Dear Caroline: I have been married for almost 10 years. Just before Christmas, I got very sick – flat on my back, fever, taking antibiotics. I was pretty much down for over a week. My husband had emailed work colleagues a week before and suggested that a group of people meet at a downtown bar for New Years Eve. No RSVP, no idea who to meet whether or not it would feature, just a general, “Hey, let’s all get together and party” kind of thing. At 5 a.m. New Years, I still wasn’t well enough to consider going. I told him he should go without me (never thinking he would actually go) – although I couldn’t see why it would be so important to him, given that he had no idea if anyone he knew would even show up at that bar that night. He went there anyway, saying, “I don’t want to be known as the guy who suggested everyone get together and didn’t show up myself.” Essentially, he wants people to be able to take his word for it.