Dear Cleverspeaks.com readers my husband and I got married earlier this year. When we were dating and engaged we always did the holidays separately. Most of my family lives here in the same city as us. His family lives in Texas. Now that we are married he says we should spend the holidays together. He made the point of what’s going to happen when we have children. I always knew this was going to be an issue. We spent Thanksgiving here with my family and he wants to go all the way to Texas for Christmas. I don’t want to. I want to spend Christmas with my family. I’ve been coming up with all kinds of excuses why we should stay or why he could go alone. I have always spent the holidays with my family even in my past relationships. I’ve invited people to come with me but I have never missed our big holiday gatherings. I have nothing at all against my husband’s family but I want to be with my family. I want to see my relatives who are coming in from out of town. I know he really wants to see his family too. Am I wrong for not wanting to go with him? How do other couples deal with this issue?

Dear Cleverspeaks.com readers we’re all grown here so I’m going to make this letter short and sweet. I’ve met a nice man. We’ve been dating for a little over three months now. So far he is very nice to me. He’s gainfully employed. He has one child but doesn’t seem to have any drama with the mother. Everything seems to be fine there. We have good conversation and we have fun when we go out. However, our sex-life is very boring. I am not pleased. I have tried making suggestions and it’s like he doesn’t hear me. I have tried taking the lead. He can’t seem to follow. He seems to be perfectly fine with things the way they are but I am not. My aunt told me I better consider how hard it is to find a good man and just deal with it. Maybe things will get better as we get to know each other better? I don’t know. I’m wondering if I should just look over it, keep trying to make it better or get out before things get too serious between us. I’m 29 not 79 and I believe I deserve to enjoy the sexual aspect of a relationship as well. Am I being shallow for thinking this way?

Maybe I’m tripping but I need some outside opinions on this one. I am a married man. I have never cheated on my wife and I don’t ever plan to. I travel a lot with my job and I have to interact with all types of women on a regular basis. I keep it simple. I keep it business. I avoid compromising situations. But the funny thing is it’s not my frequent traveling or the women I meet that is causing my problem. It’s my mother-in-law. I really enjoy the time I have with my family. It’s great to be off the road and home with my wife and kids. But my mother-in-law is making me very uncomfortable in my own home. Here’s the deal. She has started telling me about how she is unpleased with her sex life. Yes. You read it right. She will come downstairs where I am working and start a normal conversation. Then it drifts to how she is upset because her husband can’t please her sexually. Yes. That’s what I said. She told me she wants to leave her husband. She has called me sexy before. She gets very close when she talks to me and she’s even put her hand on my chest before and told me how she prefers tall, dark-skinned men. Yes, I am tall and dark-skinned. Her husband is the complete opposite. My wife and her other daughters could be somewhere in the house with the kids and she will break away and find me. When I see her coming I want to run but I’m in my own house. I’ve always felt a little strange around her but now it’s like she is getting wide open. Maybe I’m exaggerating. She is an attractive woman for her age so maybe she is just flirtatious. I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this. Maybe I am but her behavior seems inappropriate and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know whether I should say something to her, say something to my wife or just leave it alone. What would yall do?

I am so ashamed about what I’m going through right now. I am 26 years old and I’m in a committed relationship of two years. I can honestly say that I had never cheated in a relationship before. However, recently I cheated for the first time. I feel terrible. My boyfriend is in the navy and needless to say he is gone a lot. I have been going through a lot of stressful things while he is gone. My mother has been sick. I’m trying to complete my bachelor’s degree and all signs are showing that I may be getting laid off soon. All of that has caused me to feel depressed. It just so happens that my ex-boyfriend emailed me and told me he was going to be in the area for a week and he would like to have lunch. I thought nothing of it because we haven’t been together in four years. We ended on pretty decent terms and it wasn’t like I still had feelings for him. But somehow our lunch turned to dinner and our dinner ended with me staying the night in his hotel room. I guess it was because I felt so lonely and he was nice and familiar. Well I feel terrible for cheating on my boyfriend. We have been seriously talking about our future together and then I went and did this. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that I am pregnant and I strongly doubt it’s my boyfriend’s child.

I feel so bad because I never thought I would be in a Maury Povich type situation. I don’t want to hurt my boyfriend. I don’t want to bring a child into the world in the midst of this chaos I’ve created and I don’t want to have an abortion. But I have to do something. I just found out I’m pregnant and I haven’t told anyone about this yet. I thought this would be a perfect place to anonymously begin to get this off my chest and get some advice. What would you do? Please be honest.

My situation has everything to do with trust. I have been hurt before in the past as a result of someone lying to me. I can honestly say that has left me with some trust issues. I don’t think I have a problem but I do sometimes do my fair share of searching or should I say “checking” for what’s really going on. Well I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost a year now. We had even been talking about moving in together. But before I was going to do anything like that I had to do my checking. I went through some of his things and to my shock I found out he is in the process of getting a divorce. I felt so betrayed. I confronted him with my findings and he didn’t deny it. He explained they were already separated when we met but his “wife” has been slow with the proceedings because their separation has drastically changed her income situation and she doesn’t want to lose the benefits she gets from being married to him. He said they are cordial and he has been willing to let her get back on her feet in a timely manner but he now realizes that her time is up. He said he did not tell me because he didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable or to think they were still seeing each other. He even said I could talk to her if I don’t believe him.

I don’t know what to think at this point. I love him. But I can’t stand being lied to. I’ve been sleeping with a married man without knowing. When we met I never asked him if he was married but he was clearly dishonest. That is not something you just leave out. I think it’s always better to tell the truth and he didn’t do that. Why would he lie? I can’t help but wonder if there is more to it than he’s telling me. But what if he is being honest now? Somebody help me please.

