Dear Captain Awkward:

My boyfriend, before we started dating, moved in with a friend and his wife. When I came into the picture, the wife excluded me from things and invited only my boyfriend. If my boyfriend tried to invite me, she’d throw a fit and my boyfriend would have to call me to say sorry, you can’t go. If she did invite me, she told me that I had to pay my own way, even though she bought tickets or whatever for my boyfriend. And she openly flirted with him, even when I was there in front of her. When I told my boyfriend about it, he would get mad, tell me that I was jealous for no reason, and that I was making stuff up.

Well, her and her husband began getting worse, and my boyfriend would frequently get kicked out of the house because she “wanted to kill anyone who came through the door” (what my boyfriend told me she said to him over text). Eventually he moved out, but it still bothered me because she would call him and text him, asking my boyfriend if they could hang out. We’ve had a lot of fights over her because she keeps butting herself into our lives, and she’s a toxic friend, but it’s like he can’t see that. I’m not jealous about her because I know he doesn’t like her like that, but it hurts that he doesn’t understand how I feel about this situation. I’ve told him that I’m going to unfriend her on FB and he got mad at me, saying it’d cause a lot of drama between her and him, but when I asked why it mattered since he always says she’s not his friend anyway, he wouldn’t answer.

I don’t know what to do about this. My boyfriend and I are in a long distance relationship (we’ve been dating for a little over a year and a half), but when he’s home, she’s constantly trying to see him and get together with him. I’m at a loss about what to do, especially because talking to my boyfriend about it results in fights. Any advice would be great.

Hi there,

This old answer is relevant, because you don’t have a toxic friend-of-a-friend problem, you have a boyfriend problem. HE has a toxic friend problem, but your problem is how much of this he allows to impact your life.

• Your boyfriend disinvites you from events to please this person.
• Your boyfriend tells you to disbelieve the evidence of your own eyes when this person flirts with him in front of you and calls you a liar.
• Your boyfriend tells you to override your own boundaries and remain friends with her on Facebook against your wishes.

I don’t know how you and he will work all this out over the long term, but I have some concrete suggestions for you that are about things you can control right now:

1) Disengage from her. Block the “friend” on all social media. Not unfriend/unfollow. Block. You will become invisible to her, she will become invisible to you, your long-distance life will become immediately better. You don’t need your boyfriend’s permission to do this. Avoiding interactions someone you don’t like who doesn’t like you isn’t “causing drama,” and whatever reaction she has will not be your fault or on you at all to manage.

If he brings it up with you, you can say “I thought about what you said, but I think my life will be better without her in it, so I took the steps I needed to make that happen. You handle your friendship with her however you want to.” See also: “Tell her whatever you want to.” 

2) Disengage from her…as a topic that you and your boyfriend discuss in your relationship.“You handle your friendship with her however you want to” is your new mantra whenever this person comes up in conversation. See also: “Wow.” “I don’t know.” & “Huh.” See also: Changing the subject.

Boyfriend: “Listen to this ridiculous text that Toxic sent me, blah blah blah.”

You: “Wow.”

Him: “I mean, what is she thinking? She blah blah blah blah blah.”

You: “Huh. So, how did class go today?”

Him: “But what do you think I should do about her threats and demands blah blah blah blah.”

You: “I don’t know. We still on for the movie on Sunday?”

Him: “I know you don’t like Toxic, are you trying to tell me you don’t have an opinion?”

You: “I have opinions about her (those opinions are: I don’t like her/that was really inappropriate/I don’t like how she treats you, etc.), but you run your friendship with her however you want to. So, about Sunday…”

Keep an even, chill tone of voice in these discussions, if you can. Disengage, as much as you can, from having a strong reaction to anything he says about her. Change the pattern where he tells you all about her and then you get riled up and now it’s an argument between the two of you over what he’s tolerating from her (basically her dream scenario).

3) Choose your battles. I think she does not treat him well (to say the least), and that he would probably be happier cutting her out of his life, but that’s his decision to make and no one can tell him what to do. It might be that he puts up with her to maintain his friendship with her husband. It may be that the way she behaves is manageable…for him. Whether they stay friends is not within your control, and it’s not really worth investing your energy in convincing him of this. Focus your energy on your relationship with him, and if there is conflict, focus that on the expectations you have about how you need to be treated. For instance:

• When you visit him, you don’t want to hang out with her, and you’d appreciate it if he didn’t make plans with her while you’re in town, especially since you get to see each other so seldom.
• If you do end up running into her, he should act as a buffer. When she says weird mean things, he should be the one to be like “nice seeing you, we gotta go” and not make you the bad guy.
• The accusations that you are making things up have got to stop. Does he really think you are lying about her behaviors? That’s him being pretty disrespectful to you.

He may not react well to some of this boundary-setting, especially in the short term, especially under increased pressure from her as she senses that you’ve stopped paying attention to her. Maybe with some time, you modeling healthy behavior will rub off on him, and he’ll be grateful for a refuge from her drama. But whatever happens, be firm and do not get sucked in. “You want to be friends with her, cool, but I only have 15 minutes to Skype today and I don’t want my time with you to be another analysis of this person’s emotional state.” She’s gonna do whatever she’s gonna do. The question is, how does your boyfriend treat you when you stand up for yourself and set boundaries around how much this person is allowed to intrude on your life?

Hello Awkwardeers,

I recently got back in touch online with an old friend who I am genuinely excited to be reconnecting with after more than a decade. I knew him when we were both in our late teens. He was fun to be around, but a mutual (male) friend described him as “needy.” I was glad to hear that this characteristic of his was not just in my head, and that he made this impression on men too. He had this way of making you feel really bad when you said no to him; it’s not that he would pressure you, exactly, but his disappointment would become this entity that lived in the air between you and him. I don’t know how else to describe it. Despite this quirk we were good friends; he obviously had a thing for me, but he was one of those dudes who obviously had a thing for all of his female friends. (I should mention that he never used the Disappointment Monster to try to get sex; he was more of a generic attention vacuum.)

Through Facebook I know that he is now openly poly and involved in kink and tantric sex communities and that sex is very important to him. And that is great! I don’t think people should feel bad about being open about their sexuality! But.

As we’ve been reconnecting, we’ve done a bunch of discussing what is going on in our lives, and he brings up sex, briefly, all the time. Like, the list of what he’s been up to lately is sex and work and hobby X. I tend to just ignore it (“hobby X? I love hobby X! Let’s talk so much about hobby X!”), but it still makes me vaguely uncomfortable; I’m significantly more private about my sexuality. I can’t tell whether it would make me uncomfortable if anyone were to work sex into every conversation, or if it specifically has to do with the Disappointment Monster and his history of wanting more from me, or both. I think to him, sex is not only something that he likes to do / talk about, but a big part of his identity in a way that it isn’t for me. I’d feel bad telling a friend not to talk to me about their (non-sexual) interests, and of course I wouldn’t ask a friend who was a sexual minority to “stop shoving their sexuality in my face.” (I realize that the situations are not exactly analogous, but I worry that essentially that’s the kind of bigoted request I’d be making if I tried to set some sort of boundary in this area.) He isn’t pressuring me for anything– we don’t even live in the same city. The thought of asking him to stop makes me feel hypocritical and sex-negative, but I can’t deny that I’d prefer he stop. Should I try to get over this, or ask him to change?

Sex Neutron

Dear Sex Neutron,

Whether your friend’s “needy” past makes him, specifically someone you don’t feel 100% comfortable talking about these things with, or whether he’s doing that oversharing thing that people do sometimes when they discover the One True Way To Come, or whether he’s deliberately testing your boundaries to see if you’d be willing to sleep with the New, Improved, Sexier Him (distance is not always an obstacle to the horny heart, so definitely don’t discount this as a motive), or whether you just have different styles and comfort levels around what is private information, your strategy of zeroing in on the stuff that you are interested in and gently redirecting the conversation is excellent and probably exactly what I’d do in your shoes.

When you do that, what does he do? How does he react? Does he get it, and change the subject, or does he always manage bring it back to sex?

Because if you said “Sounds fun, but honestly, my sex life is the only sex life I’m interested in” or “Hey friend, it sounds like you’re really enjoying that and I’m happy for you, but I tend to be really private about sexy stuff and I’m not really one for hearing about other people’s adventures in detail” and he said “JEEZ, SEX NEGATIVE MUCH?” that sounds suspiciously like you trying to set a boundary and your friend trying to typecast* you in order to get you to ignore your boundary and keep listening to his stuff that you said you didn’t want to hear more about. If you ever find yourself being accused of being sex negative, having no sense of humor, not understanding jokes, being a ______ kind of person, etc. when you try to enforce a boundary, try agreeing with the person about the characterization and then restating your boundary. “I agree, I probably am very sex-negative or whatever you say. Also, I don’t like discussing sexy topics with you, so stop, thanks.”

But if he were like “Oh, ok, I’m sorry, I just get really excited sometimes, but of course I don’t want to make you uncomfortable!” and (more importantly) stopped bringing it up so much, that’s probably a dude you could hang with. He could be forgiven for being hurt to find out that you are not as close friends as he thought you were, or for having an initial reaction of “Wow, why didn’t you tell me? Now I’m so embarrassed” to which you could say “It’s okay, I understand being excited and wanting to find other people to talk about that stuff with, but I’ve figured out that I’m not the right audience for that. Let’s just reset, ok?”

If he’s grown up into someone great, I hope you have a long and productive friendship. If Captain Sulks-A-Lot re-emerges, or if he keeps incessantly bringing up sex, you now have some information that will help you decide how much you want him in your life. If he can’t hang with someone who doesn’t want to know all about his sexual journey, then he has some decisions to make about whether you are compatible as friends. Fair is fair!

As to your other worries, there are people who really enjoy talking about sex with their friends and telling all the dirty details, and people who really, really don’t. In fact, there are people for whom relentless sexualization, sexy chat, sex positivity, “heh, I’d do him/she’s hot/my body is ready” and other Notes From A Boner are downright triggering. And there are friendships where you yourself may be more comfortable talking about that stuff, and other friendships where it’s all filed under NOPE. You are the boss of which friendship is which, and you are allowed to negotiate that on a case by case basis. When my long-ago roommate, M., decided to creepily display her sex toy collection and her photo album from her many visits to the Folsom Street Fair to dinner party guests of mine, the problem was not “sex negativity” or anti-BDSM sentiment. The problem was that she didn’t know anyone well enough to know what they were into, and that she was doing a creepy power play to get off on their discomfort and then make fun of them for being “repressed” when they were like “can u not, total stranger.”

In summary, dear Letter Writer, I don’t think there is anything wrong with you for being leery when “Friend Who Was A Lot To Take At Times” becomes “Friend Who Brings Up Sex In Every Conversation” with you. That’s a volatile combination. It’s okay to create some distance – redirect him, change the subject, say “Hey did you see where I changed the subject back there?” and see how he reacts. Your comfort matters here, as does your consent. A good friend is not going to want to make you squirm about this.

*Someday, if I have a TARDIS or other Wayback Machine, I am going to use it to zero in on the words “I thought you were more mature/cooler/could handle this/don’t be such a buzzkill” that older dudes use to skeeve on younger girls. Throughout space and time I will travel to the place where that is being said at the moment it is being said, and I and my companions will jump out of said TARDIS, and we will say unto the girl, “You do what you want, because you are the boss of you, but I bet that you will be happier if you tell this dude to shove it and get out of here. Need us to wait with you while you find a ride home?”

Comments closed 1/30/2015 5:38 pm CST.

Hi Captain,

I was re-reading post #247 about highly difficult people (they will not change!) which I have found very helpful and I have a question. I have a highly difficult person in my life (my Mother-In-Law) who blessedly lives very far away (yay!). So most of the time I live my life like she doesn’t exist. Until…there is a visit. It seems like a lot of your advice is try to be nice, and when shitty people get shitty, leave. You also advise for the offspring of the highly difficult person to do around 50% of the visits alone. But what do you do when visiting involves an airplane flight. I feel like “Suzie couldn’t come because she had to wash her hair” won’t fly.

Also what do you do when you are staying in their house or they are in yours, for like multiple days? I think you are probably going to say hotels, but hotels are like a huge deal for my husband’s family. They don’t do them (I know crazy right). They would rather sleep on the world’s most uncomfortable sofa bed than pay for a hotel. Do I lay down the law and say we are staying in a hotel when we visit? What about when she comes to us? I am all about boundaries and keep setting them in relation to her as time/need arise and my husband is mostly on-board with these. He still suffers from a bit of the ‘don’t rock the boat’ syndrome. And staying in a hotel would like capsize it.

The other piece that I’m not sure is relevant is my parents happen to be Amazingly Wonderful People and we love when they come visit and they do stay with us and it is all rainbows and unicorns. So I am asking then to treat our Moms in very different fashions (I know they are different people duh, but I feel a need for evenness – get over it right?).

I guess I’m looking for either a magical solution to multi-day visits of awfulness or permission/encouragement to rock the boat and let it sink??

The Ship is Going Down Anyway

Hello!

The ship IS going down anyway, so talk to your husband so he’s not blindsided and you both have some scripts ready to go, and go ahead and rock that boat! PERMISSION GRANTED.

If your husband’s mom is anything like “Alice” (if you haven’t read that post, dear readers, take a moment to do it first, because I am writing this in the context of that and treating the Mother-In-Law in the letter as similar to “Alice” as described in that letter), she has set him up to believe and react and feel as if her displeasure and disappointment are The Worst Things In The World. It is really hard to fight that dynamic even with all of the love and common sense and all of the support and reality checks from therapists, friends, and kind internet strangers in the world. Your husband has already survived The Worst Thing In The World more than once if he grew up in that house with her, but it’s hard to get him to see it that way since he is so conditioned to respond to her a certain way.

I assume you’ve considered stuff like “make visits much shorter” or “send husband to visit them solo sometimes” or “their visit just so happens to coincide with you going to see your folks, so enjoy this special time with your son!” so I’ll jump to your proposed solution of hotels. If you have the hotel money to throw at this problem, that will make it easier on you by far, so I hope you do. Then you and your husband to say, “We can’t wait to see you, so we’ve made a reservation for you at X hotel, on us!” the next time they visit. And the next time you plan a visit there, you can go ahead and make the reservation at a nearby hotel for yourselves. “Don’t worry about putting us up, we’re gonna stay at X hotel.“*

And then?

You can survive the FEELINGSKRAKEN, I promise.

The FEELINGSKRAKEN can take many forms:

• “Whyyyyyyyyyy don’t you want us to stay with you?”/“Whyyyyyyyyyyy don’t you want to stay with us?”
• “But we always stay with you!”/“But you always stay with us!” 
• “But we’re a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamily, family don’t put family in hotels!” 
• “Don’t you love us?”
• “Don’t you really want to see us?”
• “You don’t really even want us to come. If you did, you wouldn’t act this way.”
• “What kind of son did I raise who won’t let his own mother in his house?”  

Your scripts to respond are:

• When they are planning a visit to you,”We wanted to try this out and see how it works. Our treat!“
• When you are planning a visit to them,”Ma, we’re very excited to see you, but we want to try this out for now.” Oh, also, rent a car if you can, for maximum escapability flexibility.
• Them: “You’re wasting your money!” You: “Don’t worry about it, we’re happy to do it!”
• When they typecast you (don’t you love us, what kind of a son won’t even let his parents sleep on his couch, I bet this is all LW’s idea, my son would never betray me this way, oh, are we fancy hotel people now? etc.), don’t argue. “Ma, sorry you see it that way. We’ll see you on X day, I love you. Gotta go!” The longer you argue, the more it seems like a negotiation. Treat it like a done deal, keep presenting it as a favor you are doing them and a totally positive thing, change the subject when possible, and hang up when not possible.

You are for sure challenging the family culture, and even non-difficult family members can be forgiven for having an initial emotional reaction to a change like this coming out of nowhere, so brace yourself. The host-guest relationship, and the concept that family are always welcome in each other’s homes, etc. is very primal, fraught stuff and I can see why opening the possibility that your in-laws are not so welcome or that you don’t want to stay with them IS and WILL affect the security they feel in the relationship and the closeness you all share. I know that in some cultures asking someone to stay outside the family home would be absolutely unthinkable, tantamount to cutting them off completely.

It’s a lot, I know. Try to keep this in mind as you communicate with them around this:

If anything is shredding the closeness that a family is supposed to share, it is your Mother-In-Law’s behavior. The elephant in the room is that you aren’t supposed to talk about what a giant asshole baby she is and you’re all supposed to behave as if that’s not so. “Look, we got you this hotel room!” is an attempt to preserve your sanity, but it’s also about helping her save as much face as possible. Hold onto that.

Giving reasons to logical, reasonable people is a good way to make the case for your decisions.

Giving reasons to unreasonable, difficult, manipulative people is like giving them ammunition for the fight they want to have with you about your boundaries and how you should not really have them. 

People raised by unreasonable, difficult, manipulative people have a tendency to over-justify things because their “but that’s what I want” or “but I think that’s the best decision for me” never counted for anything when they grew up. In their house it was, “Cinderella, MAYBE you can go to the ball IF do this list of impossible things!” “Rapunzel, why do you think you are smart and capable enough to make it out there alone? Better stay here, where it’s safe.” “Snow White, how dare you try to eclipse me?” “Miller’s Daughter, you are so special, you can do anything you put your mind to! Now I’ve set you up with this impossible task that will justify my ego and investment in you!” “DonkeySkin, don’t you know that you belong to me?”

Even as adults, they tend to throw a weird laundry list of reasons at others in a conflict, even when the conflict in question is not a particularly difficult one. The behavior looks incredibly strange to reasonable, kind, not-manipulative people, like, jeez, I just asked you if you would pick up your stuff from the common areas before I have people over tomorrow, Roommate, so why are you apologizing and explaining why you haven’t yet in paragraph-long sentences? Are you…is that…crying? It only makes sense when you realize that some people grew up in a house where there no “simple” requests and every conflict became a reason to pick apart who they were as a person. It’s the difference between 1) “Can you please take your shoes upstairs?” and 2) “What kind of person leaves their shoes everywhere? :kicks shoes across the floor, scattering them: What did I do to deserve such a messy, lazy kid? Are you going to be this lazy forever? I shudder to think at the future pigsty you’ll make everyone put up with. I feel sorry for whoever has to live with you in the future.” Adult survivors hear the first question from a non-abusive person and emotionally process it as a prelude to the second stream of verbal abuse. Nobody has to even be abusing them for it to happen, so well-integrated are the tapes in their heads. This is one of the big things survivors work on in therapy: How to figure out reasonable reactions to reasonable conflicts and not automatically take on all of the subtext of childhood in every difficult situation and how to stop playing those tapes, or at least recognize when they are playing.

