Kissing goodbye on the lips is not a west coast thing, it is an expression of love for the ex, and contempt for her husband. For the wife to continue to kiss a former lover and now boss on the lips, after her husband has expressed his feelings about this, is not a 'West Coast" thing, but rather a woman with no respect for her husband, her marriage, or the ex's wife. For Prudie to use a throw-away line like "if they are doing this in public, you know they are not doing anything in private" is absolute crap.

The LW'ers wife and boss are continuing their relationship and displaying that in public. The LW'er needs to see a lawyer immediately and file for divorce. He should not be married to a woman with so little love, respect or loyalty to him.

As a California native who's lived in the southern and northern parts of the state, I can emphatically say that kissing people other than your spouse/significant other on the lips is not part of the culture here!

Oh come on Cali. Kissing on the lips is indeed a part of the west coach culture-I have seen PLENTY of women on the left coast kiss each other without sex in the mix-greetings and goodbyes are the scene. But what I have NOT seen is men and women doing it-it seems to be some woman thing out there-but I think this guy needs to shut it down or call a lawyer.

Agreed! I also lived in Northern and Southern California, and kissing goodbye on the lips is NOT a common thing to do.

The real gem of this one is the boss's wife. Did you catch her? She looks like a shellshocked Holly-Hunter-in-the-headlights­.

It's funny how many letters to advice columnists follow the basic format: "Someone is doing X and it bothers me. How do I get them to stop doing X?" Often, the advice is to tell the person they need to stop doing X, but in many cases (such as this one) the better answer should be "stop letting X bother you." The problem isn't that the wife kisses the guy, the problem is a jealous controlling husband. He should ask himself why he wants to stop his wife from doing something she likes.

Some people kiss hello and goodbye, some people don't. I know plenty of both types. For the ones who kiss, it's just an extra-friendly way of greeting, a momentary innocent bit of happiness. In my experience it *never* means "we're going to sleep together now", and it's sad to see that too many people here seem to interpret it that way.