Good fences make good neighbors

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I are child-free 30-somethings who own a home with a yard and no fence. Our house and yard are a sanctuary from our hectic professional lives. Lately, the neighbor's cat has been using our yard as a place to recline, and it hisses at me angrily when I tell it to go home. I'm not fond of cats, and I'm actually afraid of this one. Also, another neighbor and his kids have been using our yard as a thoroughfare from the property behind us to their own yard, which has a fence. I don't go into other people's yards. I respect the space of other people. I expect that respect in return, and don't want people tramping through our yard. We plan to plant more flower beds in the future, and they will be in the way of their path. Am I curmudgeonly to feel this way, or should other people respect our privacy and property? -ENCROACHED UPON IN FLORIDA

DEAR ENCROACHED: I suggest a three-point plan. First, get a very big dog and teach it to poo in your neighbor's yard. Second, start sunbathing nude. And third, every time your other neighbors cut through, start bending over to weed.

DEAR ABBY: I am engaged to an otherwise great guy I'll call "Wayne," who has a bad habit. He calls me by his ex-wife's name. The first couple of times it happened, I called it a mistake. But now it happens habitually, and I'm at my wit's end. Wayne says I should be more forgiving because they were married a long time and have kids together. But they have been apart almost five years, and his ex has remarried. He dated other women before me, so her name should be out of his vocabulary by now. Wayne claims this also happened with the other women he dated, and they didn't make such a big fuss. He blames it on my insecurities. Abby, am I making too big a deal of this, or am I entitled to my feelings? What do you think? -WHAT'S IN A NAME? RICHMOND, VA.

DEAR WHAT'S: Start calling him by someone else's name, all the time, especially during sex. Then tell him you were dating that person for a long time and you can't get over what a fantastic fuck he was and that your new fiancŽe shouldn't make such a fuss and be "more forgiving," which your other boyfriend's cock certainly was not.

DEAR ABBY: Last week, my 1-year-old son, "Tommy," crawled up on the couch where his father, "Monte," was resting. Tommy smacked his daddy in the face with a toy. Monte slapped Tommy back so hard he left a welt on his face. I grabbed the baby and said some things I perhaps shouldn't have. Monte got so mad at me that he threw me on the couch and began choking me. A neighbor called Monte's father, "Lyle," to the house. Lyle asked what happened. When I told him Monte had slapped Tommy in the face, Monte called me a liar. Then Lyle turned around and came after me, cornering me in the kitchen. He got in my face and screamed that I was at fault for Monte losing his temper. He said it was because of my "nagging." I was cornered three times. Each time I tried to move away, he'd start up again. Monte just stood there and watched me holding the baby and getting screamed at. He didn't lift a finger to defend me. I am so hurt. It's one thing to have a fight with my husband, but his father had no place getting in my face. Monte said his dad was trying to prove a point - that a person can only take so much. Monte said he patted his father on the back for what he did. I am no longer talking to his father. Please help me. I am desperate for guidance. -SHAKING IN OHIO

DEAR SHAKING: Leave him.

DEAR ABBY: "Homer" and I have been married for more than 40 years. Last year he started sneaking around with "Mary," his girlfriend from high school who lives out of town. She came into town for a visit last year. This year, on the very same weekend, he went there. Last year Mary told Homer he should divorce me and marry her. (She has buried two husbands already.) I spoke with Mary, and she told me that what the two of them have is "Untouchable! No one can touch it!" But he's still living here. Homer keeps saying he's going to leave because Mary is a Christian woman. Abby, Homer doesn't even go to church. I do! It doesn't seem Christian to me to run around with a married man. Mary is promising him a lot of material things, like a big-screen TV, a recliner and two cars. He keeps coming home with things Mary has bought him: a watch, cuff links, a pair of shoes, a wallet, sweater and pants. Is she trying to buy his love? -LOYAL WIFE, MIAMI GARDENS, FLA.

DEAR LOYAL: OK, first of all, you're an idiot. You are having conversations with your husband about the woman he wants to leave you for, and having conversations with her, as well, regarding their relationship, which she says is "untouchable." Is she trying to buy his love? Is that what you're concerned about? That she can one up you with cuff links? Honey, some other broad is playing stinky pinky with Homer and giving him the "dough!" A new recliner is really beside the point. CV

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