If your husband communicates a plan to stay in a hotel/ask his parents to stay in a hotel, and they push back, his instinct is going to be to give a lot of reasons why it has to be this way (even made up reasons), and I predict based on experience that commenters will have many suggestions of this ilk – “Just tell them you can’t because of [actual reason], or [well-crafted airtight lie]” which is kind but not actually helpful here. If you grew up in a home with reasonable people, all of this emotional work will seem crazy and ridiculous to you, and that’s good for you, because you are lucky! You can “just ____!” and it will work, because you’ve never had to move to the Fuck Its just to survive.

If his parents were reasonable, after perhaps an initial harummmphhh and grumblegrumblegrumble around altered expectations, reasons would work. Letter Writer, you and husband have enough history to know that they are not reasonable. As tempting as it is to come up with a complex renovation project every time they visit you or to throw anything that could be construed as a guest bed into the alley, I’m going to beg you for your own sakes 1) not to lie (not because you necessarily owe them truth, but because it diminishes you and gives them more ammunition if the lie is discovered) and 2) not to over-justify or try to find that perfect airtight reason for why a hotel is better. His mom won’t see your reasons as a logical case for why your will should be done, because she doesn’t accept that your will or her son’s will even counts. If my instincts are right, she will only use your reasons to try to poke holes in your story because she comes in with the assumption that you are lying/deliberately trying to exclude her/secretly hate her, etc. from the get go. Highly Difficult People (like “Alice”, in that old question) also have terrible tapes that play in their heads, and they also have outsized reactions based on fears and history, so his mom will hear “We made you this hotel reservation that we’re paying for” and immediately leap to “MY SON AND HIS TERRIBLE WIFE HATE ME AND I WILL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN, AND NOW I HAVE PROOF” and react on that emotional level. You can have compassion for it, but you can’t prevent it or fix it or make her mind a better place to be. Only therapy and working on her own self with time can do that.

Your reasons are:

• “We thought we’d try it out and see.”
• “We thought we’d have a more relaxing vacation if we stayed in a hotel.”
• “We want to see you very much, but we function a little better when we have some privacy.”

Your in-laws have a few ways they can try to take back the power in this situation:

1. They can Be Very Disappointed and pick fights about it a lot and drop a lot of shitty comments, or throw tantrums and say terrible things or do whatever behavior that made you read #247 and nod your head in recognition, to create as much friction as possible in the hopes that you’ll relent.
2. They can refuse to come or cancel your visit.
3. They can try to enlist others in the family to harangue you (which your Mother-In-Law is probably an expert at).

#1 seems to be the status quo with visits now, so, let them? Only this time, you can get a little distance from them at night, so the visits automatically get better…for you. If they go for #2, that affects them as much as it affects you. You can say “Well, we’ll miss you a lot, but that’s your decision” and let them stew about it as long as they’d like, which is not easy on husband but it will show you aren’t kidding and encourage them to take you seriously in future discussions. Communicating that you can live with a parent’s displeasure but not their mistreatment is powerful stuff. #3 is probably well-worn territory by now, especially if your husband has siblings, and it can be met with “I know Mom is upset, but we decided that it’s best for us this way” and the siblings can make a choice about how much they want to keep making it their business. If they are under her spell they will call you selfish and blame you for setting her off and ruining [Planned Event or Big Holiday Of Your Culture], with everyone all spun up and working so very, very  hard to avoid the prospect of a tantrum from a grown-ass woman.

The thing is, if your Mother-In-Law is like “Alice“, she “ruins” holidays/visits/special occasions/casual lunches all the fucking time. She ruins it for everyone, with tantrums, with the threat of tantrums, with veiled barbs, flared nostrils, poking everyone’s sensitive spots, or pitting everyone against each other, or weird paranoia that turns everything into something about her, whatever her schtick is. She’s ruining holidays that haven’t even happened yet, as you strategize how to deal with her. She has probably ruined every occasion that your husband can remember. So if she pulls out the “But you are ruining Christmas with your request for us to sleep in a different building at night at your expense!” it is actually laughable. Of course Christmas is ruined, you’re all spending it with the shitshow that is her! That’s where you come in, as his spouse. You can’t manage the relationship with her for him, but you can help remind him what’s real, and remind him that these visits are pre-ruined, so why not ruin them in a way that advantages you for a change? Having his folks at a little distance is going to make them more bearable for you, make sure you all get more sleep, make sure you get a break from them, so that you can put on your game face and be more patient in dealing with them and get more pleasure out of what there is to be enjoyed.

I understand why you are concerned about fairness and the perception of fairness if you keep allowing your parents to stay with you while asking your husband’s to stay in a hotel. Probably a first order of business is to check in with your husband to make sure a) that his views of their visits are as rosy as yours and b) ask point blank if he would like them to stay in a hotel sometimes, too. If they don’t, it’s tricky, because if your Mother-In-Law asks “Why do we have to sleep in a hotel but the LW’s parents get to stay with you?” there is no good answer that isn’t some version of “Well, they behave much better than you do.” In other words, this is also a trap, a trap where you attempt to get an adult with so little self-awareness that she might throw tantrums, an adult who in all probability has a HIGHLY selective memory, to be accountable for her behavior. Ruh-roh. If your husband gets drawn into listing all of the crappy things his mom did on her last visit(s), she will either blissfully not remember them and accuse him of exaggerating, or break down sobbing about what a terrible parent she is and he will end up comforting her for said crappy behavior and apologizing to her. Fun! He will not get acknowledgement, an apology, or better behavior for his trouble. So, this might be advanced level stuff that you roll out slowly, over time, or your you and your husband may need to steel yourselves with repeating “I don’t have a good reason, but I know that your visits work better for us when we do it this way.” + “LW’s parents’ visits are not really up for discussion” approximately one million times.  If that sounds like the grown-up version of “Just because Timmy’s parents let him jump off of bridges doesn’t mean I have to let you do it,” and “Because I’m your parent and I said so” you are correct.

If I could tell you one comforting thing, it’s that the first time will be the worst time. She will try to test every boundary. The second time you may still get some bullshit. But by the third time they visit you, I predict staying elsewhere will become the new normal, especially since sleeping in a hotel is more comfortable than sharing the Lumpy Couch of Grudging Hospitality. If enough time passes, it’s possible that her selective memory will do its work and it will all start to seem like her idea.

*FYI, I think the hotel will be an easier sell when you host them than when they sell you (it’s controlling how you offer hospitality vs. rejecting their hospitality), so if you need to split the difference, push harder for the hotels when they visit you and give way on the other. If possible, make sure you have a rental car so that you can get around and diffuse “ugh it’s so much trouble to come pick you up” jibber jabber. And find some other way to carve out some alone time for yourself – lunch with an old friend in their city, a work project that you need to make some headway on, a sudden commitment to solo walks/jogging/bike rides, etc.

Hello Captain!

Something has been bothering me for a long time – I have been accused of “leading guys on.” When this happened in college and grad school, I shrugged it off because the guys who would accuse me of this were always ones that took any female attention as romantic interest in them or they had a crush on me, but I had told them, usually several times, that I was not interested in them romantically, only as friends.

I am a friendly, smiley person who is easy to talk to/confide in (which is good since I am a healthcare provider now), so I am guessing that helps lend to their idea that I am romantically interested in them. But if they paid attention, they would see that I am like that with everyone! However, I do make a point of not flirting at all, not touching them in any way, and only meeting with them in groups to avoid any accidental messages going through to guys that I suspect have interest in me. 

But I feel like it keeps happening! And it is really starting to make me angry because I am trying to make professional connections (and hopefully friends!) and I am so tired of guys coming onto me out of nowhere or when it is clearly inappropriate.

For example, I went to a business lunch with two professionals. The second person never showed up, so we had some drinks and chatted. We talked about our relationships a bit (me = my boyfriend is awesome, him = having a child completely changed his life and marriage). We went back to his office to talk more (business, I thought), when he said, “if I was younger, I would have thought that you coming back to my office meant you wanted to sleep with me.” I was shocked. I wrapped up the conversation and ran.

Something similar happened with another healthcare provider. We were exchanging treatments, and because he was so easy to talk to, I ended up confiding much more in him than I usually would with someone. He ended up confiding his marriage problems to me and a few sessions later, he stated that he “could not be alone with me” because he was “afraid something he would regret would happen.” I assured him that I would never cheat on my boyfriend, so he had nothing to worry about from me, but I respected his wish to stop our exchanges. I was upset about this for a few weeks because I thought I had finally found a new friend to talk about our practices and daydreamed about double dates with him and his wife.

There is a third guy with the same basic thing of us hanging out, him coming onto me when I thought we were just friends, me having to leave ASAP, and then never talking to him again AND actively avoiding seeing him (which means I have to skip professional events I would like to attend but not enough to risk seeing him).

Both times, these guys were married AND we had talked about my wonderful boyfriend. I know they are unhappy with their marriages, but I am clearly happy with my relationship, and even if I wasn’t, I would never cheat and I really resent the implied accusation that I would do so. With the unmarried third guy, the same still stands because he knew about my boyfriend.

My boyfriend only knows about what happened with the third guy because I was so distraught over it (it was actually the first event). He said that I am too nice and naive. I know I can be pretty oblivious when reading signals that are related to me (it’s so much easier to observe what’s happening with other people!), but I am actively doing everything I can think of to avoid sending misleading signals and avoiding “compromising” situations.

What am I doing wrong? I can’t possibly be leading every guy on, can I?

Thank you for reading (and thank you for all of your previous posts!),
Not Leading Them On (On Purpose Anyway)

Dear Not Leading Them:

“You just like to lead guys on” is something pushy assholes say when their boners of wishful thinking meet the fact that you are an actual person who is separate from them, a person with choices and boundaries. They want to transfer their embarrassment and disappointment at being rejected to you and make you think that everything is your fault somehow.

That’s it. That’s what it means. If someone says that to you (or anyone reading this), I want you to stop and think, “What is this person trying to get from me? Why is this person trying to manipulate me?” and tread very carefully, like, check where you are for exits, get out of the same room as them as quickly as possible, and start psyching yourself up to possibly have to make a scene. Get in touch with your anger, let the Dark Side of the Force fill you. I am not saying anything bad will happen, necessarily, or that you should be afraid of all men. But this phrase and the concept of women leading men on (by ignoring and/or rejecting them? How? What?) is SUCH a Shibboleth for me for identifying a sexist and manipulative person that you don’t want in your life.

You have a “series of pushy assholes” problem and not a “anything you are doing wrong” problem. You are friendly, and young, and probably very likely nice to look at, and above all female, and they are choosing to take that to mean something that it does not.

Your “wonderful, awesome” boyfriend is being a douche about this also, by making it a “you are too nice and naive” problem rather than a “gross dudes be creepin'” problem. It is not your fault, and by implying that it is, he is tacitly endorsing how these men see and treat you.

It sucks, I am so sorry. Next time someone says “If I was younger, I would have thought that you coming back to my office meant you wanted to sleep with me,” you are cleared to say “Ew. Why would you think that, and why would you say that out loud?” And next time your boyfriend says the thing about being naive, say “Wow, that is insulting, and not helpful at all.”

See also: “That’s inappropriate.” “Your wishful thinking does not make it so.” “I have no interest in that.” “That makes me very uncomfortable.”

You are not responsible for these dudes or their feelings. You did not cause these interactions and you are handling them just fine by shutting it down getting out of there.

Unfortunately, solving the “Too Nice” problem just replaces it with the old “Women Who Don’t Love Being Objects Are Mean Bitches” double-bind, because assertiveness from women is punished – you become “abrasive,” “touchy,” “no sense of humor,” etc. Sexist men will put friction and social costs around you not playing the role they wanted you to play to try to get you to stay in that role. Sometimes they put violent costs around it (harrowing stuff at that link, so dive in only if you are in the right headspace).

Story:

When I was 22 I worked at a very crunchy non-profit organization for a while. We brought on a new 45+ year old finance manager who had a dorky, Ned Flanders-y aspect. I noticed that whenever I made copies in the copy room he would stare at me from his office or make a reason to come chitchat with me. I mentioned to my coworkers that he was sorta creepy. He hadn’t done anything I could put my finger on, but something was off about our interactions. They laughed and told me I was imagining it, that the dude was nice and just trying to fit in and be friendly. He would often buy everyone lunch, or bring in baked goods from home – he definitely went out of his way to be liked by everyone.

When he started to offer me rides home after work, and I said “No thanks, I like to walk” and he said “I know, I’ve seen you. You’re right on my way, though, are you sure I can’t give you a ride?” I told my other coworkers about it, like wasn’t it kind of weird that he knew where I lived? They made fun of me for being so suspicious of a nice guy and for having a big ego to think that he would be into me. “He processes your paychecks, right? They have your address on it. Stop reading into everything.”

When I started seeing his car following me as I walked home, I told them about it, and they laughed and told me I was imagining it. Plus, didn’t he have a wife? They were pretty sure he had a wife. When I started to have dreams where he was literally Satan, that was also a funny joke, like, hahaha, the nicest person in the world, and Jennifer thinks he’s the Devil!

When he started pulling up alongside me on rainy days, asking me to get into the car, I walked faster. I took weird routes through alleys and yards so he could not follow. One day I screamed at him to leave me the fuck alone and took off running. When I got home his car was parked across the way, watching, waiting, wanting me to know that he knew where I lived. When I looked out the window to see if he was still there, he smiled and gave me a jaunty wave. My coworkers found this all very hard to believe. Surely he was just trying to be nice? It was raining! He wanted to make sure I got home okay!

I avoided him at work and started changing the times I arrived and left to make them not match up with his patterns.

Then my direct deposits started failing, due to some “bank error,” so, surprise!, I would have to come pick up my checks from him, personally, which always meant a bout of leering or him asking me what he’d done to make me not like him, but with authority behind it, like, “Jennifer, don’t you think it’s unprofessional to treat me so rudely, sit down, let’s talk through this like reasonable people.” He’d force me, in the office, into the position of looking cold and rude when he would try to make a bunch of small talk and  I would say “Can I have my check please? Can I have it now, thanks? My check, give it to me.” Poor dude, he’s so professional and nice, and that crazy bitch we hired is so rude to him! I guess they never taught her professional behavior at Georgetown, what do you want, hiring kids right out of college, etc. etc.

Some coworkers made fun of me for my “crush” on this dude. After all, wasn’t I always in his office chatting? He was always so smooth and unruffled, and yet whenever I had to interact with him I was hostile and “crazy.” In a romantic comedy isn’t “violent hate” always a sign of “secret lust”? Hilarious, right? He would join right in on this, “Aw, everyone knows Jennifer has a little crush on me, but let’s not embarrass her, she’s so young.”

Then I got another job and left, THANKFULLY. After I left, he embezzled a ton of money from the organization and disappeared. That was a problem that they could wrap their minds around. But months of leering and following me? All in my head, I was leading him on, I was the one with the crush, etc. He was so good at keeping everything he did at work on just this side of the line of plausible deniability, and the following, and weird stuff he did was carefully orchestrated to make me sound unreasonable and crazy. I don’t know if he would have assaulted me, but I do know that he got off on making me uncomfortable and getting away with it and making it seem like it was all in my head.

I’m friends with one person from that job to this day, the one person who, after things escalated to the point where he was following me in his car, believed me. Fuck the rest of them, and fuck that entire place forever.

Letter Writer, find some other women where you work, and hang out with them, and find a place (a journal, trusted friends, etc.) where you can get really angry about the way these dudes are treating you. Look out for opportunities to professionally network with women in your field, and if you can, find a fellow woman to go to those professional events with – it’s not fair that you should have to give those up just because your rejected suitor is sulking. It’s great to be a kind, friendly person, but you do not have to be nice to people who disrespect you at work and then try to make it your fault for being female. If a networking bridge gets burned by someone expressing attraction to you and you saying “No thank you!,” it’s not you who burned it.

If I could offer you one slightly more concrete piece of advice, it seems that some of these recent stories have one element in common, in that the dudes start discussing their marriage with you as a prelude to hitting on you. If you started treating “older dude at work starts telling me his marital stuff,” as a red flag, and change the subject back to work stuff as soon as possible, it *might* unfairly cut you off from deepening a good friendship, but also you *might* be able to derail some of the hitting on stuff a bit sooner. To be clear, you didn’t cause anything that happened by not doing this in the past, you weren’t leading them on by not shutting this down, and it’s not a guarantee of anything. But when I hear an older man open up about his marital problems to a younger woman that he knows from work, my suspicious & humorless bitch-senses start tingling because in my experience he is spinning a justification for himself and for you about why it won’t be wrong when he propositions you later. You think you’re getting to know each other as friends, he thinks he’s laying the groundwork. See what happens if you NOPE-out of these conversations, like, interrupt him with “Well, that’s sad to hear, so, about WORK TOPIC OF WORK-WORK-WORK-Y-NESS” and DON’T share anything about your own relationship in return. The man who goes with the work-y subject change with the least amount of resistance is the person who in the long run is most likely to be good friend and colleague material, because he understands boundaries.

TL;dr Sexism: It sucks.

Comments closed on Feb. 8.

Hello Captain!

Here’s a few things about me to help you understand my story. I am 23, a virgin, and have never had a romantic relationship with a man besides a date.

A few weeks ago I recently went for a night out drinking with three guys that I work with. One of whom, Greg, I invited along because I’ve had a slowly developing crush on him for the past few months and wanted to hang out with him outside work. The night was fun, but took a different turn than I expected once Greg started getting really drunk. We’d flirted earlier in the night, but once he was drunk he started hitting on another girl, clearly hoping to go home with her. She ended up leaving and when I approached him to say he should get home he asked me if I would go with him and sleep with him. I told him no because he was really drunk, but said I would give him a ride home. On the way he started talking about how it’s better to remain closed off because he’s opened up in relationships and put in a ton of effort and only gotten hurt, but wasn’t sure why he was telling me this because nothing would come of it. When we got to his house he invited me in and we talked for a while before we kissed. We started making out eventually and he asked me to spend the night. I did, but we didn’t have sex. The next morning was awkward, neither one of us saying much, and we agreed to just see each other at work.

The following week we had a discussion about it at his place and he said he didn’t want a relationship. I told him I’d like to get to know him better and to try to be friends and he agreed. We spent the night talking and watching movies and I slept over again, though nothing physical happened. A few days later he sent me a flirty text and we spent the night flirting, agreeing to meet up again. I went over later in the week and we talked, watched movies, made out (I initiated it), and played chess until 5 in the morning and I spent the night again.

This last week we’ve had conversations via text about personal things, getting to know each other. A few days ago we had another work outing at a bar and each of us said how it was a possibility we would go home together again. As we left the bar he texted me to say I should come over if I wanted, so I did. At his place he shared personal things with me and eventually we went to his room. We almost had sex, but I stopped it. He respected my decision, but I think he was upset and we did other stuff (which I enjoyed) without actually having sex. I wanted to have sex with him, but wasn’t sure if I should because we’re not dating and he doesn’t want to date me. He said he hasn’t fooled around with anyone besides me in a year and half, but said that we’re not exclusive, which definitely bothers me.

