and chance can be cruel. Bad things, unexpected things happen to good people. You can’t be afraid of it, but you also can’t be shocked when it does. This is why you must live life for the fullest today.
Anon
I dated a guy for most of my 20s who had a good friend who had been at the event where we first met and often did things with us. I always really liked the friend too, but hadn’t been in touch in the 10+ years since that relationship had ended as we didn’t live in the same place and I didn’t feel like I should intrude on my ex’s friends after we broke up. I googled the friend a few years ago, only to find out that he had died of cancer, and I was surprisingly devastated.
Anon
Invariably I find myself missing exes’ families more than I miss the exes ha, and I’ve been so sad to learn through similar grapevine/social media ways of passings, illnesses, etc. I think it’s normal to be sad for others and harmless enough.
anon
For the sister, if you have old photos of her, I might consider sending them to the guy. Just say something like, I heard the news, I’m sorry, I thought you might want these.
Nesprin
Please put the photos in a separate envelope so he can decide to open or not.
anon
Not with exes, but I’m increasingly surrounded by stories of acquaintances (or friends of friends) dying at young ages, under tragic circumstances. Cancer. Freak blood clot. Awful car accident. Suicide. Accidental overdose. It makes me terribly sad every time, especially for the family and friends left behind. And, I think it does force me to confront my mortality because what makes me any different than them? Aside from the overdose situation … not much.
Anonymous
I posted here a year or two ago and was advised to look into “disenfranchised grief” which I had never heard of. It really helped me, so thank you to whomever suggested it.
I had looked up my HS bf and learned he died of a drug overdose several years ago. He was apparently a member of and was buried at my mother’s church, but she never mentioned it to me. The first time he ever went to church was with me and my family; he apparently joined decades later during one of his many attempts to get clean. I confronted my mother some months after I found out and she acted like it was nbd and went on about what a trash person he and his whole family were. How Christian. I did write to his mother, who was always kind to me, and she wrote back to thank me for thinking of her.
Seventh Sister
The guy I was involved with in grad school died by suicide a few years ago.
I found out pretty recently (periodic snooping for safety reasons). While our relationship made the romance in The Souvenir seem healthy, it is so tragic and sad and unfair that he’s gone from this planet. I don’t know what to feel, but by turns I’ve been sad and angry and mystified.
Vicky Austin
The song “On a Bus to St. Cloud” reminds me of the feelings you’re expressing here; sympathy from a similar place.
Seventh Sister
Thank you! Likewise.
Anon
Yes…. you are reaching an age where these stories will become more and more frequent. While many cancers seem to be getting diagnosed younger and younger for unclear reasons (esp colon and breast cancer), the older we get the more of these tragic stories emerge. By the time you hit your 50’s to 60’s there seem to be at least one a year, and then the deaths….
I understand why my parents used to (I thought morbidly) would only read the obituary pages of their college magazines after retirement. Sad but true.
I always hope that it will lead to more empathy as more people are affected by these sudden and tragic losses, but sadly that is not always the case.
Runcible Spoon
Yes. I looked up an old college flame online and learned that he had died several years earlier from colon cancer. I had no contact with him at all since college, so I didn’t feel it was really my place to reach out with condolences to his widow. It turns out he was just someone I used to know. We were not compatible, obviously, and in the old days, he and I would have been history; now we can look folks up on the Internet, and get more visibility into the current lives of former acquaintances than maybe is entirely healthy.
Anonymous
I’m not on social media, so no snooping here, and I still heard through the family grapevine that someone had died recently and I was shocked and sad for a while.
I think what you’re feeling is normal and you just need to sit with it for a bit to process it.
Anon
My ex’s dad and brother have both died now. I found out via FB. Ex never wants to speak to me again (he never thought I’d actually leave) and he’s not a nice person anyway, but I had a real impulse to express sympathies to …. someone.
Anon
My favorite fancy lipstick is probably the Chanel Rouge Allure, but it pains me so much when I lose one. These days my ride or die is the Revlon Super Lustrous Shine (003 Glossed up Rose for the win), which is supposed to be a dupe for a YSL I’ve never tried. I also frequently wear Mac Lustreglass Lipstick. The viral color is Thanks It’s Mac, but $ellout was a better nude for me this summer. I’m leaning into richer colors now, Frienda and Been There Done That, a vibrant darkish pink.
