Dear Annie: My husband is 59 years old and thinks it is OK to ogle young girls less than 18 years of age — more like 15 to 16. He does this with me present and says it is natural behavior and that all men do it.
I say it is disrespectful to me and resembles pedophile behavior. I am 64 years old, and he had an affair with a 29-year-old female about a year ago. What is your opinion?
— Feeling the Sting of Growing Old
Dear Feeling Old: I’m not sure why your husband’s actions are making you feel old instead of disgusted. You should dump him.
His pedophile behavior — and, yes, that is what it is — has nothing to do with your age and everything to do with his Lolita complex. He needs to seek treatment immediately.
A 59-year-old man staring at 15-year-old girls and having an affair with a girl in her 20s? You can do better.
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Dear Annie: I was married for 10 years to the father of my 40-year-old daughter. We divorced when she was 7; he left me to continue a relationship I didn’t know he was having. That lasted six months.
He has since been married twice more and had many other relationships between and during those marriages. The thing is, I had no idea he was not monogamous until he left.
I have always been well-employed and capable of supporting myself and our daughter without a second income. Before he left me, he took a distant job that uprooted me, with my compliance, because we were married and, I thought, happy. We moved again, and I went along.
Less than a month after he left me, several longtime friends told me they knew of his affairs before our daughter was born. My point: People in a relationship, or who think they’re in a relationship, with a player deserve to know about it as soon as their friends do.
I would never have temporarily short-circuited my career, left my home city, or packed and unpacked households endlessly had I known about his predilections. Thank goodness he left when he did!
It’s been 33 years. My daughter and I are close; I have a great life and career. But I’m weighing in because of the queasiness I read here on this subject; just like you’d tell a friend that she has spinach in her teeth or toilet paper on her shoe, for heaven’s sake, give her a heads up if you’re certain that her spouse repeatedly acts single when she’s not around.
To answer an unspoken question, I never felt angry at my friends. Enough time was already wasted.
— The Truth Set Me Free
Dear Truth: It sounds like you made great steps toward creating a wonderful life without your husband. Thank you for your letter.
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— A native Californian, Annie Lane writes her Dear Annie advice columns from her home outside New York City, where she lives with her husband, two kids and two dogs. Her debut book, Ask Me Anything: A Year of Advice From Dear Annie, features favorite columns on love, friendship, family and etiquette. Email your Dear Annie questions to dearannie@creators.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.