Dear Isabel:

To resolve your guilty feelings and the anxiety that goes with it, I suggest: (1) Don’t add to your guilt by telling your husband about what happened: that will hurt his feelings and harm the daughter you share. Instead, protect your husband from this information and be a better wife to him. By being a better wife, I don’t mean being passive, never bringing up anything that bothers you. I mean be kind to him and be assertive with him: remind him that you too bring money into the household, and that regardless, the two of you are equal members of one partnership/ a marriage, a team of two people. Talk to him about strategies to handle your differences in regard to spending money, so that both of you get enough of what you individually need, physically and emotionally,

(2) Kindly and assertively, tell your co-worker- friend that texting, meeting for lunch and communicating in any way that goes beyond being friendly co-workers in the context of the workplace is inappropriate and will not happen again.

anita