NY CPA
I love Bobbi Brown Luxe Lip Color in Plum Rose. It’s the perfect shade for me. I just looked it up and saw it was discontinued and now I am going to have to panic buy any I can get my hands on…
C
Stila stay all day in rubino (brick red)
Anonymous
Traveling out of state for an industry conference tomorrow, and it’s been a long while since I’ve attended one! It’s going to be attorneys and business folks in a fairly conservative industry. Any tips or suggestions on things to bring/wear etc.?
Anon
Don’t forget conference rooms can be the wrong temp – too hot, too cold – wear layers! And scout out a seat near an outlet if all the tables don’t have power strips.
Anon
Mask in the airport and on the plane. We’re in a real spike right now.
Runcible Spoon
comfortable chunky-heel shoes; perhaps a stretch/synthetic faux wrap dress or wide-leg stretchy pull-on knit slacks; a snappy cardigan for the air conditioning. Also bring business cards and an extra pen or two (always leaving pens behind at business conferences). Umbrella and scarf if you plan to be outside for any stretch, in case of inclement weather (or check the weather forecast ahead of time). Enjoy!
Anon
I’m in Australia for a few months and need to leave the country for a few days to make sure I don’t violate my visa. I’m trying to decide between Singapore and Hong Kong. Where would you go?
Anon
I think they’re both great options, but personally I have more interest in Singapore.
Anonymous
Singapore. It’s stunning, safe, the food is amazing and clean, the botanical garden is to die for.
Anonymous
Singapore, 100%
Anon
I’d love to experience Hong Kong’s culture if it’s safe for westerners to visit! (I haven’t kept up with the news, but I know there were agitations a few months back over mainland China’s dominance – that may be old news now, but if it’s safe for westerners – assuming you have a western visa of some flavor – I’d go there!)
Runcible Spoon
Singapore, because HK has gone down the tubes and is no longer the lovely place it used to be. Alternatively, you could consider a visa run to Bali, much closer and WAY less expensive.
Anon
Come to Singapore…
A few years I’d have picked HK but not anymore. But wouldn’t Bali be closer to you?
Anonymous
Has anyone taken the ferry from Provincetown to Nantucket and back on the same day? Did you take the fast ferry? Did you get seasick? Did you bring your car?
Anon
I haven’t gone there and back in one day, but it is a reasonably bumpy ride, and you should definitely take meds if you’re prone to seasickness.
Anon
I have taken the ferry…. don’t remember it as being particularly bad. I went with me Mom and we are both migraineurs and I am prone to motion sickness and none of us had problems. Of course I’m sure the weather/seas vary of course. Yes, I think we brought the car.
Trixie
There is no ferry that goes from Ptown to Nantucket–you drive to Hyannis to get the ferry. The fast ferry does not take cars, but as it is a catamaran it is very stable. The other ferry service does take care, I think.
Anon
If nobody sees this, I’ll try to remember to post tomorrow. My husband is in need of a shoe that checks the “smart casual” box for when it’s not cold. I’m talking about the niche that might have been filled in past years by boat shoes. (You can pry MY boat shoes of out my cold dead hands, but H is more Columbia/Orvis/LL Bean than that.) His shoes are either suit-worthy dress shoes or hiking shoes or sneakers – nothing in between. Recs? Thanks!
Vicky Austin
Flat fashion sneakers in a dark color?
Anon
Just not those awful “dress sneakers” that seem to be going around lately. Mullet shoes are the worst.
I personally would go for a service boot in his preferred shade of brown – Horween Color #8 is classic for a reason. Thursday Vanguard, Grant Stone Diesel or Allen Edmonds Landon would be my short list.
Anonymous
Chelsea boots
Clark’s desert boots
Cat
Cole Haan leather oxford sneakers – the kind with the white sole.
Anon
+1 the white sole is growing on me. I was just at a conference where some guys who I think are sharp dressers were wearing these & I thought they looked cool. Not too dressed up, not too dressed down.
Anon
A loafer?
Anon
Especially in this post-pandemic world, I think a good quality leather or suede sneaker is where it’s at. Look at ECCO Soft 7 City Sneaker, Vince Fulton or Payton sneakers, Cole Haan GrandPro Low Top sneaker, or the like.
Seafinch
My husband gets a lot of wear out of Huaraches. Maybe not sporty enough for him but a great warm weather shoe.