When I asked him what he would call us he said that we’re friends and that he is someone I can talk to about anything I want if I need to. He did however say that he doesn’t form emotional connections, which is confusing because it seems like that’s what we’ve been doing. I am a major overthinker, something he knows and has been trying to help me with. I struggle with opening up to him because I’m afraid of what he’ll think and he has been really great with trying to let me know I can share things about myself with him. He’s been very open with me.

We’ve left things saying that we’d like to keep doing what we’re doing because it’s fun and he told me I “shouldn’t ruin a good thing with my overthinking.” I want to enjoy this without obsessing about it too much, but I’m not sure how. My questions are:

Should I just relax and enjoy this despite the fact I want it to be something more?
Does Greg seem like a good guy?

Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,
Confused Overthinker

Dear Confused:

Are you “enjoying” a “fun” time with Greg or are you busy trying to figure out the secret formula that will make him form an emotional attachment to you and relationship with you?

I think it’s the second thing, so my advice is “abort!”

My reasoning:

• He won’t form emotional attachments to you, but he’ll dump all his emotions and tell you all about his history of hurt from other relationships. “On the way he started talking about how it’s better to remain closed off because he’s opened up in relationships and put in a ton of effort and only gotten hurt, but wasn’t sure why he was telling me this because nothing would come of it.” OH NO HE’S SO BROODING AND VULNERABLE.
• He’ll hit on other girls in front of you, but settle for you when he is super drunk and no one else is there.
• You are bothered by the fact that you are not exclusive. This alone would be a reason to bail on the whole thing, because by definition, you are not relaxed right now.
• You keep “almost” having sex and he’s upset when you don’t actually do it and you’re giving him way too much credit for being “cool” about it. Being cool about a partner’s sexual boundaries is not some favor he’s doing you, it’s basic humanity.
• He tells you that you overthink things…things like “not fucking him immediately”…and sets himself up as your helper. Your sexy-but-emotionally-unavailable helper. Seems legit.
• For the record, I don’t think you are overthinking it. I think you are trying to be true to your own needs, and that examining his behavior vs. his words is smart and self-protective of you.

He told you exactly what is going on: He is not emotionally attached to you, does not want to be exclusive with you, and does not want to date you. Believe this information! There are lots of things that people say when they want to sleep with you but not to actually be with you. Things like “I don’t really form emotional attachments.” “I’m kind of an asshole” or “I don’t really want anything serious right now.” Try to get in the habit of seeing these as postulates and not theorems that need testing. I don’t think he is evil. I think he’s lazy, and careless with your feelings. And I think that he is using a very recognizable set of tactics to both keep you interested (so you’ll fuck him) and try to get you to go quietly (when he bails). He thinks that by being preemptively honest with you about all of the above that it absolves him from any responsibility to ever care about your feelings.

So, today is Saturday.

Late tonight, if he doesn’t find someone else to mess around with, I predict that he will send you a flirty text.

I hope that you will not get that text because you have already blocked his number. And when he asks you about it at work, you can be like “sorry, had other plans/changed my mind” and then never speak of it again. If he whines, you can say “Dude, I thought you didn’t do emotions. I was having fun, but then I thought better of it, so I stopped. Let’s just go back to being work buds.”

You are too cool to be some lazy dude’s sexual backup plan. I don’t think it’s wrong to have casual sex, and I don’t think it would be wrong for you to have sex with Greg out of pure horniness and curiosity and then text him again/never text him again as you see fit. as long as you do it intentionally and very, very safely. I don’t want to ruin this magical feeling of attraction and ‘maybe’ for you. It’s fun to have fantasies and make out with people. It’s fun to play a game of “almost.” It’s fun to have crushes and obsessions and stories of a misspent youth.

But you asked me, and I am old, I can see that you like him way more than he likes you. You think about him waaaaay more than he thinks about you. You already know that this is unbalanced and kinda doomed. Still want to do it? I promise you, whatever the really shitty movie that came out on Valentine’s Day says, having sex will not magically level up ANYTHING about your connection to each other. It will not make him nicer to you than he is right now, and he won’t grow emotions at you because you did it.

P.S. If you have a body that can get pregnant, and you have not already done so, make sure you are maximally protected against pregnancy and as informed as possible about sexual health and STIs. This dude has “it just happened!” written all over him.

P.P.S. #TeamAnne

P.P.P.S. Lazy dudes sometimes inspire really great songs after the fact.

Once a month I try to answer the things that people typed into search engines to find my blog as if they are questions. It’s an exercise in mixed results.

1.

If you were a Princess and he said “I love you but I don’t want the title of Prince-Consort, I’d rather just be Bill” you should definitely talk through your wants and expectations. If you’re doing sex with someone and you say “are we boyfriend and girlfriend now?” and they say “Babe, let’s not put labels on this,” it’s a sign that they aren’t really planning a future or a serious relationship with you, so think through your wants & expectations.

2.

Most of the kisses we see in cinema are first kisses between the partners – a release of tension that has been building up, a grand sweeping statement of a feeling, like “true love’s kiss” in a Fairy Tale. Or they are last kisses or first AND last kisses – “In case the alien invasion succeeds and I don’t come back!”, etc. The stories want us to think that these kisses are extremely meaningful and perfect and that they are a sign of everything syncing up and falling into place for two people via the visual metaphor of two mouths meeting while the camera spins around. Those kisses are choreographed, framed, and designed by a team of people to be perfect on screen because the entirety of that relationship – the tenor of what future sex will be like, the chemistry between the characters and the performers, the depth of their connection – has to be hinted at and summed up on screen by that one kiss.

Actual humans in kissing-type arrangements take a lot more trial-and-error, and since all of our kisses don’t take place the night before Final Battles, we fortunately get to conduct more trials.Teeth happen, noses are sticky-outy, braces exist, glasses get in the way, sometimes you don’t know what to do with your hands, sometimes you both lunge at the same time, sometimes you get a weird thought in your head and you can’t stop laughing. Imagine framing up a photograph and adjusting the focus on a manual camera. The image is blurry at first, but you gently move the focusing ring back and forth until you find the sweet spot on the lens and suddenly it’s clear. Different lens, different subject, different spot, you’ve got to mess with the focus again to make it come right. That’s what learning to kiss someone new is like – fiddling about, gently, until suddenly it works. If you like this person and they like you, adjust your trial to error ratio with more trials.

3.

I’ll take sad Family Feud poll/questions for $200, Alex! Not sure what the wider statistics are, but I’m pretty sure that whoever searched for this is within their rights to say, “Hey, can you clean up your dishes before you come to bed and not leave them for me anymore? I’d really appreciate it, thanks.” There are no rules about which gender does which housework, so you can and should negotiate everything.

4.

5.

An overlooked market. Not sure they make that card that you could (or should) send to both people in a floundering marriage. If you’re closer to one of them, a nice card letting that person know you are thinking about them, maybe with an offer to catch up over coffee or lunch or a movie would probably be appreciated. Offering to watch their kids, if they have them, and give them some free time is a nice gesture. Breaking up a longstanding partnership is a lonely affair, so whatever you can do to say “you are loved” without getting in the middle of their business will probably go a long way.

6.

Sometimes they genuinely want to see if they can make an old wrong right – their behavior isn’t sitting right with them and they hope that acknowledging the wrong they did will give closure to the situation. Sometimes they want to preserve the story they tell about themselves where they are a good person. Abusers apologize to gain continued access to their victims.

You don’t have to acknowledge or accept every apology that comes your way. Just because someone said it, doesn’t mean it’s about you or for you to deal with. If it gives you perspective, and healing, great. If not, put it behind you with the rest of that relationship.

7.

Assume they don’t, or that even if they do, it’s not important to what you decide to do next. The hardest thing, I know.

8.

Depends a LOT on the content and on the frequency. What happens to your perception if you interpret it as “Hey, look at me, look at me, look at me!”?

What happens if you interpret it as “I just really really wanted you to know about (topic of this article I linked)!”

What do you want it to mean?

9.

“I’m having a party, I’d love you to stop by if you can” is a nice way to show someone you’d like to get to know them better. Not wrong.

If you’re not the host of the party, that’s a different story – check in with the host first.

10.

Review time: Don’t hit on customer service people when they are at work, and for fuck’s sake don’t touch them. We all admire people we find attractive, but not everybody we find attractive needs to know those thoughts.

11.

For the first draft of this guide, so far I’ve got:

Prevention is best, so, if you meet a man who is really broody and down on themselves, it’s cool to decide not to hang out with them more. Wean yourself from the fairy tale that the brooding negative guy is more interesting than the friendly, relaxed guy. Carry this comic with you at all times as a reminder.

If it’s too late for you, and you’re already in a relationship with a man who hates himself, remember: You can’t love someone into loving themselves, so make sure that you keep loving yourself and prioritizing your own well-being and happiness. Love what is actually present, not his potential. Avoid becoming this man’s sole source of emotional and social support. Make sure you have a strong Team You and that he is not your sole source of emotional and social support. A functional adult relationship takes effort and maintenance, but do not romanticize the idea that struggle, heartbreak, and work somehow make love more true or real or sweet.

If he’s mean to you, leave and don’t look back. Mean is a choice, and mean self-hating dudes almost always get meaner.

It’s a work in progress. What do you think?

12.

Dunno. Some questions that might be more relevant to you at this time:

• If you were sitting alone at a table in a public space, like a library or cafe, and he came in, would he drop by your table to say hi to you at some point?
• Would you drop by and say hi if the roles were reversed?
• If you talk to him, does he enthusiastically respond and try to keep the conversation going?
• If you ask him out, does he want to go?
• If you go out on some dates and that’s all going well, and you bring up the idea of sex, what does he say?
• If you are the kind of person who really wants to be asked instead of doing the asking, is “he” the right fit for you at all?

13.

I don’t know of a book about this, but what would happen if you a) modeled calling first to check if it’s okay before going to see them, b) the next time they drop by and you are not in the mood, said “Wow, great to see you, but this isn’t a good time! Howabout I call you tomorrow and we’ll set up a time to catch up!” and then close the door and go back to what you are doing (then call them when you said you would), c) if it keeps being an issue, ask them directly to call before dropping by. If you always stop what you are doing to let them in, they can be forgiven somewhat for thinking that you are okay with it, so, give it some time.

14.

I think…it means…you broke up? Which you wanted, and she agreed to immediately, so, yaaaaaaaaay! /

15.

Does she think her life dysfunctional, and does she want your advice or help? I’m sure you have a long list of worries to work from here, but maybe start with spending some time with her where you don’t critique anything about her life (do something for the pleasure of each other’s company). Then ask her how she is doing and listen to what she says. Don’t jump in with advice unless she asks for it. Try treating her as you would treat a dear friend. If she brings up problems, listen, empathize, but don’t jump in to solve them – “That sounds hard. What do you think you’ll do?” If you can get in a groove like that one, you’ll be in a better position to be able to say “Daughter, you don’t seem like yourself lately, is there anything I can do to help?” and have her really hear you.

16.

He wants people to look at his junk. Maybe he’s trying to hook up with people for actual encounters. Maybe he just gets off on sharing the pics. Posting on Craigslist has several distinct steps that prevent anything from “accidentally” being posted there.

17.

Sounds like a good time to polish your resume and see what else is out there.

18, 19, 20, and 21: STAR WARS: A NEW NOPE

Real dismay captured in real time with real hat-hair.

My young Jedi searchers, please do not join the Sith. Please read all of Scarleteen’s resources on consent before you talk about or attempt sex with another human being. Maybe start with How Can Men Know If Someone Is Giving Consent Or Not? Here is Doctor Nerdlove on the topic of enthusiastic consent, for a dude-to-dude take on the matter.

It’s okay to want and desire sex with someone, but good men do not pressure people for sex. Good men do not “confuse” or “surprise” their partners into sex. Good men show their partners that they want them to be completely ready and on board for sex before attempting sex. Good men know that sex is something you do with someone with their enthusiastic consent and not to them, unawares.

Please educate yourselves, and be good men who have good sex.

—————————-

Thanks for your kind support during Winter Pledge Drive Week. Happy Get The Fuck Out Of Here, February! Day to all.

Some people deserve to meet the Ice Witch inside you.

Dear Captain,

I am an intense person! I have grown to accept this. It’s the way I am, it’s not going to change, and I’m in the process of working this reality into something like self-love.

Some people don’t like my intensity as much. One such person is a close friend of my boyfriend’s. This would be fine — I firmly believe that there are people in the world who are not meant to be friends, and that’s more than okay with me — except that he believes so firmly that we should be friends (on HIS terms) that it’s a conversation he has with me whenever we are in the same room. We have things in common like tangentially related careers, fierce intelligence, and, notably, my boyfriend; ergo, to this guy, we should be friends.

I don’t believe we make good friends. One critical reason for this is that I believe he is a manipulative person. This is evidenced, in my opinion, by the very fact that he claims the only reason we are not friends is because I am not friendly enough with him (“Well. You’re *my* friend”). When I am not being friendly enough with him, he grows sad and uncomfortable! (This argument held more weight with me when he lived with my boyfriend; it kind of sucks when your friend’s girlfriend is neutral to you in your own living room, I was told.) The heavy implication is that if I was a more emotionally generous person, I would already be his friend and then everything would be fine.

My not trusting him is not enough reason, to him, to discontinue the conversation, because again if only I were to change my mind about him everything would be fine (if only I would see him as a PERSON). I would prefer to reach a state of mutual understanding with this dude such that we civilly exchange hellos when we must share the same space and then go back to our respective lives without further ado. My endeavors to do so have so far been categorized as “unfriendly” and yield the same conversation. I am afraid of any attempt to freeze him out (e.g., repeating “I’m not interested in this conversation” over and over, as has been tempting) may result in all of my boyfriend’s friends disliking me, ice witch that I am. Community is important to him and it would mean the end of us if there was a schism between me and the rest of his crew. Do you have a good script for this?

Thanks,
Intensely Ineffective

Dear Intensely Ineffective:

This person constantly harangues and harasses you about how unfriendly you are and whyyyyyy are you not friends, and YOU are the person who is “too intense?” YOU are the person apologizing for your personality and worried that you might create social friction, and this person’s argument is that there is something wrong with YOU?

For those who can’t see or hear the video, there is a cat hiding under a piece of furniture while someone tries to pet it and laughs at its yowls of distress. Another person in the room also laughs along.

Letter Writer, you are the cat. This dude is the asshole trying to pet the cat even though the cat clearly does not want to be touched. And your boyfriend is the offscreen jerk who is laughing at this little scene instead of saying “Wolfgang, leave the cat alone.”

You didn’t do this the first time he mentioned your lack of “emotional generosity”, so, IMHO, you’re good.

You don’t have to be friends with someone who constantly audits your behavior for sufficient “friendliness” and (barf) “emotional generosity.” You don’t have to be friends or get emotionally closer to someone you don’t like. You don’t have to make a convincing case for why you don’t like them or hear out their case in full. They don’t have to be on board with your decision to not be friends. You have done your part by being a basic amount of polite and cordial to this guy, and you have done more than your part by not biting his head off when he obviously tries to provoke you. You have fulfilled the social contract of how romantic partners need to treat each other’s friends. This dude has to learn to live with the fact that not everyone will like him, and he has to stop making his abject failure at this part of adulting into your problem.

He needs to be told.

“I’m not interested in this conversation” is a perfectly good script. Repeat it like a robot. “No,” is a classic for a reason. Try also: “I’d like us to get along at social events, for Boyfriend’s sake, but ‘friend’ is a strong word and I don’t appreciate the pressure you put on me about this.” Be super blunt about it. “I don’t want to have this conversation today.” “Let’s change the subject.” “Please stop bugging me about this, it’s very annoying.” 

See also “But we’re not friends” and “But I don’t like you.”

Often I recommend a strategy of two polite attempts to redirect a conversation and then giving yourself permission to disengage if the other person won’t take you up on it. In your case, I say make two attempts to redirect and then activate either FIGHT or FLIGHT. How that might play out in real life:

Him: “Hey, why won’t you be more friendly?”

You: “Whoa, awkward question. But, how is work going? Are y’all bidding on that one job?”

Him: “I feel like you’re MY friend, why won’t you treat me like a friend? God, why are you so unfriendly?”

You: “I’m not interested in having that conversation. But, hey, what are you going to order for dinner? I think I’m going to get the crispy pork and Chinese broccoli.”

Him:  “I just don’t understand why you won’t…”

You (Option A): “No, I don’t understand why YOU won’t get the fuck off it already.“

You (Option B): “Ok, good seeing everybody, I’m going to head out though.” Then, get up and leave. Make it obvious as to why.

Raise your voice. Be the Ice Witch you want to see in the world, be it Elsa or Jadis, Empress of Charn.

This guy is making gatherings horrible and awkward…for you, so I think it’s time to spread that around and return some of that weirdness to sender. You can’t “nice” your way out of this. The social circle, such as it is, is already broken as long as this guy is allowed to keep treating you this way with the consent of the others. I think he is doing so on purpose, as some sort of power play, to keep you “in your place” and to assert his importance relative to your boyfriend. Or because he enjoys needling you and making you uncomfortable for its own sake. Even if his behavior was once upon a time a sincere attempt to connect with you, it doesn’t matter – there is a level of obliviousness that is indistinguishable from malice. He is being an asshat and I don’t see any middle ground here. Prepare the freeze ray. Set your phasers to “STFU, ALREADY.” Permit yourself to get as visibly angry as you feel.

And if your boyfriend can’t handle your justified anger, or if he can’t see that his friend is the one making it weird, then he is the problem and you can kill two metaphorical birds with one unfortunate stone when you break up with his passive ass. Because some of this (a lot of this) is a boyfriend problem, not a boyfriend’s friend problem. What does he do when Intense Iago crawls all over you? Does he agree with his friend’s characterization of you as unfriendly, or think your “intensity” is the problem? Does he lecture you about “emotional generosity?”

You may want to talk to your boyfriend frankly about all of this before you attempt to engage with his bozo friend(s) on any level. If you want to try doing so in a more constructive, less break-up-y way, you could start with “I like most of your friends just fine, but X bugs me constantly about how I should be more friendly to him. I’ve really tried to get along with him, for your sake, but he puts my shoulders up around my ears…”

(and then choose your own adventure)

“…What do you suggest?”

“…Can you tell him to back off? He doesn’t listen to me.”

“…so I’m going to give myself a break from hanging out with him. Can you make plans with us separately for the next month or so? I need a cooling off period.”

“…he makes me really uncomfortable and angry, and I need him to leave me alone. Can you help?”

“…and I’m through being passive and ‘nice’ about it. I just want to give you a heads up that the next time he refuses to change the subject, we are going to have it out or I am going to absent myself quickly.”

Your boyfriend may not know quite what to do and may have been hoping that you all would work it out between yourselves. This is understandable, but it is not working. I think that if you talk to him about this, you need to be completely honest. “Your friend’s conversations about our ‘friendship’ have crossed over into harassment. He won’t accept my attempts to change the subject or be routinely cordial. He’s talking to me about bullshit like ‘emotional generosity.’ It has gone too far, and I need it to stop, but since you never intervene to stop it when it happens, and since your other friends don’t either, I am afraid that you all think what he’s doing is okay or that you won’t back me up if I put my foot down. I’m so afraid of looking like a ‘bitch’ that I’ve been letting him walk all over me. But I am done with that, and I need you to know how awful he is making me feel and help me put a stop to it.”

