Ex-wife shouldn't be visiting prison with daughter

Dear Abby: My ex-wife has been spending every weekend visiting her fiance, who is in prison. It is a five-hour round trip from where she lives, so she stays the night in a hotel, due to the long drive. If she has our 6-year-old daughter, "Emma," on the weekend, the child goes with her. My ex knows I don't want Emma in a prison.

The only way I have to prevent my little girl from having to go is to keep her with me every weekend. My wife is supportive, but she is concerned because we never have a night to ourselves. She says we are enabling my ex's poor choices by taking Emma every time my ex wants to shirk her parental responsibility.

Is my wife right? Are we enabling my ex? Is it more important to keep my daughter away from the prison or take my wife out on a date once a month? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

— Dad in Georgia

Dear Dad: This is a subject you should discuss with the lawyer who handled your divorce. I seriously doubt that when custody was awarded, the judge would have agreed that accompanying her mother to a prison every weekend to visit her fiance is "quality time."

If you and your wife would like to go out on a date, your daughter's presence shouldn't prevent it. Hire a sitter.

Dear Abby: Last night, I went to the movies and took an aisle seat in the back row. Two different couples came in late, and each one asked me to move over so they could sit together. I said, "I got here early, and I like this seat." I did not go on to explain that I have a torn tendon in my knee and needed the seat in order to stretch my leg.

They became upset and were very rude. If the seats were so important, they could have arrived early or on time.

Abby, my husband died in an airplane crash many years ago. I would give anything to have my husband in the same theater, the same city, the same planet! Couldn't those people spend two hours separated by one seat from their spouse?

— Marsha in Sausalito, Calif.

Dear Marsha: Please accept my sympathy for the tragic loss of your husband. Sometimes it isn't what you say to people, but the tone in which it is said. Perhaps if you had been less terse in your reply to the couples who asked you to move over, they would not have become hostile.