Dear Prudence
I can’t deal with his obsession.
Advice by
Jenée Desmond-Harris
Enter your email to receive alerts for this author.
Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences.
Unsubscribe from email alerts
Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris ?
June 17, 2026 6:00 AM
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Giuseppe Lombardo/Getty Images Plus and Ljupco/iStock/Getty Images Plus.
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.
Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here .
Dear Prudence,
My partner and I have done well with saving and have $20 million evenly split between us. We maintain separate finances (my choice). I semi-retired last year and am enjoying life—doing a bit of consultancy work to keep me busy. He is still working a very high-stress job, but doesn’t want to stop working. He is very frugal, as am I, but he is obsessed with “not having enough money for retirement.”
We are both in our late 50s. The house is paid off. We have no debt at all. He doesn’t spend money on anything except for house repairs and essentials. How can I get him to understand that we have more than enough and we should be enjoying life? I come from extreme poverty. He was raised very comfortably in the upper middle class.
—When Is Enough Enough?
Dear Enough,
Excuse me, did you say $20 million? And did you say partner, not husband? You say you’re enjoying life, but do I also hear an inkling that he’s holding you back? I don’t care whether you end the relationship or not, but you can’t let him keep you from having the time of your life.
Call up one or two of your closest friends. Make a list of places in the world you’d like to visit. Buy a new wardrobe for the trip—and go. Leave your partner a list of things to repair around the house if he has time, and tell him you’ll see him later. When you come back, and he wants to go collect the leftover pizza someone is giving away on NextDoor for dinner and watch something on a streaming service with commercials because he won’t pay for premium, maybe you’ll have missed him a bit as well after scratching your own itch for adventure, and his approach to work and life won’t seem as bad.
Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.
Dear Prudence,
I grew up with parents who fought all the time, but kept assuring me that everything was OK and this was normal for families—until it wasn’t, and they got divorced. We’ve all been really intentional about communicating our feelings since then, and I can definitely say that we’re in a much healthier place than we were. Case in point, my mom has gained a really wonderful, new husband. The two of them only fight rarely, and when they do disagree, they do everything right: communicating, taking time to cool off, speaking privately, and not taking their feelings out on me, and mutually affirming how much they love and respect each other, no matter what.
Right now, the problem is me. I’m a young adult, but whenever I’m home, it still stresses me the hell out whenever voices get raised. Even though I logically know that things are better and are being handled appropriately, I can’t shake the feeling of being a 5-year-old waiting in my room, wondering if I did something wrong.
To be fair, they know I’m affected and make sure to check on me and let me know they’re OK. But I’m torn between wanting to be open about these feelings and wanting to be able to maturely handle them on my own. It’s a bit embarrassing to be a stress crier as an adult, and it shouldn’t be their responsibility to comfort me when THEY’RE having a problem, right? It’s not like I can just ask them to never disagree. So how do I respond to these feelings independently? Is there a way I can acknowledge “Yeah, I’m going through something” to them without making it all about me?
—Can’t Help Overhearing
Dear Can’t Help Overhearing,
Sounds to me like you have nothing to be embarrassed about, as your mom and stepdad are really understanding. When they check in with you after a disagreement, you could say something like, “Thanks, I admit I did get a little upset, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with the way I felt about hearing a lot of fighting when I was a little kid. I know you two are fine and have a healthy relationship.” Maybe saying it out loud could help convince you.
If you don’t believe yourself and there is a little 5-year-old voice in your head saying, “But what if they get divorced just like mom and dad did?” you could go through the exercise of thinking about that worst-case scenario and how it would feel to you. I’m sure you’d be sad for your mom and dis…
Read the full article at Slate →
United States