Here are some actually helpful things your boyfriend could do, if he chose:

• He could hang out with friend one-on-one sometimes, without you and the rest of the group. This friend seems to be acting very possessive and territorial, maybe some attention and reassurance of his importance in your boyfriend’s life will calm him down a bit.
• You and your boyfriend could agree to make a better division between couple time, you-and-he and-the-entire-social-group-time, and time when you say “Have a great time, I’m going to be over here with my friends doing my thing” time. Your boyfriend is not the King of England, surely he doesn’t need his entire entourage present at all times, and surely you don’t have to prove your bond by continually dancing attendance as one of many.
• Best of all, he could actively intervene when his buddy goes after you. That could take the form of a subject change or the shape of “Dude, it would be great if everyone I care about could be friends, but you can’t force these things. Leave her be.“

This may take a little time to renegotiate properly, especially if you’ve been silently putting up with it until now. However, if your boyfriend chooses not to be supportive about this (a real risk, since he’s watched this unfold all this time), and if his other friends decide that you are the problem, please believe me when I say this: It was a viper’s-nest-of-assholes problem, not a you-are-too-intense problem.

*Essential reading: Five Geek Social Fallacies. I feel that your boyfriend’s social circle is a hotbed of all of them, and that this annoying dude is particularly a GSF 4 “Friendship is Transitive” carrier.

This is Stinkor, from He-Man. What would the action figure for Clingor look like?

Dear Captain Awkward:

My partner has told me that he is afraid that he’s boring and that he has an irrational fear that my ‘self-improvement’ means I will leave him for somebody “more exciting”.

A few years ago I was feeling really down, and during that period I decided to really work on myself by changing my lifestyle. I took up a sport, started eating better and got involved in my community. Now I can hardly imagine life before – the improvement in my life and moods has been significant.

It is now to the point where he’s jealous if I have too engaging a conversation with one of his friends, and has insisted that he comes along to anything I do that runs the risk of me so much as talking to men who aren’t related to me. I find this behaviour anywhere from irritating to suffocating.

I am not sure where this fear of his has come from, I don’t think I’m just ignoring my boyfriend and getting annoyed when he wants to spend time with me. I think the problem is that he has low self-esteem and that this feeling of low self-worth has turned into a fear that I’ll leave. In the past he has said he likes me because I ‘make [his] boring life interesting’, which I find extremely concerning. To me it sounds a lot like ‘I am making you responsible for making my life interesting’. Perhaps that is a harsh assessment, but I am frustrated that he has enough free time to latch on to my plans, but apparently not enough to go find something to do by himself.

He is a great guy when he’s not being gnawed on by the hounds of insecurity, but I cannot carry on like this – I don’t have a problem with telling him where I’m going or who I’m with, but sometimes I just want to do things without having to justify why I want to be alone. I am at a loss – what can I do? I’ve suggested therapy and a hobby, but he doesn’t seem to understand that his attempts at keeping me close are pushing me away.

Thanks,
Pushed not pulled

If a person’s behavior reminds me of the movie It Follows, it is not good.

Dear Pushed Not Pulled:

There is a way, short of instantly blowing up the relationship, that you can test whether your partner is in fact a great guy and whether this has the potential to change. Next time you are making plans, shape the discussion like this.

You: “Hey, Partner, I’m going to hobby tomorrow night, so I’m not free then. But can we have dinner Monday? Howabout 7:00 pm?”

Partner: “Can I come?” or whatever his usual schtick is.

You: “No, I want to go alone. I’ll see you Monday.”

No elaboration, no apology, no reassurance, no negotiation. Just state the facts of how you plan to use your time, without inviting him, and tell him when you will see him next.

Partner: SEPARATION ANXIETY CYCLE: ENGAGE

You: Do not engage with any accusations he makes, like, “You just want to break up with me” or “You just want to go hang out with your REAL INTERESTING MUCH BETTER boyfriend” or “You are tired of me,” “I knew this would happen,” etc. Arguing the merits just sucks you into engaging with this on his terms. What matters is that you want to go by yourself and that you don’t want to negotiate about it. Keep sight of that, and try something like this to respond:

1)Validate the feelings themselves, don’t deny them or their severity. “That must feel absolutely awful, and I am sorry you are having these feelings.”

2) Show that you take the feelings absolutely seriously. “Monday I think we should try to make an appointment for you to see someone about this. I’ve got some names/numbers and we’ll work on it then, ok?”

3) Then set the boundary. “I love you, but I am not up for going through this cycle with you today. I am going to go home now, I will text you tomorrow, and I will see you Monday.”

Then leave. Leave the conversation, leave the building. Detach. Disengage. Go to the movies. Turn off your phone. Try not to respond to anything until your planned contact. If you absolutely must respond to something try a script like “Partner, I know the feelings you are having are very scary, but your behavior toward me is not reasonable. I want you to take these feelings you are experiencing absolutely seriously, so please please call (hotline*, therapist, friend) and talk it through with someone who can really help you.” Repeat it like a robot.

Listen, nobody likes being referred to a helpline instead of getting their sweet, sweet attention from you. Chances are he will treat it like a patronizing, insulting request and make you try to feel horribly guilty about it. Watch especially for the “why should I talk to some stranger when I can just talk to my girlfriend” fallacy. WTF are you supposed to do? Chain your life to his irrational fears? You can not be his 24-7 carer, and you cannot treat this problem. He is making your life smaller with his unreasonable demands.

Text him when you said you would. Ignore him otherwise.

Go to the thing by yourself.

See him Monday.

“No,” is a complete sentence.

Can you do it?

Will he let you? Will he show up at the thing even though you asked him not to? Will he call you 10,000 times? Will he harm himself in some way and blame it on you? Do you have this sinking feeling as you read all of this, knowing that “There’s no way that will work…” or “I can’t…“?

Can your relationship survive you saying “No?”

If he can comfort himself and recognize that these are his problems to deal with, and if he can actively seek and participate in getting help, and most importantly, if he can stop his controlling and jealous behavior toward you, maybe you’ve got something. If you can’t say “no” to him without dread and consequences, then this is already dead. I’m sorry.

Clingor The Clingarian’s controlling behavior likely springs from a wellspring of deep, actual pain and fear of abandonment. Lots of abusive and controlling men have real emotional and psychological problems that could use the help of a compassionate professional somewhere along the way. The problem is that instead of getting help, they take the misogyny cure and decide the solution for their sad feelings can be found by closely monitoring the woman in their life and making sure she never leaves or does anything that threatens their fragile sense of well-being. Their emotional problems/sad life history becomes a way for them to beat themselves up and receive comfort from her (You’ll probably leave me because I’m so boring) and guilt her into staying (But what will poor fragile me do without you?).

The constant “I’m afraid you’ll break up with me/You’ll probably break up with me” gambit is particularly hard to take. Someone acting like he is acting deserves to be dumped, not because he’s “boring” or because you’ll find someone more “interesting” but because he is suffocating you with his jealousy and need to be by your side at all times. He’s typecasting you in the present as the heartless mean woman who will break his heart by leaving someday, which manipulates you into the position of having to reassure him that you aren’t that person. Every time you have to do this dance, a piece of the love and trust between you breaks off and crumbles.

As sure as I am that his anxiety is real, I am also sure that this is not your problem to solve for him. He’s already crossed over into manipulating and controlling you and while he may cross back out of doing that at some point in the future after getting some help, this relationship is already compromised and I don’t think you should stick around to see if that happens. Fortunately you are seeing his behavior for what it is (annoying, suffocating) and not asking us what you did to your poor boyfriend to make him so sad, but the longer you stay the more precarious that self-preservation instinct becomes. There is no amount of You-ness, no amount of You-compliance, no amount of keeping his eyes ever on you that can ever fill the abyss inside of him. You’re not going to break up with him because you meet someone more generically interesting, you’re going to break up with him the day you snap and say “YOU’RE NOT MY DOG, DUDE, QUIT FOLLOWING ME.”

“We can have you in a shiny new breakup TODAY!”
Also, RIP, Albert Maysles, genius and mensch.

I feel like a cheesy breakup salesman here when I say, that day can be today!

Script: “Hey, boyfriend, I am breaking up with you. Not for someone ‘more interesting,’ as you keep accusing me, but because your clingy behavior is making me so unhappy. I hope you will get some help, and I hope you will find a way to like yourself, but I can’t like you enough for both of us, and I’m done. To make this a truly clean break, I think we should go no contact for at least a few months while we heal, so I’d ask you to not contact me until I reach out to you.”

I realize there might be some logistical and emotional things to work out before you deliver that news. I also think there is some logistical planning that goes into the delivery itself. It needs to go down in a place you can easily leave, you should have already smuggled everything you care about out of his place and have all of his stuff ready to give back to him (this guy will bug you forever for that sock that fell down behind your couch because it’s a way to get you to talk to him and for him to feel aggrieved), you should have a friend or family member on standby to pick you up, you should not stay at your place that night or for the next few nights for when he drops by, and you’re gonna need to filter his email messages to a special folder that bypasses your inbox, mute/hide and possibly even block him on social media, and probably not look at your phone for a couple of days as the threats (including maybe suicide threats) roll in. And you’re going to have to emotionally prepare yourself to answer zero communications from him going forward, no matter how much he begs. Also, make sure you each have your own transport to and from the breakup site. Especially do not get into a car with him after you break up with him.

Does that sound harsh and extreme? He’s already displaying stalker tendencies and you haven’t left him yet. The most dangerous time in relationship with a controlling man is when the woman decides to leave. It’s often when emotional manipulation first turns into physical violence. I hope with all my heart that I am wrong, and I hope with all my heart that he won’t do anything to you, but I think you need to be prepared and make sure that you can be safe and cared for and not open to the constant stream of harassment and demands for emotional caretaking that leaving him is likely to unleash.

Paul Spector, from The Fall, is “Mr. Sensitive” writ terrifying. I love that they cast the same actor as Christian Grey, our other Pop Culture Abuser du Jour.

If you haven’t read it, I recommend the book Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds of Abusive And Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft. In one chapters he writes brief profiles of types of abusers he’s seen. Your dude sounds like he has elements of “Mr. Sensitive” about him. I’ve excerpted that passage here, and bolded some parts I think are interesting.

MR. SENSITIVE

Mr. Sensitive appears to be the diametric opposite of the Drill Sergeant. He is soft-spoken, gentle, and supportive—when he isn’t being abusive. He loves the language of feelings, openly sharing his insecurities, his fears, and his emotional injuries. He hugs other men. He may speak out about the absurdity of war or the need for men to get in touch with their feminine side. Perhaps he attends a men’s group or goes on men’s retreats. Often he has participated extensively in therapy or twelve-step programs, or reads all the big self-help books, so he speaks the language of popular psychology and introspection. His vocabulary is sprinkled with jargon like developing closeness, working out our issues, and facing up to hard things about myself.He presents himself to women as an ally in the struggle against sex-role limitations. To some women, he seems like a dream come true.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Nothing obvious yet. But this is exactly the problem: Mr. Sensitive wraps himself in one of the most persuasive covers a man can have. If you start to feel chronically mistreated by him, you are likely to assume that something is wrong with you, and if you complain about him to other people, they may think you must be spoiled: You have the New Age man, what more do you want?

The following dynamics are typical of a relationship with Mr. Sensitive and may help explain your feeling that something has gone awry:

1. You seem to be hurting his feelings constantly, though you aren’t sure why, and he expects your attention to be focused endlessly on his emotional injuries. If you are in a bad mood one day and say something unfair or insensitive, it won’t be enough for you to give him a sincere apology and accept responsibility. He’ll go on and on about it, expecting you to grovel as if you had treated him with profound cruelty. (Notice the twist here: This is just what an abuser accuses his partner of doing to him, when all she is really looking for is a heartfelt I’m sorry.)

2. When your feelings are hurt, on the other hand, he will insist on brushing over it quickly. He may give you a stream of pop-psychology language (Just let the feelings go through you, don’t hold on to them so much, or It’s all in the attitude you take toward life, or No one can hurt you unless you let them) to substitute for genuine support for your feelings, especially if you are upset about something he did. None of these philosophies applies when you upset him, however.

3. With the passing of time, he increasingly casts the blame on to you for anything he is dissatisfied with in his own life; your burden of guilt keeps growing.

4. He starts to exhibit a mean side that no one else ever sees and may even become threatening or intimidating.

Mr. Sensitive has the potential to turn physically frightening, as any style of abuser can, no matter how much he may preach nonviolence. After an aggressive incident, he will speak of his actions as anger rather than as abuse, as though there were no difference between the two. He blames his assaultive behavior on you or on his emotional issues, saying that his feelings were so deeply wounded that he had no other choice…

…This gentle man style of abuser tends to be highly self-centered and demanding of emotional catering. He may not be the man who has a fit because dinner is late but rather erupts because of some way his partner failed to sacrifice her own needs or interests to keep him content. He plays up how fragile he is to divert attention from the swath of destruction he leaves behind him.

The central attitudes driving Mr. Sensitive are:

• I’m against the macho men, so I couldn’t be abusive.

• As long as I use a lot of psychobabble, no one is going to believe that I am mistreating you.

• I can control you by analyzing how your mind and emotions work, and what your issues are from childhood.

• I can get inside your head whether you want me there or not.

• Nothing in the world is more important than my feelings.

• Women should be grateful to me for not being like those other men.

 

Is that description completely off-base? I hope so, for your sake, but I think y’all are teetering on the edge of something terrible. He is using his sad feelings to control, bind, and manipulate you. He won’t necessarily cross over into being violent or abusive, but he’s flirting with that the way you are most certainly not flirting with every dude who crosses your path. I hope he gets the help he needs someday, but forgive me for hoping that he does all of that far away from you.

*In the USA, try Nami.org at 1-800-950-6264, in the UK try Anxiety UK  at 08444 775 774 or NoPanic.org at 0844 967 4848. I found these by searching for “separation anxiety” and “helpline,” so apply as necessary for your location.

Hello! 

I’m struggling to find good ways to respond to my boyfriend when he tells me what I should or need to be doing. I’m in therapy to recover and get to a place where I think that I’m good enough & love and trust myself again (after years growing up having that constantly undermined), and therapy has been going very well. 

I believe that my boyfriend (of almost 2.5 years) wants to help me succeed, be better, and do what we both know I’m capable of. The way he goes about it though, is damaging my self-esteem and is a constant source of “you’re not good enough” for me. 

He wants me to exercise more, eat healthier, help out more with the cleaning, and take better care of myself. All good things. But the way he goes about it is “you need to exercise today”. If I tell him I already did, he tells me that walking doesn’t count, that it needs to be more strenuous exercise. He’ll get mad if he thinks that I’m not exercising often enough, or if I stop doing as many “good things” like eating veggies and working out, while he’s out of town. He never lashes out with his anger, he just doesn’t talk much when he’s mad. He says that he still loves me even if I don’t do these things (but it doesn’t feel that way to me). 

We’ve never reached a good resolution about this, and it keeps coming up. I’ve asked him to stop trying to get me to change, that you can’t change other people, but he refuses to accept that, to the point that he says it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. We both are very logic- and reason-focused people, but he’s come to the conclusion that, “if she just does these things, I won’t have to deal with her being depressed.” 

It makes me feel like nothing I do will ever be good enough, that he will always focus on what I’m not doing instead of what I am trying to do. He says I need to do more, try harder, and not let myself be comfortable. Everything I do in therapy has been trying to build confidence, motivation, and self-respect from within and stop relying exclusively on it externally, and then I go home and grapple with someone telling me that I need to do these things to be better.

Is there a chance he will realize that the moods are part of the package, and something I’m trying to work on gradually, not all at once? How can I respond when he gets mad at me for not being good enough? 

Thanks, 

Terrible at Advice Column Nicknames

Dear Terrible,

What does your therapist say about the way your boyfriend tries to continually act as your self-appointed monitor/life coach? Does your therapist think that this is normal and helpful behavior? If you haven’t dug into relationship issues all that much in therapy, here is a script for bringing that up with your counseling pro: “I feel like we do a lot of work in my sessions on building confidence and motivation, but when I get home my boyfriend harps on me to do better and be better, for example (give examples). When he talks to me like that, it starts to cancel out all my confidence. Also, it annoys the crap out of me. Can you help me strategize ways to respond?” This is an ongoing issue, and you have an ongoing resource at your disposal to work on it.

My next question is maybe an obvious one, but what would happen if you didn’t have a self-appointed expert on you and what you should be doing jump down your throat about all of your life choices or give you the silent treatment in your life at all? Depression is a mix of the chemical/biological and the situational, while you’re working to treat the illness and silence the mean scripts from your Jerkbrain, you might find great improvements in your life if you freed yourself from a constant external source of criticism. It sounds like you live together, and that breaking up isn’t a logistically or financially simple matter as well as being emotionally scary and taxing. I’m also sure you have some great things in common and that you have fun together sometimes and that the relationship works some of the time, or you wouldn’t have stayed this long. But everything you say about this dude tells me that he’s more in love with Potential You than he is with Actual, Right Here You. Excessively monitoring and correcting a partner (with the silent treatment, no less!) is toxic and controlling, and this:

“I’ve asked him to stop trying to get me to change, that you can’t change other people, but he refuses to accept that, to the point that he says it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard.”

and this:

“It makes me feel like nothing I do will ever be good enough, that he will always focus on what I’m not doing instead of what I am trying to do. He says I need to do more, try harder, and not let myself be comfortable.“

–are more Red Flags. You are healing, why shouldn’t your home and your relationship be a place you can feel comfortable? Why can’t you choose your own challenges and adventures? You can’t change other people, and any coaching or motivating has to be accomplished with the full participation and consent of the coached. Coaches and therapists and teachers also operate with professional distance and ethics that don’t mix with romance. Even if he were good at this coaching thing (spoiler: he’s not), he shouldn’t be your coach. Maybe the simplest (and best, to be completely honest with you about how I’m feeling about this dude) answer is: You don’t make each other happy anymore, and you’d both be happier if you ended it and found someone more compatible. You’ll be happier and lighter without the constant criticism and monitoring, and he’ll be happier with someone who has the qualities he wants in his new, improved partner (or he’ll find a willing victim for Coach Body Police: Infinity Annoying Steps To the New You!)

While you sort out how you feel about continuing in the relationship, my suggested script for when your boyfriend starts telling you what to do or expressing his disappointment in you is “I don’t like it when you act like my Life Coach, please stop telling me what I should eat/do/how I should exercise,” and/or “From now on, I don’t want you to tell me how to change or ‘improve’ myself, at all.” Be blunt and say the things that are on the tip of your tongue: No. Stop. Don’t.

