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"  Saint Teresa (canonized 1622), founder of the Shoeless Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule (seriously), said: &amp;quot;More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.&amp;quot; Her famous words provided Truman Capote with a book title and me with the theme for this month&amp;#039;s letters. What happens when you get what you want: the dream job, the dream husband, the dream life?  DEAR E. JEAN : I&amp;#039;ve been married to the perfect man for six months and am standing on the threshold of divorce. My husband has money for everything\u2014trips all over the world, gambling $50,000 hands in Vegas\u2014but I have to fight him for a facial. He says I&amp;#039;m &amp;quot;stupid&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;out of control&amp;quot; for asking him for money for something like that.  My self-esteem is suffering (along with my skin and hair). I have no access to any accounts, no ATM, no cash unless he gives it to me. He tells me &amp;quot;money is tight,&amp;quot; yet our house is on the ocean, and his driver is always outside with his limo. He keeps promising to get me a credit card but always comes up with excuses. I love my husband. What do I do?\u2014In Need of More Than a Facial NEED(Y), SWEETIE : First, puree three tablespoons of honey, two tablespoons of milk, and 10 strawberries; apply mixture to your face, wait 10 minutes, and rinse in cool water. Your skin will be instantly shimmerized. (Just because your husband&amp;#039;s a lying, money-sucking greedhead doesn&amp;#039;t mean you can&amp;#039;t treat yourself to a facial.) Second, now that you feel better, take a look around and ask yourself: Why am I letting this creep control my life? And why do I love him? Hunny, he&amp;#039;s well on his way to becoming an abuser. Get out while you can. And third, start interviewing for jobs and take the first one that&amp;#039;s suitable (you can switch to something better later). Then open a bank account. Mr. Limo Pants will forbid you to work (his kind of sub-cretin power trip): Ignore him. His whole deal stinks. Hire a good divorce attorney and leave. E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com DEAR E. JEAN : I&amp;#039;m a successful, gorgeous 25-year-old with a closet full of designer clothes, a luxury vehicle, and an apartment in the poshest neighborhood of my city. I work extremely hard. I&amp;#039;m also madly in love with my boyfriend of two years. However, I just revealed to him that my mother is on welfare and has been for some time. I hadn&amp;#039;t told him because it&amp;#039;s so shameful to me. (I gave him an altered version of my history. In actual fact, my mother fled a very abusive marriage in which I was also being abused.)  My boyfriend is upset about my &amp;quot;lies&amp;quot; and is taking &amp;quot;a month off from the relationship to seek clarity.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m absolutely shattered. Am I a fraud? I thought I was a good person and a self-made woman!\u2014Trying My Best MY DEAR : I don&amp;#039;t love you, Best. But I love your gumption. Forget your boyfriend for a minute. What I don&amp;#039;t understand is the &amp;quot;closet full of designer clothes&amp;quot; while your mother is still struggling like Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. The absolute force of will that fueled your climb to the &amp;quot;poshest neighborhood&amp;quot; (by the way, your true adventure\u2014Poor Girl transforms herself into Big Honkin&amp;#039; Rich Girl\u2014is a million times more intriguing than any chick-lit cover story you laid on your boyfriend) is admirable; but until you square things with your ma or at least explain the situation, I suspect he&amp;#039;ll remain &amp;quot;upset.&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s not just the &amp;quot;lies&amp;quot; that freaked the lad, but probably also the neglect of your mother. I don&amp;#039;t know the details; maybe she wasn&amp;#039;t a good parent, maybe she&amp;#039;s a drug addict, maybe she&amp;#039;s an alcoholic, maybe she beat you\u2014in fact, your very existence may be a miracle. But I&amp;#039;m just sayin&amp;#039; it smacks of having no heart. Why not give her one last chance? Finance a job-training course for the woman, help her draw up a life plan, buy her a new outfit, invite her to dinner, and well, now. I don&amp;#039;t have to tell you to also invite your boyfriend, do I? And for heaven&amp;#039;s sake, woman, tell him the truth! One last word: You&amp;#039;ve been rich all your life, Best. The very thing you&amp;#039;re ashamed of (being the child of a welfare mother) is what powered your ascent, and, in the end, it may be the thing that gives you a heart. DEAR E. JEAN : Five months ago, I landed my dream job at my dream company. The work is exciting, the perks are great, the opportunities are terrific. But I work directly under (and extremely closely with) a tyrant. He&amp;#039;s rude, unprofessional, sarcastic, negative, completely lacking in any managerial skills, and disrespectful. Others in the company have commented that they don&amp;#039;t know how I put up with it; and I&amp;#039;ve recently learned that few people in this position lasted more than a month. Help!