Dear Prudence,
My wife and I recently had a large gathering of friends over the weekend. On the second morning, I was talking to my friend when his wife walked in, sat on a chair, and joined the conversation. When they both left the room minutes later, I saw a red stain on the fabric of the chair. I quickly cleaned it up. About an hour later, my wife came up to me and said she had found blood drops all over the bathroom floor. Just as we were beginning to wonder what was going on, another guest came in and told us that my friend’s wife had just gotten up from a chair outside and left quite a bloody spot. Unsure of what to say, no one would approach her. We survived the next 24 hours with a minimum of mess, and then they left. This woman is married to a dear friend, and I hope to have them visit again, but this behavior is not acceptable. My wife says it is impossible that she did not know what was going on. What should I do?
—A Bloody Mess
Archive for the 'advice' Category
Dating advice
At the beginning of the year I gave some dating advice to a couple of friends. These are good women — good people — who wanted to be in healthy, monogamous and respectful love relationships, but hadn’t quite hit the mark yet.
Mostly what I said was, keep dating. Stay open, stay hopeful, stay true to yourself and stay honest.
Well now it’s summertime and both these young ladies are in relationships. I’m not taking credit for that though. LOL!
I think they are now in relationships because they were honest and clear about what they wanted and didn’t get discouraged or sidetracked with an in-the-meantime dude.
I pray that these ladies remain happy and that the relationships grow and develop into the marriages and families that they ultimately want for themselves. Cause I need some new babies to spoil rotten!!
Good luck!!!
Dating, marriage et al
I was writing this as response to a post on another blog and decided I would just cut and paste the ish here because I’m really just tired of the whole “ain’t no good brothas/sistas out here” comments. Ya’ll know this is not true. You *know* it’s not true.
Now, this is my blog so I’m going to write from my female perspective, but this message is universal and can be applied to men and women: Husbands don’t look like boyfriends.
Now, before you run off half cocked taking my rhetorical statement literally, sit down and keep reading.
Is Mr. SLS who I envisioned when I dreamed of who my husband might be? No. I thought he’d be taller, darker, bigger, blahblahblah. But he ain’t none of that and is still just right for me.
What if I had fired him from the beginning because he’s not suave and I need a cool brother? Because he’s skinny and I need a brother who can push a plow? Because he’s a teacher/musician and I need a brother who can put me in a 20,000 square foot house?
I would have missed my man behind that BS.
I work in a building with a lot of blue collar brothers who are always very polite and respectful to me and I always think when I see them and they say, “Hello” and ask me how my day is or whatever, that surely one of those brothers has got to be a decent guy. But nary a one of my single say they wanna be married friends would date them because they are the maintenance guys instead of on the professional track.
I know women who would not have dated my husband because he is a teacher and therefore could not possibly be earning enough money for them. Which is fine, but, if I stopped working today, nothing would go off or fall short in this house because my teacher husband provides for us and my money takes care of what I had when we got married.
You’re missing your man behind some BS!
Here’s what I’m saying: take a step back. If you *really* want to be married, then take a good look at some of the folks you’re turning away. Some of them probably do need to keep it moving, but surely out of 10 people, one of them is worth a second look, or some more conversation.
Brothas, Beyonce is gone. Off the market. And was never available to you anyways! Move on. That sista walking in the Susan G. Komen race? She might be available.
Same to you sistas, Denzel/Will Smith etc.? Not an option. But the quiet brother with the glasses down in accounting? He might be available.
Something new
I was reading a blog post about the lady who is on YouTube searching for a husband. I wouldn’t do that but hey, if it works for her, then good luck.
Anyway, the poster was saying how she wanted to be married too, and while she wouldn’t do what the lady did, she needed to kickstart her situ in the 2009. Someone commented about God’s will and to let go and let God and a husband finds a wife and all that. Which just made my ass itch.
There are churches across the country filled to the brim with single wanna be married black women who are “waiting on Jesus” to bring them a man. However, as Ben Franklin said, “God helps those who helps themselves.”
Now, I’m not encouraging anyone to do what the 52weeks lady is doing by any means, but, I cannot co-sign on doing nothing and just hoping and wishing the good Lord will see fit to send a husband your way.
So I’ll tell you what I told someone else: Try some new things. Be uncomfortable (not dysfunctional, there is a difference!) for a little bit and see if that new experience might be a good fit for you. As you broaden your horizons, you open yourself to encountering new people and you might just meet your man. Or maybe you won’t. But what you’ve been doing isn’t working, right?
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Facebook: SingLikeSassy
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SingLikeSassy
Dear SingLikeSassy…
I’ve been giving what I pray is some good advice to two sisters that I think are great women who want to be in committed relationships and just haven’t been able to make it happen.
I’m only speaking from my experience and hope that all of what I’ve shared is in some way helpful. What advice would you give a young attractive professional lady who has a few isshas but nothing insurmountable, who is in her mid-30s, wants to be married and it hasn’t happened yet?
I’ll sign off here with a scene from one of my favorite all-time movies, “Lady Sings The Blues” because the lyrics to the first Lady Day song in the clip seem to apply here (and I sing the second one to Mr. SLS all of the time):
Chorus