The first few times you resist his “help”, I think he is going to release the Logick Kraken, who will logically and patiently recount all of the ways that you could be better if you only tried harder. The Logick Kraken might make a lot of sense to you, at first. It sings a familiar refrain, and it so neatly echoes what your Jerkbrain sounds like or sounded like before you started getting treatment for your depression. I think your depression might be getting better, and I think one of the indicators is that you are not automatically agreeing with your boyfriend’s list of “shoulds” for your life. He says, “You should exercise.” A year ago, that would have maybe resulted in you shuffling your feet and cycling through guilt about how yes, you should probably exercise but you just can’t. But now, today, you have already exercised. You already did the self-caring thing that you needed to do for yourself, and your instinct isn’t to agree with your boyfriend about what you should do, it’s to stand up for yourself about what’s true. He is not the boss of you, and something in you has woken up to that. That looks like progress to me.

A complicating factor is that there was probably a time when it was comforting to you for your boyfriend to be in that caretaker role and to have him believe so strongly in your power to change, back there during the worst of it. I’ve been on both sides of the “Have you eaten a food today? Do you think you might try that?“-level of caretaking from and for a partner, and it sucks to be in either role when you don’t know if or when things will get better. For a relationship to survive a crisis like that, you have to like the person (not just love them) and respect the person (not just love them). When things are at their worst, do you still make each other laugh, do you still turn to each other and see each other as someone with much to offer, do you still treat each other with affection and find pleasure in each other’s company? Do you believe and trust that the struggling person is doing the best they can within their limitations, and treat them as the expert on their own life? Do you still respect each other’s autonomy and understand that help is there to be offered and accepted but can’t be forced? When things improve, can the caretaker let go and not calcify your roles into The Helper and The One Who Needs Help? Someone struggling is not an automatic invitation to step in and run their lives for them.

Changing roles is hard even for people with the best hearts and intentions and experiencing some friction around that isn’t really a surprise, so if you have trust and like and respect, you *might* look past and/or forgive the Logick Kraken the first time or two it comes out to play. Set the boundary with your boyfriend, let him say whatever he’s going to say, and try not to internalize any of it. If what he says pisses you off, take it as a good sign that your self-respect and self-preservation instincts are waking up and working. Then, repeat what you want him to do and make the boundary plain:

“I hear you, but I want to be clear: I don’t want you to do that anymore.”

“Please stop correcting me and advising me.”

“I appreciate all the help and support you’ve given me, but I actually need to navigate this on my own.”

“I don’t like it when you tell me what to do.”

“The Silent Treatment is really not cool.”

“You’re not the boss of how I eat or exercise, and I think it’s going to be healthier going forward if you stop monitoring that stuff and if I stop reporting it to you as if you are my nutritionist or trainer.”*

“I don’t need you to change me or to be right about this, I just need you to love me and trust me to do the right thing for myself.” 

“I realize I was in bad shape for a while, but as I try to get better, I’d like it if you would stop monitoring all these things about me and just found a way to enjoy my company.”

“You may be right about that, but I’d still like to handle this on my own without your input.” 

“I know you want to help, but I would like to set a boundary around advice-giving. Please don’t give me advice unless I ask you directly.”

And hey, when you want to use him as a sounding board for something, maybe this reminder will help:

“Asking advice or needing help with one thing isn’t an invitation for advice about everything. Let’s stay on topic.”

These are pretty direct statements. A person who fundamentally likes and respects you is going to hear them and back way off. That person is going to be psyched by evidence that you are capable and willing to chart your own course, and think, “Hey, my partner must be feeling better, since they have their shit under control. This is awesome!” They are going to find your assertiveness attractive and pleasing and be relieved that maybe they can stop worrying about you. They may backslide occasionally, especially when you have moments when you struggle, but when you say “Hey, I got this,” they are going to immediately apologize and back off.

A person who is invested in their role as the Helper and in your role as Lumpy Clay Who Must Be Sculpted is going to try to convince you that setting boundaries here is not in your best interest. You’re going to hear things like “that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” You’re going to hear back all the times you’ve expressed vulnerability or dissatisfaction with your life as “proof” that you can’t possibly make decisions about anything. That person is more invested in control and in being right than in respecting you.

You know your boyfriend and your own situation better than we do, so I trust you to figure out who and what you are dealing with and take steps to care for yourself.

I think there are some other strategies you can follow that will improve things for you. First, I starred (*) the script about diet and exercise above, because I think you should just stop reporting any of this to him and should in fact treat it as highly weird that he wants to know. This probably represents a big change in your ongoing habit of communication, so take it easy on yourself as you attempt it (but attempt it).

“Did you exercise today?”“Yep, it was great!” “What did you do?”“Why are you asking me? I thought we were going to back off on this thing where you are my trainer.”

“What did you eat when I was out of town?” “Don’t really have a list, but it was delicious. Did you eat at any cool restaurants on your trip?” “Hey, I just want to make sure you are eating your vegetables.” “I’m actually the boss of that, and I don’t want to run my food intake by you anymore, thanks.” “That means ‘no vegetables,’ I guess. I’m so disappointed in you.” “That means I don’t want to run my food intake by you any more.” 

To be absolutely clear, you should not have to justify any of this, and you are not the one making it weird by setting boundaries here. However, if it helps you have the conversation, invoke your therapist. “My therapist suggested that I start taking more autonomy over my choices around this, and to stop looking to you for input about every little thing. I appreciate that you care about me, but I’m good, so let’s change the topic.”

Second, I think that anything you can do to reach out to people who are Not Your Boyfriend is going to help. If you haven’t seen your friends in a while, call them/message them and schedule a hangout. If you were kind of hiding from them because you were depressed and have shame about how long it’s been, let it go. “Friend, I miss you and I’d love to see your face. Want to have breakfast next Saturday/Catch up by Skype or phone soon?” Since it sounds like your family might not be supportive, avoid them for now, and avoid all people who tend to make you feel small or sap your energy or who have the same bossy/halping tendencies as your boyfriend. You need people who are delighted by you and people who see you as competent and great.

If your social group feels patch and thin, take steps to meet new people. Hell, take steps to meet some new people anyway. Try Meetup.com, a class, finding an exercise buddy who is at your level and who likes to do the same stuff you like, volunteering. Try to find something low key that has a predictable, repeatable structure so you see some of the same people every time and can form connections naturally over time. There are people out there who will see you for how bright and funny and reasonable and cool you are.

Third, I think some disaster preparedness is good self-care for you. If you broke up and had to move out of your shared place, where would you go? Can you sock some money away for a rainy day? Can you talk with your therapist about what options are there for you and work with them to make a plan? Wanting to stay in your relationship is one thing, needing to stay in a relationship that actively undermines your sense of self because of housing or economics or fear of the unknown is another. Even if you end up staying, you’ll be on much better footing if you know you’re not bound there by circumstance.

All the love and respect in the world, dear “Terrible.” I think you are going to be just fine and that you know what is best for you.

It’s time for the monthly-ish post where we answer the things that people typed into search engines as if they are questions.

1. “Captain Awkward help my boyfriend keeps trying to optimise me.

Eff that dude. He’s not your Pygmalion and you are not a project.

2. “How should you act when you see your former affair and his wife in public?”

Give him a “hey, ‘sup bro?” nod and keep on walking/don’t stop to talk to them. You’re not going to be successful at pretending you don’t know him (hence the nod), but let him be the one to scramble for explanations about how y’all know each other. If you don’t engage at all it makes it less likely that you’ll have to lie to some poor woman’s face.

3. “How do I tell my husband I’m sick of him playing games on his phone?”

Text him?

In all seriousness, I think it’s a good idea to make mealtimes and certain other times gadget/screen free, and I think you can ask him outright. to do that.

4. “What to do when your boyfriend’s ex wants him back.”

Ignore the ex to the extent that you can and don’t engage with them if you can help it. In my experience, this is almost always a partner problem more than it is an ex problem, as in, the ex can want all they want, but how your partner treats you is everything.

5. “What to do when every time I go out side my neighbour tells me all her troubles.” 

Awkward. Give it like, 2 minutes, and then deploy some scripts:

1) “Hey, good to see you, but I actually don’t have time to talk today.”

2) “Hey, nice to see you, but I came out here to get a bit of quiet. We can catch up another time, maybe.”

3) If you’re like me, and you always carry a book, “Hi! I’m in a really exciting part of my book and I’ve been waiting all day to read it. I’ll have to catch up with you another time, thanks.” Pull out book.

Your neighbor will likely never get the hint, so you’ll have to ask. Prepare for sighing and harrumphing. If she makes a big show of avoiding you, be magnanimous – you’ve won! If she gives you some space, once a week, maybe just hang out with her for 10 minutes and ask about her day to show her that boundaries don’t mean y’all are enemies. If she doesn’t give you space, get more terse. “When I said I wasn’t in the mood to talk, I really meant it. Good night!”

6. “All our neighbors don’t talk to us.”

Maybe your neighbors just aren’t your people*? Try finding friends and a social life elsewhere?

My other question is, do you talk to them? Could you find the friendliest-seeming person and bake them a cake or something to break the ice? Give it some time and see if it gets better.

*”Aren’t your people” *could* mean “you have unwittingly moved to a racist, homophobic, and sexist hellscape.” Sorry, that’s a real thing, and it sucks.

7. “Just because he’s my boss should he not act on his feelings about me?”

Pretty much, bosses should not try to date or seduce or romance their employees and should look to, I dunno, literally anyone else.

8. “4 dates means he must like me.”

Sadly, that’s not a guarantee, though the possibility is there. In a new dating relationship, look to the present tense. What are things like between you now? Does he demonstrate that he likes you? Do you like him? Is it easy to make plans?

9. “He’s ignoring my Facebook messages.”

Stop sending Facebook messages and see if he contacts you.

10. “How to know if a girl loves you secretly from long distance?”

Ask her? She has the universe’s sole monopoly on the information you want.

11. “iamabeautifulperson.”

Fuck yeah!

12. “What does it mean when a boy suddenly message me saying sorry to be blunt but do you like me yes or no.”

Most likely explanation: 1) The boy likes you and is trying to make it known 2) Y’all are in middle school.

You don’t have to answer right away if you need time to make up your mind. “I’m thinking about it. Why do you want to know?” is a perfectly good answer.

13. “Having trouble accepting that my adult married daughter is gay.”

The best thing you can do is to realize that she was always gay there was always the possibility that she would be gay. It’s a fact, not something that needs your acceptance in order to be true, but if you want to keep having a relationship with her you need to do the work. Please be a good person about this, educate yourself, tell your daughter you love her, and don’t make her sexuality an issue between the two of you.

14. “A guy told me my messages creep him out what does that mean.”

Bluntly: Stop sending that guy messages. He doesn’t like them.

15. “Comebacks for people gaslighting you.”

In my estimation, no one is topping this lady who figured out her boyfriend was gaslighting her and then made him watch Gaslight. My heroine.

The key with gaslighters is not comebacks, it’s to get yourself out of proximity to them and in proximity to good people who treat you well.

16. “My boyfriend wants to move in together but I don’t.”

Listen to and believe that voice that is telling you that you don’t want to live with him. Maybe it’s that you don’t want to live with him yet, maybe it’s that you don’t want to live with him ever, maybe there is a fixable problem that you can work on together, and maybe it’s not fixable. Whatever it is, sit with it quietly, write about it, talk to trusted people about it, talk to your boyfriend about it, but don’t discount it.

17. “He’s mean to me, rude to me and doesn’t care about my feelings. What does it mean?”

It means: Get this dude out of your life forever.

CA,

I have a great stepdad, and a pretty not good dad. My dad has been in my life the entirety of it, so he’s not an absentee dad- but he’s controlling, emotionally abusive, financially manipulative (he’s a millionaire, and uses that to try to exact control over you) and just pretty cruel in general. He is married to a woman who hates me and my siblings, and they have both been honest with us about this since we were kids and they got married. They both think we haven’t tried hard enough to get her to like her or to “earn” our way into being part of their family, which we currently don’t deserve (his words.) I have tried to keep him in my life as much as possible and do what I can to prove to him I’m a good person, and always have.But he’s been pretty consistent in his vocal belief I’m not a good person, and never will be.

Now I’m an adult and I take nothing from him, and pay my own way 100% of the time. I wanted him to see what I wanted was the relationship, not the money. When I got engaged, he offered to help with the wedding, which I should have just said no to. But I was seduced by the idea we could all be a family and do this big day together, and as dumb as it is, I love my dad. Of course, by two weeks after our engagement, things had devolved. My dad, and then his wife had called to insult me and my mother (whom my dad still hates, almost two decades later) and call me names etc. My dad was apparently in the room and let her do it. We haven’t spoken since. That was 3 months ago.

I don’t want his money. I just wanted him to be a good dad. The shitty part is, I LOVE my dad! I wanted him to be a part of it and walk me down the aisle and be my dad. But I don’t think he can be. My stepdad is a good dad and always has been. I want him to walk me down the aisle, but I know this will break my dad’s heart. And frankly, now that my dad can’t show off his money, which he loves to do, and the event won’t be about him, I don’t even know that he’ll come.

My fiancé hates him and doesn’t want to invite him. I don’t want to invite my dad’s wife, but know I will have to if I even want a chance to have my dad there. Which I’m not sure if I want, either, to be honest.

How do I even begin to decide how to handle this? to be fair to my dad, my fiance, and my stepdad all at once? And most of all, to keep our wedding the happy day it’s meant to be, and not the Divorced Family Dysfunction Hour?!

Thanks,
K

PS- Yes, I do have a therapist. Specializing in family conflict. And a great support network.

Dear K:

Dig if you will, a picture.

• You, your fiancé, his parents, your mom & stepdad, and assorted siblings, grandparents. Max: 10 people? 20? Only people you both actually want & only people who are nice to you invited?
• Alternately, plan the entire wedding without communicating with your Dad and Stepmom. Do not take any money for them, consult them on nothing, include them in no part of the official family/wedding party calculus. Ask them to save no dates. If you do decide to invite them, send them an invitation the way you would anyone else and see what they do. Until an invitation comes, they should wonder if there is even still going to be a wedding. Until you get an RSVP, give yourself permission to stop thinking about them.
• One obvious answer is, “Eloping is a thing people do.” It sounds like you don’t want to do that, and you shouldn’t have to do that if you don’t want to, so instead really think about what traditions really matter to you and which are just there as filler “what you’re supposed to do” stuff. For instance, maybe nobody walks anybody down the aisle. Just skip that entire question and let everyone save face.
• Any time you fuck with tradition you will get pushback from somebody that whatever it is is a necessary part of a wedding. “What do you MEAN you won’t have your DAD walk you down the aisle are you SOME KIND OF A MONSTER who EATS PUPPIES?” Be ready with “Huh, we’ll think about it” and other noncommittal phrases. Get yourself to Offbeat Bride if you haven’t already. Support abounds.
• Scripts, should you need them:
  • “We’re eloping.” Better yet: “We eloped!“
  • “We’ve having a tiny, tiny wedding with just a few people who are very close to us.”
  • “Dad, we’ve got everything handled. Just come and enjoy yourself as a guest.”
  • “Dad, I can’t really listen to this right now. If you hate Mom so much you can’t behave yourself for one day, don’t come.”
  • Reminder: People who call you to scream at you deserve to be hung up on, or for you to put the phone down and wander away.
  • “I’ll miss you, but not so much that I want to put up with xxx.” 
  • “Dad, we tried to include you in scheduling, but I lost patience for the screaming. I hope you can make it, but I have no energy to fight about it.” 
  •  “Dad, I’ve really tried to keep you in my life, but the 80th time you told me I’m not a good person and I never will be I sorta stopped caring about your opinions.” 

I realize I’m constructing a fantasy here and that it’s easy when it’s not my family. I hope you get the wedding that you want to. Most of all, I hope you can release yourself from the notion that you have to somehow fix all of this with a party. You didn’t make this bitter history between your folks, you’re not making your dad act like a selfish baby, you don’t have to keep auditioning for his approval or use this event to prove something to him. There is no fixing the situation because you don’t have control over the person who is being a jerk. You can choose how much and when to engage, to a certain extent, but that’s all you can really do. I’m glad you have a therapist on your team and I hope your wedding rocks.

Dear Captain,

My parents keep visiting me over the summer and living in my apartment on my couch. One of my parents is looking for a job both in my current state and in the state of my hometown (where she actually officially lives when she is not visiting me). She sometimes has interviews out here and I am her host.

My dad, meanwhile, stayed three weeks at my place over the summer. I repeat: three fucking weeks. I did not need his “help” (his reason for visiting), but I felt bad telling him because I know he is going through a difficult time in his life (unwanted retirement) and wants to feel useful. I know I don’t *have* to satisfy those feelings for him, and I’m in therapy to try to get over this thinking.

I feel like crying. I was (and still am) a “parentified child” (chaotic home, traumatized parents told me about their adult sexual and financial struggles as though I were a healthy confidant) and having to host my parents now in my early 20’s is really triggering the sad feelings of powerlessness and numbness I used to feel. The feeling that I have to care for and baby my parents rather than enjoy being young, being a kid and having a fun place to live *on my own*.

I was saying to my therapist yesterday that I need to balance what my parents want from me as a daughter, to what society thinks a daughter should reasonably do to help her struggling parents. I burst into tears because she said, “Well, and you also have to balance those things with what YOU want.” I hadn’t even considered my own desires in terms of my apartment and my boundaries with them.

Do you have any scripts on re-setting (or rather, setting for the first time) boundaries with my parents? I know that part of the process will probably involve my knowing what I actually WANT for boundaries–but frankly yesterday is the first time I have ever thought about it with such precision.

My mom still doesn’t have a job yet, and I know she is probably going to come back out for more interviews. I have suffered enough of my parents’ rage and regret over finances and lost jobs. I am so tired and fragile right now. I also am terrified of setting boundaries–I don’t know that I believe they can get on without my help. Plus, you know, I love them.

Any help or advice or scripts would be amazing.

–Healing from parentification

[Ed. note: Description/definition of parentification is here.]

Dear Healing,

I’m glad you have a smart therapist who can remind you that your needs matter on an ongoing basis.

My best suggestion is that you get a notebook or open a file on your computer and start writing. Finish these sentences:

• “In a perfect world, when I see my parents we would…”
• “My ideal houseguest would….”
• “I would be up for hosting my parents ____ times/year for no more than _____ days at a time with at least _____ of notice.” (Your ideal number can be zero, by the way: Zero times/year for Zero days at a time).
• “The things that really bother me the most about their visits are…”
• “If I talk to them about it and set a boundary, I am afraid they will…”

See what comes up when you write it all out, and bring it all to your therapist to process.

In the meantime, start practicing setting boundaries and stating preferences in small ways in your day-to-day life, both with your parents and with other people you interact with. Pay attention to how you assert yourself in lower-stakes situations that aren’t so emotionally charged.