I am a 26 year old man. My wife is 28. When I met her two years ago she was sexy, fun, outgoing, sweet and she paid a lot of attention to me. Now, we have a five month old son. I love my son to death but since the baby came things have changed drastically. She is always unhappy. She is moody. Nothing I say or do helps. As a matter of fact everything I say and do is WRONG. Her mother is at our house all the time now and sometimes she stays over for days at a time(five months later). They act like I’m not even there. My wife’s body has also changed. She has gained a significant amount of weight. That hot body is gone and she doesn’t seem to be worried about it either. Plus, she is definitely not trying to give me any. That’s completely out of the question. We are at odds all the time now. She’s angry and emotional all the time. As I stated before nothing I do is right anymore. She doesn’t want to be touched by me. She and her mother seem to have everything under control. Why am I even there? I don’t know what to do. I feel unwelcomed in my own home and I’m getting very frustrated. Every day I feel like “Who is this woman?”

I want to know if her behavior is common? How long is this crap going to last because I am stressed out in my own home. I can’t even enjoy having my son like I want to. I am so FRUSTRATED. I’m ready for things to get back to normal. I need some advice for real.

Dear Cleverspeaks.com peeps. I am a 26 year old man. I have been dating my girlfriend for two years now. Things are pretty good between us. I like what we have. At least I did until she went and threw a wrench at a brother. Here’s the deal. I don’t know how yall feel but to me sex is an essential part of a relationship. Call me shallow but I’m just being honest. Me and my girlfriend had a very healthy, frequent, exciting, monogamous sex life. But my girl recently got “saved” and now she wants me to practice celibacy. Don’t get me wrong. I think her decision to get more involved in the church is great. I am a Christian too but I guess not as strict as she has become. Anyway, now after two years she wants to cut off the supply. Her beliefs have changed but my sex drive has NOT. My love for her has not changed either. That is why this is a dilemma. Otherwise I wouldn’t think twice about it. But the problem is I still love her but I am NOT trying to practice celibacy. I don’t know what to do now. Any suggestions? What would you do?

I think this may be one of the best places for my thoughts and concerns to be received and understood. Therefore, I’m going to get straight to the point. I am the mother of three beautiful children and I love them all very dearly. I have two daughters with successful careers. My oldest daughter is married with two children. My second daughter is married with one child. Then there’s my baby, my one and only son. He is in his senior year of college. He goes to a majority white college as did both his sisters. However, African Americans make up about 30% of the student body. So what is the problem? Well the problem is that my son does NOT date Black women at all. He has brought women home with him (he stays with his father when that occurs) and none of them have been Black. I’ve seen pictures of him with mostly white women, some Asian, and some Hispanic. Throughout all his years in college his girlfriends have been white. When he was in high school he did at least date some Black women but they were all very fair skinned or mixed.

Don’t get me wrong. My children have friends of all races. They have brought home some of the most fun, intelligent and interesting friends of various races. I did not raise my children to discriminate against anyone because of their race or ethnicity. But I would like to think that I did raise them to love and be proud of their own identity and respect their own culture. As a Black woman I have seen first-hand all my life how society portrays Black women as not being beautiful or desirable. It is my observation that Black men refuse to date within their own race more so than any other race of men. It saddens and even angers me to see my son fall into that category. I have expressed to him how I feel numerous times and he just shrugs it off out of respect for me I guess. He says he dates women he finds attractive and that he has things in common with. You mean to tell me there are NO Black women that fall into those categories? I am very proud of my son. He will graduate this school year and he has a bright future ahead of him. He knows I love and support him but we clash when it comes to his choices of women. I feel it is a slap in the face and it causes me to wonder if he has some insecurities or complexes I was not aware of. I cannot seem to find peace with this. I know I am going to be called racist by many. What do you all think?

I feel kind of strange writing this but I hope my intentions will be understood. I am 24 and I when I met my boyfriend of two years he told me up front that he did not want to have children. I didn’t necessarily like that but I didn’t give it much thought either because we were only dating. Well fast forward to now and we are engaged to be married and I love him a lot. He is 26 and he’s a great guy. He is so good with both of our nieces and nephews. He loves them. He’s patient and attentive. We have them over all the time. They adore him too. I know he would make an excellent father. I just think he is nervous because he had an awful relationship with his own father. His dad was in and out of his life and it had a negative impact on him and his siblings. I know that he is very much afraid of screwing up if he has kids but he is NOTHING like his father. 

I want to have kids really bad and I want to have them with him of course. I want him to see that he will make a great father just as I see it. So, I’m thinking about stopping my birth control method and let things happen as they may. I can’t imagine not having kids with him but he is so afraid of messing up that if I tell him I think he would say no. Am I wrong for attempting to get pregnant by the man I’m in love with and about to marry?

I am a 28 year old woman. I have my own house and an established career as an RN. I have a pretty active social life. I’m part of a local women’s group and I go out to different places with my girlfriends. However, things just were moving very slowly in the area of men. So, one of my girlfriends suggested that I try an online dating service. Upon her suggestion I gave it a try and ended up meeting a nice guy.

He is 34, a teacher and has no kids. He’s intelligent and funny. We like a lot of the same things. It seems like a good fit. BUT, every time we hang out it’s always at my place. We have been out on dates and been near the side of town where he says he lives and I will ask him why don’t we stop by his place. He always avoids my question by changing the subject. I even got upset with him on the phone one day and told him that I don’t feel comfortable, safe or smart being involved with a man and I don’t even know where he lives. He said he understood but still hasn’t invited me over. He seems to have a lot of pride and I suspect he may not have his own place and doesn’t want me to know. I mean he spends the night at my place all the time but I don’t even know his address.

I really like this guy but I’m wondering why he won’t tell me where he lives and whether I should leave him alone for this or give him some time…