\u2014Working Girl in NYC E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com DARLING GIRL : Well, don&amp;#039;t you follow those people (or, to use the technical term, &amp;quot;pantywaists&amp;quot;) out the door. If you&amp;#039;re wily, working with Repellent Guy will actually help your career. How? People who acquire the guts and cunning to handle brain-damaged bosses are the very people who rise fast and end up running &amp;quot;dream&amp;quot; companies. (I&amp;#039;m aware of the argument that it may be your &amp;quot;duty&amp;quot; to report the guy, but if you rat him out, you&amp;#039;ll be typecast as the twerp who can&amp;#039;t handle the job.)  No. Instead, stroke his ego (to soothe his savage beast) and turn him into an ally (he&amp;#039;s just smart enough to know how much smarter your work will make him look); and every time he behaves like a pig, give him a rap on the snout: &amp;quot;Herb, I&amp;#039;ve learned a lot working with you. You&amp;#039;re my boss. I&amp;#039;ll do everything in my power to make you successful. In exchange, I ask that you treat me with respect.&amp;quot; Or (with an arch smile), &amp;quot;I took the Herb Master Class in Sarcasm yesterday. I thought today I was legally banned from earning the Herb PhD in Negativity.&amp;quot; Work hard, suck up to his bosses, toot your own horn a bit, and then when you&amp;#039;re promoted to department head, fire his ass. DEAR E. JEAN : I&amp;#039;m seeing a really cute guy, but on dates he talks incessantly. It&amp;#039;s all about him\u2014his vacations, his work, his plasma TVs. He rarely asks about me. I&amp;#039;m as successful as he is! Should I tell him I&amp;#039;m frustrated that he knows nothing about me?\u2014Undervalued NO, UNDER, IT&amp;#039;S OVER : The chap is far too dumb and talky to appreciate either your wit or your beauty. Move on. DEAR E. JEAN : My husband is paid very well to think about sex all day. He produces &amp;quot;sports entertainment,&amp;quot; i.e., female wrestling. The problem is that he&amp;#039;s a self-proclaimed recovering sex addict (as in a 12-step program). His friends are envious. But he&amp;#039;s like an alcoholic working in a brewery.  Recently his company had the wrestlers auction off their used underwear for charity. One pair was signed &amp;quot;Orgasmically Yours.&amp;quot; Another, &amp;quot;Tastes Like Candy&amp;quot;\u2014Candy being the owner of the used thong. It&amp;#039;s a never-ending battle of Quit Your Job vs. I Will Never Quit My Job. What should I do with this well-paid fool?\u2014Wrestling Without a Conscience E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com WRESTLING, HONEY WAFFLE : I read your letter to Dr. Douglas Weiss, PhD, a counselor specializing in sex addiction and the author of Partners: Healing From His Addiction. Dr. Weiss says, &amp;quot;Changing another person is never an option. The husband is real clear. He&amp;#039;s not quitting the job. He likes the work, the money, and flirting with his addiction. He&amp;#039;s not going to restyle his whole life. So the wife has three choices: 1. Stay in the marriage and stop complaining. 2. Stay in the marriage and complain. 3. Leave and find someone more suitable.&amp;quot;  I believe you have a fourth choice. Be glad your husband works with wrestlers. The sexiness is hilarious, the costumes conspicuous, and the scripts make even Joanie Laurer blush (as Chyna, she always managed to lose a top, or her pants, in Pay-Per-View events). But the lust is out there. It&amp;#039;s blatant. Your husband is safer with the charity thong givers (where you can see what&amp;#039;s going on) than he would be at a quieter job where he&amp;#039;s surreptitiously looking at porn sites all day (which is how 90 percent of sex addicts spend their time), or, for instance, on the production staff of a network news show, which is a jungle pool of ambitious, brainy, brutally beautiful young women clawing their way up the production ladder.  I once spent a couple of days on the road with Vince McMahon&amp;#039;s WWE wrestlers, and I never saw such a bunch of straight-edge old ladies. Yes, they pair off, but the good news is, if your husband made even a halfhearted pass at a sexy girl on the circuit, her lover (male or female) would kill him. DEAR E. JEAN : I lost 70 pounds with the help of a personal trainer a year ago. He was demanding and intimidating\u2014okay, I could live with it. But he was also cruel and manipulative, so I got a new trainer who is all sweetness and light. Now I&amp;#039;m gaining weight and sliding back into my old habits. How can I stay on track?\u2014Austen Powerless PULL UP YOUR SOCKS, AUSTEN : Go back to the first trainer. Set a ground rule: He can&amp;#039;t be cruel. (It&amp;#039;s blasphemous to require a trainer not to &amp;quot;manipulate&amp;quot;\u2014that&amp;#039;s what they do.) If this idea is too unpleasant, hire a trainer who&amp;#039;s tough and supportive.  E-mail questions to e.jean@askejean.com or ask them live on the fabulous Lisa Birnbach radio show every Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-12 p.m. EST (877-443-5472). 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<http://www.elle.com/life-love/ask-e-jean/q-and-a/a9209/ask-e-jean-october-2006-19351/>