• “Server, this sandwich isn’t what I ordered.”
• “Coworker, can you turn the music down please?”
• “Mom/Dad, this isn’t a good time. I’ll need to call you back.”
• “I’d prefer to sit closer to the front.” 
• “That movie doesn’t interest me. Howabout this one, instead?”
• “Your party sounds lovely but I won’t make it this time.” 
• “Please put me on your Do Not Call list.”
• “No beer for me, thanks. Do you have iced tea?”
• “No iced tea for me, thanks. Do you have a beer?”
• “No thank you, I’m not interested.” 
• “Thanks for lending me that book, but I know I won’t get to it any time soon, so I’m going to give it back to you.”
• “That restaurant is out of my budget right now. Can we do something less expensive, or save it for another time?”
• “Excuse me, but I was next in line.”
• “It was really nice meeting you, but I don’t think I’m interested in another date.”
• “It’s awesome how much you love ____ (show, book, movie, band). I never could get into them, myself.”
• “Boss, I’d love to take that project on, but given x, y, and z projects I can’t make it a priority unless something else goes. What do you suggest?” 
• “Whoa, TMI! Let’s change the subject.”
• “I’m sure you didn’t mean to be offensive, that that comment was pretty racist.” 
• “I’m going to have to reschedule our meeting.” 
• “I wish I could stay but I have a busy day tomorrow, so I’m going to head out.” 
• “Do you mind putting your phone down and not texting while we’re trying to talk?” 
• “That’s all the time I have today, we’ll have to pick this up another time.” 
• “I can’t do that favor this time, sorry.” 

Practice not picking up the phone if you don’t want to take a call.

Practice not answering the door if you weren’t expecting visitors.

Practice cutting a conversation short when it’s going nowhere.

Practice asserting yourself positively, too. “You look great today!” “You did a good job on this.” “I really appreciate the ride.” “You made my drink just right.” “I am really happy to see you.” “Thank you for introducing me to that organization.” “I loved that book you recommended.” “I really liked going on a date with you, let’s do it again sometime.” It’s all part of not sitting on your feelings.

Pay attention to how it feels when you say “no” to someone. What are your anxieties? How does the other person react, relative to your anxieties? What’s hard about it? Does it get easier over time? Do you find yourself apologizing a lot? Negotiating an adult relationship with parental figures is rarely easy for anyone, but I think you have been particularly trained and groomed to never disappoint people (i.e. your parents), and that it’s unrealistic to go from “Sure, whatever you need” to “Have you considered the hotel?” with your family without some practice in realizing that disappointing someone is not the Worst Thing In The World. With a little practice, you can work up to:

• “Three weeks is just too long, Dad. Three days is more like it.” 
• “Thanks for your offer of help! I’ve got it handled, though, so let’s plan a visit where I come home next month instead.” 
• “Mom, I’m happy to put you up for a job interview for a day or two as long as I have x days’ notice.”
• “I love seeing you, but hosting somebody on short notice/for so long really stresses me out, and we need to figure out an alternate arrangement.” 
• “I need you to ask me if you can stay, and sometimes I need to be able to say no if it’s not a good time.” 
• “It’s just not a good time right now.”
• “Sorry, that won’t work for me.” 
• “Parent, can you take your private financial/relationship stuff to a counselor or your friends? I’m not comfortable hearing about that stuff.” 

The first time you set a boundary is the hardest time and when you will most likely get the strongest pushback of the “But we’re a faaaaaamily and families do ________” or “We’re not guests, we’re faaaaaamily” sort. You might get some guilt trips and cutting comments about ungrateful daughters and all kinds of cultural pressure. If you remain clear and stick by your boundaries, people mostly can and do learn to ask first and to take “no” for an answer. And you can be very direct about what you are doing, and why. “Mom, Dad, I love that we’re a close family and I do love seeing you. But now that we’re all adults, I want us to have more of an adult relationship, and I want to be able to balance being able to count on and support each other with adult behaviors, like, asking before you plan to come stay, setting limits on how long visits should be, and being respectful of each other’s limits and space. My tiny apartment isn’t built to have more than one person living in it for any length of time. I know money is tight right now, so I’m not saying you can’t crash here sometimes, I’m just saying we need to put some limits in place so that it can be a very pleasant, happy thing when you do come.”

Or “Mom, Dad, if you want to visit (city), please plan to stay in a hotel from now on. Hosting you won’t work for me anymore.” You are allowed to choose whatever honors your needs, your wants, and your safety and I don’t want to give the impression that you should somehow make short visits work if you don’t want to. FYI, my parents almost never stay with me when they visit, so don’t believe any “ALL families do this!” nonsense.

It also helps if you model the behavior back at them – ask if you can stay with them when you visit, ask if they can pick you up from the airport, thank them for hosting you, etc. They may say “You don’t have to ask!” (translate this is “You don’t really expect us to ask, do you?” h/t @brigidkeely) but keep asking. Some families really have a culture that says “manners are for OTHER people, families shouldn’t have to worry about them” and those families will keep me in letters until I am old and gray. I think manners & consideration in your close relationships are even more important than they are for casual social interactions. You’d probably laugh at how much my Gentleman Caller and I say “thank you” to each other – “thank you for breakfast,” “thank you for reading my resume,” “thank you for picking up groceries,” “thank you for coming with me” “Am I interrupting you?” “Do you have time to do x?”, etc. – but if we’re gonna share this 600 square feet for the forseeable future I think we gotta be gentle and considerate and not take things for granted.

Your parents can survive some limits around visiting. You can survive not being the most accommodating daughter. Your relationship and your love for each other can survive all of this. A new normal, where asking first/limiting visits is just the routine thing that y’all do, is possible.

Ahoy Captain,

Several years ago my fiance and I started hanging out with a guy named Devon*. At the time we started hanging out with Devon he was having a lot of personal problems. He was living in a hotel that he could barely pay for, slept all day and stayed up all night, and seems to have had a minor drug problem. Fiance and I, seeing that he was in a difficult situation, invited him to come live with us for a few months.

It’s been two years.

I like Devon, a lot, and I enjoy hanging out with him. He’s a sweet guy and being around him is simple and fun. I don’t necessarily want him to move out, which I guess is good for me because it doesn’t look like he’s going to any time soon.

Devon is now has a job, doesn’t do drugs, and kinda sorta pays rent *sometimes*.

My real problem, though, is housework.

I think it’s only fair that Devon take some responsibility for the house work. I’ve tried to talk to him about this so many times I’ve lost count. He always brushes me off, says he’ll do it ‘later’, he’s tired from work, or that the dishes in the sink aren’t ‘his’.

These excuses are childish the point of hilarity. I don’t argue about whose shit stain is whose on the toilet when I clean it, why does it matter whose dishes they are??. I brought it up again last night and he said “well I keep my room clean”. Well yeah, that’s all fine and dandy, I don’t expect him to clean my bedroom. I DO expect him to help with the kitchen and bathroom, which everyone uses every bloody day.

I’ve tried multiple tactics:

I’ve tried telling him what is expected of his as a member of our household

I’ve tried gentle encouragement

I’ve tried reasoning with him

I’ve tried yelling at him

I’ve tried explaining that it’s not fair for all the housework to fall on my shoulders since I’m not a damn maid

I have even tried boycotting all chores in the hopes that the revolting state of the house would encourage Devon to pitch it. The only outcome of that is, after a few weeks, the house (especially the bathroom) became so disgusting I couldn’t stand it anymore and I cleaned it myself.

What am I supposed to do about the cleaning short of kicking him out? I feel like I have tried everything. It’s driving me completely batty. In the past few months I don’t even bother doing more then a perfunctory clean because everything is always messed up 5 minutes later anyway. Sort of like in that episode of The Simpsons, “Bart Gets an Elephant” where the kitchen door opens on a clean kitchen, swings closed, and opens messy (sorry couldn’t find the gif) [Ed note: FOUND IT]!

Evocative.

I can hear him cooking in the kitchen now and just dread the stupid mess of discarded vegetable parts that will be everywhere in about 20 minutes.

I have been very explicit about my expectations but he just doesn’t hear it. I’ve even asked my fiance to speak to him about it in the hopes that maybe he would be more inclined to listen to an older man. Nothing. Same brush off.

Help!

Molly Maid

Dear Molly,

A++ for descriptive email subject line/post title and A+++++++ for .gif selection and Simpsons references.

Unfortunately that’s the only good thing I have to tell you. You can like people a lot and still be totally incompatible as housemates.

“What am I supposed to do about the cleaning short of kicking him out?”

I am pessimistic that Devon will change his behavior around cleaning when the status quo works so well for him. Asking, begging, threatening, boycotting, etc. on your part will not do a thing to change it because the dude doesn’t give a fuck. He’s not really all that easygoing and fun when you realize that your chill (simple, relaxed, etc.) interactions with him come totally at the cost of you doing all the housework and you swallowing your rage about that.

Your fiancé is also basically fine with the status quo. What’s that all about? What would happen, I wonder, if you said “Please get Devon to do his chores, and if you can’t, please do his chores or hire someone to do them I don’t care which kthnxbye“?

There is one way that Devon might start giving a fuck, and that is if you raise his rent, enforce regular collection of said rent, and make cleaning duties (or paying someone to carry out his cleaning duties) specifically part of a written agreement that spells out the conditions of him living with you. “Devon, now that you’re more on your feet, it’s time for you to sign a lease if you want to keep living here. The rent is $x, collected monthly on the first of the month, and includes $y to cover the cost of a regular housecleaner who will carry out a, b, c, and d chores that are your responsibility from now on.”

If he won’t sign the lease or otherwise cooperate, “Sorry to hear it. Good luck finding a new place, man, we’d like you and your stuff out by [date].” If you do want him to leave, you’ll need to consult a lawyer and/or otherwise get really familiar with the housing rules where you live because there is a process under which tenants/roommates can be evicted. If you let everything slide and go back to the status quo after getting it to this point chances are he will become even more insufferable as a roommate because he’ll know that you won’t actually follow through on enforcing boundaries and house rules.

You’re not alone, as this epic thread on housework shows. What year is it again?

Dear Captain Awkward,

My mom has always been something of a worrier. Anxiety runs in our family. But recently, there’s been this special, specific little anxiety bundle my mom’s been trying to hand me and my brother recently, like a cat leaving a mouse on a doorstep. I don’t know what to do with it!

The situation: my brother is currently living an (for our family) unconventional life. He graduated college, and then instead of getting an office job (like I did, and like my parents have), he’s pursued his creative projects and he got a job at a coffee shop to pay the bills. I think this is just fine. To me, this is the part of his artist’s journey where he struggles to pay the bills as he makes art in his shitty apartment. Not fun, perhaps, but sort of a necessary preamble to greatness. My mom has made it clear that she Does Not Get It. She says it’s not that she disapproves, she just doesn’t understand. She is a very smart lady and the struggling author/artist is a pretty robust cultural touchstone, but she keeps seeking clarification on “what exactly is he doing with his life” in these really hurtful ways.

She has done this same thing multiple times: She has a conversation with her friends about what my brother does for a living. They say something to the effect of “I don’t get it.” Or, “What is he doing, really?” Or, “But why?” My mom then relates this conversation to my brother under the guise of “Let’s figure out a way to explain what you’re doing to my friends, together.” Which – why? Why do your friends need this rock-solid grip on what your son is doing with his life? Also, he’s in his mid-twenties, supporting himself, on his own. Why does she need her friends to weigh in at all on what is, currently, a pretty successful story? She has pulled similar “help me figure out what to tell my friends” about my current state of un-marriedness to my boyfriend. When I told her “we’re happy with the way things are right now,” she seemed genuinely relieved, as though I had given her a script that she (A SMART LADY) could not think of. She hasn’t brought it up again, but my brother’s “I’m following my creative pursuits and figuring things out” script has not stuck quite so well.

Do you have any scripts for what I can say to just make her stop with the “my friends said” nonsense? Or any insight on why she’s doing this in the first place?

Signed,
I Do Not Want Your Mangled Anxiety-Mouse, Mom

Dear Do Not Want,

Here’s my insight into why your mom does this in the first place: Your mom disapproves of your brother’s choices and wishes he would make career choices that make sense to her (and let her brag about him to her friends). By constantly asking people who are not your brother for advice about and explanations of his choices, she is hoping to a) offload her anxiety onto others in the hopes that her burden will be lighter, b) get attention & commiseration, and/or c) invoke others as a chorus of outside authority that she can add to her concern-trolling, like, “I don’t judge you, but my friends really wonder what your brother’s long-term plans are.” She vents her findings onto you, much like this recent mom who is anxious about holiday gifts, because d) she kinda knows that dumping it all on your brother is not cool and will alienate them from each other and e) if she’s really lucky, you or her friends or someone will pass her concerns onto your brother, like, “Mom is too cool to actually say anything, but she is really concerned about you. When are you gonna get a job that we all perceive as ‘real’ so your poor mother can stop worrying?” Think of this as an emotional circling of the wagons with your brother playing dual roles of “innocent who must be protected and guided by his community” and “confusing outsider with dangerous views.”

Some venting to friends about things that worry you is normal, and your mom may or may not be entirely self-aware about what she’s doing here. Lots of people channel anxiety in annoying ways, and venting can be a habit that is hard to break on your own especially if you’re in a low place. Your mom’s behavior is also one of the reasons I suggest that people should confront others’ awkward behaviors based on their own observations and experiences – “I think, I have observed, this is not working for me, etc. – rather than appealing to the (possibly fictional) authority of the group. The totally understandable reaction of “Wait, you were all talking about me when I wasn’t there? What did so-and-so say about me, exactly?” creates both drama and a distraction from the issue you want the person to address.

Where does this leave you?

• “I dunno, Mom, he seems pretty happy when I talk to him.” + “So, about [subject change]?”
• “Well, it seems like your friends really have your back on this/have covered all the angles.” + “Let’s talk about something else!”
• “Besides telling him how you feel, is there something else you think you can or should reasonably do about this?”
• “That sounds like a question for brother; frankly I have no idea what the market for [paintings of naked cis het men with guns where their cocks should be and dicks where their fingers should be][avant-guard cinema projected in a minivan for an audience of 4-6][a rock opera based on Dune starring Janelle Monae and Florence Welch] is like.” 
• “Even if you’re right, the only person who can decide that is Brother.”
• “Mom, I don’t want to spend all my time with you today fretting about brother. I’m gonna make us a cup of tea, and when I come back, let’s talk about something else.” 
• “Mom, sorry to cut you off, but frankly I don’t share your worries about brother. Let’s change the subject before we get in to deep.” Oh yeah. Interrupt her if you need to. You are probably a polite and not-interrupty person and this will feel very, very wrong the first three-five times you do it, but as she adapts it will start to feel oh so right.
• “I’m glad you can talk to your friends about things that bother you! How about that [subject change]?”
• “Yes, I am changing the subject on purpose. I feel worn out by this topic and I am not the best audience for it.” 
• IF you have the energy for a bigger conversation, “Mom, you’ve told me this story three times. What’s really going on here?” 
• “Huh.” “Wow.” “You don’t say.” “Hrmm, interesting.” “I don’t think that’s true.” 

If you’ve always absorbed her worry before without protest, be prepared for some harrumphing and guilt-tripping of the “can’t I even talk to my own daughter?” variety. Ride it out and stick to your boundary. Over time, your mom may or may not find better audiences and coping methods for dealing with her worry, but she will most likely learn to catch herself and dial it back around you, which is the one thing you can really try to control. You don’t have to eat the dead mouse of her anxiety. Disengage!

Dear Captain Awkward,

I’m currently over 2 years into a poly relationship with a wonderful person. Our policy is that we’re both free to have casual sex, and we’ll treat dating people on a case by case basis. The majority of our relationship has been long distance, but I very recently moved to live a few blocks away from them.

Partner has a friend who was also known them for as long as I have. Over the course of our relationship, they’ve grown very close. Every time I heard about Friend from Partner for the first year or so, they kept assuring me they were “just friends” and that they’d never be interested in anything more with him, even though I didn’t ask for that assurance.

Then, Partner asked me if they could do nonsexual kink things with Friend, which I was okay with. This came with more assurances that they’d never be interested in doing sexual or romantic things with him, again without me asking for them.

Early this year, Partner asked to start dating Friend. I said I wasn’t comfortable with it right then. Partner asked again a month or so later because Friend’s partner decided to open up their relationship. I said I needed to wait until I lived near Partner and see if I felt more comfortable in our relationship.

Over the summer, Friend visited Partner and they had sex, even though I told Partner I was uncomfortable with that. They apologized for being inconsiderate of my feelings, saying that it just happened. A day before I moved, Friend’s new partner referred to Partner as their “metamour” in a place where I saw and Partner brushed it off as a misunderstanding. After that, I told them I wasn’t sure I’d ever be comfortable with them dating Friend while still dating me.

It’s now been two months since I moved and while my relationship with Partner is stronger than before, I’m still not comfortable with them dating Friend. They’ve given some hints that they want to talk about this sometime soon, but they haven’t brought it up yet.

Other than this issue, I am really in love with Partner, although I still don’t feel like I’m getting enough affection (school and health issues make fixing this hard).
I don’t know how to get over Partner giving specific boundaries for their relationship with Friend and then changing them suddenly.
Thinking about this situation makes me have anxiety attacks and cry. I’m working on finding a new therapist, but it’s hard having just moved and needing to find a bunch of new doctors.

Am I being ridiculous about this whole thing? What do I do when Partner brings up the subject again?

– Too Anxious, Too Needy

Dear…

We’ll come back to how you named yourself in a sec.

Let’s review the series of events in your letter:

Your partner gets wicked mentionitis of someone and you notice it. You don’t ask for reassurance that there’s nothing sexual or romantic going on here, but they reassure you anyway. Huh, that’s weird. Why bring it up at all if it’s totally out of the question?

My read: At this time, your partner wanted to have sex and possibly romance with this person.

Then your partner wants to do kinky stuff with this person. But then they reassure you that it’s not in a romantic or sexual way, even though you didn’t ask for reassurance. Huh, that’s weird. Not only are they doing a thing they reassured you that they wouldn’t do, they are preemptively reassuring you again.

My read: Your partner was already doing/had already done/was like, less than 24 hours from doing whatever it is with this person and it was probably in a sexual/romantic way. Sometimes manipulative people have tells, and “I won’t do that thing, I promise” offered up out of the blue translates as “I am considering doing that thing, so much in fact that I feel a need to tell you about it.”

Okay, we finally get some honesty, after many months, when your Partner requests to start dating this person. Yay for honesty! Yay for adhering to the agreed-upon parameters of your relationship! And you said “Hey, I’m not good with that right now” so the issue should be closed, right? Like maybe you shouldn’t even hear this person’s name for a while.

My read: Your partner was already kinda sorta dating this person. Like, maybe they were using a different word and there are some acts or statements of affection that were painstakingly kept off the table so your partner could later say, well, technically, we weren’t dating…yet. They delayed asking you for your greenlight because they knew on some level it would not be forthcoming and wanted to prolong the potential of the new relationship.

Then your partner and friend had sex. Wait, wasn’t that the thing that was not going to happen, way back in the beginning?

My read: When you hear the words “it just happened” about a sexual encounter from people who have been circling each other with intense fuck-eyes for months, what you are hearing is BULLSHIT. Self-serving bullshit. Your partner might actually believe this bullshit, but it doesn’t make it not bullshit.

Believe it or not I have run across people with whom I have intense chemistry/desire/a sweaty awesome history of poor decisions at times in my life when revisiting those decisions would be a bad idea. When I for sure did not want to fuck them, I did things like “not be alone with them in a private space” and “let their sexy raised eyebrow of suggestion just hang there unacknowledged” and “divert conversation away from flirty/sexy things.” When I wanted to fuck them despite all good sense, somehow we found ourselves sitting very close together on the Couch of Plausible Deniability exactly at Oh Look, My Train Just Stopped Running O’Clock.The Couch of Plausible Deniability cannot move independently and does not sneak up behind people and knock into the backs of their legs forcing them to suddenly sit down. I ended up there because I steered myself there.

What I mean, LW, is that your Partner and this friend may have been pretending to you and to themselves that sex was not gonna happen on that visit, but the drama of whatever “we shouldn’t do this/no no we shouldn’t/so let’s keep talking about how we shouldn’t do it/yes please send the list of the things we’re not going to do/good list we are also not going to do these things/definitely not those things/because it would be bad and wrong/so wrong/don’t worry though we’re just friends/I totally agree/so I’m gonna stay at your place right/sure, my couch is your couch/cool/do you have an extra blanket the couch is so cold/I don’t but you can come share with me…oh wait, sorry, LW, it just happened” they had going on is part of a very predictable pattern where they made it happen.

So, they have sex, and you’re not thrilled, but as long as it’s ‘casual’ it’s technically within the bounds of your agreement even if it is with someone that you’ve specifically expressed discomfort about. Oh wait, the friend and the friend’s partner are talking like friend and your Partner are dating (my kingdom for some pronouns), but don’t worry, it’s a misunderstanding. Whose misunderstanding, I wonder?

My read: I think that Partner has gotten friend’s hopes way up about a dating relationship between them and is keeping them in the wings until your approval can be secured for everything to be out in the open at last.

Present day, you’ve moved closer to Partner, and things are happy except for the part where you’re not getting enough affection and you are having anxiety attacks and crying because the specter of this friend (who your partner is definitely not dating against your wishes, nope, there’s no way that could be happening even though they’re sexually and mentionitis-ly involved) is still haunting you, and you are signing yourself “Too Anxious, Too Needy” where I might sign you “Understandably Wary.”

Rewind back to when the mentionitis started. Parter could have said, “I’m interested in my friend, and I wanted to let you know. Would it be cool if we dated/did sexy stuff?” and you could say “Yes” or “No” or “Maybe” and everyone could decide from there what they could live with. Maybe they didn’t quite know their own mind right then, so, okay, whatever, but what I see is a constant “Don’t worry! I’m not going to do the thing you’re worried I’ll do” and you going “Cool, I trust you and I wasn’t worried” and then Partner coming back a bit later either having done that thing or imminently planning to do that thing and asking you for your sign-off as if it’s a technicality. Dislike.

My read: You are nervous about asking Partner to choose, because you are afraid they won’t choose you, and you don’t want to be right about all the times your instincts said “Huh, that’s strange” over the past year. I suspect you are being groomed into accepting a relationship with friend as a full blown fait accompli, which also means accepting some evidence that either Partner intended this all along or that they have a truly spectacular lack of self-awareness, consideration, and integrity.

Your anxiety attacks and crying and how awful you feel right now might be coming from more than one stressor in your life, but a partner who constantly follows “Don’t worry, I won’t do that thing I promised you I wouldn’t do” with “Yeah…so…about how I did that…” sure is a big fat vector of anxiety and suckitude. There is so much room in your relationship for Partner to have super-fun-sexy times and romantic times without shredding your trust, you seem like someone who bends over backwards to be fair, so why all the goddamn rules lawyering and pretense from your Partner?

If you’re ultimately okay with Partner dating their friend, I guess that’s good, because LW, I’m pretty sure they already are in everything but name. So they are keeping their interactions just on this side of skirting technicalities while casting a lot of longing glances and “no, we can’t, remember?” admonitions, but there is still *something* going on there. If you’re not okay with this (and it sounds very much like you’re not), the last time you said you weren’t comfortable with it it ended up just…sorta…not mattering? Whatever decision you make next, if “I can’t trust my partner to tell the truth about what they want, and even when they do eventually come out with it my feelings don’t end up mattering” is part of your calculus it is not because you are too anxious or needy or too anything.

Edited to Add: Closing comments. Have a great weekend everybody. LW, I hope you are well.

Hi Captain and Army,

I have a problem with my dad’s girlfriend, namely that she tries to guilt-trip me. My dad had a party recently and at the end of it, as I was leaving, she started talking about Thanksgiving. Dad’s girlfriend said she would like to host this year’s Thanksgiving at her place. The guilt-trip was that since I spend every Thanksgiving at my mom’s I could spend the actual day of the holiday once with my dad. She also said that my sister and mother would be welcome to come too. I told her I’d think about it and get back to her.

My parents are divorced and have been separated for over a decade. My mom has custody of both me and my sister and we see our dad on our terms. We both live with her. My sister is estranged from our father and my parents had an awful divorce and make it a point to never be in the same room as each other. I have tried to see my dad on holidays, usually at a day not of the specific holiday, like a day before or after. My dad has a habit of making himself seem like a victim. I like spending the holidays with my mom, because it is more fun and way less full of awkward things and nobody has any bad history shoved under various rugs.

The problem is that I am sick of her guilt-tripping us. Apparently it is a part of traditional Chinese parenting and she is super traditional about everything including family and respecting parents. Both of them want to have picture perfect holidays at all times even if everybody hates each other. I wouldn’t mind seeing them on a day before or after, but when I hear the gross inaccuracies that she obviously got from my dad I don’t want to go at all. I also don’t want to have to smack down either one further guilt-tripping me for not going. If I don’t go, then I stay at my mom’s but if I go then I have to listen to dad’s girlfriend and dad being happy at ‘family’ while seething. I can’t see other family because they live back east and I refuse to be anything more than politely civil to my dad’s brother.

Is there any way I can call her out on her guilt-tripping that will make it stick? She’s tried to do this before. I don’t think my dad will back me up because he used to do it to me too. Should I tell her I can come for Christmas but not Thanksgiving?

Signed,
Another year of holiday problems

Dear Holiday Problems,

Your script is:

“Thanks for the invitation, but I won’t be there.” 

Start out by addressing your dad and only your dad, and consider email or text as a medium. “Dad, I wanted to thank you & Girlfriend for your Thanksgiving invitation. I hope it’s a great day! I won’t be there.”

If the guilt trip comes from either your dad or his girlfriend, keep repeating a version of that script.

Him/Her/Them: “But we talked and I thought you were coming!”

You: “I said I’d think about it. Thanks so much for the invitation! I won’t be there.”

Him/Her/Them: “But I’ve already made a seating chart and bought the ingredients for the thing you like!” “But we’ve already gone to so much trouble!”

You: “Thanks, that was nice of you! I hope you’ll save me some for (next day) since I won’t be there.”

Her: “But your dad will be so disappointed! He was really counting on you coming!”

You: “I’ll talk to him directly about that. I hope you have a lovely celebration. Bye!”

Him: “But Girlfriend will be so disappointed! She was really looking forward to you coming!”

You: “I hope you have a wonderful celebration together!” (Yep, it’s a little bit of a non-sequitur. Trust, you don’t want to get into the conversation about your dad’s girlfriend’s disappointment with your dad.)

Him: “But you always spend Thanksgiving with your mom.”

You: “Yes, I do! Are we still on for the day after? Let me know.“/“I like spending (actual day-of) Christmas & Thanksgiving with Mom, and I don’t see that changing. I hope you and Girlfriend have a lovely celebration together. Let me know if you want me to come up the day after like I usually do.”

Don’t give reasons. Don’t apologize. Don’t justify it. Repeat it 100 times like a broken record if you have to. Give zero fucks. Just keep saying no. It won’t convince anyone to stop guilt-tripping you, because people who use guilt to manipulate other people can’t really be convinced of anything, but it’s your path to making it absolutely clear that your guilt-trips don’t work.

It isn’t strictly “fair” that you spend actual holidays with your mom and that your dad always gets the day after, as in, this is the stuff of legend and strictly negotiated custody agreements for children of divorce. But you aren’t a child. You have custody of yourself, and you can spend your holidays where & how you want to. Fairness arguments don’t work, fantasies of what could be don’t work, command performances of Happy Family-ness don’t work. Rewarding manipulation doesn’t work.

Blaming whatever your dad’s girlfriend is up to on “traditional Chinese parenting” is a total smokescreen. For one thing, she’s not your parent. The fact that she thinks that your sister and your mom would want to come along to dinner at her place would be laughable if it wasn’t so creepy! If your parents were friendly with each other it would be kind of beautiful and great, but they aren’t, so “Come spend Thanksgiving with your dad and me! Bring his ex-wife and his other daughter who hates his guts! I just found this recipe for Bitter Cranberry Sauce with Tears and Acrimony” is a non-starter. Maybe Girlfriend has always dreamed of hosting big family holiday dinners, and maybe you & your dad’s perfunctory day-after celebrations make her sad, but invitations aren’t commands and none of that is hers to really fix or change. You don’t have to be a background performer in the play she’s scripting about what holidays and family are like. Maybe this play is called “Look At What A Perfect Hostess (+ Wife Candidate!) I Am.” Maybe the play is called “Dating A Divorced Dude Whose Kids Don’t Like Him Really Ruins The Dreams I Had For What My Life Would Be Like By Now.” Maybe it’s called “I Can Fix Boyfriend’s Family For Him. A Holiday Miracle!” Who knows? It is not your problem to find your mark and mumble your lines. This, whatever it is, is between your dad and his girlfriend and it’s not really about you.

If your dad wants to change up your holiday routine, HE can ask you. (And you can still say “Thanks for the invitation, but I won’t be there,” if you want to.) If he’s farming his family relationships out to his girlfriend, that’s not cool. If he’s quietly letting her take over management of them and expects you to go along with her command performances, that’s not cool, either. Another script for you might be, to Girlfriend, “Thanks, but I prefer to talk directly to my dad about this stuff.” And to your dad, “I”m glad you and Girlfriend are happy together and she’s always very kind to me! But (and there is a but) when dealing with our family stuff I prefer to hear whatever it is directly from you.” Guilt trips thrive on triangulation and never addressing anything directly, so the more you insist on talking directly with the source, the more you insist on sticking to only what is said (and ignoring sighs and subtext and implications and unspoken regrets and longings), the more you can straight up ignore the fact that a guilt trip is even happening, the happier you’ll be.

One thing that might improve Holidays (observed) with your dad is suggesting something that’s wildly off script from whatever you usually do. Like, maybe he comes to where you are and you do something there instead of you visiting him at his place. Like, Dad, don’t wait for me to show up to celebrate Thanksgiving! Please celebrate that ON the holiday WITH your girlfriend and enjoy whatever traditions the two of you want to enjoy! When I visit, let’s do something relaxed and fun, like, just the two of us can spend the day together, eat some leftovers, go to the movies, play video games. I’m not 12 anymore, you don’t have to try to make a ‘real Thanksgiving’ for me. Something honest that’s a celebration of whatever the two of you DO have instead of a competition or a whitewashing that just calls attention to what you don’t have. Over time you & your dad could do worse than taking a page from Lilo & Stitch: “This is my family. I found it, all on my own. Is little, and broken, but still good. Ya. Still good.“

Can I say how much I love this LW’s original email subject line: “A Soap Opera Problem–families torn apart over money, demanding parents, undutiful daughters who are me, sons trying to bear the whole burden.” Yeah!!!!

Dear Captain Awkward,

I’d really appreciate your advice on a family problem. Dad grew up
privileged, then was mostly-disinherited and lost his job when I was a
kid. Instead of retrenching, he incurred debt. Mom demands luxuries,
cheats, and is an alcoholic prone to rages. Now Dad asks me and my
brother A for money constantly, always at crisis moments.

Dad always believes that his financial issues will be over soon.
Unfortunately there’s a company he has a part in being sold, meaning
he might get some money one day—there’s some basis in reality but not
enough. He refuses to sell his house, because he wouldn’t get enough
money, and claims to be always economising because he doesn’t go on
holidays though Mom does and he belongs to an elite gentlemen’s club.

A and I have precarious jobs in which we are paid in irregular lump
sums, so we have the money to give him. We both consider ourselves
lucky. The emotional toll of these emergency requests is huge. We also
cannot afford them. Over 5 years, between us we’ve given Dad over
150k.

I wrote to Dad saying his behaviour is disordered and deeply hurting
us. He refused to go to his bank with us, blamed A for not giving him
enough, and hardly seemed to have read my message. He’s past hearing.
Saying he’s a good father otherwise is asking Mrs Lincoln how she
enjoyed the play otherwise.

I tried cutting him off altogether years ago: it ended when my
siblings exerted pressure on me to do a family Christmas. I’m proud of
my siblings (A, B & C, all younger) for getting through our childhood,
but I’m the one who rocks the boat. A gives money to Dad without me
knowing, so as not to risk alienating me. A has a more optimistic view
of the situation. My sister B agrees with me mostly, but B and C are
more sheltered (by me and A). C is college age, still living with my
parents. He’s begun suffering from panic attacks. He plans to get out
of the house next year: I’ll help him.

I’m considering not going home this Christmas, but I know it’ll upset
my siblings and I want to see C as neither of us is great at
long-distance. If I do go I’d like a script for talking to A, and my
other siblings, about this, and to make a plan for us going forward,
in how we’re going to react to my parents and stick together. I’ve
asked A to promise me not to give money to my father without telling
me: so far he hasn’t promised. It would make me happy if I could get A
to agree on no more money given directly to my father.

Thank you so much.

–Saving Only Siblings

Dear Saving,

The word you’re looking for is “no.” Next time your dad asks for money, tell him:

“No, Dad, I won’t give you money.”

He will say whatever he’s gonna say, and it will probably be mean and also about the horrifying fate that awaits him and your mom if you don’t come through this time, and you can remind yourself quietly about his “elite gentleman’s club” (wtf) and end the conversation. He will never stop asking, and he & your mom will never make any adjustments to their budgets as long as the answer from you is “maybe.” They may not make financial changes even then, but if you can’t afford this “help” and the requests are shredding your already frayed relationship, you’re not a bad daughter if you tell them a flat “No.”

The script for your siblings is, “I am not giving our parents money anymore. I’d like us to stick together on this, but what you do is your decision.”

And then the hard part comes: You stick to it even if the others do not. That means when A. calls you a few months from now to strategize about the latest emergency request, your answer can be, “I’m not giving money to Dad anymore, but you do you.”

IF your siblings want to get together to do something for your parents, one thing y’all could do is to hire a financial pro or debt counselor* to work with them on living within their means. As in, “Mom, Dad, we’ve noticed that every year you need about $30,000 more than you have to maintain your current lifestyle. We’d like you to sit down with Financial Advisor Felicia here who can help you come up with something more sustainable, since we won’t be able to make up the difference in the future.”

I don’t see your parents agreeing to that, by the way, because it would require an honest accounting of their finances not to mention dealing with a lot of shame and emotional baggage around spending, addiction, and debt. I think your parents hide their spending from each other which is why these emergencies keep happening. But that’s a problem in their marriage, and that’s really for them to sort out. I offered the pro as a possible solution since it might help you deflect the request to make it a condition of any further discussions about money: “I can’t give you money, Dad, but if you want to meet with a financial advisor who can help you find the money in your budget I can recommend someone.”

It’s great that you and A. (sometimes) have the financial security to help them out, but they are abusing the word “emergency” and they are abusing your ability to take care of yourself (and C., and maybe them) in the long-term.

You don’t have to solve all of this, or any of it, at the holidays this year. If you want to skip the family affair, do it, and invite your siblings out to see you another time. If you can get comfortable with your own “no,” you’ll have taken the best first step you can. I can tell by reading your letter that you’ve got a really healthy handle on this, so if we can give you any encouragement, it’s yours.

*Expert knowledge about how types of professional budget advising work welcome! However, if you find yourself using the word “should”, like, Here’s how the LW “should” “fix” the financial situation of independent adults who do not respect or cooperate with her, or, how she “should” get more involved in a situation that she’s trying to extract herself from,” no need to share anything at all!

Edited to add additional follow-up from the Letter Writer below the jump.

Dear Captain Awkward,

First off, I want to let it be known that we are a family of Christians; I believe there is only one true God and that to be saved it must be through Jesus Christ. I have raised both my children “Paul” – 19 years old – and “Mary” – 24 years old – to be strong in faith and put their trust in God.

However, I fear for my daughter’s life. She recently confessed to me (this past summer) that she is seeing someone, let’s call him “Jim.” Jim is not who I want for my daughter and I worry that their incompatibilities and differences will lead to her being hurt.

One, his family is Catholic. We are a Baptist Christian family. I don’t believe in the teachings of Catholicism. Even worse, Jim is an atheist and does not believe in God and I feel that he will drag Mary down spiritually. This is the biggest thing that I am scared of, and while I have tried to tell Mary that she should break up with Jim for her own wellbeing, she will ignore me or pretend I didn’t say anything. It hurts me deeply that she would choose to ignore her own mother like this. She should know that God’s love is not to be taken lightly.

Secondly, We are a Chinese family and Jim is from an American family. I worry that the cultural compatibility will be an issue.

Three, Mary has a masters degree whereas Jim has only his bachelor’s. I feel that he will come to resent my daughter for having a higher education since he is the man in the relationship (and I have seen many relationships end because of this).

Four, I am scared that he will be a bad influence on Mary. He does not smoke or do drugs but according to Mary he does drink on occasion. Mary tells me she does not drink (she claims she does not see the point) but for how long until she gives into the temptation of drinking? What about peer pressure from hanging out with his family and his friends?

Five, I feel like Mary is settling in life and Jim is a result of that. Another example: She is in a marketing job and they are not paying her very well (only 40K and she has a masters degree). She says she loves it but I don’t think she does, I think she’s just trying to rebel against me. She doesn’t even listen to my suggestions that she move back home to Virginia (she lives in New York) to save on rent or so that I can help her grow.

Six, I am scared that Jim will pressure Mary to do sexual things. I have already warned her that her purity is an important gift from God, but I am so scared that she will ignore my pleas. And because Jim is a man, I am worried that he may rape her even if she says no.

Mary has always been very independent, but she is still young and not mature. I need help in making her realize that Jim is not a good person for her and that she will suffer in the long run as a result from being with him. If she does not break up with God, how can I help lead them back to God so that they can have a Christ-like relationship?

Thank you,
Concerned Mother

Dear Concerned Mother,

I confess to being very confused and very curious as I read your letter. I’m going to guess that you’re not a regular reader of the site, but even so, what on earth do you think I’m going to tell you?

Full disclosure, in case you want to stop reading now: I’m an agnostic who was raised Catholic (which is a kind of Christian, btw) and I don’t think drinking, having sex, having a boyfriend of a different religious denomination, or making “only” $40,000/year are wrong, especially not for an adult woman. I think the emphasis on “purity” by Christian church, especially in America, is sexist and toxic for both men and women; I suggest reading Damaged Goods by young Christian feminist thinker Dianna E. Anderson for a different perspective on that question. You say that you “fear for your daughter’s life;” I think, based on your description of her choices, that this is a massive overreaction on your part. It honestly freaks me out that you can only imagine a scenario where she has sex with Jim as him raping her, like the idea that she might want to can’t even enter your mind.

To be completely frank, when you say that “Mary” ignores your comments about her relationship with Jim and resists moving back home with you, it actually makes me hopeful and happy for her, because she’s developed independence and the ability to have healthy boundaries. If she did move back in with someone who talks only of wanting to control her, it would make me seriously worry about her emotional well-being.

Still reading?

Your daughter is her own person. She belongs entirely to herself. Her body belongs to her, her faith belongs to her, her romantic and sexual life belongs to her, her career belongs to her. All of her choices – even if all of your worries come true and even if every single choice ends up being a mistake – belong to her and her alone.

Do you understand that? Can you understand that? You have raised her with as much love as you can in the best way that you know how. Now that she’s grown, the time for you “raising” her is over and done. It isn’t your job to break up her relationship or “lead her back to God” (which conveniently dovetails with leading her back to live with you, huh, interesting) or “help her grow.” Your job now is to love the adult woman as the fully-formed independent person that she is.That doesn’t mean liking all of her choices, but it does mean finding a way to accept that they are her choices. Start with scripts like:

• “It’s up to you.”
• “What do you want to do?”
• “Whatever you decide, I’m here for you.”
• “I’m proud of you.”

There are even scripts that allow you to be honest about your less-than-encouraging feelings while still acknowledging Mary’s autonomy:

• “I think they should be paying you more at work, because you are so valuable. Hopefully you can find a way to make that happen next year.”
• “I have had some reservations about Jim, but if you say he’s a good person then I believe you. I’d love to get to know him and see what you see in him.” 

Your worry and disapproval and desire for control are unlikely to change Mary’s mind about anything. They are likely to drive a deeper wedge between you the longer you treat her choices like they don’t matter. I know you feel powerless where your relationship with your daughter is concerned right now, but you actually have immense power to decide what kind of relationship you will have going forward. Will it be one where you see her as clay to be molded in your image, or will it be one where you see her as a full human being? Is Mary, actual Mary, dater of disappointing Jim, earner of mediocre marketing pay, actually welcome in your life, or do you only interact with the version of her you wish she would be? You are worried that Jim will hurt her someday, but if you constantly undermine her choices when you’re together the way you do in your letter, the person hurting Mary is you.

Dear Captain Awkward,

I saw your response on your website and thank you for writing back but I don’t think you understand. As I have said, while she is very independent she is not yet mature (she can be very selfish and I fear her being in New York has taught her to value the materialistic things of this world).

Even if you do not believe in God, we do. So please understand my very real fear that she is signing up to spend eternity in hell because she chooses an un-Christian-like lifestyle. Again, understand a mother’s love for her children. I will do anything I can to protect my children, and that means making sure that they are going down a righteous path. I am not selfish, if I was I would have demanded that she moved back to Virginia. I would have told her not to take the job she took. I would not have helped pay for her education or rent. Knowing this, can you truly say I am the selfish one? It seems like Mary is the selfish one who is using me when it is convenient or benefits her.

I want what’s best for my daughter. I have prayed many times and know that God has a plan for her, that she is to become a missionary one day and that she is to marry a man of faith. That man is not Jim. Mary thinks it is, but that is because Mary again is trying to run away from God. But as we know, we cannot run from God, for He is everywhere (like with Jonah and the fish). I just want to stop her from making mistakes in life that cannot be taken back.

I had written to you in hopes that you can provide good advice for me, but please understand that I am looking for good advice. Please help.

Thank you,
Concerned Mother

Dear Concerned Mother,

Oh, I understand, I just completely disagree with your approach to parenting your adult daughter. For example, I think that the money you give your kids for their upbringing and education is a gift, not a down payment on controlling the rest of their lives. And I am still totally confused as to why you wrote to me in particular or what you think I will say to you. Did you just want to be able to complain about how “selfish” your daughter is to 30,000 daily readers? If so, mission accomplished! (Mary, if you’re reading this, I don’t think you are being selfish by not moving back home or not dumping your boyfriend).

However, now that you’ve written me again, I have had a thought:

What if YOU become a missionary? 

And, if you are not currently married (and forgive me, you don’t mention a husband/Mary’s dad), you could find a man of the church to marry. One who is totally compatible with your culture and your beliefs!

Maybe your prayers are really telling you about God’s plan for you. Also, what better way to lead than by example? Perhaps Mary will be so moved by your sacrifice that she’ll follow you. The Lord works in mysterious ways!

Perhaps not, but at least you can comfort yourself in knowing that you’ve done all you can to spread your faith in the world. It’s never too late to be what you once might have been!

I would prefer that you not email me again, truth be told. However, I wish you and Mary all the luck in the world. You: Luck in coming to terms with the fact that your children are outgrowing the need for your guidance and in finding non-controlling ways to channel your love for them, Mary: Luck in living her own life and being happy in New York (or wherever she chooses to go).

It is the return of the Winter Pledge Drive here at Awkward Enterprises, where I rattle the tip jar and invite people to throw in a few $ if you like what we do here. You can contribute via PayPal, Dwolla, or (new!) cash.me/$CaptainAwkward. Your generous gifts help me keep the site going.

Now to today’s question, which involves some mentions of hoarding behaviors.

Hi!!

I have been seeing this guy for the past 6months long distance. We visit every few months. This past visit was the longest we’ve spent together (3 weeks) and it was somewhat a rollercoaster. A few things went wrong here and there of course that was bumpy. Overall I felt disrespected, confused, and disgusted. I told my partner that the state of his apartment made me feel uncomfortable (he’s a borderline hoarder w/ no access to his kitchen, getting electricity off the grid, walking space is lessening) and he responded by saying it’s related to my trauma. I understood that, yet he did nothing to increase my comfort while I was there. The mess continued to be an issue while I was there (losing things, bugs, mice) and finally before I left I told him that I felt like my feelings weren’t being taken seriously. He didn’t take this well and acted standoffish towards me afterwards. I’m back home now, and I’m feeling much better to be in a de-cluttered space. It’s been a week and I’ve asked that he take some space for himself and get help. We chatted briefly about it. I tried to check in today and got no response. I only know that he’s alive bc of his social media postings (some of which have been passive aggressive) I don’t know what to do at this point. I’m ready to give up and call it quits……should I give him more time? If so how much time is enough?

Hello,

Did he say that the behavior is related to “my trauma” as in his trauma or as in your trauma? Because if it’s this:

You: “Partner, I am uncomfortable with x…”

Him: “You’re just saying that because of your trauma!”

Then he is trying to convert your discomfort with his environment and behavior into discomfort with yourself, which is what broken glass guy does.

And if it’s about his own trauma, that sucks, and is very sad, but either way, you still need what you need, which is not to be grossed out and uncomfortable in a space where you’re staying. You need him to make an effort to make you comfortable, and if he won’t or can’t (which, maybe he can’t, and I hope he gets alllllll the help if so), you need to not be in that space and maybe need to not be in the relationship anymore.

Either way, I’m sorry but it’s probably time to ride away on your nopetepus.

Not all romantic relationships can or should develop into permanent ones or involve shared living spaces, but if that is the kind of relationship you want in your life, keep in mind that the early stages of dating are for figuring out if that kind of compatibility exists. Six months in, it’s not looking good. Here’s what we know:

• The way he arranges his living space does not indicate long-term compatibility with you and how you like to live. It makes you actively uncomfortable when you stay there in the here and now.
• He won’t or can’t take steps to make it more comfortable for you when you are a guest.
• He blames you and your history for that discomfort.
• Longest visit so far = unhappiest visit so far.
• You feel disgusted, disrespected, and are “ready to call it quits.”
• Discussing your feelings honestly and giving him space isn’t bringing you closer together. He’s avoiding you but posting passive-aggressive status updates where he knows you’ll see them.

No doubt he is experiencing some shame and distress right now, and I feel a lot of sympathy for him. Hoarding behaviors often ride sidecar with serious mental health conditions and a ton of shame, none of which I am qualified to address, though one thing I can tell you is that making sustainable changes is a very time-consuming process. You asked “how much time is enough?” and the answer, really and truly, is probably years, plural, at which point this still might be a struggle and a point of contention between you. Note also that he has not said “I have a problem, I want to get help for it, please be patient with me while I do that and I will do my best to make sure it doesn’t impact you when you are here with me.”

Look at it this way: You are only six months in. You are long-distance and nobody has pulled up stakes and rearranged their whole lives for the other partner…yet. You can have empathy for someone’s feelings and their struggles without opting into those struggles “for better or for worse.”  It is absolutely okay to date someone for a while and then decide, oh wait, now that I know them a little better I can see that this person is not for me. It’s okay to not invest more time and work into something that isn’t working.

Here’s a gentle, clean breakup script: “After our last visit, I realized that things aren’t working for me, and I’ve decided to end things.”

My advice: Let his silence & avoidance be a gift to you for right now. Don’t do any work on the relationship (like checking in) until he contacts you, and when you are ready, end it.

I wish you both well.

Dear Captain,

I’ve just spent weeks reading through your archives. I’ve learned so much and made lots of plans for how to better interact with parents, friends and colleagues. One of the subjects I read about a lot are difficult mothers and mothers in law.

My husband’s mom is emotionally abusive and very sad all the time. For a few years after marriage, I tried to tiptoe around her and keep the peace… Not that it ever prevented screaming fights or insults where I was mostly silently stunned and my husband resignedly grabbed his coat and we left. After we had some kids things got both better and worse. My mil LOVES our kids and the only times I’ve seen her smile is around them. However, the bad times were worse because now there’s more to fight about (The baby’s name is already on the birth certificate! Drop it! We’re not changing the name!) and also because I don’t want her to someday hurt my kids the way she does my husband.

A few years ago, we stopped having any contact after a particularly bad episode. Recently, my husband has stated talking about reconciliation. I’m hesitant. I can see about 100 negatives and only 2 or 3 positives.

I can see that the scripts and advice you’ve posted would work really well to help manage this relationship – if we go ahead with seeing her again. But, just the thought of it makes me so tired. It is stressful and exhausting before, during and after to interact with her. And even using your advice – it’s a lot of mental and emotional work, especially now that I’m worrying over my kids and my husband-keeping all five (5!) of them calm, quiet, and out of her rampaging danger zone. We live so far away, and the number of times we’ve flown and arrived tired and hungry and unpacked the suitcases and then packed up and left in tears before dinner…Well, it’s more than twice!

My husband is great, smart, easy -going, and a wonderful dad. He won’t reconcile without my support and help. So if I say no – it’s no. If I say yes, I have to go there WITH him to keep him steady and notice when the fighting has become too much and say, “it’s time to leave,” and drive away. I think he relies on me too much, but when I don’t want to see her, he won’t go.

She’s a lonely, sad woman who has driven away all of her family and friends. Is my exhaustion at the thought of having to “deal with her” a good enough reason to keep away?

Thank you for any advice you have.

P.S. If you have the magic combination of words that would convince her to see a therapist, I’d appreciate them.

Thank you,
Fulfilled and happy career gal, mom, and wife… Turned exhausted stressed-out shell by MIL

Hello and welcome to Awkwardland!

If your husband wants to try reconciling with his mom, I think it’s up to him to figure out a process that might work and to put supports in place for himself to make it possible, and I think that it’s okay for you to put the onus on him to do the work here.

What that process could look like:

Baby Step #1: Husband institutes weekly (or monthly) phone chat with his mom – 10-15 minutes (max) at the same set time every time, with advance notice if plans change. If she says something mean to him, he should end the call fairly immediately (“Interesting idea, Mom, well, good catching up, bye!“) and not contact her again until the next scheduled call. (1-3 months)

Baby Step #1a: Husband lines up a counselor or therapist or friend or a journal or some sort of sounding board or other ritual to process his Momthoughts before and decompress after these calls. Maybe he needs to run or bike or kick a big bag at a gym or angrily do yardwork or wash dishes. Whatever works for him time-wise and budget-wise and energy-wise can be fine, with one exception: That sounding board shouldn’t be you. (1-6 months, the sooner the better)

Baby Step #2: If after a little while the chats are working – Mom is behaving herself, husband is able to decompress and soothe on his own afterward without you losing an entire evening to his ranting (for example) – maybe he can swap the solo chats out for a brief Skype session with one or two of the kids and closely monitor the conversations. If your mom behaves herself and doesn’t say nasty things, this routine will continue. If she does start up, your husband can end the discussion immediately and revert to no chats or solo chats only and ease back in at his convenience. (6 months – 1 year)

Baby Step #3a: Alternately, what if Grandma & kids became pen pals? She gets crayons and finger paints and glitter (the devil on my shoulder says “SO MUCH GLITTER!) and visible talismans of her grandkids to display and hold onto, your kids get a fun art project for an afternoon, and postal mail is a pretty relaxed way of maintaining contact in this digital world. Everyone makes fun of greeting cards for being trite, but think of it this way: Your husband can just sign his name and the kids can cutely sign theirs, and some copywriter does the hard part! Throw on a stamp and your husband is good for 1-2 months of “LOOK MOM, I’M TRYING” credit. (3 months – 1 year)

Baby Step #4: If chats are going well, and a visit seems in order, howabout husband visits solo or takes one of the kids along for a short trip? Maybe? He shouldn’t do these on major holidays (thereby ruining them for you), he shouldn’t stay in her house, he should schedule time with other nearby relatives or friends, and he should build in nearby attractions/activities that are kid-friendly….(after 1 year of successful lower-key interactions)

Baby Step #4a: If the visit goes well, maybe there can be more of them spaced out over time. If it doesn’t, back to square one and rebuild (or not) from there. If his mom agitates for holiday visits, or the whole family, he can say “Those big family trips really haven’t worked for us in the past, so we’re gonna keep doing it our way.” Translation: “Take it or leave it, Grandma. You have no rights here and were given plenty of chances to not suck at this.” (1 year – infinity)

His mom can’t be taught to be a nicer person, but she can be taught to behave better if she wants to see her grandkids. It’s not a perfect solution (it never is with abusive people) because if the kids form a relationship with her and they start to look forward to Chats with Grandma it’s harder to pull back on them without explaining why to your kids. However, if your husband focuses on protecting the kids and himself from abusive behavior, the kids will form their own opinion about Grandma over time. She may rally a bit and put a good face forward in order to preserve the tie. That can be a good outcome, even if it feels like a betrayal of everything you know to be true about her and you and husband giving each other the side-eye that means “It is so unfair that poisonous people get to mellow with age.” The kids may (infuriatingly) adore her. Maybe that’s how it heals, a little. Maybe they will figure out she has a shitty personality and ask to opt out of visits and calls. Maybe it never heals.

Anyway, please notice that we are a loooooooong way away from six people getting on a plane for a tense & expensive holiday visit with you as Chief Logistics and Emotions Manager.

Also notice that in these imagined scenarios it’s your husband who is taking the steps to contact his mom, setting boundaries with her, monitor her treatment of him and your kids, and emotionally take care of himself through the process.

Finally, please notice that the steps outlined what that process could look like but does not address whether it should happen at all. If your husband can’t or won’t take on the majority of the emotional labor, maybe he shouldn’t reconcile with his mom right now. He’s the only one who can really make that decision, and I think you are 100% allowed to say “That’s up to you, and I want you to have whatever relationship with your mom you decide you want to pursue, and you know I will always support you and believe you and remind you of your worth. But I won’t I won’t drag myself and all our kids there anymore, so if you want to visit her, plan on going solo or taking one kid at a time, and I’ll support you by holding the fort down here.”

You could also say, “Tell me more about what ‘reconciling’ looks like for you?” which does two things: 1) It shows him that you are willing to listen and support him and 2) it assigns the question of what exactly his wants and needs and plans for this are as something he should generate. If he moves ahead, there will also be the little ongoing conversations where you suggest & maintain specific boundaries, for example, “After you talk to your mom tomorrow week, could you make a plan to go for a run or play a video game or jam out on your jazz flute for a while? I want to support you, but the full, immediate download is overwhelming for me.”

Letter Writer, you’re rightly feeling uncomfortable right now, and I don’t think that’s just because of your well-founded pessimism about how this reconciliation is going to go or your stellar instincts to shield your kids from the woman who abused your husband(!!!!). You clearly have a lot of empathy for your mother-in-law even after how she’s treated you and yours, and it’s a very kind of you to try to imagine a way that she can have a relationship with her grandkids and to want to give her something good to hold into. But by telling you “it’s your call” your husband is already outsourcing the emotional work of all of this to you, and that’s not okay. It’s natural and understandable and forgivable that he would do so, on many levels – you’ve been a great support and buffer in the past, and as the chief survivor of her abuse he’s not a bad person for wanting someone to brave the lion’s den with him. In some ways it’s a sign of respect that he values your opinion so much and recognizes how much work it is for you to support him through this that he won’t proceed without your buy-in. But it’s not okay to put the pressure of the decision on you, and definitely not okay unless he is willing to shoulder the majority of the work and to take steps to put more of a support system than just you into place. Probably the best thing you can do for your entire family including your husband is to model good self-care and good boundaries by saying, “I won’t stand in your way, but I won’t take the lead either.”

P.S. Bonus therapy suggestion script, since you asked:

I don’t think you or your husband will necessary persuade his mom to go to therapy, especially if they have been out of contact for a while and aren’t close. Down the road, if he sees a counselor (not the worst idea if he’s going to re-open the can of worms marked ‘Mean Mom’), one approach might be: “You seem really angry and sad to me when we talk lately, Mom. Have you ever tried talking to a professional about it? I’ve tried that out lately, and I was surprised by how helpful I found it.” If she has a primary care doctor that person could probably recommend someone, or if there is a local “Department on Aging” they might be able to offer some phone numbers, and he might be able to fold it into “general health” concerns, like, “Ma, get your annual checkup, and please make sure you tell your doctor how sad you’ve been feeling lately, since that can affect physical health.”

P.P. S. In the comments, I bet the Letter Writer would love to hear from parents who have and those who have not made efforts to make peace with a problematic parent for the sake of fostering a relationship with grandkids.

P.P.P.S. Finally, Winter Pledge Drive Week remains a thing that I will mention during all posts this week. Maintaining the blog takes about 30 hours weekly when you add in comment moderation and it’s a big help to have your support. If you’re able to send a few dollars, feel free to use Paypal (welcometoawkwardtown@gmail.com) or contribute via Dwolla or Cash.me. Thanks for all the contributions and the kind words so far, it’s amazing to be connected to so many kind people!